Sovran at War (Kingslayer Book 2)

by Honor Raconteur

  They’d either make a stand here or be mowed down.

  Bohme shifted uneasily at his side. “Counting a little over one hundred, shir.”

  He could hear the unspoken question in the man’s voice, as if wondering why Darius felt so uptight even though he literally outnumbered the enemy ten to one. Dropping his voice, he confided in the man, “For every barbarian that you can see, it’s wise to assume there’s at least that number hidden nearby. And they’re known to be berserker fighters. What will stop a normal man will barely faze them. We’ll win this, no question, but at what cost? I can’t afford to lose a lot of men with every engagement.”

  Bohme’s face lit in understanding, then his mouth flattened into a grim line. “Need a plan, then, shir.”

  “You’re telling me.” Something Roshan had said back at Behnam’s camp rattled briefly through his head, enough to give him an idea, although of course he had no time to act on it now. After this skirmish was over, then he’d revisit it. Raising his head, he called down the line, “HOLD FIRM! AIM FOR THEIR HORSES! Bohme, take two squads and set a squad to each side, forming a defensive line on the east and west sides so we’re not ambushed from behind.”

  Thankfully, the bodyguard did just that without a second of hesitation.

  I really have the best friends ever. Darius smiled at the thought and drew his own sword, ready to face the barbarians as they came.

  They came hard and fast, bellowing war cries in their own language, the accent so thick that Darius could only pick out one word in four. His own men looked a little white around the eyes, but they held firm, their training and experience enough to carry them through the berserker cries.

  The first barbarian to reach him looked lean and weathered, as if he hadn’t seen a change of clothes or a bath in at least a year. He had a club with nails driven into it, an inelegant weapon that unfortunately could do lethal damage, and Darius made sure to avoid it even as he retaliated. They fought viciously for several seconds before Darius could cut him down. Then he almost lost his seat as Sohrab rocked abruptly onto his front legs, the back lashing out. He’d so rarely fought on the front lines since being gifted Sohrab that he forgot the warhorse had been trained to fight as well.

  A sharply pitched squeal of pain came from behind him and he dared a glance back to see another barbarian and his mount fall. The barbarian unfortunately rolled back up again, although he heavily favored one side. Sohrab seemed to realize he’d left the job half-finished and he promptly lashed out again.

  Darius gave the stallion a proud pat on the neck. “Good horse. Remind me to find you an apple later.”

  Sohrab snorted approval and eyed the next barbarian with a very mercenary gleam in his eye.

  Trying not to laugh, Darius guided him back into the fray.

  The sounds of fighting drifted up from behind them, but it was short lived, a there and gone again thing that alarmed Darius for only a moment before the sounds of conflict abruptly died. Whoever had tried to sneak in from the sides obviously hadn’t gotten very far before running into someone’s group. Good thing he’d spread his troops out a little.

  Darius tried to augment his troops wherever it looked like the barbarians threatened to overwhelm the line, which worked well enough, although he had to remind himself to step back often and keep the larger picture in mind and not get caught up in individual fights. War cries flew back and forth, both in languages that he understood, as well as more than a few guttural curses. Weapons hit metal shields, bones broke with a sickening crunch, and more than a few screamed in pain. The smell of spilt blood and churned up earth filled his head, familiar scents that Darius had almost forgotten in the warm sun of Niotan.

  As abruptly as it started, it ended. The last barbarian fell, and his men stood panting, chests heaving for breath and their eyes still wild from adrenaline. Darius kept a keen eye out, watching intently to see if they would get another wave of attackers, but after several long minutes, no one else materialized. Relaxing, he leaned down a little and addressed two of the soldiers that he knew by name. “Devolia, Sosha, one of you go to Bohme and make sure that they don’t need any help, the other go to Roshan and make sure they’re fine as well. Report back to me.”

  “Sir!” the men saluted in unison before turning and trotting off.

  Searching the crowd, he found another familiar face and said, “Kayvion, set a perimeter guard.”

  “Sir!” Turning, the young soldier started calling out names, issuing out orders.

