Swords of the Horseclans

11

From the day of the mass defection of Captain Portos’ squadron, the Karaleenos guerrillas and Horseclansmen were careful to leave unmolested the troops whose flank he had been guarding, though they kept these troops under constant surveillance, sometimes dressing the darker-haired men in lancer uniforms and having them ride captured horses. They kept to this routine until the return of Tomos Gonsalos. Then he, Hohlt, and Vawn made their plans and marshaled their men.

Viewed from the night-cloaked mountains, Zastros’ vast army was invisible. All that could be seen were myriad pinpricks of light, cooking fires, and watchfires. The observers knew that men sat and hunkered about those fires, eating, drinking, talking, laughing, grousing, gambling. But seen from the high hills, the plain might well have been but another section of night sky, filled with dim and flaring stars.

As the columns wound down through the hidden passes and secret ways, then converged under the loaf-shaped hill that had been designated their rendezvous point, the twinkling panorama disappeared.

Staff-Lieutenant Foros Hedaos walked his horse behind the two trotting, torch-bearing infantrymen, sitting stiffly erect as an officer should in the performance of his duties, for Foros was a man who took his duties and himself very seriously. That was why he was riding the midnight rounds rather than leaving so irksome a detail to the guard-sergeant, as any of his peers would have done.

Behind him trotted the relief guard; Sergeant Crusos was at their head. Beneath his breath, the sergeant w’as cursing. Why did he have to draw this damned Foros as guard-officer? Even his fellow-officers thought him an ass, him and his “An officer should …” and “An officer shouldn’t…” If the pock-faced bastard had stayed back in camp like any normal officer would have, Sergeant Crusos would be on horseback, not hoofing it along like a common pikeman!

Then they were at post number thirteen, and the officer reined aside, that Crusos might bring his men up. “Detail,” hissed Crusos, “hold Ground, pikes!”

“I really think, Sergeant,” snapped Foros peevishly, “that you could make your commands a little more audible.”

“Sir,” began Crusos, “we’re on enemy land and …”

Foros’ face—deeply scarred by smallpox, beardless and ugly at the best of times—became hard and his voice took on a threatening edge. “Do not presume to argue with me, Sergeant! Just do as I command.”

Then there came a loud splashing from within the deep-cut creekbed a bare hundred yards to their right, and the moon slipped from her cloudcover long enough to reveal a body of horsemen coming over the lip of the bank.

Sergeant Crusos’ action then was instinctive. Full-throatedly, he roared, “Right, face! Unsling, shields! Front rank, kneel! Post, pikes!”

“Sergeant!” screamed Foros, angrily. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Crusos spun about and saluted with his drawn sword. “Sir, the detail is formed to repel cavalry attack.”

“Oh, really, Sergeant.” Foros smiled scornfully. “You’re behaving like a frightened old woman. Bring the men back to marching order this minute. I saw those riders, and they had lances. That means they’re Captain Portos’ men.”

It was in Crusos’ mind to say that, in his time, he’d seen more unfriendly lancers than friendly; but he bit his tongue, remembering that the last noncom who had publicly disputed one of this officer’s more questionable orders had been flogged and reduced to the ranks … that was one of the benefits of having married a daughter of the regimental commander, Martios.

When Tomos Gonsalos, trotting at the van of his platoon of “lancers,” heard the familiar commands and saw the knife-edged pikeheads come slanting down, his hand unconsciously sought his saber hilt and he breathed a silent prayer—the success of the entirety of this raid lay in not having to fight until the bulk of the raiders were at or near the camp. Then the menacing points rose on command, shields were reslung, and pikeshafts sloped over shoulders.

At the perimeter, Tomos raised a hand to halt his platoon, then walked his mount over to where the infantry officer sat stiff in his saddle.

“A fine evening, is it not?” said Tomos, smiling. “I am Sub-lieutenant Manos Stepastios. Could you tell me, sir, if this is the Vahrohnos Martios’ camp?”

“No,” the officer sneered. “It’s the High King’s seraglio! Don’t you know how to salute a superior?”

Hastily, Manos/Tomos rendered the demanded courtesy, which the infantry officer returned… after a long, insulting pause.

“That’s better. Now, what are you and your aggregation of tramps-in-armor doing this far east?” His voice was cold and the sneer still on his ugly face.

