Kaveh gave a quick salute and then turned for the supply tents behind the watchtower. Darius gave Payam an encouraging nod. “Go get a flagon. If they try and stop you, tell them the general has lifted the ban.”
Payam had a mile-wide smile on his face, revealing crooked and missing teeth. “Yes, sir!”
Now, if the water had been rationed, had the food as well? Disturbing thought. Darius rubbed his hands together briskly and headed for the supply tents as well. “Bohme, I think we need to do some surprise inspections.”
“Yes, shir. Why the shmile, shir?”
“I love surprising people,” Darius admitted. “I usually find out the most interesting things doing it.”
Bohme shook his head, resigned. “You’re an unholy terror, shir.”
Darius chuckled and didn’t deny it.
Darius had fun for the next several hours scaring the light out of the foot soldiers and their captains. He discovered three black markets (not unusual for a camp of this size), two stashes of water barrels that he immediately confiscated and distributed, and a “medicine” tent that would likely kill a man just by stepping inside.
The camp itself felt very settled. Not unexpected, considering that it had been here for almost eight years now. The tents were set up in an orderly fashion (more or less, less being on the outskirts) with natural roads forming in between them. Every twenty tents or so someone had set up a watering and cooking station. Each section of tents also had a designated medic tent, general supply tent, and so forth. Someone had organized this well at some point in the past and the smoothness with which camp chores were handled spoke well of the discipline maintained here.
Eventually, Ramin caught up to him and reported that everything on his side was ready. Reminded of his duties, he reluctantly stopped playing inspector and went back to work.
As he walked back toward the tower, he took a good look at the soldiers he passed. What he saw disturbed him. They did not all possess a full set of armor. Some of them simply had light scaled chains over their shirts, most missing scales, while others had both scaled chains and the metal arm guards. But only a few still possessed the metal leg guards that would protect their shins. Everyone had both curved swords and the bodyshields, though. Hopefully it would be enough to protect them.
He climbed back up the tower as the sun started edging toward the ocean’s horizon behind him. Payam stood stock still near the window, hands braced on the edge, eyes intently perusing the landscape. “Any changes?”
“No, sir,” he answered readily. “Well, I think they draggin feet,” he added thoughtfully. “Hard to tell.”
Darius looked out to make his own judgment on that. But the boy had a point—they had to have slowed down a little, as they weren’t anywhere near where they should have been. Never mind three hours of possible fighting time, if they arrived with enough daylight to set up camp, it’d be a miracle. “Why are they moving so slowly?”
“Ruddied, maybe?” Payam offered thoughtfully.
Ruddied? This slang of his challenged Darius’s linguistic skills. He had to look to Bohme for a translation.
“Been in shun too long,” Bohme interpreted. “But after only a day’sh march?”
“After being in the mountains for a week to rest?” Darius concurred, mind whirling. “Unless…unless they were already short on supplies before they went to the mountains. Ambushing the supply trains might have more of an immediate effect than I thought.”
“Sunside for them,” the boy observed with a toothy grin.
Sunside being…a tight situation? Darius had to agree. “Payam, have you had dinner yet?”
“No, sir.”
“Go eat. Once you’re done, come back up here. I might need you tonight.”
Happy at the idea of eating, he bobbed a quick bow and scurried back down the ladder. Darius watched him go, his mind sidetracked by a half-formed thought. “That slang of his…where does he hail from?”
“Khoor,” Bohme answered with a shrug.
Khoor…the capital? Like Navid? Come to think of it, Navid also used occasional phrases that didn’t translate for Darius. Could that be why? He was raised on the city streets? Darius blew out a breath, disgusted with himself. “So that’s why Navid hesitates so strongly before speaking. He’s literally having to phrase everything in his mind first before he says something so that I’ll understand him.”
Bohme’s eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. “Didn’t you know?”
“No, I didn’t know,” Darius responded in exasperation. “Sego just said that he was from the capital and that he’d worked his way up through the ranks. Shaa preserve me, I just thought the man was the silent type!”
