The Warrior King: Book Three of the Seer King Trilogy (21 page)

Kutulu shook his head without answering.

“Turn the provosts out,” I ordered. “Get them down to the lines, and turn back anyone trying to surrender. Be merciless … we can’t afford to lose any more men.”

He saluted, disappeared.

“Come on, Svalbard,” I ordered, going back into my tent. “We’re for the right flank and see how big a mess we’ve got to deal with.”

Sinait came in, slumped down in a chair, breathing as though she’d run for miles. She looked up.

“Well?” she asked.

“Gods-damned awesome,” I said.

“I surprised me, too,” she said, with a bit of a smile. “But do you think it’ll work?”

“It can’t hurt. But there is something else you can do … put spells out against fear, concern, and cast anything you can that’ll calm the troops.

“Tenedos has the advantage, and I’ve got to try to turn it back before dawn.”

• • •

The rest of the night was endless, all screaming and scrambling. By false dawn, I’d done all I could and had two waves ready to attack, and I’d stripped the lines for reinforcements. I don’t know how many men obeyed Tenedos’s orders, perhaps 10,000, perhaps 50,000. In the desperation, no one was holding roll call.

Tenedos struck first, driving his soldiers as a maul drives a wedge, first widening the line between the Peace Guardians and my rebels, then mounting a small attack against the Guardians, enough to push them back to the east and north, farther away from us, and hitting us with his main force.

We tried to hold, to counterattack, but no use, and were slowly, inexorably driven back. There were too many experienced soldiers with Tenedos, no matter if their march to battle hadn’t been perfect, and my men, willing to fight and die though they were, simply weren’t good enough to stand against the emperor.

We fell back for a day, formed up, and they hit us again. We didn’t break — quite — but once more we retreated.

Scouts reported — which I knew well — the Latane River was less than a day’s march distant.

If we couldn’t drive Tenedos back, it appeared the rebellion was doomed.

I decided on a stratagem — I would feint with my left flank, hit hard with the right, and knock Tenedos’s army back enough to let us slip away to the north, toward Nicias, and later we could reunite with the Guardians and go on the offensive.

But it didn’t work.

All went well until the day before the attack. I’d put one of the best of my new dominas, a former regimental guide with the Khurram Light Infantry named Chuvash, in charge of the right wing. I was with him, making sure there’d be no errors but mine, and sent a galloper with our exact attack time to the commander of the left, an adequate ex-captain named Lecq. The man disappeared, just as my messenger to Trerice had. Unfortunately, I didn’t find this out until later and so proceeded as if everything was in order.

I’d asked Sinait and her magicians to raise a summer storm to mask our movements. The storm began on schedule, three hours before dawn, with fierce rattlings of thunder, wind whippings, but not much rain to keep from muddying the tracks we needed.

But the storm kept building, getting stronger, and torrents of rain drenched us. I swore, thinking Sinait had let her spell get out of control, and then my skirmishers reported Tenedos’s army was attacking!

He’d somehow learned of our plans and moved first. My front ranks, still going into line formations, were slammed back. I sent orders to Lecq to pull back, refusing battle, toward the Latane, and concentrated on this catastrophe on the right.

But there was no salvation, and gray dawn came, wind still wailing and rain lashing, as if this were the beginnings of the Time of Storms, still fourteen or so days away. Tenedos kept hitting us in a series of jabbing fast strikes and withdrawals before I could get my stumbling, half-trained men to respond.

I sent a galloper for Domina Sendraka, another to the nearest regiment for two companies of infantry.

He arrived within the hour.

“You’re going to think,” I said, “you’re under the orders of the emperor again. I want you to take as many of your skirmishers as you can summon, and put a screen between our forces and Tenedos’s.”

Sendraka didn’t answer but waited.

“You’ll be reinforced with two companies of infantry, unknown quantities to me. You’re to hold Tenedos as long as you can. Notice I didn’t say to the last man. An hour would be good, two hours would be better.

“Now this is my absolute order. You are not to get yourself killed, nor do I want a decimation of your forces.”

“That’s a difference from the emperor, a bit of one, anyway,” Sendraka said.

“This frigging war’s just begun,” I said. “And I’m going to need you. So keep them off guard, then fall back.”