  There, that should hold things for a few minutes. Darius dropped out of the saddle and put a steady hand on Sohrab’s neck. “Steady. Stand.”

  The stallion blew out a breath, peeved he didn’t have any more enemies to trample, and stood placidly. No doubt waiting for the three apples he’d earned. Darius prayed to Shaa that if he couldn’t find apples stored somewhere, he’d find carrots. The stallion would be a bear to live with otherwise.

  Some part of this whole attack bothered Darius. The Roran barbarians had never been peaceful neighbors, but they normally made their presence known with small raiding parties. They’d never had more than three clans cooperate in living memory. So why now? What had pushed them into an alliance? Hoping for some answers, he went to the nearest fallen barbarian and examined the corpse.

  The clothes looked worse for wear, a little more than Darius anticipated, but perhaps that was the result of multiple conflicts? Shifting aside the pelts that served as the man’s jacket, he examined the limbs and skin, then the belt pouch half-spilled on the ground.

  Kayvion approached and snapped out a salute. “Perimeter set, sir.”

  “Good, thank you.” Darius sat back on his haunches, still staring at the corpse. “Tell me, if you didn’t know this was an enemy, what would you think looking at him?”

  Not following, the young man cocked his head in puzzlement. “In what sense, sir?”

  “Does this man look well fed to you?” Darius pressed.

  To his credit, Kayvion didn’t answer immediately. He knelt down, made his own inspection, then turned and examined another one that lay nearby before saying slowly, “I’m from Risdon, sir. About ten years ago, we had a crop epidemic hit, where a blight took out all of the root crops—potatoes, carrots, taro, that sort of thing. Made for very lean times. We couldn’t get enough to eat. Most of the corpses looked like these men and women. Bones too prominent, skin tight enough to count every rib, and a yellow cast to them.”

  “As if they weren’t getting enough nutrients.” Darius had seen something like this too, numerous times, as wars often led to disease and starvation.

  “Sir.” Kayvion opened his mouth, closed it, and looked at the men silently listening in before trying again. “Sir, are the barbarians coming down in force because they had a harsh winter? Are they starving up there?”

  “It certainly looks that way.” Darius dropped his head back, staring blankly up at the clear blue sky and wishing he could do more than curse Darr. “If that’s the case, our job just got that much harder. They’re going to be mad with desperation. Routing them out of the Sovran and sending them back to Roran will be extremely troublesome.”

  One of the things that Darius had learned in officer’s school had been from a very old and respected strategist. He had said that sometimes, you were on ‘death ground.’ Hemmed in on all sides, cut off from supplies and reinforcements both, where you had no tactics or strategies, and nowhere to retreat to. At that moment, the old veteran had told him, you had no other option but to fight.

  They were not on death ground, not yet, but the barbarians likely felt they were. Or close to it. If Darius had a prayer of keeping his own forces intact and sending the enemy running, he had to fight smarter and not harder.

  Looking up, he saw more than one troubled face looking back at him, men that had seen how fierce a band of barbarians could fight and now knew exactly what they had volunteered to do. Some of those faces looked white under their tanned skin. For them, Darius
gave them a cocky smile as he stood. “Well, gentlemen, this has been an enlightening skirmish. I vote we find a way to avoid a repetition.”

  Not following, one of the older veterans—what was his name, curse it?—asked tentatively, “Sir? You have an idea?”

  “I have two, in fact, and one we should be able to do today. Why don’t a few of you go through all of the houses and outbuildings and find as much paint as you can get your hands on. It’s time to get creative.”

  The skirmish gave them some injuries, but nothing debilitating. They lost eleven men to the fight, which Darius counted as a minor miracle, and the rest of the wounds were treatable. Darius chose to stay in the town for the night rather than move on. He had two reasons for this: one, it would give them the chance to augment their food supplies with whatever they could scavenge before they were forced to destroy the rest, which would take a few hours. Two, they needed time to paint the cats.

