The Severed City

by Christopher Mitchell

‘They’re coming,’ Echtang cried.

  ‘Soon,’ said Agang, standing beside him in the front ranks.

  Behind them, arrayed up the gentle slope of a hillside, were four full regiments of his finest warriors, sweating in the humid summer air.

  ‘They’re waiting for those clouds to pass,’ Agang went on, ‘then they’ll strike when the sun is in our eyes.’

  Agang smiled as his nephew craned his neck up at the sky.

  ‘It won’t be long,’ he said. ‘You’ll have your first battle soon. I know how you chafed whenever your brother talked about his part in last summer’s campaigns. Now you’ll get your chance.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Echtang said, ‘though I’m still surprised you let Anganecht’s force take the lead in the battle today. The fighting may be over by the time we reach any Holdings.’

  ‘Echtang, my boy,’ Agang said, ‘Anganecht has two thousand warriors. Our scouts reported four thousand heavily armoured Holdings cavalry enter the eastern end of the valley this morning.’

  He looked down at his nephew.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘we’ll see some fighting today.’

  In contrast to the ordered discipline of the black-uniformed ranks behind them, four dozen paces ahead the lines of Anganecht’s warriors milled and jostled, smoked and drank, and sang rousing songs of violence.

  The combined forces of Anganecht’s two thousand and Agang’s four thousand had been marching separately from the rest of the army ever since they had emerged from the river canyon onto the grassy hills of the Plateau five days previously. They had marched out in the open by day, while the rest had skulked and crept through the hours of darkness, always remaining a half-day’s march behind Agang’s advance force.

  To the confusion of his officers and allies, Agang had insisted on this formation, relying on what Chane had told him about the power of Holdings’ mages. She had been adamant that the nearby border fort would have a decent vision mage, in order to ensure the Rahain didn’t mount a surprise attack. She said he needed to assume that any such mage would routinely scan the environs of the border.

  She had been right.

  Just as she had predicted, the border garrison had been seen approaching the day before, without a single scout being spotted anywhere in the vicinity. His plan relied on the Holdings taking the reports from their mages at face value, hoping their arrogance would blind them to the fifteen thousand other Sanang that hid in the undergrowth every sunrise, and who were now hurrying to their positions.

  Echtang rolled his shoulders and scratched his neck, rubbed raw by the steel cuirass he was wearing.

  ‘Stop fidgeting,’ Agang said, as the clouds cleared and the sun shone through.

  ‘Sorry, uncle.’

  The harsh note of a Sanang horn went up.

  ‘That’s the first signal,’ Agang called out to his captains. ‘Anganecht’s warriors have sighted the Holdings cavalry. Stand fast.’

  He strained his ears, and heard it, the low rumble of thousands of hooves tearing through the grass ahead. His heart jumped, and he took a breath.

  Out in the sunlight, with no forest around, he felt almost naked.

  Doubts sprang into his mind. What was he thinking, attempting to stand up against Holdings cavalry on open ground? The valley sides rose steeply on either side, but there was still plenty of room for cavalry to manoeuvre. The slope where his own regiments were stationed offered some protection, but looked too gentle to stop a head-on charge.

  The rumble grew louder, and he could feel the vibrations come up through his boots.

  The warriors in Anganecht’s battalion began roaring their battle cries, intoxication rendering them oblivious to the danger of thousands of pounds of horseflesh thundering towards them.

  From his slight elevation, Agang saw the ranks of cavalry come into view, their armour blinding in the morning sun. He shielded his eyes. The cavalry raced through the grass like a shining apparition, like an army sent from the gods, their polished breastplates and shields gleaming, their longswords pointing to the heavens.

  ‘Holy fuck,’ Echtang whispered. ‘Sorry uncle.’

  Agang ignored him, counting down the seconds.

  ‘Get ready!’ he called out.

  There was a horrendous noise as thousands of horses, Holdings and Sanang collided. Screams cut through the air.

  ‘Now!’ Agang raised his sword, and took a pace back.

  The herald next to him nodded, and blew a single long note on his horn.

  The first three lines of his army reached down and picked up the eight-foot wooden stakes they had been equipped with, sharpened at both ends.

