by Bell, Hilari
THE SMALL RAVINE WHERE they had planned to gather after the battle was about a quarter league from the Hrum camp—far enough to remain unheard if they were quiet, and invisible from the road.
The Hrum had pursued the town guard all the way back to their gates, capturing almost a dozen men who couldn’t make it in before the gates closed. Now they would be binding their wounds, restoring order, but soon they would come looking for Jiaan’s people—which meant they had to get moving. Though Siddas had had a plan to help them escape, as well.
It had seemed to Jiaan that the entire population of Herat had met them where they crossed the road. As soon as his troops passed, Herat’s citizens had emerged from the brush, hurrying down the road to their village, leaving a mass of fresh tracks for the Hrum to follow. Jiaan had his doubts as to whether the Hrum would mistake the tracks of this mob of peasants, fully half of them women, for his army. But if they did, when the Hrum arrived at Herat, the army would appear to have vanished into thin air. When they searched the houses of the local peasants they would find nothing but farmers and their families, none with so much as a scratch on them, and not half enough men in the whole village to make up the force that had attacked them. Siddas said the villagers would be safe, even if the diversion worked. Jiaan prayed it would, for it would be hard for his army to move fast . . . what was left of it.
A third of the remaining men had minor wounds, and a handful were seriously injured, though the healer said he thought they’d live. Jiaan himself had a cut just below his knee, still seeping blood—but he knew it wasn’t serious, and there wasn’t time to attend to minor cuts now. It stung and throbbed, but it could have been much worse. His father used to swear that he’d never have survived a battle without Rakesh. Jiaan was beginning to understand why.
The ones who hadn’t been wounded weren’t much better off—what seemed like another third of his men were hiding in the bushes, vomiting. Jiaan would have joined them, except that a commander shouldn’t show that kind of weakness. Especially a young commander who had just led men in battle for the first time . . . who was too green to even be certain if they had won or lost.
Jiaan shook himself and urged Rakesh over to where Aram, who had stayed behind with the healer, was organizing the retreat. He waited until the older man finished instructing a handful of soldiers on how to make a litter for carrying the worst wounded. Aram had to repeat himself, for even these men seemed a bit dazed, but at least they weren’t vomiting, and they nodded when he finished and moved off with a purposeful air.
Aram looked up and met Jiaan’s eyes—his face was calm, but Jiaan could see the tension in it.
“I know you ordered the count,” Jiaan said. He dreaded the answer, but he couldn’t put off asking any longer. “How many did we lose?”
“There are a hundred and seventy-four men currently missing,” said Aram. “But a few more may be trickling in. Things happen in a battle, in the dark. You get separated.”
“A hundred and seventy-four?” Jiaan closed his eyes, as if he could block out the knowledge along with the moonlight. He’d known it was bad, but . . . “A fifth,” he whispered. “A full fifth of my men dead.”
“Or enslaved,” said Aram calmly. “Not all of them will be dead, and the Hrum take prisoners. They’ll be coming home again if you succeed. And you struck a blow for that tonight, young sir, no doubt about it. It was mostly the town guard did the killing, but I’m guessing we left almost three hundred Hrum dead or severely wounded. That’s a third of their forces. The guardsmen couldn’t have done it without us. And they only lost a score or so, most of them captured at the gate.”
“So we won.” It was Fasal’s voice, rough, because he’d just returned from vomiting in the bushes. He evaded Jiaan’s gaze. Heaving up your guts after a battle was a very undeghan-like thing to do. It made Jiaan think better of him. But still . . .
“You think that’s winning? That we killed more of them than they did of us?”
“Yes,” said Fasal, and this time he met Jiaan’s eyes. “In a war, that’s what winning is. You hurt them worse than they hurt you, and then you do it again, and again, and again, until they give up and go home.”
That was how the deghans did it. How they had always done it, and they had won far more often than they lost, and kept Farsala safe for a millennium. But after the battle by the Sendar border, Jiaan had vowed to be done with fighting by deghan rules.
So what are we doing here?
