“Do the ruins still exist?” Sofiana asked. “Surely someone has searched for the treasures. Assuming they really exist.”
“Who would do such a fool thing? The land is filled with evil djinn and giant scorpions. Cursed.” He leaned back in his camel and wagged his finger. “But never doubt the treasures. They exist.”
Darik thought about Wabur. In his mind, he sometimes thought of the world as no older than King Toth, so terribly did his evil change it. But Mithyl was much older than that, he must remember, his soul just as old. He might very well have lived a hundred lifetimes in this world, his soul gathered and sown by the Harvester again and again. Perhaps he had even stood on the streets of Wabur at one time, part of some merchant or prince.
The Kratians reached the Spice Road again, where Abudallah proclaimed it safe, and they continued north. They must have traveled twenty-five miles since morning, their pace accelerating as they reached the far northern edge of Marrabatti influence, almost to Balsalom’s lands. Sand and rock turned into dry scrub brush and gnarled trees. They saw more animals and could find springs and seasonal streambeds when they needed water.
They did not, however, have enough food for the Kratians to cross the empty regions into Balsalom, so Abudallah decided to stop at al-Sabba to replenish their supplies. This trading town of several thousand lay on a rich oasis where olive trees and date palms spread their limbs. It was the largest town since Marrabat, and Abudallah said it would be garrisoned with at least a hundred men. Possibly more, given the war raging to the north.
“But I have parchments that say we’ve paid our tolls, marked with the sultan’s own seal.”
The forged documents didn’t impress Darik. “And if the people of that town you raided sent someone to watch for you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Abudallah said. “My cousin is the sheik of al-Sabba. He answers to Sultan Mufashe’s pasha, who garrisons permanently in the city, but he is not without his own tricks. I will go into the city alone, and then come back for you when it is safe.”
He turned to his men and spoke quickly in Kratian. A brief argument broke out between two of the riders, but Abudallah silenced it with a sharp word. He turned his camel and plodded toward the city, leaving the others to watch from a rise some two miles distant from the town gates. Darik stared longingly at the date palms that grew around the town and wished he could go sit in their shade.
Sofiana turned to the nearest Kratian, a young man with the first wisps of a beard on his chin and a scraggly mustache that looked like a fuzzy caterpillar had settled to take a nap on his upper lip. “How long before he returns? Tonight, or should we pitch our tents?”
The young man smiled, showing a mouth already half-emptied of teeth. “Pleased to be meeting you.”
Darik grinned, but dropped his smile when the girl turned to glare at him.
Sofiana tried the others to see if they understood her. They didn’t. She pantomimed pitching a tent and starting a fire. Two men smiled and nodded, but didn’t move, while a third man offered her khat and another offered her the last skin of fermented camel milk.
“What do you think?” she asked Darik at last. “Should we make camp?”
“Not this close to town, no. For all we know, we’ll be running for our lives in about two minutes.”
The camels were snorting and grumbling. They could smell the town and were growing anxious standing here when food, water, and rest waited so close. Sofiana crawled down from the camel and leaned back against a rock. She looked up at the clouds gathered overhead as if wondering how long before it rained.
Abudallah returned about an hour later. His camel lumbered forward at a healthy clip, braying angrily. As soon as the man drew close enough, they could see him waving his hands for them to remount. Two of the Kratians rushed to gather the camels, while the others scrambled onto the backs of their own animals and goaded them to their feet. Abudallah drew closer, shouting.
Darik and Sofiana joined the Kratians in fleeing up the road. The men lashed at the pack camels to urge them on faster.
Abudallah caught up with them. “A disaster! There are hundreds of Marrabatti in the city. One of the sultan’s sons is there. My cousin said that there are patrols out looking for us.”
“Why would they search for us?” Darik asked, confused. “The stolen camels? Or is it the girl?”
“No, not the camels. And you can forget the girl. Something else is happening here. They stopped all traffic on the Spice Road. Maybe they think we’re spies.”
