The Crown of the Conqueror (42 page)

  "Forgive my manners, I have picked up some bad habits from my minions," said Orlassai-Erlaan. "My father is dead, Ullsaard. He thinks nothing of me now, but I would honour his memory. You wish to talk terms of your surrender."

  Ullsaard forced a laugh.

  "Not of my surrender, no," he said. "You might be able to kill me, but your army will be destroyed."

  The other man did not share Ullsaard's humour. His frown was frightening to behold and for a moment Ullsaard thought he would be struck down regardless of his opponent's claim to civility.

  "Little has changed from our last encounter, Ullsaard," Orlassai-Erlaan said. "I have a few thousand less men, but four legions are still not enough to match us. This is no barbaric horde you face, it is a trained army."

  "Depends what you consider training to be," said Ullsaard. "I'm happy to put your tactics to the test if you are. I reckon the odds are pretty even. Let's see which of us is the better commander, eh?"

  Again Orlassai-Erlaan paused, a flicker of nervousness crossing his face. Ullsaard felt a little glow of hope growing within and pushed home his point.

  "You know how good I am, but how good are you, Erlaan? You've seen one battle, and a straightforward one at that. I don't doubt that sword of yours could match a hundred men of mine, but a commander wins battles with his plans, not his blade."

  "This is a trick," said the other king, shaking his head. "You are scared and seek to outwit me."

  "Or I have outwitted you already and I'm just pretending to be scared."

  Orlassai-Erlaan's lips rippled with a snarl.

  "Words, Ullsaard. You used to fight your battles with armies, now you use words."

  "I'm told I have to be more of a politician if I am to be a good king," Ullsaard replied. "Come on, what's your answer. Kill me and be cut down by my avenging army, or are we going to do this properly?"

  "I will rip you to pieces!" Orlassai-Erlaan's bellow almost felled Ullsaard with its ferocity. "I will destroy your army and all of the empire will know me to be the true king. They will beg me to take up the Crown and lead them."

  "Fair enough," Ullsaard said with a shrug. He looked up at the sky. "Shall we start things in an hour? I wouldn't want to rush you."

  "Your insolence earns you a slower death, Ullsaard. I will feed your balls to you and strangle you with your gizzards. When you are screaming for me to release you from your agony, remember your flippant remarks."

  "I'll try to," said Ullsaard, tapping himself on the side of the head to indicate he was committing the words to memory. "When your army is shattered and you stand alone against ten thousand spears, you should remember that I offered you the chance to avoid it."

  Ullsaard turned away and started back towards his army. He heard the Mekhani king's growl and tensed, expecting a blow to land upon him. He would not give Erlaan the satisfaction of seeing him look back. Heart hammering, Ullsaard fought the urge to run and kept his pace slow and steady.

  He made it all the way back to his pavilion, shooing away his officers as they crowded around him, before his legs gave way. Unseen, he staggered into his bed space and flopped down onto the bedding, shaking uncontrollably. He wanted to throw up, and was glad that his body had not betrayed him earlier, because it had been an effort of will to stop his bowels from emptying themselves. Taking deep breaths to calm down, he closed his eyes and rolled to his back.

  "I better win," he muttered.

 

Orlassai-Erlaan stormed back into the camp, bellowing for the army to assemble. While the warriors gathered in their tribal groups, the war engines were lifted from their positions and the behemodons roused. Eriekh emerged from somewhere, dodging between the assembling fighter bands.

  "We attack?" said the priest. "Your conversation with the usurper went so well?"

  "Not well at all," Orlassai-Erlaan growled. "He has something planned, wanted us to fight in an hour's time. I suspect he has reinforcements arriving. We must crush his army before they arrive."

  "Why leave the defences of the camp?"

  "You call these defences?" Orlassai-Erlaan snarled, waving a hand at the ditches and earth ramparts. "They will not protect us. We are losing, Eriekh. Unless you have received some word from Asirkhyr that he has brought my second army from the desert, we do not have the luxury of waiting."

  "We have yet to fight a battle, and you concede defeat?"