“We need to leave,” said Jiaan. “How soon can the wounded be moved?”
“As soon as the litters are made,” said Aram. “Healer’s finishing up, and most of the men are back with their squads. Though I’ve put a few squads together, to make up the proper numbers. Some were hit harder than others.”
“Then the cavalry will start scouting ahead,” said Jiaan, which sounded impressive, though in fact he and Fasal were the only cavalry left. Only one of the others had died, but they’d all lost their horses. At least the horses could be replaced.
“We’ll come back when we’re certain the first stretch is clear. Be ready to move out.” He turned Rakesh, and walked him out of the makeshift camp. He wanted to wheel and gallop off, away from pain, from responsibility for the pain and the deaths he had caused. But that would have been noisy, and silence was important now. And Rakesh was too tired for galloping around in the dark, which was a stupid thing to do in the best of times.
Not that the battle would have gone any better in the daylight. Away from camp, the moonlit hills were quiet. Even Fasal, riding after him, was silent for once, though Jiaan knew that wouldn’t last.
We tried to pit our weakness against their strength. Of course we died.
Fasal cleared his throat. “I know . . . I know how it feels now, but we destroyed a third of a tacti. That’s almost as many as the real army killed in that first battle. And we lost less than two hundred men.”
“Yes,” said Jiaan. “That’s true.”
They had surprised the Hrum out of a sound sleep, attacked them on two fronts, one of those attacks a successful ambush, and they’d outnumbered them almost three to one—and the Hrum’s casualties were only fifty percent higher than theirs. And the Hrum could send for more men, and more, and more, from every corner of their vast empire.
“We need to find another way. A way to pit our strength against their weakness.”
“That sounds like an excellent plan,” said Fasal politely. “Any idea how to do it? No? Then while you’re thinking about it, I think we should bash them just like we did tonight, as often as we can get away with it. I’m not proposing we charge into their teeth. But well-laid battle plans, where we have the advantage, can work! We’ve proved it! We won.”
But even Fasal, Jiaan noted, didn’t sound happy about it.
“I don’t know how to do it,” Jiaan admitted. “But there has to be a better way. That other Sorahb doesn’t get a fifth of his men killed every time he strikes.”
“It wasn’t a fifth,” said Fasal. “And more men will come in. And that ‘other Sorahb’ hasn’t done anything except burn down a warehouse. We crippled the force besieging Mazad.”
“Until their reinforcements arrive,” said Jiaan. “Once that happens, it won’t mean anything.”
“Except that they won’t have enough men to take the city,” said Fasal, “which is exactly what we set out to accomplish. You did a good job tonight.”
Coming from Fasal, that statement was so startling that Jiaan pulled Rakesh to a halt and stared at him.
Fasal sighed. “It’s the truth. You think like the commander used to. You plan ahead, and you can convince men to follow you, even though you aren’t true blood. Look at the battle tonight.”
“It was Commander Siddas’ plan,” said Jiaan.
“Maybe, but you were the one who made it work.”
If Fasal thought losing a fifth of his force was doing a good job, then it was just as well that Jiaan had taken command. Still . . .
“I bet the other Sorahb would have found a better way.”
“Forget the other Sorahb,” said Fasal. “He thinks like a peasant.”
So he did. Jiaan frowned. Could that other man actually be a peasant? Surely not. But . . . “Whoever he is, I need to find him,” said Jiaan firmly. “That’s the first thing. And we need to get swords as strong as the Hrum’s. The only reason ours didn’t break, like they did in the first battle, is that our soldiers’ grips were so bad that the Hrum knocked the swords out of their hands. That has to change too.”
“Of course we need more training,” Fasal admitted. “But where are you going to get better swords? The Hrum guard their smith’s secrets tighter than they guard their gold, and none of our smiths have a clue how they do it.”
“I know,” said Jiaan. “But we have to get them. And finally, we need allies. Real soldiers, who will fight on our side. No matter how many men we kill, the Hrum can just send for more. We need to be able to do that too.”
