A Wizard In Chaos
Christopher Stasheff
ISBN: 0-812-54928-7
CHAPTER 1
The roar of battle filled Cort’s ears, deafening him. He couldn’t even hear the bellow as the enemy soldier swung his broadsword. He only saw the man’s mouth gaping.
Cort caught the blow on his shield. It jarred his arm all the way to the shoulder, but he couldn’t hear the blade ring. He pivoted and stabbed crosswise at the foeman’s sword arm. The man rolled back, catching Cort’s blade on his own, but was too slow trying to return the stroke. Cort let his blade’s rebound help him in swinging up, over, and down at the man’s shoulder. The soldier’s mouth widened in an unheard scream as he fell away.
Even in the thick of battle, Cort felt elation that he hadn’t had to kill the man. He stood in the forefront of his men on guard, waiting for another enemy boot soldier to fill the place of the one who had fallen—but surprisingly, no one came. Instead, three of the enemy turned and ran from the unceasing blows of Cort’s own soldiers. He stood a moment, staring in disbelief. Then a grin of triumph split his face, and a yell of victory from all his platoon split the air. The raw energy of it seemed to strike the enemy in the back and push them on; they ran, then ran faster as Cort’s men redoubled their yelling.
Young Aulin leaped forward to chase, howling like a madman.
“Stop him!” Cort cried, and Sergeant Otto leaped after Aulin, two soldiers following him. They caught the boy and sent him spinning back into line. Thanks be, Cort thought. It was the third rule of battle every new recruit had to learn: Never chase a routed enemy. Too many of them had been known to turn and fight when you had come too far from the safety of your own lines.
Watching the enemy run, Cort could only think that it was no surprise. They’d been raw farm boys, probably pressed into service by their boss on a week’s notice, when he’d found out the Boss of Zutaine had hired the Blue Company to march against him. They hadn’t stood a chance against seasoned professionals. It was a wonder they had lasted half an hour!
“We’re not just going to let them run, are we, lieutenant?” his master sergeant growled.
“Of course not, Sergeant Otto,” Cort replied, “but we wait for the captain’s signal.”
A bugle rang out, its clear high note piercing the shouting. The Blue Company responded with a massed cheer and started forward.
“Advance!” Cort told the master sergeant, and the man turned to bawl the order to the platoon. They marched forward, picking their way over and through the bodies of the fallen. Cort knew the sight would trouble him horribly when the battle lust had faded, but for now, his heart sang high with the knowledge that boot after boot had attacked him and fallen, but he still walked!
They came to the top of the rise, and Cort saw the bullies in the distance, spurring their way past their own soldiers, knocking them aside in their haste to escape. Their bouncers followed hard on their heels, also mounted—but far ahead, the Blue Company’s reserves came charging down from the pine forest where the captain had hidden them. They had carefully worked their way around the hills and behind the enemy’s lines. Now they proved their worth, surrounding the bullies, catching the reins of their rearing warhorses and pulling their heads down, then hauling their masters off their backs. More troopers cut off the bouncers and unhorsed them, too. They let the boots go, running past the Blue Company on either side—common soldiers brought no ransom. Now and then, a boot slowed as if realizing he should defend his masters, but half a dozen Blue Company pikemen turned, bellowing, to change his mind, and the boot ran on in the midst of his fellows.
“No ransoms for us this time,” the master sergeant grumbled.
“You weren’t thinking of hiding a bouncer away to ransom on your own, were you?” Cort asked with a grin.
“No, of course not, lieutenant!” Sergeant Otto said quickly. “You know me better than that!” Actually, Cort knew the man well enough to be sure that was exactly what Otto would have done if he’d had the chance, and never mind that a lowly noncom couldn’t hold a man of higher rank prisoner. The bouncers’ armor alone would have been worth a year’s pay for the master sergeant, though the noncom probably would have kept the horseman’s sword. “Share and share alike,” he reminded Sergeant Otto. “Whoever captures the bullies and bouncers the Blue Company ransoms, we all share equally.” They almost never caught a boss, of course.
“I know that!” Sergeant Otto said, then realized Cort had been saying it for the benefit of the three new men who had survived the battle. “After all, the reserves may have caught them, but we’re the ones who fought the battle and drove the bullies and their bouncers into the reserves’ arms!”
He took a cue well, Cort thought. “We’ll have our turn at being reserves, sergeant. Let’s just hope that we don’t have to charge the enemy to turn the battle when our time comes.”
“I’ll hope indeed,” Otto said with a grin. “There’s a farm I’d like to buy, lieutenant, but it’s back home in the Domain of Evenstern, not here on a battlefield!”
The recruits behind him forced an uneasy laugh. They were still marching, but the enemy boots had fled into the pine forest themselves, and the Blue Company held the field.
“There he goes!” Otto pointed at the top of a bald hill, where a horseman, silhouetted against the sky, had turned his horse and ridden down out of sight in the midst of his bodyguards.
Cort nodded. “So the Boss of Wicksley loses the day—and we lose the boss.”
Otto shrugged. “Didn’t think we’d catch him, did you, lieutenant? Bosses always make sure they’ll be safe, no matter who loses.”
“He might be caught yet,” Cort disagreed, “if he tries to rally what’s left of his men.”
“More likely he’ll ride home to his castle and bar his gates against the Boss of Zutaine.” Otto was as tactful as old noncoms have to be, when they’re trying to educate brash young officers—not that Cort was new to the trade anymore, having survived a dozen battles. He was a veteran now, so Otto paid him respect as well as tact. “Of course, if Zutaine besieges him, we won’t be in on it.”
“No, the boss will just use his household troops,” Cort agreed. “Can’t have a mercenary captain taking Wicksley Castle away from him, can he?” He was very much aware of the new soldiers behind him listening wide-eyed, soaking up every bit of knowledge of soldiering that they could. “A captain does become a boss now and then, but the bosses don’t want to let it happen any more often than they can help.”
“Suits me.” Otto made a face. “I hate siege duty. Give me a clean death in battle, say I, not a lingering one from disease or petty quarreling.” He was still aware of the learning going on behind him.
The bugle blew again, and Cort quickly said, “Halt,” before Sergeant Otto could turn and bawl it to the troopers.
It never occurred to Cort to wonder why foot soldiers were called “boots” if they fought for a boss, but “troopers” or “soldiers” in a mercenary army, or why their horsemen and junior officers were called “cavalry” and “lieutenants” instead of “bouncers.” It was just the way it was, just the way it had always been, just as the men who commanded the mercenary armies were “captains,” not “bullies,” and the men who ruled a whole district with its dozen or so bullies were called “bosses.”
It did occur to him to wonder which of the bodies on the ground were alive, and which dead. “Winnow the bodies, men! Cart the live ones to the surgeons, and bury the dead.”
“Why bury them if they’re not Blue Company troopers, lieutenant?” one of the new men asked, frowning.