“Prepare to charge the elephant!” Lord Shinzen yelled.
The prince twisted back just as Anander had finished winching his ballista back. “Anander, sound the charge!”
A moment later came the sharp blast on the conch shell and the other elephants began lumbering forward.
They were still outnumbered, but confused soldiers facing the prospect of simultaneous elephant charges were never at their best. Javelins were now hitting them regularly, and one cut through Lord Shinzen’s left leg, leaving him to cry out in pain. Ranvir wheeled around, letting out a ferocious roar, and began plodding toward the enemy ranks. The Prince of the Wastes had his lance lowered on the right side of the elephant, Sanjay had his lance on the left side, and Anander had his ballista lowered and ready.
There is nothing in the Three Clans that can stop us.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The Captains
It was some ungodly hour, just as Vermilies was shutting his eyes in one of the cramped bunk rooms filled with snoring Syriot sailors, that he was shaken awake.
“Captain Salassi wants to see you,” came the hushed voice of one of the Hellfire’s marines.
Vermilies lurched to his feet, staggering his way out of the cabin, and stifled a yawn. The marine, evidently a sentry on watch, pointed the way but didn’t need to bother. One benefit of the Hellfire, as opposed to the massive battleship he had been in at the beginning of the invasion, was that the sloop was much too small for anyone to get lost. And so Vermilies worked his way over to the state room, the sentry trailing behind like a shadow.
“The captains are meeting and you’re invited too. You’re lucky,” he added, evidently jealous.
“Oh, yes,” Vermilies agreed. “No one luckier than me.”
Light could be seen from behind the state room’s door as well as Syriot voices. A soft pop sounded as Vermilies stepped forward and he paused a moment. Too quiet for a musket. He hesitated a moment longer and then pushed the door of the state room open.
“And that’s why I say limes are much more useful than compasses,” Captain Salassi was saying as he poured wine into a goblet. He turned to nod at Vermilies as Captain Rumuel grasped the goblet.
“But you don’t need all your teeth to-”
“Mister Vermilies! Good of you to join us, take a goblet.”
“Very kind of you, sir,” Vermilies replied as he scanned the room. There was a tidy bunk in the corner, with bound books stacked on a shelf, and a table in the middle of the room. The two other Syriot captains were seated, though Vermilies’s heart sank as he noticed Bekhar slouching in another chair.
Not a formal occasion then.
Captain Salassi poured a measure of the red wine into a goblet and passed it down to Bekhar. Bekhar, hair still plastered back and clothes damp, blinked at the goblet. He leaned in to give it an inquisitive sniff.
“Why red?” Bekhar paused. “Why is it red? This drink.”
“It’s wine from grapes,” Captain Salassi said. “All the way from the old country. We keep rum stores but I thought to share a bottle with you all before the battle begins tomorrow.”
Vermilies leaned over and muttered the word for grapes. Bekhar nodded in understanding. Vermilies watched in curiosity as his own cup was filled.
I wonder if it’s as sweet as plum wine.
“You think there really will be a battle, Captain Salassi?” one of the Syriot officers asked. “Personally, I expect the natives to cut and run.”
Salassi shrugged. “It is better to be prepared. Captain Rumuel, you’ve dispersed powder and shot to all your sloop’s guns, I take it?”
Vermilies drank, ignoring the minutia of the discussion around him, savoring the peculiar taste. Bekhar was leaning back, boots on the table despite receiving a few looks of disapproval, and seemed to be barely following along with the discussion. Still, he’s picking up the language well enough. A fresh bandage was wrapped on his right hand but he seemed otherwise unaffected by the raid on the river fort. One of the Syriots, a Captain Giardi, made his goodbyes and then there were just four left in the cramped state room of the Hellfire.
“The last balloon carried a report of General Eben’s progress,” Captain Salassi said as Captain Rumuel drank from Giardi’s abandoned goblet. “The army has burned a path of devastation all through Hangyul territory and they’ll be crossing the river in the morning. That’s by the Shinzen and Kintari borders.” Captain Salassi paused meaningfully as Captain Rumuel drained the goblet. “I will need you ready.”
