Jai peered ahead at their route. They were past Initpur now, and they had blessedly skirted the lands of his father without treading old ground. He was not sure how he would feel about returning home after so long, especially to a home devoid of all that he remembered and held dear. But they had passed by and moved onto one of the less-travelled routes – they had stuck to minor trails and hidden ways as often as possible throughout their journey to throw off potential pursuers. From Initpur, three old trade roads ran along the wide valley into the forest, one through the once important great market site. All such roads would be used by the enemy and would therefore be highly dangerous. But this trail, which ran across the top of dusty and craggy ridges, was used only by local farmers and villagers and was unlikely to be patrolled by anything more dangerous than goats.
The track ran along the side of an escarpment and descended ahead to cross a seasonal river, before climbing once more onto another hog’s back of a hill. To the left – south – the hills rolled on into the distance, full of crags, rocks and woods impassable in many places by horse. To the right, some two hundred paces away, the steep, scree-covered escarpment led down to a lush valley. The men of Jai’s party were bound to the trail here, unable to deviate until they passed down into one of the dips, but no one had worried about the possibility of ambush on the ridge, whether it be from bandits or rogue soldiers. The terrain to each side was just too troublesome.
Which is why Jai was startled when the general reached out and tapped him on the arm, his other finger pressed to his lips in silent warning. Jiang stopped his horse and motioned for Jai to do the same. The Crimson Guard behind came to an instant halt at a gesture and sat silent and expectant. As the general slid from his saddle as quietly as he could, Jai followed suit, frowning and cocking his head to one side, trying to discern what it was that had alerted the general.
Then he heard it.
Steel on steel, albeit distant and faint.
A fight.
Jai followed his commander as the tall easterner hurried with cat-like grace to the top of the escarpment, where he made for a row of three boulders shaped oddly like fat bovines of some kind. There they crouched and peered over the edge.
Below was a farm, long abandoned, probably due to the depredations of the war. A farmhouse stood surrounded by overgrown gardens, its roof partially fallen in, an orchard behind and other ramshackle outbuildings scattered about, the whole circled with fields of overripe, ruined wheat. Figures were slipping through the area around the farm, creeping forward, moving against some unseen defender. Even as Jai’s gaze picked out the various besieging figures, one of them released an arrow at the ruined house, the missile disappearing into the interior with unknowable results.
‘Who are they?’ whispered Jai as loudly as he dared, which was little more than an exhaled breath.
Using standard scouting gestures, the general indicated another group visible further out in the valley, and Jai’s eyes narrowed as he took in the details. Six men, one of them an officer of the western empire, a banner flying behind him. They were imperial troops.
‘What do we do?’ Jai mouthed at the general.
Jiang gestured back to the horses and the two men left the precipice and scurried out of sight once more. As they reached the beasts and mounted, the general beckoned the guard officer. With him and Jai close, the commander pointed to the slope and the rocks.
‘Imperial soldiers,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘Thirty or so, by my estimate. They are besieging someone in a farmhouse. We will move slightly south, further out of audible range, then ride at speed for the descent ahead. Once we reach the ground, I want thirty men to make straight for the officer with his banner. Kill without mercy and leave no survivors. The rest of us will deal with the men attacking the house.’
‘But why?’ Jai asked. ‘It’s dangerous. Why put ourselves in such danger? We have been trying to avoid such groups all the way.’
‘Whoever is in that house is worth hunting. Anyone the western empire goes to such lengths to kill could be a valuable ally for men like us, Jai.’
It still seemed foolish and dangerous to Jai, but he nodded his compliance anyway, and the small force of easterners – tiny compared to the army the general had commanded at Jalnapur, yet large enough and resolute enough to deal readily with such a small group – rode for the slope ahead and to battle for the first time in many days.
The descent along the trail was easy and the easterners moved down swiftly, all too aware of the time-sensitive nature of their attack. Every moment they delayed increased the chance that whoever defended the farm would fall to the aggressors. Soon enough, though, they had reached the dry riverbed and the flat ground, veering to the north and towards that green valley where the enemy were fighting. At a signal from the general one unit of the guard broke off and made for the enemy commander. They could not currently see his small group, but the sounds of shouted commands in the distance made his location plain.
The rest moved onto a wider, more regularly used road and made for the farm. At further signals, the guard spread out, those at the periphery urging an extra turn of speed from their horses so that the near-two-hundred-strong force of riders became a crescent, the tips closing with every pounding of hooves.
Jai realised with that familiar thrill of battle that he and the general were at the centre of the crescent, in the forefront of the fight to come. He drew his sword and tested its weight. He had not drawn it for days. Swinging it carefully and experimentally around his wrist, he saw the rest of the riders who had not already done so drawing their own weapons. There was something terrifying about those immobile, savage demon masks, and he could only imagine what the riders must look like to the enemy.
They came across the farm faster than he had expected, and Jai spotted one of the attackers stepping out from behind a tree, circling the house, just as a sudden scream was cut off sharply some distance behind them. The enemy commander had fallen.
