Wine of the Gods 03: The Black Goats

by Pam Uphoff

  "West." It was a rough croak. Weg handed him a water skin and he gulped. "It's flat as a pancake for at least ten miles. Then it gets bad. My pack . . . I made maps . . . "

  Dydit looked back at the combination orgy and riot. "I'll duck around to the Warden's office and see if it's there." Then he turned Dun and trotted around the village, as the wagon headed west.

  There was too much light. Too many people.

  Loose livestock. He swung down and tied Dun to a scrawny tree in a yard, away from all activity. He stripped and packed all his clothes into the saddle bags, and unlatched the box.

  No one looked twice at the big black goat trotting down the street. But he kept to the shadows. Twice he tripped over couples, interrupting their activities long enough to join in, but his goaty mind more or less remembered what he ought to be doing. He stopped for a drink of wine, straight from the siphon. Two giggling maids were still serving the wine despite the drunken orgy that had broken out around them. Or maybe because of it. Dydit made sure they didn't miss out on any fun. A quick trip around the bonfire, four more . . . oops, there was the Warden, sober, cursing . . . Oh, right. He was supposed to be . . .

  The Warden's office was dark and empty. A smelly lump in the corner turned out to be some stinky hide and a battered Imperial Army backpack. He hooked a horn through the strap and dragged it awkwardly out.

  He heard the Warden and hustled around the corner.

  " . . . to get married next week. I don't know what's come over this Town." he had the arm of one of his assistants twisted up behind his back and marched him inside. There was a clanging, as of an iron barred door.

  The goat dragged the pack down an alley, pausing to show a young man and woman how a goat did it, and finally out of the lighted area. He closed the box, slid his arms into the pack and limped barefoot down the street. This wasn't going to work. He pushed the latch. Now the goat had the pack on its back with the straps around its front legs. Much better. He trotted along, only stopping once more, and finally found Dun. She kicked him, not having had any wine. He changed, dressed and headed back around the town and out across the black lava plain.

  ***

  "I've never seen or heard of anything like it." Lefty the Scout told them, sitting around a cold camp on the hard ground. "It's mostly solid lava rock like this. A few ash layers. Where they are thick and layered the going gets nasty. I don't know how horses, let alone a wagon can get through." He sipped wine, the regular kind, and grinned. "How the Hell did you get here and why weren't they burning you?"

  "We came through Verona, and up to the City of Scoone. We were headed west already." The Sheep Man tore off a chunk of bread and munched. "So, how far do you figure it is to the Divide?"

  "Going more of less straight west, at least five thousand miles."

  "What?" The old man sat up indignantly. "I walked it in four months, six hundred years ago. I know the volcanoes have messed things up, but . . . it can't possibly be that far."

  Dydit snickered. "I probably remember as well as you do. All you did was walk. And walk. And walk. If the moon was bright enough, you walked all night. And got stupider and stupider. Just as well you were fixated on getting to Ash. And it took a lot longer than four months. Even as a goat I knew that."

  Nil snorted. "I still don't think it was that far!"

  Lefty eyed them, then continued. "I walked it spring to fall, for two years. Even with the detours I had to take, I expect I'm underestimating it. It probably isn't twice that."

  "Damn." the wizard pondered. "Well, that explains a few odd things. It all split apart up here, didn't it?"

  Lefty nodded. "I'd find stretches where ash had buried the Old Road, and once a town. Then more of the lava rock. The lava areas run roughly north-south in big long strips. I wondered if the land cracked so deep the lava welled up all over. Then I told myself that was stupid."

  "Seven hundred years ago the area was being abandoned because of the quakes and volcanoes. There were written records of whole sections of land subsiding into long faults. I sort of remember stretches of black rock like this. I guess it just kept on happening. Mount Frost erupted not long after I got to Ash. That closed the Old Road to the east." Nil scratched his chin. "Yeah, I sort of remember climbing ridges and lots of black rock."

