It also, as it happened, involved Senjan, that notorious seaside town that vexed the western borderlands and merchant goods at sea. The serdar wasn’t sure why there were Senjani here, making their way towards Woberg on their own and in the open. It was an absurd trek for them. Surely the Jaddite emperor had reinforcements available that didn’t have to journey so far?
On the other hand, Senjani had died in Sarantium when the walls were breached and the city burned—so they clearly did not mind covering distance to find death.
He gave the order to gratify this desire of theirs. He phrased it that way. There were hard smiles in the tent, on the grey morning with rain when they decided to turn home.
There were a hundred Senjani or so, he was told, on foot, with pack animals, not much more than a day ahead, across the next river. He sent eight hundred djannis and two hundred red-saddle cavalry. Too many, but why not? It would be a small triumph, close to a meaningless one, but he instructed the serdar of the djannis to take some of the raiders alive for him to parade through the city. The court could decide how they died.
He needed something to bring home. These infidel raiders from the coast weren’t the only ones at risk of a bad death.
—
HRANT BUNIC HAD not put himself forward to command the Senjani party headed towards the fortress. That might have been a part of why he had been chosen as leader when they’d set out weeks ago—when they’d been a hundred men, not the ninety-three still alive and moving east on another rainy morning.
Yes, he was an experienced raid leader, but there were others like that among them. This was, he thought, one of the best companies ever to set out from Senjan. That might keep them alive long enough to be killed in Woberg. He didn’t share that thought, but found it privately amusing. He was that sort of man, at this point in his life.
They were a larger party than hadjuks would ever engage, but that didn’t mean archers or spear-throwers couldn’t pick off men in rain or at twilight, especially in territory the Asharites knew well, where the Senjani were strangers and at risk if they pursued.
They’d destroyed three small villages and a number of farms. Bunic didn’t much enjoy doing that, since they couldn’t take anything of value while headed north, but he also knew that if anything might deter attacks on them it was the affirmation that there would be consequences. He’d made that clear to the handful they spared in each raid.
Leave us alone. Make sure the hadjuks know.
Of course, in his experience hadjuk militia didn’t much care about the lives or deaths of farmers or villagers—hereabouts, or anywhere. The hadjuks lived their own kind of life on the mountain slopes or in deep woods, and sometimes they were commanded by soldiers. They were offended by villagers, it often seemed. Contemptuous of them. There were reasons beyond religion for conflicts in the world.
It was not, Hrant Bunic thought, a good time in the unfolding of Jad’s creation to be a farmer or village-dweller anywhere. And in these parts of northern Sauradia, with a huge army approaching (he didn’t know yet how far the Osmanlis had come), people were likely to have everything they possessed confiscated soon. Armies needed servants or slaves, food and firewood, women for various reasons.
Ordinary folk suffered and died in the places where empires met.
You couldn’t really hide when war came to you, especially not if you had a house, land, elderly parents, small children. It didn’t make him sorry or anything like that for the infidels here, but it did make him lift his voice more urgently in prayer with the two clerics at sunrise and sunset. He sometimes wondered if the great emperor in his palace in Obravic had any idea what he’d asked them to do when he’d sent messengers to Senjan.
Hrant Bunic had lived thirty-three hard years that spring. He had a father and a wife and a five-year-old son at home, and a woman he loved on Hrak Island. He didn’t expect to see any of them again. He was at peace with this. Life did not offer you many kindnesses, and it didn’t last long. You hoped for light with Jad after, against the dark.
Two of his scouts—one of them the boy, Miro—came back towards midday. They were exhausted, having run through the night. They reported that the evening before, at sunset, they’d seen—and possibly been seen by—mounted Osmanlis. The riders had been well armed, on good horses with red saddles.
Bunic knew what that meant. They all did. The army was upon them and they were exposed, in the open. He nodded slowly. He smiled at the boy. Some things were clear: they couldn’t outrun cavalry to the fortress, still two weeks away, probably. And there were too many of them to hide in this countryside. They had destroyed villages. They would be reported. An ending of this sort had always been possible, from the morning their journey began.
He ordered a halt to allow himself a chance to think. He sent four men across the river to try to find and assess what might be coming this way. Their scouts might not have been seen, though if they thought they had it was likely to be so. Best assume as much. He set about assessing the terrain (not good here) and considering alternatives. He was calm. They were all calm. They were warriors of Jad, those they might soon be fighting were infidels, and there was a price to be exacted from anyone encountering the heroes of Senjan in battle, even far from home.
They were on the north side of a river with usefully steep banks. There was forest cover to the north. It ran back west only a little distance, he wasn’t sure about east. None of them had been here before. The river was high and swift with the rains. They had passed a waterfall and rapids coming this way. They’d been working uphill for days. South across the river was open land, then hills, mostly lost in greyness and rain now. Somewhere out there, an army.
