Demon King

by Bunch, Chris

  Once the plan was complete, the highest commanders were briefed, and sworn to complete secrecy. Then the units began moving, shifting positions on the line. I took a chance and pulled the cavalry units on the lines of support into Penda, making sure every man, every horse, was ready.

  My plan was simple: First skirmishers, then three Imperial Guard Corps to attack through that outpost into the Maisirian lines. Smash the line, then turn right, and attempt to roll up the Maisirian front. Through that hole I’d send half my, or rather Nilt Safdur’s, cavalry, curving left and then back, to take the Maisirians in the rear. The infantry would have already deployed through that hole, and turned, reinforcing the First Guard Corps elements. Then the army’s main force would deploy through the hole, and follow the lead of the first elements, hopefully shattering the entire Maisirian line.

  I gave Yonge his orders: Strike straight through the hole, and go as deep as you can. There’ll be heavy cavalry and mounted infantry behind you. Keep the attack moving until you start taking real casualties, then let the stronger units attack through you. Then concentrate on causing as much trouble as possible.

  “You mean you’re actually going to let some of us skirmishers live, and not order us to destroy ourselves against the Maisirian positions? What an original plan.”

  “It’s not that I care about you,” I said. “It’s just too expensive to train new skulkers.”

  “At last,” Yonge said. “At long last a bit of wisdom enters the high command. World, ready yourself. Soon will be the ending. Umar will awake, Irisu will take his head from his arse, and Saionji will have a new manifestation as goddess of baby lambs and flowers.”

  I started laughing. “You’re dismissed.”

  • • •

  The Chare Brethren sent out their spells. If magic had been visible, our front would’ve looked as if smokepots were boiling behind it, with heavy clouds rolling forward over the Maisirians, so their wizards could sense nothing.

  The attack began just before the noon meal.

  It must have been terrible to see solid formations of Numantians come over the hill — endless waves of death. Arrows arched in storms, spears drilled the air, and our men went down. But the gaps in our lines were quickly filled, and the juggernaut rolled on, smashing the Maisirian line open.

  The emperor and I stood in a small outpost, watching our army stream down into the blood-wallow. The first of our colors broke into the open on the far side of the Maisirian line. I signaled a courier. “Go to Tribune Safdur, and request him, with my compliments, to begin his attack!”

  “Sir!”

  Svalbard stood nearby, holding my horse. “Your Majesty, I’ll ride forward now,” I said.

  “I thought you might,” Tenedos said dryly. “Leaving me to wander around here, with nothing to do but cast a few spells.”

  “That’s me, Your Highness. Always the selfish sort.” We grinned at each other, and for a single instance it was as if the betrayals had not happened. But memory reminded, and I turned hastily away and climbed into the saddle. My mount was excellent, a fifteen-year-old chestnut stallion with a blaze face that had been a budding racer for a Maisirian nobleman. But he was still unaccustomed to battle, and pranced nervously. An excellent mount, but he wasn’t Lucan, he wasn’t Rabbit. I named him Brigstock.

  Back of the outpost were my Red Lancers, wearing infantry cloaks to conceal my presence in the front lines. At my signal, Captain Balkh shouted orders, and they mounted, casting aside their drab camouflage. Perhaps I should’ve stayed behind, and attempted to nitpick the course of the battle. But I would have been fooling myself. I — or rather the emperor — had competent tribunes and generals. Now was the time to trust them.

  I wanted to see blood and feel the shudder of my sword meeting bone. Or perhaps I was looking for something else. Perhaps.

  We went down the hill at the trot, Lancers forming a line abreast on my flanks.

  Behind us came the Numantian cavalry, fierce behind banners, trumpets blasting. More than a hundred thousand cavalrymen went down that hill to battle.

  Our Guardsmen were still in formation, although the battle was beginning to break up into swirling brawls. Then the Maisirians saw the cavalry, and over the shouts of the victors, the howls of the dying, I heard their screams.

