Next I found Shela standing next to Dilvesh, neither of them talking. She’d dismounted and had one hand on a tree, the other on her belly. She wore her riding leathers, the halter-top and skirt slit up the side.
I called her name and she ignored me. I called her again, louder, and with a flicker in her eye I knew that she had heard. I waited impatiently, not wanting to interrupt whatever she’d involved herself in. It took several minutes but felt like an hour.
“What?” she asked, finally, her hair already damp with sweat.
“You need to go,” I told her.
She shook her head; her lips were held tight in a line, her foot planted in the ground. I saw the defiance in her eyes and the set of her face. I am sure she saw it in mine, too.
“You aren’t endangering our child’s life,” I said. “We may not walk away from this.”
“If I go, I take you with me,” she said.
“I will take the skin off your ass.”
“So long as you’re there to do it.”
“I need her now,” Dilvesh said. I looked from her to him, his hair damper than hers, his skin more flushed. Obviously they were working some spell – I never thought they could do that sort of thing together.
“We are slowing them,” she answered me, before I could ask. “We can turn the very forest against them. He has the ability, I have the power.”
“You need the time,” Dilvesh told me. He looked into my eyes. “And you need to go, Lupus.”
He put his hand on my knee, and this time another held my eyes, reassured me because my confidence had failed me and needed it. “You need to go.”
They were every bit as right as I had been and we could spare no time to argue, at least not then.
I turned Blizzard back to the army, digging like terriers into the glen, and ran right into Genna.
I didn’t need this now.
“Look,” I began.
“You know the report – you know they’re coming?”
I looked down at her upturned face. Finally I saw the professional killer I’d met in Conflu.
“I know,” I said.
“Can your groups of ten defeat them?”
I looked into her eyes. She searched my face. I didn’t know why.
“In full strength, I would say that the Wolf Soldiers could take them, especially with Aschire archers. These soldiers are my best, but there are just one hundred of them. I don’t think the Free Legion soldiers can take them man-to-man.”
“Is that why we’re doing your biff – wack?”
“Yes.”
She took a moment to frame what she wanted to ask me. Looking up, I saw Karl directing my men. I raised my heels to kick Blizzard into a trot.
“Lupus,” she said. I looked back down at her.
“You love her?”
Of all the freaking times! I kicked Blizzard but I felt her hand on my stirrup. I reined him in and looked back down at her.
“Do you?”
It would be easier to answer her than not to. “Yes, Genna,” I said. “I love her. With all my heart, like I have never felt for another.”
I kicked Blizzard into a trot.
I’d adapted the small city from what I’d read about the Roman conquest of Gaul. We’d used it only as an exercise when we bivouacked up to now, but the Romans had originally adopted the practice to make legions more difficult to surprise at night. Night hadn’t fallen but I still believed that Imperial Rome had something to offer us.
Free Legion veterans hit the soft turf with shovels as my Wolf Soldiers began setting up stands of sharpened stakes in the ground. I had always wondered about that, even as I had included it in my own “small city.” What type of screaming moron would run headlong into a sharpened stick? They wouldn’t, of course, but would hesitate instead and move around the spears and ruin their charge, or else be forced into them in an all-out charge by the men behind them.
The Free Legion had brought a thousand horse, but my Wolf Soldiers were infantry. I rode Blizzard, the most destructive force I knew of on four hooves. As Ancenon, Nantar, Arath and I conferred and Thorn and D’gattis (of all people) directed the excavation of the small city, it became obvious who would lead the horse.
“I am not going to kid you, Lupus, you have the most dangerous job,” Arath told me. “They have only foot troops, but even still, the horse are likely to be overwhelmed.”
“Not with me leading them,” I lied. “I’ll take it. We can head out into the forest, come back in a wide arc, and catch them in a pincer.”
“A what?” Ancenon asked. Unlike the Prince to admit that he didn’t know something, but these were desperate times. “A pincher? What is that?”
