Sovran at War (Kingslayer Book 2)

by Honor Raconteur

  Giving him a look askance, Darius prodded, “What does that expression mean, my young apprentice?”

  “Something General Mihr once said to me now makes more sense.” The smile grew into an almost smirk, Roshan’s dark eyes twinkling. “He said that he hates fighting against you because nothing is ever as it seems.”

  Kaveh and Behnam snorted at the same time, amused and agreeing. Darius shrugged innocently, hand splaying in an open shrug. “Why fight harder when you can fight smarter? A little sleight of hand here, a suggestion or two there, and you might be able to avoid the fight entirely.”

  “It’s also the challenge of fighting with you,” Behnam drawled, tone inferring he didn’t really mean his own words. “I always have to juggle two or three plans and struggle to remember which is the real one.”

  Darius waved this away as inconsequential. Battle plans never survived first contact with the enemy intact anyway; he always had to make some adjustments on the fly. Better to not focus on doing exactly as planned and keep an open mind. (Hence why he always had a plan, then several backup plans to begin with.) “Speaking of plans, Behnam, when was the last time you updated Baros on ours?”

  The other general gave him a speaking look. “I’m not lead on this one. I don’t have to report to the man.”

  Eyes in danger of crossing, Darius demanded, “You haven’t sent him a single message while I was gone?!”

  “He kept sending couriers to pester me. I did give them updates.”

  Groaning, Darius imagined Baros’s likely response to this communication blackout. Then winced. “You’re determined to get me in trouble, aren’t you?”

  Behnam gave a slow, lazy blink, like a cat that hadn’t the faintest idea why people around him looked upset.

  Growling several choice words, Darius made a mental note to himself to send a proper update to Baros as soon as he feasibly could. As well as a letter to Amalah, before his wife got frustrated enough to either chase him down herself or divorce him.

  “Sir,” Roshan looked up at his brother-in-law suspiciously, “when was the last time you wrote Amalah?”

  “You read minds now?” Darius complained to him.

  Everyone in ear shot chuckled. Darius didn’t bother shooting any of them a quelling look—it wouldn’t have any effect whatsoever. He held a mini debate with himself on who he should write first but in the end, he knew who he absolutely could not afford to anger.

  Wife first.

  Darius thought long and hard, compared notes with Behnam, Kaveh, and Ramin, drew Roshan into the meetings just to have a fresh mind to bounce ideas off of, and came up with possibilities. Just possibilities. Darius hated field testing new tactics in battle, it wasn’t something a sane man would want to try, but doing it against the barbarians?

  Suicidal.

  But the alternative, sticking to his original plan, would mean certain defeat.

  The conundrum proved enough to give him a splitting headache.

  The next day they resumed their retreat. From here on, it would become increasingly uncomfortable for the men, which Darius regretted a little. The campfires were cut down again in number, as well as the numbers of tents, forcing men to cram three into a two man tent. There was some grumbling, Darius expected that, but no real trouble. They understood as well as he did that their lives were on the line with this bluff. They had to play it well.

  Darius did his part as well in muddying their tracks so that the barbarians would find it nearly impossible to read how many troops they actually had. To an outsider, it would look like people were running back and forth in panicked circles.

  Camp settled a little uneasily that night. The men understood the entire reasoning on why they had rationed camp fires, but it didn’t make things less cumbersome or cold. Darius saw more than one group of men all overlap their bedding and blankets to keep from freezing during the night. No one outright grumbled—not in a general’s hearing, anyway—but the thick, unhappy mood settled like a dark fog.

  In an effort to keep the men from complaining, Darius didn’t have a fire near his tent either, just a small brazier that he kept low to the ground and in embers for heat. Roshan, Tolk, and Bohme all abused their positions in order to stay in the tent with him. Darius didn’t mind and he certainly didn’t pull rank and throw them out. More body heat inside the canvas tent meant a more comfortable sleeping experience for all. Even if they all did stink of sweat.

