by Mark Acres
“I’m not sure I understand all that,” George said, shaking his head. Sometimes he wished Sir John would just speak plainly.
“Don’t worry,” Bagsby said. “You will when the time comes.”
Ruprecht, Culdus, and Valdaimon sat in the king’s tent on the eastern edge of the Elven Preserve, poring over Culdus’s great maps.
“I knew it was too easy,” Culdus moaned. “I knew it had to be a trap!”
“I don’t see the problem,” Ruprecht shot back, plopping a fresh grape into his mouth. “Valdaimon,” the king added, “step back from me, please. Your smell spoils the taste of my fruit.”
Culdus stood up, his muscles twitching. There was nothing he wanted so much as to thrash this young, spoiled wastrel who happened to wear a crown. Ruprecht looked at Culdus’s impressive armored bulk, at the angry scowling face, at the tension in the muscles that showed even beneath the coat of chain mail and livery that covered the old general’s body.
“We said,” the king repeated coldly, “that we do not understand why there is a problem. We expect an explanation.”
My oath, Culdus reminded himself. My oath. I bound myself to this man for all time, no matter what. I am a man of honor. I will honor my oath.
“The problem, Your Majesty,” Valdaimon intruded, “is quite simple. The army of the Holy Alliance is moving parallel and north of the advance of our flanking force. By now it has linked up with the elves, who are now driven from the Preserve. Their entire force sits on the flank of advancing legions. Were they to attack….”
“The military term is defeat in detail,” Culdus snapped.
“They could attack the flank of one legion, defeat it, then attack the flank of the next, and so on.”
“I doubt that rabble can defeat anything,” Ruprecht said. “They are peasants with bills and staves. We outnumber them, with superior troops. We have Valdaimon with us to deal with their magic and, if need be, he can... bring up a few extra troops for us,” Ruprecht said disdainfully. He popped another grape in his mouth. “That might be kind of fun, actually, Valdaimon, if you were to bring up some of our undead things. Frankly, this campaign has been too easy. It begins to bore me.”
“Your Majesty,” Culdus said coldly, “in order to prevent the defeat in detail that we mentioned, it is necessary to concentrate the army, and quickly. I recommend that we concentrate here,” he said, stabbing with a mailed finger at a point on the map about a day’s march east of the Elven Preserve and a day’s march south of the border with Parona.
“If we do that,” Ruprecht asked, “will there finally be a big battle?”
“If we are able to do that,” Culdus said carefully, “there will most certainly be a very large battle.” He didn’t add that it would be the largest he had ever seen, larger than any he had even studied, in terms of the numbers to be engaged.
“Then do it,” the king said, waving his hand to dismiss his general. “Now, Valdaimon,” the king said, turning to more pleasant matters, “have a few of the prisoners we’ve taken sent in for my amusement.”
It was after midnight when Bagsby met with Elrond on a bare plain behind the army’s camp, just south of the border with Parona.
“Well done, well done,” Bagsby enthused as the elf approached him in the pale moonlight “You pulled it off splendidly.”
“I have only one question to ask you,” Elrond said. “I did not ask it before, and I did not ask it in public, because I wished to do nothing to jeopardize our victory over Heilesheim.”
The tall pale elf turned slightly away from Bagsby to gaze up at the pale light of the moon. The elf’s appearance was even more magnificent, Bagsby thought—more magical, more charming—in the pale flood of light that danced across his fine features and bounced off his longish white hair, than it had ever been.
“I want to ask this,” Elrond continued, quietly. “What did you promise the dragons to get their cooperation?”
“Hmm,” Bagsby grunted. “Of course, you did know, didn’t you?”
“That you would bring them, yes,” Elrond agreed. “Why they would come, no.”
Bagsby hesitated. Everything hinged on the battle in the morning. The battle could well hinge on the elves. There were so many small things that could go wrong, so many little things that their magic could fix.... If he lost Elrond now, he would lose the whole world to Valdaimon.
“I promised them peace with men and elves,” Bagsby answered.
Elrond nodded. “Yes. I can see how it must be so, though it will be hard for us elves. But hard as it is for us, it must have been harder for them. They have racial memory; they will know their history as well as you know how to walk.”
“It was hard for them,” Bagsby acknowledged.
“They must want revenge,” Elrond went on.
“They do,” Bagsby admitted. “But they see the values of cooperation.”
“They must have demanded some token,” Elrond pressed.
“I promised them the life of the elf who killed the Ancient One, the mother of their race,” Bagsby said. “Of course, there are many ways for an elf to give his life.”
Elrond stood still for a moment, gazing at the moon. Bagsby squirmed. He could not keep his feet still. Elrond finally turned to face him, a smile of gentle peace on his ancient face.
“It is a small price to pay for the gain to be had,” he whispered. “But the elves as a whole must survive. There is a curse, cast by the Ancient One herself, that dooms my race. And now is the time of its fulfillment.”
“I will do all I can,” Bagsby said simply.