“Magnificent: unknown tactics and impossible-to-obtain swords,” said Fasal. “I think you need to let Siddas continue planning the strategy. Where are you going to find this mythical army of allies? Tucked in your pocket?”
“No.” Jiaan drew a deep breath. Fasal was going to hate this idea, and his men wouldn’t like it much better. He didn’t like it. He just didn’t see a choice. “No, they’re not tucked in my pocket. But I know where to find them.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
SORAYA
HIGH SUMMER MADE THE kitchen’s heat intolerable. Soraya was grateful for any task that took her outside, especially serving in the governor’s quarters. It had turned out to be far safer than she’d feared; the men meeting with Garren were too preoccupied with business to notice the timid girl who served them. But even wiping down the tables in the meal tent was better than working anywhere near the hearths—or still worse, tending the bake ovens in the yard.
Especially when, like today, Calfaer had stopped by to help her, and give her another language lesson.
“Summer is a good time in Brasnia, where I come from,” he said in clear Hrum. He wrapped a corner of his damp rag around one finger and wrote the Hrum word for “summer” on the dry table.
“It is good here, too,” said Soraya. Her Hrum had a marked accent. “Cooler in the high plains than in the lower lands.” She took her own rag and wrote “summer good here” in Hrum.
Calfaer smiled and wiped the table clean. “In my land we worship the sun, with a festival called Sunhigh.” He wrote “festival” and “sun” on the table and Soraya copied the words.
“Our winter festival is biggest,” said Soraya. “In summer the only thing that happens is the priests carry Azura’s statue through the town to drive out the djinn. And there are horse races, but the priests don’t like that. They say it distracts men’s attention from the god.”
Last year she had stayed with her cousin Pari during the celebration. She hoped, for the dozenth time, that Pari had found a safe place to weather the invasion. She probably had—her mother was a sensible woman, and neither of them were likely to have resisted the Hrum. This year Setesafon’s high priest had declined to carry the statue through the town. He did it hoping to please the governor, though Soraya didn’t think Garren cared one way or the other.
At least the high priest’s hypocrisy had settled her fear that her father’s refusal to allow her sacrifice had caused his defeat. If the high priest himself had no fear of the djinn, then they were only a deghan superstition, just as the peasants claimed. Though Soraya considered the peasants’ superstition that Time was an unstoppable cycle of good and ill fortune just as foolish.
“Our summer festival is the best,” said Calfaer. He had stopped writing and simply cleaned. His voice held only a trace of wistfulness, but Soraya sensed a surge of homesickness that woke an answering longing in her own heart, and her eyes stung.
“We offer thanks to the sun for the bounty it bestows. And it’s not bad for the serfs to have a day of feast and a day of rest afterward—though that’s mostly to recover from their hangovers,” Calfaer added wryly. “Sunhigh is in the midst of their hardest working season. There’s music, and dancing, and contests of strength. Family members and friends give each other gifts. And the lord of the land provides a great feast, free to all, with beer for the serfs and wine for the noble folk.” He was still speaking Hrum, but at a natural pace, not the carefully correct words of the language lesson. “Then, just as the sun sets, our priests honor the sun with sacrifice—or they used to, before the Hrum put a stop to it. Then bonfires are lit and the serious drinking begins. It can get pretty wild after that,” he added, with a reminiscent grin.
“Sacrifice?” Soraya wasn’t certain she’d heard aright, though Calfaer had taught her the word not long ago, in a discussion of the various religions practiced in the empire. “You don’t mean . . . What sort of sacrifice?”
“Well, now it’s only a pig,” said Calfaer. “Though before the Hrum came, it used to be a human. That shocks you?” His expression was rueful and mild. “But it was an offering of honor to the sun itself—how could it be a lesser creature? We drugged them, so they felt nothing. And it was usually a child who was crippled or simple, or sometimes an adult, ill or in pain, who asked for the honor. Small loss for anyone. And they were serfs, of course.”
