by Andre Nolton
They locked eyes, Kyrtian's green ones meeting the human's brown; Kyrtian nodded towards the ridge in the direction of the voices and made the hand signal for ambush. Horen nodded, and leaving his sword and sword-belt behind in Kyrtian's keeping lest they catch in the brush, dropped to his hands and knees to snake his way up towards the ridge, moving so low to the ground that he looked like a crawling lizard.
It was always a wonder to Kyrtian how young Horen managed to disappear into landscape that was so barren of obvious cover. Sometimes he wondered if the ability was some unique application of the so-called human magics. That was entirely possible, and would have caused far more scandal among the Great Lords than Kyrtian's little eccentricity of leading his fighters in person. Although it was the law that all human slaves be fitted with collars that inhibited their own peculiar magic, no slave on the Prastaran estates had ever worn anything but a decorative collar since the Elvenlords came to this world. And no "slave" on the Prastaran estates had ever been a slave in anything but name.
Humans make very poor slaves; Grandfather tried to tell his arrogant compatriots that, and they wouldn't listen, and now they're paying the price for ignoring such sage advice. The first Lord Prastaran had retired to the estate he'd been allotted, proceeding there to put his own theories to. work in regard to the aboriginal inhabitants of the place. Before he drowned in a flash flood—while nearly twenty of his devoted "slaves" also drowned in frantic attempts to save him—he had formed the loose confederation of primitives that had been living on the property into a thriving and prosperous community that not only accepted him as their overlord, but were absolutely devoted to his welfare.
Kyrtian's father had inherited that community, and had cherished and fostered it, recognizing it for the valuable resource that it was! Now it was Kyrtian's to guide and guard, for in guarding the humans under his protection, he was all too aware that he was guarding his own prosperity.
His wandering thoughts were abruptly recalled by Horen's return, as the young man wriggled into cover beside him. With the aid of twigs, pebbles, and a few hand-signals, Horen swiftly laid out the disposition of the enemy forces ahead.
Kyrtian studied the arrangement for several moments, grinding his teeth a little in frustration. As usual, the enemy commander showed brilliant skill. It was an appallingly superior disposition. Obviously one couldn't approach them from the front or the rear, so what did that leave him?
We could retreat, but that would leave them in possession of the woods, and they would win this without a fight. That was unacceptable. Is there enough room on the top of this ridge to flank them?
He didn't want to divide his force if he could help it, and he'd have to if he wanted to use a classic pincer maneuver. That wouldn't be a good idea anyway; one that the ground didn't encourage. He'd have to send his men to fight against both ends of the enemy ambush-line in a way that would only allow one or two fighters to close in at a time; that would put them at an immediate disadvantage.
Finally Kyrtian decided on something truly unorthodox; waiting until the enemy commander was frustrated enough to come looking for him. Short exploration by Horen produced the place where any opposing force was most likely to descend from the ridge. After careful deliberation, he set up an ambush of his own.
Of course, the weakness of this plan was that the opposition might not decide to come down on this side of the ridge. That would leave him, in his turn, waiting to spring an empty trap. Still, the occasional murmur of voices through the hush of the forest told him that his opponents were getting tired of waiting.
Probably they had been in place ever since his own force had entered the woods. Horen went out again to spy, so that Kyrt-ian's troops would at least know if the foe moved off in some other direction. Kyrtian settled into his own position and held off boredom by making an informal bird-count based on the calls he heard.
Time crawled past, but his patience was finally rewarded. Horen slithered back to take up his weapons. Kyrtian pumped his fist in the air once, and heard a faint rustle of leaves as his men caught the signal, relaying it down the line, and readying themselves for action.
He had chosen his own place perfectly. Another faint rustle of leaves and the occasional snapping of a twig warned that the enemy was on the move, and shortly after, the men appeared filing cautiously down the slope below them, flitting from bits of cover to their next position. Kyrtian waited until he was certain that all of the enemy skirmishers were immediately below their own position, his nerves so taut that his skin tingled, muscles were afire, his pulse pounding in his temples and his ears.