“Never fear,” Captain Rumuel said, setting the goblet down and giving a satisfied belch.
Captain Salassi looked over and regarded Bekhar for a moment. “You know, Bekhar, this may seem strange to you but we have something in common. I joined as a boy, a common sailor, and then worked my way from midshipman to captain. Though it’s hard to believe a native pirate like yourself somehow made the leap as well.”
Bekhar drank, then shot a smile. “Pirate is hard work too. I was…” he looked over to Vermilies and switched to his rough Straits Dialect. “What’s the Syriot word for elected?”
“They don’t have one.”
Bekhar tilted his head in confusion.
“How did you start as a pirate?” Captain Salassi asked.
“Needed food for family.” Bekhar’s smile slipped. “Lost family. Then just… wanted to fight.”
“Ah.” Captain Salassi paused. “Well, there must have been something more to it. How’s life in the Ochre Islands, anyway? I’ve never been.”
“It’s bad.” Bekhar stared at his drink and a flash of pain raced across his face. “Lots of disease. I had…” He paused. “Love, for a while. But… broken,” he shrugged, an inscrutable half-smile on his face. A silence fell at the table. After a moment Captain Salassi grasped the almost empty bottle of wine.
“Women, eh?” Captain Salassi said, offering the bottle to Bekhar. “Who needs them?”
“I do,” Captain Rumuel chortled. “Every port if possible. And I’ll take that drink if you’re done,” he added as Bekhar declined. Captain Salassi’s eyes swiveled to meet Vermilies.
“Mister Vermilies. You’re the youngest here,” he said, a slight slur to his words. “Any tales of lost love in the Jade Sea Islands?” Beside him Bekhar frowned.
“Oh, hardly. Though there is an arranged marriage hanging over my head like a death sentence,” Vermilies said, waving a hand around. “Nothing official though, thank the gods.” An image of the woman came unbidden to him, a simpering face flanked by long dark pigtails in the Ajanta Island fashion. “I hope after this expedition I can do better. I suspect I can do better.”
Captain Salassi made some noncommittal sound. Beside him Captain Rumuel drummed his fingers on the table.
“Mine is a tragic tale,” Captain Rumuel began, but paused as Bekhar removed his boots from the table and stood.
“Going to sleep,” Bekhar said, slapping the stone-faced Vermilies on the back. “Have fun drinking and talking.”
Vermilies winced at the blow and stifled a yawn. Across from him Captain Rumuel was frowning and began again. “You see, I was-”
“Actually I’ll be going as well,” Vermilies said as he got to his feet. “I beg your pardon, Captains.”
Captain Salassi nodded, clearing the empty bottles to the side, as Captain Rumuel huffed.
“As I was say-”
“Mister Vermilies is right,” Captain Salassi broke in. “We should adjourn for the night. Be ready at dawn, gentlemen. The battle is almost upon us.”
Chapter Forty
Seizing the Heights
Properly trained and commanded, a unit of armored swordsmen could open gaps in the line and tear apart charging elephants by cutting into their exposed legs. Lord Shinzen’s personal guard was not such a unit. Ranvir barreled straight into the center of the soldiers, sending the first rank flying in a collision of ivory and metal. Following him, the men of the Ranvir Guard engaged the soldiers who streamed
around to attack the sides, the Prince and Sanjay propelling their lances into the open helms of nearby swordsmen.
A bare moment later, Boar-killer thundered into the enemy from behind, accompanied by a dozen lightly armored skirmishers brandishing their curved knives and javelins. The charge would have been suicidal if the soldiers had been facing them, but as it was, the elephant cleaved through the soldiers, Veldtlanders stabbing the Shinzen soldiers from behind as they marched with their shields locked together facing the other direction.
Yes, look at the big elephant and never mind the men sneaking up behind you.
The formation began to fall apart as soldiers turned to defend themselves, panicked defenders dropping their shields, suddenly confronted by two ferocious elephants and infantry surrounding them, grim faces lit by the ring of camp torches.