  Darius settled down the next morning next to the brazier, writing letters, not just to his wife, but also his parents who would likely reach his home any day now. Darius felt very, very sorry he’d miss their reactions to his home and their new granddaughter. Curse the Rorans and this war.

  Before it became truly dark, the inky darkness of a moonless sky, he ordered torches set around the perimeter. Not that Darius expected much to happen, but they had proven strangely unpredictable on this campaign. Better to play it safe.

  Besides, no one wanted to be snuck up on in the dark.

  The cooks kept knocking elbows, trying to work over the same cook fires, irritated at the limiting order. Darius got many a dark look. He gave them apologetic smiles and a few words, which mollified them some. He made a point of going throughout the camp and asking: Did everyone have a tent to sleep in? Blankets? Did anyone need anything?

  There were a few displaced souls that didn’t have a tent to sleep in, and to those, he found a place for them to go. The irritation from the men eased when they saw he genuinely cared about their welfare. A few bolder ones asked if the strategy was working.

  Darius didn’t have the heart to tell them it was too early to tell. He gave a noncommittal answer instead that sounded right, appeasing them.

  Roshan followed him about throughout all of this, sometimes helping, most of the time just listening. When they walked away from the furthest set of tents, heading back toward the center, he finally spoke in a hushed voice. “You knew that coming out here would set them at ease.”

  “I did,” Darius admitted, eyes cutting to the corners, studying his young apprentice’s expression. More than thoughtful, Roshan’s expression spoke of concentration, as if he were not taking Darius’s words and actions at face value. Which he shouldn’t.

  “You came out and spoke to them because you not only wanted to settle them before they could mutiny on you,” Roshan picked through the words carefully, finding his way along as he spoke. “You had an ulterior motive in mind.”

  So he saw that much, but not to the heart of the matter? Which was fine, at this stage, as Roshan had limited experience to draw from. Darius just felt proud the boy realized he had been up to something. “General Mihr is one of the best generals that Niotan has. You’ve heard me say that before.”

  “I have,” Roshan readily agreed.

  “The reason why I say that is not because the man is brilliant with tactics. He’s solid with tactics, has a reasonable head for strategy, but what makes him formidable is that he keeps very close track of the state of his troops. If you ask him about the state of his army, he can immediately rattle off how many injured he has; how long some of his men have been out on the front lines; and their general condition, both mentally and physically. Most generals think of troops as pawns, pieces to be moved along the board known as the Battlefield. Mihr understands that’s incorrect. Soldiers are not universally of the same strength. By paying attention to their condition, he can place the strongest in the right places, the weakest in fortified areas.”

  Roshan absorbed this for a moment, turning it over in his mind even as he carefully hopped over a tent’s support line. Darius tried to shift a little more to the left to give the boy more room to walk in, but they were fairly crammed into this area. The only water to be found along this section of the Tran Highway had copses of trees all about, which limited their camping area and made for cramped conditions. It helped cut down on the wind, though, and gave them good firewood.

  “Because he doesn’t blindly put his men forward
, his front lines are stronger. That’s what you mean?”

  “And he knows when to retreat, give his men some rest, and try again on a different day. Rashly bulling your way forward when your men aren’t up to it is a sure way to be defeated.”

  Roshan accepted this with a provisional nod. “But what if you don’t have a choice? What if you have to fight—”

  An alarm went up, men shouting a clamor as metal clanged against metal. Darius’s ears immediately perked, found the source to be from the northern perimeter, and raced that direction. “To arms, to arms!” he bellowed as he ran. “Pikemen, form ranks!”

  If any pikemen went past them, Darius gave way, as he needed them to form up more than anything. He managed to duck around people and get to the front in a remarkably short amount of time, all things considered. To his relief, Kaveh already had the pikemen in hand and orders fell from his lips in short, succinct bursts.

  Darius took in the situation with a quick sweep of the eyes. A night raid, as the barbarians didn’t number more than five hundred in a glance. They likely thought they could take the retreating, dwindling Sovran Army on long enough to steal some supplies and then beat a hasty retreat. It was a common tactic from them.