Shaking his head, the bodyguard wisely decided not to comment.
“Bohme, how much of that slang do you know?”
Considering, Bohme rubbed at his chin thoughtfully for a moment. “Enough to get by. Why, shir?”
“You’re going to teach me.”
“But shir!” Bohme protested, honestly surprised.
“Navid is never going to comfortably speak to me unless he’s sure he can phrase it in a way that I understand,” Darius maintained stubbornly. “If I can meet him halfway, all the better.”
“Shir, it’sh not jusht phrashe or two!” Bohme insisted, eyes nearly crossing at the idea. “It’sh like whole other language!”
Hmm. And they had hours yet before Darius could climb down and seek his own bed. The man made a good point. “In that case, go get us both dinner. Then you can start teaching me.”
Bohme’s shoulders slumped like an empty sack. “Yesh, shir,” he sighed in resignation. He trudged to the ladder and started climbing down, muttering things under his breath like, “Bullheaded” and “Doeshn’t know what he’sh ashking.”
Darius ignored him.
~~~
The Brindisi army arrived late that afternoon, with barely any light at all left of the day. They mostly set up camp by torchlight. Sego sent up a spyglass via Payam so that Darius could see a little better in the failing light. The men over there did indeed move in a listless way that said clearly they were tired of this war. He smiled to see it. Unmotivated men were the easiest to send home.
Leaning out of his window he called down, “Kaveh!”
Kaveh had been hovering just below for the past hour or so, awaiting Darius’s orders, so he instantly twisted around and looked up. “Yes, sir?”
“Send out the flyers.”
“Yes, sir!” Turning, he relayed the order to the officers standing nearby.
On command, hundreds of arrows were released, sailing through the air with whistles of sound until they landed a dozen paces from the Brindisi camp. Each arrow had a flyer wrapped around it and tied tight with string. Most of them would be confiscated by the officers and burned, but a few of them would be hidden by the men and read, and a few would do the job nicely. Word would spread on its own as the men talked about it, causing further confusion in the ranks.
“Sir!” This hail came from the other side of the watchtower, near the ladder. Darius stepped to the side and looked down, finding Navid at the bottom.
“Yes, Navid?”
“Night Raiders here.”
Finally. The “somewhat delayed” had turned into a major delay, it seemed. “Alright, I’m coming down.” Darius had at least one plan that he wanted to put into action that night in order to win the bet—or, rather, in order to make sure those two thousand barbarians would want to run away tomorrow. He descended the ladder as quickly as he could, jumping the last few steps as he usually did. When he turned, he found a man standing at Navid’s side that he didn’t recognize.
This man didn’t hail from the southern continent, not with that shaggy red-brown hair or those freckles lurking under tanned skin. Navid stood a good hand taller than him—which made him short indeed for a man—but what he lacked in height he made up for in muscle. He wore a curious collection of black, grey, and light tan clothing that seeme
d jumbled at first glance but in this failing light, it blended in with the shadows perfectly. Upon seeing Darius, he gave a half-bow.
“Sir, this is Zubin, Captain of the Night Raiders,” Navid introduced in that slightly stilted way he had.
Darius gave a deep inclination of the head. “Captain Zubin, I am glad to see you. Was the way here rough?”
“Tedious,” Captain Zubin corrected with a grimace that wrinkled his freckles. His voice sounded hoarse and rough, like he had chewed glass when younger. “Yon ijut—” he jerked a thumb to indicate the Brindisi camp “—sent a bunch of barbs to guide the train in. Made getting cats on board a mite tricky, with all the hollerin’ and yeowin’.”
Darius gave a sympathetic smile to the man. Yes, sneaking three hundred unhappy cats onto supply wagons while avoiding the keen hearing of barbarians had to have been beyond tricky. In fact, when Darius envisioned it, he was astonished the man had only been six hours delayed. “How did you manage it, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Tossed a couple of ‘em yeowin’ critters in the road.” Zubin grinned in savage amusement, showing three missing teeth. “Never seen a barb climb trees so fast in my life. Mighty amusin’, it was.”
