Chapter Forty-Five: Foes

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We watched the invaders arrive from a broad hilltop overlooking a dried-up river course, churning the snow and tawny winter grass to mud as they came. In a mass of thousands, they swarmed into the valley like bees from a hive mouth. Upon seeing our forces ready and arrayed across the field, their progress halted, and a shudder pulsed through the hulking body of the army as they seemed to be considering retreat. But the brief spasm was quickly followed by a breath of deep silence, then one bestial roar after another seized the men. A rallying cry went up from their chiefs to be echoed across the ranks, and with renewed vigor, they pressed on. Soon, the massive force was arrayed across the field below, in lines stretching along the stony expanse of the dry riverbed, a thousand sparks floating in the dormant grass, awaiting but a nudging breeze to ignite and ravage everything in their path.

To our surprise, the Geloni did not come alone but marched with unlikely allies: the Siaposh. Both tribes were tall and fair like the Skythai, but that is where their similarities ended. The Geloni people were unmistakable, as they mainly came on foot and dressed in woolen tunics and cloaks of fur. They carried axes of bronze and spears of sharpened bone, with long, curving bows and breastplates made of stiffened hide. Dispersed among them were hints of Greek armor and arms as well—a handful of bronze helmets, a few dozen iron spear points, well-bossed and strapped wooden shields, and greaves of bronze—some antiques, some bright and new. From their ancestors, they remembered how to make the things of war. We’d soon see if they had also remembered how to use them.

Flanking them on either side rode horsemen in crudely assembled iron and bronze armor, with swords at their sides and bows in their hands, dressed all in black. The Hellenes called the Siaposh the Melanchleni—the Black Cloaks. Their black dress and short black capes were unmistakable. Like the Mard-Kwaar, they too were maneaters, though of a different kind. They didn’t hunt men for food but feasted on enemies to capture their souls. 

Longtime adversaries of the Skythai, there could be any number of reasons they would now seek an alliance with the Geloni, not least of all a chance to vanquish an enemy they could never defeat on their own. But it might just as likely have been bloodsport. The Skythai and Siaposh had a longstanding rivalry. Raids, kidnapping, head-hunting, murder, and tomb robbing were all part of the dispute between the two tribes for as long as both could remember. Neither side had much claim to any high ground. They shared a mutual desire to control the same vast plot of land between the Sirhis and Varga Rivers. With the help of the Geloni, today the Siaposh might finally get the upper hand.

The Geloni army was much like the one we faced in the settlement we destroyed on the banks of the Lykus. Though greater in size, their lines were disordered, and the soldiers carried various weapons, many of which were simply tools: axes, billhooks, and scythes. The core of the force, perhaps a thousand men in total, were foot soldiers. The best of them stood in rows at the front of a formation some ten men deep and maybe a hundred across, armored and armed with long bronze- and bone-tipped spears. The deeper into the pack, the cruder the weapons became. Men bore sickles, wooden pitchforks, daggers lashed to poles, and just about anything else they could think of that might put a hole in a man or horse. They carried shields of wood or wicker covered with leather. At each of the wings, there stood a dozen archers. 

Several hundred mounted Siaposh archers, their faces painted white with black rings around their eyes and mouths, flanked the Geloni army, awaiting a signal to draw and fire.

Since the Warband’s arrival, the Skythai princes had sat in council with the king to devise the camp’s defenses, and I’d not had even a moment to speak with Aric or even to lay eyes on him. As he rode to the fore of our ranks this morning, my heart nearly burst to see him safe and whole again. With Saena spent in the gallop here, Aric rode a chestnut gelding from the king’s herds. He’d also acquired a spear and shield. Besides this, he wore only the clothes and arms he’d left me with: a bronze plated warbelt with his goryt, akinaka, and sagaris, arm guards of hardened leather, a pointed cap lined in fox fur, an iron ring, a girdle of bast, and a wolfskin cape—sparse protection for the rigors of war.

A vazarka, inspired in the field, becomes impervious to all manner of hurts from blades, bites, burns. His courage had earned him their grace. No armor could hide him from his fate, so he faced it willingly and without fear in hopes of their lasting favor—or, at the very least, his everlasting honor. Aric had survived venom, arrows, daggers, and more with only his skill and the luck granted him by the gods. Today was no day to question that grace.

He rode past, inspecting the readiness of his eager riders and their anxious mounts, offering words of encouragement to the kara, both novices and veterans. I smiled my assurance to him. His glare, in return, left me cold inside as he rode by without a word. I didn’t understand. What had I done? Had my counsel not proved sound? And surely, as he believed in signs, it was proof that the gods favored us this day. We would be all right. Why, then, should his favor turn against me now? It was true I had disregarded his wishes in coming. Disobeyed his command. But he had made me vazarka, setting me on a road I had no choice but to ride. And in making our blood-oath, I bound myself dutifully, desperately, indivisibly to him. Was he giving me a sign? Twice now in as many days, my heart quaked before something in him my mind refused to see.

