by Hugh Cook
'You should rest,' said Farfalla.
T can't rest,' said Hearst.
T can help you rest.'
'Not tonight,' said Hearst.
'I'll be waiting for you if you change your mind,' said Farfalla.
She retired to the marquee. Morgan Hearst sat alone, watching the stars, the campfires, and listening to the creak of the irrigation pump. He heard sounds of cavalry moving into position, heard distant curses, distant laughter. It was hard to wait, alone: hard to wait for the dawn, knowing that if his judgment was wrong, thousands of his troops would be slaughtered on the field of battle, his army broken and his name shamed.
But he had a chance: and if he succeeded, he would have saved the Harvest Plains from the marauders from the north. If Hearst won this battle, he would have at least one worthy success to his name. Yet again he reviewed his failures.
Somewhere out in the darkness, Elkor Alish, once his friend, was waiting to lead an army against him. Hearst counted that as his biggest failure: but despite all his thinking about it, he could not see what he had done wrong.
***
Morning approached. The last camp fires burnt down to ashes. Men waited in the darkness, shivering. Then trumpets blared, announcing the attack. There was a storm-sea clamour of shouting and banging as Hearst's men chorused their rage. In the darkness, it sounded as if an attack was being launched in earnest, but Hearst knew – hoped! – that every man was holding his position.
From the lines of Alish's army, battle-horns sounded, calling men to action. There was the roar of hundreds of voices chanting defiance. The noise quietened slowly as Alish's men began to realise there was no attack, that it was a false alarm.
Hearst knew how Alish would see things. His army had been roused to battle: his men were on their feet, armed and ready, blood racing still from the shock of thinking they were being attacked. What now? He could tell them to stand down, then try to mobilise them for battle again when the sun rose. Or: he could order the advance, knowing that by the time they reached Hearst's lines there would be enough light for battle to commence.
Morgan Hearst stood on the burial mound, waiting. There was a movement in the darkness: there was just enough light for him to see that it was Farfalla.
'What's happening?' said Farfalla.
'Wait,' said Hearst.
Out to the west, the rumbling thunder of battle-drums began to boom. It was joined by the blast of battle-horns, then by thousands of voices screaming a battle-chant, then by the clash of spears beating against shields. It sounded as if all the armies of the deepest hell were advancing through the night.
'They are coming,' said Hearst.
His voice was flat, dull, dead. There was no point in worrying now. He had thought through his battle-plan, he had briefed his officers, he had given his orders. If he had made any mistakes, it was too late to correct them now.
'They sound so… so…'
'Hush,' said Hearst. 'Hush…"
She was standing on his right side. He wished he could have reached out and taken her hand, but he had no hand on his right side, only a cold steel hook. And in his left hand was a sword. Why had he drawn that sword? This was no battle that he could win by the dare of nerve and sinew. This was no battle where he could surrender himself to a berserker battle-trance. This was a battle that required that he stand and watch, waiting for the right moment.
Hearst knew that in the darkness, his cavalry troopers were leading their horses forward through the defensive lines of stakes and potholes, and assembling on the flat land to the west.
'The sky's lighter,' said Farfalla.
It was true. There was light enough for one to begin to make out shadowy figures: wraiths, ghosts, shapings of smoke. The heart-hammering uproar of the onslaught of Alish's forces was closer, louder, and for a moment it seemed to Hearst that he had only an army of ghosts to confront an army of raging flesh and blood.
Out to the west, lights suddenly glowed as the men of a listening post whipped away cloaks which had covered lanterns which had been kept burning through the night. The signal told Hearst the enemy were now only four hundred paces away.
'Sound attack!' shouted Hearst.
Trumpets flared. Loud and clear they rang, challenging the fading stars. Hearst's cavalry started moving at a walk, then a trot, then a canter, a gallop. As the horses thundered forward, a battle cry was raised by the thousands of lancers: 'Wa – wa – Watashi! Wa – wa – Watashi!
Watashi. Blood. Fear. Death.
