Demon King (68 page)

There would be a great battle to come, and why would we want the fainthearted, the cowardly? There was no room for anything but the most carefully forged steel.

• • •

Wars — armies — have a certain sound, a certain smell. Blood, fire, even fear have scents. We’d left Urey, and were riding through the poor farming province of Tagil. Smoke pillared in the skies, and we were very close, and rode farther east, then hard north, and then west, looping in a wide semicircle around the Maisirian Army.

My scouts were challenged by Numantians, even more ragged, more weary, more desperate than we were. We’d rejoined our brothers, and reached safety. Such as it was.

• • •

“I should have guessed Damastes the Fair would find a way around those bastards,” Tenedos said, trying to sound hearty. “So Yonge’s smuggler’s route is passable for soldiers, eh? That’ll be useful when we invade Maisir next year or the year after.”

It was good the emperor was babbling nonsense, for it gave me a moment to cover the shock. I thought I was battered by time. But I was nothing compared to the emperor. He was only a few years older than I, but looked as if he were of another generation. His black hair was almost gone on top, and the round face I’d once thought boyish was lined, harsh.

His eyes still blazed, but they were different, a disturbing gleam to them.

“Yes, sir. I’ve four hundred fifty cavalry. What’s left of the Seventeenth, Twentieth, and Tenth. I’ll be frank, sir. We’re not in good shape, but we’re in better mettle than the soldiers we saw riding through the camp.”

“Good. For the great battle that’ll send those ants scurrying back to their hill is close.” He forced a smile, and the corner of his mouth twitched a little. “Since you’re being realistic, I’ll do the same. This battle will settle everything. Either the Maisirians and Bairan will be destroyed, or we will.

“It’s that simple. They have the numbers, but we have the spirit. We’re fighting for freedom now. I know my soldiers will put every bit of their soul, their blood into play.”

His words sounded less as if they came from the heart than like tired phrases he’d used again and again until they had no meaning at all for him, and therefore none for his audiences. No wonder the army appeared so dispirited if this was the best their emperor could do.

“Spirit’s all well and good,” I said. “But it’s generally swords, and how many of them there are, that win battles.”

“Swords, yes. Or magic. There’s our greatest secret strength, for when we fight them next, I have a weapon that will utterly destroy the Maisirians. They won’t be able to retreat, but must either surrender where they stand or die.”

I wondered how much of our blood this secret magic would require, pushed that thought away, and asked for a briefing on where everyone was positioned.

“One thing before that,” he said. “Remember I told you before that once we reached Renan I must leave the army for a time and return to Nicias? That still holds true, even though those traitors were suppressed. I don’t want to do it, but I must, to guarantee a final triumph that will ensure the safety of Numantia for all time.”

I made no response, but he didn’t seem to require one. He called Domina Othman and led me to another tent, where a huge, newly drawn map lay across three pushed-together tables looted from farmhouses. He told the other staff officers to leave, then told me our situation. It was grim. We had no more than a hundred thousand men ready to fight.

I didn’t hear what he said next, for my world rocked about me. We’d lost how many men in Maisir? Two million? More, counting replacements? Gods. Even if Tenedos’s secret weapon worked, and we destroyed the Maisirians, it would be generations before Numantia recovered.

I forced myself back to the present as Othman continued. Some reinforcements had come in, marching overland from Amur, but they were hastily formed units of fresh recruits and the training depots’ cadre.

“There’re more, though,” the emperor interjected. “I’ve heard there’re at least ten Guard Corps from all across Numantia who assembled at Nicias and sailed upriver to Amur. Link up with them, and that’ll give the army a new backbone, and after that there’ll be even more reinforcements, once our lines to the river are reopened. So Amur and the Latane must be our obvious immediate goal.

“We’ll break through the Maisirians, let them chase and not catch us, which they’re good at, then turn and destroy them at the Latane.”

I stared at the map without replying. The army held hasty positions just north of the small, now-ruined trading city of Cambiaso. Amur’s border was about twenty miles distant, but then it was a hundred miles to the Latane River.

