by Bell, Hilari
But Jiaan had wanted all the darkness he could get, mostly to aid the Suud spearmen, who now crept over the open ground the Hrum had cleared around their walls. Despite the Suud’s assurance that they could do it—easily!—and despite the fact that his archers had managed to crawl into arrow range of the Hrum camp, Jiaan had wondered if the Suud could really cross so much space unseen. They had to get very near the walls to throw their burdened spears as far into the camp as his plan required.
But the Suud had been right—even looking at the area where he knew they must be, Jiaan couldn’t see them. And as far as he could tell, none of the Hrum sentries had even twitched.
“Now that I’m knowing them,” murmured Hosah, who lay beside Jiaan in a hollow they had found, “I know it’s not true. But you can see why the miners swore they’d been bred from demons.”
Much as he liked the Suud, Jiaan had to admit that there was something uncanny about their ability to vanish into the desert. Especially hauling bundles of spears and big skin bags of oil. Still … “Nonsense,” he said firmly. “You’ve been working with them for months now. Have you ever seen them do anything magical?”
“No,” Hosah admitted. “Though I’ve heard they worked some magic on those swords, turning them into watersteel.”
“Well, if they did, it’s a magic that’s now being practiced by every swordsmith in Mazad,” Jiaan reminded him. “Not to mention the Hrum. So I hardly think—”
The whisper of spears in flight interrupted him. Many spears—and the way they coordinated that first volley in the darkness truly did seem like magic, even though Jiaan knew that the Suud could see in the dark.
Jiaan could barely make out the Hrum sentries on the distant wall—they hadn’t been so foolish as to ruin their night sight with torches—but he heard them shout as the spears passed over their heads. The warning wouldn’t do them any good, for in the darkness they couldn’t see the small sack of oil each spear carried. Even if a drop of oil from a bag’s loose seam fell on someone and they guessed the truth, there was nothing they could do about it—not in time.
The delay—as each Suud took his large, tight-stitched skin, filled the next small sack, and tied it to his spear—seemed very long to Jiaan. But eventually the second volley arced up and over the Hrum’s heads.
The camp was rousing now, but the Hrum’s enemies were invisible. If Jiaan was lucky, every man in camp would head straight for his post on the wall and be there when the real show began.
Six more flights of spears followed. The earthen banks that shielded the Hrum camp were packed with soldiers, most still donning their armor and boots, from the sound of it. Jiaan was willing to allow them boots and armor, though it was more mercy than they had given his camp on the night that Aram died. That was the only mercy he would show them.
“Kindle,” he called softly, and heard the command being passed from one group of archers to another.
It was Hosah who dropped a handful of dried grass and small twigs into the thick clay pot where they had carried the embers. He blew steadily into the pot’s wide mouth.
Fire burst forth. Jiaan nodded grimly and held out his first arrow, watching the flames lick the pitch-soaked strip of cloth tied to its tip. He didn’t need to say another word—his arrow would be the next signal. Jiaan nocked it. The fire rippling at its tip hurt his dark-adapted eyes as he pulled his bow and let the arrow fly.
It streaked through the dark like a comet, and dozens of others followed from all around that side—the upwind side—of the Hrum camp. Jiaan was already kindling his second arrow when the first one fell.
They had experimented over the last few weeks. The thin leather bags didn’t always burst when they hit the ground, but the oil—all the oil Jiaan had been able to gather—seeped swiftly through the loosened stitches. The Suud had sent their spears into the most dense patch of brush in this end of the camp, but it still might take a while for an arrow to find oil, and until that happened, they wouldn’t accomplish much. The fire arrows might ignite a partially dried branch, but they usually didn’t burn long enough to ignite green bushes at all. To make matters worse, it had rained two nights ago—a long, soaking rain that lasted almost until dawn, while Jiaan huddled in his blankets and cursed.
He had considered waiting a while longer, but any winter night in the desert might bring rain, and the moon would soon be growing brighter.
Jiaan fired another arrow. All his archers were firing as quickly as they could, since there was no point in trying to coordinate a volley. The oil wouldn’t dodge.
