by John Norman
“What now, Captain?” inquired Thurnock, unstringing his bow.
“We will leave a token force here,” I said, “to convince the enemy it is besieged. I doubt that he will dare the night, being unacquainted with our numbers. His cohorts near the beach, not hearing from him, will presumably investigate in the morning. He is thus well advised to await relief.”
“While growing ever more hungry and thirsty,” said Thurnock.
“They called for no terms and you proposed none,” said Clitus.
“Neither action would be in order,” I said. “For their part, they expect prompt succor. For my part, I prefer to keep the nature of their enemy as secret and mysterious as possible.”
“I do not think that they expected resistance,” said Clitus.
“Yet, in their numbers, they were prepared for it,” I said.
“I was impressed by Xanthos and the fellows from the village of Seleukos,” said Clitus. “Xanthos himself slew four of the enemy with his arrows.”
“He is new to the bow,” said Thurnock. “His marksmanship will improve.”
“What of Aktis?” I asked.
“Six,” said Thurnock. “But he lost some time with the fire arrows.”
Thurnock, I gathered, was pleased with his protégé.
“And what of Thurnock?” asked Clitus.
“I was not counting,” said Thurnock.
“We will now withdraw the bulk of our forces, make four camps, have a good supper, and get a good night’s sleep,” I said.
“I do not think the enemy within the palisade will sleep well,” said Thurnock.
“Will they be attacked? Will the gate be forced? Will the palisade be scaled?” said Clitus.
“Fear dresses itself in shadows,” said Thurnock.
“I think it probable that the enemy’s main force, or most of it, will march on Zeuxis in the morning,” I said.
“It seems then,” said Thurnock, “that we shall have a busy day tomorrow.”
“That is possible,” I said.
“It is only some four pasangs between the beach and Zeuxis,” said Clitus. “That is a short march.”
“Under certain conditions,” I said, “short marches may no longer seem short.”
“How so?” asked Clitus.
“Between the beach and Zeuxis,” I said, “there is much tall grass.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Battle of the Road
“They are coming now,” said Thurnock.
“I see them,” I said.
A small contingent of the corsairs, some ten men, was advancing before the larger column, consisting, we supposed, of some eight hundred men. The column, extending far behind, was separated by some two hundred yards from the advance group. This small advance group, I supposed, was intended to constitute something in the nature of a scouting or reconnoitering party. It stayed on the road. This suggested that there were few, if any, of the scarlet caste amongst the corsairs. Had there been I would have expected a point with flankers to the side, proceeding through the grass, each of whom would be in contact, by sound or visual signal, with the column itself. Perhaps, however, the corsairs, puzzled as they might have been by the lack of contact with the village raiders, now pinned within the palisade of the burned village, did not believe anything might be seriously amiss. Perhaps the village raiders were occupied, gathering loot, drinking home-brewed paga, abusing captives, pursuing fugitives, or such. In any event the advance party, which we would let pass, remained on the road and was out of touch with the main group. Given this arrangement, the advanced party might not even be aware, at least immediately, that the main group was under attack. Needless to say, the advance party’s narrow adherence to the road allowed our archers to be in a position to fire at almost point-blank range. Moreover, as our archers were on both sides of the road, the shields of our targets, which could face but one way at a time, would be largely ineffective. I expected the enemy, at least initially, to be unwilling to enter a locale in which it could scarcely see its way, given the high, mazelike grasses. Some might even try to retreat to the beach, accepting the perils of the gauntlet they must then run. I did not expect much discipline amongst the raiders. Thus, one might hope that the surprise following a sudden, unexpected attack might burst into panic, which, ideally, would be soon transmitted to their as-yet uninvolved cohorts. Had the enemy been disciplined, and had I assumed command following the attack, and I did not know the nature or numbers of the enemy, I would have ordered the retreat of the double-shield wall, that to reach the beach, my supplies, and additional support. In this retreat both sides of a moving column are covered by shields, one side changing the shield arm. What I did expect to take place, and what did take place, with various disorganized groups of the raiders, other than simple, precipitate flight, was either forming shield rings, circles of shields, which, in effect, immobilizes the group, or counterattacks in which the beleaguered group rushes into the grass, on one or both sides, shields forward, to close with the archers. In this situation the archers withdraw, usually in such a manner as to encourage the now-confident enemy to follow them into a trap, where swordsmen are waiting for them, swordsmen in groups likely to outnumber the pursuers.
“Xanthos,” I said.
The son of Seleukos, headman of the village of Seleukos, recently pillaged and burned, with two of his village cohorts, crouching down in the grass, were within whispering range.
“Captain?” he said.
“Recall your instructions,” I said.
“Be steady and focused,” he said. “Do not rush. Pick your targets with care, and change your place frequently.”
