Sunbird (57 page)

^{'You know that,' Huy warned her sternly. 'Do not trifle with the gods.'}

^{She looked up at him demurely, but Huy could have sworn there were glints of laughter and teasing mockery in the green eyes.}

^{'Holiness, you wrong me. I did not mean as man and maid.'}

^{'How then?' demanded Huy, disappointed and with a hollow feeling in his guts at the denial.}

^{'We will find the answer to that when we meet at Opet, Holiness,' she murmured and Huy knew that the months until then would pass slowly.}

^{Lannon stood over a clay box in which was modelled a relief map of the great river area. In the east rose the Clouds of Baal, a mighty waterfall where the river fell hundreds of feet into a dark gorge and the spray from the torrent rose high into the heavens, a perpetual cloud that stood upon the plains.* From here the river flowed into a deep valley, a hot unhealthy place where rough and rocky ramparts rose on each bank, heavily forested and rich with the ivory-bearing herds. Six hundred miles farther east the river entered the territory of the Dravs, and ran through a wide alluvial plain which was inundated in the season of rain. Then at last the river joined the eastern sea through a dozen fan-shaped mouths.}

^{* Victoria F
alls}

^{Lannon pointed out the main features of this country on the model to his generals, occasionally turning for verification to his garrison commanders who had held the river during the past year. There were twenty men in the large leather tent, and the sides were lifted to allow a dry breeze to enter - and to show the view across the wide valley below the camp. The great river itself was obscured by the tall dark green growth of trees along its bank. There was an occasional flash of reflected sunlight from the water amongst the trees. Far to the north the opposite escarpment of the valley rose in smoky blue tiers of hills.}

^{'Our spies have marked the main towns at which the tribes are gathered. They are mostly on the high ground, a day's march beyond the river, and it is important that each tribe be attacked on the same day.'}

^{He went on to assign a target to each of his commanders, a crossing place over the river, and a return route.}

^{'There will be no danger of attack on the return march, as long as you break their spirit on the first day. Each of the tribes is at war with the others, and they will not rally to the assistance of each other. The only way in which we can fail is if warning is carried to the barbarians and they scatter before our thrust.'}

^{He explained the plan in detail, dwelling on the logistics of supply and routes of march, until at last Lannon set a date for the attack.}

^{'Twelve days from now. That will give each of your legions time to march to the crossing places, and reach the towns of the barbarians.'}

^{From the camp on the escarpment of the valley, Huy marched the Sixth Ben-Amon to the garrison fort on the banks of the great river at Sett, and here he put the legion into camp in a forest of mopane trees which would screen them from observers on the opposite bank. Fires were forbidden during the day and were carefully screened at night and the men were kept busy building the rafts for the crossing. Heavy rains in the west had swollen the river and the ford was impassable.}

^{Mago Tellema, the garrison commander, was a tall balding disillusioned man with the yellowish skin and eyes of the shivering sickness which was endemic along the river. He seemed pathetically glad of Huy's company during the waiting days, and Huy found his information valuable, so they dined together every evening - Huy provided the wine out of the ample stocks he had brought from Zeng.}

^{'I have kept my patrols on their usual routine, as you ordered.'}

^{'Good,' Huy nodded over a bowl of baked river fish and wild rice. 'Have they noticed any increase in activity since my arrival?'}

^{'No, Holiness. A war party of a few hundred crossed last night and attacked one of my outposts. We drove them off readily enough, killing fifty of them.'}

^{'What do they gain by these raids?'}

^{'Weapons, and an appraisal of our strength.'}

^{'Is the whole border so active?'}

^{'No, Holy Father. But here at Sett we oppose one of the more warlike tribes, the Vendi - they are exceptional. You recall how four years ago they crossed in strength, 20,000 of them overwhelmed the garrison here and left the valley--'}

^{'Yes,' Huy interrupted. 'I was with the legions when we met them at Bhor.'}

^{'Ah! Of course. I remember now that your legion's number was on the honour list.' The commander chuckled. 'Of that 20,000 not one returned across the river.'}

^{'They fought well, though - for pagans,' Huy conceded.}

^{'Indeed, Holiness, they are exceptional in that respect also and in the years since then they have become more formidable.'}

^{'Have you seen their town?'}

^{'No, Holiness, but I have many spies. It is set on the first slopes of the northern escarpment, where the tributary river Kal comes down from the plateau.'}

^{'What is the population?'}

^{'I believe them to number 50,000.'}

^{'So large!' Huy looked up with a mouthful of fish and stared at the commander.}

^{'They are a numerous tribe - not all of them live in the town. They tend large herds of cattle and are spread over a vast area.'}

