A Sword for Kregen

by Alan Burt Akers

  Well, masichieri — bonny masichieri, I have known them called — yes, they are the scum of mercenaries. But in a battle they are fighting men and their rapaciousness drives them on with the lure of gold and plunder and women just as much as the ideal of patriotism drives on other men.

  “And? The cavalry?”

  “Aragorn, majister. Slavers, come to inspect their wares, aye, and fight for them, too.” Karidge drew his gauntleted hand over his luxuriant moustaches. “There are Katakis among ’em, may they rot in Cottmer’s Caverns.”

  “It seems we will be honored by foemen worthy to die by the rope rather than steel,” I said, conscious of the turgidness of the words, but conscious, also, that they were true for all that.

  “Also,” said Karidge, and he looked disgusted, “there are at least four regiments of sleeths.”

  Nath banged a fist against his pommel. “Sleeths! Two-legged risslacas[2] suitable for — for—” He paused, and gazed about as though seeking the suitable word. It was a nicely calculated performance. One or two men among the aides-de-camp laughed. For, indeed, to a zorcaman the sleeth is something of a joke. Despite that, they can run and they can give a zorca a run for his money. And four regiments, if the usual regimental organization was followed, meant fifteen hundred or so.

  “Is that all?”

  “Dermiflons and swarths.”

  The dermiflon is blue-skinned, ten-legged, very fat and ungainly, and is armed with a sinuous and massively barbed and spiked tail. He has an idiot’s head. The expression “to knock over a dermiflon” is a cast-iron guarantee of success. They’d have howdahs fixed to their backs and half a dozen men or so would be up there, shooting with bows and hurling pikes. I said: “How many swarths?”

  “Around a thousand, three regiments, weak regiments.”

  I let out my breath. The swarth is your four-legged risslaca with the cruel wedge-shaped head and the jaws, with the scaled body and the clawed feet. He is not very fast. But he has a muscular bulk and he can carry his rider well and, a jutman must admit, is a nasty proposition to go up against. They were relatively rare in Vallia and Pandahem; but I had been told that the Lohvian armies put much store by them. And that stupidly mad and imperious Thyllis, Empress of Hamal, had been busily recruiting swarth regiments for her armies of conquest.

  “We will keep a weather eye open for the three swarth regiments. I think our nikvoves will knock them over.”

  “That is something that old Vikatu the Dodger would be well clear of,” said Karidge.

  “Indisputably. And the dermiflons?”

  “Ten of them. But I think, majister,” said Nath, “we will be able to handle them with our javelin men. When they get a shower of pikes about them they’ll panic and run. At least, that is the theory.”

  I rather liked that airy confidence.

  “We will put the theory into practice. But you said twenty-eight thousand. There remain two and a half you have not accounted for.”

  “Irregulars,” said Karidge. “Spearmen, half-naked and barefoot. They can be whipped away.”

  “Be careful there, Karidge. Irregular spearmen can be a nasty thorn in the heel if they scent blood that is not theirs. We cannot just ignore them, like some levies.”

  “True. But the aragorn and the swarths are what must exercise our muscles.”

  “And our minds.”

  Not for the first time I contemplated the large number of men locked up in the Phalanx. Perhaps as foot soldiers they might be spread to cover more ground and thus present a wider frontage. I set great store by the sword and shield men, and wished to increase their numbers, creating a powerful central force of super heavy infantry. But there was no gainsaying the might of the Phalanx. Once the pikes went down and the soldiers charged there was little that would stand before them.

  A half dozen saddle-birds lined out, curving against the blue sky where the last clouds we would see this day were wafting away with the breeze. They slanted in steeply, their wings stiff against the air, and made perfect landings. Tyr Naghan Elfurnil ti Vandayha unstrapped his harness and jumped down with an affectionate pat for his bird. He walked across to me.

  “You have had the report of the reinforcements, majister?”

  “Aye, Naghan.”

  “If my saddle-birds could have been allowed to fly last night—”

  “Little difference, Naghan. What do you see now?”

