Arthur H. Landis - Camelot 02

by Camelot in Orbit

  I nodded toward the gathering hordes. “There’s still another army, though methinks

  ‘twill be their last.”

  And have I said that the sun, great Fomaihaut, was now approaching noon?

  All opposition had ceased. Indeed, even as we rode on, the last of the fleeing enemy was racing across the shallow waters to join their Hishian brothers. I decided then to risk the telling of Marack’s arrival.

  We halted at the far end of the ruined village. Sernas, when I told him that I would have council, made as if to call in all his captains. But I warned against it, saying, “What must be said should be told to a handful first. The information can then be passed along.

  For the Dark One, sirs, would dearly love to catch us in one great meeting and there’s no way to abort the lightning he can launch if he’s a mind to. Now, within but a few hours,” I told them soberly, “and as previously stated, there will arrive on your Omnian soil, and at precisely the site of your dottle herds, thirty thousand Marackian warriors-all led by Marack’s greatest generals. They come either to win with you or to die with you. For such is the peril of our world. ‘Tis said, and true, however, that nothing works as we would like it to. In effect there may be delay, treason; whatever! Anything can happen. Therefore I adjure you that though we must believe in Marack’s coming, still must we advance to slay these minions of the Dark One as if Marack were never coming. If she comes in time, she’ll share your glory; if she comes too late-she’ll avenge you, though mayhap, too, she will die herself in the doing of the deed….”

  They listened quietly, in deep thought.

  “How,” Lord Gol-Tares asked, “will they get from there to here?”

  “I cannot tell you that,” I said, “‘til after.”

  Lord Sernas chose to ask the obvious question: “How long will Marack stay in Om?”

  “Until the Dark One is no more-no longer.”

  ‘We have your word?”

  “Yes-as you will have the word of the Lords of the North.”

  “Then so be it. How many,” he changed the subject, “would you say confront us now, beyond the Kiis?”

  “With the remnants of the first army enjoined with the second, perhaps 50,000; mayhap with more kaatis and such.”

  “No more skaidings? no meegs?”

  “I doubt it. The Dark One grows more limited, sirs. He dares not waste his energies, which he must save for the thing he must do. But there might be other things….”

  “Such as?”

  “I do not know. But I do assure you, his greatest power lies in the sword arms that still support him.”

  The beatle-browed Gol-Stils said peremptorily, he’d been watching the far bluff with steely eyes, “Let’s to it then. With or without Marack; with or without your magic, Collin, I’ve a mind to test those sword arms you speak of. It just might be, sir, that all that is best in Om can do the job itself-without your help.”

  “I pray it will be so,” I answered simply. “Indeed, we’ll help you do it; me and my remaining swords.”

  Upon which he took my hand and begged my pardon, not out of fear, but for the slight he knew he’d given…. I thought then that the Boo’s music had made-was still making-true Alphians of them all in ways of courtesy as well as battle.

  Throughout our talk Rawl’s hand was strong upon my shoulder. He now asked, smiling, “My Lord, Collin, what of yon host? How would you go about it?”

  “Why,” I said blithely, “let’s ride up to it first and have a look. I’d caution all, however,”

  my voice rose, “to spread out; to keep a measured pace. That way, should lightning come, we’ll lose fewer swords. Once joined in battle, ‘twill be the opposite. For where we’re locked with the Dark One’s men, no bolts, or such, is possible.”

  But when we came to the river’s west bank we found a thing we’d not seen on the approach. The bank was diked. Apparently, at flood season the waters could otherwise quite easily inundate the western area for a mile or two of excellent bottom land…. The dike rose some twenty feet in a gentle slope from the fields and sharply for a last twelve feet. The top of the dike was as much as fifty feet across, whereupon the bank then gently sloped into the wide flat river. No wonder then that I’d not seen it from the skies either.

  We halted at the exact spot where, when we came up the slope, our heads first cleared the dike’s top. From there we could see all we had to see, whereas the Dark One’s host could see nought but out heads and banners. The Lord Sernas sent word down the line to rest our forces ‘til we had determined what to do.

