Taghri's Prize

by Peter Grant

  Taghri swung into the saddle of his horse, and turned to his raiding party. “Troops, in column of twos, right face, at a walk, march!”

  He nudged his horse gently with his heels, turned its head to the right, and led the way into the gathering gloom.

  8

  Taghri lay prone behind a bush, no more than twenty yards from the makeshift stick-and-mud enclosure, more of a fence than a wall, around the village of Qisha. The moon was rising, its light threatening to expose them, but he could see a bank of clouds moving in from the coast. He decided to wait a few moments longer, until the cloud reached the moon and made the night a little darker. It would delay the start of the assault beyond the scheduled time, but that was why the signal to begin was for him to give, and no-one else. The others would wait until they heard it.

  He glanced to one side, then the other. The twelve men in his section were lying in a long line facing the south wall. Every fourth man carried an unlit torch in one hand, instead of a weapon, along with a firepot in the other, their lids closed for now to prevent tell-tale light from escaping. Everyone had a rack on their backs, small enough not to impede movement, holding a few clay jars of naphtha. Each jar’s neck held a wick made from an old rag. The fire-starter could grab a jar from any nearby soldier whenever he needed one, light the wick, and throw it.

  He heard a sudden loud neigh from the stables on the east side of the village, and tensed. Had one of the team there moved too soon, and made the horse nervous? He waited for a few moments, but the sound wasn’t repeated. Sighing, he tried to relax, checking the pistol in his hand yet again, keeping his finger well away from its trigger. The hammer was at full cock. The frizzen was down, covering the flash pan and its priming powder. The gun was ready.

  As the moonlight faded behind the clouds, footfalls told him that the sentry on this side of the village was returning. Only three patrolled inside the flimsy barrier, which spoke volumes about the lack of danger felt by Qisha’s residents. On the Samha side of the border, the village would have had a much stronger wall and at least two sentries per side, to keep each other awake and alert.

  Taghri rose and tiptoed up to the fence, flattening himself against it next to a place where the top of the makeshift barrier had crumbled. The sentry had looked out through the gap every time he’d passed it so far. He raised his pistol, lined it at the gap in the wall, and waited for the sentry’s face to appear. The instant he saw it, he pressed the trigger firmly. The hammer sprang forward, striking the frizzen with the flint clamped in its jaws, producing a shower of sparks. There was a momentary hesitation as they burned down the powder column from the opened flash pan into the breech, then the pistol fired with a blurt of sound, a gush of white smoke, and a jolt from the recoil that ran up his arm. A soft lead ball, wrapped in a scrap of paper to make it fit the smooth bore better, churned out of the barrel to smash into the sentry’s head just ahead of his ear. He was dead before he could cry out. His body slumped, then fell back inside.

  Taghri’s men raised a sudden cheer, rushing forward, and he heard similar sounds from the other sides of the village. Axes chopped downward, smashing gaps in the flimsy fence, and the attackers surged through them, spreading out as they’d been trained to do. The fire-bearers thrust their carefully prepared wood-and-straw torches into their firepots, igniting the naphtha-dampened head at once, and thrust the flaming instruments of arson beneath the edges of the sun-dried thatch roofs nearest them. Almost at once, flames began to lick up towards their peaks. The sudden, alarmed shouts and cries from inside the homes redoubled, interspersed with shrieks and screams from women and children.

  The first men began to emerge from their huts, looking around in panic. Most clutched knives, clubs, scythes, spades or other implements, whatever had first come to hand when they were rudely awakened. Those who ran in panic at the sight of the invaders were allowed to do so. Those who offered resistance were mercilessly dispatched by brutally efficient sword and spear thrusts, or the blow of an ax. Their families, screaming in terror, were kicked and shoved towards the village gate. Wailing, they fled as more houses around them began to burn. The noise rose to a crescendo as animals added their moos, bleats and bellows of alarm and distress to the cacophony. As cows, goats and donkeys lumbered from their stalls, they too were driven towards the gate, kicking, stumbling, running over fleeing villagers, adding immeasurably to the confusion.

