Trumpets of War

by Robert Adams

  Pahvlos' words were short and brusque, his tone and manner were absolutely frigid. "Yesterday, Lord Stehrgiahnos, units of my heavy horse intercepted and exterminated the western contingent of your chiefs bandit band. We captured some two hundred head of horses and mules, a goodly number of big, strong draught oxen, above fifty wains and wagons loaded with supplies of divers sorts and quantities, as well as so many cattle that we had to leave the most of them running loose around the site of the skirmish.

  "If you exercise any influence over your chief's decisions, it were wise that you urge him to come out of the city and bring his forces to battle without further undue delay, for he will not now be either reinforced or resupplied. It would be better for his arms were he to fight now, while his men still are strong and well fed, rather than to wait until an ongoing siege has weakened them through disease and short rations.

  "Understand, it is not that Thoheeks-designate Ahramos nor I care a pinch of dried chicken dung how many bandits, footpads, thieves, ruffians and renegades of your foul ilk starve or suffer or waste away of the pox, the bloody flux or siege fever, but we want no unnecessary sufferings to befall the innocent noncombatant citizens of the City of Kahlkopolis."

  Having recovered from his initial shock, Stehrgiahnos began, "My lord Strahteegos—"

  Pahvlos cut him off icily. "Shut up, Lord Stehrgiahnos! You were not whistled over to my camp to talk, only to see and to hear. This audience is done. Get back on your horse, ride back to that sounder of common swine you now serve, to whom you chose to sell your honor and your soul, and do my bidding.

  "I will draw up my battle lines on the plain between the camp and the city two days hence. If no one comes out to fight by noon, I will assume that you all are craven and begin preparation of siegeworks.

  "Those are my last words, renegade."

  That night, on a meticulously detailed sand table prepared from the reports of lancers and scouts by his staff, Pahvlos carefully explained his plans and projected placements of regiments, squadrons, smaller units, reserves and portable engines to his assembled captains. After two full hours of briefing, followed by more than another hour of questions and answers, he dismissed them all, staff and captains alike. He, however, sat there long into the night, staring at the reproduction of the city and its surrounding plain, essaying to work out in his mind any and every possible reverse and pre-plan and what his reflexive actions must be.

  "Hmm, that scheme that Lord Pawl proposed for the use of those war-cats was brilliant. That'll be one thing that those bandit scum can have no way of foreseeing or expecting in advance; they've never faced such a threat before, hell, no army in these lands ever has.

  "Ahzprinos' ideas, now, they're impossibly hidebound. The man just cannot seem to get it through his thick head that amazingly as these elephants we have can perform, they still are only three cow elephants, with only some year of war training behind them, not a dozen towering bulls. There're just not enough to do this the old-fashioned way, the way Ahzprinos would have us do it. No, I know that my way is best, the only way to make best disposition and utilization of what we have.

  "Of course, can we believe what was wrung out of the prisoners taken from that relief column, this Mainahkos owns no elephants at all, only some score war-carts of the antique design. Not that those, if properly employed, can't be dangerous weapons in their own right, but I think I have the answer to scotch them if they are only used as mobile archery platforms, rather than to burst apart infantry lines.

  "Naturally, if they do try to break up the pikemen with those carts, Bizahros and Captain Hehluh will know what to do; neither of them are puling babes, comes to open warfare. Open up lanes in the formations wide enough to pass them through to the rear area, where the engine crews, mounted lancers and dartmen will make short work of the bastards. When other than at the gallop, those carts and their crews are terribly vulnerable; that's why they went out of use even before elephants were adopted to serve the same general purposes. I wonder just who got this pack to fabricate them and start using them to begin with? Likely that renegade or another of his unsavory ilk.

  "Now our forebears, who invaded and conquered these lands, were no fools, nor anxious to die, either; so I've always figured that the only possible reason they started using those suicide wagons to begin was because they had to have mobility for their warriors and lacked enough horses or mules to mount any large number of themselves as proper cavalry. Why did our arms continue to use them for so long? Why did places like Kehnooryos Ehlahs still use them within living memory, then? Probably because of kings and strahteegohee of mindsets similar to Ahzprinos'—'Whatall was good enough for my great-grandsire is good enough for me!' Ridiculous!

