DW02 Dragon War (21 page)

Pikemen posted by the entrance saluted smartly at his approach. Those inside, he knew, would not. For awaiting him were the chief nobles of the Alliance, gathered to hear from his own lips the plan that justified their faith in him, and in the unorthodox training he was giving their footmen—men who should, as far as the Paronans were concerned, be at home working their farm plots, assuring the harvest and the continued prosperity of the kingdom.

“King Alexis,” Bagsby said with a curt nod. “King Harold; Nobles of the Alliance. I pray you all be seated, and make yourselves at ease.” His curtness was calculated; these men had given him almost absolute power; he wanted them to know that he intended to use it.

Bagsby went to the head of the improvised camp table, and took his seat squarely between the two monarchs. He clapped his hands twice, and servants appeared from outside, bearing wine and delicacies for his unwelcome guests.

“I see you spare no expense in your hospitality,” King Alexis said drily....”

“We would not want to endanger the Alliance by offending any member with a lack of customary courtesy,” Bagsby replied smoothly. “Please refresh yourselves, and then let us get to the business at hand.”

“Yes, let us,” a Paronan lord demanded. “We have done all you ask, and at great expense have allowed you to engage in training exercises that seem to have no possible outcome but disaster on the field,” the man said bluntly. “Now we who are responsible for the welfare of our kingdoms and counties—whom the whole world opposed to Heilesheim looks to for leadership—want to know: what is your plan?”

Shouts of “Hear, hear!” went around the table, and mailed fists banged their approval of the speaker’s words.

Bagsby rose. He waved a hand at a servant, and a large map showing the Elven Preserve, Argolia, and most of southern Parona was spread out on the great table. Bagsby waited a moment for the servants to leave. “No one in or out,” he called to the guards, who closed the flap of the tent entrance. “What is said here stays here—and here alone,” Bagsby said to his guests, eyeing them with his sternest gaze.

“Shown on this map are the current positions of the legions of the Heilesheim forces,” Bagsby began. “Please observe them.”

There was more muttering as the nobles stood, leaned, squinted, and gawked, trying to take in the information spread before them.

“As you can see, there are two full Heilesheim legions in the process of forming just south of the Elven Preserve. These, as Elrond has told us, intend to invade the Preserve itself from the southern end and advance northward.”

“Quite right,” Elrond said. “It is that eventuality that we hope to avoid by this alliance.”

Bagsby nodded. “Here,” he continued, indicating the length of the southern border of Parona with northern Argolia, “are the bulk of the enemy’s legions, six in all, threatening to march into Parona. From Elrond’s intelligence, we know that this threat is mere posturing; Ruprecht has ordered that once the invasion of the Elven Preserve has begun, these troops will shift to the west to overwhelm the flank of the elven line as it retreats north through the woods. The combined army, having defeated the elves, will pursue their remnants north and then emerge, still a combined army, into the southern reaches of Parona.”

“That, we presume, is what this alliance will prevent,” King Alexis said, provoking laughter from the Paronan nobles.

“Your presumption is correct,” Bagsby said in a matter-of-fact tone, “although Elrond’s is not. I intend to fight them here,” Bagsby said, stabbing the map with a short dagger. “Here, one day’s march south of the Parona-Argolia border and one day’s march east of the border between Argolia and the Elven Preserve.”

A ripple of dissent passed through the small crowd of nobles.

“How will you get them there, where they have no intention of going?” one lord asked, a clear tone of derision in his voice. “Do you think they will conveniently march in a mass to the spot where you prefer to offer battle?”

“Yes, I do,” Bagsby said. “Because they will believe it is in their interests to do so. When the Heilesheim Legions first attack the Elven Preserve,” Bagsby continued, “the elves will offer no resistance beyond the show of a small skirmish line across the front. Even this line will rapidly retreat, moving north and east through the forest until it emerges into Argolia. The elven force will then march swiftly to this point, where I will join it with the main army.”

“Thereby,” King Alexis said, “taking in flank the six enemy legions that will be marching west toward the Elven Preserve! That is a good plan, but can our attack succeed with the strange tactics you are teaching our footmen?”

“No,” Bagsby said. “We will not attack. We will stand our ground, allow the enemy to concentrate and turn toward us, and we will fight a defensive battle in very open terrain.”

“Madness!” shouted a Paronan lord, and his cry was taken up universally around the table. Even King Harold, who for reasons of past history had been Bagsby’s strongest supporter, was aghast.

“We will be slaughtered as we were at Clairton,” King Harold cautioned. “We will be outnumbered, nearly three to one or more. Our infantry will never stand against their pikes, and our horses will be outnumbered as well.”

Bagsby motioned with both arms for silence, then ordered it in a booming voice.

“Silence! Hear me out. Do you want this war to go on and on, or do you want it over, decided, once and for all?”

