Great King_s war k-2

by Roland Green

The Harphaxi artillery was notoriously slow to re-load; it was safe to use against them tactics that would have been suicidal against Hostigi field guns. Besides, Kalvan knew the only chance of keeping any initiative he'd take with the counterattack was to hit the enemy whenever and wherever he popped up. The Hostigi couldn't lose this battle, Kalvan suspected, but he was damn sure he wasn't going to give the Harphaxi a chance to get too many of their men away.

  Those thoughts took Kalvan halfway to the guns. At that point a light piece banged off on the left; the trooper riding behind Major Nicomoth suddenly had no head and Nicomoth had most of the troopers' brains splattered over his armor. The Major shouted, "Down Styphon!" again and put his horse up to a gallop.

  Several pistols and arquebuses went off among the Harphaxi guns. One gunner jumped to the breech of his piece to rally his comrades and was promptly shot down. Then Nicomoth, who had drawn half a dozen horse lengths in front of Kalvan, was in among the gunners; he timed his reining-in so well that he sabered two of them before they realized he was within striking distance.

  Kalvan swung wide to the left; Major Nicomoth was one of the best swordsmen in Hostigos and would need no help from his King. Somewhat to Kalvan's surprise the smoke and dust were not so thick here and he found himself with a clear shot at a cluster of frantic artillerymen. He aimed a pistol at the man holding the rammer and fired. Not entirely to Kalvan's surprise the gunner went down; here-and-now horsepistols had barrels nearly two-feet long and with rifling added they were more accurate than the Police.38s and Army.45s he'd used back home.

  He emptied another saddle pistol and then his boot pistols, before he decided to cease fire and reload. There were no more targets anyway; his Horseguards were all around the guns, taking surrender oaths from the surviving artillerymen. Nicomoth was ordering latecomers to search for the gun teams and a troop of First Dragoons had ridden up from somewhere and was awaiting orders.

  Kalvan told them to dismount and send patrols to the tree line behind the guns to see what lay on the other side. It probably wasn't a canyon a thousand feet deep, but Kalvan couldn't see or hear anything to prove otherwise. His scouts were good, but they were hampered by the lack of good local maps; he knew that in the area west and south of Lancaster there was no lack of canyons a hundred feet deep. Note: As soon as the new University opens its doors, add a class on topographical maps to the curriculum-even if I have to teach it myself!

  The appearance of Hostigi dragoons on the other side of the trees was greeted with a burst of musketry. Kalvan's men were closing up when two dragoons staggered back through the trees holding a wounded comrade between them and gasping, "Harphaxi! Harphaxi! The Household Guard and all the Lancers."

  "Any other chief captains?" Kalvan was asking when another burst of musketry sounded, then went on to become the steady hammering of massed infantry fire.

  Kalvan backed his horse away from the trees in case the Harphaxi were launching an attack and would suddenly burst out into the open at point-blank range. Then he grinned and relaxed. In between the spurts of firing, he could hear the unmistakable cries of "Down Styphon!"

  Kalvan dismounted half his Horseguards to support the dragoons and led the rest towards the left in a search for a way through the trees. A cluster of mounted men materialized out of the dust ahead; Kalvan had his pistol drawn before he recognized Hestophes. The General was splattered with blood and his sword was caked with it; the edge looked as if he'd used it to chop wood. His face was covered with a dry reddish mud of blood and dust, but from the way he was grinning Kalvan doubted he was wounded.

  "Your Majesty! It had come down to cold steel in the last attack when you hit the Harphaxi from the rear. The attack on Tavern Hill died out, which is just as well; some of the mercenaries found the wine cellar and I wasn't sure if they could tell friend from foe. We used the cavalry to clean out the center in Barn Hill and by then their horses were too blown to charge again. So I left them and the mercenaries in our position and marched the infantry to where I thought we might find you."

  "Good work," Kalvan said. "But, please, Hestophes, try not to get killed in the rest of the battle. I'm going to make you a baron if it's the last edict I ever sign."

  Hestophes' grin turn into a gape of surprise. After he regained his composure, he said, "Well then, I'll have to keep Your Majesty alive, as well. So, Sire, if you will-"

  "Hestophes, if you start playing mother hen, I'll write out the edict here and now and give it to someone to take to Rylla. That way it won't matter if I survive or not."

