Donarec and the Warlord

by Zackery Arbela

  “They all look alike to me,” Usku sneered back. “And they all sound the same when I have them on their back for a good stabbing!”

  “Be off, girl!” Kastu pointed at Tudai, then waved her on. “You are free to go…”

  “Stay where you are!” Uska’s sword shifted towards Tudai, then moved back to Kastu. “This isn’t the business of the Iolo family,” he said angrily. “I can do as I wish, that is my right…”

  “You Vaiens don’t have the right to ignore the law!” Kastu shot back. “Your disregard and low behavior shames all Irzemyai! We lead through moral example, not our base appetites!

  Swords were drawn. The people in the plaza saw what was happening, and quickly cleared away, shouts of alarm rising. Donarec and his friends remained where they were, forgotten as some other quarrel of which they knew little and cared even less took precedence.

  And then…

  “Put up those blades!” A third group of riders galloped forward, drawing their swords and reining. “Now!” shouted their leader, who wore a tabard marked with three leaping flames, as did the men with him. “There will be no blood here!”

  “Joam Yozara!” Kastu turned to him. “This is between us and these Vaien swine! The Yozara’s are not part of this!”

  “Bugger off!” Uska added.

  The man called Joam Yozara waved his arm around the plaza. “The Nozoko Market is under the protection of the Yozara family! My family! All these merchants look to us for order and peace! I will not let you dishonor us!”

  “Irzemyai come first,” Kastu responded. “And the law is not above my honor!”

  “To hell with your honor!” Uska raised his sword to a guard position. “Draw some blood, boys!”

  Swords were raised, mouths opened to shout war cried. And then horns sounded from the edge of the square, as a fourth group of riders galloped in. Their leader held a pole with a black banner flapping from the top. At its sight the other three parties lowered their swords, many even sheathing them hastily.

  “In the name of the Warlord,” the bannerman bawled, “put up your blades! Any man who breaks our lord’s peace this day will see the dawn with his head on a spike! So it is decreed!”

  The men behind the black banner outnumbered the other three groups, and they swiftly put away their weapons and held out their hands in a sign of peace. The banner man nodded, and people returned to the plaza, as it became clear there would be no bloodshed on this day.

  The bannerman nodded in approval. He then looked over his shoulder, and saw Donarec and his friends riding away. “You there!” he called out, pointing at them. “Stop! In the name of the Overlord, I place you under arrest! Seize them now!”

  On the march, a long time ago…

  They were far from the sea now, marching north across a broad savanna dotted here and there with stands of tall spindly trees whose tops spread out suddenly, like the bushy ends of long brooms, waving back and forth in the breeze. The sound the wind made as it whistled through the branches carried over the land, across the plains, a soft, melodic sigh, ever present when even the slightest breeze kicked up. Emengalla, that’s what the local savages called it, the Singing Land.

  Now it was a land in chaos. The men who were once Servants marched in a squarish formation, two Great Companies in the front, one on each side and the last taking rear guard. In the middle were those few Nam’shaq who had come with Serezaam, and a detachment of warriors ordered to drive the wagons on which their supplies were loaded. It was not a popular assignment; the Osa’shaq handled the beasts poorly and the wagons themselves were of savage design and thus, to their eyes, unspeakably crude. It slowed their pace, and in this land that was not a good thing.

  Emengalla was a land of walls and fortifications. Walls of mud brick surrounded even the meanest village or homestead, wooden palisades ringed villages, stone walls surrounded towns and cities. Every place with a wall had its own lord who acknowledged no man as his master, and the Masters in their turn made sure to pit them against one another, sending their Nam’shaq agents to foment strife, sending the Osa’shaq when more direct means were needed. The usual strategy, used here and in every other country on this world, in preparation for the Final Conquest; when the Masters plan reached its culmination and they revealed their strength openly, the savages would be so weakened by internal strife that they would fall without a fight. The same Plan used on countless other worlds.