  “They have positioned themselves before that low rounded hill, as you said they would. Here are the dispositions.” He handed me the paper with the scrawled squares and the scribbled notations. I studied it. Just where each enemy formation was located was important, for it was vital to place suitable forces opposite those they could handle. Cavalry in the center, cavalry on the wings, the infantry lined out. Yes. By rapidly executed flank marches the enemy commander, whoever he might be, could compress or extend his front, and swing cavalry or infantry across to plug gaps at will. I thought for a moment or two and then nodded to the waiting aides-de-camp. Quickly, they took their orders, saluted, and galloped off. As our army marched up to the stream and woods they would be marshaled so as to deploy according to my instructions.

  By Zair! I just hoped that what I was doing was correct. The whole situation was likely to slide out of hand. Once the fronts locked in combat and all hell broke loose it would all be down to those initial dispositions and the sheer fighting ability of the men in the ranks.

  The orders were to go on. We would appear and attack. There would be no waiting. This was no defensive fight. This was onslaught, guerre a l’outrance, and look at the mess that has caused, by Krun!

  The brilliant golden Mask of Recognition was affixed over my face. Cleitar the Standard and Ortyg the Tresh shook out their banners. Volodu the Lungs closed up and Korero, as always, hovered a golden shield at my back. Delia rode close, and Korero knew his duty there.

  In a little group we rode forward and so came to the last stand of trees. The sheen of the suns lay across the grass, the little stream and the rounded hill beyond.

  Ranked before us, line on line, mass on mass, the waiting formations of the enemy seemed to fill all the space and overflow in a blinding brilliance of color and steel.

  Taking out my sword I lifted it high and then slashed it down in a vehement gesture, the point aimed at the heart of the foemen.

  Silently, the leading ranks of our men plunged into the stream.

  Chapter Six

  The Battle of First Kanarsmot

  Thus began First Kanarsmot.

  The feel of the zorca between my knees and the close confinement of the helmet and the Mask of Recognition, the itch of war harness on my shoulders, the brilliance of the splashing water drops as we forded across the stream — all these sensations in one form or another must have been felt by all the men in that little army. All, except the Mask of Recognition. The thing served a purpose, although I doubted if it would stop even a short-bow’s shaft. As we came up on the far bank a sudden and sweet scent of white shansili filled our nostrils. The familiar scent must have brought aching-memories of familiar homes and dear faces to the men for those lovely flowers are often grown in trellises over the doors of Vallian homes.

  In advance ran the kreutzin, lithe limber young men, raffish and wayward; but thirsting to get their javelins and arrows into play. Half naked, some of them, fleet of foot and agile, they raced forward to be first in action.

  Scrambling my zorca — who was faithful old Grumbleknees — up on the opposite bank I rode forward far enough to allow space for the Sword Watch to form at my back.

  The enemy were already moving. Their masses came on steadily, and I looked to see who would make first contact.

  From the enemy’s right they were drawn up thusly: the swarth force of a thousand; two dense masses of paktuns, five thousand each arrayed one behind the other; the central body of totrix and zorca cavalry, five thousand strong; the irregulars a little in advance and already beginning to race onward; the six thous
and masichieri, who hung a little back; and, finally, on the left wing, the two thousand zorca-mounted aragorn. Ordered in two sections of five each, and out in front, the dermiflons lifted their stupid heads and brayed. The glitter of the suns smote back from the weapons of the men in their armored howdahs — armored castle-like structures the warriors of Kregen call calsaxes — and the dermiflon handlers ran yelling and pushing around the enormous beasts as they sought to force them into their clumsy stumbling run.

  The main strength of the enemy, therefore, lay in his right wing. I did not discount the aragorn; but they and the masichieri would fight only for as long as they could see slaves and plunder coming their way.

  Already our bowmen were loosing at the dermiflons.

  Once we had seen them off, the real fight could begin.

  Equally, massive and impressive striding citadels of war though dermiflons truly are, they must not attract all a commander’s attention and he must not allow them to deflect him into wasting too many of his precious resources on them.