  The men happily conceded to the idea of sleeping somewhere with a roof and a fireplace, so they had no trouble with the first order.

  Now to convince them of the second.

  Darius sat on top of a roof, so he had the visibility the men needed to see him, and to hopefully project his voice a little better. Odds were his words wouldn’t reach everyone, but the more it did, the less chance of a garbled version being passed on. A matter of playing the odds. With the prickly thatch poking holes through his pants, Darius kept his explanation short and to the point.

  “In order to fight the barbarians, you have to play to their fears,” he boomed out as loud as he could manage without hacking a lung. “And they have a lot of them. One of their greatest fears is cats.”

  A ripple of disbelief went through the soldiers standing around him.

  “I know, it’s ridiculous, but that’s how I convinced them to go home when fighting in Niotan. I sent cats to them in a wagon and they readily retreated without even engaging the next day. We don’t have enough cats here to pull the same trick, but I hope that by painting cats on your shields, they’ll falter. They won’t like striking at anything that even has the symbol of a cat on it. Their distraction will give you an edge.”

  “Sir!” one of the soldiers in the crowd called up. “Is this why General Behnam demanded that King Baros send for you? Because you know the barbarians’ superstitions?”

  “Because I know of them and how to use it against them,” Darius corrected. “Yes, this is one of the main reasons.” That seemed to satisfy most of them and Darius decided to move on. He’d address concerns later, if they arose, but they were losing valuable daylight. “Those of you that can paint a convincing cat silhouette, focus on drawing an outline on shields for the ones more artistically challenged. If you can’t paint a convincing stick figure, then help gather up food and get ready to burn anything we can’t carry with us. Dismissed!”

  Thankful to have orders issued, he hopped off the roof and found Sohrab and Roshan waiting for him, off to the side. The stallion had half an apple in his mouth and an expression of bliss on his face as Roshan scratched at just the right spot under his jaw. Darius was reasonably certain that the stallion would throw him over in order to be Roshan’s if the boy would allow it. Moments like these only confirmed it for him.

  Amused, and not bothering to hide his smile, he sauntered over to them. “Roshan. If memory serves, you’ve got a fair hand at drawing.”

  “I can do a reasonable cat, at least,” the boy agreed. “Should I help the artists, sir?”

  “If you would.” Wiggling his fingers, he took the remaining half of an apple from Roshan and fed it to his stallion. Or tried. Sohrab stared glumly after Roshan’s retreating back for a long moment before eyeing the offering in Darius’s hand.

  “I can eat it myself, if you’d rather,” Darius informed the horse tartly.

  Blowing out a breath, Sohrab decided that Darius would suffice, and daintily picked the apple out of his hand before munching contentedly, tail swishing.

  “You’re impossible,” Darius mock-grumbled at him, chuckling. “Why do you love Roshan so much? I swear, I let him ride you a few times, and you’re willing to toss me over on the spot.”

  Spoiled, and not at all shy about it, Sohrab rubbed his nose against Darius’s arm and tried to be charming.

  “That won’t work now,” he informed the stallion, still trying not to laugh. “I’m on to your tricks. I suppose I should be grateful that you still like me enough to fight for me in battles. Otherwise we’d all be in trouble.”

  Tolk approached at a slow jog and leaned in to say in a confidential manner, “Roshan did well in skirmish.”

  A spike of fear went straight through Darius’s heart. “Don’t tell me he faced a barbarian on his own!”

  “I was right beside him,” Tolk chided, a little exasperated at Darius’s lurch of panic. “But boy needs experience and seasoning if he to be good fighter.”

  While all of that was true, still…. “Can we start with not half-starved, berserker barbarians? Something tamer?”

  “He did fine, General,” Tolk repeated patiently. “He kept a good head, didn’t panic, and defended himself well. He took little longer than he should have, but his techniques still being honed.”

  Obviously this wasn’t an argument Darius would win. Groaning, he rubbed at his temples, feeling a headache lance his skull. “Tolk, remember that if that boy gets hurt, my beloved wife will carve out my heart with a dull spoon. Kindly save me from that fate.”

