The Habit of the Emperor

by J J Moriarty

  In front of them the ground was even worse. It was flooded nearly to waist height. Throughout the spring, Hyzou had all the clay in Piquea ground down and mixed into the soil at the edge of the Khemmis. None of the flood water could drain off properly.

  Hyzou found himself a raised piece of ground and settled in for the night. The night was warm, summer was coming. Though it left him soaked, he happily slipped off into his dreams after the day of marching.

  He awoke when a Servant shook his shoulder.

  “Your Majesty, the sun’s risen. The Lamyblans are near”, he said.

  It didn’t take long for Hyzou to shake the sleep off.

  “Thank you”, Hyzou said.

  “Do you want some jerky?” The Servant said.

  Hyzou nodded and took a strip.

  “Who are you?” Hyzou asked. “You look familiar.”

  “Gyar, sir. We spoke through the ekstasis”, Gyar said.

  “I remember now. Drascian, aren’t you?” Hyzou asked.

  Gyar nodded.

  “How do you feel before today?” Gyar said.

  “It’ll be a victory”, Hyzou said.

  “They outnumber us, sir”, Gyar said.

  “We did it once before”, Hyzou said.

  “Win against those numbers? Yes, in wide open spaces, against a disorganised force”, Gyar said.

  “How do you know how many men are in the enemy’s army?” Hyzou said.

  “I woke before the sunrise, to watch the Lamyblans arriving”, Gyar said.

  “How far away are they?” Hyzou said.

  “Five miles”, Gyar said.

  “Wake Vak there”, Hyzou said.

  Gyar shook Vak awake.

  “Huh? What’s happening?” Vak said.

  “Vak, gather the captains, and tell everyone to assume their positions”, Hyzou said.

  Vak stumbled to his feet.

  “Yes, Your Majesty”, Vak said.

  “You’re too smart for your own good”, Hyzou said, once Vak had left.

  “What do you mean?” Gyar said.

  “The men need to believe we’re going to win”, Hyzou said.

  “I do believe it”, Gyar said.

  “You do? But what about all those things you mentioned?” Hyzou said.

  “You’re leading us”, Gyar said.

  Hyzou laughed.

  “We’ll see”, Hyzou said.

  The captains began to gather, the leaders of the companies, the Servants and the phalanxes. Hyzou stood and looked them over. He walked to the nearest pile of stones and climbed atop of it. He could see them all, nearly nine hundred of them.

  Hyzou cupped some of the water then anointed himself with it.

  “Which of you fears sowing this soil with your blood?” Hyzou asked.

  There were ‘no’s in response, ‘not me’s too. A lot of the captains were shaking their heads.

  “They’re coming to enslave you. Death or chains await. Lamybla has spat in your face for so long. So do you fear death?” Hyzou shouted.

  “No”, came the shouts, louder this time.

  “They’ve brought their chains and collars. Those brutish pimps and slavers. They’ll take your lands and starve your families. Do you fear death?” Hyzou said.

  “NO!” Came the shouts.

  “Soil sown with Piquean blood shall forever remain Piquean, do you fear death?”

  “NO!” Came the shouts.

  “Freedom has a price, that price is death! Do you fear paying that price?” Hyzou asked.

  “NO!” They shouted.

  “I promise you glory. But glory can only come through death. Can you pay that price?” Hyzou asked.

  “YES!” The shouts came.

  “Then scream it with me. Shout it so all Sira Su hears. Glory through death! Glory through death!” Hyzou said.

  “GLORY THROUGH DEATH! GLORY THROUGH DEATH!” They shouted.

  It was a rhythmic shout, and it spread throughout the whole camp. Beyond the captains through the soldiers too.

  “So die. Go die now. Pay your price with blood. Find that glory through death”, Hyzou shouted.

  “GLORY THROUGH DEATH!” They shouted.

  To war. Hyzou thought.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Their set up was simple. At the front line were the nine thousand infantrymen, organised into phalanxes. They stood among the water and floods, up to their knees, and waited.

  Behind the infantrymen were the semi-circle of stone piles, a mile across. Between each of the piles the Servants of Qi stood, each with three strips of leather that could act as a sling.

