The Shasht War

by Christopher Rowley

  They waited, watching with appalled eyes while the men went about their grisly feast.

  The men kept only a single sentry and appeared unafraid despite being in hostile territory. They were all focused on the roasting meat.

  The surviving mor sobbed quietly beside the tree.

  Thru, Beerg, and Natho made their plan, then set it in motion.

  The meat cooked while the men tested it with their knives. Then they removed some of the smaller parts and shared them out. They ate hungrily and loudly with little jesting until most of it was gone. Then sitting back and picking at the major bones, they conversed in comfort while passing around a canteen.

  At that point they discovered the man posted as sentry was no longer standing on the high rock. They called to him and assured him they'd left him some meat. When he still failed to respond, they stood up and cast about for him. Now they noticed that the other mor was gone. With angry cries they examined the tree and the cut rope. And then there was a shout as someone else found the sentry's body, throat slit from ear to ear.

  The men exploded into action with rage. They seized their weapons and searched for the monkeys who had stolen their prey.

  Ahead of them, perhaps half a mile, ran the mots and the young mor. The little mor had forgotten her exhaustion, at least for now. They stayed in the streambed, keeping a good pace, springing along from rock to rock and then running in the shallows when possible to break up the trail.

  But, fifty feet ahead of them downstream, they spotted more men, a smaller group. The mots dove for cover and then studied this new obstacle.

  "Four only," murmured Beerg, who had pulled the mor down beside him and had a hand over her mouth to keep her absolutely quiet.

  Natho was a little farther back, hidden in a clump of alders. He had drawn his bow and notched an arrow. Now Thru risked another look downstream. The men were still there, unaware of the mots' presence, facing the other way, walking slowly through the stream. They appeared to be alone, a small scouting party.

  Thru motioned to the others that they should avoid the men by leaving the streambed and cutting across through the hemlock forested bottom to the polder land of the Wirra River. Somewhere down there, they should find safety with the four thousand mots under Colss.

  Quietly they left the stream and moved carefully through the litter on the forest floor. They moved up the steep side of the streambed into a forest of hemlock and oak. There wasn't much underbrush here, so they moved cautiously from tree to tree through the shadows.

  Thru was just beginning to think they had left the men far behind when a spear lanced out of the dark and Natho went down on his knees with a grunt of pain. Thru saw the shaft jutting from between Natho's shoulders the instant before he dove to the ground, pulling the mor down with him.

  Beerg had gone behind a tree, drawn an arrow, and was ready to return fire. Thru rolled to the base of the next tree, a sturdy oak with sprawling roots. The mor had slipped into a crack between two boulders.

  Thru drew his bow, nocked an arrow, and searched the dark pools under the trees for some sign of the enemy.

  Nothing moved except insects whirring among the vine flowers, and then a dark mass flashed on his right. A javelin sank into the tree trunk just above his head. He rose and aimed at the man now running toward him with a spear aimed point first at his chest. His arrow took the man in the right eye socket, and though he kept coming for another stride he was already dead when he crashed to the ground.

  Another arrow snicked off the tree trunk behind him as Thru dove for cover again. He rolled over, got to his feet with short sword ready just in time because a man was only a few steps away with his own sword ready.

  Thru drove forward and they met with a ringing slam of steel on steel. The man's sword broke as the Assenzi forged and hammered steel of Highnoth cut through the cheap casting from Shasht.

  Thru spun around, the man was trying to draw a knife. Thru thrust at him. The man kicked up and deflected Thru's point. Thru dodged a second kick and slashed down at the man's leg, which brought a shriek, and the man fell awkwardly among piled branches.

  Another man was there, his spear missed Thru's head by less than an inch and then Thru was borne back, chest to chest until he got a hand up and ripped at the man's face. The man turned his head, a small gap opened, and Thru stabbed him in the side and felt the sword go deep.

  The man sagged to one side. Thru hid behind the tree again.

  The one whose leg he'd cut had rolled free and pulled himself into cover. Thru searched the darkness beyond the trees. Were there more? They'd seen four men in the river. Three were dead in front of them, for Thru could see another man lying there with Beerg's arrow in his chest.

  Thru knew the men behind them would not be slow in following.

  "Come on," he said, and urged the mor out of the rocks and back onto a narrow deer trail through the forest. After a while the stream curved across its bed, and they found themselves running beside it, except that now it was no longer a stream splashing down on rocks and boulders, but a sinuous coil of water, thirty feet across and deep enough to make the bottom invisible.

  Thru knew there would be a polder up ahead. There usually was on streams like the Wirra. That gave him hope. The valley opened out ahead, growing wider. Thru kept reliving that moment when the man charged with his sword raised, the flash of the blade and the crunch of the blow when Thru's sword met it full on. He felt for the hilt of his weapon. The Highnoth steel had proved the better.

  Beerg came up suddenly in a hurry.

  "I hear them behind us."

  They redoubled their efforts. The trees were thinning out.

  "Look," said the little mor.

  The first outlying strips of polder were visible ahead. Bright green with ripening waterbush.

  They came on a party of chooks working along a drainage ditch for beetles. Thru turned to them as he ran.

