The Warrior Prophet (55 page)

Read The Warrior Prophet Online

Authors: R. Scott Bakker

Skaiyelt and Conphas advanced across the pasture to the south, holding their horses in reserve. A series of earthen embankments, shallow but too sharp for charging horses, stepped the fields before them. As Cnaiür had guessed, the Sapatishah had massed his Shigeki conscripts along them. The position might have rendered Skauras’s entire centre immune to attack had not Cnaiür ordered several hundred rafts dragged from the marshes and dispersed among the Thunyeri and Nansur. Even now, in a hail of spears and javelins, the Nansur were raising the first of them as improvised ramps.
General Setpanares and his tens of thousands of Ainoni knights remained hidden. Cnaiür could see the rearmost infantry phalanxes—they were little more than the shadows of squares at this distance—but nothing more.
Already the dogs gnaw at my gut!
He glanced at Kellhus. “Since Skauras has secured his flanks using the land,” he explained, “this battle will be one of
yetrut,
penetration, not one of
unswaza,
envelopment. Hosts, like men, prefer to face their enemy. Circumvent or break their lines, assault them from the flank or the rear …”
He let his voice trail. The wind had thinned the dust to near transparency across the southern hills. Peering, he could see threads of what must be Ainoni knights withdrawing all along their two-mile section of line. They seemed to be reforming on the slopes. Behind them, the many bars and squares of Ainoni infantry had stalled.
The Kianene still held the heights.
I should have given the Ainoni the centre! Who has Skauras positioned there? Imbeyan? Swarjuka?
“And this,” Kellhus asked, “is how you crush your foe?”
“What?”
“By assaulting their flank or rear …”
Cnaiür shook his black mane. “No. This is how you convince your foe.”
“Convince?”
Cnaiür snorted.
“This war,”
he snapped in Scylvendi,
“is simply your war made honest.”
Kellhus acknowledged nothing. “Belief … You’re saying battle is a disputation of belief … An argument.”
Cnaiür squinted, peered once more toward the south.
“The memorialists call battle
otgai wutmaga,
a great quarrel. Both hosts take the field believing they are the victors. One host must be disabused of that belief. Attacking his flank or his rear, overawing him, bewildering him, shocking him, killing him: these are all arguments, meant to convince your foe he is defeated. He who believes he is defeated is defeated.”
“So in battle,” Kellhus said, “conviction makes true.”
“As I said, it is honest.”
Skauras! I must concentrate upon Skauras!
Overcome by a sudden restlessness, Cnaiür tugged at his mail harness as though plagued by a pinch. Barking several brief commands, he dispatched a rider to General Setpanares. He needed to know who’d beaten the Ainoni back from the hilltops—though by the time the man returned, Cnaiür knew, the battle would likely be decided. Then he ordered the Hornsman to remind the General to secure his flanks. Out of expediency, they’d adopted the Nansur mode of communication, with batteries of trumpeters stationed about the field, relaying coded numbers that corresponded to a handful of different warnings and commands. Though the Ainoni General struck him as solid, his King-Regent, Chepheramunni, was a rank fool.
And the Ainoni were a vain and effeminate race—something Skauras wouldn’t overlook.
Cnaiür glanced at the Nansur and the Thunyeri. The farther Columns, those adjacent to the Ainoni, appeared to be storming up their ramps already. Closer, where he could actually distinguish individual men, the first of the rafts were slamming into place. Wherever they fell, several Shigeki vanished—crushed. The first of the Thunyeri charged forward, howling …
Meanwhile Proyas and his stalwarts waded through disintegrating ranks of Shigeki. Sunlight flashed from their threshing swords. But farther west, beyond the mud-brick village and dark orchards to the immediate rear of the Shigeki, Cnaiür could see distant lines of approaching horsemen: Skauras’s reserves, he imagined. He couldn’t discern any of their devices through the haze, but their numbers looked worrisome … He dispatched a messenger to warn the Conriyans.
Everything goes to plan
… Cnaiür had known the Shigeki flanking Anwurat would collapse before the fury of Proyas’s charge. And Skauras, he assumed, had also known: the question was one of
whom
the Sapatishah would send into the breach …
Probably Imbeyan.
Then he glanced to the north, to the open fields, where the Fanim horsemen had fallen back before Gothyelk and Saubon, taking high-walled Anwurat as their implacable hinge.
“See how Skauras frustrates Saubon?” he said.
Kellhus searched the pastures and nodded. “He doesn’t contest so much as delay.”
“He concedes the north. The Galeoth and Tydonni knights possess the advantage of
gaiwut,
of shock. But the Kianene possess the advantages of
utmurzu,
cohesion, and
fira,
speed. Though the Fanim cannot withstand the Inrithi charge, they are quick enough and cohesive enough to execute the
malk unswaza,
the defensive envelopment.”
Even as he said this, he saw streamers of hard-riding Kianene sluice around the Northmen.
Kellhus nodded, his eyes fixed on the distant drama. “When the attacker over-commits on the charge, he risks exposing his flanks.”
“Which the Inrithi usually do. Only their superior
angotma,
heart, saves them.”
Inrithi knights stood their ground, suddenly beset on all sides. Some distance away, the Galeoth and Tydonni infantry continued to trudge forward.
“Their conviction,” Kellhus said.
Cnaiür nodded. “When the memorialists counsel the Chieftains before battle, they bid them recall that in conflict all men are bound to one another, some by chains, some by ropes, and some by strings, all of different lengths. They call these bindings the
mayutafiüri,
the ligaments of war. These are just ways of describing the strength and flexibility of a formation’s
angotma
. Those Kianene the People would call
trutu garothut,
men of the long chain. They can be thrown apart, but they will pull themselves together. The Galeoth and Tydonni we would call
trutu hirothut,
men of the short chain. Left alone, such men would battle and battle. Only disaster or
utgirkoy,
attrition, can break the chains of such men.”
As they watched, the Fanim scattered before the long swords of the Norsirai knights, drawing back to reform even farther to the west.
“The leader,” Cnaiür continued, “must continually appraise and reap-praise the string, rope, and chain of his enemy and his men.”
“So the north doesn’t worry you.”
“No …”
Cnaiür whirled southward, struck by an inexplicable apprehension of doom. The Ainoni knights appeared to have retired for some reason, though too much dust still obscured the heights to be certain. The infantry had resumed their climb, all along the line. He dispatched messengers to Conphas, bidding him to send his Kidruhil to the Ainoni rear. He ordered the Hornsman to signal Gotian …
“There,” he said to Kellhus. “Do you see the Ainoni infantry advance?”
“Yes … Certain formations seem to drift … to the right.”
“Without knowing, men will lean into the shield of the man to their right, seeking protection. When the Fanim charge to meet them, they will concentrate on those units, watch …”
“Because they betray weaknesses in discipline.”
“Yes, depending on who leads. If Conphas were directing them, I would say they drift right purposefully, to draw the Kianene away from his less experienced formations.”
“Deception.”
Cnaiür clutched his iron-plated girdle tight. A tremor had passed through his hands.
Everything goes to plan!
“Know what your enemy knows,” he said, hiding his face in the distance. “The ligaments must be defended as fiercely as they are attacked. Use knowledge of your enemy, deception, terrain, even harangues or examples of valour to guard and guard vigorously. Tolerate no disbelief. Fortify your host against it, and punish all instances with torture and death.”
What’s Setpanares doing?
“Because it spreads,” Kellhus said.
“The People,” Cnaiür replied, “have many stories of Nansur Columns perishing to the man … The hearts of some men never break. But most look to others for what to believe …”
“And this is rout, the loss of all conviction? What we witnessed on the Battleplain?”
Cnaiür nodded. “This is why
cnamturu,
vigilance, is a leader’s greatest virtue. The field must be continually read. The signs must be judged and rejudged. The
gobozkoy
must not be missed!”
“The moment of decision.”
Cnaiür scowled, remembering that he’d mentioned the term in passing months ago, at the fateful Council with the Emperor on the Andiamine Heights. “The moment of decision,” he repeated.
He continued staring at the coastal hills, watching the long line of faint infantry squares ascend the distant slopes. General Setpanares
had
withdrawn his horse … But why?
Save the south, the Fanim relented on every front. What plagued him so?
Cnaiür glanced at Kellhus, saw his shining eyes study the distances the way they so often scrutinized souls. A gust cast his hair forward across his lower face.
“I fear,” the Dûnyain said, “the moment has already passed.”
 
