The Radiant Warrior aocs-3

by Leo Frankowski

  For years, Count Lambert had been selling the new varieties of grains as seed and by the pound at high prices. The result was that most of the farmers in Silesia and Little Poland were growing at least some of it.

  The modem grains were shorter and had thicker stems than the older varieties, so they stood up to a heavy rain better. Most towns had at least one McCormick-style reaper, and they were able to get in most of the crop on the few dry days that we had.

  Many farmers were able to sell their grains to harder hit areas, and made great profits doing it. At least, the sale of single-family plumbing packages skyrocketed, which is some sort of indicator.

  My factories didn't buy any grain at all that year, since we had stockpiled enough the year before.

  Anna's children were all healthy, and she had another batch of four every six months. The oldest bunch looked like horses now, but they grew slower than regular horses, and Anna said that they took four years to become adults. We had twenty of them, but it would be a few more years before the first bunch would be ready to join the team.

  Anna spent very little time with them, only looking in on them every day or three to see that they didn't need anything. It wasn't that she was a bad mother, it was just that she was supremely confident that if they had enough to eat, they would grow up okay.

  They were good little survivors. When they got cold, they burrowed into the hay, and if that wasn't enough, they burrowed into the ground below the hay. And they would eat anything. If they ran out of hay and grain, they would start eating the stall they were in, so you had to watch them. In fact, I think half of Anna's looking out for them was to protect the world from them, and not vice versa.

  Krystyana was productive as well. After the birth of her second child, I promised myself that enough was enough. I wasn't doing anybody any good by producing illegitimate children. I stuck with that vow, except for once when she was crying and making love seemed the best thing to do.

  Once was enough. By late fall, it was obvious that she was pregnant again.

  The previous fall, I'd put Zoltan on the problem of making gunpowder, or rather the problem of making saltpeter-potassium nitrate-since once we had that, I knew the formula for gunpowder. It's seventy-five percent saltpeter, fifteen percent charcoal, and ten percent sulfur.

  But all I knew about saltpeter was that it was made out of manure, or sometimes old mortar, and that it was a white crystal. Oh, I could give you the molecular weight and even sketch up a molecule of it, but that wasn't going to help Zoltan any.

  He'd gamely gone at it, and had gone through seven frustrating months smelling like shit, as did his young Polish apprentices. The boys were all having trouble with their love lives until I ordered them to bathe after work and had them issued extra clothing to wear when not on the job.

  Then one day Zoltan came in with his clothes in tatters, his hair gone, and his beard burned off. His face was covered with blisters but through them shown a great happy smile.

  "I think we have done it, my lord!"

  So I gave him the small brass cannon I'd had made up along with a supply of cannon balls. I told him about wetting the mixture down, drying it, and grinding it to turn serpentine powder, which was what he had, into black powder, which was what I wanted.

  I explained how to load and fire a cannon and told him that I wanted him to play with slightly different mixtures to see which one could make the ball go farthest, always using the same small amount of powder.

  I also made him, his apprentices and everyone around them swear to keep the process for making the powder a secret. I didn't want anybody to know how to make it but a few of his people and his apprentices. They realized the seriousness of having somebody else shooting cannons at them, and the promise was kept until well after the Mongol invasion.

  Chapter Eighteen

  By Christmas Of 1235 1 could see that it was all going to come together. There was an awful lot left to do, but I think the seeds of an industrial base sufficient to supply a reasonably modem army were there and well planted.

  Getting the army was another matter. I had four knights sworn to me and that's where I had to start.

  Actually, it was sort of strange for one knight to be sworn to another, but there was nothing in the rules against it. I had more knights than some of Count Lambert's barons, but all the lack of a baronage meant was that I sat farther down the table at a formal banquet and I wasn't permitted to knight anybody. But I avoided formal banquets whenever possible and hadn't wanted to knight anybody anyway.

  The truth is that I am of a naturally egalitarian disposition. I didn't like this separation of people into hereditary cases, this silly business of noble and commoner. If I had my way, I'd scrap the whole unhappy system! But I didn't have my way and giving up my own knighthood would drastically reduce my own efficiency, as well as wrecking my lovelife. But someday I'd have the power to do something about it.

  I called my knights together after dinner one day, along with their wives.

  "Gentlemen, we are starting to get it together," I said. "We now have most of the raw materials that we need. We now have the beginning of a factory system that can take those raw materials and turn them into useful products. We now have workmen trained to use those factories and the tools in them."

  "We also have the biggest, best trained and best lead army in the world coming at us in five years."

  "What we don't have is an army of our own! At present, we have no way to save our country from absolute destruction. You've all heard Cilicia's story about the obliteration of her native city. That could happen here!"

  "It will happen here, unless we do something about it!"

  "Our factories can easily be converted from making civilian products to war production. They were designed with that thought in mind. We can turn out arms and armor at a rate that will astound you. Better armor than the world has ever seen, and weapons of awesome power will be ours when we need them."

  "But the weapons are worthless without the men who will use them! I can promise you that we will be better equipped than the Mongols, but if we are to win, we must be better trained and better lead as well. That's not going to be easy!"