Manos/Tomos remained outwardly courteous to the point of servility, though his instinct was to drive his dirk into the prominent Adam’s apple under that pockmarked horseface. “Sir, Captain Portos commanded me to ride to your camp to discover if aught had been seen of the supply wagons. If not, I was to speak to your supply officer.”

The pocked officer laughed harshly, humorlessly. “So, Portos is begging, again, is he? It’s a complete mystery to me why any, save barbarians, would serve a ne’er-do-well like Captain Portos … but then,” again, that cold, sneering smile, “you are not exactly a Kath’ahrohs, westerner.”

Manos/Tomos had had enough; furthermore, five hoots of an “owl” had just sounded—all was in readiness. He approached until he was knee to knee with the arrogant officer, then grated, “My Lady Mother was the daughter of a tribal chief and was married to my noble father by the rites of the Church. Are you equally legitimate, you ugly whoreson? If the syphilitic sow who farrowed you knew your father’s name, why have you refrained from identifying your house?”

Sergeant Crusos was very glad that, like his detail, he was still facing out into the dark, so broad was his grin. Someone had finally told off the supercilious swine! He was still grinning when the arrow buried itself in his chest. __

The pikemen and torch bearers never had a chance and their few gasps of surprise or agony could not have been heard in the camp a hundred yards distant. As for Staff-Lieutenant Foros, he was still red-faced and spluttering, too outraged even to speak, when Tomos’ hard-swung saber took off his ugly head.

Two thousand horsemen swept into the sleeping camp. Sabers slashed tent ropes and arrows pin-cushioned the heaving canvases before torches were tossed onto them. The guards at the commander’s pavilion died messily, under lance and dripping sword blade. The Vahrohnos Martios, too besotted to even draw steel, was split from shoulder to breastbone by Chief Hohlt’s broadsword. Knots of two or three grim riders fanned out after the initial charge, ruthlessly shooting or lancing or slashing at any figure afoot, while select details put the torch to wagons or looted useful supplies and hastily packed them on captured horses and mules.

When he had seen the pack train well on its way, Tomos tapped his bugler’s shoulder and the recall was sounded, while the Vawn mindcalled his Horseclansmen. The bugler had to repeat his notes three times, ere the raiders ceased of riding down screaming, weaponless foe-men and reassembled. By that time, long columns of torches could be seen approaching from both south and east.

As the last of the exhausted, blood-soaked, but exultant horsemen headed back toward the mountains, Tomos, Hohlt, and the Vawn surveyed the fiery, gory “acres that had been camp to four thousand pikemen.

“We’d better get back and prepare the main passes,” remarked Tomos conversationally. “Picking off scouts or stragglers is one thing, but for the morale of the rest of his army, Zastros is going to have to send retaliatory columns after us.”

And they rode off in the wake of their men. Milo’s huge castra was already too small for the heterogeneous forces that were still responding. Almost every principality in the Middle Kingdoms -was represented, though only one other had been able to match in size the forces of Harzburk and Pitzburk. The Princes’ Council of Eeree had dispatched some thousand mounted axmen and sent word that five thousand heavy infantry were on the march. And Milo might have begun to entertain thoughts of meeting Zastros in open battle, were it not for that ambiguous prophecy.

Sitting alone in his pavilion, the volume of his private journal that contained! the list of prophecies open before him, Milo shook his head slowly. Old Harri had been amazingly accurate in predicting future events, but the High-Lord would be far happier if the man of powers had worded his forewarnings less bardically and more specifically.

The hosts of the south will come in due time, Led by two bodies that share but one mind. But hold well, God-Milo, cross not the river, And the tribe, from ancient evil, deliver.

So he refused all blandishments of his captains and his allies to erect any sort of serious fortifications south of the bridge, though he did authorize a scattering of the more suicidally inclined troops to establish and occupy small strong points, with orders to retreat in the face of any really determined opposition … if they could.

Captain Portos had proved a goldmine of information. First, in the matter of the elephants, Zastros had only eight of the beasts, two of which were being used for nothing more martial than to draw his huge headquarters wagon. Portos had served both against and with the big animals and he assured Milo that, while they had been trained to use their long, immensely strong noses to hurl stones and darts, and while their charge could crumple any formation of pikemen or other infantry, they were relatively useless against fortified positions. Nor, he went on, were they so large or so invulnerable as rumor had it; Zastros’ elephants, averaged between twenty-two and twenty-six hands at the withers, not all of them had tushes, and those that did seldom used the three- to four-foot protuberances in fighting, rather lifting men and hurling them to earth with their serpentine noses or trampling them. The menace of fire set them wild, as did sudden loud noises.