Jai concentrated on the man before him, who somehow hadn’t heard the scream. He had been confidently padding towards the farmhouse until an arrow whispered out of the run-down structure and almost struck him. Startled, he ran for the nearest tree, slightly closer to the house, and dived behind it.
It was then that he and his fellow attackers heard the hoof beats and turned. Shouts of alarm went up at the sight of more than a hundred red-faced demons descending upon them on horseback. A few of the imperial soldiers turned to face this new threat. More ran for their lives, though with precious little hope of escape. The general’s tactics were sound. The crescent of horsemen would envelop the enemy and encircle them. With the open farmland around the house there was nowhere for them to find immediate shelter, and they were too close to the building itself to escape the circle of riders. As long as the thirty men dispatched earlier managed to deal with the small command group, there would be no one fleeing the scene with news of the struggle.
The man who had moved from tree to tree and dodged the arrow had a waisted steel blade in hand and armour of segmented plates on his torso, heavily encased in steel. With no shield his only clear weak spot was his legs, which would be an impossible blow for a man on horseback, and with a tree at his back, he was well-protected. The man was readying to maim Jai’s horse and unseat the rider – the usual anti-cavalry tactic once again. Recognising the danger and the minimal options available to him, Jai suddenly recalled the time he had been disciplined for ignoring all the forms and sinking to base, thug-like tactics to achieve a winning blow in an important academy competition. It was not gentlemanly combat, and he had suffered for his presumption, but this was true battle, not some duel in a courtyard, and rules could go hang.
Ripping his pouch from his belt with his left hand he slung it as he closed on the man. In that academy duel it had been a handful of gravel and he had temporarily blinded his opponent. This would not do the same, but it was the distraction that was important.
Sure enough, the ma
n flinched. It was a natural human reaction that overrode all martial training. Few men can stand steady and calm when something unexpectedly hurtles at them. The soldier’s sword was momentarily forgotten as he ducked to the side to avoid the unidentified missile. By the time he had recovered and straightened and the pouch had thudded harmlessly into the dust behind him, it was too late for the man. He tried to recover and strike his intended blow, but Jai’s sword came down and caught him between helmet and metal collar, carving deep into the flesh of the neck and delivering a death blow.
As Jai rode on into the grass beyond, it occurred to him that the unseen archer in the house might be just as ready to put an arrow in him as in the man he’d just killed, and he began to shout ‘Friends!’ in the western tongue as he hauled on his reins and looked about for any further danger. The general was trotting towards him, his sword unbloodied, while other soldiers were being dispatched with relative ease by the red demon guards.
The fight, such as it had been, was over swiftly. Sickened, Jai watched two of the imperial soldiers surrender, casting their swords to the ground and approaching the demons with their hands raised only to be dispatched regardless in a brutal and offhand manner. The general had given the order to give no quarter with good reason. The westerners had put a huge price on their heads, and they could hardly afford word of their passage through this area to get out.
Once it was clear that no enemy had escaped, the guard began delivering mercy blows to the howling wounded, and the thirty men Jiang had dispatched earlier hove into view leading six horses by the reins, a body across the back of each. The Jai and the general dismounted and tethered their horses to a fence rail nearby. The general sheathed his sword and Jai collected his fallen pouch, then produced his cleaning rag, wiped the gore from his own blade until it gleamed once more, then he too sheathed it.
They moved into a wide, overgrown lawn before the house’s main door and came to a halt, trying not to stand too close to the bodies lying in the undergrowth, arrows rising from bloody puckered wounds in their flesh, sightless eyes staring. There was no sign of movement from inside the building, but no arrows whipped out of the shadows, which was encouraging. Jai looked across at the general, who nodded.
‘I am Jai,’ the younger man announced in a loud voice and in the western tongue, ‘adjutant to General Xeng Shu Jiang of the Jade Empire. We mean you no harm.’
As if taking that as a cue, the men of the Crimson Guard sheathed their weapons, cleaning them first where necessary, and falling in to stand at attention in neat blocks as if on parade. There was a long silence, and finally, just as Jai was about to speak again, the farmhouse door was shoved aside on its one remaining hinge with a shriek of tortured wood, and a figure emerged.
Jai was surprised to see that it was a man dressed in an imperial uniform not dissimilar to those very men they had just killed. The soldier, a gash on his forehead lending the left side of his face a bloody sheen, stepped out onto the grass and a second figure, sword at the ready, emerged blinking behind him.
‘Strange,’ Jai murmured to the general, indicating the uniforms on the two men. A third and fourth appeared through the door, both carrying bows.
‘You do not hold tight to the notion of fate in the same manner as your father and I, Jai, but here in this ruined farmhouse I find some of the strongest evidence for its influence I have ever seen. How can a man deny that we are driven to a goal when faced with this?’
Jai frowned as he peered at the four dirty, weary imperial soldiers. What was so special about them, he could not imagine. The general gave him an irritating, knowing smile.
‘These men accompanied your brother when we met at the monastery, Jai.’
