Fortune's Favor

"Lay down next to her," Sharishakun commanded, and Atalima obeyed. The girls lay naked and side by side, their legs raised to admit cocks to them easily. Atalima interlaced her left leg with Hattsa's right, and they did the same with their arms. Hattsa turned her head to the side and the girls kissed.

Their wet sexes called to Decius, and he wasted no time in shoving his cock back inside Hattsa. Sharishakun took his time, appreciating the two kissing girls as he ran a hand down Atalima's naked stomach and to her wet sex.

"You had a hand in choosing these gifts, I assume?" the magnate asked.

"I did," Decius replied, his attention focused on Hattsa and her bouncing breasts.

"You chose well that you had such a woman to choose after my party and I chose first."

"There are no plain women here," Decius agreed. "We took as many beauties as Jalit had to offer, I daresay."

"It must be a blessed town indeed. Look at her titties bounce! What beauty!"

Sharishakun reached across and grabbed hold of Hattsa's breast in once hand. The girl giggled and looked to Decius, who could only smile.

"What do you say to a switch, sorcerer?" Sharishakun asked, and Decius nodded. He withdrew his cock from Hattsa and Sharishakun took his place. Kneeling where the magnate had just knelt, Decius entered Atalima. The second girl moaned in pleasure, her eyes rolling back as he fucked her. Sharishakun rode up higher on Hattsa, pinning her legs back with her knees behind her ears. He groaned in exertion as she squealed in delight, their bodies slamming together in lust.

His fury drove Decius on, and he leaned in close to Atalima to kiss her. As their tongues intertwined. Decius thought of how recently hers had been wrapped around the old magnate's cock. The thought only gave him momentary pause, for the desire in her brown eyes incited him to greater lust. He squeezed her breasts and kissed her harder, then wrapped his hands around her neck and fucked with as much fury as he could muster.

Decius looked up and saw, on the couch in front of him, that two of Sharishakun's advisors had their girls on their knees, holding and kissing each other, while the men fucked them from behind.

"Nystra's Tits," Sharishakun cried, "I'm going to come!" He backed off suddenly, holding his cock pinched closed in one hand. He came then, spurting a line of white cum across Hattsa's naked chest, where it dropped into her open mouth. The magnate roared in release, and a second rope shot across Hattsa, landing on Atalima's left breast. She giggled in delight, and Sharishakun leaned closer so that a third rope shot across and landed on her face. Atalima's mouth dropped open in shock, one eye closed by the cum dripping across it.

Decius was at his limits. He pulled out of Atalima, but a moment too late, and his first spurt of cum went inside her. When he withdrew his cock, he left a trail of sticky cum connecting him to the girl's shaven sex. But his second spurt he directed onto her bare chest, where it landed in a line from her shoulder to her breast, intermingling with Sharishakun's own cum. Finally, Decius pointed his cock across, to Hattsa, and came again. This rope landed on her face, closing one eye and getting up her nose. The men laughed in delight.

Hattsa slid off the couch to sit between Sharishakun's legs, taking his spent cock in one hand and daintily licking it clean. The magnate looked down at her, her face dripping with cum, and laughed. all around them, the other men were taking their cues from him to finish and cum. Men's roars of climax and girls' giggles of delight filled the room, as fine an orgy as Decius had ever experienced.

"Well," Sharishakun proclaimed as he looked around. "That was an orgy to elicit envy from Nystra herself. It's getting late. Servants, bring in our dinner!"

As the men dressed themselves, and the women wiped the cum from their still bare bodies, servants entered with wash basins and prepared the place settings. Soon after them came more servants carrying heaping plates of food and pitchers of drink.

Sharishakun insisted that Marius and Decius be seated at his table, and they lay upon silken couches feasting on dates, flatbread, goat's meat, and crayfish. Sharishakun held the still-naked Atalima in his lap as they ate, feeding her dates from his palm. Hattsa lay on the floor between them, alternating between sucking their cocks as Decius fed her dates himself.

"So, you've got my lancers," Sharishakun said as he poured wine into the girl's cup, "What do you intend to do with them?"

