The Shasht War

by Christopher Rowley

  ARNA 02

  THE SHASHT WAR

  Christopher Rowley

  MAP OF THE SOUTHERN LANDS

  PROLOGUE

  Basth received the call at the usual hour, just before dawn. It came as a little flutter in his mind, almost as if a voice were speaking into his ear. There were no actual words, but he understood nonetheless. The Master wanted him.

  Outside the temple, the great city of Shasht was still asleep. Basth glanced out the window over the rooftops toward the sea. The city was so huge! Even after two months young Basth was still thrilled to be a part of it all. Sometimes when he looked at his shaven head, now painted gold instead of red, he had to pinch himself to believe his good fortune. He ran light-footed up the stairs to the Master's sleeping chamber and lit a lamp before hurrying inside.

  In the low light the Master's skin had a waxy sheen to it. Later, he knew, this waxiness would fade and be replaced by a more lifelike color. Sometimes, when he had an attack of chest pain, the Master's skin would go grey and the veins would be visible as a network of blue threads under the skin.

  "I had a dream, Basth."

  "That is wonderful news, Master."

  The Old One's eyes glittered for a moment. "Once I had a dream, and ten Gold Tops died the next day."

  "A powerful dream, Master."

  "Very powerful, Basth. But the dream I had this morning was not like that."

  At the tone of his Master's voice, Basth wished he was still a Red Top back in Ectuma.

  "I dreamed that my greatest enemy was coming here, but I would fail to see him. And one day he will drive a sword through my heart."

  "Heaven forfend, Master! May He Who Eats destroy them who think this could ever happen."

  "Yes, that is a good thought. May He Who Eats destroy them all. Help me up, Basth. My legs aren't responding well today."

  CHAPTER ONE

  Feeling sticky from the heat, Brigadier-Colonel Thru Gillo watched his regiments forming up on the parade ground after another long day of drilling with the new weapons.

  The long lines represented the peoples of the Land: mostly grey-furred mots, of course, but with a few tall brilbies and brown-furred kobs among them. All wore the woven chain armor and grey trousers of the Sulmese army. Together they made up the Sixth Brigade of the Sulmo Army, composed of the twelfth and sixth regiments. Their shields, all bearing the fierce lion head of Sulmo, made a smoothly uniform front.

  Since the invasion of men from Shasht the year before, the peoples of the Land had been forced to learn soldiering, or face extermination. The men of Shasht offered them nothing but the edge of the blade. Industrious folk, the mots had taken a very thorough approach to the job. Thru Gillo had been sent south by General Toshak during the winter, to help create the new army of the South that was being formed in Sulmo. Toshak remained in the north, at Dronned, where the seasoned army of the North continued to train fresh recruits.

  Thru watched from a hillock directly overlooking the flat parade ground, set outside the walls of the town of Glais in southern Sulmo. He'd been impressed that day by his mots' improved abilities. Even after a long day, their formations were still crisp and their movements precise.

  His personal staff stood beside him: Major Ilb, a kob from the Glaine Hills, Sergeant Burrum, a wry-humored mot from Glais, and Private Kipes, his personal secretary. All different characters, but they worked well together. Even better, they were not prejudiced against Northerners, at least by Sulmese standards.

  Down below, at the head of their battalions, were his regimental commanders: Colonel Ter-Saab, a tall kob standing clear of his other officers, and the Grys Glaine, a plump mot wearing the blue coat of his social rank. Both of them had the red dot of their rank marked clearly on their helmets.

  Thru sighed. Both of these colonels were difficult to deal with, and their endless wrangling was enough to try the patience of a saint. And underneath all of that was Thru's Northernness. Toshak had warned all the volunteers that Sulmese pride would give them plenty of trouble.

  The Grys Glaine had the Twelfth Regiment, raised from the streets of Glais. Ter-Saab had the Sixth Regiment, country mots from Glaine. Both regiments had come a long way since Thru had first joined them in the depths of winter. Back then they'd been little more than enthusiastic but undisciplined mobs. Now they were halfway toward their goal of being a well-drilled pair of military formations capable of taking the field against any foe.

