Chapter 7
The battle of Mara Fields began.
Hidden within the tree line, Jagdish watched as his officers flawlessly executed his plan. Daula’s horsemen were cut off from their infantry before they even realized Vadal had an entire army on the field. Jagdish’s heart was filled with pride as he watched the paltans he’d organized, led by officers he had trained, move into place, and that pride changed to worry, because he knew the face of every single Vadal soldier who was about to die today.
This was the worst part for Jagdish, because there was little he could do for now but watch. This part was not a static battle of orderly ranks. This was chaotic maneuvers between two swift forces on horseback, with dozens of clashes and retreats between them. A phontho who tried to manage his paltans now would only make things worse. He had to trust his boys. Even if Jagdish saw an angle that could be exploited, by the time he got that signal to the officers up close it would be too late for them to take advantage of it. He knew from experience it was hard to hear a signal horn over the sound of thundering hooves as your blood was pumping and your ears were thudding back and forth inside a steel helmet.
Arrows crossed the sky. Men and horses died screaming. The Sarnobat forces discovered too late that they had cavalry moving all around them. If they survived, Daula would surely have his scouts flogged, but it wasn’t their fault. Jagdish had enlisted locals, warriors who had grown up here, and used their knowledge to take advantage of the terrain, hiding his men in locations the enemy scouts wouldn’t think to look.
The forces of Vadal were in armor of blue-gray, and bronze. The enemy wore blacks and browns and whites, the same as the pelts of the wolf packs that constantly haunted Sarnobat lands. Blood bloomed red on both sets of colors.
“Spyglass.” Jagdish stuck out his hand to one of his bodyguards, who promptly smacked the valuable brass-and-glass tube against Jagdish’s palm. He put the tube to his eye in order to search for his true goal.
“No sign of their ancestor blade yet,” said the wizard Mukunda.
“You’d feel it?”
“Maybe. I don’t have that particular gift, but it’s said the swords have got a terrible presence about them when they’re used in anger.”
“That they do,” Jagdish agreed, having watched Ashok duel many a fool who had tried to claim Angruvadal from him. As he recalled the many warriors who’d been killed or disfigured trying to take that precious sword for themselves, and how his current orders were to try the same thing with Sarnobat’s ancestor blade, Jagdish muttered quietly to himself again, “That they do.”
It was as if the spyglass brought the battle six times closer, and that made Jagdish jealous that he didn’t have eyes like a Protector, which could just observe distant things like this whenever they felt like it.
Daula Memon dar Sarnobat was proving to be a cunning foe. It didn’t take him long to grasp that his horsemen outnumbered the Vadal attacking them and counter. Sarnobat spread this half of their army apart farther, sending paltans west and south to fight back against Jagdish’s harriers.
Time seemed to slow as Jagdish watched with agonizing anticipation. His precious watch was in his pocket, but he didn’t need to check it to know exactly how much time was passing, for he could count every pounding heartbeat in his chest. This part required patience, for he needed Sarnobat even more split and vulnerable. It wasn’t just enough to win—Jagdish wanted to win decisively. He waited a few hundred steady beats for the enemy to be fully committed to their counterattack before ordering, “Send in our infantry.”
“Spears up! Spears up!” Roik Kutty bellowed, and he had lungs on him like a town crier. That shout was repeated by other officers crouched and waiting ahead of them. Armored infantrymen rose from their hiding places in the fields, hundreds of them, sprouting like a deadly crop. They immediately formed up into their proper ranks, shoulder to shoulder. “Let’s water these fields with Sarnobat blood! Ahead quick march!”
“Have the archers follow.”
“Bows up! Bows up!”
The rest of Jagdish’s army began moving toward the Sarnobat forces. Even walking through tripping plants and across uneven levees, the spearmen maintained their formation. Expected, since they’d been drilled on this sort of thing thousands of times, beneath burning sun or freezing rain, until it had become part of their basic nature, no different from taking a leisurely stroll with several hundred of your closest friends. Too many officers who’d earned their rank by birth forgot that formations weren’t about looking pretty to impress the first caste during parades. Formations were vital, for no matter how tough an individual warrior was, on his own he could be surrounded, overwhelmed, and defeated. An army without organization was a mob. It went against man’s natural inclinations to fight as a team. Undisciplined, untrained, and left to their own devices, one man could still be incredibly savage, but watching groups of such fight was little better than seeing the monkeys of the northwestern jungles battle over food. Put them shoulder to shoulder, united, and men became a terrifying killing force. There would always be reasons for war, but the warrior caste brought order and effectiveness to the bloody endeavor.
