“Can he do it?” Miya asked.
Kiya squinted against the rising dust. “Husband is doing it.”
Chapter 24
Chance’s Choice
The Army of the East rode ready for combat, but the first two days of the journey passed without hostility. The countryside, which had been emptied of people by the parallel invasions of bakali and nomads, had sprung to life again. As Tol’s army passed out of the Caer Hundred into the Heartland Hundred, strange things began to happen.
Ordinary folk, who normally wouldn’t have come within a league of an armed horde, turned out by the hundreds. Word spread that Lord Tolandruth was leading the hordes to Daltigoth to set things right, so cautious observers left their hiding places and came forward to cheer. Nor did they come with empty hands.
The bountiful countryside between Caergoth and the capital had not been ravaged in the recent invasions. No nomads had made it this far west, and the bakali had passed far to the north. With high summer upon the land, the fertile heart of the empire was bursting with plenty. Even the drought that gripped the Eastern Hundred had not affected crops here. The peasants brought fruits, vegetables, and smoked meats. Before long, Riders were festooned with bags of grapes, onions, melons, and carrots, and even several live chickens, their feet lashed together.
Kiya and Miya, having gotten the baggage caravan started, left it to join Tol at the head of the central column. A farmer’s wife rushed up to Miya, shoved an enormous ham into her arms, and hurried away, all without a word. While the Dom-shu sisters were amused by the joyous reception, Tol found it unsettling.
Miya, staggering along with the ham, said, “They’re happy, Husband! They know what you’re going to do!”
Egrin remained dour. “If we fail, the results could be grave for those known to have given us aid.”
As it developed, there were other, more immediate considerations. Gifts of beer and wine began to arrive, and the Army of the East grew merry indeed. Lord Argonnel cantered over from the right wing, where similar conditions prevailed.
“My lord, this must stop!” he said. “Discipline is failing. If the emperor attacked now, our men would flounder under an ocean of foodstuffs!”
“But the people love us!” Miya replied. “And it’s for them you’re doing this, Husband!”
Argonnel was right, but Miya had a point as well. How could they extricate themselves from the flood of well-meant gifts without alienating the good people of Ergoth?
It was Kiya who showed the way. Two children approached her, each bearing pots of berry jam. Even the tough warrior woman couldn’t bear to wound them by refusing, but her hands were already full. Exasperated, she held out a bag of grapes.
“I can’t take anything unless you take something in return!” she declared.
Laughing, Tol made Kiya’s frustrated bargain a general order. No one in the army was to accept another gift without giving something back. He also ordered the pace of the hordes quickened. This would make it harder for the peasants to reach the warriors.
By the third day-halfway along in the journey to Daltigoth-the bounty of food and drink had greatly subsided. Near the border of the Great Horde Hundred, in which the capital lay, it ceased altogether. The farmers were no less glad to see the Army of the East, but the influence of Ackal V’s spies was greater. The first scouts were seen, watching Tol’s hordes advance through the lush orchards and verdant pastures east of Daltigoth. Riders from Zanpolo’s Iron Falcons tried to flush out them out but failed to catch them. The spies were mounted on fleet, carefully chosen horses, and they knew the countryside well. Tol took Zanpolo’s failure in stride.
“If you can capture a scout, fine, but if not…” Tol shrugged. “We want everyone in Daltigoth to know we’re coming. The time is fast approaching when all must choose-as you did, Zanpolo-whether to be with us or against us.”
The first clash came soon after.
At the intersection of the Ackal Path and the Mordirin Way was a customs house. Here, imperial officials levied tolls on caravans passing east or west, and north or south. Comprising a stout stone building and a wooden tower enclosed in a stockade faced with sloping walls of earth, the customs house seemed an unlikely spot for a showdown. But as Riders from Mittigorn’s Black Viper Horde approached, a shower of arrows greeted them.
Mittigorn sent word back to Tol, then dismounted sixty men and proceeded to attack. After storming the grassy scarp, the Vipers fell upon the occupants of the stockade. Much to their surprise, they discovered their opponents were not imperial warriors, but ordinary footmen armed with bows. Twenty-two bowmen and the customs officer constituted the entire garrison.