  Young Sernas, riding up, shouted with new respect to his father, “Sire! Methinks this bridge, too, should be seized, at both ends, and instantly.”

  His father smiled. His reply held a like respect for his son which, I warrant, had never been granted him before. “No need,” he said calmly. “The water’s shallow. The bridge leads to but a single cleft in the bluff among many.”

  “Ah!” young Sernas exclaimed, “I see your point, pod.”

  “At least you’re learning, you copulating rapist,” Lord Haken yelled-he’d conducted himself quite bravely in the burning valley.”

  “When we attack,” Rawl Fergis mused from the saddle, “they will most certainly have amassed their very best at each cleft top. ‘Twill be to our disadvantage….”

  “Let’s lure ‘em out,” young Sernas said, “then follow them back up. The confusion should even the odds somewhat.”

  Lord Sernas said thoughtfully, “Mayhap we can surprise them, seize but one cleft with picked men; expand from there?”

  I said to Akin Sernas, “My Lord, I think your son may have something. So far we’ve found the Dark One to be lacking in detailed planning. Why this should be, I cannot say. But it is so. You can trust him, therefore, to do the obvious.

  Example: Their troops, outnumbering us, await us on the bluff. When we attempt the river there’ll be more lightning bolts-mayhap a hurling of stones. The thing is: what would the Dark One do if in mid-river we panicked and ran?”

  “But we will not panic, sir!” Gol-Stils shouted.

  “Nor will we run!” the doughty Haken roared.

  “You miss the point,” I said. “The question is: what will he do if we panic and run?”

  “Why, Sir Collin-” Lord Sernas entered the fray-“they’ll follow on, the bastards. They’ll think to take us as cowards-in the back.”

  “As we took them this morning,” his son interjected. “And if, as your son suggests, our panic is but a ruse-what then?”

  “Why!” Gol-Pares cried, “We’d turn on ‘em, drive ‘em right back up through those clefts.”

  “Except,” Rawl said, his eyes all twinkling, “they’d be disorganized somewhat.”

  “Hah!” Lord Sernas said.

  And “Hah!” the barons Gol-Spils and Pares said in unison, while Haken roared with laughter and young Sernas pranced his dottle as if to draw them down himself.

  “Fine,” I grunted. “But let’s just select three clefts from which to expand. In that way our archers will be more effective. Now, do you,” I addressed them all bluntly, “have true confidence in your control over your men? In effect, can you actually, in such circumstances, force them to retreat against their will, when all their thoughts will be to get their swords to the throats of the perpetrators of their hurt?”

  “Sir Collin,” Lord Sernas advised me haughtily, “our warriors are neither imbeciles, nor rogues. They will do as our captains tell them.”

  “Then let’s to it,” Rawl exclaimed impatiently. “As our Collin has said-time’s running out!”

  At Lord Sernas’ orders the captains withdrew to advance half of our flanking units toward the enemy. They would be sent, straggling, to disguise the fact that a full half remained behind the dike. Rawl, likewise, would lead but three thousand of the center. But behind him, and also moving forward, would be our three thousand archers.

  We’d decided that the three cleft-ravines to be seized w
ould be the bridge and the two to the left of it-“Upon which,” Rawl had explained, “we’ll quick throw the archers along the crests to feather all who attack us, until you, sir,” he said to Sernas, “come to our aid with your seven thousand.” He laughed. “I doubt not but that we’ll need them at that point…”

  And so it was decided.

  With proper leadership true Alphians simply cannot think in terms of defeat. A fact which has both its good implications and its bad….

  I naturally rode with Rawl. Young Sernas and his jolly captains, well blooded, now, led the left and Gol-Tares the right. The maneuver went as planned. But just why in the bloody, Ghastian hell we thought we could take that bluff with but twenty thousand against fifty, I’ll never know. Most surely there was Pug Boo influence at work! They were more conscious of the time factor than I; more knowledgeable of the total picture.

  Clouds gathered again, great whopping thunderheads. Rain, hail, and shards of ice stormed down upon us as our companies mounted the dike’s top couched spears and went trotting down the slope and out upon the flat sands. The river’s five hundred yards of width was but a meandering of many streams of water, really; each but a foot or so deep. We dashed across it, picking up speed.