Advancing in darkness, Alish's forces had become disordered as the more eager adventurers had surged ahead far in advance of the others. They had not expected to face cavalry. They had no chance to organise themselves into a wall of spears and swords which would have deterred the horses.
Out of the shadows swept shadows, thunder bearing steel, spear-blades driving home, scimitars following through, and ever the cry was raised: 'Wa – wa – Watashi! Wa – wa – Watashi!'
There were screams of pain, fear, panic. Those closest to the horses began to run; their panic spread; soon all of Alish's army was in retreat.
A sudden outbreak of shouting from Hearst's army signalled a spontaneous infantry charge. Sensing victory, they were mounting an assault. Hearst swore. This was no part of his plan! The battle had just started, and already he was losing control.
'Sound retreat!' he shouted.
The trumpets sounded retreat, but to no avail. If any men bothered to listen, none bothered to obey.
Hearst strained to see. The darkness was easing away; he began to make out parts of a confused grappling-groping battle on the plains, a hideous, brawling gang-fight from which came the screams of murder, the clash of weapons, the monstrous noise of badly injured horses.
Then the enemy trumpets sounded retreat.
"Sound retreat!' shouted Hearst.
'But the enemy's running away!' yelled a trumpeter.
Hearst cursed him; belatedly, retreat was sounded. But nobody obeyed. As light began to conjure colours on the plain, Hearst, from his vantage point, saw, all too clearly, exactly what was happening.
Alish had kept his cavalry in the rear. The cavalry was holding firm as the infantry retreated through their ranks. Very shortly, Hearst's disorganised infantry, attacking as a formless, anarchic rabble intermixed with cavalry, would be confronted by the massed, "waiting discipline of Alish's horse.
It happened.
As Hearst watched, the last of Alish's infantry retreated to safety behind the cavalry screen. The attack wavered, faltered, broke. Alish's cavalry charged. Dismayed, Hearst saw his own horse and footsoldiers flung back. Alish's infantry, without any orders, began to charge.
As the battlefield disintegrated into a chaotic free-for-all, Hearst abandoned his original battle-plan: to brunt the enemy's attack, then break through on the flanks, encircle the enemy and crush them. He was a fool to have thought he could try anything so complicated with this mostly raw and virgin army. His only consolation was that Alish seemed to have no more control than he did.
But, inexorably, weight of numbers was beginning to tell; Hearst's army was – he thought – slowly being forced back into the 'V made by two diverging rivers.
It was time to try the hind legs. He would try and lure Alish's army in between the pyramid and the burial mound, then crush it between those two strongpoints. He had massed archers lurking out of sight behind the burial mound which would give him a fist to use against infantry; wet ground in front of the mound would protect against a cavalry charge.
'Smoke!' yelled Hearst, to the men manning blazing bonfires. 'Blue – '
But someone had already thrown a bag of chemicals onto a fire. Red smoke billowed up.
'Blue smoke!' yelled Hearst. 'And – trumpets! -sound the retreat!'
A bag of chemicals was thrown onto the fire – this time for blue smoke. A pillar of green and yellow flames shot up into the sky as chemicals mixed. Some of the trumpets sounded the advance, and some th
e retreat. Wind blew the smoke this way and that, obscuring the battlefield completely.
Then someone threw on black smoke.
'Who threw black smoke!' screamed Hearst. 'I'll kill the man responsible!'
Black smoke was the signal which would summon ships Hearst had waiting upriver. The ships were his reserve force, and this, to his mind, was hardly the time to employ them. He was well aware of the fact that the general who wins a battle is often the one who has the last reserves to commit to the fight; the black smoke, calling in the ships prematurely, might have cost him victory.
Still, it would be a little while yet before the ships got here.
As the smoke cleared, Hearst was able to see that his men were retreating. A few came scrambling up the burial mound; most fell back toward the pyramid, or went mobbing back through the gap between the pyramid and the mound. They were retreating, obviously, not because of the totally incoherent signals, but because they were losing.
Alish managed to stop his men from following.