“On what?”

“On the Latane,” I said grimly.

“Shit,” Sendraka said. A wide river at our back, a stronger, so far unbeatable force attacking — that would be our last stand.

I waited until Tenedos pulled his men back from their latest jab, then ordered withdrawal. I had my officers sweeping the line, trying to keep the situation from becoming a rout. Here and there, there were breaks, but no unit larger than a couple of squads, and the officers were able to stop them. Even those men didn’t drop their arms and blindly panic but fell back doggedly, slowly.

Sendraka gave me an hour … then two … then a third, and we were disengaged and retreating toward the Latane. I rode back with Svalbard and a handful of cavalrymen to the battlefield, and saw, from the crest of a hill, Tenedos’s army, pulling back to their previous positions and seemingly preparing camp.

There were knots of my men here and there, still holding defensive positions — a copse, a hilltop, the ruined huts of a crossroads, none in contact. We rode forward, puzzled.

I found Sendraka, thankfully still alive, in a farmer’s barn. He was exhausted, filthy, but unwounded.

“What happened?”

“Damned if I know,” he said. “Tenedos sent flankers around us, then about two regiments of infantry down our throats, and I thought it was time to follow your main orders and get out.”

“But they stopped halfway to us, and a whole slew of men on horseback rode forward, under banners. I think … I’m not sure, for it was some distance … Tenedos was among them.

“They talked, then the officers shouted orders, and gods damn me if they didn’t turn around and go back the way they came.

“I don’t understand it at all,” he said, a bit plaintively, as if disappointed he hadn’t been slaughtered.

“Nor I,” I said. “But I’ve learned never to guess a magician. Get your men moving. Back to the Latane.”

• • •

That night passed, and the next day, with no contact at all. It was as if we’d become invisible to Tenedos.

I sent Sendraka’s skirmishers back out, and Kutulu’s spies went with them, then through the enemy positions, and back with an answer, of sorts, by nightfall.

Tenedos’s position was lightly held. He’d sent his main forces after the Peace Guardians and Nicias.

This was insane. No general splits his forces or attacks a second objective until the first falls.

But we were still doomed.

He would, the proclamation shouted through his camps the next day, destroy the traitorous Damastes and his rebels without losing a single one of his own.

Within a few days we would be wiped out to the last man by magic, and all Numantia would cower and wonder at the power of Laish Tenedos, once- and soon-to-be-again emperor.

• • •

I set my headquarters in a farmhouse, and my own quarters behind it, in a half-ruined byre that hadn’t been abandoned by the oxen that long — or else I was even further away from my last bath than I thought. I hung canvas along one side and set hay bales for a chair and a table. I spread maps, trying to decide what I could do besides wait for Tenedos’s killing stroke, like the meek beasts did who’d lived here before.

I wasn’t willing to believe Tenedos’s magic could unutterably destroy us, although I’d seen more than enough of its might over the years, so I wasn’t willing to abandon our positions and flee like so many refugees south or north along the river, although I’d made what preparations I could for a partial evacuation.

But I must accept that he could do massive damage with his wizardry, then send in warriors to mop up with cold steel.

No solution came, let alone a good one, and so, long after midnight, after I’d ordered Svalbard to his blankets, I decided to get a breath of air, a drink of water from the bag that hung outside the shed.

I ducked under the musty canvas, had time for a long breath of air that smelt strongly of the nearby river, a smell I should have welcomed, but now would have gladly exchanged for the harshness of the desert and its winds, if the change would give me room to maneuver.

It was very still and very dark. Svalbard’s great frame was stretched beside the guttering fire, and two other soldiers slept in their cloaks nearby. But someone besides myself was still awake. A cloaked figure sat on a log near Svalbard.

“Good morrow,” I said.

“Most unlikely, Cimabuan,” the voice grated. “You would have been more truthful if you’d muttered something about what a shitass day it’s promising to be.”

It was Yonge.

“What the hells are you doing here?” I managed, trying to keep surprise out of my voice, knowing the bastard would have waited where he was for three days just to startle me as he had.

“Perhaps,” he said, “I’m thirsty for more Numantian wine. Or your women. Or perhaps I wish to study honor once again.”

