Riding the Red Horse

by Christopher Nuttall

  She noticed that Nateel’s face appeared to be wet.

  “What’s the matter?” Joonta asked, instantly annoyed.

  “Our general speaks mighty words which have touched my soul,” Nateel said, sniffling, “but I fear greatly that I will fail him. Coam must rise to this challenge, Joonta. I must rise. But I do not know how.”

  “I told you this morning, it would have been much better had someone else been chosen in your place,” Joonta grunted.

  “Yes,” Nateel said bitterly, “you’ve voiced your evaluation of my worth several times since General Erel selected us to join his guard. But what of Erel’s plan? Does it not strike you as historic?”

  Joonta considered. Erel’s talk was radical by any city-state’s standards. So radical, in fact, she wasn’t sure it was feasible. Intermixed formations eschewing city-state allegiance for the sake of the Combine proper? Part of what made Coam’s archers effective was their sense of identity. Their uniqueness. Fighting for the Combine, they also fought for their pride as women walking in a world dominated by men.

  Dissolving Coam’s archers into squads and reassigning them at the component level . . . surely Coam’s three captains would protest mightily, once Erel’s full plan became known.

  Or had the word already been put out? Erel had spoken of being under orders from the Conclave itself. Were the three captains complicit?

  Erel had said the Conclave wanted the militia reformed from the ground up. The general seemed to have taken the order literally. Did he really have the authority to do what he claimed must be done? Would the forces of the city-states accept it?

  Joonta expressed her misgivings to Nateel.

  “You’re Coamian,” Joonta said finally, “does not your heart beat with some degree of pride, for our people and our way of life?”

  “Of course it does!” Nateel said, suddenly shooting to her feet. She stared up into Joonta’s face.

  “This heart—” Nateel thumped a fist several times into her sternum “—pumps the same blood that flows in your veins, Joonta. I was raised on the same milk from the same breasts, trained in the same schools . . . but unlike you, I’ve not had the good fortune to be fawned over by the school leadership. While other girls received special tutoring and the attention of mentors, I was always declared too short or too fat or too clumsy to matter, so people merely overlooked or—worse yet—put up with me.”

  Joonta wanted to tell Nateel it was foolish to have expected anything different, but suddenly from across the lake came the gentle howling of a wild dog. To be joined by other howls, from different parts of the mountains around them.

  Feral. Untamed. The offspring of runaways and orphans.

  But hunting as a pack, those same dogs could be lethal. They were one of the reasons why the caravan kept its fires lit throughout the night, with a rotating, armed watch on the surround. Just to be safe.

  Joonta stared over Nateel’s head, into the night, listening to those haunting canine cries echo across the water . . .

  Then Joonta slowly dropped her chin, and looked back into Nateel’s burning eyes—in which Joonta saw intense desire, as well as fear. Could the former be coaxed to defeat the latter? Was it possible for Nateel to be any more than what she already was? If only because somebody took the time to believe in her, the way others had always believed in Joonta herself?

  Joonta fingered the bandage on her arm, where Erel’s blade had made its irrevocable scratch. There was deep symbolism in that, just as there was deep symbolism in using the Combine flag to staunch the flow.

  “Your turn on the watch,” Joonta said, finally.

  Nateel merely nodded, dried her face, and went to check in with the watch commander.

  #

  The following morning, the general himself assumed command of their activities. His traveling clothes had been eschewed for armor and weaponry, along with the crested helmet that denoted Erel’s station. His arms were scarred and veined, not an ounce of excess on them. He held his shield and his spear with experienced ease, and his bronze breastplate gleamed dully in the morning light.

  “The first step,” the general said, walking slowly up and down the line of his young guard, who all stood at attention in pairs, “will be to teach you to function as a team. Not Muxians nor Urrekians, but as soldiers of the Longstar Combine. Today there will be no swordplay. No archery. No spear practice. Today we drill as a unit, and we’re going to keep drilling until I see that you’ve all got it right. Do you understand?”

