The Silver Horn Echoes

by Michael Eging

  “As did he, my lord emir,” Roland replied. “Yet here we are. I hesitate to ask—what of your city?”

  Sulayman sank into the pillows. “We were driven from Barcelona after months of siege. We thought we could hold out until the eagle from the north arrived to our aid, but it was not to be. Even now the hounds nip at our heels.”

  “How far are they?” Roland pressed.

  Sulayman waved his hand vaguely.

  “A few miles to the east. We engaged them to cover the flight of my people—those who could escape the city, that is.” His face clouded.

  Roland turned to his companions. “Charles cannot be caught coming out of the pass. Saragossa would slaughter them before they maneuver into formation. It would endanger the entire campaign.”

  “Whatever you decide, we’re with you,” Oliver said.

  Roland came to a decision. “Emir. Give me support, and we’ll be upon them at dawn.”

  “Of course,” Sulayman agreed. “We stand with you, my Frank brother. How many men do you bring to this engagement?”

  “Nearly five hundred of my retainers for the vanguard,” Roland replied. “Brave to a man.”

  Sulayman reached up and clenched Roland’s hand in his own. “Saragossa will have his thousands, even tens of thousands.”

  “I know. Let them come. Now, Emir, if you will excuse us?” Roland left the emir with Karim and led his remaining companions out of the tent.

  Outside, clear of the guards, he turned and clasped Oliver on the shoulder. “Move the men forward. No fires tonight. We sleep cold.”

  “The emir’s men are spent. Will they fight with us?” Oliver asked in a low voice.

  “Whether they do or not, we’ve no choice,” Roland replied. “Pray to God we scatter them before they realize our numbers.”

  AOI

  The Saragossan guards trekked about the camp at regular intervals, keeping a wary eye across the dusty fields that separated them from the smoldering campfires of Barcelona’s depleted forces. Encircled by their course, men stirred in their tents and girded themselves for the battle to open the way through the mountains into southern Francia, where riches beyond imagination would be theirs for the taking.

  A guard leaned on his spear and squinted into the morning gloom. There was movement within the distant enemy camp. He called to his comrades, who passed a signal along to Blancandrin’s command tent. A short time later, the camp erupted into a milling engine of activity.

  Marsilion stepped from his own opulent pavilion into a veritable stream of troops rushing past to their places in formation. Many who noticed the emir dropped into the dust out of respect, which added to the general confusion. Ja’qub, his court philosopher, scurried past Marsilion, his robes askew on his scarecrow frame, gray-shot beard in a riotous tangle, and rolls of documents bobbing under his arms. He jabbered pardons, but the emir snatched his flapping sleeve and brought him to a halt.

  “My lord?” Ja’qub sputtered.

  “What is all this?” Marsilion waved an arm toward the clamoring chaos of men readying for battle.

  “The pretender!” Ja’qub huffed. “Barcelona! I believe he means to stand and fight!”

  The emir’s eyebrows rose.

  “The fool,” he muttered. He released Ja’qub and stalked toward the cavalry squadrons. Once before them, he shaded his eyes for a better view of Barcelona’s troops, but the distance was too great. He snapped his fingers. Ja’qub, always close by, pressed the spyglass into his hand, a rare and treasured device made from two spherical glasses rolled in hardened leather and tied off with twisted metal and gold filigree. The emir raised it to his eye. The visibly enlarged enemy was even now forming up in a loose assembly, billowing banners marking the same units that Saragossa had crushed just days ago at the gates of Barcelona.

  Blancandrin appeared at his side in his full war panoply.

  “Have there been reinforcements to his ranks?” the emir queried.

  “Our scouts reported none, though they have kept strong pickets out to keep us at a distance,” Blancandrin said.

  Marsilion chewed at the fringe of his mustache. “And now they stand to fight?”

  Blancandrin shrugged, his mail coat glistening with an oiled sheen in the rising sun.

  “We left many men to hold Barcelona, my lord,” he reminded the emir. “We don’t appear as numerous as when we last fought.”

  Marsilion considered his words and lowered the device from his eye.

