Analog Science Fiction and Fact - July-Agust 2014 Page 5

  "And they got thunder-sticks," Hegge subyar pointed out, "so that's two hundred or so advantages to them."

  Southward, the land dropped away into a swale that ended at Joojen's Creek. Beyond that, the trail curled up to Windy Gap, where Teodorq had scouted the autumn before. The trail from Middle Gap debouched just this side of the Joojen, and the column coming down that trail should reach the killing field by late afternoon. Off to the legion's left flank, the ground rolled down to the base of the forest-clad ridge. If there were thunder-sticks in the trees there, the legion was far enough away to be out of range.

  Behind the legion, Chum and the battle engine-makers were hammering the field throwers together and stacking stones for loading and throwing.

  Yar Yoodavig studied the approaching greens with his look-glass. "Won't be an easy fight."

  Teodorq spat. "Nobody sings about easy fights. I timed 'em when we fought last fall. Takes 'em twenty beats to reload those sticks—more if they get rattled."

  The yar did the calculations. "Horse covers sixty, seventy paces at full gallop in the time it'd take the greenies to reload and that's all the range their thunder-sticks have. If they all loose at once..."

  "Yah. The legion can get into 'em before they loose a second flight."

  The yar set his jaw. "We're supposed to pin 'em for the heavies, but if we see our chance... okay. Stick by your bannermen and watch the flags. A grim day dawns come morning."

  "Legion to the fore," the subyars answered.

  As Kal and Teo rode back to the Bows, Karakalan sunna Vikeram said, "Know what I don't like?"

  "Losing?"

  "Well, yeah, that too. But I don't like it when I fight and it all depends on what the other guy does. I like to run my own stunts."

  Teodorq nodded. "Battles are always complicated by the presence of the enemy."

  A Fight in the Dawn

  The greens came on in blocks to the sound of music—the high shrill of pipes and bugles, the peculiar rattling of the drums, and the tramp of hundreds of feet in unison. Each block was led by a large banner hanging from a cross-pole and decorated in elaborate embroidery and angular runes similar to the final line inscribed on the sacred Door. The bright red banner of the leading block displayed 18 GOBANGY FANDERIA across the top in gold lettering and WEVO CUFFY along the bottom in white. In the center was a sigil of two crossed thunder-sticks enclosed in a wreath. Teodorq figured it was their tribal totem.

  A long, shrill whistle rent the air and the musicians fell silent, the warriors stopped marching. Then the whistle sounded three times in quick succession and the bugles, pipes, and drums resumed, playing a jaunty quickstep. With the first beat, the blocks turned, countermarched, and deployed into lines facing the legion.

  Teodorq leaned one arm across the pommel of his saddle. "Musical accompaniment, like it's a dance ceremony. Yuh ever see the like, sunna Vikeram?"

  "They sure are purty," the Serp agreed. "They march like they never been scared of a fight."

  "I make fifty in the first block and I'll guess the same numbers in the others. That's just a hundred and fifty in front of us, but there's two more blocks coming down Middle Gap. They'll be here in time for dessert on our forward left."

  "Maybe the Middle Gap column was supposed to be the horn," said Kal.

  "Nah. To obvious. My cowries are still on the woods east of our position."

  "I don't see no heavies, and no field trebuchets..."

  Teodorq nudged him. "They're lining up in range of our bows."

  "Wonder if they know that."

  Teodorq secured the yar's approval for an arrow storm while the greenies were still deploying. His men notched one and held the other two ready in the bow hand. Kal laughed. "Was we back on the Grass, that would be enough to wipe out one whole block."

  "Was we back on the Grass, the enemy would have plains bows, too. Kal, 'Dosh, 'Dan, to your squadrons. On my command."

  When Kal and the two lieutenants reached their units and the Horse Bows were lined up on the south front facing the enemy, Teo cried, "Draw!" and a two score recurved bows groaned at full extension. "Loose!" And the flock flew. Then twice more and all three flights were airborne before the first wave had struck, creating a blanket of arrows thrown across the sky.

