Infinite Blue Heaven - A King and A Queen (11 page)

“Korim’s men all had horses and most probably still do. I have spoken to a shepherd who has grazed the area where I believe Korim now is. I drew more lines on the sand.”

“Coming out of the mountains here, is an old wadi, almost always dry, but you see here how it turns east after only 140 verst and continues east until it is joined by a fast running stream 1000 verst east. This only flows between October and March most years so there was probably only a trickle there for Parsh’am anyway. You see where the river flows out it has cut a deep gully in the hill. Either side is mainly scree and higher up, blue pines. It is not really a pass but Korim’s scouts must have found a way through the mountains and down to this gulley. There may be a spur on the west side here and, if so, I believe Korim would build some kind of wall across the gully. If so, it will need to be big enough to house 5000 men and horses.”
“Why don’t we just force him back into the fortress and wait for them to starve in the winter or go home?” said Kazangap. He was older than Edil’bai and often played devil’s advocate. I didn’t yet know him well as he was a Captain in the last campaign and when his General was killed and he had distinguished himself, I had promoted him. So he was a General and not yet a Lord. In time, if he continued to serve well, I would give him him a Province to rule.

“Ahh. Yes. That would be nice but I don’t think Korim will oblige. This is about winning land for himself. He has none of his own and so he will not want us to force him from it, or even worse, destroy it. This land between the old wady-bed and about 400 verst east of the stream is quite fertile. Grazing ground for most of the year and it could be irrigated. It could support a large enough population to launch further attacks and, in time, he could control the whole land north of the desert.”

“What of the Fort at Geldem Ahmiz? Can’t we bring that into play?” asked Abutalip.

“No. We need the men to stay there. They must protect that pass. We have always held that and it all that stands between us and Uman.”

The pass of Geldem Ahmiz was exceptionally steep-sided and narrow and the stream-bed had long since dried up. We had long ago built a series of great iron banded gates across it, with parapets running along above the gates, perhaps eight sachine from the ground. Even if an Army could break down one gate, there were twenty more and the four hundred men who were stationed there could easily hold out for months, picking off the enemy with bows, almost undisturbed. There was even piped water from a spring high above to supply water for dousing any possible fires, which might burn the wood.

With that, the discussion broke into several conversations and then after a time, we all retired. I had not let Geb attend but I was beginning to think that the Palace Guard would be a valuable asset in this struggle and perhaps I should begin treating Geb as a General. I could see that it was going to make sense to subdivide each Battalion into two as my Army was too small for 1000 men to be a useful unit. Of course, each Battalion was already split into two, effectively Cavalry and Infantry, and also into 10 Companies, each commanded by a Captain, but in practice I usually mixed the Cavalry and Infantry as I saw fit and did not keep them apart. Here, a unit of 500 men would be more useful. I would have to ponder this.

As I walked between the tents listening to men talking and occasionally glancing up at the twinkling stars in the still night, I pondered many other things.

At one point I wandered up to Arstan, proud and white, with that distinctive tawny speckling, in his own corral, next to many other horses, and I patted him.

I briefly thought of Shakira and wondered what she was doing. I suddenly wondered if I might never see her again. I had left instructions with Lord Kospan, an old man from the generation before mine, to organise the final two battalions, if they ever came, into an effective defensive force and defend the Palace and Shakira, to the end. He was to send for help to my relations in all the surrounding countries and hope for relief.

With that thought I laid my head down on a rolled out bed in my tent and the next thing I knew, Geb was rocking my shoulder to wake me.

It was just before dawn. A pink light was faintly showing in the sky just above the eastern horizon. The mountains in that direction, perhaps 150 verst away, cut a jagged line of black in the gloom.

“Morning Sire.”

“Mmmm. Morning Geb.” I was tired and could say no more. My legs were stiff and I lay still on my back for a few minutes before being able to face the effort of standing up. I could smell cooked eggs and hot bread and gulped it all greedily down with a glass of cool water before peering out of the tent. Two guards stationed there saluted me and I saluted back. Geb was sitting a few sachines away, on a pile of folded cloth. Many of the tents had already been struck.

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“You were sleeping. We thought you must be tired.”

“Well we’re all tired.”

“Yes. But we need your mind to be fresh, Sire.”

I grumbled and mumbled but what was there to say?

Within an hour, just as the Sun was rising, we were off and marched until late morning, when the heat of the sun was too much to bear.

I raised my hand. “Halt.”

There was a lot of groaning as soldiers were ordered by their officers to pitch the rough cotton shelters which we carried. These consisted of a large sheet, perhaps nine sachine long and four wide and four poles, two long and two short. There are 500 sachine to a verst.

The short ones are like tent pegs and anchor the windward side of the cover. The long poles suspend the leeward side of the cover thus forming a crude shelter against the wind, or in this case the sun, as there was little wind.

We needed to reach the second well, in the early afternoon if we were to eventually get back on schedule. After only an hour and one half, I ordered the men to remount.

Abdil’khan rode up to me and, with glaring eyes, told me I was unwise to push the men so hard.

“They must learn.” I said.

At about mid-afternoon, we made the second well and the men gratefully crawled under the awnings while the few men permanently stationed there, gathered the horses under their own shelters. I could see the men were relieved this time. They knew they had made up time and, perhaps tomorrow, they would escape altogether, the intense heat of midday sun.

We did reach the third well before midday and on the next day too.

“When did the water carriers pass here?” I asked as soon as we stopped.

“Two days ago, Sire.”

The following morning I ordered the scouts ahead of us. We had about 40 of them and they would rotate in shift of 20 at a time, half a day ahead of us and spaced out at intervals of

1 verst. The shifts would change each day.

