Vault of the Ages Page 8

  And Carl needed cheering. The sight of that approaching line of fiercely scowling strangers brought a cold, shaking thrill along his nerves and muscles. His tongue was thick and dry, his eyes blurred, and something beat in his ears. In moments, now, battle would be joined, his first real battle, and that sun, lowering westward behind windy clouds, might never see him alive again.

  The Lann broke into a trot up the hill, keeping their lines as tight as before. A rapid metallic banging began within their square, a gong beating time for their steadily approaching feet, and pipes skirled to urge them on. The red flag of the north flapped on each corner of the formation, bloody against the restless gray heavens. Closer—closer—here they came! Carl fitted an arrow to the string from the full quiver before him. Tom and Owl stood on either side, their own bows strained, waiting for the signal. The Lann were close, terribly close. Carl could see a scar zigzagging across one square, bronzed face—gods, would the horn never blow?

  Hoo-oo-oo!

  At the signal, Carl let his arrow fly. The heavy longbow throbbed in his hand. Over the Dale ranks that storm of whistling, feathered death rose, suddenly darkening the sky—down on the Lann! Carl saw men topple in the square, clawing at the shafts in their bodies, and yanked another arrow forth. Fear was suddenly gone. He felt a vast, chill clearness. He saw tiny things with an unnatural sharp vision, and it was as if everything were slowed to a nightmare’s dragging pace. He saw the wounded and slain Lann fall, saw their comrades behind them trample the bodies underfoot as they stepped into the front ranks—Zip, zip, zip, give it to them!

  “Yaaaah!” Tom was howling as he let fly, his fiery hair blown wild as the lifted banners. Owl fired machine-like, one arrow after the next. Carl had time for a brief wondering as to how he looked, and then the Lann struck.

  Swords and axes were aloft, banging against shields, a sudden clamor of outraged iron. Men yelled, roared, cursed as they struck, shields trembled under blows, pikes thrust out and daggers flashed. Carl saw the lines of Dalesmen reel back under the shock, planting feet in suddenly slippery ground, hammering at faces that rose out of whirling, racketing fury and were lost again in the press of armored bodies. He skipped backward, up the hill, seeking a vantage point from which to shoot.

  Ralph towered above the battle, smiting from his horse at helmeted heads, lifted arms, snarling faces. The animal reared, hoofs striking out, smashing and driving back. A spear thrust against the Chief. He caught it in his left hand, wrenched it loose, and clubbed out savagely while his sword danced on the other side. A Lann soldier rose yelling under the belly of his horse, and Ralph’s spurred heel crashed into his face. Dropping the spear, the Dale chief lifted his horn and blew, long, defiant shrieks that raised answering shouts.

  Backed against a thicket, Carl looked over the confusion that boiled below him. The Dalesmen were holding—the Dalesmen stood firm—oh, thank all gods! A sob caught in his throat. He took aim at a mounted piper in the square, and his bow sang and the man staggered in the saddle with an arrow through his shoulder. Mostly Carl was firing blindly into the thick of a mass that swayed and trampled and roared all along the hill.

  A spear flew viciously close, plowing into the earth beside him. Arrows were dropping here and there, and stones were flying. The Lann had their own shooting men. Carl growled and planted his legs firm in the grass and shot.

  Thunder burst in his head, light flared against a sudden, reeling darkness. He toppled to hands and knees, shaking a head that rang and ached, fighting clear of the night. “Carl! Carl!”

  He looked up into Owl’s anxious face and climbed unsteadily erect, leaning on the younger boy. “Not much,” he mumbled. “Flung stone—my helmet took the blow—” His skull throbbed, but he stooped to pick up his weapons.

  Back and forth the struggle swayed, edged metal whistling against armor and flesh, deep-throated shouts and hoarse gasps and pain-crazed screams, the air grown thick with arrows and rocks. Ralph was not in sight—Carl’s heart stumbled, then he glimpsed his father’s tall form on foot, hewing about him. His horse must have been killed—

  Horse! Where were the Lann horses?

