by K. J. Parker
– And sat up in his chair, suddenly awake, with a murderous pounding in his temples.
‘Well,’ Olybras said, ‘that was fascinating. Not to mention pleasing too, of course; he’s obviously a brave, good-hearted lad and he can look after himself, though of course I’d much rather he stayed out of situations like that altogether. But do you think possibly that next time you could try for something a little bit earlier? Say by about six years?’
Gannadius looked at him. The light from the window behind him hurt terribly, but he ignored it. ‘You knew who that was?’ he said.
‘Oh, yes,’ Olybras replied. ‘I don’t know how, mind, but I recognised him at once. That was my son.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘I’ll be careful, I promise,’ he’d said as he waved goodbye; but now he came to think of it, he couldn’t remember any of them saying, Now you will be careful, won’t you? Or Look after yourself, Uncle, or Please come home soon, Daddy. Little Niessa had waved, or at least she’d waggled her hand up and down; but Luha hadn’t, he’d just stood there as if he was watching some dreary ceremony in the Square, Heris had simply smiled wanly and his niece – had she even been there to see him off? He wasn’t sure she had been. That wasn’t right. It grieved him.
‘That’s the place, there,’ the sergeant said, and pointed. ‘Of course, that’s where they were six hours ago. Where they are now’s another matter entirely.’
Bardas hadn’t been there, either, but he hadn’t really expected him to be. It was infuriating that Bardas was here, living quietly in the Bank headquarters, making no fuss, being peaceful; but every time he’d suggested to Niessa that he should pay his brother a visit, she’d just looked at him and changed the subject. And now here he was, at the head of the nation’s army about to engage an enemy force that outnumbered him six to one in what might well prove to be the decisive battle of the war, and none of them seemed to care that they might very well never see him again; it was almost as if Heris had said, ‘Have a nice day at the office,’ without looking up from her mending, while the children got ready for the day’s lessons. Gorgas could imagine no more noble or desirable way to die than defending one’s home and family, but apathy on such a scale did tend to undercut the whole concept.
‘We’ll find them,’ he replied calmly, ‘don’t you worry about that. Though on balance I think I’d prefer it if they didn’t find us. Does that make any sense?’
The sergeant shrugged. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I don’t see how we can fight them without letting them know we’re here.’
‘Ah,’ Gorgas said with a smile. ‘Now there’s an idea.’
Bol Affem, Junior Dean of the Faculty of Military Logistics and second-in-command of the vanguard of the faculty regiment, knew the meaning of fear, but only because he’d once had occasion to look it up in a dictionary. His father, Luha Affem, had died fighting corsairs in the Fleve delta when he was six. His grandfather had been the first man to be killed in the attack on the Jaun hill-fort, seventy years ago. Death in battle was so much a part of the traditions of the Affem family that Bol could conceive of no other way of dying; if he was afraid of anything, it was of ending his life in a bed, surrounded by doctors, in the middle of a perfectly good war.
Nevertheless, the landscape in front of him inspired a certain degree of unease. Not fear, which he knew to be a negative, worthless thing, but apprehension, a sharpening of the instincts and a quickening of the wits when faced with a potential challenge, a healthy and quite useful reaction to a subconscious recognition of danger.
He called a halt and, as the men grounded their halberds and began to climb out of their packs, he walked ahead to the edge of the bluff. There was no obvious way to proceed. If he led his column along the brow of the ridge, he’d be advertising his position for all to see, sacrificing any element of surprise he might still have, and so far he’d seen no sign of scouts or advance parties to suggest that the enemy knew he was here. But if he followed the road through this rocky combe, he could easily walk into a copybook ambush and allow himself to be bottled up, pinned down by the rebel archers. On balance, he decided a little self-advertisement wouldn’t do any harm; let the rebels know he was coming-he had the advantage of overwhelming force, which in turn would breed terror and despair. Let them see just how strong his army was.
