[Nagash 01] - Nagash the Sorcerer

by Mike Lee - (ebook by Undead)

  The Priest King of Ka-Sabar threw back his head and gave a fierce shout.

  “Warriors of the Bronze Host! Strike now, and redeem your honour! For the glory of the Earth God, charge!”

  The earth shook with the roar of two thousand voices and the thunder of hooves as the army of Ka-Sabar sprung its trap.

  FOURTEEN

  The Bloodstained Sands

  The Western Trade Road, near the Fountains of

  Eternal Life, in the 63rd year of Ptra the Glorious

  (-1744 Imperial Reckoning)

  “Someone is signalling,” Ekhreb said, straightening gracefully from the low, leather-covered divan and gesturing with his wine cup at the sky.

  Rakh-amn-hotep glanced up from his maps with a weary grunt, squinting into the dust-stained air. The Kings of Rasetra and Lybaras had made their midday camp in the shelter of a pair of dunes just off the side of the western trade road, drawing the huge, creaking wagons of the Lybaran court into a defensible circle beneath the shade of a small grove of palm trees. Within the circled wagons the Lybaran servants had spread thick rugs over the sandy ground and set out tables and divans for the comfort of the kings and their generals. When the King of Rasetra had first laid eyes on the massive wagons he’d sneered quietly to Ekhreb about the soft ways of Hekhmenukep and the Lybaran nobles, but after more than a week on the march to Khemri, the bellicose Rasetran had to admit that there were far worse ways to conduct a campaign.

  For all their zeal to reach the Living City and cleanse the Blessed Land of Nagash and his minions, the movement of the allied armies had been dreadfully slow. It had taken almost two weeks for the Rasetran army to make its way along the Valley of Kings, even with the help of the Lybaran sky-boats, and once the two armies were united at Quatar, the march slowed nearly to a crawl. The heavy catapults and other war machines crafted by the Lybarans frequently broke down, requiring hours to replace warped axles or broken wheels, and the jungle auxiliaries of the Rasetran army could only face the searing heat of the desert for short periods of time before they had to rest and take on more water.

  The allied armies stretched back along the trade road for many miles. Like an inchworm, the tail end of the host would leave its camp in the morning, and by evening it would be settling into the camp of the army’s lead elements from the night before.

  At such a slow pace, the kings and their retinues rose from their furs at dawn, lingered over their morning meals and devotions and got a start on the business of the day while the troops marched slowly past. When the last elements of the army came into view by late afternoon, the court would spend an hour or two consulting with the commanders of the rearguard and baggage train. Then, as the sun set behind the veil of dust to the west, the camp would travel for a few hours and catch up with the army’s lead companies.

  According to Rakh-amn-hotep’s original estimations, the allied armies should have been on the outskirts of Khemri by now. As it was, they were still roughly two days’ march from the Fountains of Eternal Life, little more than halfway to their goal. The two forces, and the Rasetran auxiliaries in particular, were consuming supplies at a staggering rate, especially fresh water. The huge thunder lizards had to be literally doused with it at regular intervals to keep their thick skins from drying out, to the point that their handlers had been on half-rations for days so that they could keep their charges alive.

  “What now, by all the gods?” Rakh-amn-hotep grumbled, peering up at the silhouetted bulk of the Lybaran skybox. The contraption was very small by comparison to the great sky-boats: a box, slightly smaller than a chariot, suspended by cables from a spherical bladder filled with air spirits. The whole thing could be loaded into the back of one of the huge Lybaran wagons, and was drawn out each time the kings made camp. The box was kept tethered to a pair of wagons by a length of stout rope, and raised to a height of more than a hundred feet.

  The Lybarans kept a trio of boys up in the box at all times, scanning the countryside for miles with their clever seeing-tubes and watching for messages from the army’s vanguard. As Rakh-amn-hotep watched, one of the boys raised a platter-sized dish of polished bronze and caught the rays of Ptra’s glorious light, aiming a series of brilliant flashes off to the west. After a moment, the boy lowered the signalling device and the lookouts watched intently for an answer. Ekhreb took a sip of wine and wiped the sweat from his eyes.

