Dan Chernenko - The Chernagor Pirates

Avornan soldiers were still taking their places when Grus saw a cloud of dust on the coastal road that came out of the east. He’d had some practice judging the clouds of dust advancing armies kicked up. He turned to Hirundo, who’d had considerably more. “Looks like a lot of Chernagors,” he said.

“Does, doesn’t it?” Hirundo agreed. “Of course, they may be playing games with us. Send some horses along in front of an army with saplings fastened on behind them and they’ll stir up enough dust to make you think every soldier in the world is heading your way.”

“Do you think that’s likely here?” Grus inquired.

Hirundo pursed his lips. “I’d like to,” he answered. But that wasn’t what the king had asked. Reluctantly, the general shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. The scouts saw Chernagors, lots of Chernagors. I’m going to pull some men back out of the line, if that’s all right with you.”

“Why?”

“Because I’d like to have a reserve handy, in case Vasilko decides to sally from Nishevatz while we’re busy with these other bastards.” Hirundo gave an airy wave of the hand. “Nothing puts a hole in your day like getting attacked from two directions at once, if you know what I mean.

“I wish I didn’t, but I do,” Grus said heavily. “That’s a good idea. See to it.” Hirundo sketched a salute and hurried off.

Prince Vsevolod came up to Grus. He tugged on the sleeve of the king’s tunic. “Your Majesty, I am sorry I put you in this place,” he said. “I fight hard for you.” His age-spotted hand fell to the hilt of his sword.

“Thank you, your Highness. We’ll all do some fighting before long,” Grus replied. For him, that would mean donning a mailshirt and mounting a horse. He hated fighting from horseback, as anyone who’d spent more time on a river galley would have. A tilting deck was one thing, a rearing mount something else again. He clapped Vsevolod on the back. “You didn’t put me in this place. Vasilko and the Banished One did. I know who my enemies are.”

“I thank you, Your Majesty. You are all King of Avornis should be,” Vsevolod said. “I fight hard. You see.”

“Good.” Grus raised his voice and called, “Let’s move out against them,” to Hirundo. He went on, “We don’t want them thinking we’re afraid to face them.”

“Afraid to face a bunch of Chernagors? We’d better not be!” Hirundo sounded light and cheerful, for the benefit of his men, and probably for Grus’ benefit, too. But the general knew—and King Grus also knew— the traders who lived by the Northern Sea made formidable warriors when they took it into their heads to fight.

Avornan trumpets blared. Shouting Grus’ name and Prince Vsevolod’s (many of them making a mess of it), the soldiers rode and marched forward. Soon, through the dust ahead, Grus made out sun-sparkles off spearheads and swords, helmets and coats of mail. The Chernagors rode big, ponderous horses, not fast but heavy and strong enough to be formidable in the charge.

Hirundo shouted orders. Like a painter working on a fresco inside a temple, he saw how he wanted everything to go long before the scene was done. Avornan mounted archers galloped out to the wings and started peppering the Chernagors with arrows. Some of the big, stocky men from the north slid out of their saddles and crashed to the ground. Some of the big, stocky horses they rode crashed down, too. Un-wounded beasts tripped over them and also fell.

But most of the Chernagors ignored the arrows and kept coming. They had archers of their own, more of them afoot than on horseback, and started shooting at Grus’ men as soon as they got into range. Arrows thudded into shields. They clattered off helms and armor. Now and then, they smacked home against flesh. Every cry of pain made Grus flinch.

An arrow hissed past his head, sounding malevolent as a wasp. A few inches to one side and he would have been screaming, too. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Not far away, an Avornan took an arrow in the face and fell from his horse without a sound. He never knew what hit him. That was an easy way to go, easier than most men got on the battlefield or off it.

Grus had hoped Hirundo’s mounted archers would make the Chernagors think twice about closing with his army. But no. Shouting fierce-sounding incomprehensibilities in their own throaty language, the bushy-bearded warriors slammed into their Avornan foes.

“Come on, men! Let’s show them what we can do now that we’ve got them in the open!” Grus shouted. “Up until now, they’ve hidden in forts, afraid to meet us face-to-face.” Had he commanded the Chernagors, he would have done the same thing, which had nothing to do with anything when he was trying to hearten his men. “Let ’em see they knew what they were doing when they wouldn’t come out against us.”

A few heartbeats later, he was trading sword strokes with a large Chernagor who had a large wart by the side of his nose. After almost cutting off his own horse s ear, Grus managed to wound the enemy warrior. The fellow howled pain-filled curses at him. The fighting swept them apart. As so often happened, Grus never found out what happened to the foe.

Shouts from the north drew the king’s attention. As Hirundo had feared, Prince Vasilko’s men were swarming out of Nishevatz and into the fight. Grus wondered whether the general had pulled enough soldiers to hold them off before they took the main part of the Avornan army in the flank and rolled it up. One way or the other, he would find out.

His army didn’t come to pieces, which proved Hirundo had a good notion of what he was doing after all. But the Avornans didn’t win— they didn’t come close to winning—the sort of victory Grus would have wanted. All he could do was fight hard and send men now here, now there, to shore up weak spots in his line. He had the feeling the Chernagor generals were doing the same thing; it certainly seemed to be a battle with no subtlety, no surprises.

Late in the afternoon, Vasilko’s sortie collapsed. The men from Nishevatz still on their feet streamed back into the city. Had things been going better in the fight against the rest of the Chernagors, Grus’ men might have chased them harder and gotten into Nishevatz with them. But things weren’t, and the Avornans didn’t. Having only one foe to worry about struck Grus as being good enough for the time being.

At last, sullenly, the rest of the Chernagors withdrew from the field. It was a victory, of sorts. Grus thought about ordering a pursuit. He thought about it, looked at how exhausted and battered his own men were, and changed his mind. Hirundo rode up to him and dismounted. The general looked as weary as Grus felt. “Well, Your Majesty, we threw ’em back,” he said. “Threw ’em back twice, as a matter of fact.”

Grus nodded. The motion made some bones in his neck pop like cracking knuckles. “Yes, we did,” he said, and yawned enormously. “King Olor’s beard, but I’m worn.”

“Me, too,” Hirundo said. “We did everything we could do there, though.”

“Yes,” Grus said again. He wished he weren’t agreeing. They’d done everything they could, and they were no closer to ousting Vasilko from Nishevatz or restoring Vsevolod. Grus looked around for the rightful Prince of Nishevatz, but didn’t see him.

“Now the next interesting question,” Hirundo said, “is whether the Chernagors will come back at us tomorrow, or whether they’ve had enough.”

“Interesting,” Grus repeated. “Well, that’s one way to put it. What do you think?”

“Hard to say,” Hirundo answered. “I wouldn’t care to send this army forward to attack them tomorrow, and we had the better of it today. But you never can tell. Some generals are like goats—they just keep butting.”