A Hero's justice

Chapter 8

Dust rose in choking clouds around the Juramona camp, churned up by the feet of hundreds of men. The dust of the Eastern Hundred was infamous, a fine, floury, yellow soil that coated everything once the anchoring grass was stripped away.

The members of Tol’s new army bore weapons salvaged from the town-spears, halberds, or in many cases, merely sharpened wooden stakes-as they practiced moving in unison and deploying to attack or defend. He organized them into squads of ten, with five squads making up a company. Ten per company would have been better, but he didn’t have the manpower. Twenty days after his arrival at Juramona, his effective force comprised a scant thousand men under arms, a single horde of raw infantry. At least that many more had slipped away or begged off joining Tol’s tiny army. He let them go. A man unwilling to fight was no asset anyway.

At Tol’s side stood Wilfik, the former High House guard he’d appointed as chief of his company captains. Less than a handspan taller than Tol himself, Wilfik had proven a capable drillmaster. Perhaps to counter his bald pate, he sported the thickest, blackest beard and brows Tol had ever seen. The eyes beneath those redoubtable brows were an unusual color-pale gray. The combination of light gray eyes and beetling brows gave him an especially fearsome aspect when he was angry. He was angry now. Shouting curses, Wilfik stormed over to a company that had maneuvered clumsily. He grabbed the captain of the wayward group and spun him around.

“Left!” Wilfik roared directly into the fellow’s face. “You purblind donkey! I said ‘counter-march left’!”

After shoving the fellow back into line, Wilfik rejoined Tol.

Spitting a mouthful of dust, the bald soldier said, “Lambs to the slaughter! Dull-witted, thick-headed lambs to the slaughter, that’s what this lot will be when we meet the nomads again!”

“They’re willing enough,” Tol responded mildly. “What they need is confidence.”

The troops, dubbed the Juramona Militia since they were volunteers instead of levies, were drilling on the plain south of the camp. Further west, Tylocost and a work gang were preparing surprises for any nomad attackers.

Tol had offered the Silvanesti command of half the militia, but Tylocost declined. Although a warrior from birth, he knew the training of raw troops was not his strong suit. A better use of his time, he tactfully suggested, would be building field fortifications. For three days now those not fit to fight had labored for the elf, hauling timbers, brick, and other debris from the ruined town to the open plain. Mounds of masonry rose, interlinked by fences of heavy timber.

Tol bent to uncover the water bucket at his feet, but the wooden lid was whisked off by another hand. Zala’s.

The huntress rarely left his side, having appointed herself his personal guard in order to fulfill the pledge she’d made: to bring Tol to the empress and thereby collect her payment. The half-elf was a capable tracker, and certainly knew the sharp end of a blade from the dull, but Tol wondered how she would stand up to open battle. She’d never tasted the terror and mayhem of war.

He sipped from the gourd dipper, then offered it to Wilfik. Wilfik poured the contents over his sweating head. As Tol refilled the dipper, Wilfik drew his attention to the southeast, where dust was rising from the plain. They had no men training or working in that direction.

Tol dropped the gourd into the bucket. “Have the men fall in.”

Once the companies had assembled, their marching feet stilled, the hot breeze soon cleared away the dust they’d churned up. All eyes watched the rising cloud; it was moving from southeast to east, toward the morning sun.

“A scouting party?” Zala asked hopefully.

“I make it five hundred horse, at least.”

Tol’s comment erased the hopeful expression from Zala’s face and she grimaced. Not a scouting party-more likely, an entire nomad tribe on the move.

A runner was dispatched to warn Tylocost. The militia and its leaders headed back to camp at a quick march.

The dust column was moving fast, circling wide to the east at a distance of two leagues or less. There was a dry stream bed along that line, Wilfik remarked. The horsemen were probably using it for concealment. The rising dust had given them away.

Reaction to the ominous portent was quick back at the camp. The returning militia found no one except those too old or sick to work for Tylocost. The rest had abandoned their tents and lean-tos, seeking the imagined protection of the Juramona ruins.

