The Crown of the Conqueror

I

Seeing his army marching across several rough wooden bridges thrown across the Nakuus, Erlaan wondered if Askhos had enjoyed the same feeling of power when he had loosed the First Legion against the tribes of Askhor. This was the start of something new, a fresh force of nature arising to claim the world.

The king-messiah strode at the head of the Mekhani host, tens of thousands of warriors following him onto Askhan-claimed soil. Behemodons waded effortlessly through the sluggish river, urged on by the goads of their mahouts. The wood of the bridges shook with the tramp of so many feet.

The last time he had passed this way, Erlaan had been wrapped up in concerns for his father and himself. Though he had come of age, he realised now that he had still been a boy in mind. When Ullsaard had defeated Cosuas's army and Lakhyri — masquerading as high brother — had ushered Erlaan and his father to safety, he had been afraid and uncertain. He had doubted whether he would ever see Askh again.

Certainly he had not foreseen the manner of his return at that bleak time. Now the fear and doubts were gone. He had lain to rest the worries of his father and taken up the mantle of a true king. As his body had been strengthened, so had his ambition and resolve. He could scarcely believe that he had once thought himself unfit to become a ruler. Perhaps that was the price of a position inherited, not earned. Not so on this day. It was not by right of the Blood or accident of birth that he would become lord of the world, but by his own hand and his own will.

His thoughts strayed from Askh to Ullsaard. He admitted that he was thankful to the usurper; for his strong words, his guidance and for forcing Erlaan to fight for what he believed to be his. The priests thought Ullsaard was blunt, if not outright stupid, but Erlaan was going to assume nothing. After so much effort to take it, the Askhan king would not relinquish his grip on the Crown without a hard fight.

The horde of Mekhani warriors were chivvied into a more organised column of march as they struck out into Okhar, heading almost directly coldwards in accordance with Eriekh's information. Midday had passed and the army was still divided by the Nakuus when Erlaan's rune-gifted sight spotted his scouts returning from dawnwards. Skittering through the grass on the backs of their lacertils, the outriders were returning with speed and purpose.

The only reason for such haste would be a sighting of Askhan forces. It was inevitable that an army of the size Erlaan commanded could not progress unseen, but it was a blow that their first encounter with the enemy was so soon. As the lizard-riders approached, Erlaan passed the word for the army to halt and wait for those on the other side of the river to catch up.

"If we are discovered, we cannot allow the Askhans to escape to take word to their king," Erlaan told the cabal of the oldest shamans that served as his general staff. "We must obliterate them entirely."

"As you say, mighty Orlassai," one of them replied, Erlaan could not remember his name; the shamans all appeared as shrivelled, near-dead husks to the king-messiah's eyes, their font of life energy almost spent. "We shall slay them all."

Several of the shamans left to help with the mustering of the army from the march, leaving Erlaan with two hunched, aging companions. He ignored them, wondering where Eriekh and Asirkhyr would be found. They were probably still with the rear of the column, ensuring that there was no dawdling.

Riding up to their ruler, the handful of scouts leapt from the backs of their lizard mounts and prostrated themselves in the patchy grass. Their obeisance gave the king-messiah mixed thoughts; such unthinking dedication was gratifying, but having been raised in the court of Askh where there was little formality Erlaan could not help but feel a small amount of embarrassment at their abasement. He signalled for them to rise.

"You have sighted Askhans?" said the king.

"Yes, divine Orlassai," said the chief of the scouts, a haggardfaced elder called Inomasai. He turned and pointed back to where he had come from. "Soldiers riding on giant snakes, in the hills towards the dawn."

Erlaan said nothing about the vagueness of this report, consoling himself that when the new empire was established the Mekhani would learn of such things as hours and miles. He looked to where the scout pointed and saw that the ground rose up to a steep, scrub-filled slope about four miles away. If the scouts were there, the Askhan force for which they were the eyes would be another five to ten miles behind.

"Did they see you?" he demanded.

Inomasai shrugged and looked at his underlings, who cautiously shook their heads.

"They gave no cry of warning, so it is not likely, mighty Orlassai," said Inomasai. "I stayed for a while hidden in the grass and they did not change direction."

"And which direction was that?"

The scout hesitated before replying. The Mekhani used landmarks and well-known trails to describe places in the desert; without such references, Inomasai was finding it difficult to explain what he had seen.

"They move along the hills, from the cold to the hot," said the chief of scouts, waving his hand in the direction of the scouts travel. "They head towards the river."

Absorbing this information without comment, Erlaan turned his gaze back to the Nakuus, several miles behind. At a rough guess, there were still more than a tenth of his army to cross the river. He had to make a decision.

