The Virgin of Zesh & the Tower of Zanid (26 page)

XVIII

The Balhibouu army lay at Chos, a crossroads in western Balhib. Fallon, having the guard, walked slowly around the perimeter of the area assigned to the Civic Guard of Zanid, a musket on his shoulder. The Guard had the extreme northerly position in the encampment. Another regiment occupied the adjacent area, and another beyond that, and so on.

Krishnan military organization was much simpler than Terran, without the elaborate hierarchy of officers or the sharp distinction between officers and non-commissioned officers. Fallon was a squad leader. Above him was Savaich, the tavernkeeper; as senior squad leader of the section, he had limited powers over the whole section. Over Savaich was Captain Kordaq (the title of rank could be as well translated as “Major” or even “Lieutenant Colonel”) who commanded the Juru Company.

Above Kordaq was Lord Chindor who commanded the whole Guard; and above Chindor nobody but Minister Chabarian, who commanded the entire army. The army was theoretically organized in tens—ten-man squads, ten-squad sections or platoons, and so on. In practice, however, the numbers were seldom those of this theoretical desideratum. Thus the Juru Company, with a paper strength of a thousand plus, actually mustered less than two hundred on the battlefield, and it was about an average company. Staff work and supply and medical arrangements were of the simplest.

So far, Fallon and his squad had been adequately, if monotonously, fed. Fallon had not seen a map of the region in which they were travelling; but that mattered little because, as far as one could see in all directions, there was nothing but the gently rolling prairie with its waving cover of plants, something like Terran grasses in appearance, though biologically more like long-stemmed mosses.

From over the horizon a thin pencil of black smoke slanted up into the turquoise sky, where Ghuur’s raiders had burned a village. Such cavalry raids had struck deep into Balhib already. But the Qaathians could not take the walled cities with cavalry alone nor could they build siege engines on the spot, in a land where the only trees were grown from seeds imported and planted and kept alive by frequent watering.

All this Fallon either knew from rumors that he had picked up or surmised from his previous military experience. Now to his ears came the creak of supply wagons, the animal noises of cavalry mounts, the hammering of smiths repairing things, the shrill cries of a tribe of the Gypsylike Gavehona who had attached themselves to the army as camp followers, the popping of muskets, as Kordaq doled out the day’s sparing allowance of target powder and shot. In the six days since they had left Zanid, the Juru Company had acquired a nodding acquaintance with their new weapons. Most of them could now hit a man-sized target at twenty paces.

So far, there had been two killed and five wounded—four gravely—in musket accidents. One’s gun had blown up, as a result either of faulty manufacture or of double-charging. The other had been shot on the target range by a musketeer who failed to notice where he was pointing his piece. All seven casualties had occurred among the Krishnans of the company. The non-Krishnans were more careful, or more accustomed to fire arms.

A spot of dust appeared above the prairie, about where the westward road would be. It grew, and out of it appeared a rider loping along on an aya, having the misfortune to have his dust cloud blown along by the breeze at just his own speed. Fallon saw the fellow gallop into the camp and disappear from sight among the tents. This happened often enough, though sooner or later, he knew, the arrival would bear portentous news.

Well, this seemed to be the occasion, for a trumpet blew, riders galloped hither and yon, and Fallon saw the musketeers come marching back oyer the rise to camp. He, too, walked over to where the Juru Company’s standard rose amid the tents. The troopers of the company were whetting swords, polishing helmets, and pushing oiled rags into their musket barrels.

Just as Fallon arrived, the little drummer—a short-tailed freedman from the forest of Jaega—beat “fall in.” With much clatter and last-minute rummaging for gear, the company slowly pulled itself together. Fallon was almost the first of the third section to arrive in his place.

At last they were all in place—except a couple. Cursing, Kordaq sent Cisasa over to the tents of the Gavehona.

Meanwhile a troop of cavalry galloped westward along the road trailing a rope, to the end of which was attached a rocket-glider, for Chabarian had hired a number of these primitive aircraft and their pilots from Sotaspé for scouting. The craft rose like a kite. When the pilot found an up-draft, he cast off the rope and ignited the first of his rockets which, burning the spores of the yasuvar plant, pushed the craft along.