  Dydit squirmed. He could picture it, and he didn't like that at all. "Remember down between Farofo and the Southern Divide? How those faults had ripped the ground. There's an Old Road down there too. It was ripped to pieces, the faults cut it into sections and whole sections of the land had moved miles."

  "I wonder if you could map it?" Lefty said. "If those faults would become the lava filled stretches I crossed?"

  The Sheep man leaned back. "I don't think the gods fanned the continent out like a hand of cards."

  "Gods? How about Goillian wizards with pretensions of godhood?" Dydit wondered suddenly if Nil was that powerful. And if he, himself, could ever come close.

  "Now they might be that stupid. But I never heard that they actually caused the Dark Ages. And if there were fissure eruptions on this scale, it sure would be dark." Nil tapped his fingers, thinking. "What we need is a road."

  "There aren't any. Just bits and pieces of the old one."

  "And that's why we have to make one."

  ***

  Dydit and Lefty both scouted out the trail for the wagon.

  However insane the idea, Nil "made" a road. That is to say they dragged a light vee shaped construction of boards along behind the wagon, that shoved light weight pebbles to either side of where the wagon had already gone.

  "Do you realize what a trail we're leaving? On this rock we could be invisible to trackers." Lefty was utterly appalled. And his saddle sores weren't helping his temper.

  "Ah, but this way the God of the Roads can see us. At least I think he can. We may have to connect to some other road for it to work."

  "That's not going to do us much good." Dydit pointed out.

  "You might be surprised." Nil said, as he jumped from the wagon and began building a very visible pyramid of stones. "In any case, just knowing we need to cut south to avoid that cluster of old volcanoes will save us a bunch of time."

  The first strip of 'old land', as they started calling it, was a trial. They found traces of the original Old Road, and a reasonable way up for the wagon, and a reasonable way across, but down was another story. Nil finally called a halt to the search, squinted at the late afternoon Sun and camped.

  And slept in. "Let the horses rest. They deserve it."

  Nil got up an hour before noon, stripped naked, and walked out to the cliff edge. Looked it over a bit. Stepped well back. Left hand raised to the Sun, his right hand pointed at a spot on the cliff. A brilliant light sprang up. It started a foot away from his hand and got stronger and brighter, the further from his hand it got. His hand moved in an arc. The light followed it, carving the cliff away at an angle. The rock slid and crashed. The light faded, leaving a bright after image.

  Dydit edged carefully over and looked down. "I still don't think the horses can make it."

  Nil grinned and reached for more sunshine.

  It was a steep slide. They eased the wagon down with ropes and let the horses pick their way down.

  And so it went. They had Lefty's notes and sketch maps, and worked their way west as the days shortened and the nights cooled. So far though, the winter was mild, and Nil pushed the pace.

  "We're only half way." Lefty had his maps out. "We're going to have to start preparing to winter through, out here. For the horses, that means hay. There's a low broad ridge with grass growing on it to the south, and then a lava strip and then canyons full of fumaroles and hot springs on the far side of that. As best I recall, and the maps bear it out, this will be the best combination of grass and shelter we'll be able to reach."

  Nil scowled. "I really thought we could get across in a few months." He threw up his hand, "I know, I was wrong. The lava strips are running about double the wid
th of the older land. Interesting, no?"

  Dydit rubbed Dun's nose. "We don't have anything but knives, to cut hay with. I don't see how we can possibly . . . " He sighed. "What are you smirking about."

  "You need some lessons in practical wizardry. Didn't Maleth teach you anything?"

  "Killing and compulsion, mostly. I fail to see the utility of magic in making hay."

  "Figures. C'mon, Scout, let's find this grass of yours. You might like a few lessons yourself."

  But first he stopped and made a proper crossroads, even carving approximate distance back to the Scoone border in the stone plinth he raised.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Winter 1354

  Auralian Desert

  The difference between having a troop of fifty Western traitors, and having an army of five hundred men of many nationalities is rather large. Especially when dealing with the Amma's Army.