  An exclamation of yessirs went up into the air.

  And drill they did. Nothing but battle formation maneuvers and commands. Back and forth across the meadow that lay to the east of the lake. Until the grass had been trod flat and each of them was soaked through with sweat. Facing movements. Columnar movements. Again and again and again, until the initial stumbling, disjointed motions of the three dozen young men and women coalesced into a crisp, single-minded body of smartly-moving, tightly-marching troops. The commands—some unfamiliar to Joonta at the start—soon took their place alongside the similar muscle-memory cues which had been ingrained into Joonta with the Coamian formations. Even Nateel got into step, after tripping and jerking her way through the morning. Such that by the time the general—who’d walked along with them, calling their movements the entire day—brought their practice to a halt for the evening meal, Nateel’s head was held high for the first time since Joonta had known the shorter woman.

  The heads of the others—the inferior troops from the other city-states—were also up. Eyes looking keener.

  And there was chatter over dinner. Not much. But some. To break the silence which had dominated previously.

  The next day, it was more of the same. And the next. And the next.

  When seven risings and settings of the sun had come and gone, the general’s guard could turn on a pebble and execute their combined movement without blinking or breathing.

  At which time, Erel began to introduce tactical considerations.

  “The whole point behind all of this,” Erel said, “is to get your brains ready to tell your bodies what to do while your ears stay open for the battle commands being issued by your officers. In this case, me. We’re not just practicing to look pretty in a parade. Now I’m going to show you how to use these formations and these movements to close with and destroy the enemy.”

  Shieldmen were shuffled to the front.

  Spearmen were ranked behind the shieldmen, spears through the gaps.

  Archers—Coamian, Mighian, and others—were ranked behind the spearmen.

  With the shield-bearers crouched, and the spearmen braced low—legs wide—the archers set themselves to fire between the heads of the spearmen. And there were warrior-mages behind the archers, to provide pyrotechnic exclamations and other specialized artillery with even greater range than that of the archers.

  Joonta and Nateel—mounted, roving—were the pinpoint weapons. Eyes above the fray. From the saddle they would see what those on foot could not. Arrows, expertly placed, could make all the difference between the line holding, and the line breaking.

  For another seven days, they practiced. The same movements, in unison. But this time with weapons at the ready. Spears thrust as a synchronized thicket of lethal barbs. Shields interlocked like the scales of a snake. Arrows flying in controlled volleys. The concussive blasts of the warrior-mages making smoldering holes in the turf, sometimes hundreds of paces distant.

  The general’s expectations were hard. Exacting. He upbraided them at will. If their movements and timing were not to standard, his hand would suddenly be there to slap shoulders or cuff the backs of heads. The flat of his sword would thwap painfully against thighs or calves.

  Yet, the harder he pushed them, the more they responded to the effort. People began to see the quality of one another, and nobody wanted to be shown up by anyone else. Effort redoubled on effort. The dinner meals became alive with talk. Some people even began to smile. And to laugh. And to j
oke amongst themselves, all around the general’s campfire. While the general sat back and watched. And allowed the faintest hint of satisfaction to cross his otherwise expressionless face.

  For Joonta, it was a solid challenge. One she threw herself into with as much effort as she could muster. And for once, Nateel seemed to be finding her footing too. She was not impressive to look at, but she knew her place in the formations as well as any of them now, and her legs and arms responded to the general’s commands even before her head knew what was happening. Even Nateel’s pony seemed to prick up its ears and hold its neck high.

  However, one single question lingered: would it be enough—in battle?

  As the general himself had said, they weren’t training for a procession.

  #

  The night before they broke camp, Joonta again found Nateel already up when Joonta returned from her turn on the watch.

  “Aren’t you exhausted?” Joonta asked. “This has been the hardest score of days in your life.”

  “Is it that obvious?” Nateel asked.