Earth-slang. “A pincer,” I corrected him. I made a claw of my hand. “Like this? Like a crab has.”
“You plan to do that with your hand?” Arath furrowed his brow. It often occurred to me that if I acted more and explained less, then I would get a lot more done, and sooner. Instead, I shook my head.
“A pincer catches a crab’s prey by coming around on either side of it, and squeezing it,” I explained. “A pincer movement involves hitting your enemy from both sides or from front and back at the same time.”
Now they were nodding. Actually the Soviet army had used this movement against the Germans in World War II. The Russians had the advantages of superior numbers but not training – I hoped it would work for us in the reverse.
Assuming our training proved superior, of course.
Arath took me by my upper arm and drew me close. “Do you remember the lances?” he asked.
I raised an eyebrow. “I do,” I said, “but you weren’t there.”
He grinned. “Ah, but I saw it,” he confessed. “D’gattis watched you the entire time that day in Conflu. Well, those troops have practiced with lances.”
Son-of-a-bitch. I thought I was so cool.
“Thanks for telling me,” I said. “Well, the secret stays safe a little longer, anyway.”
He nodded. “I’m more worried about them seeing your squads,” Arath said. “A Confluni army that can defeat three times its number in conventional troops could remake war on Fovea.”
“Then we had best kill ‘em all,” Nantar said, grinning. “Leave no one to tell tales.”
I agreed with that. We spoke some more and coordinated our efforts. My twenty-three years made me the oldest Man. Ancenon had lived for centuries, D’gattis had seen Men born and die, and Drekk had seen fifty years, still none of them had much experience to share. The Confluni did nothing but fight. This would be our greatest challenge yet. My stomach churned at the thought that we would all likely die today.
Genna entered with Shela and Dilvesh while we argued.
“They’re coming,” Genna said. “Time is short.”
“I’ll take the horse around them,” I said, pulling my helmet from my belt.
“Wait,” Genna said. “Take the horse where?”
We explained the pincer movement. She got it faster than the rest of them.
“It won’t work,” she said.
“Why not?”
“They have scouts out,” said Genna.
“The woods are too thick, they will hear you,” Dilvesh said.
“Because it’s a stupid idea,” said Shela.
Got to love the support on the home front.
“You need to hide them in the forest, not move them,” Dilvesh said. “Then your plan might work.”
“I will find us a place,” Genna said. “I would be no good to you in the biff-wack, anyway.”
“I’ll stay outside as well,” Dilvesh said. “In the forest I am served by the Natural Trinity. In here – I am nothing in here.”
“Be of strong faith, my friends,” Ancenon informed us. Sometimes I forgot that he served as a priest of Adriam.
“We are in the hands of the All-Father, and by his will, we shall prevail!”
I went to Blizzard, saying nothing. For this trip I had remembered his bardi
ng, more for its decorative value than because I thought he needed it. Divine intervention?
War, I prayed, I need your help now, big time. You told me that your children don’t need you – well, this is your area of expertise – I am just a kibitzer here. Guide me, guide all of us, and give us the victory this day.
The second time I’d prayed to him. I hoped it wouldn’t be my last.
They marshaled on the edge of the clearing where we had built the small city. The woods gave them cover from our arrow fire. They had expected us to run, and the bivouac confused them.
I had taken my thousand and circled back around them, guided by Genna. She had found a smaller glen outside of the Confluni’s path, and Dilvesh had tangled enough brush and foliage between them and us that they would actually have to be coming from the larger clearing to get here. The Druid linked thoughts from my mind to Genna’s, our flying recon. By some spell, everything he saw, I saw, plus I saw everything I saw, as well. That sentence is in no way as confusing as seeing through two sets of eyes.
Yet he could maintain that relationship with Genna and I at the same time, tangle brush and elude the Confluni. What people these Druids were!
Shela stayed in the small city. I’d had to actually raise my hand to her to enforce my decree. I had agreed that we needed her, she would be as safe as possible.
