The Humbled (The Lost Words: Volume 4)

by Igor Ljubuncic

  But the destruction in Somar was only a part of Bart’s problems.

  Every hour that passed, he wondered what was happening to the Eracian women, what might have happened to his wife. Was Sonya still alive? Or had the Kataji chieftain executed her out of spite? The longer the battle continued, the more desperate the situation would become. Worst of all, Bart knew he could not stop now. The killing would go on until one party was totally defeated.

  Below the observation post, a fresh unit was marching to its death. Close to a hundred men, he reckoned, their uniforms clean, their weapons sharp and unbloodied. The men walked hunched, stiff, faces slack with abject terror, eyes glazed and staring nowhere, their gait that of the condemned before the gallows. Their captain was leading boldly, trying to cheer them up with hoarse battle cries and too much spit. All he got in return were pasty, dull rictuses of cold fear. Elation and courage were absent in the company’s collective spirit. The banner rippled in the wind, rattling everyone’s nerves.

  With every step, they came face-to-face with more death. The endless stream of injured was not helping to make them bold and ready for the mayhem ahead. Normally in battle, soldiers got killed by sword or arrow, sometimes trampled by iron hooves. But they still looked human. Coming out of the city were all sorts of shapes, men burned to a crisp, with their skin like a sheet of wet scabbing, men mashed to a pulp by rubble. It sure did not inspire the new units.

  Bart was standing alone on the high platform, because he did not want to interfere with his officers. He had exercised enough military leadership by sending his men to their deaths. Twice. Once when he had ordered the infiltration mission, the second time when he’d hurled them toward the city’s open gates and into a deathly trap. He did not feel like contributing more misery. Faas, Ulrich, and Velten could cope well on their own.

  Fifty paces away, inside a post much like his own, the three men were watching the progress of the fighting, giving orders to their adjutants, who then relayed them to the signalers. In turn, these men waved tiny red and yellow flags on top of large poles. In distant parts of the siege camp, units reacted to the command.

  Ideally, the three men would be sharing three different posts all around the city, coordinating an attack from all directions. But all of the fighting was focused on the west bank of the Kerabon.

  There was another of Bart’s problems.

  He had almost fifteen thousand men sitting in trenches and improvised forts north and east of the city, facing away from the fighting, awaiting the arrival of some foreign invader bent on destruction. So far, it had not arrived, but he was forced to keep a huge chunk of his army prepared instead of committing all able bodies to the liberation of Somar.

  He had called this new enemy the North Death. There was no better way to describe it, it seemed.

  The camp around Somar was rather quiet and empty apart from the men gritting their teeth, waiting to be sent to die freeing the capital. Women, traders, and thousands of refugees from the Barrin estate had all been sent away to the southern cities. Not having them around helped immensely. Their despair had been contagious, affecting morale. Sending them away had also reduced the chance of spies and saboteurs sneaking behind his lines, using the mess and confusion to gain easy entry. There was less opportunity for disease to flourish, especially with the wet season coming. And he had more food for his soldiers.

  Boys and men had been conscripted, and some of them were training now; others stood watch against the North Death; others yet were readying to walk into Somar. An odd soldier of fortune or a thin-ribbed prostitute would wander into the camp now and then, but they found quiet, gloomy customers for their services.

  Still, he had more problems. Constance. His uncle. They wouldn’t let him be.

  His mistress and her small horde of midwives and ladies-in-waiting were the only noncombatants left in the camp. He had considered getting rid of them, too, but he was still too much of a coward to lose sight of Constance. He could not begin to imagine what she might do if left to her own devices.

  He heard laughter. One of the trebuchet crews, enjoying a game of dice. Since the attacks had begun, they were more or less unemployed and counted themselves lucky for not having to be in the thick of it all. Yes, they were lucky.

  One month, and no success so far. Was the Eracian force that lousy, or were the nomads really that good in holding the city? He wondered how his nation had held its borders all these centuries, how they had managed so well in the border skirmishes. Maybe it was just a matter of fortune, and now their share had run out.

