The Warrior King: Book Three of the Seer King Trilogy

by Chris Bunch

“We’ll fight,” she said. “But don’t think for a moment of betrayal.”

  She stalked out of the tent, and the other two followed. Jakuns looked back, shrugged in what might have been slight apology, then the flap fell closed.

  The last thing I needed was dissent this close to battle. I gritted my teeth, then started to consider the map I’d been studying.

  Not five minutes later, Svalbard tapped at the tent pole.

  “Yes?”

  “Kutulu to see you.”

  What now?

  “Send him in.”

  The slight man entered.

  “You handled the matter with the Tovieti well.”

  “You heard?”

  “Of course.”

  “All right,” I said, somewhat amused. “How do you eavesdrop in a tent that’s got Svalbard in front, damn all in the way of furniture to hide behind, plus half a dozen other sentries all around it making it impossible to approach secretively. Magic?”

  “I’m not a wizard,” Kutulu said, frowning.

  “But you have your methods?”

  He nodded, saw me smiling, and his lips bent a little.

  “I’m glad you approve of what I did,” I said. “Hopefully, the problem is solved, and we can continue worrying about the real enemy. Is there anything else?”

  “I was wondering if it would improve the situation if that woman Jabish had an accident.”

  “Fatal?”

  “I can’t think of anything else that’d stop her troublemaking.”

  “It’s tempting,” I admitted. “But no.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “I’m sure.” I chose my tone carefully, for I didn’t want to offend the Snake Who Never Sleeps. “That way is Tenedos’s way. Not mine.”

  Kutulu half rose, then sat back down. His face was even paler than before. He bobbed his head.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right to reprove me. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “My friend,” I said gently. “I wasn’t reproaching you, just reminding you of how I work.”

  Again a touch of a smile came, and he rose.

  “Thank you, Damastes. I, uh, I chose the right man to follow.”

  Before I could respond, he scurried out. I shook my head. A very strange man, one none of us really knew.

  I went back to the map and its simple lines, curves, and colors.

  • • •

  The phony rafts were going together well, and word came from upriver that the logging was also on schedule. More soldiers went south to join them, this time with just their arms, and Linerges and Ilkley went with them, together with a lot of our Tovieti warriors. They’d be the first to see action, and I hoped this would convince Jakuns and the others that I had no intention of deliberately sacrificing the Tovieti.

  I also arrived at an emergency plan, a terrible last resort that would be far bloodier than what I’d already foreseen. Then I prayed I would never have to use it.

  Command of the camp went to Chuvash, and I set the hour for the battle to begin, the battle that must end the war.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ACROSS THE LATANE

  A battle always starts at night, even when the actual fighting doesn’t.

  First are the sappers, those seldom-honored laborer-soldiers who make the fortifications, build the bridges, lay out the roads and then, as frequently as not, die fighting on them.

  I could imagine every part of this battlefield, although it was far scattered.

  Dusk …

  Far upriver, the sappers labored, heaving the huge logs into the river, mooring them to the banks in long lines.

  The wizards, too, haven’t slept, craftily building their spells to unloose at the right moment.

  Full dark …

  The magicians, here and upriver, cast spells of confusion, of fear, panic, and doubt. My few master sorcerers attempted to summon insects and vermin to the enemy lines, although this is seldom successful.

  Other spells had been cast earlier, spells against rain, so the Latane’s current was very slow, and the river itself low, even lower than normal at the beginning of the Time of Heat.

  There are others who didn’t sleep — those who’d been told off for the first wave; those who were about to enter their first battle; and, though they never admit it, their commanders, who pretend calm, confidence.

  The assault troops upriver, Yonge’s skirmishers and the chosen infantrymen, waded into the water, and pulled themselves onto the logs or tied themselves to a branch, and the sappers pushed the logs out to be taken downriver, toward Nicias, by the current.

  I’d become a master of faking it, of lying still and breathing deeply, appearing completely at ease, assured of victory. A few times I’d even deceived myself and had to be wakened at the proper hour.

