I had my Big Person, Betty, run me down to the first plane that had landed, its propeller still spinning and its engine making enough noise to scare away a saint.
"What the Hell are you doing here?" I shouted.
The engine stopped and Count Lambert got out, wearing his gold-plated armor.
"Baron Vladimir, fortunately I couldn't hear that, but you must learn to speak more politely to your betters," he said.
"But my lord, you have landed right in the middle of an ambush! The Mongols could be coming in any time now!"
"No, it will be another half-hour at the least. We saw them fighting Duke Boleslaw's men three or four miles from here. But have your men move these planes if they are in the way. Don't worry about hurting them, they'll never fly again. Be careful of the engines. They're expensive and they can be salvaged."
All of this made no sense to me, but I galloped to our lines and gave the necessary orders to get those planes hidden. By the time I got back to the count, a squire had ridden out leading two dozen war horses, all saddled and ready for combat. This crazy stunt had been planned!
"My lord, what is all this about?" I said.
Lambert put on a red-and-white surcoat and swung into the saddle. "About? Well, you could hardly expect us to miss the final battle, could you? For over a week now, we've been in the air, watching you and Conrad garner all the glory while we could only look on! We have taken some heavy losses doing it, too! You see those twenty planes there? Well, there were forty-six of them to start!"
"That many? What happened to them?"
"Three crashed on landing at Eagle Nest. Two were seen flying too low over the enemy and were brought down by arrows. One flew into a thundercloud and we found the pieces later. The rest, we don't know. They just didn't come back."
"My God. I didn't realize it was that bad, my lord. But why leave the rest of them here? Surely you can't fly them out of here!"
"No, of course not. But don't you see? They're not needed anymore! They've done their job! The Mongols are all here. The army is here. The whole affair will be settled right here! If we are to get our share of the glory, we have to get it now! As to the planes, well, we have wood, glue, and cloth in abundance. We can build more later."
"But, but does Count Conrad know of this?"
"Who gives a damn about Conrad? Look, boy, Conrad is sworn to me, not me to him! But just now there's a battle to get to. The plan's still the same? Lead them through here, then come back in a bit for the kill?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Good!" He waved to his mounted aviators. "Let's go! To war!"
And they rode out of the valley.
Maybe the planes weren't needed, but as I saw it, things were still very much afloat. Who could tell what we would need and what we would not! I was almost glad that the radios weren't working. I would have hated to have to report this piece of insanity to Count Conrad!
We got the planes cleared away and hidden, and then it was wait and worry time again.
It was approaching noon, and I was wondering if I should feed the men when an outrider on one of the Big People came and reported that the battle was coming our way. I signaled "Ready" and "Hide," and could see the lines tighten up, the pikes drop, and the flag poles go down as soon as the message was relayed.
After a while, I could see our horsemen coming in exactly as planned, if a little late. They were in surprisingly good order, all things considered, and Duke Boleslaw himself was at their head, surrounded by his youthful group of friends. He was going a bit slower than a full frightened gallop, I suppose to insure that all of his men could keep up. A few Mongols had gotten out in front of him, but he wisely ignored them.
He came right down the middle of the valley, splashing over the little half-frozen creek twice just to keep going in a straight line. The kid was doing good! And after him came the vast horde of the enemy, which outnumbered Boleslaw's forces by at least twenty-to-one, galloping in a ragged mob and not noticing in the least the army waiting for them! It was working!
My station was at the mouth of the funnel, and as soon as the last of the Mongols went through, I advanced both our wings to seal it off. As soon as the duke's men were out of the trap at the other end, my second in command, Baron Gregor Banki, would close the small end and open fire, which would signal us to do the same, and the war would be nearly won!
The ends of the wings had more than a mile to go to close the gap, so this took a while. As I followed them in, another outrider reported that Count Conrad was arriving with what was left of the river battalion, forty-one war carts out of the two hundred sixteen he'd started with! I sent the man back with an invitation for Conrad to plug the gap in the center. After all that they had done, those men deserved the honor.
This delayed things a bit, but there wasn't an enemy in sight and I knew we could afford the time. I mounted Betty and rode around to my liege lord. I could safely leave my post because now there wasn't a single thing for me to do! When the shooting started, everybody would join in. I was no longer needed.
Count Conrad had a dirty bandage over his right eye and he looked horribly tired and old!
"My lord, it's good to see you! You look like you need this!" I threw him my wine skin. It wasn't exactly a regulation part of the uniform, but rank has a few privileges.
"Thank you." He took a long pull. "Things go as planned?"
"Perfectly, my lord. We're only waiting for Gregor to close his end and start shooting. It should be any time now."
"Good. We're out of ammunition. Can you supply some?"
"Of course, my lord!"
I gave the orders and runners started coming in with crates of swivel gun rounds. As we waited, I told my liege about Baron Ilya's night raid, and about Duke Boleslaw's reaction to it.
"You did right," he said. "At least, that's what I would have done."
Then I had to tell the count about his air force, or rather his lack of one.
"Damn," he said, looking more weary than ever. "If we live through this, I swear either I'm going to get control of Eagle Nest, or I'm going to build another one."
When Conrad's forces were supplied, we still hadn't heard from the small end of the funnel. Then horsemen started coming at us, but they weren't all Mongols! There were Polish knights mixed in with them, and soon a vast, slashing and hacking free-for-all was going on fight before our eyes! Something had gone very, very wrong.
The signal flags started wagging, sending the same message to us around both sides of the ambush:
BOLESLAW HAS NOT LEFT THE TRAP, IT SAID. ONE OF HIS YOUNG FRIENDS FELL TO A MONGOL ARROW. BOLESLAW TURNED BACK AT THE LAST INSTANT AND WENT TO AID HIS FRIEND. THE DUKE'S HORSEMEN ALL FOLLOWED THEIR LIEGE BACK INTO THE MONGOL FORCES. THEY ARE NOW ALL MIXED TOGETHER. WE HAVE CLOSED THIS END BUT WE CANNOT SHOOT WITH OUT KILLING OUR OWN MEN. BULLETS GO RIGHT THROUGH ENEMY AND THEN CONTINUE THROUGH OUR MEN WHO ARE BEHIND THEM. WHAT SHOULD I DO?
GREGOR BANKI.
"That's a good question he asks, my lord. What should we do?" I said.
"I don't know. What can we do? Nothing, that's what! We just have to let those crazy knights get themselves killed."
"Do you want to take command, my lord?"
"Me? No. This is your show. You do what you think is best. I screwed things up enough on the river. Now it's your turn."
"But I had heard that you had killed vast numbers of the enemy," I said.
"Perhaps, but look around you. Of the men I led into battle, not one in five is still fit to march. How can that be called a victory? I made mistakes, many mistakes. You have command here, Vladimir. Try to do better than I did."
"Yes, sir."
I signaled "Defend Yourself,", "Give Aid," and "Stand By," which meant they should not let themselves be hurt, they should help out where they could, and then they should wait for further orders. What else could I tell them?
A half-hour later, I told them to break out lunch and eat in rotation, one lance per platoon at a time.