Snowbrother

by S. M. Stirling

  She hesitated, looked up at the sound of a rider approaching. "Quick, quick," her kinchild groaned. He was driven, oblivious. But Maihu looked up, into cold gray eyes under a plumed helmet. The bow was drawn to the ear, the point of the arrowhead trained unwaveringly on Taimi's stomach; at that range it would nail him to the sled to die like a shrike's prey on a thorn.

  With a convulsive movement the Minztan woman grabbed the bill. They wrestled for it, before smith-strong arms wrenched it away. She threw it whirling end over end, out beyond the reach they could follow on their tethers. She gathered Taimi to her, cradled his head on her breast in the crook of one arm, stared over it into Shkai'ra's eyes.

  The arrowhead sank; Maihu could hear the relaxing string scritch on the bone ring the steppe-dwellers used for the thumb-locked-under-forefinger draw of their horn-stiffened bows. Their eyes stayed locked.

  Then the Kommanza leaned to the right. Sensitive to every shift of balance, the horse pirouetted, turning in place. Shkai'ra drew and loosed without seeming to aim; the arrow was only a flicker of head and fletching streaking in a dead-flat line to the north bank of the river. A Minztan was nearly to the trees, dragging a stiffened leg; he slapped forward as if a giant hand had struck between his shoulderblades, fell facedown and slithered back to the surface of the river ice. Ten meters beyond him the arrow sank a handspan deep into a tree and stood quivering. Then Shkai'ra slid the bow back into its case and drew her saber, heeling her mount into a canter to join the chase. Maihu saw a stumbling Minztan throw herself down to lie out of reach of the meter of killing steel in the Chiefkin's fist; the Kommanza guided the dancing steps of her horse over the prone body and trotted back toward the head of the column. Her horse left red hoofprints in the snow.

  Maihu sank down. Taimi was too stunned to move; she knelt clutching him, sobbing with soundless harshness and swallowing against the sour taste of bile in her throat.

  Bannerleader Kh'ait heard the alarm floating through the relays, from the contact points where the scout-mesh linked into the column. That gave him the position: not far from his own at the head of the trek. Two Banners were here at the point, one back a little, screening the bend in the river, and his own Fang-Banner on guard in the lead; a chokepoint like this narrowing curve was always dangerous when a force was strung out without room to maneuver. And to see it was to think of possible patterns of attack and defense, alternatives and force ratios. The signal tripped the automatic process off, factors smoothly meshing with terrain and tactics to produce answers. His whistle sounded:

  [Identity code]: FangBanner, HighKestrelBanner— out bows, left flank, prepare for massed fire on command or sighting.

  Straight on the heels of the alarm came shouts and the hum of bowstrings from the woods. The inner link of scouts came crashing through the shrubby undergrowth, retreating toward the main force and trilling out their information. An attack in Banner strength or more, twenty fighters at least in the first wave. That decided him; the attackers would try for an exchange of fire from the bank, where the cover would favor them and their crossbows would be in effective range.

  The last of the scouts paused, his mount poised on the lip of the riverbank; he turned and shot from the saddle. He waved the bow triumphantly over his head as the horse slipped and scrambled down to the surface of the ice.

  "Shoot!" Kh'ait bellowed.

  The two Banners responded with tiger precision, relieved to have an enemy they could fight openly. The arrowstorm raked into the trees, forty wheelbows loosing as fast as the warriors could draw and fire. One crossbow bolt whipped out of the scrub and slammed into armor with a hard tock and a trooper fell, shoulder pierced. But the plains wheelbow shot with equal force, and these were archers trained from infancy; they could deliver six times the rate of fire of the clumsy Minztan weapon. There were probably few hits, the Bannerleader decided; not enough targets were visible. But there was nothing the Minztans could do but hug the earth. To stand and fire up there was certain death.

  That would only last as long as the contents of their quivers. Thirty shafts was the standard battle reserve, and a few had five-shaft quick-draw magazines clipped onto the side of their bows. Enough for two minutes of concentrated fire, no more; then they would have to wait for bundles to be brought up, and by then the forest folk would have established firing positions along the verge. And crossbows could be fired lying prone. At ordinary battle ranges the wheelbow had much the same firepower as a bolt-action rifle, except for the penalty of bulky ammunition. Kh'ait knew little of firearms, save as distorted legend, but he had an exact understanding of the limitations of his own people's armaments.

