424 - Open in surrender

It was indeed, I thought. The worst thing he’d done was have his horse mostly in the centre, when I put mine on the ends, especially the sword-side, with orders to flank.

“I should have had both springalds by my command post instead of just one of them,” he said. “To shoot both at once or stagger most often.” I knew how right that was by the shiver that went through my heart.

“Yes,” I said, trying not to say it too much between my teeth. “Getting them in the first place was an excellent move. I didn’t think of it, and our scouts didn’t spot them… how did you keep them so hidden? The crews must have trained; how did you do that without any of us seeing?”

“They were trained elsewhere, a good distance from here, in a remote place your scouts were unlikely to fly over,” he said. “Mostly they used kites, which, they say, are actually harder to hit than flyers. Then the engines were brought here in covered carriages. We trained twelve men to do that aiming; alas, the other ten springalds we didn’t manage to finish refitting in time. You got your army here too fast.”

“Truly.” Saint Mother... twelve... I felt faint; my sight even went dark and then light for a moment. I willed it away with a deep breath. I am going to show them to the command council, I thought, and say, “You’ve been complaining I’m always in a hurry... see why?”

“It was the best marksman who hit you,” he said, taking another sip of his kaf. “He was a natural, and he trained hard.”

“I bear him no ill will, in case you worry.”

“I should have avoided your hairy monsters entirely if I could... and set my cavalry on your infantry, more. Set my infantry to drawing your monsters out until they collapsed from heat... if that would work.”

“It wouldn’t,” I said. Had he read nothing about them, even though he’d known he’d be facing them? I remembered that he’d been sent in from somewhere west in a hurry, and the military literature of Arko has next to nothing about them, not even the book I’d ferreted out during the Lakan War. “Though they came from cold places originally, they’ve been bred in Laka for a long time, so they’re pretty inured to heat,” I said. “The best thing to set against them, unless you’ve got horses that are trained not to fear them, is light-armed spearmen screening archers or javelineers; but where I see that, I counter with the Lakan horse, whose mounts can almost cuddle up to mamokal without spooking.”

“You have quite a few counters to our traditional line of battle,” he said. “If one does not work, you simply have another.” It’s because I keep seeing it, I thought. I’ve had a lot of practice. “It is the strength of your alliance, that you have so many counters to hand.”

Everything that came to mind to say—I saw this, I did that, the best way is this—seemed either like bragging or rubbing salt in his wounds, so I sipped my tea.

“Will the Durakis require my solas... apologies... my former solas... for the final assault upon the city?”

“No, no no no, I won’t make you, or them, fight your own. I have never done that.” For one thing, I couldn’t trust them not to turn. I wondered if he might have that in his mind. Perhaps he meant to hide his relief; he didn’t succeed. Or else he was feigning relief and unsuccessfully hiding it, both.

Besides, I’d have to feed them. I had no idea how his treasury was; his underlings might be quietly dividing it up among themselves even as we spoke. Feeding them had just become my problem, anyway. “Your larder and treasury are good at the moment?”

“Per my supply centurions, we have three more days of food and fodder.” And that was with as many mouths as you had to feed before the battle, I thought. At least a fifth of them had gone down, though of course many of those would survive. “Supply ships are on the way from the—”

“Wait—your wounded—how are you set for healers?” They were my warriors now.

“Not enough,” he said, straightforwardly. I called in Makaina and dashed off a note. You don’t order Haians, of course; you say only, “You are free to go aid the Arkan wounded once all of ours are taken care of,” and you may then be certain that they will.

Farnias’s brows went up again when I told him. “Durakis… you are kinder than I expected. But they… they’ll help us? Voluntarily?”

“All except Boralaer, I predict,” I said. “They’re Haians… They can’t know someone is suffering near them and not do something. Maybe even him.”

“Bora…? You mean the Haian warrior? My great noble God, where ever did you find him?” I wondered if Arkan spies had Minohaier pegged, if they followed him with the plan of killing him but hadn’t got around to it yet. It would come out in Farnias’s truth-drugging, assuming he knew. “I say that,” he added, “while at the same time wondering why there aren’t more of them.”

“I think he means to hang up his sword once the war is over. He did it to free his people. I mean to tell him about our asa kraiya—beyond the sword—custom, since Haians, of course, have no such thing.” He was curious about that, so I told him what I knew, which was little, of course. “So you were saying, supply ships are coming…?”

