The Crown and the Sword

by Doug Niles

  So the dwarves had chopped down hundreds of trees, while a whole regiment of militiamen—armed with picks and shovels instead of swords—followed along, digging and ditching and leveling out the path so the huge freight wagons could be hauled up into the foothills. Planks and logs were laid to smooth out the roughest parts of the road, while sturdy retaining walls were constructed on the steepest stretches, ensuring even a steady rainfall would not be enough to wash out the newly created road—a road created for a single, critical purpose.

  General Weaver pleaded for his Rose Knights from the Army of Palanthas to have the honor of striking the first blow in the morrow’s battle, and the army commander agreed.

  “Thank you, my lord—and I want you to know that this request comes not just from me, but from every one of my men. Too long we have waited in our city while the war raged across the mountains. We are eager to make our own contribution to the cause of Solamnia.”

  “That’s a pretty speech,” Jaymes remarked. “I have no doubt that your men will fight as well as you talk.”

  “I want you to know, sir,” said Weaver, “that we knights of Palanthas have chafed for a long time under the command of the lord regent. He might hold his title by birthright, but to us he does not embody the tenets of the knighthood. You, on the other hand, are a warrior that any man would feel honored to serve. Your example makes us believe that, perhaps, there’s hope we will once again have a nation to call our own.”

  Then the general drew himself up to his full height and clapped a fist to his chest. “My lord,” he declared, mustache quivering, “Est Sularus oth Mithas!”

  At the eleventh hour, the army was further augmented by a regiment of heavy infantry dispatched from Kaolyn. Wearing black plate mail armor, carrying an assortment of axes and wicked-looking battle hammers, the fighters marched into the camp singing a battle song and were cheerfully welcomed by the Solamnics and all of their allies.

  “I think old King Metast wants to protect his source of income,” Dram noted with a chuckle. He had told Jaymes about the transaction for Kaolyn steel, of course.

  “We can use their steel, and we can use their numbers,” the lord marshal noted with pleasure.

  At last, the road up the back of the ridge was completed, and the heavy wagons were hauled to the crest—though, for the time being, they parked just below the summit on the west side to avoid being seen from the enemy lines. The real battle would begin in the morning.

  The long night passed quietly. Those who knew how to write penned missives for home and helped their less literate comrades to compose brief notes as well.

  Jaymes himself walked calmly among the men of all four wings of his armies, speaking to knights and militia volunteers, lords and squires. He praised the work of the Rose Knights, congratulated the men of Solanthus and the Sword Army on their accomplishment in liberating that long-besieged city, encouraged General Dayr and the battered warriors of the Crown Army. The Freemen, his personal bodyguards, walked beside him and remained vigilant while the commander relaxed, joked, and shared a drink or a piece of bread with the men as he passed among them.

  The lord marshal himself made sure to get an unusual amount of rest, turning in before midnight and ordering that he not be disturbed until two hours before dawn. He pulled a thin blanket over himself, stretched out on his cot, and fell asleep immediately. His dreams were comforting, as he was visited by images of Coryn and oddly enough, Moptop Bristlebrow. Curiously, his new wife was as absent from his dreams as she was from his waking thoughts.

  When an orderly came to wake him at the designated time, Jaymes emerged from his tent refreshed. He broke his fast with a few pieces of bread and cheese and mounted his horse, riding among the camps, observing—and being observed—as the units assembled.

  By dawn, the knights—more than two thousand five hundred of them—had saddled their horses and formed up with lances and armor polished to a splendid shine, horses groomed and combed. Men led their horses by their long bridles, remaining dismounted until the moment of truth, when they took their places in the forefront of the army. The Palanthians under General Weaver formed a long front rank, while the Crown, Sword, and Rose contingents waited in three massive columns behind their comrades from the gleaming city on the bay. The Palanthian knights would strike in their long line, while the following columns maneuvered to seek gaps of opportunity in the enemy formations.

