by Robert Adams
With it patent that the war-carts were doing no significant damage to his front, Pahvlos dispatched a galloper to carry his order to Captain Thoheeks Portos and his heavy cavalry. Out from the rear area they came, taking a wide swing around the right of their own lines to end in delivering a crushing charge against the mixed heavy and light horse on the left wing of the bandits' battle line. That charge thudded home with a racket that could be heard by every man on the field and even in the camp and the city, walls or no walls.
Portos' heavy cavalry fought hard and bravely for a few minutes after the initial assault, their sharp sabers carving deeply into the formations of opposing horsemen, even penetrating completely through, into the skimpily armored ranks of light-infantry peltasts who flanked the pike lines. But then, abruptly, a banner was seen to go down, and with cries and loud lamentations they began to try to disengage and withdraw in the direction of their own lines.
Sensing a victory of sorts within grasping distance, the entire left wing of the bandits' army—horse and light foot alike—quitted their assigned positions to stream out in close pursuit of the retreating heavy horse.
And no sooner had they left the flank they had been set there to guard than up out of a brushy gully filed Sunshine, Tulip and Newgrass. With practiced speed, the cloth shroudings were stripped away, the last few pieces of armor put on and the heavy, unwieldy metal-plated boxes were lifted up onto the broad backs and strapped into place. As the archers clambered up into the boxes, Captain of Elephants Gil Djohnz and the other two feelahksee were lifted by the pachyderms to their places just behind the armored domes of the huge heads and those men still gathered about on the ground uncased the outsize swords—six feet long in the blades, broad and thick and very heavy, with both edges ground and honed to razor sharpness—which the behemoths would swing with their trunks in the initial attack. All of these last-minute preparations had been well rehearsed and so took bare minutes in the accomplishment. Once fully equipped and armed and out of the gully in which they had hidden, the three huge, fearsome-looking beasts set out in line abreast at a walk which the trailing and flanking lancers had some difficulty in matching for speed over the uneven terrain.
Now, much of Mainahkos' "infantry" was no such thing, save by the very loosest definition of the term. Rather were the most of them just a very broad cross-section of male citizens who had been impressed in the streets of the city at the points of swords and spears, handed a short pike and hustled willy-nilly into an aggregation of fellow unfortunates, then all marched out to add depth and length to the bandits' pike lines. To these, the mere distant sight of the three proboscideans fast bearing down upon them, swinging terrible two-mehtrah swords, their high backs crowded with archers and a horde of mounted lancers round about them, was all that was needful to evoke a state of instant, screaming panic.
Bandit army veterans strode and rode among the impressed men they chose to dignify with the term "citizen spear levy." With shouts and with curses, with fists and whips and swordflats and spearbutts, they tried to lay the panic, get the untrained men faced around to try to repel the flank attack, all the while cursing the peltasts and heavy horse for so exposing the flank and profanely wondering just when Lord Mainahkos would get around to sending the reserve cavalry to replace those who had ridden off to who knew where.
Of course, they could not know that a few minutes before, Pawl Vawn of Vawn had farspoken but a single thought: "Now, cat-brother!"
With bloodcurdling squalls, the seven mighty prairiecats had burst from out the tiny copse and sped toward the mounting cavalry reserve. All of them broad-beaming mental pictures of blood and of hideous death for equines, never ceasing their cacophony of snarls, growls, squalls and howls, the muscular cats rapidly closed the distance between the copse and the horses and men.
Within the City of Kahlkopolis, things were not well. Ahreekos, frantic for a better view of the battle, one not partially obscured by folds of ground, high brush or copses, had decided on the city's highest tower as an observation point and had led his followers in the climb up to its most elevated level. However, less than a third of the way up, he had gasped and fallen on a landing, jerking and beginning to turn a grayish blue in the face.
His followers had almost ruptured themselves in bearing his broad, corpulent bulk down the narrow spiral stairway, only to find upon finally reaching the first level that they had been carrying a fat corpse. Ahreekos was dead.
