Forging the Sword (The Farsala Trilogy)

by Bell, Hilari

  Fortunately for Kavi’s straining ears, Barmael’s deep voice carried. “We won’t be ready in a week, Governor. And as I told you, beginning this battle before we’re certain we can win, no matter what happens with … other plans, is courting disaster.”

  Garren’s higher-pitched reply was lost in the noise made by a camp full of men rushing to get things inside before the rain.

  “Well,” said the centrimaster. His shoulders sagged in relief at having escaped the presence of a governor and a substrategus who were clearly about to start the kind of fight no lower-level officer wanted to get caught up in. “It seems you’ll spend the evening dry after all, peddler. Let me introduce you around before the storm starts.”

  He meant, curse his efficient soul, that he would introduce Kavi to the men who held the watches so they’d know his face—and know not to let him leave the camp.

  “Will you have time?” Kavi asked. “It sounds to me as if you’re going into battle soon.”

  “Not with Substrategus Barmael in command,” said the centrimaster. “He won’t send us into battle until we’re ready, so I think you can count on being here for more than a week no matter what the … Um. Plan on being here for a while.”

  Kavi looked back at the men who guarded the substrategus’ tent. They were there to keep eavesdroppers out of hearing distance, as well as to protect their commander—standard policy for an army that campaigned in tents. But judging by their intent expressions, they were getting an earful. They would never reveal anything truly secret, but perhaps …

  “Lead on,” said Kavi cheerfully. “If I’m going to be here for over a week, I’d like to make some friends.”

  THE GOOD NEWS WAS that Substrategus Arus had taken all his men with him when he was dismissed. At least none of the men that Kavi met looked familiar, and none of them showed any sign of recognizing him. The bad news was that now he wouldn’t be able to simply stroll past the sentries, pretending that his business was done—but there were ways around that. And with the centrimaster introducing him to so many men, and the rain keeping everyone who had a choice in the matter inside, it would be easy to get a dice game running.

  BY THE TIME THE GUARDS who’d stood watch outside Substrategus Barmael’s tent came off duty, Kavi’s one game had become half a dozen, clustered at the end of the big meal tent. The noise level was both loud and merry enough to do his advertising for him; Kavi had seen to that by introducing a new rule to the game, a Farsalan rule whereby every winner chipped in half his pot to buy beer for the losers. And if Farsalans, who had barely heard of dice before the Hrum came, would have been astonished at such a custom, well, the Hrum liked it fine.

  Kavi watched the two guards, biding his time and pretending to drink, as the men picked up their meals and ate. There was always a chance that neither of them cared for dice, though to Kavi it seemed that most soldiers had a passion for the complex games of battle dice. He hoped these men did, for it would be harder to get them talking about the events of the morning if too much time had passed.

  The time Kavi spent waiting wasn’t wasted, though. He learned from several soldiers about one of Garren’s new edicts: that resistance in Farsalan villages and towns would now be punished in kind. If Hrum barracks burned, a merchant’s house would be reduced to ashes. If supplies were stolen, the livestock in the village nearest to the theft would make up the price.

  A chill ran down Kavi’s spine. What if a Hrum soldier was killed? he asked.

  Oh no, the soldiers assured him. Imperial law required proper judicial proceedings for any execution, even in time of war. And while Substrategus Barmael was enforcing the other aspects of this new policy, he was doing so … selectively. Particularly in cases where it wasn’t possible to determine which peasant, or at least which village, was guilty.

  Despite his relief at that news, Kavi wondered how the other Hrum commanders scattered about Farsala were reacting to Garren’s orders. There had been deghans, he knew, who wouldn’t have balked at executing innocent peasants. Especially enemy peasants.

  But whatever the past had held, tonight the Wheel was turning well for him; one of the two soldiers he was waiting for left the tent after his plate was clean, but the other came over to one of the dice games and pulled out his purse.

  Kavi gave him a bit of time to settle in and start playing and drinking. Then Kavi lost, badly, three times in a row, cursed his luck, and declared his intention of trying another table. The fact that he’d been losing, which he complained about quite loudly, was enough to make him welcome in any of the other games.

