A Solitary Journey

by Tony Shillitoe

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Warmaster Cutter rode along the front ranks, followed by his ten guards, assessing the readiness of his men. Thirty days of preparation through the cycle of Yanah—the careful and covert shifting of troops across the Greenhills River to approach the Kerwyn army from the south while a small force put on a diversionary show to suggest the Shessian army was mobilising on the eastern outskirts of Port of Joy—was efficiently completed. The fate of the Royal kingdom and Cutter’s own family were in his hands and the hands of the men he commanded. Outnumbered three to one, the Shessian army was bolstered by the Seers’ decision to finally unite behind King Future and by the new batch of thundermakers manufactured and distributed to Cutter’s troops. A victory on Kangaroo Plains, in the teeth of the chilly Shahk cycle, would earn the Shessian capital a significant respite from the invading forces. It was a victory Cutter had to engineer.

  The irony of the moment wasn’t lost on him as he reached the end of the front rank and reined in. He remembered watching Warmaster Kingsman stride along the front rank of his soldiers over a decade earlier when Queen Sunset’s army cornered Prince Future’s Rebel forces outside the Whispering Forest. He was a Leader then, a man in charge of fifty soldiers, among whom was a red-haired girl searching for her lover. As fate decided, she was caught up in the battle and brought down the fabled hero, Marchlord Overbrook, after which she became Lady Amber, Queen Sunset’s saviour, before she perished in wild magical fire in another battle. The Battle of Whispering Forest was a legend in Shessian folklore, not just because of Lady Amber’s involvement, but because it stalled the pretensions of the Queen’s son to the Royal throne. Cutter played a small role in that outcome. Now, ten years later, he was responsible for saving the kingdom on behalf of the very man from whom he’d helped to protect it. He smiled wryly at the perverse nature of the world’s events.

  The Kerwyn army sat like a shadow along a low ridge across the plain. Although he’d personally hamstrung his opposing military leader, he knew from spy reports that the crippled Warlord Bloodsword was still directing the Kerwyn army, unwilling to let go of his command. Cutter was pleased. Bloodsword’s reputation was built on successes. Victory against a less able Kerwyn Warlord would be less satisfying. Beating Bloodsword would impress on the Kerwyn that the Shessian army was immensely powerful, and Cutter needed a psychological edge if he was going to drive the enemy off Western Shess land after Shahk. A land victory would also weaken the Kerwyn stranglehold on the ocean because the Kerwyn navy wouldn’t be able to provision itself so easily. Kerwyn ships patrolled the bay into Port of Joy and their aggressive presence prevented the Shessian shipbuilders from launching new vessels. Isolating the Kerwyn from land supplies would force them to retreat north and free the Shessians to build a better navy.

  Cutter knew the odds and what was at stake. If he lost this crucial battle, the defence of Port of Joy would crumble and the Kerwyn would be his people’s new masters. Countless reports of the atrocities being committed against Shessian people across the northern lands flooded into the capital through a few refugees who had found their way around the Kerwyn army, particularly through the southern hills, by avoiding the marauding Coalition of Chieftains’ war parties. They told tales of slaughter and rape and pillage, and the streams of children marched west to the ports to be sold as slaves to foreign people. The Kerwyn were not content with simply winning a war. They were bent on genocide and the annihilation of everything associated with Western Shess. There could be no quarter sought in the impending battle and no option of surrender. Defeat in any form was death. His men knew that.

  Riders galloped towards him and reined in. ‘The Seers are in position, Warmaster,’ reported his second- in-command, Marchlord Chiseller. ‘They await your signal.’

  ‘The thundermakers are split into the ten Groups you ordered,’ Marchlord Bolt confirmed. ‘Leader Widehills has taken position with the decoy Group.’

  Cutter smiled at the former Leader who’d faithfully followed him from the battles with the Coalition. ‘Tell them to hold their fire until the horns sound three times. We want the Kerwyn to think we have fewer of the thundermakers than we do to give them false confidence.’ He looked over the shoulder of his Marchlord at the thundermakers nestled in rocks a hundred paces ahead of the front ranks. Leader Widehills was a seasoned campaigner and a brave man, and after this battle Cutter would ensure he was appropriately rewarded for his courage.