Tol arrived with his warlords and the Dom-shu sisters. The captured bowmen were sitting quietly on the ground, hands clasped atop their heads. Not so the customs officer. He was stretched out facedown, wrists lashed together behind his back, held at sword point. Both face and fists bore the bloody evidence of his resistance.
Ignoring the fuming customs officer for now, Tol addressed the leader of the bowmen, a man with a city haircut and light sandals on his feet. “You, stand up. What’s your name?”
“Fengale, my lord.” He spoke like a city man-pronouncing “my lord” as “ma ludd.”
“Why are you here, Fengale?”
The sergeant shrugged. “One of the emperor’s chamberlains hired us to defend this post. We arrived here only last night.”
Kiya wondered why Ackal V would deploy hired soldiers when he had plenty of warriors at his command, but this was no mystery to Tol. The emperor had withdrawn all his hordes, concentrating his warriors closer to the city. What Tol couldn’t fathom was why Ackal V had bothered to defend the customs house at all.
He turned his attention to the customs officer. Two warriors dragged the fellow forward. He fought and cursed the whole way.
“Traitor! Rebel! Your head will feed the crows for this!”
Tol waved a hand. “Yes, yes. Who are you?”
The officer couldn’t break the grips of the burly Riders holding him, so he settled for stating loudly, “My name is Hathak. Captain Hathak, of the Imperial Customs Service!”
“Well, Captain Hathak, what’s so special about your house?”
The petty official made a great show of not understanding, and Tol added, “We aren’t fools, Captain. There has to be a reason the emperor wastes even a small number of troops defending a solitary customs house.” To Mittigorn he said, “Have the house searched thoroughly.”
Mittigorn’s men carried out the order enthusiastically. Partitions were torn apart, floorboards pried up, and soon enough a shout of triumph rang out.
Two chests of gold coins (ironically stamped with the profile of Ackal V’s revered father, Pakin III) were found secreted under the floor of the house. In the rafters the men found sheaves of spears, bundles of shields, and sabers. All the metal implements had been dipped in wax to keep away rust, and all bore the stamp of the imperial arsenal in Daltigoth. Some were of recent make, others were older weapons.
Tol studied the cache carefully, all the while wondering why the weapons had been secreted here. A commotion outside interrupted him, and Miya appeared in the customs house door.
“You’d better come!” she said gravely.
Outside, they found Kiya standing over Hathak, once more facedown on the ground. The Dom-shu woman had her sword out and was glaring at several Riders standing nearby.
“They started beating him to make him talk,” she reported. “I put an end to it!”
Tol looked to Mittigorn and the warlord, still mounted, shrugged. “One way or another we have to find out what he knows, my lord,” he said.
Tol looked from the bloody, bound prisoner to Kiya’s proud, angry face. Distasteful though it was, he asked Mittigorn, “What did you learn?”
“Not much. We were interrupted,” Mittigorn said dryly.
Hathak had revealed that the gold was from tolls collected over the past half-year. The ar
ms had been delivered to the customs house and hidden before the hired bowmen arrived from the city.
Tol gnawed his lower lip. He needed every bit of information he could lay hands on.
“Take Hathak inside,” he said to the waiting warriors. As they hoisted the fallen man up, Tol said to Mittigorn, “Find out what he knows.”
Miya gasped. Kiya grabbed his arm and demanded, “You’re going to let them torture that man?”
He broke her hold and seized her wrist. “Do you think this is a game?” he asked harshly. “We’re not fighting nomads any more. The emperor would not place money and weapons at a lonely outpost for no reason. I have to know why he did it!”
Like most foresters, Kiya would gladly fight and kill any opponent who challenged her, but the idea of beating information out of a helpless captive made her furious.
“If you do this, you’re no better than him!”
Kiya jerked her arm free. She swung onto her horse and galloped off, not back to the column, but westward, away from the poised army. Tossing an anguished glance at Tol, Miya followed her sister.
