Kingslayer (50 page)

“I’d wager you’re right,” Darius agreed. “Navid? Get moving. In two days, I want them marching.”

~~~

From his cliff top vantage, and with the aid of the spyglass, Darius could see everything that happened at the back of the ranks. His orders to fire on anyone that picked up an axe or tool had been taken quite literally. Even if the person just intended to move it, they were fired upon. Most of them tried to hide behind shields, or had others hold up shields to form a wall of protection around them, but no one could keep that up indefinitely. Eventually, someone would slip up, and a very patient Niotanese archer would gain another kill.

Darius panned the area slowly, trying to get the full picture. The men now were shaking their heads, pointing at the woods in illustration, and were obviously refusing to pick up any tools of any sorts. Ha! Self-preservation proved to be stronger than discipline after all.

Behnam had been right—rebuilding his lost siege equipment was the only way to defeat the forts that Darius had built in the pass. But trying to do it on an open highway with enemy archers on all sides was madness. No one could pull that off. He should have retreated outright to a more open area and rebuilt everything there.

Of course, if he did, then he’d have to retrace his steps back through the Elburz Forest and I’d whittle down his army some more. Either way, he loses.

From his elbow, Tolk asked, “Is it working?”

“It’s working,” Darius assured him without ever taking his eye away from the glass. “They’re too afraid to even get close to a tool now. I’m sure their officers are threatening them with all sorts of punishments but they’re still shaking their heads no.”

“Don’t blame them,” Tolk muttered. “Better than being dead.”

Truly. From the edge of the glass, Darius saw a flash of an officer’s uniform. Oh, who was this? He shifted his angle slightly. “Uh-oh,” he said in delight.

“Uh-oh?”

“Behnam himself has come to straighten it out.”

Tolk pondered that for a moment. “I would think that a bad thing.”

“Normally, I would too, but the men are still shaking their heads. Even an order from that high up isn’t making a dent, huh?” Darius chuckled with evil pleasure. “He’ll have to threaten them with execution to get them to work, and that will cause more harm than good right now.”

“I would think that would work.”

“Oh, normally,” Darius assured him, lowering the glass for a second to meet his eyes. “But normally, there’s no place for a deserter to really
go
. Most of Brindisi is open plains, after all, it’s hard to hide in them. But here? These men can hide in the forest at any point and escape and Behnam won’t know it until the morning headcount. If they
do
stumble into us, the worst they’d face, after all, would be capture. And even then we’d just hold them prisoner and use them for ransom.”

Tolk regarded him suspiciously. “You’ve done this before.”

“Many times,” Darius responded with relish. “Funny how it works every time. Oops! No effect, huh?” Through the glass, Behnam gave a depressed heave of the shoulders and a circular motion with his arm. The men around him gathered up into formation and started rejoining the back of the line. “He just gave up on the siege engines,” Darius announced in satisfaction. “He’ll start coming through as soon as he gets everyone formed up. Mihr!”

“What?” Mihr called from a few feet away.

“Coming our way shortly!”

“We’re ready!” Mihr assured him.

The sun steadily climbed as both sides assumed their positions and formed into their ranks. Darius gave the signal to the trumpeter standing nearby and the man lifted the horn to his mouth and blew one long, mournful note. Especially with how it echoed through the mountain pass, it sounded almost eerie. If Darius hadn’t known better, he’d swear the sound came from a ghost wailing.

Each fort along the pass also sounded on the trumpet and with each sound the impression became more reinforced. He closed his eyes and counted each trumpet as it sounded. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine…ten? What happened to the last fort?

A higher note than the others sounded, holding on longer than any previous trumpeter had. Someone back there had a competitive spirit. But that meant that all ten were ready.

Darius looked down toward Behnam, and even though the man couldn’t see or hear him, he gave him a feral smile and said, “Come on, Behnam. You won’t get past the first two forts today. I promise you that.”

“Bresalier!”

Darius stopped in mid-step, forgetting about the breakfast plate in his hands, and turned sharply. He’d never heard Mihr sound truly worried before now and that particular note in his voice didn’t sound promising. It took a moment to spot him, as everyone in camp seemed to be milling about. Through the men that were walking back and forth along the narrow mountain trail, he saw the other man standing near the edge of the mountain, beckoning to him in an agitated motion.

Swearing, he shoved his plate into Payam’s hands and quickly strode forward, ducking in and around people as he moved. He had to shove a few people to the side in order to meet Mihr. “What’s happened?” he demanded.

“I just got a message from the tenth fortification,” Mihr said without preamble. “Two generals and a force of about fifteen hundred area heading directly for the pass.”

For a moment, it didn’t make any sense at all. He’d just passed letters with Bahram, Delshad and Omar confirming that all three were ready at the eastern line, holding the position down. So where would fifteen hundred troops and two generals come from…? A terrible foreboding gripped his heart and clawed at it.

“Which two generals?”

“Feroze and Angra.”

Darius started swearing aloud, gripping his hair with both hands hard enough to prick his scalp. His two
worst
enemies within the court? He thought he’d stopped them from doing anything with that formal petition signed by Queen Tresea to not let them be in command of any troops until the end of the year, but they’d obviously found a way around that. Darr
take
it!  “Let me guess. They got their men by stopping by the eastern line and calling them out.”

“Soldiers form loyalties to particular generals,” Mihr said with a weary resignation. “You’re lucky that it was only fifteen hundred that heeded them. It means you’re more popular than we’d initially thought.”

“Don’t really care about that right now,” he gritted out between clenched teeth. Dropping his hands, he tried looking over the edge of the mountain and into the pass, but of course he couldn’t see them from here. “They’re heading straight for the pass, you said?”

“You know what they’re planning to do, don’t you?” The question was clearly rhetorical as Mihr didn’t wait for a response. “They plan to charge in here, somehow defeat twenty thousand troops, and prove you as an incapable fool.”

“They’ll get their own men slaughtered and make
my
job harder because I won’t have the necessary force when I really need them!” The outcome was so obvious that Darius had to wonder what sort of idiot would think this would work. Yes, the narrow confines of the pass would make it harder for Brindisi to overpower the Niotan troops but against that sort of overwhelming odds? It would just take more time.

His mind raced as he weighed different factors and rehashed his plans. “Mihr. How close can we fire on the enemy without endangering our own troops?”

Mihr thought for a moment, tugging absently at a half-grown beard as he thought. “Any closer than five ranks would be too risky.”

Five ranks in between? Closer than Darius had hoped for. That meant that the stupid men in the pass would only have to fight five ranks at a time. Alright, that evened the odds considerably. “Then do so. Buy them as much time as you can.”

Mihr’s expression went smooth, expressionless as a cold statue. “You won’t leave them to fend for themselves?”

He locked eyes with the other man. “When I have a way to save them? That would be tantamount to murder, Mihr.”

“I know.” Mihr clapped him on the shoulder and relaxed into a small smile. “I’m glad you didn’t consider it. Alright, I’ll do what I can from up here. What will you do?”

“Go down and see if I can reason with the idiots.”

