Doom's Break (43 page)

When Aeswiren awoke, he found Nuza sitting beside his litter on a camp stool. The tent was otherwise empty and lit by a single lamp hanging from the tent pole.

"I am honored, Mistress Nuza. But surely there are many who are worse off than me."

"There are, Great King of Shasht," said Nuza in her own tongue. "But none of them are as important today as you."

"Well, in that case, perhaps you can tell me how I'm doing."

"Surgeon Biswas was able to remove the arrow. He has sewn up the blood vessels that were cut. He says you will live if the wounds stay clean."

"Well, that's somewhat encouraging. The good Surgeon Biswas is the foremost practitioner of medicine in the world, so if I have both him and yourself at my side, I must have a fighting chance."

Nuza smiled and squeezed his hand. Aeswiren studied her features and saw again the beauty that had pierced his soul.

"What is going on beyond these concerns over an old man's health?"

"I am not entirely sure. Thru Gillo is now commanding our army. I don't know who commands yours."

"What is the hour? How long have I lain here?"

"It is midnight. The enemy is expected to attack at dawn again, but this time we will be ready for his tricks."

"Well, I hope so. This enemy has a skinful of them."

"Here, Lord, you must drink." Nuza held a cup of water to his parched lips. After a few gulps, she pulled it away.

"It's thirsty work, lying here like this."

"I will bring you something to eat. You must regain your strength. We will move you to Dronned later on."

"Yes, yes, but first I must see my brother. Has he come yet?"

"No, but he is expected."

Aeswiren lay back and let his eyes feast on Nuza. The grey fur, the dark eyes with their inhuman color, so widely spaced beneath the enormous eyebrows. Her face was both beautiful and frightening in its difference. He pondered once again how he and other men must appear to her. Huge, coarse creatures with thick facial hair and naked skin. Everything about men must seem ungainly and ugly to her.

"Lord, what is it?" she said, leaning close.

"Nothing," he mumbled, but tears began to stream down his cheeks while she stared at him.

Men might wish to live among the mots of the Land, but they would never be anything but men, and if men were to infiltrate the culture of the Land, they could only degrade it. For the first time in many years, Aeswiren the Third felt a wave of self-pity wash over him.

"When I look at you, Nuza, my dear, I think sometimes that I would rather be an ordinary mot, one of your people, and therefore free to seek your hand, than to be the Emperor of all Shasht."

Nuza grinned, used to Aeswiren's affection for her. "But your people need you, Lord, and if you were one of us, they would not have you to take care of them."

Aeswiren chuckled despite his tears. "You know how to bring me down from the clouds, my dear. And you're right. I have huge responsibilities." He tried to sit up.

"No, Lord, what are you doing?"

"Well, someone has to fetch my brother. He has a terrible job to do, and it must be done tonight."

"Lord, you do not have the strength to even stand, let alone go out in the dark to find him."

"I will get someone to help me if I have to."

As if he had heard all this, a figure wrapped in a cloak and wearing a wide-brimmed hat entered the tent. Behind him came Simona.

The cloak parted, the hat was removed, and Mentupah Vust stood there.

Aeswiren felt his breath catch in his throat. "Mentu, you came at last."

"Mistress Simona was most insistent, brother."

Both men grinned.

"She told you what's needed, I'm sure."

Mentu knelt down by his brother's litter. They clasped hands. "She did, Lord, and I fear it as much as I might fear death itself."

"You have known for more than twenty years that something like this might come."

"That's why you locked me in that tower..."

Aeswiren closed his eyes for a moment. "Yes, brother, that is why I locked you up. To keep you from being used to depose me."

"And now you need me to pretend to be you."

"Yes."

"And I must agree, because all else depends on this."

"The men must see that I am still their commander."

"Won't they be able to tell the difference?"

Aeswiren chuckled. "Not when we've finished with you."

When he was finally ready for his performance, Mentu Vust had bandages around his neck and chin and a heavy robe wrapped about his body.

Aeswiren pronounced him "as close to me as he can be."

