Harry Turtledove - Tale of the Fox

Chariots were at close quarters now, everyone hacking and stabbing and shooting at everyone else. The men of the Elabonian Empire seemed to feel a slight superstitious awe of the Trokmoi, who must have been much discussed but never seen during the years when the Empire stayed south of the High Kirs. Superstitious awe, however, had a way of lasting no longer than the first successfully blocked blow. After that, it was just man against man.

For their part, the Trokmoi went after the imperials with almost unholy glee. The woodsrunners had no more use for Elabonians than Elabonians had for them. But, by now, they'd dwelt south of the Niffet for a generation. To them, Gerin's men were only partly hated southrons. They were also neighbors, sometimes friends, sometimes even in-laws.

None of those palliatives applied to the warriors from south of the mountains. They were the enemy, pure and simple. The Trokmoi laid into them with an appalling lack of concern for what might happen to themselves, so long as they could get in a few more licks at the foe.

Because the woodsrunners were so fierce, the imperials needed a disproportionate number of men to hold them in check. And, because they were making a move that would be important if it succeeded, the imperials threw those men at them. That didn't help their position along the rest of the line, which was what Gerin had had in mind.

"There!" As he had before, he aimed Dagref toward a gap between a couple of imperial chariots. "If we get through there and bring a few Trokmoi after us, we really have cut the whoresons in two."

"Aye, Father." Dagref urged the horses forward. Wild whoops proclaimed that the Trokmoi were still following the Fox.

The imperials he faced knew they were holding an important part of the line. They could hardly help knowing it, with so many foes bearing down on them. One of them let fly with an arrow. Behind Gerin, a Trokm- shrieked. The Fox had a perfect shot at the imperial-or would have had one, with any arrows in his quiver.

And then the imperial cried out and clutched at his flank, from which a shaft sprouted. To have hit him at that angle, it couldn't have come from straight ahead. Gerin turned his head to the right. Recognizing him, some of Rihwin's horsemen waved. He waved back, an enormous grin on his face.

"We've got 'em!" Van shouted. "By all the gods, we've got 'em in the mill. All we have to do now is crumble 'em from grain to flour."

"It'll be harder work than that," Gerin said. "The grain in the mill doesn't try to break the millstones."

"Is this really the time for literary criticism?" Dagref asked.

"Possibly not," Gerin admitted. An imperial who had been thrown out of his chariot flung a stone at him. It clanged off his shoulder, which started to throb. Maybe that was literary criticism, maybe it wasn't. Whatever it was, Van's spear responded to it most pointedly. The imperial was never heard to comment on a metaphor again.

With part of their army cut off and surrounded, the rest of the forces of the Elabonian Empire began falling back. As they had before, the imperials retreated with a professional competence the men of the northlands, Trokmoi and Elabonians both, would have been hard pressed to match. They held their ranks and kept fighting instead of running every which way, which was the more usual response to defeat north of the High Kirs. They didn't seem to be saying, We're beaten! Gods preserve us! It was more as if they meant, All right, you've got the better of us this time, but it was probably just luck. See what happens when we meet again .

Thinking thus, Gerin said, "What worries me is, this is the second time we've beaten them, not the first. Don't you think they ought to be getting used to the idea that they don't fight as well as we do?"

Dagref said, "They're probably getting used to the idea that they're going to need reinforcements from over the mountains."

"I wish you hadn't said that," Gerin told his son. "Where are we going to get reinforcements if they do? Father Dyaus, where are we going to get reinforcements even if they don't? It's a bloody miracle that Aragis and I are on the same side as things are."

"What do we do if they should send another army over the High Kirs?" Dagref asked.

"Either fight it out or surrender and go back to cheating the Empire out of the tribute it thinks it deserves, the way I did in the old days," Gerin answered. Here he was, winning a battle, and Dagref had managed to make him think he was losing. Pointedly, he went on, "Let's tend to one thing at a time, if you please. If we manage to botch what we're doing now, the Empire won't need to think about sending reinforcements."

"That's sensible, Father," Dagref allowed after his usual pause for thought.

"Nice of him to admit it, eh, Fox?" Van said with a chuckle.

Dagref started to say something else. Gerin cut him off, and the outlander, too. "Take it up after the fight's over with," he said. "Meanwhile, let's see what we can do to get it over with faster." He raised his voice to a shout: "Imperials! Give yourselves up and I promise you your lives!"

One of the men in the surrounded pocket of charioteers asked, "And who are you, that we should care about your promise?"

"Gerin the Fox, king of the north," he answered; every once in a while, wearing unobtrusive gear had disadvantages as well as good points. If he'd dressed like a king, they would have known who he was. If he'd dressed like a king, though, they might have done a better job of trying to kill him.

"What will you do with us if we yield ourselves?" the imperial inquired.

That was a good, relevant question. Gerin wished he didn't have to come up with a reply on the spur of the moment. "If you yield now," he said, "I'll disarm you and send you north and settle you in peasant villages-one or two of you in each one, because I don't want you plotting against me. It's the best I can do. Will you take it? Otherwise, you'll die right here, either that or be used as slaves if you give up later and we decide to let you live. What do you say?"

The imperial who'd been asking questions threw down his bow and took off his helmet. "Good enough for me," he said at once.

His comrades started throwing down their weapons, too. Once Gerin saw they were going to yield, he detailed a small number of men to take charge of them, then led the rest south in pursuit of the bigger part of the imperial army.

Before long, he caught up with Aragis the Archer. "Ha!" Aragis said. "I wondered what happened to you, Fox. You disappeared for a while there, and I thought I might be the only king left in the northlands, but I see it isn't so." He plainly wouldn't have been broken-hearted had Gerin died, but he didn't seem broken-hearted to find him alive, either. That struck the Fox as a reasonable reaction. No flies on Aragis, either; the next thing he said was, "That's not the chariot you started out with today."

"So it isn't," Gerin agreed. "They kept trying to kill us out there, and they came closer to doing a proper job of it than I would have liked." Not wearing royal regalia had probably saved his neck.

"Ha," Aragis said again, this time evidently intending it for laughter rather than a greeting. "What they do a proper job of is getting off a battlefield once they've lost the main fight." He waved ahead. "Look at the order they're keeping. If they fought that well in the battle, they might win."

Gerin unrolled an imaginary scroll and made as if to read its title: "The triumphal retreats of the Elabonian Empire, being a relation of the manner in which the said Empire was won by its armies' going backwards."

"Ha," Aragis said for a third time. "That's not half bad. If only the bastards would go to pieces once we licked them, we'd drive 'em over the mountains and be rid of 'em once for all."