  A third Marchlord rode up, his horse snorting and shaking its head as he reined in. ‘Warmaster, the decoy Seers are ready. Seer Diamond has given them miniature thunderclaps to fool the enemy.’

  ‘Good work, Roadway,’ Cutter acknowledged, and followed the pointing Marchlord’s direction to see the five men in blue robes in a stand of gum trees. ‘Let’s hope the Kerwyn take the bait.’ He dismissed the Marchlords and eased his horse about to face the enemy line. ‘Easy, Quickfire,’ he crooned to the animal as he petted the horse’s neck. ‘It will soon be over.’ He gazed westward at the brown haze of smoke that settled like rancid water moss across the land in the past cycle. The destruction of the Whispering Forest, according to reports, was all but completed. The Kerwyn were desperate, ruthless vandals, so they could not be allowed to triumph. Jarudha would forbid that, surely. I’m not a religious man, he thought as his eyes returned to the Kerwyn lines, but this is one time I hope Jarudha is real and His promises hold true. A mournful horn bellowed on the distant ridge.

  Strapped securely into his saddle, Warlord Bloodsword watched his strategy unfolding. Despite the Shessian priests’ treachery, he still had sufficient reserves of the magical black powder to give his three thousand thundermakers three charges each. He ordered a hundred wagons built, each to carry twenty thundermakers, with the intention of using them to strike directly at the enemy priests, killing them at a distance with their own magic. The wagons would be protected by a thousand cavalry as they forayed into the enemy ranks and they would follow in the immediate wake of a swift suicidal charge of five thousand infantry whose sole role was to force the Shessian defences into chaos. His spies reported the barbarians had established a thundermaker cohort and positioned it to cover the centre of the battlefield, so he was countering with a second cavalry force whose mission was to overrun the Shessian thundermaker battery in the conflict’s opening phase. At the same time, he sent a second infantry force of three thousand men circling eastward to drive in at the enemy’s eastern flank. It was a plan that had won him battle after battle against the Shessian leaders and he was confident it would break them again.

  Cold weather was looming. Above the eastern smoke pall the skies were grey, and out to the west, over the ocean, dark thunderclouds were forming. Defeating the enemy in this battle virtually ended the war. His spies confirmed that the army facing him was the last the barbarians could muster. With his strategy in place, after striking at the key barbarian defences, he would send in his main army to destroy resistance by overwhelming the enemy with numbers.

  Surrounded by his bodyguards, Bloodsword watched his infantry smash against the enemy’s first ranks and the battle dissolve into confusion. As the cavalry and the wagons pushed towards the small hill and trees sheltering the blue-robed priests, a ball of flame erupted among his riders, followed by another. The priests were using their magic, but two fireballs couldn’t stop a thousand riders. The cavalry wheeled, fanning out to let the wagons come to a standstill, and that area of the battlefield was caught in a hiatus as the cavalry swarmed to drive back a rallying defensive effort from the enemy. Too late, the handful of priests burst from the trees, apparently realising the danger in the wagons. Simultaneously the wagons erupted in puffs of white smoke from the thundermakers and the priests flopped and sprawled under the hail of metal. Bloodsword smiled—one threat eliminated.

  He turned his attention to the enemy thundermakers as they fired a round into the side of his infantry. The spread and number of puffs of smoke surprised him by their lack of number. He
expected the barbarians to have built more with the help of the priests. Something wasn’t quite right. He searched the battlefield for the telltale smoke of thundermakers, other than his own mounted in the wagons, and stopped when he saw what was happening to his wagons. In the break between reloading the thundermakers, a barbarian force was counterattacking the wagons and overwhelming his men despite the cavalry’s efforts. Small barbarian forces were spreading across the edges of the battlefield. A flanking move, he noted with grim approval. Clever ploy. But I have the numbers. He returned to the enemy thundermakers in time to see his second cavalry force come at full gallop over a crest and descend upon them. The enemy fired their weapons haphazardly in a futile attempt to blunt the charge before they were engulfed by the horses. Again Bloodsword nodded approval at his strategy. Priests eliminated. Thundermakers eliminated. It cost him a substantial number of his own thundermakers, he critically noted as he surveyed the carnage unfolding at his wagons, but the damage to the enemy was done. He turned to a bodyguard and ordered, ‘Blow the general charge!’ The Kerwyn warrior immediately lifted a war horn to his lips and blew.

