The Arete - Princess-Consort Ch. 05

"And the rest of us? The horde will be here in a week or less if it heads this way," Zentix queried.

"There are eight tribes left by our reckoning, yes? All relatively small, poor, and peaceful?" I asked First Sergeant in turn.

"Yes, Captain," she confirmed and mapped them out, "Three north, three north east, and two south. The two to the south are a few days ride, but the six small northern tribes can be reached in a day and a half's ride."

"Then, First Sergeant, you will take your scouts and twenty light horse, gather the northern tribes and bring them back through here. I'll do the same with twenty auxiliaries for the southern tribes. It's not far out of the way and they'll have herds, possessions, and elderly to slow them anyway. Whichever of us arrives back first will leave with Lieutenant Bascinax and the children."

"Aye, ma'am," Krefinax frowned. She didn't say it, but she knew full well she should arrive back first and handily.

"Lieutenant Zentix, you'll take charge of the remaining hundred and forty regulars and the remaining six hundred auxiliaries. That represents a significant increase to our numbers. Ride for the valley at dawn."

"Aye, ma'am," Zentix answered.

"For tonight, strip, pile, and burn the dead. Out in the field and away from the orphans. Save anything of value for the children. We may need to barter their grain, caches, herds, and valuables to get them fostered on the march."

My lieutenants left to execute orders, but not before I gave what letters I'd written to Zentix to be posted by the main body of the army behind the mountains.

First Sergeant stayed. "What odds do you give that I return with all six tribes before you even reach one."

"Three-to-one. Maybe better. But if they've all been wiped out by a random plague or wildfire?"

"Then I'll ride my thirty back to Lieutenant Bascinax's eighty and we'll get the children to the valley. I thought I'd need to talk you into saving those kiddies. You can rest assured that I'll do it. Which means you can send your two southern tribes back in a straight line."

"Thank you."

"I'll have the Lieutenant's eighty building carts though. Will make things easier with so many children to move and will give them something to do in shifts other than herd kids and cattle."

"Alright, I'll ride now."

"What do you think your odds are of reaching those two camps in time to do anything useful?"

"Not that bad."

"Maybe a coin flip. At best. That's why you're not risking any regulars and no more auxiliaries than you need to be legitimate."

"A coin flip to deny needed resources to an enemy seems a fair risk of an aide-de-camp and twenty irregulars, yeah."

Krefinax shook her head, "Might be a waste of a good captain though."

I smiled grimly, "Good thing I'm such a shit captain then."

I rode over to where the Yontian tribe camped. Even among the hard-bitten horse nomads, they were renowned for their speed and courage. A good death held far more value to them than a good life.

"Thothoa," I called out to their leading warrior, "I'd like twenty of your best riders for a fifty-fifty shot at death."

"Sounds fun. Count me in," Thothoa grinned. Not enough discipline for the regular army, but I loved the enthusiastic engagement of mortal risk. I was less a fan of the rib bones they wore sewn into vests over their own ribcages, but most tribes had a few peculiarities. "When do we leave?"

"Now."

We rode deep into the night, switching our horses for fresh ones before resting a few short hours and riding again. My only concession to my vestiges of civility were a line or two written to Caeli each night. We only took three days to ride what should have been at least four.

Great riders or not, neither we nor our horses were magical. We couldn't outride the wind.

The wind itself was harsh and the grasses high, dry, and brittle with the lack of rain. The long blades stabbed and cut any exposed flesh, horse and rider alike. Still we rode on across the endless brown plains.

Life existed, even in the barren grasslands. Occasional springs gave some water around which small stands of trees would grow and large cats would prowl. Small herds of wild deer and wild cattle roamed and, to avoid the tall sharp grasses, we trod their well-worn annual paths whenever they pointed south. Various rodentia ran underfoot, avoiding both our horses' hooves and the keen eyes of great hawks on the wing. Buzzing from endless insect pests of every type and size assaulted us and we heard the rattle or hiss of defensive snakes more than once.

It occurred to me that the droughts themselves probably were the largest driving factor that enabled the creation of such a large horde. A motivator like hunger could grant a charismatic leader of a very large tribe with enough political power to band together other warring tribes into a rolling horde of death intent on resources they didn't have at home.