  Emperor Adam took the last few grains with him, he thought.

  At least his uncle had not lied to him about the foreign invaders. Ulrich’s light horse did report an enemy presence, but mostly to the east. However, they did not seem poised on marching south. It would appear they were massing toward Athesia. In a way, it did not surprise him. When it came to Adam’s legacy, he only expected mad, miraculous things and events. Perhaps this North Death was a challenger to the tale of his legend. The story of his victory may have traveled half across the endless world, stunning everyone with its ruthlessness, daring them to try him, and now these northerners had finally come to contest him. But it was ridiculous, he knew.

  Bart looked across the field and, to his dismay, saw Lord Karsten propelling himself forward in his direction. Gravel and grass did not stop him. He pumped with his stringy, powerful hands. His attaché, Tobin, walked behind him, hands folded. His assigned guards trailed in a half circle, kicking their boots in lazy strides.

  “Bartholomew, Bartholomew!” the old fart was shouting.

  What does he want now? Bart wondered with a tinge of despair. While his crippled uncle and his mother counted as noncombatants, he had not really managed to get them whisked away to Ubalar either. They insisted they had a responsibility toward Eracia and would not walk away from peril. Well, his mother had mostly smiled.

  In a way, it was a good thing, because he could imagine the city mayor of Ubalar blanching at the thought of having Lord Karsten take over the governance of the business and trade. Then again, it meant he had to suffer them.

  “Bartholomew!” his uncle repeated. He had wheeled himself into the shadow of the tower.

  Delaying deliberately, Bart peered over the wooden rail. His uncle was at the base, looking small and fierce. “Yes, Uncle?”

  “Well, are you going to stand there and humiliate me? I cannot climb the stairs even if I want to.”

  Bart pushed his tongue between his upper lip and gums, pressing until it hurt. “You wish me to come down there, then?”

  “Before the Autumn Festival,” Lord Karsten said.

  Keeping his nerves calm, he climbed down the heavy switchback staircase. A handful of his clerks and bodyguards were waiting there, augmented by the unmistakable presence of the cripple and his somewhat embarrassed retinue. “Yes, Uncle?”

  “How long is this folly going to take?”

  Bart arched his brows. “Which one?” Your tantrums?

  “The city attack is going nowhere. You keep sending those boys to die, and for what? That northern enemy will arrive any day now and destroy everything. Why are you even bothering? Somar is a lost place. Recuperate your losses and retreat. We can still get safely south and regroup in the Safe Territories.”

  Bart sighed, feeling tired. “Uncle, I will not tell you again. Keep out of the war business. If you mention this topic once again, I will have you sent away. You will certainly find the inns in Paroth or Ubalar more comfortable than our camp here.”

  Lord Karsten opened his mouth and closed it with a plop. “Your disrespect will not win you victories. You ought to listen to the people around you. They often mean well. And you are forgetting yourself. You might be the viceroy, and you lead this army, but I am still your uncle, and you will show proper manners.

  “Why haven’t you committed your mercenaries yet?” the cripple asked.

  Bart looked toward the city, but it looked di
fferent from ground level. More sort of a shattered turtle shell, picked apart by vultures, than a city wrapped in smoke and death. The wall ruins gaped like an old woman’s grin, with a handful of yellowing, rotten teeth.

  He had kept Junner’s olifaunts out of the battle, because he wasn’t really sure how they would behave in that maze of fiery destruction. The animals had not been trained to trample through back alleys, and Junner was worried about sending them in with so many Eracian footmen. They might end up trampling the wrong crowd.

  Deep down, perversely, Bart considered Junner his one real ally in this mess. His countrymen all had their patriotic motives, but they saw him as a stepladder for their success. With the Borei, it was the simple matter of money, nothing more. The mercenaries had been with him while he was the lowliest member of the Privy Council, and they were with him now that he ruled Eracia. Their attitude had not changed, and that gave him peace of mind.

