Page 90

Sweet hope. I taste it.

The Petrus Mountains are in sight, and the enemy fall away. But the rumours of sedition spread. An empire is a fragile thing. This force is not the total of my armies, for they are spread in garrisons across my lands. But three legions, battered though they are, could march on Latium itself, and seize power for themselves.

The return of our baggage trains has been sweet relief, and we eat like kings. Rohan dares not raid them so close to the fringes of my empire. But the damage is done. The men still remember the hunger. The long, hard marches. The slaughter, and retreat.

Gold no longer moves the centurions. Each man, legionaries included, will leave this place a rich man, yet so too does gold breed delusions of grandeur. I know the ones who plot, yet I dare not move on them yet.

T hey made camp before the sun set, for they had made good progress. A tribe had followed this path to reach the High Council in the days past, so the grass was still low and manageable for the mammoths and khiroi as they stomped across the Great Steppe.

Above, Winter flew, keeping an eye out for Gryphon Guard. And beneath Jai’s haunches, Chak lumbered.

For Zayn had not been there to claim the great Alkhara, when the Tejinder and the Keldar’s herds had been reunited, and Teji and Nazeem had disappeared into the night.

Jai only wished Navi was there to accompany her old friend. But Feng was elsewhere, busy overseeing their supplies.

‘I’ve never seen a force like it,’ Harleen said, breaking into Jai’s thoughts.

He rode with his nobles, and along with Tenzin, they surveyed their troops.

Thirty battle mammoths led the way, their tusks now capped with barbed steel spikes, and squares of beaten metal in makeshift chain mail draped down their sides.

But the true bulk of the army lay behind.

A thousand and two hundred mounted khiroi warriors. Most were armed with a blade, and Feng had seen to it that the blacksmiths’ forges would blow all through the night as more were made for the battle to come.

Some were Tainted, some were not, but Jai could hardly distinguish between the two, for the traders had walked away rich in coin from Jai’s new treasury. The blue fabric of Jai’s house was emblazoned throughout, even if some wore a simple swathe of it across their chests.

Only the smaller tribes stood apart, some two hundred in array of their own colours, even a handful of riteless who wished to fight the Sabines alongside them.

Behind these khiroi, five hundred men and women rested, volunteers from the Kidara and the other, smaller tribes’ citizenry. The infantry, if Jai could call them that. These there had been little time to arm and clothe, and they were a motley crew with an assortment of weapons ranging from wooden clubs to falx blades of their own.

Among them were the Huddites, brought by the terror birds some nights before, along with a few countrymen they had found among the flock. Only fifty soldiers, but Jai was grateful to them. For while the citizenry could hardly wield a blade, the Huddites had fought much as the Sabines did, and even now they trained the remaining infantry to hold a shield wall. Even if the shields themselves were hastily made of flattened bamboo and a single layer of leather.

They would not last long against a trained legion, inexperienced though their enemy may be. But Jai was not sure he needed them for that.

‘Your bows,’ Jai said, leaning forward in his saddle and patting Chak’s neck. ‘Are they easy to make?’

Tenzin grunted.

‘Not easy to make what we use, but my men can make a poor imitation fairly quickly. Why?’

Jai chewed his lip, staring at the five hundred.

‘You know of the testudo formation,’ Jai asked. ‘Leonid’s invention that brought victory over the bow-folk of Shambalai?’

‘We faced it, in the old days,’ Tenzin said. ‘A roof of shields. Clever of your mentor.’

Jai nodded.

‘Few used bows against the legions after that. But Leonid hated them. He thrived in a fluid battle, moving his formations when needed. The testudo takes its name from the turtle, not just because of the steel shell it mimics, but the slow pace of its namesake. It fixed his men in position, kept them in tight formation. He had to rely on his cavalry. This legion has none.’

‘Sure enough,’ Tenzin said. ‘But we face not a turtle, but a porcupine too. There will be an array of pikes to breach, whether they can manoeuvre or not.’