Wait for it—
If he sprang the ambush too soon, his own men would be surrounded. He didn't know exactly how many men the enemy had, so he couldn't count heads....
Wait for it— He didn't dare permit his force to be outflanked. Now!
His throat cracked with a yell as he broke out of cover and charged, his men streaming down the slope behind him. The startled skirmishers whirled to face them.
Kyrtian skidded to a halt on the slope as he nearly ran into a fighter who was considerably taller than he. In that moment, as was always true for him once the fighting started, everything narrowed to this single opponent. Their swords clashed together, his opponent countered with a clever parry that sent him leaping away lest the fighter try to grapple with him. Next the man tried to circle him, but that was the last thing that Kyrtian was going to allow—at the moment he had the slight advantage of being uphill, and that was the only advantage he really had over this bulkier opponent.
Kyrtian retreated as fast as the other advanced; nothing was going to force him to turn if he could help it. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was dimly aware of shouts, the clashing of metal, and all the din of battle, but he was too seasoned to ever be distracted from his own line of combat. Giving up on the ploy of forcing Kyrtian off higher ground, the fellow swung low, hard and wide, scything at Kyrtian's legs; Kyrtian used the opportunity to slash at the man's sword-hand as he himself skipped backwards.
He really hadn't expected the luck of a full strike, but his opponent had evidently anticipated a blow to the head rather than the hand. The fighter ducked to one side and didn't get his hilt up in time to deflect Kyrtian's blow.
The blade passed through the other's wrist, leaving behind a glowing line. The fighter cursed, transferring the sword to his left hand, tucking the "disabled" hand into his belt at the small of his back, as per the rules of combat. If he hadn't, he'd get a warning after the battle was over—and the second time he refused to accept a blow, the marked area or limb would truly go completely numb and useless until Kyrtian removed the magic that rendered it so.
He was by no means as good a fighter with his weak hand as Kyrtian was. A clumsy attempt at an overhand blow left his armpit unprotected, and the Elvenlord executed a fatal thrust. The blade vanished up to the hilt with no resistance, and the man jerked in reaction to the all-over tingle that the "death-wound" gave him as the sign that he was "dead."
Now the fighter glowed the color of new leaves all over; with a good-natured curse, he saluted Kyrtian, sheathed his blade, and removed his helm, joining five of his fellow "dead men" on the sidelines. All of them were glowing the same yellow-green, which meant they were all out of the enemy forces. Kyrtian made the mistake of allowing himself a brief pause to gloat without looking behind him.
A moment after that, a sudden electric jolt told Kyrtian that he had been taken from behind. Ruefully looking down at himself, he saw that he, too, was glowing.
"Galkasht!" he cursed, in the Old Tongue, and heard Sargeant Gel's familiar laugh in answer. He sheathed his own sword in disgust, pulled off his helm, and went to join the other dead.
Gel did not get a chance to enjoy his victory for long; Horen rose out of a bush behind him and caught him across the neck as he turned. Gel swore even more colorfully than Kyrtian had, while his own men jeered and catcalled from the sidelines.
"Who is it
has never been hit from behind?" called one, in feigned innocence.
"You owe me beer for the next moon, Sargeant," one of the others heartlessly reminded him. "And you owe Horen three night-watches."
"Don't remind me." The human pulled off his helm and threw it to the ground, glaring at them—but they knew they were safe. The "dead" could say anything they liked as long as the battle was on. That was another one of the rules, meant to be sure that no one turned mock-combat into a real fight.
"Temper, temper," scolded a third, as Horen vanished to seek a new opponent. "A true warrior never fights with anger."
"I'm not fighting," Gel pointed out sourly, his jaw clenched tight.
Gel picked up his helm after another scorching glare and stamped his way down the hill to the sidelines. Kyrtian hid his own grin, and gave Gel a commiserating slap on the shoulder.
"Too bad, old man," he said, with what he hoped was a good counterfeit of sympathy. "That's combat-luck for you."