The Sword of War sat light in my hand. Blizzard trembled with excitement. His barding shone bright in the sun. My Lancers were armed and ready – the first such force that Fovea had ever seen. We were packed tight in the glen and could smell each other’s sweat and fear. We would give them something to think about when the trouble began.
I watched a troop of two hundred Confluni soldiers move out into the open. Never one to mince words, Shela lifted her hand over her head and one of those fiery basketballs appeared in it. She hurled it at them and over half were dead before they thought to scatter. The rest retreated back into the woods.
I could be sure that D’gattis would be chewing Shela out now. I hoped he didn’t get too harsh with her, because I had a feeling we would really need D’gattis.
“That isn’t funny,” I heard in my head.
“Fuck you, Dilvesh –is that funny?” I thought back. I heard him chuckling in my mind. Blizzard pranced nervously beneath me. He felt ready, and he didn’t care for what.
With a roar, the Confluni emerged from the trees. We expected this. They would try to overwhelm us with superior numbers, but they wouldn’t come all at once. Let six thousand wear us out and, if needed, they could be supported with six thousand more.
Dilvesh and I saw men die on those spear points that we had set on the ground. Wolf Soldiers held the center where they overran the wall, squads of ten slicing away at the Confluni who had braved the spears or filled them with their dead and then pressed on over their comrades’ bodies and the dirt barricade. Over and over they fell back and pulled the advancing Confluni into the mass of Free Legion soldiers, to be slaughtered or pushed out over the barricade. From within the small city, five hundred Free Legion archers riddled the Confluni National Guard with arrows as lightning dripped from the sky into their mass.
In half an hour the attackers withdrew with less than half their numbers. Our losses were minimal. Spears were already being replaced and walls rebuilt in the small city.
They hadn’t committed their reserves, so we hadn’t entered the fray. We had lost about two hundred according to Dilvesh – the small city gave us the advantage that we needed. If the Confluni had been smart they would have staged a siege and starved us out – but we didn’t expect it. They couldn’t tolerate others on their land and we expected them to try to eradicate us. They still had more than twice our numbers.
I should have been found by now, but I hadn’t been. They were focused on us on the plain. I stored this away in the back of my mind in order to remember that I not be so focused on my goal that I would then forget my mission, as the CNG commander had.
“Genna has been killing their scouts,” Dilvesh informed me, sharing my thoughts. My heart pounded from fear and excitement but still it sent a shudder through me to share my thoughts. “She has ten to her name already, or you would have been found, Lupus.”
About an hour later what looked to be all of them came screaming out of the woods, this time armed with very long spears, most likely saplings or small trees that they had cut from the forest. Well planned - three or four men would use the spear like a battering ram, first to clear away the stakes at the dirt wall of the small city, then on my groups of ten. When the Wolf Soldiers fell, then it would be hand-to-hand fighting and the best chance that the Confluni had for victory.
Dilvesh made almost a third of those spears burn before they could make it to the walls. Someone inside the small city warped a portion of the rest, making them useless. Less than half of the Confluni spears made it to where the archers could get at their bearers, and then less than a tenth of what remained made it to the wall.
That left more than enough to clear out a huge portion of the defensive stakes and about half of my Wolf Soldier guard. Karl did a remarkable job just keeping the rest alive. He wheeled the remaining fifty to one side and surprised the oncoming Confluni with a hundred Free Legion soldiers with similar training – totally unexpected and, although not as well trained, a force to be reckoned with. The CNG were stalled just inside the walls of the small city but looking at a breach that they could hold and exploit.
I readied my men to advance.
“Genna says there are still about a thousand in reserve,” Dilvesh warned me.
“Foot soldiers?” I asked.
“Not mounted, but she can’t tell what sort of soldiers,” Dilvesh answered after a moment. “They are right between you and the glen.”
“Damn!” I thought, looking at the Confluni through Dilvesh’s eyes. They should be committing their reserves now. They should think they have us if they press their advantage with our small city opened.