  "Elephants themselves are far from invulnerable, really rather delicate, all things considered. But they're far more maneuverable than a war-cart, their height gives those mounted upon them a bird's-eye view, and their very bulk and speed—even of these smaller cows —is daunting to those standing to receive their charge. Only the most veteran, best-trained, most strictly disciplined men have what it takes to stand firm before such a charge, then open ranks at the last minute, let the creatures through, surround them and hamstring them or wave blazing torches in their faces.

  "Ahzprinos has got his big nose out of joint now, after hearing my battle plans, but he'll just have to accept it and live with it. Had he been willing, as Bizahros was, to modernize his regiment—give his pikemen armor pieces and body-shields and secondary weapons—then I might've made one of the others the reserve regiment in this engagement. As it is, though, I

  have to place my best-equipped men on the forefront in the center of the line, for they'll be the ones who will take the brunt of an enemy charge or drive home any charge I hurl, and it's not as if he's been entirely cut out of the battle line, no, I've taken half of two of his battalions for the wings of my line, and he knows full well that he and the rest of them will be sent for should any gaps appear or any serious overlapping of my lines occur.

  "I think those thieving bastards will get an unpleasant surprise or two from my placement of my Horseclanner barbarians, too. Using them on the wings of the main battle line will give me the lancers, who would occupy that place in an old-fashioned Ehleen battle, as an extra maneuver element, along with the heavy horse.

  "Best of all, the spot I've chosen gives me a definite, though far from obvious, advantage for the kind of battle I mean to fight. I rather doubt that there are enough command veterans with that hodgepodge army of theirs to be able to realize that fact, however, until it has become far too late in the game to break off the action. They could always try to withdraw back to the city, of course. I pray God that they try just that. Heheheh."

  He smiled and rubbed together the calloused palms of his hands. "Damned baseborn poseurs! I'll teach them the folly and the deadly dangers of playing at soldier."

  Within the City of Kahlkopolis itself, there had really been no choice in the matter of which of the partners would lead out the army against the grim Grand Strahteegos Komees Pahvlos the Warlike and which would stay behind to hold the city, for although he had been champing at the bit like the old warhorse that he was, Ahreekos the Butcher had been unable to find in all of the city a panoply that would come anywhere close to fitting his overcorpulent frame and shape; moreover, the warlord found that he tired very easily these days, he frequently had difficulty in getting his breath, and any strenuous exercise—especially of a sexual nature—bred severe pains in his chest, shoulders and arms, and at the base of his throat.

  Mainahkos was not entirely pleased with the force he had on hand to lead out. He sorely missed Ratface Billisos and Horsecock Kawlos; both had been good subordinate officers, Ratface's highly innovative tactics having saved the day more than once for the bandits over the years; he also sorely missed the horses that the two had been bringing in from the west, for lacking them, the would-be thoheeks was going to be unable to mount all of his cavalry, and he was short of ca
valry to begin. Moreover, without the wagonloads of seasoned pikeshafts which had made up a part of the now-lost supply train, Mainahkos would be unable to arm all of the spear levy of the city.

  Nonetheless, the two partners, Stehrgiahnos and the other bandit sub-chiefs had done everything that they could: every house and every stable had been scoured of usable weapons and horseflesh of any and every description, age and type; straight, well-cured timbers of the appropriate lengths had been commandeered, even if doing so meant the partial razing of homes and other buildings, then impressed crews of carpenters, turners, joiners and even cabinetmakers had been set to rendering them into hafts to which pikepoints could be riveted, and the craftsmen were kept at it day and night at the points of swords where this was found to be necessary, though it seldom was, for the surviving citizens of Kahlkopolis were, after three years of occupation by the savage, brutal bandit horde, now virtually devoid of leadership and thoroughly cowed.