He slipped off his own pack and sat down on it, unbuckling the front flap and pulling out his water bottle. It was a third empty already; not a problem, but a timely reminder that water might be a problem later on if he didn’t monitor the situation. He felt in his pocket for the map and studied it; a wavy blue line across the shoulders of the combe marked the course of some sort of waterway, but it could be anything from a brook to a full-sized river. He put the map away and glanced up at the sky, which was still cloudless and blue. Hot weather for marching at top speed, but even that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Let your army march a day before it fights, his great-grandfather had written in his Standard Commentary (still required reading in first-year Tactics); marching exercises the unfit body and regulates the ill-disciplined mind. A forced march was as good as a week’s training for men just out of the comfort of barracks.
He called to his sergeant; a good man, twenty years with the colours. ‘We’ll follow the ridge,’ he said, ‘then drop down into the valley and pick up the road on the flat. We’ll be crossing a river or stream of some sort, so take the opportunity to fill water bottles.’
The sergeant acknowledged the order in the appropriate manner and withdrew to a respectful distance. Affem allowed the men five more minutes, then gave the order to proceed.
It was about an hour later, while Bol Affem was drawing up contingency plans in his mind in case it proved impossible to take up water at the river, that the enemy appeared. It was a disconcerting sight; they simply appeared on the ridge, walking up from the steep northern side of the combe and shuffling into a rather slovenly double line directly in front of him. There were no more than fifty of them, all archers, with no more than a dozen helmets and mailshirts between them. They looked more like a gang of unruly children in a village street waiting to pick on an enemy than a military unit. Bol Affem called a halt, and waited. This was so obviously the bait for some attempt at a trap that he wondered whether they really believed that a professional soldier would fall for it. Where was the rest of the trap, though? Waiting down on the slope, to take him in flank as he charged the road-block? Surely not, they’d have to charge up a steep rise, which would be suicide. There wasn’t anywhere else they could come from. If this was the rebels’ idea of an ambush, he’d be only too delighted to oblige them.
Then, while he stood and tried to puzzle it out, the archers took their bows off their shoulders, nocked arrows in an insultingly leisurely fashion, aimed carefully and started shooting. Seven men went down in the front rank, and another two in the second. The archers each nocked another arrow, took another deliberate aim and loosed; Affem could see them congratulating each other for good shots, commiserating on near misses.
There are no circumstances in all the vicissitudes of war, the elder Affem had written in a passage every boy on Shastel was required to know by heart, that can ever justify a trained soldier losing his temper. Bol Affem rubbed his face with the palm of his hand, admitting to himself that, for the first time he could remember since he was a little boy, he didn’t know what to do. It had to be a trap, but for the life of him he couldn’t see what the trap could possibly consist of. There could be no trap. It was…
An arrow hit the man standing one step back to his left, passing through the man’s right arm between the bicep and the bone. Affem watched him wince without crying out or moving; he knew better than to leave formation in the face of the enemy, as a good soldier should. Affem felt proud, but also ridiculous; what possible excuse was there for standing still, like the straw target-bosses at a fair, while the rebel archers praised and jeered at their neighbours’ technique, made helpful comments about footwork an
d follow-through. It was ludicrous…
‘Sergeant,’ he said, ‘take the front three ranks and get rid of those hooligans.’
The men charged well. They kept exactly in step, so that the points of their levelled halberds made a precise straight line of steel. After a desultory shot or two (though two men went down and stayed down; inevitable at this range), the rebel line simply melted away, the archers scattering down both sides of the ridge, running as fast as they could go. Naturally, the sergeant didn’t pursue; he called a halt, turned about and brought the detachment back to rejoin the main column.
‘Well done, sergeant,’ Affem said. ‘Get the wounded seen to as quickly as possible, we’re wasting time here.’
Half an hour later, the same thing happened.
This time, the rebels only had time for one shot before the charge dispersed them; but four more halberdiers went down, three killed outright, one shot in the knee and unable to move. Bol Affem swore under his breath and pictured what he’d like to do to the cowards, as and when he had an opportunity.