Sofiana turned to look back at al-Sabba, and her eyes widened in alarm. Darik followed her gaze.
Behind, some twenty horsemen came boiling out of the gates and galloped hard in their direction. The Kratians and their camels could never outrun them. He drew his sword and prepared to fight for his life.
Chapter Twenty
Markal struggled to keep up with Whelan as his friend strode down the hillside with his long legs. The wizard was stiff from sitting atop the fallen stone on the hill since the previous night. He whispered a spell to give him energy. It was a weak spell, costing little and affecting him no more than a cup or two of strong tea would have, but by the time he came into the vale below his thoughts had cleared.
A pair of horses waited for them at the bottom of the hill, and Whelan was in the saddle and galloping up the dirt road that divided the Balsalomian camp before Markal could gain his horse. He rode hard after the king, trying to avoid the foot soldiers and mounted horsemen in their flowing robes who were riding all about him. Whelan continued to outpace him as the armies parted for the king in a way they didn’t for Markal, unrecognized as he was among these men from the khalifates.
By the time Markal came riding through the broken castle gates to dismount in the bailey, Whelan had already scaled the castle walls to the battlement overlooking the Tothian Way. Here he stood with Hoffan, several men from his signal corps and their flags, and a trumpeter. The castle had shed the mass of fighting men who had occupied it the previous night. All that remained was a contingent of perhaps twenty Knights Temperate from Whelan’s personal guard, plus several dozen bowmen from the khalifates, who kept watch from the castle walls.
In front of the fortress however, Whelan had gathered a mounted force of some five hundred Eriscobans. They weren’t Knights Temperate, but nevertheless appeared to be sober, disciplined fighting men who kept even ranks while waiting for the king to give command. It was a powerful reserve that could ride out to engage the enemy wherever the king saw it was needed.
Whelan was speaking to his staff as Markal approached, wheezing from the exertion of running up the stairs from the bailey. “Macklin is too far south,” the king said. “He won’t do any good there.”
The wizard took a more careful inspection of the battle. This was an even better vantage point than the hilltop with the standing stones. From here, they commanded a clear view in every direction. Pasha Ismail’s enemy army came marching from the northern, opposite side of the highway. It was a strong force of seven or eight thousand men from the look of the dust kicked up by their marching boots and the extent of their lines. In addition, a powerful cavalry of perhaps two thousand enemy horsemen cut in from further to the west. Against them was a solid mass of two or three thousand Balsalomian footmen, wedged between two of the hills, with dozens of archers commanding the heights. It was enough to hold up Ismail’s forces until Whelan could bring in the bulk of his army, thousands of them streaming toward the battlefield.
Whelan didn’t seem to be focusing on the battle itself, apparently already noting how the initial struggle would play out. Instead, he was looking at other forces not yet committed. His hand twisted at the hilt of Soultrup, which remained in its sheath. He wore a second, shorter sword on his left hip, as if not trusting the magical weapon to support him if battle came.
“Move Macklin next to the road,” the king said after another minute of consideration. “Send his riders east four hundred yards. Bring the rest
of them up next to the Arvadans.”
The trumpeter lifted his horn and let out two short blasts and one higher, longer blast. Faces turned toward the castle from below. Now that Lord Macklin had been called, the signalers waved flags to give the specific command. They repeated the orders, and a force of several hundred men turned from their march and came toward the Tothian Way. A small mass of riders broke off and moved several hundred yards east, where they disappeared into a copse of trees.
Markal could see Whelan’s strategy; if the enemy army broke through the hills, Macklin’s mounted force could come around to harass their flank and delay them long enough for Eriscobans and Balsalomians to get their combined forces into position. And at the same time, he could see what Ismail seemed to be driving at. The greatest mass of Whelan’s supply caravan was in two big encampments on the highway in front of the castle, together with all of the wagons, camels, mules, and draft horses that had carried all of those goods east on the Tothian Way. Ismail didn’t need to win the battle or even seize the castle. If he could break into the supply caravan, he could burn and pillage at will. With no means to feed and outfit his army, Whelan would be forced to abandon the eastern khalifates and take refuge in Balsalom.