Jagdish watched the enemy, waiting to gauge their reaction once they understood they were surrounded. They were the red-hot steel on an anvil, and the hammer was coming. Daula’s banner dipped and waved. Horns blew. The enemy phontho must have seen their doom marching toward them, for he was trying to call back his cavalry, only it was too late. One brave risalder on the enemy side spotted Jagdish’s infantry and moved his men to intercept, probably hoping to slow them, to buy the main body some time. Arrows flew, but Jagdish’s infantry was prepared for that and held up their round shields, each man protecting both himself and the brother to his left. Arrowheads bounced off steel instead of piercing flesh. Not a single man broke formation. As Jagdish had spent the last year constantly barking at them, discipline wins battles.
The infantry kept marching on.
Jagdish saw an opportunity open. “Turn, turn,” he urged his distant risalders, not that they could hear him from hundreds of yards away, but fate must have carried his wishful words over to them on the wind—or far more likely Risalder Joshi was a clever lad and had seen the same thing Jagdish had—because his paltan suddenly shifted to the right and launched themselves forward at a run. The brave Sarnobat horsemen who’d tried to stall for time were now pinched between Joshi’s infantry and Fourth paltan coming up from the south on horseback. It was a glorious thing, seeing officers he’d taught rise to their full brilliant potential.
The three groups collided. Trapped between thrusting spears and a sudden hail of arrows from the horse archers, many Sarnobat warriors fell. Bodies were tossed from rearing horses. Horses were impaled on spears. Joshi’s men were relentless, methodical, moving as one, continually stabbing. Those who tried to flee were swiftly run down, slashed by saber, pierced by arrow, or trampled beneath furious hooves. Fifty of Sarnobat’s finest were wiped from existence, just like that.
And the rest of the enemy saw it happen.
“Push, lads. Break their spirit,” Jagdish whispered, and it took all of his will to stay where he was and not ride into the fray to help his boys. Except that wasn’t his place anymore. He was a commander. There were probably a hundred men out there who could swing a sword nearly as well as he could, but there was only one among them who was obligated to lead. But oh, how difficult that ugly fact was for a warrior proud as Jagdish to accept!
“The wolf’s faltering,” Kutty said. “I think we have them.”
“It’s not over until Daula surrenders,” Jagdish cautioned. “But now that he knows he’s trapped, maybe I should ride over there and see if he’ll face me alone in a duel. He might accept to save face and what’s left of his army. Stopping now would spare lives on both sides.”
Kutty stared at him incredulously. “At times I forget that you’re still young for your rank and possess the iron sack of a demon hunter, because that nayak-style, wishful-thinking foolishness is the dumbest idea I’ve heard in quite a while. Daula’s equally likely to have his archers stick arrows in your face…sir.”
Jagdish laughed. “Allow your commander his dreams, Kutty. It hurts me to watch from the shade and do nothing.”
“Me too, but don’t forget it’s our jobs to get the youngsters ready to fight. Us veterans have already had our chance for glory, and you’ve claimed more than your share.”
That he had. “You’re right…but if I see a gap out there in need of filling, danger be damned, I’m joining in.”
“And that’s why the men love you, Jagdish.”
A messenger rode along the tree line shouting, “Phontho Jagdish! Phontho Jagdish!” Warriors pointed him in the right direction.
“Over here!”
It was one of Gotama’s men, and from the froth on his horse, he’d been riding hard. He snapped a salute when he spotted the starred turban that marked Jagdish’s rank. “The army of Gotama has caught the enemy on the other side of the river trying to push through. We’ve got them pinned on the banks with our archers above killing them as they try to ford across. They’re in disarray.”
Jagdish grinned, for he’d had faith in that wily old fox. Gotama was as sharp a commander as his daughter was a courtier. “That’s excellent news.” But from the stricken look on the messenger’s face, he knew there was something else. “What?”
“There’s one among them we think might be the bearer of their black sword.”
