Here and there, Jai could see earth mounds with wooden structures and machines atop them, and it took him moments to realise what they were. The imperial general had solved his artillery issues by having his men raise artificial hills upon which the machines were placed. Unless floodwaters rose high enough to submerge the bridge, his machines would be safe on islands amid the lake. Jai was impressed, and so, judging by his expression, was General Jiang. Perhaps this man was as astute as the general had thought after all. Jiang was right: these westerners took chances, thought outside rigid lines.
They rode onto the bridge slowly, Jai’s heart beginning to pound nervously. There was a myriad of odd noises from the forces spread across the far bank, and any number of them could signify those great bolt throwers preparing to loose deadly missiles, as far as Jai knew. He could picture himself or the general being plucked from their horses and hurled back into the guardsmen’s ranks, dead on impact.
Even as an academy-trained master swordsman, with a passing knowledge of the art of cutting arrows from the air, there was no form invented by man that could save a man from artillery fire. He shuddered, but no great arrow came.
The two men, backed by an army of demon-faced, red-clad riders, came to a halt halfway across the bridge and waited. It took some time, but finally a man on horseback emerged from the imperial forces, six gleaming riders in white tunics and silvered scale shirts behind him. The man was dressed in a similar white tunic, but with a cuirass of bronze decorated with two embossed stallions, a ribbon of red tied around his chest and a cloak of crimson hanging from his shoulders. He was a serious-looking, heavily built man.
The enemy commander rode onto the bridge confidently and reined in a dozen paces from the Jade Empire’s officers.
‘A grand day for such an auspicious meeting,’ the man said in the imperial tongue. Jai quickly translated it in his head. Their language was well-known to many of the Inda, for imperial traders had journeyed well beyond their border for centuries. Jai opened his mouth to translate for the general and was surprised when Jiang replied in perfect western imperial, with just a slightly odd oriental accent.
‘We must make the most of such clement weather,’ his commander said, conversationally. ‘I understand the monsoon season is overdue.’
Small talk. Jai frowned. It seemed odd to hear in the circumstances.
‘The monsoons will make warfare difficult,’ the imperial general replied. ‘Perhaps even impossible. They last for up to three months yet, or so I am told. This could be a very slow, dull, wet season.’
‘But with remarkably little blood,’ Jiang noted. ‘Perhaps we should pray to our respective gods to send us monsoons at their earliest convenience.’
The imperial general laughed.
‘Now would that not be something? For us to inform our emperors that war was cancelled on account of rain.’
Now General Jiang chuckled too. ‘I am not convinced that such an excuse would satisfy the Jade Emperor. Nor, from what I hear, your emperor Bassianus.’
The man nodded. ‘I am Flavius Cinna, commander of the imperial expeditionary force.’
‘How grand,’ smiled his opposite. ‘An expedition sounds so much more pleasant than an invasion. I am Xeng Shu Jiang, general of the Jade Empire’s Inda occupation force.’
‘And there, in a nutshell,’ replied Cinna, ‘is where the problem lies. My master is not content to sit back and allow the Jade Emperor to occupy the lands of the Inda.’
Jiang nodded. ‘I understand, though I am at a loss to understand his reasoning, beyond the simple desire for war. Your empire constantly invades and annexes lands, and the Inda owe you no fealty. As such, any move against us is a simple act of aggression and cannot be considered an attempt to preserve the Inda’s sovereignty.’
Flavius Cinna nodded. ‘Let us not descend into accusation. I would like to think we are above such things.’
Jiang smiled. ‘Good. Let us put forth our positions succinctly so that we can move on to the unpleasant business of crushing one another’s forces. I am here with my army at the behest of the Jade Emperor with a remit to annexe all lands of the Inda from the northern boundary with the horse clans to the forbidden lands in the south, and as far as the Oxus River, granting us a solid border with your empire, across which we can trade and coexist peacefully. If you will remove your forces beyond the Oxus and leave the Inda to us, there need be no further conflict.’
Cinna straightened in his saddle. ‘Similarly, the emperor Bassianus, Light of the West, Child of the Divine, First Citizen and Father of His People commands that the illegal invasion force of the Jade Empire remove themselves beyond their former border and abandon all land conquered from the Inda. If you comply with this simple request, I shall withdraw imperial forces, the Inda shall once more be free and there shall be no war.’
The two men sat silent for a moment.
‘Of course, neither of us can accept the other’s terms,’ Cinna said eventually, ‘because we are both bound by duty to our emperors and neither of them is a man given to bending to the will of another. You will understand that I cannot defy my master’s orders, and I am aware that the same applies to you. And so we are at an impasse. An impasse that can only end in victory for one of us.’
‘Or mutual destruction,’ Jiang said wearily.
‘Indeed. You have an advantage of numbers, but I fear that the terrain nullifies that. I am an expert at not sacrificing men unnecessarily, and there are a large number of reinforcements being gathered from several sources. The outcome here is far from certain.’
‘Then we should most definitely pray for the monsoons,’ Jiang said with an odd smile.