  They got more than they bargained for tonight. The pikemen’s frustrations boiled over and they went straight for the barbarians’ throats, bellowing their own war cries. Darius turned to Roshan and ordered, “Get more torches around here, I don’t want accidental casualties!”

  “Sir!” Roshan snapped out a salute and sprinted off, calling for more torches as he did.

  “I do love that boy,” Darius muttered to himself even as his attention returned to the battle. Skirmish, really.

  The fighting was fierce, what he could see of it, the metallic smell of blood growing thick in the air. The night wind picked up, sending the sounds of shouted words scattering about, threatening to put the torches out altogether. Darius found he had to repeat his orders first in one direction, then another, for people to hear him.

  Even with the added torches, Darius found it difficult to see any real distance and he could only pray that his pikemen weren’t accidentally stabbing each other. Even the moon didn’t help tonight, being nothing more than a mere sliver of a nail. With the added shadows cast by the trees, visibility didn’t go ten feet past torchlight. Uneasiness crawled up his spine, but there wasn’t a single thing he could do to improve matters.

  Well, short of lighting the trees on fire. Which would solve one problem and create about a dozen others.

  As quickly as the barbarians engaged, they disengaged, calling out orders to retreat. The pikemen’s ire was up, enough that Darius heard several of them start to give chase. Swearing, he called out, “Stand your ground! Don’t chase them!”

  Kaveh repeated the order, as did the other commanders, and the pikemen reluctantly drew back in. Darius blew out a breath and looked around, spying Roshan, who had returned to his side at some point. Good.

  Jogging, he caught up to Kaveh, noticed the commander didn’t even have a jacket on, a smear of some sort of sauce on his mouth. In the middle of eating when this happened, eh? “Casualties?”

  “I’ve got someone doing a headcount now, sir, but it doesn’t look like we lost too many. They lost more than we did, I think, as they weren’t expecting much resistance.” Kaveh gave a satisfied nod at this. “I got the impression of a raiding party, about five hundred strong.”

  “Same,” Darius agreed. It had taken a thousand of their troops to hold them off, so that sounded about right. “Our pikemen responded with admirable quickness. Pass along my compliments to them.”

  “I will, sir.” Kaveh lowered his voice to ask confidentially, “We’ve got another fourteen days of retreating, correct? Is every night going to be like this?”

