The Warrior's Tale Read online

  My little Scribe, who I'm now seeing as less a wharf rat than a sometimes annoying chipmunk chattering for more nutmeats, is alarmed, frightened I'll ruin my tale by detailing just how, and why, the first frieze became so embarrassing to the Magistrates and Evocators. You may rest easy, chipmunk. I'm too experienced at bellowing war ballads and telling lies of battle, beer and bed to equally deceitful comrades-in-drink to reveal anything in my story before its proper time.

  I thought of the frieze because the sculptor's vision - like most tales of war, whether pictured, sung, read or told - is still as big a lie as any hasty stammer a parent fumbles up when her child first wonders how babies came to be. The carving begins with a few panels showing the horrible outrages of the Lycanthians, ending with that demonic attack in the Amphitheatre. The next panel shows the Orissan Army, proudly arrayed, marching off to war. Then we see the assault on Lycanth's peninsular wall, followed by a boring series of scenes showing Orissans cutting, shooting, spearing and otherwise bashing our enemies - ending with the last battle. I suppose I ought to be more polite about this moulding, since it now prominently features my women of the Maranon Guard - including an impossibly beautiful warrior woman intended to be me. But I swore I'd tell the truth in this tale and that truth must include my thoughts and opinions. Else I'm no different from any drunken old soldier, whose creaking boasts serve only to send the tavern's drinkers rushing eagerly out into the heart of a winter storm.

  I remember well when we set off on that sharp spring morning, splendid in our ceremonial armour and marching in perfect unison like we were hung from strings controlled by a master puppeteer. As we marched, we sang some thankfully forgotten ballad about how we were going to fuddle ourselves on Lycanthian blood and banquet on their guts. I've noticed that such gory hymns never last beyond the first fighting; and then the old songs of home, the past, plenty and peace are called for.

  I won't suggest the frieze should next show the army as we halted an hour after the last well-wisher turned back to Orissa and hastily changed out of our heavy, blister-causing, eye-blinding, but glamorous dress uniforms, hurled them into the quartermasters' carts not to see them again until the campaign ended or we were slid into them for burial, and then shambled off in easy route step and field garb. What I am objecting to is the jump to the breaching of the wall -as if nothing happened in between. We did break through - but only after we'd fought for a full year. And when we first marched up our enemy was waiting on the parapets to fire a deadly stream of missiles -from catapults to crossbows.

  During that year all too many Orissans died. Almost a third of my Guardswomen became casualties and I learned a duty never mentioned in the epics - constantly begging my superiors and anyone who seemed to have a speck of authority for more; more weapons to replace those lost; more supplies to replace those consumed or spoiled; but most of all replacements for my poor wounded, crippled, invalided or slain comrades. New recruits arrived, but they never seemed to be as good as the sisters we'd marched out with - no matter how thoroughly we tried to train them before they were awarded the crested helmet of a Guardswoman. I also became skilled at writing letters to the bereaved - letters in which I invariably assured the mother, father or lover their beloved had been struck down in the midst of some heroic act, dying instantly and without pain. Those lies didn't bother me then nor do they now. The only reason to show a civilian the bloody mask of real war would be if that might somehow put an end to solving problems with a sword, but no one but a fool or a romantic can dwell on her people's history for more than a moment and keep that dream alive.

  Once we'd formed battle-lines in front of the Lycanthian wall, the killing began. We attacked and were driven back. We assaulted once more, with the same result. We cut down the forests on the mainland behind us to build siege engines, then attacked again. Again we were sent reeling away from that scarred stone face as impervious as any mountain cliff. Sometimes we would reach the parapets, but be unable to hold them; and men and women were butchered or hurled to their deaths if they could not retreat in time. Still, we kept up the pressure, and the Lycanthians were thoroughly trapped.

  When they first erected their city, time before memory, it was cleverly conceived as a fortress. They built at the tip of a narrow peninsula, where a volcano had bellowed fire at the heavens and then the sea had breached its crater - creating an enormous high.-walled harbour. The Lycanthians mounted an immense chain across the harbour's mouth to guard it from enemies such as ourselves. Just at the tip of that crater was the Archons' monstrous sea-castle, where my brother had been imprisoned. Around the crater and down the peninsula, the city itself was built. The Lycanthians preferred to build upward in great street-long tenements, rather than sprawl outward, like Orissa. At the narrowest part of that peninsula was the wall. Beyond it began the wilderness, with not even a Lycanthian hovel to mark the forest.

