The Forests Of Gleor rb-22
Page 18
Blade continued. «What I suggest is that we march our army south, toward the Pass of Kitos. It is the largest of the mountain passes and the closest one to the emerald mines. Desgo can march his whole army through it quickly. Elsewhere he would have to use two or three passes, or else send his army through very slowly. Both would be dangerous, since we could attack him before he could reunite his army.»
Blade's finger stabbed at the deerskin map on the table in front of them. «Also, on our side of the Pass of Kitos is a stretch of open land nearly a day's march wide. There is plenty of room there for Desgo's army to maneuver and fight its battle as a single force. Anywhere else in Draad, he would risk fighting with his army split up and not knowing the land, against an enemy who knows the land very well. Desgo will see this open ground as the best place to fight his battle, and sooner or later he will come there. Why not by the most direct route?
«I agree,» said Neena, «Lord Desgo deserves fifty filthy names. But he is not a fool, and anyone who thinks otherwise certainly is!»
«Very well,» said the king. «We shall take the risks. Certainly it gives us a better hope of a victory that will give us many years of peace. But I shall pray to the gods with all my strength, Blade, that Lord Desgo is only as wise as you think he is, and no wiser!»
Lord Desgo's army marched north, with Draad's scouts watching it. Draad's army marched south, unwatched. At Blade's suggestion King Embor had all the passes patrolled so that a cockroach couldn't have gotten through, let alone an enemy scouting party. Those patrols added up to a good many warriors who would not be available for the battle in the south. Yet they would not be wasted, if they gave Draad the advantage of surprise.
Those weren't all the warriors Blade was planning to detach. When Lord Desgo's army was well through the Pass of Kitos-if it came that way-another force of warriors would slip into position on either side of the pass. They could strike at Desgo's rear, or ambush his army as it tried to retreat from Draad.
Eventually they reached the forests on the edge of the open land around the Pass of Kitos. The ambush party split off and marched up into the mountains on either side of the pass. The rest of Draad's warriors settled into concealed camps in the forest, with nothing left to do but wait.
They had to wait ten days. King Embor seemed to age a year during each of those days, gnawed by fear that he had doomed ten thousand of his people by following Blade's advice. Blade and Neena found it best to avoid him.
Then on the eleventh day the word came through-Lord Desgo's army had swung about, and was approaching the western end of the Pass of Kitos. On the thirteenth day it entered the pass. By evening on the fifteenth day it was camped on the open land to the east of the pass.
That was the evening when Blade and Neena climbed a tall tree on the edge of the forest and looked out upon their enemy. The campfires of Desgo's army made a long ragged crescent across three miles of land, a flickering orange crescent blurred by the rising mists of evening.
«They will be nearly three to one against what we will have on the field tomorrow,» said Neena. «I hope fighting in the open against such odds is not the kind of folly the gods hate, so that they will punish us for it.»
«It could be,» Blade admitted. «I would not be thinking of it under other conditions. But you know all that I have taught our warriors that they did not know before and which will be a surprise to Desgo. Our warriors are also strong and well-rested, while Desgo's men have marched fast and far on sore feet and growling stomachs. We will move faster than they can tomorrow. I think the gods will not call our battle a folly.»
«I hope not,» said Neena. Then she smiled. «Shall we go back down, or would you take me here, in the branches with the wind in our ears?»
«I think we will go back down,» said Blade with a chuckle. «I would not care to go down in the chronicles of Draad as the warrior who on the night before his greatest battle fell out of a tall tree while embracing his woman and smashed himself into small pieces on the ground!»
The next day, Blade fought his battle.
Lord Desgo formed his army in a wide shallow line a mile wide but only a few ranks deep. This formation had worked well enough in the past against opponents with no answer to the stolofs. It might not work so well now.
«Lord Desgo probably knows that as well as we do,» said Blade. «But he has not had time to train his men in any new tactics, so he will not try them. If he did, his army would fall into confusion and he would be even worse off. He will try what has worked in the past, and hope for the favor of the gods and enough skill and courage in his warriors.» He did not add that Draad would have to hope for exactly the same things in order to be sure of victory. Neena probably knew that just as well as he did.
