Tracato: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Three (12 page)

“A Rhodaani man came to ask what they’d seen, of soldiers and the like,” Aisha translated his answer. A scout, then. “He thinks someone must have told Lord Crashuren, and that’s why the bandits attacked them.”

Whether they’d actually told the scout anything useful, Rhillian noted, the man had not said. All the countryside was like this, paralysed with fear, of either side. Of men with swords in general.

“Ask him how many men killed these villagers.”

“One,” Aisha translated the reply.

“Does he recognise that man among these prisoners?”

The man straightened, to stare past Rhillian’s shoulder. But before he could approach the clustered prisoners, one of the women started screaming, pointing and wailing. Another man caught her, restraining, but another woman was now pointing at the same prisoner, yelling loudly in Elissian as commotion swept the gathering.

Rhillian indicated, and two
talmaad
brought the prisoner forward. He was an ordinary-looking man, with a big nose and dark brows. He looked very frightened now, his eyes darting, jaw tight. The women in their emotion were very certain, pointing and shouting and crying. Rhillian took a step for space, drew her blade and took off the man’s head in a flashing stroke. The severed head hit the mud with a heavy smack, then the body, spurting blood. Commotion ceased. Villagers stood in shock. Perhaps they’d expected some kind of trial, or ceremonial punishment. Rhillian had neither time nor inclination. Dead was dead, and the time for subtleties was long passed.

“This is your land now,” Rhillian told them, drawing a cleaning rag along her blade. Aisha translated to the silent onlookers. “Lord Crashuren has no more title here. We abolish it. The land you work, you now own. Soon, when there is peace, Saalshen and Rhodaan will send you some people who can teach you to grow better crops, and become prosperous like the farmers of Rhodaan or Enora. That may take a while, with the war on. Be patient. Saalshen and Rhodaan are your friends, and shall not harm you so long as you do not fight us.”

There was no wild celebrating. There never was. Men and women stood and stared at her as though she’d promised to take them to the moon. Rhillian sighed, resheathed her sword, and mounted her horse.

“What of the prisoners?” Arendelle asked her.

“Give their mail and weapons to the villagers, so they might at least have some protection from the next band that tries to kill them. Escort them back in your own time, I’ll take the horses ahead. I need to see General Zulmaher.”

Arendelle set about organising that, and Rhillian rode out. “They’ll more likely sell the armour for livestock and new roofs,” said Aisha, riding at her
side. “Long winters kill more peasants in these places than bandits.” Raggedy children stared at them from doorways. The last snows of winter were barely a month melted, and none looked well fed or healthy.

“Things will be better once this is finished,” Rhillian assured her. “General Zulmaher promised me no more than a month.”

“I’ll wager Regent Arrosh says much the same,” Aisha replied. “They’re cutting it awfully fine, Rhillian. Simply marching back to Rhodaan will take time, and we’re being led further and further north in search of a decisive victory.”

“Arrosh will take well over a month to mount an attack,” Rhillian replied. “The Army of Lenayin won’t arrive for nearly a month, and I doubt King Torvaal will consent to attack before Princess Sofy is married, and the alliance sealed.”

“The Army of Torovan will come sooner,” Aisha replied. “What if they decide to go early?”

“Without the Lenays? Would you throw yourself against the Steel with just Torovans for support?”

“Half the Steel,” Aisha corrected. “The other half are up here in Elisse. It’s the weakest Rhodaani line the Larosans have had a look at in over a century. You don’t think he might risk it?”

“Not with the Enorans ready to take his southern flank if he puts all his force into the Rhodaani line.” Aisha looked unconvinced. “I agree though,” Rhillian admitted. “This war must be finished quickly. Time is limited.”

It was only a short ride from the village to the war. Cresting a hill, it was all laid out before her—a castle ringed by a moat, surrounded on all sides by a glittering silver army. Flames engulfed one of the castle’s towers, clinging to the walls so that the stone itself seemed to burn.

“The artillery’s stopped,” Aisha remarked as they began their descent across sloping paddocks.

“The third regiment is withdrawing,” Rhillian added, pointing to the castle’s far flank. She frowned. “Crashuren must have surrendered. That was fast.”

“Rhodaani artillery will do that.”

