Pawl Raikuh strode across the carnage he had helped to cause, stepping around bodies where possible. All at once he stopped, bent to look, then drew his dirk and squatted beside a dead rebel. After wiping his blade on the dead man’s clothing, he sheathed it, dropped something shiny in his belt purse and continued on his way. When he had climbed the ladder to the outer works, he paced deliberately over to Bili’s place and, after removing his helm, saluted. The padded hood which covered most of his head was sweat-soaked, there was a crust of old blood around his nostrils and on his upper lip, his scarred face was drawn with fatigue.
Bili waved to the stretch of parapet on his right, saying, “Pawl, sit down ere you fall down. Here, try some of this brandy-water—most refreshing.”
After the briefest of hesitations, the captain sank with a sigh onto the proffered seat and gratefully accepted the canteen. He took one mouthful, spit it downhill, then threw back his head and upended the bottle, his throat working.
“What,” asked Bili, “did our esteemed colleague say when you told him that his troops could now begin clearing the field?”
Raikuh grinned. “Very little of a repeatable nature. Duke Bili. His remarks tend to leave the impression that he has little use for Freefighters and even less for Middle Kingdoms—trained country nobles who fail to give him and his pack of pikepushers the respect that he feels they deserve.”
Bili snorted. “The bastard is mad, must be. Brought in his companies on the tag—end of the battle—most of them never even blooded steel except to dispatch some rebel wounded—and then expected me to bow low and give him and his first pick, the top cream of the loot! If he’s a fair example of the kind of officers the High Lord is raising up these days, Sun and Wind help our Confederation!”
Extending his hand, he poked at a bejeweled hilt peeking from under Raikuh’s boottop. “Found some goodies yourself, did you, captain?”
Grin broadening, Raikuh rubbed his hand along the bulge. “It be a genuine Yvuhz, my lord, but it’s not mine. It’s equal shares in my company. Whatever the lads find will go into a common pot, and whatever they bring will be split.”
Bili nodded gravely. “It be a good decision, Pawl. Too many companies end up hacking each other over bits of loot.” Then he smiled, asking teasingly, “But we’ve an intaking ahead of us. How are you going to apply your rule to female loot?”
The grin returned. “Share and share, I suppose, my lord—within reason, of course. But we’ll just have to ford that river when we come to it.”
The captain imbibed once more of the canteen’s dwindling contents. “My lord, we took the time to measure that man who knocked you down. That bugger was over eight foot tall, and I’d be unsurprised if he weighed more than six hundred Harzburk pounds! He must of had the thews of a destrier, too, for it took three men to even lift that timber he was swinging like a staff. Wonder it didn’t break your back, my lord, cuirass or no cuirass.”
Gingerly, Bili shifted his position. “I’m still not sure it didn’t, Pawl. But you mean our Geros slew such an ogre, alone, with but his sword?”
“No, my lord,” Raikuh shook his head. “First he tickled the pig’s guts with the point on the standard staff. If he’d taken time then to draw his steel, well …” He shook his head again.
“And where is Geros now, Pawl?”
“I sent him and a detail back to camp to fetch horse litters for our wounded and packmules for our dead, my lord.”
“Bili?” Milo’s powerful mindspeak burst inside his skull.
The assault on the other salient, headed by the High Lord, had been almost a textbook exercise in how such a maneuver should be done. Honored to have their supreme sovereign in their van, officers and men alike bad gone about their prescribed actions ‘in strict, regulation manner—archers and engineers taking excruciating care in providing cover for the advance up to and through the gapped abattis; the units quickly and precisely forming their battalion front behind their two Cat Banners, with the High Lord and his plate-armored guard between the battalions.
At the roil of the drums, the engines had ceased their work, the archers had confined themselves to well-aimed loosings at clearly visible targets and had quickly ceased even that At the second drumroll, every heavy shield came up to battle-carry, every spear sloped across right shoulder at a precise angle, all performed under the critical eyes of halberd-armed sergeants and officers with broadswords at the shoulder-carry. At the third roll of the drums, a deep-throated cheer was raised and the lines started forward, up the slope and into the hail of death hurled by the defenders, dressing their lines at the jogtrot as missiles took inevitable toll.
Ten yards from the bristling ramparts, under the rain of stones and darts and arrows, Milo’s mindspeak to the surviving senior officers gave the order which made the final assault far easier. Halting, still in ordered formations, the fore ranks knelt behind their big shields. As one man, the rearmost rank employed the tool carried for the purpose to knock out the steel pin securing the heads of their dual-purpose spears. Then, to ths drumroll, their brawny arms “hurled the heavy missiles with a practiced accuracy which was not necessary, for so thick was the press atop the rampart that even a tyro could not have missed fleshing the spear.
As the men of the first volley drew their wide-bladed short-swords and knelt, the line in front of them arose and threw their own spears. Then the drums once more rolled and, cheering, the companies swept forward, their crest breaking over, then engulfing the rampart before the rebels could recover from the shock of the two spear volleys.
So sudden, unexpected and complete was the victory of the High Lord’s force that the suicide garrison had no time either to seal or even conceal the huge oval chamber undermining the hilltop fortifications, the tunnel through which they had been supplied and. reinforced, and the oil- and pitch-soaked timbers supporting them.
“It’s a stratagem which can be hellishly effective, Bili,” Milo urgently farspoke. “Something similar once cost me nearly two regiments when we were conquering the Kingdom of Karaleenos, more than a century ago. Since this hill be mined, it stands to reason that the one you’re on is too. I’ve been unable to lock into Ahrtos’ mind. You must get word to him that the troops are to quit that hilltop immediately!”
Bili was blunt. “Strahteegos Ahrtos is dead. So, too, are most of the other officers of the first assault force. A sub-strahteegos called Kahzos Kahlinz presently commands what be left of the men who did the actual fighting, as well as his own slow-footed companies. He thought that he commanded me and mine, as well, until we had some … ahhh, ‘words’ on the matter.”
“All right, Bili,” Milo quickly ordered. “I’ll mindspeak Kahlinz. You see to getting your own Freefighters off that hilltop. You should be safe down as far as the abattis. Get off your wounded but don’t bother with your dead; there may not be time.”
Kahzos-thirty-five-year-old third son of Thoheeks Hwflkz Kahlinz—whose twenty years under the Cat Banners had earned him command of a line regiment and a second-class silver cat, was coldly furious. First, that old ass Ahrtos had relegated him to the inferior command of the second wave while taking his two best battalions away from him for the initial assault and “replacing” them with a single battalion of irregular light infantry from some godforsaken backwater in the northwestern mountains. Then a noble bumpkin—and it was hard, despite his title and mindspeak, to credit that the boy was even Kindred, what with his damned harsh Middle Kingdoms accent and his shaven scalp—had defied him before his own troops! Blatantly lacking respect either for Kahzos’ rank or age, the young pig had not only profanely refused to put himself and his mercenaries under Kahzos’ rightful authority, but had insisted that his northern barbarians be given leave to loot the salient before Kahzos’ Confederation gatherers were allowed to scavenge valuable or usable items.