"A bold march," Decius replied, "Straight from here to Haddul as fast as we can manage. We can catch Battus off-guard before he can muster his forces and crush him. Without him, the rebellion will fall apart, especially when the other rebels see your banner flying alongside ours."

"The emperor's terrible punishment will fall on Battus' people alone," Marius added, "allowing you and the other rebels to make a graceful return to the emperor's side. You can announce the abolition of the herd tax as your own triumph."

Sharishakun mulled the thought over, caressing Atalima's bare bottom in one hand as he held his cup of wine in the other.

"It could work," he conceded after a long draw on the wine. "I like it. Better that we be quick, for each day that it goes on will trouble the land even more. What are your provisions in case of defeat?"

"Pray," Decius replied. Sharishakun looked unhappy. "If we are defeated, we will fall back to Chyrosia and wait for reinforcements, for what else can we do?"

"Well," Sharishakun said slowly, "We had better not lose. We will depart at first light tomorrow."

They were a day from Haddul when the elder Sharishakun came to them leading a young man on a tired horse.

"My scouts have returned," the elder man said simply. Marius gathered Bacarius and the junior tribunes to him and gestured for the scout to make his report.

"Battus has gathered the local towns' militias and assembled along the road to Haddul," the scout began. "His forces number perhaps seventeen thousand foot but a mere four thousand cavalry. He has taken a position behind ditches and horse traps, with all the captured guns, overlooking the main road. There is no way to Haddul but through him."

"He is staying put?" Marius asked.

"Aye," the scout answered. "The villagers tell me he means to stay behind his ditches until the rest of his army arrives. There will be a force of three thousand infantry coming from Samal in the next two days, and he has recalled four thousand horse and two thousand foot from the tribesmen around Hamath. They will arrive in four days, or two if they leave the infantry behind."

"You have a map of the field?" Decius asked, and the scout nodded. He drew a folded square of parchment from his tunic and handed it over. Marius unfolded it over his saddle and the officers studied it.

"It is a strong position," Decius conceded when he looked over it.

"Perhaps we can surprise them," Bacarius suggested, but the scout shook his head.

"They known we're coming. We had to fight off two enemy patrols to make it back."

"His men are still dispersed," said Sharishakun as he dramatically sharpened his saber. "We must attack before they can concentrate. The defenses will not protect him enough. His men are green militiamen, the only soldiers of note there are his household cavalry."

"Green or not, they outnumber us two to one and have cannons to boot," Marius replied.

"Do you command an imperial legion or not?" Sharishakun challenged. "Militiamen cannot fight a legion anymore than a mouse can fight a lion. Our horse will defeat theirs, your legion will crash through their militia, and victory will be accomplished."

Marius looked to Decius, then to Bacarius.

"Do we continue the advance?" he asked. Decius put a hand to his chin in thought. In truth, we have little other choice, he thought. To abandon Sharishakun now would be to destroy any chance at an alliance, and we are too deep into enemy territory to safely retreat anyway.

Bacarius spoke up first. "Fortune favors the bold. We should press onwards. The gods and the legion will deliver victory."

"I agree," said Decius. "We have not been led astray so far. We will find a weakness in Battus' position, I am sure of it."

And so it was that the army pressed on toward Haddul.

The following morning, as they drew closer to Battus' position, the Sharishid vanguard made contact with rebel sentries, and Marius called for a conference by the side of the road.

"It is time for another augury, Decius," said Marius.

Decius dismounted and arranged his things on the ground. Behind him, he heard the steady tramping of boots headed toward the battlefield. He set a small bowl before him and placed within it a pinch of indigo spice and two strands of incense. Taking a piece of flint from his pouch, he struck it against the blade of his sword and the sparks sprayed into the bowl.

The spice lit immediately, a tall blue flame leaping from the bowl. It flared and danced for a moment, a trapped fire looking for an escape. In short order, it burned down to just embers. Decius lifted the bowl from the ground and held it before him, wafting the dark smoke into his nostrils. He closed his eyes and let the spice take him.

As always, his mind swam. Visions rushed toward him, assaulting him in rapid succession with scenes of past and future. He saw a ship on a storm-wracked sea, burning hulks in the distance. Waves broke washed over it as cannonballs struck its hull, but the ship would not sink. A dragon wheeled over a port town, black lines of invaders running through its streets. A broken tower, partially suspended in the air, hung over a lush jungle valley. Three eyes in the dark.

