The Hordes of Chanakra (Knights of Aerioch) (22 page)

Kreg spread the maps on the table.  He looked over at Shillond and shook his head. "Shillond, explain it to the gentleman.  I have a headache."

Efrij clouded up.  His face purpled.

"Majesty," Shillond said hastily, before the storm could break, "I believe that Kreg proposes transferring the army from the north to the south."

"Retreat before an enemy?" Efrij roared. "Never!"

"How is it retreat?" Kreg asked, at the edge of his patience. "Since when is advancing to meet a greater threat retreat?  Come on, Shillond.  They don't want our help here."

"Now, Kreg," Shillond's voice was mild, but a twinkle sparkled in his eyes. "This is doubtless as new to Efrij as it was to King Marek.  I suppose it is natural that he finds it as hard to accept."

Kreg stared at Shillond.  Marek had seen the value of the new tactics at once.  Then Shillond sketched a complex symbol in the air and his voice whispered in Kreg's ear, "'When your enemy comes, welcome him.  When he departs, send him on his way.' Have you not said that many times?"

Kreg caught Shillond's eye and nodded.

"Marek didn't swallow these at first, did he?" Efrij snorted.

"True." Shillond nodded. "But he had to accept them.  They win battles."

"So." Efrij preened. "The high and mighty Marek fell flat with a tactic of war."

"Only at first, Your Majesty." Shillond bowed.

"Well, I will not make that mistake!" Efrij slammed a fist on the table, scattering the maps anew. "The army moves at dawn.  Send word at once."

"If I may be so bold." Kreg stilled his voice to mildness. "Leave a few of your forces behind, mostly archers.  They'll harass and slow the enemy, giving us a little more time."

"What is this?" Efrij said. "You dance and fool with the Schahi rather than face him in the open and defeat him."

"You would not want them to think you are fleeing, would you?" He said. "Leave a few forces to harass them.  Then no one can say that fear rather than tactics drove the move of the army.  In the meantime, you buy time and minimize your losses while waiting for your enemy to make a mistake you can exploit.  And rest assured, he will make mistakes."

"Humph."

"Now about that map..." Kreg let his words trail off and waved a hand over the map-covered table.

Efrij dug through the pile of maps and selected one.  The map, when unrolled, showed the peninsula on which the town of Callens lay.  "This was my own province," Efrij said gruffly, "before my ascent to the throne." He indicated the hills. "These are too steep for an army to pass and the lowlands are marshy." He ran a finger along a line winding through the hills. "If they are to advance, it will have to be along this road."

"Maybe," Kreg said. "From the look of things, we may just be able to repeat Griselde.  First, of course, we'll have to find a suitable place for the dismounted cavalry and archers..."

"Dismounted?" Efrij's voice rose again. "To fight on foot like a common peasant?"

Kreg sighed.  It was going to be a long night.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Several days later Kreg and Shillond sat on their horses  horses provided from Efrij's stables--at the top of a knoll overlooking the road.  Behind them, a steady breeze rustled the leaves of trees already starting to turn the colors of fall.  It brought a chill that Kreg felt even through his armor.

A low fog rolled off the marsh below, spreading tendrils across the gravel road that stretched toward where Callens lay invisible in the distance.  Behind, where the road crossed a higher saddle between two hills, the army prepared to camp for the evening.

“I see no sign of the Schahi,” Kreg stood in his stirrups, trying to see a bit farther.

"The seer says they had not moved from Callens since this morning.  Even if they started then, they could not be here before midmorning tomorrow.” Shillond said.

King Efrij’s command numbered three thousand men-at-arms, five thousand peasant levies, and one thousand archers.  He would have had more archers but he had sent the bulk to Aerioch before coming under attack in Merona.  Of the few that remained, most had gone to harry the Schahi army approaching from the north.

Despite Kreg's constant urging, Efrij and his men at arms refused to fight dismounted.  The forces available forced Kreg to rework his entire battle plan.  He had spent several sleepless nights with map and charcoal, blocking out different ideas.  He still did not know exactly what he would do, having only the barest of ideas.

"They're hoping we'll come rushing in on them," Kreg said. "My guess is they've had enough time to learn from Griselde and that, my friend, scares me."

"How so?"

"They outnumber us." Kreg indicated the troops behind them. "Will they hold, do you think, when faced with an army two to three times their size?" He did not wait for an answer. "Our only advantage is tactics and how long before I run out of tricks gleaned from history?" He grinned.  "You know all that, of course."

"Of course," Shillond said. "But you needed to talk.  Many's the time I've ridden with King Marek before battle while he talked of things we both knew well.  It comes of worry and concern."

Kreg shrugged and spurred his horse down the steep hillside.

#

At the same moment, to the south and west, Kaila sat her own horse.  She, too, sat on a hilltop, surveying the scene of where she hoped to bring the Schahi to battle.