  But now the Masters were gone. Serezaam and his men marched through lands torn apart by the aftermath of their schemes. Ruined towns and villages dotted the landscape, their walls broken and burnt, their inhabitants dead or scattered. For two nights they camped in the ruins of a once-great city, scavenging through the ruins for anything of use, and coming away with several wagons drawn by half-starved horses. Abandoned farms were searched for anything edible, the army living off what meager resources the land could provide. Bands of robbers and raiders trailed after them, prowling along their flanks, looking for any weakness.

  Hence the defensive formations. Five thousand armed men marching through bandit country...honey for hungry flies. Normally such scum wouldn’t risk an attack, but the countryside around them was picked bare, and desperation made lions out of mice.

  “Scouts found another lot, marching parallel to the east.” A pair of severed heads dropped to the ground. Serezel rolled one over with his foot and stared into the grimacing visage of a dead brigand, blood leaking from the neck.

  “How many?” he asked.

  Orazaak wiped a damp rag over his face, clearing away the dust and grime he’d picked up on the patrol. “Twenty thousand,” he said. “Split between three groups for now, but we saw riders passing between them. They’re joining forces to attack us.”

  “It makes sense.” Arragaz came over. “We’re the most valuable target in this country. Every bandit for three hundred miles must here.”

  “Twenty or a hundred thousand, it makes no difference,” Kazovar declared. “One of ours is worth a hundred savages...hey, you!” He turned around, shouted at an Osa’shaq who was standing before a recalcitrant horse, his hand on his sword. “Cut down that beast and you’ll be pulling that wagon yourself! Leave it be!”

  The warrior let go of the sword and saluted, Kavovar glared at him a moment longer, then turned back to Serezaam and Orazaak. “My men are not wagon drivers,” he said.

  “Nor are they cooks,” Orazaak responded. “Last night’s dinner was near-inedible.”

  “And when it’s your turn at the stewpot, the result will be the same.” Serezaam rubbed the back of his neck, as he was wont when lost in thought. “All the Gur’shaq remained at the Great Encampment with Tugorzil.” He referred to the support staff that did all the menial work so the warriors could fight - blacksmiths, sweepers, wagon drivers and cooks, among many others. Traditionally they were not runemarked, and many were recruited from the savages, given a modicum of training and then disposed off when longer needed. “There was no time to get them, and none of us thought it necessary.”

  “Well, it is now,” Kazovar said. He then fell silent at Serezaam’s gesture.

  “One problem at a time,” Serezaam said. “And for now we must deal with those raiders, who will most certainly attack us once they have combined forces.”

  “And they will die,” said Orazaak grimly.

  “No doubt, but I would prefer if casualties on our end were kept to a minimum. Every Osa’shaq that falls cannot be replaced.” Serezaam looked northwards, and pointed. “Do you see that hill?”

  Orazaak and Kazovar looked. “Yes,” said the former. “Not very tall.”

  “But taller than anything else in this region.” Serezaam nodded. “The high ground will be to our advantage. If we leave now, we can make it before sundown. We wait for the enemy to attack, on our terms.”

  Orazaal nodded. “As you command.” He left, calling runners over to spread the word.

  The resting army quickly went on the march again, headed towar
ds the distant hill. Before he rejoined his Great Company, Kazovar said, “One other thing - there are other savages besides the bandits following us. Peasants mostly, with women and children.”

  “Refugees?” asked Serezaam.

  Kazovar nodded. “They move in small groups, but there are many of them, hiding in the brushland and following in our path. The bandits are keeping their distance from us, which keeps them safe.”

  “For now.” Serezaam rubbed the back of his head again. “Think you there are wagon drivers and cooks among them?”

  They reached the mound an hour before sunset. By the time the sun dropped below the horizon, all five companies were on the hill, set up in battle formation, bows in hand and arrows at the ready. Serezaam was on the summit, which gave him a fine view of the darkening landscape. Runelight flared as the night fell, and the men shifted about slightly as their enhanced vision compensated, allowing them to see well enough in the darkness to note the great mass of men headed toward the hill.

