The city wall was an old, crumbling, useless affair only three stories tall. The city hadn't been seriously attacked for hundreds of years, and the city fathers had been slack in their duties. There were enough hand-holds on the old bricks and stone to let my warriors climb up them, especially since wall climbing was part of the training they'd been through. And up they went, without waiting for orders to do so. The troops had seen the same atrocities that I had, and there was no stopping them now. Nothing would stop them until either all of the enemy were dead or every one of the warriors had died trying to kill them!

The warriors were moving, and I could see that they would be uncontrollable until the city was theirs or they died in their armor. Not that I wanted to control them. They knew what to do!

This meant that I had no further duties as their commander and was free to join in on the fun. I headed through the increasingly heavy rain for the nearest city gate, the Carpenter's Gate as memory served, since I wanted to have a Big Person under me in the battle, and while these bioengineered horses had some amazing abilities, wall climbing wasn't one of them. I hoped that this new mount was as good as Anna in a fight.

The upper city, Wawel Hill, was in the hands of the n.o.bility, but the lower city was governed and defended by the commoners. Each city guild had its own gate, tower, or section of wall to defend, and each of these defenses had been named for a particular guild.

The wall was lightly guarded by Mongol archers, with more arriving every minute. The troops ignored them, and some had a half dozen arrows sticking in their armor as they went over the top. Pikes and halberds were tossed up to them, and they made quick work of clearing the ramparts. I saw one halberdier take the heads clean off two of the enemy with a single sideways blow and then stop and stare at what he had done, unable to believe it.

"Yes, Yashoo, I saw you do it, too!" a man beside him shouted, "now come and help us with these other ones!"

The Carpenter's Gate was ours by the time I got there, and I just rode straight through. Some of the officers had been training for battle for five years, and now they finally had a chance to put that training to use. They were in high spirits, and the mood was infectious, doubtless aided by the giddiness that is caused by the lack of sleep. Seeing the men now, no one would have believed that they had been awake for two days and had spent much of that time at a dead run. Some of our troops were laughing and a few were crying, but none of them were holding back.

Most of the Mongols were on horseback, but they soon learned not to attack our ranks. I saw three of them charge splashing through the puddles at a dozen of my warriors, or at least charge as best they could in the narrow winding streets of the lower city., Rather than cowering from the hors.e.m.e.n as the Mongols had obviously expected, our men fairly leapt at them. Grounded pikes skewered horses and riders! Axes and swords swung no more than once each, and all three of the enemy riders were dead before they hit the ground. None of the good guys were injured.

"Hey! That really works!" one knight shouted. "Let's go find some more of the smelly b.a.s.t.a.r.ds and do it again!"

They left at a trot. I went over and inspected the fallen enemy soldiers. None of them had been wearing armor, though even in the rain it was obvious from the wear patterns on their clothing that they owned chain mail and had left it back in camp. My guess is that they had planned to spend the day murdering the seven thousand women and children who lived in the lower city. Encountering fifty thousand of the best-armed, best-armored, and best-trained troops in the world hadn't been part of their daily game plan!

It was soon obvious to me that if I was going to accomplish anything, I was going to have to get out ahead of the foot soldiers. That wasn't easy to do in those tangled streets. Mongols were soon abandoning their horses and taking refuge in the buildings. Seeing this, our warriors started a house-to-house search. Some were using impromptu battering rams, but a quicker technique was more often used. This was for an armored man to run at a barred door full tilt and at the last instance to flip around and smack the door flat with his back. This usually took down any ordinary doorway, and six of his friends ran through right on top of him. If it didn't work the first time, they'd try it again with two men flying backwards. There's something about good armor that gives a man the feeling of indestructibility, and he'll willingly take more actual abuse while wearing it than he would without.

I finally got ahead of most of my men and into a section of the city that was burning fiercely. The smell was enough to make me want to vomit. I might have done just that, but I thought about the results of heaving inside a closed helmet and somehow held it in. Like all the other old cities in Europe, Cracow had no sewage system. For hundreds of years people had been dumping their garbage and s.h.i.t directly into the streets, and now the mess was going up in flames along with the wooden buildings around it.

Actually, a good fire was what this place really needed.

Urban renewal, medieval style!

I got past the worst of the fires and into a section that was mostly burned over. One of the few buildings standing was the Franciscan church and the monastery attached to it.

There was a fight going on in front of it, a crowd of Mongols attacking a band of monks in brown ca.s.socks. We galloped to their aid, my mount and 1, and as I approached, I saw that the man leading the monks was my old friend and mentor, Bishop Ignacy.

Just as I reached the fray, a Mongol horseman swung his sword, and the good bishop went down!

Chapter Five.

