“Good!” Sova felt her eyes widen with astonishment. Megan chuckled. “All right—what does that mean, that you’ve heard nothing?”
“Uhhh ... he keeps his habits secret? I guess he wouldn’t want the Arkans—” Whap. My poor head, thought Sova. It’ll never be the same.
“On the field we’re all naked, as from the womb,” Shkai’ra snapped. “Words might hide, but actions always reveal. Anything habitual enough to be called a habit, he can hide from no one.”
“His habit is—he doesn’t have any habits!”
“Ex-act-ly. Not that anyone’s spotted yet, anyway.”
“Oh,” said Sova. Everything she’d read in strategy books about how your own habits could be used against you, and therefore how it was good to have none, came back to mind ... now, too late.
“Actually, he does have another habit. He’s doing it now.” Sova waited for Shkai’ra to ask what, half-praying she wouldn’t, because she couldn’t think of the answer. Instead the Kommanza began muttering, eyes slitted: “Ah. Mm. Ah-hah. Oh.” On the field, movement had begun; soon the wind brought the sounds, of shouted orders, war-cries, clashing of weapons, yells of agony.
The Kommanza dropped her hand and leaned forward. “Look at that,” she muttered. To Sova it wasn’t clear at all, making as much logical sense as swirls of powdered chocolate being mixed into white dough. Shkai’ra pointed. “Look there. That one unit is supporting all the others around it, the Arkan’s trying to get at it, but he should be paying attention to that flank.” It’s like chess, Sova thought. Not like this morning at all. That was simple. “Those archers cover there, which means ...” The Kommanza’s eyes flicked back and forth across the battlefield. “Nicely done, nicely done, everything fits beautifully ... not that the Arkan is doing too badly, he’s no slouch. Apprentice, what would you say about the battle-plan, so far?”
Sova jerked as if Shkai’ra had rapped her, scrambled for an answer, the first thing that fell into her open mouth. “It’s ... ah ... it’s, ah, complicated?” She winced her eyes shut.
“Ia! Good.” Shkai’ra clapped her hands together sharply on the word. “Remember the drawbacks of complicated, though. It’s easy to get confused and make mistakes.” Sova drew a deep breath, relieved. “So why is he able to even try it?” Her relief died.
“Uhhh ... because he’s smart?”
“That’s why he can think of it—not why he can trust us to carry it out.”
“Well, we’ve got good communications.” She’d heard that. “We’re well organized.” She’d heard that from the horse’s mouth, as it were: khyd-hird herself.
She had to turn to see Shkai’ra’s nod, the Kommanza’s attention elsewhere. “See? Every unit is supporting every other unit, even as it moves. Damned difficult thing to do on the field. Except for those Enchians, there, they seem to be vulnerable but ...” She wasn’t addressing Sova anymore, her voice going thoughtful. “Sheepshit, he can’t think the Arkan’s that stupid, the man’s no Abatzas. Yeolis traditionally don’t have a clue what to do with cavalry, but Gold-Arse ought to be smart enough to listen to his allies who do.”
Sova finally managed to figure out that the Enchian infantry in question seemed to be advancing a bit too fast for their support, but Lakan cavalry on the flanks was ready to cut to ribbons anyone who tried to take advantage of that. It just didn’t look as if the horsemen could get there. A trap? Lines dissolved into swirls again, order into chaos that her mind couldn’t follow.
Shkai’ra went on following the action with occasional grunts and scattered comments such as, “Now why? Oh, I see, a diversion ... No, wait, that’s the diversion, over there ... but they’re really charging, and is that a ... a diversion within a diversion, oooh, nice. Look at that, Sova, he’s got phalanxes and lines going this way and that way and weaving in and out of each other—hah, fished in, you straw-haired pig-fondlers! They’re taking more losses but we’re taking enough ... Maybe he’s trying to confuse the strawhairs into submission, ha ha ... He must have a larger plan that’s in too early a stage to see, let’s see it play out.”
Half an hour later: “So, Sova! I hope you’ve been following this!” The girl nodded enthusiastically—it was true, she had been following, though she’d been able to discern absolutely nothing, aside from a lot of movement on both sides that didn’t seem to be to any use but left scattered corpses. “What do you think our Gold-bottomed commander’s doing, hmm?”