  “You’re thinner at the waist, I can tell that much,” Joonta said.

  “Privation I can endure,” Nateel said. “I am no stranger to it.”

  “You’ve not felt the sting of an enemy’s blade against your flesh,” Joonta said sternly. “Will your wits remain certain when it’s your own blood being spilled?”

  “Why do you want me to fail?” Nateel said, getting up off the log at the side of their tent where she’d been seated. She was barely a shadow of a shape in the thin moonlight, but Joonta could see Nateel’s chin thrust violently forward.

  “I’ve seen our archers panic and die,” Joonta said. “Good ones. Archers who were expert with their bows. During practice. And yet, the chaos of battle unnerved them. Disastrously.”

  “I kept my head when the general’s caravan was attacked,” Nateel said.

  “Mountain toughs looking for a quick meal aren’t who the general plans to fight,” Joonta said. “The Northern Empire awaits. The army of the Empress will not turn and flee at the first sign of organized resistance.”

  “Then you are practically as inexperienced as I,” Nateel said, her chin still thrust out. “Oh, you’ve been on many mountain patrols, Joonta. You count yourself a veteran. But like you said many nights ago, you never faced Syqarians. Some of the others in the guard have. You did not.”

  Joonta felt her ears grow hot. A swift desire to raise a fist and strike Nateel welled up in Joonta’s heart. The smaller woman had deeply insulted Joonta’s martial pride. Who was this runt to question Joonta’s judgment, when it came to matters of battle?

  “Go ahead,” Nateel said, “hit me. If it’s that important to you to prove your point, you can knock my teeth out. It won’t change the fact that you know I’m right.”

  Joonta’s blood thundered in her ears.

  One blow, across the face. That’s all it would take to send Nateel sprawling. And yet . . .

  “Go take your turn on the watch,” Joonta said flatly.

  The women glared at each other for a long, tense moment, then Nateel walked past Joonta, abruptly brushing Joonta’s shoulder in the process.

  #

  The caravan slow-marched for a dozen days, carefully winding its way from pass to bowl to stream to valley, and to another pass again. The rogues of the mountains kept their distance. It seemed to Joonta that word had gone ahead—caution, this caravan had teeth. At each meal break, the general put his guard through their paces. Quick-sprint exercises. And at the start of each new leg of the journey, Joonta and Nateel were sent forward to scout the path.

  They were three days from the border of the city-state of Zurr when the ambush happened.

  Without warning, a small stone bridge which crossed one of the river Zurr’s tributaries, went up in a violently spectacular demonstration of warrior-mage demolitions proficiency.

  Suddenly halted in their tracks, and unable to cross the water, the caravan was set upon by a substantial force of armed and armored men. Many dozens of them. Perhaps as much as a company? They came from either side of the ravine, down the mountain slopes and out of the trees where they’d been previously positioned. Waiting.

  Their silky-smooth, shouted speech was alien to Joonta’s ears.

  “Imperial raiders!” General Erel shouted.

  The forward scouting party—which had been on the other side of the bridge when it had been destroyed—wheeled its ponies. Joonta and Nateel watched in gape-mouthed horror as the wagons came under direct attack. Without thinking, Joonta sent her pony down the bank and into the cold water. The animal whinnied with complaint as it forded the stream. A glance over her shoulder told Joonta that Nateel was directly behind her. They rode up onto the bank at the other side, and set off at a full gallop to join the melee.

  The Syqarians and Haynians had fallen into protective ranks around the wagons and the civilians. The general called his guard into a wedge-shaped battle formation with himself near the tip, and the swept edges facing out towards the enemy: shieldmen in front, spearmen behind, archers in back of the spearmen, and warrior-mages in back of the archers.

  Volleys of Imperial arrows began to pepper the caravan.

