Infinite Blue Heaven - A King and A Queen (17 page)

He paused for a moment, perhaps hoping we would guess what happened. Perhaps we did but I wasn’t going to let him off the hook. I watched him, in silence.

“There was a fight. He pushed one of the others and we all shouted at him and there was a fight! That’s all! A fight and he lost. He was a bad man. A bad Captain and he lost. He was cut and died.”

As he said the last word, his voice died in his throat. He was looking down at the ground as he said it but after a while, he raised his eyes to meet mine. There was a soft, pleading look there.

I considered for a moment. The men had undoubtedly needed water and their Captain was wrong to deny them this. But he was probably right to make them ride further. And he may have had other reasons to stop them drinking. If they’d broken open a skin, they would have to drink it all or risk losing it in the march afterwards. On the whole, I thought this man was in the wrong but we were in dire straights and now, was probably not the time to review it. I would leave him in command for now but watch his men.

We passed midday, in the relative luxury of the camp, under the slightly flapping shelters. The air seemed ever to slightly cooler.

I had asked the man, before I left him, if there had been any sight of the enemy but he said no. I thought this strange. We were not now, very far from the enemy camp. Two days ride at most.

After the horses had drunk so had the men but there had been precious little water left after this. I sent out orders for nobody to drink until just before we left, in the morning.

As we had marched, the Water Brigades, had fallen in behind us and now we had a fine fleet of camels, at the rear of the column.

As we broke camp, everybody drank what they could.

Who knew how long it would be before we saw water again, or even if we would see water again.

I was cautious as we marched. I told the other generals to be on their guard. I had considered sending out flanking columns but the ground was still too uneven here and I needed to save the men’s resources as much as possible.

When we made camp, the mood was lighter and a few men sang or played flutes and various stringed instruments. I even heard the Princess Lay again.

Just before dawn, I called a meeting of the Generals. I had made my decision.

“Men, I have decided to make Geb here a General.” There were a few disapproving faces.

I walked over to him and slapped him on the back.

Geb was a major in the Regular army when he was younger. He has fought in several major campaigns and is an able Palace Captain. I have found him trustworthy and intelligent. I smiled at him and he smiled back.

“Moreover, we will need all the men we can get and the Palace Guard is 400 of our finest. With him at their head, they may be useful. I want you to treat them with respect.”

At this there were nods. It seemed the men noted that I was prepared to risk these men and if they were prepared to die, then they were due respect.

“Today we will come out of the dunes and will be in sight of the enemy. I want you, Kazangap, to form our Left Flank and you Sabitzan, to form the right. If we are attacked. Nothing is to get through. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sire.”

Geb, your men will be the third column and yours Abdil’khan, the second. The rest will stay in formation but Zhuan-zhuan, you will take the rear.

Our objective is to reach the higher ground, which I am told has some vegetation and probably water, within 120 verst of Korims camp. There we must find water. You can be sure Korum will have any water supply either heavily guarded or sabotaged. If he has time. And that is important. If he has time. We must not let ourselves get surrounded, or bogged-down. If we do, we are finished. Therefore I am counting on all of you to do your jobs. Understood?

“Yes,” they almost all cried. Abdil’khan just nodded.

With that we mounted up and rode on, We would have looked a haggard bunch, had we not put on all our armour again.

Our two flanking columns were only intermittently in sight. The ground was uneven here and the road twisted and turned between hillocks or large dunes. Soon the ground became firmer and we even saw the odd tufted weed. Then the main column passed through a wide gully, with a few stunted bushes and then we were looking down into a wide valley, if you could call it that, running east to west. Straight ahead, perhaps only ten verst away, was the first signs of green. Some bushes and scrubby pastures. And beyond that, in the far distance, the rising mountains, blue and glorious, with white caps, glittering gold in the morning sun.

“We are here,” I muttered under my breath. We kept on riding.

The road here curved to the right, dropping the few sachine to where the green bank, sloping gently up to the feet of the mountains, began. I had no doubt Korim had scouts who would already have seen us and sent word to him... When I guessed we were about seven verst from the green, I ordered a halt and for camp to be made, in full view of Korim.

“Order the men to send out small parties, looking for water. They are not to drink it but to report back first.”

This was a ploy. Of course it would be a bonus if they found water but I really didn’t expect there to be any. I just wanted to give Korim a reason for our stopping. What I wanted was to wait for night. Although still flanking us, I had called in Sabitzan’s column and Kazangap’s to within a few hundred sachine of ours and both Generals were present when I called a meeting just after dusk.

“Call in the scouts.” I had ordered just before entering my tent.

“Good Evening Gentlemen. Here is what we are going to do. Korim expects us to follow the road and come out near his probable fortress location here.” I drew on the sand with a stick.

“As you can see the road curves east here. This would take us longer and futher than I wish and he may expect it.”

“What we are going to do is go here. I drew a bold line, northwest from our point, across the space to the mountains. There is more chance of finding water here and he will not be expecting it. He may be less well defended here and may not have plans to ambush us.”

“Moreoever,” I said, and here I paused for one last consideration before announcing my plan, “we will cross this whole distance tonight.”

For a moment there was silence and then a general uproar from the sun-baked faces around me.

“We cannot march that far, in this condition!”

“It must be 100 verst!”

“Yes. But it is flat and it is just one night. We can do it. Korim will not expect it. As you say. We are tired and short of water. The moon has been our enemy for the last few nights. Now it will be our friend. If we are quiet, Korim will not know where we are until it is too late.”