Jiaan kindled and fired almost a dozen arrows, knowing as he waited for each set of pitch-soaked rags to light that at least some of the Hrum were running for buckets and shovels, preparing to fight the fire they now knew was coming. Patrius had finally told Jiaan how the Hrum were trained to deal with fire in their camp. Even as he watched a distant flame flicker to life, Jiaan felt an ache of guilt for betraying his friend. Patrius had become a friend, he suddenly realized. But Jiaan wouldn’t let that stop him.
The flame leaped and grew, reaching into the bushes around it with greedy fingers.
“That will do,” said Jiaan with satisfaction, lowering his bow. One of the things they’d learned in their experiments was that the green bushes might be slow to catch fire, but once they were burning well they were almost impossible to put out. “Everyone move to your next position.”
Getting himself to the downwind side of the camp was hazardous, and not because of the beleaguered Hrum. Jiaan fell twice during the first part of the journey and the second time he rammed his leg into a prickly plant. He stopped immediately and pulled half a dozen spines out of his flesh—working by touch was no handicap for that task—but even though he got them out swiftly the irritant that coated their tips had set to work, and his muscles ached and throbbed as he went on.
Moving was easier now—the fire was so big, so brilliant, that even hundreds of yards away its light touched the rocks and plants of the desert floor. When Jiaan looked toward it he was almost blinded, and tears streamed down his face.
The Hrum camp was burning.
Men rushed about at the far end, where the fire hadn’t reached. Some still held buckets and shovels, but more were hastily gathering bundles of whatever they thought it made sense to save. Still more, Jiaan was glad to see, were carrying stretchers to the farthest unburned end of the camp, where they could be extracted quickly when the army was forced to flee.
Their departure was inevitable now. This fire would be stopped by nothing but the earthen walls the Hrum had erected and the cleared ground beyond them—both of which were perfect for containing the conflagration Jiaan had released. He had pointed that out to the Suud when they had expressed reservations about setting the desert ablaze.
The orange light painted everything, making it look as if the whole of the wide, flat valley were on fire. It shed enough light for Jiaan to see the Hrum’s pack mules skittering over the barrier and racing across the cleared space. Enough light for him to watch as two centris burst over their walls, reforming their formation even as they ran down the left side of the small stream. They probably hoped that a sudden assault could burst through the Farsalan forces, creating an escape route from the cleared ground that had once spelled safety and now formed a deadly trap.
The arrow fire started immediately. Despite the drifting smoke, in this light the archers Jiaan had stationed downwind could hardly miss. More arrows were arcing in from behind the Hrum as well. Most of Jiaan’s forces, less clumsy than their commander, had already reached their next position.
With arrows coming from two sides and their shield wall abandoned in their haste to reach the enemy, almost half the Hrum had fallen even before Fasal and his men rushed out to meet them.
Jiaan had suggested that Fasal ride his charger. He wouldn’t have been very effective on horseback once his lances were gone, but Jiaan trusted the well-trained mare to keep him safe, and frankly, he was worried about Fasal.
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br /> But Fasal had coldly refused to take the deghan’s traditional role, preferring to fight on foot beside his swordsmen, and Jiaan had yielded. Fasal might be in more danger that way—Jiaan thought that was part of what he wanted—but it was a commander’s choice, and Jiaan could only respect him for it.
Jiaan himself was still too far from that end of the cleared ground to recognize faces in the seething mass of men, though the clamor of metal on metal, the screams and shouts, reached his ears even over the buffeting roar of the fire.
He couldn’t recognize faces, but the swords that flashed in the light were red with blood. He saw men fall and others stand over them to shelter them from their enemies. He saw a Hrum soldier stagger out of the battle, his breastplate glowing in the light, a cut just below the line of his helmet pouring blood into his eyes.
Jiaan, remembering the terror of being blood-blind in the midst of combat, couldn’t blame the soldier for fleeing; until he could see again, the man was nothing but a danger to his comrades. But then another man followed him, a man who was whole as far as Jiaan could see, and then another, and another, until the Hrum’s whole advance force was running back toward the bulk of their army.