  Lances snapped down. The enemy hesitated, then ran. First a few, then more and more, and the wavering Maisirian line broke. We went through the ruins of the front line toward the rear. Soldiers braver and smarter — for a horse will not charge a solid wall — formed a square. I cried for the gallop, and we charged it. Brigstock drew ahead of my Lancers, as I’d intended.

  Twenty feet away — then ten — was that spear-wall, and just before we reached it, I stood in the stirrups and pulled back on my horse’s reins. Like the jumper I’d found him to be, he took flight, arcing gracefully over the spears into the formation’s center, and in front of me was the Maisirian officer. My lance took him in the chest, and he clutched it and stumbled back, tearing it from my grasp. I drew my sword, wheeling Brigstock back into the square’s line. But there was no line left. As their leader went down, the formation broke, men dropping their weapons and pelting away into the fleeing shambles.

  Captain Balkh was beside me, eyes wide in admiration. I let him think me glorious — if he thought about what had just happened, he would realize I’d done the only thing possible, which is the furthest thing from what I deem heroism.

  We trotted on at the front of this invincible mass, paying little mind to the Maisirians retreating around us unless they tried to fight or stand — at least most of us did. I saw a legate, not one of my Lancers, spear a running man full in the back and send the corpse whirling away. He shouted in pure glee, and I grimaced, hearing a man who thought killing a man was sport like boar-sticking. But the next man he charged was far wiser, and whirled just before the lance took him, and pulled its point down into the muck. The lance pole-vaulted the legate over his horse’s head to the ground. Before he could recover the Maisirian was on him, and I saw a dagger rise and fall twice. Then an arrow took the soldier and sprawled him dead across the Numantian cavalryman he’d killed, and we rode on.

  Here and there Maisirian officers and calstors rallied their men, and bows thwacked as archers sent arrows spitting. A mounted man can’t fire accurately, but my canny bowmen waited until we were bare yards away and then shot for the group, not the man. There were men on horseback, and we fought, and I killed some, and we went on, my eyes, my mind, welcoming the red blur of combat.

  We crested a hill and saw the tents of the Maisirian rear lines. Men and women scrawked when they saw us, and fled. The cavalry struck the encampment like a whirlwind, lances discarded, sabers flashing against people, tents, tent ropes — and chaos spread. Here and there I saw men dismounting and beginning to loot. A man trotted past into a still-standing tent and came out a moment later with a screaming young girl over his shoulder.

  I pulled Brigstock around, leaned over his neck, and crashed the flat of my sword over the Numantian’s leather helm and he dropped. The girl ran away into the confusion. I hoped she found a captor with different ideas.

  Then we were beyond the tents, and officers were shouting to form up, form up, and horsemen found control and obeyed. We swirled back into something resembling a formation and were ready to strike back through the lines and join the Guard Corps. I could smell victory.

  There was an instant to look around and see how many casualties we’d taken: not many, and no more than a man or two from my Lancers.

  Tribune Safdur galloped his horse out, flanked by two buglers and a standard bearer, ready to order the charge. I saw something then, or rather didn’t see something, and spurred Brigstock hard for Safdur. The buglers had their horns raised, and he shouted at them to hold. I reined in.

  “Sir!” He clapped fist to shoulder. “Is something wrong?”

  “Yes,” I snapped. “Look,” and pointed at the battle lines.

  “
I see nothing,” he said.

  “Exactly,” I said. “Where’s the smoke, the dust? Where’s the fighting?”

  He peered through the haze. “I see nothing! What’s wrong? What happened? The Guards should be — ”

  “Should be,” I said. “But aren’t. And we’re well behind the lines. With no gods-damned support!”

  Safdur’s eyes widened as he realized we were in the jaws of what could shortly become a trap. “Your orders?”

  I should have growled for his orders. I wasn’t in charge of his gods-damned cavalry. But there was no time for niceties. “The Maisirians don’t seem to realize they’ve got us — or almost got us, at any rate,” I said. “We’ve got to get back to our own lines before they do.”

  “Right, sir. I’ll sound the retreat.”