A thousand Confluni troops would be able to hold me in the woods where my lancers didn’t have the full advantage of a mounted charge. I needed room to maneuver, and that meant I needed the Confluni out in the open. They all had to be committed for my charge to actually help my allies. Still, waiting is hard when your men, and your friends, are dying.
As the fighting raged and the Confluni offensive stalled at the walls of the small city, that remaining thousand stepped out into the plains. They were archers. That changed everything.
We had discussed this briefly, but we all knew what it meant if the Confluni had a strong force of archers that they could keep out of the general fight. Charging the archers would be a pointless suicide. Arrows fly faster than horses and, with the archers uncommitted like this I would have no chance with my men at overcoming them. My wife and unborn child waited on the other side of that charge – I would spend every man here and my own life it I could buy their safety with the sacrifice. However, against those archers, we would be dead before we could be of any help at all.
Our archers had to remove or lessen the threat from their archers, and that didn’t look likely. Half of our bowmen had dropped their bows and picked up swords to help with the defense of the small city. Nantar and Arath were going to have to reorganize the men, push back this offensive and get the archers to commit before we moved. While he did this, a thousand Confluni would be showing us the Fovean version of “death from above” as arrow fire arced past our lines and into the midst of our uncommitted troops.
A rally by our side didn’t look really likely right now. In my mind, I knew that Dilvesh agreed with me.
From the middle of our troops, Ancenon stood up and incanted a spell that brought down lightning on the archers. It dissipated well above the archers’ heads. The Confluni had been conserving their magic to shield their archers from the brunt of his attack. Ancenon struck again, and then Ancenon with D’gattis, but they were already exhausted from the fighting they had done and couldn’t overcome the Con
fluni defense.
Then Shela stood up with them. Either she’d been conserving her strength or she hadn’t needed to in a battle like this one. Power served her best when those around her had the same desires. She waved her index finger in a full circle above her head and pointed at the Confluni archers. Arrows leapt into the air from within what must have been every quiver on the Free Legion side and sped towards that final thousand who were keeping my men at bay. The Confluni archers were riddled by thousands of shafts – left with less than one man for every fifty.
And some sort of laser beam flew out of the woods and caught Shela right in the stomach. I saw her do a back flip through Dilvesh’s eyes – and then I saw no more.
I think I had been seven when I went berserk for the first time. It changed my whole life. It involved something stupid – a stolen toy, I think – but I kicked the ass of an older kid, much bigger than I, and his friends. He hadn’t expected it to go that way any more than I had.
Happened again in a soccer game. My best friend slept with my girlfriend and I kicked a soccer ball into his head. Nearly killed him
Since then I had resisted it. When the ensign in the Navy had shoved me and I decked him, I almost went berserk but I reined it in. It hurts your soul to be that way – don’t let anyone tell you different. You have to actually look at the most violent part of you and embrace it; tell it to take charge.
It doesn’t take the taste of blood – it can either come on by surprise or, when you’re older, it might take an actual, conscious desire to be as violent as you can possibly be and not care about the consequences.
I had that now. My world went red, righteous tears were already flowing from my eyes. Those bastards had killed my wife – my wife and child! No, nothing mattered now expect that every last one of them had to die.
I let it boil in me for a moment, let it fester, tasted it. My skin prickled from the tips of my toes to my fingers. Like a real wolf raising its hackles against an enemy, except that the real wolf just wanted to survive.
Dilvesh’s mind tried to withdraw from mine, seeing nothing that he could do to help me. I held him cruelly, not even knowing how I could do such a thing, as I spurred Blizzard forward. Dilvesh had argued for Shela to stay, let him witness my death as his own. Blizzard leapt from the ground into the forest, my lieutenants ordered the attack as I left them standing. I didn’t much care if any of them followed me or not. The odds remained about eight thousand Confluni to one of me, but that didn’t bother me.
Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles) Page 45