  Spurred on by the war horn, the Kerwyn army marched dutifully forward, spears bobbing, banners flapping in the breeze. A spot of rain landed on Bloodsword’s face and he looked up at the weather moving in from the west. The heavily laden blue clouds were bringing a brutal rainstorm. The land needs cleansing, he quietly mused, and relaxed to watch the final stages of the battle unfold.

  Cutter urged his horse on, leading his contingent towards the crest, determined to reach his objective before time dissipated. The Kerwyn had taken his bait, but he hadn’t anticipated Bloodsword’s improvisation of the thundermaker wagons. He was always devising new strategies. Fortunately Marchlord Roadway who was organising the Seer decoy used his initiative to attack the wagons when they were vulnerable—before the thundermakers could fire again—and his quick thinking turned the conflict in the Shessian army’s favour on that portion of the field. The main Kerwyn army was ignoring his small skirmishing groups—his disguised thundermakers—intent on joining battle with the Shessian army, exactly as he hoped, but scouts reported a Kerwyn force attacking from the east and he was riding to intercept them before they made an effective incursion.

  Surging over the crest, his cavalry charged headlong into the Kerwyn. There was no time for tactics. Caught in the chaotic whirlpool of men and weapons, Cutter wrenched out his sword and hacked at the enemy who grappled his horse. Cries and screams and the clang of weapons and armour and whinnying horses resounded around him. He spun his horse to make space and spurred it deeper into the enemy ranks, his companions forming a wedge to drive forward. His horse reared as a pike plunged into its flank and kicked out, the flailing hoofs slicing a warrior’s head open. Cutter slid from his mount and struck down the pikeman, and lunged and parried as he fought furiously to keep the enemy at bay, until his men formed a cordon to protect their Warmaster, leaving him sweating at the centre of a circle of horses. He used the opportunity to check the pike wound on Quickfire, stroking the palomino gently. It was deep and bleeding, but the horse would live. Riding him in the battle had been unwise.

  ‘Warmaster!’ a soldier yelled above the din. Cutter looked up at the Leader, a young man he should know, but the bloodied face escaped his memory. ‘The Kerwyn are retreating!’ the young Leader reported.

  ‘Chase them down!’ Cutter ordered. ‘Chase them as far as you can without getting into trouble!’ The Leader nodded, grinning, and turned his head to issue orders before he prodded his horse out of the circle. Leader Riverrushes, Cutter remembered. He would commend the young man after the battle.

  As the protective circle expanded, Cutter emerged to see the dead and dying scattered across the hillside. His men had stopped the biggest threat—the Kerwyn side attack. He only hoped the rest of the battle was going to plan. Behind, out of sight beyond the closest ridge, he heard the dull boom of thundermakers. ‘Come on!’ he bellowed to his troops, remounted Quickfire, and led his men along the path the enemy had used to attempt their sneak attack.

  Warlord Bloodsword realised that he’d been terribly misinformed about the strength of his enemy when he saw the unexpected clouds of thundermaker smoke along the shallow slopes on either side of his infantry, and his troops’ failure to attack from the east added to his mounting concerns. The only consolation was the eradication of the priest threat. The thundermaker wagons, lost to a barbarian counterattack, had at least fulfilled their mission, but the enemy thundermakers were slaughtering his warriors. ‘Wilddog!’ he yelled, and waited impatiently for a broad-shouldered warrior to rein in alongside. ‘Take five hundred horsemen and scour the eastern ridge of the thundermakers!’ Wilddog nodded and galloped down to his waiting cavalry, while Bloodsword turned back to the battle where to his dismay the barbarians were charging his men. Arrogant bastards, he thought angrily. You’ll pay for your impudence. The two forces collided as another raindrop hit Bloodsword’s cheek and he glanced westward where a rain squall was sweeping in. Rain would work to his advantage. The thundermakers’ magic powder didn’t work if it got wet. While he would lose his own weapons, the enemy would lose the advantage they’d established by encircling his army and it would become a grinding hand-to-hand battle—and he had the numbers to crush the Shessian resistance.

