by Guy Antibes
Pol’s wristband lit up. He marked the pages that linked to the officers and the scouts. “A scout reports we’ve been spotted,” Pol told Shira. He quickly wrote to all the officers and gave orders to form into battle groups. It was mid-morning when the Shinkyans formed into smaller units. Every person in his army was mounted, and only about a fifth of the enemy rode horses.
Pol activated a rune on everyone’s wristband, and the forces attacked the Winnowers while the enemy still tried to form up.
The battle started in a small way, but the fighting escalated. The Winnowers were very brave at first, thinking they would all be protected by magical armor. When the enemy found out the protective wards did not stop Shinkyan weapons, the fighting became desperate.
Men began to leak out to the north. Pol fought through the infantry until he saw a mounted force heading directly towards him.
Shira’s eyes grew when Pol pointed out the counterattack. She took off to collect more troops. Pol fought on.
The Shinkyans were a bit late getting formed to assist Pol. Demeron and Pol had generated shields to cushion the blows, but Pol knew shields weren’t perfect, and they did degrade during a fight. He had learned that lesson fighting on the streets of Axtopol in Zasos.
A foot soldier lassoed Pol off Demeron. Pol fell on the leg that had not quite healed. He cut off the rope and stood in the midst of the enemy, sword and long knife fending off the blows. They hadn’t converged.
“I need help!” Pol screamed at Demeron.
His horse began to rear and flail with his front hooves, lessening the pressure that Pol felt. The mounted troops had not yet reached him. In the shortest of lulls, he finished removing the remnants of the rope and was able to clamber up on Demeron as the Shinkyans finally coalesced around him.
“Forward!” Pol yelled as he pointed towards the advancing cavalry. The two lines clashed. Bodies were flung this way and that, the collision knocking soldiers of both armies off their horses.
Pol shifted the fighting away from the troops and horses collecting themselves. They had begun to make headway when he sensed a push in the enemy. He looked to the south to see hundreds of unarmed men running towards the battle.
They waved farm implements, and some threw their agrarian weapons down and picked up cast-away swords and spears. Fanira needed to arrive soon.
Pol called a retreat to the east from where they started. He saw the dust cloud of Fanira’s army. He stopped and began waving to his Shinkyan army to retreat to the tops of the rolling hills.
The prisoners joined with the Winnower army and began to form up into groups to attack Pol’s positions. The leader of the Winnower army obviously had not been killed in the initial fighting. All eyes were glued to Pol’s Shinkyans.
Pol grabbed his bow and nocked an arrow with a magnetic head. He noticed twelve or thirteen magicians walking to a central spot, defended by infantry. They must have come back from the south, helping with the mass escape.
“Do you see your targets?” Pol said to Shira.
“I do. Is this a match between us?”
“Under other circumstances,” Pol said. “I would expect them to throw fire, but they are out of range. I’m sure they are within mine.”
Shira did not wait for a comment and shot an arrow. She got another off before Pol decided on his target. He put some magic on his arrow, and a magician fell.
One of Shira’s hit home. Pol kept pulling out arrows and hitting his targets. The few remaining magicians finally hid behind the milling men.
“I think we surprised them,” she said.
“I’ll notify the officers that powerful magicians are among the infantry,” Pol said.
“You need a scribe to communicate while you are fighting and figuring out what to do next.”
“Are you volunteering?” Pol said.
She laughed and shook her head. “I’m more of a fighter than a writer.”
“You were the scribe in Yastan, remember?”
Shira shook her head. “I wasn’t in the middle of a fight.”
Pol had to smile, but the enemy was about to charge.
A shaft of flame came from the troops, enveloped a Shinkyan soldier, and caught the clothes of two soldiers beside her.
Pol watched as fellow Shinkyans doused water on their fellow troops. He moved towards where the flames had erupted and saw an unarmed man beginning to gesture. A magician really did not have to do that to tweak. Pol separated a magnetic splinter and teleported it into the man’s heart. He didn’t know if he could be accurate from such a distance, but the magician fell to the ground. The splinter had stopped the tweak.
