Rise of a Hero (The Farsala Trilogy) (4 page)

“They had lances. Very long, over five yards. We didn’t know—who could have imagined men wielding something like that? They brought them up as we charged, and killed the horses.”

He had to stop and swallow, and Jiaan grew cold remembering the sound of the chargers’ screams. At least Rakesh was healing well. The high commander must have somehow pulled his steed aside in those last, impossible seconds, for Rakesh had suffered only a deep gash in his shoulder.

“With the horses dead,” Fasal went on, “we had no choice but to fight them on foot.” He took
another breath, but found no further words, and ended with a silent gesture of despair.

In truth, no more needed to be said. The Farsalan deghans were—had been—cavalry, all their fighting methods dependent on their agile, well-trained horses. And the Hrum were the best infantry in the world. The deghans hadn’t stood a chance.

Kaluud and Markhan exchanged dismayed glances.

“I see,” said Markhan quietly.

Fasal’s groom rode into the yard, breaking the moment of silence. Jiaan heard the door open behind him as men began to emerge from the farmhouse that now doubled as the camp’s kitchen and the headquarters of Farsala’s so-called army.

No, it is an army,
Jiaan told himself.
No matter how small and battered.
My
army
. He didn’t know whether to laugh or weep.

He hadn’t wanted to command, the night after the battle, as survivors slowly found their way to the fire he had kindled. But Fasal had ordered the handful of injured, exhausted men to attack the Hrum camp, to try to rescue the prisoners. Ridden
with guilt for having survived when their friends and comrades had fallen, and trained from childhood to obey their deghan leaders, the men would have tried—if Jiaan hadn’t intervened. He had taken command in his father’s name, because he knew it was what his father would have wanted. He just wished he knew what to do with it.

Men were coming from the barn too, and the woods where the barracks were being built, as word of the new arrivals spread.

Fasal stiffened his spine, bracing himself for bad news, and turned to Kaluud. “You said the Hrum were advancing?”

“They took Desafon shortly after the battle,” said Kaluud. “You’ve probably heard that?”

Fasal nodded, and but now Kaluud hesitated. “Well, they marched straight to Setesafon. The city guard fought. They fought like lions, the country folk said, but Setesafon is too open. The palace was even worse. You remember. All those gardens. The Hrum . . .”

“They took Setesafon two days before we reached it,” Markhan finished harshly. “The gahn is dead, executed in sight of the whole city.” A murmur of dismay rippled through the listening crowd, but
Jiaan had expected it. “His wife and his children, the young heir, are in the Hrum’s slave pens now—if they haven’t been shipped out already. That’s why we made such haste to join you. The first thing we must do is free the heir. But your groom found us at Setesafon and it took us over a week to get here, so I hope the army isn’t too far off.”

He looked around the yard, now filled with somber, listening men. “Is it much farther? Your man said you were with them.”

“Markhan.” Fasal’s voice was rough. “This is the army. All that’s left of it.”

“What!” Markhan looked at the crowd again—fewer men than a small village could boast. “But that’s . . . There were almost seven hundred deghans in the army! Where are they?”

There had been almost seven thousand other men in that army, Jiaan remembered dryly.

“Dead,” said Fasal. “Dead or enslaved. The commander is dead. Our fathers are dead. We’re all that’s left.”

“But . . .” Markhan shook his head, as if trying to shake off the truth. Kaluud was gripping his stomach as if it hurt him, his golden brown skin pale. Jiaan felt a flash of pure pity.

“But . . . Who’s in command then?” Markhan asked.

“That would be me,” said Jiaan. For a wonder, his voice didn’t squeak.

“
What
? Don’t be ridiculous. By what possible authority would you command?”

So much for pity. “By my authority as High Commander Merahb’s son,” said Jiaan. He had spoken those words the first time right after the battle, and a few times since, but it still felt like taking off his clothes in the middle of the town square on market day.

“His peasant-born bastard,” said Markhan. “The commander may have granted you some rank, but only a true-born son inherits. And high commander isn’t an inherited title at all.”

“That’s true. But since the gahn is dead and can’t appoint a new commander, you’ll have to make do with me. Peasant-born bastard or not.”