  Still out of range. Hyzou thought.

  The Lamyblans were making slow progress, moving like a leopard, cautious and afraid of Hyzou’s men.

  Finally, though, the enemy gave up on their march and began to sprint. They were still more than a mile away, but they were gaining ground.

  “Wait”, Hyzou said.

  Hyzou could see the waves the sprinting Lamyblans made through the water.

  Why did the Pharaoh move now? Hyzou wondered.

  In a few weeks all the water would be evaporated off. Iset must have been right, it was just been too expensive for him to keep so many soldiers in one place without moving them. Two hundred thousand mouths to feed every day began to add up.

  The enemy was closer than a mile now, but still Hyzou waited. He waited and waited until the nearest of them were only eight hundred feet away. The he gave the order.

  “RELEASE!” Hyzou screamed.

  The order was echoed along the line. The stones were loosened and flung into the air. The Servants threw with all their power and a lot of the stones went the full mile, maybe even more. The stones landed among the enemy, and though from here Hyzou couldn’t see much damage being done, the screams on the air told a different story. There were three thousand stones released, and a lot of them must have found some target.

  The second wave were released, another three thousand. The Pharaoh had ordered a full-frontal charge, hoping to swarm Hyzou with his superior numbers. The Pharaoh wanted to avoid the mistake of the battle of the West Country where Hyzou’s Servants had picked off isolated enemies. That meant the Lamyblan army was bunched, running at the Piqueans in waves of soldiers closely following each other. The Servants didn’t need to be accurate, stones only needed to be thrown in a general direction and the enemy was felled.

  Weeks ago, when Hyzou was coming up with a plan, he realised that the maxim he had been taught in Uqing, that the Servant’s greatest weakness was the ranged weapon, could be turned on its head. While the Servant’s greatest weakness was the ranged weapon, the Servant, with her strength and stamina, would be a phenomenal user of a ranged weapon. A well organised phalanx could hold an enemy at bay, while Servants using slings could pick the enemy off one by one.

  ***

  The first Lamyblan charge was led by Kyrios Vafpep, a hot-headed man of only sixteen summers. He had only recently taken over his role and new title, as his father was only dead six months. The previous Kyrios had been executed by the Piqueans after he was taken prisoner in the battle of the West Country. Kyrios Vafpep’s desire to avenge his father’s death, coupled with his general youthful intemperance, led the Pharaoh to believe he was the perfect man to lead the first frontal charge.

  Kyrios Vafpep rode in a chariot but got out once he realised how much the water slowed him.

  He was part of the first wave of attackers. They were some sixty-thousand men, charging maniacally towards the Piqueans. They screamed and whooped, shouting about how ready they wear to tear Hyzou of Nuyin from limb to limb.

  Kyrios Vafpep barely noticed when the first stones began to fall. He was angsty - it was the chance he had been waiting for months. Emperor Hyzou had executed his father like a dog, and now he was here for vengeance. He shouted at the top of his lungs, screaming that his men were to drive forward and to tear the Piqueans apart.

  After five or so minutes of his running, he began to
realise that something was drastically wrong. Kyrios Vafpep was towards the back of his army, so it took him a while to reach the spot where most of the stones were landing. When he came upon it, he almost fainted. The bodies were thick, floating like algae on the surface of the flood water. There were wounded everywhere, maimed and wailing, trying their best not to be caught underwater. Where there wasn’t a body, the water was stained a deep, dark red. Kyrios Vafpep faltered slightly then, and looked up into the sky. The stones were falling like rain, landing with a sickening thunk. Some landed in the water and raised a huge splash. Most of the stones landed among the soldiers, maiming whoever was unlucky enough to get hit.

  To Kyrios Vafpep’s right, a soldier no older than twelve summers was struck straight in the head with a stone the size of a fist. The boy’s skull didn’t just crack, it was smashed, like a melon thrown from a rooftop, landing on the stone ground below. Kyrios Vafpep froze and looked down at his armour, coated in the brains of a young soldier. The soldier’s body collapsed and fell beneath the water, and Vafpep saw as plumes of blood joined the already stained water.

