Culaehra cursed.
Yocote came running up. “Your pardon, Culaehra! I should have realized at once that the man was a shaman, but I did not expect to hear a soldier chanting a spell, so I thought it was his war song. It was minutes before I realized he was singing in the shaman's language.”
“I should have realized it, too,” Culaehra said, “and called upon you. Your pardon, Yocote—I fear I may have begun to take you for granted.”
“Given, and gladly! Ho! Where is that toe?”
A Darian dropped Culaehra's toe into Yocote's cupped palm. He held it against the foot and Culaehra stifled a howl of pain-but Yocote was chanting.
Yusev was nodding. “Both ask each other's pardon—good. I, too, ask pardon—I was fighting instead of watching for sorcery.”
Culaehra clenched his teeth against the pain, but managed to say, “Given and gladly again. Two of you, both warriors and shamans! I should certainly have realized the enemy might have some, too! Aieeeeee! What are you doing there, Yocote?”
“Putting your toe back on.” The gnome stepped back. “Wiggle it.”
Astounded, Culaehra stared down. Sure enough, his toe was back in its place. He willed it to move up and down, and was amazed that it responded, however sluggishly.
“It will take time to heal completely, of course.” Yocote sounded a bit defensive.
“I had not known it could heal at all! How can I thank you, Yocote?”
“By your pardon, which you have already given.” The gnome held his hand over Culaehra's other wound and began reciting.
He healed Culaehra, then wandered among the other wounded, healing where he could. Yusev did likewise. Lua picked out those who were near death and did what she could to soothe their passing, then to comfort the widows who wailed beside the corpses. Kitishane stared as if startled by the novelty of the idea, then went to imitate her. After a while the Darian women followed their example, those who had not lost husbands or sons.
Culaehra looked out over the field, wondering why there was no rejoicing. Only a half dozen of the nomads lay dead, after all; there should have been victory songs before they realized that some of their own folk lay lifeless. He solved the riddle when he saw a knot of the Darian warriors gathered to glare down the gully after the soldiers who had fled. Culaehra realized that they did not count it a victory, because some of the enemy had survived—and, worse, had fled back to their fortress. He could sympathize—the fugitives might well bring back an army of ten times their number.
On the other hand, if the whole garrison left the fortress, it should be easy pickings for the nomads ... He nodded judiciously; it was a thought to keep in mind. In the meantime, though, he had a better plan.
He went over to the knot of warriors and beckoned. They looked up in surprise, then with misgiving, but they followed him. Lua and Kitishane had begun to seek out dying soldiers, but found few—the warriors had already prowled through the slain, finding the few who still had some life in them and finishing them with quick sword strokes.
Culaehra led the Darians to a cluster of enemy dead and began to unbuckle the armor of the biggest soldier he could find. The Darians watched him in disgust; Culaehra guessed that they had a taboo about robbing the dead. But when he began to buckle the Gormaran armor over his own, they exclaimed with sudden understanding and turned to take harness off the other dead.
Kitishane saw and came up, frowning. “What do you intend?”
“A little surprise for the soldiers,” Culaehra explained.
Kitishane nodded slowly, liking the sound of the plan. “Only a few of you, though,” she said. “The fugitives would notice if three score of their dead comrades had recovered and joined them.”
Culaehra frowned. “There is that, yes. Well, we shall have to open the gates for the rest.”
“Well thought.” Kitishane turned away and began to unbuckle the armor from a dead soldier.
“You cannot go with us!” Culaehra caught her shoulder. Fear for her was plain on his face, but he only said, “The Gormarani did not have women among their warriors. I doubt they allow it.”
“They shall not see a woman.” Kitishane thumped the leather breastplate, smiling. “Armor has more purposes than those for which it was intended.”
When the dead were buried, the Darians rode off down the dry riverbed, seeming no different from their usual selves—but under their robes, twelve of them wore Gormaran armor.
