The Chronicles: Notomol Ch. 07

- "Are you sure?" asked Cloudy-Eye.

- "I can tell the diff'rence." said the old forester, a little petulantly.

- "Even better. How are they placed, Yadha?" asked Notomol.

- "Three soldiers an' a teamster on every wagon. The first six or seven drivers look to be Iz'myrian. The rest look to be Hvadi. Oxen, mostly, but big horses on some o' the lighter carts. Ten riders up front, ten at the rear. The others're along the way. Ten foot up front, ten at the back, twenty in the middle."

- "Excellent work." said Notomol.

Then he took a long, slow look at each of us in turn. I felt his eye upon me, and saw the ghost of a smile on his lips.

"You all know what you're about. You know what has to be done. Good luck to you all."

With that, men and women moved off to their assigned positions. Notomol found a moment to exchange a word, or a little encouragement, with almost all of us.

He took my arm, and pulled me close. "Be careful. I need you after today." he whispered.

My little party consisted of Olari, Inita, and two of the newer men, Ale and Sask. They'd looked at me a little oddly when Notomol explained that I would be leading them. It might have been my size, or perhaps my youth that made them wonder. But when Olari and Inita didn't make a fuss, Ale and Sask seemed to accept it.

Cinna had another group of 4 archers. They would be operating on the other side of the path from us.

The area Notomol had chosen was known as the Norwood. The main road from Hvad town (a glorified path, really) climbed a little as it entered Stonje. Then it wound around as it passed between low cliffs of shale rock. Quite a bit of the shale was loose, and crumbling.

Just behind the low cliffs were forests of birch, white spruce, and tamarack. The trees provided excellent cover for us. They also made it extremely difficult for vehicles as large as a wagon to leave the path.

The Norwood stretched for several leagues. It was far from the Hospodars' steadings, and just about ideal for our purposes.

My group lay hidden in the trees as the head of the relief column approached. Ten riders, on those massive horses, followed by ten men on foot. Then came the first of the wagons, drawn by oxen. Just as Yadha had said, there were three soldiers aboard, in addition to the teamster. One sat beside the driver, while two more rode in the wagon bed, sitting atop sacks of grain.

My mouth began to water, just a little.

Our task, for now, was to lie still and quiet while the soldiers and wagons passed us by. The others kept their heads low while I counted, and occasionally whispered to them. Yadha must have lost count somewhere along the line; I only counted forty wagons.

But there were an awful lot of Izumyrians. It took quite a long time for their extended column to pass by, because the wagons could only travel in single file.

Finally, we could see the tail of the enemy column, and the last of their wagons. Behind that, I caught sight of the rearguard, just as Yadha had described them: ten infantry, followed by ten riders. I alerted my little crew, and they all took up positions nearby.

There was a shout, from further up the trail. Then another, and a third.

That was our signal. Notomol had expected the entire Izumyrian convoy to be inside the Norwood, but there were still four wagons that had yet to climb the slope and pass our position atop the shale cliff.

It couldn't be helped. Better to strike a moment early, I thought, than to be too late. I drew back on my bowstring, and let fly. So did Olari, Inita, Ale and Sask. Four of our five arrows struck the target: the ox on the right side of the yoke, pulling the wagon directly opposite us. The stricken animal fell heavily, pulling the cart to the side. The second ox, its partner in harness, bellowed as it was dragged off balance.

Cinna's group opened fire from the opposite side of the path.

The Izumyrian response was exactly as Notomol had predicted. Officers shouted. The soldiers aboard the wagons leapt to the ground, and raised their shields. The infantry from the rearguard ran forward, getting in the way of the horsemen.

My little group of archers shifted targets, to the next wagon in front. This time, we were shooting at horses. All five of our arrows hit home. A second volley, aimed at the lead horse on our side, only made matters worse.

Just as Notomol had planned, two wagons were completely immobilized, their teams dead or seriously injured - the latter result was probably worse for the soldiers, because no one wanted to approach a wounded horse, thrashing about in its restricting harness.

I gave the signal, and we moved up the path a little more - to repeat our tactics on the next team of oxen. Yes, I suppose it was cruel. But we immobilized four wagons on the Norwood trail. It would take some time before the Izumyrians could restore order, much less move those wagons. That meant that the supply column could not simply turn around, and reverse direction.

