The Shasht War (10 page)

Thru watched them go and felt some of the same pride. They were all farmers, more or less, but they were learning how to be soldiers, and they'd met Man the Master, Man the Cruel himself, and come away with a victory.

Later Thru learned more about the chase from Ter-Saab by the campfire.

"They ran, they literally did not stop running until they reached the coast. We could not keep up."

"And when you got to the coast?"

"They were almost all off the shore in boats. We chased the last few hundred right into the waves. They chose to swim rather than stand and fight. We found a few hiding in the rocks and killed them. They would not surrender."

Thru shrugged. That was the way with the warriors of Shasht. Surrender was alien to their thinking.

"The ships turned away from the shore and were gone that same evening."

"Heading?"

"South, across to Fauste or Mauste I expect."

"You sent messengers?"

"To all the coastal cities, runners south to Glaine and north to Annion."

"And a bird took the news to Sulmo."

"Correct."

Thru raised his mug. Ter-Saab raised his.

"May they never come back!"

They drank to this, but neither believed in his heart that the war was over.

Thru's head was still wrapped in bandages, so it was too soon for him to resume active duty. Indeed, he was still suffering from headaches. But he was the nominal commander of the army at that moment. He made the decision to split the army. He sent the trained regiments back to their postings and the rest back to Sulmo. Ter-Saab and the Sixth Regiment headed back down the road to Glaine. Thru remained in Shimpli-Dindi.

He was still there three days later when a royal messenger found him and delivered a sealed packet. He opened it and found a letter from Toshak. He was summoned to Sulmo at once to share his opinions of the battle of Chenna/Sow's Head with the Royal Council. New training decisions needed to be made, and they wanted to hear from the veterans of the battle before they made them.

The following morning he set off, riding in a donkey cart, since he was still unsteady on his feet, and by noon he was far up the road to royal Sulmo, rolling through the lush landscape of the Sulo Valley.

The great Shasht fleet rode at anchor in the bay. Thirty-three ships, most of them giants with three and four masts, were set in long lines across the water. Their names spoke of the civilization that had built them: "Sword," "Mace," "Axe," "Spear," and the mighty flagship, "Anvil."

Ashore, smoke rose from the chimneys of New Harbor, the town the men had built on the ruins of the monkey place they had conquered. Small boats plied back and forth between the ships and the shore, as they did every day. Inland the land rose up into a series of small mountains with sharp-edged peaks. This was the island of Mauste, the southernmost part of the Land.

Aboard the flagship, a tempestuous meeting in the admiral's grand salon was coming to a close.

General Dogvalth, still visibly shaken by the horrific events of the previous ten minutes, had just been promoted into the place of the disgraced General Hustertav. Filek Biswas, the chief surgeon of the fleet, was still chewing his lip in nervous reaction to those events. The smell was going away, thankfully, but the memory would linger. Hustertav's face contorted in that snarl of fear. His screams as he clung to the table, then to their legs. The horrific sound of his bones being broken by the Red Tops.

Admiral Heuze, who had ordered Hustertav to be taken from the room by the Red Tops, was rubbing his chin and staring out the window. Captain Pukh, Heuze's old naval crony, said something quietly to the admiral, and they both barked with harsh laughter. Filek shivered. There was something so cold in the admiral's good cheer. One moment he could be telling a joke and the next, signaling the Red Tops to take you away.

The slaves had finished mopping Hustertav's excrement from the deck, and they left with their buckets in their hands, their chains rattling faintly.

"Right," snapped Heuze. "Now that that disgusting little scene is finished, we can get on with the task at hand."

Everyone hunched forward under the lash of Heuze's scorn. To Filek's eyes, they looked like beaten slaves themselves. The generals, eyes downcast, manner hesitant, men uncertain of their position, were grouped together at the far end.

Filek exchanged a glance with Captain Rukil, now one of Heuze's favorites. The captain, a decent sort, was obviously shocked. He looked away, unwilling to share even that with Filek. The general had been removed with a complete lack of dignity, and Filek could tell that Rukil was a dignified man.