Tol deployed his raw troops in company blocks of one hundred men. He spread sixty hand picked men, all young, in a skirmish line a hundred paces in front of his foot soldiers.

Although he had a horse, Tol chose to lead on foot. Zala, white-faced with worry, stuck to him like dew on a leaf.

The dust column died away. The horsemen had stopped.

Tylocost appeared, striding through the trampled grass. His floppy gardener’s hat shaded his face, and he gripped not a sword or spear but his long walking stick.

“Poor sports, these nomads, coming up on our undefended side,” he said. “Still, what else can you expect from barbarian-”

“Shut up,” Tol said. To Zala’s amusement, the elf obeyed.

A covey of partridges flew up from the tall grass a long bowshot away. Tol drew Number Six.

“Skirmish line, kneel.” He didn’t shout. A calm, even voice was needed to steady his men. All went down on one knee, including Tylocost and Zala.

“Present arms.”

His skirmishers, armed with salvaged pikes, extended their weapons, sweaty hands gripping the fire-blackened poles too tightly. Tol suddenly wished Kiya was at his side. Her unfailingly accurate bow and unflappable calm would have been a welcome addition to this pitiful force.

A distorted wail rose from the plain. It began as a single voice, then others joined in.

Several of the men closest to Tol began to shift nervously. The unease spread outward, along the skirmish line.

“Tylocost, did I ever tell you how I acquired this dwarf steel blade?” Tol said conversationally.

Never taking his eyes off the horizon, the elf replied, “No, my lord, you never did.”

“It was in the Harrow Sky hill country, after the surrender of Tarsis.”

As Tol continued to speak, his voice carrying, the general nervousness visibly lessened, but he didn’t get to finish his story. From where the partridges had flown now rose a swarm of nomads. Tol knew this trick. Short-legged nomad ponies had been trained to crawl on their bellies while their riders crawled alongside. When they were close enough to charge, man mounted horse and both sprang up.

The abrupt appearance of the enemy, seemingly from nowhere, drew gasps from the defenders. More than one of the skirmishers showed signs of panicking.

“Stand fast!” Tol barked, raising his voice now. “Run now and they’ll kill us all! Remember: we must stand together!”

The enemy came on, screaming. Again, Tol called for his men to stand fast, but his mind was busy reckoning the numbers. Only eighty or ninety were approaching. The others lurked out of sight.

The nomads covered the ground quickly. They made straight for Tol’s line, confident they could ride down the few, widely spaced foot soldiers. The upraised pikes should have given them pause, but they had beaten Ergothians before, and in greater numbers than this. Howling and waving their swords, the nomads kept coming.

“Aim for the riders not their animals,” Tol said.

The first wave of horsemen ran themselves straight onto the skirmishers’ pikes. A score of nomads and their horses fell. The impact drove the Ergothians back, and many lost their pikes as the impaled riders fell.

“Fall back to me!” Tol ordered. Terrified, the skirmishers formed a knot around him, and Tol told them, “Don’t just stand there! If you’ve lost your pike, draw your sword!”

There was no more time for orders as the second wave of nomads broke over them. Tol warded off a blow from one rider, ducked a second, then delivered a sideways slash that emptied the saddle of a third attacker. When the nomad hit the ground, Tol planted a foot on his chest and stabbed him through the throat.

Something snagged his leather jerkin. He turned to find a nomad swinging a saber at him. Zala dashed by Tol, her sword pointed, and ran the attacker through the ribs. Tol acknowledged her help with a quick wave, then faced new enemies.

More from self-preservation than training, the skirmishers formed a tight circle to fend off the horsemen, who continued to gallop around them, yelling and taking opportunistic cuts at the Ergothians. Bowmen could have picked off the nomads at their leisure, but what few archers there were Tol had sent to guard Tylocost’s work party.

A bold rider, full of battle-lust, plunged straight into the ring of desperate foot soldiers. Tol’s newly minted warriors cringed before his mount’s flailing hooves, but Tylocost stepped up and thrust his blunt stick at the man’s face. The attack caught the nomad squarely on the chin, and he flew backward off his horse. Neck broken, he was dead by the time he hit the ground.

