by Mark Acres
“Show him in,” Bagsby called.
Mild astonishment gripped the assembled lords as a small, bent, wizened man with wrinkled yellow-brown skin stepped into the room. The little man wore nothing but a simple white linen breechcloth, and leaned for support against a heavy staff.
“I am much thanking you, my goodness. Those men would not let me being in.”
“You are welcome, Ramashoon, Holy Man of the East,” Bagsby called.
“Well,” the little man stated, “I am here to be telling all of you that this man is not crazy,” Ramashoon said, his lilting voice and smiling face spreading bemusement. “Oh, my gracious, no. He says he has found the secret of the fire from heaven. And I am being here to tell you that this is true, for I, Ramashoon the Holy, have seen it with my own eyes, oh my goodness, yes.”
Trial by Fire
RUPRECHT of Heilesheim sat upright in the saddle of his prancing black charger, his plain white blouse blowing in the gentle breeze of the summer morning, his golden coronet glistening in the early sunlight. Behind him, on a broad plain, were massed two legions of Heilesheim, their ranks now depleted by disease, hunger, and the endless of accidents of war to about ten thousand foot and two thousand mounted, armored men. The infantry was massed in pike block formations, three per legion, while the cavalry stood in two long ranks to the rear. Behind them, but ready to move to the front at an instant’s command, were one hundred wizards of Valdaimon’s League, armed with spells carefully crafted to set ablaze the vast forest that faced the king about a thousand yards to his front.
Culdus was mounted next to the king, on hand to command what he foresaw as a possible disaster. Valdaimon’s plan was sound enough, but there were endless difficulties that weighed this morning on Culdus’s mind. Once the blaze began, how could the infantry advance in its wake? It could take days to march through that scorched earth. And already, the troops selected for the attack were hungry. Despite constant patrolling to the supply lines, Culdus had been unable to prevent the loss of over three thousand wagons in the last thirty days to attacks from Argolian villagers who overwhelmed the supply convoys, burned what they could not loot, and then disappeared back into either the few remaining villages or the small woods that still dotted these southern lands.
“A fine day!” Ruprecht declared. “Is all in readiness?”
“It is, Your Majesty,” replied the dreadful figure of Valdaimon, standing on foot beside Ruprecht’s giant steed. “Your Majesty has but to give the word of command. I would, however, make one small suggestion,” Valdaimon said, staring ahead at the thick forest which held more secrets of magic than even he had amassed in his many lifetimes of effort and study. The thought of the wholesale destruction about to be unleashed on such valuable magic was painful to the old wizard. “An infantry probe,” Valdaimon wheezed. “Let us see where the elves have formed their first line. We can begin the fire from there.”
Ruprecht’s face scrunched up in annoyance. He turned to Culdus, who had listened intently to the old wizard’s words. For once, Valdaimon was daring to give the king good advice, Culdus thought. He had always opposed the notion of simply blasting the woods with magical fire before probing it to learn the enemy’s position, strength, and dispositions.
“Valdaimon’s suggestion is well taken,” Culdus said. “In fact, I had planned to send in a skirmish line first to determine the enemy’s strength. Then,” he added quickly, seeing the young king’s growing displeasure as the pyrotechnics show he had expected was delayed, “we will have a very good idea of how many elves we have destroyed.”
Ruprecht considered. He pictured himself recounting the tale of this day in the great banquet hall of Heilesheim. And on that day, three thousand of the foul little elves were burned to death in the fiery trap I had prepared, he heard himself saying. To Culdus he said only, “Very well. But make it quick.”
Culdus nodded, turned, summoned his frontline officers, and spoke a few words of command. Less than a minute later three long, thin, widely spaced lines of infantry began advancing at a slow jog across the open plain toward the edge of the wood. They carried light spears that Culdus had improvised, thinking they might be more useful in the wooded setting; and a few, who had the skill, even carried bows. The men wore light leather padding as their only armor; for skirmishers in a dense wood, freedom and ease of movement was of greater value than weight of armor. Culdus could only wish there had been time and supplies to so equip a whole legion for use in this dubious adventure.