  Above us the roiling clouds all suddenly took forms, became monstrous, darksome gerds, meegs, skaidings, and other horrors. And they roared! And brilliant lightning came direct from them. Those of ours who slowed to stare at this awesome phenomenon were hit by great swaths and pillars of blue fire. Whole squadrons were flattened, destroyed instantly.

  The mad cacophony of the drums from the opposite ridge were then enjoined by the screams and cheers of fifty thousand Hishians-all amplified to one continuous, hellish bedlam, by the cowled wizards.

  Still, we went on. In the hopes of drawing some of the pyrotechnics to me (with the added hope that the Boos would intervene to deflect them), I turned up the ion effect so that I and all others around me glowed like so many luminescent suns upon the fast darkening field. And it did happen! And the bolts were deflected! The diversion, however, was lost in the continuing rain, hail, and shattering sheet lightning which took its toll. And, too, our charging ranks had come under the first flights of Hishian arrows. Again, many of ours went down.

  Sir Rawl Fergis-he was but a few yards to my front-then shouted suddenly, “NOW!”

  Upon which, those who carried our banners reared their dottles, waved the standards wildly, and halted. I rose in my saddle, quick-focused right and left through the pouring rain. The nearest captains had seen the signal, were passing it on. The line hesitated, slowed, halted.

  We then began a great milling about, as if undecided to continue. The thing was, would they see our indecision, seek to take advantage of it? As we milled about on the river plain, they did the same on the bluff. Their forward line grew thicker, bulged in spots so that some riders were actually forced over the bluff whether they liked it or no… . And then, amidst a bloody howling to shiver the spines of weaklings and a sound of drums to drown the thunder, they could stand it no longer. They came boiling down those ravine clefts and off that bluff like a stream of molten steel.

  The fact that we d turned to flee had been the final straw. Then, with our backs to them, we rode for our very lives! We bunched, as planned: two center groupings and a group on each flank, with a wide space in between.

  But we’d been a mite too slow. A glance over my shoulder revealed a sight to chill the marrow of the heartiest warrior’s spine. Their first spear ranks-a seething mass of Hishian soldiery-was but a hundred feet to our rear. The rain had lessened; not so the pyrotechnics. And if there was no sun to light the face of doom the blue-white brilliance of the shattering bolts bontinued-strobe flashing the entire river’s breadth with the true light of hell itself.

  The dike loomed but seconds away. We’d reached the point where we had to turn to receive the shock, the weight of their steel. We’d timed it wrong by seconds. Indeed, Sernas, too, should have charged while we were still in midstream. At that distance he would have had the momentum to stun them, stop them.

  He was charging now, but again was seconds late. Even as we turned he smashed through the gaps between our groups, drove hard into the Hishian ranks. But they were not stopped; or rather only those were stopped before his spears -the remaining mass hit us-drove into us!

  The only thing to hold true in the ensuing melee of whirling spears, axes, and swords, plus the flights of arrows from our own who’d made it to the dike’s top, was that the Dark One could no longer wreak a personal victory. We were totally enjoined. All lightning bolts now would do more damage to his side than to ours, for his numbers were greater….

  With my own spear’s blade I took the screaming, bearded head of a great bejeweled lord-and in quick succession two more; both blinded by his spurting blood. But there was little room for spear work. Were we the better? Indeed we were! Griswal, Rawl, myself, Tober, and Charney. We killed ‘til our arms were leaden, ‘til our hauberks were puddled with the sweat of it, and the blood, our blood, that seeped from a hundred wounds-our wounds!

  Murie-and she was ever at my back or to one side or the other-had long thrown her last javelin, had become like us, blood-bathed from head to foot, her sword wet to the hand-halt with the stuff. More! The no-quarter fighting was terrible. The very air was a spindrift of red-blood to mingle with the rain and to bring an encarmined, clotted froth to the shallow waters of the river.