  Kalvan could make out the blush on Hestophes' face, even through the grime. "Very well, Your Majesty. I also picked up a Hostigi militia regiment, somewhere over there," he added, with a wave to the northwest. "Captain Lysentes met the wrong end of a halberd, I didn't want to leave them alone."

  "Damn!" Kalvan said.

  Lord Lysentes hadn't been any military genius, but he'd been intelligent enough to learn. He'd also kept his eye on his uncle, Baron Sthentros, to make sure the Baron didn't do something stupid out of jealousy of Kalvan. Lysentes had kept an eye on Sthentros without Kalvan, Skranga or Klestreus having to do anything that would ruffle the feathers of the Hostigi nobility.

  This was no time to think about politics, not in the middle of a battle, even if he was Great King and politics was part of the job. Kalvan listened to the fight on the other side of the trees and discovered both the firing and the shouts of "Down Styphon!" were dying away.

  "Let's join the infantry."

  By the time they'd done that the Hostigi were no longer entirely infantry; a troop of the Second Royal Horseguards and most of the First Dragoons had joined in the final stages of the fight, helping to keep the enemy penned. The Hostigi musketeers fired volley after volley into the Harphaxi position, cutting them to pieces. Soon afterward, the last of the Harphaxi infantry died or surrendered; the halberdiers of the Harphaxi Household Guard mostly died. A few surviving infantrymen were running off to the south and Kalvan had to hold Nicomoth from turning his troopers loose on them.

  "From the dust clouds I'd say the Harphaxi rearguard is somewhere off there." It struck Kalvan that this battle might be known forever after to its veterans as the Battle of Somewhere off There. "Besides, I think we're going to have visitors here in a little while." He pointed to a glittering mass of heavy cavalry on the hillside about a mile to the east. From this side of the copse, the fields hadn't yet been scoured bare by the marching armies and the dust was less choking.

  "That must be the Royal Lancers of Hos-Harphax. Their honor won't let them leave the field without charging us."

  Nicomoth's reply was a blissful smile. The idea of crossing swords with the highest nobility of a Great Kingdom was irresistible. Not even the treasures of Balph could have tempted him into riding off the field now.

  Not that it would take some lobster-headed notion of honor to produce an attack on the Hostigi. As far as Prince Philesteus would be able to see, Kalvan's force of infantry was the primary obstacle to the retreat of thousands of Harphaxi to the north and east, not to mention being no match for a charge by heavy cavalry. Kalvan wished he had about a thousand more cavalry of his own, preferably under Phrames-and where was the Count anyway?

  At least he could hope that knightly quarrels over precedence would delay the Harphaxi charge until he was ready to receive it. Certainly, Hestophes was trying to be in three places at once, organizing the position with five six-pounders and the Hostigi Militia on the right. Five regiments and ten to twelve mercenary companies to hold the center; Kalvan with the Horseguards and dragoons on the left by the trees. The infantry were arranged in lines of staggered squares of musketeers and pikemen, with the halberdiers in among the musketeers for stiffening.

  Damn the smiths for dragging their feet on standard fittings for bayonets so that proper ring bayonets were at least a year away! Maybe plug bayonets would be worthwhile after all; every infantryman carried a knife of some sort…

  Distant trumpet
s sounded and sunlight flamed on dancing lance tips and silvered and gilded armor suddenly on the move. The Royal Lancers were charging. Behind them came five squadrons of the Royal Harphaxi Pistoleers, each with a red-bordered yellow sash and an armored gauntlet holding a pistol followed by a thousand mercenary cavalry, half with lance and half with pistol and musketoon. The total was about thirty-five hundred heavy cavalry, most of it the cream of the Harphaxi Army. The front rank of the Harphaxi line was a riot of color; each lance had its own pennon and any nobleman of the rank baron or above had his own personal banner carried by a man-at-arms. Kalvan imagined the Harphaxi line looked very much like that of the French at Crecy or Agincourt before the English longbowmen went to work.

  Hestophes had taken a position among the guns on the left. When the Lancers were eight hundred yards away his sword flashed down and all five guns let fly at once. Long range for case shot, Kalvan thought-then saw Harphaxi chargers bowled over in a way that told him that they were firing round shot. Hestophes must have been gambling on the six-pounders' rate of fire to let him get off a few salvos of round shot before the Harphax rode up close enough to use case shot. Kalvan only hoped the gunners could do the job.