His mind fought the spice, wrestling against his visions to see what he needed to. He needed the augury, and at last he found it. He saw the battlefield before him, littered with the dead and dying. Broken standards loomed over mounds of bodies where men had died standing, while vultures picked at those who had died fleeing. In the distance, he saw horsemen chasing down the last of the defeated. One rode past him, whooping and cheering in elation. In his hand, he carried a burning torch.

The vision began to fade. Decius looked again for a sign. As his vision darkened, he saw only the horseman, his light retreating into the distance, but never vanishing. A burning torch leading the way to victory.

He opened his eyes. The others looked down at him from their horses, faces impatient.

"Well, what did you learn?" Marius demanded. Decius found his breath catching, as it always did when he returned from the visions.

"Fire leads the way to victory," he breathed.

Bacarius shook his head while the elder Sharishakun made a face of disapproval.

"Steel should lead the way. Our advantage in fire is less than our advantage in steel. A militiaman will stand and trade musket volleys with the best of ours, but he will run when the legion's pikes draw close."

"My horsemen fight with lances," Sharishakun protested, "they carry pistols only for if they are attacked at forage. They are not drilled for the caracole."

"The augury says that fire will lead the way," Decius replied. "Though I agree it makes little sense. But who are we to argue with the gods and their signs?"

"We cannot ignore the auguries," said Marius. "We must follow the sorcerer's advice. All will become clear in time."

"There is a hill across the battlefield where we can survey the field," said Sharishakun. "My vanguard drove the enemy from it this morning, and it will make a fine command post."

"Very well," said Marius. "We will set our command post there while we array our battle formations."

"Perhaps there we will see the folly of attacking by fire," the man said. Bacarius frowned, but said nothing.

From their post atop a small hill, Decius could see all the way to the Haddul in the distance. On their left, a small river wound its way along what would be the western edge of the battlefield, while the east was anchored against another hill topped with cannon before it gave way on the other side to dry ground populated by herdsmen. The enemy forces were arrayed as the scout said, with zig-zag trenches dug in front of their lines, littered by overturned carts and broken gun carriages to foul an attack.

"It is a good position," Marius conceded quietly as they surveyed the enemy. "But we cannot wait, and we cannot retreat. What other way is there but to attack?"

"The militia are poor quality soldiers," Sharishakun sniffed. "They will stand their ground behind ditches and guns, but when your legions reach them with the pike, they will scatter."

"Just the one legion, actually," Decius muttered in glum correction.

"What is the plan?" Marius asked, "can we draw him out?"

"He will not move," Sharishakun replied. "He is convinced of the strength of his position and will have told his men that to move is to die."

Decius looked over the battlefield. It was a good position to be sure, but Decius' mind was working at a solution.

"Their strength is their weakness," he whispered, trying to recall a book he had read at the Collegium. "It always is."

"What's that you say?" demanded Marius. Decius blinked, unaware that he had spoken aloud. He looked from Marius to Bacarius and then to Sharishakun, who smiled a knowing smile. Decius began to speak, the ideas coming to him as he talked.

"They have shackled them to a strong position, but if we can force them from it, they will be outmatched. We have the strength ahorse, we can move around them and flank the position. Battus has told them that they will die if they leave the position. If it is flanked, they will panic."

"A cavalryman's stratagem," Sharishakun said approvingly. "They will expect the blow to come from your infantry, as it always does when a legion is involved. Our cavalry will be our unexpected strength."

"Our infantry are strong," Bacarius protested, "They will outfight their opposite number if your horsemen can keep theirs away."

"We must attack quickly," declared Marius, "before he can muster reinforcements. Decius, you will lead the left, Sharishakun the right. I will command the center and Bacarius the camp. The left will ride around the enemy, cross the stream, and attack them from the rear, while the right will do the same but avoid the hill. You must retain the initiative, to keep their cavalry from attacking our exposed flanks. Once the enemy horse are routed, we can assault the infantry at the center from front and rear, with infantry and cavalry in concert."

