Of course, the Chernagors started shooting back at the same time. But they had fewer archers to begin with, and they were moving into position, while the Avornans were already where they wanted to be. Also, the Chernagors were shooting uphill, the Avornans downhill, which gave Grus men another advantage.
Onrushing Chernagors crumpled, some of them clutching at their wounds and howling while others lay very still. Here and there, an Avornan fell, too, but more Avornans wore armor than their foes. King Grus would not have wanted to be one of those squat, blocky, pigtailed foot soldiers trying to close with opponents who could hurt him while he couldn’t hit back.
Grus hoped the withering blast of archery would stop the Chernagors before they closed with his men, but no such luck. They had courage, no doubt of that. And, no matter how fast the Avornans shot, they could not put enough arrows in the air to knock down all the enemies between the time when the Chernagors first came into range and when they got close enough to strike with spears and axes.
Just as the Avornan foot soldiers were stronger in archery, the Chernagors had the edge on them when the fighting came to close quarters. The men of the north had their cavalry on the wings to protect their foot from the Avornans on horseback. Grus didn’t think the Chernagors had nearly enough in the way of cavalry to bring that off. He turned to Hirundo and asked, “Now?”
“Yes, I think so,” his general answered. “Right about now.”
Hirundo and Grus both waved to the trumpeters, who blared out the signal for the Avornan cavalry to advance. Grus urged his horse forward. He drew his sword. All those young Chernagors would be hoping to bring down the King of Avornis. They would get their chance.
The Chernagor horsemen spurred toward the Avornans. The Chernagors rode big, strong, heavy beasts. The Avornans outmaneuvered them as readily as the Menteshe outrode Avornans down in the south. The results were about the same as they often were down in the south, too. Beset from several directions at once, the Chernagor riders could not make the most of what they had. Before long, it was either flee or stay and be cut to pieces. They were brave. Most of them held their ground as long as they could. And most of them went down holding it.
“Keep moving forward!” Grus shouted to his men. “We need to help our foot soldiers.”
The Avornan cavalry crashed into the flank of the Chernagor force. Grus slashed at a Chernagor axman. His blade bit into the fellow’s shoulder. The Chernagor shrieked. Grus never found out what happened to him. Battles were like that. As often as not, you had no idea how badly you’d hurt your foe. Sometimes, you didn’t know if you’d hurt him at all.
Grus cut again. A shield turned his stroke. A Chernagor chopped at him with an ax. He got his own shield in front of the blow. He felt it all the way up to his shoulder, and knew his left arm would have a bruise. He counted himself lucky the ax hadn’t split the shield. He counted himself even luckier that the Chernagor swinging the ax had time for only one stroke before the battle swept the two of them apart.
He didn’t get to do too much more righting after that encounter. For one thing, his own horsemen got between him and the Chernagors. They hadn’t done things like that when his beard had less gray in it. Try as he would, he had a tough time getting angry at them on account of it. And the Chernagors, who had failed to break the Avornan line, who had taken a lot of punishment from the Avornan archers before they ever reached it, and who were taken in the flank by Avornan cavalry, did not fight hard for long. They began streaming back toward the east as soon as they became convinced they could not hope to win, which they soon did.
“After them!” Grus shouted. “Don’t let them get away thinking they almost beat us. Make sure they know we’re stronger than they are.”
“We don’t want to go too far,” Hirundo said. “If Vasilko does sally…”
“He hasn’t done it yet,” Grus said. “If he wouldn’t do it before he knew we’d win, why should he try it now?” Hirundo had no answer for him. The Avornan cavalry pushed the retreating Chernagors hard until sunset, killing many and capturing more. Vasilko kept his men on the walls of Nishevatz, and did not dare to venture beyond them. Seeing what he’d done to the Chernagors from the east, Grus nodded in sober satisfaction and said, “Now we can get on with our business here.”
Pouncer prowled through a small room. Carpenters and masons had assured King Lanius the moncat couldn’t escape. Of course, those same carpenters and masons hadn’t been able to figure out how Pouncer was escaping from the chamber where he spent most of his time, so Lanius didn’t fully trust them. Still, Pouncer had shown no signs of disappearing over the past hour.
Lanius lay down on his back on the floor in the bare little room. Had any of his subjects seen him, they would have been sure he’d lost his mind. With the door closed and barred behind him, nobody could see him but Pouncer. That suited him fine.
He thumped on his chest with the palm of his right hand, as though he were playing himself like a drum. Pouncer stopped prowling, came over to him, and climbed up onto his belly.
“What a good boy!” Lanius praised the moncat and scratched and stroked it and gave it a piece of meat as a reward. Pouncer held the meat in one clawed hand before devouring it. The moncat scrambled down from Lanius a minute or two later.
The king got to his feet. He watched Pouncer for a little while, then lay down again. He thumped his chest once more. Pouncer hurried over, climbed up onto his belly, and waited expectantly. He gave the moncat another tasty reward.
He wondered if he could have taught an ordinary cat the same trick. He supposed so, though it might have taken longer. Moncats were clever beasts, especially where their self-interest was concerned.
Training moncats, he thought. Is that a job for a King of Avornis? He’d trained them. He’d painted their pictures. He’d learned to paw through the royal archives and those under the great cathedral. Had he been an ordinary man instead of King of Avornis, none of that would have kept him from starving to death. As king, he had a lot of worries. Starving, fortunately, wasn’t one of them.
He picked Pouncer up and carried the moncat back to the room where it spent most of its time, the room with most of the other moncats. Pouncer kept wiggling, maybe trying to get away, maybe hoping to see if he had any more treats it might steal. When he hung on to it, it snapped at him.
“Don’t you bite me!” He tapped it on the nose with a forefinger. The moncat subsided. It knew it wasn’t supposed to bite. It forgot every once in a while, and needed to be reminded.
When he opened the door to the moncats’ chamber, Lanius had to be careful none of them got out. They knew the open door meant they had a chance, so they crowded toward it. He had to drive them back, flapping his robe and making loud, horrible noises, before they would retreat.
On leaving the chamber, he made sure he barred the door from the outside. No matter how clever the moncats were, that had defeated them. It defeated human prisoners all over Avornis, and no doubt in Thervingia and the Chernagor country and the lands the Menteshe ruled, too. He just had to make sure he did it every single time.
The king was pleased with himself. Teaching any cat a trick felt like a triumph. As tricks went, this one was pretty simple. Anyone who trained dogs wouldn’t have thought much of it. Still, it made Lanius wonder what else Pouncer could learn. A moncat that could manage more complicated tricks might be entertaining.
Nodding to himself, Lanius walked on down the corridor. After he got the idea, he shoved it down to the back of his mind. He didn’t forget about it, but it wasn’t anything he had to worry about right away. Pouncer wouldn’t learn a new trick tomorrow.