Forging the Sword (The Farsala Trilogy) (26 page)

Jiaan hoped the darkness would hide his grin. Then a thought struck him. “How did you know we were going to attack? You even knew the day, for the slaves weren’t there the day before.”

“You think you’re the only one with spies?”

“No, but …” In his forces? Among the peasants who’d helped the peddler, or among their neighbors and friends? Surely not one of his men! Jiaan knew that none of them bore the rank mark the Hrum tattooed onto their spies. On the other hand, surely the peddler’s peasant forces were checking for that mark too.

“I thought all your spies were marked.” Jiaan touched his own arm. “So they could approach any officer and be identified and believed.”

“Not since they threw our spies out of Mazad, and we discovered that the mark was known to you,” said Patrius. “We’re proud of our service to the empire, but we’re not stupid. Surely your Commander Sorahb guessed that much.”

“I’m sure he has,” said Jiaan blankly. There could be spies among his men. In fact, there almost certainly were! The first thing Garren would have done was send men to infiltrate Sorahb’s army. Fear crept through Jiaan’s soul. But at least here, isolated in the Suud’s desert, no spy could send out a report. The Hrum had stopped sending couriers to Patrius’ force after the Suud had captured the first few. But a clever spy
could
communicate with the Hrum camp—by the simple expedient Nehar had used to get messages out of Mazad, if by no other means. Jiaan’s mind was so full of the security measures he would have to implement—tomorrow!—that he barely caught Patrius’ next comment.

“But the mercy your commander showed in Mazad wasn’t a bad thing. The commanders who’ve fought against that city haven’t executed any of the farmers they caught trying to smuggle in food either. If Mazad’s commander
had
executed the spies … Sieges are the most bitter form of battle, you know. Anger is born on both sides, not only in the hearts of the besieged.”

“I didn’t know you’d caught anyone,” said Jiaan, his mind still reeling with the implications. His camp could be full of spies!

“Oh, yes,” said Patrius. “Even before Tactimian Laon replaced that … replaced Substrategus Arus.”

“What happened to Arus, anyway?” Jiaan asked, more to give himself time to think than because he cared.

“Demoted in disgrace,” said Patrius. “And sent to chase bandits in the Dugaz swamps—a more thankless task even than mine. Some of his senior centrimasters were demoted with him, but the junior ones who had no say in anything were kept in Setesafon with their centris. Though why you’d take a proven incompetent and set him to a difficult and vital task, no matter how unpleasant it … Never mind.”

Jiaan smiled. “That’s the kind of thing you meant, isn’t it? The reason your high command didn’t want to promote Garren in the first place.”

“Exactly,” said Patrius. “In a way that’s why…. It pleased me—for more than one reason!—when you showed that you also understood that without mercy, without honor, an army is just another band of thugs. Garren … he called Sorahb and his army bandits. But when you protected me, you proved that—for all you’re not very … polished—your army is an army that defends a nation. That was a commander’s decision—not a thug’s.”

Was that why the contempt had vanished from Patrius’ eyes?

“You’re Sorahb, aren’t you?” the tactimian added casually.

Of course Patrius had his own agenda—things he sought to learn from their conversations.

“No,” said Jiaan. “I just command the army for him. Sorahb is the one who coordinates all the Farsalan defenses.”

“He’s in Mazad then?” Patrius sounded surprised.

“No,” Jiaan repeated. The firmness with which he spoke was prompted by a sudden vision of Commander Siddas’ head on a Hrum pike—though the Hrum didn’t do that, either. For Sorahb, Garren might make an exception. “How could he send out orders if he was trapped in Mazad? I won’t tell you where he is, though.”

“I don’t expect it,” said Patrius calmly.

Jiaan couldn’t tell if his half lies had been believed or not.

H
E SPENT THE NEXT
few days ensuring that none of his men would get a chance to fire a message arrow into the Hrum camp—at least not without their comrades seeing and reporting it. He brought Fasal into the planning of the new security procedures, and even that small amount of action cheered the young deghan enough that when Jiaan set him to training more swordsmen he only glowered for a moment before doing as he was bid.

