Jade Empire

by S. J. A. Turney

  Dev watched Jai go with a sense of regret, oddly tinged with a touch of relief. He would miss his brother, but it gave him a little comfort to think that Jai was moving to a place of relative safety – while he would ride into further danger with the general.

  They remained still and waited until General Jiang and his men had disappeared from sight into the trees, then Dev turned to his commander. ‘Do you have a plan?’

  Cinna nodded. ‘A rather fluid one, but yes. We need to cross the rise and determine precisely what lies ahead and how close the pickets are likely to be. Then we turn north and move carefully until we are in sight of the Sizhad’s forces again. Once they take the bait and follow us, we ride like the wind for the imperial camp.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Then we trust to luck. If we are fortunate, our specific insignia will escape the notice of the marshals’ force. Either way we need to warn them what is following just over the horizon. If they make any attempt to stop us, we ride for the nearest path away from Jalnapur and attempt to outrun them.’

  ‘With respect, General, that’s not much of a plan.’

  ‘It’s all we have, Dev. At this stage it is almost certain that the zealots will simply continue on straight into the face of the marshals’ force, and we could simply sit to one side and wait. But we cannot afford to take chances. This is a major crossroads. All it takes is for the Sizhad to decide to turn west for the easy pickings that lie there, and there is every possibility that his force might miss the imperial army altogether. I cannot risk having led the Sizhad this far only to fail now.’

  Dev nodded, and the general gestured to his guard captain. ‘Stay here. We are just going to scout ahead.’

  The guard nodded, though he looked less than happy with his commander moving forward without adequate protection, glancing back to the next ripple in this undulating countryside, picturing the great force of fanatics that lay beyond it. Dev chewed the inside of his lip nervously as they set off up the gentle rise, not quite sure what to expect. The beat of their horses’ hooves on the packed surface of the road sounded like the tense heartbeat of the world.

  They climbed for a short time, cresting the rise, and at the top they slowed and Dev stared at Jalnapur. He wasn’t sure whether to be thrilled or panicked. The last time he had been here, many weeks ago now, it had been the site of a fierce battle, stuck in the quagmire of a season of monsoons, resounding to the continual thud and boom of artillery, hospital tents treating a continuous grisly cavalcade of wounded, piles of limbs here and there, units on the move, officers hurtling this way and that, signallers and musicians constantly on the go.

  Everything had changed.

  The army is gone!

  The bridge had been repaired with a flimsy-looking timber extension filling the gap that had been left by Jiang’s explosives. The bridge was still guarded by a unit of several hundred men, and a number of artillery pieces were still in evidence. The marshals and their senior officers had moved their command centre into the city and palace of Jalnapur itself, as evidenced by their flags displayed there. The bulk of the forces had moved on, though, across the river.

  Dev had to correct himself as his eyes strayed across the ruined landscape. There was actually still a sizeable force here. Between the units spread out close to the city and the bridge and those on the far bank of the river where they seemed to have captured several cannon, it was an army most officers would find more than acceptable to hold a position as important as this. But after seeing the seething masses of the giant imperial force that had broken the Jade Empire here, it seemed a pitiful band of defenders. Certainly they would be little more than fodder for the zealot army following them. There was also scant evidence of pickets closer than the edge of the city itself. The new commanders were clearly complacent, believing themselves masters of the Inda Diamond and unassailable. They were about to learn a very painful lesson.

  ‘Shit,’ said Cinna, with feeling.

  ‘What now?’ Dev breathed, his eyes dancing across the scene.

  The general turned to him, his face bleak. ‘We follow the plan. What else can we do?’

  ‘The Sizhad will obliterate this entire force in a matter of hours – if that, sir.’

  ‘Yes. And both marshals are here, along with most of their staff. The chances of them escaping are small. And without a senior commander guiding the campaign as a whole, the army on the other side of the Nadu will be easy pickings.’