~~~

Word must have travelled about what was happening below, because by the time that Darius got to his horse, he found that Tolk had already saddled it and that he and Navid were already mounted and waiting on him. He swung himself aboard without a word and started for the bottom. Of course, the pass took a good three hours to ride through—if a man was on the bottom floor. On top of the mountain like this, with all sorts of rocks, fortifications, and other impediments in the way, it took a little longer than that.

Darius had a clear view from the top of the trail as he rode and what he saw made his heart sink in his chest. The Niotan soldiers, being a smaller force and not under fire like the Brindisi troops were, had made excellent time forward and had already engaged the enemy. The only thing that prevented them from being outright slaughtered was the narrow confines of the pass on either side.

The small party reached the bottom of the mountain in a clatter of hooves against stone. Darius instantly turned and spurred Sohrab into the pass. Eager to stretch out and properly run, the stallion lengthened his stride and ran like the wind itself. He had to check the stallion several times to avoid losing everyone else. They didn’t have mounts with the same speed and strength as his. Sohrab tossed his head at this, irritated at the restraint, but obediently slowed his pace to his master’s will.

Even at this pace, it took a small eternity before he finally reached the back of the ranks. The two generals, of course, had not engaged at the front of the line but were commanding their troops from the very back. The two men sat on horseback, watching through their glasses the actions of the front line. A nearby runner spotted his approach and alerted them with a pointing finger. They turned in their saddles to see him, both looking arrogant and smug.

Darius pulled up roughly, forcing Sohrab to skid to a stop, his back legs sliding a little on the loose gravel and dirt. Before his stallion could even properly regain his footing he demanded of the two generals, “Are you both
mad
? There are twenty thousand Brindisi troops bearing down on you! You can hold them off at this rate, but not for long. They will massacre you and there’s not a thing that anyone at the top of the pass can do to stop it!”

Feroze turned his horse completely so that he could face Darius more directly. He didn’t look like a man that had travelled three days to get here. His uniform was fresh and crisp, every dark hair in place, brown eyes empty of any concern. But then, it wasn’t his life that he had put on the line in this insane gamble for power. “Bresalier. I expected you. I assure you, with the narrow passage—”

“You will last the rest of this day at most, but no more,” Darius interrupted harshly. “I watched the actions from the top. You can’t see anything beyond your own men from here. You have no idea
what’s coming for you
.”

Angra hadn’t bothered to turn around and face anyone. In fact, he had lifted his spyglass and continued to watch the front lines, or what little he could see of it from here. “You think you’re the only general that can win when you’re greatly outmatched? We were doing so long before
you
came.” He lifted a white handkerchief to dab at the perspiration at his temples. A useless action, considering the heavy formal uniform coat he wore. Not even Darius, as lead general, chose to wear that thing in the field. But then, Angra had been born and raised in a raj household and everything he did and said emphasized that upbringing. He could be used as a model example for how an officer should dress—hair perfectly cut, clean shaven, uniform in pristine condition. To manage that in the field and on the front lines…Darius couldn’t imagine wasting the water or the resources to maintain such vanity.

He took in a deep breath, strangling his temper, and forced himself to think. Absolutely nothing he said, no argument that he could think of, would sway these men.
That
much was obvious. But he couldn’t just leave them to it. He didn’t dare. That only left one option. “Navid!”

From behind him, his commander said, “Yes sir?”

“Navid, stand witness.” Both generals whipped around at that last word.
Oh-ho,
Darius thought with dark satisfaction.
I thought that would get your attention. “
General Feroze, General Angra, I challenge you to right of command, to be settled by combat of arms. Commander Navid, do you witness this challenge?”

“I do, sir.” Navid’s eyes gleamed, lips parted in admiration. His expression alone said,
Well played, sir!

Darius sat still and waited. If Feroze or Angra refused the challenge, then their reputations would take quite the beating. Especially from their friends, who all wanted Darius to lose his position. If those men found out later that these two goats’ sons had a chance to force Darius to step down and didn’t take it, well…the consequences would likely be dire.