Harry Turtledove - Tale of the Fox

Van whooped as he watched the imperial topple from his car. "He's hit so many times, he doesn't even know which way to fall, the poor sod. You've got your troopers thinking the same way you do, Captain."

"Anyone who can't see that an able officer needs killing is probably too stupid to go on breathing, let alone be worth anything in a fight," Gerin answered with a shrug.

Dagref said, "It would be a wonder, Father, if your followers haven't learned something from you, as long as you've been leading them."

Van whooped again. "Have you ever been called old more politely, Fox?"

"That's not what I-" Dagref began.

"Never mind. I know what you meant," his father said. "I also know Van was trying to rattle you, not me, because he knows you're the easier mark."

"I deny everything," Van said.

"There!" Dagref was triumphant. "Even Van sounds a bit like you, Father, and I'll bet he didn't before he came to Fox Keep."

That was true. Van and Gerin had remarked on it, too. Neither of them remarked on it now, perhaps for fear of making Dagref even more insufferable about his own cleverness than he was already.

Then shouts came from the far rear of the bending imperial line. Gerin leaned forward, trying to make out what they were. A moment later, he let out a shout of his own: "Our men and Aragis' have joined hands. We've got 'em in the barrel-now we pound 'em flat."

His men shouted, too, as they realized they'd surrounded the army of the Elabonian Empire. Most of the shouts were threats aimed at the imperials. But the men from south of the High Kirs stolidly fought on, doing their foes as much harm as they could.

"I think they're too stupid to know how badly beaten they are," Van said.

"You could be right," Gerin allowed. "If you are, though, it's not the worst way for a soldier to be."

Ferdulf kept on flying above the imperials and diving down to dismay them. As before, arrows refused to strike him. He rose on high and dove, rose on high and dove. Then he rose and, instead of diving on the imperials, flew straight to Gerin. "Watch out!" the little demigod shouted, pointing to the southwest. "Watch out!"

"What is it?" Gerin demanded, wishing Ferdulf had been more specific.

And then, when Ferdulf was specific, the Fox wished he hadn't been: "There's another imperial army, as big as this one or maybe bigger, heading straight for us. We're going to get smashed like a bug between two rocks."

In remarkably self-possessed tones, Dagref said, "Well, now we know why the imperials who are already here didn't panic when we surrounded them."

"Don't we?" Gerin agreed sourly. Unlike Aragis, the general in command of the Elabonian Empire's newly reinforced forces was capable of real strategy. He'd set out this tempting army here, certain the men of the northlands would leap on it like a starving longtooth. And the men of the northlands had leaped-and now they were going to pay for it.

Ferdulf hovered in front of Gerin's face like the gadfly he was. "What are you going to do?" he screeched. "What are we going to do?"

"We're going to get licked, that's what we're going to do," Van said.

Ferdulf screeched again, this time wordlessly. "He's right, of course," Gerin said, which made Ferdulf screech at him. Ignoring the racket, the Fox went on, "Only question left now is how badly we get licked. Ferdulf, go tell Aragis what you just told me. He's on the right; he'll get hammered harder than my troopers will."

"I don't want to talk to Aragis." Ferdulf stuck out his lower lip. "He's nasty."

"Go talk to Aragis!" Gerin shouted. Ferdulf flew off. Gerin hoped he flew off in obedience rather than in a fit of the sulks, but wouldn't have bet anything he minded losing on it.

"We ought to pull back now," Dagref said.

"I know. But we can't." Gerin grimaced. "If we save ourselves like that, we leave Aragis in the lurch."

"Why shouldn't we?" Dagref asked. "He'd do it to us."

"Mm, I think not, not here," Gerin answered. "If he goes under altogether, or if I do, that leaves the other one to face the whole weight of the Empire by himself. That doesn't strike me as something I want to do."

"Well, maybe," Dagref said grudgingly.

Gerin didn't find out whether Ferdulf told the Archer the second imperial army was on the way. It mattered little. Aragis could not have remained in doubt very much longer. The new cry of "Elabon! Elabon! Elabon!" pierced the rest of the battlefield noise like a knifeblade piercing flesh.

"Elabon! Elabon! Elabon!" The surrounded imperials answered the war cry with one of their own.

As soon as he realized he was trapped rather than trapper, Aragis pulled away from the battle without the slightest concern for what that might do to Gerin. The Fox was less infuriated at finding his prediction wrong than he would have been otherwise, for Aragis was the one stuck between the two imperial forces. Most of the pressure fell on him. Gerin was able to break off his part of the fight without too much trouble.

And then, having broken off, he ordered his troopers forward in one last charge against the imperial force he and Aragis had lately surrounded. That made those imperials turn aside from their assault on the Archer to repel him. Van sighed. "Helping Aragis get loose, are you?"

"See any better ideas?" Gerin asked.

The outlander sighed again. "No, but I wish I did. You're hurting yourself while you're helping him."

"Don't remind me." Gerin stared across the field. Aragis did seem to be pulling back, not being surrounded-the fate he and Gerin and inflicted, though not for long enough, on the first army from south of the High Kirs. Seeing that Aragis' men would not be immediately cut off and destroyed satisfied the Fox that he'd done his duty by his ally. "Now back!" he shouted. "Now we get away."

He didn't know how hard the imperials would press his retreating force. They had the numbers now to press him and Aragis at the same time, if they so chose. The lunge they made after his men turned out to be halfhearted. For one thing, they remained intent on trying to break Aragis, against whom they could bring more warriors to bear than against Gerin. For another, most of Rihwin's horsemen-as many as were able-fell back on Gerin's force rather than on Aragis'. The imperial chariotry had great-perhaps even exaggerated-respect for the riders, whose feints and countercharges looked to intimidate them and keep them from pressing harder than they did.

Rihwin himself rode back to Gerin with an anxious expression on his face. "I pray the wine is safe, lord king," he said.

"It's not the biggest thing on my mind right now," Gerin said, in lieu of getting down from the chariot to find a rock with which to hit Rihwin in the head. "I'm more worried about everything else the supply wagons carried. Most of them were on Aragis' side of the field. Without journeybread and sausage and cheese and whatnot, we're going to have to start foraging all over the countryside if we want to stay alive."

"Wine is also important," Rihwin insisted, "it being our best conduit, as you yourself said, to hope and beg for divine aid from Mavrix."

"Not a good hope," Gerin said, but the comment held enough sense to keep him from again wishing to clout his fellow Fox. He sighed. "All right, Rihwin, have it your way. I hope the wine is safe, too. Now let me get back to running this retreat, if you please."

Rihwin sketched a salute. "Lord king, I obey." His eyes twinkled. "When I feel like it, I obey." He rode off before Gerin could find an answer.

The one thing of which the Fox was glad was that his men still showed fight. That let him conduct the sort of retreat the imperials had made before: a retreat with teeth in it. His lines weren't so neat as the ones the men from the Elabonian Empire had maintained, but they weren't pushing him so hard as he'd pushed them. That evened things out. As the imperials had broken free of his pursuit, so his army broke free of theirs.