The advance of the two kings was turning into a race. Nestros reached the horde first. Kalvan swerved without slowing, nearly colliding with his bannerbearer, holding Kalvan's personal flag-a maroon keystone on a green field. The trooper's sword pricked Kalvan's horse, which protested by nearly bucking his rider into a ditch.
By the time Kalvan had sorted himself out, Nestros was crossing swords with everyone in reach. Nestros had won the race but not by enough to dishonor his ally.
In fact, his ally was going to have a busy time in about two minutes, keeping this from being Nestros' first and last battle as Great-King-Elect. On both right and left, warriors were streaming toward the battle of kings.
"Stands the standard of Great King Kalvan!" the bannerbearer shouted. He thrust the butt-end of the staff into the muddy ground and drew a pistol. The bannerbearer pistoled the first warrior to come within lance-range, but the nomad stayed in the saddle. Kalvan shot him with his horse pistol, then drew his own sword and cut a second opponent across the face, a third in the arm.
Few of the nomads here had real armor and Kalvan's old-style heavy horse cut through the first ranks of light cavalrymen like a sword through a wedge of cheese. Kalvan took a few sword blows, but gave five times what he received. His heavy armor easily absorbing the blows, although his muscles ached and a sword point had left a cut on his cheek. The nearest he came to being hurt was when his horse was shot in the chest, but the heavily gilded horse armor that Nestros had given Kalvan as a gift, did its job and his horse was just shaken up rather than mortally wounded.
After that, Kalvan lost count of his opponents and all track of what he was doing to them. Somewhere in the next five minutes he managed one coherent thought that was not concerned with his own survival. If I was fighting armored opponents, I'd be dead by now.
Then, about five minutes after that, it struck him that armor might not make all that much difference. These nomads were damned hard to kill, like the Moro juramentados he had heard an Old Army veteran describe. Come on, Alkides! Are you the Flying Battery or the Flighty Battery? Kalvan moved his head down, just in time to avoid decapitation by a double-headed ax wielded by a warrior wearing a buffalo-head hat with horns and all.
Suddenly the mass of tribesmen and light cavalry moved aside as scores of huge chariots drove forward straight towards Kalvan's center, which was already stalled by the attacking clansmen and the thousands of dead littering the battlefield. Kalvan pulled out his last loaded pistol and fired a shot at the lead chariot, and by some miracle-since it was better than a hundred feet away-the ball hit the driver full on in the abdomen. The driver was pitched out of the chariot, while the horses panicked, tossing the chariot into a band of heavy lancers, knocking riders and horses every which way.
Then the chariots slammed into the charging Hostigi cavalry and it was a real donnybrook! Kalvan saw Nestros, surrounded by his heavily armored bodyguard, attacking one of the chariots. Kalvan's own Lifeguard was trying to push him back, while simultaneously moving into the thick of the nomad lines.
A moment later, Alkides' octet of four-pounders signaled their arrival with a blast of case shot that tore into the ranks of friend and foe with awful impartiality. A chunk of lead snapped the banner staff; the banner-bearer dove to keep it from hitting the ground and sprawled with his nose digging up the mud. He held the banner clear of the ground, though.
Kalvan leaned down to pick up the banner, and then found his horse sagging to one side. As the animal toppled, Kalvan leaped clear, the weight of his armor driving him to his knees. The horse fell on his side, crushing its armor, blew blood from his nostrils and died.
Kalvan waved his sword at the enemy and cursed Alkides' gunners, both emotionally satisfying if not very useful. At least the litter of dead men and horses around him included more enemies than friends. If this were a hurricane, he thought, it would definitely be the eye.
Let's hope to Galzar we didn't wing Nestros!
More cavalry were riding up, a second troop of Nestros' Bodyguard. Their captain reined in, shouting a request for orders.
"Look to your King!" Kalvan shouted back. "He's beyond that hedge. If you get no orders from him, advance cautiously five hundred rods."
"As Your Majesty commands," the captain called. "Will you be here?"
"Here or in Hadron's Realm!" was Kalvan's parting shot. The regiment cheered as their colonel maneuvered his horse through the hedge. More shouts of 'Down Sargos!' and they disappeared into the woods.
Kalvan mentally crossed his fingers, hoping he had not sent away men he would need for his own protection. But no live enemies were within lance range that he could see, and Alkides' guns were now firing steadily. That meant Harmakros and the reserves had to be closer than any organized enemies.
He was safe enough, from his enemies. He wished he could say the same about Rylla's tongue.
When my lovely wife hears that I raced a Trygathi king into the enemy lines, the first thing she'll do is laugh herself silly. The second is remind me never to complain about her leading a charge from in front again as long as I live!