‘I have no wish to open a conflict. We are here in order to help prevent conquest, not to bring death unduly. Thus we shall withhold action until the first of your men sets foot within fifty paces of the bridge,’ Cinna announced, ‘excepting, of course, yourself, your adjutant and your fearsome guard. You may return to your army unmolested.’
Jiang inclined his head. ‘I am afraid I can make no such promise, given that your force is already close to the bridge. Parley is complete, I believe. Now the war begins. It is a sad and rather shameful war, and I deplore my part in it, but duty is duty, and I must commit. It has been a pleasure, General Cinna, and a shame we could not meet under more peaceable circumstances.’
The imperial general saluted casually. ‘Would that the emperors sought out our ears rather than we theirs, eh? War it is, then. Good luck, General Jiang.’
‘And you, General Cinna.’
The Jade Empire’s commanders turned and began to ride back across the bridge. Once they were out of earshot, the general pulled in beside Jai.
‘What did you learn?’
Jai frowned. ‘Their commander is clever and noble. Perhaps even a match for you,’ he added hesitantly.
‘Indeed. I thought as much myself. And he is as unhappy about this meeting as I. This conflict will be long and difficult, I think. He has no more wish to throw away lives than I. What else?’
‘His army is curiously spread out across the plains, with reserves at least as far as the slopes a mile beyond the river.’
‘Yes. He has positioned his army carefully to make it almost impossible for us to accurately estimate his numbers or strengths in terms of any particular class of troop. And they are highly mobile like this. He can have large numbers of men at the bridge, the riverbank or the town at short notice, and equally can have them retreat to high ground speedily. The man has dug in with remarkable speed. Did you see his supply wagons?’
‘No,’ frowned Jai.
‘They were on the hill in the distance – just visible, but clearly still arriving. That suggests that Cinna’s army has been here for little more than a day. Two at the most.’
Jai whistled through his teeth. ‘And in that time he has raised artillery mounds and dug in and fortified. He is quick. And shrewd.’
‘But despite the fact that he claims to
oppose us and have no interest in the Inda, I note that there were no Inda allies visible among his forces, and he has seemingly not occupied Jalnapur. I do not think the Inda are any more supportive of him than they are of us, for all his words. However, we cannot consider the town a weak point. They will be no more inclined to welcome us than the western empire. And you can be sure that Cinna has artillery in positions to cover any approach across the water to the town.’
‘What do we do, then, General?’
‘We start to test them. We keep our forces well back from the river and use the cannon, even at full range. And we need to determine the strength and range of their artillery. I loathe the very idea of sacrificing men, but we must know their capabilities if we are to plan a strategy. Come on.’
They rode back across the causeway and the flat land to the slopes half a mile from the river, where the army was currently falling into formation. There would be no hiding their numbers from General Cinna, though that seemed less important in the grand scheme of things. Unless something unexpected had happened, both Jiang and Jai knew they outnumbered the enemy by a good margin, and Cinna knowing that could only help.
The two officers waited, tense and silent, at the best viewpoint – a sandy ridge two thirds of the way up the slope – while the army deployed. It would take half the day for the vast force just to move out into the valley, but Jiang had defied usual military convention and had the cannon positioned just a third of the way along the column rather than at the rear, so the great artillery pieces were already finding positions and being unloaded and assembled within the hour. Once six cannon were positioned in a line along the hillside, and others still being brought forward, Jiang rode across to them, gesturing to the officer in command of those artillery pieces.
‘I want two shots from each gun,’ he commanded. ‘A full barrage of six at a time. Have each artillerist pick a position among the nearest of the enemy, and coordinate with each gun crew so that no two select the same target. I understand that there will be some need to find range with the first shot and I am content that many of them will disappear into the river, but I must make one thing clear: no shot is to touch the bridge. We cannot afford to damage the crossing, or the west is lost to us.’
The officer saluted and General Jiang rode back down to Jai. ‘Now we see whether our cannon can reach the enemy. It is a stretch at such a range.’
There was a long pause, during which the sounds of thousands upon thousands of infantry and cavalry settling into position echoed across the valley side. Finally, a runner approached the two officers, bowing deep and delivering the compliments of the artillery commander. He was ready. General Jiang had the flag waved, and the two men watched, breathing slowly and expectantly.
The cannon fired almost simultaneously, one gun slightly behind the others. Jai concentrated on the results, but in his mind’s eye he could imagine that gunner being upbraided by the officer for his tiny delay.
The whole valley fell silent as the boom echoed across the hills and up and down the Nadu River.
It was hard to keep track of all the shots, and Jai saw the results of only four of them. Two disappeared with an eruption of water somewhere in the middle of the river. One struck the side of the causeway leading up to the bridge and bounced off at a tangent, carving a path through crops and coming to rest some way short of the river. The fourth shot actually came down on the far side of the river, ploughing into the ground some ten feet or so from a position of enemy troops behind their earth bank and wicker shields.
