Kingslayer

by Honor Raconteur

  “The best tactics are passed on by the survivors,” Darius responded with a casual shrug. “I’ve been in war since I was fourteen. You pick up a few tricks here and there.” He turned and looked over the opposing camp. “If Shaa is smiling on us, this will help us save a few lives.”

  “I also never would have expected you to be a religious man,” Sego stated quietly.

  Darius gave him a curious look. “Just what did you hear about me, anyway? You speak of me as if I were described as evil incarnate.”

  “You were.” An uncharacteristic smile briefly crossed Sego’s face. “When Queen Tresea asked me to be your aide, I truly struggled with myself because of all the rumors I’d heard of you. I consider myself blessed that you are not as you were portrayed.”

  You and everyone else in this country. Darius bit back the thought before he said that aloud. He didn’t think it appropriate to say. “Well, as your evil, overbearing Raj, I order you to go to bed. We both have to be mentally sharp tomorrow.”

  Sego came alert, posture tense. “You say that as if you’re expecting something to happen tomorrow.”

  “If I were in command over there, something would,” he admitted frankly, eyes drawn back to the enemy encampment. “Even Jahangir is likely scheming something. He lost two thousand soldiers today when he shouldn’t have. He’s down to meager supplies that he cannot easily replace. He’s desperate enough at this point to give the ridiculous and risky gambles a try.”

  “Like what?”

  He rubbed at his gritty eyes with both hands. “I don’t know. That’s what scares me.”

  ~~~

  It wasn’t an overt or loud sound that wrenched Darius from sleep. But it didn’t need to be. After being in war for so long, someone sneaking around would instinctively jar him out of a sound sleep faster than anything else. He had rolled out of his bed, snatched his sword out of its sheath and put both feet under him before his eyes could even properly open.

  He took in several details all at once. The view out of his open tent door still had the inky blackness of pure night, and the brazier had burned down to amber coals, so it had to be an unholy hour. Bohme wasn’t in his pallet next to the door. In fact, he had left the tent altogether.

  And the soft sound of feet edging nearer had abruptly ended. Adrenaline pumping, Darius settled into a guarded stance and called out quietly, “Bohme?”

  “Jusht an asshashin shir,” Bohme answered through the tent wall. “Go back to bed.”

  Just an assassin? Darius had been the target of an assassination attempt before. Several times, in fact. Trying to kill the lead general of an army was just standard procedure. It didn’t mean he’d gotten used to it. “Like I can just go back to sleep after hearing that!” he responded with considerable asperity.

  “Nothing to worry about,” his bodyguard assured him with a tone that bordered on patronizing. “Not a very good asshasshin.”

  “Thank you, Bohme,” Darius responded sarcastically. “Knowing that makes everything all better.”

  His bodyguard had the gall to chuckle.

  “General?” Sego appeared in his doorway, a long dagger in one hand and a shirt thrown hastily on. For once, he looked disheveled instead of immaculately groomed. “Is there a problem?”

  “Bohme just stopped an assassin,” Darius responded on a long sigh, ramming his sword back in its sheath.

  “Oh. Ah…,” he turned in the doorway and stepped to the side, apparently to see the situation for himself. “Bohme, I trust that the man is safely—”

  “Dead,” Bohme answered in a growl of satisfaction.

  “—dead, of course,” Sego finished in resignation. “It didn’t occur to you that we might want him alive? To question?”

  “Wouldn’t do any good,” Darius assured him as he thumped back into his bed. Darr take it, but what time was it, anyway? Had he even managed an hour’s sleep before being so rudely jarred awake? “Assassins never talk. More’s the pity. Besides, his presence here tells me everything that I need to know.”

  Sego thought about this for a second before he lit up in understanding. “Jahangir is afraid of you.”

  “That he is.” No general worth his salt would wait this long to send an assassin. That sort of attack should have been launched the day of Darius’s arrival. Instead, he’d waited until the third night. There could be only reason to do so now instead of earlier.

  “Is this one of those risky gambles that you meant earlier?”

  “I hadn’t actually thought of this one,” Darius admitted, trying to stifle a yawn behind one hand. “But yes, something like this. Let’s hope they’re all as poorly managed.”

