The Fire Sword

by Colin Glassey

  One thing she did know about the Keltens—they only married one woman at a time. Sandun was hers and hers alone. Did she miss him, her husband? Perhaps she did. Perhaps she hadn’t left her heart behind in Marsolil after all. She needed to spend more time with him. It wasn’t as though sleeping with him was disappointing. Far from it.

  Miri smiled. Perhaps she had new dreams after all: travel around the world, children, learning what her husband learned. There was a life worth living. It was possible, within her reach. She would just have to stretch out her arms.

  Chapter Nine

  Why Fight

  Nilin Ulim, supreme leader of the Army of Retribution, was angry. His constant companion: seething anger, with incidents of blinding rage. At least twice every day. Everyone avoided him except the two young women who were confined to his tent, and they had no choice in the matter.

  Now he would have to replace his spymaster—again. The first one had spent vast sums of money on exotic poisons and bribes, yet all there was to show for it was two unimportant people dead, with Arno Boethy, the Fire Toad, and his Kelten protectors still very much alive. That spymaster wisely did not return from the south to face Nilin’s wrath.

  His replacement had assured Nilin that the vagabond boatman, the so-called lord of Tokolas, would never bring an army north to fight for Kemeklos, despite the rumors to the contrary.

  Well, he had. And he had advanced with breakneck speed along the Jupol River, giving Nilin almost no time to respond. As Nilin cleaned the blood off his sword, he considered his options, which were dwindling by the day. At the start of the morning, there was only a single unconfirmed report that the Kunhalvar fleet had been sighted sailing up the Jupol. By the end of the day, four scouts had reported in, each one reporting the fleet from Tokolas was closer than the one before. Somehow, the boatman ruler of Tokolas was driving his fleet upriver at a speed of some sixty tik a day! Of course, Nilin’s own Sogand cavalry could move four times that speed for several days, but even so, the boatman was moving fast and with an army of between five and ten thousand soldiers.

  By the day’s end, Nilin was convinced that the boatman’s army was only two hundred tik south of Kemeklos. Two hundred tik! What was the good of a spy network if it only gave you information so late as to be nearly useless?

  What could he do? He knew what his foremost general, Fahjemon Orsbil, wanted to do: leave Kemeklos, abandon the siege. But Orsbil was getting old, and his frequent admonitions on matters political and military were themselves a source of Nilin’s fury. Why, just the other day, even before the news that the army from Tokolas was on his doorstep, Orsbil had told him to end the siege and turn east to Lake Rudohe and defeat the Iron Duke.

  “The Red Prophet is dead,” the fahjemon had stated with his air of superiority, born from long years fighting for the empire. “The best soldiers of the Red Swords have been exterminated at relatively little cost to ourselves. Kemeklos is a city of no importance. The people within are reduced to burning the wrecks of old houses for fuel. Even if we took it, we would be forced to withdraw in a month because it has no food and produces no taxes. The Iron Duke has an army of five thousand cavalry raiding imperial lands south of Daka. If we strike at him and the War Eagles send an army down against him from the north, we can catch him between our two armies and erase the Iron Duke, freeing us for new attacks on Kunhalvar and Kisvar and Zelkat.”

  But Nilin was in no mood to listen to Fahjemon Orsbil’s words of retreat. He was vexed, frustrated, balked. The siege of Kemeklos should have been over weeks ago. They had killed thousands of Red Swords, yet the defenses were holding, and there seemed to be just as many men on the walls as before. It was obvious that his own Serice mercenaries were letting the enemy resupply the city! His siege was leaky, and it was all the fault of the corrupt, lazy, and traitorous soldiers from Serica who took his money in pay and then turned a blind eye to Red Swords who sneaked through their lines at night carrying supplies, weapons, armor.

  What could he do? The Kitran, the Gorkiran, and, yes, even the Turan—they were cavalry, first and foremost. They fought from horseback! They didn’t sit in trenches dug in the earth, waiting to shoot an arrow up at a wall once an hour. Sogands as a rule didn’t like to fight on foot, not when there were horses or buffalo to ride. That was the job for the stupid Serice, earth men, farmers. This division had worked in the past; he knew this for a fact. The Sogand cavalry won the battles out in the field, while their hired Serice soldiers laid siege to cities, digging trenches, building wooden towers, starving the defenders, weakening them till the cities could be taken in a sudden furious assault.