  Laughing, Tolk nodded. “I will remember, Raj.”

  Tolk’s idea of properly training fighters gave Darius heart palpitations. Still scowling, Darius went to see how the painting fared.

  The cooks apparently decided to take advantage of having brick ovens and actual kitchens to work with, as some very delectable smells seasoned the air of the streets. Darius paused every once in a while to take in a lungful. Curry, definitely. Baking bread. Garlic? The scents whet his appetite and his stomach gave a low, petulant growl. Patting it, he promised food later, as he doubted anything could be dished up now.

  Soldiers came in and out of the houses with their arms full, checking in with the squad captains on what to keep and what to put in a large burn pile. In the distance, Darius saw smoke rise from the fields. They had already started burning the crops. Good, that would take the most time, and Darius absolutely did not want those fires getting away from them. That would be a disaster of epic proportions.

  His painters had all of the shields leaning up against a low retaining wall, the rest of them seated in more or less rough circles, like some Baijian gathering. A few already had stripes of paint on their cheeks or arms, like children with finger paints. Darius paused just on the outskirts and watched them for a moment, a smile slowly drawing his mouth up.

  The formality of rank eased here, enough that bawdy songs started up, jokes and teasing comments flew, and men leaned casually against each other to snag a particular jar of paint without any sense of personal boundaries. Roshan sat in one such circle, laughing, dark eyes sparkling and a streak of black paint smudging across his cheek and nose. It eased a concern in Darius’s heart that the boy might not be accepted in this strange land because of his obviously Niotan heritage. Here, at least, the soldiers were glad to see him. Whether because of his association with Darius, or because of his own natural charm, he had won tentative friendships here.

  At that moment, Roshan glanced up and spotted Darius. He put down his paintbrush and flipped the shield around for viewing. “What do you think, sir?”

  When Darius had ordered the man to ‘paint cats’ he hadn’t thought of a particular type of pose or anything. Still, he’d had a vague impression of a simple silhouette. Roshan had painted a black cat with an arched back and bushy tail, as if it was geared up for a fight. “Rather appropriate,” Darius approved. “The cat looks ready for battle.”

  “Edhard—that’s who the shield belongs to—requested a fiercesome beast.” Roshan beamed, happy with the praise
, and flipped it around again for some finishing touches. “Some of us can only do a reasonable cat head, is that alright, sir?”

  “Any form of a cat you can do,” Darius assured him, assured them all. “Just make sure it’s big enough to see from a distance.” Sensing that they needed a more visual reassurance, he stepped carefully in and around the groups, peering at different artistic renderings. Some of them definitely had better art skills than the others, as they weren’t always in the correct proportions, but they were all recognizably cats, and that’s all Darius cared about. He lavished them all with praise and left smiling artists in his wake.

  The last man he came to didn’t actively participate in the drawing but seemed to be in charge of dolling out paint and brushes, fetching whatever the artists needed. To him, Darius asked, “Will we have enough paint to cover all the shields?”

  “No, sir,” the man responded readily. He had the look of a father to him, middle-aged and slightly thick with muddy brown hair and gentle eyes. “But I bet we’ll get over half of them done. If we overlap them right, so they’re more or less spaced evenly, it should do the job well enough.”

  “Hopefully so.” Darius accepted this with a provisional nod and wondered if they would get a chance like this afternoon to paint more of the shields later. Likely not. “Do you need anything more up here?”

  “Not as of now, sir.” Hesitating, he asked deferentially, “Will we need to burn the houses, sir?”

  “No, just the food supplies,” Darius assured him. “I don’t want to leave nothing but destruction in our wake, just remove all food from our enemy’s grasp.”

  Relieved, the man nodded. “Very good, sir.”

  Darius wondered if the man was perhaps from this area but didn’t have the heart to ask. He didn’t know what he would do with the answer. So instead, he turned and watched the painters for another moment, then left them to it, going to double-check the progress of the food-sorters.

  ~~~

  Some very surreptitious shield swapping went on the next morning.