The first line of men, about one hundred strong, reached the edge of the forest and paused only an instant before disappearing into its darkness. The second wave followed them seconds later; the third waited at the edge the forest for a good minute, then slowly advanced after them.
“Well, well, what’s happening?” Ruprecht demanded. “Why isn’t there any noise? Where are the shouts of battle?” The king’s horse pranced back and forth before the massed troops, mirroring its master’s impatience.
“Patience, Your Majesty,” Culdus counseled, a frown crossing his own brow. Where were the sounds of fighting? Surely the elves knew they were coming; it had taken two days to mass the troops, and the camp had been less than two miles from the edge of the Elven Preserve. Not even elves could be blind to so large a force on their very borders!
A trio of runners began to emerge from the wood, hastening back to Culdus to report.
“My lords! Your Majesty!” the first one to approach shouted as he came nearer. “The elves are retreating! They are fleeing at our approach!”
His cry was echoed by the two more distant runners. “Light resistance—a few arrows fired, and then their line broke and fled on the forest floor,” one man called. “No casualties—the enemy is in full flight,” the third reported.
“Ahah!” Ruprecht exclaimed. “Where is the vaunted elven prowess and magic now? You hear, Culdus, they flee at our approach. The whole world trembles at my approach!” The exuberant youth spurred his steed forward, waving a sword in the air as his charger worked up to a gallop. “Forget the fire! Let the whole army advance! After them! After them! Let not one of them escape the sword of Ruprecht!”
“Majesty!” Culdus exclaimed, but the king paid no heed.
Behind the general, in obedience to the king’s command, officers barked orders and the massive formations began a slow advance across the plain.
“Valdaimon!” Culdus cried. “This is dangerous! It could be a trap!”
“Have no fear,” the old wizard croaked back. “My League will be at the rear of the advance. Say the word, and the flames will begin.”
What great luck, Valdaimon thought. The elves are abandoning part of their forest. So long had that wood been enchanted that even the smallest part of it could yield secrets of magical power!
Elrond stood in the branch of a tall tree, his mind half melded with the flowing sap of the giant, green living thing, his eyes partly glazed, his consciousness a jumble of images. He saw a brother elf, crouched in the underbrush, loose an arrow in the direction of the advancing Heilesheim skirmishers. He felt the soft thud of the earth as the man’s body hit the ground. He saw another elf, no weapons on him, high in a faraway treetop, gesturing, and pointing a finger into the distance. A scream came and went as a tiny bullet of magical force claimed yet another Heilesheim life. A body of three elves took careful aim and let loose three arrows, each striking its mark.
Caution, caution, Elrond’s consciousness breathed to the tree. Slow them, but do not destroy them—not too quickly, not yet. And throughout the dense wood, elven warriors felt a sense of peace, security, and safety well up from all the living green things around them, urging them to slow their retreat, slow their firing, minimize the killing.
“We must keep them coming, coming after us,” became the sole thought of a thousand elves, deployed in-depth across a mile-long front of the sacred forest. And so it was that
little by little, step by step, the Heilesheim skirmishers advanced, taking light but acceptable losses, inflicting almost none, moving forward at a slow, steady pace.
Even then, Elrond noted, the humans had to slow their advance, lest they get too far forward of the main body of their infantry—great lumbering masses of men encumbered by their huge pikes, who slashed and scarred the plant life and the earth as they stumbled forward, one painful step at a time, through the underbrush and between the great trees. Time and again, the old elf sensed the enemy formations losing their cohesion, and time and again they stopped, regrouped, and stumbled forward a few hundred yards more.
