Forging the Sword (The Farsala Trilogy) (28 page)

The arrow fire started immediately. Despite the drifting smoke, in this light the archers Jiaan had stationed downwind could hardly miss. More arrows were arcing in from behind the Hrum as well. Most of Jiaan’s forces, less clumsy than their commander, had already reached their next position.

With arrows coming from two sides and their shield wall abandoned in their haste to reach the enemy, almost half the Hrum had fallen even before Fasal and his men rushed out to meet them.

Jiaan had suggested that Fasal ride his charger. He wouldn’t have been very effective on horseback once his lances were gone, but Jiaan trusted the well-trained mare to keep him safe, and frankly, he was worried about Fasal.

But Fasal had coldly refused to take the deghan’s traditional role, preferring to fight on foot beside his swordsmen, and Jiaan had yielded. Fasal might be in more danger that way—Jiaan thought that was part of what he wanted—but it was a commander’s choice, and Jiaan could only respect him for it.

Jiaan himself was still too far from that end of the cleared ground to recognize faces in the seething mass of men, though the clamor of metal on metal, the screams and shouts, reached his ears even over the buffeting roar of the fire.

He couldn’t recognize faces, but the swords that flashed in the light were red with blood. He saw men fall and others stand over them to shelter them from their enemies. He saw a Hrum soldier stagger out of the battle, his breastplate glowing in the light, a cut just below the line of his helmet pouring blood into his eyes.

Jiaan, remembering the terror of being blood-blind in the midst of combat, couldn’t blame the soldier for fleeing; until he could see again, the man was nothing but a danger to his comrades. But then another man followed him, a man who was whole as far as Jiaan could see, and then another, and another, until the Hrum’s whole advance force was running back toward the bulk of their army.

Many of them saw that Fasal—following orders for once, Azura be praised—did not pursue, so they paused to pick up and carry back their wounded. Jiaan’s men were gathering up the wounded at their end of the field as well. He had no doubt that the
older, more reliable veterans he had seeded so liberally into Fasal’s forces would pick up the Hrum wounded and tend to them along with their own.

By the time Jiaan limped up to join Hosah on the familiar rise he had designated as the command post, the Hrum were evacuating their camp. They marched clumsily down the streambed, their shields forming the best wall they could manage. But fleeing a fire, laden with gear, in eight inches of water rushing over smooth stones, was not conducive to maintaining formation.

Through the gaps in the shield wall Jiaan could see that they carried more men on stretchers than they had gathered before they fled their camp, and that some men carried not bundles of food and arrows, but men on their backs.

More wounded than they have stretchers to carry, and no time to make more. They won’t try another attack tonight.

Even as the thought crossed Jiaan’s mind, the Hrum in the lead staggered out of the stream onto a patch of clear, flat ground—out of reach of the fire, but far enough from the edges of the cleared area that any arrow that reached them wasn’t likely to be accurate.

“I still think we should take them,” said Fasal, coming up to join Jiaan. “Disorganized as they are, a charge would break their formation. We could pour over them like a wave over rocks.”

“Rocks that have the wave outnumbered,” Jiaan pointed out. “Rocks that are still the best infantry in the world. My way takes a
bit longer, but it will work. In fact, I’m betting it will work tomorrow morning.”

“Really? How much?” Fasal asked.

Jiaan laughed. “One brass foal.”

“That’s not much,” said Fasal critically. “Even for someone as poor as you are.”

“I’m not a big gambler,” said Jiaan. Which wasn’t true, for he had already bet far more than mere money on his plan.

“Well, I’ll take it.” Fasal shrugged. “A foal’s a foal, after all.” In truth, he had no more money than Jiaan did.

Fasal’s padded silk armor was bright with fresh blood under the stained steel rings, but none of the blood seemed to be his. Even more important, the wild anger of grief and guilt that had underlain every expression on Fasal’s face since the Hrum’s ambush was gone. Jiaan had almost forgotten what Fasal looked like when he wasn’t angry. Patrius had been right—it was combat Fasal had needed. He might need it again, but for now his pain was lightened.

“How many did you lose?” Jiaan asked.