The Balsalomians between the hills seemed to be giving way too soon. Already, they looked ready to collapse, and Lord Macklin’s riders had not yet come around to attack Ismail’s rear.
“Hold your ground,” Whelan grumbled as he turned from moving around his pieces like a game of al-shatranj so that he could study the main battle. “The Harvester take them, they’re falling back already. I thought Pasha Boroah was made of stronger stuff.”
Ismail had his forces up against the hills and now sent men scurrying like a stream of ants to drive the bowmen from the heights. Before the bowmen fell back, however, they waved red and black flags toward the castle to signal what was happening between the hills.
“Giants,” Hoffan said. “And mammoths. That’s why.”
Markal was surprised that the dark wizard had committed them to this battle. The entire struggle was a risk for the Veyrians, a gamble of reaching those supplies. Since Daria and the griffin riders had driven off the dragons, and King Toth himself remained wounded within the Dark Citadel, the mammoths and giants represented the most powerful weapon left in the enemy’s command. He’d expected them to be held in reserve in case the combined armies reached the gates of Veyre.
Whelan turned to Hoffan. “Take the reserve. Relieve Boroah. I want that line held.”
Hoffan nodded and went running down the steps to the bailey.
Markal looked around the castle, concerned at how few men would remain once Hoffan rode off with the horsemen massed out front. That reserve was the last major force between the enemy and this position.
Whelan must have noticed his alarm. “He’s marching for our supplies.”
“Until he sees the king unguarded in the castle, the gates lying in ruin.”
“I’m not unguarded.” Whelan grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. “I have a wizard. And these castle walls. And twenty Knights Temperate plus sufficient bowmen to drive away attackers.”
“Whelan . . . ” Markal began, concerned.
But the king was already turning back to the field of battle. Outside the gates, Hoffan had taken a horse and was now leading the mass of cavalry. They trotted down the hillside, picking up pace as the companies got themselves organized.
“There,” Whelan said in a grim tone about ten minutes later when Hoffan’s forces had interposed themselves between Ismail and the highway. “Now you see.”
He paused to give instructions to his signalers, who waved furiously at a mass of Eriscoban footmen who were moving at a rapid march down the highway toward the battle. There were as many as two thousand men who would soon be joining the few hundred guarding the supply caravans, but they wouldn’t arrive in time to plug the mass of enemy soldiers that had pushed the Balsalomians out of the way and came streaming toward the highway, now less than a half-mile distant. Hoffan, however, would be arriving in time to meet them, forcing them to fight another delaying action while more defenses organized.
Markal eyed the nearly empty hillside between the road and the castle. That worried him. He glanced at the sky, searching for threats from the air. Nothing.
“Are you sure it’s wise to commit your reserve so early?” he said, when his search had turned up nothing.
“I’m not—it’s still in reserve. Look, here comes Lord Macklin. Sound the charge.”
The trumpeter gave two short blasts, followed by a single long note, which hung its brassy tones in the air over the battlefield.
Macklin’s mounted force, which Whelan had earlier positioned should Pasha Ismail break through the Balsalomians, now swung in from the flank, while the footmen came in to plug the lines. Ismail’s men stalled as they fought this new force. Meanwhile, the Balsalomians had fallen back, but kept the enemy from breaking out fully from where they were delayed between the two hills. Ismail’s cavalry had come around the hillside, but several companies of Whelan’s pikemen, together with a smaller force of horsemen, were keeping them from breaking through. Ismail had been counting on them to sweep clear the battlefield ahead of the main army so he could march on the supplies.
“And the battle turns,” Whelan said. An element of grim satisfaction had entered his voice.
