Children of the Dragon

by Frank Robinson

  But on the other hand, what would his peasant followers think of him then? How could Jehan callously leave the province where he’d started, and the brave people defending it, to Tnemghadi vengeance? He reminded himself that the rebel army was still held together only by conviction and loyalty.

  The sudden crisis provoked another debate among the leaders. All night long, they shouted and banged the table, while once more, Jehan kept his own counsel and merely listened.

  Yahu, Kirdahi, Ontondra, and Ilhad all argued strongly for the relief of Arbadakhar. Ontondra, however, proposed a middle course, with half the army going to Arbadakhar while the other half kept up the siege. But Kawaras countered that such a strategy would likely result in defeat on both fronts, neither half of the army being strong enough to achieve its purpose. Of Jehan’s generals, only Kamil Kawaras advocated remaining at Naddeghomra and letting Arbadakhar fall.

  In this stance he had one key ally: Golana. She argued eloquently that at Naddeghomra, the realization of all their dreams was at hand. A man, she said, is given only one pass at the cup of such opportunity. Defy that opportunity and it will never come again.

  Go to Arbadakhar, urged the generals. Go to Arbadakhar and regardless of the outcome, your place in history will be secure. If nothing else, you will be the man who gave up Naddeghomra to save his friends.

  There was a lull in the debate. It was suddenly filled by a quiet voice whose presence in the tent had scarcely been noticed. “Stay at Naddeghomra,” Maiya said. “Conquer this city and put a crown on your head. Conquer it, and make me a princess, and make your son, Jehandai, an emperor.”

  “Go to Arbadakhar,” said Hnayim Yahu, “or the throne you take will become your grave, for your army will revile and desert you.”

  Stay at Naddeghomra, said Golana, glancing at Maiya; stay, for Arbadakhar may well be lost before you even get there, and you’ll have given up everything for nothing.

  Go to Arbadakhar, for its fall would open the way for the Tnemghadi to march south and relieve Naddeghomra.

  Stay at Naddeghomra, Paban, and leave the Leopard to Sarbat’s mercy.

  Go to Arbadakhar, my lord, and save your loyal friends.

  Jehan stood up, and saying not a word, quit his tent. The debate buzzed in his ears. If only he’d left fewer troops at Arbadakhar so that Sarbat could have swallowed it up in one quick gulp—obviating this horrible dilemma!

  It was night. There was a faint breeze, refreshing after the stifling hours in the tent. Jehan stood leaning against a pole, and looked out at Naddeghomra. The city glowed, illuminated by fire, so that even through the dark of night, Jehan could see clearly the outlines of The Maal.

  He felt a touch on his shoulder. It was Golana, and he wrapped his huge arm around her, folding her close. Pressed against him, he could feel the bulge of her body where their child was growing.

  “This is an historic night,” he said. “You and Maiya have agreed on something.”

  Golana laughed softly. “And do you agree with us?”

  “I am very worried,” Jehan said. “I fear what a forced march northward might do, considering your condition. We must not lose the child!”

  “We must not lose Naddeghomra!” Golana snapped instantly.

  Jehan shook his head thickly, like a shaggy bear. “Let us hope to save our child,” he said.

  4

  WHEN THE SUN came up, a pink crust at the rim of the blue night, the white towers of The Maal burst into brilliance. Catching the light first, while the rest of the city was still in darkness, the great towers seemed to float in the sky, hanging down from the heavens like the fingers of a god.

  With sleepless eyes, Jehan Henghmani looked at the beautiful temple one last time. Then he turned northward.

  If he failed now, he knew that he would never see Naddeghomra and its Maal again.

  His eyes fixed north, without looking back, he led his army away to Arbadakhar.

  From behind the walls of Naddeghomra, the Tnemghadi watched the besieging army mysteriously strike its tents.

  Not with the lethargy of defeat was the Urhemmedhin camp dismantled: They gathered their gear and loaded up their wagons hurriedly, as though fleeing. In their haste, they left Naddeghomra circled by debris, including the cumbersome catapults that had been so destructive.

