They appeared with a huge shout, charging after their prototype with flourishing sabers, and slammed into the enemy with a crash like the meeting of two tidal waves. Gilbert churned back out of the press, looking dazed. Somewhere at the front, a joyous Cockney voice bellowed, "Just like Waterloo!"
Gilbert came panting up along their back trail. "They have no need of me. A most amazing company, Master Saul!"
"Sure are." I grinned. "Forward the heavy brigade!" The enemy soldiers were trying to rally their men, but the explosions of the dragoons' muskets had them spooked. They drove into the press, clearing the way in front with musket blasts, then widening the path with their sabers. Pole arms reached for them, pikes stabbing and halberds slashing, but the dragoons mowed through the shafts as if they'd been butter, and their horses struck out with steelshod hooves. A few arrows found their marks, and a few dragoons fell, but not many. Then, suddenly, they were almost to the gate. The press of dragoons began to part, leaving a clear path paved with fallen pikes.
"Time to move," I pointed out, and Gruesome bellowed and wad died forward. I turned to Gilbert. "Let's go!" He bawled to our peasants.
The dragoons cleared before us to my shouted commands, and Gruesome plowed through to take the point with Gilbert just behind and to his right, a dragoon just behind and to Gruesome's left. They bored into the enemy army like a diamond bit, fire and armor, and the dragoons carried away the military detritus they churned up. It as a mad quarter hour, with the enemy pulling back from Gruesome's roars and teeth and trying to cut in from the sides, only to meet Gilbert's and the dragoons' blades, before the dragoons pulled in to chew them up. My head filled with shouting and the clash of steel ... Then, suddenly, we were through, with the city gates in front of us.
I pulled out Frisson's poem and chanted,
The wood began to crumble even before I'd finished. Splinters shredded loose, then kindling-size chunks, as gravel began to fall from the great stone blocks to either side.
The Army of Evil let out a huge roar and crowded in behind us and on all sides.
The peasants were in the center, shielded by eight hundred surviving dragoons, and the medieval footmen weren't making much progress against the case-hardened steel and flashing hooves of the Victorian heavy cavalry - but for every one my horsemen killed, three more popped up in his place. Dragoons went down-slowly, but steadily. They chopped and stabbed frantically, desperately outnumbered. The stones of the walls were flaking, but slowly; glancing back, I was seized with the sudden overwhelming fear that the soldiers of corruption would wipe us out before the wall crumbled. I turned, pulling out my clasp knife for whatever it was worth, and readied myself for a last-ditch fight.
Then, suddenly, a howl of fear and disgust erupted in the distance.
"What comes?" Frisson gasped.
"If it can affront such soldiers of sin," Gilbert said, blanching, "how can we stand against it?"
But Gruesome, looking out over the field from several more feet of height, rumbled, "Old ones come."
"Old ones?" I frowned; it didn't make sense. Then I began to hear the wailing that overrode the cries of disgust, a wailing that came closer and closer as the wall above turned into a trickle of sand-closer and closer, until I could make out words.
"The Witch Doctor! Where is the Witch Doctor? Bring us to the Witch Doctor."
"Witch doctor?" I turned to Frisson, staring. The poet shook his head. "I know naught, Master Saul. I have never heard of such a thing."
"Well, I've heard of it," I allowed. "A witch doctor is a pejorative term for an African shaman, a sort of combination priest and physician ... "
My peasant army parted with cries of fear, pressing back against the dragoons and their horses, who were chopping gleefully at an enemy who was shrinking away. A channel opened through my plowboys, and down that corridor stumbled a pack of people horribly disfigured by disease, some doubled over with pain, some limping on crutches, but led by a dozen or more people with missing fingers, missing hands, missing forearms, hobbling because of missing toes or feet.
"Lepers!" Gilbert gasped.
And they cried, "Bring us to the Witch Doctor! We repent, we abjure our witchcraft! We will no longer serve Satan! But bring us to the priest who will shrive us, and the Witch Doctor who will heal us!"
"We don't have a witch doctor!" I bleated. "No Africans at all! Maybe there's one in the city-I wouldn't know."
"But the priest, we have." Friar Ignatius stepped forward, and his monks came up behind him with very purposeful strides.
"Friar!" I yelped. "We're in the middle of a battle!"
"Then we shall help you win it!" a tall, decaying man cried. "We have magical powers no longer, but only shrive us, and we shall throw our bodies against their swords!"
"I don't think they'll let you get close enough to stab." I eyed them askance, then turned to Friar Ignatius. "But they might die laughing. Brother, can you spare some time? Some way to keep it down to a minute or two?"
"Certes." Friar Ignatius stepped in front of me, calling out,
"Kneel, those of you who can!"
Gruesome pointed over the ex-witches' heads, rumbling, "Sojers come!"
"Of course! The contagious cases opened a clear path for them!" I groaned. "The wicked warriors are filling it in!"
"Do you all repent your evil works,"' Friar Ignatius cried. The answer rolled forth from a hundred throats: "Aye!"
"Not queen's sojers," Gruesome insisted. "Them fight queen's sojets."
"Hub?" I looked up, thunderstruck. "Reinforcements for our side?
But how . . ."
"Never ask." Frisson's fingers bit into my arm. "The Spider King said he would summon aid."
"Ego te absolvo!" Friar Ignatius cried. "I absolve you of your sins!"
The ex-witches cheered with joy ...
... and with a roar, the gates collapsed.
Gruesome loosed one last blast and charged into the city, with Gilbert hard on his claws.
"After him!" I cried. "Nobody will want to get close to you! If you really want to help, here's your chance!"
The ex-witches cheered again and charged through the gates. It wasn't a very fast charge, but it was good enough. I wiped a sodden brow and breathed thanks that I'd managed to shake them. My peasants shouted triumph and boiled through after the witches, sweeping Frisson and me along in their wake.
The citizens got out of the way fast, and our bloodthirsty boys were too bent on revenge to think about looting yet. They ran through the streets bellowing, Gilbert leading them on toward the huge turrets that rose ahead. Soldiers appeared in the streets, but they couldn't muster more than a few dozen, and our plowboys just rolled over them. I was in the middle of the mob, so I saw the results as I strode on by - dead peasants, and dead soldiers, some of them trampled. I ignored them and put them out of my mind. Time enough for remorse later. There was no way to win a battle without killing men.
But did the battle have to be won?
I remembered how Suettay had tortured Angelique; I remembered the squad of bullyboys that had tried to beat me up. I remembered the peasants ground down by the vindictive warlock-bailiff, an I knew, Yes. Suettay had to go.