The rider’s momentum carried him past Aram. The rajah looked around for the next enemy, but it seemed they were all engaged with his men. With a terrified leap of the heart, Aram realised that his erstwhile assailant was now behind him. The scout was already wheeling his horse for another charge. He had cast aside his broken spear – still a good six feet of shaft there – and was drawing his sword now. Aram took two steps towards the man and dropped, scooping up the discarded shaft.
What was he doing? The thing had no point, just some splintered shards at one end. It was not long enough to brace against the ground as his men had done. Panic filled him, and he started to back away as the horseman charged.
It was only as he stumbled into something that he realised he had been backing away at an angle and not straight. His spine was against one of the fences. The horseman was coming. Panic filled Aram now and he dropped, trying to climb between the rails of the fence. The horseman was still charging, picking up speed.
Aram felt death swooping down from the sky, ready to gather him up in its arms. He was stuck. Somehow the scabbard at his side had caught on two pieces of timber. He had one leg through the fence and was at a truly uncomfortable angle, jammed and unable to extricate himself. The horseman seemed set on killing him. He realised that the weight of horse and rider might just be enough to smash through the old fence and the man trapped in it both, crushing them all.
As death stooped ever lower from the clouds, opening its cloaked embrace, the grey horse of the scout closed in, the Jade warrior on its back snarling imprecations in his curious tongue.
The sword was useless.
Aram found that he had his hand on the butt of the broken spear, and in desperation he stopped struggling with the fence and gripped the length of ash with both hands, fighting the dreadful weight as he held the long pole at one end and pulled it back against the timber of the fence. The tip dropped and wavered, danced and circled. The horse was on him.
The splintered shaft missed the horse as it flicked and wobbled. The horse hit the fence hard. Somehow, and Aram could not have explained it other than as blind luck or the favour of the gods, the horse smashed through the fence and continued on into the field beyond. Aram was not only whole and unharmed, but the shattered rails of the fence where the horse had passed seemingly through – over? – him made it possible to free himself.
He staggered in confusion and realised oddly that he was unarmed. His roving eyes found his sword lying in the dust next to the fence, unbloodied still. Where had the broken spear shaft gone?
His eyes took in the horse, now racing in mad circles around the large paddock, the rider still on its back swaying with every turn, the shattered ash pole jutting from his chest.
Dead.
How had that happened? Aram was perplexed. Had that wavering point not missed? No. It had missed the horse, hadn’t it? His brain reassembled the flashing jagged memories of the past few moments, and he realised what had happened. The wavering point of the spear had frightened the horse enough that it had turned slightly, smashing through the open fence next to him, rather than riding him down. And somehow as the horse had passed, the roving point of the shaft had hit the rider. Even without a steel point, braced against the fence timbers, the shaft had punched through the leather vest and the man’s ribs, driving deep.
Aram looked up. Death had gone on to hunt new prey.
He was alive. He had won.
He let out a wild, crazed laugh.
Death turned back to look at him for a moment as an arrow whispered through the air close to his ear and thudded into the broken fence. Aram’s head snapped around, but he was in no further danger from that source as two of his men were now busy pulling the archer from his horse and stabbing him repeatedly.
His gaze took in the scene. Could it really be over already? He’d always thought battles lasted much longer than that. They did in books and songs and paintings. Seven of his men remained standing, including their commander, though he was cradling an arm and blood was pouring from it. The enemy were down. Had he gifts to give, he would have made these men wealthy for what they had just done. But he was poor, and few men were willing to work for the tiny sums he could pay.
Something occurred to him, and he spun round, examining the fallen. Eight of his men lay dead, but that was a small figure given what they had achieved. That was not what nagged at him, though. Eleven. There were the bodies of eleven of the scouts and nine horses. The absence of horses was no worry. Horses would undoubtedly flee as soon as their riders were dead. But one of the enemy was missing.
‘One got away,’ Aram said in a worried whisper.
The leader of his guards nodded. ‘He was wounded. He may well die.’
‘Or he may find his army and tell them about us. We have to go, and we have to move fast.’
He waited impatiently, dancing from foot to foot as one of the guards bound a strip of linen around the officer’s arm to staunch the blood flow. Then, gathering up what weapons they felt might be useful, they each sought one of the enemy horses, caught hold of the reins and climbed into the saddle. Mounted, they gathered together and raced through the village and out into the woodland trail beyond.
It was a terrifying ride. The meeting place was only a mile from the village, a huge clearing – more of a moor, really – where once upon a time trade fairs had been held, when the land was still rich in resources. Even as they raced along the track through the woods, continually ducking to avoid being swept from the saddle by stray branches, Aram could hear a frenzy of horn-blowing carried from some distance on the gentle breeze. Was that the sound of the Jade Empire advancing, or did it signal that a wounded scout had returned to his column with news of a group of defiant fugitives? Either way it was an ill portent.
Aram and his men burst out into the clearing and his heart leapt into his throat at what he saw there.
In his grandfather’s time he had witnessed the fairs held on this sward. Many thousands of people would gather here along with tents, trade stalls and pens of animals for sale. There were just over three and a half thousand people in all of Initpur these days, and that number should fit neatly in less than a third of this space.