"None will be able to resist that," nodded Sharishakun with approval.

"Order the artillerists to follow the infantry squares," Bacarius suggested. "If we push the enemy off the cannons, the artillerists can turn them around and fire into the enemy at close range. And we have no guns of our own anyway."

"Very well. Good luck everyone. Bring up the priests and let's get this underway."

The priests climbed the hill and raised a fire to Arvoran. Offering wine and spiced meats in exchange for victory, the priests praised the glory of the Lord of Battle, pleading for his favor in the fight to come.

"That will have to suffice," Bacarius said when they finished. "The men are in position."

"Officers, to your position and await my signal to begin the attack," Marius commanded. Decius donned his helm, mounted his horse next to Dhamat and rode off to where his cavalry had assembled on the left flank. His own imperial cavalry were drawn up in the front ranks, while the Sharishid horsemen formed the rear. To their right, the infantry were drawn up with the pikemen in dense squares, with the musketmen on their flanks.

There was a distant boom of guns, and two cannonballs struck just ahead of him, skipping off the ground and over the heads of his assembled cavalrymen. Decius froze for a moment in fright. If they had been five paces to their left, I'd be a dead man right now, he thought. He looked to his men, who were all standing stock still as they could, with tightly controlled expressions on their face. They're as scared as I am, he realized. Handing the standard to his ensign, Decius spurred his horse down the front of his ala, delivering the speech he had been preparing since Opis.

"Pistols ready, lads!" Decius commanded, "You know the drill, fire and then to the rear to reload. Keep your sabers ready for when they break, but this will be a day for fire. The enemy are confident and hardened by battle. They will not make this easy. But we have come a long way to this battle, and though they have chosen the ground, we have chosen the time. Trust in the men beside you, ahead of you, behind you. Remember what they did to you when they caught you off-guard. Now, you've caught them off guard. It's time to repay their hospitality with interest! Remember, fire leads the way to victory!"

The men cheered, and Decius rode to the center to assume his position. He took the standard from his ensign and sat in the saddle, looking to the command post on the hill and waiting for the signal to begin. He took the standard back from Dhamat.

Across the field, the rebels' captured guns boomed again. The shots fell well short, and struck the dirt to a stop instead of skipping across the ground at knee height, as practiced artillerists would do with theirs. Nonetheless, a quiver of fear went through the ranks. Decius shot a nervous look back to the command post. Send the signal, Marius! he cried inside. He did not relish the thought of advancing into the reach of enemy swords, but anything was better than standing here waiting for the enemy to at last get their sightings correct. Decius clutched the standard in a white-knuckle grip, heart pounding in his chest.

Closing his eyes, he felt the spice inside him. A hundred visions danced across his mind. He saw himself dead in the river, then standing victorious atop a mountain of bodies, and finally blown to pieces by a cannonball. He took a deep breath and tried to see which was the true future. He looked for the burning torch, but there was only an endless field of bodies.

"Sir." Decius opened his eyes again. Dhamat was pointing. "Sir, the signal."

Decius followed the ensign's outstretched hand and saw that Marius had raised his standard above the command post. A line of dust moving down the hill marked the legate's progress toward the infantry.

Decius drew his sword and held it over his head.

"Begin the advance!" he cried, and his cavalry set off as one. To their right, the imperial infantry began to march forward as well, and the rising dust cloud on the far side of the field told him that the right flank was in motion. All was going to plan, though it was still early.

Rebel artillery continued to fire, irregularly and inaccurately, though they scored several hits on the dense infantry squares. From far away, Decius heard the groans and cries of pain as cannonballs ripped through the infantry and saw the line of dead extend behind the marching squares as they continued the advance.

Looking ahead, he saw that the enemy had arrayed their cavalry on the wings. They were perhaps two thousand strong but remained standing in place. The enemy would make them come to him, all while battering him with the cannons.

So be it, Decius thought, we will have the initiative, and crush him with it.

Trumpets sounded to his right, and the infantry bellowed a mighty war cry. Another volley of cannon shot ripped through them, but the advance continued. The pace was agonizingly slow, necessary for keeping the pikemen in close order, but even the continuous, unopposed, artillery fire was not enough to stop the legion's advance.