Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles)
Page 38
So she had her life, and her hate, and she stared at me with green eyes that wished me no good. If looks could kill she would be facing Power now.
“I am told,” she said, to the air, “that one of us spent the day bullying and threatening our warriors.”
Ancenon smirked to himself. D’gattis looked directly at me. “Would that be you, Black Lupus?” he asked.
“Who else?” I asked him.
“To what end?” he pressed me. “These men are trained. Surely, should they want to congregate…”
Drekk and Nantar blew in through the tent flap with the night air and interrupted him. We exchanged greetings.
“Lupus, I hate your bif – wack,” Nantar told me, smiling through his black beard. “I was challenged four times between the city walls and the palisade, by men who know me.”
“Well I love it,” Drekk said. “In fact, it is one of the few things that he has done right. No one gets in, no one gets out, no one knows where we are and no one is going to.”
That shut D’gattis and Genna down right there. Drekk and Nantar seated themselves on folding stools and I realized that, for Drekk, that passed for a speech.
“That city looks tight,” Nantar reported. Drekk nodded. “We scouted the walls until archers drove us back. Sappers might get in underneath, but that would take months.”
“I do not want to spend months here,” D’gattis said, matter-of-factly. “This place is ghastly and this camp is worse. We have been paid, we need to be away as soon as possible.”
“As soon as practical, cousin,” Ancenon corrected him. “While I agree with the need to accomplish our goal quickly, we have much to lose if we are foolish.”
“Why can’t the two of you just lob fireballs over the wall at dawn or something?” Thorn complained. He had taken over, of all things, the morale of the troops. I shuddered to think what he did to keep them happy – probably told them how much worse his life seemed. “We spook them, they come out and the fight starts.”
“Why would they come out?” I asked. My “why” questions had started to irritate, I could tell, but I came from a whole different technology of warfare. “They have Wizards, they could just lob fireballs back.”
“That would look like cowardice,” Arath sighed. Ancenon nodded. “Can’t you understand that, Lupus? The idea is to be able to hold your head up at the Fovean High Council. You can’t do that if you are perceived to be a coward.”
“So if we attack, they’re honor-bound to answer?” I asked.
Everyone nodded; could this really be that easy? “But then we’ll have the Volkhydrans to contend with,” I said.
“That,” said D’gattis, “is the legitimate problem, Lupus. If we just pick a fight, then the Volkhydrans are as likely as not to bring their forces against us. They are fifteen hundred strong at least, and blooded veterans.”
“And our men show promise, but we aren’t ready for a pitched battle,” Nantar said. “At least, not yet.”
“Neither are our officers,” added Ancenon. “I am the only one here who has seen a pitched battle, I fear.”
“Seen a pitched battle?” I asked. “Or commanded one side?”
“A High Priest of Adriam does not take command, Black Lupus,” he told me. I had assumed all along that Ancenon would be calling the shots.
“That’s going to be my job, unless you feel you’re more qualified,” Arath told me.
I did not want command. I didn’t want to lose all of our warriors, either. “What do you have planned?”
Arath smiled to himself. “A surprise,” he said. “We come around on the harbor side and attack them while they are getting ready to attack us. They will never expect that.
That seemed really simplistic and I said so. “Have you ever noticed that there is often a good reason why someone isn’t expecting something – like the idea would never work?”
“Like this camp?” Nantar asked. He almost smiled so I didn’t take the jibe to heart.
“How do plan to get past the walls?” I asked.
“Cross on the sea side,” he said. The rest were nodding. “The tide will ebb in the morning. We can wade through and –“
“Have you scouted that out?” I asked him. Shela gripped the flesh of my calf as I spoke, warning me I think that I needed to keep my temper. “Caltrops in the water would cripple our men.”
“Cal – trops?” Arath asked. There were blank stares all around.
“Pieces of steel, little pyramids with sharpened points, to be stepped on?”
“Who would want to step on something like that?” Dilvesh asked.
