The Hordes of Chanakra (Knights of Aerioch) (19 page)

With the battle over Kreg began to feel the fatigue.  His shoulder ached from swinging the sword.  A stinging pain in his right leg caused him to glance down.  A short, deep gash welled blood.  Already half-dried blood coated the outside of his leg.  He had been struck all unknowing.

“Oh.  I’m bleeding.” He did not know how long he sat unmoving on his horse, too tired to even think about the wound.

"Kreg," Kaila's voice came from behind him.  He turned to face her.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I am well," she said. "The King wishes to see you."

"Right away." Kreg swung off the horse.  His right leg buckled as he put weight on it causing him to clutch at the saddle for support.

Kaila appeared at his side instantly, a supporting arm under his shoulders. "Are you well?"

More carefully, Kreg shifted his weight to his right leg.  He disengaged his left foot from the stirrup. "I'm okay.  I just got clipped a little."

"You are wounded?" Kaila's eyes widened in concern.  In a firm voice, she said, "We must tend to it at once."

"But the King..."

"...Will understand the delay."

Kaila helped Kreg to a nearby campfire.  Kreg gasped as the chill night air hit the back of his neck when she took his helmet.  The iron skullcap and padded hat went next, freeing his sweat-soaked hair to flop into his face.  With deft fingers, she unbuckled the breastplate and set it aside.

A few moments' tugging pulled Kreg's mail shirt and padded undertunic over his head.  Finally, Kaila helped Kreg to peel off his blood-soaked trousers, leaving him clad only in a breechclout.  His now bare skin revealed several large marks, an angry red-purple, where swords had struck but not penetrated his mail.

Kreg grinned wryly as movement irritated tender tissues. "I'm going to ache tomorrow."

"Shillond has given me some herbs," Kaila said, "and schooled me in their use."

Kaila summoned a page and had him fetch a flask of strong liquor and some cloth strips.  When they arrived, she poured the liquor into and around the gash on Kreg's leg.

"Ow," Kreg said.

From a small, leather pouch Kaila took a pinch of dry, red leaves.  These she crumbled and sprinkled over the cut.  She folded several of the cloth strips together into a pad, which she placed over the cut.  The remainder she wrapped around Kreg's thigh, securing the pad in place.

"I am not my father," Kaila said. "I have not his magic.  The wound will be some days healing and will leave a scar, methinks."

Kreg shrugged. "It could be worse."

#

With a new tunic and trousers Kreg was able to limp to the King's tent.

"Kreg, Kaila," Marek greeted them with an enthusiastic hug that made Kreg wince. "I received word of your delay." He looked Kreg up and down. "You are well, I trust?"

"Well enough," Kreg said. "A little sore, but that will pass."

"Come." Marek motioned them to join him and Bryon at a map table. "We have plans to make."

"We have won a great victory," Bryon said. "Due, in good part, to your plan, Kreg."

"Indeed," Kaila said. "We have visited great slaughter among our foes yet our own losses were light."

"Fair's fair." Kreg shrugged. "Edward III of my world deserves the credit, not me."

"As may be," Marek said. "We must turn to the matter at hand."

He gestured at the map. "We know not how many of the enemy remain, thus I have ordered the army to camp in battle order lest we be surprised in the night.  We must yet plan what to do on the morrow."

"Can we not hold the line here?" Bryon asked.

"I think not." Marek pointed to where the map showed a gap in the forest north of them. "If Schah retains any great army, they may pass us by and either fall upon our rear or strike into the heart of Aerioch while we but chase them."

"Strike back!" Kaila said. "We have crushed their army.  Now is the time to carry the fight to Schah." She indicated the Topaz hills. "There be a pass here, not more than a week's march away.  We may be through and fall upon them before they know what we are about."

"Kreg?" Marek looked at him. "What say you?"