  Yessss … he thought: they would have to go in and take them. And that knowledge woke the carnivore glee that had been building under the calm analytical surface of his waking mind. He slid from the saddle and shifted his shield to his arm. Sword? he asked. No, better the warhammer for this. It was his favorite weapon; you could feel the crunch and shatter of bone along the haft as well as hear it. Even more thrilling than feeling a human dying on your blade.

  "FangBanner, up!" he shouted. "Zaik-uz wemit'chi! Zaik with us! In and take them—kiMllttleeeee-eeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE."

  The squads formed around him and they rushed the slope, toiling up under the continuous thupping whisper of the arrowstorm, chopping their shield rims into the snow to give put-chase. He could hear the panting on either side of him, the riding boots scrabbling on the slick surface. Heels dug through with a crunch, snapping the reeds and scrub that stuck up pale and brown and dead through the snow in the shadow of the trees. And as they climbed, fresh snow was flung at them by a wind smelling of damp and pine.

  Crossbow bolts flipped by, but few and ill-aimed. Excitement hammered in his temples; now they would see how the woodsrats did when it came to hand-strokes. Just below the lip of the bank there was a final sheer rise of a meter height; as they reached it the Sailing wind of shafts ceased, the archers below holding their last shafts on the string, scanning for a good target and waiting for the unblooded youths to come up with the spare shafts, fixed in their circular holders of hard leather. The attackers formed a shieldwall and surged through the screen of frozen undergrowth, into the comparatively open spaces under tall timber. They broke into the cathedral gloom and stillness like a horde of grotesque metallic wolves, their warcries rising to the insane trilling of the blood squeal. Kh'ait saw that he had been right; there were only a few bodies lying about, still or pulling at shafts anchored in flesh; the trees were thickly studded. The bulk of the Minztans were hanging back, below the angle that high-velocity arrowfire from below could reach, protected from dropping shots by the branches overhead. Some fled at the approach of the Kommanz; in ones and twos others tried to make a stand.

  It made little difference. Those who ran died quickly; no one can flee and fight, but a pursuer can still kill. And for those who stood and fought, unarmored, untrained in group combat, death came nearly as swiftly. The Kommanz wasted no time in individual dueling; drilled teams moved in, one using shield or blade to pin an opponent's weapon, the other sending home a short economical thrust. Little ripples of deadliness broke up and down the line; gaudy enameled black armor closing around fur and wool, a flicker of metal and then another sprawled corpse on the trodden floor of snow and pine needles.

  Kh'ait faced a burly farmer with a woodcutting ax. The trooper next to him took the blow on her saber, under the axhead, bringing her shield arm around to immobilize it. The Bannerleader heard a grunt of frustration, then the sweep of the warhammer drove the smooth stone head into a cheekbone, left one eye dangling out of its socket and sent splinters into the brain.

  This is going well, he thought. The main danger was that too many would escape into the deep woods, scattering before his force and retreating faster than the more heavily burdened Kommanza could pursue. He was about to give the order to disperse into squads and garner more of the fleeing enemy when he saw what waited ahead.

 
His eyes flicked rapidly down the line. Yes, a definite line; someone had finally taught Minztans to fight in a well-ordered array. Baiwun strike whoever it had been! Smocks with uniform blazons, corselets, helmets, billhooks, shortswords, crossbows—lakelander light infantry kit, from the descriptions he had heard; some Kommanza had wandered that far east, horsetraders, and sellswords in the endless fratricidal wars of the city-states that ringed the inland seas. Hmmmmm, placed a little too close together for optimum effect—they would get in each other's way—but commendably steady. He waited tensely until the last moment before trilling out the signal—-down!

  The Banner threw themselves to the earth, under the crossbow volley; before their opponents could reload they charged, shrieking. The Kommanza prided themselves on versatility, and next to mounted combat this was the form of war they liked best. Numbers were even, thirty to a side; the plains killers stepped in, reckless of thrusts, keening between their teeth and hammering with edged metal.