  Not this time, with everything riding on the matter and the battle plan itself ridiculously complex. Without Cymea, who would be among the first to go into action, there wasn’t much point in lying sleepless in my tent.

  I went there for a couple of hours around midnight, but then returned to the command tent.

  One of Kutulu’s spies, just across the river from us, in the heart of the enemy’s lines, moved past a guard post, around a warehouse, then out on a small dock. He slid down a rope into a small canoe and cast loose. He dipped his paddle slowly, careful to never make a splash, and let the river take him across. He met the challenge of one of my vedettes, was hurried to my headquarters. There was no sign Tenedos had found us out, and the army was on only quarter-alert.

  Someone once said there’s never been a battle plan that survived the first spear cast, when all deteriorates into confusion, with only the poor foot soldier perhaps knowing what’s going on, his task no more than killing the man who stands against him, and then another and another until there’s no one left to slaughter or he himself welters in his gore.

  The discs Sinait had used to show me Tenedos, back when we were building the army, had been improved. She’d found sometimes a picture could be made out, but more often the magician who carried it might be able to talk into it, and his words understood by all others with the mirrors. The problem would be not only hoping this spell would survive Tenedos’s magicians, but that everyone didn’t babble at the same time.

  The logs were roiled downstream, soldiers clinging to them just as Cymea and I’d lashed our boat to a great log. Here and there, someone slipped off, or a log rolled and men were flung into the water, some managing to swim ashore, others being pulled under, men whose bravery had bade them make foolish claims about their water talents.

  But the logs rushed on, hundreds of them, with fifteen or more men on each log.

  That afternoon Sinait had a pavilion pitched near the river, just behind a hill to hide her actions from the enemy, and then began digging with a small, ensorcelled trowel. She could have been a somewhat oversize child at play, making tiny ditches for toy boats.

  But this was hardly play.

  When she’d finished sculpting the mud, she went to the Latane with her guards and ceremoniously filled a bucket, emptied it again, while chanting, then filled other buckets and poured them into the little ditches.

  Now, deep in the night, braziers were lit and her magicians began chanting, and strange smells and sparks grew. The muddy water in her ditch appeared to begin flowing, as if it was part of a river with an invisible headwaters and mouth. I blinked, seeing the ground blur and change, until it was a perfect model of the Latane.

  Sinait continued chanting, more loudly, still in a language I knew not, went to one end of her ditch, and opened a sack. From it she took minuscule splinters, barely visible to the eye, and carefully set them in the water. These were fragments cut from the logs now carrying soldiers toward Nicias.

  The camp around me was silent, dark, but the men in their tents were awake, waiting, arms at hand. When the assault wave secured the peninsula, and the boats the Army of Numantia had assembled, they’d cross as reinforcements, and the
battle for Nicias proper would begin.

  The current took the bits of wood, washed them very slowly down toward the other end of the ditch.

  Now we’d see whether her spell would take, whether she would, as promised, be able to guide these logs down the Latane into the branch on the other side of the peninsula across from us.

  Amazingly, the splinters did just that, sliding into the proper channel.

  Her chant changed, and they began drifting toward the banks and grounding.

  I rode back to the command tent, dismounted, and listened.

  Nothing for long moments. Had my troops run into some kind of trap and been cut down in awful silence? Then I faintly heard bugles and, across the water, saw torches flare as Tenedos’s troops came awake.

  Svalbard came out of the tent.

  “Sir. The wizards say we’re getting something from those mirrors.”

  I hurried inside. One of Sinait’s magicians held up his disc, which was now blank.

  “We had them for just a moment, sir. No picture, but a scatter of words. I think it was Angara, who was supposed to be with the lead elements. She said, and I’m repeating exactly, ‘ashore … by surprise … guards …’ then it cut off.”

