Much Fall of Blood-ARC (29 page)

The army being readied for the round ships—some forty thousand men, now—was but a small portion of the force that Jagiellon was mustering. He would have to strike in the north and the center, once he held the gate to the Mediterranean. For the last few years he had kept up a slow war of attrition, without major attacks, while building more reserves. He'd learned that it would take large numbers to bring down the Holy Roman Empire, given the capabilities of its current ruler.

This time they would feint north. The war hardened Empire, led by the knights of the Holy Trinity would stop that attack, as they had many others. But the attack would be merely a diversion. Jagiellon thought the underbelly of Europe was soft and unprepared. With any luck, Emeric of Hungary would attempt to take advantage and attack either Italy or the Holy Roman Empire—not realizing that this would leave him vulnerable on his own eastern borders. Jagiellon would settle for a bridgehead into the heart of Europe through Hungary. The part of Jagiellon that was the Black Brain, Chernobog, cared little for these geographical conquests. But they were physical prizes which were not without value in the spiritual world. And besides, pouring across the northern Carpathians from the lands of the Kievan Rus would allow Chernobog to seize the physical earthly holdings of an old enemy, Elizabeth Bartholdy. There was a certain satisfaction in that.

The sun kisses the high places, the cold roost of eagles and fugitives, before it shines upon the rest of the world. In the pale clarity of dawn, Vlad gazed out from the craggy edge above their small camp, loving the sheer limitless immensity of the folded shadowlands below. It had frightened him a little at first. Now he would die before he let anyone shut him away again. For a brief while his soul was at peace, in the vast tranquility of the place, away from the turmoil of conflicting desires and a world he understood poorly.

Could death somehow be like this? An endless, quiet, shadowy country.

The sun climbed slowly higher, becoming harsher and stronger, and people began to stir. They'd camped in a picturesque spot, in a small dell beneath a gray scree, with a craggy peak above it. To the right on the edge of the scree, a col led into another valley and deeper into the mountains.

Far, far below, Vlad's eye was caught by flash of light. Vlad had discovered that he had very keen eyesight. He peered intently now, wishing that he had one of those telescope devices. Staring, his eyes picked up movements eventually. A column of horses, working their way up one of the valleys. Soon they would be hidden behind the ridge line as the valley turned away in its meandering.

Vlad knew all too well that that valley would eventually bring the horsemen to their camp. And it was very unlikely that it was a friendly column of several hundred horsemen.

He made his way quickly back to his camp. It was a very makeshift camp, tents constructed from a few ragged tarpaulins, and some lean-tos set around several cook fires, one of which was being blown into life.

"Best leave that," said Vlad. "The Hungarians are coming. I have seen a column of them heading up our valley. Wake everybody. No shouting," he added, seeing the startled fire-maker take a deep breath to do just that.

A few minutes later, two of the younger boys were leading the horses up to the col while those for whom there were no mounts began to slither and scramble over the broken cliff and down into the next valley. That left Vlad and twenty-one men waiting nervously amongst the top edge of the broken boulder scree near the col.

When he had planned the last ambush he had been filled with a kind of rash fury that expressed itself in cold-blooded, calculated killing. Now, he was just afraid. How had they found him here? The wait seemed interminable. He wished, desperately, that he had the experience, or that someone else here with him that knew what to do.

At last, a pair of troopers appeared at the foot of the little mountain dell they had used for their camp. They were moving cautiously and halted their horses when they saw the rough tents. They turned, quietly, to ride away.

And then, while he was still holding his breath, Vlad saw it all come apart. Someone decided to shoot one of the scouts. He hadn't actually told them not to . . .

It was good shooting, all things considered. The one scout gave a gurgling scream as the arrow hit him on the breastplate and ricocheted upward, striking just under the jaw. His companion did not wait. He put his spurs to his steed and got away, as less well aimed arrows clattering impotently on the rocks, spearing the thin soil. Vlad heard a horn being sounded. And then, something worse—the sound of screaming from the valley behind them, where those without horses had fled.

