Forging the Sword (The Farsala Trilogy) (18 page)

The atmosphere of drunken good cheer had vanished. Arex’s eyes were lowered, and he was silent. If he knew what their plan for taking the city was, he wouldn’t reveal it.

Kavi let the conversation go where it would, and the game resumed. He allowed several marks to pass before he lost again, and then wandered off to a third table. Most of the Hrum were heading for their beds now; the ones who remained were either diehard players or very drunk. It wasn’t hard for Kavi to select one of the latter, a guard to whom he’d already been introduced, and start winning … and winning.

He waited until the next afternoon to confront the soldier, who was still wincing at sudden noises. He winced again and then turned slightly green when he saw Kavi—it turned out he didn’t have the money to pay his gambling debt, poor lad. And the Hrum took that seriously, too. It could stop his promotion if it got on his record. Couldn’t Kavi give him a bit of time?

Kavi was deeply regretful, but he was a poor man himself—a peddler who would be missing his rounds because Governor Garren’s paranoid suspicions had him trapped here. He had to make up his lost profit somehow, and if that meant calling in gaming debts, then that was what he’d do. And even that wouldn’t make up for the loss of his customers’ trust …

It took a fair bit of time to get the hungover fool to figure out
he could let Kavi out of camp in exchange for forgiving his debt, but Kavi didn’t begrudge it. If Kavi had suggested that solution, the man might have been suspicious, but since he came up with the idea himself, well, there couldn’t be any real harm in it. His own centrimaster had introduced him to the peddler, after all, and assured him that Kavi was on their side.

The actual escape was almost too easy. The guard Kavi had suborned was stationed behind the privies that evening. Kavi simply paid them a late visit and then kept on walking into the dark hills beyond. His cloak—all men were wearing cloaks in the drizzle—even concealed his pack from any but a close examination, and no one was looking at him anyway. The guard kept his back carefully turned toward Kavi at all times so he wouldn’t see him pass.

Kavi hoped the man wouldn’t get into trouble—though if he’d been a guard in Mazad, Kavi would have felt very differently. But with any luck the folks who didn’t see Kavi again would just assume that he was spending time in other parts of the great camp; it might be days before anyone realized he was missing. In fact, unless Garren checked on him, only the centrimaster would think to look. When he found that Kavi had vanished … well, no one had actually assigned him to the task of keeping Kavi in the camp. If Barmael had been the only one involved, the centrimaster might take the news to the substrategus, whom he clearly trusted—but given Garren’s likely reaction, just ignoring the whole matter and hoping the governor
forgot about it would undoubtedly seem like the sensible thing to do.

Yes, it might work out that way … but it also might not. Kavi wouldn’t dare to return to any Hrum camp, for if Garren did learn of his escape, the governor’s sensitive suspicions would be well and truly roused. No, his ability to stroll into Hrum camps and gossip was gone for good, but perhaps his news was worth it. Garren clearly meant to take Mazad soon, and Siddas and the others needed to be warned. Whatever their mysterious plan was, Barmael would give Mazad a much tougher fight than they’d have gotten from someone like Tactimian Laon.

But as to
how
they meant to take the city, Kavi had had no more luck in discovering that than the deghass she-bitch had.

I
T’S AMAZING
,” said Jiaan, gazing at the fortifications around the Hrum camp. The Hrum had evidently decided to make a permanent camp there—or at least stay for some time. Once that decision was made, they had set to work with a will. The earthen dike that surrounded the camp was more than six feet high, and the ditch the earth had come from was full of water diverted from the stream. The area outside the fortifications where the brush had been cleared was so large that only the strongest archers had a chance of reaching the camp, and then only if the wind was with them. And though the tough, twisted stems of the desert scrub might not lend themselves to building palisades, the Hrum had sharpened short lengths and driven them into the sides of the earth banks, eliminating all possibility of horses charging over them.

