Robert Adams - Champion of the Last Battle

“ My own, not even I know all that is to be. The pattern is never so tightly woven that it cannot be slightly, infinitesimally altered. Yes, death hovers close to you, my dear, your presentiment is accurate. But I can discern no immediacy, nor is it a certainty that you will be the one taken when the time is fully ripe. The two children you now carry will be safely delivered of you and will lead long, full lives .”

“And ... and my Bili, Lady? He will live to rear our little ones, even though I do not?” queried Rahksahnah hesitantly.

“ Oh, my dear Rahksahnah, I am not omniscient. You ask more than even such as I know ... for a certainty. The pattern of what is to be, what might be, what must be is fluid. Slight alterations can appear in bare moments, dependent upon so many variables—actions of humans, of other creatures, of the very fabric of your world itself though most often of the actions and reactions of humans .”

Rahksahnah sighed deeply. “My ... my Lady can tell me nothing, then? Nothing of the fate of my dear Bili?”

The silvery being before her also sighed. “ So far as I can discern, love, Bili of Morguhn will come unharmed from this impending battle, as too will you, though many and many another now living will leave its husk upon that bloody field of battle. There will swiftly follow other dangers and another great, crashing battle which it appears that you both are destined to weather safely. Then, however, when it would seem that all danger be past and gone, will come suddenly and from an unexpected quarter the most deadly danger. It is possible that Bili of Morguhn will be there and then torn from his husk .”

Rahksahnah’s hard, callused hand grasped tightly at the cool, soft hand of the Lady, her hilt-toughened fingers sinking into that silvery flesh, heedlessly. “No, dear my Lady, no! It must not be! Far better me than him. Take me, if such must be, but ... but, please, I implore you, let my Bili live on ... with our children. Without him, Lady, I know that I would be of no use to them or to anyone else, anyway.”

The Silver Lady sighed once more, sadly. “ That which I can do, I will do, my child. But think you well upon the matter; when that time comes, you will still have a choice, although there exists always the possibility that both will leave the fleshly husk ... or neither. As I have told you, nothing so far in advance is ever certain .

“ But now, my love, I must leave you, for it is almost moonset, for you, and almost moonrise for others of whom you know not in far-distant places. But we two shall meet like this once more, possibly .”

Gathering Rahksahnah’s lean, hard young body in Her embrace, the Lady’s silvery lips pressed upon the girl’s dark-red ones and, when she again became aware of the scratchy blankets against her bare flesh, that lingering, tingling, kiss of the Moon Goddess, the Silver Lady of the Maidens, was still a palpable sensation there in the darkness of the tent she shared with her man, Bili of Morguhn.

It was almost the third hour after dawn, with the sun well up in the azure sky and beginning to radiate meaningful amounts of heat in promise of a hot, dry day. Only then did King Mahrtuhn of New Kuhmbuhluhn feel himself sufficiently arrayed and prepared and fortified to pace out of his pavilion and put foot to stirrup to swing astride his light-bay stallion. But his fighters had been ready for long hours, and within a few minutes after he had settled in his ornate saddle, he was leading his battle out of the camp and toward the ford at a fast walk.

Prince Mahrtuhn, the monarch’s grandson and chosen heir, followed close upon the track of the first battle with his own, second battle. And his was followed by that of his hulking uncle, Prince Byruhn, of whose third battle Bili of Morguhn’s condotta was a part.

Trailing a distance behind this third battle marched a few hundred infantrymen, their column led by the beplumed and partially armored royal footguards, armed with poleaxes and partizans. The marchers were only about half of the foot, the rest remaining as camp guards.

They would all have remained in camp had not Byruhn set his foot firmly down on the matter. “Father, you have had your way in every facet of this ill-starred enterprise, ere this; the only certain and painless way to break up that pike hedge enough for heavy horse to assault it successfully is to use archers and dartmen and slingers from a distance beyond the reach of those overlong pikes, yet you have left every missileman in the kingdom squatting useless behind the walls of New Kuhmbuhluhnburk.”

“Win or lose, live or die,” growled the king, “we mean to do so in honor, and there is no honor in allowing valiant foemen to be slain by peasants at such distance as they have no slightest chance to defend themselves. The Skohshuns’ herald attests that they fight honorably, without missiles or such lowborn louts as use them, and the King of New Kuhmbuhluhn cannot do less.”

The tightness of the prince’s voice, then, had told the tale of a temper rising fast but under tight rein. “It is too bad that I did not get the chance to beard that herald, Father, for I am of the opinion that a fine point could be raised in regard to the actual honor of using pikeshafts of such a length that men of normal armament cannot possibly get within a range to use their weapons. But that is neither the one nor the other, just now.

“What is pertinent here and now is that unsupported cavalry is at peril in this sort of undertaking—I know that all too well. If my royal sire will recall, I was so rash as to attack these same Skohshuns last autumn with only my van and my heavy horse, not waiting for the arrival of the rest of my army ... and we all know the calamitous result of that, my folly.

“Even if our three battles are successful in hacking into and dispersing those pikes, we cannot consolidate a victory without infantry of our own. And should we suffer such a defeat as last year, then that same infantry will be needed to give us some cover during our withdrawal.”

The king had gnawed for a few moments on his lower lip, his blue-green eyes locked unwaveringly with the identical blue-green eyes of his huge, burly son. At last, however, he had shrugged and said, “Oh, all right, Byruhn, take the damned foot if you feel you must. Take my footguards and up to half of the levy. But, mind you, you are directly responsible for them, in march or battle. And see that they stay well behind—scant good it would do us to ride down a passel of our own foot and so lose impetus in a charge.”

“I am certain that our infantry would be equally regretful of any such happenstance, royal Father,” Byruhn replied dryly. “I shall certainly see to it that the foot in no way hinder maneuverings of the mounted battles.”

“And see to it that your southron horsemen carry only one axe apiece into the fray,” the king went on peevishly. “If a warrior chooses to throw his axe or his lance at a foeman, we see no harm to the practice—we’ve even done the like ourselves from time to time over the years. But when said warriors customarily bear a whole assortment of spare axes for the sole purpose of throwing them, then they become no better than a pack of honorless, peasant missilemen. We’ll have no such low-bred louts forking horse behind our banners!”

As soon as the column was moving and in proper order, Prince Byruhn had summoned Bili up to ride with him. “Have you an experienced officer of foot, or two, in your condotta, Cousin Bili?”

Bili nodded. “Lieutenant of Freefighters Frehd Brakit, your grace. He was an infantry officer for some years. Then there’s a Freefighter sergeant, one Ahskuh Behrdyn, who also soldiered with a light infantry condotta in the Middle Kingdoms, as I recall.”