  Dev shivered. ‘It was never your intention to let the Sizhad destroy our army. There were supposed to be enough men here to stop him.’

  ‘Plans can go awry, Dev. All is in the hands of the gods now. These men are doomed. All we can hope is that the Sizhad is lured across the bridge to the east by the presence there of the rest of the army. Because that’s where they are. If they had gone back west, the marshals would have gone with them for a triumphant return home. The bulk of imperial forces are trapped east of the Nadu now, separated from their own empire by the Sizhad. If he decides to hold the bridge of Jalnapur, there will be a repeat of what happened this summer, but this time between our army and the zealots. And while that happens, the empire is defenceless and enemies will pour across other borders, just as I’d worried all along.’

  Dev squeezed his eyes shut, trying to think of any potential solution, but such a possibility hovered out of reach.

  ‘If the marshals are dead, couldn’t you take control again?’ Cinna was shaking his head, but Dev was desperate. ‘You could gather those men in the east to your banner and defeat the Sizhad. He…’

  Dev stopped, suddenly horribly aware that he was trying to explain to the general how to defeat his brother. Could he do that? But it was a moot question anyway, as Cinna was still shaking his head.

  ‘It would take many weeks – months even – to gather all those scattered forces. We don’t know where they are, and their commanders will almost certainly still see me as a rebel. If I wasn’t speared on sight, the Sizhad’s men would be on us before we could do anything about it. No, I will never command them again now.’

  The younger man sighed and the general rolled his shoulders.

  ‘It seems the empire has only two options now, Dev. Either the Sizhad invades and brings his new faith to them, destroying everything we cling to of our heritage, or he engages in a long-term war against our army here, while the empire crumbles and falls to other enemies. The Gota have been itching to take the northern territories for years and the Pelasians are only a step from annexing the south again as they did a century ago. Either way, I fear for the future of my people.’

  My people, thought Dev. Were they his people too? They had sheltered him and trained him, but was he not still truly Inda? The thought struck him powerfully. He had thought of himself at least partially as a son of the empire for a decade now. But had that always just been a shell he had worn, that he could cast off at will?

  ‘We can do nothing, General,’ he said at last. ‘It is out of our hands. We must look to our own safety now.’

  There was a long pause, but finally Cinna nodded. ‘When did it all start to fall apart, Dev?’

  ‘When the mad emperor had you and me summoned to his court, sir. Or when the Jade Emperor decided that the Inda lands looked promising, perhaps.’

  A commotion attracted their surprised attention, since it came not from the small forces ahead at the bridge, but from behind. The blue and white figures of horsemen were cresting the saddle behind them, their captain shouting urgently.

  ‘Zealots!’

  Dev and Cinna turned their horses and trotted over towards the guardsmen. They had not even closed on their men before their elevated position granted them an excellent view of what had sent the horsemen racing towards them.

  The Sizhad’s army was coming, and they were coming at pace. No longer were they moving at a steady march, following the small blue party south, but now they were racing forward, howling and whooping, an odd melody lilting beneath the cries as
the more pious among the Faithful sang their hymns to the glorious golden sun above. Their cavalry streamed ahead, but they were just the vanguard. The whole army was moving to attack.

  ‘I think that is our cue to leave,’ Cinna said quietly.

  Dev nodded. The Sizhad’s men would fall upon the imperial army in moments and the slaughter would commence. The end of imperial control among the Inda was in motion, and if Dev and the others did not move fast they would simply number among the unsung casualties.

  ‘The Belayari path,’ Dev said breathlessly.

  The general frowned again. ‘That leads directly to one of the stronger garrisons. I wasn’t planning to walk into their open arms, Dev.’

  ‘But the path Jiang is following crosses it after a few miles. We can pick up the same path and catch up with him on the way to the marker line.’

  Cinna nodded. ‘A good thought. Come on, then, before we’re surrounded by white-clad howling lunatics.’