  Even as he evaded a thrust from a pitchfork and opened its wielder’s throat with a slash from his scimitar, Taghri couldn’t help a sudden thought. The Prioress of the Temple of Kokat in Alconteral had asked, “What is a battlefield but chaos and disorder?” The shambles around him was a clear demonstration of the truth of her words. Perhaps her assertion that Hobal and Kokat had more in common than he’d thought was equally true. Irritated with himself, he shook his head. This was no time to think about that!

  They were halfway towards the gate now, and the speed of their advance was slowing to a crawl. Taghri knew why. So many villagers and animals were trying to funnel through the gate that they were blocking the path of those behind them, just like a constriction in a stream caused water to dam up behind it. The crush was getting worse as other attacking units, moving in from the sides, packed the villagers into an ever more confined space. Taghri raised his voice. “SLOW DOWN! Let them get through the gate! Kill only those who resist!” He heard his men take up the cry on either side of him, and grinned wolfishly. The hard weeks of training were bearing fruit. They knew what he was trying to accomplish, and were fighting with their heads as well as their weapons.

  As they drew nearer to the gate, the houses became bigger, and better built. They burned just as well as the hovels further away, though. Taghri shouted, “DON’T BURN THE BIGGEST BUILDINGS UNTIL WE’VE LOOTED THEM!” Calls of acknowledgment and agreement came from his men, echoed by those of the units on either side as they came into view, bunching the last refugees tighter and tighter, squeezing them through the gate as fast as they could push them.

  Taghri broke off from his men and ran to the largest house on the square facing the gate. It was guarded by one of his men, who pointed. “Othmar’s inside, sir!” He nodded as he ran past him and entered the house. The troop sergeant had the family lined up against one wall, the women wailing, the children screaming. Their husband and father appeared to have tried to wield a cleaver against a trooper with a sword. The result showed in his dead, bleeding body, collapsed against an inner wall.

  Othmar was watching a trooper lever at the heavy hearthstone with a long metal bar. He glanced at his commanding officer, and grinned. “Hot work, sir!”

  “Yes, it is. What news?”

  “Three more teams are tackling the other councilors’ houses, sir. We’ve uncovered two chests already, and – aha!” They both jumped to help the soldier as he heaved the big, flat stone upwards. A hollow beneath it contained a small, locked wood-and-iron chest.

  “Well done, trooper!” Taghri praised as the man pushed the hearthstone back to lean against the fireplace. He and Othmar grabbed the trunk and lifted, finding it surprisingly heavy. The trooper picked up his metal bar again, thrust it through the hasp of the lock, and heaved hard. The padlock broke with a metallic snap! Othmar lifted the lid, revealing several drawstring cloth bags. He picked one up, giving off the chink of coin as he tugged open the neck to be rewarded by the gleam of gold.

  “That’s what we came for!” Othmar rejoiced.

  “Good man!” Taghri praised the solder. “Get that chest on a pack horse. If it’s too heavy, split its contents between two horses. Soldier, get these women and children to the gate, and let them run.”

  “You bastards!” a woman half-sobbed, half-screamed. “You’ve ruined us!”

  “And what have you done to our traders and caravans in Samha all these years?” Othmar demanded ferociously. “That’s where all this gold came from, and you know it!”

  “It’s time for justice,” Taghri agreed, trying to sound as
brutal as possible. “You’re going to pay for all the times raiders have struck at us from your village, and you’ve profited from their loot. Get them out of here!”

  A trooper drew his sword. At the sight of its blade, the family shrieked in unison and rushed towards the door. He herded them through it, swatting at their posteriors with the flat of his blade, as Othmar closed the chest and picked it up, grunting.

  “This is a heavy bugger, sir! There’s got to be hundreds of coins in here!”

  “Good. I’m sure we’ll all enjoy spending their money.”