  ~~~

  Day four of the battle dawned without any other surprises. Darius had managed a total of five hours of sleep, and two of those hours had been fitful. He had learned how to function on minimum sleep early in his career, so he still got up and went about his duties as usual. Just not with the same energy as he normally did.

  But throughout the day, nothing happened that demanded full energy or tactical genius. The third set of barriers were lit, the oil puddles making random splits in the Brindisi formations as planned and the battle wore on. The enemy seemed either dispirited or sleep deprived—likely both. After two nights with the dancing women and the random attacks by the Night Raiders (not to mention the tents being set on fire throughout the night) the Brindisi soldiers had every right to be tired.

  The battle played out in a yawn-inducing predictable fashion and concluded with higher losses on the enemy side. Darius lost two hundred or so men. Jahangir lost about a thousand each day.

  The tactics were working.

  At dawn’s break on the fifth day, the unexpected finally occurred. Darius had projected a handful of deserters from Brindisi to come to him—what actually came over, sporadically, was nearly three hundred. He interviewed each man and found the same story repeated over and over. Jahangir’s incompetency and rough handling of the men had cost him dearly. No one in the camp respected him or trusted his decisions. Most of these men had served under Darius previously at some point or another. They knew the quality of general they were facing and they had no desire to fight against him. In return for Niotan citizenship rights, they were perfectly willing to desert their post and join in on Darius’s side.

  He welcomed them all with a smile and sent them to Kaveh, to bolster the engineers’ efforts in rebuilding the barriers. With that much help, they might actually be able to rebuild the wooden barriers by tomorrow instead of just relying on the oil puddles.

  Sego stood at his side during this process. When the last man left he quietly said, “I counted three hundred and twenty-one men. Quite a feat, sir.”

  “I’m not sure if it’s Jahangir’s stupidity or my tactics that are the real reason for their desertion, either,” Darius admitted while rubbing thoughtfully at his chin. “But whatever the reason, I’m glad they’re here. Makes my job a little easier. They’re also giving me some very good information.”

  “Yes,” Sego agreed. He carefully eased down to sit at the table and jotted down some numbers in a quick but neat hand. “From what they said, Jahangir can’t last more than a day and a half with the supplies he has on hand. After that he either must retreat for Brindisi or—”

  “—Or break through our defensive line and conquer Khoor,” Darius finished almost absently, doing mental calculations. “Really, he’s cutting it too close. He needs to leave now, or his men will likely starve on the way home.”

  “I don’t think he cares about that,” Sego pointed out with a disgusted sneer.

  “No, he doesn’t.” That callousness will cost him, too. Darius felt sorry for the men under the idiot’s command, but he was not so foolish as to correct an enemy when they were making a mistake, either.

  Another thought struck and he asked, “How many bounties have been claimed?”

  “Kaveh and Navid both accepted bounties on your behalf this morning, sir.” As always, Sego se
emed to know the answer even though he had been as tied down as Darius with the interviews. “The total is now forty-eight.”

  Forty-eight officers, over twenty-three hundred deserters, and scanty supplies in five days’ time. Not bad work, really. “Tell them to keep at it. If we get enough officers out of commission, it’ll be mixed salt over there.”

  Sego blinked at him, expression completely confused. “Mixed salt?”

  “Err…I take it that phrase isn’t used in Niotan?” It had been common in Arape and even occasionally used in Brindisi. Darius had thought it rather universal.

  He shook his head, eyes crinkled up in amusement. “I’ve certainly never heard it before. What does it mean?”

  “The only way to spoil salt is to mix it with something else,” Darius explained. “I guess it’s more of a merchant term. When you’ve mixed your salts, you’ve ruined them beyond redemption. Mixed salts taste terrible, you see. So the phrase means that the situation is beyond hope and leaves a bad aftertaste.”