Why, then, was the clearing almost full?
A path opened up through the crowd as they emerged, and the riders slowed as they moved through the mass of bodies and pack animals. At the centre was the gathering of supplies that had been pulled together from the various villages and the palace. And standing in front of them were two dozen armed men in two different but unfamiliar uniforms. Aram rode towards them and reined in.
The men bowed.
‘Who are you?’
‘I am Mani, and this is Bajaan,’ one of the soldiers replied, indicating another, dressed differently. ‘We are of the men of the rajahs of Kahali and Magur, seeking new lands to settle.’
Aram frowned. The two kingdoms they had named were far to the west.
‘You are travelling in the wrong direction, then,’ Aram said. ‘I am the rajah of this land, and the forces of the Jade Empire are mere miles from here.’
The soldier’s face turned grave.
‘Then we are to be crushed between hammer and anvil. The army of the emperor Bassianus has crossed the western river and moved into our lands. They have not made war upon us yet as such, but their mere passage strips the land of all food and goods, and our rajahs hand it all over in the name of peace. But we all know this Bassianus by reputation from tales from his own people. He is not a man of his word and his embassies cannot be trusted. Their generals smile now and hold out a hand in greeting, but there is death behind their smile and a dagger behind their back.’
Aram shook his head in dismay. He had been counting on being able to move into land close enough to the western empire to hold off the Jade Emperor’s armies. But it seemed his grandfather’s predictions were coming true. The two great powers were marching on each other and the Inda lay in between.
He mused for
long, silent moments.
‘It is forbidden,’ he said.
‘Majesty?’ prompted one of the foreign soldiers.
‘Mmmm?’ Aram looked up. ‘Oh. Thinking. We were moving west. East is not possible. And to the north are the mountain bandits and then the lords of the horse clans. There is only south.’
‘But the empire will be moving all across the western lands, even stretching to the south,’ the soldier called Mani said.
‘None of them will go far enough south, because it is forbidden.’
The soldiers’ faces paled. ‘The land of ghosts?’
Aram nodded. ‘It is forbidden. And sacred. And haunted. And because of that it is the one place none of our enemies will go.’
‘With good reason, Majesty,’ Bajaan replied. ‘Men go mad and die there.’
‘But there are monks just beyond the border. If they can survive there, so can we.’
There was no answer to that, though each man and woman within earshot would now be looking inward, wondering if their own soul was pure enough, their heart pious enough, to protect them as it did the monks.
‘Our enemies have left us with no choice,’ Aram said loudly, turning to his own people. ‘One way lies the Jade Empire on its merciless war of annexation, another the western empire, with its efficient killers and mad ruler. To the north are the bandits and the horse clans who would kill us all and use our flesh for saddles. Only the spirit lands of the south remain. If the monks can survive beyond the sacred markers, then so can we. We shall cross the Nadu River and travel south along its western side until we enter the lands of the south. It is a very long journey, through dangerous lands, but we shall prevail.’
There was an air of nervous uncertainty among his people. He straightened. ‘If the gathered people of Kahali and Magur wish to travel with us, then they are welcome. All the Inda need to be safe now. There is no call for rajahs in this new world, just survivors. I was a rajah, but I will be a survivor, and I pledge to make you all survivors too if you will come with me.’
It was a good speech, he thought. Good enough to rouse the spirits of most men. But there was still uncertainty here. In centuries the only men who had crossed into the ghost lands of the south were the monks who maintained the shrines and the occasional criminal on the run who was never heard from again.
‘The south is frightening,’ he said. ‘I know. It is the unknown. But the unknown is preferable sometimes to the known. And we know what is coming through the woods right now. Listen.’
He stopped and there was an eerie silence.
There, distant, but clearly audible, were the war horns of the Jade Empire. A murmur of worry filtered through the crowd.
‘If you stay here you will hear those horns becoming swiftly louder. And then you will start to hear the drums of their infantry. And then the rumble of their cavalry. And then it will be too late and you will be bowing to the Jade Emperor, at sword point if necessary.’
He turned to his own guards. ‘Get the wagons moving. We make for the river at speed.’
And with that, he turned his horse to the west and started to walk it towards the great Nadu River. The very thought of passing into those dead lands in the south chilled him to the bone, but it was the only choice left, and his duty was to brave the dangers and lead these people to safety.
Safety… in the land of ghosts.
Chapter 6
From: Orosius Devinius
To: Petilius Iuro, Garrison commander, Lappa
Sir, please find attached the seal of Flavius Cinna, general in command, Inda Expeditionary Force. The general requires a levy of all available recruits from the Lappa region. Funds will be made available in due course from the imperial treasury. All free populace between the ages of sixteen and fifty and not engaged in a reserved occupation are required to appear before military medical boards. Training is to begin immediately for each cohort of one thousand raised at Lappa. Officers have six weeks to assemble and instruct the units before dispatch to the forward post at the Oxus bridge. Please consider this your highest priority, as any shortfall in manpower on this campaign could endanger the empire’s eastern border in general, and Lappa directly.