“I think he means to be stepped on by an enemy,” Thorn said. “Chatoos has something similar on the beaches by their ports. If a horse steps on it, it goes lame.”
“We won’t bring horses,” Arath said.
“One might safely assume that these would be no kinder to a foot,” D’gattis said.
“It’s a good plan,” Arath said, shaking his head. “If you think you can do better, then take responsibility yourself, Lupus. I didn’t ask for command.”
“Well, if you haven’t even seen a pitched battle, I at least participated in the Battle of Two Mountains,” I said.
“That was against the Dorkans,” Thorn said.
They sat quiet. Everyone looked at Arath.
He sighed. “All right,” he said. “You designed the camp, you picked the spot, and you have all of these concerns. You lead it, Lupus, and Adriam be with you.”
I smirked to myself. “I’ll settle for War,” I said.
We debated into the night: this strategy, that one, what others had heard about fighting Dorkans and, more importantly, Volkhydrans. Nantar provided living proof of how tough they could be. My experiences there backed this up as well. Of all of the races of Men, Volkhydrans could be the most volatile.
In time we had evolved a plan. Arath would leave for the plains two hours before the sun came up, Thorn with him. Nantar would command the base camp with two hundred men; I would take three hundred with Dilvesh and D’gattis and go to the city gate. Shela and Ancenon would remain at camp.
She had argued and argued about that; I told her finally to obey me. The same argument that told her to be with her man defeated her there, although it couldn’t silence her. When I couldn’t listen to her arguments any more I told her to go to sleep without me and I left to walk our perimeter. I wanted the night air to clear my head, if it could be cleared at all.
There were those among our warriors who assigned watches and gave our orders and directives to the foot soldiers. In an army there would be sergeants and lieutenants and such. We weren’t there yet, but we were approaching it. We had watches and warriors assigned to them. I still heard rumblings about the blond lunatic who waited for the first excuse to gut one of them if they slacked off.
“You should be sleeping,” I heard from behind me.
I turned and saw Genna, in her leathers, one of her daggers missing from her bandolier.
I pointed to it. “Trouble?” I asked.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” she said.
“Scouting?”
“It is what I do,” she said. “It is what is left me.”
I sighed, turned to leave her.
“Sorry,” she said. I could hear it in her voice. “I am – look, I am sorry.”
I turned around to face her. She’d started crying again.
“I wish it hadn’t happened like it did,” I said. “I wish you hadn’t suffered.”
“Easily said,” she told me, her eyes holding mine. “I thought it meant more to you than it must have.”
“I told you many times – “
“I know,” she interrupted me, taking a step closer, so I could smell the plains on her, like she did in Conflu when she would fill my senses with the forest.
“You made me love you, Lupus, Rancor, Mordetur, whoever the hell else you are,” she said. “You don’t get to untie that bundle, not all on your own like
you want.”
“I am with Shela now,” I said. I had no plan to go down this path with her.
“Exclusively,” she asked, looking into my eyes, searching them. “No others, dedicated to your slave like a good master?”
“It isn’t like that.”
“No room for… dalliances? Perhaps… experimentation?”
“Genna that is just not going to happen.”
“She keeps you on a tight rein, then?” she pressed me. Her hand rose up between us, serpentine in its motion, to drum her fingernails on my breastplate as she had done in the past.
Genna’s mind took things apart and put them back together. That made her superior at what she did. I could see her doing that now, with my relationship.
I didn’t bite. It didn’t even tempt me.
“Does the bit hurt your mouth?” she asked me, meeting my eyes again, the look on her face so falsely sincere.
“Nah, Genna,” I said to her. “In fact, I love it.”
She drew her head back, a mocking smile on her lips. She saw what she thought might be her opening.
She knew me too well.
I turned and walked away. She called after me, something about my going back to the stables, right in front of our men. I couldn’t hurt her and I wouldn’t stand there and play her game.
A good leader knows when to walk away, too, and in a few hours I had to be one.
The morning dawned bright. I wanted to puke.