'That's carelessness, you mean," Gel growled, as he ruffled his sweaty, grizzled brown hair to dry it. "Don't coddle me, Kyrtian; I got you when you stopped to gloat, then I was served the same dish. What's more, you ambushed me when I lost patience. You're going to win this one. I underestimated you."
Since at this point, those who glowed yellow-green outnumbered those who glowed red-orange by three to one, that was fairly obvious, so Kyrtian held his tongue and tried assume a modest expression.
"I think we can count this experiment a success," he said instead. "I wasn't sure we'd be able to make the transition from arena-fighting and set-battles, but it's obvious this mode is going to work."
"I'd keep it at the skirmish-level for a while," Gel cautioned.
"I intend to," Kyrtian assured him, as more of the "dead" on the sidelines cheered the surviving fighters on or showered them with abuse. "At least until everyone's gotten a fair amount of practice at this. I don't want people stumbling around breaking ankles in rabbit-holes or running into an alicorn and getting skewered. We're out here to fight, not get hurt." He loosened his throat-guard and yanked it off.
Gel barked a laugh at that, and Kyrtian had to grin. 'That's as true as it sounds absurd," Gel chuckled. "And it's true you'd have less luck getting people to volunteer to fight for us if too many of the boys started coming back with broken bones, or worse." He stuck his thumb in his sword-belt and watched the fighters with pardonable pride. "I'll tell you what, though—I'd pit these lads against any of the professional fighters I've seen when it comes to combat rather than gladiatorial games. They'd win."
"That's rather the point, though I hope it doesn't come to that. There'll be far less blood shed if they go up against conscripts." Kyrtian watched as the last of his men surrounded the last of Gel's and demanded their surrender. "The Elvenlords can compel men to fight, but they can't compel them to fight well. Speaking of volunteers—the field-folk are going to need another holiday before too long."
"We'd better think about organizing a melee, then," Gel sighed. He hated setting up melees, as they were a great deal of work, and as in real battles, most of the people who took part in them had no idea how to actually fight. A good percentage got muddled and did the opposite of what they'd been ordered, and when they got muddled, they generally confused those who were trying to obey the orders correctly. Still, everyone on the estate enjoyed the mock-wars and were happy to volunteer for them; there was great excitement in battle when there was no chance of dying and little chance of getting hurt. A war-day meant a general holiday with feasting and music, and dancing for those who were "killed" before they were completely exhausted.
Not that anyone got killed deliberately just so he could go dancing, since those who were too exhausted to dance were pampered and treated like heroes regardless of which side won.
Ever since the first time that Kyrtian and his right-hand man had expanded their war-games to include the general population of the estate, the exercise had proven so popular that humans and elves alike had come to expect and anticipate a war-day every two or three moons or so. Kyrtian just couldn't bring himself to disappoint them—and the one time he'd tried to hold a feast without a war, there had been such protest that he'd never dared do it again.
"I don't suppose it could be a woods-battle, could it?" he asked wistfully. "Or—oh, what about a siege?"
"With the manor as the target? No, better yet, the Dowager-House; no one's used it in decades, and it's been years since it was cleaned and aired out. It'll give your Lady-Mother an excuse to get it set to rights in case we need it for something. Ancestors know what, but we might." Gel mulled that over as his men declined to surrender, electing to fight to the last one standing. "That could be done—if you could manage mock-arrows and mock-stones; perhaps mock-boiling-oil."
Kyrtian stared at him, aghast at the picture that conjured up. "Ancestors! You're certainly bloody-minded!"
"If you want a siege, you might as well do it right," Gel argued. "That means that the besiegers will use bows, and the besieged will pelt them with whatever they can from the walls. Now, can you produce the proper material, or can't you?"
"I probably can," Kyrtian admitted. "But you do realize what this will mean, don't you?"
"Huge casualties early on, which means the battle won't run long, which means we'll get to the feasting sooner." Gel grinned. "Which means less work for me and more for your obliging Lady-Mother in arranging the entertainment."