“No one wants the war prolonged,” King Alexis commented, “least of all me. And from what I see of your plan, it will not be prolonged. We will lose it in a day.”

“I think not, Your Majesty,” Bagsby said. “I want the forces of Heilesheim concentrated, in one open place, so that they may be destroyed in one great blow. For I will bring down upon them nothing less than the fire from heaven of old!”

Stunned silence greeted this announcement.

Bagsby folded his arms in front of his chest and waited out the stillness.

At length, King Harold rose to address the lords, who were slowly beginning to whisper to one another and shake their heads in sadness.

“I think I speak for us all,” King Harold said. “Sir John Wolfe, I have been your greatest admirer in this noble company, and I must tell you plainly. The fire from heaven is but a legend from the past—oh, yes, our priests can call down small strikes of flame when it pleases the gods—but the fire from heaven of which you speak was an all-consuming, endless, wrathful magical fire that was said to devour entire counties in a day’s time. Clearly, such a thing does not exist—or if it does, its secret is a magic beyond the ken of any wizard. Even our foe Valdaimon, if he had it, would use it.”

Nods of agreement came from all the assembly.

“Sir John Wolfe, I fear the power we have given you has led you into madness. You are deluded. You cannot have the secret of the legendary fire from heaven.”

A brief scuffle and a call of voices from beyond the tent flap interrupted King Harold’s speech. A guard reluctantly thrust his head in, catching Bagsby’s eye.

“Sir, begging your pardon,” the man began. “There’s an old man out here, some kind of holy man, who insists on seeing the noble lords.”

“Show him in,” Bagsby called.

Mild astonishment gripped the assembled lords as a small, bent, wizened man with wrinkled yellow-brown skin stepped into the room. The little man wore nothing but a simple white linen breechcloth, and leaned for support against a heavy staff.

“I am much thanking you, my goodness. Those men would not let me being in.”

“You are welcome, Ramashoon, Holy Man of the East,” Bagsby called.

“Well,” the little man stated, “I am here to be telling all of you that this man is not crazy,” Ramashoon said, his lilting voice and smiling face spreading bemusement. “Oh, my gracious, no. He says he has found the secret of the fire from heaven. And I am being here to tell you that this is true, for I, Ramashoon the Holy, have seen it with my own eyes, oh my goodness, yes.”

Trial by Fire

RUPRECHT
of Heilesheim sat upright in the saddle of his prancing black charger, his plain white blouse blowing in the gentle breeze of the summer morning, his golden coronet glistening in the early sunlight. Behind him, on a broad plain, were massed two legions of Heilesheim, their ranks now depleted by disease, hunger, and the endless of accidents of war to about ten thousand foot and two thousand mounted, armored men. The infantry was massed in pike block formations, three per legion, while the cavalry stood in two long ranks to the rear. Behind them, but ready to move to the front at an instant’s command, were one hundred wizards of Valdaimon’s League, armed with spells carefully crafted to set ablaze the vast forest that faced the king about a thousand yards to his front.

Culdus was mounted next to the king, on hand to command what he foresaw as a possible disaster. Valdaimon’s plan was sound enough, but there were endless difficulties that weighed this morning on Culdus’s mind. Once the blaze began, how could the infantry advance in its wake? It could take days to march through that scorched earth. And already, the troops selected for the attack were hungry. Despite constant patrolling to the supply lines, Culdus had been unable to prevent the loss of over three thousand wagons in the last thirty days to attacks from Argolian villagers who overwhelmed the supply convoys, burned what they could not loot, and then disappeared back into either the few remaining villages or the small woods that still dotted these southern lands.

“A fine day!” Ruprecht declared. “Is all in readiness?”

“It is, Your Majesty,” replied the dreadful figure of Valdaimon, standing on foot beside Ruprecht’s giant steed. “Your Majesty has but to give the word of command. I would, however, make one small suggestion,” Valdaimon said, staring ahead at the thick forest which held more secrets of magic than even he had amassed in his many lifetimes of effort and study. The thought of the wholesale destruction about to be unleashed on such valuable magic was painful to the old wizard. “An infantry probe,” Valdaimon wheezed. “Let us see where the elves have formed their first line. We can begin the fire from there.”

Ruprecht’s face scrunched up in annoyance. He turned to Culdus, who had listened intently to the old wizard’s words. For once, Valdaimon was daring to give the king good advice, Culdus thought. He had always opposed the notion of simply blasting the woods with magical fire before probing it to learn the enemy’s position, strength, and dispositions.

“Valdaimon’s suggestion is well taken,” Culdus said. “In fact, I had planned to send in a skirmish line first to determine the enemy’s strength. Then,” he added quickly, seeing the young king’s growing displeasure as the pyrotechnics show he had expected was delayed, “we will have a very good idea of how many elves we have destroyed.”

