Much Fall of Blood: Chapter Thirty

    The sun kisses the high places, the cold roost of eagles and fugitives, before it shines upon the rest of the world. In the pale clarity of dawn, Vlad gazed out from the craggy edge above their small camp, loving the sheer limitless immensity of the folded shadow lands below. It had frightened him a little at first. Now he would die before he let anyone shut him away again. For a brief while his soul was at peace, in the vast tranquility of the place, away from the turmoil of conflicting desires and a world he understood poorly.

    Could death somehow be like this? An endless, quiet, shadowy country.

    The sun climbed slowly higher, becoming harsher and stronger, and people began to stir. They’d camped in a picturesque spot, in a small dell beneath a gray scree, with a craggy peak above it. To the right on the edge of the scree, a col led into another valley and deeper into the mountains.

    Far, far below, Vlad’s eye was caught by flash of light. Vlad had discovered that he had very keen eyesight. He peered intently now, wishing that he had one of those telescope devices. Staring, his eyes picked up movements eventually. A column of horses, working their way up one of the valleys. Soon they would be hidden behind the ridge line as the valley turned away in its meandering.

    Vlad knew all too well that that valley would eventually bring the horsemen to their camp. And it was very unlikely that it was a friendly column of several hundred horsemen.

    He made his way quickly back to his camp. It was a very makeshift camp, tents constructed from a few ragged tarpaulins, and some lean-tos set around several cook fires, one of which was being blown into life.

    “Best leave that,” said Vlad. “The Hungarians are coming. I have seen a column of them heading up our valley. Wake everybody. No shouting,” he added, seeing the startled fire-maker take a deep breath to do just that.

    A few minutes later, two of the younger boys were leading the horses up to the col while those for whom there were no mounts began to slither and scramble over the broken cliff and down into the next valley. That left Vlad and twenty-one men waiting nervously amongst the top edge of the broken boulder scree near the col.

    When he had planned the last ambush he had been filled with a kind of rash fury that expressed itself in cold-blooded, calculated killing. Now, he was just afraid. How had they found him here? The wait seemed interminable. He wished, desperately, that he had the experience, or that someone else here with him that knew what to do.

    At last, a pair of troopers appeared at the foot of the little mountain dell they had used for their camp. They were moving cautiously and halted their horses when they saw the rough tents. They turned, quietly, to ride away.

    And then, while he was still holding his breath, Vlad saw it all come apart. Someone decided to shoot one of the scouts. He hadn’t actually told them not to . . .

    It was good shooting, all things considered. The one scout gave a gurgling scream as the arrow hit him on the breastplate and ricocheted upward, striking just under the jaw. His companion did not wait. He put his spurs to his steed and got away, as less well aimed arrows clattering impotently on the rocks, spearing the thin soil. Vlad heard a horn being sounded. And then, something worse — the sound of screaming from the valley behind them, where those without horses had fled.

    Vlad simply did not know what to do. The Hungarians had obviously another column of horse coming up to take them from behind. Vlad’s men were outnumbered, and would have been surrounded. Before Vlad could take a decision — something his little army were looking for him to do — the Hungarians came sweeping into the dell, lances out.

    “Loose!” someone yelled. A ragged volley of arrows fell among the Hungarian knights, busy spearing canvas and flattening lean-tos. The knights were heavily armored, the horses less so. Some horses screamed. A few men fell, but the rest were now charging at the scree slope. Vlad’s makeshift troops were no match for them. A handful loosed again, but most of them were scrambling for the col. Vlad stood up. He was damned, he decided, if he would flee merely to run into the second column. He would die here, and die free.

    Seeing him stand his ground with a sword in his hand, steadied three or four of his men who had not yet started to run. They began firing more arrows, yelling to their companions to come back and aid them.

    Then, the invincible and terrifying Magyar charge slowed. It was not the pinprick of the few light arrows that affected them. Rather it was the utter folly of trying to gallop a heavy horse up a steep loose scree slope. The earlier flight of Vlad’s men had started some rocks rolling down. A cascade of boulders knocked one knight from his horse.

    Vlad stretched out his arms. “Push rocks, men!”

    A heavy horse just does not change course or stop easily, even on a steep slope of loose rocks. Still, the charge — which had seemed so terrifying and unstoppable — scattered and broke up, as the Magyars tried to save themselves and their steeds. The scree, long undisturbed and appearing fairly stable as a result, had deceived the flatland knights. Perhaps they had intended to merely caracole and retreat, but now, in the sliding and rolling rocks and screaming men and horses, the order was lost. The booming of their pistols had not helped either.

    In the dust and chaos Vlad knew only one thing: somehow luck had favored them. But what he should do next was a mystery to him.