  The soldier shoved the last woman through the door. Taghri called him back, and gestured to the body against the wall. “Take his head and stick it on one of the protruding fence-posts next to the gate, along with the other councilors.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  It took no more than a few minutes before they had accomplished all they came to do. Hundreds of fleeing survivors were scattering across the fields and into the wilderness. Most of the men of the village were dead, their bodies burning in their buildings, or lying like limp rag dolls on the paths between the houses, or crumpled up in the square. The four large houses belonging to the mayor and councilors were now burning too, and chests and sacks containing most of the village’s ill-gotten gains from raiding were being loaded aboard pack horses.

  The troopers rendezvoused at the big stables erected just outside the fence, while the soldiers who’d held their horses brought them up. Taghri consoled them, “Don’t worry. Next time, you’ll be in the attack force, and some of these troopers will be holding the horses.”

  “I ’ope so, sir!” one retorted. “It’s no fun watching and not doing!”

  “Stop complaining, Yakub!” one of his friends called. “You’ll get yours, just as we all will.”

  “Yes, you will,” Taghri confirmed. “We’ll all draw a fair share of the loot, no matter what part we’ve played; and there’ll be more than enough hard work and danger to go around by the time this is over.”

  To his surprise, only one of his soldiers had been killed in the fight. He’d been surprised from behind by a yokel with a scythe, who’d almost beheaded him with a wild swing of its blade before being dispatched by a spearman. His squad leader shrugged as he reported to Taghri. “He was just caught in the confusion by someone he didn’t see coming, sir.”

  “And what about his squad mates? You’re all supposed to watch each other’s backs, to prevent this sort of thing!”

  “Aye, sir, an’ we did; but you can’t look everywhere all at once. This boy charged out of a burning house and caught us all off-guard. It happened so fast, Talat didn’t even lay eyes on him.”

  Taghri sighed. “I understand. I’ve been caught that way too. Pass the word to the others about what happened, and warn them all to have eyes in the backs of their heads from now on! Load his body onto a pack horse. We’ll bury him in the hills, where he won’t be found.”

  Several soldiers had suffered minor injuries, but only two were badly hurt enough that they probably could not continue the raid with the others. Their wounds were cleaned and bandaged, then they were assisted to mount, held in the saddle by a rider on either side. “We’ll be at the rendezvous soon after dawn,” a troop sergeant comforted them. “You’ll ride in a litter from there, and be well looked after while the rest of us work our asses off, you lucky bastards!”

  There were well over a hundred horses in the stables, far more than any community the size of Qisha would be able to use or justify. They had clearly been used to carry raider loot to the markets in Quwain, and bring back the luxuries they’d seen in many of the houses. Taghri noticed many of the soldiers surreptitiously stowing small items in their saddlebags or on their pack horses, but left that to the troop sergeants to deal with. They would inspect their teams before departure. Small, light items of loot that wouldn’t slow them down would be ignored – soldiers were going to be soldiers, after all – but anything larger than pocket-size would be forcibly discarded, and the soldier concerned would lose his share of the loot from Qisha. Since they had all been forewarned, they would have no excuse, and no grounds on which to complain.

  Within an hour, they were mounted and ready to leave. The village horses had been gathered into a herd, hemmed in by troopers riding all around them to keep them together. The wounded rode with their own escort in front of them, with a couple of scouts leading the way. Taghri rose in his stirrups and looked around in the pale moonlight, now shining clearly again after the clouds had passed. He raised his hand. “Troop, left face, at a walk, march!”

  As the column moved off, he fell in beside a pair of former galley slaves who’d volunteered to join the veterans in the land force. “No second thoughts or regrets?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” one of them replied firmly. “Too many of our own people have been killed, robbed, beaten, burned out or sunk by raiders, and the bastards back there helped them do it. They deserved everything they got.”

  “That’s right, sir,” the other affirmed. “This was payback. They started it.”

  “That they did. We’ve put a hurting on one of the raiders’ bases this night, and we’ll do it again soon. By the time we finish, it’ll be a while before they screw up enough courage to hit us again.”

  “Aye, sir – and when they do, we’ll hit them again. Maybe one day they’ll learn to stop.”

  “I doubt it, but a man can hope.”

  The column disappeared into the night, leaving the ashes and embers of the village in its wake.