Like most hordes though, they'd have long since degenerated into a wild warband incapable of capitalizing on its gains to do more than feed itself and keep its momentum.

Arriving at the first tribe's camp, we took pains to be quick in describing the locals' upcoming plight and our solution. They'd no great desire to serve our Queen in any capacity, but even less to be overrun by a raging horde. They were moving their remaining herd and people toward the valley within two hours.

We slept there before riding again at daybreak. As we rode farther south, the land became more bleak. The grasses were dead, choked out by gritty dust, broken rockiness, and hard dirt. Dry rivers snaked through wide gorges. The sky remained an unrelentingly cheerful bright blue, completely free of clouds so that the sun beat down on us without cease or remorse.

Starving vultures circled above, looking down on us in fevered hope.

The second tribe - the Lanchalians - was decimated by the drought and would have agreed to anything. They were ready to leave nearly before we'd stopped talking. We shared what food we had, knowing it'd do little and less on the long trip to the valley, but confident we and their more able-bodied could forage for more along the way as we reached more favorable lands. The drought had left them with very few elders or younglings to slow travel or to eat without contributing.

"Chief Wisoiti," I spoke to their leader, "I know the road is hard, but you have my Queen's guarantee that your survivors will have a place as citizens if you want it."

The chief gazed at her people, starving. All the livestock and horses were long since killed and no visible babes suckled at the breast. Once strong adults had boiled their leather armor and were thin to the point of their ribs showing.

"We weren't always this way," she lamented, "when I was Herafu's age, we rode with impunity. Now, the next set of raiders will wipe our name from memory, be they a raging massive horde or merely nameless wandering scavengers. If we have a clear way to the safety that we need to rebuild, we'll take it. And I'd like to rebuild as farmers and soldiers. It may be hard for the few of us old timers who remember our glory days, but our young have known only hunger and fear from the grasslands and will see it as a promised land."

I sympathized with the proud aging leader, "We've three or four horses for each of our riders and don't fear walking. They should help move your people."

As they packed their relatively meager possessions, we heard thumps. A lot of thumps. The unmistakable sound of pounding hooves in great numbers.

Reaching into my leathers, I pulled out my sheaf of papers, my small flask of ink, and my stylus.

General Heoldax,

The Lanchalians need Her Majesty's guarantee. Please help?

-Captain Taiglox

"You're not coming with us?" Wisoiti asked me after I quickly explained the addressee and portent of the short letter.

"I'm of more value to my Queen here."

"Farewell then, Captain Taiglox," she shouted over her shoulder and rushed to set a girl in front of Herafu on her horse.

"And you, Chief Wisoiti," I shouted, helping an old woman into a small wagon with other surviving grandmothers and little children. I was sending them away in the dozens with little more than the cloth on their backs. Enough for maybe two or three days of travel in the unforgiving graveyard of the grassland. "Thothoa, go with them and help. To the valley!"

"We stay with you, Taiglox. They know the way and they've grown women who can hunt," Thothoa had come to know me a mite too well, "What mad danger are you risking yourself in that you'll not even bring us?"

"Scouting a horde." I sat a reasonably fast jennet (my last spare horse I'd already given to Herafu, who was armed with a hunting bow and gave every impression of knowing how to handle both horse and weapon) and had a chance to get a count of the crown's enemies.

The hooves weren't growing closer and were lessening besides, so the horde was making camp. As generically outfitted as I was, I'd be able to near their lines close enough to count fires.

"A fine death indeed, taking on a horde with less than two dozen of us."

"Not taking on the horde, Thothoa. Scouting's only worthwhile if we come back alive."

"You come back alive. We ride to gore and glory, outnumbered beyond reckoning!"

"About 700 to 1 actually. Not really beyond reckoning, but certainly beyond victory."

"Not if a dauntless, dashing, daring death is my victory."

"I don't suppose I can stop you, but it seems a waste." Soldiers in the Queen's service are trained that it is a great honor to die in battle for Queen and country, but only to further the aims of Queen and country. Throwing your life away to no end was a fool's choice that robbed Queen and country of a soldier dishonorably.