Vlad simply did not know what to do. The Hungarians had obviously another column of horse coming up to take them from behind. Vlad's men were outnumbered, and would have been surrounded. Before Vlad could take a decision—something his little army were looking for him to do—the Hungarians came sweeping into the dell, lances out.

"Loose!" someone yelled. A ragged volley of arrows fell among the Hungarian knights, busy spearing canvas and flattening lean-tos. The knights were heavily armored, the horses less so. Some horses screamed. A few men fell, but the rest were now charging at the scree slope. Vlad's makeshift troops were no match for them. A handful loosed again, but most of them were scrambling for the col. Vlad stood up. He was damned, he decided, if he would flee merely to run into the second column. He would die here, and die free.

Seing him stand his ground with a sword in his hand, steadied three or four of his men who had not yet started to run. They began firing more arrows, yelling to their companions to come back and aid them.

Then, the invincible and terrifying Magyar charge slowed. It was not the pinprick of the few light arrows that affected them. Rather it was the utter folly of trying to gallop a heavy horse up a steep loose scree slope. The earlier flight of Vlad's men had started some rocks rolling down. A cascade of boulders knocked one knight from his horse.

Vlad stretched out his arms. "Push rocks, men!"

A heavy horse just does not change course or stop easily, even on a steep slope of loose rocks. Still, the charge—which had seemed so terrifying and unstoppable—scattered and broke up, as the Magyars tried to save themselves and their steeds. The scree, long undisturbed and appearing fairly stable as a result, had deceived the flatland knights. Perhaps they had intended to merely caracole and retreat, but now, in the sliding and rolling rocks and screaming men and horses, the order was lost. The booming of their pistols had not helped either.

In the dust and chaos Vlad knew only one thing: somehow luck had favored them. But what he should do next was a mystery to him.

The decision was taken out of his hands by someone tugging at his sleeve. "Sire, they are coming up from behind!"

Vlad took a deep breath. One of the reasons they had chosen this little dell as a campsite was that that it had had two valleys for them to flee down. The idea that they might need three had never occurred to him. Plainly someone had pinpointed their campsite exactly, and planned accordingly.

"To the horses, men!" They scrambled over to the col. The man who had warned him had a steaming horse. Vlad read into this that he had ridden someway down the valley before catching sight of the other group of Hungarians, advancing up that escape route. Vlad had heard the screams earlier, but he had to hope that there would still be a way clear. Well, there obviously wasn't.

"Mount up!" he said. "We are going back over. We will at least die like men."

They walked their horses above the scree and then down along the clear steep slope next to the cliff where Vlad had watched the sunrise—the route that the boys leading the horses had taken earlier. They were able to ride down, into the dust and shouting. It was very hard to tell quite what was happening down here. Vlad's men were no battle hardened warriors. They were unarmored and poorly armed. True, most of the men had bows. But none of them could shoot from the saddle. So they had to resort to boar spears, a few pitchforks, rusty old swords—relics taken from above fireplaces—and even a few men who had nothing more than clubs, and axes intended for firewood.

The Magyars should have butchered them. Almost certainly the Magyar would have butchered them, had they come with a little advance notice, and not in the wake of the scree slide. By the time that it occurred to Vlad that in the books he had read, warriors gave a battle cry on charging, it was almost too late to do so. It was certainly too late to think of anything particularly inspiring. He settled for his own name. It echoed hollowly, mockingly weak to his own ears. But that was obviously not how it sounded to his small band of followers. "Drac!" they yelled in chorus.

There were barely twenty of them left. Looking back to see if he was being followed, Vlad realized that the flanking party of Magyar had reached the col behind them. His pitiful little force was caught between two sets of enemies. But it was too late. The little ragtag group of rebels, all that remained of his army, had begun their doomed charge. All he could do was to wave his sword—he had no idea how to use it from the saddle—and race towards the chaos that had been their campsite.

At the top of the slope someone else yelled: "Charge!" And: "He must be taken alive!"

Vlad heard that quite clearly. It was the last thing he remembered hearing clearly for the next few minutes.