^{'Is the town fortified?'}

^{'It is a large and sprawling huddle of huts, Holiness. Some of the huts are ringed with primitive palisades, but these are defence against wild animals only.'}

^{A slave refilled Huy's wine bowl and took away his empty dish. Huy cupped the bowl in his hands and stared moodily into the dark red liquid. His silence discomforted the commander who at last blurted, 'Is it true that the king will arrive here on the morrow?'}

^{'Yes. Lannon Hycanus will march with my legion in the raid.'}

^{'I have never been presented to him,' the man murmured, and Huy had a penetrating insight into the career of an elderly officer doomed to a minor outpost in the wilderness without patron or prospects.}

^{'I will commend you to him,' Huy promised, and saw the pathetic gratitude in the man's eyes.}

^{One of the biremes that patrolled the river landed a century of axemen and archers on the far bank in the night, and before dawn they had rigged the lines across the river.}

^{The river was 300 paces wide at this point, a dirty green flow of water between steep banks which were thickly wooded and covered with reed and dense vegetation. The rafts were carried down to the river's edge and attached to the looped lines. The legion boarded in groups of fifty, and the elephants walked away with the line drawing the rafts smoothly across the river.}

^{The crossing went with well-drilled precision - it was not the first time a legion had crossed the great river. There were a few minor incidents - two hoplites fell from their rafts and sank swiftly beneath the weight of their armour, one of the rafts capsized a struggling mass of men and equipment into the shallow water beside the bank but all waded to safety, a legionary entangled his arm in one of the lines and had it neatly severed below the elbow - but the crossing was completed before mid-afternoon and Lannon turned to Huy:}

^{'Bravely done, my Sunbird. Now explain to me your order of march.'}

^{Huy left a cohort to hold the crossing, and to act as a base for his stores, a pile of dried meat and corn in leather bags. His legion would be tired, hungry, and perhaps hard pressed on its return and if all went as was planned, there would also be many thousands of extra mouths to feed.}

^{Then behind a screen of light infantry and archers he began his march on the barbarian town of Kal. Here the weeks of training and hardening during the march from the Zeng-Hanno showed. For although the ground was broken and heavily forested, the legion moved swiftly in compact columns, covering the ground at a pace that pushed a steady five miles behind them every hour. Ahead of them the scouts insured that no one would carry a warning to the town. The few hundred herders and hunters and root gatherers that were met with by the scouts were dispatched with a silent shower of arrows or a swift clean axe stroke. Their bodies lay where they had fallen beside the track, and the columns trudged on past them with hardly a sidelong glance. Huy saw that they were well-formed men and women, dressed in kilts of animal skins and with tribal scars on their cheeks and breasts. Like most of the tribes from the north their skins were a very dark blueish black. Some of them had mutilated their teeth by filing them to a sharp point like those of a shark, and the men were armed with throwing spears and light axes with half-moon-shaped blades.}

^{The legion halted after dark, and ate cold cooked meat and corn cakes from their pouches while the wine-carriers moved amongst them filling the bowls.}

^{'Look.' Huy touched Lannon's shoulder and pointed towards the northern hills. The sky glowed, as though the moon was rising from the wrong direction. It was the reflected light from thousands of cooking fires.}

^{'A rich harvest,' Lannon nodded. 'Just as the witch prophesied.'}

^{Huy stirred uncomfortably at the mention of Tanith, but remained silent.}

^{'Her words have troubled me - I've spent many nights pondering them.' Lannon wiped his greasy fingers and lips, before he reached for the wine bowl. 'She preaches death and darkness and betrayal by a friend.' He rinsed his mouth with wine and spat it on the ground before drinking.}

^{Huy murmured, 'She did not preach, Majesty - she replied to a question.'}

^{But Lannon said, 'I believe she is evil.'}

^{'Sire!' protested Huy quickly.}

^{'Do not be misled by a pretty face, Huy.'}

^{'She is young, innocent,' he began but saw Lannon leaning towards him and peering into his face, and he stopped.}

^{'What is this witch to you, my Sunbird?'}

^{'As a maid, she means nothing. How could she, she belongs to the goddess,' Huy denied his love, and Lannon leaned back and grunted sceptically.}

^{'It is as well - you are wise in all things but women, my friend. You must let me guide you.'}

^{'You are always kind,' Huy muttered.}

^{'Keep away from that one, Huy. Be warned by one who loves you, she will bring you nothing but sorrow.'}

^{'We have rested long enough.' Huy stood up and settled the strap of his axe about his wrist. 'It is time to march.'}