  Hestophes hit the lancers with two salvos of round shot before switching to case. Between the roars of the cannons Kalvan could hear the screams of wounded men and horses. The Lancers left at least eighty men and horses behind and briefly spread out to avoid trampling their casualties. The more optimistic among them couched their lances.

  Kalvan hoped Hestophes hadn't accidentally scared them into dispersing so much they'd make a less vulnerable target for the guns, then saw he needn't have worried. The first two ranks were thickening up again into a solid wall of flesh and armor, decorated with crests and coats-of-arms. Every noble house in Hos-Harphax must have a son or nephew in the charge, he thought, and every house must want its banner first into the Hostigi lines.

  Five hundred yards, four hundred-Kalvan saw the Lancers wore full armor, like Fifteenth Century knights. They were magnificent; any back home museum director would have died of joy at the sight of such a collection of pristine armor.

  The Lancers themselves were about to die of something else-being a hundred years out of date for a charge against massed, disciplined infantry with muskets and pikes. Three hundred yards, two hundred "Down Styphon!"

  The six-pounders crashed. Sunlight blazed into Kalvan's eyes from pike points and halberd heads swinging into fighting position. Then a thousand muskets and five hundred arquebuses left fly so nearly at once that the sound hammered Kalvan's ears like single gigantic discharge. The Harphaxi line was a target a blind man couldn't have missed; it was so densely packed that it not only couldn't evade but also blocked the riders behind it when it went down. The whole leading third of the Lancers fell into a hideous tangle of men and horses, mostly fallen, many writhing and screaming, a few already silently being crushed to pulp under flailing hooves and rolling bodies. A suit of armor was little protection if a one-ton horse mad with pain rolled over it.

  The Harphaxi left tried to wheel and face the guns. They took another salvo of case shot at no more than two hundred yards while they were wheeling, but the survivors continued to charge the guns. What magnificent folly! thought Kalvan. By then the rightmost infantry regiment, Queen Rylla's Foot was moving forward to support the battery and stiffen the militia. That regiment is definitely going to get some kind of unit citation. Its muskets tore up the Harphaxi flank while the artillery hammered them in front and the attack melted away.

  This left a bend that was almost a gap in the Hostigi line and Kalvan saw Hestophes riding back and forth, shifting the King's Horseguards to cover the breaks. For about three minutes, only three of the five regiments were firing into the main body of the Harphaxi. Kalvan drew his sword, ready to lead the cavalry down to the aid of the infantry if the Harphaxi got to close quarters. Not all the dismounted men were dead or even disabled, and they were marching forth with a determination that would have been heroic if hadn't been so completely suicidal.

  Kalvan quickly saw the infantry didn't need help. The halberdiers of the King's Lifeguard were moving out into the open, swinging their axe-heads enthusiastically. This kept the ranks of Hostigi arquebusiers and musketeers from shooting, but not the rifle-armed marksmen in each company. They dropped back and aimed fire on any Harphaxi who wasn't being engaged by a halberdier.

  Meanwhile, the hammering of the Harphaxi continued, with the artillery now firing on the flank and the musketeers to their front. Kalvan saw one splendidly armored man-at-arms loose an arm to case shot, have a leg crushed under his horse, crawl out to be hit in the face by a musket ball and blinded, and be finished off by a halberd blow that split both his helm and his head wide open.

  Kalvan thought of five generations of Hapsburg and Burgundian knights dying miserably under the pikes and halberds of the Swiss; he hoped it wouldn't take the heavy cavalry that long to wise up here-and-now-even if their stupidity might make his job easier. He didn't want to watch too many more battles like this one.

  The Royal Lancers had lost too many captains to allow them to organize for another charge, but their honor would not let them retreat. The Royal Pistoleers and most of the mercenary cavalry weren't so badly hit, although too far out of effective range to do much harm with their pistols and musketoons. Kalvan saw several of their captains organizing a charge, using the Lancers as a shield to cover their movement. He ordered the First Royal Horseguard to mount up.

  The cannons were firing independently now. Kalvan hoped their fireseed was holding out.

  As the Pistoleers and the mercenaries began to work their way forward, they began to add surviving Lancers to their strength. They were moving slowly; the carnage around them and the surviving Lancers absorbed most of the Hostigi firepower. Kalvan saw Hestophes signaling frantically to the trumpeters to sound the recall so they could pull the maddened halberdiers out of the line of fire.