  “No, you won’t,” I said. “Not and panic the men. Because we’re not going to retreat. We’re going straight back through them. Aim,” and I pointed toward one of Penda’s shattered church towers in the distance, “in that direction. The ground’s fairly flat, fairly level. Put your regiments in a wide V. We won’t stop till we’re back in Penda.”

  Safdur nodded hastily. He wasn’t a bad officer, provided he didn’t get too far from his superiors.

  The buglers blew a new call, and the dominas of the cavalry regiments galloped toward us. Safdur snapped orders, and the officers went back. Time was running short — dust clouds of infantry units were on the march, solid, deadly beetles coming to surround and destroy us. But we moved first, at the walk, and as we moved, the regiments spread into the ordered disposition. I saw this smooth machinery, moving like geared cogs, and confidence surged within me. The hells with millions of the enemy. Each of us was worth ten — no fifty of them.

  Again we struck at the front lines, and there were Maisirian soldiers rallying, ready for us. But we sent them flying, cutting our way to safety. I looked for our army, for our Guard Corps. I saw them, to the right of the breach they’d made in the lines, but little farther toward the center of the Maisirians than they’d been when we rode through them an hour — hell, I realized, looking up at the sun, half a day ago.

  They were stopped, holding in place. Why? But that was a question for later, as fifty Maisirian Heavy Cavalrymen attacked, intending to smash the lightly armed Lancers. But we went to the gallop, spreading out, and we were among them, sabers clashing steel against their blades. I brushed an armored man’s blade away, my own sword flicked under his helmet, and he gagged in death, spraying blood.

  There was movement to the side, half-seen, mostly sensed, and I ducked and a war hammer almost brained me. But its user overbalanced, there was an unarmored gap behind his shoulder for my point, and he rolled off his horse. That animal, panicked, butted Brigstock, and my stallion screamed rage, reared, and smashed a hoof into the other animal’s skull, and it staggered away. I was standing in my stirrups, and almost fell backward, but kept the saddle as Brigstock came back down. Steel slammed into me, and I was inches from a scarred, grinning Maisirian. He had a dagger in one hand, but I took it on my arm shield, slashed the sharpened edge of the shield across the man’s face, and he was gone.

  Svalbard was fighting two men, their backs to me, and I swung once, then again, and he was clear.

  Sweat blinded me, and my breath was rasping in my lungs, and our infantrymen were sortieing, and the broad V of cavalry swept through, and back into Penda, back into safety.

  I left Safdur to tend to the recovery, and went looking for an answer.

  • • •

  “Yes,” Tenedos said firmly. “Yes, I ordered the halt.”

  “Why?” I was holding tight to my anger. Behind me were Le Balafre, Petre, Herne, and Linerges.

  “The time was not right,” he said.

  Somehow I kept from insubordination. “Sir,” I said, hoping my voice was level, “may I ask for an explanation?”

  “You may,” Tenedos said. “You deserve one. I felt magic building, and I couldn’t determine what spell the Maisirians were attempting. Second, and this is the most important, I could see, from my position, that all we were doing was breaking up the Maisirian ranks.”

  “And what is the matter with that?” Le Balafre demanded. Linerges nodded involuntarily in agreement.

  “I want their whole damned army destroyed. In one stroke,” the emperor said. “I don’t want to cut them here, cut them there. Those bastards seem to be able to rebuild instantly. We hurt them, but the next day the wound is healed, and it seems as if they’re stronger.”

  “That’s true,” Linerges grudged. “It would be best to break them once and for all if we can.”

  “Of course the emperor’s right,” Herne said firmly, as always agreeing with authority.

  “There was another problem none of you gentlemen were aware of,” the emperor went on, “since you were well forward. We were having Isa’s own time bringing the third and fourth waves forward, and I was afraid I’d only be able to fight with half my forces. But that won’t happen on the morrow. I’ve made sure of that,” he said grimly, “since I made certain … adjustments to my support elements. Even a quartermaster had better learn to follow my orders when and as they’re given, if he wishes to continue to serve. Now we have the Maisirians,” the emperor said. “We’ve hurt them hard. Look.”

