Path of the Magi (Tales of Tiberius) (37 page)

Captain Stephan had waited impatiently behind the trees on the Steward’s right flank.  It had taken some thinking but he’d decided he liked Lord Brandon’s plan after all.  He was a gambler at heart and it wasn’t like him to step away from the table without rolling the dice.  Like the other professional troops that had answered the call, they had been placed behind the front ranks to lure the queen’s army into attacking.

“I hope those damn archers don’t kill them all before we get to see some action,” he said to Gregory.  “I want this trip to be worth something.” 

“He’s deployed pretty wide for that,” Gregory said.  “Brandon should have pulled up a bit; he would have done better to hold the pass north of the town.  The archers would have a field day there.”

“I don’t know,” Stephan replied.  “I don’t trust those spiders.  I wouldn’t want them flanking my archers through the woods.  Besides, he has us.  This is better ground for cavalry.  I just hope he hasn’t forgotten…”

They heard a distinctive bugle call.  “That’s our song!  Forward lads!”  The cataphract of the Third started forward at a trot.  Rounding the woods they had been concealed behind, Stephan got his first look over the battlefield.  It looked like the trap was working.  The archers were retreating in the center according to plan.  His men would now swing around behind the goblin army and close the trap. 

The bogey chief offered a howl of triumph up to the moon as he stood on the spot where the cursed archers had stood moments before.  He turned back towards his comrades.  “Onward to victory!” he yelled.

But no sooner had he turned than he heard a strange sound.  Bagpipes.  Bagpipes?  He looked back towards the town.  The archers were running but like a curtain parting they now showed something behind them, something between the bogies and the town.  Spearpoints?!  The chief looked and that was all he could see.  He stood stunned by the sight for a moment.  Then it sunk in.  That was a professional pike formation.  Nothing else could be that densely packed together.  Highly trained well armored professional soldiers armed with pikes, each 18 foot long, and trained to use them together in formation as a solid wall of spears.  They were heading his way.  Those archers weren’t running; they were repositioning. 

The chief glanced backwards for a moment.  The goblin army was closing in behind him.  They’d kill him as a deserter going that way.  There was no escape.  Well, it was a good day to die.  He turned back towards the approaching wall of spears, gave a defiant growl, and then charged forward into the wall of death. 

Carack was in the front rank of goblins.  Up to now it had been a good battle.  The plan had been to use the bogies to screen the goblins and soak up arrows as the goblins charged towards the ranks of assembled archers.  So far it was working; the bogies had taken a terrible beating form the longbow shafts, but they had enabled the goblins to close the ranks.  His men would take a few shafts, but they should be able to close the remaining distance.  The one distraction was that something had happened to Monotauk.  Probably that damned wizard.  He couldn’t think of what else the enemy could have that would stop a full blown giant.

No matter, he urged his men forwards, into the hole the bogies had broken in the Steward’s center.  Odd that the bogies ahead seemed to have stopped.  Suddenly there was a shout.

“Look to the rear!  Look to the rear!”

Carack glanced behind him and saw his worst nightmare, a full legion of the Steward’s cavalry behind his army.  Worried, he glanced around to the front and saw his fears confirmed.  There were more professional troops hidden behind the archers.  A formation of professional swordsmen was ahead of him, on his right.  They were advancing through the gap between the trees and the town ridge.   With cavalry behind him, pikes dead ahead, and swordsmen sweeping around to his right he was caught between the anvil and the hammer.  

“Form up!  Tight formation, it’s a trap!”      

General Squamata looked over the situation with his spyglasses.  The archers had fallen back to reveal a full legion of professional pikemen defending the town and now advancing from the front.  Another legion of cavalry was now hitting his rear, and that looked like more swordsmen showing up at the front, too.

“Blast and damnation!  Doesn’t that bitch of a queen know we’re supposed to have numbers on OUR side?!  Is the entire army of the Steward here?!” 

He turned to the jacks and his bodyguard.  “Stop that cavalry charge at all costs!  If they aren’t stopped they’ll hit the army in the rear and none of us will get out of here alive!  Where the hell is Sandager?  Time he earned his pay.”

Sandager sat on his mount observing the battle.  He knew what the banners of the Steward’s Third Calvary looked like. 

“We’re ordered to attack, sir.  Squamata says stop that cavalry at all costs.”

Sandager just laughed.  “I told the damn fool to let me do more scouting.”

“Do we attack, sir?”

“Are you joking?  Of course not.  We run while we still can.  Everyone is to break into groups of no more than ten once we leave the battlefield.  Head for the river and under no circumstances bother any civilians till we're over the river.  We might all get out of this alive.”

“The queen won’t like that.”

“The queen’s got other things to worry about.”

Squamata watched as the queen’s elite guard formed up in a line against the Stewards’s heavy cavalry.  The queen’s fierce jack-o’-lantern warriors moved with great precision and discipline.  His own elite troops lined up beside them.  It was an impressive military display.  It would have been a lot more impressive if they weren’t outnumbered six to one by that approaching cavalry. 

Stephan’s troop, reinforced by Darras’ Rangers, lined up in front of the queen’s bodyguard for a moment, fired a volley of arrows into their ranks, and then switched to their swords for the charge.  Gregory rode over to Stephan. 

“What are those things?”  Gregory shouted.

