Robert Adams - Trumpets of War

Farther on, the van had just passed yet another in the seemingly endless succession of overgrown, burned-out village ruins when, from the direction of a slighted hold atop a small, steep hill, a head-sized stone was hurled in a high arc that brought it down squarely atop a trooper, smashing in the helmet and the skull beneath it. The van prudently retired out of supposed range and sent a galloper back to alert the main column. Even as they sat their horses with a small copse blocking sight of the vine-grown, damaged walls, they could clearly hear the rhythmic creaking as the engine which had thrown the heavy stone was rewound.

Then, up the road, preceded by the furious clash and jingle of metal on metal, the pounding of many hooves and the squeaking of leather, came Grand Strahteegos Komees Pahvlos, his staff, his bodyguards and a hundred heavyhorse . The lancer officer rode out to meet his commander and rendered a terse report of the incident and his response to it.

Pahvlos nodded once. “Good man. I’ll remember you. You’re certain your trooper is dead, then, up there?” He pointed with his chin at the twisted form that lay on the road ahead.

“He’s not moved a muscle since we withdrew, my lord,” was the sad reply. “And no man could have survived such a buffet, not even for a minute.”

The Grand Strahteegos nodded once more, then turned to those behind him.” Galloper, my regards to Lord Sub-strahteegos Tomos Gonsalos. Tell him that I want his Number One and Number Two regiments up here at the run.” As that rider saluted and reined about, the old man was already snapping out instructions to another galloper, this one being sent to order up several of the lighter engines of the siege train. An officer of the heavy horse was ordered to take a strong patrol in a wide swing completely around the partially wrecked hold and determine if there might be bodies of troops hidden where they could not be seen from there on the roadway. The new-made captain of pioneers was ordered to seek a nearby site for a night camp and begin to pace off and mark the lines of a defensive ditch and mound for it.

Within an hour’s time, the two regiments of pikemen were beginning to regain their breath where they knelt or squatted in formation at the side of the road, the snaps of whips and the shouted obscenities and curses of the teamsters could be heard approaching with the wagons which contained the pieces of the dismantled engines, and the patrol of heavy horse had just returned, all red-faced and dusty-sweaty.

Their captain lifted off his helm and peeled back the mail-sewn padded coif as he approached. Drawing rein before the Grand Strahteegos, he saluted and said tiredly, “My lord Strahteegos, yon’s wilderness around here, all of it, not a field’s been worked in years, and the only life to be seen the whole ride was deer, wild turkeys and the like.”

“What does that pile up there look like from the other side?” demanded Pahvlos. “More damaged or less?”

“Less, my lord,” was the answer. “Although vines have engulfed it too, it looks to be sound beneath them, but although I had two men dismount and creep quite close through some dense brush, they could neither see nor hear anything from within the ruined hold.”

“Thank you, Captain,” said Pahvlos in dismissal. “You’ve done well.”

Chief Pawl Vawn of Vawn chose this time to leave the huddle of mounted staff and ride up until he was knee to knee with the Grand Strahteegos. “Lord Pahvlos . . . ? You do mean to camp here and attack in the morning?”

“Most astute, Lord Pawl.” Pahvlos nodded. “Yes, that’s my intent. It will soon be too dark for accurate engine work, and my experience with night attacks has shown them to be extremely tricky with results that are inconsistent. I think a dawn attack will be best. Besides, in the night we may be able to judge by the number of firelights just how many men may be facing us in there.”

“I have a better way than that to tell you how many they are, Lord Pahvlos,” said the Vawn. “But it were better to wait until full dark to do it.”

“Oh, no,” snapped the commander. “You and your forces are too precious to the army to risk even one of you getting killed sneaking into that pile and then out again. It won’t be all that difficult an assault in the morning, anyway. Look you, man, there are two breaches in the walls, and those gates look rickety as hell, to me, so much so that we may not need a heavy ram to burst them in, only a light, rope-slung one. With your archers and the engines to keep the bastards down or dodging, the pikemen ought to be able to go up there and into the place with minimal losses, if any.”

Vawn shook his head. “Lord Pahvlos, I was not thinking of sending a man in, but rather a prairiecat.”

The Ehleen shrugged. “What would that accomplish, man? Yes, the cat might well kill or injure a few of them and so upset the rest as to keep them sleepless through the remainder of the night, but they’d probably kill the beast in the end.”

“No, my lord,” said the Horseclansman chief, “I can instruct the cat to remain unseen and to not attack unless attacked, to count the two-legs inside and bring that information back to me.”

Grand Strahteegos Komees Pahvlos still could not bring himself to fully believe even that humans could communicate through the mind only, much less that they could thus carry on two-way conversations with dumb beasts, but he had seen and heard and experienced enough in past months to seriously undermine the foundations of his doubts.

As the dawn was beginning to streak the eastern sky with rosy red and orange, Captain Chief Pawl came to the bustling scene boiling around and about the pavilion of the commander. He was admitted at once and he found the old Grand Strahteegos fully clothed and armored and looking as fresh as if he had had the night’s sleep that Pawl knew he had not.

Setting down his cup of watered wine, Pahvlos asked, “Well, did the cat return safely?”

Pawl Vawn nodded. “Yes, my lord, Deerbane is in camp once more. He says that there is no recent trace of any save one two-legs in all of that place. He saw that two-legs, watched him from hiding for an hour or more. He says that he limps badly and only has one eye and that there are some strange peculiarities in his mind. Before you order the attack, my lord, why not send a herald? I’ll go myself.”

“No, you won’t,” said Pahvlos, with finality. “I went through all this yesterday, as I recall. You Horseclanners are too valuable to me to risk the unnecessary loss of even one of you. Lancers, on the other hand, are expendable; I’ll send a lancer officer and we’ll see how many nonexistent men he can spot.”

A creamy-white silken square rippling from his lance shaft, young Poolos of Apahtahpolis, ensign of lancers, rode back from the hold at a fast amble.

“Well, boy?” snapped Pahvlos. “One at least of the bastards spoke withyou, we could hear your voices if not your words. What did he have to say about why he had us attacked yesterday? 1hope you’ve made him aware that we have a full, field force out here.”

“My lord,” replied the young man, “the man who bespoke me styles himself A hrkehkooreeos toi Ahthees and—”

“The Archbishop of Hell?” asked Pahvlos with patent disbelief. “Do you think you might’ve misunderstood him, Ensign?”

With a sigh, the young officer replied, “No, my lord, rather I think that the poor man is quite mad. By his speech, he is a nobleman, but he is dressed in rags and old, ill-kept armor, with not even a patch to cover his empty right eyesocket.”

Pahvlos turned to glance sharply at Pawl Vawn, who simply smiled.

“How many besides him did you see, Ensign?”

“Not a one, my lord. I ... my lord, I think that he may be the only living soul in that ruin,” answered the lancer officer. “As to why a stone was loosed yesterday, he said that no man could pass through his lands without paying a toll.”