“Just two dead, but another sixteen wounded, three of them badly. They may not fight again. The healers tell me it’s too soon to be certain, but they think they’ll live. The Hrum took worse losses. A lot worse.”

Despite the good news—the losses were incredibly light—grief clenched around Jiaan’s heart. When Aram was alive, Jiaan had
gone to him for the tally of wounded and slain. When Aram was alive, it wouldn’t even have occurred to Fasal to make the count himself.

So we both have to grow up and get on with it.
Perhaps it was time.

I
N THE MORNING
a handful of Hrum marched into the blackened, smoldering ruin that had been their camp. Jiaan let them go, to learn for themselves that there was nothing left. He already knew that their water supplies were low; in the dawn’s gray light he had seen them straining the ash-choked water of the stream through their tunics before they drank it. They couldn’t have much food, either.

He rose to his knees, then to his feet on the low rise of the command post. Hosah hissed in disapproval, but if Jiaan saw anyone raise a bow he could drop behind the ridge fast enough. For some reason he felt it was important for the Hrum to see him, even if he was too far off for them to read his expression.

Jiaan cupped his hands around his mouth. “You have no gear,” he shouted. He had expected his voice to sound thin, but the dawn air was so still that it boomed across the valley. He had no doubt that the Hrum could hear him. It was a good thing they all spoke Faran.

“You have no clean water; you have only the food you salvaged; you have no mules to carry loads for you. And you have many
wounded—some of whom won’t survive a march.”

He let those truths echo for a moment before he went on. “You are four days from the great cliff by the most direct route—and you don’t know that route. If you march straight toward the cliff, you’ll run into the rock maze, where a man can wander for weeks without finding the path through it. While you try, our archers will shoot at you from atop the rocks, where you can’t reach us.”

Before they had settled into their defensible camp, the Hrum had spent some time tracking Jiaan’s Suud-guided army through that rock maze. If it wasn’t entirely impossible to find routes through it, it would be nearly so for men being misled by Suud trackers.

“If you go south to bypass the maze, it will take you almost two weeks to reach the cliffs, marching through narrow valleys with my archers shooting down at you. If you march north, out of the rocks into the great desert, you will find no water. And we will be waiting when you return.”

Jiaan didn’t bother to add that under any of these circumstances only a handful of Hrum would escape the desert alive, for they knew that too.

“If you surrender,” he called, suddenly impatient to get to the point, “you will not be killed. You’ll not be harmed in any way, and we’ll help your healers with your wounded as much as our medical supplies will allow.”

He prayed they wouldn’t need much, for his healers’ supply of medicines and salves was running painfully low. Fortunately, the Suud had good herbalists among them. They’d been teaching Jiaan’s people about the desert’s medicinal plants, many of which were surprisingly effective.

“You will be fed and treated well,” Jiaan went on, “though you will be held prisoner until the end of the conflict between Farsala and the Hrum. However, that conflict will end, one way or the other, in just four months.”

Also true, for if the committee decreed that Garren had completed his conquest, Jiaan’s rebels would suddenly become not Farsalan fighters but civil criminals in a land awash with soldiers who would enforce the law.
Governor
Garren, confirmed in his post, could bring in all the tacti he needed. The thought of being under Garren’s governance for the rest of the man’s life sent a chill through Jiaan’s heart and roughened his voice on the next words.

“If you don’t surrender, we will hunt you relentlessly, with archers, never giving you a chance to strike at us. You’ll be lucky, very lucky, if even one centri of you leaves the desert alive.”

He stood for a moment, straight and proud, then turned and walked regally down the hill. The moment he was out of sight he spun and crawled back up, raising his head just far enough to see what they did.

The Hrum clustered in small groups, discussing his demands. But they had also lowered their shields, clearly considering that his offer meant that some sort of truce existed between them—at least temporarily.

“Pass the word,” Jiaan told Hosah. “Anyone who fires an arrow now will
deeply
regret it.”

“They already know that,” said Hosah. “But I’ll pass it along. You know, the odds are three to one against them surrendering this morning.”

