Golden Scorpio (21 page)
In the manner of these things, just how the name began no one could tell; but folk began to talk of the pikemen in the files as brumbytes. The brumby was — I say ‘was’ for the animal was thought to be extinct or legendary — a powerful eight-legged and armored battering ram of whirlwind destruction, armed with a long straight horn in the center of his forehead. Something like an elegant rhinoceros, the brumby symbolized the headlong energy of the pikemen. At once I gave orders that the shields should bear a painted and stylized representation of this formidable beast, along with the formation signs. The ordinary brumbyte carried a clear strip across the top of his shield. The differing ranks in the duodecimal system then carried stripes of color to indicate their status, rising from a single stripe — complemented with a single tape on the buff-sleeved shirt and a single feather alongside the helmet plume — to the four tapes and two stars of a Paltork.
The shields, bronze-rimmed and bronze-bossed, were crimson, the imperial color. The First Kerchuri carried a broad brown chevron and the Second a brown ring upon the crimson.
All main plumes were of crimson. The tails were colored Jodhri by Jodhri. As I said to the officers: “We present a solid mass, a devastating avalanche of crimson and bronze.” Then, because these things matter, I added: “But the brumbytes may decorate their kaxes in any way they wish, so long as they do not destroy either their effectiveness or their suppleness.”
The brumbytes sang as they marched to the beat of the drum, manipulating their pikes with growing confidence, although you may be sure there were some horrendous tangles at first. When a fellow tried to make a right turn with his pike horizontal — well, the imagination does not boggle, but he became highly unpopular with the brumbytes in the files near him.
Colors, flags, standards, were carried; but these would only be a hindrance after the onslaught, and arrangements were made for them to pass to the rear. Each Relianch had its color, of course, and a grave variety they made, all based on the imperial crimson.
One evening when I was at last beginning to think we were in some cases to march out, Archeli the Sniz reported to me, allowed immediate access as I had ordered. He was a sly, prying little fellow, recommended to me by the Justicar, and I had set him to spy upon the chief priest of Florania.
“Jen!” he said, speaking quickly. The gathered city fathers and officers looked up from their work at the long tables. “The cramph has been in communication with the radvakkas. I did not know what he purported — but now I know he means to open the Gate of Aman Deffler to them. And, Jen, the task was difficult—”
“Yes, Archeli. It was. Go on.”
“Tonight, Jen. Tonight he means to open and let them in.”
The Battle of Therminsax
The fuzzy pink moonlight washed over the stones of the wall and deeply shadowed the buttresses. Moon blooms opened their petals greedily to drink of the light. The silence drifted with a little breeze, broken only by the occasional sleeping growl of a ponsho-trag. We watched the lenken gates. The Gate of Aman Deffler was the nearest gate to the Temple of Florania. The idiot intended to open up and let the radvakkas in. I had collected the Hakkodins, the halberdiers and axemen, and now we lay in wait.
Presently footsteps sounded pattering along the flags. Dark figures moved on the ramparts, for here the gates fronted an open pasture and no suburbs had been built up against the walls. The watch, alerted just in time, made no resistance but fled. I did not want good men killed. The gates swung open, carefully greased by these deluded followers of Florania.
Crouched in the shadows, tense, I saw the oncoming mass of Iron Riders. I gave the sign.
Up on the walls the watch returned and with them bowmen and the paktuns. Down below my Hakkodin moved forward. We let perhaps a hundred radvakkas in, surging confidently forward in their iron. Then the gates were shut, the way cleared by lethal sweeps from axes and halberds, the opening bolted up.
Then we turned on those Iron Riders who had ridden in.
By Vox! The pent-up fury of the citizens was wonderful to behold — wonderful and horrible in its revelation of the fury honest men feel when their lives, their livelihoods and their loved ones are threatened. The axes cleft mail, the halberds swung with irresistible force. The Iron Riders were swept from their saddles. They stabbed with their spears and swung with their swords; but the devils of my Hakkodin were everywhere, swarming all over them. In a matter of murs the carnage was over, the savage sounds of steel on iron, the shrieking commotion of men in combat stilled.
Panting, his halberd a shining brand of blood, Targon the Tapster confronted me.
“Hai, Jak the Drang. Now you have seen!”