Darius had to bite down on the urge to laugh. He had seen the supposedly tough, nigh indestructible barbarians climb many a tree before, so he could picture exactly what must have happened without stretching his imagination. “Sorry I missed it.”
“Your commander here tells me you’ve got another job for us?”
“Yes.” Darius hesitated a moment before speaking slowly, “Captain, no insult to your men’s stamina, but I don’t want them going in to an enemy encampment while dead on their feet.”
Zubin waved this concern aside. “Stole a wagon on the way back. They napped most of the way.”
Then they were probably better rested than most of the men in this camp. Good enough. “There are several things I need done before midnight. I want you to go in and hassle them every night, but you must be out by midnight.” He emphasized this as strongly as he knew how. “At that point, I’m going to have the archers randomly shoot fire arrows and set the tents over there ablaze.”
“Keep ‘em hoppin’ and worryin’, eh?” Zubin gave an approving nod. “Shrewd, that. Mighty shrewd. But they might return the favor.”
It was Darius’s turn to wave the concern aside. “We’ve got water to spare. They don’t.”
“Point. Then whatcha got in mind for us to do?”
“No more cats,” he answered dryly, well able to see the anticipation in the other man’s face. “It doesn’t have to be anything creative. Cut saddle cinches and tent ropes, slash water bags, things like that.”
“Aye, it’s doable.” Zubin dusted his hands on the front of his jacket. “Then we’ll get at it.”
“Please do so.”
Zubin paused and looked at him thoughtfully. “Word is that a bounty’s been placed on yon officers’ heads.”
Darius heard the unspoken question. “Your men can collect the bounty as well. Just meet the conditions I set.”
Zubin gave him that feral, satisfied smile again. “That we’ll do. See you at midnight, General.”
Within four steps, Zubin’s figure blended in with the night landscape and within six, Darius would swear he couldn’t see the man at all. A truly terrifying man to have as an enemy. But that also made him an exceptional ally.
Before Navid could disappear as well, Darius took a breath for courage and tried out some of his new-found language skills. “By night’s first bell, it’ll be a kako for the dumpers.”
Navid froze for a moment as if he couldn’t quite believe his ears, the most dumbfounded expression on his face. Then a slow smile stretched from one ear to the other. “Ballyhoo, that. The loudies be gatepinched by dawn’s bells.”
Darius groaned. “I only understood half of that!”
For the first time in the four weeks that Darius had known the man, Navid actually chuckled, eyes crinkled up in laughter. “You know street slang, sir?”
“No, not at all,” Darius admitted ruefully. In fact, he’d only gotten about twenty words and a few phrases in his head over dinner before his duties had sucked him back into real life again. “But it’s fun, isn’t it?”
His commander studied him for a long moment, with that smile lingering on his face. “You like words, sir.”
The opinion was clearly not meant as a question, but Darius answered anyway. “Always have, Commander, always have.”
“Buckshee, for the mouth,” Navid said in a tone like he was offering something.
Darius puzzled this one out, racking his brain to recall everything a reluctant Bohme and a very enthusiastic Payam had taught him earlier. “Wait, buckshee was a free service or favor…so, you’ll teach me more when you can?”
“That’s it, sir.” Navid’s grin widened again.
“I’ll take you up on that, don’t think I won’t,” Darius mock-warned him. Even though he genuinely looked forward to learning more, he largely felt satisfaction that Navid had finally relaxed enough to freely talk to him without being prodded into it.
Navid shrugged, as if the challenge of tutoring up his general didn’t faze him in the slightest. “Yes, sir.”
Shaking his head, Darius waved him on. “I’ll let you get back to position. Let me know if something happens.”
Navid snapped out a salute, turned, and quickly headed back for his section.
“You handled that well, General.” Sego stepped out of the shadow of Darius’s tent. “Most have ridiculed or judged Navid because of his slang speech.”
