death's knight 27

 

Chapter 27

 

Sobus Aren was the commandant of the garrison in Hals Ochuroma; and he had not been happy about the abrupt command from the pale-haired cult heroine to get ready to march to Mesolimnos at a moment’s notice. Now she turned up, coming out of the temple, with an abrupt order to get a place-keeping garrison ready to deploy immediately and be magically transported to Mesolimnos. The woman did understand logistics, Aren had to give her that, and realised that even the most prepared troops could not move in less than half a day; but carry heavy items like tents or take a baggage train through heroic transport, they could not. Mules or oxen drawing carts would not walk into temple walls with the faith a man might. And even so, some of the mules had better sense than some of the other ranks.

It may be said that Sobus Aren had rather set ideas about women, and their place in war; he could appreciate that a commander taking his wife to war gave the men a figurehead and a token, and, if she was kindly towards them, would even fight harder to protect her. But in Aren’s mind, women belonged first and foremost on their backs if they wanted to improve the morale of the troops. He did not dare say so, especially as ‘Drex’ was a surname which far out-trumped ‘Aren.’ In Aren’s mind ‘cult heroine’ was some trumped up title given to the spoiled pet of an exalted family. He had no belief in ‘heroic travel’ which was plainly some trick of the priests. Sobus Aren was a glyph-lord of Thanus, with no desire to be a gyph priest or have any truck with godly magic. He considered himself a man’s man, and resisted the taking of glyph spells as feeble.

“My dear little girl, you have to understand....” he began.

He was not expecting to be thrown against a wall with a very capable hand at his throat.

“Don’t call me your dear little girl,” said Thea, in a controlled voice, almost conversational. “It’s the sort of phrase which tends to get men killed, because I start misinterpreting your intentions towards me, and start thinking that you believe me to look better between sheets than in armour.”

Aren whimpered and worked on controlling his bladder.

“You were about to say that I cannot transport heavy things. Quite true. However, your priests can inscribe glyphs of movement on carts and on the hoofs of transport beasts, to make them go faster; do I have to do your job for you? Apparently. As for the advance guard, you will be sending your most able at improvisation; and they will carry axes and spades, and will build rude huts from the surrounding trees and saplings; there are plenty. They can serve as accommodation for the officers when enough canvas arrives for the camp, moreover, you can use those tents which survived the mess Thorus Mils made of things, which the current garrison will leave. I want fifty men just to get things set up, and they can carry two man tents between them as well. The latrines are set up and undisturbed, so that, at least is something which will not need doing. Now, jump to it!”

He was dropped to the floor; and went sullenly to choose men capable of building rude huts, not the easiest task since Sobus Aren did not believe in initiative in this man’s army. Aren believed in obeying the rules and going by the book; and the book might talk about undermining a besieged city but never the besieged undermining their besiegers. The damned city state was cheating, and he should not have to deal with things like that.

Thea Drex went to harry the priests into the use of the movement glyph, and wondered whether the garrison of Hals Ochuroma was the most hidebound city in the Empire or whether they were just work-shy. After all, initiates could carve the glyphs; and though any priest could only activate so many every day, needing to refresh their kormajaia, they could get an advance party started.

 

 

oOoOo

 

“They’ve set up a temple with heroic movement,” said Ralthur Kron. “I imagine Thea Drex is here. Or rather, back and forth.”

“It might be another hero,” said Harkon, scratching his beard in thought.

“No, the Blood Moon does not encourage heroes,” said Kron. “She stole heroes of various gods as her alternative pantheon, and therefore distrusts heroes as likely to disrupt the status quo, and to betray her. She has had the training of Thea Drex from an early age, to give or withhold favour, to show her who she should obey. She certainly would not encourage martial heroes; I was dissuaded from becoming priest as well as lord of Thanos; the myth is that it is unmanly.”

Harkon sniggered.

“Does that make you my boyfriend?” he said.

“Laugh; the empire encourages male lovers as secret police, because they have had to conceal it until they are powerful enough to flaunt it,” he said.

“Now that’s an idea to toy with, as spies,” said Harkon.

“Bold,” said Kron.

“Ralthur, my friend, bold plans work best,” said Harkon. “And speaking of which, if I dye my beard, when they have some of the new garrison through, and have not shifted all the old garrison, why don’t we wander forth, in Selenite armour, and disrupt plans a little bit?”

“Grand! You can be Fadabius Drex, and nobody will dare disobey you, and I shall be Aquilix Kron, because there is a familial look. If anyone asks for names, that is, and then they can look for the noble officers  Drex and Kron until they are black in the face.”