It was a misty morning. Blade counted on that for some help. The mist was not thick enough to permit real surprises, but it would be useful for the first of his planned tricks.
The army of Draad marched out of the woods in the same wide thin line as the enemy. To stretch a mile, Draad's warriors had to be spread even thinner than Trawn's. Blade's first trick was intended to conceal that fact.
The warriors with regular weapons formed the first rank. Behind them moved a thin second line, all the stolof killers together. With each of them marched a helper-wife, concubine, trusted servant, sometimes a son or a-en a daughter. These helpers carried the extra sprayers. the heavy sacks of throwing pots, everything that would weigh down or slow down a stolof killer. When the time came for them to charge, the stolof killers would dash forward like black stalkers on their prey.
Behind the stolof killers came a whole mass of people. Every man for miles around who could put one foot in front of another was there, and a good many women and older children. There were gray-bearded grandfathers, youths just learning weapons, craftsmen of all kinds, workers from the emerald mines under their overseers, wives, midwives, and courtesans. There were nearly ten thousand, of them, outnumbering the actual warriors Blade and Embor had brought to the field.
Perhaps five hundred of these ten thousand could use some sort of a weapon with any skill Lord Desgo wouldn't know that. As Draad's army marched out of the morning mists toward him, it would look twice as strong as it really was. Desgo would lose any hope of overwhelming the enemy by sheer weight of numbers and become cautious. By the time Desgo discovered that he'd been tricked, it hopefully wouldn't matter. Blade intended for the nobleman to have too much else on his mind!
King Embor marched with the warriors of the front rank, Blade with the stolof killers, Neena among the civilians to the rear. Neena also kept an eye on the dozen captured meytans that were being led forward, carefully concealed among the civilians. They also had their place in Blade's plans.
The army of Draad marched forward. On the level ground, the warriors and stolof killers were able to keep an impressively precise formation. The Brigade of Guards on parade in London could hardly have done any better. Precision like that was something new, something unknown in Gleor-and facing anything unknown was likely to unsettle Desgo or his warriors or both.
Just over a mile ahead, the army of Trawn slowly appeared out of the mist, already drawn up in its battle formation. King Embor, Blade, and Neena shouted orders, and the army of Draad came to a stop, just outside bowshot from the enemy's line. Silence fell on the field, and nothing moved except for the gentle eddying of the mist as the morning breezes began to blow.
Lord Desgo sat on his meytan in the rear of his army's line and stared out at the enemy.
«More of them than I'd expected,» said one of the warriors of his household.
Desgo nodded. «We're not going to simply roll forward and stamp them into the ground.» He turned to a messenger. «Tell the Master of the Stolofs to bring his men and beasts forward, ready for a full attack.»
Another of Desgo's household frowned and spoke up boldly. «Sire, we have here most of the war-trained stolofs of Trawn. You say the enemy has a weapon to slay or cripple the stolofs. Yet-«
«No, sire. I wonder, though, about running too great risks with the stolofs.»
«We will be running no risks,» snapped Desgo. «I saw Blade's weapon work against half a dozen stolofs. We shall not see it work so well against a thousand.»
«The stolofs are coming forward,» said King Embor, striding up to Blade. «That means an attack after their usual fashion.»
«Good,» said Blade. «Lord Desgo can go on doing things the usual way as long as he pleases-or as long as he can.»
King Embor nodded and strode away, back to his position in the front rank. He looked like a man whose nerves were being plucked at with red-hot pincers. Blade did not blame him. Once the battle was joined, the fate of Draad would probably be decided in less than an hour. That was why Blade had spent all those days training the warriors of Draad to move at top speed.
Hopefully they would be moving faster than Lord Desgo could think.
The stolof-whistles seemed to be blowing continuously in the enemy's lines now. They sounded like an immense cage of oversized and not very musical birds.
