by K. J. Parker
4
The worst words a general can utter, his father had told him once, were, I never expected that.
He didn’t say them aloud, but that was cheating and didn’t absolve him. He pulled his horse out of the pursuit and trotted a few yards up the slope, out of the way of a charge he could no longer check in time. They’d set a trap for him, and he’d obliged them.
Who were these people, anyway? They all looked very much the same to him, with their pigs’-belly faces and unnatural, strawcolored hair. Not that it mattered particularly much at the moment; it’d only make a difference if he lived long enough to make his report. If the observation died with him, it was worthless. Still, he wasn’t sure why he knew it, but these weren’t Eremians. They handled their horses too well, and their clothes were too clean. In which case, they could only be Vadani.
All he could do now was watch. The counterattack came in perfectly on time, slicing into his column of charging heavy cavalry rather than chopping at it, parting the front three squadrons from the ten behind. The front section carried on with their now fatuous charge; quite possibly they didn’t even know yet that they’d sprung a trap and were about to be rolled up and wiped out. The back section had been stopped in their tracks, as though they’d ridden into a stone wall. From where he was he couldn’t actually see the heavy infantry who’d been positioned to take them in flanks and rear, but he knew they’d be there. Instead, he watched the front three squadrons press home their onslaught on an enemy that had faded away into the rocky outcrops. He wanted to shout a warning, but they were far too distant to hear him. Instead, he watched the ambushing party come up at a neat, restrained canter. No need to hurry, waste energy unnecessarily, risk breaking their own irreproachable order. He couldn’t see the details of the fighting, but he could track its progress by the litter of dead men and horses left behind. Well, he thought, that was that. Time to think about getting away from here.
Uphill, he decided. Of course, there might be further enemy reserves waiting just over the skyline, but he doubted it. No need; and his opponent didn’t seem the sort to waste resources on redundant safeguards. If he could get over the crest of the hill, he’d be on the wrong side of the battle, with his conquerors between himself and the road home, but he was just one more fugitive. The enemy would have better things to do than chase him. Ride as far as the river, double back, take it steady. He’d be starving hungry by the time he reached the camp in the ruins of Civitas Eremiae, but that would be the least of his problems.
His horse was far too tired to gallop uphill, and speed would just draw unwelcome attention. He booted the wretched animal into a sullen sitting trot.
The Vadani, he thought; well, that would make sense. He knew next to nothing about them — he’d been recruited to fight the Eremians, and his research time before leaving home had been limited — but he did know that their aristocracy had a long tradition of hunting. That cleared up one small mystery; it explained why the tactic that had defeated him (taken him completely by surprise and off guard) seemed in retrospect so infuriatingly familiar. It wasn’t a military stratagem at all; it was simply a commonplace of the hunt adapted for use against men. Cornered, the boar will charge the dogs. While they pull his head down, the huntsman steps forward and stabs him in the flank. Stupid, he rebuked himself; no Mezentine would have seen it coming, of course, but we should’ve. Father —
I might not ever see him again, he thought; and all because of a stupid mistake.
Well, it wouldn’t come to that; and when he got back to camp, he’d make a point of telling General Mesemphytes to get hold of all the hunting manuals and textbooks he could find. If only we’d known we weren’t fighting proper soldiers, we wouldn’t have got in this mess.
Over the crest of the hill, looking down; below him, two full squadrons of heavy cavalry. They stood still and calm, here and there a horse swishing away flies with its tail. They knew that they probably weren’t going to have a part to play in the battle, but they were quietly ready, just in case; eyes front, concentrating on the standards, which would give them the sign to move into action if they were needed after all. No call for them, therefore, to look up the hill, because nothing of any relevance would be coming from that direction. All he had to do was turn round, nice and easy, and go back the way he’d just come.
