The Many Deaths of the Black Company (Chronicle of the Black Company) (109 page)

She did have some ideas. “Do what you did to us. Make them strip naked. Take their rheitgeistiden and their
shefsepoken.
Make them stay on the ground where they’re vulnerable. But promise them they’ll get everything back after they show you that you can trust them. Then you stretch it out.”

“I’m going to adopt you. You’d make a wonderful daughter. Hey, evil-minded future daughter number two. You heard Arkana. What do you think?”

Grudgingly, Shukrat admitted, “I think she’s right.”

“Excellent! Let’s go ask your wicked future mother’s opinion.”

We found Lady reading what Baladitya was spending his final years recording, which was, more or less, Shivetya’s biography. “Darling, I’ve decided we need to adopt these two marvellous children. They’re turning out every bit as blackhearted as we ever wanted our Booboo to be.”

Lady awarded me a suspicious look, decided I was fooling around but meant what I said. More or less. “Tell me about it.”

I said, “Go to it, girls.”

89

Beside the Cemetery: More Confusion

Expecting the Great General to remain offensive-minded was not enough, Sleepy knew. She had to outguess him. This one time she could not let Mogaba slide around her.

She took a twinned approach to planning, setting up two distinct staffs. The first consisted of Iqbal and Runmust Singh, Riverwalker, Sahra, Willow Swan and others who had been with her since the Kiaulune wars. She even summoned Blade up from Jaicur because Blade actually knew Mogaba personally and, at one time, had been fairly close to him.

The second general staff consisted entirely of officers from Hsien. These men knew Mogaba only as a bugaboo. And they had no knowledge of the surrounding territory beyond what they could learn from maps and scouting on their own.

Sleepy hoped to find something useful in the gap between diverging visions.

She kept her cavalry busy, scouting, chasing Mogaba’s scouts, skirmishing with enemy patrols, trying to locate the bulk of the Great General’s forces.

Mogaba was doing the same. Both sides relied heavily on questioning civilians passing through. Traffic on the Rock Road had slackened but had not stopped entirely.

Each staff proposed several likely enemy campaigns. Sleepy had their opposite numbers play out a counter campaign. And in the end, after two almost sleepless days, she felt no more illuminated than she had at the beginning.

So she chose to go with intuition. That had served her best during previous dances with the Great General, anyway.

90

By the Cemetery: Still More Confusion

The Great General told his commanders, “I’m growing concerned that all this maneuvering helps them more than it does us. It’s obvious that they’re without mystical support. But every hour we maneuver is an hour nearer the time when they get those advantages back.”

Aridatha Singh asked, “Aren’t we still at a disadvantage in a direct confrontation?”

“Soldier for soldier, possibly. But we have three times as many soldiers. And they’re still trying to cover a line running all the way from the Grove of Doom to this stand near their camp. That’s too much to hold with ten thousand men.”

No questions came. No suggestions arose. The Great General seldom solicited advice. When Mogaba gathered his captains he planned to issue instructions. Their job would be to see that those were executed.

“I’m returning to the original plan. I’ll drive straight forward, in the middle, with the Second Territorial. I’ll engage and hold. Singh, you advance along your previous route with your same mission. Once you’re behind them form your division in battle array and advance up the Rock Road. If the rest of us have done our jobs you’ll only have to sweep up fugitives.”

Mogaba rested a hand upon the shoulder of a young officer named Narenda Nath Saraswati, scion of an old aristocratic family, of the third generation of that family to serve under arms since the opening skirmishes of the Shadowmaster wars. Two days earlier Saraswati had been a regimental chief of staff with an aggressive attitude. The Great General having been disappointed by the timid performance of his remaining division, Saraswati’s aggressive nature was about to earn him a chance to shine.

Mogaba said, “Narenda, as soon as I have the enemy engaged, I want you to take your whole force forward on a narrow front, along the edge of this wood.” That division having been shifted to the right since the previous engagement. “Overrun their camp. That shouldn’t be difficult. They appear to be holding it with raw recruits. Once you clear the camp, reform and advance so as to strike the enemy left wing, rear, and reserve.
Don’t
begin your initial attack until I do have the enemy solidly engaged.

