The High Crusade

by Poul Anderson

  He raised his plumed head. “Yet Englishmen have ever fought best with their backs to the wall.”

  Chapter XIII

  So we rode into camp, and my lord shouted haro as if this battle had been his dearest wish. In a great iron clangor, our folk went to their stations.

  Let me describe our situation more fully. As a minor base, Ganturath was not built to withstand the most powerful forces of war. The lesser portion, which we occupied, consisted of several low masonry buildings arranged in a circle. Outside that circle were the armored emplacements of the fire-bombards; but these, being meant only to shoot upward at skycraft, were useless to us now. Underground was a warren of rooms and passages. There we put our children, aged, prisoners, and cattle, in charge of a few armed serfs. Such older people, or others not fit for combat, as were spry enough, waited near the middle of the buildings, prepared to carry off the wounded, fetch beer, and otherwise aid the fighting line.

  This line stood on the side facing the Wersgor camp, just within the low earthen wall erected during the night. Their pikes, bills, and axes were reinforced at intervals by squads of bowmen. The cavalry poised at either wing. Behind them were the younger women and certain untrained men, who shared out our all too few pellet weapons; the force screen made fire guns useless.

  Around us shimmered the pale heat-lightning of that shield. Behind us rose the ancient forest. Before us, bluish grass rippled down the valley, isolated trees soughed, and clouds walked above the distant hills. It all had the eerie loveliness of a landscape in Faerie. Preparing bandages with the aboveground noncombatants, I wondered why there must be hatred and killing in so sweet a realm.

  Flying craft thundered skyward and out of sight from the Wersgor camp. Our gunners dropped a few ere they were all gone. A number remained on the ground, held in reserve. They included some of the very largest transport ships. At the moment, however, my chief interest was the ground.

  Wersgorix streamed forth, armed with long-barreled pellet weapons and in well-ordered squads. They did not advance in close ranks but scattered as much as possible. Some of our folk let out a cheer at this, but I knew it must be their ordinary ground-fighting tactics. When one has deadly rapid-fire guns, one does not attack in solid masses. Rather, one employs devices to take the enemy’s guns out of action.

  Such engines were in fact present. Doubtless they had been flown hither from the central bastion of Darova. There were two kinds of these horseless warwagons. The most numerous sort was light and open, made of thin steel, holding four soldiers and a couple of rapid-fire weapons. They ran immensely fast and agile, like water beetles on four wheels. As I saw them whip and scream about, bouncing at a hundred miles an hour over broken terrain, I understood their purpose: to be so difficult to hit that most of them could work up to the very bombards of the foe.

  However, these small cars hung back, covering the Wersgor infantry. The first line of actual attack was the heavy-armored vehicles. These moved but slowly for a powered machine, no faster than a horse could gallop. This was because of their size — big as a peasant’s cottage — and the thick steel plating which could withstand all but a direct shellburst. With bombards projecting from their turrets, with their roaring and dust, they were like unto dragons. I counted more than twenty: massive, impervious, grinding forward on treads in a wide line. Where they had passed, grass and earth were smashed into stone-hard ruts.

  I am told that one of our gunners, who had learned how to use the wheeled cannon which threw explosive shells, broke ranks and dashed for such a weapon. Sir Roger himself, now armed cap-a-pie, rode up and knocked him asprawl with his lance. “Hold on, there!” rapped the baron. “What’re you about?”

  ’To shoot, sire,” gasped the soldier. “Let’s fire at ’em ere they break over our wall and—”

  “If I didn’t think our good yew bows could deal with such overgrown snails, I’d have you priming yon tube,” said my lord. “But as it is, back to your pike!”

  It had a salutary effect on the badly shaken spearmen, who stood with weapons grounded to receive that frightful charge. Sir Roger saw no reason to explain that (judging from what had happened at Stularax) he dared not use explosives at such short range, lest he destroy us, too. Of course, he should have realized that the Wersgorix would have many kinds of shell of graded potency. But who can think of everything at once?

  As it was, the drivers of those moving fortresses must have been sorely puzzled that we did not fire on them, and wondered what we held in reserve. They found out when the first war-wagon toppled into one of our covered pits.

