Servant of the Empire (30 page)

Keyoke showed his teeth in satisfaction, just as Dakhati called for the charge, hurling his company at a run into the astonished and ragged line of attackers. The fresh Acoma reserve pushed the vanguard back, while archers on the Acoma flanks fired upon their Minwanabi counterparts. The air was alive with arrows, thick enough to shadow the sunlight that now beat unmercifully from above; with the enemy unable to fan out past the rocks, their concentrated numbers made them easy targets. Within moments the orange-and-black arrows ceased.

The vigorous assault by the Acoma drove the Minwanabi up the defile, and Keyoke called the next wave of soldiers forward. They rushed to the breached barricade, pulled the dead from the branches and rocks, and threw Minwanabi as well as Acoma corpses into the canyon. Servants stood ready to strip the fallen of armour and arms, saving anything that might be turned to Acoma use. Swords that were not too badly damaged, shields and daggers, an occasional hip bag of food – all were quickly added to the Acoma stores. Other servants scrambled around the area, inspecting arrows in a search for those that hadn’t been broken against the stone walls of the canyon. Acoma archers fired black-and-orange-marked arrows as often as green ones.

The bodies were left naked where they lay while soldiers and servants rushed to restore the barricade. Keyoke mourned inwardly for Dakhati’s reserves, still fighting on the other side; he prayed their deaths would be hard-won
and their pain honourably brief. The sacrifice would lend their fellows the time to restore the broken barricade and inflict more disproportionate damage on the Minwanabi.

Fifty or more Minwanabi casualties lay in the clearing. Keyoke revised his estimate to nearly three hundred enemies dead or critically injured. The sky showed the day half-done and their position no worse – perhaps even stronger – than at first light.

And yet no man knew how many companies the Minwanabi had sent against them.

Keyoke repositioned himself to gain a view over the barricade. If any in Dakhati’s small band were alive to effect a retreat, they would shortly be attempting to return. Keyoke knew his own soldiers were well drilled in the plan, but more than once he had seen battle stress confuse orders. The Acoma Force Commander stayed at hand to restrain any hot heads from attacking their brother soldiers.

They waited under the blistering sun in an airless defile that now stank of sweat, excrement, and death. Sounds of battle echoed off sheer walls of damp rock. Minutes dragged by, and flies swarmed. Keyoke and the other seasoned warriors watched anxiously for the first green Acoma helm to appear on the trail beyond the barricade.

In time, Keyoke accepted what he had expected all along: Dakhati and his company had continued their charge past all chance of retreat. They had no intention of returning. The Strike Leader who led them understood as well as Keyoke that eventually the Minwanabi must prevail. Beyond hearing orders, Dakhati’s little band was simply intent on killing as long and as many as possible before death overtook his company.

Keyoke raised his eyes to heaven and silently wished them a great killing. Putting aside feelings of loss for his own brave warriors or concern for what this defeat would mean for Lady Mara, Keyoke bid three more servants and the
small, nimble water boy to attempt to slip away over the barricade. If Dakhati had driven the enemy far enough up the defile to enable the four to escape into cover in the wood, word might yet reach the estates.

But such hopes were dashed in an instant as a wave of Minwanabi soldiers charged down the mouth of the canyon. The blades of swords still bloodied from dispatching Dakhati’s men took the lives of the four even before they could turn and run. If there was panic, there were no screams; and the water boy died on his feet, facing the enemy with a kitchen knife clutched in his hand.

Turakamu receive such valour kindly, Keyoke prayed, as quietly he accepted his coming death as inevitable. He fingered his battered sword hilt, familiar to him as a brother. What a price his foe would pay!

Sundown came. Gloom fell into colourless twilight, smothered under a descending mantle of mist. Exhausted soldiers trudged from their shifts at the barricade, and stiffly Keyoke limped over to assess their condition. His forces had dwindled. Of the hundred soldiers and fifty servants who had left the Acoma estates, fewer than forty soldiers and twenty servants remained on their feet to serve. Most of the rest were dead, though about a dozen wounded soldiers and a like number of servants were ministered to in a makeshift camp around the pool. The incessant random arrows of the Minwanabi still caused enough damage to keep men on edge. No one could lie down, lest he offer a better target for a descending shaft. A few men attempted to rest under a pair of shields, but the experience encouraged cramping rather than rest. Most warriors simply sat with knees drawn up under chin, shoulders hunched, and heads bowed, as tight against the walls of the canyon as possible.

