by Samit Basu
The peace march rolled forward. Many people were not dancing any more, but walking in long strides, peaceful and resolute, as their moods altered. Now they had visions of dying to show the world the horrors of war, of teaching the savages with their swords and bows the value of life. They would die in thousands, in fields of corpses harvested by brutes, but they would die proudly, and drown the spirits of war with their own blood in full view of the gods above.
Askesis waited until the first line of the approaching crowd had almost reached the sappers’ trench.
Then he raised his right hand, and the battle officially began.
On each hill, warlocks cast spells on great boulders doused in Psomedean fire, which lit up in eerie green flames. The vaman catapults hurled these high into the sky and Askesis’ entire army let out a huge roar as the giant fireballs grew smaller and smaller, hurtling towards the Avrantics in impossibly great arcs. Wood from the logs in the trench splintered and flew about as the fireballs landed with uncanny accuracy on the trench, which lit up in seconds, creating a wall of green eldritch flame that rose twenty feet in the air, but let out no smoke. The warlocks had set powerful enchantments on the fire; it radiated not heat but magical ward spells, a wave of magic that rolled over everyone near it, lapping at their senses, driving away the clouds in their fuzzily happy minds. The leaders of the surging tide of humanity halted and stumbled, their passion and resolve suddenly dissolving, and they looked around wildly, trying to understand how they had reached where they were, and why it had previously seemed such a good idea to challenge the armies of Kol. Children wailed and wept, and the march faltered. Sheer momentum kept it moving ahead, though, as thousands more jostled their way over the ridge, pushing the craven forward. A few Avrantics were pushed into the flames and died instantly. The sight of their bodies burning horribly did nothing to encourage those who replaced them at the head of the mob.
As the march ground to a halt, the ravians considered their next move. They could not move into the forest; the spirit of the defenders could only be broken if they saw the Avrantics being slaughtered in full daylight, not in the secrecy of the forest.
As the ravians loosened their grip on the humans for a few moments to discuss their next step through mindspeech, the shapeshifters teleported into the crowd. Their arrival broke the ravian spell further, and moving swiftly through the throng, changing shapes often, they began to free the minds of the Avrantics through their very presence. Songs faltered and were replaced by angry, confused shouting. Flowers and musical instruments were thrown away, and fights broke out. And then the shapeshifters found their first ravian; in the middle of a change, a shapeshifter found a tall man charging at him. He yelled in alarm, and instantly five other shapeshifters teleported to his aid. The ravian fought well, but was overcome. The first strand of the web had been cut.
Another ravian was found, and then another, and another, and each one in turn was swiftly dispatched, trapped in a whirl of bodies, unable to dodge or strike efficiently, predicting with their ravian senses where the death-blow would come from, but unable to do anything about it. As the army waited patiently across the battlefield and increasingly large numbers of extremely confused Avrantics milled about helplessly, the ravians grew rash, and incited the Avrantics to a frenzy. Waves of people ran screaming into the trench, trying to smother the flames. They failed and burned, and more ravians were discovered.
And then a new danger emerged, causing ripples of fear all over the crowd. Great horned demons, with flaming whips and long, curling claws, began to appear near the river, and vanish again, starting what was almost a stampede into the forest. The ravians broke formation and charged; the demons vanished, and other shapeshifters arrived to battle the ravians who’d exposed themselves. With an arsenal of tricks up their shifting sleeves, the shapeshifters drove the humans they’d freed into the forest, where the Durgans and the centaurs were waiting for them. Whispers rippled through the crowd; they had been prisoners of the ravians, but now they were free, and the soldiers would take them home. The news traveled faster than ravians or shapeshifters, and slowly the flood of humanity turned into a trickle, and the whole march slowly stopped.
In the forest, supervised by Queen Rukmini, soldiers began the delicate process of moving hordes of extremely frightened and confused people into manageable lines. Flanked by centaur and Durgan guards, the peace march began the long walk home. Outside the woods, the ravians were still trying in vain to form some kind of formation against their elusive attackers, and their holds over the mob’s mind weakened further every minute as they strove to locate the shapeshifters. Several shapeshifters lost their lives in the process, but they were wearing down the ravians. The humans as a whole were now pushing back, away from the battlefield; far behind them, the Avrantic army began to retreat to make way for a river of people that had suddenly reversed direction.
