by Alma Boykin
“Third rank, fire!”
Another volley, then a fourth, poured down from the wall. A second wall, this one built of dead beasts and men, now separated the Morloka from the Turkowi. Before anyone could regroup, the gunners fired by ranks again. The cavalry looked confused to Matthew, starting to mill. A few bolder men called orders, trying to rally their fellows, and found themselves the focus of the gunners’ attention. After the seventh volley, the Turkowi cavalry pulled back, riding out of range and opening the way for their infantry.
“Hold your position!” Matthew bellowed, his call taken up by the officers and sergeants along the line. “Let them come to us,” he’d pounded into every man with an ounce of brain. “Let them be the wave that breaks and fails against our line.” The gunners reloaded quickly but carefully. Each man carried a score of pre-filled and measured powder bottles hanging from his bandoliers, along with the burning match, ball, and at least one spare match. A few men carried a longer, fatter, slower-burning spare matches, to light others if the need arose. With so much powder and fuse packed together in the ranks, no one wanted to set himself on fire by loading carelessly, and Matthew knew that the gunners had pounded a few of their fellows for being stupid during the practice drills. The infantry around them kept wary eyes on the gunners, ready to run if an accident happened.
In front of the wall, the Turkowi foot soldiers closed to a few meters before the place where the first cavalry had collapsed. Their gunners opened fire. A few men around Matthew staggered and cried, but most of the shots kicked up dirt from the wall and nothing more. A second round of shots banged out, as effective as the first, and then the Turkowi broke into a running charge. “Selkow! Selkow!” rose from thousands of throats. Matthew raised his saber, waiting.
“Fire!” And the gunners tore the front rank. The Turkowi kept coming, over the dead and dying horses and men, flowing like a yellow tide across the enormous field. The first men dropped into the ditch and began trying to climb the opposite side. The soldiers slid back down, baffled by the steep sides and slippery dirt.
“Fire!” Now a third of the gunners concentrated on the men in the ditch while the rest kept firing out into the oncoming flood.
Powder smoke filled the air, making Matthew’s eyes sting and hiding the far distance. A rolling boom sounded from that distance, and he gulped as the Turkowi cannon opened up. He heard screams from north of his position, at the other end of the wall, where the infantry waited. His own guns answered, but into the infantry first, judging by the rippling shift in the oncoming mass. The distant guns boomed once more before a massive ka-bloom! rolled across the battlefield. Shadow reared and Matthew fought him back down, circling the gelding to calm him. A pillar of smoke rose from the edge of the trees, and the Turkowi guns fell silent.
“What th’ fook were that, my lor?” One of the runners demanded, peering through the powder smoke.
“The hand of Godown?” another man ventured.
Might as well have been, because that looks like more smoke, from farther north. Then he dragged his attention back to the melee at his feet, to the Turkowi infantry struggling through the ditch and climbing higher and higher, scrambling for purchase on the smooth dirt of the wall. The bodies began piling up as the Morloka gunners fired. The yellow tide shifted and turned to the side, as if trying to find a different gap. Matthew’s cannon fired, cutting down another swath like golden maize. Blocked in, the Turkowi pivoted, or tried to, as a few men began moving due west for what looked like the weak end of the line.
“Now. Cannons stop. Cavalry attack, infantry attack.” Now Matthew’s banners dipped twice, the signal for the cannons to fall silent and his men to advance. “Godown! Godown and the Blackbird!”
“Blackbird!” Roared out and the infantry charged, the cavalry surging out from behind the cannons. The Turkowi broke, running back to the safety of their guns. Matthew joined the pursuit, sending Shadow leaping over the fallen enemy. He and the horsemen swept past the brown and black mass of foot soldiers, sabering anything in yellow they could find.
Now came the hard part. He had to pursue without losing control. The Turkowi loved nothing more than to lure their enemies with a false retreat, then turn and slaughter their pursuers. “Stop at the woods,” Matthew screamed. They’d already planned for that, hoped for that, but he couldn’t trust his men once their blood was up.
To his mild surprise he felt the momentum of the charge around him slowing. A horseman in yellow appeared in front of him, saber drawn, galloping straight for Matthew. “Selkow!”