Mentu would say very little to the men, just show himself and lead them in a short chant for victory before moving on. He would walk slowly, lean on a staff. It was already widely known that he had been wounded. A crier would go ahead of him to tell the troops what to expect. As long as he could wave to them, urge them to fight for victory, that should be enough.

Sergeant Rukkh would accompany him, as well as Klek, both primed to whisper things he should say to the different regiments. Most of the senior officers were in on the deception, but they had kept the secret well. The men were unaware of how close Aeswiren had come to dying from that arrow.

At the first stop in front of the hastily assembled reserve force, Mentu suffered a bad attack of stage fright, but he got over it after an initial stumble or two. Perhaps it was the way that Sergeant Rukkh behaved toward him, as if he really was Aeswiren the Third, that helped him step into the illusion himself. Rukkh never addressed him as anything but "Lord" and "Your Majesty."

Mentu was never really sure afterward if that was what did the trick, but after that first halting little speech, he found his way. For the rest of that night, moving from regiment to regiment, he became the Emperor, Aeswiren the Third. By the end, in front of the Seventh Regiment, he was shouting his lines and forgetting to lean on the staff. Klek had to whisper to him to remember that he was supposed to be badly wounded.

Well before dawn, the task was done. The men were reassured that their Emperor still lived. The regiments had moved back to the new, shorter line chosen by Thru. They found that an army of monkeys—kids, grannies, and females of all ages—had been working like beavers to dig trenches and set up protective fasciae.

This occasioned amazement all round. The men of Aeswiren's army had seen many new, unexpected sides to the native people. That they were people as much as "monkeys" was now coming to be accepted.

There was discomfort from this realization, however. Some men balked. Others were appalled at all that had gone before.

"You know we ate them, we killed the bastards and ate their flesh. How can we atone for that?"

Such a ghastly thought ended many an argument in the regiments that night. No one could deny that it had been the sudden arrival of a well-drilled regiment of monkeys that had enabled them to hold their line and then reorganize.

Back in the tent where Aeswiren lay on his litter, nursed by Nuza and attended by a select group of orderlies, Mentu sat down and felt the tension flow out of him.

"Well, brother," said Aeswiren, "what was it like to be the Emperor?"

"Like a dream. I started out pretending, and that was no good. But Sergeant Rukkh helped me believe, and then I think it went well."

Aeswiren chuckled. "Oh, it did. Everyone was impressed by how strong I sounded. 'A little unsteady on his feet,' they said, 'but his voice was strong!'"

"And what happens now?"

"We see if we can hold off this enemy until we get reinforcements. If we're lucky, he will make a mistake that we can take advantage of."

"And if he doesn't make a mistake?"

"He will have to press his advantage. He lacks supply and is operating in hostile country. His army will starve soon, so he must force a conclusion. That means he will attack. But many things can go wrong during an attack, and we must be ready to seize any opportunity that comes our way."

When dawn broke over the eastern hills on the third day, it was met with considerable apprehension in the ranks of both the allied armies. The shock of the previous morning was still strong in everyone's mind. Those who had been temporarily blinded were crouched down with their hands over their eyes to protect themselves from who-knew-what deviltry.

But the sun rose in all its customary warmth and majesty. It was a cloudless day, and off to the north a single thin column of smoke rose up into the sky until the upper air tore it apart and blew it out to sea.

After a few minutes, it became clear that there would be no dawn attack preceded by sorcery, and men and mots relaxed a little. The enemy was only visible as a line of fasciae set up beyond the range of the archers.

Aeswiren's men were tired and hungry, and underneath that they were angry. They had been taken unawares by a flank attack carried out in darkness. They felt humiliated and eager to get the chance to set things right.

The army of Dronned was also tired and hungry, and underneath that it was frightened. Thru could sense it. The loss of Toshak had undermined the mots' faith in their eventual victory. Always it had been Toshak who had led them to victory. Now he was gone.