Rhillian was unconvinced. This was not merely a war between feudal lords, where peace terms could be arranged and victorious opponents bought off with gold, lands or marriage proposals. This was a war to abolish feudalism in Elisse, as it had been largely abolished in Rhodaan, and completely so in Enora and Ilduur. It was doubtful Family Crashuren would get to keep so much as their castle, and certainly not what surrounded it. The enforcement of feudal rights would become unlawful, punishable by fine, imprisonment or death depending on the nature of the crime. Past crimes would be punished before a trial of peasants and serfs.

Many such lords became very brave, in the face of overwhelming odds, when confronted by the scale of what they had to lose. Not merely their lives, but their entire noble family line of land rights, holdings and taxes. Some had fought to the bitter end, and the blackened ruins of their castles made a smoking line back to the Rhodaani border. Could Crashuren truly have surrendered? From what Rhillian had gathered, he didn’t seem the surrendering type.

General Zulmaher’s encampment was on the lower hillside, perhaps a hundred paces back from the artillery line. Ahead of that, men of the Rhodaani Steel were breaking camp, downing tents and loading wagons. They moved with all the speed and efficiency one came to expect of the Steel. In a short time the third and sixth regiments beneath General Zulmaher would be moving once more, in pursuit of the greater Elissian Army that continued its retreat to the north. A single regiment of the Steel possessed two thousand men. The third and sixth made four, plus another thousand of attached outriders, heavy cavalry and artillery. The logistical precision of it all was a marvel, and Rhillian watched the preparations for departure with a mixture of admiration and trepidation. No serrin could organise so efficiently. Serrin were vague. Humans were impeccably, ruthlessly precise.

Rhillian found General Zulmaher already ahorse, consulting with captains as soldiers took down his tent. Aisha and the rest of the serrin contingent halted to allow Rhillian to ride on alone. She was prepared to await Zulmaher’s invitation to join in, as it was primarily a Rhodaani war, but Zulmaher saw her and waved her alongside.

Several triumphant battles against Rhodaan’s ever-invading foes had made General Zulmaher a popular man with many, though most soldiers had others they favoured more. When the High Table had finally won the acrimonious debate in Council to invade Elisse, Zulmaher had somehow leapt over three of the soldiers’ more popular choices to gain the command. He had many close ties to the Rhodaani feudalists, that elite and powerful group of old families who retained wealth and influence in Rhodaan even after Saalshen’s invasion. Those families had been most reluctant to assault their feudal neighbours (despite their neighbours’ apparent eagerness to assault them) and Zulmaher’s appointment to lead the Rhodaani Steel in battle had been the price paid to overcome feudalist objections in Council. Some Rhodaanis found the appointment disquieting.

“M’Lady Rhillian,” said the general as she reined to his side. “What do you have to report?”

“
Talmaad
forces on Crashuren lands now total perhaps a thousand,” Rhillian told him. “Our last count of irregular forces is perhaps a hundred and twenty killed, another seventy captured…. I was just involved in an
action to pursue another twenty who’d been terrorising the peasant village along the far side of this hill behind us. We killed twelve and captured the other eight.”

“Bold little buggers, aren’t they?” Zulmaher mused. “Well, keep at them. They’ve analysed our tactics quite well, they know we need to move fast, so there’s an awful lot of irregulars harrying our supply lines and terrorising any of the locals who might like to help. Without Saalshen and your
talmaad
, our progress would be significantly slowed. You have my thanks.”

“It’s what we’re best at.”

“It is at that,” Zulmaher conceded. “If only Saalshen had seen wisdom, and had put all of its evident martial talents to work over the last two centuries building some significant armies of its own, our current predicament might not seem so dire.”

Rhillian smiled. It was an old debate, and one that she had no intention of resuming here. It was a point, in fact, that the serrin had never stopped debating. Two hundred years ago, King Leyvaan had asked Saalshen a question, and today the greatest serrin thinkers were still undecided on the answer. No wonder so many of Saalshen’s human friends found serrin so exasperating.

“What happened here?” Rhillian asked, nodding to the castle and the preparations to march.

“Lord Crashuren came to terms,” said Zulmaher.

“Terms? When did we start offering terms?”