Someone whistled. Heads began to turn in his direction. Suddenly terrified, hurt and angry at his stupid bad luck, he dragged his horse’s head over and dug his spurs in viciously, as though it was all the animal’s fault. A jolt from the cantel of the saddle, and now at least he was a moving target, not a sitter. He looked over his shoulder as he approached the skyline. They didn’t seem to be following him, so that was all right.
Before he could turn his head back, he felt the horse swerve. Not the best time to lose a stirrup. Without thinking, he grabbed for the pommel of the saddle with both hands, dropping his sword and the reins (panic reaction; haven’t done that for twenty years, since I was first learning to ride). It would probably have been all right if someone hadn’t hit him.
He felt no pain from the blow itself, but the ground hitting his shoulder was another matter. Bad, he thought, in the split second before the horse’s back hoofs kicked him in the head.
When he woke up, he was flat on his back. He remembered that he was in danger and tried to get up, but found he couldn’t. Ropes; no ropes. No need for ropes. Very bad indeed.
He could move his head, though; and he saw dead bodies, men and horses; spears sticking in the ground like vine-props blown over in a high wind. Plenty of dead people (nearly all his men, he realized, and was surprised at how little that affected him), but nobody alive that he could see.
His neck was tired and getting cramped, and on balance he’d rather look at the sky than the consequences of his own negligence. He rested his head on the turf, but that turned out to be a bad idea. He let it flop sideways instead. The picture in front of his eyes was blurring up. Well, he thought.
Some time later he felt a shadow on his face, and something nudged him; he couldn’t feel it, but he deduced it from the fact that he moved a little.
“Live one,” someone said.
He thought about the words, because they didn’t seem to mean anything, but after a while he figured it out. Inaccurate, in any case.
Whoever it was said something else, but it didn’t have proper words in it, just bulving and roaring, like livestock far away. He decided he couldn’t be bothered with people talking anymore. If he just lay still they’d go away and leave him in peace.
“I said, can you hear me?”
No, he thought; but instead he forced his mouth open and said something. It came out as meaningless noise. A very slight increase in the warmth of the sun on his cheek suggested that the shadow-caster had gone away. Good riddance.
So, I won’t be going back to camp to tell them about the Vadani, or hunting manuals. I suppose I’ll just have to write them a letter. Can you write letters when you’re … (what’s the word? Begins with D), and will there be someone to carry it for me once I’ve written it?
Suddenly there were two faces directly above him; the ugliest, scariest faces he’d ever seen. He wanted to kick, fight and scream, but apparently that wasn’t possible. Then everything hurt at the same time, and while it was hurting he left the ground and was raised up into the air. Angels, he thought; no, not angels, I think we can be quite definite about that. Demons. They come and rip your soul out of your body at the moment of the thing that begins with D, except that we don’t believe in demons and all that superstitious nonsense in our family.
Wrong about that, apparently. Shame.
The demons were carrying him; and he thought, I must have led a very evil life, to have deserved this. He couldn’t see them anymore because his head was lolling back. All he could see was a cart — plain old farm cart; apparently there’re no fine social distinctions in the place where you go when you’ve been bad, and the fiends that torment
you forever have pale skin, like the Eremians — and he was being loaded onto it, like any old junk.
“Get a move on,” someone was saying. “Jarnac’s men’ll be back any time.”
He thought about that, but it didn’t make any sense. Technical demon talk, he assumed; and then it occurred to him that he hadn’t died after all. Now that was unsettling.
He was alive, then; alive, paralyzed and lying in a dirty old cart along with weapons, boots, soldiers’ clothes, belts, ration bags and water bottles. He thought of the phrase they used at country auctions back home, when a farm was being sold up: the live and dead stock. From where he was lying, there didn’t seem to be much in it, but such subtle distinctions define the world.
Fine, he told the universe. If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer to die now, please. Apparently the universe wasn’t listening.
