The Tears of the Sun (81 page)

ARMY HQ
THE HIGH KING'S HOST
HORSE HEAVEN HILLS
(FORMERLY SOUTH-CENTRAL WASHINGTON)
HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL
(FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)
OCTOBER 28, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

 

 

A knight was singing, alone at first and then joined by a dozen others:

Rudi Mackenzie looked up from the map, remembering to keep the bacon and fried onions folded in a wheat cake aside so that it wouldn't drip grease on the precious document. The tall young man was one of the Protector's Guard, helping his squire to groom his destrier a little down the slope from the royal command pavilion; he wove ribbons into its mane, and it snuffled at him and lipped his yellow curls until he fed it an apple.

Around him his friends and comrades were finishing bowls of porridge and bannocks and bacon, many already in their war-harness and the others in the midst of donning it, laughing as they sang, a few waving their spoons to the chorus:

“Nothing like a little pessimism,” Rudi said in a dull tone, and took another bite.

“It's not pessimistic,” Mathilda said seriously. “It's a happy song, a young man's . . . Oh, you got me
again
!”

She thumped him in the ribs; a largely theoretical gesture, since he was in full plate, but her gauntlet made a satisfying
whunk
against the steel and he grinned and winked.

The air was full of the sounds and scents of an army getting ready to move; men's voices, the clank of metal, the creak of leather and wood, the occasional snort or neigh from a horse. Sweat and scorched bacon and dung, but also the clear cool fall air, and the first rains had laid the dust and left a dusting of green across the rolling hills. Banners snapped and fluttered, their points streaming towards the east and the enemy. Long shadows stretched westward, from the hills and the odd tree. Mostly the land here was tawny wilderness, even the herds of wild horses and antelope and bison fled. The birds waited overhead, though, crow and raven and buzzard, riding the air and waiting patiently.

They
would have their victory today, whatever passed among humankind.

“The sun will be in our eyes for the morning,” Bjarni Ironrede said, looking at the map. “Here?” he added, pointing.

“But the wind will be at our backs all day,” Oak Barstow said. “Fifty, a hundred feet extra range, and the cloth yards will hit harder.”

“Here is where we deploy,” Rudi agreed, tapping his left forefinger on the map where Bjarni had indicated. “But if they've any wisdom, they won't force a full engagement while we hold that position. They'll push a little and then try to work around us.”

He turned his head. “Lord Chancellor, you will continue to function as Chief of Staff here,” he went on.

The warrior cleric looked happier in armor than he had the last time the High King saw him, which had been shepherding a supply convoy and looking very much as if he wanted to curse.

Rudi looked around the circle, with a particular eye on the Associate lords; there were a round dozen, but Conrad Renfrew looked to have them well in hand.

“My lords, this is the last of our preliminaries. We must fold the Grand Constable's force into the body of this army, and pass them to the rear where they will form our main reserve, and also get a chance to rest. We will offer battle this day, but only if the enemy accepts it on our terms. This will require the most precise attention to my orders. I will not fight except at an advantage; but there will be battle, either today, or in the next few days. The dance ends soon. Is all that understood?”

They all bowed their heads and thumped their breastplates in salute. “General Thurston?” he went on.

“Two full regiments of my troops are ready, Your Majesty,” the dark young man said. “Six battalions and field artillery. We'll anchor the archers, and Ironrede will fill any gaps.”

“Excellent. Eric—”

The Bearkiller commander nodded.

“—my gut, not to mention my testicles, gives me a feeling that they'll try to work around our right and push us away from the Columbia. Be wary of that, but not fixated on it. We may backpedal, but if we do it will be straight west. We will
not
allow ourselves to be forced away from the river. There isn't enough water for an army this size, otherwise.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he said. Then a grin, and a flourish of the steel fist. “They'll regret it if they try.”

“See that they do.”

A thunder of hooves, and a challenge-and-response from below the hill. They all looked down. One of the Dúnedain was riding a dappled gray Arab up towards the command party, and a man on a good but not spectacular horse beside, carrying a long light lance with a pennant marked with the crowned mountain and Sword of Montival. As they approached Rudi recognized his half sister Ritva; she was in the gear Rangers wore for a real battle, a black brigandine with the Stars-and-Tree picked out in silver rivets, mail sleeves and breeches, a spired helm with cheek-pieces, a gray hooded cloak beneath.

There was a long bright scratch across the brow of the helmet, the type an arrow would make, and the broken-off stub of another in the cantle of her saddle.

Ah, the one in the kettle helm and the red coat under his mail shirt will be her Drumheller Canuk, then, and carrying my banner,
Rudi thought.
Good luck to them both this day. Lug strengthen their arms, and the Crow Goddess beat Her wings above them.

They swept to a stop, and before the hooves had stopped moving Ritva come out of the saddle in a showy vault-dismount and went to one knee before him, bowing with hand to heart for a moment, and then extending a dispatch.

Some of the others snorted a little at the showiness. He didn't mind; such things kept hearts strong, and battles were won in the heart as much as on the field.

“Rise, and give me the report verbally, sister,” he said.

She'd been sent for more than carrying an envelope; not least, to give an account that even the most birth-proud Associate lords would listen to carefully. He handed the document to Mathilda and then finished the sandwich with one last large bite, relishing the salty smoky tang of the cured meat and the sharp onion with it. He did not think he would die this day, but even with the Sword of the Lady there was no such thing as certainty.

Mathilda opened it and began to read it quickly while Ritva stepped up to the map.