Jiaan knew he should go further—that if he confided his growing plan, he would gain Fasal’s full cooperation. But given his new awareness of the need for secrecy, he wasn’t prepared to do that
yet. In light of that need he took Hosah into his confidence, setting him to experiment with the slightly dried boughs because Jiaan feared his own movements might be watched. Hosah reported that once the dried boughs were ablaze, they would eventually set the green bushes alight. And although it took a lot of dried boughs to start the fire, once the green bushes were blazing, they were almost impossible to put out. Jiaan remembered the thick brush screens that shrouded the Hrum camp, and rejoiced.

Jiaan was finishing dinner that evening, with ideas for getting fire into the dried brush in the Hrum camp floating through the back of his mind, when the guards reported that several Suud were escorting a horseman up the hill—and that by his clothes he wasn’t one of Siddas’ men. In fact, they said, he didn’t look to be Farsalan at all.

Curious, Jiaan abandoned the remains of his meal and went to greet the small party of travelers as they came over the hill’s crest. When he saw the horseman, Jiaan’s brows lifted. The messenger had donned Farsalan clothes, and his peasant guards might not have recognized the breed of the sturdy, rough-coated horse, or thin, arrogant cast of the man’s face, or even the long band of embroidered silk the man wore like a sash across his chest, proclaiming his status as a messenger under safe conduct. But any of Jiaan’s veterans would have recognized a Kadeshi courier.

Why in Azura’s name were the Kadeshi sending a message to
him? Jiaan folded his arms and waited. Half his mind was curious, but the other half was filled with growing distrust.

“You are Commander Jiaan?” the man asked in good, if accented, Faran.

“Yes,” Jiaan admitted. He could hardly deny it, though some part of him wanted to.

“I have a message for you from Warlord Siatt, with who you once offered an honorable alliance.”

“He turned it down,” said Jiaan. “And I told him that any force he sent into Farsala would be regarded as an enemy army.”

He saw no need to tell this man that by the time he had ridden through the impoverished misery of the Kadeshi countryside and spent just one night in Siatt’s rich palace, he’d been relieved that the warlord had refused his offer. Relieved—and perfectly aware of how easy it would be for Farsala’s ancient enemy to turn against Jiaan’s exhausted army once the Hrum were gone. Given a choice between the Hrum and the Kadeshi warlords, Jiaan would take the Hrum any day. So would the Kadeshi peasants if they were given the chance.

“Ah. Well, Warlord Siatt has reconsidered your offer,” said the courier. “If I might speak with you in private, I have much to reveal.”

Jiaan started to say that he concealed nothing from his men, then remembered possible Hrum spies and thought better of it.
“Come with me,” he said instead. “My men will care for your horse.”

Switching to his still-clumsy Suud, he addressed the hooded shapes that had escorted the messenger. “Go to the fire. My cook will find hutch to shade you, bring you food. You are much kind, to waste sleep to bring man here.”

“It was fun,” one of the bundled Suud replied, the humor in his voice making him seem less mysterious. “We led him in circles that would make a bird dizzy—even blindfolded him part of the time. We don’t want the build-on-hills people to come here. Not ever.”

“You are wise,” said Jiaan.

He led the messenger to a flat rock, far enough from the camp that no one would overhear them, and sat down. “Well?”

The Kadeshi looked around. Clearly, the accommodations were rougher than he was accustomed to. The futility of protest was equally clear. He shrugged.

“Warlord Siatt has been approached by the Hrum governor, Garren. The Hrum have offered us alliance—and they too have need of our warriors, to come to their aid.”

Yes, there was a subtle insult buried in that sentence, Jiaan decided. He didn’t care. Siddas’ last letter had warned him about Garren’s plan to bribe the Kadeshi. Jiaan wished them the joy of each other.

“I know about that,” he said, and had the petty satisfaction of
seeing the man scowl as his shocking announcement failed to shock. “I also know that although the Hrum offer gold, they won’t promise not to invade Kadesh. If Warlord Siatt wants my advice—”

“The warlord needs no advice!”

Jiaan’s father had told him that Kadeshi messengers were often impoverished relations of the warlord they served, and they gained much status from that relationship, even if they seldom got rich.

“He knows full well that the Hrum will next invade Kadesh,” the man went on. “But the Hrum offer reveals that they are weak.”

“So he’s turning them down?” Jiaan asked. “That’s wise.” More wisdom than he’d have expected from the old snake.