^{After midnight they crested the low line of hills that formed the first slope of the escarpment, and before them spread a wide-open basin of land through which the dark river Kal meandered. The basin was moon-washed silver and blue, and the smoke from 10,000 cooking fires spread like a pale sea mist across the river, lying in layers in the still night air.}

^{The fires had died to pin-points of dull red that speckled the town, and the huts were dark and shapeless, scattered thickly without plan or pattern, a vast agglomeration of primitive dwellings.}

^{'He estimated 50,000 - and he's not far wrong.' Huy looked out across the basin, and beside him Lannon asked:}

^{'How will you proceed?' And Huy smiled in the moonlight.}

^{'You taught me how to hunt game, my king.'}

^{His cohort commanders came for their orders, cloaked and helmeted and grim. Huy ordered out a thin screen of light infantry and covering bowmen to the east. During the day the scouts had captured 4,000 of the rangy little scrub cattle belonging to the Vendi.}

^{'Take the cattle with you. You remember Hannibal's ruse in Italia, it will serve us as well upon the great river.'}

^{Lannon laughed delightedly and clapped Huy's shoulder when he had explained it. 'Fly for me, Sunbird.'}

^{'Roar for me, Gry-Lion,' Huy grinned back at him as he settled and buckled his helmet.}

^{Silently Huy led 4,500 of his heavy infantry and axemen around to the west and lay them in a crescent shape at the edge of the forest beyond the town. Huy slept for an hour and when one of his centurions shook him awake he was stiff and cold with the night dew.}

^{'Stand to!' he ordered quietly, and the word was passed from mouth to mouth. There was a stirring and a dark movement along the edge of the forest as the legionaries slung their axes and swords and bows, and took up instead the slavers' wooden clubs.}

^{Huy and Lannon hurried to the command position at the centre of the line, shrugging off their cloaks and flexing cold muscles.}

^{Huy looked out across the sleeping town and the smell of it was wood smoke and cooking food and human excrement, a great sour smell of humanity that wrinkled his nostrils. The town was silent except for the lonely barking of a cur, and the petulant wail of a sleepless baby.}

^{Huy said softly, 'The time is now.' And Lannon nodded. Huy turned and gave the order to one of his centurions and the man stooped over a clay fire pot and blew flame to life on the bunch of pitch-dipped rags that tipped the signal arrow. When the flame had caught and blossomed he notched the arrow and loosed it in a high arching parabola against the dark sky. From along the line the signal was repeated, orange flame soaring briefly in the darkness, but the silence was unbroken and the town slept on.}

^{'They have set no guards, no picket, nothing,' Lannon remarked scornfully.}

^{'They are barbarians,' Huy pointed out mildly.}

^{'They deserve slavery,' Lannon said.}

^{'They will fare better as slaves than free men,' Huy agreed.}

^{'We will dress them and feed them and show them the true gods.'}

^{Lannon nodded. 'We have come to lead them out of the darkness and into the sun.' And he shifted the heavy slaving club into his right hand.}

^{From the east, appearing suddenly out of the edge of the forest, stampeded a mass of bellowing, maddened cattle. On their horns burned torches of pitch and grass, behind them they dragged flaming dry branches and they were driven by their own terror and by a line of yelling whooping warriors. The whole scene was hellish with dust and smoke and flame. The line of cattle crashed into the town, knocking down the flimsy grass huts, leaving fire to bloom and spread in their wake, trampling the sleep-drugged naked Vendi that stumbled into their path. Behind them ran the warriors, clubbing down the survivors and leaving them lying in the hoof-churned dust.}

^{Huy heard a steady climbing wail from the town, the sound of thousands of terrified voices. He heard the drumming of running hooves and saw the explosions of yellow flame and sparks mount into the night sky as the tinder-dry huts burned.}

^{'Hold your line,' he called to the men in the darkness around him. 'Leave no gaps in the net for the fish to slip through.'}

^{The night was filled with movement and sound and flame. The flames spread quickly lighting the scene with a great flickering orange light, and the Vendi darted and milled and screamed as the grim line of marauders moved down upon them. The clubs rose and fell and the sound of the blows against bone was that of woodsmen working in a forest. They fell black and naked, and lay in the glaring firelight, or crawled and wriggled and wailed.}

^{One woman with her infant clutched to her breast saw the relentless line bearing down on her, and she whirled like a doe startled from covert and ran into the tall bellowing flames of burning thatch. She burned like a torch, her hair exploding, and she screamed once and then fell scorched and unrecognizable into the flames. Huy saw it, and his blood madness cooled, congealing into revulsion and disgust.}