  Each warrior pushed one end into the soft grassy hillside, and angled the other end out, forming a bristling wall of pikes. Each then locked their shields together into a long unbroken wall. Agang took up a stake in the second row, gripping it and bracing himself, his shield overlapping with those on either side. Below, the Holdings cavalry were carving their way through the ragged lines of his ally’s warriors, their swords flashing in the sun.

  ‘Anganecht’s forces will break soon,’ he called to Echtang, who was holding a shield and pike close behind him in the third row. ‘Hold firm.’

  Within moments, warriors began running from Anganecht’s lines. Seeing the hostile forest of pikes blocking their retreat, they pulled up in shock.

  They scattered left and right, trying to escape the cavalry onslaught before the entire line broke. Then it was too late, and Anganecht’s forces were driven back by the swords of the cavalry, who were cutting through them like a scythe through long grass.

  Hundreds fell as the cavalry slashed through the Sanang lines. Some among Anganecht’s warriors were pleading with Agang’s soldiers to let them pass the shieldwall, but his men remained steady, and kept their lines solid and impenetrable.

  The noise grew, from the cries of horses and the ringing of steel, to the death screams of Sanang warriors trodden under the momentum of the cavalry charge.

  The first Holdings cavalry troopers reached the forest of Agang’s pikes. Their horses reared, and several were impaled, unable to halt due to the press from behind. Then the cavalry wheeled, dividing before Agang’s lines.

  ‘Centre!’ Agang called. ‘Pull back!’

  His herald blew two short notes on his horn, and the ranks around where Agang stood began hefting their stakes up out of the ground.

  Agang heaved, and pulled his stake free. At once, survivors of Anganecht’s battalion began trying to force their way through, but Agang’s soldiers locked their shields against them, and began withdrawing. On the left and right, Agang could see his two outer regiments holding their lines, as ahead the Holdings re-formed for another charge, leaving the field littered with dead Sanang.

  When they had retreated forty paces up the hillside Agang raised his hand, and the horn blew once.

  As one, the ranks of soldiers held their shields to their front and pushed their stakes back into position. Agang gave his stake to a soldier from the fourth line, and stepped back.

  Ahead, the Holdings cavalry troopers had exchanged their swords for lances, and were forming into ranks. A trumpet sounded clear and sharp.

  They charged, the centre heading for Agang, and wings peeling off to assault the regiments on his outer flanks.

  ‘Archers!’ Agang called.

  As far as he knew, the Holdings had never seen any Sanang warrior use a bow in warfare. His people viewed the weapon as useful for hunting only, and shameful in battle. Killing from a distance was deemed the mark of an utter coward, and he had needed to enlist criminals and outcasts to make up his new corps of archers. They knew how to use a bow, every Sanang male did. All Agang had needed to do was get them to shoot in the same direction at the same time. Training had not been easy.

  The captain of his archers saluted him.

  Agang nodded.

  ‘Draw!’ the officer called out to his men.

  Two hundred bowmen readied their arr
ows. Agang turned, watching as the Holdings approached.

  He waited until they had entered the funnel between his two outer regiments, then raised his hand.

  ‘Loose!’ cried the officer.

  The air behind him moved as two hundred arrows sped overhead. The sunlight flickered for a second as they fell into the charging ranks of cavalry, felling dozens, and causing others to crash and career out of control.

  ‘Shoot until you run out of arrows,’ Agang said to the captain, who nodded, a wicked grin on his face.

  A roar came from his left, and he saw that his regiment on that flank was being pressed hard, attacked from an angle by a detachment of cavalry. Its lines were shaken, but more men from the rear were moving up in support and it was holding steady.

  His attention swung back to the front as the cavalry crashed into his main lines, the long lances of the enemy finding their targets, and spearing Sanang pikemen where they stood. Agang picked up a stake and pulled his shield into position. He leapt into a gap formed by a falling warrior, and lunged out with the stake, wielding it like a spear in his right hand.

  His thrust bit deep into the flank of a horse, and it threw its rider, whose head was crushed by another horse as he fell.