  “Perhaps it’s just the cavalry reporting that they’ve reached the springs,” he said. The king snorted in bitter amusement.

  “Your optimism never ceases to amaze me,” he said. Ekhreb shrugged philosophically.

  “I survived six years at Quatar. Nothing much worries me any more.”

  “That’s right. Rub some more salt in the wound,” the king growled. He levered himself to his feet and shrugged his heavy scale coat back into place. “You keep going on like that, and I’ll petition the Grand Hierophant to make you priest king instead of me. Then I could go live the carefree life of a king’s champion.”

  “Gods forfend!” Ekhreb said in mock horror. “You’re far too ugly to be a proper champion.”

  “Don’t I know it,” the king said with a chuckle. His grin faded as one of the boys climbed fearlessly over the edge of the skybox and slid nimbly down one of its long ropes. The young messenger disappeared from sight behind one of the hulking wagons, and Rakh-amn-hotep made his way across the expanse of rugs to await the boy’s arrival next to the Lybaran king.

  As he did nearly every day of the march, Hekhmenukep sat before a low, broad table covered in sheets of papyrus inscribed with all manner of arcane diagrams and invocations. Half a dozen of his retainers crowded around the edges of the table, deep in discussions about strange subjects of engineering or alchemy, while the king studied the diagrams through one of his bronze-rimmed disks and made annotations with a fine-haired ink brush. A slave knelt at Hekhmenukep’s left, holding a wine goblet for the king’s refreshment, while another stirred the air above the royal scholar’s head with a fan made of peacock feathers. He seemed entirely at ease, immersed in a world of ratios and calculations. Rakh-amn-hotep felt a bitter surge of envy at the Lybaran’s detachment.

  Hekhmenukep glanced up from his work just as the messenger wound his way nimbly past the parked wagons and raced past the watchful Ushabti into the king’s court. The Lybaran king glanced bemusedly from Rakh-amn-hotep to the wide-eyed boy.

  “Yes? What is it?” he asked.

  “There is a sun-sign from Shesh-amun,” the boy said, referring to the Lybaran champion in charge of the allied vanguard. “He says: enemy horsemen east of the sacred springs.”

  “Damnation,” Rakh-amn-hotep growled, his scarred hands clenching into fists. “Is the enemy present in strength?” The messenger took a step back at the king’s fierce tone.

  “A thousand pardons, great one. He did not say.”

  “Shesh-amun wouldn’t have reported otherwise,” Hekhmenukep said calmly. The news did not please the Rasetran king. He turned to Hekhmenukep.

  “I thought you said that the Bronze Host was drawing Nagash’s army to Bel Aliad,” he said.

  “Indeed,” the Lybaran king replied, and then gave a thoughtful shrug. “Perhaps Nagash chose to split his forces instead. If so, that could still work in our favour.”

  “If we were in possession of the sacred springs, I would agree with you,” Rakh-amn-hotep growled. “As it is, our stocks of water are very low. If we don’t get to the springs very soon, the heat will kill our troops quicker than Nagash could.”

  Hekhmenukep frowned. “How long?” he asked.

  The Rasetran king bit back a surge of irritation. How could he not know the needs of his own army?

  “A day or two. Certainly no more,” Rakh-amn-hotep declared, “and it’s nearly mid-afternoon now.” The king began to pace across the rugs, considering his options. If they were very, very lucky, the enemy cavalry was nothing more than a scouting force, or the vanguard of the Khemri army. Reaching a decision, he g
lanced back at the Lybaran king. “I’m going forward to take command of the vanguard and see what we’re facing,” he declared, and then turned to Ekhreb. “Gather up a mixed force of light infantry and bowmen, plus all the horsemen you can lay your hands on, and join me as quickly as you are able,” he ordered. Ekhreb nodded, rising swiftly to his feet.

  “What is your plan?” the champion asked.

  The question seemed to amuse the Rasetran king. “My plan?” he said. “I’m going to head down the road with all the warriors I can muster and kill every living thing between me and the springs.” He slapped Ekhreb on the shoulder. “Don’t tarry, old friend,” he said, and hurried from the camp, shouting for his charioteers in a gruff voice.

