But he had no doubt that if they took up the challenge, he’d win. Their abilities as generals only went as deep as those uniforms they so lovingly fawned over. If either man had tasted more than a month of real combat, he’d eat his boots.
Fortunately, their ego was such that they only paused for that bare moment of time before assenting with cocky smirks. They slid out of their saddles and tossed the reigns to their waiting servants, also drawing their swords.
He dropped out of the saddle, handing his reigns up to Tolk, and drew the sword from his sheath. “I don’t have time to handle you separately. Both of you come at me.”
Angra’s eyes lit up at that, no doubt thinking they’d claim an easier victory that way. For the sake of the two men witnessing this, he cooed, “Are you quite sure, Bresalier? You cannot claim a fault later, you understand.”
“For Shaa’s sake, just come on,” he snapped. Every moment they delayed, another life was lost ahead of them.
Being bullies by nature, they didn’t hesitate in ganging up on one man. With that pretty little speech out of the way, they came at him from both sides. He drew the dagger at his waist to shield the sword coming at him from his left side, and struck out with the sword in his right hand. Angra’s sword was thrown up and to the side at the impact, knocking the man off balance for a few moments. Darius spun on his toes, coming in low as he put himself briefly out of the man’s range, focusing on Feroze.
The man charged him with his lips drawn back in a snarl, sword slashing at him in a downward angle. Darius blocked it with his own sword, coming in close to rob the man of his full power, almost nose against nose. Feroze had exactly one second to register the danger, his body flinching instinctively away, the white of his eyes showing. Then with the dagger in Darius’s other hand, he drove it hard into Feroze’s shoulder.
With a scream of pain, the man staggered backward, dropping his sword so that it clattered to the earth. He put a protective hand around the dagger protruding from his shoulder.
Darius couldn’t spare him any more attention. Angra had recovered by this point and was charging him, sword held low this time and held ready to either slash or thrust. Darius shifted his grip enough to accommodate both hands, and then went on the offensive, aiming for Angra’s unprotected chest. Of course, the man moved to block him, shifting the sword about to act more as a shield. Darius exchanged three lightning quick strikes with him, making the air ring even more with the sound of metal striking metal. It could barely be distinguished among the other echoing noises bouncing between the stone walls around them.
Angra, a child of luxury, couldn’t match Darius’s speed or war-honed strength. He faltered at the last strike, reacting too slow to fully block the strike. At the last moment, Darius altered the strike so that the flat of his blade struck instead of the edge. He hit Angra’s right arm solidly near the shoulder and could clearly hear the
crunch
of a bone snapping in two under the force of the blow.
Angra gasped, sword falling from nerveless fingers, pain robbing him of breath. Without a flicker of hesitation, Darius twisted the sword up and around Angra’s head, coming back around to strike his left arm as well, breaking it just as he had the other.
Turning white under the pain, Angra let out a short scream behind clenched teeth and sank slowly to his knees, both arms hanging uselessly at his sides.
Darius stepped back and took in a long, slow breath, blowing out his anger as he did so. He sheathed his sword as he turned around, holding out his free hand toward Navid. “You brought a megaphone, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir.” Navid dug it out of the saddle bags tied behind him, asking even as he handed it over, “Sir, why didn’t you kill them? By right of law, you can.”
“Tresea would have my head if I did that.” And he didn’t even want to
think
of what Amalah would do to him. Lifting the megaphone, he bellowed into it, “NIOTAN SOLDIERS! YOUR GENERALS HAVE FALLEN TO ME BY RIGHT OF COMBAT. I NOW HAVE COMMAND OF YOU AND I ORDER YOU TO RETREAT. I REPEAT: RETREAT NOW.”
He stood and waited. Sometimes, orders in the field took a few minutes to be understood and acted on. Slowly, the back of the line turned to face him, looking around in confusion. When they saw their two generals hunkered down on the ground, clearly injured, they started muttering to themselves.
Darius lifted the megaphone and repeated himself again. This time, the word spread forward of what had happened at the back of the ranks—or some version of it did, at least. It had surely gotten confused in the translation.
