The Wizards and the Warriors

by Hugh Cook

  'What happens now?' said Farfalla.

  'Alish is gathering his cavalry for a charge,' said Hearst.

  He could hear the unintelligible tail-end of shouted orders from the enemy army. Riders were galloping up and down the ranks, distributing orders. Alish was planning something. What?

  'Are we winning?' said Farfalla.

  'We're alive,' said Hearst.

  He could not look at her: he could not take his eyes off the battlefield. His gut was knotted up. His muscles were trembling with tension. He had felt like this in other battles, but had always been able to release the tension by expending it in the fury of a battle-rage, his sword sweeping to slaughter, a shout in his throat as he gave himself to combat. Now he could only stand and wait.

  'What does the enemy hope to do?'

  'To storm this mound,' said Hearst.

  And took his eyes off the field of battle just for a moment to glance behind him. There, sheltering out of sight of Alish's army, hidden by the rise of the burial mound that was six hundred paces long, were his

  archers, ten ranks of old men, children, women, servants, slaves and cripples. They had moved into position during the night; they waited patiently, gazing at the banners on the burial mound.

  Hearst knew that if Alish's army gained the mound, there would be fearful slaughter amongst those rag-tag ranks. There were five thousand people there; perhaps all would die. He had been forced to argue long and hard with Farfalla to get her permission to bring them here; if they died, the responsibility would be all his.

  Hearst turned back to the field of battle. Alish's blood-red banner advanced to the head of the cavalry. So Alish would lead the attack himself.

  Hearst waited.

  Farfalla's green and gold banner rippled in the wind. Hearst's battle-standard snapped this way and that with a crisp, clean sound. The wind stirred dust from the dry, trampled ground; Hearst smelt the dust. The sun, shining into the eyes of Alish's army, was warm on his back.

  Alish's cavalry advanced at a trot on a front six hundred paces wide, facing the burial mound. The horses slowed their pace as the men walked them through the lines of potholes and sharpened stakes that were a hundred paces in front of the mound, then they formed up again for a charge to send them sweeping up to the top of the burial mound.

  Hearst glanced anxiously at the ground in front of the mound. Part had been trampled into mud by stray soldiers, but most was covered with dead brown grass. However, a little water still remained at the bottom of the shallow irrigation ditch. Would the riders notice? He hoped not. Their charge, after all, would take them into the sun.

  The cavalry were moving forward. At a trot. At a canter. Sunlight glittered on the sharp points of spears. They gained to a gallop. Thunder. Thunder of hooves.

  The honour guard and the other soldiers on the mound wavered.

  'Stand fast!' shouted Hearst.

  And they answered his shout:

  'Wa - wa - Watashi! Wa - wa - Watashi!'

  Blood. Fear. Death.

  The first riders hit the waterlogged ground. It was soft as a knee-deep bog, the same as it would be after the winter rains. Horses went down, legs breaking, riders thrown. The cavalry behind crashed into the wreckage of flesh at full gallop. The ground shook: flesh screamed. The blood-red banner of Rovac went down. Hearst wheeled, faced the sun:

  'Fire!'

  The nearest archers in the waiting ranks unleashed their missiles. Others saw them, and followed suit. The air hummed and sang as if vast energies had set the sky itself vibrating. High soared the arrows, then fell, a lethal, hissing rain, bringing death to those struggling in the mud; death to those few who had managed to rein in their horses short of disaster.

  Against that death, courage was useless, skill no protection. Those horsemen who could escape did so, turning their mounts and fleeing. A shout of dismay rose from the ranks of Alish's army. Many of Alish's soldiers, too distant to see the mud and arrows, had seen the cavalry charge broken as if by magic, and there were shouts of 'death-stone! death-stone!' loud within their ranks.

  'Red smoke!' shouted Hearst.

  He would attack, and see what happened.