We chopped into the fight, my Big Person and 1. 1 took the head off one of the Mongols and the arm off another before most of them noticed that I was there. My mount was not being a slouch, either, being every bit as good as Anna and doing at least as much damage as I was. Thunder rippled across the sky but couldn't drown the crash of sword on shield, the popping squish of a human head trampled beneath a horse's hoof.

Once the enemy noticed us, though, things got a bit hairy. I was soon surrounded and had to spend most of my effort fending off their blows rather than delivering my own. But they'd never seen a horse that could fight like mine, and she did in four of them before I could score again. Yet every time a Mongol went down, another was all too eager to take his place. I began to realize that I was growing too old for this sort of thing and that getting ahead of my own troops was maybe not such a good idea.

The cavalry came to my rescue in the form of my captain of scouts, Sir Wladyclaw, the oldest son of my good friend Sir Miesko. He was riding one of our Big People, one of Anna's progeny, and was slewing and sliving as I had done before I had become the center of the Mongols' attention. Didn't the idiots ever put out sentries?

He soon made it to my side, and while we were still surrounded, at least now I didn't have to try to watch my own back. We were soon fighting to good effect, and I think that I killed six more Mongols before things quieted down. That wasn't enough to extract full vengeance for what these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds had done to that woman in the hamlet, but it was enough to get me a good honor guard into the h.e.l.l I'd earned for putting her out of her pain.

"Well met, Captain Wladyclaw, and thank you! How did you manage to find me?"

"I didn't, my lord. This is Anna! She's been looking for you and disregarding everything I've wanted to do since we got through the city gates!"

"Well, thank you, love. " I scratched Anna's ear the way she liked it. Then I saw that there was still a crowd of Mongols in front of the monks. "Whoops! There's more work to do. Let's go! For G.o.d and Poland!"

In the course of our fight we had drifted a gross yards from our starting point, and so we had time to get up to speed before we hit them again. Big People were larger than the usual war-horses and far more powerful than a little Mongol pony. We struck the Mongols like a pair of bowling b.a.l.l.s, and they flew like a rack of pins. Then we were back to hacking and slashing in earnest, the blood and raindrops splashing around us.

I soon realized that the monks were not behaving like innocent victims. They were handing out as much as they took in and were tolerating an unbelievable amount of punishment in the process. They were swinging long iron maces since a man of the Church wasn't allowed to shed blood, but all the swords except mine were dulled to clubs by that point, anyway.

Then I saw Bishop Ignacy cave in the skull of the last standing Mongol and suddenly all was quiet. We dismounted, and both of the Big People started going about calmly stepping on the necks of the fallen Mongols. They always do that sort of thing, but I'd just as soon not watch.

"For this timely aid, much thanks, my son! You know, I've always wanted to say something like that,"

the bishop said, laughing.

"You are most welcome, your excellency. But tell me. Did I or did I not just see you go down before a Mongol sword?" I asked.

"You did, Conrad."

"Then how is it that you are standing before me? One miracle in a lifetime is enough, after all."

"There's nothing miraculous about it. I am standing now simply because I stood up again after he knocked me down! Oh, I see what you mean." He folded back the cuff of his wide sleeve to reveal a set of our regulation combat armor underneath. Looking about, I realized that all the monks were similarly attired. "The Lord said that one should turn the other cheek, my son, but he never demanded that one's cheek must be naked."

"How did you get that armor? Why are you wearing a monk's ca.s.sock instead of your bishop's robes?

And why are you down here instead of up in your cathedral?" My head was buzzing.

"We got the armor by going to Three Walls and paying for it. The Church is not poor, after all. I am in the lower city because I judged that Wawel Hill would hold but that I would be needed down here. As to the ca.s.sock, well, the ladies often spend years embroidering a single one of my formal robes, and it would be rude to ruin one. Is anything else troubling you, my son?" he said patiently, standing in the rain.

"No, Father. "

"Then you had best get about your business. This day's work isn't done yet. Go with G.o.d, my son!"

We mounted up and rode out.

Captain Wladyclaw and I rode through the town, taking out the enemy as we found them until we got to the Butcher's Gate by the waterfront. Quite a few enemy hors.e.m.e.n had apparently had their fill of fighting real warriors and were streaming out of the city.

"There's the place for us," Captain Wladyclaw shouted, pointing with his saber. "Every one of them that gets out now is one more that we'll have to catch later on!"

"Right you are! For G.o.d and Poland!"

We hacked our way to the gate and then turned to defend it, not against an aggressor from the outside, as is usual with city gates, but against aggressors from the inside who were trying to escape. The gate was a tunnel a dozen yards long and just wide enough to allow two men on horseback to fight while guarding it. A convenient killing ground.