The routed soldiers were not hard to follow—they had left a trail as plain as a herd of camels. The Darians rode along the top of the gully. When Culaehra saw the soldiers in the distance, he held up a hand. His twelve picked Darians dismounted, laid each his robes over his saddle, skidded and slid down the sides of the gully and began to lope along after the soldiers. The rest of the warriors followed on their camels, slowly enough to be unseen, closely enough to keep the fugitives within earshot.
The Gormarani had tired and were plodding along, their hearts heavy, making quite a bit of noise as they went. It was easy to keep them barely out of sight until emerging from the riverbed, almost under the palisade of the fortress.
The palisade was made of sun-dried brick, not wood, but it was a high, strong wall nonetheless. Culaehra looked up at it and felt his heart sink. What chance had tribes of desert nomads against such a stronghold?
On the other hand, he knew what chance this tribe had. “Now, quickly!” He waved his men on. They understood the gesture if not the words and followed, grinning.
They were right behind the fleeing soldiers as they came to the gate. Startled shouts echoed down from the top of the wall, and the sentries at the huge portal stood aside, staring, as the weary, defeated troops streamed in. There were cries that Culaehra was sure meant, “What happened to you?” and the fugitives called back terse sentences that probably meant, “I will tell you later.” They picked up their pace as they hurried through the gate to safety.
Culaehra, Kitishane, and their warriors came right behind them.
No one looked too closely at their faces—they were far too concerned with the calamity that had befallen their friends and were already bedeviling the others for the story. An officer pushed his way through, barking questions. Ataxeles the shaman-soldier began to answer him, every word angry.
Kitishane muttered under her breath, “Will Yusev remember when to charge?”
Ululations erupted outside the wall. The sentries turned to look, startled—and Kitishane cried “Now!” in the Darian language.
Yocote dropped from under Culaehra's cloak and began to chant. Ataxeles must have sensed his magic, because he whirled, eyes widening—but Yocote finished his spell, crying out the last syllable, and something unseen buffeted the enemy shaman; his head snapped back and his eyes rolled up. He slumped, unconscious.
None of the other soldiers noticed—they were all staring out at the charging nomad army.
The false soldiers struck.
A pair of Darians converged on each sentry; two more pairs converged on the porters behind the gate. Knives flashed, and the Gormarani slumped in silence. Quickly the nomads dragged the bodies out of sight behind the panels, then assumed the posts of the dead men, standing in readiness. When the officer called down from the wall, they stared up in blank incomprehension—as well they might, since his words meant nothing to them. The officer turned purple, shouting at them in anger. Still they stared up, not understanding. The officer bellowed, running down the stairway inside the wall.
At the bottom Culaehra leaped, Corotrovir swinging.
The captain fell, blood spreading. Soldiers shouted and leaped forward—but Kitishane loosed two arrows, and the sentries atop the wall fell, dead before they struck the paving below, while the other four Darians turned to meet the soldiers, knocking aside their spears and stabbing with nomad knives. The soldiers weren't prepared to have their own men fight back at them; they died astonished.
Then the camels burst through the gate.
Suddenl
y the nomads were everywhere, blades scything, spears stabbing. A dozen Darians sprang down to guard the gates. Culaehra shouted, and his false soldiers ran to follow him. Looking back, he saw there was one missing, and he hardened his heart—there would be time enough for grieving later.
Soldiers were running toward the gate from all over the compound, but Culaehra could see from which building the men with more ornate harnesses came. These would be the commanders. He sprinted toward that building, then swung Corotrovir at the first of them. The man howled with pain, staggering back and clutching his side. Four more commanders shouted in anger and converged on Culaehra, battle-axes flashing.