  Red smoke whirled up into the air. The flights of arrows ceased: the honour guard charged down the mound, attacking the survivors of the cavalry charge. The rest of Hearst's army began, tentatively, to advance.

  Then, Hearst's men raised a great shout. He heard the sullen thump of oar-timing drums, and, looking to left

  and to right, saw Ohio's galleys sweeping down the rivers flanking the battlefield, crammed with warriors and archers.

  The enemy wavered.

  Now was the moment!

  Hearst turned to face the thousands of bowmen hiding behind the mound. Their missiles exhausted, they stood silent, fearful, waiting. He waved them forward:

  'Charge!' shouted Hearst.

  They wavered, unsure, uncertain.

  He waved them forward again:

  'Charge! Charge!'

  Slowly, they began to move. Up the burial mound they came. Then, reaching the top, they saw the enemy army starting to break up as men began to flee before the remorselessly advancing infantry, spurred by rumours of the death-stone and the unknown terrors of the ships now outflanking them.

  With a great shout, Hearst's archers surged forward:

  'Wa - wa - Watashi! Wa - wa - Watashi!'

  Watashi.

  Blood. Fear. Death.

  That shout was the loudest thing on the battlefield. To the men in Alish's army, it seemed as if Hearst had suddenly found another five thousand troops to commit to the battle. At the distance, they could not see the shouting was from a mob of civilians who did not even have arrows left for their bows. That shock turned hesitant retreat into all-out rout.

  The five thousand began to move forward.

  'Hold fast!' shouted Hearst. 'Hold fast!'

  But it was useless. They were out of control. They surged down the mound, floundered through the mud, and pillaged the dead, seizing swords, spears and knives, and retrieving their own arrows. Then, screaming - their voices hoarse by now - they went on the attack:

  'Wa - wa - Watashi!' Hearst turned to Farfalla. 'I can't stop them!' he said.

  'Let them go,' said Farfalla. i think they're safe enough; I think the pirates can run faster than they can.'

  And Hearst, scanning the battlefield once more, saw that Farfalla was right. Alish's army would never stop until it was inside Androlmarphos.

  He had won victory.

  He still held his sword in his left hand. Now, he sheathed it.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  With the battle over, Farfalla's historians began the task of extracting, from the day's shambling slaughter, an elegant tale of military genius suitable for the edification of posterity.

  Meanwhile, Miphon took over the marquee on the burial mound, and there he worked with his saws and knives, probes and pliars, needles and bandages -stitching, padding, splinting and amputating, helped by a team of assistants and juniors.

  Arms and legs were carried out by the bucketful.

  Later, when the most serious wounds had been attended to, they would treat lesser injuries such as bruises, using leeches to draw out the blood from swollen knees and so forth.

  Remote from this activity, Hearst searched amongst the dead and wounded for Elkor Alish. He had seen Alish's banner go down, and had presumed Alish to be dead or injured - but was coming to believe that Alish must have been amongst those who had escaped.

  The last place Hearst searched was the growing pile of corpses on the burial mound - men who had died while waiting for treatment, or had expired as a shattered limb was being amputated. From the marquee itself came piteous screams as some poor wretch was attended to by Miphon or one of his helpers.

  His search completed, Hearst walked amongst the wounded. Sometimes a hand would reach for his, and he would grasp it: sometimes realising he was holding the hand of one soon to die. Some bravos, g
rinning through masks of blood, congratulated him on leading them to victory. Some sat silent, white-faced, hardly

  moving, blank eyes staring at nothing. Others were noisy.

  Hearst had seen all this before, in the Cold West and elsewhere: was familiar with the wet sheen of intestines, the massive blue-black crush injuries caused by weapons battering armour, found no novelty in a horse-trampled man spitting blood or the sight of bone and tooth visible through a sword-sliced cheek.

  Yet this time, the sight of the wounded affected him oddly. He had never before had supreme command of a battle - he had always been somewhere in the midst of the fighting, hacking out a reputation for himself with a bloodstained sword. Afterwards, he had never felt guilty about the wounded because he had taken the same risks and shared the same dangers.