    The decision was taken out of his hands by someone tugging at his sleeve. “Sire, they are coming up from behind!”

    Vlad took a deep breath. One of the reasons they had chosen this little dell as a campsite was that that it had had two valleys for them to flee down. The idea that they might need three had never occurred to him. Plainly someone had pinpointed their campsite exactly, and planned accordingly.

    “To the horses, men!” They scrambled over to the col. The man who had warned him had a steaming horse. Vlad read into this that he had ridden someway down the valley before catching sight of the other group of Hungarians, advancing up that escape route. Vlad had heard the screams earlier, but he had to hope that there would still be a way clear. Well, there obviously wasn’t.

    “Mount up!” he said. “We are going back over. We will at least die like men.”

    They walked their horses above the scree and then down along the clear steep slope next to the cliff where Vlad had watched the sunrise — the route that the boys leading the horses had taken earlier. They were able to ride down, into the dust and shouting. It was very hard to tell quite what was happening down here. Vlad’s men were no battle hardened warriors. They were unarmored and poorly armed. True, most of the men had bows. But none of them could shoot from the saddle. So they had to resort to boar spears, a few pitchforks, rusty old swords — relics taken from above fireplaces — and even a few men who had nothing more than clubs, and axes intended for firewood.

    The Magyars should have butchered them. Almost certainly the Magyar would have butchered them, had they come with a little advance notice, and not in the wake of the scree slide. By the time that it occurred to Vlad that in the books he had read, warriors gave a battle cry on charging, it was almost too late to do so. It was certainly too late to think of anything particularly inspiring. He settled for his own name. It echoed hollowly, mockingly weak to his own ears. But that was obviously not how it sounded to his small band of followers. “Drac!” they yelled in chorus.

    There were barely twenty of them left. Looking back to see if he was being followed, Vlad realized that the flanking party of Magyar had reached the col behind them. His pitiful little force was caught between two sets of enemies. But it was too late. The little ragtag group of rebels, all that remained of his army, had begun their doomed charge. All he could do was to wave his sword — he had no idea how to use it from the saddle — and race towards the chaos that had been their campsite.

    At the top of the slope someone else yelled: “Charge!” And: “He must be taken alive!”

    Vlad heard that quite clearly. It was the last thing he remembered hearing clearly for the next few minutes.

    If there was one thing more stupid than trying to charge up a scree slope, it had to be charging down one. It was undoubtedly the shortest way down, and in the dust and perhaps in the haste of the moment it might have seemed a good idea.

    Vlad had no time to think of his enemy’s logic. He was hacking at an armored man. This was not about swordsmanship. This was about survival. A pitch-fork in the neck assisted his foe’s fall. And somehow he was through to the other side of the Magyar troopers, with nothing but the trail they had followed up here in front of him, and the bulk of his force intact.

    Emeric had some thirty-three battered men paraded in front of him. They were all that remained of a once-proud troop of a hundred and twenty that had set off on a well-planned dawn raid on the encampment of Vlad, Prince of Valahia.

    “I think,” he said, smiling nastily at his great aunt’s beautiful features, “that you had better leave military matters me, Countess. I came expecting to find things in good order. Instead I find you have countermanded my instructions and made things a great deal worse. I did have my doubts. You are very skilled . . . in other areas.”

    He did not say that he had come because one of the captains whom he had seconded to her had sent a letter to his commanding officer, who had in turn carried it to the king. Emeric might need the man in the future. Besides, he thought it wise to let her think he that had guessed. Actually, the disaster had come as a rude shock to him. She was usually so devastatingly efficient.

    She looked down her nose at him. “The operation was well planned. Your troops are inadequate. They were late. They should have arrived simultaneously at dawn.”

    He wondered if she realized that she had just reprieved them from drastic punishment. “Let us hear what they have to say,” he said. He pointed to a trooper. “You. Explain.”

    The man was gray and shaking. But he was no coward, Emeric had to admit. “Sire. It was steeper than we realized. It took us much longer than we thought. Captain Genorgi had us out at midnight, riding up. We should have been in position hours before dawn. Everyone thought we would be, but we lost the moonlight in the valley. It was pitch dark and very rough going. We had to lead the horses.”

    “If you’d lamed my horses in that I would have had you flayed. But surely it had been scouted?”

    The trooper nodded. “It’s rough terrain, Sire, but not that bad in daylight. We just didn’t realize that it was an ambush. A trap.”

    “And scouts?” asked the king.

    “We had some Croats watching the camp from the other ridge, Sire. But they could only see fires. They didn’t realize that the fires were a decoy. We’d have all been killed if our scouts hadn’t sounded the warning. I was coming up the second valley. We killed some of their infantry. But when we heard the fighting, Captain Genorgi told us to leave hunting them and push on for the gap.”

    “And then?”