  The King's Lifeguards closest to the trumpeters responded first and quickly withdrew. Any of the other halberdiers couldn't or didn't want to hear and died in the first salvo. For once the Harphaxi got off lightly. Kalvan saw now that they were pressing home their charge at his center. Hestophes hadn't been sitting on his hands; the pikemen stood in ranks six deep, with the musketeers and arquebusiers in the rear. Hestophes guns fired a last ragged salvo; the Harphaxi line shuddered briefly, then crashed into the Hostigi pikes.

  The pike line wavered, buckled for a moment at the center, then stiffened as the rear ranks reformed. The musketeers ran up and down the files, but their effect was diminished by their reduced fire. The artillery didn't dare fire for fear of hitting friend as well as foe. A few halberdiers were fighting in the front ranks, but too many had been killed during the withdrawal. Only the King's Second Lifeguards had any great numbers of halberdiers left but they were pinned down on the right, keeping the Harphaxi from taking Hestophes' six-pounders and turning them on the Hostigi.

  The entire Hostigi center was being pushed into a giant crescent as the men in the middle slowly gave way before the point-blank fire of the Royal Pistoleers. Some of the musketeers were picking up fallen pikes or using swords like Spanish sword and buckler men, but not nearly as successfully. It said a lot for the esprit de corps and Hestophes' ability as a commander, but Kalvan could see they weren't going to contain the Harphaxi press for long.

  Kalvan wished fervently that Count Phrames or somebody would come charging through the trees like the US Cavalry, but he knew it wasn't in the cards. It was up to him with his little cavalry force to turn the battle or face the first major defeat of the day. He didn't need to remind himself how little Hos-Hostigos could afford that.

  Kalvan now commanded about two hundred of the Royal Horseguards as well as the First Dragoons with nearly their full strength of two-hundred mounted pikemen and two hundred mounted musketeers and the surviving Ulthori heavy horse. He divided the dragoons, sending the pikemen behind the Host
igi lines to reinforce the beleaguered center, leaving two-thirds of the musketeers to remain behind to hold the present position. The sixty best riders among the musketeers were about to become temporary light cavalry. Kalvan convinced the Horseguards to give up their extra pistols by giving the musketeer captain the two from his boot tops.

  In the few minutes it took to give the orders and mount up, the Hostigi center had begun to look like a classic double-envelopment. It would have been one, too, if the pike line hadn't been in so much danger of breaking. With reinforcements in the right places and Kalvan's small cavalry force to close the noose, they just might pull it off.

  If they'd didn't-well, he hoped that Harmakros and Phrames had learned their lessons well. Rylla's and his unborn child's life depended upon it. For his big roll of the dice, Kalvan decided to ignore Nicomoth's protests and lead the charge himself. The sudden appearance of Great King Kalvan, or the "Daemon Kalvan" as the Styphoni were calling him, just might give the Hostigi a needed psychological edge. Dralm only knew, they needed any and every kind of edge they could get now!

  He raised a saber in one hand and a rifled pistol in the other.

  "Down Styphon!'

  Thunderous shouts of "Kalvan!" and "Hostigos!" rose from behind him and then the even more thunderous sound of hundreds of horses on the move. The Hostigi and their horses were comparatively fresh; they hit the Harphaxi rear like a blacksmith's hammer striking soft steel. The Harphaxi line wavered and buckled as horse-pinned troopers tried to turn their mounts. For a moment, Kalvan's worst fear was that the Hostigi cavalry might push the Harphaxi right through the weakening pike line. Then he saw the Harphaxi rear going from tightly packed to crushed. The pikes were holding; the jaws of double-envelopment were closing.

  Two or three companies of Harphaxi mercenaries managed to escape before the jaws snapped shut. "Dralm blast-it!" Kalvan cried. He'd wanted to trap hem all.

  Suddenly he was in the thick of it: the first four men Kalvan killed didn't even realize he was behind them; others knew but had no room to fight, nor any place to run. It was like one of the Old West buffalo hunts, with the buffalo hunters circling the herd and slaughtering them with Sharps' rifles, except the Harphaxi stayed in their saddles and kept fighting until they were shot off their mounts, falling and jerking to join the writhing and frozen bodies on the bloody churned ground-which to Kalvan looked like the dumping ground of every butcher shop and morgue in the Northern Kingdoms!