by Tony Roberts
Kimel hadn’t shaved and looked like death warmed up, but was ready for him. Zonis smiled and slipped his mask on. It made him look like a particularly ugly specimen of the Epatamian King’s harem. Not that he knew what Epatamian women looked like.; he assumed they were slim, fleshy in the right places, possessed huge dark eyes and long dark hair and were all too willing to inflict upon a man any pleasure he could think of, and then some more. Not that he indulged in that any more, anyway.
Undoubtedly they’d look like the rear end of a herd beast and had the temper to match. He waved Kimel to accompany him out into the sunlight. “Shall we go see Wottek?”
“Fair shout.”
“Hopefully he’ll give me something to do. Don’t fancy being sentenced to death for being useless.”
“Don’t need it.”
They walked across the clearing, now empty of any animals. Men walked here and there, mostly carrying weapons. Training devices were set up in various places and men were just beginning to commence their practicing. Sergeants were shouting at them to look the part, and it was a hard task. Many looked like peasants who had been pressed into the fledgling army. Zonis knew the type. He glanced left, right and up. Guards patrolled at irregular intervals, cradling crossbows, either along the clearing or up on the rocky heights above. There was no way anyone could approach the officer’s and administration quarters unseen.
Two guards barred the way to the entrance as usual and one sent a message back that Sinoz and Kimel were reporting as requested. They weren’t kept waiting long and were soon standing before Wottek in his office, Clora sat on his desk with just enough clothing on to hide her modesty. There really wasn’t much left to the imagination. She had a set of new clothes – if the brief strips of cloth could be called that – and her hair had been made up.
“Present from the boyfriend?” Zonis asked Clora.
“If I want you to speak I’ll tell you, and then only to me!” Wottek snapped irritably.
“She’s my niece,” Zonis countered mildly. “I’m concerned as to her welfare.”
“She’s got nothing to complain about,” Wottek stated forcefully, “although she moans a lot,” he added with an evil leer. Clora smiled on cue. Zonis winked at her with the eye furthest away from Wottek so he couldn’t catch it. Clora lowered her eyes.
“You wished to see me?” Zonis addressed Wottek.
“Yeah. I’m reliably informed you’re some genius with training. My contacts in Niake tell me you were the best before you got ill. They didn’t want you, did they? All that hard work and it’s thanks and now get lost.”
Zonis decided he really disliked Wottek. The man had the social grace of a pile of droppings. “That’s why I turned my back on the Koros. If they reward years of dedication to a job with dismissal and no pension, they can take a long walk off a short plank.”
“Huh?” Wottek frowned. “You a sailor or something?”
“No,” Zonis said, surprised. “I was merely making an expression.”
“Well don’t. You don’t get nowhere here being clever with me! Stick to plain talk, got it? Right, so you’re good at training soldiers to fight. The boss wants you to train up the soldiers to fight the regulars. You can do that?”
Zonis thought on the problem for a moment. To train anyone up would take time; it depended on the equipment available, the willingness of the subjects, enough space to be able to practise the manoeuvres he thought were necessary, and overall the help he would need from sergeants.
Wottek was impatient; he took Zonis’ hesitation as a refusal. “You don’t do it then we got no use for you. We don’t need no sick old man who’s no use to anyone. You can go dig latrines.”
“I’ll do it,” Zonis said, “but it’ll take time. I’ll need to see how good the soldiers are to start with before I know how much needs to be done. You have a collection of peasants and militiamen, yes?”
“You’ve got a few sevendays, that’s all. Then we’re moving.”
“Impossible,” Zonis countered, shaking his head, “I can’t transform untrained rabble into an army in that space…….”
“Then you ain’t no good,” Wottek snapped. “I was told you was the best, but that clearly ain’t true.”
“I am good, but I’m not one of the gods; time is what I need.”
“I say it can be done in three sevendays so it can be done! You ain’t no good, grandpa, you can dig shit holes till you drop dead.”
