This one might actually need to be put down.
His mood turned even darker as he saw Javeed aboard the second elephant, shepherding a third limping elephant and flanked by a score of Veldtlanders. This had been the third assault on the encircled sailors, the third failure of the vaunted Elephant Corps. Prince Sharnipur had never experienced this level of frustration with his troops before.
His burning gaze locked onto Javeed, who looked away shamefaced as he approached.
“I’m sorry. We-”
“Losses?” the prince barked at him. “What are your losses?”
“Bartu was killed. His elephant went amok. Split-tooth is dead along with the rider and I don’t…” he wrung his hands, “I don’t know where Blackfoot is. Or Boar-Killer. We’ve lost half the Veldtlander detachment and-”
“We did? You did.” The prince pointed out harshly. “This was supposed to be finished hours ago. The Emperor’s lines barely held today and we will almost certainly do the bulk of the fighting in the morning. And yet you cannot finish off a gunboat’s crew?”
Javeed did not protest, just hanging his head.
“I am sorry, my prince. There are only about two-score enemies left, but they are heavily entrenched, and your orders were to protect the elephants…” Javeed gestured helplessly to the three elephants. The panicked elephant had halted short of the Prince’s lines and seemed to be slowly calming down.
Another tragedy averted, at least.
“And yet you lost one.” The prince stared darkly into the burning village. What demons still hold this place? He looked back to Javeed.
“You are no longer a commander. Report to Timariota Srinijar and help her muck out the stables. I expect you to work through the night.”
Javeed flushed, his hand moving instinctively to his spear. But he had lost his spear, and there was an empty place on the elephant where his lancer would have been. After a moment, he silently clambered down and walked stiff-legged toward the sounds of construction work. The prince turned toward his Ranvir Guard to see his captain Ajit frowning at the scene.
“Ranvir Guard! Form up in a wedge behind Ranvir!”
The guardsmen stood still for a moment. With unusual sluggishness they began forming a wedge. At their head the guard captain twisted his mouth as if tasting something foul.
“My prince, perhaps-”
“Veldtlanders!” Prince Sharnipur yelled to the survivors of the last assault. “Your work is not over! Stand fast and ready yourselves for another assault!”
They looked at him mournfully, but none dared to break away or protest. Blood was pumping through his head and an anger he had not felt in years was gripping him.
I will end this fight, end it myself if I have to.
“Prince of the Wastes! Prince Sharnipur!”
“What!?” The prince roared, turning to his right.
A youth in extravagant armor was bounding up the muddy path leading to the Imperial Army. “A summons from the Emperor!” He cried out. “Your presence is requested immediately!”
Prince Sharnipur glared at the youth, his nostrils flaring, and took a deep breath.
“Fine,” he said, then turned back to Sanjay. “I will go on foot. Have another unit of Veldtlanders brought up.” He raised his voice for everyone to hear. “These men will go first,” he boomed, gesturing to the surviving unit. “If any of these men break, cut them down.”
The prince slid free of Ranvir, falling to the ground and once again feeling the sudden pain of his injuries. That is a first for the Elephant Corps. I have never had to issue an order like that. The Ranvir Guard paced forward warily, watching the distraught Veldtlanders.
“Is… is this village not yet taken?” The nobleman asked in confusion, then blinking at the look of barely restrained murder in Prince Sharnipur’s eyes.
“Take me to the Emperor,” he grated out.
The walk to Imperial lines took several silent minutes, and the cooling slap of the mud on the prince’s sandaled feet helped to dampen his ire. Even so, Prince Sharnipur was far from calm as he entered the tent city that was being erected around them. Bone-weary soldiers stripped to the waist were digging latrine pits and setting up campfires as dusk turned to night.
To think, these men will likely face a full-scale assault in the morning. I believe the enemy must have used his last reserves. I think these men can hold. If they don’t all melt away before the dawn… Prince Sharnipur thought, watching a group of men with hatchets heading into the scrub forest behind the lines. To gather firewood. Or pretend to and run off.