Second, Portos knew he was not the only noble reduced to destitution by the long period of war. Those who still owned their lands would much rather be trying to bring them back to a state of productivity; instead, they were tramping across bare, burned fields and worrying about the welfare of any family they had left. Zastros’ “regular” army was minuscule—perhaps a thousand men, perhaps less—and most of his huge, unwieldy host were privately raised and financed warbands. Few were armed or uniformed alike, they differed widely in habits and customs, and, though Zastros had had his staff group them into ten-thousand-man divisions having the proper proportions of cavalry and light infantry and pikemen, these arbitrary units seldom marched together, and if Zastros expected them to form battle lines together, he was the only one.

And, when Milo wondered aloud one day how he could prevent the hotheaded and mutually hostile noblemen of Pitzburk and Harzburk from each others’ throats until the battle was joined, Portos laughed until he was gasping.

“My High-Lord, you have but two warbands at each others’ throats. King Zastros is afflicted constantly with actual scores. That is how he became King, you know; it was not that the great Thoheeksee hated Zastros less, but that they hated one another more!”

When first he heard of the massacre of Martios and most of his pikemen, Strahteegos Thoheeks Glafkos went about his duties wearing a wide smile and few could recall ever having seen him so congenial. Then the accursed order had arrived from the High King, commanding him and what was left of his ten thousand to pursue the raiders and “avenge the murder of your brother, Martios.”

Now, Glafkos had nothing against those raiders. He could only have wished that they had slain that sneak-thief bastard, Martios, considerably more slowly and painfully; further, had he ever even suspected that any degree of kinship existed betwixt him and the late Vahrohnos, he would have been strongly tempted to fall on his sword.

Nonetheless, since he had sworn his oaths to High King Zastros, he sent his squadron of cavalry out on a wide front to scout the raiders’ trails, then broke camp and marched most of his light infantry and all of his archers toward the mountains. That night, at his marching-camp headquarters, the cavalry captain, his cousin, gave him the bad news: the three main passes, into which had led the trails of the raider columns, were blocked by rockslides. Weeks of work would be required to clear them and the workers would be constantly in danger from the cliffs on either side; however, certain of his scouts had found a couple of smaller passes that seemed to lead in the general direction, as well as a dry stream bed that was rough going for horses, but might serve for the passage of infantry.

Captain Vikos thrust out his dusty, booted legs, leaned back in his camp chair, and took a deep pull of his wine cup before continuing. “But, esteemed cousin, do not expect any advance to be cheap or easy, please. The scouts noted some cave mouths and a number of points that could be easily defended by a few good men. So if you do succeed in running the enemy to earth, you may well discover you have a treecat by the tail.”

The chunky, graying Strahteegos cradled his cup in his big, square hands and nodded sagely. “Oh, I never dreamed that this little campaign would be a picnic, cousin. Personally, I think it’s an asinine waste of time and men, but we settled on Zastros to replace King Chaos. If we thoheeksee don’t obey him, who will?” Vikos emptied his cup and sat up to refill it, then leaned back again, shrugging. “Well, cousin, this is as good a place to die as any, I suppose. If you decide to try all three ways at once, you’ll have to proceed without cavalry on that stream bed.”

“I’ll be proceeding without cavalry, period,” Glafkos bluntly informed him. “I know a little bit about fighting in mountains, as you may recall, cousin. Every warm body in my force will be going in afoot, officers, too. I’ll be establishing a base camp midway between the two passes; your squadron will guard it. You’ll also be responsible for keeping us supplied and for relaying any orders the High King sends. And keep a tight security on the camp, cousin. Komees Portos was no puling babe, yet his squadron was apparently wiped out, and you saw what passed with that devil-spawn, Martios.”

“Never fear.” The handsome Vikos smiled. “I’ll have a care for my neck; but you have a care for yours, cousin. Don’t forget, we’re the last two men of our house.”