  "Run, my brothers, run for higher ground. Man is coming."

  "Man?" squawked a young bantam.

  The rest stopped pecking in the grass and looked upstream.

  "Run!" shouted Thru.

  The chooks fled. When chooks put their minds to running, they were among the swiftest creatures of the Land, at least for short distances. In moments they were melting away back into the trees.

  Thru rejoined the others in a few strides.

  Beerg was still looking back every so often.

  "They can't be far now. They know where we are, I think."

  Thru agreed.

  Now there was walled polder beside them, and dozens of small crayfish ponds for producing that staple of the Annion cuisine.

  And just then the men broke into view at the far end of the cleared ground. They gave harsh whoops at catching sight of the three mots and broke into a sprint.

  Now it was a race, and the mots were tired, particularly the mor, whose strength was finally beginning to fade.

  Sensing her inability to continue, Thru stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, bent down, picked her up, and slung her over his back. He could still run, but more slowly than before. He shifted her weight, centered himself under it, recalling a long-ago class of Master Sassadzu's. He had to let her weight become part of his own. As he did so he found it easier to increase his speed. Beerg had fallen back a little to try and cover them with his bow, but some of the men had bows, too.

  Thru drove himself on, each leg digging for purchase, accepting the weight and then driving forward. The roofs of the town weren't far off. Surely the mots of the southern force would be in Chenna by now.

  Recalling again Master Sassadzu's teachings in kyo class, he found the easy rhythm between a walk and a run, where his body worked most efficiently.

  The roofs of Chenna seemed to float there forever, unattainably far away. There was a row of tall poplar trees planted along the canal running through the town. The trees seemed to go past with aching slowness. The men were only a couple of hundred yards behind. Their
howling was horrible.

  At the bend the canal curved back toward the main river channel, which it joined just above Chenna Bridge.

  The roadway curved past the bend and entered the village. There wasn't a soul to be seen. Thru's heart sank as they stumbled past the houses.

  At about the same time his legs started to give out. He was almost done. He looked about wildly for a place to hide. Beerg galloped up and pushed open the front door of a small house by the side of the road.

  "In here."

  There wasn't time for anything else. If they had to, they would make their last stand there. Thru promised himself that he would kill the little mor if it came to that. She'd not be taken alive.

  He lurched inside, dropped the mor in the corner, then whirled back to join Beerg, who was in the doorway. Had the men seen anything? Breathless, they waited for a few seconds. But the spirit was still protecting them, for the men still had not rounded the bend. Beerg shut the door, and they retreated down into the cellar, where they pushed the mor into a narrow space behind a stack of root bins. They hid themselves behind a winepress in front of the bins.

  A few moments later they heard the dull thudding of the men running by. The men were no longer whooping. They had lost sight of their prey.

  Thru heard a hard voice say clearly, "Where are the fornicating monkeys?"

  Another, louder voice shouted, "Fan out, search the houses!"

  "They could be anywhere in this stinking warren," said a third, opening the door upstairs and looking into the main room.

  Thru tensed, hand on the hilt of his sword. Was this where he would die? In a dark cellar, like a cornered rat?

  They listened to boots stomp across the floor above. They paused, each side listening acutely for the slightest sound. Then the boots stomped back. The door crashed shut again. The man had never even seen the narrow entrance to the cellar.

  The mots crouched down and exhaled very slowly. The little mor wriggled out of the space behind the bins, climbed into Thru's arms, and pressed her face into his shoulder. She was trembling. They heard the men go on down the street. There came a loud crash somewhere, and some hooting and yelling. Then that second voice could be heard again, giving orders.

  The young mor's eyes were glazed. She was breathing in little shallow gasps. Thru hugged her to his chest.

  "What's your name?" he whispered.

  "Issa."

  "Issa, I want you to start taking long, deep breaths... Start now..."

  Thru showed her how to calm her breathing.

  "Just think about the air you're breathing."

  The mor's breathing began to deepen.

  They heard more shouts. She tensed once more in his arms.

  And then suddenly there was a loud increase in the shouting. She dug her face into his shoulder as if to block it out.

  Then they heard feet running back the way they had come. There was a great urgency to the running, a voice shouted something that Thru did not understand, and then there was silence.

  Seconds ticked by, then a minute. Thru crept up the steps and peered out the window in the front room. The road outside was empty. He whispered down to the others that the men seemed to have gone.

  He pulled the front door open a crack.

  And then there came other footsteps, stealthy, moving along the side of the house. Thru closed the door, drew his sword, and waited behind it.

  Figures were passing by the house. Thru peered through the cracks in the window shutter and saw mots, with bows drawn, cautiously moving down the street, scouts from Colss's force.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Thru found Brigadier General Colss in a barn on the southern edge of the town. Beerg and little Issa waited by the door. Colss took in Thru's torn coat and ruined trousers with pursed lips and raised eyebrows.

  "Welcome, Colonel Gillo. Your regiment will be glad to see you."

  Thru had to accept that he deserved the implied rebuke.

  "I hope so, General. I'm sorry I wasn't there when the call came. Here is a message for you from the Meld."