  Why wasn’t it working now? What had changed? It wasn’t through laxness on his part. He had ordered the deaths of hundreds of the Serice mercenaries who were taking his money and supposedly fighting for him. Entire units had been decimated, with one out of every ten men randomly chosen for execution. At least thirty commanders had been beheaded for failing to actively patrol their lines at night. Yet seemingly nothing had changed, and his Serice soldiers were increasingly ill tempered and slovenly.

  Nilin wondered if the Turans were being bribed by the Red Swords. The Turan cavalry had been given the job of policing the Serice soldiers at night, a job deemed unsuitable for the elite Kitran cavalry. Yet all the Turans ever seemed to capture were rugs, which they happily added to their camps. Why were the Red Swords trying to bring rugs into Kemeklos? It made no sense to Nilin. The least ridiculous explanation was that the Turans were being given the rugs by the Red Swords. If the Turans were selling out their fellow Sogands, who could be trusted? If the Kitran Empire could only rely on Kitran tribesmen for loyal warriors, did they have the numbers necessary to hold Serica? Who knew? No census of the Kitran tribesmen had been done in at least half a century.

  In his heart he felt distress—covered by anger, blanketed by hate, but, yes, distress. Even if he slaughtered the impudent boatman’s army, what then? Vasvar was becoming stronger by the month. Its current ruler, the ruthless General Tuno, had taken most of the eastern shore of the Mur, and rumor had it that he was in the process of taking Buuk. To the southeast, the Iron King of Dombovar had proclaimed an alliance with the trio of warlords who ruled Monavar while his brother raided farmlands south of Daka. Dombovar was growing stronger, just like Vasvar. If—or rather when—he destroyed the boatman’s army, Nilin’s Army of Retribution couldn’t cross the Mur, not without a fleet, meaning someone else would take over Kunhalvar. His army would pay for the goods, while others would grasp the prize.

  What was happening in the world? What was he missing? There was some key to the lock, some hidden piece of knowledge that he did not have. The frustration made him angry; he gave his anger free rein, and now his spymaster was dead at his feet. He couldn’t get information from dead men, but he couldn’t tolerate failure. What could he do?

  Nilin stood in front of his command tent, in the center of an army of seven thousand Sogand cavalry, the best warriors in the world, and he was entirely alone. No one with any wit dared talk to him. The sun was setting in the west, red and with just a trace of heat. The whole army was waiting for his orders; he felt what seemed like the eyes of a thousand warriors upon him. There were so many things he could do: go east, go west, go south, or go north. Yes, he could even order his army north and attack Daka. He wondered whether any of the War Eagles had the courage to lead the army out to fight him. But that would be a betrayal of everything his father believed in. Out of the question.

  No, the simplest answer, the easiest course of action, the one that involved the least thought, was to take all his cavalry and go south and destroy the upstart boatman and his army of farmers and cooks and street sweepers. There was no time for ruses or feints, nor was he going to be scared away by a Serice army that dared to challenge him. Challenge? Hah! He would take on the lord of Tokolas in an even fight, any day, any time. His Sogands were worth three times the best Serice fight
ers. Even if the army of Kunhalvar was twenty thousand strong, he would still gladly fight them in the open field. He and his men were tired of waiting around for Kemeklos to fall. They would welcome a battle on the open plains; he knew he would.

  And afterward? The siege would continue, and eventually Kemeklos would fall. He would have two more victories to add to his fame. Contrary to Orsbil’s counsel, he would make Kemeklos his new base of operations. It had once served as the center of the mighty Gold Kingdom; it would be made to serve him.

  He summoned his chief of messengers. The wiry Kitran ran up and saluted.

