245 - Like the limbs of one body

By putting my strength on my shield-side wing while Abatzas reinforced his shield-side wing, expecting mine on my sword-side wing, we scored a handy victory, but not as total as I’d have liked.

They did some wise things—a very quick readjustment drawing their horse from both places to counter our shield-side thrust was the best, but they also split their Schvait, forcing me to split mine—that made me think either Abatzas had given Perisalas his head on the field, or Perisalas had just taken it, and damn the consequences, knowing Abatzas would take credit. We took too many losses for my taste, and the Arkans managed to muster again in the next valley; a victory, but one of little gain for too much cost.

“It’s not just that they were commanded well,” Hurai said in the after-battle meeting. “Our people fought tired.” Several of the other generals signed chalk. “They were bitching about it before, and they’re bitching about it even more now. Keep pushing too hard, Chevenga, and you’re going to have a commander-impeachment petition on your hands. No one’s talking about it yet, but... the bitching is pretty loud.”

“Well, we’re fighting again before we march much anyway, so there’ll be one day of rest…” I saw all their faces. “No, make it two.” Of course, while we rested, their ten thousand reinforcements would arrive. I had expected that anyway.

I did make mine break camp and march and set up again in the next valley, but that took less than half a day, and they understood it was to keep the Arkans from easily taking back what we’d won. That evening, Bitha Szten came to me with worry all over her face, which was not like her at all, and went down on one knee before me, as I’d never imagined a Schvait would do.

“I must beg you, Stoltzer,” (that being their word for commander) “else breach of contract.” I drew her inside and got her sitting and drinking tea. “Of no information you have asked me, so I am not spying. Abatzas has kidnapped and hidden the Johtajen and seconds of all his Schvait units, being refusing to pay full pay as contracted. Now they fear orders to fight all they face, even other Schvait. You are our Stoltzer, so I can only beg you, not to face us against them.”

Had his Schvait asked for more than he was willing to spend? Or did he want them to fight rather than sit down, as they had? Or both? I had to assume the latter was at least part. I had hired six hundred to hold off twelve hundred, and so he wanted to close that way to me, naturally. I had to count it closed. But I also saw eighteen hundred Schvait in my camp, all furious at Arkans, if I played things right.

“I won’t face you against them,” I said. “But in the meantime, Abatzas can mistreat the warriors any way he likes, while he holds the Johtajen. They need to be sprung. What can you tell me?”

She sighed. Schvait are very strong on principle and procedure as a rule, and even now, it went against the grain for her to give a commander information about Schvait working for his opposition. “They are forbidden to leave their section, or send any messages, on pain of harm to the Johtajen,” she said. “Where they are, none know. So, no plans, of theirs.” Schvait are not the sneaking type, as a rule, anyway.

“Say we do a night raid to rescue them,” I said. “If the rank and file know they are free, what are they likely to do?”

“Come over to you,” she said. “And take like a thresher takes wheat whoever is in their way. Abatzas is in entire breach of contract. Stoltzer… I heard rumour that your Haian they seized when he wandered into their infirmary after last battle, but you, yourself, extracted him that same night. Is true?”

I had not consulted with the command council about that, in case they tried to stop me; I’d just gathered together twenty of the best dark-workers in the darya semanakraseyeni elite, told Emao-e as my second that I was going, and stood on rank when she and they protested. It was obvious where in their camp Kaninjer would be, and I hadn’t wanted him to be there even one whole night, to have everything he knew about me truth-drugged out of him, or be sent off to Kurkas, who wanted Haians who’d healed me.

“Let’s just say, I have some very good people,” I said to Bitha. “We’ll start with trying to find the Johtajen now.” I dismissed her, and called in the Ikal summit-person.

Because Yeola-e and Arko don’t have a direct border, Yeoli spies who can pass as Arkans are rare, and we’d lost most of them trying to get me out of the City. Because of that, the majority of those we had in the Arkan camp now were under sixteen, fresh out of a fast course in the school with no name (which convenes where it convenes, not much caring if it has no building). Acting as squires, they were even freer in the Arkan camp than the grown-up spies, since no one thought to suspect them. I mention them to commend them, though of course I must leave them nameless. The Schvait Johtajen were found that same day, all imprisoned together in the first place we looked, the corner of the camp furthest from the Schvait section, by a lad who was but fourteen at the time. He couldn’t get inside the tent where they were being held, having no pretext, but gathered they were there by overhearing.

Even though night raids two nights in a row are vanishingly rare, it is natural for people to have their guard up the next night. I thought of not going myself, not wanting to push my luck, but, in the light of this, it seemed irresponsible to not let the raiding party have the benefit of weapon-sense.

“Two nights in a row, you’re going to do this?” Emao-e said when I told her. “All-Spirit… what if someone needs rescuing tomorrow night as well? No, no, no, please, don’t answer that, I don’t want to hear what you’ll say. Chevenga, you’re important, you remember that? We can’t do without you, you remember that? That makes you less free to do what you want, that’s just how it goes!” I stood on rank.

This one would be easier anyway, I told her, since the tent in which they were held was not as far from the edge of camp, and the six people we were freeing were warriors, better at running and, in a pinch, fighting.

So I sooted my shines again and went, once it was late enough that the moon was gone. I took twenty different excellent dark-workers in the darya semanakraseyeni, to let the first twenty have their rest, as well as three Schvait who volunteered for it, the best people to shake awake their own.

Getting inside the perimeter was easy enough, but we found the ten guards that my Ikal kid had counted outside doubled for night-time, and there were two more inside. We’d have to back-stab the outside twenty one-on-one and all at once, as my Arkan escort had done to my Yeoli escort on the road in Roskat. It is harder in the dark when you can’t see each other, and must also not let anyone make a sound as you kill him. But my people were all well-trained, and I could know exactly when they were all positioned and ready to strike, to make the owl call that was our signal. Now I was thanking All-Spirit I’d come, and reminding myself to tell Emao-e this part in detail.