Night came, and the fighting wore on by the flickering flames of enemy brands. The mist in the defile glowed with
their light, like some twisting fog-tendrilled spirit. The Acoma warriors considered that light, and sharpened their weapons, and if their voices expressed courage through quips, their thoughts were bleak. The fighting would probably not last until the morning, and certainly not to midday. They knew this as well as the Force Commander who tirelessly made his rounds to bolster their spirits.

Hours passed, and men died, and the stars stayed hidden by the mist. Keyoke was crossing the clearing to inspect two men who appeared injured by thrown rocks when something struck him in the right leg like a needra calf’s kick. He staggered and all but dropped to his knees as pain exploded in his right thigh. Two soldiers ran to assist him as he began to collapse from the arrow that protruded from his upper leg. They carried him a short way and gently placed him so he could sit with his back against a relatively sheltered part of the canyon wall.

Fighting off a threatening blackness that circled his vision, Keyoke said, ‘Gods, that hurts.’ He forced himself to look at the shaft that was buried in his thigh. It had struck downward – one of the random shots into the canyon – and he could feel the head scrape the bone. ‘Push it through and cut off the feathers,’ he ordered. ‘Then pull it out.’

The two soldiers exchanged glances, and he had to repeat his order, shouting through clenched teeth that they should pull the accursed shaft free.

The soldiers’ eyes met again, over the dusty plumes of Keyoke’s helm. Neither wished to speak the truth: that to pull the arrow free would likely tear an artery and cause death in a spurting flow of blood.

Keyoke cursed, very clearly. He pulled one gnarled arm from the supporting hold of one warrior and, with a surprisingly steady hand reached out, grasped the arrow, and snapped the arrow. ‘Push it through!’ he demanded.

The shaft that still held the head remained embedded in flesh. The hole bled sullenly, swelling rapidly to purple.

‘That will fester,’ one warrior said gently. ‘It should be cut out, and the wound allowed to drain.’

‘I haven’t time,’ Keyoke said, his voice not as steady as his hand. The agony that cut through him had little to do with pain, which he had known before and endured, as now, when necessary. ‘If the arrow is not removed and the gods-damned head keeps rubbing against my leg bone, I will likely lose consciousness. Most certainly I will not be able to walk and continue commanding our troops.’

The soldiers said nothing, but their unspoken reproach was noticed.

Keyoke reined in his anger. ‘Do you think any one of us will be alive for long enough for me to die of a wound gone bad? Tie off this leg and
push the damn thing through
!’ They reluctantly obeyed. Pain caused Keyoke’s vision to swim, and for a few minutes he lost his sense of time and place. After a few moments of darkness, his wits returned and he found the soldiers binding the wound; the agony in his leg fell off to a dull ache.

Keyoke ordered the warriors to help him to his feet and he stood unsteadily for a few moments. He refused to cut a cane from the brush, but stumped about with half-steps, his thigh throbbing angrily and each bump and jostle of motion a torment. But no man in Acoma green would dispute his authority; he was still in command of his army.

He promoted a particularly bright young soldier, Sezalmel, to acting Strike Leader, only to watch the man die less than an hour later. Reacting in inspired frenzy, Sezalmel had repulsed the largest Minwanabi offensive since sundown, the second near breaching of the barricade. His sortie drove the attackers back, but only in exchange for heavy losses. The Acoma were tiring, while the Minwanabi warriors seemed inexhaustible. Keyoke took no time to promote anyone else. There was no need, with Acoma numbers fallen below that of a small strike force. A second commander would be superfluous.