The men who’d gathered around them were peasant-born bastards themselves, or the descendants of such. Only those with some deghan blood were trained to fight, even if they only served as support troops. Peasant-born support troops didn’t talk back to deghans, no matter how
idiotic their attitudes, but Jiaan could feel the subtle shift of the crowd as those standing nearby moved to stand behind him, and even those who didn’t move somehow made their allegiance clear.

“But . . .” Kaluud looked at Fasal, who nodded resentful confirmation.

“There’s no one else left.”

“There’s us,” Kaluud protested. “We’re deghans, at least.”

The silence was so deep Jiaan could hear the soft wind soughing in the pine branches.

Markhan gripped Kaluud’s arm. He might be a fool, but he wasn’t that stupid. “Very well,
Commander
. We’ve reported to you that the gahn is slain and his heir taken. How do you plan to go about freeing him?”

Jiaan tried not to wince. He hated moments like this. “I don’t. In Azura’s name, think! What good would a four-year-old gahn do anyone now? The best way to get him back, to get back all who survive, is to withstand the Hrum for a year. Just like my fath—the commander planned. Or had you forgotten about that?”

Judging by their expressions they had forgotten, and Jiaan could hardly blame them. The Hrum’s
policy of giving their own commanders one year from the first battle to complete their conquest—and of making a peaceful alliance if they failed—seemed absurd to Jiaan too. But his father had confirmed and reconfirmed it.

If the Hrum hadn’t taken all major cities, and pacified most of the countryside as well, at the end of a year, the Hrum would either offer Farsala a peaceful and profitable alliance, or they would leave them alone. And when the Hrum began negotiations, the first thing they would offer was the return of all the Farsalan slaves.

But the Hrum preferred to add the wealth and manpower of other nations directly into their army and tax base. Only if the price of conquest proved too high, would they offer alliance and peace. The Hrum had attacked thirty-one countries in the last two centuries, and there were only three allied states. So clearly, resisting for a year was harder than it sounded—Farsala had ten and a half months to go.

Even the commander, with all the information he had gathered, all his experience, had underestimated the Hrum. Maybe Markhan and Kaluud were right—there had to be someone more qualified
than an eighteen-year-old, half-blood bastard to take command. But he wasn’t here now, and Jiaan was. He knew what his father would have said about that.

“The Hrum have smashed our army,” said Markhan slowly. “They’ve taken Desafon. They’ve taken Setesafon, destroyed the guard, and killed the gahn. Just how do you propose to stop them?
Commander
.”

“At Mazad,” said Jiaan deliberately, and saw all three of them look suddenly, grudgingly thoughtful.

“But Mazad’s a tradesman’s city,” Kaluud protested. “If Setesafon’s guard couldn’t hold out—”

“Mazad has walls,” said Jiaan. “Walls, and supplies, and deep wells, and its citizens are prepared for sieges.”

He watched their faces brighten further, and felt something approaching despair. His father had led the deghans like this, offering hope and pride as the carrot—since he wasn’t allowed, he’d once commented dryly, to hit them with a stick.

But how could they fail to realize that the Hrum must have conquered hundreds of walled cities? Jiaan was certainly aware of it.

“Mazad is also a city of weapon-smiths,” Jiaan went on. “So hopefully they can figure out how to make swords that won’t break like dry wood against the Hrum’s. I don’t know if you heard that, about the battle, but the rumors are true. The Hrum’s steel is stronger than ours.”

Jiaan’s own sword had shattered on a Hrum blade, leaving him at his opponent’s mercy. And perhaps he’d shown mercy, for he’d only knocked Jiaan out with his shield. The line of battle had passed over Jiaan when the Hrum advanced, leaving him alive. There were still times when he regretted that, but they were growing farther apart.

“Is that how they beat us?” Kaluud demanded suddenly. “When we heard about the battle, I couldn’t believe . . .”

Jiaan sighed. “Not really. They beat us when they broke our charge with their lances. But the swords were the reason they beat us so badly. That so many died.”

He knew it was true. The traitor who had lured Jiaan, all unknowing, into revealing the Farsalan battle plan, really had very little to do with their defeat. But he would still die, as soon as
Jiaan found him. That wouldn’t happen today, though. Probably not till the land was free of the Hrum. Then there would be time for vengeance. But to free Farsala from the Hrum . . .