Sova looked through the far-lookers, gazed again without. The battle had raised enough dust that it was getting hard to see anything. “Uhmmm. Ahhh.” She glanced out of the corner of her eye at Shkai’ra, felt a trickle of sweat on her back. Tell the truth. There was only one thing she could think of that was true. She hoped for a “Good” and braced herself simultaneously as she answered, “I don’t know. I can’t tell.”
“Damn,” said Shkai’ra. “I was hoping you’d see it, because I don’t.” Sova stared, mouth open. Whap. “Don’t stare like a gaffed fish, it gives away what you’re thinking.”
Another quarter-hour; then Shkai’ra pricked, and leapt to her feet. “Hah! Ay-galug, he does listen to his cavaliers—look at that, do you see that, Sova?!” The girl peered; everything looked much the same as a moment ago. No one else near saw either, apparently, including Megan; those around stared at Shkai’ra puzzled, saying, “What? What?”
“Oh, beauty! Beauty! Strawhair’s speared up the arse again, ha ha! Look and weep, sheep-rapers. Look, Sova—I’ll tell you or you might miss it. See, there.” One hand on Sova’s shoulder, she leaned over, pointing to let Sova sight along her arm. “There’s the strawhair’s command post. Their sword-shield infantry tied up with ours there, there and there, archers there, cavalry; well, you can see what’s tied up with what. To defend his center he only has spearmen and light horse, so if he gets pressed to the left—which is about to happen, see?—he’ll have to shift that way. And call pikers to him. If he shifts ... look there.” Her finger moved up and to the right. “What’ll be there and there?”
Sova followed the line of sight, her face closed with concentration; her eyes flicked to Enchian light foot seemingly caught in a crowd of Arkan foot. But the Arkans, she realized, were out-of-ammunition archers. “The Lakan heavy horse, backed up by the Tor Enchian light horse—ya, the Princes’ standards are moving, there they go, Gotthumml, you’re right! He has to!”
“And if he calls the pikers?”
“They’ll leave the whole center wide open and won’t have time to get set anyway!”
“Well, maybe. Only if we don’t do what we ought to quick enough. What’s that?”
“Chase them! Seize the advantage!”
“Right. But with forces this size, Sova, things take so long that it’s already too late—unless it’s already planned. Now look. Look how things are arranged, stop seeing people and banners and spear-tips and lines, look at patterns. Look what’s forming.” Confusion seemed to disappear like a fog burned away by sun, and the way every unit was placed sprang clear; a moment after she’d imagined it, it played out real, like a dream coming true.
Alliance formations that had been crossing or weaving, wheeling or standing pat were suddenly all moving together, one mile-wide axe-blow cutting into the sudden weak point in the Arkan line. Through the far-lookers, she watched pike-points bobbing backwards or wavering, then mown down as the great charge stabbed through. The Arkans were thrown into confusion, some running back and forth, some begging for orders from a command-post now lost under Lakan hooves, some breaking and fleeing, and some turning to fight alone or back to back, before the Alliance charge washed over, making none of it matter.
“Should you choose generalling,” said Shkai’ra, “it will be twenty or thirty years, if ever, before you’re in a position to try something like that, and twenty or thirty years before you should. But you’ve seen it, and you can never lose that learning. You saw it, probably about the same time the Arkan general did, and knew his pyre was lit ... and h
e was a general.
“Well, the dance is over.” Shkai’ra grinned. “Now comes the kill. He always leaves them a way out; but tough luck if they can’t run fast enough.” In another quarter-hour, nothing was left that wasn’t a clear Alliance rout. Sova witnessed the scene she’d lived that morning—solas, okas and Aitzas alike chased and cut down from behind—multiplied twenty-fold.
“Tonight we party, tomorrow we rest, the day after, we march,” said Shkai’ra. “And so it will be, until Zh’veng’khua has hewn down this Empire, and someone else hews down him and his in his turn; and so on forever, until the time itself is hewn down, and spins dying into darkness.” Her grin widened, teeth baring.