The enemy’s ranks had more than doubled. Pol pressed his lips together in frustration. Queen Isa had given him a very low estimate of the troops that she had removed from battle. The liberated men probably had fresh protection and compulsion wards.
A rune on his wristband glowed. He looked up the message. Fanira could see the field of battle. Pol quickly wrote back, “Attack!” He then notified his officer to hold back doing anything until the other army had entered the field.
Pol’s vision of an orderly destruction of the Winnowers had blown away like dust in the wind. At this point, both armies stared at each other. Pol and Shira sent an occasional arrow into the enemy’s ranks to keep them from moving prematurely; however, now enemy arrows began to pepper the ranks. Pol had them move back.
The Winnowers formed a long thin line of soldiers. The strategy must have been to have the line wrap around his soldiers. Pol thought in this battle, the move would prove disastrous for the enemy.
“Demeron, bring the horses south from where they are—” He heard the pounding of hooves. “You anticipated my order!”
I did. I hope you do not mind, but it seemed like a better use of the herd.
“It is,” Pol leaned over and patted Demeron’s neck. “Thank you.”
Pol watched the Winnower army turn their heads as the Shinkyan horses rode over many troops before turning towards the other side of the battleground and heading towards the north again to stand in formation a few hundred paces from the edge of the enemy.
Fanira sent a message to Pol, saying they were in position. Pol stood up in his stirrups, lifted his hand in the air, and tweaked a large column of fire, extending fifty feet or more.
He watched heads turn from the horses to him, just as the other Shinkyan army poured over the hills and slammed into the southern part of the enemy’s line. Pol quickly gave the order to his officers to hit the still-disoriented north.
The Winnower army buckled and twisted as the Shinkyan forces attacked from two different sides in two different sections.
Pol quickly ordered two of his commanders to stand back to observe the flow of battle and go where they thought they were needed. He looked over the battlefield. The enemy had lost any adherence to a strategy at this point. A magician emerged to bathe another Shinkyan in flame. Pol aimed an arrow and sent it into the magician’s side from a hundred paces.
“Demeron, we need another pass with your horses. Do you see that thin line of soldiers moving to reinforce the—”
I have let them know, Demeron said.
Pol looked over at Shira, who had been shooting arrows into the enemy this whole time.
She grimly smiled. “It’s too easy when you tweak the path a bit.”
Pol nodded. “Not for them. Remember the town. Remember those who are dead at the compound.”
The horses came in for another pass, one-third up the line, and slammed into an area that the Shinkyans had let go. The soldiers, hoping to help their fellow Winnowers, were ground into the dust of the battlefield.
“I’m out of arrows,” Shira said.
Pol nodded. “A little togetherness?”
“Whatever you say, General Pol Cissert Pastelle.”
They rode to one of Fanira’s units that looked hard-pressed and fought from the backside of the melee. Neither Pol nor Shira gave any quarter as they carved thei
r way to the Shinkyans.
The Shinkyans Pol had put in reserve followed him down into the battle. The sun had not quite yet reached its zenith when they destroyed the last of the Winnowers. The Shinkyans walked the battlefield, making sure the Winnowers were dead. The horses had resumed their grim duty of killing every Winnower soldier who fled north from the battlefield.
Pol worked on healing the Shinkyans. There were plenty of burns from magicians, who had not lasted long after they exposed themselves by tweaking. Pol ordered four of his officers to make a count of the dead on both sides. The magicians had not worn uniforms of any kind and were dragged out so Pol could inspect them.
The rough numbers came in. The death toll of the enemy stood at three thousand five-hundred. Five hundred Shinkyans were dead, and three of Demeron’s Shinkyan herd had not survived.
The Shinkyans set a pyre for the Winnowers at the downwind side of the valley. Pol counted thirty-two magicians, of which seventeen wore Winnower medallions. They had killed twice as many magicians than were in the entire ten-thousand-soldier army that confronted Covial.