  Two more were similarly trapped ere it was understood that these were no ordinary obstacles. Surely the good saints had aided us. In our ignorance, we had dug holes broad and deep, which by themselves would not have been escape-proof for such powerful vehicles. But then we added great wooden stakes, almost by sheer habit, as if we expected to impale outsize horses. Some of these caught in the treads which girdled the wheels, and erelong those wheels were jammed tight with wood pulp.

  Another wagon evaded the pits, which were not continuous. It approached the breastworks. A rapidfire gun spat from it, seeking the range, and stitched small craters along our earth wall. “God send the right!” roared Sir Brian Fitz-William. His horse spurted from our lines, closely followed by half a dozen of the nearer cavalrymen. They galloped in a semicircle, just beyond reach of the gun. The vehicle lumbered in pursuit, seeking to bring its smallest-bore cannon to bear. Sir Brian got it headed the way he desired, winded his war-horn, and galloped back to shelter as the wagon plunged into a hole.

  The war-turtles drew back. In that long grass, and with our cunning camouflage, they had no way of knowing where the other traps were. And these were the only such machines on all Tharixan, not to be lightly hazarded. We English had trembled lest they continue. Only one would have had to get through to wipe us out.

  Even though his information about us, our powers, and our possible spaceborne reinforcements was scanty, I think Huruga should have ordered the heavy wagons onward. Indeed, the Wersgor tactics were deplorable in all respects. But remember that for a long time they had not fought seriously on the ground. Their conquest of backward planets was a mere battue; their skirmishes with rival starfaring nations were mostly aerial.

  Thus Huruga, discouraged by our pits but heartened by our failure to use low-power shellfire, withdrew the great cars. Instead, he sent the infantry and the light vehicles against us. His idea was plainly for them to find a path between our traps and mark it for the giant machines to follow.

  The blue soldiers came at a run, scarcely visible through the tall grass, divided into little squads. I myself, being placed far back, saw only the occasional flash of a helmet and the poles which they stuck up here and there to mark a safe channel for the heavy wagons. Yet I knew they numbered many thousands. My heart thudded within me, and my mouth longed for a beaker of ale.

  Ahead of the soldiers came racing the light cars. A few of them went into pits and at such speeds were horribly wrecked. But most sped in a straight line straight into the stakes we had planted in the grass near our breastworks, in case of a cavalry charge.

  So fast were they traveling, the cars were almost as vulnerable to such a defense as horses would be. I saw one rise in the air, turn over, smash back to earth, and bounce twice ere it broke apart. I saw another impale itself, spout liquid fuel, and burst into flame. I saw a third swerve, skid, and crash into a fourth.

  Several more, escaping the abatis, ran over the caltrops we had scattered around. The iron spikes entered the soft rings encircling their wheels and were not to be gotten out. A car so injured could at best limp feebly from the battle.

  Commands in the harsh Wersgor tongue must have rattled over the far-speaker. The majority of the open cars, still unscathed, ceased to mill about. They drew into a loose but orderly formation, and advanced at a walking pace.

  Snap! went our catapults and crash! went our ballistic. Bolts, stones, and
pots of burning oil hailed atrociously among the advancing vehicles. Not many were thus disabled, but their line wavered and slowed.

  Then our cavalry charged.

  A few of our horsemen died, caught in a storm of lead. But they had not far to gallop to reach the enemy. Also, the grass fires started by our oil pots confused Wersgor vision with their heavy smoke. I heard a clang and boom as lances burst against iron sides, then had no more chance to watch that struggle. I know only that the lancers failed to disable any car with their shafts. However, it startled the drivers so much that these often failed completely to defend themselves against what followed. Rearing horses brought down hoofs, to crumple the thin steel plates; a few quick swipes of ax, mace, or sword emptied a vehicle of its crew. Some of Sir Roger’s men used handguns to good effect, or small round shells which burst and scattered jagged fragments when thrown after a pin was released. The Wersgorix had similar weapons, of course, but less determination to use them.