He looked up to the slope and in the fading light he could just make out the distant ranks of Syriot infantry. But no beastriders. Where are their beastriders? The prince felt a sudden stab of worry mixed in with his rage. I should be with my men.
“Over here, my lord,” the youth said, gesturing to the largest pavilion tent in the center of the encampment. The encampment was ringed by the Northerners, their thane eyeing Prince Sharnipur as he approached.
Still alive, I see. Shame.
The noble youth led the prince through the perimeter. “The Syriots sent an emissary and the Emperor would like your advice.”
“Advice.”
Advice on what? The Lord Marshal is supposed to be running this shambles of an army.
The youth gestured at the pavilion and Prince Sharnipur pushed through the tent’s opening. A slender man in an emerald green tunic paused in mid-sentence, locking eyes with the prince and half-bowing from his position on a camp stool. Prince Sharnipur ignored him, instead making his way over to Emperor Banisu and taking a seat beside the boy.
“I am told you requested my presence during their surrender negotiations.”
Banisu nodded, cracking a slight smile.
“Ahah,” the emissary said, evidently annoyed. “I see you share the same delusion. I must warn you General Eben does not share my jovial sense of humor. To be clear: we are negotiating a ceasefire and potential armistice.”
The prince eyed the man in green with skepticism. He's dressed like a discount courtesan from a Qathari brothel but is a good deal less attractive. It appears that ridiculous outfit passes for fashion in whatever backwater he crawled out of.
“Dress it up how you like,” Prince Sharnipur grumbled. “Why am I here, Emperor?”
Banisu leaned close. “I would know your thoughts on an armistice.”
The prince shrugged, bristling as he backed away. For a moment he saw hurt in the boy’s eyes and looked away.
I’m a mercenary, not your fucking friend.
“Where is the Lord Marshal?” Prince Sharnipur asked, not meeting Banisu’s gaze.
The emissary smiled thinly from across the table. “A question that I’ve-” he paused again as the pavilion’s flaps opened.
“Emperor,” a Hangyul guard said, brushing into the tent. “Lord Marshal Feruke Hangyul has been recovered from the east bank of the river. He is wounded but sends for y- er, requests your presence.”
A flicker of surprise rippled across Banisu’s face but was quickly mastered. “Oh. Good. He survived. Well, we are in the middle of negotiations right now.”
“Perhaps we can adjourn for several minutes?” the emissary suggested. “To consider the terms.” He steepled his fingers. “And I am curious as to what the Lord Marshal has to say. Very curious. I wonder, is Lord Shinzen around?”
The prince was already growing annoyed with this discussion. If we are to talk peace then I need to stop our attack. I’ve lost too many men already. Perhaps I can have a word with the Lord Marshal as well.
“I must see to my men,” the prince grated out.
“Oh, but Prince Sharnipur,” Banisu began, but the prince ignored him as he strode out of the pavilion. Outside the perimeter of Northerners the Ranvir Guard Captain waited, shifting in impatience.
“Ajit, tell the men to call off their assault.”
“Yes, sir. And you?”
“Don’t worry about me,
Captain. I will join you soon.”
The Lord Marshal’s tent was clear to see; an enormous pavilion that dwarfed the Emperor’s. A worried-looking Hangyul man exited the tent, saying a few words to the guards outside, and strode off through the dirt on some errand or another.
Prince Sharnipur made his way through what was soon becoming a street, bands of servants and carpenters scuttling through with bags and timbers on their shoulders. He paused to scowl at them. Where the hell had they been during the fighting? He snorted. This army was a mess. Time to talk to its leader.
He strode up to the Lord Marshal’s pavilion, the two guards shifting to block his passage, one of them raising a hand. The prince glared at it. Touch me, I dare you.
“The Lord Marshal is resting.”
“Let me through. I need to talk with him. What, do you think I’m going to kill him?”
The guards exchanged glances.
“There’s a battle on, if you haven’t noticed, and he’s the commander. I need to talk with him.”