  Joonta felt her nerves come alive, as she observed the fighting from afar. This was it. Would the new training take hold, or would the general’s guard crumble? The Imperial forces—two waves, closing from opposite directions—hadn’t seemed to notice either Joonta or Nateel yet. The Coamians were either too far away, or the Imperials didn’t think two women riding ponies posed much of a threat.

  Joonta could see the general’s wedge—coiled like a spring, ready for violence.

  Joonta shouted over her shoulder to her comrade.

  “Nateel! Be ready! We have to try to pull their focus off of the general!”

  Nateel merely nodded, her legs clamped hard to the sides of her pony as the animal galloped forward.

  Joonta was practically panting in time with her own steed. By now hundreds of arrows decorated the sides of the general’s wagons. Several unlucky men had already gone down, and the shields of those who still stood, were festooned with Imperial shafts.

  A single, deafening war cry went up from the Imperial troops. They were pushing for full envelopment.

  But Erel’s voice was louder than them all.

  “VOLLEY!” he yelled.

  Arrows spat out of the general’s formation and stuck fast in Imperial shields as well as Imperial men.

  The ponies slowed, and both Joonta and Nateel closed on the nearest enemy flank. The Imperials were stacked up on each other, trying to use body weight as much as muscle to crack the general’s wedge. Joonta’s bow was in her hand and she began rapid-nocking arrows, not necessarily bothering to aim because at that range, it was impossible to miss. Nateel did the same. Five men were down before the alarm cry went up, and the Imperial flank whirled to face the Coamian archers.

  “CONCUSSIVES!” Erel yelled.

  The warrior-mages deployed their wares. Tiny clay jars wrapped in waterproof, tarred cloth, were sling-launched over the heads of the imperials. The ground where the jars landed blew open with thunderous explosions, flinging some of the imperials away—like rag dolls in a storm.

  Joonta felt the blasts, as well as heard them, and momentarily had to get control of her pony as the animal went wide-eyed and threatened to bolt. Nateel was almost thrown off her steed, but managed to keep one fist knotted in the animal’s mane, which she used to upright herself in the saddle and bring her steed to bear.

  “VOLLEY!” Erel commanded again. The Mighian bows snapped shafts into Imperials, who had become confused trying to fight the Coamians on horseback, and the general’s wedge at the same instant. But the enemy on the opposite side was undistracted. They crashed into the general’s shieldmen. Erel’s wedge formation compressed dangerously as the shieldmen were literally pushed back, sandals sliding on the ground; the groaning and yelling of the Imperial troops being matched
by Erel’s shouted call for his guard to keep the line intact.

  “SPEARS OUT!” Erel commanded.

  The Combine spearmen thrust in unison.

  Imperials screamed and died.

  Joonta loosed more arrows, point blank. Into faces, into chests, into shields. Return fire came in the form of Imperial shafts whipping past Joonta’s head as she guided her pony back around the way she’d first come.

  “We have to take the pressure off the other side!” Nateel shouted.

  “I know!” Joonta replied. Together the women rode back toward the tip of the arrowhead, and around to where the Imperials were like a single wave, crushing the wedge.

  “SPEARS OUT!” Erel commanded.

  Thrust, stab, kill.

  “SPEARS OUT!” he commanded again.

  Thrust, stab, kill.

  But it was not enough. The line was too tight, and broke with an almost audible snap. And suddenly the enemy was in among the general’s guard, blades slashing.

  “SWORDS!” Erel cried. Joonta had a brief glimpse of the old Haynian as he had his own shield up and his own sword out, his crested helmet thrust high and his eyes almost glowing from behind the helmet’s slits: his teeth bare, ready for what was to come. She plowed her pony into the mess and fired arrows down into Imperial backs as fast as she could nock them. Men screamed and turned on her with rage. Joonta’s pony reared up and whirled away from the danger, horse’s blood flying, and throwing her off the animal’s back. Per training, Joonta tucked and tumbled, letting her bow clatter to the ground while the injured pony fled.