The Invisible Hands - Part 1: Gambit (68 page)

“Longbows. Longbows. Down, Your Highness, down,” one of his

adjutants shouted.

Numb with consternation, Derlang crouched on his hinds.

“The cavalry,” he yelled from his stooped position, rage taking over. “The cavalry. Let the cavalry charge and wipe that scum from the face of the earth.”

His order was relayed through the ranks, but before anything could come of it, the assailants had mounted their own horses, turned 57
around and galloped off. Before even one Lorsanthian horseman was

ready to confront them, they had disappeared into the woods again.

Derlang cursed long and hard, until he saw the very same thing happening on the other side of the Valleys.

“No,” he cried out, totally dejected. He wanted to shout orders to them, but he knew his voice couldn’t possibly carry that far. “No, no.

Get into formation. Raise your shields above your heads. Let the cavalry charge,” he kept mumbling nevertheless.

Seething with powerless rage, he had to watch as, again, hundreds of his soldiers fell down, without even being able to retaliate.

One of his adjutants grabbed him by the arm.

“Your Highness, we have to leave.
Now
, Your Highness. Now, while we can still hope to form the semblance of an army and before they come back.”

Derlang stood up and looked around. He nodded. There was nothing he could do about the plight of his men down in the Arkhasaro Valleys.

“Give the orders. We’ll march the remaining men off to the open plains and we’ll make camp there. Leave the dead and the wounded.”

The aide-de-camp seemed to hesitate.

“There’s nothing we can do for them, man,” Derlang shouted. “Do you want even more of our soldiers to die?”

No, the adjutant didn’t want that. He bowed slightly, clacked his heels and went about giving the orders to reform the marching

columns.

After twenty very confused minutes, the first units were ready to march off in a northwesterly direction, with Derlang and his personal guard riding between the heavily armored Eternals.

57
The terrain became more undulating as they made their slow pro—

gress. In the late afternoon of the second day after the disaster Derlang Vrauch-Li gave orders to make camp on a fairly high hill. It wasn’t ideal. Although dominating its surroundings, there were other hills nearby. The drawback of lying in the open meant forests were far away, so not even a stockade could be built to give the campsite a min— imum of protection.

Once his palace-tent had been erected, he gave orders for the remaining troops to be counted again, somehow hoping some stragglers might have caught up. Sheltered from the noise by several layers of canvas, wool, cloth and silk he sat down to think. What could he do?

He had penetrated, he estimated, some thirty, maybe forty, miles into enemy territory. He had lost more than half his army and fighting hadn’t even begun. He was still pondering his options, when they brought him the result of the head count. Some thirteen thousand men remained, all demoralized except the Eternals.

Derlang convened a war council in the anteroom compartment of

his tent.

The knight-commander of the Eternals exhibited the usual bragging behavior of his corps. Derlang doubted the Eternal could make true on his rash boast that his own company was sufficient to bring Ximerion to its knees. The other officers turned out to be exceptionally unhelpful in this crisis. He was just about to make an end to the meeting, when a servant came running inside, yelling, “Fire, fire. The tent is on fire.”

The officers crowded the exit of the tent in their efforts to get outside. Derlang was one of the last. He saw flames licking at the back part of his magnificent tent — his sleeping quarters. Servants and soldiers were trying to extinguish the fire. The fools were using what precious little drinking water they had, and even so, it was not nearly 57
enough. It was too late to intervene and stop the criminal waste. He almost exploded with frustrated rage. Another problem that would have to be dealt with come morning. Then he looked above him as fiery arrows lighted the sky and landed in the pen where the Eternals kept their warhorses. The animals had been freed from their heavy armor and had no protection from the burning arrows. The animals panicked and neighed frightfully with pain and distress. Trying to get away as far from the fire as they could, they broke out, trampling whoever tried to stop them, and ran down the hill, disappearing behind the smaller hills.

Totally disoriented and dazed by what was happening, Derlang

turned around once more to see that the soaring flames were consuming his palace-tent in earnest now. The servants had given up all attempts to quench the fire, but not before having wasted almost all of the available drinking water. Finally the fire consumed itself and fizzled out, leaving a smoldering heap of burnt wood and fabric.

“The horses. Did we get the horses back?” Derlang asked of one of his aides-de-camp.

“Some. Most got away, Your Highness,” the man answered, falter— ing. “We… we put some of your ladies in waiting together and freed up a tent for you. Maybe Your Highness should rest.”

The satrap looked helplessly around at the frenetic, but ineffectual, activity.

“Yes, I think I will,” he agreed, with drooping shoulders. “Let half of the men form a circle around the camp, fully armed. The enemy might launch a surprise attack. The other half should take what rest they can get. Change them in a few hours.”

Without giving his underling another look, he walked away toward the tents of his concubines. A soldier took him to the empty one, reserved for his use. Before closing the entrance flap, he said,
“
I don’t 57
want to be disturbed. Have five men guard this tent and keep everybody out.”

Once inside he let himself fall upon the oaken bed and closed his eyes.

“It’s a disaster. I led my army into an ambush. Those Ximerionian
barbarians have no honor. They fight like animals. They fall on our
necks like wild cats and disappear before we can get to grips with
them. The cowards. How dare they?”

He remained lying still like a corpse, trying to ban out the faint noises that penetrated through the heavy layers of the tent.

“It’s the end. The end for me and my House. The Purple Room will
have no mercy. They will find me guilty of gross negligence and in-competence, and convict me to the Death Without End.”