“When we started running out of time,” Zulmaher replied. “Crashuren is a small fish, and meanwhile the big fish escapes to the north. I do not have a day to waste bombarding yet another castle to wait for another pig-headed lord to come to his senses and surrender.”

“What are the terms?”

“He keeps his castle and lands,” said Zulmaher. “His minor lords will lower their banners and go home, his militia will do the same. In return, we won’t burn him down.”

Rhillian stared at him. Then at his surrounding captains. Several looked uncomfortable. One in particular appeared to be fuming, as though he could barely hold his tongue. Zulmaher, as ever, looked supremely unbothered.

“I just told a village of half-starved peasants, over the bodies of five villagers murdered by Lord Crashuren’s goons, that the lands they worked now belonged to them.”

“Best in future that you don’t,” said Zulmaher. “We don’t want to upset them with unfulfilled promises.”

“You intend to offer this deal to others?”

“It may prove necessary. If the Steel do not return to Rhodaan before the
Lenays are ready to start fighting, Rhodaan will be lost. This military assault was always contingent on timeliness. If we are to defeat the Elissian Army on the field, we have no choice but to start skipping castles, and if that means we must make terms with their lordships, that is what we shall do.”

“We have received support from the peasantry,” Rhillian pressed. “Their talk to us of numbers and locations of enemy forces has been invaluable. Some have taken up arms to keep law and order in those lands where the old lords were deposed—”

“Closer to the border,” said Zulmaher, with a trace of impatience. Rhillian had the impression he was now speaking not just to her, but to his captains as well. Several of the captains were looking to her expectantly, as though wishing her to challenge further. Perhaps they’d not dared. Humans took rank so much more literally than serrin. “There were lots of friendly peasantry on the Rhodaani border, just as there were in the early days of Saalshen’s invasion into Rhodaan two hundred years ago. Those borders are porous, there is traffic back and forth in the dead of night, and those folks know us for the civilised people we truly are.

“Here, we are far from the border, and people are poor, uneducated and superstitious. They have much less support to offer us, and many won’t be too thrilled to see the only working system they’ve ever known abruptly pulled out from under them. Poor folk fear chaos as much or more than they fear their lords.”

“And how do you think to ensure that these lords will hold to the terms once the Steel have moved on?” asked Rhillian, sharply. “What will keep you safe from an attack on your rear, and on your lines of supply?”

“Noble honour,” said one of the captains, with heavy irony. Several smirked, finding that funny.

“No,” said Zulmaher, looking straight at Rhillian, “you will.” She stared back, a slight distance up for her—she was nearly as tall as the general, but her horse was not. There was a faint disconcertment in Zulmaher’s eyes, to meet her stare. “You say a thousand
talmaad
are on Crashuren lands…and perhaps three thousand in all Elisse?”

“Perhaps.”

“That is three thousand of the most formidable light cavalry ever fielded in battle. You can cover ground quickly between castles, remain alert of any uprisings, and carry word quickly should trouble arise. You can also harry, and gather quickly to put down any localised insurrection before it can gather pace.”

“We are not armoured cavalry to put down such heavy forces as the lords can muster,” Rhillian returned.

“When they muster in force, no,” Zulmaher agreed. “But these will be isolated pockets, if any. Their armour may be strong, but even light cavalry, in the numbers you possess, should be sufficient.”

Rhillian let out a snort, and stared at the castle. The flames on the tower showed no sign of abating. Large castles could withstand the hellfire for a greater time. Smaller castles like this one had little chance. Barely two days of bombardment, on the scale even a minor array of Steel artillery could deliver, would have towers ablaze and walls collapsing from the intense heat.

Serrin had given humans this power. Serrin oils, and serrin fires. Serrin steel, so formidable it had given the armies of the Saalshen Bacosh their name. Serrin bows had given human craftsmen ideas for new catapults, leading to advances in artillery that even without the hellfire were truly frightening. Human and serrin minds had combined to form a military of such killing power that it had no equal in all human lands. Thus far, the Steel had fought to protect Saalshen as much as human lands. But still, it was sometimes disquieting. Many great serrin thinkers, Rhillian knew, would look out at the Elissian battleground and wonder exactly what Saalshen had done to create this fire-breathing monster on its doorstep.