“Yes, there’s that, too.” Glafkos slid a sealed oilskin pouch across to Vikos. “Should I not come out of those mountains, in the body, open that. It contains documents—all properly signed, witnessed, and sealed—assigning you my legal heir, with full claim to all my lands, cities, mines, and titles. As Thoheeks, you will of course take command of whatever these mountain-men leave of our warband. Should our High King refuse to confirm your military status, simply take the men and go back home; you swore oaths only to me, not him.

“Honestly, cousin, were it not for my oaths, I’d have been on the march south long since. I’ve a feeling that this entire venture is ill-starred. The army is far too large and the High King is draining the kingdom white to keep it supplied. Nor am I alone in my feelings, cousin. Many of my peers are of such mind, and if the High King meets with any major reverses or gets bogged down some way, there’ll be more warbands marching south than north. Mark you my words.”

The third day after their conversation, the first column returned, bearing with them the body of Thoheeks Glafkos, who—nearly fifty, and climbing a steep grade under a pitiless sun in half-armor—had suddenly dropped in his tracks, dead. Having no means of preserving the already decomposing body, nor wishing to inter his cousin’s husk in foreign soil, Vikos had a pyre constructed and formally cremated the former commander.

Then he gathered the noble officers in his late cousin’s pavilion and unsealed the pouch. With no hesitation, every officer took oaths to him, both civil and military. As these men were representative of the leading citizens of the duchy, this made Vikos thokeeks, in fact, requiring only the High King’s approval of his military rank.

This, Zastros refused to do; citing Vikos’ “youth” and “inexperience.” He designated a soft-handed, foppish staff-officer the new commander of the division. It was at that moment that Thoheeks Vikos made his decision.

On the way back to the base camp, he stopped long enough to collect all of the men and animals Glafkos had left with the main army. At the base camp, where the badly mauled second column had at last returned, he called another officers’ meeting and explained his intentions, offering to release the oaths of any who wished to remain in Karaleenos. There were no takers, so Thoheeks Vikos, his officers, and his men marched south the next morning.

At last, nearly three months after it crossed into Karaleenos, the vast hosts of the Southern Kingdom reached the south bank of the Luhmbuh River. Harassment, disease, and desertion had cost them almost forty thousand warriors, but, including the camp followers, there were still nearly two hundred thousand souls in the string of encampments that soon were erected.

Milo ordered the Horseclansmen and Tomos Gonsalos’ cavalry back to the castra, though he left the Maklaud, a few picked mindspeakers, and all the cats in the mountains, where the great felines would be of far more service. The mountaineers and swampers were to maintain a steady pressure upon the vital supply lines, pick off scouts, small patrols, sentries, and stragglers, and conduct raids on Zastros’ flanks and rear areas, if conditions seemed favorable.

Ten feet south of the north bank, the bridge had been solidly blocked with a granite wall twelve feet high, and tapering in the rear from a six-foot base to a three-foot top. Just off the bridge, on either side of the road, were huge siege-engines, each capable of throwing an eighty-pound boulder the length of the bridge; and, atop the wall, were three engines casting six-foot spears with sufficient force to split the biggest horse, end to end.

The High-Lord had made good use of his time and resources. From above the western ford to the fringes of the eastern fens, along the northern bank of the river, small strong points of rammed earth and timber marked every half mile and each sheltered a handful of Horse-clansmen and maiden-archers; additionally, the track above the floodline saw regular, heavily armed patrols. Well hidden in the secret waterways of the Luhmbuh’s delta were thirty-seven biremes and nearly four thousand of Lord Alexandros’ pirates.

Strahteegos Thoheeks Grahvos of Mehseepolis keh Eepseelospolis, Vahrohnos Mahvros of Lohfospolis, and Vahrohnos Neekos of Kehnooryospolis were spotted when their mounts first put hooves to the pinelog roadbed Milo had had constructed over the old stones of the bridge. By the time they had completed their slow progess to the north, the High-Lord and King Zenos were atop the wall to greet them.

They had come, announced Grahvos, to discuss the terms of Lord Milo’s surrender. Milo courteously suggested that his pavilion might be a more comfortable setting for any discussions and, upon Grahvos’ assent, several brawny troopers lowered a bosun chair and drew the three noblemen onto the wall.

