by Chris Bunch
I headed straight for Seer Tenedos’s tent, which was not far from Turbery’s headquarters. It was large, divided into two sections, one for an office, the other for the seer’s bedchamber. I saw no sign of Rasenna. I started telling Tenedos what idiocy I’d just listened to and he held up his hand, stopping me.
“Did you notice I wasn’t present?”
Of course I had, but idiotically had assigned no importance to it.
“The general informed me of his intentions last night. I objected strongly, as strongly as I could, but he insisted he knew better, so I refused to honor the farce with my presence.
“I’ll tell you two things that you must not repeat to anyone, not even your adjutant, that will make you even angrier, and this is why I refused to take part in the briefing, because I know we face potential disaster.
“First is that there is great magic swirling around this place, magic such as I’ve never heard of before, never encountered.”
“No one has told me anything about the Kallians having a great sorcerer,” I said. “But considering the disregard the army still holds magic in, that means nothing. Can you detect who’s casting these spells?”
“That’s the unusual aspect, for I detect no single … signature might be the word, the sign that one man or woman is working these incantations. I almost fear Chardin Sher has a magician who’s perfected a Great Spell, somehow getting others to work together with him.
“But I can’t believe that I’m prideful enough to think if I couldn’t produce anything cohesive from those master magicians, arrogant fools that they are, of the Chare Brethren, no one else, using other wizards, can either.”
“What’s the other problem?” I asked.
“I brought half a dozen magicians with me, and we’ve been trying to cast searching spells across the river, since General Turbery has refused to send scouts out, fearing to lose the element of surprise.
“All of our efforts have been turned back, as if we were but tin swords lunging at steel plates.
“This worries me more than the first.”
“Is there anything that can be done?”
“Very little. Probably nothing. Try prayer — and not to Saionji. We do not need to encourage the Bringer of Chaos to even notice us on the morrow. Return to your regiment, and be very wary of the way you fight on the morrow. If you cross the river, be prepared for surprise. I’m going to try yet again to penetrate this veil of darkness, to see what Chardin Sher is up to.”
“One question, sir. Have you, or any of your seers, been able to ascertain whether Chardin Sher is over there in person?”
“We tried, and were rebuffed. I tried another method, and sent a searching spell across the country, aimed toward Polycittara. I detected no sign of the prime minister, but that isn’t certain. My spell could have failed, or he could be in yet another location, or have wards up to prevent my locating him.
“But I can tell you I feel his presence. I would wager, with nothing more than that feeling, that he is, indeed, over there, waiting to preside over our destruction.”
“Sir,” I said. “I mean no disrespect to our commander, but I thought General Turbery had experience; I thought he’d fought the Kallians.”
“He has, Damastes. But with how many men? A regiment, perhaps two, against small probes by a company or two of their forces, both sides breaking off when real blood began to be shed, since neither side wished to acknowledge real enmity. I’m afraid General Turbery’s reach has far exceeded his grasp.
“There might also be another problem: It’s not uncommon for a man to achieve greatness so long as he isn’t the final rung on the ladder. As long as General Turbery could fall back on a superior, such as General Protogenes, all was well and good.
“But now he stands alone, and will be judged.”
No longer angry, but worried, I hurried back to the Lancers.
The various units were supposed to wait until dark to begin movement, and the Lancers obeyed orders. Others didn’t — I saw dust clouds swirl as various foot units began, literally, stealing the march, dust clouds visible across the river to warn Chardin Sher something was in the offing.
Finally, the Lancers began moving, and if the morrow were not looming close, it might have been funny. Columns got lost, troops ended up riding with other regiments, men fell off their horses, men rode into tents, men rode into wagons, men rode into latrines … the list of mishaps was as various as the numbers of swearing cavalrymen wallowing around in the night.
But eventually we found a location approximately where we were to be, and waited for battle.
At false dawn, the havoc began.
• • •
The Battle of Imru River is correctly taught as one of the finest, least subtle, most complete catastrophes of war known. It should have been a great victory — we outnumbered the foe nearly two to one, it was a calm day, the heavy clouds overhead were unthreatening, and both sides could see each other perfectly.
Most combats, once joined, are a confusion of blood and screaming, where no one knows quite what’s going on, and frequently the victor isn’t sure he’s won until the next day. Imru River was different. Since my role, until the end, was to sit fuming helplessly on a ridge, waiting for the grand opportunity that never happened, I can tell precisely and briefly of the disaster.
Just at false dawn, trumpets sounded, and the three Numantian wings marched toward the river. General Hern led the Left Wing, General Odoacer the Right, with General Turbery taking personal command of the Center.
They marched straight into the river, in closed battle order, and the floundering began. The water at the ford was a bit deeper than anyone had thought, and men struggled and yelled, the river’s swift current catching their shields and sending them stumbling. General Turbery and the other high-rankers, on horseback, had noticed nothing.
In the Center, confusion began.
General Odoacer, on the right, was perhaps more eager than the others for his share of glory, and so he’d moved forward a bit faster than the other two elements.
Our right flank was therefore exposed.
