Demon King

by Bunch, Chris

  Officially, Jarrah was never abandoned. There was a tiny garrison left to hold the city until spring, and the hospitals were full of our sick and wounded. As for the other garrisons along our invasion path, gallopers were supposedly sent out to order them to withdraw along the column of march toward Penda.

  But none of those couriers reached the garrisons. Perhaps they were ambushed by Negaret or murdered by the partisans. My belief is no such couriers were sent. The emperor couldn’t admit his terrible defeat.

  Regardless of intent, all of these units, garrisons, supply depots, most terribly hospitals full of casualties — perhaps a hundred thousand men, I believe more — were abandoned. To the best of my knowledge, not one man, from Irthing to Penda, ever returned to Numantia. Thus the Emperor Tenedos betrayed his army.

  • • •

  “How bad will it be?” Alegria asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said truthfully, helping her into our carriage.

  “But we’ll be all right. Won’t we?”

  “We will,” I said honestly, remembering the horrors of the flight from Kait. But even though more than half our army had become casualties, we still had nearly a million men, the finest army the world had ever known, led by the greatest magician of history. And the gods were certainly on our side.

  • • •

  The emperor asked if I’d take command of the rear guard instead of leading the army. I guessed he had no more idea of where the Maisirian army really was than I did, and feared the worst. I said I would, provided I could have the three best units — my elite frontier regiments the Tenth Hussars, the Twentieth Heavy Cavalry, and my own Seventeenth Ureyan Lancers. He frowned, then said I could. I pressed my luck and asked for two hundred of Yonge’s skirmishers for support, and he said I’d have to ask Yonge personally.

  Sometimes I wondered if the emperor wasn’t a little afraid of the Kaiti. I knew I was. Yonge scowled, said I wasn’t leaving him but a scattering of men, but at least they’d be in the best position to scavenge the best of the loot as it was abandoned. And so we marched.

  • • •

  I was told the Emperor Tenedos stood beside the great northern gate he’d entered Jarrah through less than a time ago. Behind him the ruins of the city still smoked, demarcated by the streets that now led from nothingness to nothingness. Bugles sang, and the stark cadences of the salute rang into emptiness. Regimental standards and lances dipped, soldiers stiffened, trying to keep in some kind of step, and their officers sat rigid in their saddles, fists clapped to shoulders.

  Tenedos was regal, calm, confident, and took the honor as if the army were passing in Grand Review.

  As for us in the rear, we didn’t reach the city gates until late afternoon, and by then the emperor had long taken his place in the column. We traveled but four or five miles before a chilly dusk fell, and we made camp.

  I’d already noted trouble. Abandoned gear had been strewn along the road, but not the prized items Yonge dreamed of. There were enormous carriages barely suitable for the smoothest of city streets, which had cast a wheel or had their teams founder, and they’d been stripped and in many cases burned.

  Strange items lay beside or in the road. I saw a smashed harp; a statue of some god or goddess that would’ve filled an entire wagon; women’s silk clothes hanging amid the tall trees as if they’d been cast there by a playful giantess; huge paintings slashed with sabers before being abandoned; several hundred books, uniformly bound in red leather, scattered in the muck; and, even after this short distance, bodies.

  Svalbard and Curti had done some carpentry on our first coach so the seats could be moved to create a bed, and Alegria and I were out of the wet. Sometime after midnight, I was called awake. Both of us were fully dressed, and I had only to pull my sword belt and boots on.

  Domina Bikaner of the Seventeenth had a tent for his headquarters, and was waiting with one of the most shattered men it’s been my misfortune to see. His arm had been amputated, and the bandages were filthy black and blood-soaked. Drops of blood spattered the straw flooring of the tent. He wore only ragged breeches and a torn shirt, and was barefoot, in spite of the weather. He was a Guard color-sergeant, who’d been badly wounded in a skirmish with Negaret, so badly the chirurgeons hadn’t been able to restore his arm, but rather had to amputate it. He hadn’t been healing well, and had been left in one of the hospitals that had once been temples.