  * * * * *

  Warning shouts rose above the clamour as trumpets wailed across the battlefield and Bel Aliad’s barbarian troops let out a ragged, hungry shout. Akhmen-hotep hefted his notched and bloodstained khopesh and bellowed hoarsely, “Here they come again! Make ready!”

  Horns blared, signalling the Bronze Host and the distant priests, and with a clatter of metal and wood the infantry companies made ready once more. The battle had raged for hours, ebbing and flowing across the corpse-strewn plain. Akhmen-hotep’s plan to put the barbarian mercenaries to flight with a single, swift charge had failed, and despite heavy losses the barbarians had refused to break. They fought with a reckless courage that bordered upon desperation.

  More than once over the course of the bloody battle, the king wondered what fearful things the merchant princes had told them about their overlord in Khemri. Had it not been for a timely charge by Pakh-amn’s chariots on the left flank, the army would have been surrounded during the first attack. The Master of Horse had proven his worth time and again over the course of the day, driving off cavalry attacks and saving the light infantry on his flank from utter destruction.

  Except for the discipline and skill of the veteran companies of the Bronze Host, the battle would have already been lost. Time and again they withstood showers of deadly arrows and the crushing weight of the barbarian infantry attacks. The enemy mercenaries had been reduced to four ragged companies, and the fire from the Zandri archers had dwindled, suggesting that they were running low on arrows.

  A unit of light horsemen still lurked at the edge of the enemy’s right flank. They had already caught Akhmen-hotep’s light infantry in two surprise charges and mauled them severely, and were watching for another chance to strike. The king regretted having sent the Bhagarite horsemen to the rear and had despatched a messenger to recall them, but that had been nearly two hours ago, and they had yet to reappear.

  As the weary veterans closed ranks and readied their spears, Akhmen-hotep caught sight of a ripple of movement across the battlefield. Bel Aliad’s chariots and its two City Companies, which had been held in reserve since the battle began, were marching forward in the centre of the enemy battleline. It was late in the afternoon, and his troops were exhausted, as were the enemy mercenaries. The merchant princes had come to the conclusion that the next attack would decide the battle. Looking over his battered troops, the king thought that they were probably right.

  “Messenger!” Akhmen-hotep cried, and a boy dashed up to the side of the king’s chariot. “Tell the archers to concentrate their fire on the City Companies,” he ordered. The runner repeated the order word-for-word and dashed off to the waiting bowmen. For a moment, the king debated on sending another messenger back to the priests, to beg for one more appeal to the gods, but he changed his mind with a shrug. The gods were not blind. They could see how desperate the situation was. If they withheld their power the war was already lost. The king swept his blade down in a wide arc.

  “Forward!” he called to his men, and the formation of chariots began to move. They were a few dozen yards behind the main battleline, positioned between the two veteran companies. The gap was currently being covered by a small company of light infantry the king had shifted over from the left flank. The weary aspirants felt the chariots approaching and gratefully withdrew. Their capes were torn and bloodstained, and many of them carried bent or splintered javelins recovered from the bodies of the slain. A few raised their weapons in salute to the king as they filed past the advancing chariots and went into reserve.

  The clamour of the enemy troops grew louder as the barbarians picked up the pace. Their savage nature drew them to battle like moths to a flame, and they began to outstrip the measured pace of the City Companies. Then the first volley of arrows from the Ka-Sabar archers hissed overhead, plunging in a deadly rain among the enemy infantry. Men staggered, pierced through their thin leather vests or bronze skullcaps. The screams of the wounded galvanised the mercenaries, who had suffered one terrible volley after another for most of the day. Their hoarse war cries turned to frenzied screams as they broke into a wild charge, hoping to come to grips with their enemies before the archers could fire again.

  Men shouted orders among the veteran companies, and the Bronze Host steeled itself to receive the charge. Akhmen-hotep felt a glimmer of hope as the mercenaries broke ranks with the city troops. He watched the advancing chariots carefully, waiting to see how the merchant princes would react. The line of war machines hesitated for a moment, and then a ragged chorus of war-horns sounded and the chariots surged forwards, trying to lend their weight to the mercenaries’ attack.