Pol had no idea what the Shinkyans did with their dead, but they set up a pyre as well. Four thousand soldiers killed just to satisfy the greed of the Winnow Society.
Fanira walked up. “Could you assume your Ancestor disguise and say a few words before we send our sisters and brothers off?”
Pol nodded. He pulled out his conical hat and changed his face. The Shinkyans solemnly separated as he made his way to the pile of the dead. Pol did not know what else might have been, but the sight of so many dead Shinkyans sobered him.
He raised his hands and stood on the hill above the stacked bodies. He tweaked his voice loud to reach the remainder of the Shinkyans.
“Now you know you face an implacable foe. They fought to the last man. Did you notice them raising their hands in surrender?” Pol shook his head. “Only a few ran from the battle. We lost many of our friends in and out of our own personal factions, for we fought as Shinkyans united. It will take as much sacrifice when we head north to confront the main Winnower army. The fighting will be as fierce. There will be more magicians and more death on both sides.”
Pol paused and looked into the faces of his army. “Are you still with me?” The Shinkyans cheered. “Are you still committed to saving those you left behind in Shinkya?” He nodded at another cheer. “It won’t get any easier or less dangerous. I thank you for your work today. It was worthy of your ancestors and more than worthy of mine,” Pol said. “I will let you complete your ceremony.”
Shira and other commanders carried torches. She gave one to Pol. “The officers light the pyre.”
Pol took his torch and tweaked magician’s fire into it. The torch turned an eye-searing green. They all began to set the pyre aflame. Pol continued to convert the flame to magician’s fire as he walked around.
The flames were so hot, the troops backed up. It didn’t take long for the greasy black smoke to occlude the pyre as the green flames ate everything in their path. Pol sighed and knew he’d have to do the same on the other side of the valley. He would try to tweak a different color, maybe a dark purple.
After the grisly funerals had ended, Pol sent a detachment of scouts to the compound to see what had happened there. He made camp a mile to the north on the bank of another of South Salvan’s rivers to tend to the wounded.
After dark, the scouts returned. “No one lived. The magicians burned at least fifty guards, and it looked like the escapees tore apart maybe three times that number on their way out of the compound.
“They all deserved to die,” Shira said.
~
By the time Pol’s army returned to Covial, General Trefort’s soldiers had forced the Winnowers out of South Salvan. General Axe had organized a weave of patrols to protect the border. Pol smiled as the strategy reminded him of a ward.
He could not eradicate all the sorrow of losing so many Shinkyans, but he was sure the infiltrating army would have headed directly north, and the eastern part of Pol’s domain would have to be crossed, drawing in Captain Covial’s soldiers. More Shinkyan and Redearth lives would have been lost, and more of the enemy would have lived if they had not intercepted the Winnower army deep into South Salvan territory.
Queen Isa summoned him to report to her in the castle.
“How was it?”
“There were about fifteen hundred more enemy than we had anticipated. Shinkyans are better fighters, and we were all mounted. We didn’t let a single Winnower escape.”
The Queen nodded and blushed. “I was, perhaps, a little off in my estimates.”
“We lost five hundred troops and three horses,” Pol said. “The Winnowers had more magicians in that army than in the big one, which was a ruse.”
“I am fortunate that you consented to become a Duke in South Salvan.”
Pol bowed to his Queen. “I am thankful to have my own lands and people to protect, and I am thankful to Shira for keeping it safe for my return.”
“I waited, but less impatiently than she did,” Queen Isa said. “You are my dearest subjects.” She came around from her desk, gave Pol a hug, and took both of his arms, looking up into his eyes. “Both of you are family to me.”
Pol smiled, touched by her familiarity. “I’m taken by the Emperor, but I have no difficulty thinking of you as a beloved aunt.”
Queen Isa narrowed her eyes. “Not an older sister?
“I am fine with that,” Pol said.
“So what happens next?”
“If you want my opinion, I think we should head up the east side of North Salvan and attack Borstall.”