  The game in which the guard was playing was fairly intense, and for almost a mark no one discussed anything but strategy and the vagaries of the dice. But once the round was over, everyone relaxed, and the winner went off to fetch another keg of beer.

  “So what brought the governor here in so much haste?” one of the soldiers asked. “Not you, Arex—I know you can’t talk about it. But one of the grooms who took their horses told me the beasts were overtired. And the governor came on his own, with only a few deci of guards. That’s got to mean something.”

  “Maybe it means we’ll be setting about this great, secret plan we’ve been waiting on, and finally get something done here,” another soldier grumbled.

  “Come on, Ham. Do you want to assault those walls?”

  “Yes!” said Ham, with the intensity of the slightly drunk. “Get us a ram going, and we’ll break right through those gates and get this over with. Then we can get back to a city with some women in it! More women, I mean,” he added, as one of the female soldiers glared.

  “Get plastered with flaming pitch, you mean,” one of the more sober soldiers said. “I’m in favor of the plan—whatever it is.”

  Kavi tried to look drunk and indifferent as his mind raced. Evidently the common soldiers didn’t know what was planned either, which meant he was probably wasting his time. On the other hand …

  “So what do you think brought Garren here, all hasty-like?” Kavi asked, pulling the talk back from the subject of women, where it showed every sign of lingering. “He wasn’t happy when he came into Barmael’s tent, that I know.”

  For a moment they all stared at him, assessing his presence almost as if they were sober. “That’s right,” said the guard—Arex. “You were with the substrategus when he arrived.” He giggled suddenly. He wasn’t sober.

  “Yes,” said Kavi. “I’m working for him, you know.” That wasn’t exactly accurate, so he gave them no time to dwell on it. “But I’ve met the governor before, and I’ve never seen the man so upset.”

  Easy, easy. Don’t tug the Line. From the look on Arex’s face he had news he was wanting to tell. It shouldn’t take much …

  “He’s got plenty of reasons to be upset,” Arex admitted slowly. “For one thing, there’s been another governor sent back from Dugaz.”

  A couple of the more inebriated soldiers snickered, but the others looked grim.

  “What is it?” Kavi asked. “Why does it matter if a governor is recalled?”

  “They’ve not being recalled, exactly,” said one of the more sober soldiers. “They’re being sent back. By the citizens of Dugaz. In pieces.”

  “Oh. Ah, you said ’governors.’ Might I ask how many …”

  “This is the third, I think,” said Arex. “But it’s not the citizens of Dugaz who’re doing it—it’s those brigands who hide in the swamps. Which means the strategus is going to send even more centris after them, and where he’s going to find them …”

  He shook his head, blearily.

  “Well, that’s not our problem, Hieramos be praised,” said one of the soldiers. “But can you tell us if we ought to be sharpening our swords for tomorrow—or maybe even getting sober?”

  The others laughed.

  “We don’t need to get sober,” another soldier said confidently. “The substrategus will see that we get sufficient warning before he sends us anywhere.”

  “I can’t tell you
about that,” said Arex. “But I think tomorrow will be as good a day for a hangover as any. I wouldn’t be surprised if the governor has one himself. He’s in a bad spot, poor bastard.”

  There was no sympathy in his voice, nor in any of the faces around him—in fact, a few held something approaching glee. Kavi took a moment to note that Garren wasn’t popular with his subordinates.

  The guard lowered his voice confidentially. “You know why the governor’s here—because of his father and all, I mean. Why we’ve only got ten tacti to conquer this place, and no more coming.”

  Everyone around the table nodded bitterly. Kavi took another chance—it seemed to be common knowledge, after all. “I don’t know,” he told them. “Though it seems odd to me. I mean, there’s thousands of Hrum soldiers sitting over the border in Sendan, and here you are, spread thin as thin and working like dogs.”

  It wasn’t entirely true, for the governor of newly conquered Sendan seemed to have no more troops than he needed—but he also had no fewer than were necessary. Between Jiaan’s army in the desert and the Dugaz swamp rats in the south—not to mention every hotheaded village lad prepared to strike a blow for Sorahb as soon as the Hrum’s backs were turned—Garren’s army in Farsala was spread very thin indeed.