  "And I'll bet the old Meld gave you hell, too," said Colss, taking the scroll.

  As he read it, Colss's demeanor underwent a dramatic change. Before he'd finished reading he'd unrolled the map resting on the portable table to check various positions. When he looked up again, it was with considerably more respect.

  "The Meld says you know the situation and can advise me."

  "Yes, sir." Thru pointed to the map. "As you can see all the roads meet at Shimpli-Dindi. We ran into an enemy patrol about here." Thru pointed to the woods northwest of Chenna. "That leads me to think the enemy army is massed somewhere between here and Shimpli-Dindi."

  Colss pointed to the Sow Hill. "The Meld is positioned here?"

  "Yes. His regiments are too raw for anything more than defensive work."

  "And the enemy may number as many as six thousand?"

  "Some estimates put it that high. Possibly a second force was landed without our knowledge."

  "Mmmm. So the enemy is in the middle between our forces. You think he will attack the Meld?"

  "I thought so, but those scouts that chased us here will report your presence. That may change things."

  Colss nodded thoughtfully. His big brilby brows were furrowed in concentration as he thought about the battle that was coming.

  "The little mor?" He said with a glance over to the door where Issa waited beside Beerg.

  "We found her in the forest The men had captured her and her sister."

  Colss paled around the eyes, waiting for the rest of the story.

  "They killed and ate her sister."

  Colss stared off into nothingness for a moment while he tried to master his anger. "They shall have nothing from us except cold steel. I will take no prisoners."

  They returned to study the map. After a few minutes Colss ordered more scouts to pick their way north along the road. He wanted to know the location of the enemy force.

  Issa and Beerg, meanwhile were given food and medical care. Beerg had some cuts and scratches. Issa was very hungry, not having eaten properly for days. Thru stopped briefly beside the young mor, who was emptying a bowl of hot bushpod paste.

  "Go with the spirit's blessing, young Issa."

  "Thank you, sir. Thank you for what you did."

  They clasped hands for a moment, and then he left her in the hands of the army cooks. Now he had to rejoin his own regiments.

  Making his way through the army, he came upon his own mots at the side of the road just north of Chenna, where they were taking a quick meal. He found Ter-Saab and the other officers drawn up and awaiting his inspection. He'd been spotted approaching down the lane. The story of his encounter with the enemy in the forest had already spread, and he was cheered by many of the mots as he passed.

  He responded with his best salute and then moved along the line of officers, each standing stiffly to attention, as if he'd never been away. He'd let them down by being absent when the call came, but he was back in time for the fighting, and along the way he'd added to his reputation by saving that young mor. The story of their flight through the forest had spread wildly in the ranks. He could see a renewed pride for him, their brigadier, in every eye.

  Ter-Saab was smiling broadly when it was done and they could talk alone.

  "They'll fight to the death for you now."

  Thru was startled a little by that idea. Then he chuckled, a little defensively.

  "Well, we're all going to be fighting for our lives pretty soon. There's six thousand enemy soldiers just up the road, and they know we're here."

  Ter-Saab whistled.

  Thru turned back to more mundane matters, such as the morale of the other regiment in his brigade, still back at camp in Glais.

  "So, how did the Grys take the news?"

  "Ah," Ter-Saab tugged at his cheek fur. "Well, he was somewhat indignant at having to stay in Glaine. He's waiting for the order to follow on."

  "M
mm, well, we could probably use all the other regiments. We're not in a good position. They'll be getting the call soon enough I'd wager."

  "We outnumber the enemy."

  "But he is between the two halves of our army. And only half our army is capable of maneuver. The rest are raw recruits. If the men get in among them, they might break."

  "Well, we can do better than that."

  "Yes, I'm confident in this regiment. But we're nowhere up to the level of the enemy's training."

  Ter-Saab tugged at his cheek fur. He knew there was no answer to that.

  "So," said Thru, "what's our strength now?"

  "At the morning count we had 817 effectives, 12 in medical tent."

  "That's pretty good considering you've been on the road for days."

  "These are hill mots and brilbies. Tough as old kob hide they are."

  "They'll need to be. Let me show you the dispositions."

  Ter-Saab unrolled his own map, which covered the western half of Annion county.

  An hour passed while Colss waited for better scouting reports. Thru sat under a tree and rested from the exertions in the forest. A meal of bushpod paste and dried biscuit was brought around with a pot of hot tea to wash it down.

  A messenger arrived from the scouting parties. Colss immediately requested Thru's presence in the command post. When Thru got there, Colss had a larger scale map opened on a folding table.

  "Well, Colonel Gillo, we have no positive sign of the enemy. Scouts went all the way up to Shimpli-Dindi, too."

  Thru was surprised. "Then either I'm wrong about those scouts we met in the forest, or the enemy is already moving against the Meld."

  "Which is what I'm thinking. He saw the Meld in position up there and decided to have a go at him. Our job is to move right up behind them and attack them from the rear, force them to split their force."

  Little alarm bells were ringing for Thru. They were now engaged in the most deadly game, probing through these forests for an enemy capable of destroying either half of their army.