Great Kings' War

by John F. Carr

  Phidestros cursed his injured knee which would keep him from climbing the tree to look for himself. "Can you see the cavalry's colors?"

  "No, there's too much dust and smoke. I can see the Royal Lancers and their pennon though. They're well to the side of the new fighting."

  "You've used your eyes well," Phidestros said, reaching into his purse for a coin and with the other hand a branch to pull himself to his feet. Fighting south of the West Gap, and cavalry at that, could mean hardly anything but another Hostigi attack. He didn't know who commanded the Harphaxi there—probably Prince Philesteus himself, if the Royal Lancers were present. But it would be certainly someone with enough rank to give weight to any praise he gave the Iron Company. It seemed to him that that West Gap was more than ever the place for his men now, and any messengers with orders to the contrary who might be in the way could break their necks for all he cared.

  "Sound, 'Mount!'" he shouted to the nearest trumpeter and his groom moved to Snowdrift's head. Harness jingled and leather thumped as the men around him obeyed their Captain's shout even before the trumpet blew. Phidestros swung into the saddle and considered his best line of march to the West Gap.

  Straight down the road would bring him within sight of the Harphaxi Royal Army and their captain; that would mean attacking with friends at his back and flanks. Not the best of friends, though, except in sheer numbers; the well-born heavy cavalry of Hos-Harphax were barely polite to mercenaries and were none too wise in the new kind of warfare Kalvan was going to teach everybody whether they liked it or not. No, the Iron Company would swing to the south of the road and move cautiously towards the fighting with scouts well out in front. Phidestros was even prepared to lead himself, in order to be the first to see how the battle was going. Once again, if the Iron Company retreated without need and there was an example to be made, he would be the one to provide it. But, on the other hand, if there was a need for retreat—well, the Iron Company would have a clear road to Harphax City or even across the Harph.

  "To Phidestros!" someone shouted.

  The Iron Company took up the cry. Snowdrift began to prance and his rider didn't even try to gentle him. One way or another, the frustration of sitting by the road while the battle was mismanaged all around him was about to end, Galzar be thanked!

  II

  The Harphaxi gun bellowed and the twelve-pound cannonball THUNKED twenty yards to Kalvan's right, crashed through what was left of the fence behind him and rolled away out of sight without hitting anything.

  "That's the last one!" Kalvan shouted. "Trumpeters, sound 'charge!'"

  To their credit the Royal Horseguards actually waited until they heard the trumpets before they dug in their spurs. Kalvan knew the efforts they'd make to protect him if he rode too far ahead and the time this would expend. He reined in his horse until Major Nicomoth and the first two squads were out ahead, then urged his own mount up to a canter.

  The four Harphaxi guns across the field would take at least five minutes to reload and Kalvan's cavalry would be on them before they were halfway done.

  He wasn't sure what business a Great King had leading regiment-strength cavalry charges, but when the regiment was the only part of his army within reach and there was an enemy within striking distance, he couldn't think of anything better to do.

  Dust billowed behind the Hostigi as they rode, horsepistols drawn, silver-plated armor gleaming in the hot sun, Kalvan's personal banner of a maroon keystone on a green field leading the way. Through the smoke ahead, he could already see some of the gunners running for the shelter of the trees behind their position. That would slow down the reloading even more.

  Kalvan drew his sword and shouted "Down Styphon!"

  The Hostigi counterattack had started well enough. Kalvan had finally led his force of two thousand horse, fifteen hundred foot without waiting for Harmakros' message about the situation in front of Mrathos. It was a gamble but one that had paid off. When Harmarkos' messenger, on a half-dead horse, finally caught up with his Great King, he reported that Harmakros was launching his own attack with all his men. Colonel Verkan reported that several bands of Styphon's Red Hand were moving west and it seemed wisest to attack Captain-General Aesthes before the Styphoni could strengthen his position.

  Kalvan rewarded the good-news bearer, sent him off to rest his horse and rode on in a much better mood. Clearly, Harmakros could be trusted to use his initiative wisely, even if it did give his Great King ulcers in the process. He had a good sense for timing and a good eye for terrain, and he also knew enough to concentrate his forces. Harmakros was even honest enough to give credit to his subordinates when they deserved it; Napoleon himself headed a long list of generals who'd lacked that virtue.

  More importantly it meant that Kalvan's counterattack would not have to swing far to the west in order to avoid Harphaxi patrols coming from Mrathos. They would all be much too busy with Harmakros. This would save a good deal of time, and the sooner the pressure on Hestophes was relieved, the better. From the amount of firing around his position, he was still holding on, but Hestophes hadn't sent a messenger in over an hour—which said things Kalvan didn't like to hear.

  Kalvan delivered his first attack on time and in more or less the intended place. Several thousand Harphaxi, including some of the Royal Pistoleers died, ran off or surrendered with gratifying speed. In the process a lot of fast moving horses and rapidly fired guns generated an appalling amount of dust and smoke. When some of the farms and orchards started burning, Kalvan began to feel he was back on the fog-shrouded battlefield of Fyk.

  By the time Kalvan sighted the four Harphaxi bombards, he had under his personal command only a squadron of his Horseguards—about a hundred and thirty men—and slightly more than a hundred Ulthori heavy horse. With a little persuading, the Ulthori dropped back to guard the rear while Kalvan led his better disciplined Hostigi out to draw the gunners' fire, then charge.

  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 trumpets 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 Crécy 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 magnific
ent; 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.