The two inside were facing the tent door, so I cut my way through the back with Korai to take them from behind, too. What I foot-groped my way through, to the sound of two or three of the prisoners snoring, I noticed only distantly, my mind on the guards; why did there seem to be big rocks in this tent? When we were done with the guards, I whisper-called in the three Schvait, and uncovered my kraumak, a small, dim and red one of a type called “assassin’s” in Brahvniki, where I’d picked it up. Each of the six prisoners was chained by the ankle by a thick iron chain to a rock almost too big for a person to get their arms around, let alone lift. The tent had to have been raised around them. “Kyash,” Korai said under his breath. “Now what do we do?” Not only that, but none of the Schvait would wake, even when shaken. “They’re drugged,” I said. “Someone wanted to make them very helpless indeed. They’re not leaving here on their feet, tonight.”

“We’re going to have to kevyalin abort,” whispered Salao. “What else can we do, Cheng?”

Not after I promised Bitha, I thought. “Frisk every corpse for keys, to start,” I said, seeing the keyholes in the shackles. It was unlikely—whoever was assiduous enough to do this was assiduous enough to have the keys far away—but worth trying, if for no other reason than to buy me time to think. It turned up nothing, but I got a flash. “We planned that once we got them free, we’d send two people to the Schvait units to let them know,” I said. “We’re going to do it the other way round. Everyone but Thrista”—she was the ranking Schvait—“wait here. If there’s an alarm before we get back, then abort and retreat to camp; otherwise, stand by.”

“Wait, Cheng, you’re going to go all the way through the Arkan camp with just one—”

“Better than with ten, stand by and no more arguments, that’s an order, Thrista, come.” People without weapon-sense can never really understand how easy it is to sneak through a dark camp at night when you have it.

No surprise, the Schvait had set up a very thick guard in their own section, and bedded down geared up. Thrista spoke to the first one to challenge us in their language, getting us to the third-in-command of the senior unit all but instantly. It occurred to me as I brought my face into his light that he’d contracted to Arko; what if it occurred to him to make a deal with Abatzas, me for the six? Don’t be silly, I told myself. The contract is thoroughly breached as Bitha said, and they’ve all been made prisoners themselves.

“Fourth Shevengha!” he said. “The scourge of Arko in Yeola-e… is it really you? Here?”

“I have no time to show you the brand now but you can see it later,” I said, and laid out the situation fast. He sent people out with orders before I even finished. “Tell them to follow us at a run but not over tents, and avoid any Arkan unless he tries to stop them,” I said. Without orders to engage the Schvait, the Arkans likely would not, unless attacked themselves. “For the stones… two long thick poles lashed together for each…” He was ahead of me on that, though, summoning a spear-wagon. The Arkans had taken the Schvait’s horses elsewhere, too, but there wasn’t time to hitch it up properly anyway. Human muscle would haul it.

The saying is that if two Schvait sleepwalk, they’ll do it in step. A unit of them in action is a beautiful sight: everything is in harmony and unison, no move wasted, and they cover for each other instinctively, like the limbs of one body. He’d ordered them to run quietly, and I heard not a single word from however many hundred were in earshot behind me, only footfalls, breaths and the clinking of armour, all the way there. I needed only call ahead to mine at the prison-tent to call back to guide us there, and the Schvait were in and doing everything in perfect order, dividing themselves into even numbers to heave up each prisoner’s limp form and each boulder—it took six people apiece to lift them—onto the wagon. I didn’t have to give a word of a command.

The Arkans sounded the alarm long before we got to the prison-tent, but the solas weren’t quite sure what to do when it was their own mercenaries within their own camp and they were not being attacked. By the time they’d pulled themselves into any semblance of order, they were facing the Schvait rearguard, which was retreating, not attacking, leaving their commanders, who couldn’t know we were rescuing Schvait commanders, again wondering what was right to do.

As they began pulling the cart, I appropriated a torch from someone and ran to get in front, to lead them onto the Kayarere road and to our camp. It turned into a triumphal parade, with whoops and laughter and the Schvait victory song. Now seeing by where we were going how this would end, someone in the Arkan camp ordered pursuit, but they didn’t come at our rear, which was deployed solid as a wall, in nearly enough order to do much. Of course as soon as my sentries saw a force approaching by night they sounded the alarm, and I had to yell, “Friends, stand down, friends, stand down, it’s me!”

At least that meant the Schvait had someone other than just their fellow Schvait to party with, which we did the rest of the night. “Don’t worry,” I told Emao-e. “Three days. Three.” Finding a smith that the noise had woken up, I got him to strike off the prisoners’ shackles, and had a tent pitched next to mine and the six all laid on good pallets in it, under Kaninjer’s observation.

They would have no idea where they were when they awoke, so I had their thirds and Bitha, as well as myself, there with them at dawn, and saw them all given a hot bath, massage, Haian medicines and salve on the shackle-sores, as well as a good breakfast. When they were all themselves again, I asked them if they’d like to sign on for the same rate Bitha’s were earning, and, even though they’d have to fight, because there was no chance now that any Schvait would fight for Abatzas, they agreed.

The ink was barely dry on the contracts when sleep so furiously insistent it felt like a blackness inside made me reel in my chair, even though I’d let myself sober up. I remembered how little I’d slept the last two nights. “Cheng, you’re dead on your feet and you don’t have to do anything now,” Sachara said. “Go sack out, for the love of All-Spirit. We’ll take care of everything.” Several other people around signed chalk. I went to bed. Just laying my head on the pillow flung me into blackness as fast as a club on the temple.