  The Minztans retreated calmly, a slow steady movement Kh'ait recognized as a controlled retreat to keep his fighters in play until the helpless villagers had a chance to make good their escape. Or, yes, if enough of those rallied, they could break his formation from behind with sniping. He growled with frustration. These bark-eaters were good enough to delay his Banner: there was one down, then another, and then one of his own. Heavier-armed and more skilled, the westerners were having the best of the encounter, but not swiftly enough. Not nearly. Battle-sound echoed through the lanes of the wood, dull thud of blade on shield, occasional harsh musical clang of metal on metal, war-shouts, a wounded Minztan screaming endlessly, until unconsciousness cut off the sound sharp as a knife.

  Snarling impatience, Kh'ait ran eyes over his opponent. Shield up and angled, short broad-bladed cut-and-thrust sword held hilt down; it was an effective stance, against an adversary armed in the same fashion-He skipped back a pace and released the outer handhold of his shield, taking the warhammer in a two-handed grip. Then he stepped in, relying on his breastplate. That worked; the tip of the Minztan's sword darted out, struck, and slid off the hard smooth surface. The withdrawal was snake-swift to a ready position with the point just past the edge of the shield, offering him no target. But he was not interested in subtle fencing; he was going to break this line, and had the right tool for it. The warhammer's heavy granite head went up over his helmet. He planted his feet, swung downward in a lashing stroke, unstoppable. A mace was a strong man's weapon, but the arms and shoulders that drove this stroke had trained to war every day of his life, and wrestled young bulls for sport. The shield crumpled; the frame broke, and the arm beneath it. The Minztan wailed in agony, and Kh'ait giggled with pleasure as his backhand blow snapped her neck. He stepped through the gap, ready to turn and kill from behind.

  A sword probed for his eyes, and he had to give ground to bring his shield up. He made swift evaluation. This was the leader: chain armor, longer sword, stance, balance. Greed awoke at the sight of that hauberk; this was one soon-to-be corpse that he meant to strip himself. The shield was oval, larger than the round plains buckler; it met his one-handed blows expertly, moving just enough to slide the force off the curves without giving him a clear solid impact that might have done harm even through protection. And the sword worked at him, over the top and side of the shield. The Minztans were backing faster now, moving like a huge door swinging open; he might have been puzzled at that if he had had the time to think about it. It was almost as if they were trying to draw him on toward something waiting in the woods… He drove in, lashing at the enemy commander overarm and backhand; the warhammer boomed on the shield, a drumbeat sound through the trees. But he dared not use full force. The follow-through would leave him off balance, open for an attack, not a risk to be taken with an opponent of this caliber.

  The trees were splitting the battle lines, the forest folk using the trunks to prevent the steppe warriors from coming at them more than one-on-one. Out of the corner of his eye Kb'ait saw a trooper charge a single Minztan, using the light one-handed plains ax. It whirled around her head in a blurred, rippling circle; she struck, driving him backward as chips flew from his shield. He tried a stab, relying on the pattern of attack; she stopped the ax in midflight and drove the head backhanded into his neck.

  Kh'ait saw an opportunity. The mace was a weapon relying on sheer mass and battering for its power; chainmail gave more protection against cuts than leather, but it lacked the stiffness and fiberglass backing to resist a crushing blow. The enemy leader… yes, it must be habit, using his sword as if the chain hauberk could protect his shoulder.

  The heavy stone head halted in midair, then blurred down with amazing speed.

  It was a trick. The Minztan dropped to one knee, throwing his shield up at an acute angle to catch the macehead. Kh'ait saw it even as he began the stroke, but by then he was committed and the momentum was too great to stop.

  This one is really not too bad, he thought with surprise. At the same instant the sword snaked out, angling up under the skirt of his hauberk, through the slit that let a horseman bestride a saddle; a frantic twist deflected it a little, but the point plowed painfully into the back of one thigh, above the greave. He crumpled backward, for a heartstopping moment certain that the blade had parted his hamstring. It hadn't, but the wound was still serious. He rolled, backward, curling himself under the protection of his shield and struggling to draw his saber. The Minztan followed, striking cautiously, then skipping back as the Kommanza's followers closed in. The forest war band was in full retreat; their leader joined them, darting from tree to tree.