  There was time to see the shock on the green faces. Perhaps they had not expected danger at this range, or perhaps it was simply seeing their doom approach like a swooping hawk. Several of them raised their thunder-sticks and set fire to them, the ragged thunder startling many of the legionnaires who had not experienced it before. Atglen's section began to turn about, and the subyar shouted at them to hold.

  Then the shafts struck and the first several lines of greenies dissolved as half of them fell transfixed.

  The yar's banner snapped aloft with the red flags and the legion galloped forward with crossbows cocked. At range, they loosed their bolts, slung the crossbows around their backs, then drew their swords, charging in with their blades in sky guard. Hooves thundered. Legionnaires shouted lulululu!

  The center block formed a hedgehog at a shouted command. The first row on each side crouched, grounding their thunder-sticks so that the knives on their ends pointed out like pikes. The second row bent and rested their sticks on the shoulders of the first, while the third row stood behind them. But the first block was shattered and disorganized and the third block abruptly countermarched to the rear, out of range of the Horse Bows.

  The legion's left wing attacked the disorganized block and found easy pickings. They chopped up the survivors and sent others into panicky flight. Teo thought that was a mistake. They ought to have attacked the block in the center. But the horses attacking the hedgehog proved unwilling to dash into rows of spikes and reared or pulled off. Legionnaires spilled from their saddles or reined up and began hacking at the thunder-sticks as if they were swords.

  Then the sticks unloosed a crash of thunder and a score of legionnaires were cut down by the flung stones. Some panicked and scattered; but others, remembering that the sticks must be reloaded, resolved not to give the greenies time to do so and pressed more vigorously.

  Meanwhile, the block that had pulled back had formed its own hedgehog and was firing into the legion using the timed evolution that Teo had seen in his first encounter with them.

  The hammering in the legion's rear had stopped and a series of three sharp smacks was followed by large stones flying through the air. One fell short, in front of the greenies. One flew wide. Kal trotted to Teo's side just before the third landed on the already-disorganized block, smashing a score of men.

  Kal winced. "That's gotta hurt."

  Chum's forward observer called out. "Number one short! Number two block up right side!"

  Teo nudged him. "Hey, Kal. Why are there three blocks in the Windy Gap column, but only two from Middle Gap?"

  "Is that a riddle?"

  "Let's swing the Bows along the edge of the trees, just out of thunder-stick range, and see what we scare up."

  "Yeah," said Kal. "Them greenies like that kinda thing, don't they?"

  The bannermen hoisted their staffs and the bowmen left-faced and formed a file that swept down the rise and across the edge of the forest south to north, loosing arrows into likely shadows. Teo was soon gratified to provoke a thunder-stick explosion in response. He grinned at the chewing out the man would receive for revealing his presence and swung his column back on itself for a roundelay on the hidden force.

  A few flights of arrows into the trees and the officer in charge must have given up on tactical surprise, for a shrill whistle brought a line of men striding from the shadows. Among them, groups of twelve greenies wearing clothing with blue trim instead of black rolled forward four large thunder-sticks on wheels. Teodorq reined up and allowed the Bows to ride past him until Kal came up. Teo pointed to the large thunder-sticks.

  "That can't be good."

  It wasn't.

  A Tube in the Woods

  The four tubes bellowe
d and flocks of stones scythed down almost a quarter of Teo's Bows, including Vilyi Bycreek and Filovolos Jo. His squadron was well within the range of these new devices, and Teo ordered a retreat. The greenies tending the barrels leapt to. One rammed a swab down the mouth, the others performed various duties that Teodorq could not make out. One man stood still behind the device with a smoldering cord on a staff. Kal twisted in his saddle and loosed a shaft behind him that struck the man in the chest. Another picked up the smoke-staff and touched it to the barrel, which belched another load of stones at them. Three hundred heartbeats between shots, Teodorq gauged.