Blood sang in his veins even as Corotrovir sang in his hand. He blocked axe blows and slashed at men—but one axe struck through, slamming Agrapax's armor against his side. Pain exploded, but he ignored it and slashed at the man, who fell, a virtual fountain. Then another axe struck through the leather armor, slamming the magic breastplate in front so hard as to knock the breath from him. Pain wracked him, but Culaehra swung and slashed anyway, stiffening when another axe struck against the small of his back. Pain again, but he whirled and struck down the last man, then stood panting, looking about him in quick, darting glances, knowing that if it had not been for the Wondersmith's gift, he would have been dead on the paving stones that moment.
All about him nomads fought officers. Three more of his advance guard lay dead, but virtually all of the Gormarani had been made corpses, too. One or two still breathed—or groaned, trying feebly to move.
“Put them out of their misery,” Culaehra told a Darian, and when the man frowned with lack of understanding, said briefly, “Kill them, “ in the Darian language—the two armies had learned a few of each other's words already. The nomad nodded, with a grin that made even Culaehra shudder, and turned away to deliver the coup de grace to the two surviving officers.
To the others, Culaehra recited the words that Yocote had taught him: “Go among the soldiers, now, and slay their officers in any way you can. Have no more concern for honor than they would.”
The Darians responded with hard smiles and turned away to do their work.
They were only just in time—the soldiers outnumbered the nomads three to one, and though the Darians were each slaying five times their number, they were being slain at an alarming rate. Culaehra stripped the harness from the most high-ranking officer he could find, exchanged it for his own, then caught the Darian who had slain the wounded and pushed the Gormaran uniform at him. The man understood; he changed harnesses quickly. “Tell them to surrender,” Culaehra said in the Darian language as clearly as he could, and hoped the words he said were really the ones Yocote had taught him.
The nomads had not learned very much of the soldiers' words, but they had learned that. The man grinned again, nodded, and trotted off.
Culaehra plunged back into the crowd, looking for Vira and her women.
He collected a few more cuts on the way, on the upper arms and lower thighs, where the magical armor did not cover him.
He dealt blow for blow, but could not take the time to choose his targets or aim his strokes, and so did not know if he had given anything more than superficial wounds. He found Vira and her warrior women by the gate, and Yusev with them. There was also a nomad whom Culaehra did not know and thought he had never seen, one whose robes were the deep yellow of saffron and whose eyes gleamed with zeal.
“Name Ronnar,” Yusev said by way of introduction. Ronnar raised both hands, open and empty, in greeting.
“Me Culaehra.” The warrior returned the gesture, then asked Yusev, in very broken Darian, “Him know what do?”
Yusev nodded. “Will talk soldiers.”
Culaehra grinned and waved them on. “Up! Do!”
Up they went, with the saffron-robed nomad in their midst— or he who had been a nomad. Yocote had told them to find one of the People of the Wind who had settled by the fort and learned the Gormaran language, to translate for the Darians.
Culaehra's officer-clad Darian stood tall upon the wall and shouted a Gormaran word. Vira swerved, leading her charges toward him. Kitishane emerged from the crowd and blended into their group, holding a captured battle-axe ready to ward off blows—but none came, for the soldiers had all whipped about to stare at the “officer” who stood on the parapet, shouting to them to surrender. They were at a loss, then even more confused as the “officer” stepped down and disappeared among the crowd. Soldiers began to shout questions, but no answers came—until Kitishane and Vira led their group up to the parapet, and the saffron-robed nomad shouted to them in their own language. The soldiers whipped about then, seeking.
Culaehra knew what they were looking for—officers. One officer had inexplicably told them to surrender, then disappeared. They had shouted for other officers to explain, but none had answered—and one of their captured nomads, one of their own slaves, now stood above them telling them that all other officers were dead! They looked about them, searching, lost— for these were men who had been trained to obey, and nothing more; they were soldiers who had never been taught to think for themselves, had indeed been taught not to think, to leave that to their officers.
Now there were no officers.
The Gormarani, unable to think of any other course of action—or not daring to attempt one—began to throw down their axes and raise their hands in surrender.