Matthew sheathed his own sword, kicked Shadow into a run and pulled a spear out of the holder at his knee. He watched the other man’s horse, and as they drew within a beast-length, Matthew hurled his spear and ducked, dropping down along Shadow’s neck. He heard a gurgling scream but ignored it in favor of regaining his seat and sword both.
The Morloka stopped slowly, but they stopped. The Turkowi fled, although in good order, and they stung a few cavalrymen who tried to get too close. “No,” Matthew told Bustos, overriding his protests. “Let them go. We’ll follow, but not right now.”
Shadow danced under him, still eager for action. “Easy boy,” Matthew slapped the sweaty neck. “We’ll see plenty more of them, never fear.” He turned and rode over to where the Turkowi guns clustered, but the smoke kept him from getting too close.
One of the men with him whistled, pointing to the southeast end of the artillery line. “Godown is great.”
A crater and the bits of wagon embedded in the trees, and in bits of yellow-clad bodies, told the story. Something had blown up the Turkowi’s rolling powder magazine, and charred wheels and canted cannons marked where fire had broken out along the firing line. “By St. Sabrina’s tits, how did that happen?” Another rider demanded.
“Godown is good,” Matthew shrugged. He turned Shadow, not wanting to linger in the stench of cooked cannoneer.
By noon the scavengers, two-footed and winged, had begun their work. Matthew gave a few Turkowi the mercy stroke, just long enough for his men to see him doing his share, then he returned to the main camp, now abutting Scheel Center’s wall. They’d need to move soon, before the disease-carrying miasma began to seep out of the bodies and into the air and the ground both.
Matthew shed his helmet and armor, rinsing off a little before flopping into a chair. Ricks, still smoke-streaked, saluted but didn’t say anything. As it was, Matthew could barely hear over the ringing in his ears from the guns, and he suspected the older man couldn’t hear anything at all. They drank diluted wine and gnawed on plank bread. Matthew’s hands shook, as usual, and he let them. Once he’d rested, Matthew rearmed and went back out to take account of his own dead and wounded.
That evening Matthew sank in his chair unable to believe what had happened. “I know, I see it,” he told Ricks and a few others. Bustos had gotten lured into a trap and now rested in the medical tent with a stitched up slash on his right arm and a concussion. Serves him right. But everyone has to learn once, and he was damn lucky.
“What were they thinking?” Ricks mused, voice hoarse from calling orders. “I’ve not seen a stampede like that since—”
“Let me through!” an urgent voice demanded from outside. “We found this under the dead horses and His Grace needs to see it.” Matthew got to his feet and limped outside. Four tired, bloody, grimy men stood there with a blood-stained banner. “Your Grace.”
“Holy shit.” That seemed to be the sole words Matthew’s tired brain could summon. “Under the horses?”
“Aye, Your Grace, near the front of the Turkowi cavalry pile.”
Behind him, Matthew heard Ricks rasping an order to someone. But Matthew had eyes only for the banner and the other trophies the men held up for him to look at. With a trembling hand he reached out and took the heavy gold-chased helmet with its ornate metalwork, twisted to look like the fabric on the Turkowi headdresses. No. Never. The Rajtan never rides at the head of his own troops, not once h
e comes into his full power. But who else would … oh Godown. The banner matched those of the Rajtans, except that the snake came only half way up around the sides, instead of fully encircling the embroidered words.
“I think,” he swallowed. Ricks pressed a heavy leather bag into Matthew’s hand. “Well done, men.” He took the helmet and gave them the bag of gold eagles. “I think we killed the Turkowi crown prince.”
His aid peered at the gore-stained banner. “Your Grace, is that good or bad?”
It explains why they fell apart, if he was commanding the cavalry. Matthew shook his head. “Damn if I know, Carl.” With his free hand he fingered the tassels at the bottom of the standard. “Damn if I know.”
Just over two months later, Matthew peered through the pre-dawn fog. The cold air, the first hint of fall, drew tendrils of mist off the river and ponds—mist that thickened into a wet blanket over the world. He could hear the river to his south, murmuring and whispering as it flowed west to the sea. Somewhere ahead of him the Turkowi had dug in, their backs to the Morpalo, based on a ferryboat crossing and small dock. Twenty kilometers downstream, the remains of Sigurney fortress demanded revenge. The two armies had been dug in, facing each other, firing cannon without much effect, for a week and more. He had to do something. They’d chased the Rajtan hard all summer, driving him south. The Morloka suffered multiple sharp stings and one near defeat along the way, and Matthew’s men would start slipping away if he didn’t do something.