  Legionnaires again fell, and Teo realized with a sinking feeling that these new weapons—evidently intended to rake the legion's flank and rear once it had committed itself to a forward attack—had greater range than his bows. One of the crew had placed an instrument on the barrel and another was elevating the barrel on his instructions. Teo pulled the Bows back until they formed a line at right angles to the legion's original line. The greenie blocks on the legion's front were withdrawing rapidly and some squadrons of legionnaires were pursuing them with whoops of victory; but Yar Yoodavig was using his bullroarers and bannermen to call them back. Teo having sprung the trap prematurely, the yar saw that pursuit of the greens would allow the thunder-tubes to roll up on the high ground and rake the legion in the rear.

  But in pulling back beyond the range of the thunder-tubes, Teo had placed the enemy beyond the range of his own bows, and the hidden block stepped forward smartly to a crash of drums and music. The squads servicing the big barrels rolled them forward through the gaps in the massed footmen. The legion would not stay out of range for long.

  "First Bows," Teo called. "On me. Wait until the men at the big tubes light them off, then swoop in fast, target them—they got blue stripes down their legs—then pull out." He turned to the Serp who had been his enemy. "Bring the Second Bows after their next crash. We'll pick them off like a hawk snatching a mouse, and there'll be no one left to load and light those things."

  Kal grunted. "More like a mouse swooping in on a hawk."

  Teodorq sunna Nagarajan the Ironhand held his hand out and Karakalan sunna Vikeram gripped it. Teo said, "Think of the songs the bards will sing: how two mighty enemies joined hands and fought the fearsome thunder-tubes together."

  The Serp laughed without humor. "Yeah? Who's gonna tell 'em about it?"

  Yar Yoodavig trotted over to the bow line and Teodorq explained his plan. "Then yuh can retreat across their field and not get mowed down like they planned."

  The yar nodded. "Got to do something. Those tubes are out of range of Chum's field throwers, too. Wish I knew where the heavies got to. They should've been here by now."

  Teo thought the big tubes would have pierced even the plate armor the kettleheads wore. At that point, both men heard above the crack and rattle of the thunder-sticks, the greenie whistles, and the legionnaires' ululations, the distant thud of a plodding giant. It reminded Teo of the forging hammers in the steel mill. He glanced at the yar and muttered, "That can't be good."

  The yar looked off to the rear. "We got our own problems," and he rode back to his command post to rally the rest of the legion.

  Teo stood in his stirrups and waved his bow in circles over his head, then pointed to the first of the thunder-tubes; and the horse bows set off at the gallop to ride across the line of fire just as the men with the smoke-sticks lit them off. Under his breath Teo began counting the time to reload the device. When they reached the effective range of their bows, he and his men began picking off the tube servers one by one. There was a sweet moment in the gallop, when the horse's four legs were all in the air and a man seemed to float across the ground. This was the most stable platform from which to loose an arrow. Not all of his men remembered this and many arrows went wide; but enough struck home to cut the crews by almost a quarter.

  Some of the footmen, frustrated by this plucking off, rushed forward with their thunder-sticks to fire on the bowmen. They were easily feathered, though one got off a lucky strike that felled K.T. Tupalanagan. Teo shied off before the thunder-tubes could belch lightning again. When it had, Kal rode in with the Second and picked off its crew as they tried to reload.

  But the greenies pushed forward on the flank. The thunder-tubes would drive the legionnaires back out of bow range so the footmen could advance; and these in turn would use the trick of lighting off row-after-row to cover the rolling forward of the wheeled tubes. Teodorq guessed that this would have been more effective against other thunder-sticks, but was nearly as effective against the crossbows, who also had to rewind between bolts.

  Yar Yoodavig pulled the legion back onto the rise and the greenies on the original southern front pushed forward. One of the big tubes was no longer flinging shot, all its crew had been pinioned. The rest had pulled footmen in to service the tubes, and the interval between thunderclaps had lengthened. But the greens had learned the trick of always keeping one tube ready to strike in case Teodorq tried another hawk's swoop.

  Teo summoned Kal and the Ghen-ri brothers and told them that the big tubes had made them nearly impotent. He told 'Dan to keep ten of the surviving bows to screen their movements by demonstrating along the edge of the high ground to which they had retreated. Then he and Kal and 'Dosh took the remainder on a dash to the rear, down the west slope of the rise, where they replenished their quivers from the supply wagon.