“Aye, Targon. Now you understand the radvakkas are merely mortal men—”
“By Vox! When you leaped on them I almost felt sorry for the benighted devils.” He laughed, the reaction setting in. “Although, I swear by the Invisible Twins, you are a greater devil than any of them.”
“Clear the mess away,” I said, intemperately. “Carry all the iron to the workshops. Take the unhurt benhoffs to the stables and you do not have to be told what to do with the poor animals who have been injured.” I looked up at the walls. “Hai! Have they gone?”
“Aye, Jen. We saw them off and emptied a few saddles.”
“Shudor the Mak!” I bellowed. “Take your men out and cover the working party. Bring in everything of value the cramphs of Iron Riders have left us.”
Shudor, who had signed a contract and accepted good red gold for the services of his paktun band, obeyed. We wasted nothing in besieged Therminsax.
Then I went off to have a few words with the priest of Florania.
The Justicar and the city fathers met in solemn judgment. Everything was done with strict impartiality and adherence to the long-established customs of the bokkertu in Vallia. But the evidence was so strong that the verdict of guilty was the only one possible. So I, being squeamish, left the matter in the hands of the city fathers of Therminsax, whose city would have been betrayed by this misguided man. What they did I will not repeat; but the example, I felt reasonably confident, would deter any other poor deluded wight from plunging so foolishly into an act of treason.
As for his followers, they repented at leisure.
I went to find the two Krozairs, Zarado and Zunder. As always, they were arguing, this time about the relative merits of the halberd and the axe, and so I was able to say: “I have noticed your swords, koters.” I called them koters in the Vallian way, for koter, being a word of similar meaning to gentleman, covered our transactions. “I fancy I would like to have the armorer make me one up in like fashion.”
They laughed, and showed me their Krozair brands. In Therminsax there were the usual number of smiths any place would need; of armorers there was but one, Ferenc the Edge, for it was said he could hone a blade like no one else in all Thermin. He had been kept busy, grumbling about letting blacksmiths into the high mysteries of his art. I had simply told him that any self-respecting blacksmith could put a good edge onto a scythe or sickle, that I had shown the women how to fashion the scaled bronze kaxes, and to pitch in with a will. Now the two Krozairs showed me their swords, and I took them off to find Ferenc the Edge. With me I took an armful of the radvakka swords.
“Now, Ferenc,” I said, in the heat and smoke of the armory. “These two monstrous swords. You see them.”
“Aye, Jen,” quoth this Ferenc the Edge. “And mighty unhandy they look. The handle length is impossible. And there is a curve, if I mistake me not, in the blade—”
“Good man!” I exclaimed. “The curve is of the most subtle, being more of a rise of the cutting edge to the center point. You will make me a sword like this from these radvakka weapons.”
The Krozairs fell about laughing. “It takes skill—” And: “You’ll cut your legs off, if not worse!”
But I insisted and left Ferenc to it, with a promise that he must make the blade superb and if it snapped across in battle I’d stalk back and stuff the shattered end up where it would do him no good at all.
But I knew, sadly, that however fine Ferenc’s work would be, the blade he would forge would in nowise compare with a true Krozair blade.
More days passed and our preparations drew on. We made thousands of bronzen caltrops,
chevaux de frise
were constructed, and husky youngsters, fleet of foot, were trained to run with them and drop them in position, to pick them up and run again; to the shrill commands of stentors. The benhoffs we had taken were added to our cavalry force, and we could field almost two hundred now. Our five hundred archers were now at the stage where they could loose accurate volleys with an expertise that, while it would provoke Seg to a chuckle or two, would for all that do pleasant mischiefs to the radvakkas.
I was not concerned to choose an auspicious day for the sally, a holy day or a day sacred to some god or other, not even Opaz. I would choose the right day for my brumbytes. As it turned out, the right day dawned on the morning of Opaz Enthroned, which was a good omen. Normally, the long chanting processions singing their eternal “Oolie Opaz” would wind through the streets. I gave the countersign as Oolie Opaz and told the people that that would suffice on this day.
Truth to tell, the sally could not much longer be delayed. Our food was now in sure sight of running out. We had trained to a pitch and now we needed combat to temper our arms. And, as you may well imagine, I was overtaken by the most profound panic of indecision. How could we face the ponderous onrushing might of the Iron Riders? Would not all our careful plans be rendered useless? Our hedge of pikes swept away? Would the burghers change into hardened brumbytes, and stand, and win?