  After one brief sortie out of the nearest Auralian Army outpost, the wizards were taken seriously when they said they wished to negotiate with the government.

  Jin shuddered when he heard what happened to the captured Auralian officer who was sent off with Orgaphos's letter to the Amma. Not a nice way to die.

  In three months the town of Tehat had been transformed into something resembling a military outpost. The mines were open, but the water was pumped by magic, the directions the miners dug was changed and the ore was refined here. By magic.

  The rebellious miners had each been touched by Orgaphos. In three weeks they'd started having the abdominal pain Orgaphos had spoken of, and by the end of another week, most had been testing their regrown parts on the Solti's harem.

  Or at any rate, the members of the harem the wizards had tossed to the troops. The pregnant ones. And as the wizards got the rest pregnant, the troops' whorehouse was growing. Young women in the town and the farms were being taken for the harem, and the wizards weren't picky. They wanted broodmares. They were keeping a studbook.

  Breeding wizards.

  Jin was beginning to believe that they would indeed be here long enough to raise children. It all depended on the Amma. Did he want the wizards' abilities enough to swallow the assault on his sovereignty that Tehat represented?

  Jin wondered if he realized just how dangerous the wizards were, and how ambitious.

  And how many superior officers of various foreign armies had ended up digging ore in Tehat. Orgaphos had an excellent command structure.

  The former slaves had been split into five centuries of mostly foot troops, and each century labored in the mines, one day out of five. The day after was a rest day, and the other three were drill. The men had been assigned to the centuries according to each man's military experience. The first century was very nearly frightening in its grim and efficient killing ability. The second century was engineering, and they were indeed working on fortifications. The third century was rather poorly trained, but at least every man there had held a weapon. The other two centuries were composed of men with no military experience at all.

  A miner, a former Veronian officer commanded the fourth century.

  Jin was in command of the fifth century. The worst of the bunch, they said. The old and the lame. Except that they weren't lame anymore, the healing spell that had restored their virility had healed all their other woes, revitalized them a bit. But not turned them into soldiers.

  "Ready for your inspection, sir." The grizzed old Veronian, a merchant in a former life, looked more hopeful than confident.

  Jin hadn't even tried for sword proficiency. After two months of drill, they were getting pretty good with pikes. He'd even gotten longer pikes for his center's front line.

  His largest contingent was native Auralians. Men sold to pay their debts, or children sold to pay their father's debts. Petty criminals. The Veronians (twenty of them) were merchants captured by slave raiders. About half adults when captured, the rest children who'd ended up in the mines after they'd gotten too old to interest the rich and decadent. The Scooners, all eighteen of them, were sailors, who by one means or another had ended up in the slave yards. The Westerners were again merchants and other travelers, captured in cross border raids, or fallen afoul of Auralian laws while trading across the border. One canny old man claimed to be from the Cove Islands.

  It made getting them all to work together a bit difficult. There were actually a hundred and twelve men. And the company 'owned' five women. All out of the harem, so far, and all pregnant, one grossly so, with the Solti's child. The others weren't showing yet. They were all horribly impractical. Only two knew how to cook. Sewing was something the seamstresses did. Their ejection from the soft living of twenty of them sharing one man in luxury to the harsh realities of over a hundred men using them in barracks converted from slaves' quarters had been a shock. But they were learning.

  Faster than the men, he grimly realized, looking at the sloppy formation.

  "Lieutenant Demornia, turn and inspect your men. Do you see a problem?" It took a bit of doing, but the former Auralian eunuch harem guard finally got his men lined up in a useful pattern from which they could maneuver to either form a line and lock shields to brace against a charge, or form a turtle to protect against plunging arrow flights. He had great hopes of one day being able to rotate his flanks in or pivot. He sighed. Right now, marching with their newly supplied pikes and shields was challenge enough.

