Forging the Sword (The Farsala Trilogy)
Page 14
“Which puts an end to both my plan of harassing them with archery day and night and your plan of galloping in on horseback and rolling over them,” Jiaan told Fasal. “I can’t believe they got all that up in less than two weeks! It’s—”
“Don’t you get tired of saying that?” Fasal asked sourly. “I assumed that with their commander taken, they’d be more … confused. Slower to react. That’s why I thought a charge would work.”
“I thought the same,” Jiaan admitted. “About them being confused for a time. But whoever’s in command now … well, if he’s confused about anything, I don’t see any sign of it.”
Perhaps the knowledge that he would be succeeded by a capable subordinate had created some of the calm disdain that showed in the captured Hrum commander’s eyes whenever he looked at Jiaan’s ragtag army. He hadn’t said anything insulting—he hadn’t said anything at all, except to ask for what he needed to tend the wounded prisoners. But Jiaan had seen the cool, almost amused contempt in his face as he watched Jiaan’s men going about their duties. Jiaan was having trouble holding his tongue and his temper with the man, so perhaps his silence was a good thing.
“The walls are open where the stream goes in and out,” Fasal mused, staring at the Hrum camp.
He and Jiaan were some distance from the Hrum camp, perched on a low rise, with half a dozen soldiers sheltered behind it. It was the only elevated ground in the area, and it gave them a partial view into the parts of the camp that weren’t concealed by the bushes the Hrum had left intact—for shade as well as cover, Jiaan now realized. It might be midwinter, but the sun was hot. On the other side of the mountains, he knew, it was raining almost every day. Here in the desert it seemed to run in spells—it had been dry for the last two days, and only the nights were cold.
“Maybe that stream is a weakness we can use,” Fasal went on thoughtfully.
Jiaan snorted. “You think you can gallop chargers up that streambed? The bottom will be sandy, rocky, and full of holes, like as not. And you’d have to go through the gap one or two at a time. They’d cut you down in an instant. Even those,” he gestured to the sword at Fasal’s side, “won’t make you invincible.”
The watersteel swords had arrived a few days ago, and when tested against some of the captured Hrum blades, they’d proved as strong or stronger. They were beautiful swords too—not fancy, but perfectly balanced, and sunlight ran over the patterned blades like a caress. There were only a few dozen of them, so Jiaan had passed them out to the best swordsmen in his army—which was why Fasal carried one and Jiaan didn’t. He shared Fasal’s desire to use them—to finally fight the Hrum with weapons as good as theirs! But they needed more of those swords, and more skilled swordsmen to use them too, so … “No,” said Jiaan firmly. “No charges up the streambed.”
“I was thinking,” said Fasal dryly, “of poisoning them.”
Jiaan stared at him in surprise. That was the kind of sneaky peasant scheme he’d never have expected from Fasal. He almost made a comment to that effect, but he was trying to encourage Fasal to think like that.
“I thought about poison too,” he admitted. “But it wouldn’t work. Not in moving water. We’d have to have hundreds of gallons of poison to have a chance of affecting them, and even then the stream would clear in a few marks. And we can’t dam it either; the valley’s too wide. Their food supplies are limited. All we have to do is wait and starve them out. When they’re forced to move, that’s when they’ll be vulnerable.”
“But they know that too, don’t they? So what are they planning?” Fasal asked.
Jiaan wished he had an answer, but he was spared having to fumble for one by the sudden appearance of a Hrum soldier on top of the earthen wall. The man stared at them.
“They’ve seen us,” said Jiaan redundantly. “I wonder what they …”
The Hrum soldier stuck out his tongue.
“Is he …? You’re kidding me,” said Jiaan.
Four more Hrum scrambled onto the wall, shouting, “Come and get us! Come and get us, coward boys!”
“Coward boys?” said Jiaan. “They can’t do better than that?”
The Hrum proceeded to do better.
“I can’t quite hear him,” Jiaan murmured. “I think … my father conceived me in … in … ah. You know, their Faran is pretty good. Anatomical.”