"Send word to the rear to cross as soon as possible," he told the remaining shamans. "The rest of the army will march to dawnwards. If the enemy scouts spot us they must not be allowed to give the Askhans too much warning. We will fall upon them like a scouring wind and sweep onto whatever force it is they protect."

"As you command, mighty Orlassai," the shamans said in unison, bowing low before scampering away.

While the orders rippled through the army, Erlaan loosened his sword in its sheath. The thought of battle excited him. This magnificent body he had been given by the sect of the Temple had not been truly tested yet. He wanted to know just what sort of ruin he was capable of unleashing.

It took a while for the Mekhani to settle on their new course, and there were a few disagreements as shaman-chiefs argued over who took which position in the line. While he waited, Erlaan sent Inomasai to round up the scouts and press into the hills ahead of the main attack. From all around, the lizard riders converged, more than four thousand of them advancing as a screen.

Eventually the desert-dwellers arranged themselves on the new line of advance and with a signal from Erlaan the army set out at a fast pace towards the hills. Erlaan loped to the front with long strides, golden eyes scanning the hillsides for signs of the Askhans. The lacertil riders had reached the bottom of the slopes when the king-messiah spotted the first kolubrids.

Even from this distance, Erlaan could see the exchange of arrows and slingshots as the two skirmishing screens clashed. Far from sweeping away all before them, the Mekhani advanced faltered quickly, losing dozens to the volleys of the Askhans' bellows bows. This was the first thing to give Erlaan pause; the number of kolubrid scouts present indicated a larger force than he had anticipated, perhaps even a full legion. It made little difference, he decided. Even a full legion numbered no more than five or six thousand legionnaires; little match for the tens of thousands at Erlaan's command.

Despite their best efforts, the lacertils were driven back down the slopes, and then further onto the grassland, harassed by the bellows bows of their foes. Erlaan reckoned his main army was a mile away, no more. Even if the Askhan force had already received warning, they would have no more than a six or seven mile head start over the king-messiah. Certainly that did not give them enough time to prepare a march camp or other defensive position, and though a smaller, nimbler force, the armoured legionnaires would not move as swiftly over the rough ground as Erlaan's warriors. It would only be a matter of time before they were caught.

When the king-messiah was half a mile from the foot of the closest hill, he saw the sun glinting on spear points and shields ahead. It seemed that the enemy commander had come to the same conclusion as Erlaan and had decided to fight instead of flee. Phalanx after phalanx of legionnaires appeared at the crest of the hills, their standards flapping.

The soldiers were as easy to see to Erlaan's eyes as if they were no more than an arm's reach away. He recognised the standard and colours of the Seventeenth. Things may have changed since he had left the empire, but when last Erlaan had been in Askh, the Seventeenth had been commanded by Harrakil. Dredging through his memories, Erlaan recalled that he was a good commander — bad commanders did not become First Captains — but not of remarkable talent or great achievement. He had spent most of Ullsaard's war for the Crown guarding Governor Adral of Nalanor.

Raising his hand, Erlaan called for the army to halt and spread out for attack. As the order rippled through the tribes, the Mekhani moved into position, placing behemodons between their warbands, while the crews in the howdahs readied their war machines.

While this continued, the Askhans were also preparing. Erlaan could see kolubrid riders hurrying back and forth between the First Captain and the company commanders, carrying the details of the battle plan. Positioned at the top of the steepest slopes, the legion had the advantage of ground; the kolubrids were trying to push back Erlaan's skirmishers and gain the flanks, but so far were being held between the two armies.

"Let us see how you fare against a commander who knows how you fight," Erlaan growled.

He had spent much of the winter preparing the shaman-chiefs for such an encounter, impressing upon them the need to avoid challenging the Askhan spear blocks head-on. It had taken some considerable time, but the king-messiah had hammered home the importance of tactics and manoeuvre over individual bravery and strength. The Mekhani could not hope to defeat a phalanx one-to-one, on attack or defence; with his subordinates, Erlaan had drilled his troops to feint against the front of the enemy before using their speed to get between the Askhan formations to attack from the side and rear.

Erlaan flexed his fingers in anticipation and was about to draw his sword to signal the attack when a doubt stole into his thoughts. Seeing through the cloud of pleasure that had filled his mind at the prospect of battle, he paused for a moment to think about the situation.

"Why does he fight?" the king-messiah asked himself. "What can he hope to gain?"