On top of that, the night attack had unnerved them. The army of Aeswiren was seen by the mots as being the standard to emulate. Their skilled, seasoned veterans had always taken a heavy toll on mot armies. And yet that army had been taken by surprise and almost destroyed. As a result, the army of the Land had been forced to abandon its carefully prepared positions and retreat a mile and a half. Giving up that ground without a fight rankled many hearts.

What both armies knew for certain was that this would be a day of destiny. They had fought the enemy for two days and survived his worst. Could they rise up today and destroy him?

Thru had new scouting reports to study. He had not slept that night. He had worked ceaselessly to position his troops and form a clear idea of his enemy's dispositions.

The pyluk horde had moved during the night. They were now stationed in Lupin Valley, a few hundred feet below his right flank. Between the two was a steep slope, though not a vertical cliff. Attacking up that slope would be virtually impossible—except that, with sorcery in play, it was hard to know what might be possible.

Still, Thru's biggest immediate concern was breakfast for six thousand mots and six thousand men. He cast anxious eyes toward the south road. If they were going to be supplied, the food would all come up that road from Dronned and Warkeen.

His second concern was the problem of moving the thousands of wounded across the Dristen Bridge and down to Dronned as quickly as possible.

Nuza had performed miracles since she had left Aeswiren's side. But it would still be hours before they got most of the wounded into the wagons and rolling south.

The problem now was that Thru's line was barely a hundred yards from the medical camp itself. The tents full of those too wounded to move would be within bow shot if there was an attack.

One other problem had been solved, however. Simona had volunteered to take on Thru's previous job, the unenviable task of running messages between the two army commands. Because of her skill with either language and because she was intimately acquainted with both army commanders, she was perfect for the job.

She was Thru's first visitor of the new day. She brought good tidings from Aeswiren, who had slept for several hours and was now eating some gruel under the watchful eye of one of Filek's trained nurses. Mentu had done a wonderful job in the night, and the men's morale was intact. However, their food supplies had been lost in the night attack and were no doubt being consumed by the enemy.

Fortunately, Thru's next visitor was another old friend, Quartermaster General Meu of Deepford, who had brought with him the twenty wagons loaded with rations that he'd promised yesterday.

"A bit of breakfast will go some way to restoring the troops' spirits. They've had a hard night."

"Bushpod cakes, bushcurd pies, salt fish, beans, eggs, fresh bread, we've got it all. Even guezme tea!"

"Guezme! Well, I'll be."

"Came from Highnoth. Two Assenzi and three donkeys arrived day before yesterday. Amazing, eh?"

"I'll say. The Assenzi think of everything, and believe me, I hope they keep it up."

"This sorcery has been outrageous."

"Foul stuff. He kills to get this power, the Assenzi say."

Meu was another graduate of the Assenzi academy, so this frank talk of the Assenzi did not faze him. "Let's hope breakfast will help our mots defeat him."

Thru was happy to receive some toasted bushpod cakes with fried eggs and a piece of salt fish. He washed it down with a mug of guezme tea, the highest quality.

Throughout both armies, the food and the strange green tea lifted spirits and brought renewed strength. The aromas of wood smoke and toast covered the hillside.

They were still eating when the throb of the accursed drum began again in the north. As they grew aware of it, both men and mots stopped what they were doing, looked up to the sky with trepidation, and then quickly looked down again. Conversation faltered and dwindled away, leaving them with only the low, muttering throb, an evil sound booming on endlessly.

After a while it became maddening. Some were unable to stay silent in the face of this oppression. They leaped up and screamed frantic insults to the north.

The throbbing drum took no notice.

Thru sent out aggressive scouting parties. Something was coming, and he wanted to have the best possible understanding of the situation before the day became hectic. His scouts, in teams of six and twelve, clashed with the pyluk in the valley below. Another group, working northward along the steep western slope of the hill, were ambushed by men. They fought back and escaped after losing two mots.

The enemy had followed Thru up onto the top of the hill, and most of his army was set in four large divisions lined up opposite the allies. One notable addition was a fifth square, of a thousand horsemen, that was formed up behind the infantry. They were set out in lines, but most of the men were still dismounted.