The fight went on until, as at some silent signal, the nomads suddenly withdrew. Tol sent his skirmishers back to Wilfik’s line. A third of their number remained behind, dead in the torn-up, bloody grass.

Wilfik, good soldier that he was, had not broken ranks to rescue Tol’s company. He held the Juramona Militia in line as the retreating skirmishers filtered back among them.

“Brisk set-to,” he observed, pale eyes fixed on his men.

“They’re aggressive all right,” Tol agreed. He was covered in sweat and blood, the latter not his. Zala, her sword gripped in both hands, stared with wide eyes at the plain. She, too, was spattered with the blood of others. Tylocost pushed her blade down gently.

“Draw a breath,” he advised. “You’re safe for the moment.”

A moment was all they had before the full complement of nomads came charging out of the dry creek. About five hundred of them this time, Tol noted, taking grim satisfaction at the accuracy of his earlier estimate. There were men and women both, all furious at their initial repulse.

“Companies, present!”

The Ergothians held a numerical advantage. They were nine hundred eighty-eight strong, although only a fraction were experienced warriors. At Tol’s order, they presented their spears and a thorny hedge blossomed in the front of each block of one hundred men.

“Standfast!”

To the experienced eyes of Tol, Tylocost, and several others, it was obvious they faced members of several nomad tribes. Some of the oncoming riders were covered head to toe in buckskin, others fought bare-chested. Hair was long, either braided or loose, or heads were shaved, then painted or covered by leather skullcaps. Their favored weapon was the saber, much like those wielded by the Imperial hordes, although some carried the short bow or light, throwing spear. Fully a third of the attackers were female-as formidable in battle as their male comrades. Like the Dom-shu, some of the nomad tribes made little distinction between male and female warriors; it was skill that mattered, not gender.

Tol sheathed Number Six and took up a pike. Zala stood on his left, trembling. On his right, Tylocost leaned casually on his staff.

“One charge is all we’ll get,” the elf said.

Wilfik looked back over his shoulder. “Eh? How do you know?”

“I’ve been fighting human nomads since long before you were born,” Tylocost replied. “They’re fierce, but they don’t have the determination to stand and fight it out with steadfast troops. If we don’t give way, they’ll give up.”

“Ten gold pieces says you’re wrong!” Wilfik said, eyes glinting beneath his fearsome brows.

The Silvanesti nodded. “Accepted.”

The enemy was closer now, their screeching cries audible over the pounding of their horses’ hooves.

It was too much for one company of the militia. The Seventh, to the right of Tol’s position and some forty paces away, threw down their pikes, turned tail, and ran. Wilfik bellowed curses to no avail.

Half the nomads veered, heading toward that gap in the formation. Immediately, Tol ordered the three leftmost companies to advance as they swung right. The two companies on the far right, isolated by the desertion of their comrades, were given leave to fall back, but in a slow and orderly fashion.

With the lines seemingly giving way before them, even more horsemen concentrated on the gap yawning ahead. The nomads had no formation, no discipline. None of them noticed the troops on the left moving out and arcing around them. None of them noticed that the ground over which they galloped sloped gradually upward, slowing their charge.

Tol ordered the two retreating companies to halt. Their lines were ragged, and they could barely hear him over the din, but they stopped. In the next moment, they were engulfed by rampaging horsemen.

The rest of the nomad column hit Tol’s position. For an endless time, there was nothing in the world but screams, rearing horses, and the clash of arms, but slowly, very slowly, the hundred-man companies began to push the horsemen back. The block of Ergothians with Tol maneuvered to strike the nomads from behind. On the far left wing, the last company jogged through the dust to close in.

At last the nomads realized their peril. Those at the rear of the melee warned their fellows: they were surrounded by solid phalanxes. The nomads tried to break away, but engaged on two sides, they could not. Finally, the center of the mass of horsemen slashed their way through and galloped away.

