Landfall

by Victor Serrano

  Well, they’re willful creatures even at the best of times. May as well let them grieve.

  The Syriot army was still a formidable presence, massive formations slowly reforming as the Prince watched, even as a slow-moving dot above showed that a balloon was keeping watch over the entire battlefield.

  They’ve taken quite the pounding, but so have we. Who will break first?

  “I’m not going to retreat to the other side,” Banisu said, breaking Prince Sharnipur’s thoughts. The emperor had been staring down at a dead Hangyul conscript with a musket, but now fixed the prince with a petulant stare.

  “Your majesty, that last charge was aimed right at you. Another one might be successful.”

  After all, I get nothing if my client dies. And where are the abbot and the stuffed-up generals? Someone needs to live to pay me.

  “It’s a failed charge if I’m alive and still standing here,” he said, with all the stubborn pomposity of a boy emperor. “Besides, with your elephants surrounding me, I think we can take them. They must have retreated for a reason.” He looked back. “And anyway, that bit of water isn’t going to make much of a difference to them.”

  The prince could see this was true enough. More importantly, the Emperor had made his position clear, and it wasn’t Prince Sharnipur’s place to second-guess him in front of the troops.

  “Yes, your majesty.” He looked to Uiger, sitting astride the Red Dragon. “Keep him safe.”

  “Yes sir,” Uiger replied, leaning back to grab a bag from his gunner. On one of the injured flanks of the elephant a guardsman was already applying a poultice to a jagged slash. Uiger paused to look at the prince’s leg. “Are you alright, sir?”

  Prince Sharnipur put his hand to it, pressing gingerly. It wasn’t bleeding much. Sanjay was standing on Ranvir’s back, pushing the dead gunner to the side with muttered sympathies as he collected their own bag of medicine, and made his way with nimble feet back to the prince.

  “It’s just a nick,” the Prince said, feeling at the wound once again. “If it cut the artery, I would have bled out by now.”

  Sanjay pulled the tear in the Prince’s pants leg wider apart, wrapping the cut in fresh pre-cut linen bandages, as Ranvir lurched forward to sniff at Red Dragon with his trunk. Around the clearing other men were checking their wounds, conducting similar first aid to their comrades. Soldiers were doling out water to the wounded scattered around the battlefield, and even a few Syriots. Some of the more hardened skirmishers were delivering swifter deaths to those who were grievously wounded. Others stood watch over a growing collection of sullen Syriot prisoners.

  “See that the prisoners have their wounds treated as well,” Banisu announced in response to the cold looks the soldiers had been giving them. Prince Sharnipur noticed a few trundling bullock carts on the east bank of the river now. The supply corps? It seemed some of the retreating Kintari soldiers had been rounded up as well, and a couple dozen laborers and levies were wending their way through the shallows, headed by a dignified man with a halberd.

  “Father,” the nobleman with an ornate helm said as the older man splashed ashore to the western bank. The man smiled and bowed to Banisu.

  “I noticed you are in grave danger. It would not be fitting for the bullock handlers and quartermasters to shirk their duty when our brave young emperor fights at the front.”

  Banisu smiled at this. He would. A bit of flattery is all it takes with that sort.

  But the prince’s attention was drawn to a peculiar short man in noble robes, trailed by a worn-looking attendant carrying a large jar.

  “Emperor Banisu, I have some red kava! The spice, nephew! I have it!”

  The man sputtered and motioned for the attendant before spitting into the jar. Sanjay cinched the final bandage a bit too tightly, causing the Prince to clench his teeth. He looked at the bandage, spotted slightly with crimson.

  It wasn’t too bad, really. I would be pleased to end the engagement with just this. As long as it doesn’t get infected.

  He stretched and felt the sprains and bruises the excitement had previously masked. Ah well. The strange hunched noble was furiously spluttering at the emperor about retreating to the east bank and raising the water with ‘the power’ and ‘the spice.’ Oh yes, he’s the crazy inbred one I’ve heard stories about. Just what we need.