  He could not bet on the petty aspirations, grudges, and avarice of this or that noble or officer. But he could always count on the Borei to want to earn money from their employer…s. Luckily, no one could outbid him. He hoped.

  “They are a strategic reserve,” he explained.

  Lord Karsten bahed and waved his hand dismissively.

  Another host of soldiers was moving toward the city. The Second Regiment of the Fifth Division, Bart guessed from the device on their flag. They were passing in between the two towers. Colonel Maurice cheered them on from his platform. The major saluted, his motions wooden, and moved on. Unlike the earlier group, these men had seen the fighting already and were going for another attempt. They did not look scared because they were seeing burned men with no limbs coming out on stretchers. They were terrified because they had already been inside Somar once, and now, they were doing it again. Men could be only so lucky, and the odds were against them now.

  They were all wet, doused with water so that flames would not stick to their clothes. Bart stopped arguing with his uncle and watched them go. Most men were too morose to notice. They must be reliving the earlier fights, he reasoned.

  He had fifteen thousand fresh troops, and he could not commit them. It was maddening. With their strength, he might have taken the city already.

  He could hear drums, and feet stomping in cadence with the dull beat. He could hear a shrill pipe, and the chorus of grunts and growls coming from the city like a wind. He could hear the noise of swords and fires, crackling. Farther away, a wagon was lumbering, loaded with a dozen wounded. Well, those soldiers were lucky enough, because they could sit on a hard bench and wait for an old mule to lug them back into the camp.

  How much longer would the killing continue? Velten claimed they had lost four thousand men in the last week alone. There were more than ten thousand wounded. The hospitals had too few beds, so they slept in the same tents as the ordinary troops, a constant and vivid reminder of what awaited them all. He sorely lacked surgeons and healers, and even just ordinary men with a steady hand so they could pull and stitch pig-gut thread through gaping injuries. At the moment, he wished he could just buy barbers and physicians.

  The perilous decision about asking the Parusite king for assistance still hovered in the dark confines of his conscience, beckoning, sweet and soft and promising. But that would probably mean giving up Eracian independence. Yet another problem.

  “A horseman approaching,” Corporal Rickey announced.

  Everyone turned, one of the soldiers cranking his crossbow. Dashing across the mangled, grassy expanse was a lone rider. Not a strange phenomenon in the camp. Messengers often used fast hobbies to move quickly between divisions. Past the front lines, too, so it was probably not an assassin Abyss-bent on his mission.

  But there was something about the silhouette, about the urgency of the animal’s trot that alarmed him. He was glad for Rickey’s sharp eye. There was another man who deserved a promotion.

  The rider was moving toward the two towers. It made sense if he wanted to bring a missive to the army commanders. He weaved elegantly around abandoned gear and refuse, past old spots of beaten ground that had housed the camp followers until just recently.

  “Slow down!” Lanford shouted, raising his hand in warning.

  The horseman pulled on the reins and brought his dappled little horse to a halt. “Where’s Lord Karsten? I bear a message for him!”

  Bart saw the old man grin and push forward, nudging men out of his way. “I am here.”

  Lanford stepped closer and grabbed the reins. “Dismount, lad. Easy.”

  “I’m not a lad, sir,” the rider said, taking his helmet off. There was a girl underneath. Bony, and not very pretty, and with hair cropped short, but still unmistakably female. Bart frowned. What? He did not have many female troops around. None in the cavalry that he could remember. In fact, ever since Adam’s revolution, the all-female units had been disbanded.

  “Your name and unit, soldier,” Bart said, ignoring the sharp look from his uncle.

  The girl handed a horn tube to Lanford, who released the reins and brought the message to him. He flashed a grin back at his uncle.

  “Beatrice, sir. Third Independent Batallion.”

  Bart ignored the lack of honorifics. She couldn’t know who he was. Third Independent?

