Forever Soldiers: The Tyrus Chronicle - Book Four

by Joshua P. Simon

  “What if we can’t kill the sorcerers before they retreat, and they don’t release their grip on the dead? We can’t just leave them in our trap. The enemy could later use them again.”

  “Right, because staying behind to guard them would only hamper our ability to maneuver,” added Ava. That leaves only one choice. “If it comes to that, then we’ll have to stop them permanently.”

  “I already told you—”

  “Not ‘we’ as in you and the Southern Kingdom army. ‘We’ as in me and my men.”

  “Absolutely not!” he snapped.

  “Why?”

  “I told you what it means to harm the bodies of our deceased,” he said, voice rising. “It could damage their path to paradise.”

  Ava kept her calm despite his outburst. “Considering all the enemy has done to those bodies, is there anything more that we could do to make matters worse? If their journey has been redirected or their path cut off, it happened long ago, don’t you think?”

  Danso pinched the bridge of his nose. The weight of the conversation had seemed to age him.

  After a moment, he admitted, “It’s possible that you are correct. But we have no way of knowing that for sure. Even if you are correct, harming the dead would still damn that individual’s soul as well.”

  She shrugged. “I see your concern, and I’m not trying to dismiss it. The risk is really no sweat off my back. I don’t believe in gods or religion. Certainly not paradise. And those of my men that do believe are only concerned with the Turine faith.”

  “Even so, the repercussions from such an action would be huge. If anyone from the Southern Kingdoms learned of what you did, you’d be shunned forever at best.”

  She thought of Denu Creek in her youth. Excluding a handful of people, the entire town made her an outcast because of her sorcerous abilities.

  “Such a life isn’t foreign to me.”

  So long as I have Tyrus, Myra, and Zadok, I’ll be fine.

  She thought about the recent friends she had made too. Damaris and Dinah. They would not abandon her. She was already better off than she was as a girl in Denu Creek. Then she thought of Nason.

  Outside of Ma, Pa, and Tyrus, he was the only one who talked to me. He’d not abandon me either.

  She hated to admit how much that warmed her heart. She thought briefly about his kiss and the words he told her before leaving Batna. Then she clamped her mind shut.

  Of all the gods-be-damned times . . .

  Danso shook his head, and continued. “But at worst, you would be executed.”

  She swallowed. I guess that does change things. She thought about her friends and family again. No. It really doesn’t. I’m here for them. For their future.

  “I’m willing to take the risk.”

  Danso grunted, “Would your men be willing to do the same?”

  “I think so. Probably. But I won’t let it come to that. I’ll make sure that I receive all the blame.”

  “So then the question is ‘what am I willing to do?’”

  “Huh?”

  He chuckled. “If it comes to what you’re suggesting and we cannot force the enemy to release their grip on the dead, I cannot come away from your alternative strategy unscathed. Not now.”

  Ava understood. “I can pretend we never had this conversation.”

  “No.” Danso’s shoulders sagged several inches, aging him yet further.

  “It seems that your god weighs an individual’s actions when deciding their fate, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “So wouldn’t Engai place more weight on you saving all those still alive in the Southern Kingdoms over those already dead, especially when you were forced into such a tough decision by an enemy who doesn’t worship him.”

  “Perhaps. It makes sense to me. But I am not a god. Our texts do not say how our actions are weighted. Only that Engai weighs them and decides after our last breath which is our fate. However, he warns about man trying to decide which souls are more precious and deserving of paradise. By saving one group over another, I would be doing just that.”

  “Give it another day then,” she offered. “Besides, we don’t know for sure that it will come to harming the bodies before performing any other rites to once more bring them peace. We still have plenty of time to ensure we achieve our goals by other means. Bring in your captains and brainstorm with them. I’m sure a solution will present itself.”

  That’s a lie if I ever spoke one.

  The thought of strategy seemed to jar Danso from thoughts of his fate. “If the document you confiscated is true, then I need to change the orders of my scouts. The enemy could attack and we’d be unprepared.” He sighed. “This is not something to discuss with others either. The fewer who know my plans, the better. It’s possible they might stage a mutiny if they knew of our conversation.”

  She said nothing as she watched Danso’s dark eyes glaze over. What can I say?

  He surprised her by asking. “What would your brother do in this situation?”

  She frowned. “That’s a strange question to ask.”

  “I guess it is given how I first spoke about him. But my opinion has changed.”

  “Why?”

  Danso reached around his back and pulled free several pieces of curled parchment. “Upon retreating after this last battle, I raged, cursed, and prayed. When I was done, I sat alone in this very spot searching for an answer to what I could have done differently. I felt low enough already so I read what some foreigner thought of my strategy.”

  “He didn’t mean for it to come across like that.”

  “I can see that in his words. Tyrus has a very sharp mind just as you said. Most of his strategies would not have worked though. Not his fault. He was operating off old information. Still, his thought process was refreshing. I think I would have liked him.”