Blade looked up and down the line of stolof killers. Some of them had gone as pale as the brown-skinned warriors of Draad could go. Many were licking their lips or shuffling their sandaled feet. Blade did not blame them. For all the power of their new weapons, there was still some power in the ancient fear of the stolofs, the monsters that had given Trawn mastery of so many battlefields for so many generations.
With luck, that fear would die today, along with most of the stolofs.
In twos and threes and half dozens and dozens the stolofs crept out through Trawn's line into open view. Their numbers mounted up-two hundred, three hundred, five hundred, seven hundred. More of the stolof killers turned pale.
It looked as though Desgo was going to launch a simple attack, coming straight in and hoping to overpower by terror and sheer weight of numbers. Two or three warriors would be advancing with each stolof, and together they were supposed to break Draad's line apart. Then Desgo would launch the rest of his army on the broken formation, and that would be the battle.
Still the stolofs came out, until there must have been nearly a thousand of them. Blade neither turned pale nor shuffled his feet, but his mind was working furiously. This must be not only every stolof in Desgo's army, but damned near every war-trained stolof in Trawn! Destroying them all would make this a day Trawn would never forget, whatever else happened. Desgo was gambling his stolofs in pursuit of an easy victory; he might end up giving that easy victory to Draad.
But first Draad's stolof killers had to stand up to a thousand of the monsters, and beat them back or destroy them. That was not going to be easy. Blade found himself even more sympathetic toward those stolof killers who had by now turned the color of dirty bedsheets. So far none of them was looking over his shoulder, picking out a safe route to the rear. The courage of the warriors of Draad might falter, but Blade doubted if he would see it fail.
The stolof-whistles fell silent. There were odd flurries of movement as some of the warriors in the attack formation shifted position. Then those horribly unmusical trumpets of Trawn sounded.
Blade shouted so that everyone could hear him. «If that is how they play now, can you imagine how they'll sound after we've beaten them?» It was not a particularly good joke, but it cut like a sharp knife through the tension among the stolof killers. A roar of laughter went up and down the line, and only died when the enemy's trumpets sounded again, this time sounding the charge for both warriors and stolofs.
The enemy line moved slowly forward, the warriors matching their stride to the lumbering pace of the stolofs. Some tried to urge their stolofs to a faster pace; none succeeded.
Three hundred yards. Two hundred. A hundred and fifty. A hundred and twenty. Blade and King Embor kept their eyes fixed on the approaching enemy. When they reached one hundred yards-
They did. Trumpeters and drummers sent signals racing along Draad's battle line. Almost in a single motion, all the archers in the front racks nocked arrows, raised their bows, aimed, and shot. Two thousand arrows flashed toward the approaching line, whistling like a winter sleet storm. Then the whistling of the arrows gave way to screams and hisses as they struck home in men and stolofs.
The stolofs were nearly invulnerable to the arrows from Draad's bows. The warriors were another matter. They wore tough leather armor from throat to groin, but there were plenty of faces, arms and legs exposed to the storm of arrows. Plenty of those arrows found targets. Warriors of Trawn staggered about, waving bleeding arms, clapping hands to bloody thighs, screaming as they tried to pick arrows out of their eyes or faces. Not too many of them went down, but a good many of them lagged behind or blundered about wildly.
Then the second flight of arrows whistled down on the advancing line. The range was closer now, and more of the arrows struck vulnerable spots. Some of those that struck the leather armor struck hard enough to penetrate, not fatally but painfully. Blade heard many more screams, a great many curses, and angry hissing from the stolofs. Their armor was as tough as ever, but the sheer number of arrows coming at them was bound to produce a few lucky shots. Several stolofs were going down, arrows sprouting among their eyes. Many others seemed to be slowing down or moving uncertainly.
A thousand warriors of Trawn were now maimed or at least hurting. The archers of Draad nocked and drew for a third flight of arrows. Before the arrows came down, most of the warriors darted behind their stolofs, crouching low. Most of the arrows bounced harmlessly off the armor of the stolofs or the thick rounded helmets of the warriors. Few did any real harm that Blade could see.