But they started moving, reluctantly turning about and retreating back the way they came. Darius handed the megaphone over to Navid and ordered, “Clean up here. I have to get back on top.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Navid?”
“Yes, sir?” Navid paused with the megaphone halfway to his mouth.
“If they won’t follow you, abandon them here. I have no use for a soldier that can’t obey commands and puts his own vanity above the safety of this country.”
Navid nodded grimly. “Yes, sir.”
~~~
It took three very painful weeks for Behnam to bull his way through the pass. Mihr had employed everything that Kaveh and Darius had planned to full advantage. The fortifications housed hundreds of archers that sent arrows flying from dawn’s bells to nightfall, ballistas firing spears that penetrated even the hardiest shields, and caltraps were thrown into position from the top of the cliff to impede them even further. The four rock avalanches that were triggered at intervals had taken out whole platoons, not to mention slowed their advancement even more to make the Brindisi soldiers sitting targets. Behnam escaped out the other end with only fifteen thousand left. He had lost, by one way or another, twenty thousand troops and the only thing that he had to show for those losses was that he had finally arrived in Niotan.
Darius, on the other hand, had sixty-three hundred left of his original sixty-five. He’d lost a few to the ambushing tactics they’d employed for two months due to carelessness and snipers. Not to mention the whole fiasco that had happened in the pass. Because his men were on top of the cliffs the entire time, firing safely from a distance, they were never in any real danger. He’d kept his force largely intact that way.
Behnam had to be fuming because of that.
Now, the question stood, with his troops free of the treacherous pass, what would he do next?
The man didn’t have a lot of options. If Darius were in charge of Brindisi’s Army at this point, he’d have frankly turned tail and fled before this as the very landscape didn’t help a conquering force. If Behnam continued toward Niotan, he would run into the barriers Darius had re-built. But doing that would expose his back to the archers still on top of the mountain. But the only other option would be to retreat back into the pass he had just escaped from.
Darius stood at the wall of one of the fortifications, one hand against the stone as a brace, the other hand holding his spyglass up. The archers around him were taking a short break while they could, resting their arms from days of constant shooting. From behind, he could hear the men as they quickly re-supplied all of the standing quivers with more arrows. Someone had even thoughtfully sent the runners around with flasks of water, which many eagerly took.
A breeze brushed his face, and with it came a hint autumn chill. They were entering into fall. Whether Darius would make it home in time or not would depend on what Behnam did next.
He held his breath as the last Brindisi troops made it clear of the pass.
Alright, Behnam, all of your men are out. What will you do now?
Darius focused his spy glass on Behnam’s face but of course he couldn’t hear what the man said from here and couldn’t decipher anything from reading the man’s lips. Frustrated, he lowered the glass completely and tried watching the movement of all of the troops instead. That would tell him more than just peering at Behnam anyway.
Of course, even with the smaller amount of fifteen thousand men, it took a while for orders to travel down and for the men to obey them. So he stood there watching for several minutes (although it felt like hours) without really knowing what would happen next. Then the individual squads and phalanxes did an abrupt turn, facing the mountain, and he knew exactly what Behnam would do next.
He would take out the archers on top of the mountain first.
Swearing, Darius pivoted on his heels and frantically searched the sea of faces around him until he found one of his commanders. “Navid! Tell Mihr to get all of the reserve archers up here
now
. He’s coming for us.” Darius had put most of his troops on the valley floor, ready for Behnam’s assault on the barricades, but the man had been too smart to fall into that trap.
Navid snapped out a salute before grabbing the runners and issuing quick orders.
Darius snatched up his megaphone from the top of the stone wall and bellowed into it, “FIRE AT WILL! FIRE THE BALLISTAS!”
The archers scrambled to their feet and started firing down the mountain slope and toward the enemy. Of course, Brindisi’s troops were expecting this and had their shields up, ready for a barrage of arrows. Darius didn’t expect them to really do much damage. The archers were simply buying him time.
Darius had assigned the valley troops to Bahram, Delshad, and Omar. They understood barrier warfare by now and would know what to do if Behnam did charge. But he didn’t want them to panic and send most of the troops to Darius’s aid. He waved to a bugler standing nearby.
The man scrambled to his side, dodging people as he came, and snapped out a salute. “Sir?”