  “Send a message to Fahjemon Orsbil. He is to hand over command of the Kemeklos assault force to his legemon and return to here immediately. Then find each one of my cavalry commanders and tell them all the cavalry will ride out at dawn tomorrow. We will find the enemy beside the Jupol River, we will destroy them, and then we will return. We will ride fast, like a storm out of the north.

  “Sound the trumpets, beat the drums. We go to battle! The Serice from south of the river wish to fight us, and we will give them what they want and more. Their blood will turn the Jupol red. The crows will feast on their flesh. Battle is at hand. We will taste the blood of our foes and revel in victory!”

  Shortly after midday, a messenger from the Red Swords brought news from Kemeklos: Nilin Ulim’s cavalry and his elite infantry were on the move. But the siege of the city was not being abandoned, at least not yet. A meeting was held on Lord Vaina’s flagship as it continued upriver. Teams of mules were pulling the battleships using a towpath that ran along the eastern riverbank.

  A second command center was set up on the main deck under a canopy, where scribes collected reports from the Kunhalvar cavalry, the Red Swords, and ordinary people. The scribes wrote up summaries of information and passed them into the main room.

  Inside Lord Vaina’s room, maps and papers hung from every inch of every wall as generals and ministers debated and argued. Lord Vaina was constantly on the move, listening to one conversation, offering suggestions, and then going on to the next group. Sandun and Valo Peli were at his side, asking questions, probing for weak understanding. As usual in war, there were many contradictory reports. Some had Nilin’s cavalry heading west on the road to Zelkat and Sasuvi. Others claimed that the Kitran were going east. One farmer claimed he had news from a crow that the army was leaving, heading north.

  Sandun proffered his analysis: “If the enemy goes north, east, or west, we don’t care. Only two directions matter to us. If he comes south to meet us, then we fight beside the river. If he redeploys his army to defend the south side of Kemeklos, then we must figure out how to break his siege, with the aid of the Red Swords inside Kemeklos.”

  “Nilin will not stay beside Kemeklos with the Red Swords threatening to stab him from behind.” Valo Peli spoke with calm assurance. “Kitran battle tactics revolve around their ability to retreat a mile or as much as ten miles. Time and again they have won by pulling back, letting the enemy come to them, becoming disorganized, and then striking with sudden fury, exploiting gaps and weaknesses in the advancing troops.”

  “But we won’t do that,” Lord Vaina said, rubbing his hands together. “We are going to stick by the river as though we were catfish in mud.”

  The reports that had the enemy going anywhere but south were put into a box, which began filling up throughout the afternoon.

  “What if they go east, then south, then west, and cut our supply line?” General Modi asked, sketching out a route on the map, part of which Sandun had ridden over the previous three days.

  “Nilin can’t know that the rest of your army outside Oardulos isn’t coming up to aid us,” Lord Vaina replied. “If Nilin strikes for Jupelos, he could find himself trapped between our army to the north and your army from the south.”

  “True, but that’s not happening,” said Modi with a worried expression.

  “He doesn’t know that,” Sandun offered. “For all he knows, we might have made an armistice with the Iron King. Even if Nilin takes Jupelos, what then? We break through his forces at Kemeklos, rescue the Radiant Prince, and then head south, ready to fight him beside the river, only now closer to our own territory. Renieth says we have enough supplies for two weeks.”

  The question repeated throughout the day was this: How many men did Nilin have on the move?

  Reports varied on this as well. At the least, he had about five thousand cavalry, with five hundred of the heavily armored buffalo riders. At the upper end, rumors were of twenty thousand Sogands heading south to crush them.

  “We can reason this out,” Sandun explained. “If Nilin had twenty thousand Sogand warriors, Kemeklos would have fallen already. I know from experience that cavalry are very hard to count; always their numbers are exaggerated. Ten thousand footmen can assemble packed closely in a square that two thousand cavalry could not fit in. On the other hand, how many Sogand warriors will Nilin leave behind? I think none. The Sogands always seek bloodshed, they will all want to be in on the battle.”

  “No doubt you are right,” Lord Vaina said. “If Nilin had fifteen thousand Sogand warriors, Kemeklos would have been taken before now. The real question is: How many infantry will he bring? Some? Will he pull off the soldiers guarding the north side of the city?”

