Kingslayer (14 page)

Navid froze for a moment as if he couldn’t quite believe his ears, the most dumbfounded expression on his face. Then a slow smile stretched from one ear to the other. “Ballyhoo, that. The loudies be gatepinched by dawn’s bells.”

Darius groaned. “I only understood half of that!”

For the first time in the four weeks that Darius had known the man, Navid actually
chuckled
, eyes crinkled up in laughter. “You know street slang, sir?”

“No, not at all,” Darius admitted ruefully. In fact, he’d only gotten about twenty words and a few phrases in his head over dinner before his duties had sucked him back into real life again. “But it’s fun, isn’t it?”

His commander studied him for a long moment, with that smile lingering on his face. “You like words, sir.”

The opinion was clearly not meant as a question, but Darius answered anyway. “Always have, Commander, always have.”

“Buckshee, for the mouth,” Navid said in a tone like he was offering something.

Darius puzzled this one out, racking his brain to recall everything a reluctant Bohme and a very enthusiastic Payam had taught him earlier. “Wait, buckshee was a free service or favor…so, you’ll teach me more when you can?”

“That’s it, sir.” Navid’s grin widened again.

“I’ll take you up on that, don’t think I won’t,” Darius mock-warned him. Even though he genuinely looked forward to learning more, he largely felt satisfaction that Navid had
finally
relaxed enough to freely talk to him without being prodded into it.

Navid shrugged, as if the challenge of tutoring up his general didn’t faze him in the slightest. “Yes, sir.”

Shaking his head, Darius waved him on. “I’ll let you get back to position. Let me know if something happens.”

Navid snapped out a salute, turned, and quickly headed back for his section.

“You handled that well, General.” Sego stepped out of the shadow of Darius’s tent. “Most have ridiculed or judged Navid because of his slang speech.”

Darius snorted. Sego gave him too much credit. “I actually
do
think learning slang will be fun, you know.”

“Yes, your sincerity is what convinced him,” Sego agreed without batting an eyelash.

The man thought politically, as he had no doubt been raised to calculate every word depending on his audience. Darius didn’t have that same natural conniving sense, and he didn’t think he could convince Sego that his only aim had been to put Navid at ease with him. Mentally, he just let it go. “Is my tent set up already?”

“I
have
had all day,” Sego answered dryly.

True. Darius had been rushing from one side of the camp to the other and the time had sped past for him. He’d momentarily forgotten that Sego hadn’t had as much to see to. But the day had ended for most of the men, and the first night bell would ring shortly. If Darius wanted to be mentally sharp tomorrow, he’d best retire now. “Where is your tent?”

“Right next to yours, sir.”

Good. “I’ll do one last check on things and then retire. Go to bed, Sego.”

Sego gave him a relaxed smile. “After you do, sir.”

Stubborn, manipulative man…. Darius gave him an exasperated look. Even if he could somehow force the man into his tent, he still wouldn’t go to bed just on general principal. Shaking his head, he hunted down Kaveh and made sure that he knew who had taken over the night watch. Then he went back to his tent, catching Sego’s eye as he ducked through the flaps to make sure the man knew that
he
had to retire now too.

Sego just gave him that same smile again as if he weren’t manipulating Darius into doing what he wanted done.

“Man’s more formidable than I gave him credit for,” Darius grumbled to himself as he stepped into his tent.

“Shir?”

“Nothing, Bohme, ignore me.” He stopped two feet inside and took a good look around. Funny, but it seemed like a general’s tent in Niotan didn’t differ much from the ones they had in Brindisi. The only real difference lay in the shape of the tent—instead of being largely rectangular in nature with a slanted roof, this one was perfectly circular with a very pointed roof. It’d still been made out of the same durable canvas, though.

A brazier of burning coals sat in the very center, giving off warmth and light. It already felt a little warmer inside the tent than it did outside, which in this desert wasn’t unusual. The nights were normally bitterly cold. Sego had piled several thick blankets and a few furs on top of Darius’s bed, so he didn’t think he’d freeze when the brazier burned down. Bohme too had several blankets and furs, although with his pallet near the open door, he’d need them far more than Darius would.

Aside from the beds and brazier, the only other furniture was a small table with his map and battle plan, which sat low to the ground and had several cushions arranged for comfortable seating. Sego had padded the ground with several large rugs as well, although in this dim lighting, he couldn’t see any details of their designs. “Are all general’s tents like this?” he wondered aloud.

Bohme shrugged his ignorance.

Setting the idea aside as inconsequential, he set about stripping off his uniform and washing off the worst of the ever prevalent sand that had glued to his skin during the course of the day. He’d get a good night’s sleep and see how effectual his plans were tomorrow.

“They really left?!” Darius demanded in surprise, nearly dropping the glass in his hand.

Kaveh had come to find him before he could even finish breakfast in his tent, eyes uncharacteristically alight, nearly brimming over with energy. Even now, he could barely stay still as he sat at Darius’s table. “The cats arrived at sunset yesterday. Navid had a better view than we did here, but apparently the barbarians kicked up quite a fuss when they arrived. I don’t know what Jahangir said to pacify them, but it obviously didn’t make much headway with them. They left sometime during the night.”

The barbarians were gone…and the battle hadn’t even really
started
yet. Darius banged his glass against the table, threw back his head, and laughed in sheer delight. “I can’t believe that worked!”

“General!” Sego scolded, eyebrows beetled together. “What do you mean, you can’t believe it worked?!”

“Well, I didn’t think it would work that well,” Darius amended, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “Phew! I thought it would take another hard push to convince them to retreat. The situation must have already been pretty strained over there to make them leave this readily.” And at night, no less. The barbarians had several very strong opinions about traveling at night.