“Yes, lord,” one of them said after a long moment, and the other rapped two times on the pavilion. “You may enter.”
Prince Sharnipur ducked low, holding his turban in place, and stepped into the pavilion’s interior. Somehow it seemed even larger than outside, the Lord Marshal reclining in a bed with embroidered pillows, a steaming cup of tea by a nearby table. He struggled up and squinted at him. In just a day the Lord Marshal seemed to have aged twenty years.
“We need to discuss payment,” the prince said. “We’re taking too many casualties.”
“Ah, the hireling. Always about money with you mercenaries,” the old man rasped. “Prostitutes in armor. We’ll discuss your payment later. Now then!”
Feruke Hangyul leaned back into his bed, staring up at the pavilion’s roof as he talked. “Move your men back three hundred paces. Once you’ve set up camp come back and we will plan the next day’s fighting. I need to appoint some new commanders.”
“Emperor Banisu is currently in negotiations with a Syriot emissary.”
Feruke Hangyul snorted. “Leave the boy to me, I’ll sort that out. I’m plenty disappointed in you as well, hireling.”
“We’re the only thing holding your farce of an army together.”
“You have failed us, hireling,” the old man rasped. “You abandoned us just before the battle and you couldn’t even take a small village. There will be a reckoning.”
“You have failed yourself. Don’t push me, old man. This is not my empire to die for.”
The Lord Marshal was silent except for wheezing.
“I must see to my troops. We will discuss your plans later. Where is Abbot Cibu?”
“Gone,” the Lord Marshal rasped. “He fell in the fighting, may his soul rest in peace. Along with the better part of the nobility. Why, there’s no one left but the b… the emperor.” He shook his head slowly. “And Lord Shinzen a traitor. This is a dark day. A dark day indeed.”
“Huh. You think you’ve seen dark? Your empire has known peace for many decades. I’m an exile, Lord Marshal. Imagine, hearing your father, the King of Guthara has died. Then an hour later, smiling friends come to sympathize and congratulate you on your accession to the throne, in your moment of grief. But they are not friends, oh no. They are sworn to your younger brother, and draw blades to kill you and your retainers.”
They both fell silent for a while.
“I don’t care for your story,” the lord marshal wheezed, but the prince ignored him. The rage was on him and he had to let it out somehow.
“I cut myself free. Friends die at my feet, false friends and true ones. And I get away. I escape, for a while, but now the whole kingdom has been told I killed my own father. By my lying, thieving brother sitting on the throne. So I take those few who are left and we somehow we fight our way free, through the mountain passes and then through the Wastes. And each year, though I gain new followers, I lose my old companions. Today I lost a few more.” He trailed off. “So don’t tell me of dark times. I know dark times all too well.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
Fighting Demons
Kattaren stumbled back, his vision exploding with bursting stars, and dropped his sword to the ground. Hands pushed him back up from behind and Kattaren somehow kept his feet. By the time he recovered, the demon had already passed by and the Righteous Army around him had disintegrated into scattered groups. Kattaren scanned the ground in front of him, blinking to clear his vision, his eyes alighting on his fallen sword.
He freed it from beneath the feet of a dazed white-clad initiate, and brandished the longsword in front of him, the point wavering before him as he blinked to clear his vision. To his right another man-beast whipped along, Kattaren diving away to evade the demon’s crushing hooves. He got to his feet and turned to see the armored demon swerving in a wide circle, great clods of dirt flying in the air as the lance slashed down. The wicked edge of the lance caught a man’s throat, blood spurting in the air as nearby zealots back away.
The demon circled around and again faced Kattaren, a heavily armored metal form with a golden helm and a thick shield. The man pulled his lance back under his armpit and leaned forward, as if to run Kattaren through. Beside him Jashi pushed forward through the crowd and leveled his musket just as the demon was charging. The lance point aimed at Kattaren suddenly shifted away as the demon raised his wooden shield. Smoke erupted out of Jashi’s musket and in the same instant the shield split, splinters flying through the air, and the demon shifted backward.