“Have you seen this weapon?” Mukunda snapped.
“Some of the men are saying they did. All we know for sure is one among the Sarnobat fought as a demon, carving his way through several of us. We killed his horses and most of his men. The rest dove off the bank and waded across to this side of the river just a few minutes ago. We lost sight of them after that.”
“If it is the bearer, he could be trying to reach his imperiled commander,” Kutty suggested. “We’re winning, but a black sword could still turn this fight in Sarnobat’s favor.”
“Where are they?” Jagdish demanded. “And how many?”
“They crossed by Ban Sagar Pond. Ten, maybe twelve of them survived.”
Jagdish looked to one of his bodyguards, Zaheer, who had been stationed here before, and thus knew this part of the border well. “That’s not far, Jagdish. If they’re on foot we can intercept them.”
Excited, the wizard Mukunda turned in his saddle to shout at the other four wizards who were waiting to unleash their mayhem. “This is it! We will claim this magic for the glory of Vadal!”
There was nothing else Jagdish could do as a commander now, but perhaps there was something he could still do as a swordsman. Only the most desperate of fools would challenge a bearer for a chance to take up an ancestor blade, and Jagdish was no fool, but orders were orders. Harta Vadal had commanded Jagdish to push this illegal war in the hopes it would draw out Sarnobat’s ancestor blade, so Vadal could take it. Even if Mukunda’s wizards struck down the bearer from a distance, someone from Vadal would still have to try and pick up that blade to claim it for their house, and any it found unworthy, it would force them to cut themselves. And there was no such thing as a shallow wound when it came to black steel. Jagdish would order no man to take such a risk, for what kind of commander would he be, if he would not volunteer himself first for such a test?
Also, not that he would ever say such a thing in front of his warriors, to this day Jagdish still wondered what would have happened if he had tried to claim Angruvadal from Ashok back when he’d had the chance…Honestly, he probably would’ve died poorly in that duel, but surely Sarnobat’s bearer could be no Ashok!
Old Kutty must have understood what Jagdish was thinking and known there’d be no swaying him from it. “I can handle things from here for now, Phontho, but please do return quickly. I’d rather not be the one getting blamed if things go wrong.”
Jagdish ordered his bodyguard to show him the way.
This was no bearer.
The lead Sarnobat warrior was fearsome looking indeed, but having seen the real thing in action, disappointed Jagdish knew that was no ancestor blade in his hand. The steel was darkened, but it was from some manner of protective coating, probably of oil and soot. Only someone who’d never seen the eye-searing blackness of a true ancestor blade would mistake this mere metal weapon for one of those terrifying things.
The enemy were at least a dozen in number, pushing through the tall reeds along the riverbank, trying to make their way toward the sounds of battle in the distance.
Ancestor blade or not, Mukunda had been unleashed, and he didn’t hesitate to use his magic to cover all those men in fire. The reeds ignited and burst in the sudden magical heat. Warriors screamed as fur, cloth, and hair burned. Those who panicked died flailing. The smarter ones threw themselves into the mud or back into the river shallows. “Burn, Sarnobat dogs! Burn!”
“Save your demon, Mukunda. There’s no ancestor blade here.” Jagdish waited until the eager wizards indicated that they understood and would stay here and not do anything ridiculous—he had little faith in wizards’ tricks and even less in their judgment—then he and his bodyguards continued riding toward the now scorched and scattered enemy. The ground was soft along the banks and their steeds began to stumble, so Jagdish ordered his men to dismount. They drew their blades and walked forward, lingering just long enough to let most of the flames die down first. No use in getting their uniforms singed.
The Sarnobat warriors came out of the mud swinging, but they’d been badly rattled by the wizards’ attack. Jagdish’s personal guard were all superb combatants, and they rushed ahead to protect their master. Though the two groups were nearly even in number, the way the Sarnobat raiders had been staggered meant that each of the enemy ended up throwing themselves individually against two or three of Jagdish’s men. Even if they’d been equals in capability, it wouldn’t have mattered the way his Vadal soldiers worked together. As one intercepted an attack, his brothers would flank, stabbing and slashing, and another man of Sarnobat would fall. A kidney was pierced. The tendons of a leg were severed. A skull was smashed open by a mace.