Between her cries, Serwë heard the peal of battlehorns.
“How?” she gasped.
She lay on her side, her face buried in the cushions where Kellhus had thrust it. He plumbed her from behind, his chest a furnace across her back, his hand holding her knee high. How
different
he felt!
“How what, sweet Serwë?”
He pressed deep and she moaned. “So different,” she breathed. “You feel so different.”
“For you, sweet Serwë … For you …”
For her! She ground against him, savoured his difference.
“Yessss,”
she hissed.
He rolled onto his back, pulling her onto him. He traced the ivory summit of her belly with his haloed left hand, then reached down to make her cry out. With his right, he yanked her head up by her hair, turned her so he could mutter in her ear. Never had he used her like this!
“Talk to me, sweet Serwë. Your voice is as sweet as your peach.”
“W-what?” she panted. “What would you have me say?”
He reached down, lifted her buttocks from his hips—effortlessly, as though she were a coin. He began thrusting, slow and deep.
“Speak of me …”
“Kellhhhhussss,” she moaned. “I love you … I
worship
you! I do, I do, I do!”
“And why, sweet Serwë?”
“Because you’re the God incarnate! Because you’ve been sent!”
He fell absolutely still, knowing he’d delivered her to the humming brink.
She gasped for air upon him, felt his heart pound against her spine and through his member, thrum like a bowstring. Through fluttering lashes, she gazed up at the geometry of canvas creases, watched the lines bend and refract through joyous tears.
She encompassed him. To his foundation, he was hers! The mere thought made the air between her thighs thicken, until every draft seemed palpable, like something twitching.
She cried out. Such rapture! Such sweet rapture!
Sejenus …
“And the Scylvendi,” he purred, his voice moist with promise. “Why does he despise me so?”
“Because he fears you,” she mumbled, squirming against him. “Because he knows you’ll punish him!”
He began moving again, but with infernal wariness. She squealed, clenched her teeth, marvelled at the wonder of his difference. He even
smelled
different.

Other books

Asgard's Heart by Brian Stableford
Time Snatchers by Richard Ungar
Lad: A Dog by Albert Payson Terhune
The Wolf Prince by Karen Whiddon
Spanish Serenade by Jennifer Blake
Men and Angels by Mary Gordon
Fairy Circle by Johanna Frappier