On the left it was a debacle. The shallows did not extend that far west, and the river deepened to more than eight feet a few paces from the bank. Men toppled into water over their heads, flailed about, trying to swim in armor, and began drowning. The implacable press of the formation forced other men after them, and the water became a seething mass of helpless soldiery.
On the other bank, the Kallian forces rose out of their shallow pits, and a single man rode out in front of them — Chardin Sher, magnificent in silver armor astride a chestnut stallion, his standard-bearers behind him.
General Turbery was evidently not aware of the problems of the Left Wing, and, as he saw his foe in plain sight, he called for a charge, and the Center crashed forward, out of the water onto dry land.
Without even waiting until they were within arrow range, the Kallians began falling back. Perhaps Turbery thought they had panicked, seeing the determined Numantians come at them. But he should have known better, for they retired in an orderly manner, marching backward, line on line. The Numantian Center shouted exulting war cries and broke into a run, sucked even farther into the trap, for of course that’s precisely what it was.
Our Right Wing was having a bit of trouble, the river being wider where they were crossing.
At this moment, Chardin Sher struck.
His sorcerers brought up a wall of water, like a sudden neap tide, and sent it rushing down on us from the west. It was no more than two feet high, but that was more than enough. It caught the men of the Left Wing and swept them along, but there were only a few ranks to be sent tumbling downriver.
It took the Right Wing in midcrossing, smashing into it as hard, and lethally, as if it’d been a blacksmith’s sledge.
Kallian horns screamed, and Chardin Sher’s center turned back and attacked, archers to either side volleying arrows into the massed Numantian Center.
&
nbsp; General Turbery was killed in that first volley, and I saw, from my vantage point, the Numantian colors go down. The Center took the shock of the first wave, then stumbled back a bit.
Chardin Sher’s forces must have rehearsed this battle over and over. Isa knows they’d had time enough, having held the ground for long days before our dilatory arrival. The Kallian Left Wing split its forces, sending half in against the Numantian Center, the other half across the river, on a hidden ford, to our side of the bank and striking against our Right Wing.
Then came the deathstroke. From their positions, which had been masked by sorcery and the Assab Heights, ran the rest of Chardin Sher’s army. They were mostly cavalry or light infantry, and drove directly into the open flank of the Center Wing.
The battleground became swirling chaos, man fighting man, man killing man, no more tactics, no more grand design, just bloody slaughter.
I saw Numantian flags go down, and small knots of soldiers I knew to be ours make a last stand, then disappear, overrun by waves of Kallians.
I heard a cavalry general shouting, to whom I don’t know, perhaps the god of war, for someone to unleash us.
But there was no one to give the command.
General Turbery was dead. General Odoacer was dead. General Hern was pinned under his fallen horse and had a broken leg. Three other generals died that day, ten dominas, and who knows how many lesser-ranking officers.
The Numantian Center Wing was obliterated, the Left mired in confusion, and the Right cut to ribbons. Chardin Sher’s forces reformed, and rolled toward the river, an indestructible force bent on our total destruction.
I sat on Lucan seeing this nightmare, the worst defeat imaginable, and something broke within me.
There were other dominas with the cavalry far senior to me, and two generals. But no one did anything.
I knew I must.
“Trumpeter,” I shouted, “sound the advance!”
The horns blared, at first raggedly, surprised, but then strong, and the Seventeenth Ureyan Lancers, as they’d been taught, went down the hill at the walk to battle.
Shouts of surprise, possibly countermanding my orders, came from behind, around us, but I cared not. If other regiments joined us, well and good. But I could not see my country destroyed on this unknown ground by some dead fool’s mistakes.
Marán, my child, my own life, all were swept away.
I heard other trumpets, glanced behind me, and saw other regiments, shamed by our action, start forward. Then they were all moving, perhaps 10,000 men, against five times their number.
Thunder rolled then, and a man walked down the slope in front of us, toward the water, toward the ford.
It was the Seer Tenedos, in half-armor, but without his helmet.
His voice was the thunder, and the thunder was his voice. I could not make out his words as the spell rolled and crashed from the hills around us.
Raindrops pattered, and I saw the clouds had suddenly changed, now dark, threatening as his ringing words took effect.
Archers came from nowhere, and war-shafts arched over the Imru, landing among the oncoming Kallians, and then the storm broke, a roaring cataclysm, so no one could see more than a few yards ahead of him.
The rain lessened for a second, and I saw the Kallians, still hesitating at the ford’s far beginnings, seeing the Imru swirl up in flood, afraid to chance being stranded, and then the storm pulled a curtain across my view.
Men cannot, will not, fight when they cannot see, when their leaders cannot see beyond their horses’ ears, and so the battle was over.
I would be permitted to live the day, and not to have to make the sacrifice I’d offered Isa and Numantia.
Sanity came back, and I remembered Marán, and breathed a prayer of thanks to my wise monkey god Vachan and my own godling Tanis. But the field was littered with more than 45,000 Numantian casualties.
The rain-roar slowed, and I could see across the Imru again, see the Kallians pulling back.