“My apologies,” I said. “King Yonge, you are always welcome.”

“King it is no more,” he said. “Shall we see what you’ve got in that cowshed for me to drink?”

“Nothing,” I said. “But that’ll soon be changed.”

I kicked Svalbard, and he jerked to a sitting position, sword half-drawn.

“Be still, you boob,” I said. “Look at what managed to slip past you. If it’d been an assassin, you’d be looking for a new master.”

Svalbard peered at Yonge, then grunted and got up.

“I’ll not apologize for letting
him
come up on me,” he said. “Men are one thing, demons from the Hills another.”

“A demon, yet,” Yonge said. “Perhaps a promotion from what you usually thought of me?”

“Svalbard,” I ordered, “stop jesting with this barbarian and chase down a bottle of our best, whatever it’ll be. And you, Yonge, inside with you.”

He followed me into the shed, and I found two other lamps and lit them.

“No one will be able to say I came to take advantage of your successes,” Yonge said, slumping down into my chair.

“Why the hells aren’t you in Kait, being king like you’re supposed to?” I said. “And by the way, thanks for taking care of Achim Fergana for me … for Numantia.”

“No debt incurred,” Yonge said, waving his hand. “He was also my enemy. And we can stop this
king
nonsense. I’m no longer sitting the throne. Being royalty was ceasing to amuse me, and I had help in making my decision to abdicate.”

“You were overthrown by someone even more devious than you?”

“Not more devious, but Saionji and Irisu fight with the big regiments. I wasn’t overthrown at all, but chased out of Kait.”

“By who?”

“King Bairan,” Yonge said grimly. “He took Sayana and put it to the torch three weeks ago.”

I felt a harsh glee, remembering how the Men of the Hills had ravaged us when we fled the city. It may have been the capital of Yonge’s country, but I’d hardly mourn it being torn brick from brick, and the bricks torn apart for straw. I was trying to find a somewhat more polite response, when Svalbard came in, carrying two bottles in his big paw.

“Here,” he said. “If you’ve come from the Hills, likely you’ll be needing both.”

Yonge took one, shook his head.

“Only this,” he said, sounding regretful. “For we’ll be fighting at dawn, and I’ll need at least a few of my wits.”

Svalbard snorted, went out. Yonge busied himself with uncorking the brandy, and pouring a full glass. He drank about half straight off, then sat once more.

“I know you’ll not sorrow over Sayana being razed,” he said. “But here’s something to bring real tears. King Bairan entered Kait two months ago and has been systematically destroying every city and village in my country as he moves north like a pest of locusts. My
jasks
determined with their spells that Bairan’s decided Kait shall nevermore raid across his borders.

“The slack-wit! All that’ll happen is we retreat into the mountains where he dare not go, wait until he leaves, then rebuild. This has happened before in the Hills, and will happen again, as long as men know how to forge steel and lust after the herd of fat cattle across a border … or the herder’s wife.

“We’ll rebuild using our loot from his … and your … kingdoms. But not for a while.”

“Go back to why I’m going to be mourning,” I said.

“Bairan used this expedition as a smoke screen to close on Numantia,” Yonge said impatiently. “Something even a balding ape from the jungles should have figured out. He’s about finished resting his army and bringing it back to full strength after taking Sayana and will march for the Sulem Pass and Urey within the week!”

I wondered for an instant why Sinait or Kutulu hadn’t discovered this, then chided myself. All our resources had been necessarily aimed in one direction, at Tenedos, with little attention paid elsewhere.

“He’ll cross into Urey,” Yonge went on, “consolidate carefully, then send his army on north, right for you and that shitgob Tenedos.

“If you and those drooling idiots called Peace Guardians … yes, don’t look surprised, I may be a barbarian from the Hills but I, at least, keep my ears open, so I know what you’ve been up to. If you and those walking assholes couldn’t pull out that burr who once called himself an emperor … well, then, Maisir will do it for you.

“Bairan’ll no doubt set a price for his services higher than he did the last time he took a holiday in Numantia.

“Not that it’ll matter to you, Cimabuan, for I’m sure Tenedos will destroy you within a day or two, long before Maisir begins moving.”