Half an hour later, again. And again, forty minutes after that. And again; this time, as soon as the pursuit party broke off and turned, a dozen or so archers popped back over the ridge and shot at them, hitting two men in the back. The rest of the party turned and charged again; as the sergeant called them back from the pursuit, an archer materialised only a few yards away from him and shot him through the groin; he bled to death before the next attack, which was a mere fifteen minutes later. This time the archers didn’t even drop back down the slopes. They danced out of the way, daring the halberdiers to put distance between themselves and the main column; and, while the advance party were dithering about whether or not to pursue further, another party of archers jumped up quite unnoticed at the rear of the column, killed six men and faded away.
Proportion, Bol Affem thundered to himself. These losses are visible and insulting, but trivial in proportion to the size of the army. If we march faster, we’ll reach the village quicker, and either they’ll fight us properly there and we’ll tear them apart, or they can stand by and watch while we kill every living thing in the village. They’ll be sorry they started this by the time I’ve finished it.
Around the middle of the afternoon they did manage to catch one archer, who slipped and fell and didn’t get up again quickly enough; five minutes later, there was hardly enough flesh left on his bones to feed a couple of dogs. But Affem couldn’t help noticing that the number of rebels in the harrying parties was increasing, and where there’d been fifty-odd to begin with, there were now over seventy-five. Trying to increase the pace of the march turned out to be impractical; if he ordered quick march, the rebels stepped up the rate of their attacks to slow him down again. He’d confidently anticipated being off the ridge by nightfall, but it didn’t turn out that way, so he kept going in the dark – a miserable business on the crown of a steep-sided ridge, but he had no choice; the archers couldn’t see to shoot in the darkness, and besides, unless they reached the river by dawn, lack of water would be a serious problem. He ordered the men not to drink except at designated rests, and kept going.
Dawn broke, and still the end of the ridge wasn’t in sight. But as soon as there was light to shoot by, the archers were back; still slouching and unsoldierly, loosing their arrows like men shooting for a goose at a wedding, running like terrified children as soon as he sent his men forward; at the last count he’d lost eighty-two killed and twenty-six too badly injured to walk, including thirty-one sergeants. The army was becoming unmanageable, with no one to order the lines or relay the words of command.
Just before midday, having covered no more than two miles since dawn, he caught sight of a rocky outcrop just under the ridge and led the army down to it. There was just enough cover, providing everyone crouched low and kept perfectly still. It was a hot day, but nobody was prepared to shed helmets or breastplates. The last of the water ran out in the middle of the afternoon. The archers killed another sixteen men and wounded twenty-one more, mostly shot through arms and legs that wouldn’t quite fit behind the rocks. It was heartbreaking to see men huddled up with an arm or a leg exposed, while a half-dozen archers honed their skills and wagered on who would be the first to hit the small, difficult target. Two halberdiers finally lost control and ran out, brandishing their halberds and yelling bloody murder. The second one managed to get ten yards.
That night the archers brought up lanterns, but the light wasn’t good enough; they gave up and went away, allowing the army to continue. Just after midnight the ground began to slope sharply downhill, and just before dawn they reached the flat and the river. At first light they were still filling water bottles; the archers had been waiting for them behind rocks and trees, and shot down twenty-one before they could be chased off.
Somehow Bol Affem had assumed that, once he reached the flat, his problems would be over. Of course, this wasn’t the case. The only difference was that instead of jumping up unexpectedly, the archers trailed the army in full view, like wild, mad dogs that follow you down a village street. They came no closer than ninety yards, but there were nearly two hundred of them now, and by noon they’d picked off another twenty men and slowed the march to a crawl. By this point, the army were exhausted, having marched two nights and crouched half a day in the hot sun. Thanks to strict rationing there was enough water; but Affem had banked on reaching the village a whole day earlier, and food was running low. Just before evening, he was shot in the calf of his left leg. The arrow passed through cleanly and without cutting a vein, and he was able to hobble, using his halberd as a crutch, but by midnight he had to lean on a man’s shoulder. Nevertheless, he made himself continue, because he knew that at dawn they would reach the village.