* * *
IX
Shkai’ra had been careful to eat a fair amount of bread, so the wine had not produced more than a sort of golden glow yet. Fires blazed high all over the Alliance camp, the roasting mostly done and the hearths piled high with wood for the celebrations. Everyone was happy; all except the injured and dead, of course, and there had been a gratifyingly small number of those on the Alliance side. The warm air smelled of drink, food, sweat and dust.
A nice, convincing victory, she thought happily, dropping out of Megan’s dance-circle and heading for the rows of jugs sitting in buckets of water at the edge of the light. And my load of outlaws, barn-burners, and horse-thieves did our part very nicely, even if it was before everyone else got up. She hooked a finger in the jug’s handle and pulled it out, resting it on the crook of an elbow as she worried the wax-sealed cork out of the neck. A stream poured down into her mouth when she raised it, white wine, cool and slightly tart; the wet outside of the pottery was pleasantly cool against the sweat-slick skin of her arm and bare torso.
Shkai’ra walked over to the circle.
“Megan!” she called. “I’ve got to go look in on my cutthroats!”
“Don’t haul too many of them into the bushes, and come back before dawn!” Megan shouted back, without breaking stride in the intricate manoeuver.
Oh, good, she thought. And I will be back. The sentries around the inner camp were looking a little surly as they passed her through; this must be a punishment detail.
The celebration around the fires of Shkai’ra’s Slaughterers, as the unit had begun calling itself—it sounded better in the dog-Enchian lingua franca of the army—was considerably more advanced. They were bivouacked next to a contingent of Hyerne light infantry, some of whom seemed to have joined the party. That southern kingdom was a matriarchy, and had sent the only all-female contingent to the army of the alliance against the Empire. There was a good deal of dancing here, too; some of the Hyerne were playing tabor-drum and long flutes, and two-score others were demonstrating a whirling spear-dance that ended with flying leaps across the fire. A few practical souls were still picking over the big pile of Imperial cavalry armor off to one side, stuffing pieces that fit into their equipment bags.
Shkai’ra did the rounds of those who weren’t dancing or mattress-dancing, offering congratulations and condolences where deserved; she had been to the infirmary to see the seriously wounded earlier in the day. The jug was soon emptied, out there were others doing the rounds. At last she sat down on a coverlet to watch, firelight and moonlight glinting on oiled bodies and the edges of spearheads. One of the dancers finished with a leap and a yell and thrust her spear into the ground while she was still head-high in the air; then she grabbed the hand of an applauding Enchian trooper and led him over to Shkai’ra, smiling with a flash of white teeth against dark skin. The Hyerne spoke not one word either of them could understand, and the trooper an Enchian so pure it had nothing in common with the lingua franca. But there seemed little need for words, and less after they were all three naked.
No one in this army calls me Whitlock’s Thane-brat or Kin-Slavey or Rokatzk-Spawn or Bugger-Bait, thought Sova happily.
Khyd-hird always thinks anyone with war-training doesn’t hear things like that; but she can’t read them written on the walls, she doesn’t know about kid-packs who shout them from alleys they can run away into, she doesn’t notice people too powerful for Zhymata to cross whispering them to me under silky smiles at soirees ...
Here, no one seemed to think about her race when they met her, aside from politely asking what it was, the unwritten convention of a polyglot army. They also had no way of knowing what family she’d come from and how she’d joined her present one, to laugh at that behind her back or to her face. For the most part they did what no one had done in her life on meeting her: took her as she was.
Another unwritten convention was sharing the wineskin. I feel boneless, she thought, stretching her legs out in the grass by the campfire, throwing on another log and watching pin-bright stars flicker where the stream of heat rippled them. Shkai’ra’s Slaughterers (she couldn’t imagine khyd-hird hadn’t had at least a hand in conceiving the name—it had her stamp) sat around now with wine and pork-fat dribbling down chins bearded or naked, Provisional Second Bukangkt and some other Lakan playing a game with black and white stones, others dicing, others plain lazing. Then, bringing down her eyes to pass on the wine, she saw.
That cute Yeoli. He is looking at me. It really isn’t chance, it’s been too much for chance. He’s looking at me.
He’d stood out from the start, his the freshest male face among the Slaughterers, flawless and too young for a beard, framed by a curly halo of gold-brown hair that was just long enough at the sides to form short ringlets. A warrior, not a squire; he wore the wristlets. In the heat he’d taken off his shirt, and she’d found herself all but unable to take her eyes off the line of his youthfully lanky but hard shoulders.
