“Jhumar has the right of it.” Jahaksi observed quietly. “Had either the White Horse or the Skundalhese been present, Selden Kharn Chihizak would be a ruin, and Jhumar and I would have fallen there.”
“What in the name of the seven hells made you want to bring that up?” Jhumar grumbled. “What a black memory!”
“After the war, we were assigned to chase what was left of the Hulmini and Tolrissans back into Hulmin. I recovered a journal from a fallen Hulmini officer.” Jahaksi said, and the other Brizaki regarded him closely.
“I never heard you mention that before.” Jhumar Gaz observed.
“No, I kept it to myself.” Jahaksi’s tone was apologetic. “Tactically it offered nothing we did not already know. I didn’t see any reason to turn it over to the marshals. Besides, you know how I love books. I kept it as memento of the war. It was little more than the day to day impressions of the man.”
“And? What did you find there that set you to thinking, Jahaksi?”
“Well, I think I discovered why the White Horse and Skundalhese deserted the balance of their army. The whole time the Skundalhese were fighting us they were fighting a battle with the running shits. Cholera or dysentery or some such thing was killing as many of them as we were, probably more than we were, truth be told. On top of that, the Hulmini were denying them a fair share of the spoils, because the Skundalhese didn’t stop to loot the dead. They were always advancing right behind the White Horse, and when they did occasionally turn back, the Hulmini had already stripped the dead of any loot. They had a crown prince there, some giant named Mutabele, and when he demanded compensation they denied him.”
“Little wonder they quit then.” Jhumar replied. “Pretty stupid of the Hulmini. Of course, they’ve always been a greedy bunch of merchant’s sons.”
“Yes. So according to this journal, this issue was coming to a boil about the time they were marching on Selden Kharn Chihizak. Then there was Eben Al Aseel.”
“That’s Araqueshi, no?” Baklam asked. “The Genuine One?”
“Yes, the Genuine One, or the Son of the Genuine One.” Replied Jahaksi. “Depending which Araqueshi I asked.”
“And who was he?” Jhumar asked patiently.
“He was the White Horse. I mean, he was their commander, but to them he was the embodiment of their army. His commands were absolute law. He was an Araqueshi prince or something, and this Hulmini said he saw him die twice.”
“Nobody dies twice.” Tathaga objected. “Once is enough for all of us.”
“True, but the Hulmini was quite clear on the point. He said that this Eben Al Aseel came back to camp on a stretcher with his head nearly torn off one night after a battle on the Telderin Plain, and the Araqueshi took his body into a tent. By morning he was back, looking as healthy as ever. The second time he was shot full of crossbow bolts and his horse was drenched in blood. The Araqueshi did the same trick with the tent, and in the morning there he is, ready to ride.”
“Hell of a healer.” Jhumar said. “One night from dead to living.”
“Yes, that’s what I thought at first, but the journal says the Hulmini saw them take a body out of the tent the second time after Eben Al Aseel had already gone out of it. He opines they were switching out leaders and not letting on.”
Jhumar nodded admiringly. “Neat trick.” Akarn Jav laughed.
“Yes, the immortal leader.”
“That was what the journal writer thought, too. But although that part was interesting, what really intrigued me was his thoughts on why the White Horse abandoned their army on the edge of victory.”
“Which was?” Jhumar’s question had the attention of all of the Brizaki.
“Well, here’s what was happening. The command of the army was given over to the Tolrissans. They had the most knights with the best equipment, and they had brought along the baggage trains and were paying the wages. Their knights couldn’t be bothered going after ground troops, they wanted glorious charges against other knights and renown they could brag about back home. Whenever they ran into ground troops, they sent in the White Horse or the Skundalhese. Of course, we didn’t have much cavalry, we never have had much, so the Tolrissans fought in maybe three battles all told, and without our wizardry, they just decimated our horsemen.
“Meanwhile, the White Horse and the Skundalhese are doing most of the fighting, just like we remember, right?”
Jhumar grunted his assent.