  Another magician yelped. There was a swirling flash on his mirror, then it steadied, and I saw a building in flames, running figures outlined by the fire, and a man’s calm voice: “second wing skirmishers ashore, a hundred yards short of where we were supposed to be, but no problem. No enemy waiting, all of our soldiers landed successfully, now moving — ”

  His words cut off. Three, then four other sorcerers were reporting, and it appeared we’d landed successfully, Tenedos and the Army of Numantia caught in complete surprise.

  Yet another bowl lit, and this one showed nothing for a long moment. “Sir,” a magician said, “this is one of the ones we gave the Tovieti.”

  A woman’s voice suddenly came: “We’re moving into the main streets now. We fired Drumceat’s palace, he’s definitely dead. We hold Chercherin firm. So far, no response from the dog-emperor’s warders. Please hurry with your soldiers.”

  I told Chuvash to get the troops assembled and sent a message to Sinait congratulating her, telling her to return to headquarters and begin the next stage of the wizard’s battle.

  Both riverbanks were alive with light as my troops left their tents and moved toward the rafts, and Tenedos’s troops swarmed to their fighting positions to repel us.

  If all continued well, Tenedos would think the landing on the peninsula was just a feint and pay little heed to it, concentrating on the main thrust to come from over here, where most of the army was concentrated.

  But I didn’t plan to send them across until the peninsula was secured and there’d be little danger of Tenedos’s water magic striking them.

  A prickling came, and a wind whispered, then whined, and the Latane grew choppy, and I grinned. Tenedos’s magic was at work, keeping us from mounting our invasion. He had been fooled.

  Now all I could do was pray the assault troops would take the peninsula, start sending the boats across for us while others assaulted across the bridge and established a foothold on the far side. Then the rest of us would ferry across to the peninsula and attack into the city.

  An elaborate plan, but one that appeared to be working.

  Then things went awry.

  A garbled message: “holding strong … reinforced bridge … can’t …”

  Minutes later, another: “storage yard … they’ve fired … both … holding … building … third attack driven back … sending in …”

  At the river, the chop and wind were building. I scanned the far bank, saw movement, away from the river, toward the other side of the peninsula. Tenedos clearly felt his magic controlled the water, and was moving soldiers to the other side of the peninsula to attack my landing force.

  Another mirror flashed, its message very clear: “Tenedos’s soldiers still hold the bridge, and are attacking across it in strength. We’ll mount a counterattack with — ”

  The message stopped, and the mirror stayed dark.

  I grabbed a magician, told him to get down to the pavilion and have Sinait and the others cast a counterspell against the weather magic on the Latane.

  It appeared my worst-case plan might have to be set in motion.

  Another garbled message came:

  “holding … they’re holding … for the love of Irisu, come help us! Linerges cut off, and … Come help — ”

  The voice broke off, and we got a picture. A woman’s dead face, eyes glaring, mouth gaping, flashed for an instant, vanished. Now I had no other option. “Chuvash!”

  “Sir!”

  I gave the order I’d been afraid of.

  “Get the rafts ready. We’re going across.”

  • • •

  Now my bluff would have to be played for real. It took half an hour to drag the rafts into the water, and troops clambered aboard, clumsy as the waves pulled at them.

  All of the discs had gone dead. Either their enervating spells had run out of energy, or Tenedos had discovered and silenced them.

  I’d gone farther upstream, with a special detail of men and women taken from my handful of experienced river boatmen I’d had standing by, and twenty archers chosen from the Seventeenth Ureyan Lancers. If I were to die now, and the odds were excellent, I’d do it with the soldiery I began serving with. I had a bow across my back and two full quivers at my belt.

  We were clambering aboard a clumsy river flatboat whose stern was piled with tough rope, which was firmly lashed to other, stronger rope, rope capable of towing a ship, hundreds of yards of it, nearby on the shore.

  Chuvash came. “Sir, you can’t be thinking of — ”

  “I’m not thinking, I’m doing,” I said. “Take command of the army and bring them across as best you can, when you can.”

  He stood helplessly gaping, then was pushed aside as someone rushed me out of the predawn blackness. A dagger was raised, and I had a moment to react, step into the attack, snap up a blocking arm, and then my attacker was knocked sprawling by Svalbard.