  Akhmen-hotep smiled fiercely. It appeared that the gods were smiling on them after all. The king studied the pace of the charging enemy troops, waiting for the moment when the mercenaries had committed to their attacks.

  The enemy infantry swept in from left and right, converging on the solid ranks of bronze-armoured spearmen. They ignored the aspirants, having learned from bitter experience that the javelin men would only fall back in the face of their charge and leave them exposed to further arrow fire. For their part, the aspirants waited patiently, hefting their barbed weapons. Once the melee began, they would rush in and hurl their shafts point-blank into the mercenaries’ flanks.

  The two forces came together in a thunderous crash of wood and metal. Both veteran companies staggered under the impact, but the strength of Geheb filled them, and they bore up beneath the assault. Barbarians fell beneath the Host’s stabbing spears or were dashed to the ground by bronze-rimmed shields, but they pressed forwards in a bestial frenzy, hacking with notched axes and blunted blades. Though their limbs were hard as teak and their bodies clad in fine bronze scales, here and there a foe-man’s weapon would find its mark, and a warrior of Ka-Sabar would topple to the ground.

  In that moment of contact, while the barbarians were focused on the enemies before them and the City Companies were struggling beneath a hail of arrows, the chariots of the merchant princes were in the middle ground between the two forces, alone and unsupported. Akhmen-hotep grinned fiercely and raised his sword.

  “Charge!” he ordered.

  Trumpets wailed, and with a fierce shout the heavy chariots of the Bronze Host thundered forwards, passing between the struggling infantry companies and crashing into the mingled flanks of two barbarian companies. Heavy, bronze-rimmed wheels and scythe-like blades tore through the milling troops, crushing limbs and splitting torsos. Bowstrings hummed as archers fired into the howling mass of warriors. At such close range the powerful arrows punched clean through their targets and often struck the man next in line. Noblemen and Ushabti lashed out at the mercenaries with their curved swords, striking down at their exposed heads and shoulders and inflicting terrible wounds.

  The barbarians gave way before the fearsome charge within moments, retreating away to either flank of the terrible chariots, and Akhmen-hotep drove them onwards, through the enemy battleline and directly at the advancing merchant princes. The nobles of Bel Aliad saw the huge bronze war machines bearing down on them and their formation came to a panicked halt, like a caravan in the face of a sudden, vicious sandstorm. Though greater in number than the chariots of Ka-Sabar, they were far lighter and no real match for the veteran w
arriors of the Bronze Host. Several noblemen around the edges of the formation tried to turn their machines around and scurry out of the way of the oncoming wall of flesh and metal, while others surged forwards in a bold display of resolve. The result was disorder and chaos, robbing the formation of much of its strength at a critical moment.

  Arrows snapped back and forth through the air as bowmen of both formations traded shots. One arrow struck the lip of Akhmen-hotep’s chariot and ricocheted, striking him in the hip. The king swatted the arrow away as though it were a stinging fly. Horses and men screamed as other arrows found their marks, but the sounds were lost in a swirling, crashing roar as the formations came together.

  Akhmen-hotep heard his charioteer let out a warning yell, and the chariot swerved to the right. An enemy chariot swept past, almost too fast to follow. The scythe-like blade fixed to the hub of the heavier Ka-Sabar chariot struck the enemy machine in the flank and ripped the wicker hull apart in a shower of splintered reeds. The bowman in the chariot let fly a wild shot that snapped past the king’s head, and then they were lost in the dust of the swirling melee.

  The battlefield shook with the clash of arms and the screams of the dying. To Akhmen-hotep’s left, the Ushabti in his chariot lashed out with his ritual sword at a passing enemy machine, his fearsome strength slashing open the enemy chariot’s hull and chopping apart its driver. Off to the right, lost in the haze, there was a splintering of wood and a broken chariot wheel soared through the air behind the king’s speeding chariot.

  Akhmen-hotep leaned against the front of his chariot and tried to make sense of the confusion around him. He searched for the blurry shapes of banners, trying to find Bel Aliad’s leader. One quick challenge could end the battle, if the merchant princes still possessed a shred of honour.