  Carl grew chill as his eyes ranged past the fight, down the hill to the river. Only the empty tents and the empty trees to be seen. What were two thousand mounted devils doing?

  A scream of horns and voices gave him the answer. He looked right and left, and a groan ripped from him. They had come from the woods into which they had slipped. They were charging up the hill and from the side against the Dalesmen’s cavalry. He felt the rising thunder of galloping hoofs, saw lances drop low and riders bend in the saddle, and he yelled as the enemy struck.

  The impact seemed to shiver in his own bones. Lances splintered against shields or went through living bodies. The inexperienced Dalesmen fell from the saddle, driven back against themselves in a sudden, wild whirlpool…. Swords out, flashing, whistling, hacking, rising red!

  The Dale foot soldiers had all they could do to stand off the unending Lann press.

  Meanwhile, their flanks were being driven in, crumpling, horses trampling their own people, warriors speared in the back by lances coming from the rear. Carl fumbled for an arrow, saw that he had used them all, and cursed as he drew his sword and slipped his left arm into the straps of his shield.

  The Lann gongs crashed and the Lann pipes screamed in triumph, urging their men on against a wedge that was suddenly breaking up in confusion. Carl saw one of the guards fall, saw Ralph leap into the vacant saddle, and dimly he heard his father’s roar: “Stand fast! Stand fast!”

  It was too late, groaned the boy’s mind. The Dales men’s host was broken at the wings, forced back against itself by Lann cavalry raging on the flanks and Lann footmen slipping through loosened lines. They were done, and now it was every man for himself.

  A couple of enemy horsemen saw the little knot of archers at the thicket, laid lances in rest, and charged. Carl saw them swelling huge, heard the ground quivering under hoofs, caught a horribly clear glimpse of a stallion’s straining nostrils and the foam at its mouth and the rider’s eyes and teeth white in a darkened, blood-streaked face. He acted without thought, hardly heard himself shouting. “Tom, Owl, get that horse— the legs—”

  His own sword dropped from his fingers. The lance head was aimed at his breast, he skipped aside, and it blazed past him. He sprang, clutching at the reins beyond as he had often done to stop runaways. The shock of his own weight slammed back against his muscles. He set his teeth and clung there, and the horse plunged to a halt. Tom’s knife gleamed by Carl’s feet, hamstringing.

  The horse screamed, and a dim corner of Carl’s mind had time to pity this innocent victim of human madness. Then the Lann warrior was springing lithely from the stirrups, to meet Owl’s spear thrust and fall in a rush of blood. The other horse was running riderless, its master sprawled in the grass with a Dale arrow in him.

  But the Dalesmen were encircled, trapped, fighting desperately in a tightening ring. Lann were among them, cutting, smiting, riding their foes down. Carl and his little band stood by the thicket looking at a scene of horror.

  Light was dimming—gods, was the sun down already?

  Or … had the struggle lasted this long?

  “To me, Dalesmen! To me!”

  Ralph’s deep shout lifted over the clatter and scream of battle. He and the remnants of his guards were gathered around the last Dale banner not fallen to the reddened ground, hewing, driving off the Lann who rushed against them. The Chief winded his horn even as he engaged an enemy horseman, and men lifted weary heads and began to fight a way over to him.

  “Come on!” snapped Carl. “All together! Stick close together! We’ve got to get there!”

  They moved away from the thicket in a tight-packed square, perhaps thirty young archers and slingers with swords out. A detachment of Lann foot soldiers came against them. Carl bent low, holding his shield before his body, peering over the top and thrusting. A man attacked, using his o
wn shield to defend himself. Even in the deepening murk, Carl saw the golden ring in the man’s nose.

  The northern sword clashed against his own steel. He thrust back, hammering at the shield and the helmet, stabbing for the face that grinned at him. He hardly felt the shock of blows on his own metal. Probe— side-swipe—catch his blade on your own, twist it away, straighten your arm and stab for the golden ring—

  The man was gone as the fight shifted. Carl was battling someone else. That was war, a huge confusion where men fought strangers that came out of nowhere and were as mysteriously gone. Now there was a shout on his left; another small group of Dalesmen was joining theirs and the Lann melted away.