One possibility was that Harrakil had despatched part of his force to take warning to Ullsaard while his legion acted as rearguard. That seemed a reasonable explanation. There was another, and it unsettled Erlaan. What if, against all expectation, the Askhan force was stronger than one legion? The kolubrids had fought so hard to keep the heights, it was not beyond the realm of possibility that more legionnaires lay in wait beyond the hills.

Growling in irritation, Erlaan weighed up the possibilities. The show of defiance could be an elaborate bluff by Harrakil, conceived to fool Erlaan into thinking the Askhans were stronger than they were; an act of desperation on being confronted by such an overwhelming force. Yet, if it was not a bluff…

Erlaan wished he had someone with which to discuss his thoughts, but his priestly companions were nowhere to be seen, and the shamans were incapable of providing any useful insight with such a conversation. The decision remained Erlaan's alone, without advice or encouragement.

His instinct was to attack and have the matter settled, but he knew that good commanders did not act on instinct alone. Harrakil thought that he faced the Mekhani of the past; barbaric and impetuous. His plan would be based upon that assumption. Thinking further along this line, tugging at his thoughts like a stray thread, Erlaan considered the consequences of what might happen. The Askhans knew the Mekhani would attack, and that was what they wanted to happen, for whatever reason. It followed, Erlaan concluded, that if he was simply to withdraw, Harrakil would be left with the difficult choice of coming down onto the grasslands, revealing his true strength in the process, or simply letting the Mekhani move away to wreak whatever havoc they intended.

"We will withdraw!" Erlaan announced.

This proclamation was greeted with some consternation by his subordinates. The nearby shamans muttered briefly to each other until one was nominated as spokesman. He knelt before Erlaan, eyes fixed on the ground.

"Forgive us for doubting your wisdom, which is brought to you upon the winds from the sky, mighty Orlassai," the shaman began. "We seek only to understand your impeccable will. The enemy are few and we are many, and you alone could destroy these fools. Why do we not attack? Is it now your intent that they escape, to take word to their king of the great and terrible foe that they face?"

As he considered his next words, Erlaan looked at the Askhan legion intently, unsure whether he was making an error. It had been Asirkhyr's intent to keep their presence as secret as long as possible. Such a factor seemed less important now when judged against the losses that a battle would inflict, before the campaign proper had begun. A few days mattered little measured over a season of war.

"They are beneath us," declared Erlaan. "When we wet our spears, it will be with the blood of men, not dogs. If they are truly worthy of facing me, they will come after us, and we shall oblige them with the deaths they desire."

This seemed to satisfy the shamans, who nodded and smiled in reply.

"Pass on my will to my brave warriors," Erlaan told them with a wave of his hand. "The towns and people of Ersua should not be made to wait too long for our cruel attention."

As soon as the shamans had departed, they were gone from Erlaan's mind. He drew his sword and pointed it towards the icon of Askhos as the centre of the Seventeenth's line. Drawing in a deep breath, he roared his next words, the runes on his tongue and lips sending them clear and loud up to the legionnaires on the hill.

"Know that I am Orlassai, the reborn king of Mekha! Run like dogs to your cowardly master. Tell your king that his time is short. I desire his Crown and I shall take it. If he kneels before me and presents the Crown to me I shall be merciful and spare his people!"

While the Mekhani turned away and headed coldwards, there was movement in the Askhan ranks. Two companies parted and a figure rode forward on the back of an ailur. Even with his enhanced eyes, Erlaan could not make out the noble's features, but the glint of gold when the man raised his spear was an unmistakeable declaration. A shout carried on the wind, picked up only by the king-messiah's ears; words that amused and concerned Erlaan in equal measure, for the man who uttered them could not have known that they would be heard.

"You want my Crown? Come and take it, you goat-fucker!"

As the cry drifted away on the wind, the hills were alive with movement. More golden icons appeared, and the flapping standards of many companies. Rank after rank of spearmen marched up the crests of the hills, until the Askhan line was nearly a mile wide.

Four whole legions stared down at the departing Mekhani army.

Pleased that he had not fallen into the trap, Erlaan smiled. The priests had been wrong about Ullsaard. He was here, and he had a force almost the equal of Erlaan's. Almost equal, but not quite. In the past, four legions would be a match for fifty thousand Mekhani, but not now. With the advantage of the hills, he was safe, but on the level ground of Okhar the advantage was with the numbers. If the Askhan king wanted to come down and start a fight, Erlaan was happy to let him.

But he knew it would not be that simple. Ullsaard had already caught up a step, even if he could not yet match Erlaan. Given the chance, he would strike when the right opportunity presented itself; but that was not now.

"We will finish this another time!" Erlaan cried out.

With that, he sheathed his sword, turned his back on the Askhans and walked away.