  He’d been drowsing, coming out of a delirium, when he heard a strange sound, somewhere between a snake’s hiss and the wind. He opened his eyes to see dark gray, almost black, wraiths float down the ward. “An’ ever’ now and again,” he said, “th’ mist’d solid up, and I swear I saw an eye peerin’ at me. I acted like I was dead, or unconscious. Din’t know what else to do.”

  “And then?” Bikaner prodded.

  What came next was much worse, especially because it was entirely human. Into the ward rushed half a hundred men and women. They wore rags, and most were drunk. All were armed, some with our discarded or broken weapons, others with the tools of their trade — scythes, long knives, sharpened spades. They were howling in rage.

  “They started killin’ right off,” the color-sergeant whispered. “A chirurgeon tried t’ stop ‘em, and they cut him down. Then they went from bed t’ bed, killin’ as they went, laughin', slashin', givin’ no mercy, no matter how y’ pled. Nobody lived. Th’ only reason I’m alive is there was a window behin’ me, an’ I smashed it and leapt for m’ life. There were more of th’ bastards below, but I hit on m’ legs, thank Isa, an’ started runnin'.

  “They come after, but I lost ‘em someways. I could feel th’ blood leakin’ out’ve my arm, but I’d rather run myself t’ death than stay there. Once, maybe twice, I saw th’ black mist wi’ th’ eyes, an’ dropped flat, and it went on, I guess without seein’ me. I dunno, sir, whether th’ mist, or whatever it was, was guidin’ those sonsabitches or if it was just watchin'. I dunno. I just dunno.”

  He stared down at his blood-soaked bandages, his near-nakedness, and swayed. “It … was a long run. But I had t’ get someplace safe. ‘Tis safe now. Isn’t it?” He looked at me hopefully, then his eyes rolled back, and I barely caught him as he fell.

  We called for a chirurgeon and told him to stay with the color-sergeant and do anything necessary to keep this brave man alive.

  “So what’s left in Jarrah?” Bikaner said. I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. “About what I thought,” he said. “I’ll make sure th’ guards’re alert. An’ we’d best march on at first light.”

  The color-sergeant died as we were striking camp.

  • • •

  At midday, we came to the inn where Alegria and I had almost made love for the first time. It was a shattered, burned ruin. “Sure am grateful,” Svalbard said, “those up front’re thinkin’ of their brothers back here in th’ rear. Think we’ll ever see anything but horse turds an’ ruins, Tribune?”

  I managed a laugh, and we slogged on, slowly, ever so slowly, but when I glanced over at our carriage, I saw Alegria staring back at the ruined inn. Our eyes met, and she smiled wistfully.

  • • •

  It didn’t take long for the days of our retreat to blend together. Rain, mud, sleet; abandoned, shattered wagons and bodies. We were traveling through the charred region of the peasants’ revolt, and so there was little to scavenge. Every now and then the Negaret or the partisans would dart out, seize a wagon or two, kill anyone within reach, and flee back into the forest before a cavalry troop could respond.

  Horses died even faster than they did in the advance, and we saw more and more abandoned saddles. The animals were rough-butchered, and kept their riders alive for another day or two.

  Once more I was grateful for the harsh training I’d forced down the throat of every cavalryman under my orders: first your mount, then yourself. The horses of my three regiments died, certainly, but not nearly as fast as other, more slovenly units.

  On the far side of the desolat
ion was a village I remembered, though now it was smoldering wreckage. There was a certain farm beyond the settlement, and I asked Domina Bikaner for a troop of cavalry to accompany me there. The farm was, strangely, unburned, and seemed to have suffered no damage. In the walled yard were ten bodies.

  One was the farmer who’d told me the yellow emblem over his door, the upside-down letter U that looked like a knotted silk cord, was no more than a family sign.

  He’d been spitted on a soldier’s sword. The other nine bodies were Guardsmen, and all had been strangled. Strangled with yellow silk cords, strangled by the Tovieti.

  But how could the stranglers have crept up on alert soldiery? What sorcery must the farmer — or someone — have worked? And why hadn’t the Guardsmen’s superiors gone after them, found the slaughter, and fired the farmhouse? Were the Tovieti going to rise against us again? Or had they already?