    “We heard them massacring Lieutenant Mascaru’s men when we got to the top. There were hundreds of them, Sire. Not just the forty peasants without weapons or training like we’d been told. All yelling ‘Drac!’ and cutting our men to pieces. Captain Genorgi gave the order to charge, and we rode to the rescue. But it was a trap. Prince Vlad . . . He’s not human, Sire. He’s a demon. He made the slope give way under us. I was lucky to get out alive.”

    “This may be temporary,” said Emeric, and then remembered that he was not punishing them. “You did well. Now. Return to the ranks. I want to speak someone who was with the other column.”

    The trooper was plainly unable to believe his fortune. He bowed and retreated.

    “Well?” said Emeric. “Were there no survivors of Lieutenant Mascaru’s column?”

    Where had Vlad found a general with this level of military expertise? Where had he found weaponry, knights, or at least cavalry? Emeric suspected treachery, and a far better woven plot that he had guessed at.

    Nervously a man with a bandaged head came forward. “Me, Sire.”

    Emeric looked at him. A big man, but plainly shaken by the military disaster. So they should be. They were among his best. “And how many knights did they have?”

    “More than us, Sire. A hundred at least. They took us in the flank out of the dust.”

    “And who commanded them? I need some ideas. Boyars have families.” He smiled thinly.

    The soldier looked nervous. “Sire, I think it was Prince Vlad himself. They were all yelling for him, or at least all yelling ‘Drac!’ That’s what they call him. He’s a huge man all in black clothes, black hair and a white face, and you can’t kill him. I shot him at the top of the slope, but he didn’t die. Then in the melee he knocked me out of the saddle just with his gaze. His eyes . . .”

    The man shuddered. “I’ll swear our swords barely touched.” The soldier realized what he was saying, shut his eyes, and began to mumble a prayer.

    It was all Emeric could do not to kill the idiot on the spot. This was exactly what he did not need. The Magyars prided themselves in the belief that they were the finest heavy cavalry in the world — as Emeric himself did. The accursed Knights of the Holy Trinity used magic, that was all. And now, here was an upstart little princeling who had shaken the confidence of his finest, shaken the very foundations of his kingdom. A man who was, it appeared, rapidly building a more terrible reputation than he himself enjoyed.

    In a shallow cave that was barely more than an overhang, Vlad and his fourteen surviving men, neither looked nor felt terrifying. They felt alive . . . but only just. Of the fourteen, only eight were not walking wounded. They were all still stunned by their first real combat, and the sheer ferocity of it all. Yes, they had escaped. Some said they had seen Magyar butcher Magyar in the chaos of rolling rocks and dust. It appeared that those in the dell had taken their rescuers — those that survived the scree slide — as yet more attackers.

    Whatever happened, Vlad’s men had escaped with their lives — those who had not paid with theirs. But they had lost almost all of their food and the better part of their number.

    Yet, somehow, Vlad’s men regarded him as a hero. Vlad did not know what to make of this, but it filled him with shame. Still, he had learned one thing. Watchers were now posted. And there were several ways to flee carefully scouted. But he did not know quite what to do next.

    The one thing he did not expect was for his watchers to be calling him excitedly, happily. He came to look. A sense of some relief washed over him. He recognized at least three of the men leading a party of perhaps fifty others. Not soldiers, or at least certainly not recognizable as such. There were a number of pack ponies, a few donkeys, and most of the men were carrying large bundles.

    He tried to place where the three had been during that disastrous encounter. One of them, still with a horse, had been part of that terrible charge. The other two, one now leading a pack pony, had definitely been with the group that had scrambled off on foot. Vlad had thought them all killed. To his relief, he realized that some of them must have got away.

    That was a weight off his conscience. Perhaps generals with thousands at their beck and call felt little for casualties. To Vlad, these men were still precious companions. Yes, they were peasants and yeomen farmers. But they were all he had. And they’d been true to him.

    He wished that he could make contact, somehow, with Countess Elizabeth. She would have nobles skilled in the art of war — something he knew far too little of — willing to join and help him. She plainly was a loyal subject, a vassal ruling Caedonia, one of his cities, even if she was also a vassal of King Emeric.

    He was delighted to see the other survivors. And totally unprepared for the adulation of those who accompanied them.

    “Drac!” People bowed and cheered. “Bless you, Prince!” They crowded round, incredulous and plainly in awe.

    Vlad smiled worriedly as he squeezed the shoulders of one the men who had fled on foot. “Were there any other survivors?”

    “Some others, I think. We were scattered, Prince. But thanks to you, some of us escaped when you taught the Magyars a lesson. They fled like whipped dogs.”