  “Accurate summary,” Sego acknowledged. “It’s mid-morning now. What are your plans for the rest of the day?”

  “The same as they were yesterday.” Darius gave him a grim smile. “We just keep wearing them down.”

  ~~~

  Darius rose early on the morning of the sixth day, not from any particular need, but because he kept jerking awake every few minutes. Rather than lay in bed uselessly, he chose to get up and get an early start.

  He stole a shallow pan so that he could shave. Normally, in the field like this, he didn’t care about appearances but a beard could be beastly hot in weather like this. Even a two day’s growth made him itch like crazy. This close to the capital, they didn’t have to ration water, so he took advantage.

  As he stared into the water’s surface, he told his reflection, “You’re too jumpy. You’ve done this too many times to be all nerves now, old man.”

  From the doorway his bodyguard drawled teasingly, “Yabbering to yourshelf, shir? Should I be worried?”

  “I haven’t lost my mind, Bohme.” Not yet, anyway. “Even if the sun is hot enough to bake a man’s brains. Is it my imagination, or is it hotter this morning than it was yesterday?”

  “Entering the shummer sheashon,” Bohme answered with a laconic shrug, as if this was common knowledge.

  Oh joy. Well, at least they wouldn’t be out fighting in this heat for much longer. Today would be the breaking point, in one way or another. Jahangir had lost six thousand soldiers either through battle or desertion and now had just under six thousand still in his command. Darius, on the other hand, still had over six thousand. Considering the state of the soldiers on both sides, it seemed a pretty even match. But if Jahangir didn’t break through his defensive line today—and with the tactics that Darius would employ, he shouldn’t be able to—then the man would be forced to retreat or suffer defeat tomorrow.

  “General!” Kaveh stepped inside and stopped abruptly when he realized that Darius was still only half dressed and half his face had lather smeared over it. “Err….”

  Darius waved a hand at him. “Continue, Kaveh. What’s going on?”

  The Commander took a second to push aside the odd sight of an informal general before reporting in a rush, “Sir, Brindisi is moving.”

  Darius abruptly stopped shaving. “Already?! Jahangir must have been forming his men in the dark to get them moving this early. Are our men ready?”

  “They will be,” Kaveh assured him with a determined scowl. “I’ve already issued orders to get everyone moving.”

  Bless the man for taking the initiative and then reporting to Darius. He hated officers that didn’t think ahead and had to be commanded in every little thing. “Good. Did you already spread the word to Navid and Ramin?”

  “Ramin actually was the one that reported to me,” Kaveh admitted. “His men spotted the movement first. Navid has already been informed.”

  Darius had only half his face shaven but it didn’t look like he had the time to shave the other half. He dropped the razor and quickly toweled his face dry. “I’ll be right there. Where do our barriers stand?”

  “The oil line is in place. The wooden ones are only half-constructed.”

  Better than he’d expected but not as good as he hoped. Darius counted his blessings and continued. “Then we’ll depend on the oil. But Kaveh, this is the breaking point—Jahangir surely knows this as well as we do.”

  Kaveh clearly knew what he meant. His eyes blazed with determination. “He has to win today or be defeated. We know, sir. We won’t let him through.”

  Darius clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man. Go, I’ll catch up to you.”

  Quickly snapping out a salute, Kaveh turned on his heel and darted back outside, calling out orders as he went.

  “Bohme, get Payam,” Darius ordered as he dove for a shirt. “I’m going to need the runners today.”

  The Niotan army was in formation and ready for Brindisi, but only just. The back of the phalanxes literally formed just as the front were hit. Darius used his spy glass to see from the watchtower, looking from one end to the other, but his commanders had somehow pulled off a miracle and only a few stragglers here and there were still scrambling into position. The archers had released a hail of fiery arrows, lighting the puddles of oil, which broke up the Brindisi formations again and bought them some time. Although calling them ‘puddles’ could be misleading as a full grown man could lay across it with arms stretched above his head and no part of him would be able to reach sand.

