Chapter 13

Author’s note: [ and ] delineate mind-to-mind dialog.

Hippolyte was somewhat taken aback by the sudden plea from the mayor. “Of course I will help if I can, but I need a lot more information than that. How many men are there in the attacking party, and where are they right now?”

“I do not know how many there are, but the man who reported the invasion said that there were ‘many soldiers’ and they were about three miles away. We have no way to defend ourselves, and the ruler of Uzoris is well known to be a vindictive bastard. Please help us.”

“All right, is there a better fort than this building in Coronis? I do not remember seeing one.”

“No, Ma’am, this is the most secure building in our town.”

“Very well. Send all of your people to shelter here. Have them bring food and a pad to sleep on. My group will do what we can.”

The mayor dashed out to follow orders, and Hippolyte called Inor to do the scouting she needed. “Inor, take your horse so that you can make good time. Find this invader and see what you can of his forces. I need to know how many troops he has and how they are armed and armored. Report back as soon as you have some useful information. Meanwhile, I will try to turn this building into a fortress.”

Inor ran to follow his orders, and Hippolyte called everybody else together to explain the situation and to outline her plans. “We are about to be attacked by invaders from Uzoris, but I do not know how many soldiers are involved or anything about them. Until I hear otherwise, I will assume that they are armed and armored conventionally. That means a minimum of bronze armor and short swords and pikes.

“I want all of the crossbowmen up on the roof where they can shoot at the enemy without having to face direct combat. Our infantrymen will wait just inside the door out of sight until the enemy gets close enough to be attacked. Inor and I will fight from horseback.

“There is not much else that I can do to plan our defense until the enemy actually shows up. The townspeople will be taking shelter in this building, and it will be up to us to protect them. Does anyone have any questions? ... No? Okay, gather up your weapons and take your places.”

The women and four men headed to the ladder leading to the roof. Agathon went up first to survey the best shooting positions and Janos sent everybody up the ladder. He made sure that each person had a crossbow and a supply of bolts. Janos was the last one up the ladder.

By this time, the first of the townspeople were arriving, and the mayor was leading the pack. Hippolyte said to him, “Get everyone back away from the door so that they will be out of our way. Once the fighting starts, they could be killed if they are not well away from the door. You will have to be responsible for them until the battle is over. Do your job, and everything should be fine.”

It was obvious that the mayor was scared shitless, but he nodded his head and went to meet with the first arrivals. I thought, [Can you trust him to do the job so that he does not favor the rich and politically powerful?]

[No, but there is no way to straighten that out right now. I expect that this will be a short battle. The enemy probably is not expecting the kind of fight that we can put up, so this should be a short battle, not a long siege.]

Inor showed up a few minutes later. “Hippolyte, the leading edge of the enemy is just about to enter Coronis. I counted a total of 57 soldiers, all in conventional armor and with pikes and short swords. There are no siege weapons, and very little logistical support. I think that they are expecting to live off of what they can steal here. I expect them to try to burn the town as they leave. They have the look of that kind of army.”

“Okay, that is about what I expected. This is what we will do. You and I will attack the lead unit from horseback, and we will lead them here. At the moment, I cannot give you any specific instructions. All I can say right now is that we want to lead them into the range of the crossbows. We will probably duck back into this building to get out of the way of the crossbows.

“I have a couple of things to do right now, so you go to the roof and tell Agathon and Janos what I said. I will meet you back here in about 10-15 minutes.”

When they met, Hippolyte handed Inor a mace with an especially long shaft. “Here, use this instead of your usual mace. The longer handle will let you reach more of the enemy. Our purpose is not to kill a significant number, but is to get us fixed in their attention so that they will chase us back here. It they do, the rest of the army will follow. That way, we have a better chance of defeating them without any injuries on our side.”

Inor nodded his agreement. They mounted their horses and rode out of the warehouse that had become a fort. Hippolyte led the way with her lance in hand. She did not couch it until the enemy was in sight. “Okay, Inor, let us make them hate us!”

She charged to her left so that the enemy was on her right side where she had her lance. It took only moments for her to skewer the first man and recover her lance as he fell. Hippolyte never slowed down as she approached the second target. He tried to duck out of the way, but he could not evade the skillfully managed lance. Okay, two down and time to turn around.

Meanwhile, Inor had ridden to his right, not because that was advantageous to him, but because Hippolyte had preempted the other side. This way, he had to swing across his and the horse’s body to reach the enemy. He now understood why Hippolyte had wanted him to have the mace with the longer shaft.

Inor managed to hit one of the soldiers in the head with his mace and crush the side of his helmet. That was enough to crush the man’s skull, too, and Inor rode toward his next target. This man saw him coming and tried to jump out of reach, but Inor leaned over enough to catch the man on the shoulder and break a few bones. That was good enough for the current purposes, and it was now time for him to turn around, which he did.

Now the enemy was on his right hand side and much easier to reach. Inor managed to hit three men on his way back to the front of the enemy line. Hippolyte now had the problem of the enemy being on the wrong side, so she was not able to hit any on this pass, but that was not surprising. As she caught up to Inor, she waved for him to follow her, and they rode back toward the fort.

With seven men out of the fight, Hippolyte decided to return to the fort. Surely, this was enough to entice the rest of the army to follow them to exact vengeance for their audacity. As far as the invaders knew, Hippolyte and Inor were their only opposition. That made it even easier for them to want to catch the two.

They rode the horses through the opened door and dismounted. The first thing Hippolyte did was to shout, “GET READY! HERE THEY COME!” The second thing she did was to congratulate Inor on his performance against the enemy.

Inor reequipped himself as an infantryman, but Hippolyte rushed to the roof where she could get a good look at the unfolding battle. Well, actually, she was hoping that there would be no conventional battle. She sent Janos to the part of the roof directly over the main door where he could direct the ground battle if it did occur.

She ordered, “HOLD YOUR FIRE! ANYBODY WHO DISOBEYS GETS PUSHED OFF THE ROOF!” Of course, she didn’t mean that, but the crossbowmen didn’t know it. The command did do what it was intended to do and jerked the attention of the crossbowmen from simply watching the enemy approach and back to their duty.

She let the invaders get very close before she called out, “YOU MEN TRY TO TAKE OUT THE COMMANDER! THE REST OF YOU AIM AT THE REGULAR TROOPS! FIRE!”