And the Maisirian Army was between.

I wondered where these Guard Corps, over a hundred thousand men if they were at full strength, had come from. Tenedos had stripped Numantia almost bare for the invasion, and all new units had been fed into that cauldron as soon as they were formed. Did these units really exist? Perhaps there’d been a great rush to the colors, and various border units had been amalgamated and given Guard designation to bolster their morale. I wanted, I needed, to believe this.

I returned to the map.

The emperor wanted another frontal attack for his breakthrough. That appeared suicidal. But farther south was wasteland, near-desert, except for a great semicircular series of peaks on rising ground, nearly ten miles from horn to horn.

“Sir,” I suggested. “Instead of striking straight into the Maisirians, what prevents us from feinting north, as if we’re moving into the desert, then hitting their flank while they’re organizing to come after us? Hit it hard enough, knock it back, and in the confusion we’ll have at least a day, maybe more, to break contact. They’ve got to be almost as exhausted as we are.”

“No,” Tenedos said firmly. “We can’t do that. Not now. Not the way the army is. We don’t have the strong backbone we used to. I left too many of my best tribunes and generals, my best thrusters, on the
suebi.

“The confusion would be too much, and the Maisirians would smash us while we were moiling about.

“My army will fight, though, and fight hard, if we give them a target. That’s what we’re giving them, right in front of them, something to smash at, smash at hard, and once they break through, break into open country, then the river’s in front of them — the river, home, and the end of the war!”

Tenedos’s eyes were searing, willing me to believe. But the map was there, too, with its hundred miles of scrubland before the Latane.

“What magic will you use?”

“Once the battle is joined, there will be awesome spells, dreadful demons sent against the Maisirians. But I want to make sure their War Magicians are fully involved before we cast our spells.”

I realized I didn’t believe a word he’d said. Yes, there’d be magic. But only after a great deal of blood was shed. And the army, like a sickly man, had little to give before complete collapse. “Sir, I think — ”

Tenedos’s face colored. “That’s enough, Tribune! Perhaps you’ve been on your own too long, and forget you must obey orders like any other soldier! I’ve given my instructions, and my plans are well under way.

“Now, I have other matters to attend to. My staff will brief you thoroughly as to your role.”

He gave me a harsh look, didn’t wait for a response, but hurried from the tent. My temper flashed. I certainly didn’t need him to remind me I was a soldier, and that soldiers obeyed orders. Hadn’t I brought nearly four hundred men through impassable terrain, and — I forced my mind and anger back under control. There wasn’t time for infighting. The emperor had made his plan, and it was not a good one. But it was the one which must be followed.

“Domina Othman,” I said. “You heard the emperor.”

• • •

The attack was even more disastrous than I’d feared. The Guard units had barely left our positions when Maisirian infantry struck, twin-pronged like snake fangs, and stopped them cold. Solid waves of Maisirians counterattacked and sent the assault formations reeling back. The Maisirians didn’t stop at our front lines, but attacked all along our front line.

We fell back and back, out of our positions, and in two days of brutal fighting, most confused and hand-to-hand, we were driven almost into the desert. But we stopped with that nameless rock formation at our backs, counterattacked, and stopped the Maisirians. Before, we would have hit them again — before they recovered — broken them in half, and had a great victory.

But all we’d done was buy a bit of time, and lost twenty thousand men and our positions.

As for the emperor’s magic — nothing happened, except the usual minor spells of confusion and fear, which only the rankest private would let affect him.

• • •

“Very well,” the emperor said grimly, “we are in disastrous straits.”

The tribunes in his tent were silent. There was nothing to be said.

“But we are
not
, I repeat
not
, doomed. In fact, now we are able to utterly destroy the Maisirians. There is a Great Spell I used once before. Some of you older soldiers may know it, for it was the one I used against Chardin Sher to destroy his rebels and win Numantia.”

I started. Yonge’s prediction would come true, and the monstrous demon would rise from this desert to wreak havoc once more.

