H. Piper - Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen

"If he's doing what I told him to he is." There was an outcry; even Harmakros stared at him in surprise. "If Gormoth starts making his own fireseed, Styphon's House will find it out, and you know what'll happen then. That's why I was wondering who'd be able to use those mercenaries against whom. That's another thing. We can't be bothered with Nostori prisoners, but take all the mercenaries who'll surrender. We'll need them when Sarrask's turn comes up."

DAWN was only a pallor in the east, and the whitewashed walls were dim blurs under dark thatches, but the village of Fitra was awake, and the shouting began as he approached: "Lord Kalvan! Dralm bless Lord Kalvan!" He was used to it now; it didn't give him the thrill it had at first. Light streamed from open doors and windows, and a fire blazed on the little common, and there was a crowd of villagers and cavalrymen who had ridden on ahead. Behind him, hooves thudded on the road, and far back he could hear the four-pounders clattering over the pole bridge at the mill. He had to make a speech from the saddle, while orders were shouted and reshouted to the rear and men and horses crowded off the road to make way for the guns.

Then he and Harmakros and four or five other officers rode forward, reining in where the main road began to dip into the little hollow. The eastern pallor had become a bar of yellow light. The Mountains of Hostigos were blackly plain on the left, and the jumble of low ridges on the right were beginning to take shape. He pointed to a ravine between two of them.

"Send two hundred cavalry around that ridge and into that little valley, where those three farms are clumped together," he said. "They're not to make fires or let themselves be seen. They're to wait till we're engaged here, and the second batch of Nostori come up. Then they'll come out and hit them from behind."

An officer galloped away to attend to it. The yellow light spread; only a few of the larger and brighter stars were still visible. In front, the ground fell away to the small brook that ran through the hollow, to join a larger stream that flowed east along the foot of the mountain. The mountain rose steeply to a bench, then sloped up to the summit. On the right was broken ground, mostly wooded. In front, across the hollow, was mostly open farmland. There were a few trees around them, in the hollow and on the other side. This couldn't have been better if he'd had Dralm create it to special order.

The yellow light had reached the zenith, and the eastern horizon was a dazzle. Harmakros squinted at it and said something about fighting with the sun in their eyes.

"No such thing; it'll be overhead before they get here. Now, you go take a nap. I'll wake you in time to give me some sack-time. As soon as the wagons get here, we'll give everybody a hot meal."

An ox-cart appeared on the brow of the hill across the hollow, piled high, a woman and a boy trudging beside the team and another woman and some children riding. Before they were down to the brook, a wagon had come into sight. This was only the start; there'd be a perfect stream of them soon. They couldn't be allowed on the main road west of Fitra until the wagons and the eight-pounders were through.

"Have them turned aside," he ordered. "And use the wagons and carts for barricades, and the oxen to drag trees."

The village peasants were coming out now, with four- and six-ox teams dragging chains. Axes began thudding. More refugees were coming in; there were loud protests at being diverted and at having wagons and oxen commandeered. The axe-men were across the hollow now, and men shouted at straining oxen as felled trees were dragged in to build an abatis.

He strained his eyes against the sunrise; he couldn't see any smoke. Too far away, but he was sure it was there. The enemy cavalry had certainly crossed the Athan by now, and pyromania was as fixed in the mercenary character as kleptomania. The abatis began to take shape, trees dragged into line with the tops to the front and the butts to the rear, with spaces for three of the six/four-pounders on either side of the road and a barricade of wagons and farm carts a little in advance at either end. He rode forward now and then to get an enemy's-eye view of it. He didn't want it to look too formidable from in front, or too professional-for one thing, he wanted to make sure that the guns were completely camouflaged. Finally he began to notice smears of smoke against the horizon, maybe six or eight miles away. Klestreus's mercenaries weren't going to disappoint him after all.

A company of infantry came up. They were regulars, a hundred and fifty of them, with two pikes (and one of them a real pike) to every caliver, marching in good order. They'd come all the way from the Athan, reported fighting behind them, and were disgusted at marching away from it. He told them they'd get all they wanted before noon, and to fall out and rest. A couple of hundred militia, some with crossbows, dribbled in. There were more smokes on the eastern horizon, but he still couldn't hear firing. At seven-thirty, the supply wagons, the four eight-pounders, and the two hundred militia arrived. That was good. The refugees, now a steady stream, could be sent on up the road. He saw to it that fires were lit and a hot meal started, and then went into the village.

He found Harmakros asleep in one of the cottages, wakened him, and gave him the situation to date.

"Send somebody to wake me," he finished, "as soon as you see smoke within three miles, as soon as our cavalry skirmishers start coming in, and in any case in two and a half hours."

Then he pulled off his helmet and boots, unbuckled his sword-belt, and lay down in the rest of his armor on the cornshuck tick Harmakros had vacated, hoping that it had no small inhabitants or, if so, that none of them would find lodgement under his arming-doublet. It was cool in here behind the stone walls and under the thick thatch. The wet heat of his body became a clammy chill. He shifted positions a few times, decided that fewer things gouged into him when lying on his back, and close is eyes.

So far, everything had gone nicely; all he was worried about was who was going to let him down, and how badly. He hoped some valiant fool wouldn't get a rush of honor to the head and charge when he ought to stand fast, like the Saxons at Hastings.

If he could bring this off just half as well as he'd planned it, which would be about par for any battle, he could go to Valhalla when he died and drink at the same table with Richard Coeur-de-Lion, the Black Prince and Henry of Navarre. A complete success would entitle him to take a salute from Stonewall Jackson. He fell asleep receiving the commendation of George S. Patton.

AN infantry captain wakened him at a little before ten. "They're burning Systros now," he said. That was a town of some two thousand, two and a half miles away. "A couple of the cavalry who've been keeping contact with them just came in. The first batch, about fifteen hundred, are coming up fast, and there's another lot, about a thousand, a mile and a half behind them. And we've been hearing those big bombards at Narza Gap."

Between Montoursville and Muncy; that would be Klestreus's infantry on this side, and probably some of Netzigon's ragtag and bobtail on the other. He pulled on his boots and buckled on his belt, and somebody brought him a bowl of beef stew with plenty of onion in it, and a mug of sour red wine. When his horse was brought, he rode forward to the line, noticing in passing that the Mobile Force Uncle Wolf and the village priest of Dralm and priestess of Yirtta had set up a field hospital in the common, and that pole-and-blanket stretchers were being made. He hoped he wouldn't be wounded. No anesthetics, here-and-now, though the priests of Galzar used sandbags.

A big cloud of smoke dirtied the sky over Systros. Silly buggers-first crowd in had fired it. Here-and-now mercenaries were just the same as Tilly's or Wallenstein's. Now the ones behind would have to bypass it, which would bring them to Fitra in even worse order.