The flight began as a trickle and turned into a flood as the Shinzen men fled in a desperate attempt to escape from the carnage. The unit had never finished forming together, and the confused defenders had barely been awake enough to understand they were under attack. The core of Lord Shinzen’s bodyguard unit streamed down into the lower camps, where disorganized fighting between groups of Veldtlanders and camp defenders ebbed and flowed in the chaotic night, through the sprawling tent city in the middle of a thickly forested hill. Trumpeting echoed around the smaller hills as the Prince’s other two jungle elephants crashed around in the distance.
The prince turned Ranvir around toward a knot of men remaining on the far edge of the defending formation, clustered around the Lord Shinzen who was crying shrilly for his fleeing men to return. The prince jabbed his lance into the neck of a running soldier, pulling it out swiftly and focusing on Lord Shinzen’s men. The two nobles locked eyes across the corpse-strewn field between them.
“You’re a mercenary, right?” Lord Shinzen asked, his voice loud enough to carry. “You couldn’t imagine the price the Syriots would pay for your men. Even if you just stood aside. We weren’t even paid to fight the emperor, you know!” He said, with genuine indignation. “If you hadn’t stumbled into us, we wouldn’t have fought you!”
“I was paid to fight for the Emperor,” the Prince said. “I do not break contracts lightly.”
Besides, killing you and scattering your men will only increase my value, if the Syriots decide to make an offer. It’s only business, after all.
In the howdah behind him Anander loosed a ballista bolt at Lord Shinzen, but a shield-bearer to the Lord’s right shifted his shield, taking the heavy bolt on the shield’s sturdy wooden frame.
“Charge!”
Ranvir trumpeted, Ajit stepping to the side, halberd raised as he kept pace with the great beast. The elephant pounded towards the grim defenders, Ranvir Guards moving in lockstep along the elephant’s flanks, several javelins landing ineffectually into the shielded formation of the remaining diehards. This time the defending soldiers split before the impact, dividing into roughly equal groups which moved to attack the elephant’s sides. Along both flanks the Ranvir Guard ferociously repelled the assault with their halberds, Sanjay and the Prince of the Wastes both lashing out with their lances against nearby enemies.
Boar-killer had pursued the fleeing soldiers down the other side of the hill, but many of the skirmishers remained, and they moved to encircle the remaining defenders. The fight was brutal, Ranvir wheeling around to gore the group to his left with his iron tusk sword, and those who broke away were speared with ruthless efficiency. The Ranvir Guards kept his flank secure, a few cut down by a relentless final assault, Shinzen’s best men attempting to wound the elephant. Eventually the last of the surrounded men were overwhelmed and cut down without mercy. Prince Sharnipur cast his eyes upon the wounded and dying men, spotting the Lord Shinzen.
“There! Take him alive.” He said, pointing at the man’s face, strained and twisted from blood loss and the shame of defeat. The man was lying below a slain bodyguard, and groaned in agony as two Veldtlanders pulled him away.
“The Emperor will want words with him.”
And to think I negotiated fifty golden pieces for any captured enemy commander. Neither the Emperor nor the Lord Marshal had seemed to seriously expect this to occur, so they hadn’t argued this point of the contract. But I don’t take contracts lightly.
“Sir!”
One of the Veldtlanders approached Prince Sharnipur, a man he recognized as one of Abaeze’s sub-officers.
“Yes?”
“Our soldiers are scattered around the encampment. We’ve lost contact with the other units, and the enemy clearly outnumbers us. Shall we withdraw now, sir?”
The prince frowned. The Shinzen forces must have numbered in the thousands, clearly dwarfing the raiding party, but they seemed to be withdrawing.
“Of course not,” he said. “We drive down the far hill, pushing them into the river. Onward, Ranvir Guard!”
The men cheered as Ranvir moved down the slope. Dhamdalek was leaning over both sides, scanning the flanks, and then twisted back.
“I don’t think he’s taken any wounds sir,” he announced. “But we are down a few guards.”
Men I’ve known for years. Friends, of a sort. The Prince of the Wastes frowned. I will mourn them later.
“Tell Ranvir to give a good roar for them!”