  Prince Sharnipur cast his eyes to the south. The fighting wasn’t over just yet. Strange, but the ships had stopped firing at the Elephant Corps even as the skirmishers and war elephants encircled the fishing village. Even so, the sounds of firing hadn’t stopped. If anything they had increased. A few shells probed the heights in the old Shinzen camp where the bronze cannons were seated, firing down into the harbor, but the Prince couldn’t see what the ships were firing at.

  “Emperor Banisu, my place is with the rest of the Corps,” Prince Sharnipur said, interrupting the sputtering noble. Red Dragon seemed to have recovered and Uiger was positioning the nearby elephants as if they were fortresses for the Northerners and Three Clans levies to hunker between.

  Prince Sharnipur urged Ranvir south, trundling down alongside the stream with his sadly depleted Ranvir Guard. Behind him, he heard a buzzing sound, looking back and seeing a fly land on Anander’s nose.

  What, already?

  For a moment he considered tipping the gunner over the side, but it just seemed disrespectful. The man had done good service and deserves a proper sky burial once all this is over. Prince Sharnipur looked to his right, at the still-lethal presence of the mounted force and the rallied regiment ranged along the winding slope as the hillside joined the jungles that made up much of this area.

  And is that… drumming, from behind their lines?

  The prince shook it off. The Syriots didn’t really go for drumming; it must have been an effect of the constant bombardment upon his ears. The prince glanced at the sky and noted the sun’s progress. It must be past four by now. Let’s end it today, he decided, as the Ranvir Guard marched toward the fishing village.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Surrounded

  “Sir! You cannot possibly expect us to fire in all directions!” Captain Rumuel protested. He had been ordered to the Hellfire and resented it, even as he resented the tropical heat and the bursting of the cannons and his own pounding headache.

  “I certainly can, Captain, when we are being attacked from all directions,” Captain Salassi replied. “You have guns on the stern and bow, and broadsides on both port and starboard. Get them firing!”

  “But Captain, we don’t have the men. You had us land all of our marines in the village.”

  “Because of those monsters,” Captain Salassi said, grimacing as he stared landward. The trumpeting of war elephants accentuated his point, the strange monsters at the head of a new force that had unexpectedly burst out of the jungle to assault the fishing village.

  “But the marines are meant to protect the ship from that!”

  Captain Rumuel pointed at the transport ship down the river. It was the same ship they had passed in the night, loaded with the regiment of Hangyul soldiers but missing its dragon ship escort.

  Captain Salassi shook his fist in rage. “That’s why I want you to fire in all directions!”

  At this last punctuation a shot from the bronze cannons on the hillside struck the Grasping Kraken, exploding a powder keg below decks. The ship cracked open and began to sink. Those who could were jumping into the harbor, making for shore, even as screams reverberated out of the broken hull.

  Captain Rumuel stared at it in desperation. “My ship… my ship…”

  Captain Salassi whirled around, grabbing the blue coat of the nearest figure he could find. “Trooper Kale! Go to the Garendar immediately and tell them to beach themselves along the coast. The Hellfire will pull alongside.”

  He paused a moment. “Oh, and Trooper Kale, just what exactly are you doing here? I sent your unit into the village.”

  “Uh, funny story actually, you see–�
��

  “Never mind all that, just get going and head back to the village when you’re done. And tell Captain Bekhar and his pirates to come back aboard.”

  The captain looked to the approaching transport, the steady drumbeat and oars propelling it forward.

  “I think we’ll be needing his glaive and blunderbuss soon enough.”

  ◆◆◆

  Two hundred spans away Bekhar charged through the narrow streets, his glaive and blunderbuss held aloft in both arms. Nearby he could hear the crashing sounds of an elephant tearing through the next alleyway. The east bank was lost, almost as soon as the war elephants had arrived. Disciplined firing had either downed or panicked two lightly armored elephants and kept the first wave of troops pinned to the ground. They were Veldtlanders, unless Bekhar missed his guess entirely, but what they were doing in a small fishing village in the Three Clans was anyone’s guess.

