The Shasht War (21 page)

Simona had told him many times that if she ever returned home, she would go up to their country house, or "Zob" in Shesh and stay there for the rest of her life.

Conflicted, a part of him wanted nothing more than to go back to Shasht and resume his old duties at the hospital. But another, newer part wanted to make something in this colony they were going to found.

"Thank you, Admiral, that would be very kind of you. My daughter would love to go back."

"Who knows? Perhaps the Emperor will find her suitable for his bed. Your daughter as concubine to Aeswiren, Biswas?"

"Oh, sir, that is too flattering..."

A slave brought news that dessert was ready. Heuze sent the men with the chained mor away.

A rich pudding fried in fat and sugar was brought in, and they ate it with beakers of hot tea while the admiral described some of the gorgeous loot he had seen brought in from the city.

And then their cheerful meal was interrupted by a frantic, disheveled messenger brought in by the sergeant of the Guard.

"From Captain Karby, sir, the patrol on the north approach."

"Yes, I know where Karby's located. What is it?"

"Sir, an enemy army is approaching. Coming down the road that runs north into those hills."

"Another army?" Heuze set down his hot beaker. A new force had entered the equations. Heuze had not expected anything like this so soon.

The fourth day of the retreat saw the army of Shasht retire over the battlefields where they'd won their great victory. They moved back over the exact spot. Broken spears and shields were still scattered about. Ordinarily the men would have taken souvenirs, but now their reduced spirits made them weary of the soaring landscapes around them.

They had no idea which side in these impenetrable woods the stinking monkeys would attack. Now they had to fight an enemy with huge numbers, who constantly came up with a fresh surprise for them.

From the first contact outside the monkey city, this had been the pattern. There would come a short clash of arms, the discharge of clouds of arrows, and then the enemy would pull back with magical precision and fade into the forests. Then a savage assault followed on the flank of the Shasht army.

Heuze would be forced to shift positions, strengthen the flank, and prepare to retreat again. The other flank would be tested, and the fight would shift back across the battlefield. Clouds of skirmishers hung around the Shasht army, curtailing scouting and keeping Heuze uncertain. Scouting patrols now had to go out in full company strength, which limited them to the most essential task: scouting the route back to the sea.

Heuze's plan to burn villages was set aside. The villages were out of reach now, and there had been no time to damage the city. The enemy's direct attacks had been much too powerful to ignore from the outset.

Heuze would never forget the sight of those disciplined regiments marching out to confront him on that first day. They had looked almost like regiments of crack Shashti troops. Before Heuze could pull his army out of the city and face them, the enemy had attacked in three places. When Heuze finally had his men in some sort of formation, his right flank was attacked by a powerful hidden force.

Since then constant attacks by archers and even occasional raids on their lines kept the men from properly organizing.

Heuze had a terrible urge to get back to the sea and the waiting fleet. Convinced that the enemy had twenty to thirty thousand fighters, he could not figure out a way to make a stand.

Back at the coast they had erected a small fort. With ten thousand men backed up by the fleet, he was confident he could hold that fort for years, but out here in these trackless forests he had nothing but high anxiety. One crucial mistake, and he could lose everything.

The men sensed the officers' fears, so when they trampled over the old battlefields, they openly made signs to ward off evil. The priests screamed at them for these forbidden pagan practices, but to no avail. Many men intoned the ancient prayers to the older gods, begging for protection. Some said that the army was in the grip of disaster and they were marching into the jaws of death. Nothing could match retreating over an old battlefield for bringing on bad luck, everyone knew that.

As he was carried across in his litter, Admiral Heuze noticed with a chill that the bodies of the fallen were gone, all of them. Those of the monkeys and those of the men. They had removed all the dead, and all the metal. Simona Biswas had sworn that the monkeys did not eat the bodies of the enemy, but Heuze really didn't want to believe that. For some reason it was important to him that the monkeys ate the flesh of men. Especially since he knew no other reason why the monkeys would take the bodies of the fallen men. The idea that the mots would bury the bodies of their enemy with respect and proper ceremony was too appalling to even entertain.

On the far side of the old battlefield, Heuze met his chief of scouts. The flank patrols reported quiet conditions on both sides of the position that faced north and east. One flank backed up to an area of crags and naked rock. It was unusual in the landscape of the new world and had been nicknamed "Old Shasht" by some of the men. The other flank pushed out among the trees, using a deep stream gulley for cover.

The center of the army was drawn up on a flat meadow just south of where they'd defeated the second monkey army. On their front the trees began a hundred yards distant. A stream bisected the position, but it was no more than a few inches deep and ran between flat stones.

The enemy had broken off contact, except for occasional arrows from the trees in front.

General Dogvalth brought the latest reports from the flanks to Heuze, while the admiral sat on a rock by a pond. His bearers, four strapping fellows from the Third Regiment, eagerly plunged their heads in the pool.

While they refreshed themselves, Heuze huddled with his officers and then with Filek Biswas. A stale lunch was hurriedly broken out and distributed. Some hard biscuit, some pressed cheese, and a little sour wine mixed with water. While they ate Heuze studied the reports, looked at the crude map, and tried to think like his opponent.

"He's up to something, Filek. I can smell it."

By now everyone in the army could smell trouble. They were all hanging on the enemy's next move. The initiative had been in his hands for days.

"We're up against a master tactician, Admiral. I think that's clear. It is just the latest in our misfortunes."

Heuze spat and cursed. Even Filek had become a defeatist. How bitter, how galling. Everything had been going so well! They had won two quick victories and then taken the accursed monkey city, too. But then everything changed. Like that plague the previous summer, it was a curse.

"He's backed off. We don't have contact on either flank. Why is he leaving us alone? Normally he is always engaged on one or the other flank. We can count on it, just as we can count on being attacked at first light every day."