So it had gone for three whole days, as Elrond and his elven warriors lured the Heilesheim legions deeper and deeper into the Elven Preserve. Now, Elrond thought, it was time to begin bending the line back toward the east. Again, the communal thought went out. Throughout that day and into the night, the Heilesheim forces slowly discovered less and less resistance on their left, as the elven line bent back, back to the east, toward the edge of their beloved forest, toward the open plains of Argolia.
Thieves do have their uses, Bagsby mused, as the band of swarthy vagabonds was shown into his tent. Indeed they do! The war effort he was coordinating had involved the entire population of Parona, and all the refugees who could be mustered. Artisans, of course, were in high demand for the manufacture of weapons, armor, and the various other necessities of war. Women were put to work over the camp’s great cooking fires, preparing three meals a day from the endless parade of livestock and produce delivered to the camp for the thirty thousand footmen and five thousand mounted knights of the host of the Alliance. There was no segment of the population unused, Bagsby had realized only days before, except for the thieves. And these he had found good use for as well.
The thieves themselves were only too grateful to be released from their cells in Parona and set loose on the land. A goodly number of them did not return, as Bagsby had expected. But this handful had come back, lured by the promise of easy gold and a full pardon.
“Report!” Bagsby barked to the leader of the small band. The scrawny man stepped forward, his ragged hat in his hands, his small, dark eyes glancing this way and that in the characteristic manner of a thief—always searching for the quickest way out of a place, and anything that wasn’t nailed down.
“Sir...” the man began.
“And know this,” Bagsby interrupted at once. “Your words had better be true, for your reward, your pardon, and even your lives depend upon the truth.”
“Sir,” the man said again, “we went like you said, down to the border with Argolia. Went fast, like you said, took them horses you gave us.”
Bagsby grimaced. The gift of horses to the more than two hundred thieves turned out from Parona’s dungeons had brought more howls of protest from the nobility—and especially from King Alexis. “We rode real fast, fast as them horses could take us,” the man droned on. “Right to the border, like you said.”
“Yes, yes, man, get to the point,” Bagsby said sternly. “We seen them Heilesheim troops there, in Argolia, just like you said we would.”
“How far from the border?” Bagsby asked. This much he knew from his own cavalry scouts, whom he had withdrawn from the area days ago to avoid alarming the Heilesheim legions.
“Real close to the border,” the ingratiating man replied. “Not more than three or four miles at most.”
So far, so good, Bagsby thought.
“What did you do then?” he demanded.
“Well, sir, we didn’t do nothin’. What I mean is, we hid the horses and blended in—they’s lots of people milling about with them troops.”
“Yes, yes, and what did you see?”
“Looked to me,” the man said, stepping forward and lifting his head slightly, assuming an air of importance, “like they had problems. A lot of them soldiers was taking food from whoever had any, and lots of the civilians was going hungry. They was drilling, too, but they didn’t look very good,” he added.
Culdus has supply problems, Bagsby thought. And if the drilling is poor, he’s filling in his ranks with green troops. Very good.
“Then, sir,” the man went on, “we done like you said. We waited until them troops marched off, and we come back here right quick. Left yesterday afternoon and rode all night, got here this morning.”
Bagsby sat forward, his interest piqued.
“What direction, man? What direction did they take?”
“They went west, sir, by my soul they did.”
“You all saw this?” Bagsby demanded.
The crew of thieves nodded to a man, fixing Bagsby with their most sincere looks.
“Very well,” Bagsby said. “Captain of the guard,” he called.
The guard appeared at the tent entrance.
“See that these men are well fed and cared for. And keep them under close arrest until further orders,” Bagsby ordered. There was always the chance they were lying.
The thieves squawking protests were quickly silenced by the troops who took them from the commander’s presence. Bagsby stood, walked over to his map table, and took a last look at his carefully drawn plans. So it begins, he thought, a chill running through his body. So it begins.