“So what are the Hulmini doing? They’re bringing up the rear behind the White Horse and the Skundalhese, and they’re burning, looting, pillaging and ravaging the country. The journal talks about how this Eben complained again and again, at every meeting of the generals. He’s trying to do the decent thing, leaving the peasants alone, sparing the churches, not plundering the temples, fighting what the Araqueshi consider an honorable war.
“Meanwhile, whenever he comes back to bivouac with the army he’s finding that the Hulmini have looted and burned the temples, killed all the peasant men, raped and murdered the women and young girls -young boys too, for that matter- and sold off whoever they could find to slavery. Once they get into Imperial Lands, the Hulmini really got going.
“Any Brizaki they find, they’re raping, skinning alive, impaling and all kinds of creative horrors. You remember that, Jhumar.”
“And wish I could forget.”
“They were burning the houses of the Brizaki slaves and killing and raping them, too, even though they were man kind and not Brizaki. Eben Al Aseel is complaining the whole time to the Tolrissans, you’ve got to put a stop to this, but apparently all the Tolrissans can think of is their next glorious cavalry charge. The Tolrissan general tells Eben Al Aseel to look after his own men and let the Hulmini legions play. Those may have been his exact words.”
“Bet he was pissed, this Araqueshi.” Akarn Jav said wryly.
“Apparently he was. Because the morning of the big big battle, when the Emperor has hauled in every last soldier he can get his hands on, set out massive battle lines and even the Brizaki women are there in the towers, ready to give their lives for Selden Kharn Chihizak, the Hulmini wake up and the White Horse is gone. Packed up in the middle of the night and left. The Skundalhese apparently went with them.”
“What, no conference or anything?”
“The last word from Eben Al Aseel was that he wasn’t going to watch the rape of another city.”
“So that was the Great Victory.” Baklam said, after the silence had grown uncomfortable.
“I never understood why we didn’t have to fight the Fucking White Horse that day.” Jhumar Ghaz said smiling. “I thanked the heavens so many times. I didn’t imagine I should be thanking the Hulmini.” He laughed out loud.
For a moment there was silence, then Jhumar spoke. “Go ahead, Jahaksi, spit out the rest of it.”
“The rest of it? That’s the entire tale.”
“No, not the story. It’s an interesting story, but I want the reason you bring it up. You never tell a story or think a thought that isn’t relevant. What are you thinking of?”
Jahaksi nodded. “All right, Jhumar. Here it is. First a question, and I want you to forget for a moment that you were there, and I want you to think like an Araqueshi. Did the White Horse do the right thing in leaving the field? Was Eben Al Aseel right to abandon the Five Armies and take the Skundalhese with him?”
“He was right.” Jhumar admitted after a long moment. “It was the only honorable thing he could do when they refused to listen to him.”
“Why?” Jahaksi pressed.
“Why? Because the Hulmini weren’t fighting an honorable war. They brought shame to the White Horse and turned his honorable victories into atrocities.”
“Right.” Jahaksi nodded. “But it’s easy to look through the glass at another’s war and say it’s an atrocity, right? It’s easy for us to condemn the Hulmini. Especially since the women they raped and murdered were our women. The children they slaughtered were our children or
the children of our slaves. The Hulmini were allies unsuited to the honor of the White Horse. But what happens when we turn the glass around and look into it as mirror, Jhumar?”
“What do you mean?” Jhumar demanded, but he thought he knew already what his commander was going to say. He was going to say dangerous and perilous words. Words that could get them all killed.
“What I mean is this. Who are the allies of the Empire, Jhumar? Tarks and goblins. What are they doing in Vherador that the Hulmini did not do in Gatar Balk or the Addarmulk Mountain Home? You were there. You saw.”
“Balls of my father, Jahaksi. This is what you have been thinking of? Did I not say thinking was a bad habit? The arm of the Empire …”
“… is long, Jhumar, I know. But you saw what happened to the sorcerer Vai. I do not think Ahatlaki’s arm is so long that he can touch us here. Even if it is, I think I will chance it. I agree with you that Eben Al Aseel did the correct thing when he walked away from an army that dishonored him. Now I do the same.” Jahaksi stood and began stripping the emblems of the Empire from his uniform and throwing them into the fire while the other four Brizaki stared on in stunned silence.