Several hours later, as the sun began to set, the ravians attempted a charge; a score of them working together managed to lift up several burning logs from the trench and toss them into the river. But they had now lost any semblance of control over the Avrantic civilians, who were now walking into the forest of their own accord, angry, disillusioned, terrified of the great army waiting across the battlefield. The web had been snapped, unraveled; the ravians began to retreat through the masses they had brought to be slaughtered, huddled together to defend themselves more effectively against shapeshifter sorties.
The shapeshifters had undertaken a task of truly mammoth proportions. It took them two whole days to remove the civilians from between the opposing armies. The Avrantic army, aware of the thousands of Durgan and centaurs moving in the forest, had retreated further and strengthened its left flank, widening as far as possible the gap between its forces and the forest. The ravians had retreated with them, and did not interfere with the movement of the civilians. They had lost this round. It was now time to fight.
On the morning of the third day, Askesis received news from the north that confirmed what he already suspected; the ravians had not sent their main force to this battle, just enough to keep the humans under control and keep his army occupied and away from their main army, which was marching along the southern border of Vrihataranya towards Imokoi. The advantage lay squarely with Askesis now; he’d saved the lives of untold thousands, and made arrangements for their safe escort to Avranti, thus achieving a massive moral victory. Tactically, too, he had the upper hand; Shantavan was his now, and any attempt to even enter the forest would result in massive losses for the Avrantics. Besides, his troops were fresh and raring to fight, and though the Avrantic army was mighty, second only to Xi’en in terms of size, its logistical systems had always been inferior to Kol’s, and far more importantly the ravians had rendered it weak by removing its greatest strength.
What made most armies very eager to avoid conflict with Avrantic troops was Avranti’s magical weapons of terrible destructive capacity. A few Avrantic nobles armed with weapons rumoured to be celestial in origin could end a battle within hours. But there were no magical weapons, and no powerful enchanters on the Avrantic side at Pataal-e-Gurh, for they would have weakened the ravians’ grasp over the minds of the army’s generals. And since the ravians had not sent their greatest heroes to this battle, the mighty warriors of legend who could crack the earth and kill entire war-bands on their own, they too could be overcome by sheer numbers. The Koli army, on the other hand, now had more magic-users than it needed, even without the shapeshifters, who had blended in with the returning Avrantic civilians and true to their word, were never seen again by anyone present that day at Pataal-e-Gurh.
When the last of the civilians had walked into the forest, and news had come from the right flank that all was well, that Queen Rukmini and her warrior-women were safely on their way towards Avranti, Askesis sent envoys to the Avrantic general seeking their surrender; a surrender he fully expected, given, he thought, that the ravians had already achieved as much as they could. This tim
e the envoys did not disappear like the others. Instead, they were sent back tied to horses, headless. The ravians intended to squeeze every drop of service they could from their captives, and Askesis’ legions prepared once again for battle. The magic fire on the great trench had burnt out by then, and Askesis made no move to renew it; he wanted the enemy to come forward and meet him, he was itching to begin the battle. So were the Avrantics; they speedily and efficiently organized their forces behind the ridge, great battalions of infantry, lines of elite troops on chariots, a token cavalry and an awe-inspiring force of war-elephants.
The carnage began at dawn on the fourth day.
The Avrantics marched forwards, filling the slope between the ridge and the filled-up trench with surprising speed. Their army was divided as it had been since ancient times into chaturangas; elephants, chariots, infantry and cavalry. Their left flank had been reinforced to face attacks from Shantavan; several lines of archers and heavily armed infantry, and cohorts of horse-archers to deal with moving sorties. The light infantry had been split up in two, one half in front, the other at the rear, and between them the chariots led the war-elephants to the field. Cavalry dominated the right flank by the river. Avranti’s generals rode on chariots in the centre. As Askesis watched them swell into the basin of Gurh, he realized the well-shielded centre was where the ravians must have assembled. This was a well-trained military force, the ravians did not need to physically be present among the troops to influence the soldiers – they just needed to be near the generals so the soldiers received the orders the ravians desired.