  “He will bring very few,” Valo Peli offered. “Kitran battle plans make little use of foot soldiers except in sieges. Serica’s soldiers are held by the Kitran to be weak, slow, and unreliable. The few footmen will be guards for the camp or tending to the supplies.”

  By sunset, the situation clarified: Nilin Ulim’s cavalry were coming south to fight them. Somewhere between five and ten thousand Sogand cavalry were on the move. If Nilin’s horde pushed hard, they could ride as far as three hundred tik in a day: they could attack the Red Crane Army at any time from this hour onward.

  As the sun set, Lord Vaina ordered everyone out of his cabin except for Sandun, Renieth, and Valo Peli. The battleships were tied up along the shore, the army made hastily fortified camps along the river, and the cavalry patrolled the forests and hills north and east.

  As they ate fruit and freshly caught river fish, Lord Vaina said, “Given the forces Nilin has to work with, how does he beat us?”

  Valo Peli looked at Lord Vaina for some time with a carefully neutral expression, and then he spoke:

  “This is what I would do, were I commanding Nilin Ulim’s horde. I would harass your soldiers, night and day. I would send my cavalry up and down the river, attacking boats and felling trees to jam the river. I would be everywhere and nowhere. I would set fire to the town of Jupelos and grind down your cavalry with my superior numbers, fighting small engagements all along the line of advance. I would give your soldiers no peace at night and cause alarms every hour. I would plant spies among the Red Swords, spreading word of strange and terrifying events suggesting that the Mavana is not coming to bring peace but to destroy the world. Additionally, I would spread news that Kemeklos had surrendered and that the Radiant Prince had recognized Nilin as the incarnation of the Mavana. I would open false gaps in the siege of Kemeklos and destroy any soldiers that tried to make their way out. Finally, when your army arrived on the plains fifteen tik south of Kemeklos, I would deploy my entire army, infantry as well as cavalry, on both sides of the Jupol River and dare you to risk an attack. The army of Kunhalvar would be forced to attack a defended position, outnumbered and with elite Kitran cavalry threatening both of your flanks.”

  Lord Vaina was sobered for a minute as he considered the threats Valo Peli outlined. “And how would you defeat your own plan?”

  Valo Peli smiled grimly. “We must continue to advance with all speed. We must keep Nilin in a state of near panic. We must arouse his hate so that good suggestions are ignored and caution is cast aside. The faster we move, the more dangerous we appear. I guess he considers his footmen doubtful, and if we appear strong, he w
ill not risk relying on them in battle near Kemeklos. To forestall attacks on our supply lines, I recommend that three of the battleships be detached so they can patrol the river between here and Jupelos. As they go up and down the river, they can escort the smaller vessels, keeping them safe. We must expect the Kitran to block the river ahead with underwater spikes. From this point on, I recommend that that small ships at the front of the fleet drag the river with weighted nets. Other than this, speed is our most powerful ally.”

  Valo Peli sat back in his chair and glanced over at Minister Renieth. “Perhaps the young minister here can think of more stratagems that I have forgotten.”

  “Only this: they will use fire when possible,” Renieth replied. “If we find fields ahead that are yet unburned, we must be wary that Nilin will set fire to the crops and panic our soldiers. Also, they will try to set fire to our boats. I suggest that we prepare for this with water buckets and soaking mats along the sides of the ships. Speaking of the river, the Jupol becomes shallower the farther north we go. Our records say that the Jupol has not been dredged in fifty or perhaps seventy years. Even without spikes in the river, the battleships may be unable to travel all the way to Kemeklos.”

  “These boats are sized like the whale sharks, but of shallow draft.” Lord Vaina spoke about his captured battleships with pride. “To save weight and so float higher, I will leave the oars behind at this camp, and I will form the rowers from the other ships into a special penalty battalion. The promise of freedom in exchange for faithful service in the coming weeks might prove effective.”

  Sandun went above and found Miri sitting on a small carpet out on the rear deck, tuning her timbal.