“Do they really think we’re going to fall for that?” Fasal’s cheeks were flushed, but Jiaan couldn’t tell if it was from annoyance or amusement.
“Probably not,” said Jiaan. “I’d guess they’re just enjoying themselves.”
One of the Hrum pulled his britches down and his tunic up and waved his bare ass at them. Jiaan felt his own cheeks heat, but his voice was level, holding nothing but the amused contempt he so often saw in Tactimian Patrius’ eyes. He was proud of it. “Now that just cries for an arrow.”
He waved Aram up to join them. “Who’s our best archer?”
Aram rubbed his grizzled chin with his remaining hand. “Besides yourself, you mean, sir?”
“I mean the best we have with us,” said Jiaan, in the dry tone his father had used to repel flattery.
Aram grinned. “That’d be Tus. I’ll fetch him up to you.”
Tus arrived with a promptness that told Jiaan that he and Fasal weren’t the only ones watching the performance. More than a dozen Hrum had followed their comrade’s example.
“Any preference, sir?” Tus asked, nocking an arrow. His bow was already strung.
“You choose,” said Jiaan, gesturing to the line of pale rumps in the distance. “I know the range is long, but, …”
“Don’t mind that, sir,” said Tus gently. He raised his bow, aiming for loft, then hesitated, trying to guess what the breeze would do to his shot.
The bow snapped and the arrow hurtled into the sky. Jiaan watched it rise and rise, and then rush down. It missed one plump, white rump by a hand span, but the man’s squawk of dismay as he leaped from the wall was audible even from that distance. He wouldn’t land well either, not with his britches around his ankles. Jiaan grinned.
“Sorry, sir,” Tus sighed. “I was hoping to puncture more than their pride.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jiaan told him. “Their pride is enough for now. We’re going back to our camp. If they’re going to rest for a while, we might as well do the same.”
THAT WAS EXACTLY what the Hrum did for several days. The Suud grew bored and asked Jiaan’s permission to go back to their clans for a while. Jiaan agreed, for as matters now stood his own men could keep watch, and when the Suud returned they could bring him news from his original base camp. He had taken all his veterans to fight the Hrum, but the trickle of peasants who were coming to join his army had recently turned into a small stream. Jiaan had instructed the Suud to lead the newcomers to his original camp, where a handful of veterans remained to train them. Without that training they’d be more hindrance than help, but soon …
It was Garren himself who was swelling the ranks of Jiaan’s army so effectively. According to the men, who were now arriving almost daily, none of the Hrum commanders were executing civilians, but other reprisals occurred with increasing frequency and severity. If a man’s farm was burned, what else could he do but join the resistance? Or at the least send some of his sons.
The Hrum weren’t barbarians, but they were still conquerors. The Farsalans resented them, and Garren’s edicts were only making matters worse. Garren’s edicts combined with the efforts of the peddler, who was convincing the peasants to go ahead with their acts of sabotage.
Jiaan scowled. He had to admit it; the traitor was effective. On the other hand, if he hadn’t connived at the massacre of the first Farsalan army, this one might not have been necessary.
Most of the new men wouldn’t be ready to fight for months, but a report on their progress would still be welcome. When the Hrum’s wounded had healed enough to march, then the Suud scouts would return. That was when he would need them.
&n
bsp; TWO NIGHTS LATER, Jiaan was awakened from a sound sleep by a voice shouting, “Wake up! Wake up! They’re coming! The Hrum are—”
The thock of an arrow striking flesh stopped the voice, waking Jiaan far more effectively than the shouting. His heart thundered as he clawed free of his blankets and grabbed his bow and quiver. The Hrum? But how? He’d posted men to watch the Hrum camp!
Other voices were shouting now, cries of warning and alarm, and underneath them, in the stillness of the night, Jiaan heard the hiss of arrows.
Jiaan burst from his hutch in a scrabbling crawl and looked around. The half-moon had emerged from the scattered clouds, gleaming on the armor of what looked like the whole Hrum army, or at least several centris, jogging briskly up the broad end of the valley. Their ranks were in perfect order except for their archers, who had fallen out to the sides to fire.