“One more thing. I want you both to leave your main standards with me. If the enemy sees those maybe they’ll think I’m concentrating everything in one place.”

He paused. There were no questions. All this had been planned out before. The necessity now was renewed vigor.

“I’ll go in at midmorning. Behind scouts and skirmishers. Make sure your men are well-provisioned. I’ll personally strangle any officer who fails to see to the welfare of his soldiers.”

The Great General’s attitude was well-known, if not universally applauded by his officers. Corruption was so deeply ingrained in Taglian culture that even after more than a generation of cultural collision and occasional bloody change there were still those who failed to understand that theft from the men you commanded was not an acceptable way to supplement your income.

Whatever their differences, the Black Company, the Protector, the Great General, all the northerners who gained power, strained to increase the efficiency of their regime by rooting out graft and corruption. More than anything else, that made the outsiders incredibly alien.

“Aridatha. Wait. I’ve had a thought. If things go well it’s likely Saraswati will break the enemy before you can get into position behind them.”

“I was thinking of leaving during the night and going into hiding inside the Grove of Doom.”

“Good idea. What I’m thinking, then, is, you should come out in a long line so you can catch most of the fugitives running southward. I’m especially interested in catching the kind of people who go underground and five years later turn up with a whole damned new army.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Mogaba growled. That was a promise he hated. It sounded like an excuse being put into place beforehand. Though Aridatha was never the sort to excuse his own shortcomings. He was more the sort who found good reasons why others failed.

91

By the Cemetery: Even More Confusion

“Today’s the day,” Sleepy told her Captains. “I can feel it.” She went on to excoriate Croaker, Tobo and that bunch for taking so long. Then she began telling people what she wanted done. She started getting arguments right away. She snapped, “Mogaba is going to split his force again. For that he’s going to pay. If you want to argue with me I’ll accept your resignations now. There’re officers who’ll do what they’re told and keep their mouths shut.”

A few hours later the Great General appeared almost exactly where she expected him. He was spread out over a lot of ground and had a lot of banners flying. For a time she feared she might have guessed wrong and Mogaba was just going to come straight ahead and roll right over her. But he did not attack as vigorously as he should have if that was the case.

Sleepy did not press in her turn. Not right away. She did not want to make it obvious that she had not concentrated her forces, either. She engaged in skirmishing and harassing tactics but stepped back whenever Mogaba responded in any strength. He came forward both because he had to stay in contact and because Sleepy was pulling back toward the second jaw of his trap. He seemed willing to be led that way.

When the division on the far right rushed from concealment behind a low ridge, it lost all cohesion. The troops had to cover most of a mile. Their commander was more interested in striking before his foes could respond than he was in presenting a pretty picture advancing.

The men in colored armor who came out of the hidden cemetery marched in perfect order. Some carried recently manufactured fireball projects. They began slaughtering the rabble before most of the Taglians were aware that Fortune had dealt them one from the bottom of the deck. They lasted as long as they did only because there were so many of them.

92

By the Cemetery: Confusion Piled Higher

“They’ve begun to stiffen on their right,” one of Mogaba’s companions announced. “But they’re falling back on the other wing.”

“There’s something wrong,” Mogaba declared. “There should be more of them.”

“Why don’t we rush them?”

“Do sound a general advance. But at the slow cadence.”

The first confused message arrived just minutes later. Narenda Nath Saraswati’s division was on the run. Saraswati himself was dead. Most of the division officers had been captured or killed.

Before he could make sense of it, Mogaba heard the horns on his right and saw the different colored blocks, every soldier with his own banner on his back, advancing. A flurry of cavalrymen swept stragglers, and fugitives, and foolish resistance out of the infantry’s path.