  But now he suffered an unavoidable guilt which he could not free himself from. As supreme commander of the army of the Harvest Plains, he had sent people to their deaths without risking as much as a cat-scratch himself. And, as so much had been decided by chance, error and luck, he could not even console himself with the thought that his generalship had secured the victory.

  So this was what it meant to be supreme commander!

  Hearst thought he began to understand why Alish had ceased campaigning in the Cold West. To stand apart and order brave men to their deaths made demands few could find easy to bear.

  He saw a rider coming from the west: it was Watashi. Hearst met him, and received his report.

  'The enemy is now confined within the walls of Androlmarphos,' said Watashi. 'We are raising walls and building strongpoints to protect our siege lines in case they try a sally, but I do not think they will'

  'With Elkor Alish in command, I wouldn't put any money on it,' said Hearst. 'Tell those in the siege lines I believe Alish may well try a sally - possibly tonight.'

  'The enemy have taken heavy losses, my lord.'

  'So have we! To win, we have to destroy the enemy's fist. That's the ruling law of warfare. Today, we bruised their knuckles - but their fist can still strike back.'

  'Yes, my lord,' said Watashi.

  And bowed, and left.

  'So we're not finished yet,' said Farfalla, watching her son go. 'There's to be more fighting, more killing.'

  'We didn't choose this war,' said Hearst.

  'But we could choose to end it. With the death-stone.'

  'We cannot! War with such weapons would wreck the entire world. Others can venture the Dry Pit to get such weapons.'

  'Then perhaps others will,' said Farfalla. 'That does not alter our need.'

  'I've seen what the death-stone does,' said Hearst. 'You haven't. You don't understand. If we started that kind of warfare, it wouldn't stop before . .. before . ..'

  Hearst shook his head. It was unthinkable.

  'Surely a commander errs if he wastes flesh and blood in battles a stone egg could win... surely that's a matter of. . . competence.'

  'The death-stone would wipe out the whole city,' said Hearst. 'Do you want to save the city by destroying it?'

  'Use the death-stone against the walls.'

  'The stones would come alive. People would die.'

  'People will die anyway. Why are you so ... so afraid of this death-stone?'

  Hearst pointed at the sea.

  'Out there, the Central Ocean. Out to the west, Rovac. Beyond that, the Cold West. For thousands of years Rovac has concerned itself with the history of the lands bordering the Central Ocean, inasmuch as we've fought in the armies of those lands. But if I was to use the death-stone . . . everything would change.'

  'To live is to change,' said Farfalla. 'Birth to death. That's the cycle.'

  'The death-stone would end all cycles,' said Hearst, and turned on his heel and walked away.

  Knowing full well that he had another reason not to use the death-stone: Elkor Alish was in Androlmarphos, and might well become a victim of the power of the death-stone, whether it was used against the city as a whole or just against the battlements where, no doubt, the fighting men would be concentrated.

  * * *

  Elkor Alish led a sortie from Androlmarphos that night. There was bitter fighting under cover of darkness: confused struggles in which knots of men fought to the death with no quarter given on either side. The earth works of the siege lines gave the defenders an advantage, but they were hard pressed to hold those lines.

  Then, at the height of the fighting, Hearst brought fire ships down the river. They advanced under cover of darkness - galleys with oars muffled. In Lake Ouija, they were set afire - the crews only had to swim to the eastern shore of the lake to gain the safety of their own lines. Morning revealed that half of Alish's ships in Lake Ouija had been destroyed.

  At a council of war, Hearst listened to battle reports in silence.

  'Will they try another sortie tonight?' said Watashi. 'They'll try something,* said Hearst. 'You can count on that.'

  'So there'll be more dead,' said Farfalla. 'More maimed and mutilated war victims, crippled for the rest of their lives.'

