“It was a highly unorthodox plan, sir, but remarkably effective,” Kaveh praised.
Darius blinked at him, a little unnerved by the open admiration in Kaveh’s expression and voice. He’d never had the man react to him like that before. I’ve been trying to win this man’s respect and trust ever since I met him. Apparently I went to the store with the wrong coin. All it takes is two wagons of angry cats to win him over.
“The barbarian’s sudden retreat will be very demoralizing,” Sego thought aloud as he reached for another roll of bread. Happy with this thought, he continued, “Is that why they haven’t attacked us yet?”
Normally battles commenced early in the morning, before the sun had properly risen, to avoid fighting during the heat of the day as much as possible. The sun had already been in the sky for a whole hour so for war, this was quite late. “I bet that Jahangir’s whole strategy has been thrown into confusion,” Darius couldn’t help but smile at the thought as it warmed his heart. “He’s having to rearrange everyone to cover their absence.”
“It will take him several hours at least to re-form the ranks,” Kaveh agreed. “An army of that size isn’t easily moved about. Should we hit them now, sir, while they’re still confused?”
Darius scratched at his chin and thought about it for a moment. “I’d normally say yes, but…how close are our barriers to being complete?”
“Very close, sir. I had them work in shifts by torchlight through the night.”
“Do you think they’ll be done by the time the enemy is ready to march?”
Kaveh frowned, weighing logistics in his head. “It will be…close, I think. We’ll have enough done to not make much difference, is what I would say. Perhaps a dozen or so half-formed barriers would be left.”
A dozen barriers wouldn’t make much difference either way. “Then we wait.”
Kaveh and Sego both frowned at him as if they didn’t follow his logic on this.
“We’re not in a position to march readily either,” Darius explained. “Right now, all of our ranks are set up for defense, not offense. We’d have to scramble and re-organize too. Worse, if we do march there, they’ll once again have the advantage in terrain and numbers. We won’t be able to fall back and make use of the barriers until tomorrow, and who knows how many lives that will cost us? No, better to wait. Kaveh, have the archers keep up a barrage of arrows, just to make things more lively.”
Kaveh nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Ten thousand soldiers left….” Sego’s mind had clearly raced ahead. “General, how many troops must they lose before they’ll be forced to retreat?”
“Another seven thousand,” Darius responded, trying to time it so that he could eat and answer questions. “No conquering force will fight unless they outnumber the defenders two-to-one.”
“So we don’t actually have to defeat all of the troops over there.”
“No,” Darius agreed. “Actually, Jahangir isn’t much of a general. He might give up if we can just whittle him down to five thousand.”
Sego looked at him from the corner of his eyes, silently weighing him. “When you first told me that this battle would play out in seven days, I didn’t see how it was possible.”
Not offended in the slightest, Darius just smirked. “Six days left.”
~~~
Perhaps Jahangir had foreseen that the barbarians would not cooperate, as he rearranged his men faster than Darius anticipated. Within the hour, word came from the watchtower that the Brindisi army had formed their ranks and were advancing. Darius quickly climbed the ladder to see for himself.
Using his spyglass, he scanned the enemy from one end to the other, looking at them with a veteran’s eye. “Jahangir is pushing them forward too quickly,” he observed to Bohme. “They’re not fully in formation in the back rows.”
“Deshperate, shir?”
“Very. Having cats delivered instead of supplies might have shoved him over the edge.” Well, Darius had intended for that to happen, but still…. Shifting the eye glass to the side, he poked his head out of the window and called down, “Kaveh!”
Kaveh looked up, shielding his eyes with one hand. “Sir!”
“The barrier?”
Even from ten feet up, Darius could see a grimace pass quickly over Kaveh’s face. “We’re half a dozen short, sir. Six others are only partially built.”
Close enough. “Have the men form their ranks behind the barrier anyway instead of in front! And pass that order to Ramin and Navid!”
“Yes, sir!”
Darius went back to observing the enemy, judging their speed with a clinical eye. Speed and distance always looked different in a desert, and for the uninitiated, things looked deceptively close. Darius had learned over time how to measure things but even then he usually erred on the side of caution as he didn’t always guess perfectly. Still, the enemy looked to be moving at half-time, no doubt so that the men in the back could get in their ranks.
He had to delay that, as much as possible. Sticking his head out the window again, he called down to the multitude of archers sitting on the different levels of the watchtowers, “ARCHERS, LOOSE!”
In mere seconds, hundreds of arrows took flight in the air, whistling ahead at deadly speeds before impacting with the enemy. The other side raised their shields, of course, but because of the half-formed ranks, there were gaps where there should not have been and arrows got through, injuring hundreds.
“LOOSE!” Darius bellowed again.
Another black cloud of arrows were let loose and caused another devastating wave.
From behind him, someone clattered up the ladder at full speed. “General—” Payam started before his head had fully cleared the floor “—Commander Kaveh says men are ready.”
Without much time to lose, either. The enemy literally had a foot on their doorstep. “Good,” he said, more to acknowledge that he heard the boy. “ARCHERS, LIGHT THE BARRIER!”