What was I doing? I didn’t know how to lead an army. I didn’t know anything. None of us did, except Ancenon, and he wouldn’t take command. I didn’t want command, or so my mind repeatedly insisted to me. I wasn’t ready for it. The men had trained with Arath and Nantar and Thorn – they didn’t know me from Adam.
Then again, no one here knew Adam.
I assembled the men outside of the small city. Lo and behold, whom did I see barking and growling at the troops but the man I had humbled the day before?
“Toe that line!” he snarled. “Straighten up! If you are going to die today, you are going to die like a Free Legionnaire!”
I had to smile to myself. I had seen it before. Discipline is contagious; once you have it, you have to pass it on to everyone else.
He nodded to me and stepped into line. I nodded back, scowling, and called, “Forward, harch!” We marched in smart columns toward the gate itself. Blizzard pawed the earth as I left, not happy that I might leave without him. If all worked well, Arath and Thorn had found the Sentalan army on the plains and were bringing them north of the city, telling them that the attack had been scheduled for dawn. We would have them to run behind if we were blocked from our bivouac area.
We estimated that the guard at the top of the gate tower consisted of fifty archers. Their bows were ready before we approached. I saw two of their Wizards, or at least some of the smarter Dorkans.
“Halloooo, the gate,” I challenged them, my men still marching. The other armies were waking up; the Confluni and the Andarans were ready, and the Volkhydrans were scrambling. The Uman contingents from Eldador and Trenbon were forming up on either side of these Men, pointing them at the gate, as well as my three hundred.
“Stand back from the gate or draw our fire,” we were warned. I called a halt and the men stomped once and stopped. My credit to Nantar and Arath, they could march. I had done it in boot camp and it wasn’t as easy as it looked. They stood stock-still and I kept walking, looking straight at the gate.
The Dorkans pulled back their bows as one, pointed the arrows down at me.
“Ware, we will fire,” they warned me. I ignored them.
They fired, fifty twangs of bowstrings, fifty whicks as arrows slipped through the air.
I winced slightly behind the cheek guards of my Wilhelm as arrows shattered feet from me, but I kept walking, twenty feet now from the gate.
D’gattis should be preparing another spell now; impossible to have it prepared quickly enough to protect me from another volley. Not if the Dorkans were quick enough.
The second volley flew, same as the first. All turned slightly, peppering the ground around me. I stepped over broken shafts and kept walking to the gate, fifteen feet now.
Dilvesh had called on the power of Earth and moved the shafts from me. D’gattis should have his spell ready now; another ward, protecting only me.
Another volley, the Wizard on the gate seemed agitated now. This time the arrows struck my armor and shattered on it, small explosions all over me, the shafts bursting into flame as they fell to the ground. Ten feet left until I reached the gate.
Back to Dilvesh, readying himself as D’gattis cast his spell. The Wizard atop the gate would be preparing his anti-magic, but he wouldn’t assume that we could be ready this fast.
We didn’t assume there would be more than one wizard, and we should have. One of those balls of fire I had seen whipped up over the gate and flew into our men’s ranks, faster than anyone could stop it.
Random shots flew, some of the arrows glowing as the archers were given permission to fire at will. Dilvesh spelled the air around me, out-thinking the wizard on the gate that we knew about. Shafts flew to the side harmlessly; they exploded in the air, some sailed back over the wall.
I took a step back, a shaft splintering on my breastplate. Another grazed my shoulder, another exploded on my helmet. The wizards on the gate were countering, the magic that protected me failing. Shafts were getting through. Behind me, I smelled burned flesh and heard rumblings. I stayed focused on the gate, but I knew we had lost some and the rest were shaken.
“Stand fast, you lot!” a familiar voice snarled. “Hold ranks! I swear by War and Chaos, the next one of you who opens his mouth, I will rip out your eyes and piss on his brain!”
I bit my lip. I think I had my first lieutenant. If he could hold them for another minute, we were home free.