  One of the men spurred his horse and lit a shuck for Cliffside Keep. 'Dash raised his bow to feather the deserter, but Teo brushed him down and spat on the ground. "When Ilry's an old man, he'll never be able to brag he was here." Then he reined his horse around and trotted south. He did not look to see if anyone followed. On the Great Grass, sometimes all it took was one man running to draw all the others after him.

  But Kal pulled abreast of him, and Teo heard the hooves of the others following. "How many?" Teo asked.

  "Just Ilry," Kal answered.

  Shielded from the greenies by the swell of land, Teo led his troop through the swale formed by a tributary of Joojen's Creek. Like most plainsmen, Teodorq had a keen eye for the terrain and knew precisely when he would draw abreast of the greenie squares on the southern flank. The bannerman snapped his staff up sharply and the Horse Bows of the legion galloped up and over the swell yipping like plainsmen and showering the square with arrows on their unprepared western flank.

  The greenies halted in confusion. They had been advancing methodically against the crossbows and the hawk's swoop took them by surprise. The rear ranks redirected their fire on their unexpected visitors, but Teo could keep his roundelay out of thunder-stick range and still pin them with arrows.

  A troop of the greenie horse that had been harassing the southern villages appeared on the right flank and charged the Bows with hand-held thunder-sticks. Teo had the range on them, but cavalry at the gallop could close that range right quick. Two shots, one from each hand-stick, then the sticks were shoved into boot scabbards and curved swords drawn.

  Teodorq sunna Nagarajan drew his sword from off his back and his men did likewise. Atglen's black horse troop had mounted and were charging the hedgehog that Teo had feathered, trying to close the distance before the greenies could light off their thunder sticks. The greenies braced the knives on their sticks pointing outward to discourage the charging horses.

  Everything crashed together at the same time. The legionnaires cried lu-lu-lu-lu and the mounted bowmen cried yip-yip-yip. But the grim silence of the green foot and horse was somehow more unnerving.

  A green horseman expressed surprise that Teodorq was swinging a long sword. It was the last thing he expressed. The green swords were shorter, but they could be swung more freely with less risk of slashing one's own horse. Teo ducked one swipe and stabbed in longpoint, skewering his opponent. Kal, like Teo, was practiced in hands-free riding and could use two-handed tactics. A green head, frill and all, leapt free and rolled across the field, spreading consternation among his m
ates.

  But the horsemen pressed their attack with dour resolution. Their charge had succeeded in splitting the Horse Bows into two groups, unable to coordinate with each other. Korye, the bannerman, was using his staff to fend off a greenie's cuts. The staff broke and Korye lost an arm. The only consolation was that the green horsemen could not reload their hand-sticks and the footmen did not dare fire into the now-mingled horse. Teo spurred his mount kick to the rear and caught an attacker broadside. The enemy's horse toppled and screamed and crushed its rider. 'Dash was using his lieutenant's banner as a lance, jabbing at attackers with the spear point on its tip. A greenie rode straight toward Teo, his mouth stretched in a terrible smile, his curved sword held to the side for a swing. Teo kicked his horse, jumped forward, and swung backhanded. The enemy rode past. Teo didn't see if he cut him.

  The Red Sun had fully risen and the Great Sun was throwing long shadows across the field when Teo saw one of the big tubes wheeling into position to address the new fighting point of the battle. Like the unexpected return of a woman's husband, it signaled time to withdraw. Teo bellowed orders to pull out. His surviving bannerman whipped the yellow flag back and forth.

  "What are you doing?" Kal shouted from his own position. "We're kicking butt."

  Teo pointed to the thunder-tubes coming around the rise and leveling down. "They ain't so much fun."

  Kal looked and saw the movement on the east. "Guess yer..."

  A greenies horseman sliced him with his short sword.

  Short they might be, but sharp as well. The cut took off part of Kal's cheek and ear and cut deeply into his left arm. He howled with rage and took off the top of the man's head with a cross-body swing as easily as if he had snipped a hard-boiled egg. Then he lost his seat and he fell to the ground.