By the time the enemy leader with the darkened sword came splashing his way back from the river, roaring at his men to fall back toward him, it was already too late. This skirmish had been won before it had even really started.
“Surrender and live or fight and die,” Jagdish said. “Decide quickly. I’ve got a battle to see to.”
All but one of the survivors dropped their weapons and raised their empty hands. Only the lead raider kept on climbing up the bank, cursing his men as cowards. He was extremely tall, corded with muscle, covered in scars, and he still had his sword in hand. There was no indication there was any quit in this one. Jagish could respect that.
“Fight me, Vadal!”
Command obligation be damned, Jagdish’s blood was up. “Secure these prisoners and then back off, lads. This one’s mine.”
Reluctantly, his bodyguards did as they were told. It wasn’t that they didn’t have confidence in their phontho’s abilities, for Jagdish had beaten every single one of them in their sparring sessions, but if their charge died under their watch, it would bring great shame to their names. Jagdish understood that worry well, having once lost a Thakoor himself, but he’d come here to fight a duel, and he wasn’t leaving without one.
When the big raider saw Jagdish standing there waiting for him, he pushed his way through the smoking reeds and roared, “Fight me, coward!”
Jagdish lifted his sword in response. “What else do you think I’m intending to do here, imbecile?”
That wasn’t the proper legal challenge to begin a duel, but it would have to do.
The raider came at him without hesitation in what looked like a careless manic charge. Jagdish prepared to sidestep and send him to the great nothing. Only the raider slid to a stop a few feet away, and feinted, before thrusting for the chest. Jagdish narrowly avoided that, then barely managed to block the follow-up swing. The shock of the impact told Jagdish that this man was extremely strong. With a flick of the wrist Jagdish slashed for the eyes, but the raider slipped back and ducked away.
The next thrust came from below, remarkably swift. Jagdish parried the soot-darkened sword away and moved back, appraising his foe with new eyes. This warrior had the appearance of a brute, but his sword form was excellent. “Seems I’ve got an actual challenge for once.”
“The last one you’ll ever face, Vadal swine.”
The raider leapt at him, stabbing for Jagdish’s stomach. He caught the enemy’s blade with his own and shoved it aside at the last instant, then swung around low, trying to clip him in the side, except his foe was far too fast and managed to dance away. Jagdish kept after him, constantly striking, pushing the raider back, hoping to trip him up along the soft mud of the bank, but the Sarnobat raider was as clever as he was fast, and rather than slipping, he used his momentum to slide to the side before jumping back onto firm ground and soft grass.
Twenty feet from where they’d begun, they parted and circled as a cloud of biting flies rose up around them.
“You’re very good.”
“You’re no slouch yourself, for dung-eating Vadal trash, but you really should’ve had your wizard cook me when he had the chance. I’m more than a match for you.”
The raider sounded so confident that Jagdish was worried one of his bodyguards might grow worried for him and preemptively put an arrow into the man. “This is my fight, Zaheer!” Jagdish didn’t risk looking back their way even for a heartbeat, but he’d just have to trust upon their honor not to interfere.
The raider shifted his stance, changing the angle of his waiting blade slightly. Something about that simple movement reminded Jagdish of his time spent sparring against Ashok Vadal in Cold Stream Prison.
“I recognize that form.”
“Doubtful,” the cocky raider snapped. “It’s a rare school, fiercer than anything taught in your pampered house.”
“It’s the traditional style of Vassal House Memon, learned by a sword master named Ratul, who taught it to Ashok Vadal, who showed me how to defeat it.” Jagdish changed his stance to mirror his opponent’s. “I will demonstrate.”
The raider blinked several times, confused, then frowned. “Wait—”
Except by the time that word was uttered Jagdish’s attack had already been launched. He went high and slashed downward, bypassing the raider’s guard. Sadly, he clipped the bands of armor atop the shoulder instead of the flesh of the neck as he’d hoped. That powerful blow made the raider stumble, and Jagdish relentlessly followed, striking high again, then low, and each time he was met and countered, Jagdish rapidly struck again.
Somehow the raider survived that onslaught uncut, and they parted, both of them breathing hard, but neither was bleeding. Yet.
“Stay your hand, Vadal. We must talk.”