Fresh mounts awaited them on the north bank. Then, Milo and his guards led the emissaries on a wide swing, giving them a good look at the camps of well-armed, well-disciplined troops, at a horizon-long wagon train of supplies and at the bristling defenses of the castra.

When the three guests had been seated and wine had been served, Grahvos cleared his throat and asked bluntly, “How many men do Your Majesties command here?”

Milo chuckled. “You’re a direct man, aren’t you, Lord Grahvos? I’ll be equally candid. I don’t know, not exactly … though I can get the answer from my staff. In the camps you’ve seen and in some you haven’t, I’d estimate a total fighting force in the neighborhood of one hundred thousand, perhaps a few thousand more.”

“Then why,” demanded the Thoheeks, “are Your Majesties’ forces cowering behind walls and rivers? Why not meet us in open combat? True, we have a few more troops than you, overall, but you’ve the edge on us in cavalry.”

Milo shrugged. “My reasons are my own, Lord Grahvos. Suffice it to say that I have no intention of meeting in an open combat … not until I’ve bled you here for a while. You see, I have more troops arriving daily. How many reinforcements can your lord call up?”

Grahvos avoided the question. “Your Majesties, the High King has no desire for a battle himself. He has empowered me to speak for him in saying this: if Your Majesties will join forces with him, you may retain both your lands and your titles …”

“Be Zastros’ lickspittle in my own kingdom?” interjected Zenos. “No, thank you, my lord!”

“Then we’ll crush you.” Grahvos sounded confident, but a brief scan of the man’s surface thoughts showed Milo much confusion.

“Brave words,” said the High-Lord gravely. “Spoken by a man of proven bravery; but your position is untenable for long, Lord Grahvos … and I’m sure you know it.

“Your army has no boats, and you saw how solid is the wall blocking the bridge. We got those stones by destroying the only ford between here and the mountains. Of course, you could fell trees and try rafting. My catapult crews would be most gratified to see such an attempt … they’d also like to see an attempt to build a floating bridge, if you had that in mind.

“No, Lord Grahvos, your king sits at the end of a very long and most tenuous supply line, deep into hostile territory. His army has already suffered the loss of thousands by the activities of our partisans. Entire units have deserted and marched back to your homeland and, I understand, camp fever has incapacitated more thousands. It might occur to your king to send for his navy.”

Grahvos started. That very thought had been on his mind.

Milo grated. “Forget that thought and persuade your king to do likewise. I had hulks towed from Kehnooryos Atheenahs and scuttled in the channel just west of the Lumbuh delta. There is but the one channel and your dromonds could never negotiate it… now.

“The longer you sit on the south bank, Lord Grahvos, the higher will be your losses—more men and units will desert, more will be ambushed or killed in raids, more and more will die of disease. Any attempt to cross the river, by any of your available means, will be fatal to the troops employed.” And it was, to almost all of them. The first… and last… assault was launched just after the next day’s dawning. First onto the bridge came two elephants, sheathed from head to foot in huge plates of thick armor that turned the six-foot darts as though they had been blunt children’s arrows. A sixty-pound boulder struck a massive headplate with a clang heard the length of the bridge, but the beast halted only long enough to trumpet his pain and displeasure, then came slowly on. It was then that Milo gave the order to fire the bridge.

The undersides of the logs making up the new roadbed had been thickly smeared with pitch and the interstices packed with tarred oakum and other inflammable substances and the first firearrow began a conflagration which, aided by a fortunate wind, was soon sweeping south, preceded by smoke from the green wood.

The elephants, scenting the oncoming danger, first tried to turn, then to back away, only to be met by countless spear points. Finally, with the fire a bare five feet distant, the eastward elephant splintered the heavy rail and plunged into the river, sinking like a stone. Given room, the other spun about and plowed through the close-packed troops, leaving a wake of mangled flesh and crushed bone.

Miraculously, the other elephant came plodding out of the river onto the north bank, just downstream of the siege-engine emplacement. Milo tried to mindspeak the animal,… and was surprised when he succeeded.

After a short period of wordless mental soothing, he asked, “What are you called, sister?”

“You not … of my kind,” It was half statement, half question.

Milo had had other experiences with animals that had never been mindspoken, and these guided him. Beckoning a couple of Horseclan mindspeakers, he gingerly approached the huge, dripping, mud-slimed beast. There was no longer a battle to require his supervision. The attackers were in full retreat before the fire … those who could walk, run, or hobble; the rest were roasting on the bridge or drowning in the river.