Many of them saw that Fasal—following orders for once, Azura be praised—did not pursue, so they paused to pick up and carry back their wounded. Jiaan’s men were gathering up the wounded at their end of the field as well. He had no doubt that the older, more reliable veterans he had seeded so liberally into Fasal’s forces would pick up the Hrum wounded and tend to them along with their own.
By the time Jiaan limped up to join Hosah on the familiar rise he had designated as the command post, the Hrum were evacuating their camp. They marched clumsily down the streambed, their shields forming the best wall they could manage. But fleeing a fire, laden with gear, in eight inches of water rushing over smooth stones, was not conducive to maintaining formation.
Through the gaps in the shield wall Jiaan could see that they carried more men on stretchers than they had gathered before they fled their camp, and that some men carried not bundles of food and arrows, but men on their backs.
More wounded than they have stretchers to carry, and no time to make more. They won’t try another attack tonight.
Even as the thought crossed Jiaan’s mind, the Hrum in the lead staggered out of the stream onto a patch of clear, flat ground—out of reach of the fire, but far enough from the edges of the cleared area that any arrow that reached them wasn’t likely to be accurate.
“I still think we should take them,” said Fasal, coming up to join Jiaan. “Disorganized as they are, a charge would break their formation. We could pour over them like a wave over rocks.”
“Rocks that have the wave outnumbered,” Jiaan pointed out. “Rocks that are still the best infantry in the world. My way takes a bit longer, but it will work. In fact, I’m betting it will work tomorrow morning.”
“Really? How much?” Fasal asked.
Jiaan laughed. “One brass foal.”
“That’s not much,” said Fasal critically. “Even for someone as poor as you are.”
“I’m not a big gambler,” said Jiaan. Which wasn’t true, for he had already bet far more than mere money on his plan.
“Well, I’ll take it.” Fasal shrugged. “A foal’s a foal, after all.” In truth, he had no more money than Jiaan did.
Fasal’s padded silk armor was bright with fresh blood under the stained steel rings, but none of the blood seemed to be his. Even more important, the wild anger of grief and guilt that had underlain every expression on Fasal’s face since the Hrum’s ambush was gone. Jiaan had almost forgotten what Fasal looked like when he wasn’t angry. Patrius had been right—it was combat Fasal had needed. He might need it again, but for now his pain was lightened.
“How many did you lose?” Jiaan asked.
“Just two dead, but another sixteen wounded, three of them badly. They may not fight again. The healers tell me it’s too soon to be certain, but they think they’ll live. The Hrum took worse losses. A lot worse.”
Despite the good news—the losses were incredibly light—grief clenched around Jiaan’s heart. When Aram was alive, Jiaan had gone to him for the tally of wounded and slain. When Aram was alive, it wouldn’t even have occurred to Fasal to make the count himself.
So we both have to grow up and get on with it. Perhaps it was time.
IN THE MORNING a handful of Hrum marched into the blackened, smoldering ruin that had been their camp. Jiaan let them go, to learn for themselves that there was nothing left. He already knew that their water supplies were low; in the dawn’s gray light he had seen them straining the ash-choked water of the stream through their tunics before they drank it. They couldn’t have much food, either.
He rose to his knees, then to his feet on the low rise of the command post. Hosah hissed in disapproval, but if Jiaan saw anyone raise a bow he could drop behind the ridge fast enough. For some reason he felt it was important for the Hrum to see him, even if he was too far off for them to read his expression.
Jiaan cupped his hands around his mouth. “You have no gear,” he shouted. He had expected his voice to sound thin, but the dawn air was so still that it boomed across the valley. He had no doubt that the Hrum could hear him. It was a good thing they all spoke Faran.
“You have no clean water; you have only the food you salvaged; you have no mules to carry loads for you. And you have many wounded—some of whom won’t survive a march.”