  Ralph’s standard flew before them. They came up to him and entered the growing ring of warriors rallying about their Chief. The Lann yelped against that wall of flying steel, dogs attacking a herd of wild bulls. And more Dalesmen made their way over to Ralph, and then more.

  The darkness had grown thick. Carl could hardly see the men he fought except as shadows and a gleam of wet metal. His breath was harsh and heavy in dry throat and laboring breast.

  Ralph’s voice seemed to come from very far away: “All right—now we cut our way free!”

  He rode out of the ring, laying about him from the saddle, and his men stumbled after him. They were drawn close together by instinct and the press of the foe, but in the raging gloom there was little need of skill. You struck and took blows yourself and threw your own weight into the mass that jammed against buckling enemy lines.

  Ralph and a few guards rode up and down the tattered Dale ranks, smiting at the foe, shouting their own men on, holding together and leading them into the woods. When the trees closed about that great weary retreat, men stumbled and groped a way forward in the utter darkness.

  For an instant, wild panic beat in Carl. He wanted to run away, run and run and run forever from this place of slaughter, but he heard his father’s voice, and a tired steadiness came. He thought dully that without Ralph, there would simply have been a stampede, even if the Dalesmen had somehow managed to escape that trap; the Lann could have hunted them down as hounds hunt down a stag. But the Chief had saved them. He had held his beaten army together and—

  Now the fighting had ceased. They fumbled a slow way through brush and trees, down the hill into darkness, but still no Lann confronted them.

  Carl knew that the night had saved them. In this thick gloom, with trees and bushes everywhere to hinder movement, the Dalesmen could have stood off whatever came against them and somehow cut a way to safety. The Lann Chief must have realized this and drawn back. They were free.

  Free and alive! Carl drew a shuddering breath of the damp night air and a slow feeling of wonder grew in him. He could still move. Blood still ran in his veins. A pattern of shadows and vague light still covered his eyes. He lived, he lived, and it was a heady thing to know.

  Weariness and despair came back in a rush. The Dalesmen had escaped with the bulk of their army, yes. But it was a beaten force, streaming home before a victorious enemy, tired and hurt and hopeless. They could not make a stand again. And now the unconquerable Lann would be spilling all over the Dales, with nothing to stop them.

  Ralph’s voice drifted above the rustle of brush and dragging of feet and hoarse gasping breath of men. A roll of names. He was calling the roll of his guardsmen.

  “Ezzef” — “Here.” — “Toom” — “Here.” — “Rodge” — “Still alive, Chief.” — “Jonathan” — Silence. “Jonathan!” — Silence.

  “Where are Torsen and Piggy?”

  “Both killed. I saw Piggy go down myself.”

  Alarm shivered in Ralph’s call. The forest muffled his voice. It sounded strangely dead. “But they were guarding Lenard!”

  “The Lann must’ve got him back then.”

  “Lenard—free again!”

  Chapter 9

  THE BROKEN BAN

  Morning came, chill and gray and hopeless. Men looked wearily about with eyes from which the nightmare of stumbling through dark forest and hills was only slowly lifting.

  The army straggled across the rough Scarpian landscape, men walking in small disordered groups. Thickets and ravines hid many from Carl’s eyes, but he was sure that the bulk of Ralph’s warriors had escaped.

  Only a few were very badly wounded, for the retreating Dalesmen had found no chance to rescue comrades in such plight. But all of them were slashed and battered, stiff with dried blood, clothes hanging ragged and dew-wet on exhausted bodies. Not many horses had been saved, and the most hurt rode these. Even Ralph was afoot now, carrying his own torn flag.

  Carl’s body was one vast, numb ache. His head felt hollow with tiredness, and he staggered a little as he walked. Only now was he becoming really aware of his wounds, a gash across one thigh which Tom had crudely bandaged, a throbbing lump on his head, bruises turning blue and yellow along his arms and breast.

  Swords and forest thorns had ripped his clothes, the blade at his waist was nicked and blunted with use, the bow was gone and the corselet was heavy on his shoulders.

