The Tyrant

Chapter 24

Two days later, Helga had no trouble at all to keep from giggling.

"The gods save us," she muttered. From the top of the wagon where she was perched, she had a perfect view of the Confederate army. Tomsien might not have had her father's flair for war, but he was an experienced and capable field commander. Even with a force as gigantic as this one, his Vanbert regulars were spreading out in the valley and taking up their positions smoothly and easily. It was more like watching a machine than men.

She turned her head toward Jessep, standing next to her. The ex-soldier looked as tight-faced as she suspected she did.

"Never seen it from this vantage point before," said Yunkers softly. "Been in the middle of it, of course. Which, I can tell you, always gives a soldier a solid sort of feeling."

Grimly, he watched the Confederate army continue its evolution. "From this perspective, though, it's downright scary. If your man's scheme doesn't work the way he thinks it will…"

He left the rest unsaid. Confederate armies were almost always harsh toward defeated opponents, even civilized ones like the Emeralds. Toward barbarians-especially ones who had plundered the southern provinces as savagely as these had just done-they would be utterly merciless.

Granted, the infantry itself wouldn't be able to butcher those who managed to flee the immediate area of the battle before being swept up. Confederate regulars would maintain their disciplined formations at all times, and, in the nature of things, a single man-especially if he's mounted-can outrun a hundred moving together.

But that was one of the principal reasons the Confederacy employed auxiliary troops. Cavalry, mostly, the bulk of them from the Southron tribes themselves. Vanbert military tradition didn't consider cavalry of much use in an actual battle. Confederate generals used their cavalry for scouting, skirmishing-and to pursue and butcher a routed foe. Which task their auxiliaries handled splendidly, and the fact that they would be butchering other Southron barbarians wouldn't bother them in the least.

Helga started to make some sour comment about savages and their innate disloyalty, but her own innate honesty kept the words from being spoken. If push came to shove after all, Jessep and his own men were quite prepared to kill other Confederates in this battle.

She eyed him sidelong, for a moment. Then, abruptly: "Does it bother you? Being on this side, I mean."

He shrugged. "Can't say it pleases me any. But… 'bothers' me? No, lass."

He turned away from the sight of the coming army and faced her squarely. Jessep's face seemed blockier than usual.

"There isn't much of 'loyalty' left, in a man who's served twenty-five years in the regiments. Except, maybe, loyalty to such men as led you well, in battle, and saw to your retirement if you survived. Like your father, first and foremost."

Yunkers waved his hand toward the cluster of wagons at the very center of the laager, where Adrian and Prelotta had set up the compound which served as their field headquarters. From the center of it rose a twenty-foot-tall watchtower, hastily but solidly built from lashed-together logs. "I don't work for your boyfriend, girl, or his half-tame savages. I work for your father. Same's true for my boys. Verice Demansk sent us down here, and told us to do whatever you wanted. For them, as me, that's good enough."

He glanced back at Tomsien's huge force, which was now beginning its march across the valley. "Little the Confederacy ever did for me and mine, when all is said and done."

Helga couldn't keep from smiling. "Whatever I wanted, is it? Then why-"

Jessep snorted. "He was quite precise on that matter, girl, however loose he may have been otherwise. 'Just make sure you keep the hoyden out of any fighting herself.' Speaking of which-"

He looked down into the laager. Helga's personal bodyguard Lortz was standing not far away, staring up at Jessep and his charge perched on the wagon.

"Speaking of which, Lortz is looking none too happy. They'll be within javelin range before much longer, and the field artillery will start up even sooner. It's time you got down from here, girl, and went back to your Adrian. And stay in the center compound, dammit."

"As if I'll have much choice," she grumbled. "You and the hundred will be there right alongside me. The biggest-and certainly the grumpiest-governess I ever had."

But it was just a token protest. Helga took one last look at the endless files and neat formations of the coming Confederacy, and discovered that she really wasn't at all keen to meet them personally. Those locked shields looked impenetrable, and the assegais, sharp. She scrambled off the wagon in quite a sprightly manner, truth be told.

Once on the ground, though, she took the time to peek into the interior of the wagon through one of the gunports on the inner side. She could see into it quite easily, since the gunport was being unused. The Reedbottom warriors within the wagon were all clustered on the other side, facing the enemy.

She could see all fourteen of them. Two were at each of the five gunports, one of them with an arquebus already poking through and his partner with two more ready. Toward Helga's side of the wagon, the remaining four men of the crew had still more guns loaded and were ready to begin cleaning and reloading the used ones.

It was an impressive bit of organization in its own right, Helga had to admit. The more so since she knew this same scene would be repeated over and again, identically, in every one of the four hundred or so wagons which formed the perimeter of the laager. Before she'd come down here, she wouldn't have thought Southron barbarians could even count as high as fourteen-much less maintain that same number, repeatedly, as well as Vanberts maintained their own allotted forces.

In truth, most of the tribes couldn't have managed it. But the Reedbottoms had three advantages. First, they were farmers rather than herders. Reedbottom villagers were accustomed to working together throughout the year in the fields, not just during the periodic great hunts. Second, their own style of fighting, adapted to their marshy lowlands, favored heavily armored warriors wielding axes and flails in close formation. As close, at least, as those weapons permitted. Out on the open plains, the other tribes could savage them with swirling cavalry tactics and mounted missile fire. But whenever someone had to meet the Reedbottoms on their own terrain, it was another story.

Third, there was Prelotta. The Reedbottom chief was charismatic enough that he'd been able to impose a degree of discipline on his tribesmen which was unusual for barbarians. Charismatic enough-and, when necessary, brutal enough.