“Signal to the other generals to stay put,” Darius ordered.
The bugler nodded and lifted the brass instrument to his lips before blowing three short notes and then two long ones.
Good. Now he needed…. “Now, signal to the Baijian horsemen to charge at Behnam’s ranks.” They were still hiding nearby at Surat, so it would take at least a half hour for them to saddle up, assemble, and make it here.
Darius stopped issuing orders and took another good look around, making sure that he didn’t miss anything important happening in the confusion. Behnam’s men had stuttered to a near halt under the barrage of arrows. Although the main problem for them came from the ballistas. He’d had several brought up here, months ago when the forts were first built, and for occasions like this. Some of the ballistas were large and only capable of firing one spear. But that one spear could go through two men holding shields before stopping. Some of the ballistas could fire multiple spears at the same time, making them even more formidable.
Under the threat of those shield-piercing spears, even the hardiest foot soldier would falter. They had no defense against it, after all. Brindisi’s forward momentum ground to a halt near the base of the mountain, with only some of their troops actually proceeding up the mountain trail.
Above the raucous noise of men yelling, the twang of hundreds of bows being released, the ratchet of the ballistas being nocked into place, Darius heard another sound, one pure and clear that rang high. He paused and listened intently and it came again.
The Baijian horn. No mistake. No other instrument in the world sounded like it. But if they were sounding it now, they were close. Darius grabbed the bugler’s arm and ordered, “Archers cease fire.”
As the bugler sounded out two long notes, Darius lifted his glass again to his eye and peered through it, looking west. They should be coming into view around the bend any moment now….
In a cloud of dust, they appeared, riding at full speed, with spears at the ready. Darius grinned to see it. They had indeed kept their promise and came through for him.
The Brindisi troops still at the foot of the mountain had enough time to frantically turn about, facing this charge, and overlap their shields before the Baijian horsemen slammed into their front ranks. Even from this distance, Darius could hear the tremendous crash and screams of the wounded. The Baijians cut through the ranks like a carving knife, leaving carnage in their wake. It threw the ranks of the Brindisians into complete disarray and they could not form back together quickly enough to face the next charge. Tunheim led his men free and clear and then wheeled them about, heading right back in at the same ferocious speed. He moved so fast that Darius could barely track him, even with the aid of the glass.
Under this ferocious charge, Behnam lost almost half his men and under the second charge, he lost half again.
“Don’t be a fool, old man,” Darius whispered to him. “You’re wasting lives trying to win this. You’ve already lost.”
Maybe Behnam heard him. Or maybe he knew without needing anyone to say it aloud. Before Tunheim could completely make it through his ranks a second time, and before he could turn his men about for a third charge, Behnam raised a flag for surrender.
~~~
Darius slammed a hand against the table, making the goblets and paper on it jump a little. “Behnam, I am
not
paying you to go away!”
The other general folded his arms over his chest, an implacable look on his face. “I need the money to buy supplies so that I can
get
home, Bresalier. Without it, my men won’t survive the trip.”
“You are returning into Brindisi territory,” Darius shot back, at the end of his patience. “You can commandeer supplies from any city that you pass by, we both know that! And why by Shaa’s name did you embark on this campaign without proper funds?”
“The General Council assigned me the funds for this,
I
didn’t choose the amount,” Behnam retorted mildly. “And you know as well as I do that the first city I can reach is not large enough to feed and re-supply five thousand men.”
Darius sat back with a thump. They had retreated to the Surat Estate, as it was the closest place available for all of the generals to sit and discuss terms. Because this last battle had been under joint leadership, Darius alone could not negotiate terms of surrender. It did, in fact, take almost a half a day to get all of the Niotan Generals as well as Behnam and his staff into the same room. The only place that would hold all of them and give them adequate shade from the sun was nearby Surat. Raj Quetel had graciously given them the use of his dining room, and then unobtrusively took a corner seat to watch the proceedings with wide eyes. Darius didn’t have the heart to tell him that he didn’t need this huge room or want to be in a place that didn’t have windows to let the air in. In fact, part of his bad humor could be that the stuffy air in this place had finally gotten to him.