“What’s more, whilst the besieging force is depleted, we know they can’t send everyone by heroic travel, so we can send some people to Agorakome, and maybe even further east, to sabotage the supply trains overnight,” said Harkon. “It’s a valid tactic of kryptene warfare.”

“And there’s nothing to stop you, if we set out spies to heliograph us, tossing a few thunderbolts into the marshes, when they get that far, to stir up the d... marsh creepers, I mean, to attack them,” said Kron, recalling that Harkon was sensitive to marsh creepers being referred to a ‘ducks.’

 

It had stopped raining, so Harkon was able to use a temporary dye in his beard and hair, not wanting to frighten Chionea by looking different when he returned home.

Wandering around the milling troops with lists in hand, misdirecting them was child’s play.

Having the mess hall near the sewerage outfalls of the city would be less noticeable at this time of year; but in summer, would be very unpleasant indeed.

 

 

oOoOo

 

Kaz and the original band of friends happily took the hero path to the temple of Alethos in Agorakome; and then hopped on to Gefura, when it became apparent that the army was not so far advanced.  The movement glyph had speeded some as far as this city, and Kaz, who had grown yet again in understanding of how to be a goddess, had managed to produce a glyph spell of her own, bestowing darksense on others. With rings of darkseeing on Protasion and Evgon, and Kaz’s own spell on Svargia, Kuros and Lelyn, they worked happily under clouded skies when the blood moon was at her waning. Movement glyphs were of no help at all if wheels fell off.

Kaz also scattered some powder into the stores of flour.

“Dare I ask?” asked Protasion, when they got back to base.

“Certain fungi, powdered,” Kaz replied. “Should leave them with interesting dreams at worst, and a failure to realise if they are soldiers of the Selenite army or spiders with a wild desire to dance, using all eight legs, at best.”

“No, really?” giggled Lelyn.

“Well, that’s the effect it had on one trógling I knew,” said Kaz. “The contortions were hilarious. The fool ate medicine fungi, not food fungi. It’s used by darklings in controlled ways in religious ceremonies to open a better path to the blue moon, but if you go to sleep having eaten it, the nightmares are said to be terrible. And continue into waking.”

“That could lead to them fighting their friends...” said Lelyn.

“Exactly,” said Kaz. “Hey, let’s buy some expensive wine and run up to the next  Selenite waypoint; the officers will stay in the tavern. Let’s make it uncomfortable.”

“How do we do that?”

“Protasion goes into the tavern looking his expensive and haughty self, and offers them wine from his own vinyards for the liberating Selenite officers when they come,” said Kaz. “Full of fungi.”

“Might as well make use of him,” said Lelyn, giggling at her husband.

They did this, and Protasion made much of praising the Selenites to the skies as his two trógling slaves carried wine.

Then they went home.

Having the first two sets of travellers discommoded would hold up the rest and should plunge the whole supply line into chaos.

 

oOoOo

 

Kaz might have wished to have been a fly on the wall when the proud fourth heavy cavalry trotted into the waypoint. In the Selenite army, the heavy cavalry were the elite, if largely ceremonial arm of the war machine; younger sons joined the light cavalry, who were given the real jobs, and the real danger, but the heavy cavalry were impressive, on big horses said to have the blood of hell-horses in their ancestry.

The higher ranking officers – and it may be said that all the heavy cavalry were considered officers to any other unit – were appreciative of the wine.

Their horses were less appreciative of one of their number solemnly attempting to teach them to sing; and another of their number seeing not horses, but giant spiders such as the toróg bred for silk. The carnage was considerable, before the junior officers managed to rescue the remains of the horses, and heal those whose wounds were not fatal. The man seeing spiders was trampled to death, and when notified, his younger brother in the light cavalry wept for joy and went home to learn estate management.

 

It took five full days for the officers to recover; largely because they self medicated with the delicious wine. By this time, they had managed to whittle each other down to half their numbers, and a horse fed oats in wine went on the rampage, and the next tranche of the army turned up with Sobus Aren himself at its head, and extremely unamused by the antics of the overbred ninnies, as he dubbed the heavy cavalry. He had only sent them out to get out of his hair, hoping they would mount a charge on the rebel city and get themselves massacred. Massacring each other might be funny in a way, but hardly productive. Aren snarled at eight surviving hung-over, chastened ninnies who had soiled themselves from every orifice and were still only partially certain which way up was, and whether they were actually standing on solid ground. He hung two of them on general principles, and flogged the rest. It was very satisfying, but tied them up yet another day.

And the new officers were green, the flogged officers being reduced in rank to horsebrothers.