  From the left we were arrayed thusly: the totrix cavalry division attached to the Phalanx; the Phalanx itself; the Tenth Brigade of Archers; the First Cavalry Brigade of zorcas with the Fourth slightly to their right. I lifted in the stirrups and looked across to the right toward the woods that masked the backward-curving bend of the river. There was no sign of movement among the trees.

  With great whoops from the drivers and riders and a veritable Niagara of fountaining splashes, the artillery crossed the stream. A number of different draught animals hauled the equipment, and they galloped on through the intervals and unlimbered to our front. At once they were in action, shooting their cruel iron-tipped darts. Within the space of ten murs they had shot two of the dermiflons out of it, the ungainly beasts turning around on their ten legs, braying angrily, lumbering back for all their handlers shrieked and beat at them with goads.

  The forward movement of our men continued. They were not yet charging — they tramped on steadily, rank on rank, file on file, and the pikes lifted, thick as bristles on a wild vosk’s back.

  The twin suns slanted their rays onto the battlefield from our right flank. Again I looked. Still no movement within the trees flanking the curve of the stream.

  Delia said: “The paktuns are coming perilously close.”

  “Let the bowmen and the spear men play a little longer on the dermiflons.”

  As I spoke another gigantic beast decided that he no longer wished to go in the direction from which these nasty stinging barbs were coming; braying, he turned about and with his ten legs all going up and down like pistons, he lumbered off.

  There were twenty-eight thousand of the enemy. I had spoken lightly of our near thirty thousand — but in that I lied or boasted. Of men we could put in fighting line we had sixteen thousand seven hundred infantry and seven thousand three hundred and twenty cavalry, plus the artillery. And, already, some of our bowmen were down, caught by the deceptive arrow, tiny bundles on the grass, lying still or, more awfully, kicking in the last spasms.

  The balance of our thirty thousand was made up of logistics people, medics, vets. Some of the wagoners would fight if it came to it — but I hoped profoundly it would not come to that.

  The swarths were moving, the scaled mounts advancing directly with the aim of crunching into the left flank of the Phalanx.

  Chuktar De-Ye Mafon, a Pachak with great experience in command of the Tenth Cavalry Division attached to the Phalanx, countered the move. His division consisted of a brigade of three regiments of zorca archers and a brigade of three regiments of totrix lancers. Now he launched the zorcas at the oncoming swarths. The nimble animals swirled in evolutions practiced a thousand times, lined out, and their riders shot and shot as they swooped past the right flank of the enemy mass.

  Disordered, the swarths angled to their left and, at that moment, Chuktar De-Ye Mafon led his totrix lancers into them.

  The outcome of that fight had, for the moment, to be awaited as the enemy commander pushed through in the center.

  The Phalanx had been aimed at the enemy’s center, his ten thousand infantry and his five thousand cavalry, mercenaries all, tough, professional, the hard core of his army. With that swerving recoil of the swarths pressing in on the massed infantry, the enemy general had ordered one of the tactical moves he had left open to himself. The ordered ranks of the paktuns inclined to their left. They broke into a fast trot, their banners and plumes waving, their weapons glinting.

  They would lap around the right flank of the Phalanx and I was about to give the order for Karidge’s Brigade to move up in support, when the last of the dermiflons on this side of the field broke. They fled back, immense engines of destruction, festooned with darts — one with a varter dart pinning three of his starboard legs together — and they crashed headlong into those smart and professional paktuns.

  The paktuns were professionals. They opened ranks; but in the incline that proved not quite so easy as it sounded. We were afforded enough space for the Phalanx to go smashing into them, the pikes down and level, the helmets thrust forward, the shields positioned, rank by rank, to serve each the best purpose. The noise blossomed into the sky. The yells and shrieks and the mad tinker-clatter of steel on iron, of steel on bronze, and the crazed dust-whirling advance encompassed by the raw stink of spilled blood brought a horror that underlay any thoughts of glory. On drove the Phalanx. On and with blood-smeared pikes thrust the paktuns aside.

  Now was the time for the enemy Kapt to hurl in his five thousand cavalry — and our Hakkodin, our halberd and axe and two-handed sword men, knew it.