There was a small delay as the archers paused to catch burning pitch on their arrow tips, and then they let loose a storm of arrows that hit the wooden barriers with perfect accuracy. In this dry heat, the wood caught fire immediately and the flames spread far and wide. There were indeed a few gaps here and there, but Kaveh had focused on building the barriers in the very center first and then spreading out from there. He had indeed been paying attention to Darius’s counsel—the flanks were the only areas with holes, but both Ramin and Navid had natural barriers at their backs and they were already set up for flanking maneuvers. Anyone trying to take the “easier” path by approaching from the sides would find a solid formation of enemy soldiers in their way.
It might not be an optimum situation, but it was close enough for Darius’s peace of mind.
Payam timidly approached the window and stuck his head over the edge.
Darius didn’t mind a second set of eyes, and if the boy had the wits to stay nearby and try to learn from him, so much the better. To show Payam that he could stay, Darius said, “The dumpers be gate-pinched now.”
Payam lit up in a toothy grin. “Yes, sir! Loudies riddled for adit here.”
“Now wait a minute,” Darius complained to him good naturedly, “you can’t use words you haven’t taught me yet! Adit? Riddled?”
His runner-teacher smirked at him mischievously.
“Adit,” Bohme translated with a long-suffering sigh, “ish to enter or come in. Riddled ish short on intelligenshe.”
Darius re-phrased it aloud to made sure he understood. “So the enemy is stupid for going through the barriers?”
Both of his teachers nodded.
“Well, you’re right,” he told Payam as he focused back on the enemy. “But they don’t have much choice, you know. Under normal circumstances, they would just wait until the wood burns down. It would only take a few hours. But I’ve hijacked their supplies so they’ve got limited time to win this battle.” He glanced out of the corner of his eye, but Payam’s expression said he’d only understood a
bout half of that explanation. “The loudies are sunsided,” he added.
The confusion cleared up instantly and Payam nodded wisely, as if he had understood all along.
The first wave of Brindisi soldiers reached the burning barriers. Without any real choice on their part, they were forced to break up their ranks in order to go through the gaps. It was survival instinct, really—who would consciously choose to run into open flame?
It had to be beastly hot down there, though. The sun had been well up in the sky for an hour now, making the day progressively warmer and being so close to that much fire had to make the men unbearably hot. In a way, that heat became another weapon that taxed the men’s stamina.
The forerunners broke through the first level and into the open area between the two sets of barriers. Of course, they were immediately engaged by the Niotan foot soldiers. Darius’s watchtower stood several hundred paces behind the front lines, but even from here the clash of weapons and the blood-curdling war cries made an almost deafening cacophony. War-hardened, Darius didn’t even flinch and his blood quickened in a habitual rush.
Bohme’s hand closed over his wrist, startling Darius. “Can’t fight from here, shir.”
Darius turned to him in surprise. Now when had he…? Darius lifted his hand from his sword hilt and flexed it a little. He had no memory of grabbing for the weapon. “Old habits die hard, it seems,” he said, a little embarrassed at his own reflexes.
His bodyguard kindly didn’t comment, although the sardonic quirk to his mouth spoke volumes as he stepped back to the side.
Clearing his throat, he forced his mind to concentrate on the task at hand. Unable to effectively use their superior numbers, the Brindisi soldiers were down to man-to-man fighting and were not making any headway. In fact, the progress slowed to a crawl and within minutes, came to a complete standstill. The men were bottlenecked in the winding paths the burning barriers had created. No one could even begin to shove their way forward.
Kaveh’s engineers had done their job well. The Niotan line held steady without any strain as they systematically dealt with their enemies.
“We can hold them at bay for hours like this,” Darius observed in open satisfaction. “We won’t even need to use the second set until tomorrow. Excellent.”
“How many will Jahangir loshe today?” Bohme asked while watching over Darius’s shoulder.
“Hmmm…hard to say.” Darius didn’t look away as he responded, carefully watching his men to make sure that no one made a costly mistake. “This tactic limits how many men Jahangir can throw at us, but it also limits how many we can attack as well. At best, another thousand or so. I think it will actually be less than that.”
“Another thoushand…,” Bohme muttered to himself, sounding a little depressed.
Darius shot him a sympathetic grimace. “I can’t work miracles. With the number of troops and supplies I have—” not to mention the limited amount of time he’d had to plan with “—this is the best we can do at this moment. It’s a battle of attrition. We’ll wear them down bit by bit.”
Silence reigned for a long moment as Payam and Bohme thought this through. Then the bodyguard ventured, “Ish that why you shaid sheven daysh? A thoushand for each day?”
“Well, I always plan for the worst,” Darius admitted with a splay of his hands in an open shrug. “But I do have other plans in place. I’m not depending solely on battling the enemy to a standstill. This particular battle, you see, is a matter of stamina and patience.” His lips drew back in a feral smile. “And Jahangir’s men don’t have much of either. They’ll surely do something stupid and rash soon.”
Bohme snorted. “You’re enjoying thish.”
“I most certainly am,” he agreed without batting an eye. “Beating a mentally unarmed opponent is one of the more enjoyable things in life, don’t you think?”
Payam gave him the same half-amused, half-resigned look that Bohme did. “Barmecide, you are, sir.”