George looked out with great pride at the spectacle that stretched below him. The secondary road was narrow and rough going, but the vast procession of the army of the Holy Alliance was making as good a progress as any Heilesheim force ever had. George sat on the ground on the side of a small hill, overlooking the single road that wound its way through the rolling plains. He sucked on a blade of sweet grass as he marveled at the army and his own fate.
In the lead of the great procession, of course, was the contingent of priests. The priests of all the gods of Parona were represented, and there were priests for some of the other gods, too—gods from Argolia and from the conquered duchies, even gods from the cantons in the north. The priests were a pretty sight, George reluctantly admitted. At the fore, they carried the great banner of the combined army of the Holy Alliance—a huge, white square with gold fringe all around it. In the center of the square, a golden dragon flew upward toward a blue field of sky laced with white clouds. Pretty scene, George thought, not like most battle flags. And the priests themselves were colorful—all dressed in their fine and colorful robes. Couldn’t be prettier, although what good they were George couldn’t imagine. They had stayed away from the camp for the most part—except when it was time to get money, and then they’d showed in force. This morning they’d blessed the whole lot. Couldn’t hurt, George guessed.
Next came about a thousand mounted knights, riding out with their high-spirited horses prancing, wanting to increase the slow speed of the advance, their armor clanking as they went along. Knights were necessary for battle, of course, but George had lost little of his antagonism toward the ruling class, and these men on horseback were the symbols of that class.
The bowmen—now there was a strange lot. They marched fast; they were tall, proud men in their white shirts, brown breeches, and good, solid boots—the same thing they always wore. Their lines were ragged and unimpressive, but there were a lot of them, and George had seen what they could do with a bow. Their bows were different; tall, long things, much longer than bows of Heilesheim. They took a lot of strength to pull—George had tried. But these men could get off six good arrows in a minute with those bows if the strings were dry, and most of them were dead-on shots. What’s more, those arrows seemed to carry an unusual amount of force. George himself had seen one penetrate plate armor, something that only a crossbow bolt could do, and then at point-blank range.
George stood up, swelling with pride as his eye came to rest on the first of the footmen. Now, these men kept in ranks as they marched, and they held their pikes in the rest position just like he’d showed them. They didn’t dawdle or fall out of ranks, and there didn’t a
ppear to be very much talking. It was a great sight, George thought. Less than four weeks ago, some of those men had been nothing but peasants, and now any one of them could wield a pike effectively—at least in defense, which was what Sir John had wanted.
George turned at the sound of an approaching horse.
“What do you think of our army?” Bagsby called cheerily.
“They’ll do, I suppose, they’ll do,” George said, nodding.
“I’m glad you approve,” Bagsby said, “because when the battle begins, you will be commanding them.”
The long blade of sweet grass dropped from George’s mouth.
“Me?” the man gasped.
“Of course,” Bagsby said, chuckling. “Why do you think I had you train them?”
“But I… I ain’t no general, sir,” George said.
“I know. But as you may recall, I ain’t either,” Bagsby said, teasing. “Don’t worry. The horsemen will all have their instructions from me before the fight begins. You will command the masses of the foot. I’ll arrive at the battle at the crucial time, before the decisive moment,” Bagsby said.
“Where you going?” George demanded. “Where you going to be?”
“Quit worrying. I won’t leave until just before the fighting begins, and I’ll show up at the right time. I’m going to pick up the treasure, as I told you I would.”
“Why in ten thousand ‘ ells would you be bringin’ a treasure to a battle?” George asked, bewildered.
“You’ll see in good time, George,” Bagsby said, his visage growing grim. “Now listen, this is important, and I want you to think hard about it between now and the time of the fighting. When I leave and before I get back, a lot of those men are going to be scared. Not of fighting—everybody’s scared of that. But out there on that battlefield, they’re going to see something they’ve never seen before, and it will scare them bad. You, too. Your job will be to hold them together, keep them from running. You do that by telling them that the thing that’s scaring them so bad is on their side,” Bagsby explained.