  Our army had them sealed by land, but Lycanth's huge fleet was still a threat. We river-dwellers had only recently realized the necessity for Orissa to be strong on the sea, so our warships were few and their reinforcements were still a-building - many of them in the Antero yards Amalric had constructed when he returned from the Far Kingdoms. We could not allow Lycanthian warships the freedom of the seas, for fear they might attack Orissa, or land soldiers behind our lines. At the very least their ships might bring in enough supplies and reinforcements to lift the siege. Once they realized the Lycanthian Navy must be confronted, our Magistrates and Evocators made a hard decision - they hired seaborne mercenaries: by the sailor, by the ship, by the squadron, by the fleet. No one was under any illusion a mercenary fights for other than immediate loot; and not very fiercely even then if his opponent is battle-worthy or offers payment for the gallowglass to change sides. But no one saw other options and so the Orissan banner was hoisted on craft that a few weeks earlier were privateers and freebooters sailing under anarchy's black flag. They were commanded, after a riotously drunken 'election', by 'Admiral' Cholla Yi, a great hulk who - from his ostentatiously waxed hair worn in a double row of spikes, to his always spotless silks, to the three, some said four, daggers he kept secreted about his body, to his laced, tightly fitting rainbow-coloured boots - was the very image of a merchant-eating corsair. I'll admit, grudgingly because of later events, Cholla Yi at least seemed to keep his rogues under control. He began his reign by erecting gibbets on either side of the beach encampment and saw to it those gibbets were always creaking with the fresh bodies of miscreants. He also struck fast and bloodily, driving the Lycanthian ships back into their harbour - sinking or capturing those who were slow in their flight. That huge chain - which hung from the Archons' sea-castle across the harbour entrance to a watchtower on the far promontory - served its purpose well and kept our warships from attacking the harbour, or sending in fire ships or cutting-out parties. It was a stalemate, but the Lycanthians were now sealed by sea as well as by land.

  The battles for the wall went on. Sorcery rebuilt that great wall before the war began, but as I'd promised Amalric, it finally fell to hard steel, only slightly assisted by magic. A particularly alert subaltern with the Frontier Scouts, a unit that had become nearly as elite a fighting force as my Guards, noted a section of the wall was lightly manned. For a week thereafter our heaviest trebuchets hurled boulders in the sector, only occasionally loosing a 'wild shot' that happened to strike just at that nearly deserted section. When the stonework was deemed sufficiently weakened, but not so obviously one of the Archons or their underlings cast a reinforcing spell, the assault troops were told off.

  General Jinnah assigned the Scouts the honour of being first up the ropes, although I argued long and hard for my Guardswomen.

  Gamelan was in Jinnah's tent during my protest, which grew quite heated. He'd chosen to leave Orissa's comforts to lead the expedition's Evocators. At the time his decision was praised as a great patriotic deed - or, murmured by the cynical, that our Evocators were most worried about the rumoured secret weaponry the Archon
s might be developing from Prince Raveline's knowledge. As I learned, and you shall in time, there were other reasons for Gamelan's seeming selflessness.

  He stepped in when the argument became loud enough to alert the sentries outside and calmed us both. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but he probably kept me from being relieved and sent home in disgrace, since I was about to call Jinnah an incompetent lizard fart whose only ability in war stopped at the sand table. He offered a compromise: once the parapets were taken by the Scouts, my Guard would make up the second wave. I grudged agreement, forced myself to knuckle my brow in respect and stamped out, angrily pulling my helmet on. Gamelan followed and once beyond earshot of the sentries, touched my sleeve. I almost snapped at him as well, before remembering not only my politeness but that this sorcerer was quite capable of casting a spell of, say, invisible pubic lice to suggest the virtues of courtesy.