  Any joy the Syriots initially felt at fending off the huge beasts evaporated after the second wave. A massed force of armored elephants had stormed in, shrugging off musket balls and smashing through the crudely built fishing village as ballista gunners fired from swiveling platforms atop the monsters. Like fire ants from a disturbed hill, dozens of villagers left the relative shelter of their dwellings to run for the jungle. The loose ranks of Veldtlanders ignored them as they trailed after the monsters and cut off small bands of Syriot marines who had garrisoned the outer buildings.

  Now the war elephants had crossed to the west bank, and Bekhar was following one elephant’s path of destruction. Spotting its massive gray skin through an alleyway, Bekhar ran in close, leaping over fallen timbers and drawing back his glaive. He stepped lightly through the stinking and rotting garbage of the alley to approach from the side. Bekhar ran forward and stabbed the beast in the chest with all his force. The blade did not sink in very far.

  Turning in anger, the elephant presented its trunk to Bekhar, slamming his tusks on the ground where he had stood a moment before. Dodging aside, Bekhar dropped his glaive, hefting his borrowed blunderbuss. The elephant trumpeted in rage at Bekhar as he fired the concentrated mix of metal balls and nails into the beast’s mouth. The elephant staggered forward as Bekhar retrieved his glaive and backed away, the massive head landing where he had been standing.

  With a grunt, Bekhar heaved his glaive up and smashed it into the beast’s skull.

  “You bastard!”

  The words came from an Eastern man in an intricately designed robe sliding down the side of the elephant’s neck. Barely pausing as he landed, the man lunged forward, seizing Bekhar’s neck as they fell backwards and rolled through the debris of the ruined village. They tussled in the carnage; the Easterner coming up on top and squeezing Bekhar’s throat. Bekhar clawed up at the man’s face, gouging his nose and feeling for his eyes. His left hand delivered sharp blows to the man’s kidney, knocking his breath away. Suddenly a falchion thudded into the Easterner’s unprotected skull, and the light in his eyes faded bare inches away from his own. Bekhar pushed the man off him and squinted up at Lajos, illuminated in the afternoon light. He offered his hand and Bekhar took it.

  “Fuck, Captain,” Lajos grunted, pulling him up. “You killed an elephant.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I would’ve gotten this one too, by the way.”

  They stood together and gazed at the dead elephant.

  “That was stupid of them,” Bekhar said. “Sending their war elephants in without infantry support. Almost makes the Syriots look smart.”

  “Yeah,” said Lajos. “I thought they had little forts on top with spearmen.” He gazed in wonder at the carcass. This beast had a curtain of light lamellar armor but didn’t have a howdah. Now that Bekhar had a moment to catch his breath he realized this wasn’t even one of the bigger elephants.

  Bekhar shrugged, handing the blunderbuss to Lajos. “I don’t know how to reload this,” he said sheepishly.

  “Can’t believe you pulled it right out of my hands. I had to chase after you, you know. Captain, sometimes I wonder about you.”

  “Killed an elephant, didn’t I? Anyway, let’s go back to the bluecoats. I don’t want to run into another one of these.”

  They jogged through the debris-filled streets, seeing occasional flashing figures of the locals running past, and listened for the crashing sounds of other elephants. At any moment Bekhar expected to see a rushing wave of Veldtlanders appear out of a corner but so far they hadn’t yet entered the west bank. There were definitely war elephants rampaging to the west, north, and along the east bank though. The sounds chilled Bekhar even in this tropical heat.

  They made their way into the main street, a narrow dirt road that led south to the harbor. A couple nervous refugees saw them and took flight. Bekhar could see the open harbor beyond and heard a distant drumming. He squinted.

  Ah, shit. The transport ship they had passed in the night.

  As he was staring, one of the Syriot ships erupted in a sudden burst.

  “What’s going on over there?” Lajos asked.

  “That’s… the Grasping Kraken.” Bekhar said as they paced closer. “And that Hangyul transport is approaching. Looks like it’s making for the Hellfire. Ah, they’ll be done for once they start to board.”