Kreg studied the map for a moment. "I think I'd wonder what would happen to your army so far from home when the Chanakran wizards conjure up more men.  And what if they conjure them back here, not down in Schah with your army?  Remember that village--all the animals taken?  I think those animals, and many others, were taken just to become the army that besieged Elam."

Kaila stared at Kreg, her expression one of astonishment.  She turned to Marek. "Majesty, I spoke foolishly."

"So." Marek leaned on the table as he stared at the map. "We cannot hold, neither can we advance.  There is naught for it but to retreat."

"Are we to return in shame then?" Bryon stared at Kreg although he spoke to the King. "When we march into Norveth, what shall we say?  That we won a great victory but fled before a defeated enemy?"

Marek continued to study the map while Bryon spoke. "Nay, for we march not to Norveth.  I see now our course."

"Majesty?" Kaila leaned over to study the map with him.  Kreg and Bryon joined them.

"Aye.  See here, the Black Mountains." Marek indicated a range of mountains that ran north from where the Amber Mountains met the Topaz hills. "There is only one pass that an army might cross." His finger moved northward, skipping a range of low hills before coming to rest on a forest. "The Greenwood also is ill suited to an army's march." He lifted his finger and stabbed it down onto the hills he had skipped. "We move the army here."

A glitter of understanding formed in Kreg's head. "Beautiful."

"I understand not," Bryon said.

"Kaila?" Marek looked at her.

"Majesty," she said, "methinks I understand, but..."

"Very well." Marek nodded. "We will send a few score archers and a small body of cavalry to hold the pass.  More archers will make the Greenwood an unwelcome place for our foes.  Thus, if they would attack at all, they will attack here." Again his finger stabbed down. "We will bring them to battle on ground of our own choosing.  And we need not have concern for our rear."

He looked up to meet their eyes. "Thus shall the heartland of Aerioch remain secure."

"Aye." Kaila ran her finger along the proposed defensive line. "It is a plan well thought on." She stared at the map and shook her head, then whispered softly, "Well thought on."

"But it is still retreat." Bryon shook his head.

"We move on the morrow?" Kaila asked.

"Nay," Marek stood up straight. "We have marched long these past days and fought hard.  It if proves that we are no longer beset by foes we will withdraw one mile and there rest.  If we yet face foes, we will withdraw to the Black mountains.  We risk being flanked to the north, but it seems me that the risk is slight.  Once in the pass we will leave a rearguard and withdraw to rest."

He turned and leaned in Kaila's direction, "And, Kaila, as soon as we have seen to the security of the heartland, we will bend all our effort to the reconquest of Zantor.  I swear it."

Kaila nodded but said nothing.

#

When Kreg woke the next morning, his right arm did not want to move.  He was still trying to massage life into it when Kaila called him.

Limping only slightly from his wound, Kreg strode over to where Kaila was staring out over the site of the previous day's battle.

Corpses littered the battlefield.  Few, Kreg guessed about one in twenty, were human.  The rest were the bodies of animals, animals of every conceivable kind, ranging in size from chipmunks to oxen.

"It is like we found in Schah," Kaila said. "With the rising of the sun, they regain their natural form."

"Looks like we killed an awful lot," Kreg said.

"Aye." Kaila indicated the troops who were preparing to move. "The King believes that few escaped the sword so we withdraw from this place of slaughter."

"Best news I've heard yet."

The army needed several hours to prepare to march.  Comparatively, the single mile they withdrew took scarcely any time at all.  They established a new camp and set out scouts and foraging parties.

As they settled into the new camp, Kaila, Kreg, Bryon, and a young man who Kreg assumed was Bryon's squire, joined King Marek in his tent.

Marek wore no armor.  Instead, he wore flowing purple robes; on his brow set a gold circlet; about his waist he had belted a sword, not the sword he had worn to battle.  This one had the hilts wrapped in gold wire and set with precious stones.

In a loose semicircle behind the King stood the pages who had been his messengers the day before.  Bertan smiled at Kreg.