"And probably a population increase in nine months unless I make sure to dose every particle of food on the estate against conceptions," Kyrtian sighed. "Which means more work for me, both in concocting the new magic-weapons, and in seeing to it that we don't get that flood of new births. You know what happens when the women get to be in on the combat! Why it is that mock-fighting gets them so stimulated—" He shook his head. "Sometimes I think that you humans are so different from us that I'll never understand you. Still—"
"A siege would be fun," Gel said, persuasively, as his men dropped, one by one, beneath the swords of Kyrtian's fighters. "We've never done a siege before with live fighters. Things that work on the sand-table with models don't always work with living people."
The temptation was too great to resist. "All right," he decided. "Start planning and working toward it. I'll research the magic needed. If it doesn't look as if we can pull it off in a months' time, we'll have the usual field-melee instead."
"Done!" Gel crowed, and slapped him on the shoulder, just as the last of his men fell. At that point, Kyrtian's remaining fighters rushed up, cheering, and there was no point in trying to talk until the victory celebration was over.
3
As was usual, the two groups of combatants trudged out of the forest together as a single fraternal mass with no sense of marching order. The forest could well have been devoid of life at this point; birds and beasts were probably frightened into immobility by the laughter and talking. At any rate, Kyrtian couldn't spot so much as a rabbit or a sparrow as they followed the faint track of an old road beneath the trees. The sun was just setting, and a thick, golden light poured through the branches, gilding the edges of the leaves and touching the clouds. Tired, but cheerful, friends and comrades traded congratulations, boasts, and outright lies as Kyrtian and Gel brought up the rear. Kyrtian never permitted anyone to carry his armor for him; like his men, he bore his own equipment, at least as far as their transportation. There were wagons and a carriage waiting just outside the woods to carry them all back to the manor, since it would have taken them hours to return on foot; Kyrtian was very glad to be able to toss his helm to his driver and allow his body-servant to take the heavy armor off before he climbed into the cushioned comfort of the carriage. As a token of his privileged rank, Gel shared both the attentions of the servant and the carriage; the men helped each other and made do with the cushioning effect of a thick layer of hay in their wagons. "Ah, the benefits of rank," Gel sighed as he sat back in the carriage opposite Kyrtian. Kyrtian grinned.
As soon as Gel got himself seated, the driver turned the horses and sent the carriage on its way while the wagons were still being loaded with men and armor. "Ancestors!" Kyrtian exclaimed, as the servant handed him a flask of cool, sweet water. "I've been looking forward to this all afternoon!" He took a long draught, timing his drink with the jolting of the carriage so he didn't break his teeth on the neck of the flask, before handing it to Gel.
"You'd think we'd get tired of this nonsense," Gel responded, leaning back into the soft, dark brown velvet cushions after he'd corked the flask and handed it back to young Lynder, Kyrt-ian's body-servant. "Your dear mother keeps saying we're too old to play at being soldiers, and sometimes I wonder if she's right, at least about me. Every time we come back from one of these games, I ask myself if it isn't time to stop."
"You only think that as long as it takes for you to get your wind back." The young Elvenlord grinned at his companions, and Lynder chuckled. "And mother has a different set of priorities from you and me. What do you expect her to say? She's not just a female, she's a lady, and if she had her way we'd all be drifting around the estate in clouds of tranquil music, perfume, and refinement. If it were up to her, you'd be cultivating roses, and I'd be cultivating illusions and courting some fragile little lily of a maiden." He accepted the flask back and took another drink. "Not that you need to apologize for having a knack with roses—but I don't think you'd want to spend your life among the flowers."
Gel rolled his eyes. "Gods forbid!" he exclaimed. "I'd die of boredom in half a day! Roses are all right for a hobby, but not as a life's work!"
"I'd prefer tending roses to being forced to spend my time cultivating a highborn maiden." Kyrtian laughed, the sound interrupted oddly by the jouncing of the carriage. "At least you don't have to make conversation with a flower, even if you do have to be careful of the thorns. It's easier to avoid thorns than try to keep a strange woman from seeing things she shouldn't."