He let those truths echo for a moment before he went on. “You are four days from the great cliff by the most direct route—and you don’t know that route. If you march straight toward the cliff, you’ll run into the rock maze, where a man can wander for weeks without finding the path through it. While you try, our archers will shoot at you from atop the rocks, where you can’t reach us.”
Before they had settled into their defensible camp, the Hrum had spent some time tracking Jiaan’s Suud-guided army through that rock maze. If it wasn’t entirely impossible to find routes through it, it would be nearly so for men being misled by Suud trackers.
“If you go south to bypass the maze, it will take you almost two weeks to reach the cliffs, marching through narrow valleys with my archers shooting down at you. If you march north, out of the rocks into the great desert, you will find no water. And we will be waiting when you return.”
Jiaan didn’t bother to add that under any of these circumstances only a handful of Hrum would escape the desert alive, for they knew that too.
“If you surrender,” he called, suddenly impatient to get to the point, “you will not be killed. You’ll not be harmed in any way, and we’ll help your healers with your wounded as much as our medical supplies will allow.”
He prayed they wouldn’t need much, for his healers’ supply of medicines and salves was running painfully low. Fortunately, the Suud had good herbalists among them. They’d been teaching Jiaan’s people about the desert’s medicinal plants, many of which were surprisingly effective.
“You will be fed and treated well,” Jiaan went on, “though you will be held prisoner until the end of the conflict between Farsala and the Hrum. However, that conflict will end, one way or the other, in just four months.”
Also true, for if the committee decreed that Garren had completed his conquest, Jiaan’s rebels would suddenly become not Farsalan fighters but civil criminals in a land awash with soldiers who would enforce the law. Governor Garren, confirmed in his post, could bring in all the tacti he needed. The thought of being under Garren’s governance for the rest of the man’s life sent a chill through Jiaan’s heart and roughened his voice on the next words.
“If you don’t surrender, we will hunt you relentlessly, with archers, never giving you a chance to strike at us. You’ll be lucky, very lucky, if even one centri of you leaves the desert alive.”
He stood for a moment, straight and proud, then turned and walked regally down the hill. The moment he was out of sight he spun
and crawled back up, raising his head just far enough to see what they did.
The Hrum clustered in small groups, discussing his demands. But they had also lowered their shields, clearly considering that his offer meant that some sort of truce existed between them—at least temporarily.
“Pass the word,” Jiaan told Hosah. “Anyone who fires an arrow now will deeply regret it.”
“They already know that,” said Hosah. “But I’ll pass it along. You know, the odds are three to one against them surrendering this morning.”
Jiaan’s brows rose. “I thought only Fasal and I were betting.”
“Not anymore,” said Hosah cheerfully. “Even your own men think you’ve being … optimistic. Surrender without a fight? Without even trying to get out? These are the Hrum!”
“So they are,” said Jiaan. “But if you want some advice, put your money on me.”
Hosah snorted. “Why would that be, sir?”
“Because I’ve learned something talking to Tactimian Patrius these last few weeks,” said Jiaan. “The Hrum are human too.”
“That hasn’t made them eager to surrender in the past,” said Hosah dubiously.
“No, but in the past … Those men are probably loyal to their emperor, in the abstract, but their emperor’s not here. Most of them have never even set eyes on him. I’d guess that they’re very loyal to Tactimian Patrius, but he’s not there either. So let me ask you a question: as a human being, Hosah, would you be willing to fight, and probably die, for Governor Garren?”
HALF A MARK LATER, the Hrum army lay down its swords and surrendered.
RAIN STILL FELL on the city of Mazad as Sorahb stumbled toward the house where he lodged, almost too tired to walk. He had nearly reached hie Destination when he came across a pregnant woman wandering through the streets in soaked and ragged clothes. Sorahb knew that many of the townsfolk, the women and elders who could not fight themselves, had come out to support those who fought, carrying food, arrows, and even stones for them to throw down upon the Hrum. Seeing that the woman was as exhausted as he was, Sorahb took her arm, and questioning her gently, he helped her through the dark streets to the door of the small, dilapidated house she claimed as her home.