Ruprecht considered. He pictured himself recounting the tale of this day in the great banquet hall of Heilesheim.
And on that day, three thousand of the foul little elves were burned to death in the fiery trap I had prepared,
he heard himself saying. To Culdus he said only, “Very well. But make it quick.”

Culdus nodded, turned, summoned his frontline officers, and spoke a few words of command. Less than a minute later three long, thin, widely spaced lines of infantry began advancing at a slow jog across the open plain toward the edge of the wood. They carried light spears that Culdus had improvised, thinking they might be more useful in the wooded setting; and a few, who had the skill, even carried bows. The men wore light leather padding as their only armor; for skirmishers in a dense wood, freedom and ease of movement was of greater value than weight of armor. Culdus could only wish there had been time and supplies to so equip a whole legion for use in this dubious adventure.

The first line of men, about one hundred strong, reached the edge of the forest and paused only an instant before disappearing into its darkness. The second wave followed them seconds later; the third waited at the edge the forest for a good minute, then slowly advanced after them.

“Well, well, what’s happening?” Ruprecht demanded. “Why isn’t there any noise? Where are the shouts of battle?” The king’s horse pranced back and forth before the massed troops, mirroring its master’s impatience.

“Patience, Your Majesty,” Culdus counseled, a frown crossing his own brow. Where were the sounds of fighting? Surely the elves knew they were coming; it had taken two days to mass the troops, and the camp had been less than two miles from the edge of the Elven Preserve. Not even elves could be blind to so large a force on their very borders!

A trio of runners began to emerge from the wood, hastening back to Culdus to report.

“My lords! Your Majesty!” the first one to approach shouted as he came nearer. “The elves are retreating! They are fleeing at our approach!”

His cry was echoed by the two more distant runners. “Light resistance—a few arrows fired, and then their line broke and fled on the forest floor,” one man called. “No casualties—the enemy is in full flight,” the third reported.

“Ahah!” Ruprecht exclaimed. “Where is the vaunted elven prowess and magic now? You hear, Culdus, they flee at our approach. The whole world trembles at my approach!” The exuberant youth spurred his steed forward, waving a sword in the air as his charger worked up to a gallop. “Forget the fire! Let the whole army advance! After them! After them! Let not one of them escape the sword of Ruprecht!”

“Majesty!” Culdus exclaimed, but the king paid no heed.

Behind the general, in obedience to the king’s command, officers barked orders and the massive formations began a slow advance across the plain.

“Valdaimon!” Culdus cried. “This is dangerous! It could be a trap!”

“Have no fear,” the old wizard croaked back. “My League will be at the rear of the advance. Say the word, and the flames will begin.”

What great luck, Valdaimon thought. The elves are abandoning part of their forest. So long had that wood been enchanted that even the smallest part of it could yield secrets of magical power!

Elrond stood in the branch of a tall tree, his mind half melded with the flowing sap of the giant, green living thing, his eyes partly glazed, his consciousness a jumble of images. He saw a brother elf, crouched in the underbrush, loose an arrow in the direction of the advancing Heilesheim skirmishers. He felt the soft thud of the earth as the man’s body hit the ground. He saw another elf, no weapons on him, high in a faraway treetop, gesturing, and pointing a finger into the distance. A scream came and went as a tiny bullet of magical force claimed yet another Heilesheim life. A body of three elves took careful aim and let loose three arrows, each striking its mark.

Caution, caution,
Elrond’s consciousness breathed to the tree.
Slow them, but do not destroy them—not too quickly, not yet.
And throughout the dense wood, elven warriors felt a sense of peace, security, and safety well up from all the living green things around them, urging them to slow their retreat, slow their firing, minimize the killing.

“We must keep them coming, coming after us,” became the sole thought of a thousand elves, deployed in-depth across a mile-long front of the sacred forest. And so it was that little by little, step by step, the Heilesheim skirmishers advanced, taking light but acceptable losses, inflicting almost none, moving forward at a slow, steady pace.

Even then, Elrond noted, the humans had to slow their advance, lest they get too far forward of the main body of their infantry—great lumbering masses of men encumbered by their huge pikes, who slashed and scarred the plant life and the earth as they stumbled forward, one painful step at a time, through the underbrush and between the great trees. Time and again, the old elf sensed the enemy formations losing their cohesion, and time and again they stopped, regrouped, and stumbled forward a few hundred yards more.

So it had gone for three whole days, as Elrond and his elven warriors lured the Heilesheim legions deeper and deeper into the Elven Preserve. Now, Elrond thought, it was time to begin bending the line back toward the east. Again, the communal thought went out. Throughout that day and into the night, the Heilesheim forces slowly discovered less and less resistance on their left, as the elven line bent back, back to the east, toward the edge of their beloved forest, toward the open plains of Argolia.