Leaving the body precisely where it lay, pausing only to strip off rings, bracelets and anything else of value from it, in the way of their unsavory ilk, the followers departed and began to make ready to leave the city, for what they had already been able to see of the progress of the battle had not been at all encouraging. It would seem that overconfident Mainahkos had finally met his match in the person of this white-haired eastern strahteegos and his small but very effective army, and the personal slogans of all of those who had for so long followed the two warlords had always been "He who fights and runs away lives to run away another day." They were, after all, not warriors but opportunists, and so could desert without even a twinge of shame.
The condition of Mainahkos' main battle line was not at all pleasant, for all that there had not as yet been any contact with the enemy for the front ranks or the right flank. Numerous small engines, apparently situated just behind the enemy center, had been hurling stones and long, thick spears in high arcs to fall with effect both devastating and deadly among their close-packed ranks, reducing the depth as rear-rankers needs must advance to plug the gory gaps. But it suddenly got worse, far worse.
At almost the same instant, three towering war-elephants crashed into the left flank and began to roll it speedily up, while elements of their own cavalry reserve slammed into the rear of the right-flank formations, and the panic of those horses, for some unknown reason, spread like wildfire among the horses of the heavy cavalry guarding that flank as well.
In the space between the two opposing battle lines, the harried, now-wounded commander of the war-carts just stared, astounded. Like Stehrgiahnos a broken nobleman and the man who had persuaded the two warlords to build and fit out the carts to serve the functions of the elephants that they did not have and never had had for the bandit army, he had known his full share of formal warfare in better days, but even then he had never before heard of such a thing as this.
Leaving their secure, unthreatened position, the entire length of the enemy pike line was advancing, moving at a brisk walk, their lines still even and dressed, their pikes at high-present—shoulder height—an array of winking steel points that projected well ahead of the marching lines. It was an unholy occurrence, thought the renegade; the miserable infantry simply did not advance against armored war-carts. It was unthinkable!
For him, it was truly unthinkable. Basically akin to Captain Ahzprinos of the opposing force, a less than imaginative or creative man, he did then the only thing of which he could think to do. He signaled and led a withdrawal back to whence he and the others had come, back to their own lines.
But before the carts could reach the left wing, their own infantry lines suddenly surged forward, looking less like a formation of men than like a cylinder of raw dough pressed mightily at both ends. The boiling press of men thoroughly blocked the way of the carts.
Deeply contemptuous of the common footmen at even the best of times, the commander led his force directly into the infantry, carving a gore-streaked path through them up until the moment that a wild-eyed, terrified man smote him across the backplate with a poleaxe and flung him to the ground at just the proper time and place to be raggedly decapitated by the sharp, blood-slimed, whirling blades projecting from a wheel hub of his own war-cart.
Portos' squadron of heavy horse had continued their "panicky withdrawal" until he judged that the enemy horse and peltasts had all been drawn far enough out that they could not easily or quickly return to their assigned positions and that the way was thus clear for the elephants and support
ing lancers to assault the left flank of the bandits' pike lines. Then, abruptly, the "fallen" banner was raised high again and flourished, and the squadron reined about and began to fight, not flee. They had hacked a good half of their erstwhile pursuers from out their saddles before the survivors broke and fled, scattering the peltasts before them.
At that juncture, Captain Thoheeks Portos halted his force, reformed them and directed them against the nearest protrusion of the roiling, confused mass of men that had formerly been the center of the bandits' pike line. But that projection had recoalesced back into the main mass by the time the heavy horse had come within fifty mehtrahee of it, so quick-thinking Portos led his force around the broil into the howling chaos that had but lately been the rear area of the enemy army. After detaching half the squadron under a trusted subordinate officer to see to it that as few horsemen as possible escaped back to the city, the grim-faced Portos led the other half in a hard-driving charge upon the rear and flank of those units still more or less coordinated and functioning as flank guards on the enemy's right. His half-squadron struck only bare moments before those same units were assaulted all along their front by Captain Chief Pawl Vawn of Vawn and his Horseclansmen.