Below her, the army marched across a saddle between two hills.  For days she had reviewed in her mind everything Kreg had told her and still she fretted.  She thought this was the best place to meet the Schahi but fear clouded her thoughts, fear that she would fail Aerioch, that she would fail Kreg.

There were few woods here, only the hills to help channel the Schahi army to where Kaila wished to fight.  She did not know what she would do if, despite all, they avoided her and continued to march into Aerioch.

She wished Kreg were here.

Kaila put her doubts aside at her companion’s soft cough.  She twisted to face him.

"All is well," she told Keven. He had joined her earlier that day.  "Our archers inflict losses upon the Schahi while we take none of our own.  When the sun is high tomorrow, the archers will withdraw from before the Schahi and harry them no more."

"There is method in this an' I not mistake," Keven said.

"Aye." Kaila tapped the map, spread on the table between them. "We harry them not and they reach this point by nightfall.  We shall wait just beyond, on this ridge.  Come morning they will find us there and we will fight."

"Ah." Keven nodded. "Kreg's tactic?"

"No," Kaila said. "Or not quite.  The line is too long to cover in safety and still keep a reserve.  It is my thought to place the reserve between the two wings.  The risk is greater if we are encircled, but I see no other answer."

"No more do I," Keven said. "I leave all in your capable hands."

"Keven, you rule," Kaila said. "It is you who should lead us in battle."

Keven waved the suggestion aside. "You fought at Griselde and have seen these new tactics in battle.  I shall command the left wing as Bryon did there."

"I will be in the center.  Who to hold the right wing, I wonder?"

"Dahren, perhaps?" Keven held up a hand as Kaila started to protest. "I know.  He is a fool and likes you not.  Nevertheless, he is a sturdy knight and loyal to my father, also, he is of the nobility and may not be refused."

"Dahren then," Kaila said. "But it likes me not.  He should have remained in the east."

"He and Bryon quarreled," Keven said. "Bryon would have him no more."

"And I owe him," Kaila's eyes narrowed with fury. "Marry!  But I owe him much for his attempt on the life of my squire."

"Your squire," Keven reminded her, "is squire no longer.  And the tales that the knights tell say that Kreg had the best of that fight.  Many say that Dahren had resort to his secret thrust and it availed him not."

"Speak him fair as you will," Kaila said. "He has given insult to me.  He has made attempt on the life of my squire and squire Kreg was when Dahren made the attempt.  By the King's own word we may not duel but once the war is won...his blood is mine."

"Aye, Kaila," Keven said. "But for the nonce?"

"For the nonce--" Kaila met his eyes levelly, "--we will use him where we may.  Dahren holds the right flank."

Kaila called in several pages and gave them orders to relay to the commanders of the troops.

"It is a strange thing," Kaila said as she and Keven rode down the hill toward the first of the campfires the army was beginning to set. "Ere Kreg came, never would I have planned a battle in this way.  I would have led troops headlong to glory or death, in wild charge, paying no heed to strategy."

"I know," Keven said softly.

"Methinks," Kaila continued. "This be why never had King Marek appointed me general.  For many years have I thought 'twere because I was a woman and not a man."

"Not that," Keven said. "Never that.  Your mother, for all her small stature, was a mighty warrior, second only to great Verrek.  My father knew your mettle for you have your mother's steel, tempered in your father's flame."

“I know...now." Kaila paused as her horse stepped to one side to avoid some obstacle that Kaila did not see. "'Tis strange.  All my life I have thought only of wars and of battles, but of late my mind has been on other thoughts.  Is there not more to life than bloodshed?"

"Aye, Kaila," Keven said. "More there is and I think you know the answer but are yet unwilling to admit it, even to yourself."

They rode without speaking for a while, the only sound being the jingling of the horses’ tack and the wuffling of their breathing.  The smaller of the two moons rose above the eastern ridge.

"How is it that you are here?" Kaila asked at last. "Who rules in Norveth?"

"The Lord Mayor holds the city well enough," Keven said. "The battle is here.  Should I hide within the keep while men die on the field of battle?"

#

"That idiot!" Kreg sank onto the ground next to Shillond. "His idea of honor and courage and valiant charges is going to get us all killed."

Their tent, a standard five-man field tent, had been set a little apart from those of the rest of the army.  Sentries, sentries it had taken long hours for Kreg to cajole out of Efrij, stood in small groups still farther out.  With the setting of the sun a fog had descended, soon turning into a light mist.  Kreg pulled his cloak tighter against the evening chill.

"I noticed something if you did not." Shillond placed another branch on the fire. "While his army fought in the north, Efrij remained safely within the walls of Lindel."

"I noticed," Kreg said. "I also noticed where King Marek and Prince Keven were when there were battles to be fought in Aerioch.  And I also noticed how quickly King Marek snatched at anything that might give him a chance at victory."

