Tower of Zanid (20 page)

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 Balhibo scouts retreating before the advance of the Jungava;

Then more waiting; then more Balhibo 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 Balhibu 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 Balhibo 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 whizz 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 that 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 Balhibo foot, but here, had been set upon by one of the bodies of Balhibo 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 Jura 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 Jura Company for a time. The middle of the Balhibo line was hidden in dust and sent 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 ran. 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 re-formed 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 balestiers 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 fiat and stained purplish-brown.

Toward the middle of the line, the noise and dust began to rise again. The soldiers in the line were crowding to look over each other’s shoulders toward something out of sight. Then the crossbowmen were shooting into the murk.

“This way,” said the messenger, wheeling his aya and pointing to a gap in the line.

Kordaq on his aya, the drummer, and the Isidian standard bearer led the company through the line and deployed them to face the foe. At once Fallon saw the “thing.”

It looked like a huge wooden box, the size of a large tent, and it rolled forward slowly on six large wheels, which were however almost entirely hidden by the thick qong-wood sides. On top was a superstructure with a hole in front; and behind the superstructure rose a short length of pipe. As the contraption crept forward at a slow walk, the pipe puffed clouds of mixed smoke and steam—puff-puff-puff-puff.

“By God,” said Fallon, “they’ve got a
tank
!”

“What said you, Master Antane?” asked the Krishnan next to him, and Fallon realized that he had spoken in English.

“Merely a prayer to my Terran deities,” he said. “Hurry, up —straighten out the line.”

“Prepare to fire!” shouted Kordaq.

The tank puff-puffed on, closer and closer. It was not headed for the Juru Company, but for a point in the Balhibo line south of it. Its qong-wood sides bristled with arrows and bolts stuck in the hard wood. Behind it crowded a mass of hostile soldiery. And now, out of the dust, another tank could be seen, farther down the line.

A loud
thump
came from the nearest tank. An iron ball whizzed from the aperture at the front of the superstructure and into the midst of the block of pikemen facing it. There was a stir in the mass. Pikes toppled and men screamed. The whole mass started to flow formlessly back from the line.

The muskets of the Juru Company crashed, spattering the side of the tank with balls. When the smoke had blown away, however, Fallon saw that the tank had not been materially damaged. There was a grinding of gears and the thing backed up a few feet, turning as it did so, and started forward again, continuing to turn until it pointed right toward the company.

“Another volley!” screamed Kordaq.

But then the
thump
came again, and the iron ball streaked in amongst the Juru Company. It struck Kordaq’s aya in the chest, hurling the beast over backwards and sending the captain flying. Then, rebounding, the ball struck the Isidian in the head and killed the eight-legged standard-bearer. The standard fell.

Fallon got in one well-aimed shot at the aperture on the tank, and then looked around to see his company breaking up, crying: “All’s lost!” “We’re fordone!” “Every wight for himself!”

A few more shots were fired wildly, and the Juru Company streamed back through the gap in its own lines. The tank swung its nose toward the line of Balhibo pikemen again.

Thump
! Down went more pikes. And Fallon, as he ran with the rest, had a glimpse of a third tank.

Then he was running in a vast disorganized mass of fugitives—musketeers, pikemen, and crossbowmen all mixed in together, while after them poured the hordes of the invaders. He stumbled over bodies and saw on both sides of him mounted Qaathians ride past him into the mass, hacking right and left with their scimitars. He dropped the musket, for he was practically out of powder and shot; and with the collapse of the Balhibo army he would have no chance to replenish his supply. Here and there, groups of Balhibo cavalry held together and skirmished with the steppe-folk, but the infantry were hopelessly broken.

The press thinned out somewhat as the faster runners drew ahead of the slower and the pursuers tore into the fugitives. Behind and above Fallon’s right shoulder a voice shouted in Qaathian. Fallon looked around and saw one of the fur-hatted fellows sitting on an aya and brandishing a scimitar. Fallon could not understand the sentence but caught the questioning inflection and the words “Qaath” and “Balhib.” Evidently the Qaathian was not sure which army Fallon, lacking a proper uniform, belonged to.

“Three cheers for London!” cried Fallon, and caught the Qaathian’s booted leg and heaved. Out of the saddle went the Krishnan, to land on his fur hat, and into it went Anthony Fallon. He turned his mount’s head northward, at right angles to the general direction of rout and pursuit, and kicked the beast to a gallop.

Four days later, having detoured around the battle zone to the north, Fallon reached Zanid. The Geklan Gate was jammed with Krishnans struggling to get in: runaway soldiers from the Battle of Chos, and country folk seeking the city as a refuge.

The guards at the gate asked Fallon his name and added several searching questions to make him prove himself a true Zanidu even though a non-Krishnan.

“The Juru Company, eh?” said one of them. ” ‘Tis said ye all but won the battle single-handed, hurling back hordes of the steppe-dwellers with the missiles from your guns when they sought to roll up your army’s flank, until the accursed steam-chariots of the foe at long last drave ye from the field.”

“That’s a more truthful description of the battle than I expected to hear,” replied Fallon.

“ ’Tis just like the treacherous barbarians to use so unfair a weapon, against all the principles of civilized warfare.”

Fallon refrained from saying that if the Balhibuma had won, the Qaathians would be making the same complaint about the guns. “What else do you know? Is there any Balhibo army left?”

The second guard made the Krishnan equivalent of a shrug. “ ‘Tis said Chabarian rallied his cavalry and fought a skirmish at Malmaj, but was himself there slain. Know ye aught of where the invaders be? Ever since yester-morn folk have come through babbling that the Jungava are hard upon their heels.”

“I don’t know,” said Fallon. “I came by the northern route and haven’t seen them. Now may I go?”

“Aye—when ye’ve complied with one slight formality. Swear ye allegiance to the Lord Protector of the
Kingdom
of Balhib, the high and mighty Pandr, Chindor er-Qinan?”