Chapter 2: Departures (Part 6)

Aragin tossed fitfully on his bed. He could not sleep; everytime he tried the memories would return, and even on those occasions when he managed to drift reluctantly into the Land of Dreams, he would be plagued by dreams harping on it. Aragin had been at Lamauk, a boy who had never taken up a spear before. The moon shone its cold light on his face, and its disc seemed a face of pity, filled with pain. He stared at it, his forehead glistening with sweat, breathing steadily and not moving. Slowly, his eyelids drooped and he drifted off into sleep again, for the third time that night.

The Erennins had marched out of their camp early in the morning, twenty five thousand strong, their horsemen leading the long line, the soldiers turning to the left and right, ten rows at a time, marching off to the opposite ends of the line, until a long line of spearmen faced the Semiduroin on the planned battlefield, just across the river from the village of Lamauk. In front of them was a plain, in the distance of which could be seen the Thelomanni camp. Quickly, the enemy arrayed his forces, marching out of the camp quickly and in order.

To everyone’s horror, the enemy was not at all like the Ismaransi—they were perfectly disciplined, and all carried spears, like the Erennin. They stood in rank and file like the Erennin, and some even wore Erennin breastplates with the crossed crescents blazoned on the front, undoubtedly looted from the dead in Abubey. Their phalanx was far deeper than the Erennin. They marched forward resolutely, their horsemen thundering forward to open the battle while the enemy footmen were still two hundred paces away. Outnumbered, the Erennin horsemen were struck to flight, chased off the field by the Thelomanni. They gave a good account of themselves that day, killing more than being killed.

But it was no use; they fled off the field, and without the cavalry, the foot were left to face the full assault of the enemy’s eighty thousand foot—surely there must be that many, at least. As soon as the first Erennin arrows began falling among the Semiduroin, they raised a fearsome cry and raced towards the Erennin lines, still in formation, staying close together, spears at the ready to strike. Sarian led the Erennin forward, countercharging the Semiduroin—to allow the Erennin to receive the shock of impact stationary was suicidal. The two sides met with a fearsome crash, many men being knocked off their feet, others sent flying over the heads of others, the slightly spread-out lines of men suddenly compressing at the meeting, the rear ranks pushing on the front ranks, each trying to stab at the throats of the other, or stab somewhere, simply put. They held ground, the Erennin held their ground, not giving it up without a fight. Many hundreds fell on both sides, more on the Thelomanni because of their poorer armour. The Erennin had become proficient at aiming their spear thrusts, and many of the enemy went down with wounds in their chests, just next to the square armour plate protecting their chests. But it was not enough; even though every Erennin took down three Thelomanni with him, it was still not enough, and the shoving certainly went the way of the Thelomanni, whose thicker phalanx meant more people shoving at the Erennin line than the other way round.

The centre of the Erennin line bent backwards, the soldiers taking step after step backwards to prevent being pushed under the churning sandals of the armies, struggling for purchase on the morning dew-slick grass. Then, like a monster rising from its sleep, in response to an unheard command the Semiduroin closed ranks, filling in the gaps in their lines, and stepped forward, pushing against the mighty effort of the Erennin. It was at about this time that Sarian fell beneath the feet of the enemy, and a great cry went through the Erennin.

“Haihai! Haihai!” With every cry the Semiduroin edged forward, left foot leading. With each almighty push Erennin fell beneath their shields, to be stabbed to death or simply crushed under the milling mass of feet both Semiduroin and Erennin.

By afternoon it was over; the bulge that the Semiduroin had pushed into the Erennin line burst, the Erennin line breaking in the centre, its soldiers streaming away in fear and fright, throwing down their weapons and only holding on to their shields, running from the field of battle on which the Semiduroin were rejoicing, victorious. Some of the Semiduroin in the rear ranks had tried to pursue them, only to be cut down as groups of men banded together to face them; but the vast majority had been tired enough that they were perfectly satisfied with catching their breath and occupying the field of battle while their priests came up from camp to offer praise to their gods.
It was providence that the enemy cavalry had long pursued the Erennin horsemen far away; if the horsemen had pursued them the Erennin would not have been able to escape in such numbers to sanctuary in Maksuma. It was sheer poor fortune that the Erennin in Voruna had not been armed with swords; else they might have been able to turn the fortunes of the battle.

Still, as it was, of the twenty-five thousand soldiers that went to Lamauk, some sixteen thousand returned behind the walls of Maksuma, the nearest city. A fifth of these were horsemen, the rest scattered across the country, making their ways back to their separate homes.