  The other two platoons had addressed their problems as he worked with the first. He rotated which platoon got inspected first, sharing out the criticism and, even occasionally, praise.

  He mounted his horse, a perk of office, and led his century out on the road.

  The heaviest fortifications that they were building were to the southwest, the direction the Auralian troops had come the first time, the road to the nearest Army camp. Jin marched his troops to the northeast this time, out a road that deteriorated in quality as it served only a few half deserted little scratch mines. The second century was building fortifications out this direction also, just in case the Auralians thought to cross the mountains and march down this side. That is to say, they'd taken a broken ridge of rock at the top of a slope and reinforced it enough that it could probably be held by a well trained force of foot troops.

  Jin halted them at the ridge and set about arraying them as he would in an actual battle. He explained himself to his officers, keeping his voice loud enough that all the men could hear. At this point it was a complete toss up which of the men might make officers, so he might as well let them all hear his reasoning.

  "An attacking force will have to charge up the long grade. This will tire them out and slow them. If I had some archers, they'd be losing men all the way up the slope, the injured and dead would be tripping them, messing up their formation.

  "Now for a mounted charge, I'd meet it with the long pikes." He turned to the troops, "Men, lay out the pikes!"

  They shuffled a bit uncertainly, and then a few of them dropped their points forward and laid the pikes down. He dismounted, dropped the reins of his well trained mount, and climbed in among the men. He laid out the whole first rank and made them practice bracing the butts and then lifting the points on command. Made the second and third ranks practice thrusting. "Any horse that gets past the front line will be slow, aim for the rider. And riders that are down and still fighting, make them keep their distance with a pike. Work in pairs."

  Then he let the center rest and worked on his flanks. Demonstrating poking down at attackers, which seemed a bit obvious, but also moving men in and out of position. "You and your comrades will get injured. You will need to retire to bind a wound, to stop bleeding, to replace a lost or broken weapon. The reserves need to be able to step right in. You will get tired, and the reserves need to rotate smoothly in to replace you, so you can rest. Drink. Eat. A battle doesn't break for regular meals, nor are they all short enough that it doesn't matter."

  One bright one called out, "Sir, does that mean we take breaks to piss?"

 
"Piss over the edge on the enemy. You have my permission."

  That even got a laugh.

  The dust column didn't.

  "Probably miners bringing in ore." Jin said. "But just in case this is your lucky day, I'll go take a peek. Lieutenants! Put weapons in rest positions and take a break. Make sure all your men get water and food."

  He mounted and trotted down the road, cringing at the thought of leaving everything in the hands of his lieutenants. Worse damn troops in the World. He dismounted before a sharp turn and rise that would give him a long view across some salt flats, and trotted ahead on foot to look around the jutting rocks the road wrapped around.

  Auralian soldiers.

  Mounted.

  Two centuries that he could see. More behind in the dust. He looked at the dust column, trying to judge how far back it ran, and felt his stomach clenching.

  He ran back to the horse, and trotted and cantered him back to the ridge. He dismounted and led the horse up the slope. The horse was going to have enough demands made on him soon enough.

  "Listen up troops! We've got some visitors from the Auralian Cavalry on their way. Corporal Lebonift, I want you to take a message back to General Inetricovski." This could well be the hardest part, he thought. "Corporal, who are you taking this message to?"

  Blank. The man was sweating in a panic.

  "Corporal, repeat after me: I have an urgent message." Pause. "Say it!" he snapped.

  "Corporal, repea . . . err, I have an urgent message."

  "Excellent. I have an urgent message for General Inetricovski."

  "I have an urgent massage for General Inetricovski."

  "There are at least two centuries of mounted troops on the northeast road."

  The corporal swallowed as his eyes widened. "There are at least two centuries of mounted troops on the northeast road?"

  "We will attempt to hold them at the ridge."