  The moonlight helped them keep up a fast pace through most of the night. At moonset, Taghri called a halt for an hour to let the men doze, stretched out on the ground, a few of their comrades mounting guard and keeping the captured horses together. At the first light of dawn, they were in the saddle again and on the move.

  The column rendezvoused with Sergeant-Major Hadi two hours after dawn, in a secluded valley hidden deep in the hills. A tired cheer broke out as the scouts brought the news, and the men smelled the food cooking over fires in readiness for their arrival. Greetings were called back and forth as the men removed the saddles and pack saddles from their weary steeds, turned them loose to graze in a grassy clearing, and settled down to eat.

  Taghri took a piece of pan bread, loaded it with broiled goat meat, and sighed with pleasure as he took the first bite. Chewing, he crossed to where Sergeant-Major Hadi was supervising the refilling of the troopers’ pack saddles with fresh supplies.

  “You did very well, Sergeant-Major. You were right on time, and in the right place. I knew I could rely on you.”

  Hadi flushed at his praise. “It was nothing, sir. I’m glad I could play my part in this.”

  “You certainly have, and a very important one, too. Your share of the loot will reflect that. Come and sit with me.”

  They sat down in the shade of a convenient bush. Taghri went on, “We captured about a hundred and thirty horses. That’s enough to replace those we won’t be bringing back, with some over, so the Army can’t complain.”

  Hadi nodded. “Do the men know yet, sir?”

  “No, they don’t, and I’m not going to tell them until the time comes. I don’t want any of them letting anything slip during our next attack. Someone in the village might overhear them.”

  “Aye, sir. Why take that chance?”

  “We’ll leave two wounded men with you. They can ride litters slung on a pack horse. The other injuries were slight, so the men will continue with us. We lost one killed. I’d like three of your men to replace our losses, if you can spare them.”

  “I can, sir. After handing over the supplies, we won’t have to lead the pack horses, so we can move faster. If a few horses break away and wander off, it won’t matter so much.”

  “As long as it’s not more than a few. The Army will want one horse back for every one they lent us, remember. I don’t want to have to spend any of our loot replacing them.”

  Hadi chuckled. “Agreed, sir. I’d rather
spend it on me!” They laughed together.

  “We captured the equivalent of about eight hundred diracs from the village,” Taghri went on, eliciting a shrill whistle of surprise from the sergeant-major. “Yes, I was surprised, too. That’s enough to pay all the expenses we’ve incurred so far, and the base wages of everyone who’s joined us. Give it to Fihr when you reach Alconteral. I’ll give you a letter to him, telling him what to do with it.”

  Hadi nodded, smiling happily. “If the other two villages yield as much, we’ll be looking at some decent loot – and that’s not counting the possibility of a really big score.”

  “That depends on things we can’t control, so let’s not build our hopes too high just yet. Still, we’ve made a good start. Just remember, as far as anyone else is concerned, that money isn’t loot! It’s profits from a trading venture using my ships. I’m busy making more, and I’ll bring it back to Alconteral in due course. If anyone says anything about raiding in Talima, you know nothing and you were never here. The same goes for all our men, of course.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “All right, I’m going to write out that list for you, then get some rest along with my men while yours restock the pack saddles and load them onto fresh horses. As soon as that’s done, wake me. We’ve got a long ride ahead of us today.”

  Hadi woke him two hours later. “Pack horses are loaded, sir, and the riding horses saddled.”

  Taghri stretched, and groaned as his stiff bones and muscles creaked. “Thank you, sergeant-major. Get my men up, and let’s get everyone mounted. Here’s the list I promised you.”

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll take care of it.”

  He joined his troops in saddling the fresh riding horses provided by the sergeant-major’s people. Everyone in the attack unit mounted up, took the lead ropes of their pack horses, and sorted themselves into their teams and sections.

  Taghri looked down at Hadi from his saddle. “As soon as we’ve gone, get your people mounted as well, and get out of here. Your route should keep you clear of enemy patrols until you’re safely back across the border, then you can ride for the nearest Army base to turn over the captured horses. Make sure they give you a receipt for them, certifying that they’re all in good condition. Once you have that, head for Alconteral.”