Suddenly, Kaila grabbed Kreg's right arm while Bryon snagged his left and they force-marched him to just beyond arm's reach from Marek.

"Yesterday," Marek began slowly, "we fought a great battle.  Our losses were light, but we mourn them nonetheless.  On our enemies we did visit great destruction.  For this victory, we must thank Kreg who came to us from another world and has taught us a manner of fighting never before seen." His voice boomed. "Kneel!"

Kaila and Bryon's hands on Kreg's shoulders left him no choice but to comply.

Marek drew his sword.  Its blade gleamed, not with the silver of polished steel, but with the red-brown hue of bronze. "This sword was once worn by Móanek, the mightiest hero of legend, until he was struck down by treachery.  When it was returned to me, I vowed that never more would it see battle.  Instead, it has become my symbol, used in ceremony and to dispense justice."

With the flat of the sword, he struck Kreg on both shoulders. "I dub thee Knight.  Rise, Sir Kreg."

Kreg, mouth agape, rose to his feet.

Kaila clasped his forearm. "Welcome," she said. "Right glad am I to call you friend."

"I don't know what to say." Kreg returned the grip. "Except, thank you."

"The King does you great honor," Bryon said. "Few there are that he has knighted with his own hand."

"I just hope I'm worthy of the honor," Kreg said.

"Courage and honor and a keen mind will tell," Marek said. "You have done Aerioch a great service.  How could I not do you service in return?"

#

Aside from small groups taking short shifts at sentry duty, the army rested.  At Kreg's request, Kaila had hung a grain sack stuffed with grass from a tree branch.  It would serve as a tilting dummy.

"You've taught me to use a sword pretty well," Kreg said, "but I learned yesterday that I need to learn how to use a lance."

"I have been told," Kaila checked the girths on her saddle, "that you acquitted yourself well."

Kreg mounted his horse. "I dropped my lance and didn’t hit anything but the ground."

Neither wore armor as Kreg's instruction was to be solely against the makeshift dummy.  Later, he would use padded lances against live targets--much later.

"Here, Sir Kreg," Bertan handed him his lance.  Marek had relieved Bertan of duties that afternoon so that he could assist Kreg and Kaila.

"Still honing for that position with Kaila?" Kreg whispered to him.

Bertan grinned sheepishly.

"Bertan!" Kaila vaulted into her saddle. "swing the dummy."

Bertan ran to the dummy.  He pulled it back and let go.  The dummy swung back and forth on its tether.

"Attend," Kaila said.  She spurred her horse into a canter.  She held her lance well forward along the shaft with the butt gripped under her right arm.  Her left, she cocked as though holding a shield.  The lance passed alongside the left side of the horse's neck.  She swerved and spurred the horse to a gallop, straight at the dummy.  The lance struck home.

Kaila reigned in her horse. "Now you."

Bertan stopped the spinning dummy and set it swinging again.

Kreg rode at the dummy.  The tip of his lance swayed as he tried to follow the dummy's movement.  He ended by missing and striking the bole of the tree.  The impact lifted Kreg from the saddle and deposited him on the ground.

"Strike one," he said as he picked himself up and dusted himself off.

"Seek not to follow the motion." Kaila rode over to him. "Watch.  Feel what it will do.  Then, at the last instant, aim your lance in one motion."

Kreg tried again.  His lance just nicked the dummy as his horse galloped past.

"Strike two," he said.

"Better," Kaila said. "You hold the lance too tightly.  You must float the lance to the target, then, at the moment of impact, grip with all the strength in your body."

Kreg tried yet again.  This time he struck the dummy squarely.

The impact caught him by surprise." Kreg reeled over backward, barely retaining his seat while the lance flew from his hand.

Kaila sighed.

#

By the time evening approached, Kreg was hitting the dummy with some consistency, and retaining a solid seat almost as consistently.  Finally, it grew too dark to continue.