The Chronicles: Notomol Ch. 13

- "Giedra and Liesma hold the bridge. Dusca is hurt, but many riders are down. We're winning. There's just... very little space to operate."

- "It's the same all along the trail." said Kolasovets. "But Dubek has linked up with Mailis and Aldur. They're pushing towards you. Notomol has gone to make sure that Orsho and the others are alright."

I was relieved to hear that he was safe - thus far.

- "How do we end this?" I asked. I couldn't see a way to speed up the process. This was already by far the longest battle I'd ever been in.

- "Notomol said to hang on. As long as we hold the bridge, they can't retreat. Dubek and Aldur are coming." The little archer grinned at me. "You'll see."

Kolasovets took his archers down to the bridge, first, to see if Giedra and Liesma needed any help. They were just in time to see another group of Izumyrian horsemen approaching the bridge on foot. This new attack was only half-hearted from the very beginning. Two men were felled by arrows, and two more wounded. The rest retreated in haste.

- "Quarter!"

We heard the first Izumyrian horsemen calling out. They were offering to surrender if we would spare them. They used a word from their own language, but we had heard it often enough by now to recognize it.

The only problem was that some of the men who wanted to surrender were still isolated from us by a wall of horseflesh - a moving, seething wall of angry, wounded, riderless horses.

The longest battle of my experience went on, in a curiously desultory fashion, for another half an hour. The dawn had clearly arrived, and the fog was beginning to lift.

We heard the sound of fighting approaching from up the trail. Much louder, though, were the cries of 'Quarter'.

***

Two Uplanders were dead, a man and a woman. So were two of our female fighters. There were far more minor wounds or injuries than fatalities, though. Dusca would live, but she had a bad gash on her arm. Obran the guslar had stepped in a groundhog hole, and broke his ankle.

Senderra appeared to be fine. She was rather sheepish about the whole thing.

- "I'm really not hurt." she insisted.

We'd suffered twenty dead, and some forty wounded. But the enemy's attempt to get his heavy cavalry behind us had failed, rather spectacularly.

We captured 138 Izumyrian cavalrymen. Some 70 of their horses were taken, as well. It was difficult to tell how many of the enemy had been killed; we recovered 77 bodies along the trail and on the bridge. I could only guess how many more had perished in the stream, or in some other place.

There were hundreds of dead horses. Literally, hundreds. We couldn't tend to wounded warhorses; the best we could do was to end their suffering. It was a shame. I know that, even if I've never owned or befriended a horse. But these animals were weapons of war, aimed at us. Not everyone on our side regretted their passing. And many of our fighters were happy to eat horse meat over the next few days.

Duke Beghel had tried to reach, with his mounted arm - to get behind us, and to inflict a crushing defeat on us, just as he had on Duke Richwin, at the Battle of the Gut. Instead, he'd lost his arm. We'd amputated their cavalry.

It wasn't a decimation. That's 10%. This was an annihilation.

Most of us celebrated our victory. I saw Prosquetel dancing - well, skipping, really. It was a sight I hoped to never see again.

Adrastas and Obran played for us, the night after the battle, even though Obran had to be carried from place to place, with his ankle tightly wrapped.

Wind and water, 'pon the stone

Wear them down, wear them out

Leave their bones to feed the land

Borna's like will walk again

I sang as loud as anyone. I'm sure that the Izumyrian army must have heard us, across the stream. They probably couldn't decipher any of the words, but they had to have known that we were celebrating.

I wondered if the average Izumyrian soldier actually knew what had happened. Did they understand that at least two thirds of their heavy cavalry had been completely destroyed?

We held a council of captains after the guslars' performance. It was quite an eye-opener for me. Notomol began by praising Cinna and his scouts. Then he singled out Dubek, Aldur, Mailis, and their fighters. He also complimented me, Giedra and Liesma, and then mentioned Tota and Paksyalta.

It was very good of him to do that. But I was taken aback by the immediate reaction of some of the other captains.

Velik, the leader of the boatmen, was angry. The leaders of the Hvad townsmen were irate. Notomol had left them out of the fight. He had deliberately excluded them from the action, using them as mere decoys while other fighters - lesser fighters - won the laurels.

I was stunned. I had no idea what to say. Giedra leapt to her feet. But Dubek was well ahead of her.