When the elephant saw them, she quickly rolled her trunk out of harm’s way, confused thoughts of battle-training flooding the surface of her mind.

It was obvious that the headplates partially obscured her vision, so Milo took pains to stand where she could clearly see him, motioning the others to do the same. “Sister, we do not wish to hurt you. Why do you wish to hurt us?”

He commenced the soothing again, this time joined by the two clansmen. Gradually, the trunk uncurled, then sought one of the sideplates and gently tugged at it. Her mindspeak was plaintive. “Hurt. Take off?”

Endeavoring to exude far more confidence than he felt, Milo paced deliberately to the cow’s side and began unbuckling the indicated plate. He started as he felt the finger-like appendage at the end of her trunk touch him, but its touch proved tender as a caress, wandering over his body, front and back, head to toe. He was straining to reach the topmost buckles when the trunk closed about his waist and lifted him high enough to reach them.

Seeing this cooperation, the two clansmen came up and began to help. A half hour saw the cow stripped of a quarter-ton of plate and thick mail. Milo was at first appalled at her condition—she seemed bare skin and bones, her ribs clearly evident—and then he recalled that long, long supply line winding through forageless countryside and constantly menaced by his raiders; Zastros was having enough trouble feeding his men, not to mention his animals.

He turned to one of his clansmen. “Rahdjuh, ride to the castra and tell them to get any horses away from my pavilion. Captain Portos says our sister’s kind afright horses; I’m willing to take his word on the matter. Then ride on to the quartermaster and tell Sub-Strahteegos Rahmos to send a wagonload of his best hay and five or six bushels of cabbages to my pavilion immediately. Understand?”

“Yes, God-Milo.” The clansman took off at a dead run toward the picket line.

Milo turned back to the cow and rubbed a hand down the rough, wrinkled trunk. She brought the trunk up, resting its end on his shoulder. “Sister, I wish to help you. I know that you need food, much food.”

She again responded with the plaintive mindspeak. “Hungry … hungry many days. Good two-legs brother will give food?”

Milo beckoned the clansman to him and placed his arm across the smaller man’s shoulders. “Sister, this is my brother, and he is good. He will take you to much food.” He projected a mental picture of bales of fragrant hay and baskets of green-and-white cabbages.

The young clansman stood still while she subjected him to the same examination earlier afforded Milo, but he gasped when she suddenly grasped his torso, lifted him high off the ground, and sat him straddling the thick neck just behind the massive head. “Which way food?” she demanded.

Milo chuckled at the expression on the clansman’s face. “Well, Gil, have you ever bestrode a bigger mount?”

Gil relaxed, grinned, and shook his head. “No, God-‘ Milo, nor has any other Horseclansman, I think. She… and I… we are to go now to your pavilion?”

“Yes, Gil, and since she has accepted you, you are now her brother … and her keeper.” He glanced at the blazon on the young man’s cuirass, the broken saber, and ferret head that proclaimed him a scion of Clan Djohnz. “Tell Chief Tchahrlee that you now have no other duties but to care for our sister here. Now, take her to the food; those bastards over there have been starving her.”

The night after the abortive assault, a score of biremes crept upriver, their oars muffled. Avoiding the larger camp of Zastros, they staged four almost simultaneous attacks on as many camps, while a force of swampers struck the easternmost camp and a strong contingent of mounted irregulars brought fire and sword to the rear areas. The swampers, unaccustomed to fighting in the open, took heavy losses, but the casualties of the pirates and the mountaineers were minimal. The swampers did not attack again, but the reavers and the mountainmen did, three more nights in a row, never striking the same camps.

The scattered encampments began to move closer, one to the next, until most of the still-tremendous force was concentrated in the low, swampy area just south of the bridge. And, of course, the fevers ran rampant.

Supplies were dropping perilously low, for few trains were intact when they arrived … if they arrived. And they all told tales of running fights and ambuscades, of roadsides littered with skeletons and rotting flesh and charred wagons. So High King Zastros sent south an order for a huge train; to guard the train, he dispatched four squadrons of cavalry. What remained of the train eventually trickled in; the last they had seen of the five thousand cavalry; the horsemen were splitting into small groups and heading for home.