  The Tnemghadi watched this in relief mixed with consternation. They could not know the reason why the siege was abandoned, but despite their mystification, this was a miraculous eleventh-hour reprieve. Conditions inside the city had become a hellish nightmare. There was no food left, soldiers and civilians were killing each other, and even his own army was beginning to revile Viceroy Alimansour as a fiendish fanatic.

  But the sudden lifting of the siege did not plunge the city into celebration. The few Urhemmedhins left were in fact embittered by this turn of events. They had endured monstrous deprivations on account of the siege, scores of thousands had been killed, and thousands more lost homes and kin. The survivors were hanging on by their teeth. Sustaining them through the horror had been the conviction that they were suffering to gain yarushkadharra. The savior was at hand. But now he had literally turned his back on them. They had gone through Hell for nothing.

  Nor did the Tnemghadi rejoice. They were still in dire peril, stranded in a hostile land, still looking down the throat of starvation—and the lifting of the siege did not put food in their mouths.

  As the last of Jehan’s caravan disappeared over the horizon, the gates of Naddeghomra were thrown open, and hungry scavengers poured frantically out into the countryside. But it was barren, stripped clean by Jehan’s army during the extended siege. There was nothing left to feed the city.

  Quickly did this grim fact penetrate upon the Tnemghadi: The siege had succeeded after all. They were beaten.

  But isolated in the government palaces, Hassim Alimansour didn’t realize this. Flushed with triumph, he felt vindicated. He had broken Jehan’s string of victories. This made him a hero, and surely his star was on the rise.

  It was jarring to hear the officers insist there was no food. Alimansour refused to accept it, but his officers were adamant. According to them, the only possibility might be to transport provisions from many lim away, but that could not sustain starving Naddeghomra for very long. The upshot was plain: They must leave the city or perish there.

  Alimansour exploded with rage. “We withstood a siege of fourteen months! We defeated the Man Eater! And now, on the very day of our victory, you dare suggest abandoning Naddeghomra? The greatest city in the South, simply thrown away after eight centuries? Are you mad? You must be raving mad!”

  “We are not mad, Your Excellency. We are merely hungry, and there is no food.”

  “Merely hungry,” mimicked the Viceroy scornfully. “I thought I had brave, strong men. Look what rubbish you are speaking: For fourteen months we withstood Jehan Henghmani’s siege; now it is over; can we not persevere now?”

  “There is no food,” an officer repeated flatly.

  “I will not hear your sniveling treason! Tnem Sarbat Satanichadh still rules at Naddeghomra. We will save this city for him, or die here. Go back to your posts, all of you. That is a command.”

  For a tense moment, Hassim Alimansour stood glowering, brandishing his staff of office adorned with the Sexrexatra dragon. The officers avoided his eyes, unwilling to openly defy him.

  Then one did speak up, in a strangely calm voice. “Your Excellency, we have given Jehan a defeat, and we must take our satisfaction in that. But Naddeghomra cannot be saved. There is nothing to be accomplished by staying except our deaths. That will avail the Emperor nothing. We can serve him better by saving ourselves. We are leaving; we ask you to join us.”

  “Traitor!” Alimansour screamed, lunging wildly at the man with his staff upraised.

  The other officers converged upon the Viceroy, pinioned him, and wr
ested the staff from his hands.

  “Traitors!” he fumed at them. “Damned traitors! I order you back to your posts. I command you!”

  But all they did was to release him. They faced him now in a united line. “We are leaving. We beg you to come with us.”

  The Viceroy, his face contorted with contempt, answered by spitting at the floor where they stood. But they turned their backs to leave.

  He shrieked curses after them as they made their exit, but he did not budge from his spot.

  From throughout the scarred city, the surviving troops coalesced. Many of the wounded were left behind with the thousands of dead. Now, for the first time in weeks, the rubble-clogged streets fell eerily quiet as the fighting subsided.

  One officer went to The Maal, and at his insistance the priests held a hurried conference. With profound reluctance they decided to give up their temple and throw in with the fleeing army, for they knew the standard fate of priests in cities overrun by Urhemmedhin mobs.