    Vlad found himself so taken aback by this interpretation of events, that he was at a loss as to what to say. The world inside the walls of his tower had ill prepared him for the realities outside. That much he understood. But did life have to be so illogical and confusing? He had lost most of his men, had had to flee their camp; had, in fact, barely survived. To Vlad’s logical mind, that did not make him the sort of beacon to whom men would rally. Yet here they were, with more men than he’d lost, congratulating him on his victory!

    It made no sense. Could they not see that he and a bare handful of men were huddling in a cave in the mountains?

    “The story is spreading across the country, Lord. Many thousands will answer your call now.”

    Bit by bit, as he spoke to his new recruits, Vlad began to understand. In the chaos some of the Magyars had fled too. Vlad knew little about war, and of how King Emeric conducted it. But this much he did know: there was only one penalty for desertion — execution. On the other hand, even Vlad knew that Emeric was fond of painful deaths for those who had failed him. Desertion might have seemed a sensible option to some of those soldiers. It might be dishonorable and disloyal, but, for the second sons and minor nobility who made up the rank-and-file of King Emeric’s elite, it might also have been better than returning and admitting defeat.

    So. Desertion, and not just the scree slope, confusion and the few casualties that he and his men had been able to inflict, had made the difference — and painted a different picture of the battle. Very few of the survivors were in the two columns returning to face the penalties that their commanders, or worse, their king, might inflict upon them. But those who had chosen the course of honor, it would seem . . .

    Had not chosen the course of veracity. They had vastly exaggerated the size of the force they had faced. These new recruits earnestly believed that Vlad had inflicted a stunning military defeat onto the hated occupiers. Also, that he commanded a large force, and that he was a military genius. Their own eyes soon persuaded them that Vlad had no vast force. However, that just reinforced the belief that he was the greatest military commander that had ever breathed, to be able to inflict such a crushing defeat on superior numbers.

    Besides, they wanted to believe. They would not let common sense stand in the way of that.

    Vlad had little enough silver, very few horses, scant rations, and no arms. He did have, however, twice the army he’d had before. And there were more men on their way, apparently. Vlad wished desperately for wiser and more experienced counsel. He wished he knew how to make contact with the countess, or even the gypsies. He could talk to them. But he was wise enough to know that he could not truly take these people into his confidence. He needed them. And, even if their belief was false, he needed them to believe in him. So he walked off up the bare mountainside, to a place that he could sit alone and think. And pray. Father Tedesco had said that God would provide answers. Right now, those seemed to be avoiding him.

    He would just have to do his best on his own, knowing almost nothing. What ever that best was, it would have to include finding a larger camp and posting sentries. He had read of sentries. In a way experienced them, in the shape of the guards that had watched his tower. He just was not too sure of the exact details — such as how many of them, and what they should do, and for how long they should do it.

    He walked back down to the encampment. It was, to his meticulous eye, a mess. Of course, it had been a mess previously, but then, as desperate fugitives organization had seemed a little futile. He cleared his throat. “Have we any men here,” he said loudly, instantly stilling dozens of conversations, “who have any military experience?” He hoped he could find at least one common soldier from whom he could — without betraying too much of his own ignorance — get the details of how to set out sentries.

    He got some seven men. And four of them, all comrades, were former sergeants from one of the levies that Emeric had raised in Valahia. “I need sentries posted, I need a better camp — this one is poorly ordered, and I need to train these men,” Vlad began, wondering — as he knew little of how the military actually worked, if such men would know anything of what he needed. Perhaps they would have some ideas from watching their own officers.

    They saluted. And turned away . . . But he had not yet finished speaking to them . . .

    They seem to believe he had, however. And moreover they seemed to assume that he had ordered them to arrange these matters. To his amazement, Vlad discovered that they seemed to know precisely what to do. He watched them, covertly, determined to learn what to do next time. After a while he wryly concluded that the correct method was probably to tell several sergeants that you perceived a problem. Even if this was not quite the right way, and Vlad did not know if it was or not, it had certainly worked extremely well.

    The cave with its handful of desperate survivors transformed — at an almost magical speed — into a military encampment. The two sergeants drilling the newly formed squads might think that they resembled hopeless black beetles . . . and other fascinating and bizarre things, many of which Vlad had never heard of before, but suddenly they began to resemble fighting men. And strangely, despite the abuse heaped on their heads, they appeared proud, even if they were merely armed with staffs of green ash.

    It left Vlad free to ponder other important questions, and to wonder if perhaps he should tell the sergeants about those too — and how he could do so without shattering their confidence in him. He could hardly say ‘well, what do I do next?’

    The one thing he was sure of was that they could not stay in one place for long. If the Hungarians had found and nearly destroyed them once, they would do so again. The others could delude themselves about his military genius, but Vlad knew he had none, and he knew it. All he had was a logical, and very precise and tidy mind.