Now we began to shoot at our second target: Izumyrian officers. It wasn't hard to pick them out: they rode the most splendid horses, and bedecked themselves with distinctive armour, horsehair plumes, and unique designs on their shields.

Some of them insisted on presenting themselves as targets, riding up in front of the soldiers, shouting and berating their men. I had no idea what they were yelling, but it was helpful of them to identify themselves so readily.

We unhorsed one, and wounded another. The other officers didn't seem to learn much from the experience of their peers. Our next volley killed two of them outright.

Cinna's group were engaged in the same practice, from the opposite side of the trail. Some officers finally began to realize that they were targets. Two of them ran to our side of the path, sheltering behind the wagons - they were taking cover from Cinna's arrows.

I'm embarrassed to admit that we only hit one of them with our volley. But the second skulker was completely unaware of the danger he was in until we hit him three times with our second attempts.

It was time to move. The shale cliffs and the trees concealed and protected us - but they didn't grant us complete immunity. The Izumyrians would eventually realize that they could send foot soldiers around the little rocky promontories.

With so many of their officers down, we were able to move unhindered. The rear of the Izumyrian column was in confusion, and several wagons were immobilized, blocking their retreat - just as Notomol had hoped.

But I hustled my little group through the trees, up the path, towards where the real action was going on.

We couldn't attack the enemy all along the line - we simply didn't have the numbers for that. Instead, Notomol had chosen to apply overwhelming force at the head of their long line of wagons. His archers struck first, targeting officers and riders. Then Dubek and Orsho led our fighters in a charge.

The early moments were the most potentially dangerous: there were 10 horsemen and ten infantry at the very front of the Izumyrian column. Notomol unleashed his secret weapon: Eiven Cloudy-Eye and his companions from Pitve, mounted on captured Izumyrian horses.

The invaders had never expected a mounted charge; how could they have anticipated such a thing? Eiven and his men were not cavalrymen of course; Hvadi fighters rode to battle, but customarily dismounted to fight.

But the Izumyrians horses were so big, it was only necessary to ride them at our enemies. The beasts could knock a man to the ground, almost without noticing it. No one dared to stand in front of them. Eiven's men punched a hole in the enemy formation - Dubek and Orsho blew it wide open.

Now the dangers of advancing on such a narrow front began to tell. As the Izumyrians gave ground, they found it difficult to organize a solid line. They were in a tight corridor, with trees and shale rock on either side, and the center of the area was occupied by their own wagons.

Our archers now began to range along the sides of the Norwood pass, firing at officers, horsemen, or any other promising target. The Izumyrians were pressed on one side, and then the other.

There were no great champions among them, that I could see - certainly no one who could match a Dubek or an Orsho. They gave ground.

These weren't mercenaries, either, which gave us one more advantage: there was no contingent of archers among them. I didn't know why the Izumyrians didn't have foresters - or if they did, why they didn't include them among their warriors. I didn't understand ... but I was certainly grateful for it.

Notomol, Marmos and Senderra ranged along the flanks of the column, picking off any Izumyrian who seemed to be showing any initiative. Then my group and Cinna's linked up with them, and joined in.

We had twenty archers, free to fire into the Izumyrians with near impunity from atop the shale cliffs. A few desperate or frustrated soldiers began hurling light weapons up at us, such as knives, light axes - or even spears. Ale was wounded by a thrown spear. Otherwise, though, we were able to choose our targets so as to break up pockets of enemy troops that seemed to be organizing themselves.

The oxen and horses were still yoked to the wagons, but they didn't remain immobile. Without drivers to restrain them, they bellowed and pulled to one side or the other, or drove forward - creating all sorts of problems for the Izumyrians trying to push ahead and support their comrades.

Orsho, Dubek and their fighters pressed the enemy back, to either side of the immobilized wagons. I saw Dusca in the thick of things. Then Eiven and his mounted companions burst across the trail, cutting between two wagons and felling a pair of Izumyrians.

This pressure, coming as it did from so many directions, was difficult for the Izumyrians to resist. There were probably over a hundred of them still not engaged, further down the path. But their horsemen had no room to maneuver - and chasing the archers into the trees was not something they even considered.