‘The air is thick with anticipation,’ wrote Gerilola. ‘The mighty warriors of Kol ache to sink their clean steel into the cowardly, wavering enemy’s black heart, but not for nothing has Askesis been called the Grey Fox; he is the ultimate master of tactics, and still he holds them back. The enemy approaches with broad swords and cruel grimaces. Today will be a day of days.’
‘Can we move to behind that tent?’ asked Gymros. ‘We are too near Askesis. What if they have those terrible arrows and decide to use one on this hill? We are too important to place ourselves at risk thus; an entire nation depends on us.’
‘Yes,’ said Gerilola, rising hurriedly. ‘I think the hill on the right has a better view, anyway. And we can capture the emotions of the reserve troops better from there.’
The Avrantic infantry marched over the trench into the basin of Pataal-e-Gurh. On the right flank, the centaurs fretted and fumed, stamping impatiently on the ground, but no signal came from Askesis. In the forest, archers on horses or on trees, bows taut and ready, waited for an Avrantic charge into the forest; none came. Messengers raced to all the Koli divisions, bearing scrolls from Askesis. In front of the Artaxerxian lines, Haroun read his scroll, threw it away, and turned to his troops.
‘The ravians will drive the Avrantics forward recklessly,’ he called out in a great voice. ‘They do not care about losing soldiers; as you have seen, human lives no longer mean anything to them. Today, as we stand here at our rightful place, in front of all others, I say this to you: You are the pride of all Artaxerxia. For years they have thrown us at their mightiest enemies, waiting for us to be vanquished. But time and time again, we have defeated the hordes of the west and south, and the puppet-masters of Amurabad. Today, as we face Avranti, an enemy we have all longed to fight since the day we entered the army, I thank you once again, my brothers. Our time has come again. We will shed blood, and if we die, one day we will ride together again in the gardens of paradise. Ours is the first charge. Make me proud.’
The Avrantic infantry spread out over the battlefield, and Askesis realized his troops were outnumbered. This did not seem to cause him any degree of concern.
On the right flank, Klevadix tore open his scroll and turned, smiling, to his men.
‘Kill them all, you horrible bastards,’ he said, and the neo-Hudlumms roared in joy.
The first of the chariots crossed the trench.
‘Catapults,’ said Askesis.
Flags flew up, and the vamans released five huge balls of fire that streaked over the charging Avrantics like comets. The infantry charge did not falter; they were almost within bowshot.
As the fireballs sped towards the chariots, the ravians made their move. The fireballs skipped and turned in mid-air as their trajectories altered. Two arced leftwards to splash and sizzle into the river, three others skipped over the lines of chariots, and into the elephants, killing two instantly in thunder-bursts of blood and bone and wounding several others. A line of elephants teetered and stumbled, trumpeting in rage and bewilderment, and men fell screaming off their backs.
The elephants went berserk, forcing an all-out charge, The chariots sped forward ahead of the stampeding behemoths, and the cavalry on the Avrantic right charged alongside them. The vamans adjusted their catapults and ballistae and fired again; more elephants died, and huge siege arrows cunningly filled with explosives crashed amidst the cavalry and exploded. Horses and their riders were thrown into the air. Some landed in the river, and others were trampled by the elephants.
The infantry were in range. At Askesis’ command, the archers on the hills filled the sky with arrows; hundreds of Avrantic infantrymen lost their lives in that deadly rain as shafts pierced armour, shields and skin alike. More vaman missiles broke the war-elephant lines, and hundreds of infantrymen perished in the next volley of arrows. But the Avrantic lines did not falter; soldiers ran over the bodies of their fallen comrades to fill in the gaps, desperation bringing out the valour that their ravian masters could not insire.