Ferenc the Edge found me, his squat face glowing and smudged with black. He held out the sword.
“Here, Jen Jak. And may Opaz have you in his keeping, for I have tried to swing the blade and took a chunk out of my leg, may Trip the Thwarter take it.” He handed me the sword and I felt a rush of nostalgic onkerishness envelop me as I wrapped my horny old fists around the handle. Ferenc eyed me. “Go in good spirit, Jen Jak, and, by the Blade of Kurin, as my clients say, I wish you well.”
With the sword in my left hand I took out the assignat I had prepared and handed it to Ferenc. When he saw the sum I had written and which had been countersigned by the Justicar, he whistled.
“You put great store by that monstrous brand.”
“Aye. Now go and take your place. Every man must play his part today.” And I added: “And may Vox send his aegis to give you comfort.”
Whatever happened today, from henceforth it would be known as the Battle of Therminsax. That was inevitable.
The temples crowded with brumbytes and Hakkodins, seeking a last measure of comfort. The women bore up marvelously; but I understood their agonies. I held a last order group with the two Kerchurivaxes, Nath Nazabhan na Therminsax and Strom Varga na Barbitor, and with the Jodhrivaxes. They knew the plan. To dignify what we purported as a plan must be overstating it. We intended to march out, form phalanx, and smash the radvakkas.
Even a well-disciplined phalanx will trend to the right so as instinctively to bring the shields around to face the enemy. To give a little added protection to the right flank we would march out across the open plain with the Letha Brook on our right. The Hakkodins would flank us. If we did go right we’d find our feet getting wet. So I had a private word with Bondur Darnhan and Jando Quevada, the two right-hand men.
Briefly, I told them that the direction of the two wings depended on them — they knew that, anyway; they’d drilled enough times — and that they were to parallel the Letha Brook.
“Put your heads down, your pikes level, your shields up — and go straight in. And tread warily over the clutter on the ground,”
So, dutifully, they smiled at the feeble joke, and went off.
We marched out.
The army of Therminsax marched out.
The two Kerchuris marched. The Hakkodins flanked them. The cavalry and archers took post on the rear flanks, awaiting immediate orders.
And I got the jitters. Were twelve men enough? Was a phalanx twelve pikemen deep thick enough? Ought I to have made it sixteen, like the Macedonians? The pikes projected past the front ranks, forming a multiple hedge of steel; but I could have lengthened the pikes, made five or six project. I looked at that impressive array, superb in bronze and crimson, marching with a swing, with the drums rolling, and I felt the icy shivers of dread.
So much to gamble, so many lives... It is imperative if you are to gain an insight into that formidable and splendid array to grasp something of what it was like to march as a brumbyte in the files. A heavy helmet weighs down your head and the metal visor obstructs vision. You grasp an eighteen-foot long pike, and you hang your shield around on your left shoulder, trying not to let it slide away to the side. You are aware of your bronze-scaled kax pressing on your chest and back. You clump along, in line and file, as you have been trained. The man in front is old Nath, a good fellow if a boaster, the man to your rear is old Naghan, who always wants to tread on your heels. The men on either side you know, have worked and trained with. The dust rises. Your nostrils sting, your eyes want to run with water. The breath clogs in your throat. And you must grip your pike firmly, held aloft until the moment comes when the trumpets shrill and down go the pikes, level, and you increase pace. Then you can hear and see practically nothing as you just press forward until — but then, you have not yet experienced that fraught
until
. All the training and practice in the world, even charging solid wooden fences, cannot really prepare you for the hideous reality that will follow when that
until
becomes fact.
Solid, compact, compressed, shield locked, pikes all slanted, the phalanx moved out.
One of Shudor’s paktuns had got himself killed and so I was able to buy his zorca, at an impossibly inflated price, from the band. Gold had to be paid; assignats were of no interest to the mercenaries. So I rode a zorca and was clad in a bronze kax of the same kind as those worn by the brumbytes, wearing a vosk-skull helmet with the bronze fittings, carrying a long spear, a shortsword and a broadsword from the radvakkas — and with the Krozair brand scabbarded over my back. The scabbard had been made by the handmaidens of Nazab Nalgre’s wife, the quiet and soft-spoken Lady Felda. From the saddle hung down a steel axe, short-hafted.