There was much arguing and protesting, before the Generals finally slunk off to pass on the instructions to their men. They were to sleep for one hour, long enough to give the enemy spies the idea that we were settling down for the night, before we would start the hard march.

It was pitch black as we set of, in a forced march, in one column. At times, the Infantry had to jog over the uneven ground, to keep up with the horses. Nobody spoke but there still seemed to be a tremendous clatter of steel and hooves and snorts of protesting horses. We soon reached the first of the rough vegetation, which ran in a strip roughly 120 verst wide and 700 verst long, up the southern flank of the mountains. The road which curved to the east, crossed over a dried river bed, which, in the winter, was fed from the mountains, and then curved back north west to the point where the river issued from the mountains. This was the place, I thought Korim would have built his fortress. Our path would cut out all this distance and still bring us out opposite his camp. If I was right.

After a short while, the going became much tougher. We encountered ditches, bushes and the occasional scrawny tree and even a rough fence, and the horses stumbled in the dark. I called a halt, which is difficult in the dark. One rider had to make his way back through the columns, passing on the order to stop so that not too many horses would crash into each other, causing chaos. Even so there were many cries and bellows from the horses as the long column ground to a halt.

Geb was the rider I had sent back and I had also told him to bring forward the camels. They would go ahead of us. Having longer legs and being sturdier, they could forge a path for us through the thickening vegetation.

In the almost complete silence, once we were stopped, I suddenly heard a distant trumpet and then another, further away. There were two bursts of notes. Four followed by seven. I had no idea what it meant but it was repeated by each trumpet, as the signal traveled off in the distance.

“A code of some kind.” I thought. So Korim was not so stupid. He probably knew exactly where we were now.

The camels arrived and took up the march. They often grumbled and stalled, seeing or sensing some object we hadn’t. At one point, refusing to go forward, we dismounted and immediately heard the sound of human voices, shouting in a foreign tongue and receding. Moving forwards cautiously, we came across a roughly-hewn cabin of wood and wattle. If we had gone crashing into that, it could have been disastrous, I guessed.

“Tell the men to dismount. We will have to walk.”
As the night dragged on, we drove forwards, gasping with the effort and the lack of water. My eyes were misting over with red. I could hardly concentrate and I often stumbled, hardly seeing what I was going. Arstan beside me, did the same and many times I heard men grumbling, hoping I would call a halt. But I couldn’t.

Whatever position we reached this night, would probably be our final, forward position. Korim would no doubt surround us and draw the noose tighter as the day would wear on. We would have no chance of retreat or escape. That was why we must be as far forward and as close to his fortress, as possible. I only hoped there would be water there.

The previous evening, while the men had rested, I had thought much about what Ahmed had said. I would need to use all my instincts and native ability to find water. I had to remember the old ways of our people and sense what the land was telling me.

At one point, we came across a small herd of sheep, huddled nervously against a rough fence and I ordered the men to tie up as many as they could. One man protested that they would make too much noise. He wanted to cut their throats but I told him we were making more noise than they would, and we may need them alive. What I didn’t say was that we might need to drink their blood. Our ancestors had done this, with their horses, as a last resort. As the first delicate rays of the sun touched the mountains, I took in the landscape around me

We were marching up a shallow slope towards the first band of small trees, bunched really not far below the rocky slopes of the mountains. My heart leapt as I saw the deep groove in the mountainsides, which marked the exit of the river. It was almost directly ahead of us, which was a relief and something of a surprise, as we had had to guess the direction and attempt to keep to it during the night. In all the stumbling and going around obstacles, I was surprised that we hadn’t been further off course. At one moment, I thought I saw the glint of sunlight on something, near the exit of the river, in the mountains. Possibly a lookout.

We continued on, all my muscles aching, my throat throbbing and my forehead. After another half-hour, we passed through the trees and up a short slope and into an area of long grass, patchy and parched by the long summer. I looked up and saw the unmistakable walls of a fortress. They jutted out from the apron of a spur, on the west-side of the river valley and the east-side, meeting in the middle in a huge, fortified set of iron-clad doors, glinting in the sun. I smiled though as I looked at it. The walls were stone at the base but, higher up, just wood!

“Korim. You are a clever man but impatient! This could be your biggest mistake.” He must have expected us sooner and rushed to build the walls. Perhaps not having a suitable source for mortar, he had resorted to using wood.

The walls were at the top of a slope, perhaps two or three verst long, the river-bed in the centre. The narrowing sides of the mountain, drawing one’s attention in to the walls and the doors. I could just see the heads and shoulders of men, pacing along the top of the walls. A man, even in full armour, could run from where we were to the walls, although I am not sure about the slope.

The grass, which we stood in, ended at the foot of the slope, perhaps burnt by Korim, to destroy any means of protection. The ground beyond was rough and muddy.

We were close enough. I raised my hand and the Column halted.

From various higher points around us, as far as the rear of the column, I could see enemy archers watching us, some firing the occasional arrow at us.

We had come to a halt, on a slight rise, in the field of swaying grass. Just before we had halted, I had also seen something run across some open ground, a few sachine in front of us, perhaps a wolf, although I thought it had been too small. More likely a fox or a rabbit. I had also noticed a few very small bushes, their tips just poking through the grass, near the end of a shallow gully, which ran south from that point and took a turn east, before widening into the shallow depression just ahead of us.

Those bushes were only about one, to two hundred, sachine away.

The men immediately collapsed, where they had stopped, too exhausted to move.