When the war-carts so precipitately withdrew from the field, Grand Strahteegos Komees Pahvlos ordered the drums to roll the chosen signal. At that sound, the pikemen dropped their shields from off their backs, lowered their long, heavy pikes to low-guard present—waist-level—position and increased their pace to a fast trot, although they all maintained their proper intervals and formation up to the very moment that their hedge of steel points sank deeply into soft flesh or began to grate upon armor or bone.
The pursuit and slaughter continued for some hours more and the executions of the captured bandits went on for days, both outside and inside the city, But the charge of the pikemen had really ended the hard-fought battle at Kahlkopolis.
Pahvlos had, at first, decided to simply hang the most of the captured bandits and convert the less dangerous ones to slaves of the City of Kahlkopolis, granting the captured renegades their choice of hanging with the rest or being beheaded. That was before the signet of the late Vahrahnos of Ippohskeera was found among loot in the personal quarters of Mainahkos in the ducal palace of the Thoheeksee of Kahlkos, which find he took to mean that it was this particular pack had committed the atrocities the dying man had detailed.
Consequently, the executions were savage. None were kept for slaves; rather were all of the bandits, excepting only the chief and the three renegades, tied onto crosses stretching all along the part of the trade road that ran through the Thoheekseeahn of Kahlkos, many of them after having already been subjected to torture and mutilations.
The three onetime noblemen were manacled heavily and thoroughly, thrown into a wagon-mounted cage and set off on their journey to Mehseepolis to there be judged and sentenced by the Council of Thoheeksee.
The Grand Strahteegos had Mainahkos' fingers crushed, one by one, then saw him impaled on a thick, blunt stake of oak, most of it with the rough bark still on.
Chapter IX
As he stared into the dark contents of his winecup, swirling to the motion of his hand, Thoheeks Grahvos reflected, "Six years now. Six years tomorrow since we few moved the capital from Thrahkohnpolis to Mehsee-polis here. Although I tried to project to the others sincere confidence that our aims would, could, do no other but succeed, I didn't really feel that confident, not at all. But it worked, by God; it has succeeded. We are once more three-and-thirty thoheeksee, ruling over all of what was for so long the Kingdom of Southern Ehleenohee.
"Most of the lands are once again under lords, they're being planted and harvested, crops are coming in . . . and taxes, too; why, Sitheeros and I were even paid back a little of the monies we advanced Council, they voted the amounts to us at the last meeting and there was even talk to the effect of either buying Mehseepolis outright from me or at least paying rent for the central government's use of it and the lands used by the army. And that's a sign of maturity, that, an indicated willingness to begin to undertake the discharge of responsibilities.
"Speaking of responsibilities, Thoheeks Mahvros is doing every bit as good a job as ever I did as chairman of the Council; even Bahos, who wanted the chair himself, has had to admit that we chose well in selecting Mahvros. Besides, neither Bahos nor Sitheeros nor I is any of us getting a bit younger, and while wisdom is required in council, a young, vibrant, vital hand on the reins is needed, too, on occasion.
"The next order of business, I think, is going to have to be the reorganization of a naval presence. The raids of those non-Ehleen pirates on the far-western thoheekseeahnee are getting beyond bearing, more frequent and in larger and larger force. And I just can't see begging the High Lord for help until we've gotten to where we can at least make a token payment of the reparations for Zastros' folly. I must remember to bring that up in Council next time, too.
"I do miss blunt, honest Chief Pawl Vawn." He sighed to himself. "But it's understandable that he had to get back to his clan and his family; after all, he'd been down here for around five years, and some several months away on campaign in Karaleenos before that. I had so hoped, however, that we could convince him to take a title and lands here, bring down his family and become one of us.
"But at least a few of those Horseclanners stayed here. Rahb Vawn was granted the right by Chief Pawl to found a full sept of Clan Vawn here, and Pawl agreed to tell of the fact to his clan and allow any who wanted to come down and join Rahb to do so.