  Since we'd arrived at the wall, Gamelan had visited the Guard and my own tent several times. No one knew why and not even Corais chanced a bawdy theory. Personally, I thought it might be an odd sort of apology for his having taken so long to openly support Amalric in his struggle against the corruption in the Evocators' Guild; or even, perhaps, because he remembered my long-dead brother, Halab, who'd been destroyed by the Guild working as the unknowing cat's-paw to Prince Raveline. But these theories, thoroughly considered, made as little sense as a Guardswoman explaining the real injustice of why she was chosen to dig a privy.

  In the light from a nearby fire I saw Gamelan had a bit of a smile on his face. 'I understand your disappointment, Captain Antero,' he said. 'But have you considered that, because of General Jinnah's obstinacy, it's not unlikely more of your Guardswomen shall be alive to see tomorrow's sunrise than would be otherwise?'

  I must have blinked in astonishment, but before I could formulate a more politic response I blurted, 'What of it? A soldier's final duty is to die. Why else would she serve if she didn't understand that?'

  I heard a ghost of a chuckle. 'Most straightforward, Captain. Just the answer I would prize from a brave soldier. But... perhaps I might have expected more from an Antero. After all, a mirror need not reflect a single image.'

  'I don't understand.'

  There was no response and Gamelan was gone, having slipped away into the darkness as silently as if he'd used magic. I puzzled briefly, then put the matter away. Evocators always behaved like that, I thought. As much of their powers came from deliberate confusion and fumadiddle as from magic itself. Another thought caught me and this deserved more attention: Gamelan, that severe, brooding eagle, had not only smiled, but actually laughed - unless I'd been listening to the wind. Perhaps, some time in the distant past, back in the days when fish had legs, Gamelan had known human concerns? Had laughed, had loved, had joked, had even, perhaps, drunk a flagon too many or even winked at a pretty girl or boy? Impossible, I thought and hurried to issue orders for the after-midnight attack.

  The attack went perfectly, to the surprise of all veterans, since war's characteristic is as much confusion as blood. The Evocators, under Gamelan's direction, cast a subtle spell that merely covered the sky with black clouds, and sent a wind from the sea whistling across the peninsula, a wind gusty enough to mask a soldier's clumsiness if he happened to slip noisily as he crept forward. Padded grapnels were cast and the Scouts went up the wall handily and silenced the Lycanthians on the parapet with their favoured weapon, a leather-bound, sand-padded slingshot. They signalled for the next wave. Ladders were rushed forward, steadied and my Guard went up and over. Torches flared and the shouting and slaying began, but there was no more need for silence, as below us the sappers brought forward their rams and the rhythmic crashing began. Before the Lycanthians could do more than rush in the closest reinforcements, the wall was breached and the army poured through, into the peninsula and then Lycanth itself - first the low buildings on the outskirts, then through the city streets and the towering stone tenements.

  Gamelan was wrong about how many Guardswomen were to die that day, because we pressed the Lycanthians hard, knowing if we stopped for food, for water, for even a breath, they'd have time to counter-attack. We gave them no succour and battered them back and back through their city. I'd read war in a city is the worst of all, that an attacker can lose control of his entire force and have it butchered to the last warrior before he realizes what has happened. That is correct. Of all the fighting I did before, and even afterwards, on land or shore, I cannot remember any time as dreadful as those gore-soaked days when we drove the Lycanthians through their home city to the sea.

  If the fighting had been bloody before, now it became awful. Soldiers and demons poured out of those strange tall buildings, slashing through their own panic-stricken populace to get at us. More than soldiers died in this swirling madness. I saw Lycanthian women, not in armour, using flails and butcher knives lashed to poles as well as swords and javelins from downed warriors, fighting in the front ranks, and saw them killed. I saw old men, other women and children, unarmed, screaming in fear, trying to run, trying to hide, trying to surrender. I saw them cut down by battle-maddened soldiers - even by my own Guardswomen. My officers and sergeants shouted against this bloodlust and in moments it was gone. The fighting went on all that night and the next day and suddenly, we were in front of another great wall.