Stephan glanced ahead at a troop of … creatures?  Some sort of infantry, but not men.  As they closed, he realized he was looking at a troop of jack-o'-lanterns.  Probably elite infantry.   

“Some witchcraft of the goblin queen,” Stephan said somberly.  “Nervous?”

Gregory shook his dark locks.  For a moment he looked grim and determined, and then suddenly he broke into a broad gin. 

Stephan glanced at him like he'd lost his mind.  “What are you smiling about?”

“Of all the horrors she could send against us … jack-o’-lanterns.  Stick men with melons stuck on their heads.”   Gregory let out a roaring laugh and pointed at the enemy.  “We’ve been spending all summer doing nothing but slicing at melons stuck on poles.  Now the queen sends melons on poles to attack us!” 

Stephan nearly fell off his horse laughing.  Every day, the whole summer long, Gregory and Stephan and the rest of Third had practiced their war craft by sticking melons on top of poles and riding past them, slicing at the melons with their swords.  The queen couldn’t have picked a more perfect target for his men.  Of course the melons didn’t try to hit back, but…

They urged their horses forward and lead the Third Cavalry into the heart of the queen's elite summoned warriors.   Their sabers cut into the jack-o’-lanterns and hit those pumpkin heads with amazing precision. 

Squamata stood stunned for a moment.  Tiberius must have enchanted the blades of the enemy cavalry somehow.  It was bad enough that the queen's elite infantry was fighting against cavalry, but those horsemen just never missed a pumpkin head.  He watched, amazed, as a jack leapt ten feet into the air to swing a wickedly curved scimitar at the rider.  The rider didn't miss a step, making a perfect slash through the flying pumpkin head, beheading it and sending it crashing down to earth.  To add insult to injury, a few paces later he struck down another jack with the backhand.  It was like the wizard had specially trained a unit of cavalry by nothing all summer but practice killing jack-o’-lanterns. 

Squamata’s elite bodyguard didn’t do much better.  There were just too many riders and too few goblins to stop them.  They barely slowed down the charge of the Third.  Stephan signaled his men to regroup, and then the men turned towards the rear of the goblin main army.

Carack and his men were now fighting desperately.  Most of the bogies were dead and the goblins were now hard pressed with attacks on their right by imperial pikemen and on the left by the Steward’s legionary swordsmen.  The Steward’s professional troops fought in tight formations that put two men against one goblin.  Tiberius, Lord Brandon, and the archers were pouring a murderous arrow fire into the goblins from their right rear.  Carack was trying to maintain some order, but then he heard the bugles.  A moment later it was no longer Carack’s concern as Gregory’s lance hit him square in the chest.

Squamata knew the situation was hopeless.  “Back to the caves.  Order a general retreat.  Everyone for himself!”  He looked back in disgust.  Sandager hadn’t waited for orders; he and his mercenaries were already bugging out. 

Lord Gillyian and his riders had started out on the left flank of the Stewards.  Gillyian had come with a few hundred riders, a token force, but this was a small battle after all.  Gillyian’s men rode without the solid saddles the Sons of Adam preferred.  But they didn’t go for the lance charge; their weapon was mostly the bow.  They’d taken a few shots at the spiders, especially aiming for the ones fleeing into the woods. 

Now was their moment.  Gillyian’s keen eyes spotted the general retreat order.  The Steward’s armies were closing in rapidly, but there was still a gap, a chance for the goblins and their allies to escape.  Gillyian’s riders charged forward, cutting off the escape route.  A few fresh flares from the magus exploded above them.  In the light they could clearly see the goblin skirmishers making for the rear.  Gillyian’s riders sent a volley of arrows into them.  Goblins who lived through that panicked and ran every way, trying to find a way out of the circling trap. 

Squamata paused his chariot.  “Damn those elves; we’ve got to go through them if we want to live.  Follow me!” 

The great goblin general led the way, charging right at the center of the elf riders.  Lord Gillyian spotted the goblin captain.  Firing an arrow, he saw it bounce off the great goblin’s armor.  Time to try something else.  The goblin threw a javelin which killed Gillyian’s horse.  Gillyian rolled safely to the ground, the goblin’s chariot barreling down upon him.  Gillyian gave a word of command to the horses.  Wild goblin horses weren’t easily swayed by an Alfaran, but he could confuse them at least.  They panicked, reared, and halted in place.  The great goblin jumped down from his chariot, drawing his two great cutlasses.  Gillyian drew a sword and dagger to meet him.  His blades gleamed with a blueish light of their own.  Their swords clashed, sending sparks into the darkness.  Gillyian gave ground before the furious assault of the goblin chief.  Finally, a parry and a riposte gave him a touch as his sword slid under the goblin’s armor and badly cut the goblin’s forearm.  The goblin winced in pain, and that gave Gillyian another opportunity.  A beat attack made an opening and Gillyian slipped in close, driving his elf knife though the goblin’s armor and up into his breast.   

Gillyian pushed the body away from him and looked about for another foe.  Riders were charging up to him, but Gillyian saw they wore the white and red of the Stewardship.  Gillyian let out a hail, and was greeted in return.  Captain Stephan rode up and greeted him.

“No more goblins this way, Captain,” Gillyian said smiling.  “Better hurry if you want to bag a few more.”