“Not criminals?” Soraya asked. In the ancient times before Rostam cast down the djinn king, when priests who truly believed had sacrificed many lives to the djinn, it was usually criminals they had chosen. And that was hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago. Soraya’s stomach felt hollow. Calfaer had become such a good friend; it startled her when he said or did something to remind her that he was from a very different place, that his heart belonged to a different people.
“How could offering a criminal honor anyone, much less a god?” asked Calfaer reasonably. “A sound pig is probably better than that!”
But with that reasoning, wouldn’t a healthy child be better than a cripple? Or a noble better than a serf? And as for the simple . . . Soraya thought of Ludo’s strong arms and happy face, and shivered. It seemed that everyone was blind to logic when it came to their superstitions. She wondered how they’d been killed—the knife, burning, drowning? The ancient priests of her own land had exposed sacrifices to the elements, and according to the legends they hadn’t all been criminals either. So who was she to start throwing out words like “barbaric.” Still . . .
“I have shocked you,” said Calfaer apologetically. “If it’s any consolation, it doesn’t happen anymore. The Hrum put a stop to it.”
“It’s not that,” said Soraya slowly, although it was. “I was just wondering if maybe Substrategus Barmael might have had a crippled brother or sister.”
Calfaer stiffened at the name of the hated traitor, and after a few moments the language lesson resumed, on a topic far removed from festivals. But he was quiet and thoughtful for several days after that.
Soraya wasn’t surprised when, in the feverish glow of the late-setting sun, she saw him approach the door of Substrategus Barmael’s quarters and call for admittance. The door opened and he went in. The door closed. Calfaer hadn’t come out by the time Soraya went to bed.
SHE WONDERED WHAT HAD PASSED between them, but that question was driven from her mind by the news, the wonderful news, that “Sorahb” had struck again. It had taken time for that name to reach the ears of the servants in the Hrum camp—and possibly even longer for it to reach the Hrum command. Soraya had already heard it connected to the warehouse fire. Connected to a cartload of supplies that had included several months’ pay for a local garrison, and which had rolled into the Hamaveran and sunk. Connected with a dispatch that disappeared, and even a batch of “bad soap” that turned several tubs of scarlet cloaks a muddy orange-brown.
It seemed to Soraya that the peasants were telling the Hrum that every natural mischance was an act of Sorahb. Though she’d also heard a rumor that the djinn were awa
kening to fight the Hrum—as if the djinn ever did anything that useful, even in the ancient times when they might have existed. Soraya had begun to believe that the warehouse fire might have been an accident after all. Certainly the Hrum hadn’t found the men who were responsible for it.
But this, this could be nothing but the work of Farsalan rebels!
She didn’t hear of it firsthand; Governor Garren barred all servants from the meeting where he discussed this with his staff. But listening to the gossip of the soldiers, in the breathless heat of the meal tent, she pieced it together.
It seemed that the Mazad town guard, after months of staying safe behind their high walls, had launched a surprise attack on the Hrum camp. Even that paled into insignificance, compared to the news that another force had ridden out of the hills and attacked the Hrum from the rear—at just the right tactical moment!
Reports of how many there were varied from rumor to rumor. Some said there had been several thousand, and they would have overwhelmed the garrison if they hadn’t fought so poorly. Some said there were only a few centris, but that they fought with a ferocity and skill that the desperate garrison had been unable to match. But even the most conservative reports confirmed that Arus’ tacti had been badly mauled, and the less conservative claimed that only a handful survived.
Soraya knew better than to put much credence into any of the rumors, especially the one that claimed that the rebel army vanished into thin air after the attack. Still, someone out there was fighting against the Hrum! Helping Mazad to resist. She wished she could help them, whoever they were. If she could find them, perhaps she could pass on some of the information she overheard. In reality, she had no idea who these men might be, much less how to contact them—and between fetching water, scrubbing pots, serving tables, cleaning tables, and scrubbing more pots, she didn’t have the time or energy to try. But it made a wonderful fantasy to beguile the boring marks. All the more boring, since Calfaer seemed to be avoiding her these days.