Chapter 44: Lanae, West of Nevermind and Points North.
“Sentinel, no!” Lanae screamed into the wind, but it did her no good. The eagle was ignoring her commands and her knees alike, going his own way. Perhaps the time in the cage had driven him wild, or perhaps it had been the confrontation with the Brizaki wizard Vai that changed him, but whatever the reason, he was no longer her eagle at all. Sentinel had never been the most obedient of the king’s eagles, and now he was positively rebellious, refusing to fly toward the city of Nevermind despite the trouble that masterfarmer Felder had gone to preparing her reception there. They were flying above the eastern reaches of the Whitewood forest, and a dense canopy of trees spotted with an occasional bare hill or rocky promontory was all she could see below in any direction. Somewhere beneath her lay Broadwater Creek, but she could see no part of it beneath the cover of the trees. The sky was overcast, and a light mist peppered her dress, soaking her to the skin in places. The dress was no substitute for riding leathers.
She was clean and fed and doctored, thanks to the farmer’s kindly fat wife, who had fussed over her as if she were her own daughter, while Sentinel stood patiently waiting in a field nearby. This catastrophe of a flight had begun almost as soon as she attempted to knee the great eagle in the direction of Nevermind, within sight of its high stone wall. She was embarrassed that the eagle refused to go where bidden, and she had become a mere passenger for this excursion.
Undoubtedly there were those in Nevermind who had witnessed the performance, and she did not doubt that their tongues were wagging.
If not for the frustration from his disobedience and the cold and the wet, this would have been the flight of her life, she knew. Sentinel was flying fast and his wings were pounding against the wind, falling in plunging dives and tight circles and nearly tumbling her from his back when he skirled and twisted in the afternoon air. This crazed winging went far beyond the tame exercise flights he had endured in the air above Mortentia city, and indeed, had she been less of a rider, she would long since have fallen to her death.
After half of a perilous hour spent in this reckless manner, and with both the coastline and the city far out of sight behind her, Sentinel grew calmer, and his flight steadier. He was hunting now, she knew, watching for something to eat below, and she let him have his head, praying it was not fish he found. She was already quite cold and wet enough.
She upbraided the eagle angrily, urging him to turn around with her knees, but he still ignored her, and she knew that he would until his hunger was fully satisfied. This much at least was normal behavior for him.
She shivered and hoped he would find something to eat soon.
The canopy of the forest was thick, and the spaces between the tree trunks were dark and gloomy. Three men sat huddled around a fire, miserably roasting a single small rabbit that was the day’s food between them. All three were armed, and Ilos O’Broadwater still wore the torn and unpatched remains of a tabard marking him as a Mortentian footman over his tattered leather armor that was half-eaten with dry rot. The rest of Ilos’ company had marched toward the battles around Northcraven a month ago, but these three had decided to take their chances in the Whitewood rather than among the Auligs.
When they had joined the King’s Army in the Nevermind muster it had seemed like an adventure, and the old men of Broadwater had shared embroidered stories of their experiences during the last Aulig war. Less than a week into the muster news from the war had begun trickling in, carried in the mouths of desperate refugees running from burning villages and towns all along the Redwater. Ilos, Kelbin Adzeman and Torri Sailwright heard the stories and began to have doubts. Lists of the dead came by courier down the Northcraven Road, and there were many, for Broadwater had always contributed more than its share of young warriors to the army of Northcraven’s Duke.
Prominent on one list was the name of Ilos’ brother, and four other boys he’d known.
Plundering and pillaging Aulig villages and taking their women had been a big part of Ilos’ plan. Being stuck with a poisoned Cthochi arrow and buried a hundred leagues from home had not. Kelbin and Torri agreed with him, and when the muster left for Walcox, the three boys hadn’t gone with them.
Instead they’d gone into the Whitewood, walking for days, and now they were far from any known haunts of men. They knew enough to survive here, for all three were fair to good hunters and foragers, but the Whitewood was not exactly bountiful, and the imaginary carriages filled with nobles they could rob had failed to materialize.