Oktamasad, commander of the Paralatai forces, led the bulk of the army. In addition to a flood of further cavalry from his own substantial militia, he had mustered a considerable body of mounted archers and foot soldiers from among the householders; though they were not hardened warriors, they were all capable with a bow. The mounted bowmen would do most of the work in breaking the enemy ranks, and of those, the Skythian army had more than enough, each with quivers filled with hundreds of arrows, riding tireless, fleet horses. They could descend like a windstorm, then in wave upon wave, from all directions, swoop in toward the enemy lines scattering a hail of barbed arrows, and retreat again before the stunned soldiers could recover, leaving a chaos of fear and disorder in their wake. Once the arrows had found flesh, dozens, hundreds of men would retreat to be healed somewhere—or die, slowly and painfully. Then we’d ride them down with spears and swords.

But the enemy was thick on the ground, well-armored, and could lock their shields together like the scales of a serpent’s back. This would not be so simple as a raid. Horses were loyal but not stupid. They wouldn’t charge headlong into a solid wall, much less a living, pulsing wall bristling with sharp points. If we couldn’t break their lines and expose them with a barrage of arrow fire, we’d have to try to lead them to steep terrain and harry them until they panicked and ran. Here, the mounted spearmen did their work—where we three hundred kara would stand or fall. This was Aric’s plan, anyway. 

In the rush to prepare, we hadn’t time for our usual rites and dances. No sacred haoma had been pressed, and the warriors would have to fight without its stirring sustenance. Instead, we had painted our faces with water and ash, as we had for the Hunt. And a magnificent golden bowl of wine, blessed by the king himself, had been brought before all the warriors to drink. After the necessary invocations and blessings had been performed, the Warband had made its way here to the field of battle to take its place beside Oktamasad’s forces. The camp roared to see the kara arrive as the defenses were prepared, and the wagons were drawn up in a circle.

As we now took up our positions, I tried to draw near Aric so that I might speak a word to him before it all began, but his face darkened when he caught sight of me. He gritted his teeth and kicked his horse, not speaking a word to me as he rode past in a tempest, shouting an order to a confused mass of novices trying to calm their panicked horses. His tawny hair trailed behind in the soft light of early morning as his gelding’s hooves drummed the frozen ground. I watched his back as he faded into a swarming crowd of riders, iron-tipped spears in their hands burning like torches in the dawning light. 

Even prince Skyles had arrived on the field with his personal guard of some fifty well-outfitted warriors. I had imagined he’d be far to the south this time of year, in his beloved colonies. And among his guard rode one I was even more stunned to see: Rathagos. He’d not returned home to his clan after all. And his presence here, in Skyles’ service, drove a chill deep into my tired bones.

I nudged Vatra with my heels and rode farther afield, searching for Bornon and my orders for battle. Aric’s strategy was to place the novices—easily spooked and swift like young colts—at the fore. When the fighting pushed through that first line of defense, they were to retreat into the country quickly, luring the brash enemy into pursuit where stronger troops lay in wait. These, too, would soon take flight. Each succession would draw the enemy deeper into the territory and into contact with the next contingent of more advanced warriors, still fresh for fighting. Eventually, the enemy would find themselves tired, diminished, surrounded, and facing the best troops of the Skythai. Men in the fury of battle, lacking all restraint, fell for this every time. Pride and spite, it seemed, would not allow men to accept a straightforward victory but always drove them to take more than warranted. As the attackers’ confidence rose, and their stamina—and numbers—diminished, they’d allow their formations to break and be surrounded and routed, perhaps in a small valley or hollow specially selected for the job, where the practiced and heavily-armed vazarka would be waiting to finish them. 

According to Bornon, Aric had selected such a place just beyond the rise on which we now stood. If the battle lasted that long and reached this far, we would feint a retreat over the hill and into the plain, drawing them onward, and the Warband, alongside Skyles’ and the king’s guards, would then turn and finish them as they lay trapped in the valley behind the slope of the hill. 

We had practiced such retreats a hundred times before, and I knew the signals and when to turn and fire my bow. Vatra was as ready as he would ever be. With my quiver full and my spear in hand, I was eager for the battle to be underway—and over. The men around me crackled with glee as they waited for the fighting to begin. Something about the prospect of combat delighted and ignited their passions, but the primal ache they felt had never stirred my blood. Though, I was surprised to find that, this time, neither did fear. 

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Chapter Forty-Six: Fallen

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