Everything depended on how many came after them. Even if they had seen and followed his own scouts, the Osmanlis might decide to ignore a group of men on foot and push towards the fortress. It was late in the season and they hadn’t reached Woberg yet. Indeed, it might already be too late for them, if Jad was being kind. The Osmanlis needed their cannon to batter the fortress into submission before they had to turn for home or risk starvation when autumn came—and they were surely having trouble getting the gun-wagons through the mud and across rivers.
That gave him an idea. It might be foolish, but they weren’t here for ease and safety, were they? They were marching to defend Woberg, and you didn’t have to wait for enemies to come to you. When had Senjan ever done that? The god might offer mercy, but men needed to act for themselves.
They knew the sea and all waters—better than any people alive was the boast. Bunic asked for volunteers for something dangerous. Every man raised a hand, including the scouts who had just returned, including the boy. Some raised both hands.
He felt, not for the first time, a pride that went bone-deep and had been lifelong. Whatever the world might think or say, in envy or fear or failure to understand, Senjan was what it was.
“This is ours, Hrant, whatever it is you have in mind.” The eldest of the Miho clan had stepped forward.
He nodded. One way to choose, an offer worth honouring. There were six Mihos with them. He picked four. He explained his thinking. He saw them smile, all four of them. He would remember that. They looked like wolves preparing to hunt, not men being pursued. There were no farewells, even with their kin left behind. You didn’t do that. Why say farewell? They expected to return, in triumph.
The four of them went farther east, upstream, then swam across, the current bearing them back this way. They carried the necessary equipment in packs. The river was fast but narrow; the steep bank was a problem in rain but not impossibly so for good men. He watched them scale the bank and stand on the far side, directly opposite. He’d had his troubles with some of the Miho clan, but they knew what they were doing, these men.
Ropes were tied to arrows and sent high across the river. The four men on the other side untied them, then deployed small wheels from their packs and made
knots and loops, while the same thing was done on this side, and a contrivance was made to pull wooden boxes and other things across the water. They knew how to accomplish these things. Their grandfathers had known how.
The men on the other bank took the boxes when they came. Two of them picked up a box between them. They each raised a free hand to those on the north side of the racing water. They turned and went into the rain and disappeared.
The other two Miho cousins remained, blurred in the mist. Bunic watched them place three crates in the ground there, half-buried. They took the last crate between them and they, too, turned south and ran off. They would need to avoid any Osmanlis searching this way. They would do that, he knew. The rest was chance and the god.
One thing done, two things made possible. He had other thoughts. He shared these. Agreement was reached. Time mattered, choices were limited, life was short. They turned back west, the way they’d come. Not far. They reached the place he’d had in mind by day’s end. The rain had stopped, though the world was sodden and grey, no sign of the sun. The flowers in the meadow towards the woods seemed leached of colour. Sound was muffled.
He had left eight men behind in the trees, by the place where they’d sent men across the river.
He didn’t expect anyone tonight, and probably not tomorrow. They set about preparing, much as their grandfathers might have done, or their fathers on the way to Sarantium twenty-five years ago. He hadn’t told his second set of scouts, earlier, which way they’d be going, where they’d be. It didn’t matter, the scouts would read the tracks, find him here.
They did do that, sooner than he’d expected—mid-afternoon the next day. The Osmanlis were close behind them, one said. Would be at the earlier stopping point by sunset, very likely. Many were on horseback. Bunic saw a hint of apprehension kept under control.
There were about a thousand djannis also coming, a second man added. His voice was calm. Bunic didn’t believe that number at first, then he realized he needed to and that, accordingly, they were very likely dead, after all, standing here with rain beginning to fall again, between the river and the trees in Sauradia, far from the sea.
—
AS HE’D LAIN in a troubled sleep the last many nights, Damaz kept dreaming of his sister by the woods. She should have died—of his own arrow. He knew where he’d struck her, he’d seen she had no armour.
Then she’d spoken of his fight with Koçi. There was no way—not in the world as he understood it—for her to know about that. What did you do with something like this? Just live your life not understanding? For the rest of your days?
He was with the party sent after the Senjani. They were off the rough track north, crossing rain-soaked fields. The cavalry ahead were tracking the second set of Jaddite scouts they’d spotted, keeping a careful distance, expertly, because these scouts didn’t matter except to lead them to the infidels.
Their own commander—the serdar of all the djannis in the army, not just Damaz’s regiment—was with them, running as they were, doing so easily. A tall, fit, pale-haired, pale-eyed man, Karchite almost certainly. He had elected to come to this kill, for whatever reasons had seemed good to him. It might be the only fight they’d have, someone had said.
That was because, behind them, the army was leaving. Even as he ran, Damaz was aware that in the camp orders were being given. The army of Ashar was turning back, in shame and in rain, because they could not besiege Woberg and take it and get home in time. So it had been decided.
There had been muttering for days around campfires and on the march. Some of the older men had survived a retreat that had begun too late in the year. It had been, they said, beyond terrible. A good part of an army bigger than this one had died, and most of their horses had starved and been eaten.
You wanted to earn glory for Ashar and the khalif and for yourself—for the good life you might have when warring ended for you. But there would be no life after, the old soldiers had made clear, if you shat your guts out in frozen fields and died.