"So?" mused the admiral. "Tell me again, what were the total casualty figures?" Everyone looked to Filek, who for some reason was regarded as the source of such facts. Filek didn't want this position, but it had been thrust upon him. He had learned that it was best to please the admiral.

"One thousand and fifty-four dead, by the last count. Eight hundred ambulatory wounded, and one hundred and five non-ambulatory."

Heuze's eyes sparkled dangerously.

"That stupid fool Hustertav should be grateful I gave him to the priests. I wouldn't mind burning his legs off, very slowly."

Dogvalth, who had been a friend of Hustertav's, was still pale. Poor Hustertav was going to be tied over the altar come the morning sunrise. The priests would lift his heart, still beating, to the Great God.

"The question for you, General Dogvalth"—the admiral stared at the man like a hawk—"is simple enough. How are you going to turn this beaten army of ours around? This is the army of Shasht. This is the army of Aeswiren III. Where is the spirit of Kaggenbank? Why have we not had victory?"

"Well," began Dogvalth in earnest stupidity. "We had them trapped against the river, but they were clever. They slipped away by swimming downstream. In the second battle we came so close to cutting them in two, and then they stopped the Blitzers. They are worthy opponents. We must give them that much respect."

"They're supposed to be nothing more than jumped-up monkeys of some kind. How can they defeat us! We are the spawn of the Great God, are we not?"

For a moment Dogvalth trembled. Was he about to be given to the priests as well?

"I forbade any frontal assaults!" boomed the admiral. "Hustertav then went and made two frontal assaults. Both cost us too many men."

"Yes, sir, but the truth of it is, we won't defeat the monkeys without taking them on toe to toe. We're better than they are anyway."

"By the purple ass of the Great God!" boomed the admiral slamming his hand on the table. Dogvalth fell silent. Heuze mastered his anger.

"My dear general, I know we can beat them. But, when we take them on toe to toe next time, we are going to do it on ground that suits us and assures us of a victory. Hustertav went to the priests because he was criminally stupid and wasteful of my soldiers. In the future, when we see the enemy perched on a hilltop with his army safely behind a ditch and rampart what are we going to do?"

"We will maneuver, we will entrench and starve him out."

"Exactly. We will not take our best troops and make them fight uphill into the teeth of the enemy's archery. This is my army now, and we will protect this army and use it to crush these insolent monkeys once and for all."

Filek noticed Captain Rukil's grimace.

No one dared to say that actually it was Nebbeggebben's army. Filek wondered whether the "Hand," the secret force that regularly pruned the ranks of those deemed troublesome to the imperial succession, had taken notice of Admiral Heuze's increasing signs of megalomania. Filek hoped not. He owed his position to the admiral's benevolence, ever since he'd removed Heuze's leg in a manner both painless and surgically perfect. If Heuze went, then Filek would probably go with him, such was the way of the Hand.

"He's cost me a thousand men, maybe more. How many of those wounded are going to die, Biswas?"

"Some, sir. There are many with infected, suppurating wounds. Gangrene will kill them."

"Exactly, see? That stupid Hustertav deserves what he's going to get. We're left with less than seven thousand soldiers in the whole fleet, and that is simply unacceptable, do you understand?"

Again, everyone hunched down, as if under the lash.

"Do you hear me, Dogvalth?"

"Yes, sir."

"I want those monkeys crushed, but I want it done without these long casualty lists. You are the men of Shasht. You will use your superior abilities of maneuver to get the monkeys into a tight spot, and then you will annihilate them, understood?"

"Yes, sir."

Filek wondered how poor Dogvalth was going to do this. The so-called monkeys had proved to be a tricky foe. They'd whipped the army of Shasht in the first campaign, the year before. Now they'd done it again.

"Now," said the admiral unrolling a large map of the southern territory, which had been chosen for this year's campaign. As with all the maps of the new world, the interior was largely a blank. "Where is the next attack going in? What are your plans?"

Filek noted with grim amusement that Dogvalth had obviously had the foresight to prepare a little speech in case he'd been asked that question. Dogvalth had obviously suspected that Hustertav was doomed.