  "The Mongols have been diligently practicing the art of mass murder and total destruction for over fifty years, and so far they have never been defeated!"

  "But they are going to be beaten here and we are going to train and lead the army that will do it! You four gentlemen are going to do most of it, since I'll have to spend half my time on production."

  "It won't be the kind of training that you have been used to, because this won't be the kind of war that you have been used to. You have become accustomed to treat war like a game, where polite, Christian gentlemen settle their disputes according to well-defined rules."

  "Well, the only rules the Mongols know are 'obey orders' and 'win the war.' They are not Christian nor are they gentlemen. They are greasy, smelly little bastards who can fight like all the demons of hell! They are hard and tough and cruel. The only way that we are going to beat them is by being harder and tougher and crueler than they are!"

  "You are used to a kind of warfare where only the nobility fights. That too must come to an end. The Mongols will come to us with every single man of theirs under arms. To meet them, we must do the same. Our factories will be able to equip every adult mate in Silesia and Little Poland. We must be able to train that number of men. It will be difficult, but not impossible. I can show you techniques that can turn a farmer into a fighting man in six months. Training leaders will take longer, and training the men to train them will take longer yet."

  "In the spring, we will be building a training base in the northwest comer of my lands. We have already fenced off a dozen square miles of land there, using Krystyana's roses, so we'll have plenty of privacy. I've asked Count Lambert to send me a gross of volunteers right after the spring planting. Those peanuts will be our first class."

  "The training period will be eleven months and w
e will be working at training not warriors, but trainers of warriors. I'll be happy if three dozen of them survive the education we give them."

  "After that, you gentlemen will be administrators, and they will be doing all the grunt work. But for the next year and a half, you will all be going through hell yourselves! That's why I invited your wives to this meeting, to explain to them that you won't be seeing much of them for a while, that you will be working for me and not playing around with Count Lambert's harem at Okoitz."

  "I know that you are all in fairly good, strong physical shape. You should be, living the healthy, outdoor lives that you do."

  "But you are not 'run twelve miles before breakfast' healthy and you're not 'do two hundred push-ups' strong. We will be working on that this winter, and it won't be fun. All I can promise you is that I will be going through the same pain that you will."

  "We start physical training tomorrow morning, and we will also be spending two hours a day here in my office doing skull work. Any questions?"

  "Too many to remember them all, my lord," Sir Vladimir said. "But the one that sticks in my mind is 'what is a push-up'?"

  "You'll learn, my friend. I promise you, you'll learn."

  "This running and other physical training you mentioned," Sir Gregor said. "I don't understand the need for that."

  "We will be training an infantry force, and some artillery, which I'll explain later. There is no possibility of getting enough war-horses to equip our army. That many horses don't exist! Also, Poland already has a sizable force of cavalry in the conventional knights. I'd estimate that we have thirty thousand of them, plus we should get some help from France and the Holy Empire when the time comes."

  "What of the Russians and the Hungarians?" Sir Gregor said.

  "The Russians, or rather the Ukrainians, will be largely wiped out in the next three or four years. I don't think that we will find it possible to give them any significant amount of help in that time. As to the Hungarians, well, they'll be attacked at the same time that we are, and will have their hands full with their own problems. It is more likely that we will be able to aid them than the opposite happening."

  "This land that you have set aside for training," Sir Wiktor said, "A dozen square miles seems like a lot. And what is this need for privacy? Much of the reason for having a strong military force is to make an enemy think twice before attacking you. Why try to hide it?"

  "The Mongols are coming whether we're ready or not," I said. "They won't believe what infantry can do until we show them on the battlefield. There are two reasons for the seclusion of our training grounds. The first is that I don't want our training techniques on public display. They are one of our major secret weapons."

  "The second reason is more important, and more subtle. In the course of training, we will be doing two things to our soldiers. The obvious one is that we will be building up their bodies and teaching them how to use weapons. The other is psychological. We will be tearing their minds apart and then putting them back together in a newer, stronger way. It helps to have them in an isolated, alien environment."

  "How does one tear apart the mind of another?" Sir Vladimir asked.

  "That too is something that I'm going to have to show you, and you won't like it. I trust that you gentlemen know that I have the highest regard for you as individuals and as my vassals. I won't like being rude to you, especially when it's not deserved. But in order to teach you how to train others, I'm going to have to treat you the way you'll be treating the peasants you'll be training. I won't be polite. In fact, I'm going to be as rude as possible. I don't know why this helps to make men absolutely obedient, but it does."

  "If there are no further questions, I'll see you all at the gate tomorrow at dawn. Be in full armor with good shoes. We'll start off with a three mile run and then I'll teach you about marching."

  It was snowing, but they were standing out there at dawn, and with them was Piotr Kulczynski.

  "Piotr, what the hell are you doing here?" I said.

  "My lord? I am your squire and when you called out all your knights, I thought-"

  "Well, you thought wrong! I need you as an accountant. I don't need you as a training instructor! Now get the hell out of here!"

  Piotr left, almost in tears.