So I look attractive but am actually deadly? Darius decided to take that as a compliment. “Thank you, Payam. I think.” He couldn’t let these two distract him. The sun stood almost directly above them now, which meant that soon his commanders would start switching out the fighting troops with the rear guard, allowing them to rest. The maneuver had to be performed right otherwise the Brindisi foot soldiers would find openings in their defense and be able to bull their way through. Darius had a few back up contingencies in place in case that happened, but he’d rather not use any of them unless he had to.
He shifted from one foot to the other, watching impatiently as the men were slowly replaced by fresh troops. Never once did the line falter, although the end caps had a bit more trouble than the center did. Probably because they were under greater pressure than Kaveh’s men, as the best place to break through would be at the end of the line. Of course, at the end caps, it became a little difficult to see the exact movements. Even with his spy glass, the men were about the size of grasshoppers.
When the new men were in place and the fighting continued, Darius blew out a breath. If they could move that smoothly, he had nothing to worry about.
During the course of the day, the barriers burned to the ground and left nothing more than smoldering charcoal in their place. The open plains no longer had any obstructions on them. But the damage had been done and the strong phalanx formations that Brindisi was known for had been broken apart so thoroughly that they stood no chance of reforming them in the middle of a chaotic battlefield. The heat of the day slowly passed until the sky faded into the rich orange and gold of sunset.
Brindisi’s commanders sounded the horns in the long, eerie notes of retreat and the foot soldiers trudged back to their camp without winning one inch of soil. Darius panned the battle front, slowly counting. Even with the aid of his spy glass, he found that he could not accurately count from one end to the other and so had to guess after a certain point. “A little under one thousand fallen. On our side, I count a little under two hundred fallen. Payam, go down and talk to the commanders. I want an accurate headcount.”
“Sir!” Payam scampered down the ladder at his usual break-neck speed.
“Five more daysh,” Bohme stated quietly.
“Five more days,” Darius agreed.
Darius sat cross-legged at his table, arms propped on the surface. He had called his commanders to his tent an hour before, but the last had only just arrived. Navid gave him a salute of acknowledgement before taking the final place at the table.
Without looking at the man, Darius waved Sego to a cushion nearby, making sure the man knew he couldn’t just stand and hover as he was wont to do. Sego probably gave him quite the acerbic glare for that, but he carefully didn’t notice. “Alright, what are the final numbers?”
“Two thousand deserted this morning,” Ramin reported instantly, although he had a sour look on his face as the words left his mouth. The look he gave Darius had an edge of caution to it, as if he weren’t quite sure what losing the bet entailed. “We counted 853 fallen on their side. We lost 218.”
More or less what Darius expected. Good. “So Jahangir has just over nine thousand left? Not bad for a day’s work. Navid, have you spoken with Captain Zubin about his plans for tonight?”
“He said water bags and horses tonight.”
Darius had to translate that a little in his head. The man knows I don’t mind his phrasing, and he’s still speaking to me cryptically? Well, it might be the audience they had. Navid had no doubt worked long and hard to get his position while enduring a lot of mocking by his peers in the process. Now that he had his rank, he didn’t want to seem “inferior” to either Kaveh or Ramin. Darius had lived through the same joys of rank-climbing and he couldn’t imagine that it would be much different in Niotan than it had been in Brindisi. “That’s fine. Make sure that he’s out of their camp by midnight, as usual. Have we had any deserters yet? Aside from the barbarians,” he added with admirable neutrality.
Ramin st
ill gave him a sour response. “Aside from them, no sir.”
“Hmmm.” Darius really didn’t want to fight anyone more than he had to. The more soldiers he could convince to give up, the better. “Then I think it’s time to bring out the dancing girls.”
~~~
Darius climbed back into the watchtower to get a good view. In the cool night air of the desert, the bonfires burned brightly and cast everything into silhouette. The bonfires were strategically placed—they were close to the camp and spaced so that they looked random but everyone on the Brindisi side had a clear view. The women were mostly from the camp followers: washwomen, cooks, and nurses. None of them were particularly beautiful or fascinating to look at, but from a distance, they didn’t have to be. They’d rustled up some musicians—in an army of this size, that wasn’t difficult to do, there were bound to be at least a few that could play something—and in the still air, the music travelled quite some distance. From the Brindisi camp, it looked like the Niotan soldiers had wine, women and song without a care in the world. It probably helped that the Niotan soldiers actually were enjoying themselves.
Satisfied, he climbed back down the ladder. Sego patiently waited for him to jump the last few steps before speaking. “General, I had suspected that you were evil before this, but…,” he paused and gave an elaborate look at the nearest bonfire and dancing women, “this is evil.”
“Evil genius,” Darius corrected with a gamine grin. “It’s mental warfare. No one wants to fight an army that is so confident in their victory that they will actually party the night before. Besides, I’ve faced this situation once.” He grimaced at the memory. “None of my men deserted, but most of them stayed up all night to secretly watch the women dance. They were…not in the best fighting shape the next day.”
“I can imagine.” Sego paused to study him for a long moment. “These tactics that you use. Are they all based on prior experience?”
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