Tom, offered the option of fighting with the beggars or staying by Rod, had chosen the latter option, probably because he wanted to be in the thick of the battle.
Tuan, of course, would stay with his beggars.
As Tuan swung into the saddle, Catharine stopped him with a hand on his knee. Rod saw her tie a veil of silk about Tuan's upper arm.
Then her hands lifted to him, pleading. Tuan caught them and pressed them to his mouth, bowed to kiss her lips, then wheeled his horse away, rode perhaps ten yards forward, then wheeled again.
They stood frozen a moment, the young Queen and the white knight. Then Tuan reared his horse, pivoted,, and galloped after his ragtag-and-patchwork troops.
Rod smiled covertly.
"The time to feel smug is not yet, Rod," Fess reminded him.
Rod made a face. "Who do you think you are, Pinocchio's Cricket?"
He turned back for one last look at Gwendylon, standing near the Queen's tent; then he rode for the left flank.
He was the only horseman who rode without armor.
It was full, 14th Century plate armor, on both sides of the field; but the Southern armor was massed together in a solid, glaring wall, while Catharine's knights were spaced out, twenty yards apart, over the length of the enemy line.
Yes, there are a few holes, Rod thought. And the single line of foot soldiers behind the Queen's knights didn't compare too favorably with the packed masses that backed the rebel lords. No, it was not a sight to inspire confidence.
But the beggars weren't in sight. Nor, for that matter, were the witches. Or the elves.
The rebels were in for some very unpleasant surprises.
At the southern end of the field, a bugle called.
The rebel knights couched their lances.
The Queen's knights followed suit.
There was a long, straining, pause; then the horses plunged forward.
Horses' hooves muttered and rose to the roar of an avalanche as the two metal lines fell toward each other.
And as they fell, the North's line drew it upon itself till the knights rode shoulder to shoulder in the center.
A cheer went up from the rebel line as they saw easy victory coming; it would be easy for the rebel flanks to sweep around the Northern line and trap the Queen's forces.
The Queen's knights met the center of the rebel line with a grinding crash. Knights were unhorsed and blood spurted, but the center of the line held.
And with a victorious roar the rebels swung about to outflank the North…
The yell broke into wild screams as the ground fell away beneath their mounts.
Knights and horses floundered in a six-foot trench.
The elves had done a good night's work.
The footmen came running up to their masters' rescue; but now the beggars broke howling from the trees at the sides of the field, with knife and sword and bludgeon, and fell on the footmen with extreme good will.
Still, they were vastly outnumbered.
But now the aerial arm got into the action. Teams of four levitating, fuzz-cheeked warlocks supported a swinging basket beneath them; and in each basket was a telekinetic witch. The warlocks fired arrows into the scrimmage at random, their hands freed by the leather harness at their waists; and pebbles flew out of the baskets, guided by the witches, to strike with more than enough impact to stun. Arrows speared up at them out of the Southern ranks; but the witches deflected them, and sometimes even managed to turn them back on their owners.
The simple, orderly battle deteriorated into hand-to-hand chaos.
But the Southern knights were still overly busy. The Code dictated that only a knight could fight another knight—a foot soldier could be killed just for trying it, and Heaven help him if he tried and won!
So Catharine's knights worked their way outward from the center along the rebel lines a large percentage of them dying on the way. But the percentage of rebels was greater, for Catharine, like her father before her, had seen fit to give her knights a little extra in the way of training.
Toby, the young warlock, suddenly appeared in the air just above Rod. "Master Gallowglass! The Duke Loguire is sorely pressed; you must come to him!"
He disappeared as abruptly as he had come. It might not have been the greatest form of military communication, but it was better than the rebels had.
Rod dispatched his current preoccupation with a parry and a thrust between breastplate and helmet and backed Fess out of the melee.
He ran around the lines to the other end of the line, where a spindly, armored-clad form with a glowing sword had just finished cutting its way through the troops to Loguire. One of the councillors was trying to save the day by eliminating the leadership. The sword had a strange, radiant quality. Rod didn't know what it was, but it was something mighty potent disguised as a sword.
Rod sailed into the ruckus, bulldozing his way through grappling pairs of beggars and soldiers, slipping in blood and loose heads.
Loguire saw the blow coming and threw up his shield to ward it off. The councillor's sword sheared through it silently, but missed Loguire. The old Duke yelled in pain as the heat was conducted through shield and armor to his skin and momentarily dropped his guard.
The councillor swung the sword up for the final blow.
Fess slammed full tilt into the councillor's horse. The animal went down and the councillor went flying with a scream of terror, sword flinging wide from his grasp.
Soldiers scurried back to be clear when the magic sword fell.
Rod, without the slightest tremor of conscience, wheeled about and trampled the councillor underFess's iron hooves. The man gave a bubbling scream, choked off; and the scream rang on in Rod's mind.
Now his conscience began to clamor; but he locked it away till the battle was done.
He whirled about toward the sword, hearing the soldiers gasp "Witchcraft!"
"No, just magic," Rod shouted as he swung down, caught the sword, and remounted. "That's not so strange, is it?"
He threw the sword to Loguire hilt-first; the old nobleman caught it and saluted him, and Rod broke out of the lines again.
The battle clamored about him, steel on steel and bone and gristle, no quarter asked. The locked armies lay in the middle of the field like some great, pulsing, obscene amoeba.
Overhead the esper-witches turned and wheeled home, no longer able to tell friend from foe.
Rod charged back and forth through the battle-lines—Fess plowing his way easily through mere mortal flesh—guarding the three generals and as many knights as he could, directing the clearing of the wounded when he could, adding the weight of his arm to break deadlocks.
The beggars seemed to have the soldiers hopelessly outclassed; this was their kind of fighting. Many of them were killed, but seldom without having first accounted for six or more of the enemy, with wooden staves, rusty swords, keen knives, and total disrespect for age and/or rank.
Rod thought of Karl Marx and winced.
Big Tom had long since gotten lost in the battle. Rod hoped he was all right.
Then at the back of the rebel line, Big Tom rose up roaring "To me! To me!"
A thousand beggars rallied to him and began to chop their way through the Southern ranks.
The idea spread; beggar groups sprang up all along the line, and began to press the amoeba of war in on itself.
Big Tom was hewing his way through to a very definite goal.
Rod frowned and stood up in his stirrups, trying to plot Big Tom's course.
There, in the center of the battle, twenty frantic scarecrows labored furiously to construct some sort of machine: a spidery tripod topped by a wasp-waisted contraption with alien curves. It was the councillors, with their last hope.
Rod rapped with his heels, and Fess leaped—but the robot had responded a touch slow. With a sense of dread, Rod realized that the strain of battle was beginning to tell on Fess.