It was a heady sight for the militia. Their enemy was in flight. Two militia companies opened ranks and gave chase, cheering in triumph. Tol shouted himself hoarse calling them back, but they either didn’t hear or wouldn’t heed him. As he feared, the retreating nomads abruptly wheeled their ponies and attacked, hacking down scores of the running Ergothians. The heedless militiamen, scattered and isolated from their fellows, were easy prey.

The surviving soldiers came streaming back to Tol. He ordered two companies who’d held formation to move forward and fend off the pursuers. With their foe regrouping, the nomads abandoned the fight and rode for the western horizon.

The battle was done. In moments, the breathless chaos of combat had given way to abrupt calm. Agonized voices groaned for water. Dust hung in a red haze over the field.

The victorious foot soldiers started back toward camp, desperate for drink and attention to their injuries. Tol, Wilfik, and the other officers went quickly among the staggering ranks, shouting anew.

“Back in line! No one dismissed you! Get back in line! This retreat could be a feint!”

Cuffed and shoved by their furious officers, the men gradually returned to formation. Tol stalked up and down the line, glaring at his troops.

“What have I told you, day in and day out, since this began? Stay together! The only way men on foot can fight and win against horsemen is if they stay together!” He wove his fingers together and shook his hands at them, bellowing, “Together!”

He pointed down the hill to where many of the militia had fallen. “Do you see them? They were so pleased by their little victory, they broke formation and chased the enemy. Now they’re dead! Those are your comrades, your brothers, lying lifeless in the dirt! That will happen to all of you if you dare part ranks in the presence of the enemy again!”

Silence fell over the battlefield. Tol kept them there, standing shoulder to shoulder under the midday sun, while he hammered home the lesson. What must they always do? he would roar. Stay together, a few voices croaked in reply. Again, he shouted the question, and again, until every voice joined in the reply.

Tol knew their throats were parched from thirst. So was his. He knew their hands were blistered, arms and backs aching from the unaccustomed exercise. And more, he knew their heads reeled from all they’d been through. Still, they had to learn this lesson. Their lives depended on it.

He dispatched Wilfik and the Second Company to recover the dead and wounded, Juramonan and nomad alike. Much useful information might be gathered from the enemy, whether living or dead. He then ordered the First Company to fall out. The men in question looked at each other dazedly for moment, then shuffled out of line and back to camp.

Once the First had departed, Tol heard a low sound behind him and realized Zala was still on the battlefield. She sat in the grass, holding her head in her hands. She looked up at him, her eyes red-rimmed.

“Horrible,” she whispered.

Tylocost was some thirty yards south, standing among those who’d fallen in the first clash. Leaving the three remaining companies still standing at attention, Tol walked through the dead men and horses until he reached the elf general.

“Some are alive,” Tylocost said, indicating wounded nomads moaning among the dead. “They can be questioned.”

The Third Company carried the injured nomads to the village and kept them under guard. As the enemy wounded were pulled from beneath their fallen horses, Tylocost reminded Tol of another problem that must be dealt with: the Seventh Company’s desertion.

“I know,” Tol said tiredly. “But I can’t afford to make examples of one hundred men.”

“You need not hang them all. One in ten should be sufficient.”

Cruel as it sounded, Tylocost’s suggestion was quite lenient by Ergothian standards. In the Imperial Army, one man in three would have been beheaded for desertion in the face of the enemy. But the Juramonans weren’t true soldiers, Tol pointed out, not yet. They could hardly be expected to act like professionals when many had touched a pike for the first time only days ago. Still, discipline must be served, lest the example of the panicked company spread to the rest. Those who’d run away had to be punished, not for their good, but for their fellows who’d stood firm.

Wilfik arrived and offered his commander a skin of water.

“No sign of the savages,” he said, grinning. Two of his teeth had been broken put years before, giving him a gap-toothed smile. Slanting a look at the Silvanesti, he added, “I owe you ten gold pieces, elf!”

Tol passed the skin to Tylocost. “How many dead?” he asked Wilfik.