  The last cars fled in terror, hotly pursued by the English riders. “Come back, there! bellowed Sir Roger at them. He shook the fresh lance given him by his esquire. “Come back, you caitiff rogues! Stand and deliver, you base-born heathen!” He must have been a splendid sight, gleaming metal and fluttering plumage and blazoned shield upon the restless coalblack stallion. But the Wersgorix were not a knightly folk. They were more prudent and forethoughtful than we. It cost them dearly.

  Our horsemen must quickly retreat, for now the blue foot was close, firing their guns as they pulled into larger masses for the assault on our breastworks. Armor was no protection, only a bright target. Sir Roger bugled his men to follow him, and they scattered out onto the plain.

  The Wersgorix set up a defiant cheer and rushed. Across the seething confusion of our camp, I heard the archer captains howl their command. Then the gray goose flock went skyward with a noise as of mighty winds.

  It came down, gruesomely, among the Wersgorix. While the first arrow flight was still rising, the second was on its way. A shaft with so much force behind it pierces the body and comes out on the other side with its broad cutting head all bloody. And now the crossbows, slower but still more powerful, began to mow down the nearest attackers. I think that during those last few moments of their charge, the Wersgorix must have lost half their folk.

  Nonetheless, dogged almost as Englishmen, they ran on to our very wall. And here our common men-at-arms stood to receive them. The women fired and fired, pinning down a goodly part of the foe. Those who came so close that guns were useless, must face ax, spear, bilihook, mace, morningstar, dagger, and broadsword.

  Despite their awesome losses, the Wersgorix still outnumbered our folk two or three to one. Yet it was scarcely fair. They had no body armor. Their only weapon for such close-in fighting was a knife attached to the muzzle of the handgun, to make a most awkward spear … or the gun itself, clubbed. A few did carry pellet-firing sidearms, which caused us some casualties. But as a rule, when John Blueface fired at Harry Englishman, he missed even at pointblank range, in all that turmoil. Before John could fire again, Harry had laid him open with a halberd.

  When our cavalry returned, striking the Wersgor infantry from the rear and hewing away, it was the end. The enemy broke and ran, trampling his own comrades in blind horror. The riders chased them, with merry hunting calls. When they were far enough away, our longbows cut loose once more.

  Still, many escaped who must otherwise have been spitted on a lance, for Sir Roger saw the heavy wagons trundling vengefully back and retreated with his folk By God s mercy, I was so occupied caring for the wounded fetched to me that I knew nothing of that moment when our leaders thought we were undone after all. For the Wersgor charge had not gone for naught. It had succeeded in showing the turtle-cars how to avoid our pits. And now the iron giants came across a field turned into red mud, and naught we knew could stop them.

  Thomas Bullard’s shoulders slumped where he sat mounted near the baronial pennon. “Well,” he sighed, “we gave what was ours to give. Now who will ride out with me to show them how Englishmen can die?”

  Sir Roger’s weary face drew into grave lines. “We’ve a harder task than that, friends,” he said. “We were right to hazard our lives on a chance of victory. Now that we see defeat upon us, we’ve no right to throw those lives away. We must live — as slaves, if need besot that our women and babes are not altogether alone on this hell-world.”

  “God’s bones!” shouted Sir Brian Fitz-William. “Are you gone craven?”

  The baron’s nostrils flared. “You heard me,” he said. “We stay here.”

  And then — lo! It was as if God Himself had come to deliver His poor sinful partisans. Brighter than lightning, a blue-white flash burst, several miles off in the forest. So lurid was the radiance that those few who chanced to be looking in that direction were blind for hours afterward. No doubt a great many Wersgorix were thus incapacitated, since their army faced it. The roar that followed knocked riders from their saddles and men from their feet. A wind swept us all, furnace hot, and carried tents before it like blown rags. Then, as that shattering wrath departed, we saw a cloud of dust and smoke arise. Shaped like an evil mushroom it towered almost to heaven. Minutes passed before it began to dissipate; its upper clouds lingered for hours.

  The charging war-cars ground to a halt. They knew, as we did not, what that burst signified. It was a shell of the ultimate potency, that destruction of matter which I cannot but feel to this day is an impious tampering with God’s work, though my archbishop has cited me Scriptural texts to prove that any art is lawful if it be used for good purposes.