“It all hangs on Mazad,” Jiaan continued. “We have to concentrate on supporting them. I haven’t been to the city myself yet, but I’ve sent messages to the governor explaining the situation, and he’s confident he can hold out till next spring. Our job will be to harass the Hrum besiegers, and for that we’ll need more men and better weapons, so—”

“So you intend to sulk in hiding while the heir—our gahn!—is dragged off into slavery, in the hope that one day the Hrum will condescend to
give
him back?” Kaluud asked contemptuously.

Fasal had described Jiaan’s plan in exactly the same tone, if not quite the same words. Could none of them see beyond their honor to the facts? Jiaan sighed. “We don’t have the men, or the horses, or the—”

“Or the courage,” said Kaluud. “Which is why deghans fight and peasants farm, and putting half bloods in positions they can’t handle always fails. If the commander had seen that, if he’d had a
deghan
at his back, he might be alive today!”

That thought had occurred to Jiaan himself, in the deeps of the night. If only his father had appointed a deghan, a real fighter, to carry his banner, instead of a jumped-up archer who fell and broke his collarbone when his horse shied at the Hrum’s lances. If Jiaan had cared less about earning the others’ respect, if he’d had the sense to refuse the honor when his father offered it, would the commander still be alive?

In the morning light, he knew it wasn’t true. But hearing it spoken aloud struck him dumb, and he felt his face grow cold, which probably meant it was pale. A fine picture of a commander that presented.

Jiaan opened his mouth to reply, with no idea what he was going to say, but Fasal beat him to it.

“No,” he said firmly. “I didn’t see him fight—I was in another part of the line—but he was taken out by a Hrum soldier when his sword broke, just like half the deghans who died that day. And the commander survived till the very end. When it was clear that Farsala had lost, he challenged the Hrum to send a champion for single combat. Instead, they sent archers and murdered him. Right there in the circle, Razm take them. There
was nothing Jiaan could have done except die, or be captured with the rest of them. Nothing anyone could have done.”

He looked up to meet Jiaan’s astonished gaze, determination to be fair written all over his open face. How like a deghan to be fair, just as you were set to bid the djinn to take the lot of them.

“It’s still cowardice—peasant cowardice—for us to cower here like jackals while the lions plunder at will,” Kaluud objected.

At least he was right about one thing—the Hrum were more like lions than the spawn of Razm, the djinn of cowardice, for which Fasal so often cursed them. Jiaan was suddenly tired of all of them. And he was done with trying to be liked.

“It was deghan courage that got us into this mess in the first place,” he said coldly. “We need a secure base, a larger force, and a realistic objective before we do anything. You can help, or you can leave. Those are your only choices.”

He felt like an idiot, spouting orders that way. But he also felt the support of the men around him—their willingness to uphold his judgment.

Though Azura only knew what he’d do if the idiots chose to leave. Bad enough that the traitor
knew where this place was—but as long as no one knew the army was here, it shouldn’t matter. Right now the Hrum had no way of knowing the Farsalan army still existed, but if word got out . . . No, they were deghans. There was no doubt how they would choose.

Kaluud’s face was dark with anger. Markhan looked at Jiaan intently, but whatever he was looking for, he didn’t seem to find it. Jiaan waited.

“Stay,” Markhan spat. Kaluud nodded.

Fasal’s sigh of relief was audible even where Jiaan stood. “I’ll show you where to put your horses.”

Both Markhan and Kaluud were glaring at Jiaan over their shoulders as they followed Fasal toward the horse pens, but they went.

He started to sag with relief, then caught himself and straightened his shoulders. At least he could try to look like a commander.

His father had argued with the deghans under his command—it had never left him clammy-palmed, his heart pounding with sick tension. His father had cursed them up one side and down the other, showed them a carrot or two, and they’d followed him like geese flying after their leader. His
father could handle them. His father had been one of them.

Jiaan wasn’t one of them, and he wasn’t his father either. But he was the best commander Farsala had left, so he was stuck with the job.
Djinn take the lot of them.