Harry Turtledove - Wisdom of the Fox

He took such precautions as he could, posting sentry squadrons all around the main area where his men and Aragis' rested. The Archer's troopers were inclined to complain about having their sleep interrupted. Gerin stared them down, saying, "When my warriors come south to your lands, we'll be under the grand duke's commands, and he'll make the arrangements he thinks best. Now the worries are mine, and I'll meet them in my own way."

He did not look to Aragis for support; this too was his worry. Had the Archer chosen to argue with him, he'd been ready to lose his temper in as spectacularly dramatic a way as he could. When he was through dealing with the grand duke's men, though, Aragis got up and said, "The prince of the north is right—he leads here. Anyone who doesn't fancy that will answer to him here and then to me after we go south." Out went the sentries without another word.

Gerin bundled himself in his bedroll and soon fell asleep. What seemed like moments later, shouts of alarm rang out from the sentries, and mixed with them the monsters' screams. The Fox had his helm on his head, his shield on his arm, and his sword in his hand and was on his feet and running toward the fighting before he fully understood where he was.

As soon as the situation did sink in, Gerin realized whoever led the monsters—whether that was Adiatunnus or some of the more clever creatures—knew how best to use them. Instead of attacking the troopers, who were armed and at least partly armored and could fight back, the monsters turned their fury on the long lines of tethered horses.

There dreadful din and chaos reigned. The horses screamed and kicked and bucked under the savage teeth and claws of their attackers. Some of them tore loose the lines by which they were tethered and ran off into the night. Every one that got away would have to be recaptured later—if Gerin and his men could manage that. At the same time, though, every horse that fled drew monsters away from the main point of the assault, which left the Fox unsure how to feel about the flight.

He had little time for feeling, anyhow—nothing to do but slash and hack and keep his shield up to hold fangs away from flesh and pray that in the darkness and confusion he didn't hurt any of his own men, or Aragis'. The fear-maddened horses were as appalled to have men close by them as monsters. Someone not far from Gerin went down with a muffled groan as a hoof caught him in the midsection.

He stabbed a monster that was scrambling up onto a horse's back—and leaving long, bleeding claw tracks in the beast's flanks. The monster howled and sprang at him. He slashed it. It screamed in pain and fled. The hot, coppery smell of its blood and the horse's filled his nose.

Pale Nothos was the first moon over the eastern horizon. By the time he rose, the warriors had managed to drive the monsters back into the wood from which they'd come. "Put more wood on the fire and start another one over here," Gerin shouted. "We have a lot of work to do yet tonight."

His army was still at it when Tiwaz, Elleb, and Math rose in a tight cluster a couple of hours after Nothos appeared. The men went out by squads to bring back the horses that had bolted, but that was the smaller part of what they needed to do. Treating the animals' wounds—and their panic—was a far bigger job. The drivers, men who dealt most intimately with their teams, did the greater part of the work. The rest of the troopers lent what help they could.

"I mislike everything about this," Gerin said gloomily. "Who knows what the beasts will do when they next face the monsters, or even smell them?"

"I'd not yet thought past this night," Aragis said. "Did we bring enough spare animals to make up for the ones we lost and those hurt too badly to pull a car?"

"I think so," the Fox answered; he'd been trying to run his own mental count, but confusion didn't make it easy. He looked at the hairy corpses scattered over the grass. "We hurt the monsters badly here; I don't think they'll try anything like that again. The question is, was the once enough?"

"We'll know come morning." Aragis yawned. "I don't know if we'll have any wits left by then, though. I'm dead for sleep, and I'm for my blanket."

"And I," Gerin said with a matching yawn. "One more thing for Adiatunnus to pay for—and he shall."

When the sun rose, Gerin stumbled over to a nearby stream and splashed cold water on his face to give himself a brittle semblance of alertness. Then he examined the horses the monsters had attacked. They looked worse by daylight than they had in the night, with blood dried on their coats and matted in their manes, with gashes the drivers had missed by the light of moons and fires, with mud slapped on the wounds the men had seen. He wondered how they would fare when they had to draw the chariots, but had no choice. He waved for the drivers to harness them.

Because the animals were sore and nervous, that took longer than it might have. But once they were hitched to the chariots, they pulled them willingly enough. Van drew a clay flute from a pouch on his belt and began a mournful, wailing tune that sounded as if it had come off the plains of Shanda. He assumed an expression of injured dignity when Gerin asked him to put the flute away for fear of frightening the horses.

The border post Adiatunnus had set up in imitation of Elabonian practice was empty and deserted; he must have got wind that Gerin was moving against him.

"We move straight on," the Fox commanded. "No stopping for loot anywhere. Until we run up against Adiatunnus' main force and smash it, we haven't accomplished a thing."

But when the army came to a peasant village, Aragis ordered his chariots out of the road to trample the wheat and barley growing in the fields around it. After a moment's hesitation, Gerin waved for his warriors to join the Archer's. "I hate to hurt the serfs," he said, "but if I strike a blow at the Trokmoi thereby, how can I keep from doing it?"

"You can't, so don't fret yourself," Van answered. "You go to war to win; you said as much yourself. Otherwise you're a fool."

The peasants themselves had vanished, along with most of their livestock. The army took a few chickens and a half-grown pig, set fire to the serfs' huts, and rolled on.

Perhaps the next village they came to had planted earlier than the first; the wheat and rye growing around it had already turned golden. That meant the crops were nearing ripeness. It also meant they would burn. The warriors tossed torches into the fields near the road, watched flames lick across them. The serfs would have a hungry winter. Gerin vowed to himself to work enough destruction in Adiatunnus' holding to make their Trokmê masters starve, too.

Every now and then, a red-mustached barbarian would peer out of the woods at the invaders. Gerin ignored those watchers; every man afoot was one he wouldn't have to face in a chariot. "I want to reach Adiatunnus before the sun sets," he said grimly. "Spending a night in his lands with the monsters prowling about sets my teeth on edge."

"Ah, but Captain, does he want you to reach him?" Van said. "You ask me, that's a different question altogether. If he can get the monsters to come out and soften us up again, you think he won't do it?"

"No, I don't think that," Gerin said. "But he pays a price if he hangs back, too. The deeper we penetrate into his lands, the more harm we do him, and the hungrier his warriors and serfs will be come winter. It's a nice calculation he has to make: can he afford what we will do to him for the sake of what the monsters might do to us tonight?"

"You think he'll weigh the odds so—this much on this side, that much on the other?" Van shook his head vehemently. "That's what you'd do, certain sure. But Adiatunnus, he'll be watching the sky. As soon as he sees so much smoke there that his fighters start screaming at him louder than he can stand, he'll yell for them to jump into their chariots and come at you. Whether that's today or tomorrow morning we won't know till we see the woodsrunners drawn up in a meadow athwart our path."