Every campaign in this direction, coming this far, was a war against the Jaddites and their fortresses but also against the weather and the seasons. You could defeat the accursed infidels but not always what came down from the sky.
The rivers had been deadly, high and swift with spring rain. And the guns, the cannons that were their pride and their curse . . . men and animals had been broken getting them this far, and they would break getting them home.
There had not been, Damaz thought, running steadily with a yearning to kill inside him, very much in the way of glory this spring. They had a chance now, though the numbers made this an execution more than a fight. Even so, he might soon slay infidels. He was mindful of the fact that their honour had been badly damaged some weeks ago, back south, by the man named Skandir.
And by Damaz’s sister. Who had called him Neven. And invited him to come with her. The thought came again: what did you do with that recollection?
You ran with your fellow soldiers, until you saw through the evening mist and rain another river, with the red-saddle cavalry massed, holding torches, waiting for them near the bank. One of them was galloping back, torch held high, and Damaz was near enough to hear his report: some of their men had crossed upstream and sent word back. The signs were obvious, the Jaddite band had been there earlier today. They had started back west, fleeing like the cowards they were.
He understood that much before the loudest explosion he’d ever heard deafened him and knocked him to the ground.
There was too much light. Red and orange, towering, and a strange blue amid a stranger absence of noise. Men were shouting, he could see their mouths open, but sound came faintly from far away. Damaz smelled burning and realized it was flesh—men and horses. He was still on the ground, dazed, uncomprehending. All around him were others, also down. He saw his serdar struggling to stand. Damaz forced himself upright and stumbled over to help him, but his leader appeared to be swearing savagely and he shrugged off assistance. Damaz really couldn’t hear anything clearly—not even the two bigger blasts that came in that moment, knocking him flat again, beside the serdar.
Later, he understood it had been fire-arrows loosed by the Senjani from across the river, striking explosives placed on the ground here, half buried, close to the riverbank, where the cavalry had stopped. They had also, it would emerge, killed the three men who had crossed the river.
There was a maimed and mangled chaos of soldiers and horses around him in the dark. Damaz could see men screaming through blood and the earth was churned and roiling. There were limbs lying on the wet ground, unattached to anything, and his leaders were shouting frantic orders, but he couldn’t hear them for a long time.
—
THE WAY THE BIG CANNONS had been dealt with by those responsible for them was a very great mistake, though perhaps an understandable one, if you were at all inclined to be understanding.
Such an inclination was absent from the mind of the commanding serdar of the invading army of the khalif.
It appeared that once the order had been given that they were turning back, the artillery commanders responsible for bringing along the great guns had decided to cease bringing them along to link up with the infantry. Why do that at day’s end, in rain and sucking mud, only to turn them around (not easy in itself) and drag and push them back the way they’d just come?
Accordingly, as matters would later be understood, on the night of the disaster, the cannons, including the two massive ones, were still some distance removed from the main body of the Osmanli force.
The guns were still guarded, of course. Or, rather, they were supposed to be. But there were more than forty thousand soldiers here—who would ever come near them with dark intent?
This particular question was answered by two detonations that lit the night sky with fire and death and strewn terror, and would have hidden the stars had they been shining.
>
Then, alas, it became even worse. Their own explosives were, of course, always brought along in wagons with the guns, under the authority of the artillery commanders and engineers. These, too, went up. Appallingly. Again and again and again. The sequence of blasts was seen and heard a long way in the heavy night, even across the swiftly racing river ahead of them. The one this army would never now cross.
—
OVER IN THAT DIRECTION, north and west, Hrant Bunic looked at a distant, deadly brilliance in the night, accepted a flask of wine, and drank. He did not smile. None of them smiled, in fact. You did what you did in war and sometimes it succeeded. They were still going to die, he expected.
That would not occur now without a very great price having been exacted. Nor were they likely to be forgotten.
—
ABOUT HALF THE CAVALRY were able to mount up again. A large number of djannis were wounded, though not so many, and only some of them had died—they’d been farther back when the explosives by the riverbank had been detonated. The leader of the red-saddle cavalry was dead. He had been, as was proper, at the front when they’d reached the river.
Damaz was still deaf in the first hours after the explosions. His ears kept ringing as if there were temple bells in his head. He was afraid this would never pass, but it did, during the time they spent killing injured horses and tending to wounded men as best they could in the dark, carrying torches through carnage.
There came a point when he could hear the cries, not just see men with open mouths and understand they were screaming. There had been bodies—and parts of bodies—in the river. They had also seen by now the sequence of blasts far behind them, a distant fire was burning in the night. They all knew where those blasts had come from, why there had been so many explosions, one after another.
Damaz had friends among the artillery and the engineers. He’d been assigned to help with the guns. Pulling a cannon’s wagon through mud with other men, you had suffering in common, as a start. Damaz looked at the fires to the south again. They were lighting the cloudy night. There might be no cannons at all any more. He wondered if any of those he knew back there were still alive.