Jiaan’s brows rose. “I thought only Fasal and I were betting.”

“Not anymore,” said Hosah cheerfully. “Even your own men think you’ve being … optimistic. Surrender without a fight? Without even trying to get out? These are the Hrum!”

“So they are,” said Jiaan. “But if you want some advice, put your money on me.”

Hosah snorted. “Why would that be, sir?”

“Because I’ve learned something talking to Tactimian Patrius these last few weeks,” said Jiaan. “The Hrum are human too.”

“That hasn’t made them eager to surrender in the past,” said Hosah dubiously.

“No, but in the past … Those men are probably loyal to their emperor, in the abstract, but their emperor’s not here. Most of them have never even set eyes on him. I’d guess that they’re very loyal to Tactimian Patrius, but he’s not there either. So let me ask you a
question: as a human being, Hosah, would you be willing to fight, and probably die, for Governor Garren?”

H
ALF A MARK LATER
, the Hrum army lay down its swords and surrendered.

R
AIN STILL FELL
on the city of Mazad as Sorahb stumbled toward the house where he lodged, almost too tired to walk. He had nearly reached hie Destination when he came across a pregnant woman wandering through the streets in soaked and ragged clothes. Sorahb knew that many of the townsfolk, the women and elders who could not fight themselves, had come out to support those who fought, carrying food, arrows, and even stones for them to throw down upon the Hrum. Seeing that the woman was as exhausted as he was, Sorahb took her arm, and questioning her gently, he helped her through the dark streets to the door of the small, dilapidated house she claimed as her home.

“I thank you, sir,” she said as they climbed the low steps to stand before the door, “for both myself and my unborn babe. You’ve aided the both of us tonight.”

“If I have done you a small service,” said Sorahb, “it is less than nothing compared to the service you have done for your city. And even that is
little compared to what your city does for Farfala.”

“You have served too,” she said. “And I see you are weary with it. I only wish I could assist in the next task that will fail to you.”

“What task is that?” Sorahb asked. He prayed she was not about to request some further aid from him, for his bones ached with weariness. But the soaked cloth of her skirt outlined the bulge of her belly, and he knew that just as she had done all she could to fight for her city this day, it behooved him to do what he could for her.

Something of his reluctance must have shown, for a sudden, impish smile lit her face. “Your next task, sir, is to defeat the Hrum army in the desert.”

With that she went into the battered house and closed the door. Sorahb stood on the step with the rain running down his face, and for the first time he realized that he was dealing with the god Azura in disguise.

S
O SORAHB DEPARTED
from the city of Mazad, knowing it would be safe until the Hrum could bring reinforcements. He went into the desert and dealt with the Suud tribesmen. The Suud were wild and fierce, but they still bowed before the divine farr that Sorahb possessed in such measure.

Once they agreed to follow him, Sorahb showed them how to harass the Hrum. When the time came, he led his army to the Hrum’s desert camp and, with the assistance of his Suud allies, defeated the Hrum with flood and fire.

As Sorahb stood upon the charred wreckage of the battlefield, dealing with the duties and problems that arise from victory, a small Suud boy drew near. When the last who had petitioned Sorahb for aid had left him, the child
approached. Sorahb was about to ask how he could help the boy, but the glint in the child’s eyes was too ironic for any mortal’s years. It seemed oddly familiar as well.

Sorahb folded hid arms. “I would offer you help,” he said, “but I doubt that you need help from any man. You have come to lay another test on me, have you not?”

The boy laughed, light and clear as any child. “All folk need help,” he said. “Thede tedtd are set by the Hrum, and not by me; I merely advice you which to take next, although I believe this will be the last of them.”

“And this test would be …?” Sorahb’d voice held the politeness that is half insult, for no man likes to be befooled, even by a god.

“Your last test is to abandon force of arms and use gold against the Hrum instead,” said Azura calmly. “When men serve only for gold, it forms the beating heart of their army, and becomes their greatest weakness, as well.”

Sorahb frowned. “But I have no gold! My army lived on the charity of the country folk, who have little enough to share, though they have supported us generously. How can I use gold against the Hrum?”