  As the soldiers, joined by the priests, abandoned the street fighting and made for the gates, the Urhemmedhins grasped what was happening. They realized that the descending quiet was in fact their own silent dirge.

  The precious riverboats were seized by the first Tnemghadi to reach the docks. Overloading the boats, and huddling into an armada for self-protection, they headed eastward down the Amajap. Once the boats were gone, the tardy were forced to take a land route—slower and more vulnerable to peasant retribution.

  The first river-town reached was Tjabra, and the fleet of boats was beached. Without ado, the soldiers attacked. Caught unawares and unarmed, the Tjabrans were slaughtered like sheep, the town pillaged for every scrap of food. The Tnemghadi were ravaged by hunger and shed much blood among themselves fighting over the spoils of the raid. They gorged themselves on the spot, loaded up their boats, and pushed on.

  Nothing at Tjabra was left for their comrades, straggling behind on foot.

  Eastward across Khrasanna Province the Tnemghadi fought their way. Word of the Tjabra raid had swept ahead of them, and other towns prepared to defend themselves. Every lim of the way they battled the soldiers, who came like locusts, furiously stripping the land to feed themselves. To starve the raiders, the Urhemmedhins burned-the fields on both sides of the river.

  The refugees did manage to get through Khrasanna, but it was a bloody journey. The land was left littered with dead, Urhemmedhin and Tnemghadi alike. Then they pushed on toward the sea, through Ohreem Province, leaving their dead floating in the river behind them. Their goal was the port city of Mughdad, at the mouth of the Amajap, where they might finally escape by sea back to their homeland. It took them seven awful weeks to reach Mughdad.

  By then, the land travelers had been wiped out entirely, and only a handful of the boats were left. It was a sorry remnant of the great army that had once lorded over Naddeghomra.

  When they reached Mughdad, they found it had already been liberated. And so, having gained their destination, the last Tnemghadi survivors of Naddeghomra lost their lives.

  Hassim Alimansour dropped to his knees and pounded the floor with his fists. It was so unfair: On the very day of his magnificent victory, it turned to ashes in his mouth.

  He called out for his servants, but no one answered him. He went running through the lofty corridors of the government palace, and found it utterly empty, deserted. He alone was the Emperor’s last stand at Naddeghomra.

  Alimansour’s eyes stung with tears, not for the ending of his life—he could not even think about that—but for the ending of everything to which his life had been devoted. It all had come to nothing.

  The only thing left to do was to die with dignity. He determined that he would not permit himself to starve or to fall into the hands of the mob. So he buckled on his jeweled ceremonial sword, and left the government palace, making his way to the nearby Maal. There he intended to play out the final act before the image of Tnem Sarbat Satanichadh, the god whom he had served now literally unto death.

  But hardly had he reached the street, when he was set upon by a bedraggled throng. When he saw them coming at him with their hunger-crazed eyes, Alimansour unsheathed his sword, and slashed vehemently at them. Unarmed but numerous, they came at him undaunted by his blade. This was the devil who had tormented them, and now they would make him pay for it.

  To the limit of his strength he fought back. He killed and maimed a dozen and more before they brought him down and got the bloody sword away from him. But they did not turn the sword on him; instead they broke it in two, and tore at him with their ragged fingernails and bare rotten teeth. Maddened with hunger and hatred, they tore the living flesh from Hassim Alimansour.

  5

  THE SUN WAS a big, broiling bubble on the horizon as Jehan Henghmani’s army threw itself into the desperate northward march.

  These men had not been trained to real exertion. Most of them were farmers and peasants, and what battles they had fought thus far, through Nitupsar and Khrasanna, had been easy. At Naddeghomra they had done nothing more than trade fire bombs with the enemy. But these men were now pushed without mercy by their commander.

  It was 1,327 lim to Arbadakhar. From sun-up to sundown they marched under the enervating sun; there was no time to stop along the way; there were none of the celebrations that had heralded the southward march. It was a straight, brutalizing, man-killing march—thousands of them dropped by the wayside—but Jehan knew he had to pay this price for speed.