  The wind carried the noise of thousands of marching men and horse churning up the ground. Drums beat and horns sounded. Torches flared in the night, revealed ragged men in stolen armor, worn leather or rags, holding any weapon they could get a hand on, moving in no real order, for they looked to strength of numbers for victory. Moving ahead of them was a rough line of horsemen, armed with long spears or javelins, their curved swords sheathed and bouncing at their sides.

  Someone bellowed a war cry, which was taken up by the rest. The shout echoed for a long moment, causing birds to rise up from some bushes at the base of the hill in fright. When the noise died down, Serezaam took a breath and bellowed out, “Captains, loose your arrows at will! And don’t shoot the horses! We need more of them! Shoot the riders instead!”

  The orders were passed on. After that it was merely a matter of waiting. The screaming horde charging toward the hill might have been a fearful sight to some, but Serezaam knew how this would end. He’d seen it happen too many times before. First came the order to nock, the Osa’shaq archers in the front rank pulling the yard-long arrows planted into the earth. Like the black bows to which they were fitted, they were made not of wood but of a woven metal whose creation was a secret of the Masters, the same material that made up their armor and the blades of their swords. Powerful, strong, nearly unbreakable. At the order from the Great Captains the strings were drawn back until they touched the corners of their mouths, muscles bunching and runes flaring at the draw weight, so much more than an ordinary man could pull unaided.

  The Great Captains gauged the distance, and gave the order. “Loose!” Thousands of shafts released, shrieking through the air, the sound deliberate to unnerve their targets. As commanded they aimed at the riders, and mounted bandits were hurled out of their saddles, the shafts dropping down like bolts from the night and punching right through the bodies, some passing through entirely to bury themselves in the ground behind. Not all shafts hit, but enough so that a third of the charging riders died within moments.

  A moment later came the second volley, and then a third, after which the order was given to stop, out of a desire to conserve the black metal shafts more than anything else. Like their swords and armor, and the Osa’shaq themselves, they were irreplaceable. Riderless horses were already running away, moving around the hill and away from the screaming mob behind them. All but a handful of riders were dead, and those last fleeing for their lives. If their flight caused any doubt among the rest of their compatriots coming up behind, it didn’t slow them down any.

  Carried on by their own momentum, the bandits reached the foot of the hill and started up the slopes. Above them the Osa’shaq reached back and drew the long swords slung over their shoulders.

  “No quarter!” Serezaam shouted “Kill them all!”

  “Attack!” Kazovar shouted to his men, the word echoed by the other Great Captains. The Osa’shaq moved forward, attacking in silence as was their custom, without a battle cry, all the more to unnerve their enemies. They came down the hill, using the slope to pick up momentum, runelight flaring, the attacking brigands wailing in fear as they realized death was coming and there was no escape.

  A wave of screams and shouts came up the hill, and a red mist rose over the struggling mass of men below. Osa’shaq moved in quickly, their swords striking out so fast men dropped before them even knew their heads were cut off or their abdomens sliced open and their guts falling out. Attacks with spears and axes were dodged with ease, or clacked off the black armor and helmets. Soon, far too soon the cry went up to flee and the great mass of men, far less than the twenty-thousand that first attack, turned and ran. The Osa’shaq followed after, killing all in their path as ordered. No survivors, they’d see it done. They’d done it before.

  By dawn the slopes of the hill were hidden under a carpet of the dead, as were the plains beyond. The last of the Osa’shaq were straggling back, seemingly no worse for wear despite the nghs activities. They joined the rest of their fellows scouring the battlefield, kicking over bodies to pick up any of the black metal arrows they could find, groans and grimaces rising when they found some of the supposedly unbreakable shafts bent or snapped, a terrible loss.

  Serezaam was on the field with Kazovar, Orazaak and the other Great Captains. “How many did we lose?”

  Terakaz, one of the Great Captains, held up a scrap of bark being used as a writing surface for lack of anything better. “Report just came in. We lost...no deaths. Two men with knocks on the head, four with stab wounds, nothing serious they will recover. One fellow in Kazovar’s company says he broke a toe when someone stepped on it.”