Still, I charged forward, "You need to toss your rib vests and any other identifying aspects. We'll pose as a foraging party, get in and get a count, then ride back out. And once more in again for you lot, I guess," I added, always practical and somewhat disturbed myself at the speed with which I could move past my comrades' essentially suicidal intentions. "And make sure you've given all your spare horses to the Lanchalians, if you don't plan to ride back out."

Who was I to judge their cultural mores?

"Taiglox, you'd have made a fine Yontian if you'd been a bit less repressed," Thothoa took off her vest and left it in the dirt. The rest of her kin followed suit and rebraided their long black hair, though I couldn't tell you the difference in their new styles. "Best let Rhetroa tie up your hair. Better let me talk too. They'll know you for a Queen's woman the second you open your mouth."

We rode even harder still, pausing only to shoot two sad rabbits, a sickly bobcat, and a starving racoon. We didn't eat or even clean our kills, only needing to be plausible as a foraging party.

It was deep in the night when we reached the horde itself. They'd made camp in a grassy canyon, the tiny drying pond in the center providing some water and the steep sheer walls providing protection.

Protection from enemies that is, and not the weather. The rear of the canyon was only wide enough for about four to ride abreast, easily monitored by a few guards and protected from above by a dozen archers. But a massive wind tunnel for the bitter northern wind was created by the high canyon walls, causing most of the barbarians to huddle in tents if they had them and to sleep in piles together if they didn't merit tents.

The front of the high canyon was undoubtedly how the host had entered, smartly. And they'd backed in to set a parameter about twenty yards inside the beginning of the high canyon walls. For the one night at least, they need only worry about attack from the canyon mouth and could thereby minimize patrols and sentries. Although none could hear each other from any distance over the roaring wind.

We held up our downed game for the sentries to see and weren't even questioned. With the size of the horde, two naturally occurring weaknesses were available for us to exploit. For one, no one could know who everyone else was, let alone what they should be doing, so we could move about fairly freely. For two, the huge size of the horde created a false sense of safety from individuals.

I couldn't take my count from the top of the canyon wall, which would have been my preference. That would have been too obvious, even with anonymity and complacency. But I got a reasonably good count while walking through the screaming wind, estimating their numbers at between twelve and thirteen thousand strong.

Thothoa shook her head, "Too many. Too many by far. This canyon fairly bursts with them."

I cocked my head and looked about myself, a wild thought worthy of a Yontian entering my mind. "We could light them up like a torch."

"How?" Thothoa asked. Not what and not why, but how. I love Yontians.

"Set fires along the perimeter. The wind will blow it into the blind canyon. Blind enough with the way they'll funnel into the little alley in the end, trampling each other to get out of the flames."

Thothoa grinned, "That's death worth causing."

But my Yontian flash gave way immediately to a company officer's actionable plan. "Everyone take an hour to find any accelerants you can throughout the camp. Meet back here and we'll head out like we're on a mission as planned. Stop about 5 yards inside the canyon and spread quietly. Pour what you have and light it up. If the wind takes even three or four of the fires into the horde, we will cause death and confusion well beyond our numbers.

An hour passed and 20 of the 22 of us had returned. Most carried a few skins of oil like me, but a few had gotten casks of pitch carried by unknown horses and two had laid hands on a barrel of Greek Fire pulled by a mule.

Each of us spread and wandered quietly into position in the high dead grass, Thothoa's first fire was the signal we waited for. With a flash, but no sound, she spilled her casks of oil, struck her flint for sparks, and the fire was started.

The rest of us set our accelerants alight, starting twenty bushfires in conditions where a mere spark could become a wildfire in the bellows of the northern wind.

This will seem cruel and indeed it was, but the pitch and Greek Fire were lit while still attached to horse or mule, causing the animal to run screaming into the camp while spreading liquid fire behind them.

Those of us with oil had carefully doused the grasses and then started fires that would be spread by the wind and sustainable.

Thothoa was back on her horse once her fire was blazing and only a few dozen feet from me, but riding the wrong way.

"Through the fire!" she shouted over the wind and her tribeswomen rode with her toward the horde, which only just begun a rippling eruption inward in response to the flames.

