Harry Turtledove - Fox and Empire

Gerin started shooting at the soldiers and horses of the Elabonian Empire in front of him. One way to reduce the odds his men faced was to kill or disable as many of the imperials as he could. One of his shafts struck the right-hand horse of a team square in the breast. The horse went down. The chariot slewed leftwards, colliding with the car and team next to it. They slewed away in turn. Because the main body of the imperial was so tightly packed, they ran into the team on their left, too: one arrow fouling three chariots, half a dozen horses, and nine men.

"Well shot," Van said, seeing what the Fox had done.

"Thank you." The Fox sounded modest, letting the shot speak for itself. "Come on, men!" he shouted. "Lay into them."

Lay into them the men from the northlands did. The imperials' charge slowed as collisions and casualties took their toll of the cars in the front ranks. The fight became a melee, the sort of struggle in which Gerin's troopers had consistently proved to own the advantage.

Gerin shot an arrow at an imperial officer with a red cloak draped around his shoulders. The fellow was inconsiderate enough to lean to one side at the moment the shaft hissed past him. Gerin cursed. "How in the five hells am I supposed to get rid of the imperials if they keep trying not to get killed?" he demanded of no one in particular.

Dagref, as usual, had an answer: "Pretty rude of them, isn't it, Father? They aren't behaving the way the enemy-whoever the enemy isusually does when the minstrels sing their songs."

"To the five hells with the minstrels, too," Gerin growled. He had a couple of reasons for despising minstrels. First and foremost was that one who had practiced that calling had kidnapped his eldest son fifteen years before. But the way they distorted the truth to fit into what made a good song grated on him, too.

He wondered how the historians who recorded events down in the City of Elabon would mention this clash. To them, of course, he and his followers would be that highly variable creature, the enemyrebels, they'd call the warriors of the northlands, and semibarbarians allied to true barbarians. He knew their style. Being the enemy, he probably wouldn't get any credit from the historians no matter what he did. If he lost, that he was the enemy would be enough to explain a great deal. If he won, they'd chalk it up to guile or trickery, not courage.

As long as he won, he didn't care how they chalked it up. He wondered what sort of guile or trickery he could use to rouse the future historians' ire.

Looking around the crowded field, he didn't see much opportunity for anything of the sort. His men did have some advantage of position, but the imperials had the advantage of numbers. They seemed at least as liable to win as did the men of the northlands.

He sighed. He hadn't wanted this particular battle, not here, not now. He sighed again. Life had given him any number of things he didn' t want. The trick was to get through them as well and as quickly as he could, to have the best chance to return to what he did in fact want.

He shot at that imperial officer again-and missed again, at a range from which he should not have missed. He cursed in disgust. The fellow seemed to lead a charmed life, though Gerin knew of no magic that would keep an arrow from piercing a man if properly aimed.

Arrows would not pierce Ferdulf, but Ferdulf's immunity was not the sort to which an ordinary man could readily aspire. Ferdulf swooped down on the officer from the Elabonian Empire, for all the world like a ill-mannered hawk. He shouted in the officer's ears. He waved hands in front of the officer's face. He flipped up his tunic in front of the driver's face, giving the fellow a charming view of a semidivine backside.

With such distractions, the officer couldn't do much in the way of commanding and the driver couldn't do much in the way of driving. Both men, and the soldier in the car with them, did their best to grab, shoot, or otherwise get rid of Ferdulf. They paid so much attention to him, they didn't notice their chariot was about to collide with another till it did. The officer and the soldier fell out the back of the car. The driver got yanked over the front rail and under the horses' hooves. Ferdulf flitted off to work more mischief elsewhere on the field.

Gerin looked toward the forest in which he'd placed those couple of dozen chariots. He wished he had them in the fight, either bursting from ambush or simply in the line with the rest of his men. The imperials weren't doing anything fancy, but he didn't have enough men to drive them back. That was becoming more and more obvious as the fight wore along. All the imperials had to do was stolidly keep on fighting and odds were he'd lose unless he came up with something spectacular. For the life of him, he had no idea what that might be.

He looked toward the oaks again. He didn't want to send a messenger over there; that was liable to draw the imperials' attention to the wood, which was the last thing he wanted.

A moment later, he changed his mind about that. Truly, the last thing he wanted was to be hacked to bloody pulp in the chariot. A car full of imperials pulled alongside of his. One of them cut at him with a sword. The blade turned slightly, so that the flat thudded against his ribs.

He hissed in pain anyhow, and snatched out his own sword. He and the imperial traded strokes till their chariots pulled apart from each other. He thought he would have beaten the fellow had they fought longer; being left-handed, he hadn't had to bring the sword across his body as they battled. But what might have been didn't matter. The truth was, the trooper remained alive and hale to fight someone else.

Gerin wondered how hale he was himself. Breathing hurt but didn't stab, so he doubted he'd broken ribs. He could go on fighting. He laughed, which also hurt. Even if he had broken ribs, he had to go on fighting.

Dagref snapped his whip at one of the horses harnessed to another imperial chariot drawing near. The horse screamed and reared and flinched aside, despite the driver's best effort to force an attack.

"You are getting good with that thing," Van said in admiring tones, and then half spoiled the compliment by adding, "You must have got the practice flaying the hide off folk with your tongue."

"I haven't the faintest notion what you're talking about," Dagref replied with more dignity than a stripling had any business owning.

"I know, lad," Van said. "That's the trouble." Dagref's dignity, this time, consisted of pretending he hadn't heard. He didn't bring that off quite so well as he had the dispassionate answer.

More seriously, Gerin said, "Maybe you ought to start practicing with a longer lash than most drivers carry, son. You're better with it than most, that seems plain, so you ought to get as much advantage from it as you can."

"Now that's not a bad idea, Father," Dagref said. "I've had the same thought myself, as a matter of fact."

Had he? Gerin studied his back, which was remarkably uncommunicative. Maybe he had. One thing Dagref was never short on was ideas. He seldom lied, either, unless he found an immediately expedient reason for doing so. The Fox couldn't see one here.

He also couldn't see anything that looked like victory-certainly not for his side. The soldiers of the Elabonian Empire kept on fighting, no matter what he did to them. Every once in a while, in fist fights, Gerin had seen a man whom no blow would put down. Sooner or later, even if that kind of fellow wasn't a particularly good fighter, he would win by wearing down his foe.

That, he thought worriedly, was what he faced here. He was hurting the imperials worse than they were hurting him-he could see that much. The trouble was, they could afford it better than he could. Their captain had brought more men to the battle than he'd thought at first, and he'd known from the beginning he was outnumbered.