  At the Qurwa, he crossed back into Taroloweh on the same barges that he’d left on the south bank long before. There was not even time to mend the old lashings, and so some of the barges broke apart in midstream, with a loss of horses, wagons, and men. But Jehan pushed on.

  On the twenty-second day he got within range of Arbadakhar, and arrayed his troops to do battle with the besieging Tnemghadi. Hnayim Yahu’s horsemen were brought to the fore, while the wagons were unhitched and relegated to the rear. Jehan himself remained at the head of the column, but he insisted that the carriage holding Golana, Maiya, and Jehandai stay far at the back.

  The Urhemmedhin army numbered approximately forty thousand men. The Bergharran troops were more than fifty thousand, and they were ready.

  Their commander was General Tamar Ghouriyadh, a bluff man with roaring eyes and blazing moustaches, but an extremely capable military tactician. He had come to Arbadakhar with the mission of recapturing the city and taking the head of the rebel governor, Ubuvasakh. He had not figured upon an attack by Jehan himself, yet Ghouriyadh saw this not as a threat, but as an opportunity. Now he could strike a really devastating blow. Now, crowed Tamar Ghouriyadh, he would have the heads of all the rebel leaders.

  On the seventeenth of Jhevla, 1184, the two armies engaged on a plain a few lim from Arbadakhar. Unwilling to loosen his stranglehold upon the city, the Tnemghadi General left enough troops behind to maintain the siege; thus, the opposing armies were nearly equal in strength. Nevertheless, Ghouriyadh was confident of victory because his troops were fresh, whereas Jehan’s had just finished an exhausting three-week march.

  They met head-on in the open plain, in classic formations, the peasant army led by Jehan himself on horseback. Ghouriyadh had planned to charge first, but Jehan wouldn’t stand for that; the insurgents charged forward even more ferociously.

  Down they rushed with swords and war cries whishing the air. Vahiy Jehan! they screamed, Vahiy Urhemma! Yarushkadharra!

  They collided in a thick yellow dust cloud.

  As the dust suddenly engulfed him, Jehan hacked away with his sword, but he could hardly see anything. The noise was terrific; amid the screams of Vahiy Urhemma! were the screams of hundreds going down in agony.

  Even in the haze of dust Jehan’s huge figure was unmistakable. He was the one man every Tnemghadi wanted to kill. From every side they came at him, suddenly appearing out of the dust like phantas
ms, many at once, their swords and spears coming out of nowhere to slash at him. He struggled dizzily to parry, but they came at him so fast and thick he was sure he’d be killed. Being the Savior would not save him.

  A slash wound opened up down the side of his head, cutting to the bone and spurting out hot blood. Then another on his shoulder; and another, on his thigh. Doggedly he fought on, but he was certain now that he was finished.

  Death came to fifteen thousand of his soldiers, and several more thousand were wounded. In this close, savage combat, nearly half the Urhemmedhins were casualties.

  Yarushkadharra! they had shouted as they fell, shouted with their last breath. For fifteen thousand of them, the freedom they had shouted for proved to be the freedom that death brings.

  The Tnemghadi did not have yarushkadharra to die for; and because of that, they died in even greater numbers. Fully half and more were left dead on the plain, piled like debris on top of each other and among the moaning wounded. Five thousand were taken prisoner by the Urhemmedhins. A few more thousand beat a path back to their lines at Arbadakhar, and the rest scattered in flight.

  Jehan was among the fortunate ones who had survived. He was numb with pain and loss of blood from three wounds, but he had survived.

  As the dust settled and he reassembled his officers, he was informed that Kamil Kawaras was not among them. The selfless old Tnemghadi-hater—the one general who had argued against this expedition—had been killed, along with so many of his men. Kawaras’ body was retrieved in a basket, for the enemy soldiers had hacked its limbs off.

  Jehan directed that Kamil Kawaras’ remains be given a duly ceremonious burial, befitting a hero of the movement and the first of its leaders to be killed. Then he awarded the vacant generalship to Kawaras’ logical successor, the young battalion commander, Gaffar Mussopo.