As a good soldier, I ought to seek an objective worth dying for instead of Thothoa's death worth dying for. Joining a mad battle amongst the burning horde would add to the general confusion and allow me to kill up to dozens of the Queen's enemies, so I could reasonably expect that my death would be useful and honorable.

The same argument cut both ways. After all, my death would be a relatively pointless loss of a soldier that would only imperceptibly add to the body count. Bringing back word of the horde's loss would be of more value to Queen and country.

Not that I considered long and hard what I ought to do.

My instincts took over in the wind, fire, smoke, and battle. My burning objective was more than accomplished and my blood ran as aflame as the horde. Without thought, I was back on my jennet and whirling toward the spreading heat and smoke, following Thothoa's call. My knees urged the jennet forward of their own accord.

The animal was not Savaran though. She snorted and balked, clearly wanting to run away from the fire with all haste. Any horsewoman who doesn't pause to evaluate when her horse balks is no horsewoman, but my pause shouldn't have been so long.

A year earlier in the same circumstances, I'd have decisively forced the fearful jennet into the flame and let come what may. My comrades had already joined the battle and my hot blood raced and urged me forth with them.

Only Caeli's voice in my head gave me pause. Her words, her crying, and my promise had stayed with me in the back of my mind and their pertinence in the moment brought them raging to the fore.

"I love you, too, Tai. So don't die."

"I'll do my best to get back to you alive, my love."

Perhaps it was base cowardice that kept me from immediately exerting my will over my horse, but I like to think it was finally having someone to live for that made me waver. I finally valued my own life.

As I hesitated, my jennet didn't. The terrified horse threw me and ran, I know not where.

Afoot, I looked into the labyrinth of fire and chaos, unable to see a break in the flames to even enter the fray, not without a horse. Smart enemies near the entrance had saddled quickly and ridden through the flames too though, risking the burn over the more certain death by trampling happening deeper in the wildly retreating and rapidly piling ranks.

I stabbed up sharply with my kopis when a fleeing hordeswoman rode too near me, taking hold of the horse's bridle even as the unarmored rider fell stone dead from the saddle.

Leaping astride, I made my choice, flying the fiery chaos I'd created. Dozens or hundreds or thousands of my enemies rode away around me, seemingly dispersing into the fierce winds. I knew not how many survived with me, but later estimates put the death tolls at well over ten thousand, so it couldn't have been more than a couple thousand.

Personally, I doubt that it was even a thousand strong that survived and I also doubt my staying to die with my comrades would have changed those estimates at all.

I chose Caeli over a pointless death. I didn't truly do it for Queen or country, not in my heart. If it was wrong, it was wrong. I'll not apologize for it anymore.

The horse I'd managed to wrangle was an aged rouncey who ran in fear from the growing wildfire like all the other terrified beasts and humans, but could only carry a rider for a couple hours at a time in the best of circumstances. Luckily, most of my fellow escapees were simply going north or south far enough to outmaneuver the flames before heading back east to regather their lives and reorganize their power structures.

Not having guides or knowing the region well enough, once I cleared the aimless hordeswomen, I maintained a course of due west, following the sun in the day and The Golden Yardarm at night. When clouds blocked my points of reference, I used sticks as I'd been trained, but that took time and I needed to hurry.

I walked while leading the aged rouncey about three quarters of the time and rode at a walk for the rest. With the slow pace he set, the horse and I barely traveled twenty miles a day before night came and I'd build a fire if I could and write a few lines before sleeping.

Since my companies and I'd done a rather good job in clearing the grassland, I couldn't reasonably expect to find any camps on my way. Nor was I likely to happen upon any of the few groups still moving west with me in the vast grasslands.

Putting an arrow through a starving lone wolf that tried to attack my hobbled rouncey the first night gave me food for a few days, however disagreeable. I rode hungry for a couple days after that, until a dying baobab by a dried riverbank provided two days more sustenance.

A day later, the grass was alive again in patches and brackish stillwater enough was available for the horse. I was glad for the discipline that kept me from drinking any more from my waterskins than I needed, but I was still beyond relieved at the first fast running stream I came across to replenish.