"Well, he knows where we are."

"Oh, yes, he knows that. And he knows he's got me at a serious disadvantage on this ground."

"He has kept the initiative by working on that disadvantage."

"Oh, damn me, do you think he could be marching his whole damned army onto our rear?"

"It would fit the pattern, certainly. He's always threatening to cut around us."

For the bountiful land was now a treacherous trap, and every mile that separated them from the coast was one too many.

"Any messengers from the fort get through today?"

"No, Dogvalth says the woods are filled with ambushes."

"We must get back to the coast." Filek's anxiety was showing, but Heuze gave a chuckle, then a guffaw.

"Softly, softly," murmured the admiral gloatingly.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"We must catch this monkey. You know the old saying?"

"No."

"Softly, softly, catchee monkey..."

"Mmm, how do you plan to catch this particular monkey? He seems more likely to catch us."

But Heuze was thumping the map.

"He's trying to march his army around us and attack us from the rear. That means his force is somewhere out there, marching fast along narrow trails. Maybe he's even split his force. Maybe we can pick off the two pieces just as we did before. Whatever he's up to, I intend to take our whole army and turn it about and attack."

"What if we don't find him?"

"Then we'll be leaving him behind. For the first time we'll have a real separation of our forces. So we'll just march on to the coast and get behind the walls of the fort."

"I see."

"Either way a thrust to our right is the proper way to go."

Heuze turned to an aide. "Get Dogvalth."

General Dogvalth came running. He had learned to run in response to the admiral's summons.

"General, I think I've rumbled him this time. He's trying to get behind us."

Dogvalth blinked in stupid surprise.

"Behind us?"

"Yes, probably planning a double envelopment from ambush, knowing him. So we're going to do something about it. Do you think the men would like to take a crack at the enemy?"

"By the Great God's hot blood, they would like nothing more, Admiral."

"Good! I want to take the whole army and push straight south from here. There's a river down there somewhere, and we'll have to cross it when we reach it."

"You think the enemy could be out there?"

"He's either down there or out on the other side. If we can catch him in transition, we can hurt him badly."

Dogvalth nodded. "Yes, of course."

"And if we miss him, then we can disengage completely."

Heuze's hand brushed this way and that on the map while Dogvalth watched and nodded.

"Yes, Admiral, a good move. I will see to it."

Soon the men were roused from their meager lunch, and the regiments were reoriented to the south in two assault columns separated by a hundred yards.

If an attack now came from the old left wing then the Blitzers and the Fourth would form the new front line. The army of Shasht was well drilled. They performed the maneuver flawlessly despite the difficulties of the terrain. The men wanted to find the fornicating monkeys and hammer them hard. They were tired of being forced to retreat for days at a time, constantly harried about the flanks.

They filed into the trees on their front, leaving the open space of the meadow behind. Good formations became more difficult, but they continued the march.

But then suddenly a rush of monkeys attacked from the trees to their left, hitting them along the axis of the old front line.

The Second Regiment was taken by surprise and broke up into a series of groups, some of company size, some smaller, all surrounded by the enemy. The racket soon brought the Blitzers up to help. With their aid the Second managed to break up the enemy concentrations and regain its own cohesion, but there were casualties and a loss of confidence among the men.

Meanwhile Heuze had been apprised that the enemy had attacked where the army's old right wing had been set. Heuze instantly ordered his leftward line of regiments to face the source of that attack. Unfortunately, they were now stretched out on narrow deer trails. This was a reason Shasht commanders avoided battles in the forest.

Heuze wanted to get away from this position, and move southward, but now another enemy assault was launched, straight onto the southern front of his regiments. Thousands of monkeys flooded forward under the trees in an unstoppable tide.

With a roar the battle caught fire up and down the line and became a long solid line of stabbing, hacking warriors, digging and gouging with shield and spear, while swords rang and drew sparks under the dry trees.

"Damn!" Heuze cursed again. The enemy had been a step ahead of him once more. He'd played right into this attack. Now he'd have to fight his way through to get the men to the roads that lead to the sea. He unrolled the maps once more, and studied them while he chewed anxiously on his fingernails.

Filek Biswas turned away from the small hospital cot. The man lying in it was dead. Like so many others in the other cots that lined the dark room.

He gave a sigh. So many dead, so little that he could do for them.

The plague had struck again, just as he'd predicted, igniting among the men who'd come with Admiral Beshezz. Just as it had done the previous year, it killed about one in three and left many others severely weakened.

Also affected were men who'd survived it the previous year. They came down with the same fevers, and were incapacitated for a day or two, but then it passed and within another day or two these men were back on their feet. Weak as kittens, but alive.

Although the fort was besieged the entire time by a large enemy army, it was not a catastrophe. Luckily, only a quarter of the previously infected men came down with the fever again, so there were enough soldiers to keep the monkeys out. Also food supplies came in from the sea.

He pulled off the hat, tunic, and gloves he always wore on his ward visits. Outside the ward he washed his hands and face from the tub he'd ordered set up there. He even changed out of the clogs worn in the wards and his ordinary sandals.

Filek's strict quarantine had worked. Imposed from the moment the first case had been reported. From then on no one had gone to the ships, and no direct contact with anyone aboard the ships had been allowed. So far, it had worked. The men aboard the ships had yet to report any outbreak of fevers, even the newcomers among them.

Filek had a theory that diseases spread by some kind of invisible form of life. Perhaps simply too small to see. Filek had been introduced to the telescope in his youth and understood that there was a scale of things that went beyond that of the normal world. So, he reasoned, maybe a miniature world existed that was invisible to human eyes.

If the plague was caused by a minute life-form, then his quarantine kept it from reaching the fleet. His theory was reinforced by every day that passed without any plague reports.