"I lost my axe in the fall, and I could hear Robby screaming somewhere, but I couldn't find him in the fire. I got outside somehow, and all of our men out there were dead. I was thinking I should go back in to try to find Robby, but my clothes outside my armor were burning. It was like the Mongols didn't see me somehow, because I made it into the river, and that put the fire out. I drifted downstream for a while, and I was kind of surprised that I floated in my armor. Maybe it's the goose-down in the gambesons. Anyway, I crawled out, and I guess I mostly slept until the sentries found me."
I buried my face in my hands, unsure whether I was crying as much as the young corpsman was.
"You did what you had to do, son. Fate put a horrible job in front of you, but you did your duty, and you did it well. May God bless and forgive you," I said. After a bit I added, "You did fight, son, but maybe you'd better go to confession. There are a number of chaplains around here somewhere. "
"Yes, sir." The boy got up to leave, and Tadaos put some more food in his blistered hands before showing him out.
"Take care of him, won't you," I said to Tadaos.
"Will do, sir. Now, before you leave, do you have any spare ammunition? We'd stripped most of the ammo from the fort for the fight on the river, and it seems like the Mongols burned all the rest of it they could find."
"We can give-you a few dozen cases. You're going to see what you can do about patrolling the river?"
"There's nothing much else I can do, sir. That, and there are still three of my boats unaccounted for, and I mean to find them. Baron Piotr's getting downright antsy about it."
"Piotr still lives, then?"
"Yeah, he was one of the, lucky ones."
"I'm glad. Well, good hunting." I stood to leave.
"You too, sir."
It was now late in the afternoon, and if we left within the hour, well, there were a dozen targets for the Mongols within two dozen miles of here. We'd probably get wherever we were going before dawn. I ordered that all of our Night Fighter companies be re-formed and put in the front of the column, that all of the relatively fresh men who had come in by riverboat be put on the line behind them, and had the two companies in the worst shape left behind to man this installation and start cleaning it up. While I had been talking to Tadaos, eight more companies had come up from Cracow. The city was now secure, even if most of the wooden buildings in the lower city were totally burned down. At least there were no Mongols about, or rather, no live ones.
But there was no word from Baron Vladimir. Two-thirds of our army might as well have vanished from the earth for all I knew.
Baron Gregor just about had things reorganized when Captain Wladyclaw galloped up.
"It's definite," he said. "The entire Mongol force somehow regathered into a single body, and then it went east. There was some fighting at Sir Miesko's manor, but it did not fall to the enemy, or at least it hadn't when one of my scouts saw it through a telescope an hour ago. He said that a bunch of crazy old ladies were up in the towers there with swivel guns and a few gross Mongols were lying dead around them, while the other living enemy troops were keeping at a respectable distance. But he said that the bulk of the Tartars had turned south and are heading for Three Walls, sir."
Three Walls! My wife, my children, and most of my ex-mistresses were at Three Walls. My first impulse was to take my entire force there at a double time, but Baron Gregor talked me out of it. Or rather, he shouted me out of it.
"Sir, these troops are simply not physically capable of running all night long three nights in a row! Nobody could possibly do that. Furthermore, at a quick march, where the men can get at least some sleep, our forces can get to Three Walls by dawn. Getting there sooner won't accomplish anything except telling the enemy that he is about to be attacked! It makes sense to send Baron Ilya ahead with his Night Fighters to see what they can accomplish, but the rest of our men are best off being fresh to fight at dawn."
"Three Walls is even stronger than Fast Gate here was, and Baroness Krystyana's in charge there. You know that girl even better than I do, and you know she wouldn't fall for a Mongol ruse the way that silly twit of a countess did here! "
"Yeah, I guess you're right, Gregor." I swung into the saddle.
"And another thing, sir! Every man here has gotten at least some sleep in the last four days except you. Have you gone crazy? Do you think you can direct a battle with half your brain not working? Do you think we'd trust our lives to someone who was about ready to keel over? Now, you get off that goddamn superhorse and stretch out on one of the war carts! Go to sleep! We'll get you to the war on time, never you fear."
"But…"
"But nothing! Shut up and soldier!"
"Yes, sir," I said.
Chapter Eight
My second in command was shaking me awake. "It'll be dawn in half an hour, sir. "
Sleeping in well-fitted plate mail is fairly comfortable, sort of like relaxing in a good contour chair. I threw off my old wolfskin cloak and shook my head to clear it. "What's been happening, Baron Gregor?"
I sat up on the moving cart, and Gregor, riding beside me on the white Big Person, put a bowl of soup in one of my hands and a mug of beer in the other. Not quite what I needed. God, but I wished that something was available with caffeine in it.
"We're about three miles from the hedge at Three Walls, sir. The rain stopped just after you started snoring, and a while later the radios started working after a fashion. Duke Henryk still has not pulled out of Legnica. Baron Vladimir has arrived at Cracow and is advancing on us. The transmission was pretty poor, and that's all we have been able to find out about him."
"The duke's conventional knights wouldn't be of much use to us, anyway. Look at the fiasco they caused at Sandomierz. I can't see waiting for Baron Vladimir. He'll be days getting here, What about the rest of our installations?"
"Okoitz, Coaltown, Eagle Nest, and Copper City are all safe and sound. They haven't been bothered. The boys at Eagle Nest say that they have one aircraft rebuilt and ready to fly. A second should be ready later this morning, sir."
"Good. Tell them that I want that plane flying over Three Walls as soon as possible. We need all the surveillance we can get."
"Yes, sir. The granary in the Bledowska desert was taken by the Mongols-we only had a platoon guarding it, and it was never meant to be seriously defended-but the Mongols left it intact. They probably considered it useful booty, to be used later. Sir Miesko's manor was hit, but the attack was squashed by a hundred lady schoolteachers under Lady Richeza. Our ladies at Three Walls have beaten off two serious attacks, and the Mongols have laid siege to the place. Your wife tells me that a siege tower and some wheeled catapults are being built just out of swivel gun range. "
"Francine is well, then?" I finished the beer and started in on the soup. It had a lot of meat in it, but very little grain and no vegetables. It was Lent, but the men fighting to defend their country had been given dispensation to eat meat by the Bishop of Wroclaw. When we had thrown out some of our supplies to lighten the load, the troops had kept the foods they craved the most, and two weeks on a high-protein diet had not made up for the lack of meat in the weeks before that.