  Darius had no firm answer for that question. “Shaa willing, hopefully not.”

  ~~~

  Their night skirmish had cost them a hundred and twenty-one troops but the barbarians had lost three hundred. Once again they created more graves than were really necessary, creating the illusion they’d lost more men than they actually had. Then they packed up in the morning and retreated again. Darius gave orders to reduce the fires by another third, and had no doubt that their enemy could see it from a distance. They’d left the wooded area and entered onto plains, where nothing more than abandoned farmlands and grass remained. This flat land, with its lack of trees or true hills, gave everything away.

  They stopped for the night, making a makeshift camp and fortunately didn’t get attacked again. The cycle repeated the next day: pack up, march a full day, make camp. Almost like clockwork, the barbarians attacked every other night. The largest stretch of time was two nights of peace in a row, then an attack. It felt like swatting flies, really, as the raiding parties never numbered more than six hundred. Just annoying enough to get a reaction, small enough to not pose any real danger.

  After every attack, the camp fires were reduced, as well as the allotment of pitched tents, making the logistics of bedding down interesting indeed. Darius gave way and had his commanders and bodyguards all share his tent by the tenth night in the retreat as tent space came at a premium.

  Darius, at least, saw the silver lining in this particular cloud. Raiding parties meant that the main force was also moving, also keeping up with them.

  His plan of drawing them further south was working.

  They made their camp on the twelfth night of their retreat with a sort of grim anticipation. Soon, they’d be at the proper place for their battle, and they could end this game of cat-and-mouse.

  After dinner that night, a courier came from Baros with more than a letter from the king. He also carried with him three other letters, one from Amalah, his mother, and his father. Darius’s eyebrows rose but sensibly picked up his wife’s first and read it through.

  She gave a simple account at first, just notifying him that his family had arrived safely, and she’d settled everyone in. Then she launched into a more amusing summary of how his father and Sego had formed some sort of partnership and were intent on increasing the trading and business with his estate. Apparently the two had become nigh inseparable. Everyone was completely enamored with Parisa to the point that the game of hide-and-seek with their daughter had become even worse than before. Amalah only knew where the baby was when it came time to feed her.

  Darius felt unjustly relieved that he was missing this madness. But at the same time her words brought back a sense of homesickness stronger than before, so that his heart writhed in protest, stealing his breath for a moment.

  Amalah ended the letter with, “I miss you sorely. So many times your family says something amusing, or we have an interesting debate here, and I turn my head to share a smile with you only to be reminded once again that you’re not here. I know that we met because of war, because you are so capable as a general, but there are days when I absolutely abhor war. Selfish of me, isn’t it? Win this, Darius. Use all of your wits and experience to make sure this war ends here. I’ve told you this once, and I’ll say is again: Do not push recklessly forward just to return home sooner. I can survive several months without you. It’s the next fifty years without you that I can’t face.”

  The bottom of the page held not a signature but a lip print. Darius traced it with a gentle fingertip, calluses catching on the paper, and sighed long and loudly. He agreed with Amalah completely. He couldn’t be upset that he was a general, because his career had led him to her, but that didn’t mean he had to like being in this particular war, so far from home.

  Didn’t the Rorans understand that he had a beautiful wife he liked to kiss?

  Growling a choice curse under his breath, he picked up the letter from his father next. As was typical of the man, he had a list of different trading ideas for Darius to think about, with a short paragraph at the bottom stating how comfortable Darius’s estate was and how pleased he was to finally meet his new daughter-in-law and granddaughter.

>   Making a mental note to respond to that one later, he went for his mother’s next, again not surprised at the content. It gushed from word one about how beautiful Parisa was, how sweet natured, how charming, and on and on. She had nothing but praise for Amalah as well but Darius had expected those two to get along. His mother wasn’t the type to cause friction with another woman, especially while a guest.

  Reassured that everything at home, at least, seemed to be going well, he reluctantly broke the wax seal on Baros’s letter. The length alone made him wince. Baros tended to be a very verbose writer, taking three paragraphs what could be said in three sentences, unless he felt stressed or angry. Then his verbosity became severely curtailed. Darius could gauge his friend’s mood by how many words he’d chosen to write down.

  Thirty-eight words was not a good sign.

  Darius read each word carefully, trying to sense what Baros meant to say, not just what he chose to write.

  Darius-

  Serrati has sent a brief message detailing how many refugees they have accepted in their borders. They informed me that the last of the barbarians have been sent your direction. I’ve enclosed their message in with mine.

  Report.

  Baros

  Darius shifted the first page off to look at the second, finding the message from Serrati not much longer than Baros’s. It was basically a list of numbers, dates, and estimated troop movements. Darius could almost guess the content of the message before he even looked at it, but felt grateful at the confirmation, nonetheless. Serrati had definitely held up their end of the bargain.

  If the numbers here matched up the way he thought they did, then that part of the barbarian forces had already caught up with the main group. So he didn’t have to worry about additional troops adding on top of that 16,000 number. Thank Shaa for that.

  Still, that didn’t mean he could pretend he had those 16,000 well in hand.

  Flipping back to Amalah’s letter, he read that last paragraph again. Amalah had said those words to him when she first announced her pregnancy to Parisa. It led to the first fight they’d ever had, with him desperate to win the final battle between the Sovran and Niotan so he could be with her for most of her pregnancy, and her just as desperate to keep him from making rash decisions. He saw now, in hindsight, how disastrous it would have been if he had tried to change tactics. He might not have won. He might have won but at such a terrible cost that Niotan wouldn’t have been able to recover in this decade.