  “But you confirmed that Sulayman is hurt, did you not?” he pressed.

  Blancandrin nodded. “Sorely wounded. When they broke, he remained and fought in the center.”

  “So who leads them now?” Marsilion mused. “Surely they must know we will crush them against the very mountains. Why don’t they just flee?”

  Barcelona’s troops gathered into ragged formations under the emir’s defiant banners. Many of their weapons still bore the dark stains of their last engagement, and most of their armor had been repaired too hastily. Roland, dressed in native robes to obscure his Frank mail, rode among them with his hood pulled low over his features.

  He guided Veillantif forward a few paces to better observe Marsilion’s units. The sun continued to tick over the eastern horizon, yet they still did not launch their attack.

  “They know they’ve the upper hand,” he observed. “Yet they remain, vultures circling the carcass.”

  Sulayman sat nearby propped up on his steed, his wounds hidden beneath his exquisite armor. He grimaced. “He’s ever wary, that one. Always has been.”

  Roland grinned, his features sharp and hawkish. “We’ll have to coax the blackbird into the pie then, won’t we?”

  Marsilion stood before his tent, arms raised while his servants buckled and snapped him into his gear. First came the linen arming garments, then layers of mail and plate. As they worked, he watched Barcelona’s lines with keen interest. A servant wrapped an ornate belt around his waist, cinching firmly a straight sword that had once belonged to his father. A stable boy brought up a beautiful black stallion with a flowing mane and tail woven with gold tassels. Once his gold-chased helmet was atop his head, two servants knelt before him on all fours. He adroitly stepped on their backs, placed his calfskin boots in the stirrups, settled into the saddle, and rode to the fore of his own formation.

  A younger man, likewise clad in resplendent armor and mounted atop a matching horse, galloped from the ranks to his side. Marsilion raised a hand in greeting to his son, Farad, who impetuously grinned with a warrior’s fierce delight, face framed by flashing conical helm and strands of deep black hair.

  “Father!” he shouted excitedly. “Something is happening on their flank! Look!” He pointed to Barcelona’s northern wing that stretched perilously thin toward the foothills.

  Marsilion squinted through Ja’qub’s spyglass in time to see riders race toward the mountains. He handed the device to Farad.

  “Do they flee?” he asked for validation.

  Farad’s horse pranced beneath him, straining at the reins. Pride swelled Marsilion’s breast with watching his son assess the enemy. The youth’s energy was infectious.

  “They’re deserting, Father!” he said, his voice rising with excitement. “They flee for the pass. We must attack!”

  Blancandrin watched the scattered horsemen beat into the foothills.

  “Or they feint to draw us in,” he observed evenly.

  “Pah!” Farad spat. “You general like an old woman!”

  Marsilion’s heart soared seeing his son thirst for combat like a Rashidun falcon, eager to sink talons into the enemy. Then he saw a cloud of dust rising from their center across the plain. He snatched back the spyglass.

  “What’s this?” Men fought in a broiling clot around Sulayman’s standard. He could barely believe his good fortune. “They fight among th
emselves! Sound the charge!”

  Saragossa’s battle horns blared, and the unleashed host leaped forward, multitudes of hooves churning up a choking dust.

  Across the field, Barcelonan troopers rode in deliberate circles, kicking up an obscuring cloud of dust and banging sabers against shields in raucous metallic discord. Roland and his companions remained astride their steeds loosely clustered behind the circling lines, and they kept a close eye on the enemy’s spirited charge.

  “The blackbird leaps from his perch!” Sulayman cried, waving his saber above his head. Yet his excitement could not mask the pain he suffered from his fresh wounds.

  “Keep it up!” Roland encouraged, banging on his own saddle with the flat of his hand. “He must fully commit!”

  Karim rose in his stirrups to get a better look at Saragossa now closing the gap overshadowed by two massive clouds of dust.

  “They are many!” he shouted. “They’ll overwhelm us!”

  Roland grinned wolfishly and drew Durendal. The blade flashed thirstily in the sunlight. He pressed the reliquary cross guard to his lips and shouted, “Now! Face them!”