  Agang looked to each side, and located Echtang. The young man was still in the third line, grasping onto his long pike. The lines in front of them were locked together in a mesh of lances and pikes, as the front ranks of each side were impaled and crushed in the press.

  More horn blasts echoed across the valley.

  ‘Mandalecht’s regiments,’ he called out to Echtang. ‘Right on time.’

  From the slope, Agang could see the fresh soldiers arriving, swarming across the valley side from the north, behind the mass of cavalry. Agang bit his lip as he watched them. He had pressed home to Mandalecht the importance of closing the distance as quickly as possible, to ensure no major detachments of cavalry evaded encirclement.

  He smiled. He knew the Sanang could run fast, but witnessing four thousand soldiers sprint across the valley, like an unstoppable river surge, was a sight that made his heart miss a beat.

  ‘It’s working,’ Echtang cried, watching as he crouched behind his shield, shoving forwards into the lines, his pike extended.

  Before the cavalry had sensed the danger, Mandalecht’s regiments slammed into them from behind. His warriors had been issued with short stabbing swords and shields, and were wreaking carnage on the horses. The beasts, unable to turn and lacking any space to manoeuvre, began concentrating into a thick mass of vulnerable flesh. The troopers flailed around with their lances, as the Sanang cut through them.

  With eight thousand of his soldiers now surrounding four thousand stationary Holdings cavalry, and with arrows still raining down upon them, Agang took a step back from the front. Soldiers from the lines behind him were still surging forwards, keeping up the pressure of pikes and holding the shieldwall.

  ‘Where are the rest of the allies?’ Echtang said, as he followed Agang to the rear of the lines.

  ‘They’ll be here,’ Agang said. ‘They’ve been waiting to see if I could win the battle on my own. Now they know the field is mine, they won’t want to miss out on the glory.’

  ‘What if we’d been losing?’

  He smiled. ‘They would have waited until my army had been destroyed, and then they would have descended upon the exhausted cavalry like vultures. And tomorrow, Sanang would have a new high chief.’

  ‘Look uncle,’ Echtang pointed, as a great mass of warriors appeared over the brow of the hill to the west.

  ‘Herald,’ Agang said, ‘call the order to make way.’

  The young man nodded and blew three short blasts, followed by one long.

  It took a moment for the effect to become visible, but Agang’s four regiments of pikemen began withdrawing, leaving their embedded stakes in place, along with the heaps of impaled corpses and dead horses. They formed two lines of shields, leading from the top of the hill where the mass of allies had gathered, down to the great body of crammed-in cavalry being herded up against the pikes, as Mandalecht’s swordsmen kept up their assault from the rear.

  There was an enormous roar from the allies, and they charged down the hill between Agang’s regiments and through the forest of pikes, smashing into the panicking mass of cavalry. Agang watched as they passed, each lost in his own world of ferocious bloodlust, each howling for a chance to strike at their most hated enemy.

  Echtang fidgeted at his side while Agang’s forces withdrew step by step, keeping their formation as the hordes of Sanang warriors surged into the carnage at the bottom of the hill.

  ‘Do you wish to join them, nephew?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, uncle.’

  ‘You have already fought bravely today,’ Agang said. ‘You have no need to prove anything more.’

  ‘Holding a pike, uncle,’ Echtang said, ‘well, it didn’t feel like real fighting.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ Agang said. ‘Take a detachment from the lines. Try not to get them all killed.’

  ‘Thank you uncle,’ Echtang grinned, before running off to a young officer he knew.

  ‘The youth and their vigour,’ said a voice behind him.

  Agang smiled. ‘Our victory must be assured if our chief minister deigns it safe enough to get this close to the front.’

  ‘So our little tricks and subterfuges worked, my lord?’ Hodang said. ‘How the songs will mark this day, the glory of this moment, with you crowned by the most pure sunrise. A blood red massacre at dawn, a crimson day, a hard day.’

  Agang watched from the hillside as the tight ring of Holdings cavalry grew inexorably smaller. As the crescendo of carnage and the stench of horseshit and death assaulted his senses, he turned away.

  ‘Back to the command tents, my lord?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The battle’s over. Only the slaughter remains, and I have no wish to witness it.’