“Forty-two of our men, and sixty-six wounded to varying degrees. I count thirty-five nomads dead.” Wilfik’s black-bearded grin faded. “We also have fourteen prisoners.”

“Keep them under tight guard. I’ll want to interrogate them.”

Tol started back to the waiting army, but Wilfik caught his arm.

“Some of the prisoners are known to us, my lord. They looted Juramona, murdered many. Our men want to see them pay for that!”

“They’re prisoners of war,” Tol replied firmly. “I order them spared. They can give us valuable information about the larger bands of nomads.”

Tylocost fell in step beside Tol. Together they crossed the field toward the three companies still standing at attention.

“The deserters, my lord?” Tylocost said relentlessly. “One in ten?”

Tol halted. “Very well. See to it. One in ten-but no more, understand?”

With a nod, the elf departed. Tol studied his retreating back. Was that a smile on Tylocost’s face as he turned away?

Forty of the militia had collapsed from heat and fatigue while they’d waited for Tol’s return. They had to be carried by their comrades when Tol at last ordered the men back to camp. Ragged cheers greeted the victors. The aged, the young, and the infirm were buoyed by the sight of the fearsome nomads fleeing from their former victims. Tol’s name was chanted, but once he started shouting orders, the survivors of Juramona fell to, bringing food, water, and medicine to their defenders.

The captives were taken to a ruined stone house in Juramona. Fourteen rangy nomads-five women and nine men-sat disconsolately as glaring militiamen stood guard on the low walls surrounding them. Most of the nomads had minor wounds.

“Who is chief among you?” Tol called out.

Fourteen pairs of sullen eyes gazed at him, but no one answered. Tol repeated his question more sternly, and a blond youth with sword cuts on both shoulders spoke.

“Our chief is Tokasin,” he said. “He will hear of this outrage, and his wrath will be terrible!”

Tol laughed. “Every nomad in Ergoth will hear about this day. That’s for certain! Your days of terror are coming to an end!”

A black-haired woman with blue tattoos on her cheeks asked, “Who are you, grasslander? You’re not one of these sheep.”

He told them. From their nervous shifting, they obviously recognized his name.

Although he asked several times where their chief was, they would say no more. He ordered they be given food and water, but no treatment for their wounds until they decided to talk. The sergeant of the guard he warned to be alert for any who might show a change of heart.

Feeling bolstered, Tol returned to camp. On the way he saw soldiers routing out Seventh Company deserters who were hiding in the town’s ruins. The militia men had no qualms about arresting their former comrades. Their own lives had been put at risk when the Seventh ran away, and they were none too gentle about catching the cowards who had endangered them. Near the ruins of the town wall, a gang of workmen was knocking together salvaged timbers in an open area. As he passed this gallows, Tol’s fragile confidence gave way to gloom.

Zala, freshly scrubbed, was waiting for him at his shelter. She had bandages, a jar of ointment, and a basin of clean water. She ordered him to take off his jerkin and let her inspect any damage. Amused by her imperious tone, he did so, and she commenced scrubbing his back.

“Ow! What is that, sharkskin?” he complained.

“Quiet!” She resumed scrubbing at the dirt and blood with the coarse bit of wet cloth. “Some warrior! Can’t take a little cleaning!” She resumed with a vengeance.

The washing revealed that Tol hadn’t so much as a scratch. Zala muttered something about luck, and he smiled. Kiya was always saying he was the luckiest dolt the gods ever made.

Despite the roughness of her ministrations, Tol found his eyelids growing heavy. He hadn’t tasted battle in six years, and no amount of wood-chopping in the Great Green could substitute for the adrenaline rush of open combat. Exhaustion claimed him. His chin dropped to his chest.

Zala stepped back and regarded him in amazement. He was snoring! The great ox was asleep!

Tol shifted position, easing himself onto his side without ever waking. Zala watched him, a frown on her face. What she’d been through today would trouble her own sleep for many nights to come.

Ackal V let the empty cup fall to the flagstone floor. It was solid gold, cast in the reign of Ackal Dermount, but without wine in it, it was just so much cold metal. He reached for a full cup, this one of translucent crystal etched with the Ackal arms.