“The Grand Constable's rearguard are making a stand
here
,” she said. “Four Yakima infantry regiments and about three thousand horse, a thousand lancers and the rest light cavalry. The rest of the expeditionary force have broken contact and should be
here
”—she tapped the map to the northward, where the Horse Heaven Hills turned higher and sharper before they fell away to the Yakima Valley—“any minute now. They've got what's left of the baggage train, mostly field ambulances and the wounded . . . the ones who haven't been wounded in the last hour or two. We burned the rest of the wagons two days ago. A lot of the troops haven't eaten in twenty-four hours.”

“Lord Chancellor,” Rudi said.

Ignatius nodded, turning and giving orders in a low voice. Messengers knelt to listen to him, lean men and a few women in leather, Church couriers, many of them of the Order of the Shield. Clerks were writing as he spoke; the orders were folded, stamped and on their way while Ritva was still speaking.

“Enemy forces?” Rudi asked.

“Mostly light cavalry, their vanguard, trying to pin us. About ten thousand men. That's not counting their casualties, they've been pushing it hard and paying the butcher's bill.”

Someone whistled softly; ten thousand
was
a stunning number for the mere lead element. Ritva went on: “But the
Hîr i Dúnedain
says there's
at least
one brigade of Boise troops only about two hours by bicycle behind them and he strongly suspects more within striking distance.”

Her finger traced an arc farther east, converging on the force that had been delaying and harassing the advance of the CUT and Boise.

“Ah,” Rudi said. “Time and force and space. If that rearguard is not pulled out before the enemy are there in force enough to invest it, they are lost.”

“The
Hîr i Dúnedain
thinks you have very little time, Your Majesty.”

“Ritva Havel, if Alleyne Loring-Larsson says that, I will believe it as I would sky-tall letters of fire, written in Ogham by Lug's spear. For now they hold, though?”

“Yes, my liege. The infantry are standing off the horse-archers but the Grand Constable says she doesn't have enough cavalry left to rock them back on their heels long enough for the infantry to break contact. She had to keep this many to cork the bottle while the rest of her force got away.”

“A hard choice the Grand Constable had, but she made the right one,” Rudi said. “Best to risk some than lose all.”

His hand caressed the crystal hilt of the Sword. Time and force and space . . . maps and symbols moved before his eyes.

Decision formed. “Matti, you'll be in charge of the Protector's Guard. We'll take all of them. Edain, mount up the High King's Archers, the lot of them also. And . . . Viscount Chenoweth.”

“Your Majesty?”

“Your
menie
?”

The eldest son of Conrad Odell nodded; a squire was behind him with a sheet of paper, but he didn't need it.

“One thousand six hundred, and ready to move immediately.”

“Leave the spearmen; just the lancers and mounted crossbows.”

“A thousand then, Your Majesty.”

“Get them here. Fast.”

He bowed his head, turned, and was in the saddle within three paces. Ignatius was already handing a note to his own aides.

“The ambulances will be moving by the time you leave, Your Majesty,” he said.

“Good.”
Good man,
he thought. “My lords, ladies. I suggest you go prepare a welcome for our guests.”

Edain was near, leading a horse. It was a mare, seventeen hands of night-black sleekness, deep-chested, arch-necked. She was middle-aged for a horse, especially a warm-blood—but the more closely you looked the less like an ordinary warm-blood of the destrier breed she looked, and even experienced horsemen would have taken a decade or so off her total if they were asked.

“My lady Epona,” Rudi said to her, blowing into her nose in the kiss of the horse-kind. “Are you ready to dance with me this day?”

“Sure, and she'd stamp you into mush if you didn't,” Edain said, grinning at him. “For didn't she travel all the way to the Sunrise lands with you and back.”

“Riding in a horsecar on the rails most of the way back,” Rudi said lightly.

He swung into the saddle.

“Let's go,” he said.

 

“They're charging again,” Alleyne Loring said. “Here.”

Rudi took the heavy binoculars in one hand. Their picture was uncannily sharp, some art of the ancient world that prevented the picture that leapt to his eyes from wobbling and the magnification made little of the near two thousand yards' distance.

The Yakima infantry were deployed in a triangular formation on a low swale. It was the best position around, chosen with a good eye for ground; the eastern side was shielded by a steeper section of rising earth, almost like a bank. Rain or no, dust hung over them where hooves and wheels and thousands of hobnailed boots had torn the thin bunchgrass, and he hoped they'd had a chance to fill their water wagons. He could taste the dry papery flavor of it on his lips now, along with the salt of sweat. This was better fighting weather than high summer, though.

The formation on the rise bristled with pikes; the front four ranks had theirs down into the
prepare to receive cavalry
position, the front row on one knee and bracing each butt against a boot, the next three at shoulder or chest or waist height, a forest of sharp points. Behind them the next three stood with the weapons upright, and behind them was a double rank with glaives ready to stop any breakthrough.

It took strength to hold the sixteen-foot weapons like that. And a cold considered courage to spit on your hands and brace the pike and stand under arrows and bolts, closing up the holes as men fell silent or screaming and the earth shook under the charging hooves. The crossbows were interspersed between the blocks of pikes, three deep—prone and kneeling and standing. The silent menace was less showy, but just as real. So was that of the springalds and scorpions that were spaced along the lines.

“Cavalry in the center for now,” Rudi noted. “Now that is a position I would not care to assault, Alleyne.”

“They have been, though, Sire.”

He nodded agreement without taking the binoculars from his eyes. You could see the bodies of men and horses scattered back from each side of the triangle, out several hundred yards but thicker as you approached up to a wavering line at fifty yards or so, then a thinner scattering and a few right under the pike points. Some lying still, others still moving. He could see one man crawling away, legs motionless and a bolt standing in his back.

War,
he thought.
Not a pretty sight nor a pretty thing, for all that we dress it.

The enemy were going to try again, though. He could see them dispersed across miles around; most where in clumps around trains of packhorses.