Great Kings' War (46 page)

Harmakros watched with delight as Prince Leonnestros, leading several thousand Ktemnoi noble cavalry, advanced from the Styphoni left wing toward the Army of Observation's forward cavalry skirmishers and their advanced battery. Now, by Dralm, they had a real fighting chance, and that was all he'd ever asked for. "Praise Dralm and Galzar!" he shouted, while to himself he promised the gods he would ask for no more miracles upon this day.

Leonnestros was leading eight hundred men-at-arms of the Ktemnoi Royal Guard, and two thousand of the King's Pistoleers forward with more contempt for his Hostigi opponents than was wise. He was about to be taught a hard lesson in respect.

Harmakros' trumpeters sounded the recall to the forward Hostigi mounted skirmishers; he was pleased to see most of them withdrawing toward their infantry support, two crescent-shaped ranks of shot with two ranks of pikemen behind them in support. A few of the Hostigi thickheads stayed to fight and were ridden over by the advancing Styphoni. Before Kalvan it would have been all or most of them; once more it was brought home to Harmakros just how much they owed this wise leader from beyond the Cold Lands.

By the time the retreating cavalry were safely tucked behind the supporting infantry, Leonnestros' vanguard was in arquebus range.

Harmakros gave the order for the shot to fire. Fifteen hundred arquebuses and muskets went off almost as one, blowing the Ktemnoi Royal Guard out of existence as an organized military unit. Even without Verkan's Mounted Rifles, the Hostigi dragoons were the best mounted troops in the Hostigos Royal Army and Harmakros—from the devastation he observed—was certain that every third shot had been a hit.

The Royal Guard might have been mortally wounded, but there was nothing wrong with the King's Pistoleers. They shook out their lines and charged the impudent Hostigi.

The dragoons got off a second ragged volley, then withdrew behind the pikemen to where their horses were being held. They didn't have to defeat Leonnestros, just tempt him to swallow a tasty piece of bait. In fact, if Leonnestros had any battle savvy that first salvo would have had him considering retreat, but not this commander—already the Royal Pistoleers and surviving Royal Guard were charging the Hostigi pike line.

The pikemen held off the initial charge, taking about as many casualties as they inflicted. Most of the musketeers and arquebusiers were already mounted and withdrawing in good order. Harmakros gave the order for the pikemen to form a hedgehog and begin their own retreat.

This was the trickiest part of the whole operation; the pikemen not only had to retreat, but they had to keep their formation, so as not to let the enemy know what was happening behind them,
and
avoid taking so many casualties that they ceased to be an effective unit. If they succeeded, Harmakros intended to recommend them for one of Kalvan's "Unit Citations."

As the Ktemnoi Pistoleers gathered for a second charge, Harmakros gave the signal for the advance of the Hostigi regular cavalry.
Now, my iron heads, you may die with honor.
 

This sudden countercharge by a retreating enemy took Leonnestros and the King's Pistoleers by surprise. Leonnestros, conspicuous in his black and gold armor with orange and blue plumes, tried to rally his men, but they were suddenly thrown into disorder by a force less than a quarter their size. The Pistoleers took almost a hundred casualties before they rallied enough to push the Hostigi cavalry back.

By this time most of the dragoon pikemen had formed their hedgehog and were moving back to the Hostigi line. Harmakros gave the final signal, two sharp trumpet blasts, and about half the original force of Hostigi cavalry broke off and drove towards the Hostigi lines. The artillerymen, suddenly shorn of protection and support, were the last to leave. Harmakros hoped that someday Alkides would forgive him.

Waving and gesturing, Leonnestros directed his men toward the abandoned Hostigi redoubt. Harmakros was pleased to note that the Ktemnoi Pistoleers saw little honor or profit in chasing gunners and allowed most of them to evade and retreat.

The Pistoleers rode past and around the loaded field pieces and came to a halt. For a moment it mass confusion, then it appeared the Harphaxi cavalry were reforming ranks to charge the Hostigi center! Harmakros couldn't believe that that they would stop, but not turn the guns on the Hostigi center. A few of the Pistoleers pointed excitedly at the piled barrels of fireseed the
cowardly
Hostigi had left behind. In his mind's ear, Harmakros could
hear
Leonnestros mentally rehearsing his victory speech and gloating over the praise and gold he would receive from Styphon's House and Great King Cleitharses.