Aragin knelt by the bedside of Tessemaut, childhood friend and, since last autumn, brother-in-law. He had been wounded in the side by a spear thrust that, by some freak chance, pierced through the metal at a weak spot and driven almost all the way out the other side. Tessemaut was dying, and through the five days he lay on the bed, trying to catch breath to say a word, his wounds infected, oozing yellow pus over the sheets, and as the infection found its way into his intestines, he started writhing in agony; Aragin saw all this. On the fourth day, he was screaming in pain, his face ashen white, and no painkilling herbs the doctor gave him would help. On the morning of the fifth day, Tessemaut drifted in and out of consciousness. In his final lucid moment, Tessemaut made a kind of sobbing, whimpering noise; blood flowed from between his lips. He opened his mouth to speak; and more flowed, staining his tunic and sheets with an angry, livid red. Then, Aragin, for once getting a clear look into his brother-in-law’s mouth, vomited, shaking in fright.

Tessemaut had bitten his tongue off in his agony.

“No!” Aragin bolted upright in his bed, sweat dripping from his brow and every muscle in his body shaking. He was breathing hard, and his sheets were thrown off the bed onto the floor. The cool wind drafted in through the window, combining with the sweat to make him shiver in the cold. Nightmares like this always plagued him, memories of different scenes he had lived through in the two weeks since the fateful march to Lamauk. But this scene had never appeared before, and it scared him. Seared into his mind, he was trying not to relive the scene, gory and wrenching as it was.

Aragin bent down, reaching beneath his bed. Pushing aside his cuirass and his shield, his groping fingers found his pack, and removed from it a piece of parchment about a span long on each side. It was crumpled, tear-stained and splattered with blood, the ink on the parchment running slightly but still largely readable. In a mad scrawl across the parchment, two sentences rampaged, a slight tear along one word bearing mute witness to the violence of the writer.
“Bring me poison. Tell your sister I am sorry I cannot come back.”

The last words of Tessemaut, written, not spoken. Agreeing to his last wish, Aragin had called a doctor and asked for poison to put an end to his agony. The doctor had looked over Tessemaut, pronounced that he could not live beyond the next few days, and produced a small bottle of ravensbane, once common as the sand on the seashore back in the Old Kingdom, now painstakingly cultivated in order to produce the small enough quantities that the apothecaries sold now. By the count of five it was all over, his brother-in-law’s contorted features relaxing into a calm expression. It was the last he ever saw of Tessemaut; that evening, as the sun disappeared beneath the hills to the west, his body was burned on the beach, together with twenty others, on a great pyre.

Pain filled him, and Aragin clenched the parchment in his hand, the loss keen within him. Drawing a deep breath, crying just a little bit, he smoothed out the parchment, slowly, read and re-read the words, feeling the bloodstains and the tear in the parchment. They found him later sitting up against the wall that his bed was placed against, reading those sentences over and over by moonlight. Looking up at the door suddenly swinging open, Aragin mutely stared at the faces filling the corridor beyond the door. All familiar faces, members of his arrbotai, his unit of a hundred men,

“Aragin! Get up…we’re leaving Maksuma. We’ve got orders to head back to Demula!”
A puzzled murmur so soft that the others had to lean in to hear it repeated. “Orders? Who’s giving us orders? We have a new commander?”

“Prince Talamioros; he’s arrived in Demula with ten thousand men, and he’s called up fifteen thousand more from the countryside around the city. Now he wants us to go and join him. He’s sent ships to sail us north.”

“Alright; I’m coming. Give me sometime to get my things together.”

Aragin put on his armour and his helmet, buckling on the small knife that was his only other weapon, grabbed his pack and went downstairs to the common room, where he picked up his spear, propped in the corner. They were already all waiting for him, ready to leave. He nodded in greeting to them and those who had not yet put on their helmets did so, arranging themselves into march order, in two lines of ten. About to march out the open door down to the docks, a hoarse shout halted them.

“Ay! I have something for each of you. My best wishes to all of you; drive the invaders out and take back what is ours.” It was the innkeeper, Bersalas, bustling towards them from behind the counter, holding what seemed to be necklaces. Aragin’s tired eyes registered them eventually as charms, blessed by the priests, meant to bring luck and strength to the wearer. He didn’t believe they really did that, but it would have been impolite to refuse, and he murmured his thanks as the plump jovial fellow put on on him, rapping the bright newly-polished bronze of his breastplate and giving Aragin a bright smile before moving on to the next person in line.

When they finally reached the docks half an hour later, it was already filled with soldiers climbing on board the ships by the gangplanks and by the nets hung on the side of the ships. The ships were filling up fast, but yet more arrived to take the remaining soldiers gathered on the shore. From where he stood Aragin could see two ships filled with horses on deck, and belowdecks, yet more horses stuck their heads out of the windows at the side. At the rate the loading was going, they would be done and under way by morning; the sailors were rushing men on board, and the soldiers were not bothering with anything but getting on board. They seemed eager to quit Maksuma. Men whom only a few days back had slouched at street corners, dejected and saddened by the loss of comrades and the taste of defeat now stood tall, walked tall again, ready to go to battle once again. It was rather laughable now, though, when less than half the men standing at the docks held spears, the rest having thrown theirs away in the flight from Lamauk. Aragin had no doubts, though, that when the time came every Voruna would stand strong and fight the enemy again, and die standing, determined to never suffer a defeat like the one at Lamauk.

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