  “We’ve only ten tacti, just ten thousand men, when we could have used three times that many! And all because … well, let’s just say that the governor needed a bit of high-up help to achieve his exalted rank,” one of the soldiers told Kavi.

  Ham, who seemed a bit drunker than his comrades, snorted. “What you mean is that if his father wasn’t a senator, he’d never have been promoted past decimaster—that’s what you mean.”

  There was a moment of silence, the kind that follows a bluntly spoken truth.

  “That’s not really fair,” one of the soldiers said. “He’s very smart, and competent for most things. I think he’d probably have made it all the way to, oh, tactimian on his own.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Kavi plaintively, though in truth he was beginning to. Rank among the deghans had often been achieved in the same way.

  “The truth is that Garren was only granted a chance at conquest because his father insisted on it,” said another soldier. “Everyone knows it. The high strategus argued against Garren’s promotion to strategus in the senate itself! But Garren’s father had ‘favors’ coming to him, and now we’re stuck with the problem.”

  “That much I knew,” said Kavi, stretching the truth, for he’d only heard hints of this before. “What I don’t understand is, if his father’s being so powerful, why isn’t Garren sending for more troops?”

  And why did smiles dawn on all the faces around him? “What?” Kavi asked plaintively.

  “Well, peddler, Garren’s father isn’t the only one who can maneuver in the senate,” said one of the grinning soldiers. “He was trying to defend his son—told the senate it was jealousy that turned the others against him. He said his son could conquer this land with just ten tacti, and the high strategus took him at his word. The deal is that Garren gets ten tacti and the usual year. If he fails to conquer Farsala without sending for more men, then he resigns in disgrace, and his father resigns from the senate! That’s why the rest of the senate agreed to it, we think, because they usually support the high strategus and the council of strategi when it comes to things like assignments and promotions. And since he knew that Garren had a plan to shatter your army in that first fight, the senator agreed to those terms. Now they’re both stuck with them. Can you imagine how that cold bastard must have felt when he realized that your people meant to go on fighting even after your army was gone?”

  “And that’s not the best of it,” Arex chimed in. “Or the worst of it, from Strategus Garren’s point of view.”

  The others stared at him expectantly. “Ah, I might as well tell you about this—if it’s a secret at all, it won’t be much longer. It seems Garren had an idea for getting around the limitation on troops. He requested a huge sum of money—some from his father, but even his family couldn’t pay it all, so he requisitioned the rest from the imperial treasury—for the conquest of Farsala, right and proper enough.”

  Kavi saw his own puzzled frown echoed on several faces.

  “What’s he need that much money for?” a soldier asked. “We’re already funded for all our equipment, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, but he doesn’t plan to use it for equipment,” said Arex, dropping his voice to a murmur. “He’s going to bribe the Kadeshi warlords to send him men.”

  Kavi’s heart sank. If that worked, Garren would get all the men he needed. Mazad would fall, and Commander Jiaan’s amateur army—

  “But we’re fighting in Kadesh next,” a soldier protested. “Isn’t giving them a big sum of money kind of stupid?”

  Arex was nodding. “Especially when it hasn’t been authorized. That’s what’s got the governor peeing himself. The senate heard about how much money he requested, and they’ve sent a committee to find out just what he’s planning to spend it on and how his conquest is going so far. If they don’t consent to the bribe, that ends that plan. Not to mention the fact that we’ve only five months left, and half the country is still fighting. That’s what the senate committee’s going to see, no matter how many centris Garren throws into those swamps. That’s where the committee’s landing—in Dugaz. And there’s no way he can slide that big a bribe past them, either. Not imperial auditors. That’s why I told you,” he added a bit guiltily. “With the committee coming to investigate, it will be common knowledge before long.”

  “The whole country’s not fighting,” said another soldier slowly. “It’s just those bandits in the swamps, the rebels in the desert, and this city.”