  The Hakkodin flank the Phalanx and they take enormous pride in the protection they afford and their ability to ensure that no lurking dagger-man, no cavalryman, can smite away at the undefended flanks of the Phalanx. And the soldiers, hefting their pikes, know that and relish the feel of solid Hakkodin at their flanks and rear.

  Although, mind you, in rear of the Third Kerchuri as it advanced lay only strewn and mangled corpses of paktuns.

  The enemy shafts had been deflected by the uplifted shields of the Phalanx, the field of red roses in the popular imagery, the field of crimson flowers, and now our own archers of the Tenth Brigade stepped forward to assist the bowmen of the Phalanx. It was going to be touch and go. The second massed formation of paktuns was advancing in steady fashion and their incline, avoiding the tumultuous upsets of the disaster with the dermiflons, would place them astride the shoulder of the Phalanx. Engaged as the Kerchuri was, it could not toss pikes and turn half-right. That kind of evolution is very pretty on the parade ground; in the midst of battle with the red blood flowing and the screams and yells and the dust boiling everywhere — no, you grip your pike and you go on, and on, when it comes to push of pike.

  A zorcaman came galloping up to me, his feathers flying, his equipment flying — he hardly seemed to touch the ground. I knew who he was, right enough.

  “Majister!” He bellowed out as Cleitar the Standard had to back his zorca a trifle. “Jiktar Karidge’s compliments — will you loose him now — please!”

  Deliberately I lifted in the stirrups. I looked not toward the furious turmoil in the center of the field. Deliberately, I looked to the right. The six thousand masichieri were on the move. The two thousand aragorn flanking them were trotting on, splendid in the lights of the suns. The noise everywhere dinned on and on, and those fresh bodies of troops would go slap bang into the flank of our army when Karidge and the other brigade of the light cavalry division charged.

  “Give me ten murs more, Elten Frondalsur.” The galloper’s face shone scarlet with sweat and exertion. He gentled his zorca as the excited animal curveted. “Just that, no more.”

  “As you say, majister!”

  Elten Frondalsur, even in that moment of high tension, had the sense not to argue or plead. Karidge would understand. I just looked steadily at the galloper, and so with a salute he flicked his zorca’s head around and took off back to Karidg
e. Also, I knew that in ten murs, and exactly ten murs, Karidge would set his brigade into a skirling charge. That was the way he would interpret the message the Elten brought.

  Calling over the galloper attached to my staff from the light cavalry division, I sent him off to convey the same message to the officer in command. He, cunning old Larghos the Spear, would find himself commanding only the Fourth Brigade when the charge went in. But everyone in the army understood the impetuous ways of Karidge, aye, and loved him for it — well, most of the time.

  In six murs the movement I had been fretfully waiting from the trees over by the bend in the stream heralded the arrival of our flank force. And, by Vox, only just in time!

  In one sense, they were late, for the paktuns were now at handstrokes with the Hakkodin. The mingled cavalry swirled around ready to complete the impending destruction of the Phalanx, as they imagined. And the aragorn and the masichieri came swiftly on.

  From the trees erupted the archers of the Ninth Brigade. Following them and pounding on in their armor, strong, powerfully built men, the front line of the three brigades of sword and shield men burst onto the battlefield. Out to their right and flanking them, galloping swiftly on, roared the Heavy Cavalry Division, two thousand totrixmen formed, clad in armor, bearing swiftly on with lances couched. When those lances shivered they would haul out short one-handed axes, and stout swords, and they’d go through the zorca-mounted aragorn like the enemy had fancied he would go through our ranks.

  That marked the beginning of the end.

  The commander over there must have looked with despair upon that battlefield. He saw his vaunted swarths mightily discomfited and driven off. He had seen a powerful force of mercenaries, containing Rapas and Fristles, Khibils and blegs, shattered, and a second about to be overwhelmed. The masichieri and the aragorn were hauling up, their ranks disordered and in turmoil. It took little imagination to picture what they were doing, to hear what they were shrieking as they saw this new menace rushing up to smash into the flank. And, with his dermiflons gone, the enemy commander saw his fancied force of cavalry recoil from the center of the field as the Light Division hit them full force.