“And what are your targets?” I asked.
“First,” said he, “ideally, those who seem to be first, who appear to give commands, who seem to be obeyed, who seem to be leaders. Second, ideally, those who seem to accept the orders, and obey them promptly. And, lastly, the confused and bewildered, the stunned, the paralyzed, the immobile, the hiding, the running.”
“I wish you well,” I said.
“I, too, wish you well,” he said.
It requires patience, but patience is important. There is a time to wait, and a time to act. It was not now the time to act. What hunter is so foolish as to spring a trap prematurely, what fisherman so foolish as to draw his net too soon?
Thurnock’s knuckles seemed white, grasping his strung bow.
The advance party was now well down the road. If all went well, they might fail to be aware of what was to occur behind them. They might even reach Zeuxis, bearing news of an impending relief, before learning of an attack on the column. Then, one might hope that the supposedly besieged corsairs, hungry and thirsting, rejoicing in their putative delivery, might rush from the protection of the palisade to join the supposedly relieving column.
Thurnock looked at me.
I shook my head, “No.”
From where we knelt or crouched in the grass, but yards from the road, we could hear the voices of the men in the column, conversing, cursing, bantering, complaining. Carts should have been brought for their shields; the paga ration last night had been meager and of poor quality; the porridge this morning had been no better than slave gruel; yesterday’s column had spent a comfortable night in the village, carousing and sleeping, not in blankets between rowing benches; the best loot had already been seized and hidden, and so on.
I had distributed our men carefully.
Given our numbers, we could not begin to expose the entire column to a simultaneous attack. I hoped to cut the column in two, attacking its centrality. In this way, the enemy would be divided, and, for a time, both the first third of the column and the last third of the column, perhaps confused and uncertain, would not be engaged. Few men, undisciplined and disorganized, without competent leaders, are going to act promptly and resolutely. What brigand cares t
o rush into a possible danger the nature of which is not even clear to him, particularly if he observes his fellows routed and fleeing, desperately seeking their own safety?
Thurnock looked again at me.
I nodded.
He fitted a signal arrow to his bow, an artifact whose nature and use I had learned from the high warriors of the Pani, the men of two swords, at the World’s End.
Thurnock was an enormously large and strong man and his bow was mighty, one which few men could draw.
The arrow, with its shrill whistle, sped upward, farther and farther. My men were instructed to hold their fire until the sound lessened, stopped at the height of its missile’s long arc, and then began again, shrill again, in its plummeting descent.
I counted, successfully as it happened, on two things. First, the column would not understand the likely meaning of the arrow, and, accordingly, would not come to arms at its first note, and, second, the men of the column, detecting the arrow, would be likely, in fascination, to follow it in its flight, however apprehensively. That being that case, their heads lifted and their attention directed upward, they should constitute easy, close, stationary targets for the first volley of arrows from my men, rising from the grass and firing.
Well before the signal arrow had begun its descent, Thurnock had set a fresh arrow to his string and no sooner had the missile begun its descent than one of the corsairs, one in a crested helmet, knelt in the road, perhaps unclear as to what had occurred, and then collapsed. Then another corsair spun about, turned by the blow of an arrow. Xanthos, too, and his fellows, launched shafts.
There was much scrambling about and cries of rage and horror from the road. Archers sprang up, loosed shafts, and disappeared again, in the grass, only to rise again, to release another shaft, often from a different position. Few of the corsairs dared to plunge into the grass, and those who did, pursuing archers, were led, as by phantoms, into places where swordsmen rose behind them, before them, and about them. The center of the column was shattered and, in moments, as corsairs fled, the road was empty save for dust, bodies, and loot bags. Interestingly, neither the first third of the column nor the last third of the column came to the relief of their beleaguered fellows. The last third of the column and some remnants of the broken center hurried back to the beach, where the corsair fleet lay to, some forty or so yards offshore. I later learned from some of my men who followed them, keeping apprised of their movements, that their plea to be taken aboard the fleet’s ships was refused. Subsequently they dug, largely with their helmets, a semicircular trench with the sea at their backs. This trench was walled toward the land by the dislodged sand and surmounted by a shield wall. The openness of the broad beach would deny cover to archers and we would not choose to attack in force as that would risk our men unduly, storming a fortified position, and might well reveal the paucity of our numbers. That the corsairs were not aware of our numbers, or even who we were, were factors, however limited, in our favor. We had, at Zeuxis, and on the road, profited enormously from the element of surprise, but the chances of repeating such a stroke were now minimal. The enemy was now alerted and wary.
“Do not pursue the fugitives,” I had said. “Such might betray our numbers. Rather, let them, bewildered and in consternation, sow the seeds of panic amongst their fellows.”