What had happened to the Eblis-possessed fools he’d had watching their camp? There was no time to invoke the djinn of sloth now, but part of Jiaan’s mind was still swearing as he added his voice to those shouting alarm. He bent his bow against his foot and strung it.
All his men were crawling out of their hutches now, most of them dressed at least, since the nights were cold enough that men slept in their clothes. But even those who owned some form of armor weren’t wearing it, any more than Jiaan was wearing his—and like Jiaan, most had neglected to put on their boots.
They all held weapons, though, and Jiaan knew they outnumbered the Hrum—they must, for he’d kept more men here than the total force the Hrum had brought to the desert.
But they were the ones who were outmatched, as the Hrum swept into the Farsalan camp and began to fight.
“To me!” Jiaan heard Fasal shouting. “Swordsmen, rally on me!”
Jiaan couldn’t locate the young deghan’s black hair in the chaotic darkness, but he did see a Hrum archer taking aim at that firm voice.
Jiaan sent an arrow into the man’s side, and the Hrum’s shot flew awry. Dangerous as it was to draw attention, he knew that Fasal had the right idea—they had to bring some organization out of this mess, or his men would all be slaughtered.
“Archers to me!” Jiaan cried. One of the perimeter guards, engaged in a desperate, defensive duel with a Hrum soldier, tripped over something and fell. Jiaan’s arrow pinged off the Hrum’s breastplate, but at this short range that was enough to knock the man off balance, distracting him long enough for his victim to stumble to his feet and run—forgetting his sword, Jiaan noted, though he found it hard to blame the man. At least he had tried. Quite a few men were simply running, running into the narrow, dark mouth of the canyon where the stream emerged, where the Hrum would have to break ranks to follow … where Jiaan’s soldiers might gain an advantage, if their idiot commander could get them organized!
“Archers, rally on me; swordsmen on Fasal. Archers on me; swordsmen on Fasal!”
Fasal had already gained a sufficient force to take the fight to the Hrum. He shouted a battle cry and ran forward, barefoot, the swordsmen he had trained running with him. Jiaan shot another Hrum archer who was aiming at Fasal, in the throat this time, but he couldn’t even spare a second to watch his victim fall, for the other archers were gathering around him.
“Shoot any Hrum who gets past our line,” he told them. Fasal’s embattled men had formed a ragged line. “Shoot any who seem—”
Before Jiaan could even finish, an arrow sped from another man’s bow, raking the face of a Hrum soldier who’d been about to cut off the arm of one of Fasal’s swordsmen. Other arrows flew as well, at the Hrum archers, at men who seemed to be in command, at any Hrum who was threatening a Farsalan swordsman.
Jiaan’s archers understood their job, and it looked like Fasal’s training with the swordsmen was paying off as well, for the Hrum’s advance came to a halt. The Farsalan army was holding its own.
Jiaan knew that couldn’t last. The Hrum fielded the finest infantry in the world, and the Farsalan camp had been taken by surprise. They had to fall back into the canyon, gain the high ground.
“Noncombatants, evacuate the camp!” Jiaan bellowed. “Fall back into the canyon. Archers to the canyon mouth. Cover the retreat.”
Those who hadn’t fled were already obeying his orders—the grooms had untethered the horses and were slapping their rumps, driving them into the dark, narrow passage. Under the direction of the middle-aged innkeeper Jiaan had appointed to run the camp kitchen, a handful of cooks gathered up bundles of food and hurried to follow the horses—except for one man, a one-handed man, who left the dark fire pits and moved against the stream of fleeing men, running toward … toward the prisoners!
Jiaan’s gaze flashed to the sheltered undercut that some long-past shift of the stream had carved in the canyon’s wall. He hadn’t given the prisoners a hutch, fearing that a guard in that confined space would be vulnerable to attack, but he’d allotted them the shallow cleft. It was deep enough to keep the rain off, and the hutches were only barely warmer than the out-of-doors, so with sufficient blankets the prisoners had fared no worse than his own men did.