  To a man the playacting troops wheeled around, falling instantly into ranks.

  Then the tide of steel and sinew broke upon them.

  The torrent of horsemen crashed into Barcelona’s troopers amid screaming edged weapons and torn flesh. Roland spurred Veillantif, driving the steed hard against the immense current. Durendal rose and fell in swift arcs, leaving Saragossans tumbling in bloody ruin from their saddles.

  “The signal!” Roland shouted, rising up in his stirrups. “Now!”

  The trumpeter brought a gold-chased ram’s horn to his lips and let off a single peal before a Saragossan lance pierced him through the chest. Roland tossed off his disguise then, raising Durendal in the air, signaled to Barcelona’s men.

  “To me!” he roared above the din. “To me, men of Barcelona!”

  He thrust at a Saragossan lancer, slicing through his armpit above the mail shirt in an eruption of blood. Veillantif lashed out and struck a foot soldier. The man staggered back and raised his hands to clutch protruding ribs but was trampled under by the armored horse.

  Across the quickly developing sea of carnage, Farad fought with an abandon born of youthful immortality. Exuberance filled his breast with each enemy he faced, these men of Barcelona. When he spotted the wolf banner and saw the Frank champion fend off two horsemen, he let loose an exultant cry and spurred his mount through the chaos to meet the knight sword to sword.

  The Frank parried Farad’s attack and followed with a pommel strike to the prince’s face, shattering teeth and bone. He drew back for another strike, Farad’s blood dripping down his knuckles.

  Not far away, alarmed by the youth’s reckless charge, Blancandrin lowered his lance and drove through friend and foe alike after the emir’s son.

  The chaos washed past Saleem fighting in Sulayman’s guard against men adorned with the painfully familiar liveries of noble houses of Saragossa. Lances crashed and blades flashed in the press of horses and steel, the spattering of blood, and the cries of the wounded and dying. Saleem twisted to dodge a lance and counterthrust until his saber blade ground against metal and bit into flesh. Grit stung his eyes, but he pressed on, unhorsing his quarry to be crushed under stamping steel-shod hooves.

  Saleem paused long enough to catch his breath and scan the field for Roland’s banner. A dozen yards to his right, the rampant wolf lunged over surging pointed helms. Only in the reach of the champion would he find the glory and renown that would keep him afloat once the intelligence of his father’s revealed plans had run its course. He spurred his mount against another trooper, for an instant thinking there was recognition in the man’s eyes. But he cut that short with a saber thrust under the man’s chinstrap.

  He rode hard against footmen that slowed his progress. The choking dust and clangor of weapons were thicker here, and there was less room to move. A bloodied trooper scrambled on all fours to get clear of Saleem, but the prince’s horse leaped toward him and came down hard on the man’s chest. Blood squirted through his mail coat. Saleem spurred his horse onward. He didn’t have time or inclination to look back. There was a flash of familiar armor approaching from the left. Blancandrin shoved madly through his own men, making for the Frank champion. Saleem adjusted his track to intercept the general.

  Blancandrin closed the last few yards, his lance slicing toward the champion’s chest. Roland threw up his shield against the wicked iron tip. When the lance caught, wood splintered and shards flew into the air. His horse staggered from the shock, and the girth strap burst, tumbling rider and saddle to the ground. Farad turned on Blancandrin, wiping gore from his face and spitting more.

  “Stop! He’s mine!” he shouted then turned again to his prey.

  The champion fought to regain his feet under Farad’s renewed assault. The prince hammered down blow upon blow against his foe’s ruined shield until he found a gap in the Frank’s guard and his saber crunched against a mailed shoulder. Roland stumbled, and Farad drew back for a finishing thrust.

  But it was a feint. The Frank lunged viciously under Farad’s guard and punched his blade up into the youth’s chin.

  The bravado drained from Farad’s face in a gush of blood. His body went slack, toppling from the saddle.

  Blancandrin cried out, lowering his lance again and raking his horse with his spurs. The steed gathered itself and leaped, but horns sounded and a wedge of Frank horsemen crashed into the battle, pushing Blancandrin aside like so much flotsam. He fought to hold his ground, urging his horse forward, but the sheer weight of the Frank countercharge drove him relentlessly further from the champion.