  This exercise did turn out a goodly number of pikes—although but precious few of the hafts were of the preferred ash or oak, rather were they of elm, maple, pine, cedar, hickory and too many others to name or enumerate—but with few exceptions, they were short pikes, only eight to ten feet long, but Mainahkos knew that they would do, they would have to do.

  The search for cavalry mounts, however, was far less successful, so few acceptable mounts being actually turned up that he gave over planning on putting former troopers up on a horse and decided to use them afoot or to crowd a couple into each war-cart, instead, to hurl darts alongside the archers.

  Even so, the would-be thoheeks was able to march a force of some respectable size out of his city on the morning of the day of battle. To the roll of the drums came something over thirty hundreds of foot, about a third that number of horse and some fifty war-carts, each of them with six or eight missile-men, plus two armored postillions.

  Screened by two files of mounted lancers whose orders had been to deliberately raise as much dust as possible in their progress, Captain of Elephants Gil Djohnz and the elephant Sunshine led the way toward the position assigned them for the opening of the battle, now looming close ahead. The three cows, Sunshine, Tulip and Newgrass, were all clad in most of the protective armor they would wear in battle, but their huge, distinctively shaped bodies had for the nonce been almost completely shrouded in long, wide sheets of dust-colored cloth, while the heavy, cumbersome archer boxes of wood and leather had been all dismounted and were now being borne in the wake of the pachyderms by the archers who would occupy them and some of the elephant grooms.

  After the third or the fourth time he slipped and stumbled on the broken, uneven footing, his boots not having been designed for ease of walking anyway, Gil found himself steadied and easily lifted back onto his feet by the powerful but infinitely gentle trunk of Sunshine.

  "I will say it once more," came her strong mindspeak, "you are silly to try to walk, man-Gil. Why your poor little feet will be sore beyond bearing by sunset.

  Those men yonder are all astride their own small, skinny-legged beasts, so why do you three not ride Sunshine and her sisters, brother?"

  Gil sighed. Sunshine could be as stubborn as any hardheaded mule when she chose to so be. He beamed in reply, "It is still as I have said ere this, sister-mine: high as you are, if I should take my place upon your neck, anyone watching from the other army will then know that at least one elephant is in this area, and it is the plan of the Grand Strahteegos Komees Pahvlos that they gain no knowledge of just where we are until the time comes for us to attack them. Please try to understand this time, dear sister."

  "Silly, silly, silly!" Sunshine mindspoke disparagingly. "Two-legs are surely the very silliest of any living creatures! Fighting is surely the silliest of all two-leg pastimes, and Sunshine is herself silly for deigning to take any part in such ultimate sillinesses ... she only does so because it makes her brother happy and she dearly loves him, man-Gil."

  Even as man and elephant communicated, seven huge long-toothed felines were but just arrived stealthily in position a short distance behind the cavalry reserve of the bandit army. They crouched, unmoving as so many statues, only the respiration movements of their sleek, wiry bodies denoting that life resided in them. In a tiny copse they lurked, the agouti bodies blending well with the dead leaves that here thickly littered the ground.

  One of the prairiecats—for such they all were, having come as part of the Horseclans force—meshed his mind with those of two others of his kind to gain sufficient mental projection for farspeak and then beamed out, "We are where we were told we should be, Chief Pawl. The horses cannot smell us. Not yet, but if the wind should shift . . . ? If they do smell us before you want them to, Chief Pawl, will we still get to fight? It has been so long since we were allowed to fight." There was a wistful note to the last comment.

  * * *

  Pahvlos found it necessary, at the onset, to alter his carefully laid-out and planned battle line. With the bandit army forming up into position some hundreds of yards distant in clear sight on the verdant plain that lay between his camp and the walls of Kahlkopolis, it was become painfully obvious that was his center to not be overlapped by the more numerous enemy center, he must either stretch his lines of armored pikemen to a thinness that would be patently suicidal or he must commit to the battle line the unarmored pikemen of Captain Ahzprinos, and for the umpteenth time he foully cursed the old-fashioned, obstinate, obtuse officer and his stubborn failure to emulate the Freefighter regiment as had Captain Bizahros.