“Alright,” Zonis slapped his thighs in irritation. Wottek really was one of the most stupid, dense and hidebound people he’d ever encountered. “I’ll train them up to conquer the world in three sevendays. Happy?”
“You’d better, because if they don’t win their first battle, I’ll cut your head off personally.”
Zonis sneered behind his face cloth. Wottek couldn’t see it, obviously, so he didn’t react to it. Zonis wasn’t worried, the guard captain would probably have to be told that the expression was a sneer, and then told what a sneer meant. “Right – so now I’m on the payroll, I wish to spend a few moments with my niece. I haven’t seen her for a few days and I want to catch up with her.”
“What for? She’s fine. She’s happy. That’s all you need to know. Now get going and train those men up.”
Clora slid off the desk. “Oh, please, Wottek, its just for a few moments; I do miss my uncle. I’ll be a very good girl if you let me talk to him. Please?” She leaned over him and slipped her herd-beast hide brief tunic down, freeing her breasts, pushing them into the guard captain’s face. She rubbed them in his face for a moment. Wottek made a pleasured sound and guzzled on them for a moment, then pushed her away, his face red. “Yeah, yeah, sure. You can, as long as you promise to do that thing I like after I come off duty.”
Clora giggled and nodded, then adjusted her top, and then, once decent again, turned and took Zonis by the hand, leading him off to one side of the room. Kimel stood looking a little unsure of himself. Wottek glared at him. “What are you looking at?”
“Uh, nothing, chief.”
“Get lost.”
“But I’m supposed to keep him in sight.”
“I’ll send him out when he’s finished speaking to her. Now go!”
“Fair shout,” Kimel said, happy to have been given permission, and trotted off.
“Idiot,” Wottek muttered and looked over the papers he’d been given to check by his boss.
Zonis bent and put his mouth close to Clora’s ear. “How are you getting on?”
“Alright,” she whispered back. “But he’s a brute and uncouth. Just like the worst of the patrons of the Black Rodent.”
“Hmm, I guessed that. The scrapings of society; they always get into posts like this in these sort of organisations. A bully and stupid. He hurt you?”
“Nothing I can’t deal with,” Clora said, glancing at Wottek who was clearly struggling with the paper. “He’s happy with me.”
“So I see. We’ve got to get word to Demtro that this lot are likely to be on the move in three sevendays. It doesn’t give us much time.”
Clora nodded. “So what do we do?”
“Either escape here, or find a way of passing a message on.”
“Don’t think we can escape,” Clora said, “we’re watched too much and there’s too many around.”
Zonis grunted. “Right, so what we do is to work on the problem from different directions. You work on Wottek to see Lombert Soul, then you work on him. Try to seduce him. You’ve got to get to the top. You understand?”
“Alright – but why?”
“Make Wottek jealous. I want him to be so damned angry at his boss stealing you that he’d be prepared to get his own back by betraying him. Meanwhile I’ll work on a couple of people at the training ground, see if any of them are easily bribed. You can normally spot them fast enough.”
“Alright,” Clora giggled, making Wottek look up. “It’ll be fun.”
“Dangerous, Clora. Be careful. Meanwhile, you see
anything overnight arriving? Lots of packets, or bags of anything?”
“No, but I wasn’t allowed out early this morning from my quarters.”
“And where are they?”
Clora opened her mouth but Wottek clicked his fingers. “Alright, enough of the touching family reunion. Clora, over here now. I want you on my desk this moment. And you, get going and train my men up. Get going!”
Zonis regarded the irascible captain. “Who’s going to inform them I now have the authority to do that?”
“Eh?”
“I can’t just go out there and say I’m going to train them…..”
“Alright! Don’t make a full scale issue about it!” Wottek glared at the guard sergeant standing by the exit. “You, Pitikkan, go tell the squad leaders this man Sinoz is to train the men up until I say otherwise. Got it?”