Everything seemed to be going perfectly. Ismail and his ten thousand men, together with giants and mammoths, had failed to break through. Thousands of men from the combined armies were entering the battle. And now Markal understood what the king was doing with the other pieces marching seemingly far from the battlefield. Their path was bringing them up and behind Ismail’s army. Shortly, the enemy would find his path to retreat severed.
“Bring back Hoffan’s reserve,” Markal said.
“It’s almost over.”
“It’s just starting.”
“It only looks that way,” Whelan said. “Every piece has been put into position. It is now a simple matter of playing out the positions.”
“You sound overconfident—it worries me.”
“I’m not overconfident, I am grimly determined. The enemy took a terrible gamble, but we were prepared. Our numbers are better, our position is superior. The only advantage he has is those mammoths and the giants, and they are hemmed in where they can be neutralized.”
“Then why not bring back the reserve?”
“Because as soon as our forces come in behind him, Ismail will realize he is trapped, and then he will attempt to break free. I intend not only to destroy his army but capture Ismail and his personal guard as well. Hoffan may be needed to run him down.”
Whelan looked down at his hand, which was still resting on the pommel of his sword. He removed it with a deep sigh. Markal realized that his friend had entered the battle uncertain, afraid that he would be facing a final, desperate struggle here at the castle, which would necessitate drawing Soultrup. And then they would see if Memnet’s forces were able to hold the gardens against Pasha Malik. But that was no longer a concern, thankfully.
“I’m sorry,” Markal said. “I shouldn’t have doubted you. You are a true warrior king and a fine general.”
He was about to ask Whelan what he intended to do when Ismail was defeated, if now would be the time to push the final fifty miles to Veyre to lay siege to the Dark Citadel itself, when action on the battlefield caught his eye.
A small band of riders broke free from Ismail’s harried army. Some fifty or sixty men in all, they cut through the first ranks opposing them and came charging toward the Tothian Way.
“So soon,” Whelan said. “Ismail must have received word from the rear. All the better. It won’t be long.”
After breaking loose from the main battle, the small band of riders tangled with the left flank of Lord Macklin’s cavalry. For a short time—no more than a minute—the two forces mixed, the dust and chaos of battle obscuring details. Then a small we
dge of riders cut free and came galloping up a dirt road toward the highway. Markal had supposed Ismail’s personal guard would be experienced and powerful enough to fight clear, much as Whelan’s personal guard of Knights Temperate would have done, but it was discouraging that Ismail’s entire force seemed to have emerged unscathed from the short brawl.
“Poor showing, Macklin,” Whelan muttered. “You should have stopped them.” He turned to his signalers. “Bring Hoffan. Quickly, now.”
Hoffan’s men came down the highway, prepared to cut off Ismail’s small force fleeing the battle. They would arrive at the junction where the dirt road met the Tothian Way before the enemy and outnumbered them a good eight to one. For a long minute, the two sides both raced toward the same spot. By now Ismail must have spotted Hoffan and would know he would never reach the Tothian Way in time. What then? Would he veer back toward his army, or would he try to escape over the empty countryside north of the highway?
To Markal’s surprise, Ismail’s men kept charging. The two sides were only a few hundred yards apart now, Hoffan’s already arriving at the junction of the two roads, where the mountain lord quickly positioned his men to bring the maximum strength against the enemy when he arrived. And still the enemy charged, horses running flat out, men with their swords drawn and glinting in the afternoon sun. They showed no fear, they—
They are ravagers.
The thought came to Markal’s mind, and he knew it must be true. He glanced around the castle, at the shattered, partially reinforced gates, at the fifteen or twenty Knights Temperate in Whelan’s personal guard, and at the small number of archers on the walls. He looked down at the empty hillside between here and the mass of supplies and animals on the highway. It was guarded by a few hundred of Lord Denys’s men, but they had formed a defensive position to protect the supplies, not the castle behind them.
The Warrior King (Book 4) Page 16