  The lines stood there absolutely still, the regimental flags flapped slightly in the breeze. Thru lifted his right hand.

  Immediately the Grys snapped an order, followed by Ter-Saab, and the stentorian voices of the regimental sergeant majors bellowed the commands for attention, presenting arms and stand at ease.

  Finally the regiments were dismissed and the formations broke up as everyone turned and headed off to the rows of tents pitched along the farther edge of the parade ground. Dust swirled up above the mass of helmets, and the neat lines of pikes, spontoons, and spears dissolved into chaos.

  Thru turned away from the parade and headed for his own tent, set up beside the command post. He pulled off the hot, uncomfortable helmet made of wicker and painted with several coats of lacquer. New, the helmets were an important addition to the army, for they deflected arrows and saved warriors from all but the most direct blows with club or sword. Still, they were decidedly uncomfortable on a hot day.

  Inside, he unbuttoned the stiff brown wool tunic, rubbed down his fur, and washed his face and hands before heading to the command tent. As expected a pile of message scroll awaited him. With a weary sigh he sat down and dug into it.

  Most were reports, usually of nothing, from coastal observers. All along the Glaine coast outposts maintained a constant watch on the sea. At the slightest sign of an enemy sail, they lit their beacons and sent runners to Glais. However, for the past several weeks there had been little enemy activity off the coast. Other scrolls were letters; these he piled to one side before sorting them out.

  He had hardly begun when both his regimental commanders entered, boiling with another quarrel.

  "I must register a protest!" said the Grys.

  "Ah, must you, now," murmured Thru, used to the Grys and his ways.

  "You saw it. You saw what happened," continued the Grys, speaking in a high-pitched voice.

  "I did? Both regiments performed very well. The Quarters wielding pikes have learned how to use them. The mots with spears filled the gaps very well."

  Ter-Saab smiled and nodded politely. The Grys bounced up and down on his heels with visible impatience while Thru spoke, then exploded.

  "We were supposed to be the lead regiment on returning to the parade ground. Yesterday the Sixth were the lead; today it was our turn. But instead the Sixth moved in front of us as soon as we turned back from the flank-maneuver practice."

  "My dear Grys," said Ter-Saab. "We were positioned right beside the road. You wanted us to wait until you had all marched past?"

  "And why not? It is our right."

  Thru closed his eyes for a moment. It was easy to understand how the Grys had earned his nickname, the Pook of I'm Right. Endlessly prickly, always insisting on receiving the respect due him for his social rank, he was hard to work with.

  Ter-Saab, however, wasn't as much help as he might have been. Endlessly condescending and quietly sarcastic, the kob from the hills could be just as difficult as the Grys.

  Still, Thru comforted himself, he wasn't there to be friends with these colonels; he was there to command them. He had battle experience and they did not.

  "Then, tomorrow you will exercise your right. And I will be informed before either regiment begins to march back to the parade ground so that I can be sure the Twelfth are in t
he lead."

  The Grys smiled tightly and bobbed up and down.

  "Thank you, Brigadier."

  Ter-Saab's mouth drooped in resignation.

  "Are we to inform you every day now, Brigadier?"

  Oh, such a wily old kob, trying to set traps like that for Thru's feet.

  "Of course not. From now on you will conduct the regimental etiquette without these little conflicts. We will all do our utmost to cooperate, so we function smoothly as a unit."

  "Well, of course, Brigadier, I always strive for that."

  "Thank you, Ter-Saab, I'm glad to hear that. Let's see that we avoid offending the sensibilities of the fine Twelfth regiment from here on."

  The Grys bristled a little, but wisely kept his mouth shut.

  "Now, my comments on today's drill." Thru looked them both in the eye. "The pike line of the Twelfth did very well in the close-order movements."

  The Grys perked up immediately. He flashed Thru a grateful look.

  "And the slanted echelon attack actually worked. When ordered to weight up the right flank, the Twelfth was easily the better regiment today."