"Gil Djohnz and most of the other elephant Horseclanners, too, are staying. So, too, are some dozen more of the younger unmarried men of Pawl's squadron. Tomos Gonsalos has agreed to stay on here, at least until the High Lord sends down or appoints a commander to succeed him, which last is a blessing, for our Grand Strahteegos couldn't do all that's necessary with the army all alone.
"There are many, especially in the army, who wish Pahvlos would retire, and maybe he should; after all, he's pushing seventy-five . . . though he'd die before he'd admit to the fact. Ever since he executed that victory at Kahlkopolis, the old bastard's been marching the very legs off the army, hieing them north, south, east and west, cleaning up the tag ends of the chaos that preceded this government. Those on Council who criticized him, berate the expenses of his constant campaigning, just don't or won't realize how very much the old man and that very campaigning has done and is doing for this government and for our lands and folk.
"That business last year, for example, now. He not only drove the damned mountain barbarians back across the border, retook all the lands and forts they'd overrun during the years of civil war, then moved his columns up into the very mountains themselves, but so decimated and intimidated the savages that no less than nine of the barbarian chiefs have signed and sworn to trade treaties and nonaggression treaties and sent down hostages to be held against their keeping their words. Yes, it all cost some men and supplies and the like, but real peace is ever dear, and I can't see why certain of my peers can't get that fact through their thick heads.
"Thoheeks Tipos, in particular, from the moment Council voted to confirm his rank and lands, has proceeded to balk at anything that was for the common weal. Were it up to him alone, we'd have taxes so high that we'd shortly have a full-scale rebellion that would make that first one against King Hyamos look like little boys at play. Nor would there be any army to put it down or at least try, because he would've disbanded the army entirely, the taxed funds thus saved to go toward rebuilding ducal cities, roads, fords, bridges and the clearing of canals, none of which would do him or any of the rest of us any good were internal discord and the constant threat of invasion by the barbarians staring us in the face, but the stubborn bastard, his brain well pickled in wine, refuses to see plain facts directly under his big red nose.
"And then there's Thoheeks Theodoros, too; what a precious pair of obstructionists those two make in Council. At best, Theodoros is but the dregs of a vintag
e the best of which was of questionable merit.
One would think that he might have learned something from the examples of his sire and his elder brothers, but he is every bit as despotically minded as were any of them. His latest brainstorm was to suggest a law which would forbid, under penalty of enslavement to the state, the ownership of bows or crossbows by any man not in either the army or the employ of some nobleman or himself a nobleman, which is pure poppycock to any rational man.
"But worse than that, he visibly cringes at the mention of monies to be spent on the army and its needs. And he seems to be of the opinion that were we to surrender all of the border marches to the barbarians, they would leave us in peace forever. Had he ever been a warrior, I might think that he'd taken one too many blows to the helm; as it is, I'm of the mind that his wet nurse must have dropped him on his head.
"The one, saving grace is that neither of them is a spring chicken. Theodoros is almost my own age and Tipos is a good ten years my senior, so they won't—God willing—be around to bedevil Mahvros for too much longer. Mayhap their heirs will be of sound mind, though in the case of Theodoros, I much fear that it's in the bloodline of his house.
"Tipos, now, lacks an heir of direct line to succeed him. I would imagine he'll name his young catamite, but Council is in no way bound to confirm that young man. Perhaps he has a nephew or a grandnephew or two of unselfish nature and open mind. We'll see.
"But back to thinking about those who had soldiered here and have then been persuaded to stay on, I consider it a real accomplishment to have gotten Guhsz Hehluh not only to accept a vahrohnoseeahn in one of my duchies, but to also take to pensioning off wounded men of his regiment in others of my lands and cities and towns to seek wives and establish crafts and trades and businesses, few of them seeming to be inclined toward agriculture or animal husbandry. But with the way the mountain barbarians are flocking in at the offer of free land to farm and the way the Horseclanners who've stayed here all seem dead set on a life of breeding cattle or horses or sheep or, in the cases of Gil Djohnz and a couple of others, elephants, we'll probably have enough folk to till the lands and produce beasts for us, shortly.