Keyoke shuffled wearily over to the servants and instructed a distribution of rations. Given the fatalities, there was now enough food for every man to eat as he wished. If the soldiers could not have enjoyed a hot meal, at least they would be restored by a full stomach. Keyoke took a cake and piece of jerked needra. He had no appetite, but he forced himself to chew. The painful throbbing in his right leg and the burning ache of swollen tissue were incessant. In the end, when no one was looking, he spat the tasteless morsels on the ground. He drank when the water skin was passed, and controlled the heave of his stomach. His throat still seemed dry from the cake, and he wondered if he was beginning to get feverish. Then, as always, his thoughts returned to his command.

Keyoke estimated that more than three hundred and fifty Minwanabi had fallen before the barricade throughout the day. The night’s numbers would be fewer, lessening as his soldiers tired. At least fifty enemies had perished after the hour of sundown. His soldiers were killing Mara’s foes at a rate of five to one. Losses were increasing, however, and very soon would become critical as his own forces were cut down until, inevitably, the Minwanabi would win past the barricade and rush through to slay the survivors. Keyoke concluded his review with pride. The Acoma forces had surpassed expectations, and the end might be prolonged until dawn.

Sitting back against the icy damp of the rock wall, Keyoke removed his helm. He scraped back soaked grey hair and reflected that he had never known such fatigue in his life.

The exhaustion brought on a regret: that he should be guilty of an old man’s vanity. He berated himself for not spending more time training Lujan and the other Strike Leaders. He should have insisted all the officers dine with him in the servants’ hall, instead of in the barracks with their own companies, while he took his meal with Lady Mara, or
Nacoya, or Jican. Every chance missed to educate those young soldiers came back to haunt him.

Too late, now, to wish a younger man here in his post. A hot flash of pain from his wound reawakened anger. Cursing himself for a fool, he put aside his sorrow. He refused, at the last, to be a man caught up in black contemplations. A battle continued to be fought, and morbid reflections required effort better spent on the field.

Keyoke propped his wounded leg out before him and was racked by a stab of agony. He made no sound, but only sweated under the weight of his armour. By the gleam thrown off by banked coals, the flesh around the puncture looked red – a deception of light, or inflammation, he had no means to tell – and it throbbed unmercifully. No matter, he thought. A wound was but a way to measure growth for a warrior. Life was pain and pain was life. His circling thoughts drifted as his body attempted to fight off the aches of battle, injury, exhaustion, and age.

He must have dozed, for the next he knew, a soldier was shaking his shoulder, exhorting him to wake. Keyoke blinked gummed eyelids and fought to clear senses that normally came instantly alert. Without thought he attempted to rise, but pain seared the length of his leg and caused him an audible gasp for air. The soldier offered a steadying hand and tried to keep pity from his eyes. ‘Force Commander, we hear armed men approaching in the hills above the canyon!’

Keyoke squinted at the narrow crack of sky above the cliff walls. There were no stars, nor any lessening of darkness to indicate the hour. He had no way to estimate how much time had passed. ‘How long until dawn?’ he asked.

The soldier frowned. ‘Perhaps two hours, Force Commander.’

‘Bank the fire,’ Keyoke snapped. Sure that the enemy had
by now encircled the mountains and flanked his position, he hobbled over to the men who readied themselves for the next assault. A frown marred his forehead. ‘If Irrilandi has sent troops to crush us from the hills, why attack in the darkness?’ he said softly, unaware, through his fever and his pain, that he did his musing aloud.

Then a crack resounded across the clearing. The barricade exploded backward under a wave of orange-and-black-armoured bodies, and Acoma defenders were hurled in all directions. A heavy log burst through with a grind of stones and a tearing of stinking needra flesh. The canyon had been breached by a ram, run by the short defile under cover of darkness, and wielded with devastating effect.

Minwanabi soldiers rushed screaming into the canyon while the Acoma sprang to engage them. Keyoke called to the servants to take cover behind the bulwark of silks. Soldiers fell thrashing in death throes or groaning in mortal pain. The fighting spread into the breached canyon. Bodies draped twitching and crushed between the stones and large branches of the shifted barricade; others writhed, impaled. Some few fumbled to lift swords while they lay with broken legs and backs.