  The two men, along with their escort of cavalry, rode on across the saddle ahead of that baying army of zealots. A total of nine roads led from the field of Jalnapur’s western edge. Two main routes travelled north and west, to the highlands and towards the empire and the Oxus River, the other seven to the more important towns and kingdoms among the western Inda. The one Dev sought lay towards the southern edge of the site, close to where the huge corrals lay, designed to cater to the cavalry’s huge reserve of horses. Those riders were now gone from here, hunting survivors far to the east, and the great fenced areas of green sat empty and desolate, barns and timber storehouses scattered around, unused and slowly becoming derelict. Dev angled to his right, ready to race around the periphery of the Jalnapur camp towards that route which offered safe haven.

  ‘We might have trouble,’ he said, suddenly.

  As the others pounded along beside and behind him, the general followed Dev’s pointing finger. A small unit of imperial soldiers had emerged from one of the many buildings on that side of the camp and were preparing for a fight. They wore chain shirts and were jamming on helmets and grabbing spears as their signaller blew the warning call on his horn. They wore the black uniform of the southern army, largely drawn from desert dwellers, used to dealing with raiding horse nomads. Already, even as the general and his guard bore down on them, the enemy call was being picked up by the other units near the bridge.

  A warning. They thought they were dealing with a couple of hundred rogue cavalry, but at least the warning would serve to help them prepare for the huge army of which they were not yet aware.

  As the units near the bridge and the town began to fall in, Dev and Cinna and their riders angled for that small unit who were moving to intercept them, blocking access to the one road they needed to catch up with Jiang.

  ‘Can we skirt round them?’ he shouted, the very idea of fighting imperial troops settling sickeningly in the pit of his stomach. General Cinna pointed to their left. More soldiers were pouring from another building a short distance away, arming as they appeared in response to the alarm call. Further away, a mile across the plain, riders were emerging from the gates of Jalnapur’s palace. The bulk of the cavalry may have been committed to the east, but at the least the two marshals’ personal mounted units were still present. They would be fast, and they would be well-trained veterans.

  The sight of the additional soldiers coming into play answered Dev’s question. If he swung out far enough to avoid the unit that stood between them and the path into the jungle ahead, he would be in danger of becoming mired down in a proper fight with other units, possibly trapped between two groups, and chased down by strong cavalry even if they escaped.

  Determination fought with dismay at the realisation that conflict was inevitable, and Dev drew his sword to face imperial soldiers for the first time in his life. The general did the same, and the hiss of two hundred blades being drawn behind them sounded like the whisper of torrential rain beneath the pounding of a thousand hooves.

  Dev did not argue as the guardsmen pushed ahead to engage, forging on past the general and his adjutant. It was for this very situation that they existed as a unit – to protect their general. Moments later Dev and his commander found themselves at the centre of a ring of riders, and as they ploughed along the edge of the Jalnapur plain towards that group of black-clad spear men, Dev realised that he was quite grateful. Not that he would not be required to fight, as such, though the notion of plunging a blade into a man who had so recently fought for him gave him no pleasure. He was simply grateful that, protected by his men, he would not even be required to see it.

  They hit the imperial unit at pace and Dev was only aware that it had happened from the noise ahead. The screams of men and horses rang out, the scrape of metal on metal and the cries of fury and desperation. The captain of Cinna’s guard, a little ahead in the throng, turned in his saddle and waved for the two officers to peel off to the right, his arm stiffening suddenly as a spear point emerged from his torso with a burst of shattered chain links and a shower of crimson.

  Following the dying man’s instruction with a grim face, Cinna wheeled his horse to the right and skirted the main fight. Dev followed him, and the guardsmen flowed around once more, trying to protect them from any potential danger and leaving them in a small pocket of safety at the centre of the blue-clad force. Dev caught horrifying glimpses of the fight as they rushed on past. The black-clad swarthy southerners knew how to stop a horse, and numerous beasts were on the floor, thrashing out their life with shattered spears jutting from their chests and necks. Riders in blue struggled on foot, wounded as they fought hard to beat down the resistant men in black.