  She considered the man before her, so much different than the one she had first met. “He’d like you now as well.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Now?”

  She shrugged. “So his strategy changed your mind of him?”

  “Some. Mostly it was something that wasn’t transcribed by the council. He wrote this in his own hand.”

  He handed her one of the parchments and pointed to the bottom. Danso had circled two paragraphs. She recognized Tyrus’s script immediately.

  She heard her brother’s voice as she read.

  “I do not know you Jumla Danso, but based on what has been conveyed to me over the course of my brief stay in Batna, I can tell that you are a man of principle who puts the soldiers under his command first. For that, you have my respect. Please heed the words of these letters not as a condemnation of any decision that you have made or will make in the future, but instead as one commander’s sincere perspective. I have found myself in similar boots as yours more often than I would prefer. I have no doubt the road to victory will continue to be a rocky one. You likely know this already, yet it does no harm in putting those words to parchment.

  A good commander does not simply order men into battle. A good commander goes into battle for the sake of his men. That battle is not always physical. Sometimes it takes the form of a war within. Sometimes you will need to do what you think is right, even if it means contradicting the desires of the council, or giving orders your men will have difficulty accepting. Do not be afraid to adapt your principles to an ever-changing set of circumstances as I feel you will be faced with that problem. Do not be afraid to sacrifice yourself for the good of others.”

  Tyrus

  She paused at finishing the section, surprised at a welling of tears. She and her brother had always been close, about as close as a brother and sister could be, yet those two paragraphs had given her an insight into his mind she had not grasped before.

  A glimpse into his own war. He knew many of his decisions wou
ld not be well-received or even understood in that moment, yet he made them anyway. Over and over again.

  Is that what changed Danso’s attitude toward me? A hopelessness from his recent defeat that was so strong he realized the only way to win would be to change the core of his principles. She thought of the necromantic sorcery. Even his religion.

  Danso gave her a sad smile. Something about the expression made Ava realize that his internal war had ended. He had made his decision.

  “My reaction was not dissimilar from yours the first time I read that.” He took a slow breath. “High Mage Ava, I hereby order you to work with me in setting up a plan to trap any dead army we expect the enemy to field. I order you to do whatever you deem necessary to ensure that these forces are permanently removed from battle. These orders are to remain between you and me. However, make it known to any and all who question your decisions in carrying out my command that you’re acting on my orders alone.”

  She straightened. “Of course. At your command.”

  Danso’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “Thank you.” He stood, demeanor hardening. His attitude shifted back to almost that of the man she had first met, though nowhere near as callous. “Join me at the command table. We have much to do.”

  * * *

  Ava and Danso discussed in detail each of their recent confrontations with the enemy. They reviewed current scouting reports. Ava learned surrounding terrain. They mapped out all they had learned. Their one pause came when Danso sent for dinner.

  Working a piece of hard, black bread around her mouth she thought over what they had covered. “As I told you once, you’ve been too cautious,” she blurted out more harshly than intended.

  Danso paused in raising his cup to his mouth. He narrowed his eyes, took a sip, and lowered it. Despite the common ground they had found, he still did not appreciate criticism, even if it was with the best intentions.

  “Oh?”

  Ava cleared her throat, making sure to sound less like blaming him for their current situation. “You’ve won each battle until the very last, but never once have you pursued the enemy.”

  “I felt I couldn’t. To press them properly, I would have needed to commit my entire force in a way that would favor an attack from their sorcerers. Then to truly pursue them, I’d have left an opening for a second force to slip in behind me, something they’ve tried to lure me into doing before.”

  “Don’t worry any longer about their sorcerers. I’ll see that yours are better prepared.” She thought of the three who had accompanied Kamau to retrieve her. “I understand more of what they’re capable of, and think I know how to better utilize their talents. But that won’t be enough. You’ve become predictable. Maybe not in maneuvers during a battle, but overall, the enemy expects you to behave a certain way. And now that they know your reaction to a dead army, it’s likely they won’t retreat again. We have to be the aggressor and throw them off balance. We need to force them into quick decisions. Make them react to us because as far as I can tell, either their officers cannot think as quickly on their feet as yours, or their soldiers are not nearly as skilled.”

  “How do we hold onto any land we recapture by pressing them? Again, one reason I’ve not pursued is because the terrain along my current line of latitude gives me less area to defend. The further north I go, the harder it will be to keep the enemy contained.”

  “You’re right. We can’t make the pursuit a prolonged one. We have to make the enemy believe they have an opportunity to finish us and commit everything into one battle.”

  “To do so, we’d have to commit to the same. All or nothing. I don’t like that philosophy.”

  “Neither do I, but our disadvantage in numbers will only worsen the longer this war continues. Eventually, our only option will be to fall back to Batna, man the walls with a smaller force, and wait until we all starve to death while under siege.”