  “And that’s why Garren’s here now,” another soldier guessed shrewdly. “He’s going to see this city fall as quickly as he can make it happen. Then he can leave just a few centris to garrison it, and send the rest of us to help in the other trouble spots. If we crushed those three forces, the rest of the country would stop fighting. We’re going to be taking those walls, my friends, and soon—no matter what Substrategus Barmael might prefer.”

  The atmosphere of drunken good cheer had vanished. Arex’s eyes were lowered, and he was silent. If he knew what their plan for taking the city was, he wouldn’t reveal it.

  Kavi let the conversation go where it would, and the game resumed. He allowed several marks to pass before he lost again, and then wandered off to a third table. Most of the Hrum were heading for their beds now; the ones who remained were either diehard players or very drunk. It wasn’t hard for Kavi to select one of the latter, a guard to whom he’d already been introduced, and start winning … and winning.

  He waited until the next afternoon to confront the soldier, who was still wincing at sudden noises. He winced again and then turned slightly green when he saw Kavi—it turned out he didn’t have the money to pay his gambling debt, poor lad. And the Hrum took that seriously, too. It could stop his promotion if it got on his record. Couldn’t Kavi give him a bit of time?

  Kavi was deeply regretful, but he was a poor man himself—a peddler who would be missing his rounds because Governor Garren’s paranoid suspicions had him trapped here. He had to make up his lost profit somehow, and if that meant calling in gaming debts, then that was what he’d do. And even that wouldn’t make up for the loss of his customers’ trust …

  It took a fair bit of time to get the hungover fool to figure out he could let Kavi out of camp in exchange for forgiving his debt, but Kavi didn’t begrudge it. If Kavi had suggested that solution, the man might have been suspicious, but since he came up with the idea himself, well, there couldn’t be any real harm in it. His own centrimaster had introduced him to the peddler, after all, and assured him that Kavi was on their side.

  The actual escape was almost too easy. The guard Kavi had suborned was stationed behind the privies that evening. Kavi simply paid them a late visit and then kept on walking into the dark h
ills beyond. His cloak—all men were wearing cloaks in the drizzle—even concealed his pack from any but a close examination, and no one was looking at him anyway. The guard kept his back carefully turned toward Kavi at all times so he wouldn’t see him pass.

  Kavi hoped the man wouldn’t get into trouble—though if he’d been a guard in Mazad, Kavi would have felt very differently. But with any luck the folks who didn’t see Kavi again would just assume that he was spending time in other parts of the great camp; it might be days before anyone realized he was missing. In fact, unless Garren checked on him, only the centrimaster would think to look. When he found that Kavi had vanished … well, no one had actually assigned him to the task of keeping Kavi in the camp. If Barmael had been the only one involved, the centrimaster might take the news to the substrategus, whom he clearly trusted—but given Garren’s likely reaction, just ignoring the whole matter and hoping the governor forgot about it would undoubtedly seem like the sensible thing to do.

  Yes, it might work out that way … but it also might not. Kavi wouldn’t dare to return to any Hrum camp, for if Garren did learn of his escape, the governor’s sensitive suspicions would be well and truly roused. No, his ability to stroll into Hrum camps and gossip was gone for good, but perhaps his news was worth it. Garren clearly meant to take Mazad soon, and Siddas and the others needed to be warned. Whatever their mysterious plan was, Barmael would give Mazad a much tougher fight than they’d have gotten from someone like Tactimian Laon.

  But as to how they meant to take the city, Kavi had had no more luck in discovering that than the deghass she-bitch had.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JIAAN

  IT’S AMAZING,” said Jiaan, gazing at the fortifications around the Hrum camp. The Hrum had evidently decided to make a permanent camp there—or at least stay for some time. Once that decision was made, they had set to work with a will. The earthen dike that surrounded the camp was more than six feet high, and the ditch the earth had come from was full of water diverted from the stream. The area outside the fortifications where the brush had been cleared was so large that only the strongest archers had a chance of reaching the camp, and then only if the wind was with them. And though the tough, twisted stems of the desert scrub might not lend themselves to building palisades, the Hrum had sharpened short lengths and driven them into the sides of the earth banks, eliminating all possibility of horses charging over them.