  “My Lord Marshal!”

  Jaymes looked up to see one of the Solanthian lords—Lord Martin—approaching on horseback. The nobleman’s expression was grim but excited. “I have another company of militia from the city … just reached camp last night. A thousand swords.”

  The lord marshal nodded approvingly. “We’ll hold them in reserve for now. But have them ready.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. And good luck, my lord,” said Martin before riding back to his own company—heavy infantry from the city, armed with halberds.

  Jaymes mounted his horse, the steadfast roan mare that had carried him for so many miles across the plain. Captain Powell and the Freemen, armed and alert, arrayed their mounts in a casual circle around the lord marshal. The army commander was about to ride out with his staff when there came a stir of excitement from the men nearby.

  “It’s the White Witch!” one exclaimed before glancing in chagrin at the lord marshal—who was known to disapprove of that appellation for the Lady Coryn.

  But Jaymes Markham was not paying any attention to the man. Instead, he was staring at the place where his men milled away from a swirling puff of sparkling air, clear proof of magic. The lord marshal dismounted as Coryn stepped forward from the shimmering air, the nearby soldiers scrambling to get out of her way. She walked up to him with a pensive look in her eyes but with the hint of a smile playing about her lips.

  He took her by the arms and looked at her closely. “I’m glad you’ve come,” he said. “I didn’t expect it—didn’t dare hope for it. But I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I helped you start this war,” she said simply. “The least I can do is be here to finish it.”

  “They’re going to come at me with a whole army of Salamis on horseback, eh?” Ankhar said with a chuckle. He was addressing Captain Blackgaard, who sat astride his black stallion next to his army commander. “Perhaps they forgot what your pikes did to them on the bank of the Vingaard, eh?”

  Blackgaard narrowed his eyes, studying the long line of armored riders, their lance tips raised so they sparkled in the new sunlight of the day. “I am not so sure about that, my lord. The Solamnics are stubborn, to a fault, but they are not fools. I doubt they will ever forget the crossing of the Vingaard River. However, I agree, we need to deploy our pikes in the front line.”

  The human captain gave the necessary orders, and his crack troops with their long weapons moved out in front of Ankhar’s army. They deployed in their three-rank formation, standing at rest—the butts of their pikes resting on the ground for the time being—while they awaited developments. They would be able to raise their weapons to form their impenetrable line on a moment’s notice, far more rapidly than the knights could cover the half mile or so of distance to confront them, even with their fastest charge.

  While waiting for the knights to make the first move, Ankhar turned to his stepmother, who as usual was close by his side. “Did you brew your tea for the Gray Robe?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “He has drunk it and is making his way here.”

  “You said that potion will kill him. He will not die today, will he?”

  Laka cackled. “It should have killed him already. I begin to think that the Thorn Knight has magic even mightier than my own. But no, my son, I do not think it will kill him—at least not today.”

  “And the wand? You have it?”

  She pulled back her cape, showing him the slender piece of wood tucked securely into her belt. “He says that it is better than the first one. And I will be ready when the time comes:” She opened her pouch and showed
him the ruby box. The half-giant blinked, still surprised—despite his experience with the device—that such a small container could hold a force so terrible and awe inspiring.

  “My lord!” called Blackgaard, drawing Ankhar’s attention back to the enemy. “It seems the knights have begun to move.”

  “Aye, indeed,” grunted the half-giant. The vast ranks of armored riders had mounted now and were riding forward, their pace a measured walk. “And your pikes?”

  “See, there,” said the human captain with a nod. Indeed, the men with their long pole arms were taking up positions, hoisting the long shafts into a bristling, deadly fence. Three deep, they knelt, crouched, or stood, holding firm to the steel pikes with razor-sharp tips.

  “Good. Let the knights impale themselves,” Ankhar said with a belly-deep chuckle. He tried to suppress a small sense of disquiet, but the feeling wouldn’t quite go away: Why would the humans cling to a tactic that was so obviously bound to fail?