 

Catching up with the front-runners tried him still further.  They had ground to a halt trying to get by with a lack of nuts for the wheels and the effects of a movement glyph on cart which had had fine grit added to the roller bearings. They had not yet broken into the flour.

Sobus Aren divided the goods from the supply carts up amongst the heavy cavalry.

“You have heavy horses which can carry more and you might as well do something useful as sit there looking not particularly decorative,” he said.

The heavy cavalry hated him as well as despising him for not having an illustrious name.

By the time they reached the marshes, and the lightning bolts drove marsh creepers out of the swamps onto the road, morale was not good.

 

oOoOo

 

Thea Drex regarded the frontrunners of her army with dismay.

“Call yourselves soldiers?” she said. “What has happened to you?”

“It must be enemy action,” said Sobus Aren, “It’s the only reason I can see that suddenly wheels should start breaking, and sixteen men should go insane. I can’t blame the enemy for a thunderstorm in the marshes driving the ducks out, but the rest...it must be partisans.”

“You’ll be more likely to find someone in supplies is a crook and bought substandard equipment,” said Thea Drex. “It sounds like half rate excuses to me.”

“Well, we aren’t in a fit state to fight,” said Aren.

“No, I can see that, and I wonder if you ever were,” said Thea.

Aren seethed, silently. Being pushed around by this decorative piece of totty pretending to be a soldier was bad enough; it was worse when she had a point. He still thought it was enemy action.

“The only way we can get through this is to bluff,” said Aren. “Call for a parley, and tell them that as they can see that we are re-garrisoned with fresh troops and better equipment, they would do well to consider capitulation.”

“They’ll laugh in our face,” said Thea.

“We will say that we will be ready to consider breaking the siege if they hand over their leaders,” said Aren. “It will buy us time. They will go back to discuss it. And give us time to get sorted out.”

 

oOoOo

 

Two groups met at the end of the bridge.  Thea Drex, Sobus Aren, Priestess Arialla Larth, and some adjutants met with Chrysandion Lightfather, Pythas, and Harkon. Harkon had darksense cast on him, in case it was needed.

Thea stared at Harkon.

He was the one in her dreams. He was not looking in the least bit as if he desired her; in fact he was scowling. It pulled at her memory.

“You will have observed that we regarrisoned,” she began, brusquely.

“After a fashion,” said Pythas. “It gave us a good laugh, if nothing else; Thanos plainly doesn’t have the same level of discipline and self-discipline as Alethos to display such a rabble.”

“We were attacked by ducks,” said Aren, defensively.

“You look more as if you were attacked by chickens and came off worse,” said Harkon, offensively.

“Why you...” Aren clenched his fists, but was held back forcibly by Thea.

“Superficial appearance despite, the new garrison is fresh, and well supplied,” said Thea.”We wish to discuss surrender terms.”

“Willingly,” said Pythas, a glint in his eye. “But we have not the space to accommodate more than your executive levels as prisoners of war; we would have to arrange an affidavit for your men to sign pledging under the new Alethosi spell Oath-Zone that they will not wage war against us again for ten years.” Kaz had had the idea some years ago; and Pythas, his wife, Arana, and Harkon had worked with Alethos to make the glyph spell. “It sends spirits of retribution after anyone who breaks their oath in its zone.”

“I was speaking of your surrender,” said Thea. “We feel that we come to negotiation from a position of strength, and will be able to rapidly rotate troops from now on, and easily resupply ourselves; and you are left in a position of weakness. We are prepared to leave, if we can re-occupy our temples, and take captive the war criminals Pythas and Harkon.”

“I thought we were here for serious talks, not comedy,” growled Harkon.

Thea was frustrated, and smoothed back her hair in agitation. Harkon froze in sudden recognition of a gesture.

“Sjurgi!” he roared. “How you have the nerve to come here! Torval died  looking for you! Our father died of a broken heart; I had given up searching slave coffles, trawling through Selenite brothels, and killing slavers to find you, and all the time you had thrown in your lot with the enemy! You traitor! Get out! Get out and take your rabble of toy soldiers and their whatevers with you! Out, out!”

Thea... Sjurgi... stumbled back, almost falling over in terror, in a wash of memories, in a backlash of the emotion she believed she had burned out of herself. She turned and fled for the first time in her life; and the other negotiators fell back, and followed her.

And Harkon fell to the ground sobbing.

 

End of Book 2, Death’s Knight

Next book, Destiny’s Queen.

 

I haven't finished writing it. I've had a complete M.E. collapse with the heat wave on top of all that stress. I am ploughing on. What I want to know is, shall I post what I have, from tomorrow, in the knowledge that I may run out of chapters for a while, to resolve the cliffie?