Pitikkan, a tall, fair haired man with a hard face and curved beak of a nose, grunted. He opened the door and jerked his head at Zonis. “C’mon, you heard the Captain, let’s go.”
Zonis saluted stiffly at Wottek who ignored him, then nodded to Clora and turned smartly, fighting the urge to start coughing. The talking had irritated his lungs again. He fought to control his breathing and followed the sergeant out of the room. Wottek slapped his hand on the desk, indicating Clora to sit on that spot. She meekly complied and received a crude fondling from the captain which she endured. He really had little idea as to how to make a woman enjoy being touched.
“You should be a little easier on poor uncle Sinoz. He’s not a well man.”
“Shut up, slut,” Wottek said harshly. “You’re here to please me. Forget about that old has-been; he’s going to be too busy to worry about you anymore. So how about showing me how grateful you are in giving you all these nice things?”
Clora smiled, wishing he’d break a leg or something, and began pleasuring him. Wottek forgot all about the papers on his desk and leaned back, shutting his eyes.
Zonis made a point about carefully studying the passageway back to the clearing. Off to the left as he went through one stone passage there was a smaller tunnel ending in a wooden door. It was free of dust; the handle looked polished, indicating frequent use. There were no other visible alternative passages until they got to the smaller cavern. Then when they got back to the big cavern there were a few other doorways which may or may not be portals to corridors, or maybe merely storerooms. Guards were everywhere here and so it was clear there would be no way to check.
Back out in the daylight Kimel was waiting for him. Pitikkan snapped at the two men to follow him over to where a number of men were striking bales of hay. They stopped by them and two squad leaders came over to see what was going on. They were dark haired, rough looking men with brown studded tunics that went down past their belted waists to their upper thighs. Pitikkan jerked a thumb at Zonis. “Captain says he’s here to train the men up to defeat the Koros, a gift from the gods.”
The two squad leaders laughed evilly, displaying gapped teeth with blackened stubs in places. “Oh? Well be my guest,” one said.
Pitikkan turned to go back to the guard office, but stopped as the other asked about Kimel. “Oh, he’s here to hold the new guy’s hand. Boss thinks the new guy needs protecting.” More laughs. Zonis screwed his eyes up as a coughing fit overtook him. He bent over, wracked with a hacking fit, and blood spattered his mask. Zonis wiped it away distastefully, red-faced, his eyes watering. His lungs felt as if they were on fire.
“You gonna survive the day?” the first squad leader asked, “or you gonna die on us?”
“I need to sit,” Zonis wheezed.
“By the gods,” the second groaned, “we’ve been given a cripple. What use are you?”
Zonis dragged a small wooden crate over and sat down heavily on it. The crate creaked for a moment and Zonis tensed, but then the crate held so he relaxed. “Let me see them lined up fully armed and equipped,” he said, still fighting for breath.
“Why?”
“Because,” Zonis said, exerting patience, “they’ll go into battle that way, won’t they? No point in practicing in a manner they’ll never use when the time comes.” He fumbled for his pipe and some of the painkiller.
The two men saw that and pulled grimaces of distaste. They didn’t care one bit having a newcomer being foisted on them, especially one who was clearly unwell. To make things worse he appeared to be a smoke-taker, something that placed him so far down on the social ladder that he wasn’t merely on the ground, so to speak, he was underground. Kimel stood by the side, staring blankly at them. “What’s this all coming to?” the first muttered under his breath, but nevertheless turned away to fetch his squad. The second spat into the ground in front of Zonis’ feet, glared at him, then stamped off in a temper.
“Think they don’t like me,” Zonis observed, filling the bowl of his pipe.
“Scary,” Kimel commented.
Zonis grunted, then lit the dried leaves and inhaled, forcing the smoke into his lungs. The painkiller initially stung, as it always did, then deadened the pain and Zonis sighed in relief. He shut his eyes and allowed the deadening effect to take hold. As always, along with it came the tingling of the nerves away from those directly affected. He had no idea why this happened, but it was this that was pleasurable and made a smoke-taker want to take it again and again.
