Reaction to the ominous portent was quick back at the camp. The returning militia found no one except those too old or sick to work for Tylocost. The rest had abandoned their tents and lean-tos, seeking the imagined protection of the Juramona ruins.
Tol deployed his raw troops in company blocks of one hundred men. He spread sixty hand picked men, all young, in a skirmish line a hundred paces in front of his foot soldiers.
Although he had a horse, Tol chose to lead on foot. Zala, white-faced with worry, stuck to him like dew on a leaf.
The dust column died away. The horsemen had stopped.
Tylocost appeared, striding through the trampled grass. His floppy gardener’s hat shaded his face, and he gripped not a sword or spear but his long walking stick.
“Poor sports, these nomads, coming up on our undefended side,” he said. “Still, what else can you expect from barbarian-”
“Shut up,” Tol said. To Zala’s amusement, the elf obeyed.
A covey of partridges flew up from the tall grass a long bowshot away. Tol drew Number Six.
“Skirmish line, kneel.” He didn’t shout. A calm, even voice was needed to steady his men. All went down on one knee, including Tylocost and Zala.
“Present arms.”
His skirmishers, armed with salvaged pikes, extended their weapons, sweaty hands gripping the fire-blackened poles too tightly. Tol suddenly wished Kiya was at his side. Her unfailingly accurate bow and unflappable calm would have been a welcome addition to this pitiful force.
A distorted wail rose from the plain. It began as a single voice, then others joined in.
Several of the men closest to Tol began to shift nervously. The unease spread outward, along the skirmish line.
“Tylocost, did I ever tell you how I acquired this dwarf steel blade?” Tol said conversationally.
Never taking his eyes off the horizon, the elf replied, “No, my lord, you never did.”
“It was in the Harrow Sky hill country, after the surrender of Tarsis.”
As Tol continued to speak, his voice carrying, the general nervousness visibly lessened, but he didn’t get to finish his story. From where the partridges had flown now rose a swarm of nomads. Tol knew this trick. Short-legged nomad ponies had been trained to crawl on their bellies while their riders crawled alongside. When they were close enough to charge, man mounted horse and both sprang up.
The abrupt appearance of the enemy, seemingly from nowhere, drew gasps from the defenders. More than one of the skirmishers showed signs of panicking.
“Stand fast!” Tol barked, raising his voice now. “Run now and they’ll kill us all! Remember: we must stand together!”
The enemy came on, screaming. Again, Tol called for his men to stand fast, but his mind was busy reckoning the numbers. Only eighty or ninety were approaching. The others lurked out of sight.
The nomads covered the ground quickly. They made straight for Tol’s line, confident they could ride down the few, widely spaced foot soldiers. The upraised pikes should have given them pause, but they had beaten Ergothians before, and in greater numbers than this. Howling and waving their swords, the nomads kept coming.
“Aim for the riders not their animals,” Tol said.
The first wave of horsemen ran themselves straight onto the skirmishers’ pikes. A score of nomads and their horses fell. The impact drove the Ergothians back, and many lost their pikes as the impaled riders fell.
“Fall back to me!” Tol ordered. Terrified, the skirmishers formed a knot around him, and Tol told them, “Don’t just stand there! If you’ve lost your pike, draw your sword!”
There was no more time for orders as the second wave of nomads broke over them. Tol warded off a blow from one rider, ducked a second, then delivered a sideways slash that emptied the saddle of a third attacker. When the nomad hit the ground, Tol planted a foot on his chest and stabbed him through the throat.
Something snagged his leather jerkin. He turned to find a nomad swinging a saber at him. Zala dashed by Tol, her sword pointed, and ran the attacker through the ribs. Tol acknowledged her help with a quick wave, then faced new enemies.
More from self-preservation than training, the skirmishers formed a tight circle to fend off the horsemen, who continued to gallop around them, yelling and taking opportunistic cuts at the Ergothians. Bowmen could have picked off the nomads at their leisure, but what few archers there were Tol had sent to guard Tylocost’s work party.