Jashi lowered his musket and in the clearing there was a moment of silence for perhaps the space of a single breath.
Then the metal-clad figure twisted, lowering his cracked shield and thrusting his lance at Jashi’s chest. The older man threw himself to the side but was speared through the shoulder and cried out as he fell to the ground. As if a dam had burst the hesitant zealots now surged forward and surrounded the demon, bamboo spears and heirloom swords jabbing away at the heavy plate armor. The demon swiped his shield to the side, buffeting the spear points away as the man-beast lumbered forward, and Kattaren just had time to step aside before the demon passed.
The man-beast thrust its lance just past Kattaren and slashed a monk’s throat as it wheeled away. The demon pulled back its lance and impaled a white-robed swordsman blocking its path, and then the demon was away as quickly as it had appeared, trampling over the fallen swordsman.
The demon bellowed, the noise echoing even over the screams of the fallen, and through the chaos of the forest a dozen other man-beasts joined him, charging through the trees at breakneck pace. They slowed to reform around their golden-helmeted leader, several of them discarding shattered lances and drawing warhammers and swords. The demons formed in close ranks, their weapons bloodied with the fallen, and thundered into another group of monks and white-robed zealots.
Kattaren held his fear back as he ran to join them but in bare seconds the demons had crushed their way through, leaving only dead and wounded behind. Kattaren glanced at the shattered bodies and then looked away to see the band of demons weaving past a stand of trees. The golden-helmed demon whipped its head around as if looking for more of the beasts to appear from out of the forest.
An arrow glanced off a breastplate of one of the demons and they raised their battered shields up higher, and Kattaren noticed that armor was torn or ripped away on several of the demons. Jashi fired at the mass of demons as they careened away through the forest and disappeared.
Silence fell in their little corner of the forest. Kattaren walked over to the trampled zealots and monks, holding back his nausea as he took in the scene. In the midst of the carnage sat Abbot Zendo, arms spread wide and seated cross-legged in the grass as if in meditation. Aside from his tightly gritted face and spilled entrails he could have been back at the monastery.
As if emulating his example, the approaching zealots kept quiet even as they stared in shock at their dying abbot. Kattaren’s stomach roiled as
he took in the glistening mess in Abbot Zendo’s lap. Monk Thegu joined him, breaking the silence with funereal drumming, silent tears streaming down his face. Yet the abbot’s expression didn’t change.
I am in the presence of true greatness.
In front of Abbot Zendo lay one of the fallen Syriot demons. No, not a demon. Even in the fading light Kattaren saw that the armored warrior was a man, the motionless corpse laying several paces away from his beast. The beast itself was impaled by at least three broken-off bamboo spears and surrounded by a half-dozen white-clad corpses.
Are they all like this? Armored beast riders who can cut us down in seconds?
He looked at Abbot Zendo, gritting his teeth but making no sound, and Kattaren composed himself.
No, I should not fear. I should look to the great monk’s example.
Still, it tore at him to see the monk suppressing his agony so stoically, while others were riveted in shock.
Not even the abbot can ignore his suffering forever.
Kattaren gritted his teeth and then strode forward. The leather scabbard rustled as Kattaren drew his blade and faced Abbot Zendo. The abbot opened his eyes for a moment and fixed his gaze on Kattaren, the eyes bloodshot but unwavering, as if considering his visitor’s presence from a great distance. Then the abbot craned his neck upward and looked toward the sky. Kattaren swung and severed the monk’s head in a single clean stroke.
Monk Thegu ceased his drumbeats as the abbot’s head landed. The corpse toppled to the side as the abbot joined his flock in death. The living huddled closer to Monk Thegu. Kattaren stared at the bloody ground in silence and shivered.
A discreet cough broke the silence, a sound that seemed unfit in their mourning company, and grief-stricken faces turned to look back at Jashi.
“He was a great man,” he said softly. “But he knew the Righteous Army was not his. It is the people’s army. And we need to make some decisions very quickly.”
Landfall Page 35