Enjoy the moment while you can, you strutting capon!
Harmakros thought. If by some undeserved miracle Leonnestros survived this battle, the only reward he was going to get for disobeying Soton's orders would be the sharp end of the Grand Master's tongue—if not the blunt end of his mace!

Grand-Captain Phidestros began to wonder if it had been a good idea after all to make his mad rush to join the Holy Host, when he saw Prince Leonnestros dash madly off toward the Hostigi battery. Grand Master Soton knew his craft, no doubt about it, but his lesser captains from High Marshall Mnephilos on down left much to be desired.

To do him justice, Phidestros had no idea of what he himself would have done in Leonnestros' boots, not with the Hostigi building an artillery redoubt from which they could hammer the left wing of the Holy Host at will! Great King Kalvan had turned what had once been a straightforward and honest profession into something that made the head hurt as much from thinking as the arse did from riding!

It was bad enough that the Hostigi seemed to have an improbably large number of heavy guns in the center. Worse still, the Knights' battery was too close to the left wing for even a drinking man's comfort. One of the former Beshtan companies under his command had already lost its banner-bearer and three troopers to
friendly fire
.

What was he supposed to do now that Leonnestros had all but deserted his post? Being Grand-Captain of the largest band in the left wing, Soton had put him in nominal command of the mercenary horse under Leonnestros. As he watched Kalvan's musketeers butcher the Royal Guard, he decided that it would be best to stay where he was. Men newly raised to Grand-Captain and given charge over five thousand horse did not make changes in Grand Master Soton's battle plans without a damned good reason.

Yet, everyone else—Leonnestros and the Kings Pistoleers, the Sacred Squares and even the Zarthani Knights on the right wing—were engaged with the enemy. Here he sat with Kalvan and more horse than he liked to think about only a march away.
What is Kalvan waiting for? Leonnestros to piss his men away against the new battery? Something else that only Kalvan could imagine?
 

Phidestros watched as the Hostigi suddenly began to retreat to behind the battery. They had hammered Leonnestros' cavalry:
why retreat now?
Meanwhile, Leonnestros was trying to regroup his Pistoleers and the surviving Royal Guards. Leonnestros was going to have to take out the battery quickly before all the Hostigi departed and the guns had an open lane of fire on Leonnestros' horse. If he didn't, he was in for a surprise; there wouldn't be enough of him and his command left for Soton to punish. Kalvan-style guns were like nothing any Ktemnoi army had ever faced.

He was surprised at how quickly the Hostigi pikemen formed into a hedgehog formation and retreated before Leonnestros' Pistoleers. Suddenly the Ktemnoi were at the enemy battery. He was surprised—and uneasy...something was wrong. He'd never seen Hostigi foot retreat so quickly after they had shot the Styphon out of their opponents, neither at Fyk nor at Chothros Heights.

It's a trap!
He had to get a warning off to Leonnestros before he committed his command.

"Uroth!"

"Yes, Grand-Captain."

"No time for a dispatch. Warn Leonnestros to examine Kalvan's demicannon. I suspect treachery; the Hostigi yielded that battery far too easily. Ride like the wind!"

"Yhoo!"

As he watched the last of Kalvan's artillerymen run away and Leonnestros' men swarm over the deserted battery, Phidestros felt a hollow sensation in his stomach. Not only had he just ordered a good man to a needless death, but he was about to watch the Holy Host come apart at the seams.

"Great Galzar's Ghost!" He wildly signaled his trumpeter—caught his attention and shouted. "Play retreat!"

Xykos turned around warily, Boarsbane raised toward the sky. Other than the twisted heaps of what had once been living men, some piled three and four deep, there was no one standing in any direction for a good twenty paces. He set his sword down and tried to clear his head of the battle-madness that possessed him when he fought. His lungs labored like bellows. For the first time, he noticed that his breastplate was dented in a score of places and there was a trickle of blood from above his eyebrow falling into his left eye. With this realization came the ache of bruised ribs and weary arms pushed far beyond ordinary duty.