“But the heavy fighting will be in the Kingdom of Boxall.”
“Multiple fronts. The Winnowers employed the same strategy of essentially fracturing the Baccusol Empire. We can use the same thinking and take the city that they have used as a base to plot all this evil, Borstall, my home town.”
“What about South Salvan?”
“Use the same strategy you are currently using to keep the riff-raff out, the weaving patrols. I’m going to recall the Shinkyan forces that are working on the southwestern edge of Winnower territory.”
“Very well. Keep me apprised of your situation.”
“Don’t trust anyone, and make sure the magicians eliminate all wards.” Pol bowed to the Queen. “I can’t rest at this point. I have to keep moving. We will head east, cross the river and then north to North Salvan to join up with the other Shinkyans. I will ask General Trefort how many of your troops I can take with me, but we won’t be stripping all of South Salvan. Remember our first job is to sweep the southern border of North Salvan, and that will only help secure our border.”
Queen Isa smiled. “I like that…Our Border.”
~
Pol returned to the camp and spent the evening communicating with Yastan, Listya, Generals Biloben and Nokima, and Redearth. He even managed to send a report to Val in Tishiko.
Biloben had obliterated some small armies posted throughout the southern flank of Finster and reached the edge of the North Salvan border. Pol looked down at the map. He hoped he could have brought troops from Listya, including Akil and Deena to join his army, but the Daftinians had not cooperated with that strategy.
“What if we move Redearth troops north, out of South Salvan, and have them do a central sweep? That will help Biloben reach us more quickly,” Pol said.
Shira traced her finger from the eastern coast. “We can cross here and move west back to a spot in the middle of the border.”
“We have to have degraded the Winnower’s ability to prosecute a war,” General Trefort said.
“As long as we don’t corner the troops that spent a few weeks across the river, they won’t represent a threat,” the Fanira said. “We can move right up to Borstall.”
Pol was not so sure it was as easy as she seemed to think, but he agreed with the concept. “Then time is of the essence. Let’s determine what we will need to preserve
a reasonable defense of South Salvan, and then throw everything else in a march to Borstall.”
~~~
Chapter Twenty-Seven
~
A s the re-combined Shinkyan army crossed into North Salvan, they found a few pockets of five or six hundred men posted twenty or more miles from the border. Some of them were reinforced by the dregs General Trefort had driven from Covial. The fighting was quick, short, and decisive in favor of the Shinkyans.
The lack of a challenge reinforced Pol’s thinking that the Winnower’s competent troops had been sent to face the Emperor.
In twenty days, Pol saw a huge army on the horizon. He sent a message through his rune book, and with relief, confirmed it was the combined forces of Redearth and Biloben and Nokima’s joint command. They had successfully gained control of the southern North Salvan border.
“We posted one thousand soldiers in five places to protect what we fought for. The skills of our enemy markedly deteriorated as we penetrated into North Salvan,” Biloben said.
“That’s because they recruited an army of rejects,” Pol said before he retold the trip he made into the enemy camp threatening Covial.
They spent a full day going over the plans of the combined armies. Amonna had joined Captain Corior in the battlefield, which made Pol uneasy. She should have stayed in Redearth with Pentor, Kelso, and Darrol now leading the Redearth Guard.
The Shinkyan village of Honor emptied out and would join both armies the next day, and then they would travel north to Borstall.
North Salvan is about emptied out, Malden messaged during a joint meeting held in the evening. Eastern Boxall is home to an army of over thirty thousand Winnowers. We have just enough to defend. The Emperor suggests that you take Borstall and then head west to flank the main Winnower army. It is suspected that the Winnowers have made Borstall their current headquarters.
Pol gazed at his fellow commanders. “Borstall is where I grew up. My father, King Colvin, drove me out. When I returned, King Astor took the city, so I fled to Volia. My brother Grostin rules North Salvan, and we will depose him.” He took a breath. “Then the Emperor will tell us how to proceed with a rebellious king.”