The elephant let out another ferocious trumpet, and Prince Sharnipur could hear it echoed from the other elephants still rampaging around the camp. Ahead of them Prince Sharnipur could see the back of Boar-killer shining in the light of reflected campfires. The enraged elephant was rampaging through a group of archers, a few arrows sticking out of its cotton armor. Beside him were several skirmishers, but a few more lay in the grass nearby, stuck through with arrows alongside a dozen other corpses. Seeing the Ranvir Guard approach, the Shinzen archers finally broke apart and fled to the west.
Prince Sharnipur paused a moment to speak with the rider of Boar-Killer, wild-eyed and holding the shaft of an arrow that had pierced his shoulder. The man’s mouth bobbed open, and he was turning his head awkwardly to examine the wound.
“Calm your elephant! You lot, secure the area around here.”
The prince continued forward atop his indefatigable war elephant, pointing out a smaller hill nearby to his mahout. He saw some figures near the campfire but they fled immediately, one man stumbling panic-stricken past the fire and sending sparks flying into the air. The Ranvir Guard ascended the hill, the Prince expecting at any moment to receive a volley of arrows or a furious counter-charge.
Instead they reached the top alone, and even the Prince was taken aback at the sight. In the half-light of the pre-dawn, multitudes of dark figures moved down the thinly forested western slope towards the river. There had to be at least two thousand of them, scared off from their perch above the hill. Even as he watched, the Prince of the Wastes heard stumbling movement just a few dozen paces to his north.
“Where is Lord Shinzen?” the voice asked in the rough dialect that was common to the South.
“He’s dead! A great big fucking elephant got him!”
“Shit! Shit!”
The prince smiled. “Give them a scare, Dhamdalek.”
At the mahout’s touch, the elephant roared into the forest. In the silence afterward the Prince could hear the cursing Shinzen men crashing through the trees in renewed fright.
“They’re on the run, but they are too many to chase,” the Prince of the Wastes said to the Ranvir Guard below the elephant once Ranvir had finished trumpeting. “Let’s head back to secure this camp. The rest of the Elephant Corps should be moving out by now,” the Prince said, looking at the night sky as it began to soften to a purplish gray. The wounded Lord Shinzen was being strapped to Boar-killer along with a couple injured skirmishers, and the spare javelins were being distributed to Abaeze’s men.
As they were turning back, the Prince heard another thunderclap, this one much closer than before. He paused, studying the west, but he still only saw the vanishing figures of L
ord Shinzen’s men.
The raiding party moved with caution through the tent city, occasionally seeing single figures here and there flitting through the darkness too quickly to be identified or pursued. Eventually they reached a large campfire which was swelling into an inferno. The skirmishers ranged round it had set fire to the encampment and dragged over fallen tents to feed the flames.
“Put that out,” the Prince said, annoyed at the destruction. “The Elephant Corps will be taking this position. Don’t let the fire spread.” The men nodded and began digging out the area around the fire.
The Ranvir Guard continued further back, and were continually hailed by roving bands of marauding Veldtlanders. At the top the Prince was united with Spotted Brow and their attached platoon, standing triumphantly around the main campfire. The irritable Boar-killer had joined them as well, and was being tended to by his injured handler and a few skirmishers, who were delicately removing arrow shafts. The handler was shushing him softly as the shafts were removed. The prince noted with silent approval that the handler’s own wound had not yet been bandaged, though the arrow had been removed.
That’s a man who knows his priorities.
On the east slope of the hill a few more skirmishers emerged, one jogging up to the Prince and saluting. In the dim light he could see that it was the commander, Abaeze.
“My prince! We lost you in the confusion. We routed those that we could find and then made for the hill. The elephant we were with should be up here soon. Where do you need me, my prince?”
“Good. Lord Shinzen is captured, and his men are in full flight around us. I want your entire unit ringed around the main encampment while we wait for the rest of the Elephant Corps to join us.” The prince paused as he heard another rumble of distant artillery.
What is going on out there?
“I will keep your unit back in the engagement today,” Prince Sharnipur added, thinking that it was likely the Elephant Corps would be needed. “They did fine work.”
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