A fourth advantage, too, now that she thought about it. Peeking through the gunport, Helga saw that four of the crew-judging from what she could see of their tattoos and hairstyles-came from other tribes. Life was brutal for the nomads. Their incessant feuds and blood vendettas constantly shredded people from their own tribes. Whether declared official "outlaws" or simply on the run from victorious clan enemies, hundreds of them could be found roaming loose at any time in the southern half of the continent, taking what livestock they could salvage and desperately trying to find shelter somewhere.

The Reedbottoms were one of the traditional "shelters." Had been for centuries. As distasteful as their lifestyle might be to most Southrons, there had always been enough refugees trickling into the lowlands to have steadily increased the size of the "Nephew of Assan." To the point where, now, the Reedbottoms were certainly as numerous as their Grayhills rivals.

She stepped back from the gunport and examined the wagon as a whole. Then, slowly turning her head, surveyed as much of the laager as she could see. Which was all of it, except for the part obscured behind the central compound-and, of course, those parts obscured behind the masses of mounted Southron warriors from other tribes. Just as Adrian had predicted, fragments of the other tribes had come scampering to the Reedbottoms for shelter.

Chief of Chiefs Norrys himself was here, she'd heard, brought there by Adrian's brother Esmond and his own still-large force of warriors.

She scanned the area, trying to spot Esmond. She couldn't see him, but she assumed that the largest group of mounted warriors toward the eastern side of the laager-maybe a thousand in all-was where he was located. Esmond had distinguished himself in the fighting which had taken place since the breach of the Wall, by all accounts. Although Helga wondered, sarcastically, how a man "distinguishes" himself in slaughter and rapine.

But… perhaps she was being unfair. She'd never liked Esmond, even before his rupture with Adrian. There had been some fighting, after all, against sizeable Confederate garrison units in the southern provinces. From what she'd heard, Esmond had usually played the leading role in breaking those units.

He'd even, according to rumor, managed to hold off Tomsien's huge army long enough to rescue Norrys and keep the badly-wounded Chief of Chiefs from falling into Confederate hands. That had been the one and only major encounter so far between the Southrons and Tomsien-Norrys must have been seized by delusions of grandeur-and Esmond seemed to have been the one barbarian warleader who came out of the fiasco with his reputation enhanced.

The wagons which made up the laager were huge-sixteen feet long and six feet across, with a covered roof about six feet from the floor. They were drawn on wheels to match-great clumsy things, which protruded beyond the sides of the wagons themselves because they were four feet in diameter and couldn't have cleared otherwise. The wagons were not much more than two feet off the ground.

Helga couldn't really see the ground itself, under the wagons. Once the laager was locked into position, heavy wooden shields had been lowered to prevent any enemies from crawling under the wagons. Similar shields, except taller, had been fitted into the interstices between the wagons. Like the walls of the wagons, those shields had loopholes through which guns could be fired.

In this case, guns in the hands of Adrian's own Fighting Band. The long two-man arquebuses which they favored wouldn't have fit inside the wagons. The Reedbottom gunners were armed with the crudest possible firearms, the kind which Prelotta's own blacksmiths and helpers could produce once Adrian and his experienced gunmakers showed them the trick of it. Short-barreled, with big bores-something Adrian called". 75 caliber." The weapons were incredibly inaccurate, beyond close range. But they had been designed for close-range fighting, after all, and Helga knew that if those heavy bullets did hit a man they would hammer him down. The shields used by Confederate regulars, so effective at deflecting javelins and arrows and slung stones, would be useless.

Helga shook her head, a bit ruefully. Emerald scholar or not, in his own bizarre manner Adrian had devised a method of warfare which amounted to a moving version of the Confederate army camps which had kept Vanbert's enemies at bay for centuries.

And bizarre it was, too. Adrian claimed this tactic had first been used on a planet called "Earth" somewhere back even before the times of the legends. By somebody with the peculiar name of Jan Zizka, and the Hussites. Then, of course, he'd had to explain to her what a "planet" really was. She remained skeptical. Or, perhaps, it was simply that she had fond memories of Ion Jeschonyk. It had been he, on one of his visits to her father's estate, who'd explained to Helga at the age of eight that "planets" were really the spirits of the gods. Had to be. They moved, didn't they, unlike all the other stars?

Helga also wondered how these "Hussites" would have moved their wagons. The Reedbottoms only managed it because they were one of the few tribes which had domesticated the enormous animals called "tuskbeasts." Helga had heard of them, of course, but never seen one until she came to the southern half of the continent. They reminded her of giant pigs, more than anything.

Placid enough brutes, though, at least usually. The Reedbottoms used them extensively in their agriculture. Tuskbeasts were even slower moving than greatbeasts, but with their size and strength they could dredge fields and create dykes where a smaller animal would be overmatched.

She could hear the tuskbeasts making their peculiar snorting sounds, over in the corrals which Prelotta had erected in the middle of the laager. They had been herded there after pulling the wagons into place, along with the greatbeasts which had been plundered from the countryside. Separate corrals hadn't been needed, as they would have been for velipads. Greatbeasts were cantankerous brutes, given to extreme territoriality. But not even an old bull was going to pester a tuskbeast.

"It's time to go, ma'am," urged Lortz. "Past time."

Helga didn't argue the point. Following her guard, Jessep at her side, she trotted toward the central compound several hundred yards away.

She heard a peculiar sound behind her, and started to turn around. But Jessep's firm hand on her shoulder kept her moving steadily forward.

"That's a bolt from a ballista, girl. And-trust me-this is as close as you want to hear it. Too close." A moment later: "It's starting, may the gods look kindly upon us. Though I can't think of any reason they would."

Neither could Helga. She began walking more quickly.

A new sound now, a thud. Several. She had no trouble this time figuring out what it was. That was the sound of a spear driving into wood. A very big spear.

She broke into a trot.

"Good girl," approved Jessep.