  Everywhere it was the same. We carved a space around us, kept it open-except for the direction wherein we charged. To our right I saw the tattered banners of Lord Sernas holding strong within the very mass of the foe, where he’d driven his thousands. So was this true of all our attacking units. The banners of young Sernas and his captains still flew; indeed moved this way and that as they so chose. To our left-front Gol-Stils likewise held his own. Only Gol-Tares had gone down, pinned to the bridge abutments by ten thousand howling Hishians and Yorns. Most of his men still lived. I quick sent to our archers to concentrate their arrows upon the enemy around the body of Gol-Tares, and myself led a charge toward our remaining warriors there. My poor dottle was instantly killed beneath me, the second to die thusly. I slew a Hishian baron and seized his mount and went on.

  We then burst through a thousand attackers of some Hishian lord whose standard depicted a crucifixion of four men. Rawl slew him, wielding both axe and sword in either hand. I halved the Hishian’s sword-companion with one sweep of my blade, and those around him fell back in terror. The more so, too, because Rawl, angry at the screaming taunts of another of the lord’s companions, a captain of great girth and strength, ran his great sword right through him to the haft-and lifted him from off his saddle to hurl him down to the bloodied mud….

  We then took our rescued warriors and drove toward Sernas’ center. This time our Griswall was at point with my two stalwarts, Tober and Charney. The three of them were veritable killing machines, for he had taught his students well. I had time to marvel even then at what they’d learned in one short year.

  And finally our disparate units were one again: flanks and center; excepting that now we were but ten thousand. We’d been driven back a hundred yards or so, no more. And on their part, they’d even withdrawn a bit, to catch their breath and lick their wounds.

  We, too, were sorely tired. But the fact remained that whereas they could take their rest; indeed, take time for sup if need be, time, for us, was still running out. Consulting quickly with a bloodied and badly wounded Lord Sernas and his captains, I suggested that we form a single, hollow diamond, and that we drive it through them to the bridge cleft. We would then, if we managed to reach the bluff’s top, race on to Hish.

  It was as good a plan as any, considering. And they agreed and instantly began to dress their ranks so as to begin the movement. And while the shift of companies took place around us, I noted curiously that of those who still lived, Lord Akin Sernas, his son, Lors Sernas; Lord Haken-he’d lost an arm, but still fo
ught on, and Gol-Stils and many others; in all of them there’d been a change. Perhaps it was just my imagination. But somehow, subtly, where before there’d been a loose-lipped cynicism, a certain brutishness; indeed, a cruel selfishness, there was now a difference. Not much, to be sure, and mayhap even that was illusion, wishful thinking. But now it seemed there were more smiles here and there; firm jaws; blue-purple eyes alight with pride in self, and an open respect for others and what they too had done and were prepared to do-the ultimate in selflessness.

  I’d not forget it!

  And then-well, it was sort of like the “light at the end of the tunnel” when you’d just decided you’d made a wrong turn right back into the heart of the mountain.

  This time his words burst inside my head to almost dim my vision: proving that even Hooli could get excited. “Collin!” he called. “Hear me, Collin! ‘D Day!’ ‘D Day!’ A ‘loverly bunch of Coconuts.’ The Vuuns have landed, Collin. The Marackians are all mounted!

  They’re coming, now, Collin!

  All you’ve got to do is hold!”

  Instant tears streamed down my face. Murie, seeing-she kept an eye on my every movement-put up a small and bloodied gauntlet to touch them. Her own eyes were tearing too, though I’m sure she didn’t know why. Rawl stared in awe. Caroween, displaying a surcoat and hauberk long soaked with the ichor of at least a dozen Hishians, wrinkled her dainty brow and sniffed in sympathy.

  “Nay,” I said softly. I brought Murie’s hand to my lips as I reached to touch an errant tear on Caroween’s cheek. “‘Tis that our Lord of Durst, your father-” I nodded to Caroween-“has landed. Marack is coming! All is not lost.

  All will be saved!”

  They looked at me as if I’d gone mad. I realized then that despite all we had done, despite everything, not a one of them had really believed that Marack’s thirty thousand could ever come to Om to aid us. Or shall I say they believed, yet did not believe. I could even understand the contradiction. For to those who live with “magick,” the act is believed as it happens. But that it will happen again in the way proscribed, well that’s always something else-in no way certain.