That was perfectly all right with him. Hiding behind their stolofs, the warriors could not guide the creatures well. The stolofs were slow to obey or respond to anything or anyone they could not see in front of them. And the warriors could no longer stand between their stolofs and any attackers.
Blade looked along the line of stolof killers and raised his hands in a signal. A thousand fighting men scooped throwing pots out of bags with one hand and raised their sprayers with the other. There were still pale faces in the line, but the tension was gone. They had seen the charge of the stolofs already blunted by Blade's innovation of massed archery. Now they confidently expected to smash the charge entirely with the Prince's new sleeping water.
The fourth flight of arrows whistled across the narrowing gap between the two lines. A few of the braver warriors went down, those who hadn't ducked for cover behind the stolofs. A couple of dozen stolofs also went down. That was all-the vulnerable spots on a stolof were too small to make good targets even at close range. But every stolof that stumbled and sagged and dropped out of line made the line still more ragged. Instead of crashing into Draad's warriors as a solid, irresistible mass, Trawn's attack was coming forward as an increasingly ragged and disorderly mob, stolofs and warriors all mixed up together.
The archers pulled arrows for a fifth flight out of their quivers, but held their fire. Blade raised his hands still higher, until everyone in the line of stolof killers could see his signal. Then he flung his arms downward. Trumpets blared again, and the whole line surged forward.
They dashed up through the gaps between the archers and other warriors of the front ranks and out into the open. The warriors of Trawn reacted swiftly, springing out from behind their stolofs, swords and spears held ready for battle.
As the warriors of Trawn burst out of cover, every one of the running stolof killers bent forward at the waist without breaking stride. A few of them lost their balance and sprawled on the grass, scattering pots and sandals as they rolled over and over. A moment later the archers of Draad loosed their fifth flight of arrows, straight over the heads of their running comrades, straight into the faces of the warriors of Trawn. At close range the arrows stabb
ed through leather armor into hearts and lungs, stomachs and vital arteries. Hundreds of warriors went down as if someone had turned a death ray on them, and several dozen stolofs also folded up and slumped to the ground.
This had been the riskiest part of Blade's whole battle plan. If the archers had aimed only a little bit low, they could have wiped out hundreds of the stolof killers and very few of the enemy. Blade could see they had aimed well. The enemy's ranks were gaping, while only a few of the stolof killers and a score or so of the attendants running behind them were down. That was all Blade had time to see before the charge of the stolof killers struck the enemy's line.
Most of the stolofs' masters were either too badly wounded or too surprised to order their charges to launch ribbons. A good many ribbons went out, nonetheless, as the stolofs got it into their tiny brains that something ought to be done about all those men running toward them. Most of those ribbons struck; the stolofs were good shots to the end. The stolofs who had a victim on the end of their ribbons reared back as they'd been trained to do. The stolof killers who hadn't been caught threw their pots and opened up with their sprayers. Then the battle dissolved in a screaming, hissing, swirling chaos so complete that Blade himself couldn't keep track of anything going on more than six feet from him.
He saw a ribbon coming at him, darted aside, and saw the ribbon slap against the cheek of a girl loaded with a stolof killer's extra pots and sprayers. She screamed and went down, her bag bursting open and scattering pots across the grass. Some broke, some didn't. The stolof killer snatched up one of the unbroken pots and hurled it at the stolof. It struck the creature just as it reared, dragging the girl forward and making her scream again. Sleeping water poured down over the breathing holes, and the stolof seemed to freeze and stand still, reared back on its hind legs, forelegs in the air, mandibles clicking steadily. The stolof killer bent to slash the ribbon with his bone knife. As he did so, a warrior with a spear ran past him, straight at the stolof. The man drove his spear with all his strength into the vulnerable part of the stolof's belly. Then he sprang clear of the spray of foul-smelling yellow fluid, as the creature quivered all over and collapsed. An enemy warrior sprang up from behind the fallen creature, leaped up on top of it, and attacked the man from Draad, sword against spear.