The Great General needed only a moment to understand that Sleepy was about to kidney-punch the Second Territorial with her best. “Full attack!” he ordered. “Fastest cadence!” If he got the soldiers moving forward before they recognized their peril he could use his numbers to overcome. “The little witch finally caught me.” But there was still Aridatha, moving in behind. It remained to be seen who would have whom in the end.

Mogaba drove straight toward the enemy camp. If he could get inside its palisade.…

93

Beyond the Grove of Doom: Confusion Grows

Aridatha learned of the developing disaster from Vehdna horsemen who had been forced to flee in his direction, around the eastern end of the battlefield, because enemy skirmishers had blocked the way north already. Aridatha was able to intuit the truth from the complete confusion of the reports.

He ordered his division to form for battle.

Backboned by his own City Battalions the force was well-drilled, if not veteran. Within two hours Singh had the enemy in sight. The invaders and their traitor native allies were involved in a huge, bloody melee with all of the Taglian troops Mogaba had been able to hold together or who had not been able to run away. Evidently the invaders had not remained sufficiently concerned about Singh’s division.

Aridatha’s advent was close to a complete surprise. As for its effectiveness.… His soldiers had no experience dealing with the terror. And they all knew that their brothers in the other divisions had lost their battle already and were busily doing their dying.

*   *   *

The exhausted armies disentangled as the day waned. The soldiers on both sides had endured so much horror that, gradually, they just stopped trying to interfere with an enemy who seemed willing to go away without causing trouble.

But who won?

On that day arguments could have been made both ways. Final determination would be in the hands of those historians who examined the effect the battle had on Taglian society and culture. It could be a watershed or it could be nothing important, depending on what followed and how the population responded.

94

Beside the Cemetery: Sorrows Gathering

Not even Sleepy had the physical or mental energy left to do anything useful. She slumped against the saddle of a dead horse, let the twilight and exhaustion wash over her. She felt no exhilaration even though she had broken the backbone of the last Taglian army and had, for the first time, been the one who held the field when the fighting ended. Mogaba, if he lived, was the one slinking away this time.

A big contributor to her mood was the fact that this accomplishment, such as it was, was as much Suvrin’s responsibility as her own. Suvrin, alone, had not abandoned all thought of the third Taglian division. He had been able to move his brigade in response, feebly, when the rest of the enemy appeared. But for Suvrin’s cool head, the Great General would be here, holding the field, yet again. Though the numbers of dead and dying, likely, would be much the same.

Suvrin settled beside her. He said nothing for a long time. Neither did she. For the first time in decades she wanted to hold someone, wanted to be held by someone. But she did not act upon that want.

Finally, Suvrin spoke. “Willow Swan is dead. I saw his body a while ago.”

Sleepy grunted. “I have a feeling there’ll be a lot of old friends to mourn once we collect the dead. I saw Iqbal and Riverwalker go down.”

“No. Not Iqbal. Who’ll take care of Suruvhija?” Singh’s wife was not all that bright.

“The Company, Suvrin. Until she chooses to leave.” And Runmust, if he had survived. It was his obligation under Shadar religious law. “She’s one of our own. We take care of our own. Do we have anyone capable of handling picket duty?”

Suvrin responded with an interrogatory grunt.

“That’s the Great General over there. Iron Man Mogaba. If he’s still even a little bit healthy and can pull together some kind of night attack he’ll be back. Maybe even if he has to do it all by himself.”

Suvrin took several deep, thoughtful breaths. “We have quite a few recruits who didn’t do much but hide in the cemetery. I’ve already shamed some of them into picking up the battlefield.”

“It won’t matter if they run away as long as they run toward us.”

“Uhm.”

“Willow? He never did.… Never found his dream.”

“I always pictured him as your basic everyman. Just drifting wherever the tides of life took him. Showing a flash sometimes but never really getting up and grabbing the reins. He might have been a hopeless romantic, too. According to the Annals. He had a case on Lady once. And a case on the Protector, where he was much more lucky but lived to regret it. He even had it for you for a while, I think.”