About a year before she’d suddenly found herself oddly fascinated with boys, although she’d found them nothing but distasteful before; in a household where such things were spoken of freely, she’d soon learned why. But in F’talezon, her origin known and her zight reckoned accordingly, she’d found precious few friends, let alone opportunities to admire boys in any way but from afar. Such a handsome creature as this would never so much as look at her, hard experience had taught, so she was resigned to casting furtive, happy glances.
But now—he was looking at her.
O mine Gott, she thought. Whaddoido?
Blush. So it seemed, anyway; her face was determined to do that, burningly, she found, whether she wanted it to or not. Not only her face, but her neck, too, and lower.
OmineGott what do I look like? Instantly, she was horribly aware that she hadn’t brushed her hair since before she’d arrived here, the painful pimple beside her nose was the size of a thumbnail and blood-red, her eyes were too close together, her ears too big, her chin too weak, and her arms and shoulders too thick. What man would ever look at a woman built like a greathound? Of course, the thought crept into her head, Yeoli women could be fighters; their men must have nothing against muscular curves. Her heart pounded like before a fight; but while that was a sick fear, this was shivery, sparkly.
Whaddoido? Act nonchalant, of course. Look everywhere but at him. The stars, the fire, the trees, her left foot; everywhere her eyes looked, the place where he sat seemed to etch into her mind like an ember, an ember with hawsers attached to her eyes, irresistibly pulling them towards him. I’ll risk a glance. Just one glance. Just a moment. She did. He was looking straight at her. Their gaze collided. OmineGottmineGott, he saw, mineGott ... Can he see me blush? Dear Gott let it be too dark in the firelight.
Maybe, she thought, he’s feeling all the same things I am. Could it be? Is it possible, outside a dream? Naaaahhh, don’t be a fool. Thane-brat. She glanced again; this time he smiled at her. Her heart felt as if it would burst out through her ribs and fly into his lap, dripping.
Calm. Collect yourself. What do I do? What would khyd-hird do? Stomp up to him and say, “Let’s fuck.” No, I don’t think that’s quite my style. What am I saying, I don’t have a style yet ... but whatever it’s going to be, it’s not that. O Gotth-excuse my language-umml.
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The man next to the Yeoli nudged him with a loud, “Har har har.” He answered so sharply she heard it, Yeoli words, one of them “kyash,” shit. They’re saying rude things to him, the stupid old insensitive assholes, how could they—poor oppressed prince—what could they be saying? He doesn’t deserve it. OmineGott I’m staring at him. Nonchalant, nonchalant, nonchalant ...
Then the Yeoli got up, and was gone.
Oh, no. Where’d he go? Why now? Ohhhhhhh ... Calm. He might just have gone off to the latrine. He’ll be back in a moment. He was: right behind her. She nearly fell off her log. “Nye’yingi,” he said.
“Uh ... hi.” O Gott what a stupid thing to say. He must think I’m a complete imbecile. Is this really happening? “Um ... what are you doing here?” O Gott I didn’t think it was possible but I just said something even more stupid!
“Slowerrr, if it you please?” he said, with an entrancing smile. In his musical Yeoli accent every word seemed the profoundest magic. “My Enchi-yahn naht so good.”
“Um ... what ... are ... you ... doing ... here?” The stupidest thing in the world to say and I repeat it!
“Oh ... tsose barayel, how you say, stranchers, tsey naht good smell, I choose be ove’ hyere. Isserrhe space?”
Oh, yes, make space on the log for someone who comes, that’s polite, he shouldn’t have had to ask—oh no, does he think I’m gauche?! She moved over, hastily enough to show politeness, but nonchalantly. As best she could, cramped on either side; she managed to make half a space, and that with people beside her grumbling. Then khyd-hird happened to get up, stretching, enabling everyone between them to move down one. That was lucky. Now maybe if I’m really lucky, she’ll go away. “Well,” said Shkai’ra, as if on cue, “I’m off to find my kh’eeredo.” If she tells me it’s my bedtime ... but she didn’t, just made her farewells and disappeared into the night.
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