So now Matthew and half a hundred chosen men crept through the wet twilight-shadows, feeling their way into the Turkowi lines. He and his officers had agreed that this looked like a weak point, low ground between two slightly higher bits of terrain. The Turkowi seemed to concentrate on the other parts of the line, leaving what Matthew hoped was a weak point. His men would try and break a hole in the Turkowi’s defenses at that little swale, allowing the rest of the Morloka to punch through, if they could. If not, well, Matthew didn’t think about that too hard—he didn’t have to.
They got a lot closer than Matthew had anticipated before he heard a curse and a splash, followed by shouts in Turkowi. “Mike found the guard. And a waterhole,” came the hoarse whisper of explanation.
“Attack,” Matthew ordered, drawing sword and long knife. The men swarmed behind him, clambering over the dirt wall and dropping down onto the startled enemy below. “Godown!” They set to work, slashing and stabbing at everyone they saw. “Sons of dung-rollers, surrender to the true god,” Matthew called in Turkowi.
That certainly got the enemy’s attention, and Matthew found himself fighting three men at once, before Andre managed to catch one of them from the side and even the odds. “Light anything you can,” Matthew ordered as soon as he dispatched the third man. That would be the signal for the infantry behind him to attack.
The Blackbird and his men cleared the Turkowi camp of at least twenty men before a counterattack began. Matthew heard trumpets, both the harsh blats of the Turkowi and the sweet ring of his own signal call. After an eternity of ducking and killing, his men began pouring through the gap behind him, taking off the pressure. “East,” he called. “Drive them east.” Black- and brown-clad figures grew more distinct, and soon flames licked up the sides of more Turkowi tents. Matthew trusted to the light east wind to keep the fires away from the central camp and let the fighting flow ahead of him. As soon as it grew light enough, the cavalry reserve and a few cannons would begin working over the western end of the line. The distraction would, Godown willing, keep the Turkowi divided.
Matthew caught his breath beside what smelled like a mess tent, then rejoined the fight, working his way east and south. He heard gunfire and arrow shots and battle calls. The rising sun revealed boats on the water. “Drive them into the river,” he’d ordered and his men seemed determined to do just that. After two weeks sitting in water-logged holes in the ground, they wanted to be done. Matthew winced as an especially nice tent flared red. Easy, leave a little loot that we don’t have to sift the dirt for.
“Heretic bastard!” He spun and ducked as a saber sliced where his neck would have been. Matthew cut up but the Turkowi danced back, then forward again, using the momentum of the blow. They struck and parried, well matched. Matthew though he saw a chance and leaned back, then jammed his sword forward. His opponent leaned away from the strike and Matthew rammed his heavy knife up, skimming the man’s armor and sliding the blade between the coif and the chest-plate. He sawed sideways, using his right arm to block the curved sword. A gurgling scream stopped as crimson bubbled up around his hand. He pulled back as the man dropped his sword, trying to stanch the foam of blood and air from his severed throat. The dying man sagged to his knees, then slumped down. Matthew confirmed his kill before turning to the next battle.
A few Turkowi mounted and return to the camp, riding down the Morloka infantry. The horsemen made good targets for Matthew’s archers. Forced to weave around tent ropes and jump the fires and piles of supplies, the cavalry lost their advantage and most turned, fleeing for the river. Matthew and his chosen men fought on, driving for the ornate tent, inside its walls of carpets and hangings, where the Rajtan dwelled. Matthew wanted the Rajtan’s golden standard, craved it with near-physical desire. The Turkowi fell back and he caught a glimpse of a man in yellow and red leaping onto a boat, carrying the standard. The man’s helmet winked gold in the sun and the horsehair plume waved as the boatmen strained to get the dark craft safely into the water. Damn it. The Rajtan’s guard remained behind, making a last stand and blocking Matthew’s path. For an instant he thought about jumping into the water to swim after the Rajtan and the standard, but stopped. The army is more important than a gold-plated stick. I think. The sight of the Rajtan’s escape left a bitter drop in the sweetness of victory.