‘Let me worry about that. Have your men train the infantry to pull a bow. There’s bamboo and steel enough for that.’

‘I’ll make it happen,’ Tenzin said.

Now Jai called over Sindri and Harleen, the pair of whom Jai had made generals of their respective peoples. Though he loathed to keep the Tainted and untainted separate, each had their own way of doing things, their own brothers and sisters in arms, and he would not have time yet to teach them to fight as one people.

‘If the legion is marching south, they know of our High Council,’ Jai said. ‘They fear us, seek the safety of the road. But they cannot know the army that now pursues them is but a fraction of those that gathered at the Mother’s eye.’

‘We are the lone hound hunting a fox,’ Sindri said, sagely. ‘It runs, hearing only the barking.’

‘And I would bark all the louder,’ Jai said. ‘Tonight, I need every man and woman to set five campfires. And set up our spare pelts with bamboo, as if they were tents, beside them.’

‘To what end, my khan?’ Harleen asked. ‘Our people are weary enough.’

Jai pointed to the empty skies.

‘The Gryphon Guard know we’re coming. But they dare not come near in daylight – not after Erica and I ambushed them, with Winter flying above. But they will haunt our camp at night, to glean all they can. So we set the fires. Let them think we have five times our number. Let the boys shake in their beds, and fear what lurks in the shadows.’

Harleen bowed her head.

‘I shall pass the word. If it pleases you, the blacksmiths say they will have blades enough for our riders. But the infantry... they’ll have to make do.’

She fell silent, and Jai caught a look upon her face.

‘Speak your mind,’ Jai said. ‘Your opinions mean much to me.’

She gestured at the people.

‘We could catch the legion in just a few days, if we cut these so-called infantry loose. Let them return the way they have come. What use have they against ten times their number? They muddy the battle.’

Jai shook his head.

‘The Cimmer charged the legion with their khiroi alone, and not a single warrior returned to tell the tale. Would we have won the battle against the Tejinder were it not for our infantry, without a drop of blood spilled?’

Harleen looked away.

‘Sometimes, the old ways are better,’ she said.

Jai pointed at his blade in response, though. ‘The art of Talvir is not for petty duels between rivals alone, or when a knight falls from their khiro. It was meant to be used in battle, on foot. It is an ancient art, passed on from a time before our peoples tamed the first khiroi, and drank of their blood and milk. A warrior is more than the khiro they ride.’

‘They are not warriors,’ Harleen insisted. ‘They are citizens.’

‘And that is why I will not ask them to fight,’ Jai said. ‘Only use their bows.’

Harleen spat off to the side, warding off evil.

‘These are not little toys to push about a map,’ she said. ‘No good will come of it.’

‘I assure—

‘I will make the fires – the hour grows late.’

She kicked her heels, lost in the sea of waiting riders, still on parade for the nobles.

‘Forgive her, khan,’ Sindri said. ‘It has been no small thing, bringing the Tejinder back into the fold. Her authority is questioned and you... you have left it all to her.’

Jai cursed, and signalled the order for the cavalry to dismount and return to their campfires. Already, he could see Harleen spreading the word, men and women carrying glowing embers to start small fires elsewhere.

‘Her heart is in the right place,’ Jai said. ‘Before you rest, find Feng, have him send the Tejinder nobles to my tent. I will have them swear the blood oath, and make clear Harleen’s word is law. Make sure Priya is among them – I heard she’s abandoned Teji. Have you any troubles with the Tainted?’

Sindri shook her head, and gave him a forced smile.

‘Nothing I can’t handle. Devin and Anita have lent me their support, and the rest fell in line. They are glad to call themselves Kidaran – you have made quite a name for yourself among our people. Beating Zayn didn’t hurt.’

Jai grinned, even as Winter caught his intention and swooped low, soldiers cheering as she swept overhead.

Enough. Time to fly the skies with Winter. See what lay ahead.