Tol stalked back to his own horse, his entire body radiating anger. He told Lord Mittigorn to seek him out once they had the truth from the customs official.
The commander of the Black Viper Horde acknowledged the order. He was unmoved by the drama with the Dom-shu sisters. He didn’t expect women (and barbarian women at that) to understand a warrior’s duty. However, his equanimity was shaken when Tol ordered him to disarm and release the bowmen.
Dark eyes widening, he asked, “Is that wise, my lord?”
“They’re only hirelings. We don’t have time for prisoners, so take their bows and turn them loose. That’s an order!”
Mittigorn snapped to attention in his saddle. “Yes, my lord.”
Tol cantered back to the waiting column. The sky, which had been an unblemished blue all day, was clear no longer. On the northern and southern horizons white clouds were piling up.
When Miya lost sight of her sister around a bend in the road, she urged her mare into a canter. Bands of light and shadow flickered across the Dom-shu woman’s face as she rode along the cedar-lined road. The air was hot and still; only the wind stirred by her passage made it bearable.
Rounding the curve in the road, she saw that Kiya had stopped where the lines of trees ended. The road there sloped downward, running straight and true into a breathtaking vista of green pastures and arrow-straight rows of fruit trees. An equestrian statue by the road marked the border of the Great Horde Hundred, the exact center of the Ergoth Empire.
Miya drew alongside her fuming sister. Neither of them spoke, they merely stared out at the bountiful countryside spread before them. Kiya’s hair had come free of its confining thong and fanned out over her shoulders. As a child, Miya had been jealous of her sister’s blonde locks, thinking the color much prettier than her own. Now, the sight of her sister’s unbound hair suddenly reminded Miya of the white burial shrouds used by high-born Ergothians. She shook her head, dislodging the thought.
“Husband didn’t have much choice,” Miya finally said. “The tax collector is a coward, anyway. He’ll probably talk if they only threaten him with violence-”
“Do you see them?” Kiya whispered in a strange voice.
“See what?”
“The clouds, Miya. Look at the clouds. Do you see the faces?”
Miya shaded her eyes, obediently studying the sky. Towering over the valley below were great masses of clouds, their bottoms flat as marble tiles. They were intensely white in the glare of the summer sun. Clouds and valley formed a vast panorama unknown in the close confines of their forest home. Beautiful in its own way, Miya admitted, but she didn’t see any faces.
Miya said, “All I see are clouds, Sister.”
Kiya frowned. As before, at the Isle of Elms, she saw rows of people, their faces without expression, staring down at her. She was not given to seeing portents and omens around every corner. That she was seeing this, and Miya was not, must be significant. The silent watchers must be a warning.
The sound of voices behind them brought their attention earthward again. The Army of the East was approaching. Many Riders were pointing at the sky and exclaiming/
Tol and Egrin, leading the central column, cantered up to the Dom-shu women. As they arrived, Egrin’s gaze strayed to the clouds and he jerked his mount’s reins. “Draco Paladin preserve us!” he whispered. “Who are they?”
As it transpired, about half the army could see the vision. The other half saw only clouds. Tol saw nothing but summer thunderheads. He asked Kiya and Egrin what the cloud-people were doing.
“Nothing, they just-” Kiya shrugged. “They just gaze at us.”
The faces, she told him, were distinct but without detail, like simple representations molded in clay. Their expressions seemed frozen and did not change.
Although unable to see the apparitions, Tol could certainly see how the aerial spectacle affected his friends. Their awe was disconcerting. He didn’t fear magic himself, not as long as he had the millstone, but bitter experience had taught him spells could have a severe effect on those around him.
“It could be a warning,” Miya said, unconsciously echoing Kiya’s earlier thought.
To break through the army’s immobility, Tol resorted to his loudest battlefield voice.
“All right, men! If you’re through gawking, let’s ride on! Close ranks!” he boomed. “Form up, I said!”
Egrin and Kiya shook off their wonderment and the column set out. Heralds galloped out to the flanking hordes to urge them into motion as well.