  He pointed down from the slope, into the gathering dusk. It was easy to see the two army’s positions. Here were the camp fires of our forces, holding Penda and a great bulge outward from the day’s fighting. Then darkness between the lines. Then began the fires of the enemy, stretching over the hills and out of sight.

  “We’ve driven them back, broken them out of their nice, comfortable positions. They’re binding their wounds, shocked, scared, desperately afraid of what will greet them on the morrow. We know what that will be, don’t we, gentlemen?”

  Tenedos waited, and Herne, naturally, was nodding enthusiastically. Le Balafre and Linerges smiled, the hard smiles of wolves as they look down on the flock and see no shepherd. Only Petre’s face still showed doubt.

  “Tribune?” Tenedos asked.

  “I’m not sure, Your Majesty,” he said. “It’s well to think of destroying Maisir in detail. But I think you were wrong. I think we should have taken our share today — and worried about the rest tomorrow.”

  I expected anger, but there was none. “No, Mercia,” Tenedos said softly. “This time, I see farther than you. Tomorrow will be the greatest disaster Maisir has ever known. We’ll go forward, all along the line, when they’re expecting us to attack from the advantage we made today. When they turn, the cavalry will go in once more and mop up. By nightfall, it will be all over, except for the shouting. I promise you this.”

  His eyes met Petre’s and held them with that gleam that bent men like willows, and Petre smiled, the same killer’s grimace that Le Balafre and Linerges had shown. “Yes, sir. I’m sure you’re right.”

  The four saluted, and I did the same, even though I was still unsatisfied. “Tribune Damastes,” the emperor said. “Remain a moment, if you would.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  He waited until the others had left, then took me by the arm and led me away from his aides. “Did you feel abandoned, Damastes? Abandoned yet again?”

  A bit of my anger became perplexity. “Yes, sir.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that I never doubted your ability to come back — with all of your men — once I was forced to change my plans? There’s a reason you are my first tribune, remember.”

  He stared at me, his expression blank. All at once, the remainder of my anger vanished. I bellowed laughter, and Tenedos smiled, then laughed as well. “Very well then,” he said. “Stop complaining, soldier. By the way, would you have the time to dine with me?”

  “No, sir. I’d best see to the dispositions — ”

  “See to shit,” he said rudely. “It’s too late to make major changes, and all the minor ones should already have been made by your subordinates. Am I not cor
rect?”

  “You are, sir,” I admitted grudgingly.

  “Very well then. The matter’s settled. Besides, you’re looking a bit scrawny, and I suspect you’re still not as healthy as you’d like to think. But instead of broth, I offer the finest roast to be had in this starved land. Fresh vegetables. The grandest of cream pies. Instead of milk-soaked bread … well, you won’t drink wine. But I’ve learned to make a concoction of various juices that would make a saint bellow for music and maidens.

  “Come, Damastes. Walk with me until dinner.”

  We did just that, as if we were strolling beside one of Hyder Park’s lakes in Nicias. We heard the cries of the wounded, still untreated, the challenge and response of sentries, the shout of orders, but none of these registered on our soldiers’ minds. Silence, rather, would have sounded alarms. We talked of this and that, the past and the present, and then something occurred to me.

  “Majesty? May I ask a possibly rude question?”

  “Why not? I may give it a rude answer,” Damastes said lightly.

  “What happens next?”

  “We destroy Maisir.”

  “And then?”

  Tenedos gazed at me, his expression suddenly chill. “I don’t understand.”

  “Do we have peace?” I asked. “Is that the end of the wars?”

  Tenedos sighed. “I’ll give you the answer my divinations have provided, but I don’t know if you’ll like it. No. There won’t be peace. There’ll always be another enemy. Maisir had foes on its borders, and they’ll become ours. Besides,” he went on, “we have to keep on conquering.”

  “Why?” I wondered, shocked.

  “Because if we don’t … we’ll die,” the emperor said. “You are either growing, or dying. A nation grows by expanding its borders. A man grows by never turning from challenge, from danger, from glory, but always welcoming those cold, hard friends to his company. Isn’t that so?”

  I looked out at the flickering lights, a million stars, of the Maisirian camp fires, knowing my answer could not be his.