Fortunately for us, they also didn't consider the one thing that could have truly hampered us. Even the handful of horsemen at the very tail of their column could have seriously hurt us if they'd ridden around the Norwood trail, to reach the location where Notomol has assailed the head of their line. Had they done so, they could have taken us in the rear.

But that would have required a knowledge of the geography of this place, and an energetic, imaginative officer. Fortunately for us, the Izumyrians didn't appear to have either one of those. They might have consulted their Hvadi wagon drivers beforehand - but it was too late for that now: some of the drivers were taking cover beneath their wagons, but most were fleeing, trying to get as far from the fighting as possible.

We didn't block their retreat. That was another key element of Notomol's plan. Yes, we'd immobilized several wagons, to prevent the withdrawal of the supplies. But there was nothing to stop the soldiers, mounted or on foot, from retreating in that direction.

This was now the key point of the battle. Did we have enough momentum to continue to push them back? The Izumyrians still had superior numbers. Given space to deploy, and to form a line of shields and spears, they could have defeated us. They still might wear us down - if our attack ground to a halt, we probably couldn't have gotten it started again.

Orsho and Dubek didn't allow that to happen. We archers contributed by breaking up pockets of resistance before they could become serious threats. But it was our two great warriors who led the way. They simply imposed their will on the enemy, and pushed them - drove them back. Step by step, the Izumyrians gave way.

Then Eiven and his mounted men cut across the trail again. I don't know why, exactly, but the resolve of our opponents seemed to crumble. Men ceased pushing forward to contest the advance of Dubek and Orsho. Instead, they began edging away.

Dubek felled the man he was fighting, and found no one left within eight or nine yards. He let out an immense roar - I can't think of any other way to describe it. Then he started forward in a lumbering run ... with a score of our fighters behind him, shouting out their own cries of triumph and rage.

The archers picked it up. I distinctly heard Inita screaming something unintelligible, just off to my side. Dubek was claiming the victory. We believed it, too.

So did the Izumyrians.

It wasn't the end of the fighting, but it was the end of the battle. The invaders began to retreat. Some withdrew in good order. Some left hastily. There were those who practiced a fighting withdrawal - and a number of them paid for that decision with their lives.

They pulled out of the Norwood defile, taking the last four wagons with them ... and retreated in the direction of Hvad Town.

***

Had they been more experienced troops, the Izumyrians could have regrouped on the open plain. I believe that they still outnumbered us. They also had a clear superiority in mounted men. All they had to do was counterattack - or they could wait to see where we would move the captured wagons and the incredibly valuable supplies they carried.

They could have followed us, harried any attempt on our part to make off with our plunder ... but they did none of that. They simply left. They abandoned the Norwood - with all of its new treasures - and left us alone.

We didn't know that right away, of course. That was why we couldn't afford to rest for very long that night. Exhausted as we were, there was simply too much to do.

The archers retrieved and salvaged as many arrows as we could. The fighters picked up the bodies of our dead and wounded, and placed them onto wagons. Then we moved the fallen Izumyrians out of the way.

The first six or seven wagons trundled out of our end of the Norwood trail, loaded down with supplies, and carrying our wounded.

Then we had to deal with a team of horses, two of which were badly injured. The other pair were mad-eyed, still straining at their harnesses, trying to pull to one side. We had to put the stricken animals out of their misery.

More than two dozen oxen and horses were dead or wounded. We had no way to carry off the wagons that they had been pulling. We kept some of the supplies, and transferred them to other carts.

- "What about the horses we captured?" asked Olari. We'd unhorsed quite a few riders, and captured eight more Izumyrian horses.

- "What about them?" asked Inita.

- "Couldn't we ... I don't know - get them to pull some of these wagons?"

I didn't know the first thing about harnessing horses. But it was obvious enough that warhorses like these hadn't been bred to pull wagons.

It took a great deal of work - all the while fearing that the Izumyrians might return - but we managed to save more than half of the wagons we'd captured. There were sacks of flour and grain, feed for the horses, iron ingots and even an anvil, in one cart. To the delight of the archers, we found one wagon with almost 1,000 arrows. Notomol agreed that we could keep those. Then there were several bags of salt, too, which would be indispensable if we meant to preserve some of the meat from the dead horses and oxen.