He shuddered. He had heard the stories. Satrap or no satrap, he would be reduced to a heap of mindless, screaming, mangled flesh. His body would not be caressed and revered by one of his beautiful ladies, but violated by lowborn brutes for years and years on end. Unless…

“Unless, I can turn this around. I still have a considerable force of
over ten thousand hardened soldiers to face a rabble of Ximerionians
with. My men are well-trained, well-armed and disciplined. The barbarian king can field at most thirty thousand men, the High Command has assured me. It has been done before. A small, highly
trained army will rout a numerically superior, but undisciplined
force any day of the week.”

These and similar reassuring thoughts calmed him down.

“We’ll regroup. I’ll make my stand here, and tomorrow I’ll send
out scouts to collect stragglers. I’ll have the Valleys investigated.

Maybe by now they can be forded again, and I can have the rest of
the army rejoin me. I can come back from this. I can turn this
around.”

57
After several hours he drifted off into a fitful sleep.

When dawn broke he woke, feeling stiff, still exhausted and dejected. He was just about to get up, when one of his adjutants entered his tent.

“Your Highness, please, rise. Outside…”

“What?”

“The Ximerionian army. It’s getting into battle position at two miles from our camp.”

“Impossible to tell for sure,” Wendo of Offlighem said, “but our scouts tell us they can’t have more than twelve or thirteen thousand men in fighting condition. Their heavy cavalry has lost two thirds of its horses.”

“They must be tired. Their soldiers have had only half a night’s sleep. Our lightning attacks worked to perfection,” Seph of Gisswing added. “Still, they’re not to be underestimated. The Lorsanthian army hasn’t got its reputation for nothing.”

Prince Tenaxos sat on horseback between them. He had positioned his army on three adjacent hills. The prince occupied the middle one 57
himself, surrounded by his companions and most of the infantry. On

the other two hills smaller infantry units and cavalry had taken up position. The archers weren’t to be seen anywhere.

Erning of Grenvall came riding up the middle hill.

“They’re dead,” he announced.

“The wounded they left behind?” Tenaxos inquired.

“Yes. To the last man, including a few who stayed behind to take care of them. We collected all the arrows, like you ordered, and took all their arms and armor, together with the clothing that could still be used.” He stopped to take a breath. “No time to bury them.” He shrugged. “The wild animals will take care of them, I suppose.”

“Excellent,” the prince replied. “Any news of what the rearguard of their army is doing?”

“Retreating. Our hit-and-run units are harassing them continuously. It’s a rout for the border, really. They leave everybody behind who can’t keep up. The wounded, the tired…” He made a cutting gesture to finish his sentence.

Tenaxos smiled.

Derlang Vrauch-Li mustered his troops. The majority of the

Eternals had lost their heavy horses. Their armor was far too cumbersome and ponderous to be of any use to them on foot. Most of them had just donned their breastplate. Others had added rerebraces and greaves for further protection. All of them found out that their massive broadswords were far more difficult to wield when they were on foot, rather than on horseback. Nevertheless, the Eternals claimed the position of honor in the battle formation, in a dense bloc, in front of the rest of the line.

57
From the highest point on the hill, the satrap had a clear view of

what was soon to become the battlefield. He could see the enemy commander on horseback, surrounded by other knights, in the center of a mass of infantry. Dozens of flags fluttered above him and his companions. Derlang recognized the crowned, crossed swords of the royal battle standard of Ximerion. That meant a member of the House of Tanahkos was commanding the army in person. The banners with a winged wolf salient, in argent, on a field of sable, probably could have told him who exactly it was, if he had been more knowledgeable in Ximerionian heraldry.

The satrap thought the enemy looked confident, maybe overly so.

Was there an opportunity in that? Could they be tempted into an act of rash boldness, maybe even seduced into breaking ranks?

Before he could decide upon a course of action, he heard again the by now dreaded cry, “Longbows, longbows, take cover, longbows.”

This time they came from both the left and the right. Hundreds of arrows, volley upon volley, wreaked havoc and sowed death and panic in both flanks of the Lorsanthian ranks. The attack lasted barely a few minutes. Cursing in powerless rage, the satrap could only be a helpless witness as yet another significant part of his army was in disarray. The enemy archers had mounted their horses again meanwhile, and disappeared among the hills from which they had emerged.

The knight-commander of the Eternals must have seen the surprise attack as the sign for a counter offensive. Without waiting for orders he set what remained of his heavy cavalry in motion. Their depleted numbers and the half armored knights-on-foot that followed the horsemen made the sluggish march forward almost seem ridiculous, instead of fear-inspiring as it was meant to be. Their opponent didn’t seem unduly concerned. The Ximerionian soldiers didn’t budge.

They neither retreated nor advanced, but seemed to wait calmly for the Eternals to reach them. When finally the Lorsanthian heavy horsemen were so near that the terrain began to slope upwards to the hill, Prince Tenaxos gave an almost imperceptible sign, and his light cavalry units on both sides stormed down in a wide semi-circular movement, crashing into the knights-on-foot. The assailed Lorsanthians tried to defend themselves, but it proved impossible to reach their attackers with their clumsy broadswords. Noticing that their comrades were being slaughtered, the horsemen tried to turn around which caused a confused jumble. Units of the Ximerionian light infantry, equipped with short range hand bows, ran down the hill and at close quarters aimed, not at the riders, but at their horse’s unprotected legs.