The first Mongol to follow us through plunged out of the rain and into the relative darkness of the gate without realizing that we were there. Captain Wladyclaw got a lance into his horse about the time I split his greasy head open with my sword. Our eyes were accustomed to the darkness, while those of the enemy weren't. The second enemy's horse tripped over the remains of the first, but the end results were similar. The Mongols weren't expecting anyone to be trying to stop them from leaving, and in that dark tunnel a fair number went down without getting a chance to draw their swords.

A proper Christian knight would have been horrified at what we were doing, but my forces didn't believe in fighting fair. You were either out there to kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds or you shouldn't be fighting in the first place.

Anyway, I kept seeing in my mind that mother nailed to the door frame of her house, and I didn't feel very merciful.

Soon, however, the dead men and horses in front of us were warning enough for all but the absolutely stupid, and things started to slow down. In a few dozen minutes, my sword arm was getting sore and the dead before us were piled up saddle high. Mongols had taken to dismounting in order to climb the pile of their dead, and a Mongol on foot is dog meat to a warrior mounted on a Big Person. Nonetheless, we were being slowly pushed back out of the city gate for no other reason than that we couldn't climb the dead bodies, either. Eventually we were out in the rain again.

During a lull I said, "You know, Captain Wladyclaw, that gate is so packed that it will be hours before they can get a horse through it, and a Mongol on foot isn't much to worry about. What say we see how the other gates are doing?"

"Whatever you say, my lord. You're the commander." Anna smashed in the skull of another Mongol footman, and such had become our casualness with killing that it didn't break our conversation.

"Have you seen me command anything lately? The fight in the city is so scattered that no one could possibly keep track of it, let alone give any sensible orders. But as your brother in arms, I suggest we try the next gate east."

"Done, my lord, or brother in arms, as you would have it!" he said with a smile.

At the next gate we found two of my other scouts with exactly the same idea that we had, and with much the same results. We wished them well and continued on around the city. We found a lance of our own foot troops guarding the third gate we came to.

"Sir, our captain said we was to guard this gate, but there ain't nothing happening here. Any chance we could go back in and join in on the fighting?" the knight in charge said.

"Sorry, but you're needed fight where you are. The Mongols have been trying to break out of a lot of the other gates, and we've been bottling them in. If they try it here, you'll have your hands full."

"But there ain't no Mongols hereabouts, sir!"

"Your job is here. Do it!" Captain Wladyclaw and I rode through the gate and back into the fight.

Soon we were in another free-for-all, a b.l.o.o.d.y chaos of swinging and stabbing with the city still burning around us, despite the rain.

The only water available was in a few wells, enough to provide some not particularly safe drinking water but totally insufficient for fire fighting. In the quieter areas civilians were trying to save their homes, but they didn't have much chance of success. Aside from the churches, most of the buildings in the lower city were made of wood and had roofs made of straw. What's more, they were built right next to each other with no s.p.a.ce in between, and the upper stories overhung the narrow streets below so that the fires could easily leap the narrow gap between two city blocks. The rain helped a lot to slow things down, but the place was still a firetrap. I didn't see how anything could stop the fires but running out of fuel. That's to say, running out of city.

In one burned-out area I was pleased to note that my Pink Dragon Inn was still standing. My chief innkeeper, Tadeusz, had spent some of our fabulous profits giving the inns in the more important cities brick walls and tile roofs. I suppose he had done this more for reasons of prestige than for fireproofing, but the result was the same. Since the inn was so big that it took up an entire city block, it was isolated from the flames that had burned all around it.

I dismounted and beat on the door.

"We're closed for the duration of the battle," came a m.u.f.fled voice from within.

"You're not closed to me! I own the place!" I shouted back.

A peephole slid open, and then the door was unbarred. The rotund shape of Tadeusz himself filled the doorway.

"My, lord Conrad! I didn't know it was you' " He was shocked by our appearance, a reasonable thing since we were both drenched with human blood, "Very little of the blood is our own," I a.s.sured him. "Can you spare us a quick meal? We haven't eaten since daybreak. "

"Of course , my lord, of course. I'll get it myself, since the waitresses and cooks have all been sent to shelter on Wawel Hill. There's none here but the bartenders and a few old guards, and they're all on the top floor with crossbows. Come in, come in, my lords, and you'd best bring your mounts in with you.

They'll be wanting food and drink, too, yes, of course." He barred the door behind us.