  This was the sea-castle of the Archons. There they stopped us. Again, the siege was mounted and again almost a year passed. The sea-castle's walls withstood assault after assault. Our blood and theirs stained the black, smoking stone. The gates were buckled and blasted, but still held firm. At any moment they could swing open and unleash a surprise attack by warriors made mad by the Archons' spells. Inside those walls we could hear the screams of the wounded and the pitiful moans of the starving. Outside, our army suffered as well. War had denuded the countryside for many miles. Our supply ships were simply not enough to support our land forces and we had, through common humanity, to try to feed those poor Lycanthian civilians who'd not been able to flee into the sea-castle in time; civilians the Archons refused to admit to the castle in the one brief truce we were able to call. Our soldiers were exhausted and plagued by hunger and disease, overflowing the hospital tents with their numbers. Sleep was no release: the air was so fetid with the stink of magic that nightmares constantly stalked our dreams.

  But it was the will of the Archons, not the defenders of those walls, that had ground our advance to a halt. The two Wizard-Kings of Lycanth were fighting for their lives with a fury. Our Evocators, though bolstered mightily by spells my brother had brought back from the Far Kingdoms, were blocked by the Archons' counterspells at every turn.

  I said the blood-bath of the assault through Lycanth was the worst fighting I've ever known. I wish I had another set of words to describe what a siege is like, because, in some ways, it is more terrible. There is constant boredom, but you must never let yourself relax. One momentary pause in the open and a sharp-eyed archer sends a shaft through your guts. You must never speak too loudly, nor shout, or else the enemy might use that sound to catapult a boulder onto your position. You must keep your ears sharp, or a raiding party might slit your weasand before you see the glint of his steel. You must never leave your shit unburied, or flies will walk first on that, then on your food and the curse of diarrhoea or worse shall be passed. You must try to keep yourself clean, because if you are wounded and dirt from your filthy rags enters the wound, it will fester - although how you're to be so sanitary living in a hole pick-axed through the city's cobbled streets, no one can say. You must try to be cheerful, because a woman who constantly complains will weaken herself and those around her. You must...

  ... And so forth. I could go on, but I was reminded by my beady-eyed collaborator this is not a manual intended to instruct soldiers.

  As the siege continued, matters became worse between General Jinnah and myself and, therefore, the Guard. We were denied what little glory was to be gained being the first to attempt an assault, or
even on what we call a 'futile hope', which is a small part)' seizing a sudden opportunity - a small-scale version of the Scouts' attack on the wall, which now seemed to have happened so long ago it might've been an exploit told to our grandmothers. We were sent into every action; the more bloody, the more likely the Maranon Guard would be at the forefront. We were slowly whittled away to less than two hundred and it seemed as if no more replacements would ever arrive. At times it appeared that Jinnah wished the Guard to die to the last woman. This I refused to let myself believe, attributing it to the heart-sickness any leader feels, seeing her best die and others replace them and die as well - and to what end? So I said nothing of my thoughts to anyone, not even Corais or Polillo.

  There were rumours Jinnah was enriching himself at the army and Orissa's expense, that he had special teams assigned to comb through the city's apartments for gold and riches and secretly take them to his estates outside Orissa. No one had actually seen these looters-by-command, so I spoke harshly to anyone incautious enough to repeat the rumours in my presence. But when I was in conference with the general, I couldn't help but study him closely for some sign of avarice. All I saw on his face, however, was despair that the siege could not be maintained much longer. There was also real fear in his eyes when he heard tales from our spies that the Archons had nearly mastered a death spell that would be the end of Orissa.

  Finally, the day of reckoning arrived; although like all such days I have experienced, there were none of the Signs and Symbols I hear are supposed to accompany these events.

  General Jinnah gathered us for yet another dawn attack on those impenetrable walls. There was a weary desperation about the whole thing. The sergeants shouted and lashed the men into formation. Bellowed orders followed and the soldiers cursed their officers and their fates as they were driven into battle-lines. Half-starved oxen dragged heavy war machines through the muck. There were rams and wheeled towers and great catapults. Men with scaling ladders were rushed to the jumping-off points, where they nervously eyed the walls. Meanwhile, our enemy prepared as well. Pots of hot oil and molten lead steamed and smoked on the ramparts; rubble was perched to tumble; crossbowmen cranked their bows taut; archers chose their straightest shafts and pikemen made a deadly, sharp-edged forest along the breastworks. We were a motley army of twenty thousand. Only a few thousand were professional soldiers now, including my two hundred. The rest were shopkeepers, butchers, labourers and former slaves. As for the enemy, we did not know how many opposed us - perhaps ten thousand; perhaps more.