The younger man blinked in surprise and disbelief, and Jiang chuckled. ‘They are General Cinna’s men, and I would wager that if they are here, then the general and your brother are not far away.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Tsk, Jai,’ smiled the general. ‘I was led to believe you were the best scout in the western provinces, with a keen eye. Observant. Can you not tell the differences in uniform? These men bear an eagle above a crown and spear on their chest armour. In all the months we have fought across Inda lands I have only seen that symbol once, upon the men of Cinna’s own guard.’
Jai shook his head in wonder as the general spread his arms and addressed the four soldiers in blue directly.
‘I am General Jiang. I am acquainted with your commander. He and I, I suspect, remain friends despite all that has passed between our peoples. Will you take us to him?’
It was something of a gamble, of course. It was very possible that Cinna was now basking in the glow of his achievements in the destruction of the Jade Empire, and walking into his camp could be a disastrous move. Or, more likely, the men they’d just saved would refuse to lead them to the general. But somehow – whether or not this was the fate that his father and Jiang so readily accepted – he felt certain that not only would Cinna and Dev be there and welcome them, but that Cinna and Jiang were still two allies in a world of aggressors, despite everything.
There was a strange pause while the four men looked at one another, seeking consensus. There were nods, and the one with the sword who had emerged first sheathed it. His companions did the same, lowering bows and returning their arrows to the quivers at their hips.
‘I am Decurion Vulso of the general’s cavalry guard. I recognise you, General Jiang. From the monastery.’
Jiang gave Jai another infuriatingly smug smile.
‘The general is a little over four miles from here,’ the man went on. ‘But we have lost our horses.’
Jiang gestured to the riders who had defeated the enemy officers. Four of the bodies were unceremoniously tipped from the beasts, freeing them for new riders.
‘Problem solved,’ General Jiang smiled.
‘Come, then, sir,’ the man said as he and his men crossed to the horses and pulled themselves up into the saddle. They hauled on the reins to turn the animals and, waving to the easterners to follow, began to walk the beasts back between the red-masked soldiers. Jai and the general rode forward to fall in beside the decurion.
‘What happened to you?’ the general asked.
‘It’s rather a long story, sir,’ the blue-clad guardsman replied. ‘The general will no doubt fill you in on most of it. Suffice it to say that we’re in a bit of a pickle. The general is a hunted man and we are surrounded by enemies on all sides. Everywhere we go now, a small scout party of guards is sent ahead to make sure the way is clear. There were eight of us and we were unfortunate enough to get ourselves trapped by an imperial patrol. I tried to talk my way out of it, but our insignia is too much of a giveaway as you yourself noticed. Thank you for your timely interruption, by the way, General.’
The decurion sucked on his teeth pensively. ‘It is imperial policy to assign such scout units on a roving basis, covering the land within a certain distance of any installation. These men must have been based at the Chara Gorge station, which means there will be little chance of bumping into another patrol until after we’ve passed Chara. Fortunate, as the… enemy… are gaining on us.’
Jiang nodded, though he glanced at Jai with one raised eyebrow at this oddly coy comment.
They rode for just less than an hour, the imperial soldiers conversing lightly, though circumspectly, and avoiding answering the subtle probes and questions of General Jiang. Finally, as the sun reached its zenith and baked the land and the riders passing through it, they emerged from a low side valley to the south-east into a wide bowl with a small lake at the centre. A gathering of men and horses was visible at the southern edge of the lake, and it was for this group that the riders made.
The general allowed his mount to fall back a little, letting the four blue-clad soldiers take the lead. Jai also dropped behind, and as they approached three figures detached themselves from the gathering and strode forward to meet the new arrivals. Jai felt that odd lurch that he was begi
nning to suspect heralded fate intervening in his life as he saw that Dev was one of the three, General Cinna and his guard commander being the others. The blue and white guardsmen were all armed and armoured, though dismounted, and there were no tents in evidence, so they were clearly not encamped here.
General Cinna wore an odd expression as he waved in greeting to the Jade Empire officers, something between a frown of uncertainty and a smile of relief. The general was clearly in two minds as to the benefit of what was happening.
‘General,’ the injured decurion greeted his commander, wiping his bloody brow.
‘Vulso. You have found a friend or two hundred.’
‘Sir, we ran into a spot of trouble. General Jiang and his men arrived just in time to save us.’
‘How many escaped?’
‘None,’ replied Jiang, cutting in on the conversation.
‘Good. We do not want the marshals to be aware of my involvement. It would distract them from more important matters.’
‘It is odd to see you here, Cinna, in such a place, and heading south if I am not mistaken, towards your main force. Yet you withhold information from your marshals?’
Cinna sighed. ‘I suspect we are in similar straits, Jiang. The marshals have stripped me of my command and taken control of my army. I was to be investigated for possible insurrection – rightly so, as you know – and tried. Of course, I would have died accidentally long before I could argue my case. It would be too inconvenient for them if I managed to make them look bad. Dev and I took the opportunity to leave before matters came to a head. I am, however, surprised to see you coming west, given the dangers. You have decided not to return home with the rest of the army? I know that my countrymen appear to be on a rampage of conquest right now, but whatever they would like to do, they simply cannot attempt the conquest of the Jade Empire. They are too weak, and intend to consolidate here for the time being.’
Jade Empire Page 28