“My Lord Protector. My friend,” Ganton whispered.
The voice came from lips flecked with blood. “Lad—” Then only a final rattle.
Ganton raised the dead form and laid his general’s head in his lap. He bent to kiss the bloody lips. Then he stood. A shower of arrows fell around them, and he realized it was his golden helm that drew the Westmen. Had his vanity killed his oldest friend? “Bear him upslope with honor,” Ganton said quietly.
Then he saw Camithon’s fallen battle-ax. He pointed to it. “I will carry that,” he said quietly. A knight handed it to him. Ganton slipped the thong about his wrist and whirled it until it blurred, remembering the hours Camithon had made him spend in the courtyard attacking wooden stakes.
There were shouts from above. Shouts and moving banners, with panic in some of the voices. “The Wanax has fallen,” someone shouted.
Ganton scrambled furiously up the crumbling sides of the slope. It was steep, and his armor was heavy. The battle-ax hampered him, but he held it grimly. No one else would carry that ax, not today and not ever. Camithon had no son. . . no son of his body, Ganton corrected himself. He has son enough today.
They had rolled farther down the slope than he’ had thought, and the climb was exhausting. His chest heaved with the effort. Then two Guards leaped down from the ridgetop. One extended his hand and pulled Ganton up. It wasn’t dignified, but it helped him get up the slope.
“My horse!” he called to his orderly. “Banner-man! With me!” He spurred the horse to ride back along the ridge, hearing the cheers of his bherômen and knights as they saw the golden helm. “I am unhurt,” he shouted. When he was certain there would be no panic, he returned to the southern tip of the ridge.
“Majesty, dismount,” Morrone pleaded. “If you are hurt—” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. With Camithon dead, there was only one person the knights would follow.
Will they follow me? Ganton wondered. An untried youth, who has fought in one battle, one part of another; who has led them onto this hill of dusty death. . . what did Carnithon intend? He had a plan, but I know it not.
And it matters not. It is my battle now, mine alone, and that is all I may consider now.
Some of the knights were standing by their horses. A few had mounted. Ganton rode toward them. “What means this, my lords? I have heard no trumpet!”
“We need no trumpet to tell us what to do.”
It was difficult to know who spoke, but from the shield markings and scarf Ganton thought it must be Bheroman Hilaskos, an important lord who led many lances to battle.
“And what would you do, my lord?”
“Cut through the enemy!” Hilaskos said.
“And then?”
“And return to our homes.”
“You would run away, then?” Ganton kept his voice low and calm, though it took a great effort to do that.
“No man calls me coward. But what honor is there to perch on a ridgetop until we die of thirst? The battle is lost, sire. It will not save my lands nor yet the realm for my lances to be lost with it.”
“Your lances will not be lost, nor yet will you,” Ganton said. “It is your Wanax who commands here. Dismount.”
Hilaskos hesitated. “Dismount,” Ganton said. “Or by Vothan I will take your head in sight of your knights. Dismount and kneel!”
One of Hilaskos’s squires came forward to hold his master’s bridle. The baron hesitated a moment more, then got down from his horse. “Aye, sire,” he said. He knelt. “I see we have gained a true Wanax this day.”
The others dismounted, and Ganton rode again along the ridge. This time there were more cheers, and no dissenters.
“And what will we do now, sire?” Morrone asked when they were out of the others’ earshot.
Ganton continued to scan the battlefield. “I do not know,” he said. , ‘
Art Mason watched the priest of Yatar place the Guardsman’s beret over his face and signal to the acolytes who were acting as stretcher-bearers. They picked up the dead man and carried him to the line of bodies already laid out just below the crest of the hill. A long line, too damned long, Art thought, and not all the Guards’ dead were in it.
And the priests had armed themselves with fallen Guardsmen’s daggers. For Westman? Or for the wounded if they had to retreat? For the hundredth time Art wondered what Captain Galloway would do.
The situation looked sticky. There were only two qualified signalmen, and it would be a waste to send them up in the balloon even if they could get it repaired. The damned low hills would let the Westmen get close enough to shoot the balloon observers before the basket could rise out of range. Because of the hills there were thousands, tens of thousands of Westmen out there in a killing ground, but no way to kill them. Not enough ammunition, no clear fields of fire; they were down to four bombs for the mortar and no more than a dozen rounds for the 106.
Running low on ammunition, but not low on Westmen. Not at all.
He looked across at the Drantos forces again. They seemed intact, almost no losses, but they sat there on top of their damned hill. They’d acknowledged his message suggesting withdrawal, but they weren’t doing anything about it. The Romans weren’t acknowledging signals at all, which wasn’t surprising; they were only visible for short intervals when the dust cleared. They’d only had one semaphore expert with them, and he was probably lost.
“So what do we do, Art?” Murphy asked quietly.
“Wait.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know, but you got a better idea? If we pull out—” He pointed to the low sunshade awnings the priests had erected to give shelter to the wounded.
“Yeah, I got that picture,” Murphy said.
“Besides—”
“Yeah?”
“Hell, Ben, I don’t think we can pull out.” He. pointed to the north. “A mess of ‘em disappeared in that direction. More went east. Not enough to worry about, if that was all of ‘em, but enough to ambush us good while we’re trying to hold off pursuit.”
“Well, we gotta do something.”
“Yeah, maybe I’ll think of it,” Mason said. “Crap, Ben, you know I’m no mucking officer.”
“Maybe not, buddy, but you’re all we got now,” Murphy said. He took a flask from his pocket. “Shot?”
“Yeah—no. Not just now.” He lifted the binoculars again.
Arrows fell around Ganton, but none got through his armor. Three knights held shields around him as he stood at the very tip of the ridge. From here he could see almost all of the battlefield.
The three ‘groups of the Alliance formed a right isosceles triangle with the Romans at its apex. Across the valley, on the other side of the river, stood the Captain-General’s banner with Lord Mason’s. Caradoc’s stood close by them. Due east of Ganton and almost due north of Mason, the Romans held two more hilltops. He was separated from the Romans by a southward-jutting finger of the woody ridge that formed the north bound of the Hooey Valley.
I am the only one who sees all this, now that the balloon is gone, he thought. Knowledge is power, Lord Rick says. To know what the enemy does not know— what is it I know that they do not?
I know where all the Westmen are, and none of them can know this, for they are separated from each other by the low hills in the river valley. Even those on the tops of the knolls see only to the next hill.
And they are divided. The two largest groups face Lord Mason and the Romans, and those two groups are separated by the river. While below facing us—
Below were perhaps five thousand Westmen. A formidable number, but nothing for the host of Drantos to fear. Small groups of Westmen rode up and down their line, shouting to their comrades, and from time to time riders went toward the enormous bands facing the Romans.
If the Alliance forces were out of-supporting distance, as the starmen called it—so were the Westmen. And the Westmen had no wanax, no single commander.
“Stay here. They must believe that I will return,” Ganton ordered the shieldmen. He moved back along the ridge to Morrone. “Send messengers,” he said. “Water the horses. The host is to make ready to mount. I want no trumpets to sound until we are ready to ride. The squires and walking wounded will stay to protect the wounded and priests. The rest will prepare to charge. Go quickly now.”
Morrone grinned like a wolf. “Aye, sire.”
Ganton looked up at the vault of the sky. Father Yatar, give me clear sight. Is this right action?