  Ter-Saab's droop became further pronounced. He stirred himself to respond. "Well, it seems I must offer the congratulations of the Sixth Regiment to the Twelfth. They have finally done something better than us."

  The Grys's eyes bulged once more.

  Thru thought to himself that between himself and Ter-Saab, they were capable of playing the poor old Pook like he was some kind of instrument—up, down, up, down. But Thru had more pressing demands on his time. A mountain of scrolls still awaited his attention.

  "Well, then, if that's all, I'll see you at dinner. I have work to do."

  And indeed, he wasn't the only colonel within five miles who had an intimidating pile of paper awaiting his attention. Command of eight hundred individuals, three quarters of them mots, the rest kobs and brilbies, produced paperwork like polder produced waterbush. Both Ter-Saab and the Grys hurried back to their own command tents.

  After they'd left, Thru marveled once again just how far they'd come in the last few months. With those two as regimental commanders, it might have been a disaster. In the beginning they could barely form a column without falling into chaos. Now they could march at the double in a slanted echelon with pike units to the front. Even in mock combats the formations held up.

  Of course, the main question remained: how would they hold together when they went into battle against men. Men were better at battlefield maneuver. They had trained all their lives for it, while these mots were just country folk. But at least they hoped to prevent the kind of mob chaos that had ruined all their attacks at Dronned.

  They'd won that battle, but only because they'd been lucky. Luck and the sheer arrogance of man had saved the day for the army of Dronned.

  He checked the coastal reports. There wasn't much of any import. A fishing smack reported some sails off Lilli Point, about ten miles to the east. There might have been sails seen in a report from another fishermot, the cog "Garvas" out of Brinilhome. Other reports were vaguer still. A shepherd near Glais had seen figures in the distance that might have been men. A farm mor on the coast had found tracks on the shore. So they went, but he read them all, just in case.

  Things had been quiet since the early spring, with only three large scale raids in Glaine. By dint of fast marching and a little luck, the Sixth Regiment had actually arrived at Brinilhome in time to stop the burning of the town and to drive the attackers back to the beach. A dozen men had paid with their lives, while mot casualties had been less than five. But that had been months before, and since then there had been nothing more than these reports of sails on the horizon and mysterious tracks on the shore.

  With a sigh he shoveled the message scrolls into a sack. Just then Major Ilb came in with another bag of messages.

  "Oh, wonderful, just what I needed."

  "Sorry, Brigadier, this lot just arrived."

  "Thank you, Major. And, by the way, what is the situation regarding the Lady Alvil?"

  The Alvil of Parunte was a famously wealthy old mor who owned extensive fields and wood lots along the Parun River.

  "She still wants a royal indemnity for her trees. She says the orchard is one of the best in the whole valley."

  Thru sighed. Getting a royal permit meant someone had to slog all the way up to Sulmo, get in line at the palace, and wangle the indemnity out of the royal bureaucracy.

  If he just sent a simple written request, it would be a month before he heard anything. And by then the brigade might well have moved somewhere else and no longer need to camp in the Lady Alvil's damned orchards.

  If he'd thought Ilb could be spared he might have sent him to Sulmo, but the major was dealing with a thousand things a day. Ilb was essential here at camp.

  Sergeant Burrum was likewise necessary to the running of the brigade. And in Sulmo, when dealing with the desk clerks and the doorkeepers, he would not be as effective as the wily and efficient Ilb.

  Kipes? But Kipes, too, was essential. He knew where all the paperwork was.

  Thru put it out of mind for a moment as he examined the next report, which was about a shipment of new weapons from Sulmo: two dozen more of the small pikes, called spontoons, which had hooks as well as spearheads. The hooks allowed the spontoon bearer to pull an opponent off balance before thrusting home with the spear. The spontoons were proving popular with the mots, who were training enthusiastically at the one-two motions of pulling and stabbing.

  He set it down. Well, there was progress in some directions anyway.

  But, he sighed inwardly, it never seemed like enough. There would be war this summer. It was inevitable, and if the army they had built was defeated, then millions of folk could die. The men had shown that they were out to exterminate all the peoples of the Land, even the helpless chooks.