  “How about the back ranks?” he asked Eaglebeak and Spleenripper, who were standing nearby.

  “The archers are ready, lord.”

  “So, too, my footmen.”

  “And I have a thousand ogres, ready to advance when the enemy breaks,” Bloodgutter pledged, lumbering up to the command conference.

  To the rear, Rib Chewer’s lupine cavalry milled. Already mounted, the gobs clutched their reins and tried to hold their eager, hungry mounts under control. The half-giant knew that they would be slavering for blood by the time he gave the order.

  Surprisingly, Ankhar heard something like thunder booming from the direction of the Garnet Mountains. A deep rumble shook the air, a powerful sound he felt in the pit of his stomach as much as he heard it in his ears. He looked up toward the foothills with their snowy summits—the white peaks brilliantly outlined in the morning sun—beyond. However, there was not even a suggestion of a rain cloud in the pristine sky.

  Peering more closely, he saw something resembling a gray fog swirling around one of the near ridgetops—but that seemed more like the smoke from a grass fire than any gathering of moisture in the sky. The vapors billowed and churned along the crest. Definitely not a storm cloud, Ankhar told himself. When he looked to the sky again, puzzled, Ankhar could still not determine any suggestion of threatening weather.

  “Strange,” he murmured. “How can there be thunder without any clouds?”

  “I think we’re going to fall just a bit short,” Dram remarked, speaking almost conversationally to Sulfie. They peered through the thick smoke of the muzzle blast, watching the six balls from the first bombard volley soar through the air—they were still visible, though dwindling into the distance—plunging down toward the plain. His target was the long, unbroken formation of pikemen. The pikes extended for more than a mile, screening the entire front of Ankhar’s horde. Let’s see how those well-disciplined soldiers face up to a rain of unforgiving stone balls, Dram thought grimly.

  True to his prediction, the six spheres all thudded to the ground several hundred yards short of the enemy line. Several of them simply sank into the soft dirt and vanished, but three or four others bounced and rolled. Momentum carried them along with irresistible force, and they bowled through the line of pikemen like balls striking down ninepins. Even from a mile away, the dwarf and the gnome could see the shock effect of the missiles as the line of pikes wavered and a number of men were taken down.

  The Solamnic Knights still advanced slowly, lances and pennants aloft, armor gleaming in the sunlight. The great formation looked more like a parade than a charge, horses still proceeding at a walk nearly half a mile before the enemy lines. The Palanthian Legion was in the lead of the broad line, and the three columns of Sword, Rose, and Crown knights maintained a steady interval between each wing as they came behind.

  “Raise the elevation just a quarter turn,” the dwarf ordered, and his gunners complied by adjusting the massive screws set under the muzzles. The hill dwarves cranked the simple machines, and the barrels were raised almost imperceptibly.

  Even as the aim was being adjusted, other gunners swarmed over the wagons, swabbing out the barrels and loading in new casks of powder. Six of the burliest dwarves acted as the ball handlers, and each of these now lifted his heavy missile over his head and dropped it into the gaping black mouth of the bombard.

  “All right,” Dram said with relish. “Let’s try this again.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  SOUND OF THE GUNS

  Six perfect spheres of stone, each weighing well more than one hundred pounds, soared lazily through the air. From a distance they looked harmless, like a spray of pebbles tossed by a child. But as they neared, they grew in apparent size even as their flight remained deceptively lyrical. Ultimately the rocks crashed only a few dozen paces before the line of Blackgaard’s pikemen, striking with enough force to send tremors through the ground.

  One of the balls landed in a low, wet swale and simply vanished into the mud with an audible plop. The other five missiles struck harder patches, and they bounced and tumbled irresistibly forward. Momentum carried them onward, not at all lazily now, thumping and pounding the ground as they rolled. In scant moments they tore through the tightly packed ranks of human flesh and wooden shafts. Pikes splintered and snapped, bones shattered, and flesh was crushed by the irresistible mix of mass and momentum.