Another fireball, a low moan from the men, I felt more than saw the energy arc out from our side to meet it. This took us off of the plan now, so I had no idea whom. Two more arrows exploded near me and another grazed the back of my shoulder.
Finally I stepped up to the gate, reached up and slapped its wooden face with my open hand.
The timbers split and the bands snapped. The gate moaned and trembled as I stepped back from it. The wizards on the gate, so focused on me, D’gattis and Dilvesh, had been taken entirely by surprise as Shela’s sorcery attacked the very thing that he wanted to protect. She had been studying the wards that were in place while we fought, and bypassed them. Now too many men wanted the gate, and her power swelled accordingly. I worked as her catalyst.
The arrows faltered as I stepped back from the shattered timbers. My men were stock still, but the Volkhydrans were already moving. The contingents on either side were getting in motion as well, not attacking them but making the Volkhydrans choose to go to the gate or to engage the Uman soldiers. I moved back to my small army now, with the attention focusing back to the massing warriors.
We had lost ten, their bodies charred and smoking on the ground. Two behind them with red faces showed that they were injured, but not screaming. You had to admire the discipline.
Like I said, “Contagious.”
The gates were fractured now, waiting for anything to bring them down. From there, they would be street fighting to determine who would rule the city.
And for us, the time had come to get the hell out of Dodge.
I sprinted as fast as I could in my armor, mostly just a fast walk. Again, I missed my stallion. The men about-faced with their swords out, Dilvesh and D’gattis looking exhausted but leading them. The Dorkans never saw this coming.
Our Free Legion soldiers were moving back to our camp, carrying our wounded. The Eldadorians broke from the Volkhydrans as expected, ramming the gate with a thick tree trunk. The Volkhydrans could have us if they wanted us; the Eldadorians were done with us. The Volkhydrans hesitated and we made as much headway as we could. We would have arrow fire to cover us if we got close
enough to Shela and Ancenon. Spell cover as well.
But you had to look as this from the Volkhydran side: the city had been lost, the gates purged, the Dorkans caught unaware, and here came thousands of warriors about to pour over them. The Volkhydrans weren’t going to save the day for the Dorkans, and the Free Legion had nothing that they wanted. We didn’t have a rich camp, I had let them look at it and they had seen supplies and bedrolls, no gold. The best thing that they could say later is that they didn’t participate in the sack.
We marched back to the camp, we turned around and we manned it. For the rest of that day we watched the sack of Katarran. The united armies burned it as they withdrew. We saw two of the seven warships pull out of port and the other five burn. We saw the Dorkans quit the city and dash for the plains, where the Sentalans waited for them. That would be another battle, the Dorkans getting the best of it, and Arath and Thorn removing themselves to join us as soon as they could.
That night, Drekk came to the camp with Genna and five of his handpicked men; and a good portion of the city treasury strapped to their backs in the form of rare gems. It would never be missed. He had told me several times before that the hardest part of robbing a treasury wasn’t the theft, it was the escape and surviving when the spell-casters figured out who you were. In a raid like this, the treasure would be spread and scattered. There would be no point in trying to get it back.
In the U.S., Fort Knox held gold bars. One reason why it had never been successfully robbed involved the fact that gold is heavy and hard to move. One bar that you could hold in your hand might weigh a hundred pounds. Gems, although more valuable, are more pilferable. The Dorkans should have known better. The equivalent of the English Crown Jewels might look wonderful, but you can put them in your backpack and leave with them.
The next day rose over the remains of a smoldering city. It hurt me to see the number of families uprooted. Fathers, mothers, sons and daughters chased from their homes, dead, or worse. Amazing that after the battles when the songs are sung, that part usually didn’t rate a stanza. Katarran had been a bustling city with tens of thousands of families who now had absolutely no way to live or feed themselves. Rape seemed to be an equal opportunity employer among the Foveans: I had even heard of one game that involved male prisoners and an officer’s stallion that the Andarans found hilariously funny. I had seen girls younger than Shela clutching torn clothes to their bodies, shattered expressions on their faces.