"Well, sir, I recommend a landing on the western side of this peninsula. There's a good bay there, good landing sites along this river estuary."

"And why do you want to go ashore there?"

"Well, the land there is pretty flat and open. It ought to allow us plenty of room for maneuvers. And we have information that a major city of the monkeys lies up that river. So our presence there is sure to draw their forces into a battle."

The admiral nodded.

"At last"—he leaned over and patted Dogvalth's shoulder—"a general with some foresight. Good. Win me a battle, General, that's all I ask. We will put you ashore whenever you're ready."

"It will take us some time to prepare."

"Of course, after this last fiasco it will take at least a month. The men are in poor shape. You will have two months to get them fit and ready for action, understood."

"Uh, yes, sir."

Just two months? It might be possible, Filek thought.

After reviewing the potential of this campaign on the western edge of the peninsula, Heuze dismissed the soldiers and Rukil and sat there with Filek and Puhk, who formed the "inner cabinet."

"Well, what do you think, Filek? Be honest, do we still have a chance?" Heuze's disgust with the army was still evident.

"Dogvalth is a good officer. He will do his best. The men are still brave and strong, they will fight well."

"That has never been our problem. Arrogant leadership has been the problem."

Filek and the admiral looked each other in the eye. Both knew that the admiral had made that mistake himself.

"Dogvalth doesn't seem quite so arrogant as Uisbank or Hustertav. Maybe he has learned something."

The admiral shrugged and scratched his head.

"I just don't know. I thought Hustertav would bring us victory. He was intelligent, and a good leader of men. He saw the first battle, he understood the dangers. I don't understand what happened. Where did he go wrong?"

Filek had read the reports thoroughly, of course.

"He went by the book. He set up an excellent ambush, and it almost worked. But the enemy got away."

"He underestimated the fornicating monkeys again. So they got away and joined up with the other mass on that hill and that was enough to withstand our army in a frontal assault."

"Hustertav sent in a flanking force that almost won the battle. When you read this plan it makes good sense. It almost worked."

"Almost! Almost is not good enough." Heuze flicked his fingers, and Filek heard again those piercing wails of terror. "I'm afraid, 'almost' will just not do. Hustertav has to pay. The men have to see that their commanders will not get away with such a poor performance." The admiral hunched forward at the table.

"But, if we don't want to suffer the same fate as Hustertav, we must do our damnedest to make sure that Dogvalth wins the next battle."

And so for a while they calmly discussed ways of helping the army improve, as if a good man hadn't been dragged screaming from the room an hour before. Filek told himself that this was war. In war the craziest things became commonplace.

Heuze had the light of fanaticism in his eyes. The admiral was a fanatic in pursuit of one cause, his own survival. Whatever it took, he would find generals who would win.

"I will not allow us to fail again. We survived the winter. We conquered this island just in time. And so we recovered from last summer's disaster. Just as we will recover from this defeat and achieve victory. Remember, Aeswiren didn't win the throne in a day."

At last the meeting ended. Filek was released to deal with his own domain. In his cabin, which also served as his office, there was a small pile of notes and other papers for him to read. The fleet had thirty-three separate surgeries, and now in addition a small hospital was set up ashore. Filek was responsible for the provisioning and smooth operation of all of them. He went through the papers and signed those that required his signature. Other papers were filed away in wooden folders and pigeonholes. He had developed this system before, when he ran the hospital in the city of Shasht. In that other life, that warm life. But he quickly shut off those warm thoughts before they turned to memories of his dear departed wife. How lonely life was without her.

When the papers were finished he left the office, locking the door carefully behind him, and went down the winding stair to the lower decks of the ship. Down closer to the waterline he came to the barred gate to the women's deck. As a husband he had access, of course, and the eunuch guards lifted the bar and waved him through.

He wound his way through the narrow passages to Simona's cabin door. At his knock he heard her rise from her chair with a creak.

"Father? Is that you?"

"Yes, dear."

The door opened a moment later.