‘Pray the second volley improves,’ muttered the general to Jai, ‘or we can consider our advantage a waste.’ The two men waited, tense. Across the valley nothing moved. The shock of the barrage had stopped everyone. Just visible half a mile away, citizens of Jalnapur had gathered at the low river wall to watch with horrified fascination. None of these people would have seen cannon in action before.
The second volley was in perfect time, six shots resounding with one retort. Jai held his breath as the great stone missiles arced out into the sizzling air. Once more he lost track of some of them. Two more vanished into the depths of the Nadu. One scored a long trough through the ground on the far bank. The fourth he saw strike the turf mound protecting a small imperial unit. The bank exploded in a shower of brown dirt that was thrown into the air to a height of three men. A similar cloud off to the left told Jai that one of the ones he’d lost track of had also hit. Both targets were within perhaps twenty paces of the river. No shot had yet gone beyond that, but still, it had to have the imperial soldiers shitting themselves that the Jade Empire had weapons that could reach across the valley and the river from the very periphery and still kill.
When the clouds of earth settled, Jai was disappointed to note that the missiles had simply dislodged earth and thrown it into the air as they embedded themselves, and had not torn through the banks and into the units behind. The cannon had clearly thus far brought them no closer to success. General Jiang’s face was bleak as he turned to an officer standing nearby.
‘Order a unit of scouts to cross the causeway and approach the bridge. They will be placed in grave danger for some time, but that cannot be helped. Their bravery will be noted in dispatches and reflected in rewards. They need to get close enough to the bridge to draw enemy missiles. The imperial general said that he would not loose artillery until we were within fifty paces of the bridge, so the riders need to get close enough to open hostilities. As soon as the enemy shoot at them, they need to plant a red spear in the ground. They will then trot their horses back to us ten paces at a time, planting a spear in the ground each time until the enemy missiles stop coming. That will give us some indication of their effective ranges. Jai, keep a careful watch. I imagine their catapults will have the longest range, and their bolts will stop loosing first.’
Jai sat astride his horse on the bluff and watched as a unit of one hundred scouts on horseback, drawn from the Jade Empire’s northern badlands, trotted out onto the causeway, closing on the bridge. He peered tensely into the distance as the riders neared the great white crossing. His breath was shallow, nervous.
He’d been waiting for it, of course. They all had. And yet the response almost unhorsed him, so much did it make him jump. The western empire did not have black powder. Nor cannon nor rockets. Nothing that made a loud, impressive bang. And yet here and now the artillery of General Cinna brought a lump to Jai’s throat.
They made no noise. Not at this distance, anyway. Probably closer to the bridge they could be heard, but from up on the ridge they were more or less silent, especially compared to the noisy cannon. The enemy artillery were so well spread out across the far bank that Jai had not thought there to be many. Cinna’s response to the riders disabused him of that notion immediately.
Unexpectedly, given the lack of accompanying noise, Jai watched in horror as around a hundred imperial missiles converged on the scouts. The result was utter carnage. Great iron bolts as long as a man’s arm transfixed horse and rider alike. Balls of stone as large as the ones the cannon released pulverised men and beasts. And as if that were not enough, two great pottery jars smashed into the ground amid the unit and exploded, sending out burning pitch in flying, scorching droplets.
Jai’s eyes were wide. The hundred horsemen were gone. In five heartbeats two hundred living, proud creatures had become a mass of mangled, burning limbs, thrashing and screaming. There was no way artillery of any sort could be that accurate without some practice. Clearly the imperial artillery had been on site long enough for every artillerist to find and mark his range.
Jai’s horrified gaze turned to the general, whose face was stony.
‘Lesson learned,’ Jiang said in hoarse tones. ‘Do not underestimate General Flavius Cinna.’
Chapter 8
The gods love and protect, hate and destroy. The gods nurture and encourage, demand and punish. It is the way of gods. But they also teach. In the early days of the Inda, the gods would select promising me
n and send them visions and understanding. Those men would become gurus, often living ascetic lives in high and forbidding places that are nearer to the cloud-homes of the gods. Those gurus would in turn disseminate wisdom to the people.
The last guru among the Inda was already dead by the time of my great-grandfather’s grandfather, which should perhaps have been seen as a sign of what was to come.
One of the most revered of Inda teachings is respect for the dead. When the Inda die, their body, which is simply the shell for a good person to inhabit, is burned and the ashes scattered on water. As the body is consumed, the spirit leaves the mortal shell, is cleansed and refreshed, purified and made ready to be born into a new shell. Thus the people will always go on. But sometimes the body cannot be cremated, and this is a dreadful thing. Because if the shell remains, the spirit is tied to it and cannot move on.
These are what we call ghosts or spirits. They can be good, it is said, but most are not, because whether a man is good or not while living, the sheer torture of being tied to an unpurified corpse and the mortal world drives him mad with rage. No one knows when the southern lands of the Inda became the province of such tortured souls, or what happened there to cause such a state of affairs, but the spirits have ruled that land since time immemorial.
It is said that the last guru was the man who taught the way to contain the south, who set the monks to its protection and maintenance. It was he who had the line of markers created and the guardian monasteries and their orders instituted. He was the last guru, and without him there would be no control there.
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