  "Ullsaard has trapped us here, leaving a trail of unburnt fields and intact towns like a line of seed to capture a bird." The king-messiah smashed a fist into the side of his helm in self-remonstration. "And I walked blindly into his snare! While we remain here, more legions will descend upon us. We must break through Ullsaard's army and into Okhar, and send word to Asirkhyr to bring fresh troops to us."

  "What is your plan, mighty Orlassai?" a voice asked from behind. He turned to see the group of shamans, eyes averted from him.

  "All-out attack," replied the king. "Extend the army past the right flank of the Askhans and envelop them. Use the behemodons to engage their left flank and stop them reinforcing. When we have encircled the end of their line, redirect the beasts against the centre and scatter all opposition."

  "As you command, lord of the skies, watchful guardian of the deserts," said the shaman, bowing low and backing away. The group held a brief conference and then hurried off in different directions, calling out for others.

  "And where will you fight?" asked Eriekh. "What if they withdraw to their camps?"

  "I am going to kill Ullsaard," said Orlassai-Erlaan. "His death will not win the battle, but it will certainly shorten the war. He has brought us here for a reason; he cannot simply let us walk away this time. He needs to win this battle as much as we do."

  The first tribes were already pouring from the camp, spreading out along the road towards the Askhan army. The ground trembled as behemodons lumbered forward between the clusters of warriors, the crews in the howdahs shouting and laughing down at those forced to walk.

  "And have you anything to add to our strength?" the king demanded of Eriekh.

  "I am not a master of the sword," the priest replied. "Our powers are subtle, and I possess no particular skill for battle. Remember the other gifts we have bestowed upon you, not just that fine body. Lead your army, let them hear your voice, let them see the slaughter you wreak. I shall do my part to aid you, do not fear for that."

  "I heard rumour that when Ullsaard sought the Crown, Lakhyri visited upon him nightmares, and inflicted pestilence, snow and grief upon his legions," said the Mekhani king. "Can you not use such sorcery now?"

  "Such things take time to prepare and to work their way into the hearts and bodies of men," said Eriekh. "You think that if we could conjure up storms in an instant, raze the ground in fire with a word, we would have kept ourselves secret for these thousands of years? These things, the eulanui could do, but we are only their servants. Be thankful for the powers you have already been given."

  Orlassai-Erlaan grunted his disappointment and turned away. He joined the flood of warriors pouring out onto the grassland, taking up his position at the front and centre of the army. Harsh horns blared and the Mekhani shouted boasts and threats as their numbers swelled.

  The king-messiah studied the Askhan formations. They did not move in response to the assembling Mekhani horde. Two legions formed the centre, arranged narrow and deep, the long spears of the phalanxes like a forest. On their left, the spear blocks were dispersed and Orlassai-Erlaan's keen eyes spied lava throwers between the legionnaires; to any other they would have been hidden from view. On the Askhans' right, the phalanxes fell back in echelon, each a few paces further back so that the line appeared to curve away from their foes.

  From this, the king tried to discern Ullsaard's plan and work out if his own would succeed. On the face of it, the Askhan deployment favoured Orlassai-Erlaan's approach. The right would commit to attack, allowing the Mekhani numbers to spill out further and surround the phalanx. The left looked set to defend with the lava throwers, while the centre was poised to respond to either direction.

  Checking his own troops, the king saw that they were almost ready. He glanced at the sun, judging the time to be close to noon. The king-messiah was confident his scouts would have spied any reinforcements within ten miles. That gave him at least two hours grace, probably more. Ullsaard had thought himself clever to set the timetable, but Orlassai-Erlaan was wise to his tricks now. He would decide when they would fight.

  He waved to the chieftains of the lacertils and the lizard-riders set out, fanning across the grass in front of the Mekhani. As expected, the Askhan kolubrids issued forth from between the phalanxes to combat the approaching skirmishers. The lacertils closed fast, braving the clouds of bellows-arrows to bring their slings into range. With little room to withdraw and keep their distance, the kolubrid riders suffered in the exchange; their bellows bows hit hard but could not match the weight of missiles unleashed by the slings of the Mekhani cavalry.