“It must be a trick,” Egrin insisted, chagrined at the effect the vision had on him. “There are plenty of wizards in the Tower of High Sorcery willing to do the emperor’s bidding.”
The explanation was a sensible one, but Kiya was not convinced. For the first time she recounted the similar vision she’d had at the Isle of Elms.
Tol was intrigued, but before he could question her further an all-too-familiar hum filled the air. A wave of arrows clattered onto the road in front of them.
“Ambush!” Miya cried, as her horse reared in fright.
“Forward the vanguard!” shouted Tol. The front ranks of the militia jogged forward, shields upraised. They flowed around the four riders as a fresh shower of arrows arrived.
Tol sent Egrin back to bring Lord Pagas’s Riders forward. As the old warrior galloped away, Tol and the Dom-shu sisters dismounted.
“There! The arrows came from there!” Kiya shouted, pointing ahead to a drainage ditch on the left side of the road.
Tol tossed his reins to Miya and drew Number Six. Kiya likewise gave her mount over to Miya.
The foot soldiers gathered around the younger Dom-shu and the horses, spreading out to cover the shoulders of the road as a third and fourth volley hissed overhead. A few men, careless with their shields, went down with arrows in their necks or shoulders.
Shields raised, the Juramona Militia followed Tol and Kiya off the road toward the unseen archers. The Ackal Path was built on an earthen causeway, some two paces above the surrounding farmland, and the soldiers skidded down the mossy slope. Behind them, the rest of the militia advanced straight down the road.
Tol estimated they faced about a hundred bowmen. He had five hundred men in the vanguard. Through the line of shields ahead of him, Tol glimpsed the archers as they peered over the top of the drainage ditch. At his order, his men lowered spears and charged down the embankment. Reaching the rim of the ditch, they pulled up short, astonished by what their eyes beheld.
There were indeed one hundred bowmen in the ditch. But behind them, concealed by a thick line of berry bushes, were imperial Riders, several thousand in all. Gasping, Kiya uttered a single pungent curse. Tol couldn’t improve on it.
The vanguard attacked the archers, and a brisk battle ensued. When the rest of the militia reached the crest of the road and saw the hidden hordes, they immediately halted and t
ook up defensive squares across the Ackal Path, calmly sorting themselves into formation.
The lightly armed archers broke off the unequal struggle in the ditch, and fled. Tol withdrew his vanguard, keeping the gully between his men and the poised hordes. As he was pulling back, two of the hordes charged the militia on the road.
The sight of the bellowing Riders, thundering forward on massive war-horses, was guaranteed to strike terror in the hearts of men on foot, but the charging hordes had never before faced foot soldiers trained by Tol. Certainly the Juramona Militia felt fear, but they stood their ground.
The hordes smashed into the foremost square, almost sweeping it away in one go. Plunging horses bowled over the men on foot, despite the walls of spear points they presented. The rear face of the square, unengaged, wheeled around and reinforced their comrades. Blood flowed on the Ackal Path, and Tol quick-marched the vanguard to support their comrades. Using tactics he’d invented long ago, his soldiers slung their shields on their backs, gripped their spears in both hands, and raced headlong at the engaged horsemen. Footmen weren’t expected to attack riders, but the Juramonans knew how. As they attacked, they shouted the most famous battle cry in Ergoth.
“Juramona! Juramona!”
The Riders trapped between the militia squares and Tol’s charging vanguard broke off fighting and rode out of reach.
The Juramonans barely had time to draw breath before two fresh hordes bore down on them. Hastily they formed a new square four ranks deep. The Riders trotted along the outside of the square, hacking the spearheads jabbing at them. Fighting was at arm’s length as the Riders surged around the militia, but once they realized the Juramonans wouldn’t be easily broken, the hordes withdrew a short distance to rethink their strategy.
Around him, Tol heard the labored breathing of his men. Kiya had sheathed her sword and taken up a spear from a fallen soldier. She wiped blood (not her own) from her hands so she could better grip the spear. Again there was little time to rest before battle was renewed.
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