  Owl grinned painfully at his side. One eye was black and swollen, and he seemed to be short a tooth. “So this,” he said, “is the excitement and glory of war! I’ll never believe a ballad singer again.”

  “At least,” said Tom slowly, “we’re all alive—You and Father and Carl here. Give thanks for small blessings.”

  Carl thought of those who were dead. He hadn’t had time yet to search for all his friends, but he knew that many were gone. Dick, the wild and gay, fat, stanch Bucko, soft-voiced Ansy—he’d never see them again in this world. They were sprawled on the red riverbank where the enemy went hallooing past their sightless eyes, and the sun shone and the wind whispered in long grasses and their kinfolk waited weeping, but they didn’t know it.

  Dead—dead and defeated.

  Ralph was striding toward the brow of a tall hill. He walked stiffly, limping and leaning on his flagstaff, his face a mask of dried blood under the battered helmet, but the wide shoulders were unbowed and morning light struck gold from his hair. When he reached the top, he planted the banner and blew his horn.

  Though the cry was feeble, lost in the ringing, echoing reach of hills, the Dalesmen hearkened, and slowly, slowly, they gathered beneath him until their stooped forms hid the dew-glimmering earth. When they were all there, they sat and waited. Ralph’s chiefs, such as lived, joined him, and Carl slipped up to stand by his father. But weariness was too heavy on him, and he sat instead, drawing his knees up under his chin and looking forth over the tired, beaten faces of the tribesmen.

  Ralph spoke, filling his lungs so that most of the army could hear and pass the word along:

  “We haven’t been pursued yet, and I think the Lann would have caught up to us by now if they cared to. So most likely they’re letting us go, not thinking us worth the trouble of another fight.”

  “We aren’t,” said a man, grinning without humor.

  “They’ll learn otherwise!” Ralph folded his arms and looked defiantly around. “We’ve lost a battle, yes, but we haven’t lost the war. Not if we stick together and fight on.”

  “We’re done for, Chief, and you know it.” Another man stood up near the crest of the hill, a gray-haired farmer with a sullen anger in his eyes. “Best we scatter, go to our homes, and flee south while we can.”

  A low mumble went through the close-packed warriors, heads nodded and hands dropped slackly to the grass.

  Ralph lifted his voice to a shout: “That’s coward’s advice, Bilken, and I’d not have looked for that from you.”

  “I lost one son at that battle,” answered the farmer. “Why should I lose the rest—for nothing?”

  “But it’s not for nothing!” cried Ralph. “It’s for our homes and wives and children, for freedom, for our very lives. Where can we go as the trickling remnants of a broken people? Who will receive us? What will we do when the Lann swallow the next tribe, and the next, and the one
after that? Become their slaves? Cut their wood and draw their water and clean their barns? Kneel in the mud when a horseman goes by? Was it for this that our fathers cleared the woods and plowed the land and fought the savages? Has their blood turned to water in our veins?”

  “We can’t fight,” croaked Bilken. “We’ve nothing to fight with.”

  “Yes, we have. We have other weapons. We have other horses. One night’s rest will give us new strength. We have Dalestown, whose walls have never been stormed. We have our bare hands, if need be!” Ralph shook the banner, and its golden field uncurled in the dawn breeze.

  “Are we still the Dalesmen or are we field mice running before a scythe? By all the gods, I’ll fight alone if I must!”

  “They’ll coop us up inside the walls while they burn our homes,” cried a voice.

  “Nonsense! They won’t burn that which they themselves want to take over. And even if they do, what of it? Your homes are lost anyway if you flee. But if we win, there is always more wood and stone for building. There’s always the land.”

  Ralph waved an arm at the hills and trees that stretched to a far blue horizon. “There’s always the land,” he repeated. “Without it, we are nothing— woods-runners, beggars, homeless and hopeless tramps. These are the Dales, and while we hold them we are strong and rich and happy. While we fight for our earth, it will give us of its strength. Dalesmen, free men, will you give away your birthright?”