  Something about a scroll farther down the pile caught his eye, and he reached and pulled it free.

  His eyes widened as he saw the writing and recognized the hand. He fumbled for his knife and slit the seal.

  Nuza had not written for more than a month. She had been in Lushtan when last he'd heard, still working on the production of bandage and splints for the coming campaign season.

  The words swam into view as he read. She was in Sulmo, having come south with a donkey train of war supplies. She included an address in the Outer Ward of the great city. She would be there for a while, perhaps all summer; it depended on what orders came down for her. She hoped he was well, sent love and kisses, and prayed that they would see each other soon, somehow.

  At once all his responsibilities, his regiments, his lines of Quarters vanished from his mind and were replaced by the thought of her. Nuza in her acrobat costume, tumbling and leaping with amazing grace. Nuza, in his arms, her body pressed close to his.

  He stepped out of the tent and stared off northward toward the hills. She was just on the other side of those round purple knobs. A day's march away.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The thought of Nuza so close by gnawed at him all evening. He could make it to the city in a night's hike if he pushed it. All he was doing here anyway was watching the regiments drill. And for one night he and Nuza could be together again, like in the old days, before the war destroyed their lives.

  He wrote out orders for Ter-Saab and the Grys and handed them over personally. He would be back within three days. While he was gone, Ter-Saab would assume brigade command because he had been a colonel for three months longer than the Grys. The Grys made a sour face at this news, but accepted it. Ter-Saab gave the usual weary shake of his shoulders.

  Thru ate a hearty breakfast an hour before dawn, then set off with a small pack, his bow and his staff, just as he might have traveled in the days before the war.

  He pushed himself through the day, reached the hills in the early afternoon, and began to climb. That night he rested briefly while he ate a meal of dried bushcurd and twice-baked bread. Then, after a drink
of cold water from a spring, he resumed the march under the light of the half-moon. The white chalk of the road glowed, and he followed it northward while the heavens wheeled above.

  It had been almost a year now, a year like a giant wound in his life. Ever since that dismal day in the village of Sonf when she'd gone south and he'd gone north to join Toshak and the war. The coming of the men of Shasht had changed everything. The easy life of the Land had ended in a moment and been replaced ever since by war, terror, and preparation for more war.

  It was hard being sundered in this way, and when time hung heavy on his hands, Thru had to fight mean and petty thoughts. Why did he have to serve in Sulmo? Why couldn't he join the bandage makers in Lushtan? Then he would be with Nuza all the time.

  But then Toshak's words would come back to him and stiffen his resolve.

  "Our lives are over, the lives that we knew. Until this war is over we are nothing but soldiers."

  So, he wasn't "Seventy-seven-Run Thru Gillo" anymore. He was a brigade commander and he bore a heavy responsibility.

  And yet, now had come this opportunity for them to be together. During a time when there was little happening in the field.

  He kept up a hard pace, and long before morning he was going downhill. He stepped lively, marching for mile after mile, something he'd grown accustomed to during the past year. Something hard, almost like iron itself came up in the body and gave him the strength to go on, one foot after the other.

  At dawn he stopped to drink from another cold spring and splashed some water on his face and down his back. Then he took up his staff once more and continued. By late morning he was in the farm country just south of the city. In late morning he passed through the village of Kachiesek and over the first of the bridges that spanned the many channels of the Sulo. The high outer walls of Sulmo were soon in view.

  The white stucco buildings glowed in the southern sun. The harshness of the midday light still struck him as strange, even after spending half a year in the southern land. A long pennon flew from the gate tower, white-checked with red squares. Culpura was in the city. Anyone who needed to speak to an Assenzi was free to call on him. The Assenzi were beings of an ancient kind, smaller than mots, with lives that stretched back into distant antiquity. In most parts of the Land they were regarded as founts of wisdom. Only in Sulmo was there widespread suspicion of the Assenzi, a legacy of the reign of King Ueillim long ago.