  Bekhar scratched his head in irritation at the thought. But there was only one thing for it.

  “We need to head to the Hellfire.”

  They ran down the street, Bekhar glancing up at the harbormaster’s building as they passed. It was the only stone structure in the entire village, and it had been garrisoned by several marines, a few standing above on the rooftops. The men who crossed over from the west bank were now quartered there, the final defensive position remaining in the fishing village. One marine ran up to him.

  “Captain Bekhar,” he said, not bothering with a salute, “Captain Salassi requests your presence aboard the Hellfire immediately, along with the rest of your pirates.”

  Two pirates popped their heads out of the structure inquiringly.

  Bekhar didn’t understand everything the Syriot had said, but he got the gist of it. “Right, to the Hellfire.”

  He pointed at the two pirates, switching back to the Straits Dialect. “You two, with me.”

  The two followed and were joined by several others who had been hanging back while the assault was going on. One of the pirates chewed at his lip in worry.

  “Captain, this lot is finished. We need to get the hell out of here. We joined up to take a ship, not to slug it out with elephants.”

  “Shut it, Deodan. I’m thinking.”

  Truth be told, Bekhar couldn’t really see a way out of this. In fact, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to. He had been known for being uncaring for the lives of his pirates, but that had never been a particular problem until they had run into the dragon ship. Now Bekhar seemed pretty satisfied with this last stand they seemed to find themselves in.

  “It’s late afternoon,” he said as Lajos readied a raft for the short ride to the Hellfire. “If we can repel that transport ship until nightfall they’ll be forced to pull back. And those Syriot boys are much better armed than the locals here. You all know that. The Syriot army will pull through.”

  They muttered, unsure, but they boarded the raft and pushed off to the Hellfire. They passed Saint Garendar’s Gift, beaching itself on the sandy shore.

  Interesting. So Captain Salassi intends to make his stand here.

  The steady drumming of the Hangyul transport ship grew louder as with every stroke of the oars a regiment of soldiers readied themselves to attack.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Blood Magic

  The crew on the balloon had been silent for the last hour, staring down at the unfolding chaos along the entire length of the river. The major had been peering through a telescope at the fishing village for some time now.

  “Rotten business,” he muttered, breaking the trance of awed silence that the crew had fallen into.

  One of the airmen st
irred, watching the bronze cannons firing from the hill, all but impossible to make out through the tree cover.

  “Shall we help them, sir? Maybe fly over the cannons and fire a few volleys?”

  Major Ribaldi continued looking through the glass and Vermilies wondered if the man had even heard.

  “No,” the major said, as he leaned back away from the telescope mounted on the railing and stretched his back. He had a splotchy face but now it looked gaunt and sickly, as if he had aged a decade in an hour.

  “What the hell are those things? I told the general they were some sort of native oxen.”

  Major Ribaldi clenched his hands along the railing, the rest of the Syriot crew keeping a respectful distance away. The navigator gave a few pumps on the bellows but otherwise remained still.

  Vermilies couldn’t have much sympathy for the major. Vermilies had just spent the last few hours circling above a battlefield, watching enormous mythical beasts rampaging through what he had previously thought to be the finest army in the world. All of his sympathy had been used up on the soldiers below. His eyes shifted to the clearing several hundred spans away from the river where the Syriot infantry were re-assembling, forming shattered ranks, men looking battered even from this distance, with more than a few missing muskets or sporting bandages.

  Still, it was quite impressive that they had reformed in the first place. I think I would have just kept running.

  Vermilies watched the ragged wedge of cavalry shifting into a square, a man with a glinting golden helm waving his lance in encouragement as he shouted exultations. The Knights of Serraca had been held in reserve, kept secret from the local populace who were unfamiliar with horses, and meant to capture the retreating enemy forces before they got away and prolonged the fight.

  It was an open secret in the ranks that General Eben meant to end the invasion in a single battle and capture the emperor for use as a local puppet ruler. Instead, the Knights had to deploy to cover the withdrawal of the Syriot infantry.