“No,” said the messenger promptly, restoring Jiaan’s faith in his own judgment. “The warlord is more subtle than that. He will take their gold, yes, and supply them with the many men they ask. But instead of warriors he will send peasants. Farmers, whose only use is to till the dirt. Shepherds and goat-boys.”

“No slaves?” Jiaan asked.

The messenger blinked. “Slaves are expensive.”

“I should have known,” said Jiaan dryly. “Siatt is a thrifty man.”

“Peasants replace themselves with great abundance,” the messenger agreed. “And they will be no threat to you or to us.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” said Jiaan. “The Hrum army is built of peasants. They are expert at turning farmers and goat-boys into soldiers.”

“Does not the warlord Siatt know this?” the messenger demanded. “He will let the Hrum train these little men as best they can. But when the warlord sends them the signal, they will turn on their Hrum comrades, even in the midst of battle, and attack them! Surely this, coming as a surprise from the midst of their own ranks, will disrupt even the mighty Hrum army and grant their enemies an easy victory.”

Jiaan snorted. “Why should the peasants betray the Hrum? It would almost certainly get most of them killed right on the spot, and all of them killed if the Hrum win. Why should they obey Siatt at all, once they’re out of his hands and trained to fight?”

“Because,” said the messenger, “peasants have families. Families who will be working on the warlord’s land, within his reach.”

The chill that swept through Jiaan’s heart was so intense that he wrapped his arms around himself. “Siatt will kill their families if they defy him? Even though obedience will end up killing them?”

“Of course,” said the messenger. “The peasants know it, so they will obey. And they might not die if the Hrum lose the battle, so they will fight hard.”

“You’ve never fought the Hrum,” said Jiaan. “And it shows. Why is Warlord Siatt going to so much trouble to tell me this?”

“Because,” said the messenger softly, “there is still one question to be resolved in his plan. In what battle will the warlord use this mighty weapon? In a battle where the Hrum
fight his own forces … or one where they fight yours? When you came to beg for troops, you told him that it would profit him if the Hrum were stopped in Farsala—if the battle for both our lands was fought on your soil alone. This he agrees to. Yet if he is to place a weapon of such power into your hands, he would require a suitable recompense.”

H
E WAS NOT RESPONSIBLE
for the lives of Kadeshi peasants, Jiaan told himself for the dozenth time as he entered his hutch that night. He couldn’t see Patrius’ face in the dimness, though he sensed the tactimian’s welcome. Jiaan remembered a Kadeshi peasant girl who had hiked up her skirts to flee at the sight of an armed man; he remembered the lean—too lean—look of the adult male villagers. If Jiaan could help them without hurting his own people, his own cause … But how? For the Kadeshi, he could see nothing in Siatt’s plan but grief, death, and the kind of choice that no one, no matter what rank or nationality, should ever be forced to make.

“What’s wrong?” Patrius’ voice was soft and worried. Jiaan suddenly remembered that Patrius was a prisoner—if there were something wrong, he’d be at his captors’ mercy.

“It’s nothing,” said Jiaan. “Nothing that concerns you. At least, not directly.” Though if Warlord Siatt’s plan worked, it might cost the Hrum a battle. And what if that battle would free Farsala? Did Jiaan have the right to throw away such an advantage—any
advantage—when the odds against them were so high?

And yet if Siatt’s plan won the day for them, if some of the peasants and all their families happened to survive, would Jiaan then be able to fight off the warlords? Warlords who would already have an army, trained by the Hrum, inside Farsala’s borders?

“Whether it’s nothing or not,” said Patrius, “there’s no point in standing in the dark with your cloak and boots on. If it doesn’t concern me, do you want to talk about it?”

Jiaan started, suddenly realizing how long he’d been standing there. “Yes,” he said, dropping onto his bedroll to pull off his boots. “I think I do.”

It did involve Patrius, in that it might make a difference if the Hrum learned of Siatt’s treachery, but since Patrius was going to spend the duration of the war in the Suud’s desert it didn’t matter what he learned.

“I went to Kadesh, a few months ago,” said Jiaan. “I was trying … um …”

“Trying to find an ally? We expected you would. In fact, Substrategus Bar—ah, someone whose opinion I respect was surprised that they hadn’t come to your aid.”

Jiaan grimaced. “He shouldn’t be. When you know the warlords better, you’ll find that they don’t even care about their own people—far less anyone else. When I rode through their countryside …”