If there was one thing more stupid than trying to charge up a scree slope, it had to be charging down one. It was undoubtably the shortest way down, and in the dust and perhaps in the haste of the moment it might have seemed a good idea.

Vlad had no time to think of his enemy's logic. He was hacking at an armored man. This was not about swordsmanship. This was about survival. A pitch-fork in the neck assisted his foe's fall. And somehow he was through to the other side of the Magyar troopers, with nothing but the trail they had followed up here in front of him, and the bulk of his force intact.

* * *

Emeric had some thirty-three battered men paraded in front of him. They were all that remained of a once-proud troop of a hundred and twenty that had set off on a well-planned dawn raid on the encampment of Vlad, Prince of Valahia.

"I think," he said, smiling nastily at his great aunt's beautiful features, "that you had better leave military matters me, Countess. I came expecting to find things in good order. Instead I find you have countermanded my instructions and made things a great deal worse. I did have my doubts. You are very skilled . . . in other areas."

He did not say that he had come because one of the captains whom he had seconded to her had sent a letter to his commanding officer, who had in turn carried it to the king. Emeric might need the man in the future. Besides, he thought it wise to let her think he that had guessed. Actually, the disaster had come as a rude shock to him. She was usually so devastatingly efficient.

She looked down her nose at him. "The operation was well planned. Your troops are inadequate. They were late. They should have arrived simultaneously at dawn."

He wondered if she realized that she had just reprieved them from drastic punishment. "Let us hear what they have to say," he said. He pointed to a trooper. "You. Explain."

The man was gray and shaking. But he was no coward, Emeric had to admit. "Sire. It was steeper than we realized. It took us much longer than we thought. Captain Genorgi had us out at midnight, riding up. We should have been in position hours before dawn. Everyone thought we would be, but we lost the moonlight in the valley. It was pitch dark and very rough going. We had to lead the horses."

"If you'd lamed my horses in that I would have had you flayed. But surely it had been scouted?"

The trooper nodded. "It's rough terrain, Sire, but not that bad in daylight. We just didn't realize that it was an ambush. A trap."

"And scouts?" asked the king.

"We had some Croats watching the camp from the other ridge, Sire. But they could only see fires. They didn't realize that the fires were a decoy. We'd have all been killed if our scouts hadn't sounded the warning. I was coming up the second valley. We killed some of their infantry. But when we heard the fighting, Captain Genorgi told us to leave hunting them and push on for the gap."

"And then?"

"We heard them massacring Lieutenant Mascaru's men when we got to the top. There were hundreds of them, Sire. Not just the forty peasants without weapons or training like we'd been told. All yelling 'Drac!' and cutting our men to pieces. Captain Genorgi gave the order to charge, and we rode to the rescue. But it was a trap. Prince Vlad . . . He's not human, Sire. He's a demon. He made the slope give way under us. I was lucky to get out alive."

"This may be temporary," said Emeric, and then remembered that he was not punishing them. "You did well. Now. Return to the ranks. I want to speak someone who was with the other column."

The trooper was plainly unable to believe his fortune. He bowed and retreated.

"Well?" said Emeric. "Were there no survivors of Lieutenant Mascaru's column?"

Where had Vlad found a general with this level of military expertise? Where had he found weaponry, knights, or at least cavalry? Emeric suspected treachery, and a far better woven plot that he had guessed at.

Nervously a man with a bandaged head came forward. "Me, Sire."

Emeric looked at him. A big man, but plainly shaken by the military disaster. So they should be. They were among his best. "And how many knights did they have?"

"More than us, Sire. A hundred at least. They took us in the flank out of the dust."

"And who commanded them? I need some ideas. Boyars have families." He smiled thinly.

The soldier looked nervous. "Sire, I think it was Prince Vlad himself. They were all yelling for him, or at least all yelling 'Drac!' That's what they call him. He's a huge man all in black clothes, black hair and a white face, and you can't kill him. I shot him at the top of the slope, but he didn't die. Then in the melee he knocked me out of the saddle just with his gaze. His eyes . . ."