  Another lesson learned from the first encounter.

  As the kolubrids fell back, the lacertils did not follow directly, but moved sideways, trying to force the Askhans back towards their own centre where they would impede any advance from the phalanx.

  Orlassai-Erlaan drew his sword and raised it above his head.

  "Attack now, my brave followers!" he roared. "End now the days of deprivation that have been heaped upon us. Take back your pride with your spears. Let your weapons feast on the enemy as we will gorge on their food and women!"

  The king looked on proudly as the army advanced. No mad dash, no hoarse shrieking; just a steady push with shields held to the front and spears shouldered. It was not quite the in-step march of a legion, but it was better than what Erlaan-Orlassai had seen of the Mekhani the first time he had encountered them.

  The ground was soft underfoot, still sodden from the spring rains. The Mekhani left a swathe of flattened grass nearly a mile wide in their wake, great holes left in the mud by the tread of the behemodons. Ahead, the Askhan legions shifted. Trumpets blasted and drums beat the orders as companies split along the left of their line, moving out to match the overlapping ranks of the Mekhani. In response, the legion next to them widened its lines, bringing forward the rear ranks of the phalanxes to fill the gap.

  Urged on by their drivers, the behemodons moved ahead of the infantry, stomping across the soft turf, studded armour plates slapping at their flanks. They dragged sleds behind them laden with more ammunition, young warriors clinging on as they bumped over the uneven ground. Erlaan-Orlassai could see the brightly feathered headbands of the shaman-chiefs waving in the wind as the tribal leaders called to each other from their howdahs, their ceremonial staffs waving and pointing to keep a safe distance between the monstrous war beasts.

  Startled birds launched from their hidden nests in front of the advancing wave of warriors, squawking and flapping madly. Gusts across the plain fluttered the feathers upon the army's totem standards and sent chains of bones rattling. The steady trample of thousands of sandalled feet set the ground to shaking, and as the Mekhani came within half a mile of the Askhan line sonorous chants lifted into the air; each tribe giving voice to its traditional war songs, rising in volume in competition with each other.

  In the narrowing gap between the two armies, the kolubrid squadrons made a break towards the behemodons, enduring a hail of sling bullets for a while until their faster mounts took them clear of the lacertil-riding warriors of Mekha. Their bronze arrows flew up towards the giant warbeasts, joined by bolts hurled from the Askhan spear throwers on the hill nearly half a mile ahead. The advantage of height was with the enemy and the behemodon mahouts pressed their mounts on into the flurry of missiles to close the range. From the howdahs, the nobles of the tribes hurled spears at the harrying kolubrids while the lacertils closed in behind to drive away the enemy.

  Two spears caught the foremost behemodon simultaneously, one lancing through its neck, another smashing into the woven cane howdah. Even as the beast slumped forwards, the structure fell apart, spilling red-skinned warriors into the grass. Several did not rise, but the rest recovered quickly and dashed away, bellows arrows chasing them from the kolubrids.

  The beasts with catapults upon their backs halted first, five in all, Mekhani scrambling down ropes to secure the chains hooked into the skin of their beasts so that they could not move too much. The arms of the catapults were pulled back and piles of fist-sized rocks loaded into the cups. At the cries of their chieftains, the war machines were loosed, the catapult arms snapping forward under the power of twisted rope to hurl their projectiles far up the hill, dark blurs falling upon the raised shields of the legionnaires.

  Onwards pressed the Mekhani, their chanting growing ever louder and faster, the shouted warnings of their leaders reminding them not to charge too soon. The hill occupied by the Askhans seemed to get steeper the closer the army approached. From here the Askhans looked like a wall of bronze and ErlaanOrlassai realised that the front ranks were kneeling, so that the back ranks could angle their spears down the slope.

  The king-messiah looked for gaps in the line as the ground sloped upwards. He searched also for Ullsaard, but could see no sign of the Askhan king. Instead he made directly for the icon of the legion in front, knowing that it was borne by the first company, the best fighters. He would destroy the veterans and sow fear into the hearts of the others with the ease of their destruction.