Then the Juru Company stood and stood. Cisasa returned with the missing men. Krishnans on ayas galloped back and forth bearing messages. Officers, their gilded armor blinding in the bright sun, conferred out of earshot of the troops. Two of the companies of the Zanid Guard were wheeled out of line and marched across the front of the army to reinforce the left wing.

Fallon, leaning boredly on his musket, reflected that things had been different when he had commanded an army and so had had a fair notion of what was happening. He had, so to speak, started at the top and worked his way down in military rank. If he ever again acquired an army of his own, he would try to keep his soldiers better informed.

About him the men yawned, fidgeted, and gossiped: “ ’Tis said the Kamuran has a kind of mechanical bishtar, worked by machinery and sheathed in iron armor . . .” “They say the Jungava have a fleet of flying galley ships which, fanning the air with oars like wings, will hover over us and lapidate us with weighty stones . . .” “I hear Minister Chabarian hath been beheaded for treason!”

Finally, more than an hour after falling in, there came a great blaring of trumpets and banging of gongs and beating of drums, and the army began to move forward. Fallon, tramping through the long moss-grass with the rest, saw that the commanders were getting the array into the shape of a huge crescent with the horns, of which the Zanid Guard was the right-hand tip, pointing westward toward the enemy. The musketeers had been massed at the tips of the crescent, with the more conventional units of pikemen and crossbowmen in between, while behind the crescent Chabarian had placed his cavalry. He had a squadron of bishtars, but kept them well back, for these elephantine beasts were too temperamental to be used rashly and were prone to stampede back through their own army.

When they had marched so that the tents were mere dots against the eastern horizon, they halted and stood again, while the officers straightened out irregularities in the line. There was nothing for Fallon to see except the waving of the moss-grass in the breeze and a glider circling overhead in the greenish-blue sky against the bright-yellow disk of Roqir.

The Juru Company was moved a little to place it atop a rise. Now one could see farther, but all there was to see was the surface of the olive-green plain, rippling like water as the breeze bowed the moss-grass. Fallon guessed the total force as in the neighborhood of thirty thousand.

Now he could see the road, along which more dust clouds appeared. This time whole squadrons of riders were moving along it. Others popped up above the horizon, like little black dots. Fallon inferred from their behavior that they were Balhibou scouts retreating before the advance of the Jungava.

Then more waiting; then more Balhibou riders. And quite suddenly, a pair of riders a few hundred paces away were circling and fighting, their swords flashing like needles in the sun. Fallon could not see clearly what happened, but one fell off his mount and the other galloped away, so the Balhibou must have lost the duel.

And finally the horizon crawled with dots that slowly grew into squadrons of the steppe-dwellers spread out across the plain.

Kordaq said, “Juru Company! Load your pieces! Light your cigars!”

But then the enemy stopped and seemed to be milling around with no clear purpose. A group of them detached themselves from the rest and galloped in a wide sweep that took them past the Juru Company, yelping and loosing arrows as they went, but from such a distance that nearly all the shafts fell short. One glanced with a sharp metallic sound from the helmet of a trooper, but without harm. Fallon could not see them too clearly.

From the left end of the line came a single report of a musket and a cloud of smoke.

“Fool!” cried Kordaq. “Hold your fire, hold your fire!”

Then with a tremendous racket the Qaathian army got into forward motion again. Fallon had a glimpse of a phalanx of spearmen marching down the road toward the center of the Balhibou line, where Kir’s royal guard was posted. The phalanx was no doubt composed of Surians, or Dhaukians, or some other ally, as the Qaathian force was said to be entirely mounted. Other forces, mounted and afoot, could be seen moving hither and thither. Clouds of arrows and bolts filled the intervening air, the snap of the bowstrings and the whiz of the missiles providing a kind of orchestral accompaniment to the rising din of battle.

But the scene became too obscured by dust for Fallon to make much of it from where he stood, besides which the Juru Company would soon have its hands full with its own battle.

A huge force of mounted archers on ayas thundered toward the right tip of the crescent. Kordaq cried, “Are you all loaded, lit, and ready? Prepare to fire. Front rank, kneel!”

The first two ranks raised their muskets, the men of the second aiming over the heads of the first. At the end of the line Kordaq sat on his aya with his sword on high.