  "After them, kinless bastards!" he snarled. "Pursue until they scatter, then rally to me."

  Humiliation burned him worse than pain. Someday, he thought, I will take that one's scalp, then kill him for a day and night. His hands probed the wound. Not as bad as it might be; the blood was coming in a steady flow rather than gouting as it would have if one of the big arteries had been cut. From his belt he pulled a field dressing in a leather pouch; it had been boiled and soaked in pure wood alcohol, as the shamans prescribed, a powerful ritual against the demons who brought pus and the green rot. Of course, the shamans could usually lay a deathspell on the little demons who infected wounds, but it was better not to take chances. Absently, he bound the wound, his mind focused on his report. This was an important development, Minztans trained and armed as regular troops. They would have to get to the bottom of it. He hoped his killers had remembered to take a prisoner for interrogation.

  He brightened. That would provide amusement, even if he had to stay off the leg for a while.

  Deeper in the woods, a consciousness wavered in indecision. The calling drew it, and the rage of territory violation; but wariness had been ground into its breed for generations past counting. It hooted softly.

  A mind touched it. Reassurance-familiarity-confidence, it projected. The flavor was not familiar, but it had the right resonances. Slowly, cautiously, it drifted forward. The Wise Man came in its wake, alone of the forest people able to sense any trace of it at all. The exultant screeching of the plains raiders turned to shouts of alarm as the Minztans turned; and as they did axemen sent the final strokes through trees already nine-tenths cut. The huge pine-trunks thundered down in a crackling of branches that was like volley-fire. Not many of the Kommanz were caught directly by the latticework of fallen trees, but it disrupted their formations and each trunk was a breast-high fort. And the pursued turned back to worm their way through the tangle of fallen wood, as at home in the underbrush as their enemies were clumsy.

  Shkai'ra spurred down the line of the column in the wake of the alarm alert, past sleds and horses and warriors reined in by discipline but longing to join the distant combat.

  "Eyes on the woods, you kinless lumps of nomad shit," she heard the officers shouting. "Bows out! Fire at will on sighting!"

  She reined in at the head of the column, to see the warriors of HighKestrelBanner stuffing fresh arrows into the
ir quivers, each bundle of thirty held in alignment by two pierced leather disks at point and mid-shaft. She pulled up and called to the Banner-leader: "Report!"

  The woman replied without taking her gaze from the trampled underbrush where FangBanner had vanished.

  "One casualty," she replied, clipped and impersonal. "Attack in Banner strength or more, but we won the shaft battle. Senior Banner-leader Kh'ait decided to exploit fire supremacy with FangBanner, ordering me to remain here with the reserve and await your orders, Chiefkin."

  Down on the hoof-pounded snow two unblooded youths and the shaman were attending to the wounded warrior. The crossbow shaft had been cut across flush with the cuirass before the breastplate was removed, and they were hacking a clear area around the wound, slicing away gambeson and tunic. Walks-with-Demons put his ear to the man's mouth, listening for the telltale bubbling.

  "Good!" he grunted. "Missed the lung." A preliminary tug at the stub of wood produced a stilled grunt and quiver from the victim. "So, yes, have to cut."

  The shaman halted and turned his face to the woods. There was something… but no time. They placed the warrior's knife hilt between his teeth. The shaman took a small crook-bladed tool from a pouch and swabbed down the edge with alcohol from a flask, scrubbed the area around the puncture, and began to probe.

  "Have it out in a minute, yes, Rh'iwuk," he muttered: Healing was not the most dignified part of a shaman's work, but he was proud of his skill; the dhaik'taz learned anatomy and the healing skills as the first part of their training. And it served to keep the warriors feeling less hostile, to have them reminded of their dependence on his knowledge.

  "Sssssa, caught on the joint, yes, as I thought." He made another cut, gripped the wood firmly, and pulled. The man lay panting, wide-eyed but soundless, as it came out.

  "Ahe-he-he-we," he hummed, putting more of the disinfectant on his fingers and probing for bits of cloth and armor in the deep narrow wound. That done, he poured some of the clear liquid into the puncture, packed it with the special wound powder made from potato mold with secret rites, and covered it with a pad of boiled linen and the iodine the southron traders brought.