  He shifted his attention to Wilddog’s mounted force charging towards the thundermakers, eager to see the enemy routed. Along the ridge, behind the line of enemy thundermakers, he spotted a wagon with two figures standing on it, and despite the distance he saw that one was wearing blue robes. A barbarian priest had escaped the bloodbath of his colleagues. He felt a chill along his spine, the memory of his partially deafening experience outside a farmhouse rushing back, and he pulled nervously on his horse’s reins. The cavalry following Wilddog suddenly veered and separated as if a giant hand pushed through their centre—horses baulked and reared, while riders fought their reins and tumbled from their saddles. A ball of flame erupted in the thick of his soldiers fighting on the plain, followed by another, and then a snaking wall of flame cut off his men’s retreat from battle.

  Bloodsword had rarely lost a battle in his celebrated career, but he also knew what defeat looked like, so it was obvious, if distasteful, that the battle was being rapidly lost. The barbarians had tricked him—at least a couple of their priests had survived, although he was satisfied he’d killed a few in the initial onslaught—and it would be wiser to withdraw and return after Shahk starved the enemy into submission. ‘Send word to withdraw,’ he said to a warrior on horseback. ‘We’ll regroup north, at Riverfork beneath the mountains.’ He watched the rider spread the word to a squad and the fifteen horsemen galloped down the slope towards the battle, separating to take the call for leaving. It was done. He consoled himself with the knowledge that this was only a withdrawal, a tactical manoeuvre to wrest the balance of power and initiative from the barbarians to his own army. Retreat was an alien word. This was not a retreat.

  He turned his horse to lead his guards over the crest, leaving the battlefield in his wake to head for the vast campsite where his army quartered in preparation for the conflict, and stared in astonishment. The Kerwyn camp was ablaze and a vast host of cavalry were charging his position, black pennants flapping above the riders. For a long, terrible moment, Warlord Bloodsword was transfixed by the vision, as if he was unable to comprehend the change in fortune, before he wrenched his sword from its scabbard and cried, ‘Sound the horn!’ Urging his horse forward by smacking it across the rump with the flat of his weapon, the Kerwyn war horn bellowing behind him, he rode to meet his enemy.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Lanterns washed the council chamber walls with soft yellow light. ‘Do you think this is wise?’ asked Gold. Diamond raised a bushy white eyebrow as if surprised by his colleague’s suggestion of impropriety. ‘Explain,’ he calmly instructed.

  Gold glanced at the Seers seated at the council table before he went on. �
��I know we’ve always sent acolytes into the streets to work because it exposes them to the squalor of the common people and lets them observe their sinful nature. I remember the years I spent feeding gummy old men and bone-thin urchins and I was glad when Seer Jarudhaslight finally released me from that irksome chore. The common people are doomed. It says so in The Word. “Those whose ways are nothing but the dirt beneath our feet will not enter Paradise”.’

  ‘We all know the verse,’ Onyx complained.

  Gold’s expression showed his annoyance with Onyx’s rebuff, at which Onyx shrugged and cocked his head to one side. Gold continued. ‘My point is: why are we bothering with building and working in temples in the city quarters?’

  Diamond paused before answering, ‘“Blessed are the ones who help those in the greatest of need”,’ and he let the quotation hang between Gold and himself for a moment, before continuing. ‘Scripture is our guide, Gold. Remember also that it is written, “The man who does the work of Jarudha amid His enemies will enter Paradise before others”. We are in the Last Days. The work we do now is all preparation for the coming of the Demon Horsemen.’ He stopped to cough and Gold noticed a shadow of pain cross the old Seer’s face before he forced a smile and spoke again. ‘The new King claims servanthood to Jarudha, but we must make sure that he cannot renege on his promises. Building the temples makes his statement public to the people. But more than that. Teaching the people within the temples makes them servants of Jarudha. It breaks the King’s hold over them because they will look to a higher authority, one who promises them comfort and peace and all of the things this earthly king can never give them.’