Thieves do have their uses, Bagsby mused, as the band of swarthy vagabonds was shown into his tent. Indeed they do! The war effort he was coordinating had involved the entire population of Parona, and all the refugees who could be mustered. Artisans, of course, were in high demand for the manufacture of weapons, armor, and the various other necessities of war. Women were put to work over the camp’s great cooking fires, preparing three meals a day from the endless parade of livestock and produce delivered to the camp for the thirty thousand footmen and five thousand mounted knights of the host of the Alliance. There was no segment of the population unused, Bagsby had realized only days before, except for the thieves. And these he had found good use for as well.

The thieves themselves were only too grateful to be released from their cells in Parona and set loose on the land. A goodly number of them did not return, as Bagsby had expected. But this handful had come back, lured by the promise of easy gold and a full pardon.

“Report!” Bagsby barked to the leader of the small band. The scrawny man stepped forward, his ragged hat in his hands, his small, dark eyes glancing this way and that in the characteristic manner of a thief—always searching for the quickest way out of a place, and anything that wasn’t nailed down.

“Sir...” the man began.

“And know this,” Bagsby interrupted at once. “Your words had better be true, for your reward, your pardon, and even your lives depend upon the truth.”

“Sir,” the man said again, “we went like you said, down to the border with Argolia. Went fast, like you said, took them horses you gave us.”

Bagsby grimaced. The gift of horses to the more than two hundred thieves turned out from Parona’s dungeons had brought more howls of protest from the nobility—and especially from King Alexis. “We rode real fast, fast as them horses could take us,” the man droned on. “Right to the border, like you said.”

“Yes, yes, man, get to the point,” Bagsby said sternly. “We seen them Heilesheim troops there, in Argolia, just like you said we would.”

“How far from the border?” Bagsby asked. This much he knew from his own cavalry scouts, whom he had withdrawn from the area days ago to avoid alarming the Heilesheim legions.

“Real close to the border,” the ingratiating man replied. “Not more than three or four miles at most.”

So far, so good,
Bagsby thought.

“What did you do then?” he demanded.

“Well, sir, we didn’t do nothin’. What I mean is, we hid the horses and blended in—they’s lots of people milling about with them troops.”

“Yes, yes, and what did you see?”

“Looked to me,” the man said, stepping forward and lifting his head slightly, assuming an air of importance, “like they had problems. A lot of them soldiers was taking food from whoever had any, and lots of the civilians was going hungry. They was drilling, too, but they didn’t look very good,” he added.

Culdus has supply problems,
Bagsby thought.
And if the drilling is poor, he’s filling in his ranks with green troops. Very good.

“Then, sir,” the man went on, “we done like you said. We waited until them troops marched off, and we come back here right quick. Left yesterday afternoon and rode all night, got here this morning.”

Bagsby sat forward, his interest piqued.

“What direction, man? What direction did they take?”

“They went west, sir, by my soul they did.”

“You all saw this?” Bagsby demanded.

The crew of thieves nodded to a man, fixing Bagsby with their most sincere looks.

“Very well,” Bagsby said. “Captain of the guard,” he called.

The guard appeared at the tent entrance.

“See that these men are well fed and cared for. And keep them under close arrest until further orders,” Bagsby ordered. There was always the chance they were lying.

The thieves squawking protests were quickly silenced by the troops who took them from the commander’s presence. Bagsby stood, walked over to his map table, and took a last look at his carefully drawn plans. So it begins, he thought, a chill running through his body. So it begins.

George looked out with great pride at the spectacle that stretched below him. The secondary road was narrow and rough going, but the vast procession of the army of the Holy Alliance was making as good a progress as any Heilesheim force ever had. George sat on the ground on the side of a small hill, overlooking the single road that wound its way through the rolling plains. He sucked on a blade of sweet grass as he marveled at the army and his own fate.

In the lead of the great procession, of course, was the contingent of priests. The priests of all the gods of Parona were represented, and there were priests for some of the other gods, too—gods from Argolia and from the conquered duchies, even gods from the cantons in the north. The priests were a pretty sight, George reluctantly admitted. At the fore, they carried the great banner of the combined army of the Holy Alliance—a huge, white square with gold fringe all around it. In the center of the square, a golden dragon flew upward toward a blue field of sky laced with white clouds. Pretty scene, George thought, not like most battle flags. And the priests themselves were colorful—all dressed in their fine and colorful robes. Couldn’t be prettier, although what good they were George couldn’t imagine. They had stayed away from the camp for the most part—except when it was time to get money, and then they’d showed in force. This morning they’d blessed the whole lot. Couldn’t hurt, George guessed.

Next came about a thousand mounted knights, riding out with their high-spirited horses prancing, wanting to increase the slow speed of the advance, their armor clanking as they went along. Knights were necessary for battle, of course, but George had lost little of his antagonism toward the ruling class, and these men on horseback were the symbols of that class.