  Danso took another sip of water and stared at the map. After a long pause, he pointed. “Here. This is where we fall back to.”

  “Fall back? I just said we need to press.”

  He grinned. “We will. But first, we lure them in. To your point, we make it seem like we’re getting reckless and desperate to turn the tides. We retreat to the location of our choosing and face them one last time.”

  She saw a glint in his eye and knew he had worked out something more in his head.

  “Tell me.”

  He pushed aside one map and brought out another at a different scale.

  “This map shows all enemy movement since the start of the war.” He pulled out a much more readable map with additional lines and arrows drawn lightly over the terrain. “This one illustrates their resupply patterns. My hope was that I might be able to use the information to mount an attack, but again, I never felt the risk would offset the potential reward. But now . . .

  “So I’ll send out scouts here, here, and here. They should be able to give me the information I need. If the enemy is where I expect them to be, we attack them with several smaller companies of our own first. It should anger them. After attacking, we recall the companies back to our position and wait for them to attack us. Then the moment they bring their dead army to the field, we react just as last time, but purposefully, and retreat to the fall back location I pointed out.”

  “What’s so great about falling back there? It doesn’t look tactically better than where we are now. It’s mostly an open plain.”

  “Exactly. The enemy will see us as sheep for the slaughter because it doesn’t favor us at first glance. It will also be easier for you to cast the spells you need to.”

  “How so?”

  “There is very little rock beneath the surface. It was once good farmland. The reports from the council said that you know how to create holes in the ground. It has to be easier to do so there than where we are now. What better way to trap the dead?”

  “I see what you’re saying, but I don’t have the kind of power it would take to open a hole large enough to swallow a full battalion.”

  “Not alone, but you said you were planning to better utilize my sorcerers. Can’t you teach them the necessary spell to aid you?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

  “If everything we talked about is going to work, then we have to remove the dead from the field. My soldiers will falter if they have to face them again. Remove the dead, and my officers and I will see to the rest.” Without waiting for her reply, he moved to the tent flap. “Stay here while I send out my scouts.”

  * * *

  There was a lot of talk circulating through camp when Ava emerged from Danso’s command tent late that night. She saw confused glances and heard the hushed whispers of rumors taking seed.

  She scowled at one Southern Kingdom soldier who stared as if he was certain something unseemly had occurred between her and Danso. Something about that certainty angered her. Sorcery crackled down her right arm, forming a ball of white light in the palm of her hand. The man quickly spun away.

  Ava kept the spell in hand as she walked. It had the effect she desired as no one else passively confronted her again.

  Still, her anger lingered. The distasteful looks she’d been receiving since she arrived those weeks ago had not been because she was a mage, or a foreigner, or even because she and Danso had gotten off on the wrong foot.

  No. It’s because I’m a woman.

  She’d place all the money she had on betting that none of the same men looking at her with disgust would do the same to Danso when he emerged from his tent.

  Ava calmed only when her thoughts returned to all she and Danso had accomplished. It was thrilling to be part of such strategy and her pride swelled at having contributed. She had not even been that involved with Tyrus.

  In some ways, she had never felt as crucial to an army’s success as she did then.

  Her stomach responded
to that realization with a roll of nausea.

  CHAPTER 29

  Ava was certain that Jumla Danso had not conveyed the fullness of the plan she helped craft with him the night before to his most trusted officers before her arrival the next morning. Otherwise, she assumed, their cross looks that begged for answers when she entered the command tent would not have been so severe.

  The three officers eyed her suspiciously as they stood around the command table while Danso paced about. It was obvious they could not fathom why she was there again after her extended time alone with the Jumla the night before.

  Likely thinking I worked some spell on him for his drastic change of mind.

  Danso halted. “You four will hand select a small company to command. Choose your most level-headed men. Get them kitted out as soon as selected and have them ready to move at a moment’s notice. I sent several scouts out last night. As each returns, one company will depart based on their reports. That could be anytime within a couple of days or up to a week depending on the news they bring.”

  “And what exactly are our orders?” asked Captain Lungile.

  Though Ava had noticed that his demeanor was not quite as severe toward her as when they had first met, Lungile looked the most annoyed.

  “To agitate,” said Danso. “Your companies will harass small groups of the enemy who have been raiding abandoned towns for supplies. Your first goal will be to observe and identify any and all sorcerers among them. Once you do, eliminate them. Kill any of their soldiers as well, but their sorcerers are your primary focus. Don’t overcommit though. Get in and out quickly even if you aren’t able to kill their sorcerers. Perception is just as important as success.”

  Ava smiled.

  Picking off their sorcerers should reduce the amount of dead soldiers they can field against us. It will also show that the Southern Kingdom soldiers are willing to take big risks so not to face necromancy again.

  “How many sorcerers can we take with us?” Kamau asked.