  What would, what could, the Tovieti do to take full advantage, now that we were in retreat? Here — and in Numantia? I had no answers, and ordered my men back to the column. I felt eyes on my back as I did.

  • • •

  Each day saw more skirmishes, more casualties. The dead weren’t given last rites or burned any longer. No one had the time, or the makings of a fire, at least not to waste on the dead. Occasionally a high-ranking officer might have one of the Chare Brethren in attendance, and magic would leave his body smoldering after a few quick words, and the stink of burned mutton would spread along the column.

  The wounded would be put on any cart that would hold them, for our ambulances were always full, even though men died hourly. These wounded were almost surely doomed, for the wagoneers, mostly civilians, sutlers, or quartermasters, saw no gain in hauling bleeding men instead of loot or food that could be sold, and so “accidents” happened, and men were tipped into ditches or, worst of all, dumped into the track, to lie a moment in gasping horror before the oncoming wagon crushed them.

  Alegria now rode atop our carriage, for it was full of dying men.

  It was easy to track the army’s routs — flocks of dark carrion crows hung over our march, Saionji’s death-birds, growing fatter by the league.

  • • •

  I didn’t notice the first snowflake, or the tenth, but then they were falling softly all about us. The snow, after an hour, turned to rain, and the mire grew deeper and deeper. The Time of Storms was here.

  Captain Balkh grimly pointed out a corpse beside the road. It was stripped naked, which wasn’t uncommon — the dead hardly needed warm clothing. It lay facedown, and its buttocks were raw, wounded, and there were other wounds on the body’s upper thighs.

  “Somebody cut steaks off that one,” Balkh said. My stomach turned.

  Svalbard, riding behind me with Curti, muttered, “Least some-one’ll eat good t’night.”

  Curti laughed harshly. “Best be on y’r guard, big man. More n’ more you’re lookin’ like a steak t’ me.”

  As the days passed, that horror became more and more common.

  • • •

  “Officer … officer … a boon? For Isa’s sake, for the love of Panoan?” I tried not to look at the man sprawled against the tree. “Officer … kill me! Return me to the Wheel. Please?” I couldn’t grant that wish, even though I’d managed to do so for the burned victims in Jarrah. But there were others marching with me who could, thank Saionji.

  Then the moans, the pleas, became too many, too often, and we heard their plaints no more and stumbled on, through the brown muck, seeing only the drifting snow and the back of the soldier in front of us.

  Again and again the Negaret or bandits struck, hurting us a little with each pinprick. Sometimes it was more than a pinprick, as the Maisirians grew bolder.

  Men died by the sword, but more died of the cold, the wind, hunger, exhaustion. There was one sure way to tell if a soldier was doomed: He gave up hope. Those of us who survived had one thing in common: Each knew, absolutely, that he, at least, would see his homeland, even if he were the only Numantian soldier to do so. The minute one of us let go of that determination, he died.

  Officers would trail back, saying that their company — their troop, even, most awfully, their regiment — had been cut apart again and again, and then their domina had fallen, and there was no longer anyone to give orders, and no one to take them, either. Officers without soldiers, soldiers without officers.

  Two men were talking as I rode past: “Come on, Kirat! Come on! You can’t just stop. Not here.”

  “No, comrade … no. I think it’s time to go.”

  The second man stumbled off the track, into a copse of trees. The first man shrugged and shambled forward. Little by little, my army was dying.

  • • •

  I was leading a flank patrol, and had ridden far ahead with three others when the Negaret came out of the silence, long white cloaks wrapped around them, shouting battle cries. I heard shrieks of fear from my men, then they were on us, and all was a seethe of steel and blood. A long-bearded Negaret started to cut at me, but I heard a shout of “No!” and he turned his saber and tried to club me down.

  I put the point of my blade into his chest, and I let him fall off my sword, and spun before another could take me from behind. But instead, I was ringed by Negaret riders, and there was merriment on their faces, and they shouted gleefully, “He’s the one!” “Take him! He’s worth gold!” “That’s their rauri!”

  “There’ll be no ransom for me,” I shouted, and started to gig Brigstock into them.