"There have been objections to your innovations, have there not? Even in Aerioch?"

"Oh, sure," Kreg said. "Regarding the commandos, for instance, there were exactly two: One from Bryon, who didn't want to take troops from the battlefield--a reasonable enough objection from his perspective.  The other was from that airhead, Dahren."

"Ah." Shillond laughed and said. "You have portrayed him well."

Kreg started to say something and stopped. "Do you always play the devils advocate?"

"Play the?..." Shillond thought for a moment. "If you mean, do I always take the opposing view in a discussion, I suppose I do.  Frequently.  I have been Marek's friend, advisor, and confidant since before he ascended to the throne, and his father's before him.  The habit is deep within me."

"And his father's before?..." Kreg looked Shillond over carefully. "You don't seem old enough."

"Kreg," Shillond said quietly, "I am over five hundred years old."

Kreg said nothing.

"I see that you don't believe it," Shillond said. "Well, no matter."

Bertan chose that moment to return with their meals.  He set a heavy pewter tray on the ground. "They would not believe me at first," Bertan said. "They thought I was just trying to scrounge a meal for some of the pages."

"The more things change,..." Kreg mused.

"Pardon?" Shillond took a bowl of some sort of hot porridge from the tray and passed it to Kreg.

"One second." Then to Bertan, he said, "Sit down, Bertan.  Possibly tomorrow, more likely the day after, we'll be fighting.  There's no need of this nonsense now."

Grinning sheepishly, Bertan sat.

"What I was saying, Shillond," Kreg said. "When I was a student at school, I got sent on an errand for one of the teachers, get some supplies from the office, and I had the same problem as Bertan here."

"School?  Office?" Shillond prodded at the fire. "I know not the words."

Kreg thought about that for a moment.  The local language did not have any words for either school or office that he knew.  He had inserted the English words without thinking.

"No," Kreg said. "I don't suppose you have them here, any more than you have computers.  Lucky you, huh, Bertan?"

Bertan shook his head.

When Bertan had left again, Kreg leaned back and sighed. “School is exactly where someone like Bertan needs to be, not on a battlefield.” Kreg waved his mug in the direction of the tent flaps. “Bertan should be worrying about algebra finals and baseball scores and whether the cute girl in pigtails likes him, not--“ He shuddered. “--whether someone is going to drive a sword through his body.”

#

"I don't understand," Shillond said the next morning. "We passed three places with terrain similar to that at Griselde or, as you described, at Crécy on the way here.  Why have you chosen this spot?"

"Shorter front," Kreg said. "We don’t have many archers and the cavalry is refusing to fight dismounted. That leaves me with the peasant levies as the core of my forces.  I want them deep to steady them."

The army occupied a long saddle between two hills.  In the center, Kreg had placed the peasant levies, eight ranks deep.  Unlike in Aerioch, these troops had shields: large, kite-shaped shields, made of hides stretched over a wooden frame.  This, Kreg hoped, would make up for their lack of weapons.  They carried farming tools:  axes, pitchforks, a few boar-spears.

On the wings, Kreg had placed the cavalry, ten ranks deep.  He had them packed in close order, stirrup to stirrup, in an attempt to steady the cavalry's inherent weakness when receiving an enemy’s charge.

What archers he had, Kreg had placed on the flanks of the hills.  Here, enemy cavalry and infantry would be unable to charge at them.  For each archer, he had one shield bearer.  This would give them some protection against enemy archery.

Kreg had to fight and scrap for each innovation.  Efrij, on his part, had argued against any change in tactics that they had used for centuries.  The fact that these tactics were losing did not enter his thinking.

"Sir Kreg?" Bertan came up behind him. "The scouts have returned."

Kreg nodded.  Sometime the previous day, the Schahi had begun to move.  Since then the High Seer had been unable to trace their movements.  Cloaked by magic, no doubt.

Kreg turned to accompany Bertan to Efrij's tent.  The tent was enormous.  A large tent was necessary, of course, if only to contain the meetings that running an army required, But Efrij’s was three times the size it needed to be.  And where Marek’s tent had been plain, undyed canvas, Efrij’s was of fine linen and dyed in bright colors.  Inside, ceramic tiles covered ground that servants had spent hours leveling.  Kreg did not want to think about how many arrows, or how much food, could have been carried in the wagons that had born those tiles.

"If we hold our present position," the knight who had led the scouting party said, "the Schahi army will reach us midmorning tomorrow."

"Hah!" Efrij said. "Then we will go forward and meet them today!"

"Your pardon, Majesty," Kreg said. "But that is just what they want.  The terrain favors the defense.  They're trapped on the peninsula and must either face us or board ship and leave."

"Their ships have already departed,” the Seer said.