“Which puts an end to both my plan of harassing them with archery day and night and your plan of galloping in on horseback and rolling over them,” Jiaan told Fasal. “I can’t believe they got all that up in less than two weeks! It’s—”

“Don’t you get tired of saying that?” Fasal asked sourly. “I assumed that with their commander taken, they’d be more … confused. Slower to react. That’s why I thought a charge would work.”

“I thought the same,” Jiaan admitted. “About them being confused for a time. But whoever’s in command now … well, if he’s confused about anything, I don’t see any sign of it.”

Perhaps the knowledge that he would be succeeded by a capable subordinate had created some of the calm disdain that showed in the captured Hrum commander’s eyes whenever he looked at Jiaan’s ragtag army. He hadn’t said anything insulting—he hadn’t said anything at all, except to ask for what he needed to tend the wounded prisoners. But Jiaan had seen the cool, almost amused contempt in his face as he watched Jiaan’s men going about their duties. Jiaan was having trouble holding his tongue and his temper with the man, so perhaps his silence was a good thing.

“The walls are open where the stream goes in and out,” Fasal mused, staring at the Hrum camp.

He and Jiaan were some distance from the Hrum camp, perched on a low rise, with half a dozen soldiers sheltered behind it. It was the only elevated ground in the area, and it gave them a
partial view into the parts of the camp that weren’t concealed by the bushes the Hrum had left intact—for shade as well as cover, Jiaan now realized. It might be midwinter, but the sun was hot. On the other side of the mountains, he knew, it was raining almost every day. Here in the desert it seemed to run in spells—it had been dry for the last two days, and only the nights were cold.

“Maybe that stream is a weakness we can use,” Fasal went on thoughtfully.

Jiaan snorted. “You think you can gallop chargers up that streambed? The bottom will be sandy, rocky, and full of holes, like as not. And you’d have to go through the gap one or two at a time. They’d cut you down in an instant. Even those,” he gestured to the sword at Fasal’s side, “won’t make you invincible.”

The watersteel swords had arrived a few days ago, and when tested against some of the captured Hrum blades, they’d proved as strong or stronger. They were beautiful swords too—not fancy, but perfectly balanced, and sunlight ran over the patterned blades like a caress. There were only a few dozen of them, so Jiaan had passed them out to the best swordsmen in his army—which was why Fasal carried one and Jiaan didn’t. He shared Fasal’s desire to use them—to finally fight the Hrum with weapons as good as theirs! But they needed more of those swords, and more skilled swordsmen to use them too, so … “No,” said Jiaan firmly. “No charges up the streambed.”

“I was thinking,” said Fasal dryly, “of poisoning them.”

Jiaan stared at him in surprise. That was the kind of sneaky peasant scheme he’d never have expected from Fasal. He almost made a comment to that effect, but he was trying to encourage Fasal to think like that.

“I thought about poison too,” he admitted. “But it wouldn’t work. Not in moving water. We’d have to have hundreds of gallons of poison to have a chance of affecting them, and even then the stream would clear in a few marks. And we can’t dam it either; the valley’s too wide. Their food supplies are limited. All we have to do is wait and starve them out. When they’re forced to move, that’s when they’ll be vulnerable.”

“But they know that too, don’t they? So what are they planning?” Fasal asked.

Jiaan wished he had an answer, but he was spared having to fumble for one by the sudden appearance of a Hrum soldier on top of the earthen wall. The man stared at them.

“They’ve seen us,” said Jiaan redundantly. “I wonder what they …”

The Hrum soldier stuck out his tongue.

“Is he …? You’re kidding me,” said Jiaan.

Four more Hrum scrambled onto the wall, shouting, “Come and get us! Come and get us, coward boys!”

“Coward boys?” said Jiaan. “They can’t do better than that?”

The Hrum proceeded to do better.

“I can’t quite hear him,” Jiaan murmured. “I think … my father conceived me in … in … ah. You know, their Faran is pretty good. Anatomical.”

“Do they really think we’re going to fall for that?” Fasal’s cheeks were flushed, but Jiaan couldn’t tell if it was from annoyance or amusement.