And so they did. It was easy enough to find; for the last hour of darkness, they had a bright orange glow to guide them. The fire was pretty much burnt out by dawn, when the archers attacked again. When Affem finally limped down what had been the village street, swinging between two men with his wounded leg dragging behind him, there was nothing but ash and charred timbers. The well was blocked with the bodies of dead halberdiers, men killed on the first day. There was no food, and no cover. Nothing for it, therefore, but to press on to the next village, which was only four miles away.
‘I don’t know about you,’ Gorgas said, his mouth full of cheese, ‘But I’m exhausted. This not fighting certainly takes it out of you.’
Behind him in the distance, a pillar of smoke rose in the still air. He made a point of not looking at it; that was the village of Lambye, burning, and he’d given the order to burn it. The thought that he’d set his men to burn down one of his own villages made him angry, for all that he knew it was the way to win the war. Nevertheless, the act disgusted him. And what Niessa was going to say when she found out, he shuddered to think.
‘How much further is it to the river?’ the sergeant asked. Gorgas glanced down at the map spread across his knees and brushed away a few crumbs that had fallen in the folds.
‘At the rate they’re going, four hours,’ he replied, ‘give or take an hour. I’ll say this for them, they’ve got a hell of a lot more staying power than I’d have given them credit for.’
‘Training,’ the sergeant said. ‘Discipline. It’s what sets your professional soldiers aside from your bandits and hooligans.’
‘I think you’re right,’ Gorgas said, cutting himself another slice of cheese. ‘For a start, it gets them killed.’
They saw the smoke rising from the second village almost as soon as they left the first.
‘That’s it, then,’ said the colour-sergeant, stopping and shading his eyes. ‘It’s going to be like this all the way. No food and no cover. We don’t stand a chance.’
‘Then why don’t we charge them?’ growled the young soldier to his left. ‘Go out there and get the bastards? Got nothing to lose by it, have we? If we all charged, the whole lot of us-’
Nobody was listening, and he gave it up. Fo
r the last eighteen hours, he’d found it progressively harder not to think about water. Up till then, the other desperate issues of the march had been enough to distract his attention – hunger, exhaustion, the incessant nibbling inroads of the archers. Now he could hardly spare them a thought. Which is good, he tried to re-assure himself. Nothing like being thirsty for taking your mind off your troubles. He wriggled his shoulders against the hard straps of his pack, which were crushing the rings of his mailshirt through the buckskin jerkin underneath and into his skin. He had a blister on each heel where the backs of his boots nipped against the tendon. He tried not to think about water.
‘There’s one thing he haven’t tried,’ somebody muttered in the row behind.
‘Uh? What’s that?’
‘We could always surrender.’
Several men took it as a joke and laughed. ‘He’s got a point there,’ the young soldier said. ‘Why don’t we do that?’
‘Ah, go to hell,’ someone jeered. ‘We can do without that kind of talk.’
The young soldier frowned. ‘What’s your problem?’ he said. ‘Face it. Either we give in or we’re going to die.’
‘Make him shut up, Sarge,’ someone sighed. ‘Put him on a charge or something.’
The colour-sergeant shook his head. ‘We won’t surrender,’ he said. ‘Not while we still outnumber them five to one, or whatever it is now. It’s still overwhelming odds. We can’t surrender, we can’t get near enough to fight, we’re getting slower all the time and in a few hours we’re going to start keeling over without the bastards having to raise a finger. Craziest thing you ever heard of, but they’ve done us. It’ll be the biggest, most spectacular victory in history; they’ll be teaching it in their damned faculties for the next thousand years. Pity we got to be on the wrong side, really.’