As we marched, or rode, I was really beginning to organise my thoughts about this battle now.

It would be my thirtieth, since the first, as a Captain in my father’s Army, at the age of 14.

I had far more experience, no doubt, than Korim but I didn’t underestimate him. He was in many ways, like I was at his age. Bold, impulsive and sometimes reckless. He would be a difficult opponent.

My Army consisted of spears-men, bowmen and swordsmen. There were 200 spears-men, four hundred bowmen and four hundred swordsmen for every Battalion. The spears--men each had a short, light sword, as did the bowmen but the swordsmen, expert with the weapon, each had a longer and heavier sword, straight edged. Some of the bows were metal and some of composite wood. They had that distinctive shape we favour in this part of the world, creating a C-shape, with the points facing forward when un-strung, facing backwards when strung, to form the distinctive compound shape. The metal bows had been experiments, some compound and some of one piece, but some men still favoured them. They could launch an arrow further than a wooden one, up to 60 sachine, but were heavier to carry. The usual wood bows could reach 50 sachine. Most of the men had armoured greaves of metal, plates on their outer arms and breast and backplates of metal, although the bowmen had lighter armour, on the torso, consisting of 6 plates front and rear. All the men had shields. The bowmen had smaller round shields, the mounted bowmen even smaller shields, but the unmounted spears-men had rectangular shields over half a sachine tall, which a man could crouch behind, or shelter under. All had skirts of plate and most had an under-layer of light chain and under this a corset of tightly stuffed cotton. Of course while marching, in the desert heat, most wore only the bare minimum of protection, helmets and arm plates. All men had similar helmets, round and dome shaped at first but steepening to a point, much like the pinnacles on many minarets. The Battalions were identified by coloured plumes on each soldier’s helmet.

I was armoured just like any swordsman. I didn’t want to attract attention to myself. We had no artillery, unlike many western Armies. I and my Chief Armourer had experimented with them. We’d had a cannon sent from France, of the best make. It had reached our neighbouring country, to the south in crates, safely. But then it had to be assembled in order to cross the mountains, hauled by a team of six camels. Unfortunately one of the wooden shod wheels had broken and so only the barrel arrived. I had immediately mounted it on a wooden frame and had it fired. I was much pleased with the results and wheels had been manufactured for it. Demitri, the Chief Armourer, was still assessing its usefulness but there were two problems, difficult to overcome. Firstly, the great cost of importing more of them, as we did not have the resources to build to the high standard required and, secondly, they were unpopular with my men. I could of course get some men trained to use them but I would have to pay them more money. They feared the danger of the cannons exploding in their faces. This would mean a double increase in cost of equipping my army. My infantry were currently payed about thirty roubles each year, with an allowance of about 2 berkovets of grain and in most cases, a small plot of land, enough to feed a family, with the allowance of grain, for one year. The officers were paid up to 80 roubles and their grain allowance was about 5 berkovets and they had a large portion of land to farm. The Generals were of course mainly Lords and had a whole state of my Kingdom to rule.

To equip myself with cannons, I would need to pay each cannoner four to five times as much as a normal infantryman and I doubted if enough grain could be raised through taxes. We were already taxing the normal citizens, at a rate close to that which would cause rioting.

The following morning, late, near the time we hoped to see the fifth water camp, Geb, riding alongside me, spied something dark on the sand a long distance ahead of us. As we rode cautiously towards it I could see it was an animal skin. Looking down at it from my horse I could see it was one of the water-skins the camels would have been carrying ahead of us, filled with water.

“Not a good sign.” I muttered.

I dismounted and looked closely at it. The stitching had come loose on one of the seams.

A few sachine further on, there were four planks of wood.

We reached the camp, a half-hour later than anticipated, weary, thirsty and hungry, but looking back, I could see the men were becoming hardened and less tired than previous days.

I immediately quizzed the Camp Captain about the water-skin.

“The Captain of the Water-Brigade reported that the stitching had come loose, chaffing the camel’s back.” He said. “Two more sacks had lost most of the water before they realised and repaired them.”

He held my gaze as I looked and I said, “Anything else?”

“Yes Sire. One of the men said he had seen something move, slightly behind him and perhaps 300 sachine to his left. His Captain asked if he was sure and he did not answer. Later I heard him mumbling that he was sure he had seen something.”

“Hmm. Alright. That is all.”

I wondered if the man had seen one of Korim’s men. I began to wonder if it could even be a soldier from the camp we had seen a few days before. We were now not far from where one might expect them to be, had they headed towards Korim shortly after we had left. They were keeping well off the main track. I knew that. There had been no fresh horse tracks among the many camel tracks. I speculated that Korim had ordered them not to use main roads. It would be tough for them. Either side of the road, there was a thin layer, perhaps a few feet thick of fine sand, blown there from the west. The main track was mainly reddish grit and sand, not the best surface but a lot better than sand.

I called together the scouts and trumpeters, shortly before we left, after noon.

“Show the scouts how to blow a note.” I ordered the trumpeters.

They looked bemused but spent a hilarious half-hour showing the scouts what to do. There was a very serious side to this but I saw no harm in some fun and many other soldiers gathered around to cheer the scouts on. As each one mastered the simple instrument, there was a loud round of applause. When I was satisfied I ordered the rest of the soldiers to get ready to leave.

“Trumpeters. We have enemies all around us and I need to give the scouts a reliable way of communicating quickly. Normally they could use the sun and their shields, if there was time to get into the right position, but not today. May I ask you if we can borrow your trumpets for a few days?”

They all quickly nodded. For most of them, the trumpets were simply a burden, when marching. Most were not trained musicians but just interested in the extra three rubles each year.