"They must be getting desperate, to challenge us mounted when they can barely stay on their horses," Mammianos observed.
"Our cavalry's beaten them again and again, first south of the mountains and now up here," Krispos answered. "If they are desperate, we've made them that way. And now, remember, they don't have Harvas to help them any more." I hope they don't, he added to himself.
"Aye, that's so." Mammianos cocked his head to one side. "From what I hear, we have the lady Tanilis and you to thank for it, your Majesty."
"Give the lady the credit," Krispos said firmly. "If it had just been me, you'd be looking for a new Emperor right now, or more likely in too much trouble to worry about finding one."
Companies of horse archers cantered forward to pour arrows into the oncoming Halogai. They could not miss such a bunched target, but did less damage than Krispos had hoped. The first ranks of northerners had those head-to-foot shields; the men behind them raised their round wooden bucklers high to turn aside the shafts. Some got through, but not enough. Inexorable as the tide, the Halogai tramped forward.
The Videssian archers withdrew into the protection of their line. The musicians sounded the charge. Lancers couched spears, dug spurs into horses' flanks. Slowly at first, then faster and fester, they rumbled toward the Halogai.
"This isn't going to be pretty," Mammianos shouted over the thunder of hoofbeats.
"So long as it works," Krispos shouted back. The two lines collided then. Videssian horsemen spitted northerners, using their mounts to bowl over and ride down others. Unlike the cavalry fight, they did not have it all their own way, not for a moment. At close quarters, the axes of the Halogai hewed down men and horses alike; those big, swift strokes bit through mail shirts to hack flesh and split bones.
The battle line did not move twenty yards forward or back for some time. Halogai pressed forward as their comrades were killed. They blunted charge after charge by fresh troops of lancers. Each side dragged its wounded to safety as best it could. Dead horses and soldiers hindered the living from reaching one another to slay some more.
Shouts of alarm rose from the far right as the northerners, borrowing from the Videssian book, tried to slide round the imperial army's flank. After a few tense minutes, a messenger reported to Krispos. "We've held 'em, Majesty, looks like. A good many bowmen had to pull out their sabers before we managed it, though."
"That's why they carry them," Krispos answered.
The imperials shouted his name over and over. They also had another cry, one calculated to unnerve the Halogai. "Where's Harvas Black-Robe?" The northerners were not using the wizard's name as their war cry. When they shouted, they most often called the name Svenkel.
Krispos learned soon enough who Svenkel was. An enormous Haloga, tall even for that big breed, swung an axe that would have impressed the imperial headsman. No one came within its length of him and lived. After he felled a Videssian with a stroke that caved in the luckless fellow's chest, all the northerners who saw cried out his name. He had presence as well as strength and warrior's skilclass="underline" before he went back to battle, he waved to show he heard the cheers.
"Shall we send one of our champions against him?" Mammianos asked.
"Why risk a champion?" Krispos said. "Enough arrows will take care of him. Give the archers word to shoot at him till he goes down."
"That's not sporting," Mammianos said with a laugh, "but it's the right way to go about war. Let's just see how long Svenkel the hero lasts."
But along with being a warrior bold even by Haloga standards, Svenkel the hero was far from a fool. When three or four arrows in quick succession pincushioned his shield and another glanced off his helm, he knew he was a marked man. Instead of drawing back among his comrades, as most might have done, he led a wedge of northerners into the center of the imperial line against his countrymen who warded Krispos. They were axemen like himself; when they tried to slay him, he could strike back.
The imperial guards had seen hard fighting in all the clashes since the campaign began south of Imbros. The Halogai who were hale still fought as fiercely as ever, but their ranks had been thinned. Svenkel's wedge punched deep. If it broke through, it would cut the imperial army in half.
Krispos drew his saber. He looked at Mammianos. The fat general also had his sword out. He shrugged. "Ah, well, your Majesty, sometimes we have to be sporting, whether we want to or not."
"So we do." Krispos raised his voice and cried, "Videssos!" He spurred Progress toward the sagging line of guardsmen. Mammianos rode with him. So did the couriers who had congregated around them.
By then, only a handful of Halogai in imperial service stood in Svenkel's way. He must have seen victory just ahead. His mouth flew open in a great snarl when horsemen rode up to aid the guards. Then he realized who led the makeshift band. In Videssian, he shouted to Krispos: "Leader to leader, then!"
It didn't quite work that way; war was too chaotic a business to conform to anyone's expectations, even a hero's. Krispos got into the battle a few feet to Svenkel's right, against a Haloga almost as big as the northern chieftain. The fellow swung up his axe to chop at Progress. Before he could, Krispos slashed at his face. He missed, but made the Haloga shift his weight backward so his own stroke fell short. Krispos slashed again. This time he felt his blade bite. The Haloga howled and reeled away, clutching a forearm gashed to the bone.
Seeing Krispos in the fight made his surviving guardsmen redouble their efforts. Svenkel's men still battled for all they were worth, but could push forward no farther. The guards threw themselves at Svenkel, one after another. One after another he beat them back. His strokes never faltered; he might have been a siege engine himself, powered by twisted cords rather than flesh and sinew.
As the guardsmen sought to cut down Svenkel, so his warriors went for Krispos. Krispos fought desperately, trying for nothing more than staying alive. He knew he was no great master of the soldier's art and was very glad when Geirrod came up to stand by Progress' right flank and help him beat back the foe.
Step by step, some of Svenkel's men began to give ground. Others, stubborn with the peculiar Haloga stubbornness, preferred dying where they stood to falling back. Die they did, one after another, along with the imperial guardsmen and Videssian troopers they slew before they went down.
There at the forefront of the fighting, what scholarly chroniclers would later call a line hardly deserved such a dignified name. It was more like knots of grunting, cursing, sweating, bleeding men all entangled with one another. Krispos struck and struck and struck—and knew most of his strokes were useless, either because they clove only air or because they rebounded from mail. He did not much mind; no one in that crush could have hoped to do better.
Then he saw a Haloga close by swing up an axe to chop at one of the guardsmen. He lashed out with his saber. It cut deep into the northerner's wrist. The axe flew from his hand. The Haloga bellowed in pain and whirled around.
Krispos was startled to see it was Svenkel. Svenkel looked startled, too, but was neither too startled nor too badly hurt to raise his shield before Krispos could cut at him again. But that did not save him for long. Geirrod's axe bit into the shield, once, twice ... on the third blow, the round slab of wood split in two. Geirrod struck once more. Blood sprayed. Svenkel's armor clattered as he fell.
The imperials raised a great cheer. The Halogai still fought ferociously, but something at last went out of them with their chieftain's death. Now the fighters in the wedge that had been his drew back more quickly. As they did so, Geirrod turned to Krispos and said, "Out of the line for you now, Majesty. You did what was needful; we'll go on from here."