“It was a highly unorthodox plan, sir, but remarkably effective,” Kaveh praised.

Darius blinked at him, a little unnerved by the open admiration in Kaveh’s expression and voice. He’d never had the man react to him like that before.
I’ve been trying to win this man’s respect and trust ever since I met him. Apparently I went to the store with the wrong coin. All it takes is two wagons of angry cats to win him over.

“The barbarian’s sudden retreat will be very demoralizing,” Sego thought aloud as he reached for another roll of bread. Happy with this thought, he continued, “Is that why they haven’t attacked us yet?”

Normally battles commenced early in the morning, before the sun had properly risen, to avoid fighting during the heat of the day as much as possible. The sun had already been in the sky for a whole hour so for war, this
was
quite late. “I bet that Jahangir’s whole strategy has been thrown into confusion,” Darius couldn’t help but smile at the thought as it warmed his heart. “He’s having to rearrange everyone to cover their absence.”

“It will take him several hours at least to re-form the ranks,” Kaveh agreed. “An army of that size isn’t easily moved about. Should we hit them now, sir, while they’re still confused?”

Darius scratched at his chin and thought about it for a moment. “I’d normally say yes, but…how close are our barriers to being complete?”

“Very close, sir. I had them work in shifts by torchlight through the night.”

“Do you think they’ll be done by the time the enemy is ready to march?”

Kaveh frowned, weighing logistics in his head. “It will be…close, I think. We’ll have enough done to not make much difference, is what I would say. Perhaps a dozen or so half-formed barriers would be left.”

A dozen barriers wouldn’t make much difference either way. “Then we wait.”

Kaveh and Sego both frowned at him as if they didn’t follow his logic on this.

“We’re not in a position to march readily either,” Darius explained. “Right now, all of our ranks are set up for defense, not offense. We’d have to scramble and re-organize too. Worse, if we
do
march there, they’ll once again have the advantage in terrain and numbers. We won’t be able to fall back and make use of the barriers until tomorrow, and who knows how many lives that will cost us? No, better to wait. Kaveh, have the archers keep up a barrage of arrows, just to make things more lively.”

Kaveh nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Ten thousand soldiers left….” Sego’s mind had clearly raced ahead. “General, how many troops must they lose before they’ll be forced to retreat?”

“Another seven thousand,” Darius responded, trying to time it so that he could eat and answer questions. “No conquering force will fight unless they outnumber the defenders two-to-one.”

“So we don’t actually have to defeat
all
of the troops over there.”

“No,” Darius agreed. “Actually, Jahangir isn’t much of a general. He might give up if we can just whittle him down to five thousand.”

Sego looked at him from the corner of his eyes, silently weighing him. “When you first told me that this battle would play out in seven days, I didn’t see how it was possible.”

Not offended in the slightest, Darius just smirked. “Six days left.”

~~~

Perhaps Jahangir had foreseen that the barbarians would not cooperate, as he rearranged his men faster than Darius anticipated. Within the hour, word came from the watchtower that the Brindisi army had formed their ranks and were advancing. Darius quickly climbed the ladder to see for himself.

Using his spyglass, he scanned the enemy from one end to the other, looking at them with a veteran’s eye. “Jahangir is pushing them forward too quickly,” he observed to Bohme. “They’re not fully in formation in the back rows.”

“Deshperate, shir?”

“Very. Having cats delivered instead of supplies might have shoved him over the edge.” Well, Darius had intended for that to happen, but still…. Shifting the eye glass to the side, he poked his head out of the window and called down, “Kaveh!”

Kaveh looked up, shielding his eyes with one hand. “Sir!”

“The barrier?”

Even from ten feet up, Darius could see a grimace pass quickly over Kaveh’s face. “We’re half a dozen short, sir. Six others are only partially built.”

Close enough. “Have the men form their ranks behind the barrier anyway instead of in front! And pass that order to Ramin and Navid!”

“Yes, sir!”

Darius went back to observing the enemy, judging their speed with a clinical eye. Speed and distance always looked different in a desert, and for the uninitiated, things looked deceptively close. Darius had learned over time how to measure things but even then he usually erred on the side of caution as he didn’t always guess perfectly. Still, the enemy looked to be moving at half-time, no doubt so that the men in the back could get in their ranks.

He had to delay that, as much as possible. Sticking his head out the window again, he called down to the multitude of archers sitting on the different levels of the watchtowers, “ARCHERS, LOOSE!”

In mere seconds, hundreds of arrows took flight in the air, whistling ahead at deadly speeds before impacting with the enemy. The other side raised their shields, of course, but because of the half-formed ranks, there were gaps where there should not have been and arrows got through, injuring hundreds.

“LOOSE!” Darius bellowed again.

Another black cloud of arrows were let loose and caused another devastating wave.

From behind him, someone clattered up the ladder at full speed. “General—” Payam started before his head had fully cleared the floor “—Commander Kaveh says men are ready.”

Without much time to lose, either. The enemy literally had a foot on their doorstep. “Good,” he said, more to acknowledge that he heard the boy. “ARCHERS, LIGHT THE BARRIER!”

There was a small delay as the archers paused to catch burning pitch on their arrow tips, and then they let loose a storm of arrows that hit the wooden barriers with perfect accuracy. In this dry heat, the wood caught fire immediately and the flames spread far and wide. There were indeed a few gaps here and there, but Kaveh had focused on building the barriers in the very center first and then spreading out from there. He had indeed been paying attention to Darius’s counsel—the flanks were the only areas with holes, but both Ramin and Navid had natural barriers at their backs and they were already set up for flanking maneuvers. Anyone trying to take the “easier” path by approaching from the sides would find a solid formation of enemy soldiers in their way.