Time seemed to drift and he was only vaguely aware of his surroundings. People were as half shadows in his mind, moving around him but he could not see or hear them properly. “What do we address you as?” came the truculent voice of the first squad leader close to his ears.
Zonis opened his gritty eyes and focussed with difficulty on the man standing before him, holding his head away from him. He was also upwind. Regretfully, almost, Zonis took the stem of the pipe from his mouth and tapped the smouldering remains of the painkiller out, crushing it under his heel. He stood up with a sigh and looked at the man. “Training Commander Sinoz, Squad Leader,” Zonis said, his voice slow and half slurred.
“The men are on parade, Commander,” the second man said, his voice clearly full of resentment.
Zonis adjusted his face cloth and studied the four ranks of men standing behind the squad leaders. There were approximately two hundred of them. He looked in surprise at the squad leaders. “So many? You should be captains.”
“There are more of us but they are out on patrol,” the first said. “Your orders?”
Zonis walked off to one side, followed by Kimel and the two squad leaders. Kimel looked lost but automatically followed Zonis. Zonis halted on the end and looked along the four lines. They were irregular and the men were looking at him in curiosity. Their attire was a mix of militia-type leather tunics, vestments and leggings, and some very rudimentary clothing. They appeared to be the poor and underprivileged sections of Kastanian society. They were carrying swords, spears, axes, knives and a few farming implements were dotted here and there. Shields were infrequent, and where they existed they were mostly of the rough wooden circular type.
“I want to see them march up to the edge of the grassed area there and back again.”
The two leaders looked perplexed. “March? What’s that to do with fighting?”
“In battle you’ll face disciplined men fighting as a cohesive unit. Against a rabble they’ll cut them to pieces. I want to see them maintain a disciplined line. Can they do that?”
The first squad leader grunted and stamped off to the front. Clearly he was unimpressed. “Right, you lot, all of you are to march neatly up to the end of the grass, turn round and march back here again. Go!”
The men set off, not in a neat line, but in groups. Already the neat lines of the parade were in chaos, but they all moved off. The trouble really began when they had to turn. Those in the front tried to turn but only succeeded in blundering into the next line. The men got themselves mixed up and it was a sorry line that returned, men in different units alongside each other. Zonis put a hand to his face and held it for a momen
t.
“Stupid manoeuvre, can’t see the point of that!” the second squad leader growled.
“The point of that, Squad Leader, is that in battle or approaching a battle you may be surprised by a new unit appearing from the rear so it is vital to be able to swing round to meet them head-on. This lot would be hit while they were busy trying to get themselves untangled, and cut to pieces.”
The squad leader muttered and looked away, his arms folded. The first rubbed a bristly chin. “Well, how do you get them to stop messing it up, then?”
“Space the ranks more and get the rearmost line to turn first and so on.”
The squad leaders looked at their men for a moment as the ranks reformed. “How far apart?” the first asked. The second was still doubtful about the whole procedure, and the need for it.
Zonis walked over to the first and second lines. “Too close. Front rank forward one pace.”
The men looked at each other, and a few complied, so the rest followed when the squad leaders said nothing. Zonis began walking down the space in between the ranks, eyeing the men and their weaponry. “This is the perfect space when on the move or before a battle. Ideally you’d have spears in the front rank and swordsmen behind, but I suppose we’ll have to make do with what we have. You’ll be facing three kinds of opponent,” he said, turning to face the two officers who were close behind. Kimel was behind them, looking a little concerned. Zonis ignored him.
“Who are they, then?” the first officer asked.
“Spearmen. Tough men, Kastan’s regulars. They won’t break easily, you can bet on that. Then you have the archers. They’re nasty; they’ll stand back and shoot holes through your ranks. Unless you have something that can counter them, you’ll take heavy losses before you get to grips with the enemy. Then there’s the cavalry, and that is who I’m going to train you to fight against, as it is that arm of Kastania’s army you need to fear the most.”