  Darius watched it play out and blew out a breath of relief. The Brindisi light cavalry was the best in the known world. If Jahangir had protected his horses better from the Night Raiders, he could have mounted his men and had them race ahead, destroying the oil puddles before they could be lit. Darius had purposefully ordered cut cinches for that reason alone. He did not want the cavalry to run his troops down.

  Once again, the Brindisi soldiers were forced to advance only a handful at a time, which slowed the men in the very back to a crawl. Absently scratching at the unshaved part of his face, he peered through his glass more intently and almost sputtered in disbelief. “I don’t believe this….”

  Payam and Bohme came up to stand beside him, Bohme looking over his shoulder. Darius gestured to the long line of soldiers. “Do you see that? The back ranks aren’t keeping their shields up! I’ve never seen such a thing.” Were they suicidal? Arrows could come flying overhead at any moment and they wouldn’t have the time to respond. Or were they so tired they literally could not keep the heavy wooden shields above their heads anymore? Whatever the reason, it meant their death.

  Darius stuck his head out of the window and bellowed, “ARCHERS, FIRE AT WILL!”

  A storm cloud of black arrows were released within seconds of the order, flying up and out in an arch that landed among the back ranks, safely away from the Niotan soldiers. Hundreds went down simultaneously.

  The archers on the right and left flanks released their own volleys as the order passed down the line, and without pausing, the center archers sent another storm of arrows out, this one more staggered than the previous one. It still reached its mark in several sections as men failed to get their shields up in time.

  “Payam, help me count. Your eyes are better than mine. How many do you think just fell?”

  Payam slowly looked from one end of the line to the other, mouth silently moving as he counted to himself. Darius, with aide of his glass, did the same. “Almost two thousand,” Darius offered quietly. “You?”

  “Lost count,” Payam admitted. “It be a megalo, though.”

  Yes, it is a lot. Darius did another quick count, mentally calculating as fast as he dared. If he had all of his numbers right, then Jahangir only had a little over four thousand troops left. If that were true, then…

  “That’sh an evil shmile, shir,” Bohme observed curiously.

  Temporarily ignoring his bodyguard, he turned to Payam. “Grab one of the other
runners and get him up here.”

  The boy didn’t even bother to salute, just dove for the ladder and scrambled down it.

  Bohme had been hanging around and listening to enough planning sessions that Darius thought he’d understand the succinct answer. “Jahangir is down to four thousand. That’s close enough.”

  It took a second, but then Bohme’s eyes widened and his teeth shown in a feral smile. “Hoooo ish he now?”

  The ladder clattered a little as two boys quickly ascended at a pace fast enough to put a monkey to shame. Darius didn’t know the other boy but he seemed of an age to Payam. In fact, he could be a brother, he looked so alike. Darius faced him directly and ordered, “Go to Commander Ramin and tell him these words exactly: ‘Close in from the right side and push them back. We’re forcing a retreat.’”

  The runner slapped out a salute and repeated, “Close in from the right side and push them back. We’re forcing a retreat.”

  “Good,” Darius acknowledged. “Go.”

  He turned on one heel and descended the ladder as fast as he had ascended it.

  Darius didn’t watch him go but focused on Payam. “Go to Navid. Tell him this: ‘Aster. Sunder the ranks and boot them hard.”

  “This is the moment. Scatter their ranks and force a retreat,” Payam repeated with a toothy grin.

  Despite the tension of the moment, Darius couldn’t help but snort in amusement. “I’m not sure who’s teaching who, here. You’ve got it. Go.”

  Payam waved his arm in what charitably could be described as a salute before following the other runner down the ladder.

  Bohme watched him go with a strange expression on his face. Darius didn’t need to be a diviner to understand what it meant. “I always phrase orders in the language of the commander when I can,” he explained as he turned back to the armies battling outside. “I’ve had too many mistranslations and misunderstandings before. War’s confusing enough without multiple dialects in the mix.” Sticking his head out the window he called down, “KAVEH!”