  “I must insist, the message is for Lord Karsten, sir.” She glanced quickly at the man in his wheelchair, but it didn’t look like she knew who he really was. Well, most soldiers had never met his uncle. Lucky bastards.

  “That is fine,” Bart said. “I am Count Bartholomew of Barrin, the viceroy of the realm. Any message for Lord Karsten can be safely delivered to me. If it pertains to military matters, that is. It is about the state of our nation and country, yes?”

  The soldier looked confused, so she fired off a quick salute. “Yes, sir.” She coughed. “From Commander Mali, sir. And Colonels Finley and Alan.”

  Bart looked around him. Commander Mali. He could not recall that name.

  “She was sent north by Commander Velten to defeat a Namsue detachment,” his uncle offered, keeping his voice flat. “I personally sent Colonel Alan to assist in the effort. We have not received any news from either unit ever since. They were presumed lost, or gone too far north to communicate with us in a timely manner. With the arrival of the northern army, well…” He shrugged, an odd gesture for a man with his lower body all paralyzed.

  “Oh yes, the northern detachment.” So they were not dead after all. Or traitors. But…good news or terrible news? Bart wondered. He opened the tube. He read the message carefully. The northern army was right there, and it was shadowed by a tiny force of Eracians. The three officers called on all sides to unite and prepare for an all-out war.

  The rider squirmed, looking uncomfortable. Then, with simple, practical precision, she opened a saddlebag, fished out a small canteen, and drank.

  Bart knew he had to consult with his staff. This was monumental. There was an Eracian combat force that had made contact with the North Death, defeated some of their units, detained others. Valuable information. Critical information. Only the consequences were unknown. What was he going to do now? Here he had another reminder what doom faced Eracia.

  Somar still remained in the nomad hands.

  “You will have to ride back to your commander,” he told the girl. Her boyish face contorted with dismay. “But not today. You have earned rest. Please report to the barracks. You will be given food and a bed, and if you want, you may wash yourself.”

  “Yes sir, my lord, Your Majesty, thank you.” She smarted another salute.

  Bart nodded at Lanford. “Please escort Beatrice to the local garrison. The fourth.”

  Around him, nothing had changed. The fighting in Somar continued unabated, the fields around it were filthy with human refuse, and a pall of chaos hung above the siege, with birds wheeling on hot currents from the fires in the city, waiting to pounce on fresh corpses.

  Only he felt different. Resolved. We will all die, he figured. My little
feud is irrelevant. Constance is irrelevant. Sonya is irrelevant. He didn’t fully understand this foreign enemy, but he grasped its enormity, its finality. So perhaps he could relax and not worry about the implications and outcome of what he was doing. It didn’t matter. When faced with death only, any option you choose is good enough, he thought.

  “Summon the command staff. We need to discuss the next phase of this war,” he ordered and left the shadow of the observation post, walking away from the city. He ignored everyone, especially his uncle. He walked toward the house where Constance was raising his bastard. He was going to name his son today. He didn’t want the boy to die without a name. That would be just pointless. Well, pointless either way, but he wanted it to be pointless his way.

  CHAPTER 24

  There were fourteen women and two babies in the room, thirteen women and two babies too many. Sonya hated the fact she was forced to share her lavish chambers with all those whores.

  But Pacmad was doing everything he could to spite her. To foil her plans.

  Small-dicked mongrel.

  Since the Eracian attack, Somar had become a battlefield. No one was allowed out of their houses or their workplaces. Women were laboring round the clock, baking bread, hammering new swords and shields for the Kataji warriors, sewing wounds. Those who did not have a valuable profession had been forced into their homes and locked in, forced to endure the fighting in silent waiting.

  If she looked through the window, she could see the deserted streets of the inner city, with only an odd soldier moving, patrolling, making sure the citizens did not try to plot anything against them. Stray dogs loped between buildings, scavenging the refuse. Dried leaves fluttered across cobbles, joining old piles of trash and neglect. The savages cared nothing for beauty, and the city had become one giant heap of midden and discarded rubbish.