- "Seriously?" he said. He stared directly at Velik. "You try to strip Notomol of his command, against the wishes of the majority - yet you expect him to give you a place of honour in the fight? Why would he rely on you?" Dubek turned to face the townsmen. "You must be aware that the traitors who led us into this trap were townsmen - friends of yours. But you think that Notomol should have taken you into his confidence, and shared his plans with you? After you too tried to challenge his leadership?"

Dubek glared at them, and then turned to glare at the boatmen once again.

"Grow up." he snarled.

Prosquetel chose that moment to assert himself. He complimented Notomol on our notable victory, while suggesting that it needed to be 'properly followed up'. He insisted that we must take 'prompt and immediate action'.

I'm not sure if there's a difference between prompt and immediate. I also don't know for sure what Prosquetel envisioned: a prompt, immediate advance across the stream? The Izumyrians had 800 or 900 infantry out there, plus whatever was left of their cavalry.

We had beaten them in the hills, and in the forests. We'd won victories at night, and by ambush. The last time the Hvadi had fought the enemy in the open field had been a disaster. Why was Prosquetel so determined to repeat that error?

Notomol let all of the captains who wanted to speak have their say. He did not commit himself to a prompt or immediate crossing of the stream.

***

He was right. Realistically, our army still couldn't match up to theirs, unless we had the advantage of terrain.

I would have bet on Giedra and Liesma against almost any Izumyrian soldier. Tota, too. Maybe even Dusca, before her injury. But the rest of us? Rion and Eliv were very good at protecting Giedra's flanks. But in the front line? They wouldn't have lasted any longer than me - and I knew that the average enemy soldier could easily kill me.

No, our advantages were in our knowledge of the land, and the cleverness of our ambushes and surprise attacks. Why did so many idiots (most of them male) insist that we could win a straight up fight on open ground? Had they learned nothing?

I'm not sure how much pressure Notomol was under. I didn't get a chance to talk to him after the battle against the horsemen.

Then Seva shot Iduallon again.

Iduallon was what he was. He would hump any woman who would lie down or bend over for him. Giedra had broken his wrist and his nose when he tried to grope her. He couldn't stop. Seva had shot him with an arrow. Whatever compulsion drove him, whatever disease he had was incurable.

Personally, I found him repulsive. Reprehensible. But that opinion was not shared by all of the women in our army. There were still some who found him attractive.

Seva had just given birth to her second child by Iduallon. She returned to the army, to be reunited with her lover, the father of her children. Then she caught him humping a young woman from Stonje.

Seva had a temper. She didn't stop to ask questions. She nocked an arrow, and loosed it. The shaft struck Iduallon just above the buttocks, in his lower back.

Seva had shot him in the ass before. This time, though, the arrow penetrated a vital organ. The wound became infected. Iduallon suffered in agony, for four days, before he died.

I don't know if anyone actually mourned him. I was told that Duchess Temara shed a tear. But Prosquetel was determined to make something of the whole affair. He demanded that Seva be tried for murder.

The council of captains met to adjudicate the matter. I spoke on Seva's behalf, as did Giedra. But we were just Uplanders. Seva had left her own people to support her lover's overlords. But she was just an Uplander.

Mailis spoke on her behalf, which was very good of her. It didn't matter. All of the males voted to convict, except for Orsho and Kolasovets. Notomol didn't cast a vote. It wouldn't have made any difference.

I went to see her. Berilde came with me, even though she barely knew Seva.

The red-headed archer sat on the ground, her hands tied behind her back. I approached, and went down on one knee, so that she could see me without having to crane her neck. Her face was filthy; she'd been dragged through the dirt, and the dust on her face was now streaked with dried tears.

- "Can I get you anything, Seva?" I asked. "Water?"

Seva hadn't changed. She curled her lip at me. "You've done enough, don't you think? If it wasn't for you and your family, I wouldn't even be here!"

She had killed the father of her children, and she was going to be executed for it. But Seva still blamed my family for her situation. Ironically, what she'd said was literally true: if not for my father, my sister Yevna, her man Inisian, and my own small efforts, Seva and everyone on Prospal Hill would have been killed - most likely after being raped - by my uncle Bacho and my cousin Kestutis.

But Seva only remembered that Vingoldas, the man she'd set her heart on, had fallen in love with my sister Tanguiste. She also blamed my sister Yevna - unfairly - for the death of her brother.