Hearst saw Alish's battle-standard, the blood-red banner of Rovac, moving to the northern flank.-Alish's cavalry began to mass on that flank. Hearst's plan, to lure Alish's men in between two strongpoints then crush them, had failed. Alish was obviously going to attack the burial mound, the strongpoint guarding Hearst's right flank, hoping, by seizing it, to win the battle.
"Well then,' muttered Hearst, 'Come on!'
Then, in a loud clear voice, he shouted orders. On his command, a scattering of soldiers down in front of the burial mound retreated to its heights, their legs boggy with mud.
There were dead bodies on the ground between the two armies – dead men, dead horses, broken spears, fallen banners. As dust settled through sunlight, both sweating, panting armies were silent but for the screams and groans of the wounded.
'What happens now?' said Farfalla.
'Alish is gathering his cavalry for a charge,' said Hearst.
He could hear the unintelligible tail-end of shouted orders from the enemy army. Riders were galloping up and down the ranks, distributing orders. Alish was planning something. What? 'Are we winning?' said Farfalla.
'We're alive,' said Hearst.
He could not look at her: he could not take his eyes off the battlefield. His gut was knotted up. His muscles were trembling with tension. He had felt like this in other battles, but had always been able to release the tension by expending it in the fury of a battle-rage, his sword sweeping to slaughter, a shout in his throat as he gave himself to combat. Now he could only stand and wait.
'What does the enemy hope to do?'
'To storm this mound,' said Hearst.
And took his eyes off the field of battle just for a moment to glance behind him. There, sheltering out of sight of Alish's army, hidden by the rise of the burial mound that was six hundred paces long, were his archers, ten ranks of old men, children, women, servants, slaves and cripples. They had moved into position during the night; they waited patiently, gazing at the banners on the burial mound.
Hearst knew that if Alish's army gained the mound, there would be fearful slaughter amongst those rag-tag ranks. There were five thousand people there; perhaps all would die. He had been forced to argue long and hard with Farfalla to get her permission to bring them here; if they died, the responsibility would be all his.
Hearst turned back to the field of battle. Alish's blood-red banner advanced to the head of the cavalry. So Alish would lead the attack himself.
Hearst waited.
Farfalla's green and gold banner rippled in the wind. Hearst's battle-standard snapped this way and that with a crisp, clean sound. The wind stirred dust from the dry, trampled ground; Hearst smelt the dust. The sun, shining into the eyes of Alish's army, was warm on his back.
Alish's cavalry advanced at a trot on a front six hundred paces wide, facing the burial mound. The horses slowed their pace as the men walked them through the lines of potholes and sharpened stakes that were a hundred paces in front of the mound, then they formed up again for a charge to send them sweeping up to the top of the burial mound.
Hearst glanced anxiously at the ground in front of the mound. Part had been trampled into mud by stray soldiers, but most was covered with dead brown grass. However, a little water still remained at the bottom of the shallow irrigation ditch. Would the riders notice? He hoped not. Their charge, after all, would take them into the sun.
The cavalry were moving forward. At a trot. At a canter. Sunlight glittered on the sharp points of spears. They gained to a gallop. Thunder. Thunder of hooves.
The honour guard and the other soldiers on the mound wavered.
'Stand fast!' shouted Hearst.
And they answered his shout: 'Wa – wa – Watashi! Wa – wa – Watashi!'
Blood. Fear. Death.
The first riders hit the waterlogged ground. It was soft as a knee-deep bog, the same as it would be after the winter rains. Horses went down, legs breaking, riders thrown. The cavalry behind crashed into the wreckage of flesh at full gallop. The ground shook: flesh screamed. The blood-red banner of Rovac went down. Hearst wheeled, faced the sun: 'Fire!'
The nearest archers in the waiting ranks unleashed their missiles. Others saw them, and followed suit. The air hummed and sang as if vast energies had set the sky itself vibrating. High soared the arrows, then fell, a lethal, hissing rain, bringing death to those struggling in the mud; death to those few who had managed to rein in their horses short of disaster.
