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tense minutes, a messenger reported to Krispos.
"We've held 'em, Majesty, looks like. A good many bowmen had to pull out their
sabers before we managed it, though."
"That's why they carry them," Krispos answered.
The imperials shouted his name over and over. They also had another cry, one
calculated to unnerve the
Halogai. "Where's Harvas Black-Robe?" The northerners were not using the
wizard's name as their war cry. When they shouted, they most often called the
name Svenkel.
Krispos learned soon enough who Svenkel was. An enormous Haloga, tall even for
that big breed, swung an axe that would have impressed the imperial headsman.
No one came within its length of him and lived. After he felled a Videssian
with a stroke that caved in the luckless fellow's chest, all the northerners
who saw cried out his name. He had presence as well as strength and warrior's
skill: before he went back to battle, he waved to show he heard the cheers.
"Shall we send one of our champions against him?" Mammianos asked.
"Why risk a champion?" Krispos said. "Enough arrows will take care of him.
Give the archers word to shoot at him till he goes down."
"That's not sporting," Mammianos said with a laugh, "but it's the right way to
go about war. Let's just see how long Svenkel the hero lasts."
But along with being a warrior bold even by Haloga standards, Svenkel the hero
was far from a fool.
When three or four arrows in quick succession pincushioned his shield and
another glanced off his helm, he knew he was a marked man. Instead of drawing
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back among his comrades, as most might have done, he led a wedge of
northerners into the center of the imperial line against his countrymen who
warded
Krispos. They were axemen like himself; when they tried to slay him, he could
strike back.
The imperial guards had seen hard fighting in all the clashes since the
campaign began south of Imbros.
The Halogai who were hale still fought as fiercely as ever, but their ranks
had been thinned. Svenkel's wedge punched deep. If it broke through, it would
cut the imperial army in half.
Krispos drew his saber. He looked at Mammianos. The fat general also had his
sword out. He shrugged.
"Ah, well, your Majesty, sometimes we have to be sporting, whether we want to
or not."
"So we do." Krispos raised his voice and cried, "Videssos!" He spurred
Progress toward the sagging line of guardsmen. Mammianos rode with him. So did
the couriers who had congregated around them.
By then, only a handful of Halogai in imperial service stood in Svenkel's way.
He must have seen victory just ahead. His mouth flew open in a great snarl
when horsemen rode up to aid the guards. Then he realized who led the
makeshift band. In Videssian, he shouted to Krispos: "Leader to leader, then!"
It didn't quite work that way; war was too chaotic a business to conform to
anyone's expectations, even a hero's. Krispos got into the battle a few feet
to Svenkel's right, against a Haloga almost as big as the northern chieftain.
The fellow swung up his axe to chop at Progress. Before he could, Krispos
slashed at his face. He missed, but made the Haloga shift his weight backward
so his own stroke fell short. Krispos slashed again. This time he felt his
blade bite. The Haloga howled and reeled away, clutching a forearm gashed to
the bone.
Seeing Krispos in the fight made his surviving guardsmen redouble their
efforts. Svenkel's men still battled for all they were worth, but could push
forward no farther. The guards threw themselves at Svenkel, one after another.
One after another he beat them back. His strokes never faltered; he might have
been a siege engine himself, powered by twisted cords rather than flesh and
sinew.
As the guardsmen sought to cut down Svenkel, so his warriors went for Krispos.
Krispos fought desperately, trying for nothing more than staying alive. He
knew he was no great master of the soldier's art and was very glad when
Geirrod came up to stand by Progress' right flank and help him beat back the
foe.
Step by step, some of Svenkel's men began to give ground. Others, stubborn
with the peculiar Haloga stubbornness, preferred dying where they stood to
falling back. Die they did, one after another, along with the imperial
guardsmen and Videssian troopers they slew before they went down.
There at the forefront of the fighting, what scholarly chroniclers would later
call a line hardly deserved such a dignified name. It was more like knots of
grunting, cursing, sweating, bleeding men all entangled with one another.
Krispos struck and struck and struck and knew most of his strokes were
useless, either because they clove only air or because they rebounded from
mail. He did not much mind; no one in that crush could have hoped to do
better.
Then he saw a Haloga close by swing up an axe to chop at one of the guardsmen.
He lashed out with his saber. It cut deep into the northerner's wrist. The axe
flew from his hand. The Haloga bellowed in pain and whirled around.
Krispos was startled to see it was Svenkel. Svenkel looked startled, too, but
was neither too startled nor too badly hurt to raise his shield before Krispos
could cut at him again. But that did not save him for long.
Geirrod's axe bit into the shield, once, twice ... on the third blow, the
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round slab of wood split in two.
Geirrod struck once more. Blood sprayed. Svenkel's armor clattered as he fell.
The imperials raised a great cheer. The Halogai still fought ferociously, but
something at last went out of them with their chieftain's death. Now the
fighters in the wedge that had been his drew back more quickly. As they did
so, Geirrod turned to Krispos and said, "Out of the line for you now, Majesty.
You did what was needful; we'll go on from here."
Krispos was not sorry to obey. He'd never been an eager warrior. He'd also
learned that the Emperor, like any other high-ranking officer, usually was
more useful directing the fighting than caught in the thick of it.
He looked round for Mammianos and was relieved to see the general had also got
out of the press. But
Mammianos had not come through unscathed; he bared his teeth in a grimace of
pain as he awkwardly tried to tie a strip of cloth around his right forearm.
The cloth was soaked with red.
"Here, let me help you," Krispos said, sheathing his saber. "I have two free
hands."
"Thank you, your Majesty. Aye, get it good and tight. There, that should do
it." The fat general shook his head. "I'm lucky it's not a bloody stump, I
suppose. Been too long since I last tried trading handstrokes."
"What was it you said? Sometimes we have to be sporting? But trooper's not
your proper trade anymore." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]