Over the next hour, Bagsby gave the orders for the final disposition of the army for the morrow’s battle. He had chosen his position with some care, once arriving in the general area where he wanted the battle to occur. As he had expected, it took the Heilesheim forces almost three days to reorient and regroup—about a day longer, Bagsby noted, than crack, veteran troops would have required. There had been plenty of time to scout the open plain for the battlefield that would best suit the tactics Bagsby planned to use.
His army was deployed in a flat, open plain between two low hills, about a mile apart. His infantry occupied the center of the line, arranged in three great blocks, each with a frontage of almost five hundred yards and a depth of twenty ranks. Clustered on the flanks and in the gaps between these three massive blocks were groupings of the northern bowmen, in their own irregular wedge formations. The mounted knights, some four thousand of them, were deployed eight lines deep behind the infantry. Another five hundred cavalry each were posted in line on the crest of each hill as flank guards. The elves, who had borne the brunt of the battle so far and, had pulled off such a marvelous retreat and feint, were posted to the far rear as an emergency reserve.
The priests, who always kept to themselves, were deployed in their own lines behind the cavalry, but under strict orders to come to the front immediately if, as expected, Valdaimon used his dark powers to unleash the beasts of the undead world upon the Holy Alliance forces.
The few mages available to the Holy Alliance were deployed with the forward troops, ready at a moment’s notice to try to counter the force of Valdaimon’s mages.
Bagsby had seen to the dispositions of the troops before sunset, in the hours after the Heilesheim forces had finally advanced to within striking range of the field. His men were instructed to sleep in the open, in ranks; despite Valdaimon’s penchant for the undead, Bagsby feared no attack during the night. His scouts had reported to him fully on the disarray in the Heilesheim ranks—the crossing of supply trains on the narrow, limited roads, the low morale of the troops, and the marching and countermarching that had been ordered to meet the threat to the Heilesheim flank. Culdus was a cautious general, Bagsby knew. He would make no move before morning, and Valdaimon dared not move without him.
Now, Bagsby stood on the southernmost of the
two hills and looked out over the field at night. Tomorrow would be the test. He had done all that he could to ensure that the opening of the battle went well. Now he would have to do the only remaining thing he could do.
Sir John Wolfe patted the flank of the white charger provided for him, put his foot in the stirrup, and hoisted himself up. Then, with a final glance at his sleeping army, he turned the horse and galloped off into the dark night, leaving the army far behind.
A little after dawn, the sun was already burning off the morning mist that covered the fair, open plain on which the army of the Holy Alliance was deployed in full battle array. Culdus surveyed the field from the back of his favorite warhorse. He was puzzled by what he saw.
The Holy Alliance commander was showing only his infantry strength. That seemed massive enough; it stretched in three great, rectangular formations across almost a mile of front, with only two gaps. There appeared to be irregular formations of some sort in those gaps; these were of little concern to Culdus. What did concern him was that the enemy infantry seemed to be armed like his own, with the long, eighteen-foot pike. His thus far invincible pike formations had never faced troops armed and deployed in similar fashion; the pike formations of Heilesheim had been developed to defeat noble armies of mounted knights. Of these, there were few to be seen—a small group on each of the hills that delimited the enemy’s flanks, that was all.
Culdus did like the odds. By his own rough head count, he had more than three times the enemy’s strength in foot, and probably a superiority in cavalry as well. The old general thought about the problem for a moment, then ordered his dispositions.
“Well, Culdus, let the battle begin!” the king sang out as he rode forward on his own black steed.
“In good time, Your Majesty. The legions must be deployed to meet the enemy’s dispositions,” Culdus replied coldly.
“Well, then let’s deploy. Who goes where?” the king asked eagerly.
“I plan a very simple battle using our numerical superiority to crush the enemy,” Culdus explained. “We have eight legions, each of about five thousand foot. Two will be held in reserve. The other six we will form in a broad line, which will advance en masse. Our line will be much longer than theirs; our left and right legions will close on the enemy’s flanks and destroy him in one great crush. Our cavalry, as always, will be used to counter the enemy cavalry, and for pursuit.”
The king scowled. This was not the type of battle he had envisioned. “What about some wights or zombies or shadows? What about some magic attacks? I want to see some fireworks today, Culdus. This will be the greatest victory of my life—sadly, probably the last, for after today, who will there be to oppose me? I want it to be memorable.”
“I do not doubt,” Culdus said testily, “that the day will be memorable enough.”
“Well, I do!” the king pouted. “I want Valdaimon to open the battle with magic and undead to terrorize the enemy!”
“Your Majesty, with due respect, that will only waste valuable time.”
“I insist,” the king screamed.
George watched the sun climb higher in the sky. He saw the forces opposing him across the plain, less than five hundred yards away. Their lines of pike formations stretched on forever; they would clearly wrap around his flanks. What puzzled George was why the enemy was waiting. It was almost midmorning, and still the enemy had made no move.
Finally George saw a short line of men dressed in colorful robes make their way toward the front of the enemy’s ranks. No doubt about it, George thought, them there is wizards.
“Runner!” he cried. “Alert the mages. Alert all units. Stand by for magical attack.”
George continued to scan the enemy front. Slowly one figure came to dominate the foreground. George squinted—it was Valdaimon!