By two hours after noon the Morloka held the Turkowi camp. Many of the enemy had gotten across the river to the smaller camp on the other side, where the portable temple stood, but Matthew held the northern end of the crossing and the Rajtan’s treasure.
Exhaustion and elation filled Matthew Charles Malatesta’s heart to overflowing as he watched his men starting to sort out the loot. Once more on Shadow’s back, he rode along the riverbank, watching his men and the river. “I did it, Leo,” he whispered. “Father, can you see me? I did it.” The blue water blurred into the green of the banks as tears streamed down his face. “I won.”
Duke Paul Kossuth looked up from the letter, blinking hard to clear his eyes. Duke Gerald Starland, a touch impatient, tapped his foot on the floor of the great hall at Kossuthna Major. “Well? I don’t think we have an option.”
Paul shook his head. “No. He bought us what? Thirty years? Of course I’ll take care of Lady Barbara and her daughter.”
Gerald nodded and then raked the flop of grey-shot brown hair back out of his eyes. “Good. They’re waiting with my men, and two wagons of books.”
Paul almost dropped the letter. “What? Out in the cold?” He opened his mouth, then closed it before he said something rude. “By St. Michael’s horseshoes, get them in here.”
Gerald gave a little half-cough, half-laugh. “The women or the books? No, don’t bite my head off. I know what you mean.” Gerald turned and Paul followed. The first storm of winter had come early, and dry bits of snow danced on the stinging wind. The two ageing warriors strode out into the courtyard at Kossuthna Major, where the Starland party waited, bundled against the air’s cold bite.
Paul saw two women huddled in blankets, peering around as if uncertain of their reception. He stopped and turned so fast that the servant following close behind him almost crashed into his back. “Start a fire in the quarters beside Lady May’s chamber, and get it ready for guests. I want hot wine in my reception room, and a good fire, with warming bricks. Go.” The man darted off, nothing loath to get out of the evil wind. Paul walked up to the two women. “Lady Barbara?” He asked.
“I, I, I’m Barbara,” a muffled voice confirmed.
�
�Please,” he held out his hand. A cold, chapped, calloused hand gripped his and he helped her down from the wagon, then assisted her daughter. A maid appeared and he let her take the women inside, while he directed the men unloading the boxes and sacks of books. “Thank you. The spare hall has been set up for you, with a fire and hot food,” he told the Starland men, as hostlers led the horses and empty wagons to the stable area. Gerald saw to his troops before returning to the great hall. Paul beckoned him into the reception room.
A tired, shy woman emerged from the pile of blankets, shawls, and coats. A bit of brown hair peeked out from under the edge of her light blue headcover, and despite the age wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, Paul saw that she retained a measure of her youthful beauty. Her daughter greatly resembled her mother, but taller and fairer, like her father. Both drooped, exhausted from the cold and the hard journey, and the maid had settled them by the fire with warm bricks under their feet. They started to get up from their seats as the nobles entered.
“No, stay seated.” Paul poked the fire again and settled into the chair at his desk, while Gerald stood by the fire and warmed his hands, accepting a mug of hot wine from a servant. “Lady Barbara, you are welcome to stay here as long as you need to,” Paul began.
She shook her head, eyes downcast. “I thank you, Your Grace, but I … I do not want to strain your hospitality. And I am not a lady. I was Charles Malatesta’s leman, nothing more.”
Gerald and Paul exchanged glances. Paul picked up the letter. “Have you read this?”
Both women shook their heads, and Barbara explained, “Duke Malatesta told me not to read it. He said to give it to Your Grace or His Grace Duke Starland if something happened. He, he said that that, plus these, would buy me shelter.” She dug into a skirt pocket before holding out a leather pouch. Gerald took it and handed it to Paul. He untied the string and shook the little bag, revealing a gold broach and ring, both with Malatesta’s black eagle on them. The workmanship took his breath away and he turned the broach in the weak light of the window, admiring the inlay and graining. The woman continued, “I, I thought the books would help. Sarah and I, we can work, do fine work, tend children. We’re not beggars: we’ll earn our keep.” The tears in her eyes began running down her cheeks.