There was nothing I could say to her that she would want to hear. I passed the water I'd brought to Berilde, and indicated that she should offer it to Seva. But the redhead wouldn't take it from her, either.

The next day, Seva was hanged by the neck until she choked to death.

***

Prosquetel wanted an immediate advance, to force a battle upon the Izumyrian infantry. In his opinion, the enemy were utterly demoralized, completely bereft of their heavy cavalry, and ready to run if we applied the slightest pressure.

He wasn't the only one who saw things that way. The boatmen and the townsmen from Hvad were also making aggressive noises.

But it was the Izumyrians who moved first. They retreated.

I was surprised. I thought that they could still beat us, especially if we let ourselves be tempted into giving battle on open ground. We simply didn't have enough of the right type of warriors to stand toe to toe with them.

I also thought that the Izumyrians were desperate for a victory. When the loss of their horsemen became widely known, they were going to face more trouble in the provinces, and possibly even in Hvad town itself.

Notomol was better prepared. As soon as we learned of the enemy retreat, he sent Cinna and his scouts to locate them. Our army crossed the stream and followed. Adrastas and Obran would follow us slowly, with 100 fighters to guard our prisoners. These horsemen might very well be worth exchanging, either for Hvadi prisoners in Izumyrian hands, or possibly for a ransom of some kind.

We pursued the enemy infantry, but Notomol was careful. Thank goodness he was, because we narrowly avoided a trap.

The Northern Duke left his rearguard exposed. Some 75 Izumyrian infantry were on their own, trailing the main body of retreating soldiers. Cinna's mounted scouts were already behind them, while Heras Koymil and his friends - now all mounted on captured Izumyrian horses - were lapping around their opposite flank.

For our fighters on foot, Orsho led the way, along with Velik and the boatmen. The day before, it had been Ban Lemek's men, along with the townsmen.

The enemy rearguard suddenly halted, forming a tightly-packed square. They presented shields in every direction, and a bristling hedge of spears. Then there was a rumbling sound as the remainder of the Izumyrian cavalry emerged from behind a small copse of trees.

There were only some 60 of them left, but several of our folk who were present at the time swore to me that they could feel the ground shaking.

Heras Koymil and his friends did not pull away in time. It's possible that they hadn't fully mastered their newly-acquired horses, or that they simply reacted too slowly. One cannot discount foolhardiness, either - it often resembles its close cousin, stupidity.

The Izumyrians simply overran them. Four of Koymil's friends were killed, while three more were unhorsed. The rest fled in every possible direction.

The enemy cavalry commander knew his business. He and his men wanted revenge, but they were after a greater prize. The horsemen veered toward our fighters who were on foot.

Thank the Gods that Orsho was present. He swiftly pulled his people together into an approximation of an Izumyrian square. The boatmen, though, were slow to respond to his shouted commands - or perhaps they didn't hear them.

The heavy horsemen caught a score of Velik's boatmen strung out, rather than in tight formation. At least a dozen were cut down, or knocked to the ground by those powerful horses. Four of those men got up again afterwards, but the rest were killed, or seriously injured.

The Izumyrian cavalry cut behind Orsho's improvised square - and that was where they ran into trouble. Because Dubek's crew and Eiven Cloudy-Eye's men were following. With them were Kolasovets and fully a score of our best archers.

Dubek and Eiven responded quickly, and pulled their men together. The enemy horsemen would find no easy targets here. Instead, they were met with a volley of arrows. As the horsemen rode by, Kolasovets and his people loosed more arrows at their rear. At least two horses went down, throwing their riders, and two more cavalrymen were unhorsed.

That was pretty much the end of the affair. The Izumyrian rearguard withdrew in good order, followed at a distance by Cinna's scouts. We'd lost 15 killed and wounded; the enemy lost 4 horsemen.

- "It could have been worse." Dubek told us. "A lot worse."

Predictably enough, Velik and the boatmen blamed Notomol for not advancing with our entire army. Orsho defended him, while Prosquetel tried to suggest that Notomol's 'remarkable stretch of luck had finally run its course'.

- "I want to kill him." said Giedra.

- "Who?"

- "Prosquetel. I don't want him to simply expire of old age one day. I want to stab him in the guts - and then twist the knife."

