The Unforsaken Hiero by Sterling E Lanier

Author:Sterling E Lanier [Lanier, Sterling E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy
ISBN: 9780345302281
Goodreads: 1922602
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 1983-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

8 - Any Port in a Storm

The hoppers, even the picked beasts of the royal Guard, were very tired. All the interminable day, they had sped from one end of the battle line to the other as the guard followed its royal mistress. The princess had been everywhere, her gilded mail and bright plumes shining like an oriflamme of war as she rallied lagging spearmen here and sent fresh lancers there. Each threatened point had seen her, cheered her to the marrow, and then fought the harder as a result.

But the day was lost, nonetheless. The royal army, outnumbered and with its flanks turned, had been forced to withdraw. The rebel duke, or one of his advisors, had planned shrewdly and moved far more quickly than either Luchare or the king had believed possible. Also, the cunning Amibale had used several unexpected tricks, either through his own sharp wits or through Unclean guidance. Joseato was in it somewhere, but Amibale, Luchare reflected glumly, was quite clever enough on his own. A revolt of the beggars and thieves, allied with disgruntled petty shopkeepers, had erupted in the city as the army was setting out. It had been put down quickly and the ringleaders promptly hanged, but this cost both time and lives. As a result, when the two armies finally met, twenty miles south of D’alwah City, the royal troops were already tired from street fighting and had sustained losses.

Amibale, who to do him justice was brave, had brought not only the troops of his dukedom but also hordes of savages, some of unknown races, to assist. A particular menace was the swarm of small, pallid men used as skirmishers, who fired clouds of poisoned arrows from both bows and blowguns. And there was worse. The Unclean wizards were coming out into the open at last. A regiment of the ape mutants, the Hairy Howlers, stormed against one wing, while a mob of shrieking, chattering Man-rats assaulted the other.

Moreover, so quickly had Amibale moved that the full resources available to the royal army simply had not been there on time. The Mu’aman infantry, summoned from their western plains, had not arrived. Would they come late or not at all? Had they, too, been rotted with treason? The village militia and the frontier guards had not had time to draw back, either, nor had most of the hardy boatmen of the bays on the Lantik, stern fighters and badly needed.

So the battle had been fought and lost with the household troops, plus the personal armies of the loyal nobility who lived near the capital. Indeed, at one point the center had almost broken under a heavy onslaught, and only the unexpected arrival of Count Ghiftah Hamili, charging in person at the head of his two lancer squadrons, had saved the stricken field. Any doubts that Luchare might have had about the silent count were cleared on the spot as, fighting like a demon at the front of his hoppers, he drove back Amibale’s infantry.

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