Six weeks was all it had taken to gather the forces and bring them east. Dev had expected it to be quicker, but Cinna had assured him that from the planning to the execution of a campaign, six weeks was almost unbelievably swift, especially with some of the forces having been drawn from the western provinces and marched across half an empire to join in.
Dev watched the imperial army campaign in his homeland with a strangely detached feeling. These western rajahs were not men and lands he had known well as a boy, and did not quite feel like his people in some odd way. And they certainly seemed not to have their own good in mind, for far from joining in a grand alliance with the empire as Dev had hoped, they had mostly held out defiantly. And yet there was something familiar and heart-wrenching about that proud defiance. It reminded him of his own people when the Jade Empire’s foragers had come.
General Cinna’s wary optimism at the possibility of gaining allies among the Inda as they moved had gradually waned as they moved east and met ever less enthusiasm among the natives. Moreover, he had included Dev less in his council over the last week or so, perhaps seeing little value in a native who could not help deliver his people.
In fairness there had been no fighting over more than half the small kingdoms they had passed into, and where there had it had never been a truly troublesome engagement. Most rajahs had few warriors to show and little power, and the empire passed through their lands without trouble, but also without gaining the manpower or alliances they had hoped. A few of the rajahs had seen the empire coming and had sent their people east, away from the great gleaming legions, under the guard of their soldiers, sacrificing their own power and safety for the good of their citizens in a manner horribly reminiscent of a value Dev’s father had always espoused. But some of the more powerful rajahs had manned their walls, steadfastly refusing to open their gates and granaries to this vast force.
Vast.
That was a laugh. Oh, it was a vast force, certainly in comparison to any Inda army, yet from the few sketchy reports they’d had of the Jade Empire’s military moving in its three-pronged attack in the east, that monstrous oriental army dwarfed General Cinna’s. And Dev knew well the tales of cannon and explosives that had won the Jade Emperor a great realm, for none could stand against such monsters. The easterners’ numbers were superior, for they had such a great swathe of land from which to draw them, but the numbers were not what worried Dev and his general – it was the technology. For all the vaunted engineering prowess of the west, their world had somewhat stagnated. There had been no true breakthrough, in military terms, for centuries. What hope had they against an army of equal discipline, but with more men and better weapons?
They needed these rajahs on side, not defiant and troublesome, if they were to maintain any hope of matching the enemy.
This latest one had clearly known he was beaten from the very first parley when he realised he was facing odds of more than a hundred to one, and yet there he now stood on the walls of his fortified palace, watching his world end as his flag snapped in the breeze above him.
Dev sighed.
‘When this place falls, we turn north, I think,’ the general said next to him. ‘Intelligence places the all-important crossing of the Nadu some fifty miles north of here and another fifty to the east. We are moving quickly through the land, but not as swiftly as I had hoped and anticipated. I had intended to be at the river by now and moving north, clearing any resistance to the rear. Instead we slog east. Your countrymen are not as submissive as you had suggested.’
Almost an accusation. Dev fought the urge to point out that he had made no such suggestion. It had been Cinna’s supposition, though Dev had done nothing to disabuse him of the notion. He had hoped that the local lords would see sense and join them, but he had always known that any attemp
t to create links between Inda rajahs would be troublesome at best.
He shook his head, biting down on all his retorts and plumping for straight fact. ‘It is in the nature of the Inda, General. We are all different. No two rajahs think or rule alike. It is our greatest strength, in our diversity, but it might also be our greatest weakness. There is no uniformity of thought or purpose as there is in the empire, and so no one can predict the mind of any rajah with any certainty. I believe those here in the west have had little to fear from the Jade Empire over the years and therefore do not see us as a welcome sight in opposition to an enemy they have not met. Those rajahs who have been ever under pressure would be more accepting, I think. Hopefully as we move closer to the enemy, we will find more lands willing to join with us.’
The general harrumphed, clearly unconvinced, and watched his men take another kingdom.
Four cohorts pressed on the main gate while the bulk of the army waited on the hillside. Even four cohorts gave the imperial force near ten-to-one odds, and there seemed little point in manoeuvring the many thousands of others for such a small engagement. Those units approaching the fortress gate held their shields over their heads to protect themselves from the falling rocks, tiles and occasional arrows plunging down from the crenulated walls of the palace – each shield resting upon the one in front to create a stable and protective roof of leather and wood.
This rajah was proud. Stupid and wasteful, but proud nonetheless. Four hundred men in position on his walls facing an army of one hundred and twenty thousand – a smaller number than the general had originally hoped, but it seemed that few units they seconded were up to the strength noted in records. Still, four hundred against over a hundred thousand made for idiotic odds. Even four hundred against the four thousand committed to the gates was breathtaking. Admittedly, the rajah and his men held a strong little place, but still it would fall easily enough. What was the point in resisting in the face of such odds?
One of the imperial captains had advocated simply levelling the place along with its master and defenders. It would have been remarkably easy with the siege engines that had trundled into camp in the wake of the army the previous night. Catapults, bolt throwers, jars of pitch and the like. Had Cinna let his artillery captain loose on the palace at dawn it would now be little more than a pile of shattered rubble with the occasional arm or leg sticking out of it. The battle would have been over almost before it began.
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