  Then I saw their chieftain. It was Jedaz Bakr, the Negaret who’d led my escort from the mountains to Oswy. “Greetings, Numantian,” he cried, and his riders pulled up. “Will you surrender?”

  “Greetings, oh great jedaz,” and for some idiotic reason the gloom that had haunted me for so many days fell away, and I felt the merriment of a warrior facing his last moments. “Did you come to try to kill me?”

  “There’ll be no death for you, Shum á Cimabue. Not unless you stay with these other fools and freeze your balls off in some snowbank or starve. Surrender, and I’ll teach you how to be a Negaret. There’ll be rich work when you Numantians are destroyed.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “You can even bring that woman with you, the one those bastards gave you. Marry her in our tents, Damastes. She won’t be a slave with us, but your princess.”

  “No! You know who I am … what I am.”

  Bakr’s smile vanished. “I do. And I know you’ll likely die with these others. But I thought I should make an offer, since I’ve seen your face every day now. You’re always the last to fall back, and I’m the first in our advance. Come, join us.

  “I sense there is a time coming for the Negaret, time when we shall be more than we ever dreamed, more than King Bairan ever wished.”

  I shook my head. Bakr grimaced, then shrugged. “Then try not to die,” he said, then shouted an order, and his riders swirled and were gone.

  Captain Balkh, Svalbard, and the other Red Lancers galloped up. “Tribune, we lost you for a moment, and — ”

  “Never mind,” I said shortly. “For there’s no damage done. Let’s return to the column.”

  “Yes, sir,” Balkh muttered, too ashamed of his failure to meet my eyes. Svalbard and Curti looked at me most strangely as we rode back, but said nothing.

  • • •

  The forest was gone, and we entered the Kiot Marshes. It was even worse than before, because the log roads were smashed, and the way was nothing but mud. Horses bogged down and couldn’t be freed. They were left to die, or butchered for steaks while they still lived. Their carriages blocked the track and further slowed us.

  Even so, those who could stay on the roadways were fortunate, for many of us were forced into the swamp itself. I thought we might be swallowed here, and never be seen again, but, very slowly, we moved on.

  I took the Seventeenth forward, toward the head of the column, and checked every wagon we came on. I set an arbitrary rule: one wa
gon per officer. Any others — we turned our backs while the marching men looted them, then, at my orders, tipped them into the swamp.

  A wagon claimed by the infantry, and filled with their gear, if it was roadworthy, I ignored. They needed any assistance to be found in this nightmare.

  Dominas, generals, even a couple of tribunes complained, and I told them to shut up. Some reached for their swords, then saw the archers with half-drawn bows and stalked away.

  One fat captain, who had five wagons stuffed with wine and the finest foods, broke into tears when I ordered his supplies handed out to the starving men he rode beside and ignored. I laughed at his tears and rode on.

  Some officers complained to the emperor, who rode near the head of the column. Three times imperial staff gallopers came back with handwritten orders from Tenedos that I was to immediately stop this nonsense. I thanked these officers, told them to return to the emperor with my respects, then continued my ruthless clearing. I had sworn an oath to Tenedos, but not one that required me to croak like a frog if he said “green.”

  We saw the ape-like beings many times, but they offered no harm. Men asked permission to hunt them for the pot, but I forbade it. Perhaps they weren’t men at all, but I already had enough sins to concern myself with. Twice we encountered the terrible sluglike monsters, but I’d been thinking about them and had devised a weapon. I wished that I could’ve had one of the Chare Brethren create a spell, but I also wished for a warm, sunny day, dry breeches, a bath, and a feather bed with nothing but Alegria in it and nowhere to go for days, and I hadn’t seen that, either.

  For my weapons I had the archers carry five or six arrows daubed in pitch and, in their pouches, flint and steel or a bit of smoldering tinder. As the slugs slid out of the gloom, the bowmen would strike fire and light their arrows. The flaming arrow would then be whipped into the monsters.

  That caused pain or at least discomfort, for they bubbled, turned, and fled. But not everyone knew of my weapon, and so the slugs fed well, sometimes on horses, more often on men.

  • • •