Tenedos still stood where I’d seen him last, but now his arms were at his sides. He tottered then, and fell, and I kicked Lucan into a trot through the mire, desperately afraid the seer had been hit.
I dismounted and ran to him, where he lay facedown. I turned him over, and his eyes came open.
“Damastes,” he said. “Did the spell break them?”
“Yessir. They’re pulling back.”
“Good. Good. Took … took everything I had. You’ll have to … help me up.”
I lifted him, half-carried him to Lucan, and helped him into the saddle.
I led Lucan away, toward Tenedos’s tent, the sorcerer swaying in the saddle, barely able to stay mounted. Karjan rode out of the murk, and caught Tenedos, not letting him fall.
I suddenly realized it was late afternoon, and growing dark. Somehow the day had gone without the hours being noticed.
Now there was nothing but the driving storm, the cries and moans of dying men and horses, and the bitter taste of utter defeat.
TWENTY-FOUR
THE BIRTH OF AN ARMY
When we reached Tenedos’s tent, a sobbing Rasenna helped me get the wizard inside. He told her to get a certain vial from a chest and shuddered the contents down.
I could see the mixture hit, see the gray pallor pass from his cheeks, see him straighten, see strength pour into his system.
“I shall pay for taking this,” he said. “Nothing is for free, and these herbs call up my innermost energy, leaving no reserves. But there is no choice.
“Damastes, collect as much of your regiment as you can. I want them as messengers. Go to all the dominas and higher you can find, or whoever’s left in charge of a formation, regardless of rank, and order them to report to the command tent as soon as possible.”
“That’ll take a while, sir, with the rain.”
“The spell should break within the hour,” he said, “and there’ll be a quarter-moon to guide your riders.”
“Can I tell them what the purpose of the meeting is?”
“Yes. Tell them General-Seer Laish Tenedos is taking command of the army, and will issue appropriate orders at this time. Failure to attend will be dealt with as disobedience of a direct order.”
I saluted and turned away.
“One more thing. Send a small party to the river, and try to find out what the Kallians are doing, if you would.”
I took approximate bearings, by guess and by Isa, where the Lancers might be, and started in that direction. So Tenedos was taking over the army, without orders or authority. But what of it? Someone must. As far as I knew then, there were no other generals on the field — General Hern still hadn’t been found. Also, I’d learned that in an emergency the man who appears calmest, who can issue sensible orders, is most likely the man to obey.
I found elements of Cheetah Troop in about half an hour, and they helped me grope my way to the rest of the regiment. As I finished passing along Tenedos’s orders, as Tenedos predicted, the storm cleared.
I found Legate Yonge, and, with five of the men of Sambar Troop, we rode cautiously down to the Imru, past the crawling bodies of the wounded, past the corpses, trying to ignore the pleas for help or even a merciful blade between the ribs.
I was waiting to be ambushed. Chardin Sher should have pushed pickets across the flood to keep in touch with our forces. But we encountered no one except Numantians. The moon was bright enough to see the far bank, and the raging waters of the storm-flushed Imru. All was quiet, and there was no sign of life nor of fires from an enemy camp.
Chardin Sher must have retreated, which in fact he had. Perhaps he’d not expected such a grand victory and frightened himself; perhaps he had made no plans beyond that day; or possibly he had no intent of taking the kingdom he so desired by the sword, but only by its threat, and now hoped the Rule of Ten would announce his majesty by proclamation. I do not know, but I do know better than to theorize about those who wish to sit a throne.
In fact, we found days later,
when the river subsided and we were able to slip spies and small patrols across, that the Kallians had retreated all the way back to their own borders, where they began building strong defensive positions.
But that came later. The first task was to recover from the debacle of the battle.
Eventually the command tent was surrounded by exhausted, sometimes bleeding commanders. I was shocked — some formations were evidently led by legates and sergeants, since I saw many of those ranks shivering in the night.
Seer Tenedos mounted to the back of a wagon. His voice carried to us all, his magic drawing even more of his vital energy:
“I am General Tenedos,” he said. “I have taken command of this army. We were beaten today, beaten hard. But there is always tomorrow.
“We shall not be attacked again, not this night, nor in the next few days. The Kallians have withdrawn in triumph.
“They shall rue their arrogance, rue that they did not finish us to the man.
“I promise you bitter revenge shall be taken for this defeat. Numantia has just begun its battle.
“Here are my orders. Return to your formations. Wait until sunrise. Then look about you. There are wounded men, there are lost men, to help.
“There are a few who wish to shirk further duty. Tell them to return to their formations or face punishment.
“All those fancy wagons we brought, carrying our luxuries? They’ll carry our wounded.
“Strip them of the fripperies, and share those items among us all, a private having the same rights as the general who owned them before.
“There is to be no drunkenness, I warn you. If you cannot keep your men’s hands from the wine bottle, smash it in front of them. I order that any man found drunk be given twenty lashes across a wagon wheel. Any officer will be given twice that and reduced to the ranks. Now is the time to pull together, not fall apart.
“When we are assembled, as an army, not a rabble, we shall fall back on Entoto.
“There, we shall build a new, greater army, an army that will destroy Chardin Sher’s pretensions.