  Wherever they hit that line, the heavy balls simply burst through, following the trajectory imposed when they blasted out of the muzzles of the bombards a mile away on their mountain ridge. They came up against no obstacle that could obstruct them or even seriously impede their progress. Any stick or body in the way of the flying boulders was simply borne along as the balls blasted through the line and tumbled across the grass to settle at the rear. Thus, human heads, torsos, arms, legs, and sometimes complete bodies, were blasted away, swept like grains of sand propelled by a broom, leaving a gory wake of body parts in the path of each of the five balls. The unbroken line of leveled pikes wavered as five distinct gaps were instantly carved in the previously unbroken formation.

  Most of the spherical missiles rolled far enough to end up between the large, dense blocks of Ankhar’s troops, assembled a hundred paces or more behind the pikes. One rolled in a seemingly gentle fashion up to a column of goblins. A gob raised a foot in a casual attempt to bring the ball to a stop as it approached, only to have both of his legs torn away by the shot’s weight and thrust. By the time the stone ball came to rest, in the middle of the column, a dozen more goblins were down with broken legs or crushed feet.

  Now another boom sounded from the ridgetop. Smoke tinged with angry yellow flame billowed from the six barrels, and six more balls exploded on their trajectory toward the distant line. There were slight variables between the paths of the two volleys—the kegs of black powder did not possess identical explosive force, and furthermore the heavy wagons had been jolted back by the recoil of the first round. When the hill dwarf gunners rolled them back into firing position, the barrels were not aimed exactly as before.

  The result was the shots of the second volley landed in slightly different places. Two were lost to soft ground, but the four that rumbled onward tore through the shaken line of pikemen in different areas. Before the men and their startled officers could even grasp what was happening to them, four additional holes had been punched through the line—the line that depended on unbroken integrity for its battlefield effectiveness.

  Now the horses of the Solamnic Knights picked up the pace of their advance. They trotted, the thunder of many thousands of hooves reverberating across the distance between the two armies. The gap was narrowing so the armored lancers were only a quarter mile away from the pikes. Still, they came in a measured, far from hasty charge.

  The thunder of the hoofbeats was nearly drowned out by the stunning explosive noise when the next volley blasted from the bombards. Officers in the line of pikemen had recovered their wits and were frantically ordering their men to fill in the gaps in t
he line. These efforts met with some success until the next, stronger volley ripped through.

  One of the shots took off the head of a veteran sergeant major just as he was trying to rearrange his men into some semblance of order. The corpse of the grizzled warrior fell, blood spouting from its neck, and a hundred men who had witnessed the decapitating blow dropped their pikes and fled to the rear. They left a wide gap in the center, and the men of the neighboring companies nervously shifted their eyes among that breach, the approaching horsemen, and the imagined safety far behind them.

  The guns belched again, their position clearly marked by the cloud of smoke that blossomed across the ridgetop. More balls ripped through the line, even as another volley boomed forth. Now the gray, churning smoke all but enveloped the ride and nothing else could be seen, except for the repeated flashes that burst through the cloud, bright as the fires of the Abyss.

  Then the battle began in earnest as the captains of the knights raised their lances, shouted their battle cries, and all their armored warriors spurred their heavy warhorses into a gallop.

  “What are they doing to us?” demanded Ankhar, watching in horror as dozens more of his pikemen were punched out of the line by a strange new power he still could not comprehend. He glared up at the smoke-shrouded ridge, certain that the explosive noises up there and the lethal destruction in front of him were related somehow. But aside from the flashes of flame, he could make out nothing within that murk.

  And he couldn’t understand what was happening!

  “Some kind of projectile weapon,” Hoarst speculated, his tone surprisingly dispassionate as he came up beside the army commander, giving Ankhar a start. “It’s launching those stones like it was a giant sling … or a tremendously powerful catapult. They’re flying a mile or more before they come down.”