He’d often ridden in carts, of course. As a boy he’d loved hay-making, riding in the wain as the men pitched the hay up. His job had been to compress it by trampling it down; he could remember how it yielded and bounced under his feet like a flexing muscle, as if it was trying to trick him into falling over. He’d loved the view, the fact that for two weeks a year he could be taller than the grown-ups and see further. He’d imagined himself in a chariot, not a cart, bringing home the spoils of war in a grand procession.
He flicked his eyes sideways and saw the junk heaped up all round him; spoils of war. An ambition fulfilled, he thought, and passed out.
He woke up because something hurt; in fact, he came out of sleep trying very hard to scream, but he didn’t seem able to make any sound. Very bad indeed.
“Splint,” someone said. He tried to remember what a splint was, but there were holes in his memory large enough for words to fall through. Anyway, whoever it was didn’t seem to be talking to him. It hurt, though, and he clenched his hands to work out the pain.
Oh, he thought. Maybe not so bad after all.
“He’s awake,” someone said, and a face appeared above him; huge and round, like an ugly brick-red sun. Its eyes, round and watery blue, looked at him as if he was a thing rather than a human being; then the head lifted and looked away. “He’ll keep,” the voice said.
He cleared his throat, but he couldn’t think of the right words; he felt awkward, because this was a social situation his upbringing hadn’t prepared him for. “Excuse me,” he said.
The eyes narrowed a little, as if seeing a man inside the body for the first time. “It’s all right,” the man said. “You’ll be fine. You had a bash on the head, and your arm’s busted. Nothing as won’t mend.”
“Thanks,” he replied. “Where is this?”
The man hadn’t heard him, or wasn’t prepared to acknowledge his question. “You got a name, then?”
Yes, but it’s slipped my mind. “Gyges,” he heard himself say. It took him a moment to realize he was telling the truth.
“Gyges,” the man repeated. “What unit were you with?”
“Fourteenth Cavalry.” Also true. Fancy me knowing that.
“Rank.” A different voice; someone talking over the man’s shoulder.
Oh well, he thought. “Lieutenant colonel,” he said.
The man’s left eyebrow raised. “Well now,” he said — he was talking to his friend, the man behind him. “Not so bad after all.”
“Excuse me,” he said — that ridiculous phrase again, like a small boy in school asking permission to go to the toilet. “Who are you?”
The man smiled. “Nobody important. Don’t worry, we’ll get you back to your people, soon as you’re fit to be moved.”
That didn’t make sense; they were Eremians, he was an officer in the Mezentine army, so surely he was a prisoner of war. “Thank you,” he said, nevertheless.
The man made a tiny effort at a laugh. “No bother,” he said. “Lie still, get some rest.”
“What happened in the battle?” he asked, but the man had gone. Besides, he realized, he wasn’t all that interested in the narrative. He knew the gist of it already.
Lieutenant Colonel Phrastus Gyges, formerly of the Seventeenth Mercenary Division, currently on detached service with the Fourteenth Cavalry. He remembered it now — not clearly, not yet; it was like thinking what to say in a foreign language. But at least he had a name now, and a body to feel pain with, and possibly even a future; there was a remote chance that, sooner or later, he’d once again be the man whose name he’d just remembered, rather than an item of damaged stock in the back of a wagon. Well; he’d come a long way in a short time.
They had apparently tied a thickish stick to his left forearm. Splint, he remembered; and the man had said his arm was broken. Also a bash on the head. The battle; and he’d taken his helmet off so as to be able to hear the reports of his subordinate officers. Bloody stupid thing to do. It occurred to him that this Lieutenant Colonel Gyges couldn’t be all that bright.
He lay back, and saw rafters. He was in a barn. For some reason, he felt absurdly cheerful; he was alive, no worse damage than a broken arm, and all he had to do was lie peacefully for a while until someone took him home. Meanwhile, he’d been granted leave of absence from his life. A holiday. Nothing wrong with being in a barn. He’d been in barns a lot when he was a kid. Better than work, that was for sure.