  From behind the Kyrios more soldiers were streaming, running to their death. Around him, a haze of blood seemed to hang in the air like dust.

  “Retreat, retreat”, Kyrios Vafpep bleated.

  But no one could hear him, or no one wanted to hear. It turned out he’d been very effective at rallying his men, and all wanted to taste some of that Piquean blood.

  He didn’t really see the stone, it just crashed into his back.

  Something broke, and he felt pain shoot through his body. He was knocked clean off his feet and fell face first into the water. Kyrios Vafpep tried to push himself up, but something was wrong. He couldn’t move his left arm, and his right only moved slowly and with a lot of pain. He reached down and tried to push himself upwards, but he couldn’t, his awkward hand couldn’t gain any traction in the soft muddy ground. He tried to bring his knees up, but they were too slow too.

  In the end, Kyrios Vafpep drowned in a foot of water.

  ***

  The Pharaoh was a powerful politician and visionary, but he was not a general, Kyrios Nerikare was the one who ruled his forces with an iron fist. With Nerikare dead, the Pharaoh’s army was ruled by twenty or thirty different Kyrios, all of whom were desperate to gain Kyrios Nerikare’s mantle at the Pharaoh’s right hand. They all lacked that key attribute that had made Kyrios Nerikare such a powerful general - patience.

  The next to ride into battle was Nasakhma, who wasn’t a Kyrios, but instead occupied the rank just below that in Lamybla; he was a High Citizen. He hadn’t achieved this role through birth, he was the son of a lowly leather merchant. From a young age though, Nasakhma showed promise in his father’s shops, and began to get involved in more ventures than just what came from cows. Within a decade he was among Lamybla’s rich, and he slowly built an empire on the back of the economic boom throughout the Crown Cities.

  Then, the Anarchy came. For nearly everyone, including merchants, this meant disaster. Not for Nasakhma, who created a supply line to a swamp in the south that grew a particular kind of riverreed that could sustain a man. Not well, but enough to make the hunger pains leave. Men like Nasakhma tended to see their fortunes improve when even the rich didn’t have enough to eat.

  His wealth secure at the end of the Anarchy, Nasakhma set out buying any political power that was for sale. He rose quickly through the ranks, and even made it to the coveted role of High Citizen. But that was the ceiling for Nasakhma. The Pharaoh rarely made new Kyrios and it wasn’t something that could just be paid for.

  So Nasakhma found himself the opportunity of a lifetime when Kyrios Nerikare was assassinated. He knew that the Pharaoh would be seeking a replacement for Kyrios Nerikare, and that that replacement would likely hold the same title. Nasakhma had money, but not much of an army.

  That proved not to be an issue. He could pay the other Nobles who did have soldiers under their command, and they would pass the command over their men to him. He paid a lot, but he got a lot in return. By the end of their march, Nasakhma had gained the command of forty thousand men.

  As part of the deals, Nasakhma had demanded that he be given charge of the second wave. Kyrios Vafpep would lead the vanguard and do serious damage to the Piqueans, then he would swoop in and clean up with a victory. Delivering Piquea to the Pharaoh, if done with enough subtlety, could finally secure him the title he’d sought for years. His life’s work, complete.

  Nasakhma, of course, had never led soldiers into battle. An experienced merchant, he thought soldiers were like the slaves he had personally seen driven across Sira Su. Slaves always tried to flee, to break from the pack. They needed the whip, and the fear of death, to ensure that they always marched onwards.

  Nasakhma had Captains stand behind the soldiers and threaten them with painful punishments if they faltered. He had them drive the soldiers straight into the water and at the enemy. Nasakhma didn’t listen to the screams that went before him, and he didn’t decide to find out just what state Vafpep had left the enemy in. Nasakhma thought his job was to force the soldiers to make it to the enemy, whereupon they would win him the battle.

  When his soldiers reached the blood drenched waters, clogged with the dead, they didn’t think twice. They kept on running towards the enemy. They were mown down in a brutal massacre. The stones rained down like snow, and the poor wretches that made up Nasakhma’s army had no choice but to accept this harvest from the heavens.