What we couldn't take, we destroyed, or spoiled. But we carried away the lion's share of the supplies intended for the mercenaries.

Notomol, Dubek, and Orsho drove us like beasts of burden. By dusk the next day, most of us were asleep on our feet. We couldn't have fought off a group of angry children.

We were more than four leagues away from the Norwood before Notomol let most of our fighters sleep. The archers stood guard that night.

***

We'd lost 11 killed, and had 10 wounded. The Izumyrians had left 50 bodies behind - their dead, plus handful of wounded. Notomol had insisted, on this occasion, that we not kill them.

- "They're not mercenaries." he said.

Yadha led the way, taking the wagons along paths through the forest which he knew they could manage. The archers (after a few hours' sleep) patrolled the flanks, and formed a rearguard. If the Izumyrians recovered their courage, and came after us, we might yet have to abandon the wagons and run. Or the mercenaries might have interfered with our passage, had they sallied from Ansil's steading.

- "There's one thing I don't understand." said Inita.

- "What's that?"

- "Three quarters of the Izumyrians ran away." she said.

- "Yes." I said.

- "They still outnumbered us. Why didn't they stay and fight? They could have won."

- "They had no idea how many of us there were. When you're attacked - especially by surprise - you often exaggerate the enemy's numbers."

- "Still ..." she said. "They'd only lost a quarter of their force."

I remembered a little anecdote that Notomol had told to Motekin and me.

- "Imagine that four of us go hunting a dangerous bear. The bear attacks, and kills one of us. What should we do?"

Inita nodded, and smiled. "I get it. We should go back home, and get a larger party before we go after the bear again."

- "That's it. To tell the truth, though - I'm not sure why they ran, either - especially when they left all of the supplies behind. But then I remember the way we ran, before the Soldier's Leap ... and I realize that I don't have all of the answers."

Inita nodded again. "Thanks, 'Vets. That helps."

I felt like quite a veteran for the rest of that day.

***

I've made no secret of the fact that I admire Notomol's leadership - particularly his skill at using the land against the invaders. He almost always put us in positions where we could inflict damage on the enemy, while reducing the danger to ourselves as much as possible.

But Notomol had the gift of thinking ahead. He'd foreseen the difficulties we would face over the winter, in a province ravaged by warfare and raped by mercenaries for the past year and a half. Most of the fields in central Stonje were untilled; no crops had been sown. The livestock had vanished.

It would be a tough winter for the mercenaries.

- "It'll get ugly." said Dubek.

- "Unless the Izumyrians send another supply column." said Orsho.

- "They will." said Notomol. "They can't afford to abandon their garrisons. But it will be too heavily guarded for us."

But it would be another hard winter for the common people. Many had given up their farms or their trades, to take to the forests and the hills. They weren't foresters; even with assistance, many people would go hungry. That was one reason why Notomol had organized the attack on the convoy. The food we'd captured would be shared with our non-combatants.

It had been meant to sustain three or four hundred mercenaries; there was enough to go around - especially when we counted the oxen and horses we'd captured.

- "I need your help, Kolasovets." said Notomol.

- "Hunting?"

- "Yes - when you can. But what I really want is for you to help Yadha. Can you teach people to find food in the woods - over the winter?"

- "If that's what you need - I'll try."

Notomol put his hand on my shoulder. "Thank you." he said. "You know how much I depend on you - and I know how much I ask of you."

- "Much less than you ask of yourself."

He smiled. "I have help." he said. "Who can I get to help you?"

- "A couple of hunters?" I suggested. "Olari and Sask?" Ale was still recovering from the wound he'd taken.

- "Inita?"

I would've enjoyed having her with me. But she would most likely be happier in the company of other women - with Senderra, Evane, and Dusca. It seemed selfish to me to ask for her just for my own ... my own what? There was no word that sprang to mind.

***

That was how I came to spend a month teaching people how to live in the forest. If it was odd for them, it was even stranger for me. No one mocked my age, or my diminutive size. In fact, I was continually surprised by how respectful they were.