  Chane was waiting for him in his private reception tent, wearing a dark red dress and a closed expression. Servants hurried around with drinks and platters of food, as Agang and Hodang entered, passing the guards at the door.

  ‘Congratulations, my lord,’ she said, holding her head high.

  He nodded to her, and sat down on his raised chair, the gleaming standards of the army stacked up behind him. A cup of honeyed wine was put into his hand, and he drank deep.

  ‘My friends,’ he said, raising his cup, ‘may your sound advice never cease.’

  Chane and Hodang shared a glance. Agang knew she mistrusted his chief minister, but he relied on them both, and was glad she was keeping her feelings to herself.

  The doorflap opened and his allies, Drechtan and Badranga, appeared in the entranceway. Hodang and Chane took up their positions at Agang’s shoulder.

  ‘A great victory, my lord!’ Drechtan called out. ‘We thrashed them as thoroughly as we did at the Twinth last year.’

  There was a cheer from the officers and chiefs crowding the hallway behind him.

  ‘Or should I say,’ Drechtan continued, ‘thrashing them, for the slaughter goes on as we speak.’

  ‘It will last a while yet, I daresay,’ Hodang said. ‘It takes time to put thousands of Holdings and their horses to the sword.’

  Agang noticed the corner of Chane’s mouth twitch, but she said nothing.

  ‘Where is Anganecht, my lord?’ Badranga said, striding into the tent and taking a cup from a servant. ‘Great honour is due to him, as the one who stood at the head of the army, and faced the enemy before any other.’

  ‘His men fought most bravely,’ Hodang said, his eyes flicking over to Agang.

  ‘Indeed,’ Agang said. ‘I’m pleased that I gave him the honour, he did everything that his high chief asked of him, and performed nobly. I fear though that he may have lost his life in the first charge of the enemy cavalry. We might not know his fate for certain until the battlefield has been cleared.’

  A messenger entered the tent, bowed, and hel
d out a long furled pennant.

  ‘Speak,’ Agang commanded him.

  ‘My lord,’ the messenger said, ‘a gift from Commander Mandalecht Naro.’

  He unfurled the flag, and held it out. On a flat green background, a silhouette of a leaping horse had been stitched in shining black satin, over which seven golden stars shone.

  ‘The standard of the enemy commander, my lord,’ the messenger said, amid applause and cheers from the officers and chiefs. He knelt in front of Agang and placed the flag on the steps before him.

  ‘And where is Commander Mandalecht?’ Agang asked.

  ‘On his way here, my lord,’ he replied. ‘He asked me to report that he has withdrawn your regiments, and handed over command of the eastern flank to the allies.’

  ‘Very good,’ Agang nodded, and the messenger left.

  ‘I’ll admit,’ said Badranga, ‘that I had some doubts about your plan, my lord. All that sneaking about in the dark, and waiting, but it worked. From what we could see from the hilltop, the horsemen fell right into your trap. When this day is done, there will be enough swords, lances and armour for every warrior in the army to receive their share.’

  ‘A few extra weapons don’t matter,’ Drechtan said. ‘Lord Agang has eliminated the only Holdings garrison for a hundred miles around. There remains no credible force between us and the gates of their capital city.’

  ‘We’re not going to their capital,’ Hodang said. ‘This is a mobile raid, not a siege army.’

  There was applause from the officers by the doorway, and Mandalecht entered, a grinning Echtang walking next to him. The young man’s armour was smeared in blood, and his eyes were wide. In contrast, the expression of the one-eyed older commander was dour and grim.

  ‘My lord,’ he saluted.

  ‘Well done, Commander,’ Agang said. ‘Your timing was perfect, and your execution immaculate.’

  Mandalecht grunted, and sat at a bench, taking a cup of wine.

  ‘And nephew,’ Agang went on, ‘I’m happy to see you in one piece.’

  ‘I wanted to stay longer,’ he said, ‘but old Mandalecht insisted I return. Still, it was worth it. I killed eight soldiers, uncle. They were screaming for mercy as we cut them down.’ He laughed. ‘They had nowhere to run!’