  He cast aside the lance then whipped his sword from its scabbard, striking in a torrent at the Franks and Barcelona men. But the die was cast; his own troopers began to flee even as he yelled for them to brace against the onslaught of Frank cavalry.

  Saleem fought toward Blancandrin, but at that moment, the Franks charged with their massive thundering warhorses. He was carried away with the momentum. He struggled against the flow, screaming at his allies as their lines broke around him like a stream around a rock, until the line finally passed and he sat atop his horse for a moment in a sudden incongruous calm. Roland and Blancandrin were gone, lost in the seething mass of men, horses, and steel. Saleem suppressed the aggravation boiling in his breast and caught his breath sharply. He needed glory to survive in this barbaric world—glory that was being denied him by the fickle fates.

  His eyes drifted across the fallen, their tangled bodies leaking fluids into the dry earth. There on the churned ground lay a familiar form—this one dressed in armor that, like Blancandrin’s a moment ago, Saleem recognized from the parade grounds in Saragossa. This one, in those days, had strutted like a peacock with insufferable overconfidence. This one had been the root cause of a self-imposed exile amongst the unwashed Frank horde. This one, until now, who had been the favored son.

  He rode closer.

  Farad’s broken body laid still, blood turning to gory mud in the dirt, glazed empty eyes regarding heavens that, in Saleem’s opinion, the bastard did not deserve to reach.

  Saleem spat on his brother’s remains and turned back to the battle, his heart now soaring with sudden possibilities.

  A pang of fear stole Blancandrin’s breath. He tugged his horse around, searching for Marsilion. Amid the disintegrating Saragossan center, the emir fought encircled by his guard—his lips drawn back from his teeth in the snarl of a desert lion. Blancandrin spurred his steed once more, crying to Allah and the holy prophet. He raced through bloody dust-covered men to reach Marsilion’s side and pushed through the guard of Saragossan troopers, grabbing the emir’s arm.

  “We must fall back!” Blancandrin cried over the desperate noise of battle. “My emir! We must fall back!”

  Slowly
the bloodlust washed from Marsilion’s face. Then his eyes desperately searched the faces of the men around him.

  “My son? Where’s my son?” His eyes searched frantically beyond his guard to the men locked in combat with the enemy.

  “Dead!” Blancandrin said with a quick finality.

  Marsilion howled and madly spurred his horse to get back into the melee. Blancandrin leaned over, catching the emir’s reins and dragging the steed to a skidding halt.

  “We must regroup!” the general demanded. “If you fall, we will lose everything!”

  Venom filled Marsilion’s eyes and his breath rasping in ragged gasps. “Sound the retreat,” he finally said with clipped words. “Identify the Frank who killed my son.” He sucked a calming breath and exhaled. “And bring Farad’s body to me.”

  Across the tumultuous field, Oliver’s charge continued to grind against the Saragossan horsemen. The Frank heavy cavalry formed an iron wedge in the center of the field, fighting with a ferocious urgency. Roland ducked and dodged afoot through the deluge of horsemen toward his countrymen. With mounting losses, resistance buckled, and the enemy began to flee in a general rout. Frank and allied troopers spurred after them, stretching their lines recklessly thin across the Spanish countryside.

  Roland sprinted to a Frank trumpeter.

  “Order them to disengage!” he yelled. “Disengage, damn you!”

  He seized the reins and pulled the steed to a halt. The man looked at the champion in disbelief.

  “But, sir—” was all that escaped his lips. Roland ducked under the horse’s head to snatch the horn from the trumpeter’s saddlebow and blow a resounding staccato of notes.

  Karim cantered to Roland. His face was flushed beneath the blood and grime.

  “We have them!” he shouted. “Don’t you see? We have them, and you’re letting them go!”

  “We have them for but a moment. Once they realize our numbers, they will swarm back across the field and overwhelm our men if we’re strung out like this. My duty is to clear the way for Charles. That and that only!”