  Smiles at that.

  “Anything else?” Serezaam asked.

  Kazovar pointed across the battlefield. “Just that.”

  A squad was crossing the battlefield, escorting between them a number of ragged men and women who gawked and shook in fear at the carnage surrounding them. “Found them skulking around the edge of the battlefield,” Kazovar said. “Refugees. They asked to speak with our leader.”

  The new arrivals knelt down gingerly on the bloodstained ground. “Lord!” one of them, a middle-aged fellow with a balding head, beseeching in a pitiable voice. “We come to swear allegiance!”

  The Great Captains looked at one another. “Say that again?” Orazaak asked.

  “You have slain the armies of Tgorish the Defiler and Red Handed Femesh! Their bodies lie on the field with their men, scorchers of the earth who drive us from our homes, take our sons and dishonor our wives and daughters! We beg you for protection, lord, and offer our service…”

  “As what?” Orazaak asked sharply.

  The balding man cringed. “As your servants, lord! As...as your slaves, if need be.” The others with him bowed their heads, clearly terrified, but fearing the dangers of the land even more.

  Servants of the Servants. Serezaam smiled at the joke. “Can you drive a wagon?” he asked the bald-headed man.

  The fellow nodded. “Yes, lord!”

  “You!” Serezaam looked at a woman groveling in the dirt. “Can you cook?”

  The woman looked up, mouth open and closing A moment later she found her voice. “Y...yes, lord! I can!”

  Serezaam looked at the Great Captains. Orazaak rolled his eyes, while Kazovar and the others shrugged. “Welcome to the army,” he said to the refugees. Ignoring their pathetic thanks and cries of praise, he turned to his men. “Put them to work...but not too roughly. They’ll be useful. Have them help search the field for arrows. And don’t forget to round up any stray horses!”

  By dusk the army had moved on, headed northward away from the hill, leaving the battlefield to the hordes of crows and vultures come to feast on the slain. Other eyes watched thi as well, men and women, entire families uprooted by the chaos and living in fear. They saw the army headed north, saw the ragged refugees trailing behind them, secure under their protection. In the coming days and years their number would grow, as other rootless folk joined them, pledging thei
r allegiance to the warriors in black armor and the man who led them.

  “I blame you for this.”

  “Me? How in the name of any gods or demons you care to mention is this my fault?”

  “Well, it’s not my fault, and if it’s not me, then it’s either you or Donarec!”

  “Fine, then it’s Donarec! I’m not the one some spoiled brat wanted as a pillow mate.”

  “What am I supposed to do then, ride around in this city with a sack on my head? How is that just or fair?”

  “The strong do as they must, is that what you said?”

  “By the Source, you’re bloody hopeless…”

  Donarec stood by the door to the cell, ignoring (or at least doing his best to ignore) the bickering at the back. They weren’t really angry at each other, he knew it was just a way to get the anger out. All three had seen the inside of a jail cell at one point or another. Now they were taking the hospitality of the House of the Unfortunates, as the small fortress in the western part of the city was known. Twenty large cells in two levels, one on the ground, the other underneath, the former used for petty criminals - thieves, vagrants and unlicensed whores - destined for a spell in the stocks, a session at the flogging post, or a branding and a fine. The ones below were for those whose continued existence was deemed unnecessary, some fated to end their days before the baying mob as a day’s work for the city executioner, others to die in the darkness below, their body taken out at night and buried in an unmarked grave.

  They’d placed Donarec and his friends on the ground level cells, a hopeful sign. They’d also provided a cell of their own, even as the others on the floor were filling up with the weekly haul of lowlifes and rogues. The second floor of the House of the Unfortunates was for the guards, and each cell on the ground floor had a hole in the ceiling where every so often a man would look down, keeping an eye for any disorder. Their weapons were taken, but no one searched them, and the money bag tucked under Donarcs shirt remained where it was.