The Artaxerxians charged. Magnificent brown horses streaked forwards, archers with shortbows firing swiftly and accurately into the chests of the approaching infantry. Spears and shields rose up to meet the cavalry. Scimitars and lances flashed in the sun as the lines collided, and the earth shook with the impact. A cloud of earth and dust and bone rose in the air, heads shattered, shields splintered, horses fell to earth taking their riders with them. The Avrantic line was broken, and those left wounded as the cavalry barrelled through their ranks lived on for mere minutes before Artaxerxian infantrymen reached the battlefront. A deadly skirmish ensued. The Artaxerxian horsemen were slowed down eventually by the sheer mass of the bodies they bore down on; bows were thrust aside and swords pulled out as men stabbed, swung, pushed and died in frenzied swarms of limbs.
‘The Artaxerxians prove themselves second only to Kol in valour and skill on the battlefield,’ wrote Gymros, observing through a telescope a young Avrantic stagger blindly on an empty patch of ground, holding his intestines in his hands, before a glancing blow from a horseman took off half his face. ‘War is so beautiful, so poetic, such a metaphor for love, life and everything worth dreaming of! How I wish I were not compelled to sit here with a pen while the true heroes dazzle even the sun with their strength and swordplay!’
On the left flank, the Koli legion strode forward to meet the Avrantic cavalry. On the right, the neo-Hudlumms were released; they ran like wolves, swinging their broad blades above their heads, hungry for blood. The centaurs could not be restrained any longer; they flowed like a torrent towards the Avrantic left flank, and drove right through them, smashing bone and flesh, fighting and killing even as horse-archers poured arrows into their bodies. The Avrantic chariots wheeled around in the empty spaces on the right, letting the elephants pass and falling in line behind them. The Avrantics commanded most of the space on the battlefield, but Askesis’ troops held the advantage; the magicians now came into play, weaving spells of death and deceit, beguiling their enemies with illusions, burning them with magic fire and confusing them with horrific visions.
The legions of Kol lost many men as the Avrantic cavalry charged into them, but their superior numbers and mixed formation won the day; the warlocks attacked the horses with mind-turning spells, and they cannoned into one another. Most of the Avrantic cavalrymen drowned in the Asa as their maddened mounts took flight. Passing by the chariots and elephants,
the Koli legions advanced down the left flank and attacked the reserve Avrantic infantry, and as they outflanked the enemy and drove them forward to the centre of the battlefield, vaman artillery pounded into the heart of the swarming Avrantic ranks, each missile taking out scores of advancing infantrymen, each burning boulder rolling in a trail of destruction over flattened corpses.
‘The centaur charge is led by a young centaur stallion named Crimson Heart,’ wrote Gerilola, improvising wildly, ‘the son of a shaman and a blacksmith, who’d abandoned his vow of non-violence when a cruel ravian hunter had eaten his wife. East he rides, like a woodland god, and none can stand before him. Watch, as he leaps on a chariot, crushing its rider beneath his vengeful hooves! Against insurmountable odds, in hellish conditions, the army of Askesis proves, again, indomitable. But surely the ravians have some hellish sorcery plotted; will Askesis and Crimson Heart survive their nefarious scheme?’ And if that was not the kind of war report that would justify his lucrative pay-per-word contract, he thought, he didn’t know what was.
The war-elephants trundled on towards the hills. Archers on platforms on their backs shot wildly into the melee, slaying friends and foes alike. Behind the elephants, the centaurs ran in to do battle with the charioteers. A deadly dance began in the heart of the basin, as the man-horses and chariots whirled and swerved in intricate formations, centaur arrows and spears missing their marks, vaman artillery crashing harmlessly around them. The ravians did not miss, though; their arrows swerved with their targets and brought them down. The humans on chariots did not fare so well; in most cases, the centaurs outmanouevred them, separated them from the ravians, herded them together and finished them off with their deadly spears; thus died most of Avranti’s generals, abandoned by their troops and their new masters, and the last sounds they heard were the ululating war-whoops of the fierce-eyed man-horses of the Centaur Forests.