A bold rider, full of battle-lust, plunged straight into the ring of desperate foot soldiers. Tol’s newly minted warriors cringed before his mount’s flailing hooves, but Tylocost stepped up and thrust his blunt stick at the man’s face. The attack caught the nomad squarely on the chin, and he flew backward off his horse. Neck broken, he was dead by the time he hit the ground.
The fight went on until, as at some silent signal, the nomads suddenly withdrew. Tol sent his skirmishers back to Wilfik’s line. A third of their number remained behind, dead in the torn-up, bloody grass.
Wilfik, good soldier that he was, had not broken ranks to rescue Tol’s company. He held the Juramona Militia in line as the retreating skirmishers filtered back among them.
“Brisk set-to,” he observed, pale eyes fixed on his men.
“They’re aggressive all right,” Tol agreed. He was covered in sweat and blood, the latter not his. Zala, her sword gripped in both hands, stared with wide eyes at the plain. She, too, was spattered with the blood of others. Tylocost pushed her blade down gently.
“Draw a breath,” he advised. “You’re safe for the moment.”
A moment was all they had before the full complement of nomads came charging out of the dry creek. About five hundred of them this time, Tol noted, taking grim satisfaction at the accuracy of his earlier estimate. There were men and women both, all furious at their initial repulse.
“Companies, present!”
The Ergothians held a numerical advantage. They were nine hundred eighty-eight strong, although only a fraction were experienced warriors. At Tol’s order, they presented their spears and a thorny hedge blossomed in the front of each block of one hundred men.
“Standfast!”
To the experienced eyes of Tol, Tylocost, and several others, it was obvious they faced members of several nomad tribes. Some of the oncoming riders were covered head to toe in buckskin, others fought bare-chested. Hair was long, either braided or loose, or heads were shaved, then painted or covered by leather skullcaps. Their favored weapon was the saber, much like those wielded by the Imperial hordes, although some carried the short bow or light, throwing spear. Fully a third of the attackers were female-as formidable in battle as their male comrades. Like the Dom-shu, some of the nomad tribes made little distinction between male and female warriors; it was skill that mattered, not gender.
Tol sheathed Number Six and took up a pike. Zala stood on his left, trembling. On his right, Tylocost leaned casually on his staff.
“One charge is all we’ll get,” the elf said.
Wilfik looked back over his shoulder. “Eh? How do you know?”
“I’ve been fighting human nomads since long before you were born,” Tylocost replied. “They’re fierce, but they don’t have the determination to stand and fight it out with steadfast troops. If we don’t give way, they’ll give up.”
“Ten gold pieces says you’re wrong!” Wilfik said, eyes glinting beneath his fearsome brows.
The Silvanesti nodded. “Accepted.”
The enemy was closer now, their screeching cries audible over the pounding of their horses’ hooves.
It was too much for one company of the militia. The Seventh, to the right of Tol’s position and some forty paces away, threw down their pikes, turned tail, and ran. Wilfik bellowed curses to no avail.
Half the nomads veered, heading toward that gap in the formation. Immediately, Tol ordered the three leftmost companies to advance as they swung right. The two companies on the far right, isolated by the desertion of th
eir comrades, were given leave to fall back, but in a slow and orderly fashion.
With the lines seemingly giving way before them, even more horsemen concentrated on the gap yawning ahead. The nomads had no formation, no discipline. None of them noticed the troops on the left moving out and arcing around them. None of them noticed that the ground over which they galloped sloped gradually upward, slowing their charge.
Tol ordered the two retreating companies to halt. Their lines were ragged, and they could barely hear him over the din, but they stopped. In the next moment, they were engulfed by rampaging horsemen.
The rest of the nomad column hit Tol’s position. For an endless time, there was nothing in the world but screams, rearing horses, and the clash of arms, but slowly, very slowly, the hundred-man companies began to push the horsemen back. The block of Ergothians with Tol maneuvered to strike the nomads from behind. On the far left wing, the last company jogged through the dust to close in.