“Probably not,” said Jiaan. “I’d guess they’re just enjoying themselves.”

One of the Hrum pulled his britches down and his tunic up and waved his bare ass at them. Jiaan felt his own cheeks heat, but his voice was level, holding nothing but the amused contempt he so often saw in Tactimian Patrius’ eyes. He was proud of it. “Now that just cries for an arrow.”

He waved Aram up to join them. “Who’s our best archer?”

Aram rubbed his grizzled chin with his remaining hand. “Besides yourself, you mean, sir?”

“I mean the best we have with us,” said Jiaan, in the dry tone his father had used to repel flattery.

Aram grinned. “That’d be Tus. I’ll fetch him up to you.”

Tus arrived with a promptness that told Jiaan that he and Fasal weren’t the only ones watching the performance. More than a dozen Hrum had followed their comrade’s example.

“Any preference, sir?” Tus asked, nocking an arrow. His bow was already strung.

“You choose,” said Jiaan, gesturing to the line of pale rumps in the distance. “I know the range is long, but, …”

“Don’t mind that, sir,” said Tus gently. He raised his bow, aiming for loft, then hesitated, trying to guess what the breeze would do to his shot.

The bow snapped and the arrow hurtled into the sky. Jiaan watched it rise and rise, and then rush down. It missed one plump, white rump by a hand span, but the man’s squawk of dismay as he leaped from the wall was audible even from that distance. He wouldn’t land well either, not with his britches around his ankles. Jiaan grinned.

“Sorry, sir,” Tus sighed. “I was hoping to puncture more than their pride.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jiaan told him. “Their pride is enough for now. We’re going back to our camp. If they’re going to rest for a while, we might as well do the same.”

T
HAT WAS EXACTLY
what the Hrum did for several days. The Suud grew bored and asked Jiaan’s permission to go back to their clans for a while. Jiaan agreed, for as matters now stood his own men could keep watch, and when the Suud returned they could bring him news from his original base camp. He had taken all his veterans to fight the Hrum, but the trickle of peasants who were coming to join his army had recently turned into a small stream. Jiaan had
instructed the Suud to lead the newcomers to his original camp, where a handful of veterans remained to train them. Without that training they’d be more hindrance than help, but soon …

It was Garren himself who was swelling the ranks of Jiaan’s army so effectively. According to the men, who were now arriving almost daily, none of the Hrum commanders were executing civilians, but other reprisals occurred with increasing frequency and severity. If a man’s farm was burned, what else could he do but join the resistance? Or at the least send some of his sons.

The Hrum weren’t barbarians, but they were still conquerors. The Farsalans resented them, and Garren’s edicts were only making matters worse. Garren’s edicts combined with the efforts of the peddler, who was convincing the peasants to go ahead with their acts of sabotage.

Jiaan scowled. He had to admit it; the traitor was effective. On the other hand, if he hadn’t connived at the massacre of the first Farsalan army, this one might not have been necessary.

Most of the new men wouldn’t be ready to fight for months, but a report on their progress would still be welcome. When the Hrum’s wounded had healed enough to march, then the Suud scouts would return. That was when he would need them.

T
WO NIGHTS LATER
, Jiaan was awakened from a sound sleep by a voice shouting, “Wake up! Wake up! They’re coming! The Hrum are—”

The
thock
of an arrow striking flesh stopped the voice, waking Jiaan far more effectively than the shouting. His heart thundered as he clawed free of his blankets and grabbed his bow and quiver. The Hrum? But how? He’d posted men to watch the Hrum camp!

Other voices were shouting now, cries of warning and alarm, and underneath them, in the stillness of the night, Jiaan heard the hiss of arrows.

Jiaan burst from his hutch in a scrabbling crawl and looked around. The half-moon had emerged from the scattered clouds, gleaming on the armor of what looked like the whole Hrum army, or at least several centris, jogging briskly up the broad end of the valley. Their ranks were in perfect order except for their archers, who had fallen out to the sides to fire.