More sleep. This time, he felt himself slide into it, like the crisp sheets on a newly made bed. When he woke up, there was a different face looking down at him. It was just as pink and ugly as the other faces, and it had a large, three-sides-of-a-square scar on the left cheek, just below the eye. A smile crinkled the scar’s shiny red skin.
“Hello,” the man said. “So you’re Phrastus Gyges.”
A different kind of voice. The accent was still horrible. He hadn’t been able to get used to the way people spoke his language on this side of the sea. The Mezentines were bad enough, with their flat, whining drawl; the savages (the Eremians, at least; he hadn’t heard a Vadani yet) did unspeakable things to all the vowels, and didn’t seem able to tell the difference between Ts and Ds. This man was an Eremian, but he didn’t sound like the men who’d found him.
“That’s right,” Gyges replied.
The man nodded. “It’s good to be able to put a face to the name at last. I’m Miel Ducas.”
Not good.
“You’ve heard of me, then?” the man went on.
Gyges nodded. He hadn’t been expecting anything like this.
“I hope you don’t mind me introducing myself like this,” Ducas said, “but we’ve been fighting each other long enough that I feel I’ve known you for ages. Ironic, isn’t it, that we should both end up here.”
Gyges breathed out slowly. “Where’s here, exactly?” he said.
Ducas grinned. “Haven’t you figured that out yet? These people — our hosts, I should say — are the hard-working souls who clear up our messes. They bury the dead, salvage clothing and equipment, and ransom the survivors. We owe them our lives, by the way, so don’t go getting judgmental. In my case …” He shrugged. “Well, why not? A little melodrama won’t hurt. Your showing up here’s probably signed my death warrant.” He frowned. “I could’ve put that better, I suppose, but not to worry. You see, they’ve been trying to decide what to do with me: ransom me back to the resistance or sell me to the Mezentines. As far as I can tell, there can’t have been much in it either way, but now you’ve appeared on the scene they’ve come to a decision. Since they’re going to have to take you back to your camp anyway, they may as well send me along with you. Simple economy of effort, really; saves them having to make two journeys, and they’ve only got the one cart. While it’s away ferrying the likes of you and me around, they can’t make collections or deliveries. It’s perfectly rational once you see the thinking behind it. Are you thirsty? I can fetch you some water if you like.”
Gyges looked at him. Miel Ducas, his enemy. “Thank you,” he said; and Ducas stood up and went away.
But that’s absurd, he thought. These people
are Eremians; he’s the rebel leader. They wouldn’t hand him over to us. He thought about that some more. People who made their living by robbing the dead might not be able to afford finer feelings. Besides, the Eremians were a treacherous people. Hadn’t one of them opened the gates of Civitas Eremiae? Presumably money had changed hands over that; he hadn’t heard the details, or not a reliable version, at any rate. Besides, money wasn’t the only currency. The Mezentines’ stated objective was the obliteration of the Eremian nation, and large-scale treachery could well be the price of a blind eye turned to a few survivors. The thought made him uncomfortable; it was something he hadn’t really considered before.Wiping out an entire people; it must be strange to have a mind that could process ideas like that. Meanwhile, the last vain hope of the Eremians had just gone to fetch him a drink of water.
“There you are,” Ducas said, handing him a short horn cup. “There won’t be anything to eat until the rest of the men get back. Probably a sort of sticky soup with barley in it. It’s an acquired taste, and I haven’t, yet. Am I annoying you, by the way, or are you usually this quiet? The thing is, there’s not many people about here to talk to.”
Both hands around the cup; he managed to get two mouthfuls, and spilled the rest. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not really up to talking much. But you go ahead.”
Ducas laughed. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll buzz off and leave you in peace, let you get some rest. They said you’d had a nasty bump on the head. Maybe later, if you feel like a chat. We could talk about some of the battles you lost. I’d like that.”
The water tasted of something nasty he couldn’t quite place. “If you’re here,” he said, “who’s in charge of your army?”