The nomads shouted with victory. Kitishane spoke to the saffron-robed man, and he called down a translation: “Go to the long houses where you live! Sit on your pallets! Wait there till our commanders tell you what to do!”
Numbly, the soldiers turned to obey, trooping back to their barracks.
As soon as they were away from the gate, Culaehra ran to the spot where Ataxeles had fallen, Corotrovir ready to hold the shaman at bay when he regained consciousness. He found the stair to the parapet easily enough—but he did not find Ataxeles. He had come too late; his enemy had disappeared again.
The interpreter learned more about Ataxeles simply by asking the soldiers. They were eager to speak of him, even boastful.
“He is a priest of Bolenkar,” Ronnar said. “He is a mighty sorcerer, not a shaman only, and delights in the pain of his enemies.”
Yocote's face darkened as he heard this. He gazed at the night outside the window of the chief officer's dwelling. Its former owner lay in a shallow grave beyond the cultivated land. The gnome turned back to Ronnar and asked, “Does he sacrifice living people to Bolenkar, making sure they die slowly and painfully?”
“He does.” Ronnar frowned. “How did you know of this, shaman?”
“Because I know what a necromancer is, and this Ataxeles is one of them.” Yocote's face worked as if he were about to spit. “His sacrifices do not work, of course—Bolenkar has power of his own, but cannot give more than a small fraction of it, since he is not an Ulin. Besides, he is not about to make any of his minions more powerful than he must. But I suspect Ataxeles glories in the illusion that sacrifices increase his power—or, if he has learned that they do not, enjoys others' pain so much that he is eager to slay even more.”
“He is truly evil, then,” Kitishane said, frowning.
“He most certainly is,” Yocote said grimly. He turned back to Ronnar. “Are all the priests of Bolenkar so bad, or is he remarkable?”
“He is foremost among their priests,” Ronnar answered. “The soldiers call Bolenkar the Scarlet One—”
“Ulahane's title.” Culaehra remembered Illbane using the term.
“—so they call Ataxeles the Scarlet Priest,” Ronnar finished.
“But what was he doing here, at a minor outpost in the desert?” Culaehra asked.
“Seeking victims for sacrifice,” Yocote answered, and Ronnar nodded, explaining.
Yusev's face darkened; he translated for Yocote, whose face froze, his voice tightening with anger. “The expedition we ambushed was not sent to squash rebellion—it was sent to search for victims for Bolenkar's altar. If
it found rebels to capture, all well and good—but if it found only peaceable herders, they would have been quite satisfactory in themselves.”
Yusev said a string of syllables, very softly, but with great vehemence.
“What does he say?” Kitishane demanded.
“Nothing that I would care to translate,” Yocote replied.
Chapter 26
Ronnar's robes were saffron because the soldiers had forced the settled nomads to dye their clothing, so that the Gormarani would know wild Darians from tame. The settlement people were all for burning their garments and making new ones, but Kitishane bade them not to—it could suit their purposes for Gormaran soldiers to think they talked to captives when they really spoke to free people.
Without exception, the settlement people wished to be free again. The soldiers had turned cruel once their nomads were more or less captive—arrogant and swaggering, beating any who disagreed with them, killing any who refused to live by Gormaran law, and taking any woman who struck their fancy. The former nomads were all glad to become nomads again. They packed up their belongings, mounted the soldiers' horses, and rode off into the desert, leaving the Gormarani without mounts and no food other than that which lay in their storehouses or grew ripening in the fields.
“Let them learn how to become desert dwellers,” Kitishane advised, and the nomads answered with a cheer—but as they rode away, Kitishane looked back and saw a few of the soldiers walking down the rows of growing plants. She pointed them out to Culaehra and said, “I think those men were farmers once.”
Culaehra nodded. “They will be again. Frankly, Kitishane, many of them did not look at all unhappy at being left without officers.”
“And without the need to go back to Gormaran.” Kitishane nodded. “We may have done good where we meant to cause pain, Culaehra. Is that bad?”
The Sage Page 34