At last the nomads realized their peril. Those at the rear of the melee warned their fellows: they were surrounded by solid phalanxes. The nomads tried to break away, but engaged on two sides, they could not. Finally, the center of the mass of horsemen slashed their way through and galloped away.
It was a heady sight for the militia. Their enemy was in flight. Two militia companies opened ranks and gave chase, cheering in triumph. Tol shouted himself hoarse calling them back, but they either didn’t hear or wouldn’t heed him. As he feared, the retreating nomads abruptly wheeled their ponies and attacked, hacking down scores of the running Ergothians. The heedless militiamen, scattered and isolated from their fellows, were easy prey.
The surviving soldiers came streaming back to Tol. He ordered two companies who’d held formation to move forward and fend off the pursuers. With their foe regrouping, the nomads abandoned the fight and rode for the western horizon.
The battle was done. In moments, the breathless chaos of combat had given way to abrupt calm. Agonized voices groaned for water. Dust hung in a red haze over the field.
The victorious foot soldiers started back toward camp, desperate for drink and attention to their injuries. Tol, Wilfik, and the other officers went quickly among the staggering ranks, shouting anew.
“Back in line! No one dismissed you! Get back in line! This retreat could be a feint!”
Cuffed and shoved by their furious officers, the men gradually returned to formation. Tol stalked up and down the line, glaring at his troops.
“What have I told you, day in and day out, since this began? Stay together! The only way men on foot can fight and win against horsemen is if they stay together!” He wove his fingers together and shook his hands at them, bellowing, “Together!”
He pointed down the hill to where many of the militia had fallen. “Do you see them? They were so pleased by their little victory, they broke formation and chased the enemy. Now they’re dead! Those are your comrades, your brothers, lying lifeless in the dirt! That will happen to all of you if you dare part ranks in the presence of the enemy again!”
Silence fell over the battlefield. Tol kept them there, standing shoulder to shoulder under the midday sun, while he hammered home the lesson. What must they always do? he would roar. Stay together, a few voices croaked in reply. Again, he shouted the question, and again, until every voice joined in the reply.
Tol knew their throats were parched from thirst. So was his. He knew their hands were blistered, arms and backs aching from the unaccustomed exercise. And more, he knew their heads reeled from all they’d been through. Still, they had to learn this lesson. Their lives depended on it.
He dispatched Wilfik and the Second Company to recover the dead and wounded, Juramonan and nomad alike. Much useful information might be gathered from the enemy, whether living or dead. He then ordered the First Company to fall out. The men in question looked at each other dazedly for moment, then shuffled out of line and back to camp.
Once the First had departed, Tol heard a low sound behind him and realized Zala was still on the battlefield. She sat in the grass, holding her head in her hands. She looked up at him, her eyes red-rimmed.
“Horrible,” she whispered.
Tylocost was some thirty yards south, standing among those who’d fallen in the first clash. Leaving the three remaining companies still standing at attention, Tol walked through the dead men and horses until he reached the elf general.
“Some are alive,” Tylocost said, indicating wounded nomads moaning among the dead. “They can be questioned.”
The Third Company carried the injured nomads to the village and kept them under guard. As the enemy wounded were pulled from beneath their fallen horses, Tylocost reminded Tol of another problem that must be dealt with: the Seventh Company’s desertion.
“I know,” Tol said tiredly. “But I can’t afford to make examples of one hundred men.”
“You need not hang them all. One in ten should be sufficient.”
Cruel as it sounded, Tylocost’s suggestion was quite lenient by Ergothian standards. In the Imperial Army, one man in three would have been beheaded for desertion in the face of the enemy. But the Juramonans weren’t true soldiers, Tol pointed out, not yet. They could hardly be expected to act like professionals when many had touched a pike for the first time only days ago. Still, discipline must be served, lest the example of the panicked company spread to the rest. Those who’d run away had to be punished, not for their good, but for their fellows who’d stood firm.
Wilfik arrived and offered his commander a skin of water.