As deserters, they had not been caught, and so were successful. As bandits and highwaymen they had failed for lack of victims. The rabbit was wholly unsatisfying, and they grumbled about it.
“I tell you, Ilos, we should go a’reaving.” Torri said, and not for the first time. “My uncle down to Nevermind, he told me about how they used to go a’reaving ten, fifteen years back, and they gone all the way to the coast of Tolrissa. He told me they used to come up on nobles’ houses in the dead of night and kill them all and take their gold. He showed me a Tolrissan mark one time.”
“Bet they din’t kill all of them.” Kelbin added, grinning. “Bet they got them some of that high bred cunny first. I bet them high breds got nice tight cunnies.” Kelbin was always going on about cunny, and it irritated Ilos.
“We an’t about to go reaving.” He replied caustically. “We show up around Nevermind wearing the king’s colors or carrying soldier swords and they’ll know straight off we’re deserters. We’d be on the gallows by sundown.” Deserting the army for banditry had seemed all well and good at the time, but now that he was actually starving in the forest, the charm had worn off completely.
“What we need is to find a nice cabin or a good cave.” Kelbin suggested. “Mebbe some woodman or forester’s place. We could make it our hideout. Then we could rob the Northcraven Road. I bet there’s a lot of women we could get there, some sweet cunny and some gold.”
“And the duke’s patrols.” Ilos added. “Us against a patrol of the duke’s rangers and there we are on the gallows again.”
“Well whose idear was it to go and leave the army?” Torri demanded. “Sure weren’t mine. If I’d had my say, we’d be up in Northcraven killing Auligs.”
“We’d be feeding crows up Northcraven way.” Ilos replied. “Same as Heroll and Dacks and every other damned fool who went up there. Fookin’ Auligs had to go and spoil everything.”
“Aye, fookin Auligs.” Agreed Kelbin. “Who knew there was so damned many of the black-haired devils?”
Sentinel located a buck grazing in tall grass on the top of a bald knob above the forest canopy and dove, and Lanae had to bite her tongue to keep from screaming. She tucked her head in tight to the eagle’s neck and held on while the rush of wind made tears stream down her cheeks. The eagle seemed un
concerned that she was cold and wet and miserable, and when he broke the buck’s spine, dodging the antlers adroitly and smashing the large deer into the grass, she nearly tumbled from his back.
When he began to shred the animal she climbed down and sat in the grass. The ground was grassy but not soft, and small rocks poked her as she sat and watched the eagle feast. Sentinel spattered blood while he ate, but the gore didn’t make Lanae queasy. She had seen him eat often enough. The sight of all of that meat sitting in the grass made her hungry, rather, and she wished she had the makings of a fire.
Anxiously she looked at the indistinct darkness growing around her. With the overcast sky she couldn’t judge the time, but she suspected that night wasn’t very far off. She needed to be in Nevermind soon, or all of her plans at a triumphant return would be shattered. Masterfarmer Felder would likely find her failure to arrive difficult to forgive, although she was certain many people in that city had seen her on Sentinel’s back, and the man had a gift for making up stories and likely excuses for her behavior as well. Idly she fingered the hem of the dress he had given her and looked around at the spot where the eagle had decided to have his evening meal.
She sat on the top of a fairly substantial hill, although only the top part of it rose above the forest. Half of its height would be below the treetops, and she found it a pleasant enough spot, despite the circumstances, with a wide view all around. The air was warm against her skin, and already the light cotton dress seemed to be getting drier, despite the lack of a sun to warm it.
She turned her head slightly and closed her eyes, breathing in the air deeply. There it was, she was certain of it, the smell of wood smoke! Looking all around, she saw a fine and nearly invisible thread of pale smoke rising from the forest below. It must be someone’s campfire, she realized, and where there was a fire there was surely food, and news.
Lanae was not a fool, however, and she knew that not all of those who might be abroad in this isolated forest were good folk. She determined to take a look at the fire while Sentinel ate, but she would be stealthy.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 46