  At length, the Grand Strahteegos made what he felt to be the very best of a singularly bad situation. He grudgingly extended the fronts of Captains Hehluh and Bizahros in a depth of only four pikemen, then he took the two battalions of the unarmored men from off the wings, rejoined them with their reserve regiment and used them to back the armored pikemen all along the battle line. He realized that there still would be some slight overlap, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.

  Of course, these rearrangements left him damnall reserve—one battalion of the old-style pikemen, the engineers, pioneers and artificiers who could be thrown in in a real emergency, the headquarters guard of heavy horse and a scattering of lancers—but it would just have to do.

  Nor was he formed back up any too soon, for out from behind the battle line of the bandit army came the war-carts, moving at a slow walk until clear of their own men, then gradually increasing the pace of their big, barded draught mules to a fast canter. As soon as they were safely away, the entire enemy line began to advance, in formation, at a walk, their shouldered pikes standing high above them like some long, narrow forest of wind-slanted saplings, the silvery points all aglitter in the sun. Their form of advance told him exactly how the oncoming war-carts would be used, at least in the opening segment of this battle. He sent a galloper to the captain of engineers notifying him of the walking advance, that he might reset the torsions and tensions of his engines for the shorter range.

  Only a mere two of the oncoming war-carts were struck by the volley of stones and spears hurled by the engines before they were reset, but even this was remarkable and lucky in the extreme, considering that the targets were moving quite fast and could not be seen by the men who loosed off the engines. Pahvlos had been told that Captain of Engineers Teemos was the best of the best and that he numbered among his company some real artists at the tricky skills of handling light engines; now the old strahteegos believed it, every word of it.

  Barded to the fetlocks as the mules were, there was no way for Pahvlos to determine just how heavily or fully the draught mules were armored, it was only safe to assume that they were. Between six and eight men stood in the bed of each jouncing, springless cart, mixed archers and dartmen from the looks of them; on the two nearside mules, fully armored men with sabers or axes were mounted, so none of the missile-men need worry about guiding the mules. He noted that the carts consistently kept a goodly distance one from the other, lest the long, cursive ste
el blades projecting from the wheel hubs become entangled with another set or, even worse, cripple a mule.

  Even if the slow advance of the enemy infantry lines had not told him, Pahvlos would have known as soon as he saw just how few of the armor-plated war-carts there were that they were too few to tempt even such an amateur strahteegos as the bandit chief Mainahkos to send them head on at a hard gallop against the massed pikes and hope to get more than a mere handful of them back, for anyone with a grain of sense would realize that the cavalry in the rear areas could ride rings around such relatively slow, cumbersome conveyances, deadly rings, in the case of the horse-archers that the bandits knew he owned as a part of his army.

  That left only a couple of alternative uses for the archaic carts. One of these would be an attempt to drive between wings and center and thus take the pike lines on the more vulnerable flanks; the other would be to make a series of passes across the front while raining the pikemen with arrows and darts.

  It was to be the latter choice, Pahvlos saw. In staggered lines, the war-carts were drawn, clattering and bouncing over the uneven ground, the full length of the formations of pikemen, expending a quantity of arrows and darts for precious few casualties against the armored front ranks. As the leading war-carts reached the end of that initial pass, however, and began to wheel about, they received an unexpected and very sharp taste of similar medicine to that which they had been seeking to so lavishly dispense to the static lines of infantry. Captain Chief Pawl Vawn of Vawn, commanding the left wing, treated the carts and their mules and postillions to such a pointblank arrow storm that nearly a dozen were put out of action then and there. Nor did the hapless crews of the carts receive any less from the half-squadron of Horseclansmen under one of Captain Pawl's sub-chiefs, on the other wing, which eliminated more of their number, almost halving the fifty that had set out to begin.