“From the south with our orders… your orders, now.” So I could feed his army as well as mine; but leaving them in Fispur behind me I didn’t like. If they turned and seized control of the port, they could not only starve my army, but my army and the city, once I was Imperator. If I disbanded them, though, they might slip away and reform as rebels, albeit gearless but what they could scrounge. I decided I’d talk this over with my conquest consultants. “Of your army, Farnias, how many hail from the City Itself?”

He gave me the run-down, how many had been transferred from where. There were two rejins of solas originating from the City Itself, the rest all out-city. “Of all my rejins, most are short-handed, usually by ten per cent or so,” he said. That actually sounded a little generous to me, from all I’d heard. “There are one or two I had that were a quarter understrength and a dozen that were rejins only in name, with only a few men left. By law I cannot consolidate them, at least formally.” That explained a lot. I wondered how many one-man rejins there were in the Empire.

“So the two from the City, are they down ten per cent or rejins just in name?” They were the men who’d turn in a moment to fight us if they weren’t penned up, who’d do anything to get to where they could defend the City. I wondered where the others from the City had all gone. There were precious few still there, from what I could tell, unless many were hiding in their houses and never going to the training-grounds. Had we killed them all?

“The One-Eighty-Seventh has fifty men left… or did. The Fourteenth had four-hundred and eighty-two solas and a handful of squires attempting to lie to me about their ages so I would send them onto the field.” I wondered how many of the four-hundred and eighty-two were actually squires who’d succeeded. I wondered if we’d chased the two units all the way from Ossotyeya.

I asked him if his army trusted him. “They will be bitter about my surrendering to you, but yes, I believe so.”

“I ask because I am thinking of letting you speak to them. Bitter? They’ll think you did too soon? That if you hadn’t, they might have won?” If they were bitter enough, I couldn’t let him go among them; they might decide to punish him fatally.

He heaved a sigh, and pulled at his shorn-but-still-long hair. “It was lost. I could see that. I would not throw any more good solas onto the Fields of Honour.” A thought gave him pause; I wondered if it was wondering whether he’d go there himself. “Neither Aras nor Muunas would laud me for that. I trust the solas know me well enough, though I had no time to let them know me very well. You were moving too quickly for that. It may be that their support of me was dutiful rather than heartfelt. Not many generals can command that kind of love and support in Arko any longer.”

What did that mean? They’d become cynical? Or that the all the Arkan generals who knew how to do that were dead now? I hoped not. “It may also be that when they count the dead, they’ll see you were right,” I said. “On their honour, they’re surrendered, so I won’t worry about them sneaking away tonight.” It would take half my army to guard them. “And I’ll decide on their orders tomorrow.” The opian was not letting me think clearly enough tonight, I saw, while at the same time the pain was bad enough that I wanted the other half of the dose. It meant I couldn’t get drunk; Kaninjer had warned me very direly about mixing opian and wine.

“What would you have me say to them? I should then remind them of their honour and their oaths...” He sighed and went to his knees on the tent floor. He cupped his hands at his temples in the prayer-gesture, swore the allegiance oath, and went down on his face again. I’d forgotten he’d sworn only a surrender-oath.

“Gehit.” I was getting used to saying it. I didn’t like that I was. “And don’t quit using equal to equal with me. And you may look me in the eyes freely, too.” It’s another thing that Arkans do that makes them seem as if they are not there, and so gets under my skin. “You’ve given them orders for tonight... did you include that they should drown their sorrows? That should hold them; you should speak to them tomorrow after we know what we will have them do.”

He sat back down again, and did a twitch of a smile. “I shall, then. I guess once you’re done with me now, your man with the truth-drug will clear me.”

“He’s not just going to clear you, he’s going to scrape you, but it’s a scraping that skips over personal things.”

His eyelids creased, just for a flash, barely noticeable. “You are kind, ser,” he said, softly.

The thought flashed through my mind, of seizing him by the full fall of his white-blond hair at the back of his head as he knelt before me, making him arch his head back, and thrusting my manhood into his mouth, which he would softly open, without my even asking, in surrender.

All-Spirit, I want him? No, it’s the fikken opian. I drove it out of my mind furiously, calling back the revulsion. Saint Mother… can he see it on my face? The two points of my cheeks burned. I told myself it felt as if it looked more obvious than it did, though I knew that might not be true.

I cleared my throat to make sure my voice was smooth, and said, “I have Arkans serving me already. By choice. It is always my preference. I know I will not always get my preference, but it is my preference nonetheless.” I told him about the shadow-government, without naming names. He didn’t seem surprised. “If I can get you serving me by choice, I’ll be happiest,” I said. Serving me… I cleared my throat again. By choice… no. It would not be by choice. He is not Kall. What is wrong with me? “Farnias, will you tell me about yourself?”