  "Aren't you being a little rough on him, my lord?" Sir Vladimir said.

  "Shut your face, Vladimir! When I want your opinions, I'll tell them to you!"

  That set the tone of our training. Such rudeness wasn't needed with my knights, and certainly not with Piotr, but it would be with the peasants and workers we had to train.

  Sir Vladimir had repeatedly followed me into battle and fought like a hellion. I had no doubts about the three Banki brothers, either, and I thought that Piotr would walk through fire if I asked him to.

  Which gave me an idea. I had once read an article on fire-walking in The Skeptical Inquirer, An American magazine organized for the purpose of debunking strange cult practices that abound in that country. Americans take their right to personal freedom to extremes, and permit all sorts of flying-saucer worshipers, Scientologists, and other crazies to abound.

  The magazine explained quite carefully how it was possible to walk on a bed of glowing coals, and under what circumstances it was safe to do so.

  If anything could convince an army that they were unbeatable, walking through fire should do it! Perhaps as part of the graduation exercises. Yes…

  So we ran three miles in full armor, and I made sure that I stayed ahead of them even though my lungs were hurting and I could tell that my legs would be sore for a week. The muscles needed for riding on horseback are quite different from those needed for running! This was followed with an hour of calisthenics in the snow, and then some marching. The dinner bell rang, but I ignored it and kept them marching until they could at least stay in step.

  "Your other left, Vladimir!"

  We ate leftovers for lunch and were silent while doing it. Some of the workers noticed, but were smart enough to say nothing.

  After lunch, we met again in my office.

  "You may speak freely now, gentlemen," I said. "Part of the reason for these afternoon meetings will be to explain and to hash over what we did in the morning."

  "Very well, my lord, since you invite it," Sir Gregor said. "I would like to know why you felt it necessary to speak so rudely to us. Had I not been sworn to you, I swear that I would have challenged you to a duel for some of the things you said."

  "Well, I warned you that I was going to do it, but you didn't take me seriously enough. Was it necessary to talk to you in the manner that I did? The answer is no, it wasn't. You four have spent most of your lives training for combat. You are eager for it. Your whole system of self-worth depends on you following your liege lord into battle and fighting there honorably."

  "But it will be necessary for you to know how to deal with people whose previous life aim was simply to get enough food to feed their families and to maybe lay a little money aside in case of bad times. That is to say, the great majority of people in this world. You must impress them with the importance of instant obedience to a direct order, even when the order makes absolutely no sense to them. I'm not sure why, but somehow shouting at people seems to accomplish this."

  "Tell me, Sir Vladimir, what were your feelings when I shouted at you for defending Piotr this morning?"

  Sir Vladimir thought for a moment. "Anger, at first, my lord. Then shame. Shame for myself for offending my liege and shame for you for so debasing yourself."

  "Exactly," I said. "Anger and shame. But the anger goes more quickly than the shame. I think it would be very unlikely for you to speak up like that again in the same circumstances. Now you are no longer angry at me, in part because of this discussion and in part because we have known each other for a long time."

  "The men you will be training will not have the benefit of your previous acquaintance with your drill instructor, nor will they have the benefit of these meetings. Th
ey will learn to hate you, and that is a necessary part of the training. Years after it's over, most of them will' look back and see you with a certain amount of respect, but that is a very hollow sort of reward. In fact, being a drill instructor is one of the roughest jobs I know of."

  "It might help if you tell yourself that this is a necessary thing to save your country, because it is."

  They were silent for a bit.

  "This funny kind of walking' this marching. Does that have some reason for it?" Sir Wojciech said.

  "There are two reasons, one practical and one psychological. Tomorrow, I'll be showing you a weapon called the pike. It's like a lance, but it's six yards long. With one, if it's used properly, foot soldiers can destroy cavalry. But carrying something that long, you must walk in step or your pike gets tangled up with everybody else's pike."

  "There are two parts to the psychological side. From the standpoint of the soldier, it gives a strong feeling of group belonging. It gives a feeling of power, a feeling that your unit can't be stopped. And if enough of the men really believe that, they truly can't be stopped."

  "From the standpoint of the enemy, it results in fear. Seeing a thousand men coming at you, all wearing the same clothes and all walking in exactly the same way, their feet hitting the ground at exactly the same time, makes you think that you are not fighting mere men who can be killed. You think that you are up against an unstoppable machine."

  "Once our men and their men both believe that we are unstoppable, the battle is more than half won."

  The grueling training went on all winter long. Besides the pike, I introduced the rapier, a footman's sword that has no edge to speak of but only a point.

  At first we wore the rapiers in the normal way, but this got in the way of calisthenics. Sir Vladimir was the first one to wear one over his left shoulder. He had the tip of the blade stuck into a long dagger sheath at his belt and the rest of the sword covered with a thin leather tube attached to a strap that went over his left shoulder. He could get it out in a hurry, although getting it back in was a bother. Still, it was a lot more convenient wearing it his way than getting it tangled around your feet. Wearing the sword high became one of our trademarks. That, and our funny haircuts.