“Runner!” he called again. Another youth sprinted to his side. “Go fetch those priests up here, and make them come double time,” George ordered.
The order was delivered none too soon. Shortly after Valdaimon’s appearance, the sky grew overcast, blotting out the brilliant morning sun. Then a vast mist began to form in front of the Heilesheim ranks, seeping out of the ground and rising slowly higher and higher, until at length it blotted out all view of the enemy forces. This mist began to roll slowly forward toward the center of the Alliance troops.
“Steady now, lads,” George called. He moved himself laterally to the gap between his left and center blocks. With relief he saw the colorfully robed figures of priests hastening to the front, the robes whipping in the light wind that had come up, the various symbols of their gods in their hands.
“‘Ere! Ere! Form a line ‘ere!” George directed.
The priests seemed to keep their own counsel, ignoring George but nonetheless doing as he said, placing themselves in a line squarely in front of the advancing wall of fog.
The wall was less than a hundred yards away when the forms began to emerge from it.
Wails of despair went up from the front ranks of the Alliance infantry whose vision was not blocked by the priests. Prayers to a dozen gods soared upward as the hideous hodgepodge of undead began to slowly advance. The wights were the first to appear, bestial, stooped, brutish things, whose mere touch could freeze flesh and whose bite was fatal to the soul as well as the body. Behind them lumbered a host of zombies, and overhead a few bats began to soar—the more mobile form of the few vampires Valdaimon had seen fit to summon.
George grabbed a horse from a runner, sprang up on its back, and galloped along the front of the infantry line.
“Hold firm boys! The priests will get them!” he cried. “The priests will get them!”
Soon the chant of “The priests will get them!” arose along the Alliance front, and the priests slowly advanced, more than a hundred holy symbols held aloft, their deep voices chanting prayers to their gods and commands to the undead to return from whence they had come in the name of all that was holy.
The exorcisms had great effect. Of the three hundred zombies who had stumbled from the mist, all but a handful fled stumbling backward. About a dozen of the wights were strong enough to continue their advances, only to be hacked to pieces by priests armed with silver swords and spears for just such purposes. The few vampires, being intelligent creatures, were hardly affected by the priests’ chanting, although they were discomfited, and thus chose not to launch themselves at hordes of increasingly excited, angry humans armed with wooden poles topped with iron and steel points. The undead attack evaporated more quickly than it had begun.
The sun peeped out from behind the clouds, which had rapidly began to dissipate, and soon the wall of mist was evaporating as well. George reined in his horse in front of his central infantry. As the fog lifted, he began to see the enemy front more clearly—which was now not more than 200 yards away!
The wily Culdus had chosen to launch his attack behind the cover of the undead and the wall of fog!
“Priests to the rear, priests to the rear!” George cried, galloping once more along the front line. “Infantry, prepare to receive charge! Prepare to receive!”
Unit commanders repeated the vital order, and the green peasant infantry of the Holy Alliance prepared to do the one thing they had been taught to do well. The front three ranks of the pike lines knelt, their long pikes extended forward at a low angle, making a hideous front for a mass of men or horses to break. Their comrades in the fourth and fifth ranks raised their pikes to shoulder height and held them extended frontally, adding to the death trap for any frontal assault.
But the Heilesheim pikemen were also well trained, and even their green men were a match for the Alliance troops. Pikes shouldered, they advanced to within sixty yards, where they paused, and then, the order given, advanced forward at the double-time step, their own pikes leveled. Those in front carried their deadly spears in both hands at waist height; those in the rear at shoulder height. At
twenty yards the massed formation broke into a full run, and second later the impact occurred.
Hideous screams arose from the field as men in the front ranks on both sides were impaled in the mesh of pike points. Neither mass yielded; the Alliance troops held, and those in the rear ranks began stepping forward to fill in for their fallen comrades. In the front-most ranks the few that had survived dropped their pikes, often made useless by the burden of an impaled body, and began the brutal hand-to-hand slaughter with swords and daggers.
George galloped down the gap between his center and right units. “Bowmen to the front and fire at the enemy,” he ordered.
The sturdy northerners moved forward on the run in the gap between the units, the first to arrive near the front, pausing to send a lethal volley of missiles into the few Heilesheim men who, trying to exploit the gaps, had moved inward toward the flanks of the Alliance block formations.
George galloped on toward the rear. He had to find a vantage point where he would see what was happening. How fast, he wondered, were the flanking forces coming? In seconds they would come crashing in on both flanks, and the battle would be lost.
Volley after volley of arrows poured forth from the archers as they whittled away the front ranks of the attacking Heilesheimers. But on the flanks, the archery was not enough.
George reached a very slight rise, just in front of his first line of cavalry, where the kings of Parona and Argolia sat watching with dismay as full legions of Heilesheim troops began to maneuver on the Alliance flanks.
Then the winds hit. At first it was just a roaring sound, like the howl of a tornado in the distance, but it grew louder and louder—though from whence it came no one could tell, for the mighty gusts blew in both directions across the field, along the length of the engaged fighting lines. A few seconds more, and the first men began to tumble over, unable to keep their footing.