  One of the southerners had escaped the combat with a length of splintered ash spear in his grip, blood sheeting down his face from a head wound. He was staggering, half-blind and wounded, into the approaching horsemen. Suddenly realising where he was, the wounded soldier raised his broken staff in desperation and defiance, but to little avail. Dev hardened his heart as the man disappeared beneath a hundred churning hooves with a brief cry of panicked agony.

  He could not afford to feel for these men. They might have been his men once, but now they stood between Dev and survival, pure and simple.

  Another moment and they were past the soldiers. A few cavalrymen remained to put down the last of them, then rode hard to catch up. Dev glanced back as the unit reformed and he momentarily had a good view. They had lost perhaps twenty or thirty horsemen to the soldiers, and several of those riders still with them were clutching at wounds and hissing in pain as they rode. It had been a costly encounter, but a necessary one. Even now that second unit with their gleaming spear points jutting forth were running to intercept, and the riders from the city were angling towards them too. If they had skirted out to avoid the fight, they would almost certainly have ended the day fighting for their lives against most of those men. As it was there was now nothing between them and the path to sanctuary.

  The first guardsmen to reach the great corrals leapt the fence with ease and pounded across the lush turf, the rest of the unit and its two commanding officers following like a human and equine wave as they rose in the saddle and jumped the fence in unison. Pounding across the turf, they were now ascending a gentle slope away from the plain of bones and destruction and closing on the jungle and the path to safety.

  The first Dev knew of the arrival of the enemy was a curse from one of the guardsmen behind them. Turning in the saddle as they rose towards the treeline and safety, he could see a blanket of white on that same northern rise from which they had so recently descended. The Sizhad’s cavalry had arrived.

  At this sudden threat, those soldiers and cavalry desperately racing to catch Cinna and his guardsmen immediately changed course, their musicians putting out desperate, strangled warnings. The imperial army’s main base in Inda lands was under attack by an unknown force, and suddenly the existence of the rebel general, Cinna, was a forgotten and unimportant thing.

  They jumped another f
ence and climbed the last of the slope towards that path into the jungle, and as they reached the treeline Cinna reined in and gave the order for his men to do the same. Dev pulled alongside the general, his head still craned to the north as they watched wave after wave of white-clad zealots crest that pass and pour down towards the pitiful defenders of imperial Jalnapur.

  ‘We are witnessing the end of the world, Dev.’

  Something odd touched Dev’s soul at the bleak statement and, though he had no desire to argue with Cinna right now, he found something rising in himself that he hadn’t realised was there, which only facing imperial troops had brought to the surface.

  ‘Your world is ending, General. For the Inda, the world has been ending for generations. This is only the closing chorus of the play for us.’

  The look the general cast back at him was not one of irritation or denial, as Dev had half-expected, but one loaded with contrition and genuine remorse. Dev immediately regretted his harsh words, yet there was a truth to them. Jai and Dev, their father too, had been simply pieces in the game of empires, moved about the board in a match that everyone would lose in the end. Ravi too, in fact. Even the great and terrible Sizhad himself was but a victim, a product of the same violent contest that had ruined them all.

  Something hardened in Cinna’s face as he cleared his throat. ‘And yet, my friend, your people might strangely and unexpectedly have navigated this nightmare better than any of us. The empire is on the precipice, its entire military about to be torn apart by the Sizhad and his men, while its borders crumble under barbarian pressure. I may not have had word from home, but I am under no illusions about what is happening there. And the Jade Empire is at war with itself, which rarely ends well. Yet your father had the foresight to gather what he could of the Inda and take them to the one place where total destruction cannot yet reach them. And it is to your father’s banner we ride, Dev. We and those few remaining honourable men of the east. In a world without hope, your father fosters a last glimmer. Let us pray it is enough to rekindle the flame.’