Against that death, courage was useless, skill no protection. Those horsemen who could escape did so, turning their mounts and fleeing. A shout of dismay rose from the ranks of Alish's army. Many of Alish's soldiers, too distant to see the mud and arrows, had seen the cavalry charge broken as if by magic, and there were shouts of 'death-stone! death-stone!' loud within their ranks.
'Red smoke!' shouted Hearst.
He would attack, and see what happened.
Red smoke whirled up into the air. The flights of arrows ceased: the honour guard charged down the mound, attacking the survivors of the cavalry charge. The rest of Hearst's army began, tentatively, to advance.
Then, Hearst's men raised a great shout. He heard the sullen thump of oar-timing drums, and, looking to left and to right, saw Ohio's galleys sweeping down the rivers flanking the battlefield, crammed with warriors and archers.
The enemy wavered.
Now was the moment!
Hearst turned to face the thousands of bowmen hiding behind the mound. Their missiles exhausted, they stood silent, fearful, waiting. He waved them forward: 'Charge!' shouted Hearst.
They wavered, unsure, uncertain.
He waved them forward again: 'Charge! Charge!'
Slowly, they began to move. Up the burial mound they came. Then, reaching the top, they saw the enemy army starting to break up as men began to flee before the remorselessly advancing infantry, spurred by rumours of the death-stone and the unknown terrors of the ships now outflanking them.
With a great shout, Hearst's archers surged forward: 'Wa – wa – Watashi! Wa – wa – Watashi!'
Watashi.
Blood. Fear. Death.
That shout was the loudest thing on the battlefield. To the men in Alish's army, it seemed as if Hearst had suddenly found another five thousand troops to commit to the battle. At the distance, they could not see the shouting was from a mob of civilians who did not even have arrows left for their bows. That shock turned hesitant retreat into all-out rout.
The five thousand began to move forward.
'Hold fast!' shouted Hearst. 'Hold fast!'
But it was useless. They were out of control. They surged down the mound, floundered through the mud, and pillaged the dead, seizing swords, spears and knives, and retrieving their own arrows. Then, screaming – their voices hoarse by now – they went on the attack: 'Wa – wa – Watashi!' Hearst turned to Farfalla. 'I can't stop them!' he said.
'Let them go,' said Farfalla. i think they're safe enough; I
think the pirates can run faster than they can.'
And Hearst, scanning the battlefield once more, saw that Farfalla was right. Alish's army would never stop until it was inside Androlmarphos.
He had won victory.
He still held his sword in his left hand. Now, he sheathed it.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
With the battle over, Farfalla's historians began the task of extracting, from the day's shambling slaughter, an elegant tale of military genius suitable for the edification of posterity.
Meanwhile, Miphon took over the marquee on the burial mound, and there he worked with his saws and knives, probes and pliars, needles and bandages -stitching, padding, splinting and amputating, helped by a team of assistants and juniors.
Arms and legs were carried out by the bucketful.
Later, when the most serious wounds had been attended to, they would treat lesser injuries such as bruises, using leeches to draw out the blood from swollen knees and so forth.
Remote from this activity, Hearst searched amongst the dead and wounded for Elkor Alish. He had seen Alish's banner go down, and had presumed Alish to be dead or injured – but was coming to believe that Alish must have been amongst those who had escaped.
The last place Hearst searched was the growing pile of corpses on the burial mound – men who had died while waiting for treatment, or had expired as a shattered limb was being amputated. From the marquee itself came piteous screams as some poor wretch was attended to by Miphon or one of his helpers.
His search completed, Hearst walked amongst the wounded. Sometimes a hand would reach for his, and he would grasp it: sometimes realising he was holding the hand of one soon to die. Some bravos, grinning through masks of blood, congratulated him on leading them to victory. Some sat silent, white-faced, hardly moving, blank eyes staring at nothing. Others were noisy.
Hearst had seen all this before, in the Cold West and elsewhere: was familiar with the wet sheen of intestines, the massive blue-black crush injuries caused by weapons battering armour, found no novelty in a horse-trampled man spitting blood or the sight of bone and tooth visible through a sword-sliced cheek.