“No sign of the savages,” he said, grinning. Two of his teeth had been broken put years before, giving him a gap-toothed smile. Slanting a look at the Silvanesti, he added, “I owe you ten gold pieces, elf!”
Tol passed the skin to Tylocost. “How many dead?” he asked Wilfik.
“Forty-two of our men, and sixty-six wounded to varying degrees. I count thirty-five nomads dead.” Wilfik’s black-bearded grin faded. “We also have fourteen prisoners.”
“Keep them under tight guard. I’ll want to interrogate them.”
Tol started back to the waiting army, but Wilfik caught his arm.
“Some of the prisoners are known to us, my lord. They looted Juramona, murdered many. Our men want to see them pay for that!”
“They’re prisoners of war,” Tol replied firmly. “I order them spared. They can give us valuable information about the larger bands of nomads.”
Tylocost fell in step beside Tol. Together they crossed the field toward the three companies still standing at attention.
“The deserters, my lord?” Tylocost said relentlessly. “One in ten?”
Tol halted. “Very well. See to it. One in ten-but no more, understand?”
With a nod, the elf departed. Tol studied his retreating back. Was that a smile on Tylocost’s face as he turned away?
Forty of the militia had collapsed from heat and fatigue while they’d waited for Tol’s return. They had to be carried by their comrades when Tol at last ordered the men back to camp. Ragged cheers greeted the victors. The aged, the young, and the infirm were buoyed by the sight of the fearsome nomads fleeing from their former victims. Tol’s name was chanted, but once he started shouting orders, the survivors of Juramona fell to, bringing food, water, and medicine to their defenders.
The captives were taken to a ruined stone house in Juramona. Fourteen rangy nomads-five women and nine men-sat disconsolately as glaring militiamen stood guard on the low walls surrounding them. Most of the nomads had minor wounds.
“Who is chief among you?” Tol called out.
Fourteen pairs of sullen eyes gazed at him, but no one answered. Tol repeated his question more sternly, and a blond youth with sword cuts on both shoulders spoke.
“Our chief is Tokasin,” he said. “He will hear of this outrage, and his wrath will be terrible!”
Tol laughed. “Every nomad in Ergoth will hear about this day. That’s for certain! Your days of terror are coming t
o an end!”
A black-haired woman with blue tattoos on her cheeks asked, “Who are you, grasslander? You’re not one of these sheep.”
He told them. From their nervous shifting, they obviously recognized his name.
Although he asked several times where their chief was, they would say no more. He ordered they be given food and water, but no treatment for their wounds until they decided to talk. The sergeant of the guard he warned to be alert for any who might show a change of heart.
Feeling bolstered, Tol returned to camp. On the way he saw soldiers routing out Seventh Company deserters who were hiding in the town’s ruins. The militia men had no qualms about arresting their former comrades. Their own lives had been put at risk when the Seventh ran away, and they were none too gentle about catching the cowards who had endangered them. Near the ruins of the town wall, a gang of workmen was knocking together salvaged timbers in an open area. As he passed this gallows, Tol’s fragile confidence gave way to gloom.
Zala, freshly scrubbed, was waiting for him at his shelter. She had bandages, a jar of ointment, and a basin of clean water. She ordered him to take off his jerkin and let her inspect any damage. Amused by her imperious tone, he did so, and she commenced scrubbing his back.
“Ow! What is that, sharkskin?” he complained.
“Quiet!” She resumed scrubbing at the dirt and blood with the coarse bit of wet cloth. “Some warrior! Can’t take a little cleaning!” She resumed with a vengeance.
The washing revealed that Tol hadn’t so much as a scratch. Zala muttered something about luck, and he smiled. Kiya was always saying he was the luckiest dolt the gods ever made.
Despite the roughness of her ministrations, Tol found his eyelids growing heavy. He hadn’t tasted battle in six years, and no amount of wood-chopping in the Great Green could substitute for the adrenaline rush of open combat. Exhaustion claimed him. His chin dropped to his chest.
Zala stepped back and regarded him in amazement. He was snoring! The great ox was asleep!
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