Arrows began to swish past. A couple thudded into targets. The approaching cavalry was close enough for Fallon, aiming his musket like the rest, to see the antennae sprouting from their foreheads when Kordaq shrieked, “Give fire!” and lowered his sword.

The muskets went off in a long ragged volley, which completely hid the view in front of the company behind a vast pall of stinking brownish smoke. Fallon heard cries beyond the smoke.

Then the breeze wafted the smoke back over the company and the atmosphere cleared. The great mass of aya-archers was streaming off to the right around the end of the line. Fallon saw several ayas kicking in the moss-grass before the company, and a couple more running with empty saddles. But he could not count the total casualties because the moss-grass hid the fallen riders.

“Third and fourth ranks, step up!” shouted Kordaq.

The third and fourth ranks squeezed forward between the men in front of them, who retired to reload.

From somewhere to the south came the sound of another volley of musketry as the left end of the line let go in its turn, but Fallon could see nothing. Behind the company rose a furious din. Looking back, he saw that a large part of the mounted archers had swept around behind the Balhibou foot, but here had been set upon by one of the bodies of Balhibou cavalry. Kordaq ordered the Osirians and Thothians, who were standing in clumps behind the line of musketeers and leaning on their bills, to form a decent line to protect the company from an attack in the rear.

Meanwhile, another force appeared in front of the Juru Company; this was mounted on the tall shomals (beasts something like humpless camels) and carrying long lances. As they galloped forward the leading ranks again brought up their pieces. Again the crackling volley and the cloud of smoke; and when the smoke had cleared, the shomal riders were nowhere to be seen.

Then nobody bothered the Juru Company for a time. The middle of the Balhibou line was hidden in dust and set up a terrific din as spearmen and archers locked in close combat swayed back and forth over the bodies of the slain and hewed and thrust at one another; the plain shook with charges and countercharges of cavalry. Fallon hoped that Prince Chabarian knew more about what was going on than he did.

Then Kordaq called his company to attention again as a mass of hostile pikemen materialized out of the dust clouds, coming for the Zaniduma at a run. The first musketry volley shook the oncoming spearmen, but the pressure of those behind kept the mass moving forward. The second volley tore great holes in their front rank, but still they came on.

The first two ranks of musketeers were still back loading; the guns of the others had just been emptied. Kordaq ordered the bills forward, and the Osirians and Thothians squeezed through the ranks to the front.

“Charge!” shouted Kordaq.

The Osirians and Thothians advanced down the slope. Behind them the musketeers dropped their muskets, drew their swords, and followed. The sight of all the non-Krishnans seemed to unnerve the pikemen, for they ran off, dropping their pikes and yelling that devils and monsters were after them.

Kordaq called his company back to the hilltop, riding around in circles like an agitated sheep dog and beating with the flat of his sword those of his men who showed a disposition to chase the enemy clear back to Qaath. They reformed on the hilltop, picking up and reloading their muskets. The sight of the corpses that now littered the gentle slope before them seemed to have heartened them.

The day wore on. Kordaq sent an Osirian to fetch water. The company beat off three more cavalry charges from different directions. Fallon surmised that they did not have to hit any opponents to accomplish that; the noise and smoke alone would stampede the ayas and shomals. For a while, the fighting in the center seemed to have died down. Then its pace quickened.

Fallon said, “Captain, what’s the disturbance down toward the center?”

“They’ve been disturbed ever since the first onset . . . But hold—something’s toward! Meseems men of our coat do flee back along the road to home. What can it be, that having so stoutly withstood the shock and struggle so long, they’ve now turned faint of liver?”

A mounted messenger came up and conferred with Lord Chindor, who cantered over to Kordaq, shouting, “Take your gunners across the rear of our host to the center of the line, and speedily! The Jungava have disclosed a strange, portentous thing! This messenger shall guide you!”

Kordaq formed up his company and led them in a quick march out behind the lines and southward across the rear. Here and there were clusters of wounded Krishnans, on whom the army’s handful of surgeons worked as they could get around to them. To the Juru Company’s right stood the units of arbalestiers and pikemen, battered and thinned—the greenish tinge of the Krishnans’ skins hidden under a caking of dust down which drops of sweat eroded serpentine channels. They leaned upon their weapons and panted, or sat on convenient corpses. The moss-grass was trampled flat and stained blue-green.