  This was not a very strong shell, as such weapons go. It was meant to annihilate a half-mile circle, and produced comparatively little of those subtle poisons which accompany such explosions. And it had been fired distantly enough from the scene of action to harm no one.

  Yet it put the Wersgorix in a cruel dilemma. If they used a similar weapon to wipe out our camp — if they overran us by any means — they might expect a hail of death. For the hidden bombard would have no further reason to spare the area of Ganturath. Thus they must suspend their assault upon us, until they had found and dealt with this new enemy.

  Their war-wagons lumbered back. Most of the aircraft they had in reserve lifted and scattered widely, searching for whoever had fired that shell. The chief implement of this search was (as we knew from our own studies) a device embodying the same forces as are found in lodestone. Through powers which I do not understand, and have no desire to understand since the knowledge is unessential to salvation if not smacking of the black arts, this device could smell out large metallic masses. A gun big enough to fire a shell of the known potency should have been discovered by any aircraft flitting within a mile of its hiding place.

  Yet no such gun could be located. After a tense hour, while we English watched and prayed on our walls, Sir Roger gusted a deep breath.

  “I don’t want to seem ungrateful,” he said, “but I do believe God’s helped us through Sir Owain, rather than directly. We ought to find his party somewhere out in the woods, even if those enemy flyers don’t seem able to. Father Simon, you must know who the best poachers are in your parish—”

  “Oh, my son!” exclaimed the chaplain.

  Sir Roger grinned. “I ask for no secrets of the confessional. I’m only telling you to appoint a few shall we say, skilled woodsmen?…to sneak their way through the grass into yon forest. Have them locate Sir Owain, wherever he is, and order him to hold his fire till I send word. You needn’t tell me who you appoint, Father.”

  ’In that case, my son, it shall be as you command.” The priest drew me aside and asked me to give spiritual comfort to the injured and frightened as his locum tenens, while he led a small scout party into the forest.

  But my lord found another task for me. He and I and an esquire rode out under a white banner toward the Wersgor camp. We assumed the foe would have wit enough to understand our meaning, even if they did not use
the same truce signal. And thus it was. Huruga himself drove out in an open car to meet us. His blue jowls looked shrunken, and his hands trembled.

  “I call upon you to yield,” said the baron. “Stop forcing me to destroy your poor benighted commoners. I pledge you’ll all be treated fairly and allowed to write home for ransom money.”

  “I, yield to a barbarian like you?” croaked the Wersgor. Just because you have some … some confounded detection-proof cannon — no!” He paused. “But to get rid of you, I’ll allow you to leave in the spaceships you’ve seized.”

  “Sire. I gasped when I had translated this, “have we indeed won escape?”

  “Hardly,” Sir Roger answered. “We can’t find our way back, remember; and as yet, we dare not ask for a skilled navigator to help us, or we’d reveal our weakness and be attacked again. Even if we did somehow win home, ’twould still leave this nest of devils free to plot a renewed assault on England. Nay, I fear that he who mounts a bear cannot soon dismount.”

  So with a heavy heart, I told the blue noble that we had come for more than some of his shoddy, oldfashioned spaceships, and if he did not surrender we would be forced to devastate his land. Huruga snarled for reply and drove back.

  We also returned. Presently Red John Hameward came from the forest with Father Simon’s party, which he had encountered on his way to our camp.

  “We flew to that Stularax castle openly, sire,” he related. “We saw other sky-boats, but none challenged us, taking us for a simple ship o’ their own. Still, we knew no fortress sentries’d let us land without some questions. So we put down in some woods, a few miles from the keep. We set up our trebuchet and put one o’ those bursting shells in’t. Sir Owain’s idea was to lob a few to shake up their outer defenses. Then we’d slip closer afoot, leaving a crew to fire some more shells when we was near and break down their walls. We expected the garrison’d be scurrying about in search of our engine, so we could slip in, kill whatever guards were left behind, lift what we could carry from their arsenal, and return to our boat.”