  The person still held the dagger, and Svalbard’s boot came down on her wrist, and I realized it was a woman as she shouted in pain.

  The big man dragged her up, and I saw it was Jabish.

  “You bastard! You fughpig!” she sobbed. “It’s just as I thought … you’re letting us die, gods damn you! Tenedos has his warders out with soldiers in the city, and they’re killing my people … killing all of them!”

  I thought of explaining, saying my whole gods-damned army was dying, but I didn’t have the time.

  “Chuvash, take her back to the camp, and get her into restraints! We need no more lunatics about on a night like this. Svalbard! Get your ass aboard, and thanks.” Then, to the men:

  “Push off, and row hard. Let’s go get into some trouble over there.”

  The river pulled at the boat, and we were bobbing, almost sideways, the line unreeling to our stern, dragging at us. The night was wind and spume, and I cursed the gods or perhaps prayed as I felt the storm getting stronger. Sinait’s counterspells hadn’t taken, and Tenedos would drown me, here in this swirling madness, and at that moment the wind died, although the waves still reared and foamed.

  “Row harder,” I bellowed, and the men obeyed as the current pulled, trying to tear us downstream to the sea. There were fires ahead, closer, getting larger, and I could see the far bank. A man beside me coughed apologetically and went down with an arrow in his lungs.

  A bow thwacked, and an archer said, satisfaction in his voice, “Got the fucker,” and I heard shouts as the enemy saw us.

  The boat slammed into the shallows, almost sending me overside, and men tumbled off and pulled heavy mooring lines ashore, found pilings, a beached fishing boat to tie them to. Other men began pulling in the line across the river, and the work got harder and harder as that heavy rope on the other side was dragged into the water toward us.

&
nbsp; Men choked, dropped, and other men ran up the bank and drove back a ragged line of attackers, came back and pulled on.

  Svalbard and I went on line with the archers. More of Tenedos’s men rushed, and we drove them back, and I sent men forward to take the corpses’ weapons.

  I heard a shout: “We have it!” and saw the end of the cable being dragged out of the river, like some huge snake or worm. It was run up to the bank, looped around a statue of some god I’d never seen before, and the boatmen lashed it firm.

  Behind me, across the river, those rafts intended for a deception were being put to use, pushed out, using that rope to help them across, keep them from being swept away. But no more than three or four of the rafts could use the rope at a time, and that sparingly, for fear of snapping it.

  More soldiers charged, and others tried to flank us, and we drove some back, forced others to duck for cover. The night was fading, but fire still seared red across the black as the warehouses around us burned, and we choked on the boiling smoke.

  My plan was a shambles now, and I should have stayed at my command post and tried to keep what order I could. But I could send no man to die without going there myself.

  So I crouched, arrow nocked, stood and whipped an arrow away when I saw a target, ducked as a spear clattered across cobbles toward me, took a blow on my mail as a slung stone bounced off the ground and struck me.

  There was cheering, and a raft came out of darkness, and dawn was here, and men were streaming off it, up the bank, and another raft was behind it, coming close. I swore — they were coming too fast, in spite of my orders.

  That raft landed its men, and another, and we had two companies’ strength on the bank.

  I saw a man wearing a captain’s sash, didn’t know him, told him he was in charge of the beachhead and to get some of those empty rafts back across for more men, and he nodded understanding.

  We couldn’t hold here, had to move, and I shouted for the charge, slinging my bow. We went forward, running, and we were on the enemy positions, and swords were clanging, thudding into unprotected flesh, men screaming, swearing, dying. A man swung with a flail, and I ducked and slashed his arm to the bone, and there was another one, coming in with a spear. He knew what he was doing, had its butt back, under his arm, and was attacking with short jabs. I parried, parried again, and he struck long, almost getting me in the stomach. I spun, let him go past, slammed him in the face with the pommel of my sword, and then Tenedos’s men were retreating.