- "The line forms behind me." said Dubek, with a big grin at her.

Giedra smiled back at him. I was fairly certain, by then, that they had been stirring the furs together. She'd been absent from our fire on quite a few occasions, and the way they looked at each other...

I had mixed feelings about it. Dubek was a hard man, and an ugly one - from my perspective, at least. He had a few mildly repulsive personal habits, from loudly hawking and spitting when others were present, to absent-mindedly scratching his crotch (again, in front of others). Giedra was a strong, beautiful woman, and he was an ugly brute. But if he was what she wanted, who was I to object?

***

From then on, our pursuit of the Izumyrians was more cautious. Notomol did not know the terrain up ahead. There was also the possibility that the enemy might draw on their last reserves and assemble a larger force of heavy cavalry. Sixty horsemen had stung us; three times that number might hurt us very badly.

But the Izumyrians still moved more slowly than we did, and there were several opportunities for Cinna's scouts or for Kolasovets and the archers to harass the retreating soldiers. The Izumyrian horses were neither quick enough nor nimble enough to respond to our attacks.

- "Pinpricks." said Prosquetel, with a sneer. "We won't win the war like that."

- "That's exactly how we've won so far, you prick." said Senderra. But of course she didn't say it loud enough for him to hear.

We did inflict losses on the enemy. But the boatmen and the townsmen weren't there to see most of them, nor did they get a chance to participate directly, so they continued to feel slighted.

- "I can't believe that they're still aggrieved." said Giedra. "And that's with us winning. Imagine if we were losing!"

Every day that the Izumyrians retreated, more Hvadi came to join us. Many were non-combatants, of course. It was difficult for Notomol to have tell them that we couldn't feed them. Yadha was back in the hills, while Kolasovets and the archers were hunting enemy soldiers.

But at least sixty fighters swelled our ranks. At least half of them were refugees from the town. Notomol was happy to have them, of course, but he was also concerned that their might be more collaborators or Izumyrian spies among them. I asked Nafni to talk to as many of them as he could, but took the precaution of assigning him Tota and a few others as bodyguards.

There was a great sense of anticipation growing in our army. Many of our fighters were looking forward to seeing their homes, and to ejecting the invaders. Most of us, however, had never seen the town. We had so many questions.

How big is it, really? Will the Izumyrians fight to defend it? I knew that over half of the town bordered on the lake, but I wondered if there were truly walls around the rest of it. We'd also heard of the castle, built by Borna in the Izumyrian style. I'd never see one. My curiosity was getting the better of me.

Notomol came to our fireside that night.

- "Could I speak to you, Guenna?" he asked. "You and Giedra?"

We followed him a short distance away from the others.

"We should reach the town tomorrow. I fear that many of our people will be... distracted. We won't lose track of the enemy infantry, but as of this moment, Cinna isn't sure where the heavy cavalry is. Can I put your fighters on our left flank, and ask you to keep your eyes and ears open?"

- "Of course."

- "Dubek and his men will be right behind you, and Orsho will be within calling distance."

- "Understood."

I had no idea what we would do if the soldiers were prepared to defend the walls. How did one even begin to go about attacking a town? Obviously the Izumyrians had done it, but it was something well beyond the most extreme limits of my own experience.

Notomol's fear did not come to pass. The Izumyrians didn't attack us as our folk gawked at the town. That was because the enemy had already evacuated the place. They were gone.

***

Our army fell apart. I mean that.

The townsmen among our fighters simply could not wait. Once they learned that the Izumyrians had left, many of them simply rushed into the town to find their kin and their friends.

Prosquetel had been thinking ahead. He had organized his allies. Heras Koymil and his riders paraded into the town, followed by Eiven Cloudy-Eye and the men from Pitve, along with Aldur and his group. They led the way for the Duchess, who carried her infant son. Behind her marched Velik and the boatmen, followed by Ban Lemek and the Mahuc contingent.

If the Izumyrians had been planning a surprise attack, this would have been the perfect time to launch it, with half of our army engaged in a procession.

The people still in the town were stunned by the Izumyrian withdrawal, and delighted by the re-appearance of so many kinsmen, many of whom had long been thought dead. They cheered Lady Temara, more for her courageous defence of the castle and daring escape across the frozen lake than for her current arrival.