"We're not particular about what we get so long as we get it fast," I said, leading the group into the kitchen. I put a bushel of fairly fresh bread in front of each of the Big People, and Captain Wladyclaw set out two buckets of clean water for them. We sat at the cook's worktable, which Tadeusz proceeded to cover with fifty kinds of preserved foods, most of them of the rare and expensive variety. We didn't give it the attention it deserved but just wolfed down the calories as fast as we could. We both pa.s.sed up the wines that were set out for some big gla.s.ses of small beer. Fighting is thirsty work, and the job wasn't done yet.

The innkeeper was still setting out food when we got up to leave.

"You're leaving so soon, my lord'?"

"There's work to do. Look, move all this stuff and as much else as you need to the front door. Thinking about it, I have fifty thousand hungry troops out there, so you'd better get some help and empty out your entire cellar. When any of my men comes by, feed them near the door. Don't let them stay in or you might have problems getting them out. They're all so tired that they'll fall asleep if they sit down. And give them only one jack of beer each. I don't want them drunk!"

We headed back to the war.

Two blocks down we hadn't found any Mongols, but I ran into Baron Gregor, my second in command.

"So how goes the battle?" I asked.

"We seem to be winning, sir, and I think that our casualties have been light. I wish I could be more definite than that, but this is the most chaotic battle I've ever heard of. I don't even know where most of our units are!"

"I don't think anybody does. I've seen a lot of Mongols escaping out the city gates. You might try and get some of our men to guard each one of them."

"I'll see to it, sir. A few men on the walls wouldn't be amiss, either. You know, this is a situation where the radios would really have come in handy."

"Yeah, if the d.a.m.n things worked," I said. "You go east along the walls, and we'll go west. When the gates are all guarded, we'll meet somewhere along the wall at the other side of the city. Oh, yes. You can stop at the Pink Dragon Inn. for a quick bite to eat. Pa.s.s the word on that one."

"Right, sir. "

We headed back to the gate through which we had last entered. Captain Wladyclaw came with me, since he was still on Anna and she wasn't about to leave my side. Had a human acted that way, I would have busted him for insubordination, but with Anna, well, what could I do?

We got to the gate with a platoon of troops we had picked up on the way. Enemy troops were streaming into the portal, and we had to fight our way to it for the last gross yards. We got there to find the bodies of the lance of men I had met on our way in. AH seven of them had died where I had left them. I should have reinforced them at the time. Another sin on my already blackened soul.

The platoon seemed to be holding pretty well, so I went on to the next gate, sending the next platoon I came across back to reinforce the first. This went on for one of our long, double-sized hours before I again met Baron Gregor. I sent him to continue his way around, inspecting and manning the walls while Captain Wladyclaw and I went outside the city to see how things were going there. It was dusk when we got to the dock area to find that one of our riverboats, the RB29 Enterprise, was just pulling in. I saw Baron Tadaos on the bridge.

"Baron Tadaos! What happened to your Muddling Through?" I shouted.

"Burned, sir!" he shouted in the darkening gloom. "Burned along with four-other boats and the whole d.a.m.ned city of East Gate. I came here looking for help!"

Chapter Six.

Good G.o.d in heaven! A third Mongol army?

"Tadaos! We have a third of the land forces in the city now, You collect up as many troops as you can hold and take them to East Gate. I'll follow as fast as I can with the rest!" I shouted.

"I'm low on fuel, sir!"

"Then tear down these docks if you have to, and those buildings, too, if you need more wood. But get there!"

"Yes, sir!"

The nearest city gate was the one Captain Wladyclaw and I had left stuffed with Mongol corpses, so we had to race on to the next. d.a.m.n! I should have had brains enough to mount a signalman on one of the Big People and keep him with me, but I simply hadn't thought of it. When the men were concentrated in war carts, there was always a signalman handy in every sixth cart, so there was no point wasting a Big Person on one. Now the situation had changed, and I hadn't been bright enough to change with it. My stupidity was wasting precious time!

Once in the city, I soon found a bugler and had him sound BREAK OFF FIGHTING, MAN THE WAR CARTS, and EAST GATE IS BURNING. The first two were standard signal tunes that most of the men knew, or at least the officers did, and they could inform the others. The last required the use of a special code that the signalmen had worked out. Our bugles could play only seven notes, but if one played two or three notes in rapid succession, there were enough combinations to cover each letter of the alphabet as well as the numbers and punctuation marks. Messages were spelled out in a sort of code. It took a man with perfect pitch to play and understand the code, and many of the signalmen couldn't do it.

Fortunately, the man I'd found was one who could, and there were enough others like him to get the message pa.s.sed around.

Soon bugles all over the city were repeating my orders. Men were scurrying to find dropped weapons - many had abandoned their pikes as being unmanageable in the narrow, crooked city streets - and making their way to the Carpenter's Gate. We raced across town to get to the carts ahead of them, but it occurred to me that I'd better tell the people still on Wawel Hill what was going on.