His private chambers were alive with revelry. Smoke from the roaring fire mixed with the smells of incense, sweat, and spilled wine. The emperor had decided to forget his troubles with a little celebration. Breyhard had failed, and his army was lost. Crumont had managed to return across the Dalti River and fall back to the Ackal Path, ready to defend the capital from a bakali assault. It had never come. The lizard-men disappeared once more into the rich farm country northwest of the city. The Great Horde was searching for them.

The only ones invited to this party were the Emperor’s Wolves and a few special guests, including Breyhard’s kin. His two wives were chained to pillars, with his three children cowering at their feet. Breyhard’s brother had been arrested as well, but the Wolves had been careless and allowed him to fall on a concealed knife, cheating the emperor’s vengeance.

Filthy, unkempt Wolves lurched around the captives, bellowing insults and drenching them with wine or cider. In the shadows beyond the firelight, Ackal’s hounds were savaging something: a beef joint from the cooking spit, or one of the servants-the emperor couldn’t tell which.

Ackal V got up from his couch, brushing aside a sodden courtesan. With the exaggerated dignity of the intoxicated, he smoothed his wrinkled crimson robe and tightened its sash. Without being called, Tathman appeared silently at his master’s elbow.

“I’ve neglected my guests,” the emperor said. “Come.”

Two Wolves had passed out while berating the dead warlord’s wives. Ackal roused them with kicks. Once they crawled away, he addressed the chained women.

“You know why you are here, don’t you?”

The elder wife, a plump, dark-eyed brunette, nodded curtly. The younger, red haired and half Breyhard’s age, only sobbed and hung slack against her bonds.

“I have decided to be merciful and spare your lives,” he said, weaving slightly as he tried to stand straight. “You will be consigned to slavery in Windgard.” This was the capital of the Last Hundred, the province at the extreme western end of Ergoth, south of the Seascapes and west of Thorngoth. “The marshal there will be your master, and will do with you as he sees fit.”

The elder wife pleaded, “Majesty, send me away, but please don’t punish the children. They can serve the empire well when they grow up, but as slaves, their lives will mean nothing!”

“The law is clear. A general who loses his army loses his life and family.”

The younger wife, red-eyed behind her ginger hair, cried, “Not me! Don’t send me away, sire! I married Breyhard only half a year ago-I thought he was to be a great warlord!”

He lifted her chin. “You married him for his position? Not love?”

“Yes!”

He let go her chin and glanced back at Tathman. “Have her head put on the wall.”

The woman screamed, but Ackal roared at her, “I’ll not have my warriors wedded to greedy, ambitious wenches!”

Tathman signaled to two reasonably sober Wolves. They took the younger wife away. As she shrieked and begged for her life, Ackal V calmly returned to the pillar holding the elder wife.

“Lady, I’m going to set you free,” he said. “You asked for your children’s freedom, not your own. You’re the kind of woman the empire’s warriors need. Take your children home and raise them to be better Riders than their father.”

Moving carefully but quickly, the elder wife gathered up her children. They disappeared into the darkness between the double line of columns.

Tathman was gnawing his long lip, staring after the departed group. “Speak,” Ackal told him.

“You’re too generous, Majesty,” the chief Wolf said in his vast, deep voice.

“Maybe. I’ve had a great deal to drink.”

He cast about for another full cup. Tathman took a goblet from a tray borne by a jumpy servant and handed it to the emperor. Ackal drained it.

“Still,” he said, “by sparing one, I’ll make loyal subjects of the rest.”

Tathman bowed his head. “The emperor is wise.”

What Ackal V did not know-or forgot in his drunken state-was that Breyhard’s elder wife was Kannya Zan, cousin of the late Pakin Pretender, and no friend of the Ackal line. Delaying in the capital only long enough to pack a few essentials, she and her children made for the port of Thorngoth. On the way south, Kannya told the story of her humiliation to every Pakin relative she encountered, and there were many.