Only one frightened-looking guard had lingered, but he’d kept the prisoners under control. They lay on their bedrolls, face down, their hands spread wide on the ground except for Tactimian Patrius—someone had taken the time to bind his hands behind his back before fleeing.
Aram ran up, grabbed Patrius’ hair in his only hand, and yanked the Hrum commander to his knees. Then Aram drew a kitchen knife from his belt, braced the Hrum commander’s head against his body, and laid his knife against the prisoner’s exposed throat.
“Stop,” he shouted in clumsy Hrum. “Stop fighting, or I kill man.”
For a moment Jiaan would have sworn that the clangor of battle lessened, that the Hrum hesitated.
Then Patrius shouted, also in Hrum, “Do not stop! Do not obey him. Fight and go on fighting, whatever he does. That’s an order! Do not stop!”
The sounds of battle rolled on. Aram’s lips moved, and then, even as Jiaan opened his mouth to forbid it, he drew the knife across Patrius’ throat.
Jiaan stared in astonished horror as streaks of blood, black in the moonlight, flowed down from the knife. But only streaks, not the spurting flood of severed arteries. And though Patrius flinched back against Aram’s thighs as far as he could, he never stopped shouting.
Aram, seeing his bluff fail, swore again—or at least Jiaan assumed he was swearing. He might have been giving orders instead, for the remaining guard seized Patrius’ shoulder and dragged him to his feet, herding him toward the canyon with blows from the flat of his sword.
Aram turned toward the other prisoners, but Jiaan knew he’d have no luck getting them on their feet—the two who’d been shot in the leg still couldn’t walk, and the man with the wounded arm had developed an infection and looked to die despite all Jiaan’s healer could do for him.
Something jarred Jiaan’s head, and a burning pain shot from his scalp. Even as he ducked and swore, clutching his head, Jiaan knew that the injury wasn’t serious—for all that he felt as if someone had rapped his skull with a hot poker, he wasn’t even stunned—but scalp wounds bled. Heat flowed through his hair, around his left ear, and over his throat and face.
Jiaan straightened, wiping his eye clear, and smiled in spite of the pain at the horrified expressions on the faces around him. “I’m all right,” he told them. “But I think it’s time we were going. Has everyone cleared the camp?”
“Yes sir,” said one of the men. “All but the prisoners. Aram saw they couldn’t move, so he just left them there. Didn’t even cut their throats.” He sounded disappointed.
“We’ll leave them,” said Jiaan. “They’ll be more hindrance than help to the Hrum anyway.” He could see for himself that everyone else had gone. The Farsalan camp was deserted, except for his archers and Fasal’s embattled force. Despite the archers’ support, more than a dozen swordsmen had fallen. Jiaan, suppressing a pang of grief, knew they were failing.
Close enough, in the confines of the canyon, for even a mediocre archer to put arrows into the throats and faces of armored men. Close enough for his archers to force the Hrum back while the beleaguered swordsmen made their escape.
The best climbers among his men were already sprinting for the canyon. The path up to the top was little more than a wrinkle on the rock face that would have made a sensible goat think twice, but it might be less dangerous than facing down the Hrum army, at that. Jiaan turned toward the swordsmen.
“Retreat!” he shouted. He wiped away the blood that still flowed into his left eye, and nocked another arrow. “Retreat, Fasal. Into the canyon!”
Fasal, for all his hot deghan blood, wasn’t really a fool. His swordsmen were already inching back, step by step, over the cluttered maze of the abandoned camp, while the Hrum struggled furiously to hack through their lines.
Jiaan saw a sword, one that hadn’t been replaced by Mazad’s steel, shatter under a Hrum’s. His arrow took the Hrum in the thigh before he could step forward and slay the man whose sword he’d broken. Although another Hrum did slice open the man’s chest and arm with a raking slash, the disarmed man was able to stagger back and flee, while his comrades closed ranks and took his place.
Jiaan, firing as rapidly as his blood-blurred eyes could find targets, realized that he hadn’t given Fasal enough credit. The swordsmen, whose line was narrowing as the canyon narrowed, were holding back the best infantry in the world. They took grievous losses as they did, but by Azura they were holding them back!