“Oh, now you want to surrender? I’ll not be barked at by a wolf of Sarnobat about mercy. You bastards once tried to burn my house down while my daughter was inside it. Die with some dignity, man.”
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to do! You know of Keeper Ratul?”
“Keeper?” The only Keeper Jagdish had met was Keta. The rebellion’s priest had called himself the Keeper of Names. “That’s a title from a criminal’s church, but Protector Ratul taught the man who taught me.”
“You mean Ashok? So you claim to have met the Forgotten’s holy warrior?”
Another fanatic’s title. “Met him? Ashok and I rode together in the Sons of the Black Sword.” It was rare that he bragged about his association with the most hated man in Vadal among his own people, but that time was still a matter of great pride for Jagdish, for they had accomplished the impossible together. “Ashok Vadal was my friend.”
“Cursed whore of fish stink, you’re the one I’m supposed to find? Hell’s oceans piss in my eyes! The gods have sent me to save the life of a Vadal man?” The raider tossed his sword on the ground, then spread his arms so that Jagish could easily stab him in the heart if he wanted to. “Forgotten, just slay me now and spare me this shame!”
“Have you lost your damned mind?”
“No, but apparently the gods have!”
Jagdish was very glad there were no Inquisitors among them because that kind of illegal religious talk had complicated his life before. Why did fate see fit to keep introducing him to secret fanatics? The last time he’d ended up leading a paltan of them. “What’re you going on about?”
When neither Jagdish nor the gods saw fit to strike him down, the mad warrior sighed, as if resigned to his fate. “Mother Dawn commanded me to cross this river, because I’d find the man I’m supposed to defend with my life on the other side today. I’d know him because he was an ally of Ashok and the Keeper of Names. The sacred heavenly messenger never warned me that the man I’m supposed to save would be a Vadal pig-dog!” He shook his fist at the sky. “Why must the gods test my faith?”
Many of the Sons of the Black Sword had spoken of their encounters with Mother Dawn, and how that strange woman had gathered them together and sent them to join with the rebels.
Very much doubting this was some clever trick for the warrior to distract and murder him, Jagdish glanced back at his bodyguards to make sure they weren’t close enough to hear what he was about to say. Since the enemy had clearly thrown down his sword and given up, Zaheer and the others were approaching. They were good lads: Jagdish didn’t want to implicate them in any illegal religious zealotry. So he closed with the warrior, shoved him to his knees, and placed his sword against his throat, before whispering, “Mother Dawn sent you for me?”
“Unfortunately. The gods are cruel and my life must be a joke to them, or they must enjoy watching me suffer. She told me that my new master would be a great warrior, but not a believer. Except the gods needed me to keep him alive because he still has a part to play in fulfilling their will. So I rushed here fast as I could, thinking I’d be saving some great warrior of Sarnobat, perhaps even Phontho Daula himself, not”—he looked at Jagdish, disgusted—“this.”
“Oceans.” Jagdish was tempted to just slit the religious fanatic’s throat to spare him this complication, but he had too much respect for the Sons he’d commanded who’d believed this same kind of nonsense about mysterious women dispensing prophecies to do so. “Not this again.”
“Also, I’m supposed to tell you that a black sword isn’t the answer to your problems. Only aiding the gods’ chosen will do that.” The madman looked up at him defiantly, then thumped his fist against his chest. “I am Najmul Memon dar Sarnobat, master of every weapon, the fiercest combatant among all the wolves for ten years, secret worshipper of the Forgotten for five, and by the gods’ holy will I pledge my life to you…whatever your name is.”
“Jagdish.”
“Then I will serve Jagdish!”
“Great.” His men and the wizards were close enough to hear the conversation now, and the last thing Jagdish needed was any of them reporting this religious nonsense back to an Inquisitor. So Jagdish slammed the pommel of his sword against Najmul’s head, laying the fanatic out cold in the dirt.
Zaheer joined him. “I honestly thought he had you there, Phontho, then it was as if he just gave up. Want me to kill him for you?”
“No. Tie him up and put him with the other prisoners to be ransomed.” Then Jagdish recalled Keta’s tendency to tell wild tales of gods and heroes to stir up a mob wherever they’d gone. He certainly didn’t want someone reminding everyone of his previous brushes with forbidden religiosity. “On second thought, have him chained and isolated. I want to interrogate him myself.”