Robert Adams - Champion of the Last Battle

Recognizing the horses if not the riders at the distance, Bili sent Captain Sir Fil Tyluh out ahead with a white banner of his own and followed behind him with Lieutenant Kahndoot, who had happened to be the closest officer to hand.

Vainly hoping to stave off another confrontation between the seething brigadier and Duke Bili of Morguhn, Sir Djahn spoke first and fast. “Your grace, Sir Ahrthur is of the opinion that you are in violation of the agreements as regards this set battle. Not only are you deliberately avoiding any contact with our main force, but you are employing most dishonorable means to whittle away at men who have no chance to defend themselves or to strike back at those who are killing them. Do you intend to close, to press a charge through to the pikes? If so, when?”

Bili could scarce credit his ears, could hardly believe that any sane warrior would speak such arrant nonsense to another. “When will I charge, Sir Djahn? When it suits me to do so, that’s when, and not until I can see that it will be to my advantage to press home a charge. Do you seriously believe that I led these men out here to let your pikemen butcher them? Spear them like so many fish? You yourself have admitted that your troops outnumber mine own, I’m simply evening those odds a bit. If that upsets your delicate sensibilities, why, then, I suggest that you form up your men in column and march them all back behind yonder stockade, whilst I and mine return behind the walls of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk. Perhaps you will feel better after you’ve wasted a few more hundreds of men against those walls, in a couple of days ... if I haven’t pounded and burned your camp, meanwhile.

“Now, do you want to fight a battle or sit here talking for the rest of this day?”

The brigadier could abide no more silently; he kneed his gelding forward and stared hard at Bili as he addressed Sir Djahn. “Fagh! I told you it would be an exercise in utter futility. to speak of honor to this puling thief; I doubt me he ever knew the meaning of the word, and I cannot but wonder if this King Byruhn knows just what sort of scoundrel he has hired and placed in command of his army. Perhaps we should declare a truce, Sir Djahn, while you ride up there and try to determine if this cowardly kind of warfare be the will of the true ruler of New Kuhmbuhluhn.”

Fil Tyluh spoke before Bili could. “Sir Ahrthur, poor King Byruhn died of his injuries last night. Until a new king is chosen, since he was the last of his house, New Kuhmbuhluhn’s regent is Sir Bili, Duke of Morguhn. So the royal council has declared this morning.”

Hurriedly, still trying to prevent the inevitable, Sir Djahn said, “Your grace, I never met your late king but the once; nonetheless, I grieve with you and all of New Kuhmbuhluhn.”

“Well, I don’t!” snapped the brigadier hotly. “I hope he’s roasting in hell with the rest of the heathen! And I demand to know why this treacherous, backbiting mercenary bastard never mentioned to Sir Djahn during the negotiations for this so-called battle his intentions to not come to grips and fight breast to breast as honorable warriors should, as the late king’s predecessor did, but to avoid real fighting in a most craven manner, while using the weapons of dishonor—bows, darts, slings and throwing axes—against his betters.”

Bili looked speculatively at the snarling, red-faced old man. At last, he said, “Sir Ahrthur, either you are a complete ass and a fool or you think that I am such. To answer your first question: I told Sir Djahn that I would use every arm, every advantage in my possession or power to command, saving only that I would not employ my engines during the course of this battle, either against your formations or your camp.

“Now, if he or you chose to interpret that answer to mean that I would leave my missilemen—my archers, my dartmen, my axe throwers and my slingers—behind, as did poor, bemused old King Mahrtuhn, such was your choice of possible meaning.

“You carry on and on about fighting breast to breast, yet both King Mahrtuhn and Prince Mahrtuhn Gilbuht died without getting any closer to any of you Skohshuns that the length of an eighteen-foot pikeshaft. What honor in such a death, say I? You were able to delude an aging and nearly senile man and lead him on to his death with such hypocritic claptrap, but not Bili, Thoheeks and Chief of Morguhn and Knight of the Blue Bear of Harzburk.

“ If all you spout out is to be taken at face value, then you are at the best a fool and should be locked away with the rest of the madmen, not left to command anyone’s army. War is not a game, to be played by strict rules or not played at all. War is something to be avoided at all costs, except when it becomes a necessity. When it does become necessary, it is something akin to lancing a boil—you do it hard and quick and with all available force, so that it is the sooner done and men can return to the pursuits of peace.

“If, on the other hand, you are the cynical hypocrite I suspect you are—and if you are an average representative of your race—one who mouths the usages of honor in a self-serving attempt to rob war leaders of their natural advantages, warriors of their lives and folk of their lands, then I feel you all to be even more despicable than the Ganiks, the men who eat men, or than certain Ehleen rebels who butchered little children and drank their blood!

“If you truly want to close with my force so badly, Sir Ahrthur, let your schiltrons reform and charge us. Or do you Skohshuns lack the stomach to fight save in close formations and against men whose weapons are shorter than are yours?”

With a roar of inarticulate rage, Sir Ahrthur drew his sword and lashed out at Bili’s face, exposed by the open visor. But quick as the old man drew and struck, Bili brought the huge, heavy axe up faster. Catching the edge of the blurring blade in one of the gaps between axehead and steel shaft, he gave his thick wrist a practiced twist which tore the sword from Sir Ahrthur’s hand so forcefully as to snap the leather sword knot and send the blade clattering to the rocky ground.

The other three men and Lieutenant Kahndoot all held their breath, hands seeking out hilts, awaiting the general melee they all expected and feared would come when Bili axed down the truce-breaker.

Sir Ahrthur’s red face had gone pale, as he sat panting with exertion. His only other weapon was a slim dagger—a mere joke against that monstrous double axe. “Well,” he finally gasped, “kill me, you butcher! Or would you rather send for an archer to do your execution for you?”

But Bili was even as the old man spoke lowering his axe to rest again across the bow of his saddle. “If I meet you in battle, Sir Ahrthur, I’ll kill you if I must, but needless killing or maiming is not a part of my nature. I think that we may consider this in-saddle truce to be done?”

Bili had just reached his own lines when a farspeak from Sir Geros by way of Count Steev Sandee by way of Whitetip beamed into his mind. “We are some quarter mile from the camp of these Skohshuns, Lord Bili. What are your orders for our advance?”

“Pass wide of the camp,” beamed Bili. “There are crossbowmen at the corners of it, and I’ll be unsurprised if they have a few engines, as well, for all that we burned up the last batch they had built. Bypass the pike formations, too. Once past them, ride directly into my lines. I’m hopeful that the mere sight of you and your reinforcements will overawe them enough to allow for a peaceable settlement and their withdrawal, after all; but if not, I’ll let your archers and dartmen and my own nibble at them a bit more, then we’ll all charge and roll over the buggers. With you and yours, we’ll finally have the numbers and the weight to do it up brown.”