Darius snorted. Sego gave him too much credit. “I actually do think learning slang will be fun, you know.”
“Yes, your sincerity is what convinced him,” Sego agreed without batting an eyelash.
The man thought politically, as he had no doubt been raised to calculate every word depending on his audience. Darius didn’t have that same natural conniving sense, and he didn’t think he could convince Sego that his only aim had been to put Navid at ease with him. Mentally, he just let it go. “Is my tent set up already?”
“I have had all day,” Sego answered dryly.
True. Darius had been rushing from one side of the camp to the other and the time had sped past for him. He’d momentarily forgotten that Sego hadn’t had as much to see to. But the day had ended for most of the men, and the first night bell would ring shortly. If Darius wanted to be mentally sharp tomorrow, he’d best retire now. “Where is your tent?”
“Right next to yours, sir.”
Good. “I’ll do one last check on things and then retire. Go to bed, Sego.”
Sego gave him a relaxed smile. “After you do, sir.”
Stubborn, manipulative man…. Darius gave him an exasperated look. Even if he could somehow force the man into his tent, he still wouldn’t go to bed just on general principal. Shaking his head, he hunted down Kaveh and made sure that he knew who had taken over the night watch. Then he went back to his tent, catching Sego’s eye as he ducked through the flaps to make sure the man knew that he had to retire now too.
Sego just gave him that same smile again as if he weren’t manipulating Darius into doing what he wanted done.
“Man’s more formidable than I gave him credit for,” Darius grumbled to himself as he stepped into his tent.
“Shir?”
“Nothing, Bohme, ignore me.” He stopped two feet inside and took a good look around. Funny, but it seemed like a general’s tent in Niotan didn’t differ much from the ones they had in Brindisi. The only real difference lay in the shape of the tent—instead of being largely rectangular in nature with a slanted roof, this one was perfectly circular with a very pointed roof. It’d still been made out of the same durable canvas, though.
A brazier of burning coals sat in the very center, giving off warmth and light. It already felt a little warmer inside the tent than it did outside, which in this desert wasn’t unusual. T
he nights were normally bitterly cold. Sego had piled several thick blankets and a few furs on top of Darius’s bed, so he didn’t think he’d freeze when the brazier burned down. Bohme too had several blankets and furs, although with his pallet near the open door, he’d need them far more than Darius would.
Aside from the beds and brazier, the only other furniture was a small table with his map and battle plan, which sat low to the ground and had several cushions arranged for comfortable seating. Sego had padded the ground with several large rugs as well, although in this dim lighting, he couldn’t see any details of their designs. “Are all general’s tents like this?” he wondered aloud.
Bohme shrugged his ignorance.
Setting the idea aside as inconsequential, he set about stripping off his uniform and washing off the worst of the ever prevalent sand that had glued to his skin during the course of the day. He’d get a good night’s sleep and see how effectual his plans were tomorrow.
“They really left?!” Darius demanded in surprise, nearly dropping the glass in his hand.
Kaveh had come to find him before he could even finish breakfast in his tent, eyes uncharacteristically alight, nearly brimming over with energy. Even now, he could barely stay still as he sat at Darius’s table. “The cats arrived at sunset yesterday. Navid had a better view than we did here, but apparently the barbarians kicked up quite a fuss when they arrived. I don’t know what Jahangir said to pacify them, but it obviously didn’t make much headway with them. They left sometime during the night.”
The barbarians were gone…and the battle hadn’t even really started yet. Darius banged his glass against the table, threw back his head, and laughed in sheer delight. “I can’t believe that worked!”
“General!” Sego scolded, eyebrows beetled together. “What do you mean, you can’t believe it worked?!”
“Well, I didn’t think it would work that well,” Darius amended, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “Phew! I thought it would take another hard push to convince them to retreat. The situation must have already been pretty strained over there to make them leave this readily.” And at night, no less. The barbarians had several very strong opinions about traveling at night.
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