  Hearst winced.

  if we can't accept casualties, then we'd better surrender now," said Hearst.

  'Morale is good,' said Watashi, 'We're ready for a long siege, if that's what's necessary. But it won't be easy.'

  'You don't have to tell me that,' said Hearst. 406

  It was then that their council of war was interrupted as a messenger was brought into their presence by armed guards. He was exhausted, his clothing bloodstained; it was clear he had been wounded in the chest. He tried to stand up straight before them, but staggered. A guard supported him. He tried to speak, but no words came.

  'What's this about?' said Hearst. 'He brings a message,' said a guard. 'He passed it to me.'

  'Let me read it,' said Hearst. 'Sit him down. Bring him some water. Here. Now.'

  And Hearst took a piece of parchment from the guard. On one side was the original draft, written in the language of the Harvest Plains, which he could not understand; it was adorned by an elaborate signature and a wax seal. On the other side, someone had scrawled a translation in the Galish Trading Tongue.

  'Who translated this?' said Hearst.

  'Patrol,' said the messenger, getting the word out with difficulty. 'Thought me a spy. Questioned me, long time. Translation by patrol leader, your attention. Believe me.'

  'Maybe he is a spy,' said Hearst. 'However, the message purports to be from a fortress commander on the border between the Rice Empire and the Harvest Plains. He says his castle is besieged by part of an army from the Rice Empire, and the rest of that army marches for Selzirk. He is sending this message with a sortie party.'

  Hearst passed the parchment to Watashi.

  it's authentic,' said Watashi. i know the seal. I know the commander, too - the original message bears his signature, and has been drafted by his hand.'

  The messenger spoke again. His voice was weak:

  'Only one. Me. Only one alive. All the rest. . .'

  'We understand,' said Farfalla. 'Lie back. Rest. Don't do yourself further injury by trying to talk.'

  'So the Rice Empire hopes to profit from our troubles,' said Watashi, 'If they reach Selzirk . . .'

  'Well,' said Farfalla, looking at Hearst. 'Do you still think you have time to break Androlmarphos by siege?'

  Hearst met her gaze in silence. Then spoke:

  'I am not going to use the death-stone.'

  'You could threaten to use it.'

  'Elkor Alish knows the population of Androlmarphos is his guarantee against attack by the death-stone,' said Hearst. 'He also knows that sooner or later we'll have to take the death-stone south — or else a party from the Castle of Controlling Power will come north to take it from us. Time is on his side: he won't listen to threats.'

  'Then what about that pirate creature, Ohio?' said Farfalla. isn't his brother the commander of the pirates? Isn't that what you told me?'

  'I can't use a friend as a hostage,' said Hearst, r
egretting now that he had. in an intimate moment, revealed Ohio's secrets.

  'Pretend, then,' said Farfalla. 'Ohio would surely consent to being tied up and led out on a horse in front of the battlements of Androlmarphos. If we made his brother believe we had murder in mind, perhaps he'd parley with us. We could come to an arrangement.'

  'Alish won't surrender no matter what Menator says.' said Hearst.

  'Then we can surely persuade Menator to murder Elkor Alish,' said Farfalla. 'He gets Ohio's life - and money, if he wants. And a treaty to guarantee his hold over Runcorn.'

  'That's a foul way to work,' said Hearst.

  i've seen the dead,' said Farfalla. i've seen the wounded. All war is foul'

  Hearst thought it through, then said, his voice heavy:

  'Go and bring Ohio to me.'

  Watashi moved to obey.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Hearst and Miphon stood on the plains two leagues east of Androlmarphos and a league west of the burial mound and the pyramid. In the green bottle, they had two horses and four hundred soldiers. There was nobody between them and the city; the siege lines had been evacuated the day before.

  Miphon was looking inland, to the east, waiting for a signal to come from the fleet anchored upriver. Hearst, on the other hand, watched the walls of Androlmarphos, and remembered what had happened outside those walls.