“What of the beginning of the column, and the men from within the palisade?” asked Thurnock.
“Close the road,” I said. “I do not think they will care to traverse it. Should any enter the grass, give way before them, and lead them to the waiting swords. If others, avoiding the road, decline engagement, follow them and harass them. See that few reach the beach. But I expect that most, learning the danger of the road, will withdraw into the palisade.”
“It will be most crowded,” said Thurnock.
“I think I know such men,” I said. “I think soon they will kill for a mouthful of water, should any be found.”
“There will be none to be found,” said Thurnock. “The villagers, in their evacuation, saw to that.”
“Captain,” said Xanthos, “they will surely, in one or two days, become desperate and rush forth, shields forward, in numbers we will be unable to resist or turn back.”
“They do not know that,” I said. “What could they have to hope for but a swift and bloody death, pitting themselves against our vast numbers.”
“‘Our vast numbers’?” said Xanthos.
“In their mind,” I said.
“What do you expect them to do?” asked Thurnock.
“First,” I said, “attempt to ascertain our numbers.”
“And when they cannot do so?” asked Thurnock.
“What do you think they will do, hungry, thirsting, and frightened,” I asked, “before risking all on a final, desperate rush to freedom, losing themselves, perhaps to a man, against possibly insurmountable odds.”
“Parley,” said Thurnock.
“Precisely,” I said.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The Parley
“You are, I take it,” I said, “the dreaded Bosk of Port Kar, come from that port known to many as the Scourge of Thassa, that Bosk of Port Kar come to mercilessly pillage and plunder the innocent, peace-loving Farther Islands of Thassa, Thera, Chios, and Daphna?”
“I am indeed he, Bosk, of Port Kar,” said the fellow in the absurd wig, “but I am come not to disturb the gentleness of peace, dear to us as well as you, but rather to wage dire war upon aggressive, threatening Cos, our mutual and perennial enemy.”
“How then,” I asked, “is it that you would attack the small village, Zeuxis?”
“It is a nest of Cosian spies and sympathizers,” he said. “Unfortunately, knowing their wickedness and our resolve, they fled before we could punish them. I trust that you are not of the village of Zeuxis.”
“No,” I said.
“Notice,” he said, uneasily, looking about, “we bear the green flag of parley.”
“That has not escaped my attention,” I said.
“I have emerged from the palisade,” he said, “under conditions of parley.”
“I understand,” I said.
“But I see no flag of parley borne by one of your followers,” he said.
“That is because we did not bring one,” I said. “We of the Peasantry do not always see things as you of the cities see them.”
“We came unarmed to this meeting outside the gate,” he said.
“That was one of my conditions,” I said.
“But you and your followers are armed,” he said.
“I set the conditions as I please,” I said.
“Is that just?” he asked.
“What is justice?” I asked. “Is it just that we roast captives on spits, that we bait our hooks with the flesh of prisoners, that we feed our enemies, bound and screaming, to starving tarsks?”
My interlocutor turned white.
I trusted that Thurnock and Aktis were not paying close attention.
“I have brought twenty of my followers, unarmed, and of diverse ranks and importance,” he said.
“Another of my conditions,” I reminded him. I had made this a condition because I wanted the outcome of this parley, or, better, some version of it, to be widely disseminated amongst the corsairs, preferably by rumors, innuendoes, and exaggerations. I wanted the least of the brigands to have some idea, and, ideally, a terrifyingly inaccurate idea, as to what took place.
“Yet,” he said, “you have, surely, better than two hundred men with you.”
“My personal bodyguard,” I said.
“So many?” he asked
“Yes,” I said.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Eiron, of the Fields of Chios,” I said, “commander of the Peasant Army.”
“There is no Peasant Army,” he said.
“I do not think there is such an army,” he said.
“The Peasantry rises,” I said. “The Islands are weary of the depredations of pirates, the oppressions, economic and military, legal and illegal, of violent, savage Cos. We think of liberty. It is in the air, like the wind of Se’Kara or the scent of the sea. The wooden shoe, tied to the lance point, is even now being carried from village to village.”
“Show me this army,” he said.
“Return to the palisade,” I said. “Eat cinders and drink ashes. In two or three days you will thirst to death. It matters not to us. It saves us time and arrows. Even now you are hungry and weak. Shortly you will not be able to carry a shield or hold a sword. Do you truly think that you, even now, in your present condition, could fight your way, outnumbered ten to one, to the beach, to join your fellows? If so, withdraw, consult with your high officers, and then, within the Ahn, charge bravely forth, and die, by the end of the same Ahn.”
I turned about.
“Wait, noble Eiron, he of the Fields of Chios,” he called.
I faced him, once more.
“It is true we are in straits,” he said.
“That is why you called for this parley,” I said.