“This spell is costly,” he went on. “But we paid its price once — and we must be willing to pay it again.”

His next words were lost in my shock. It had taken all this blood, all this slaughter, the loss of an entire generation of Numantia’s finest youth, for that one moment of destruction? What would be the demon’s price now?

“It will take three days, perhaps more, to assemble the … forces for this spell. Tell your units we’re getting ready for battle. Do not mention what I told you.

“Our battle plan will be very simple. Once the … force has been unleashed, after it’s wreaked its destruction, then we shall attack. All that will be necessary is to mop up the few remnants of their army, so there’s no need for elaborate tactics.

“General of the Armies á Cimabue will command the physical attack, for I shall be unable, for various reasons, to lead you myself for a time. I’ll caution you on one matter, and this you should pass along to your troops. Until their War Magicians have been silenced, the Maisirians may try all sorts of deceptions. Therefore, obey only Tribune á Cimabue or myself, and obey us absolutely, no matter what we order. I have wards around myself, and will cast equal ones for the tribune, so no false image may be summoned. Remember this well.

“Be of good heart, of good cheer, gentlemen. This is our greatest hour, this is when we are almost gods. We hold the fate of millions in our hands — those already born, and those who’ve not yet come from the Wheel.

“This shall be the deciding moment, and only one great nation shall go forward into the bright future.

“Numantia!” His voice rose into a shout: “Now and forever! Numantia and Tenedos!”

The tribunes, wounded, battle-weary, cheered wildly, and it seemed the entire army cheered with them.

• • •

If I’d been in command of the Maisirian Army, I would have attacked us immediately, giving no chance to recover. Perhaps King Bairan was afraid of the casualties he’d take, storming the heights we held, or perhaps he needed time to regroup — he was fighting a long way from his homeland, with long supply lines and in a desolate country. But his troops were more used to hardship than ours.

Regardless of the reasons, the Maisirians, vastly outnumbering us, only half-surrounded our rocky citadel, leaving the dry plains behind us free of their forces. It seemed as if they were preparing a siege, planning to starve us out.

I made sure our positions were properly outposted, so we’d have warning if the Maisirians struck first, then made endless rounds, cheering some, cursing others, reminding them what they fought for and that this would be the greatest battle of history, secretly dreading the day.

But what else could Tenedos have done? Surrender? I saw no other way. Numantia would have another horrible debt with demons, one far greater than the last. And that was if we won. What would happen if the
azaz
and his War Magicians cast a spell greater than the emperor’s? What would happen then?

I caught myself. That was impossible. The emperor was the most powerful magician in the world. His mistakes in Maisir happened because he underestimated the enemy, as did the army. I was certain no such arrogance existed any more.

The emperor’s headquarters was a bustle of Chare Brethren, and tribunes and generals concerned with temporal matters were snapped at and sent to me. I hoped the wizards were successful in camouflaging our plan, and that the
azaz
was as complacent as we’d been long ago.

On the morning of the third day, I was about to make another set of rounds, then caught myself. I was like a young legate, so worried about his first command he spends endless hours harrying them, and, instead of turning them into better soldiers, makes them into twitching wrecks.

I ordered my own plans for the day of battle. I’d ride at the head of the cavalry once again. My handful of Red Lancers, augmented with the rest of the Seventeenth Ureyan Lancers, would have the honor of riding at the fore.

Late that afternoon Domina Othman came, and said the attack would begin two hours after dawn the next day. By dusk, Numantia’s fate would be settled.

• • •

I forced myself to sleep from two hours before midnight until perhaps an hour afterward, then woke. I lay there, feeling the army stir around me, flexing its thews.

I remembered a little prayer I’d said as a child, a prayer to Tanis, our family’s godling. It was like the prayers most babes are taught by their mothers, to give them strength in the loneliness of the night and to make them think of the welfare of others instead of themselves.

I whispered the words, although what good a small jungle deity like Tanis could bring on this battlefield, when gods as mighty as Saionji and Isa, her manifestation, would stalk the land, and demons carry out wizards’ terrible commands, was beyond me.