He said a quick prayer to the Wargod; he knew this unexpected and unasked-for sanctuary would not last for long. Above the pikes and flailing bills, he saw the trees of the Grove of the Badger King. From where he stood, it appeared that the battle had passed over him and the surviving Veterans of the Long March.

Within moments he had located a dozen Hostigi stragglers and battle-stunned. Three or four had risen from the piles of dead and wounded like Hadron awakening in the tale of the Lost Mountain. One of the stragglers was the banner-bearer of the Veterans, still carrying the ripped and slashed flag bearing an iron boot crushing a red winged serpent. With the help of some of the other Veterans, he had soon assembled a force of some fifty to sixty men, most with minor wounds but good spirits. Those who were battle-shaken he sent to aid the gravely wounded.

The main battle was far now far enough away so that Xykos could see what was happening. The troops of the right and left flanks had held, while the center had given way. The two Great Squares were no longer in any sort of recognizable formation and had been hammered badly by the Hostigi flanks. The Royal Square had shifted to the weakest point in the Hostigi center and was slowly chewing its way toward the Great Battery.

The Great Battery itself was eerily silent, with only an occasional flash showing that was still Hostigi-held. Xykos supposed that the two armies had become so entangled that the Hostigi gunners were afraid to fire on the Holy Host for fear of hitting their own men.

It would be sheer folly to attack the Ktemnoi with only thirty men, especially since that meant going against Styphon's Red Hand. Instead he decided to move quickly through the fallen tangle of friends and foes until they were in a position to help relieve the Great Battery. He hastily explained this plan to his little company. There were no arguments; indeed they moved out eagerly, when they saw a squadron of horse under a Ktemnoi banner looking curiously in their direction.

The squadron rode off without attacking, but they'd only covered a quarter of the distance to the Great Battery when a company of Red Hand broke out of the main battle and formed a line facing Xykos' men. Their first rank fired a ragged volley with their musketoons. Three of his men dropped. He measured the distance to the Styphoni with his eyes, threw up Boarsbane and shouted, "Charge!"

Kalvan watched with grim satisfaction as one of the distant Ktemnoi figures lit a torch and fired the first of the captured Hostigi guns. A bright flash was followed by a deep rumble as the ancient bombard exploded. Right behind it came another blast and then a fireball and roar that made Kalvan think of a nuclear explosion, as thirty tons of strategically buried Styphon's Best went off all at once!

The better part of three thousand Ktemnoi cavalry disappeared in the great fulguration and the sky filled with dark smoke as if thunderclouds had rushed in! For a few moments the entire battlefield froze.

Kalvan noticed that the mercenary horse appeared to have escaped the worst of the explosion; their commander must have guessed the nature of Kalvan's trap in time to steer his men away from the redoubt. He wasn't able to warn Prince Leonnestros, though, or else the Prince hadn't wanted to believe him. Three thousand Ktemnoi cavalry turned into mincemeat along with a third of the Hostigi field guns!

Moments later the black cloud settled and began raining pieces of equipment, leather, mangled iron and human and horse parts so thoroughly mixed together that it would take a doctor to tell them apart. Then everyone started moving, fighting and Kalvan guessed screaming.

His ears were ringing despite the cotton he had stuffed in them. He'd expected that so he had set up a system of hand signals for the charge. He took a final look at the Hostigi center, still being squeezed by the Royal Square, then raised his hand. Major Nicomoth had attempted to persuade Kalvan to stay on the ridge with his Lifeguards and command the battle from there, but once again there were too many good reasons for him to lead the charge in person: too much of the battle was already in other hands—for better or worse.

Ptosphes, Phrames, Chartiphon, Alkides and Harmakros all had their own parts to win. Besides, whom else did he have to lead the charge, after sending Count Phrames to stiffen Ptosphes? Colonel Democriphon of the First Royal Lancers was a good commander, even if he did bear an uncanny resemblance to George Armstrong Custer, with his long blond hair and flowing mustache. Kalvan had his eye on the Colonel, but he needed more seasoning, and there was nobody else remotely good enough except—

Kalvan suddenly realized he'd been woolgathering with all eyes on him. Not time for speculation now. The die was cast. He raised his hand again, and this time the ringing in his ears didn't drown out the shouts all around him.