Robert Adams - Champion of the Last Battle

The prince nodded his big head. “Good. When we all halt while the first battle negotiates the ford, they are to take over command of the royal footguards and the rest, back there. I’ll personally give them special orders at that time.

“I like none of this affair, young cousin, as well you know. I’m an old wolf and I can smell death and defeat in the very air. Do your own ... ahhh ... special senses tell you aught of what lies ahead?”

Bili knew that Byruhn referred to the prairiecat, Whitetip, for of all the royal host, only the prince and Bili’s own folk were cognizant that the king’s order that no scouts be placed ahead of the advance had been flouted in this regard.

Kneeing his stallion closer and lowering his voice, the young thoheeks replied, “There are a scattering of Skohshuns along the crest of that ridge yonder, your grace, but not enough to be dangerous to us; they keep sending back runners to the Skohshun camp, so apparently they are just what they seem to be—a screen to observe our advance, then fall back before us.

“They are the closest Skohshuns to us; there are none anywhere between the near side of yon ridge and this river. The main force of the Skohshuns is even now drawing up its formation across the vale through which runs the continuation of this road we now ride. Although they seem to have precious few horsemen, I doubt they could be easily flanked, not with their wings running up steep, brush-grown hills on either side. A feeder stream to this river bisects their line, with about two thirds of them to the west of it and the remaining third or so to the east of it.”

“Ah, so?” remarked Prince Byruhn, one side of his single reddish eyebrow rising sharply. “How deep is this stream, and what is the bottom like downstream of the pike line?”

“I’d advise that your grace forget that line of attack,” answered Bili. “These Skohshuns seem to be most astute at warfare. They’ve felled trees and constructed an abattis to block any approach up the streambed. Moreover, their lines of formation seem to run directly through the stream in as deep ranks as those on dry land.”

“Well, at least that much is a point to remember,” the prince remarked a bit grumpily. “Those bastards belike have near-frozen feet already, if that stream runs as cold as do most hereabouts, and I doubt me they’d have gone to the trouble to throw out any abattises behind them. So, if we somehow manage to flank them or to hack through to their rear, those unlucky swine knee-deep in cold water will be slow to turn on numbed feet and therefore the logical ones to attack from the rear.

“Now, young cousin, you had best ride back to your force and notify those two Freefighters of their imminent takeover of command of the foot.”

Bili smiled. “No need, your grace. Even while we two were in converse here did I mindspeak Frehd Brakit on the matter. By now, he has certainly notified Sergeant Behrdyn.”

Prince Byruhn sighed. “It’s right often I’ve wished that I were a mindspeaker, for yon’s a damned convenient talent in war. Usually, of course, I have my Kleesahks to use their own mindspeak and communicate with others of their ilk; but what with my father leaving all of them in New Kuhmbuhluhnburk, for fear that their outre talents might give us an edge over the Skohshuns ... “He sighed again and shook his head sadly. “If I could bring myself to truly believe such things, I’d swear that that thrice-damned Skohshun herald ensorceled my father and my nephew. Honor or no honor, it simply defies all reason to deliberately forgo the use of one’s natural assets in battle, for battles are chancy enough exercises even when one is armed with every asset or weapon one can muster.”

King Mahrtuhn was the first man across the narrow ford, which, though fast-currented, was shallow enough to provide quick, easy passage even to the trailing infantry. Once over, however, the monarch halted and waited until his battle was all on the north side of the river and once more in column behind him before pushing on toward the ridgeline. But he and they deliberately retarded their rate of march until Prince Mahrtuhn and the second battle were all across and advancing behind them. Then the king set his mount at the base of the ascent to the ridge crest.

As the column began the progress toward that crest, a single line of unmounted men were seen—black shapes against the blue sky—to arise from the places where they had been kneeling or crouching and, after a last, unhurried look at the oncoming horsemen, retire from view.

Whitetip, the prairiecat, beamed to Bili, “Those twolegs who spent the night up here on this ridge have all left it and are trotting back toward where the men with the long spears wait in the vale,”

“You have done well, cat brother,” Bili beamed back. “Wait where you are until you can see me and Prince Byruhn nearby. Come you then to our folk and someone will buckle you into your armor and put on your fang spurs. We soon must fight.”

The road widened a bit at the crest of the ridge, and it was there that the king, his grandson and his son, along with their principal lieutenants, sat their restive mounts staring down at the valley-spanning formation of the Skohshuns, their foemen. Of them all, only Prince Byruhn and a couple of his nobles had ever seen a formed-up Skohshun pike line, but as this one was almost twice the size of the one against which they had so vainly flung themselves last autumn, even they were impressed, mightily impressed.

The big men stood a bit over a yard apart, it seemed, in lines that stretched unbroken from half up the slope of one of the flanking hillocks to half up the slope of the other. And there were a hellacious lot of them. Bili’s quick, battlewise eye told him of at least a hundred pikemen in each line and as many as ten of those lines, one behind the other in ordered ranks.

The overlong pikes were all grounded and stood up from the lines like a narrow forest of branchless saplings, with the near-nooning sun a-sparkle on the honed, polished, foot-long points that capped the eighteen-foot hafts. Also reflecting the bright sunlight were the scale breastplates and simple steel caps of the Skohshuns and the gold and silver and brass animal figures that capped the staffs of the line of standards at the rear of the formation, while the standards themselves rippled slightly in the breeze that blew fitfully down the vale from the north.

Shrunken with the distance, a few mounted men—nobles and officers, probably—could be seen riding up and down the forefront, ceaselessly dressing the formation, assisted in this by men on foot bearing shorter polearms and wearing more armor than the common pikemen.

From their elevation, the New Kuhmbuhluhners could see that though the front ranks were straight and unbroken—like lines carved accurately in soft wood by a sharp knife in a sure hand—the formation was more jagged in the rear. More depth existed at the road and in level areas which might prove a good location for a full-scale charge of the New Kuhmbuhluhn horsemen, while the lines were reduced in depth in other places—such as behind the abattis in the streambed and on the brushy, steep slopes of the flanking hillocks.

The pickets who had quitted the ridgeline upon the approach of the first battle were to be seen between the foot of the ridge and the formation, formed in a precise column and running easily toward the slope of the western hillock. Even as the king and his party watched, a Skohshun horseman spurred from a point at the foot of that hillock leading a riderless horse. As the other pickets continued on afoot, their leader paused long enough to swing up into the empty saddle, then followed the first rider upslope and into the hilltop camp.