  ***

  Kyrios Wehemka and the High Citizens Seth-Meribre and Harkhebi were next to lead their soldiers on a full-frontal charge. The three were good friends. They attended the theatre any time a show was on, and would attend orgies together too, once a good enough show was promised. Their wives regularly bathed together, and their slaves shared recipes for the best way to roast a hog.

  Only Harkhebi made it back from the crazed dash. Wehemka took a stone to his head, and Seth-Meribre was dragged underwater by two wounded soldiers, never to submerge. Perhaps they took the easy way out. Harkhebi was hit, and though he survived, he was never the same. He spent all his time from then on occupied by the most childish of tasks, he wandered a lot, and from that day on he couldn’t even get dressed without the aid of a slave. By the time he returned home, there weren’t many of those left either.

  ***

  For generations after that day, eager pupils would struggle to understand just why it was that the Lamyblan army didn’t stop their charging. Their tutors would try their best to explain using some of the following reasons.

  Kyrios Nerikare had established an ingenious system of runners among his army, making sure that information could be spread along a wide front. When he died, that system died with him. There was no way the competitive and jealous Kyrios and High Citizens who took his place would be willing to share information with each other that could help one another. Quite rightly, each thought that the other would just take credit for the act, and so every piece of news was hoarded jealously, as if it were the seal of Bvontei himself.

  This meant that every Lamyblan, from the lowly soldier, all the way to the Pharaoh himself, could only judge the battle on what he saw with his own two eyes. The Piquean and Lamyblan camps were far apart, and so it was impossible for the Pharaoh to see what was happening to his own men. The soldiers who so willingly ran towards their brutal doom did so imagining that they were going to clash with the enemy phalanxes. Only once they were in range of the stones did they realise that the thick piles on the horizon were of bodies. Only then did they notice the water around their feet was red with blood. Only then did they realise that the screams that rang out in the morning air belonged to one side of the battle only. Only by then, it was too late.

  As midday came and passed though, perhaps the Pharaoh should have noticed something. The blood in the water had spread to either camps now. The dark read plume was miles in perimeter. Yet, still, the Lamyblans kept going.

 
It’s easy to imagine retreating in such a situation, but as the hours passed and the battle reached a fever pitch, no call came. The Nobles, when they heard that the battle was still engaged, grew even more anxious to be involved. They hassled and harried their men and led an angry charge, hoping to succeed where others hadn’t before.

  It had been assumed by all, every single one of the Lamyblan Nobles, and especially Pharaoh Ganymedes, that victory was inevitable. The numbers didn’t lie, and while Hyzou may have surprised them in the West Country and won in a battle spread over thousands of miles, here at the edge of the Khemmis there was nowhere to run.

  Coming from the Pharaoh and spreading throughout the whole of the army, an idea had been planted in the mind of the Lamyblans. They had mentally steeled themselves for the seemingly impossible task of head on combat with the Servants of Qi. They knew that a Servant was a deadly foe and that they’d be facing death in the eye, so during the past year, when they were together in camp with no new ideas entering, the Pharaoh had seen the following mantra become the force’s guiding creed.

  No matter how much the Servants hurt them, the Lamyblan army would not back down. In the end Lamybla would be victorious, because there was no way the Servants could outlast so many men.

  This crazy determination to persevere, combined with the lack of a leader among the army, meant that when things began to go seriously wrong on the battlefield there was no one to scream retreat.

  Pharaoh Ganymedes had been raised a fighter. He had fought with his brothers as a child, then fought endlessly in training against anyone who would dare go against the mad Prince. When his father wanted to abdicate, he had refused and gone to war, slaughtering all his enemies. Any who knew the Pharaoh knew that he’d find it nearly impossible to sound the call to abandon the attack, and by the time he did it would be far too late.

  But most of all, the tutor would impress upon the pupil that he should sympathise with the Lamyblans. No one in history had yet attempted the style of fighting that Hyzou implemented on that day. Individuals who could use their Qi had been a part of warfare since the dawn of time, but always either fighting on the front lines, or as a screening force to protect normal infantry. Commanders were always blinded by the Servant’s ability in hand-to-hand combat, and so never realised their real advantage. They could throw so much further than a normal human.