The Grace of Kings (46 page)

This is why King Thufi and Marshal Zyndu made me commander-in-­chief instead of this man.

Roma tried to straighten his back and make his voice as authori­tative as possible. “I'm ordering you to retreat. Your only job is to ferry us back to the Big Island safely.”

Mata unsheathed Na-aroénna and in a single motion lopped off Roma's head. The Doubt-Ender would not tolerate a commander who vacillated and had no heart for battle.

Silence and stillness gradually spread out from where Mata stood like a ripple until everyone on the docks of Toaza Harbor stared at the towering man in wonder.

As they watched, Mata ordered his soldiers to set fire to all the rafts, boats, and ships—including those they had arrived on. Within minutes, the water was a sea of roaring flames.

“All the ships have been burned, and along with them all provisions. There is now no way to retreat. You have only the food that is already in your bellies. If you want to eat, you'll have to kill an Imperial soldier and take his rations from him.”

From his perch atop Réfiroa, Mata lifted his sword high overhead so that all could see the bloody tip. “This is Na-aroénna, the Doubt-Ender. I will not sheathe my sword again until the outcome of this battle is no longer in doubt. We will be victorious today, or we will all die today.”

He turned toward the Imperial army and began to ride. He rode alone, shouting at the top of his lungs.

Ratho was one of the first to start running after him, shouting just like General Mata Zyndu.
All life is a gamble
, wasn't that what Tazu, god of this realm, would say?

A few soldiers began to follow, then a few more, and eventually the trickle became a flood like the tide coming in, and the two thousand that Mata had taken to Wolf's Paw now rushed in a writhing mass to meet the far bigger wave of Imperial soldiers.

Mata Zyndu laughed, and so did his men.

The odds were impossible against them, but so what? There was no need for strategies and tricks now. In their minds, they were already dead, freed from the hope of retreat or rescue. They had nothing to lose.

Ratho Miro rushed at an Imperial soldier and made no attempt to parry or protect himself. He simply
attacked
.

He severed the sword arm of the man even as the other man's sword bit into his shoulder. But in his bloodlust, he felt nothing. Ratho roared, pulled his sword out, and cut another Imperial soldier down.

He knew Daf would think he was foolish, but he also thought that his brother would be proud of him.

I'm fighting just like General Zyndu,
he thought, remembering the time when General Zyndu had flown high over the walls of Zudi and fought until no man from Xana dared to face him. Now he knew just how General Zyndu must have felt, and it was indeed glorious.

They tore into the Imperial ranks like an arrow into flesh. The tip of the arrow was Mata Zyndu himself.

Réfiroa leapt; Mata swung Na-aroénna, and men fell like weeds. Réfiroa dashed and dodged; Mata bashed and crushed, and Goremaw tore into whatever stood in the way. Réfiroa, seized by a battle lust of his own, opened his mouth wide and tore out chunks of flesh from the flood of infantry, shaking the red foam from his mouth. Mata was soon completely covered in crimson gore. Every so often he would have to wipe the blood from his eyes so that he could see again.

More, more, more death!

To the Imperial soldiers, the men of Cocru seemed inhuman. They were oblivious to pain and showed no interest in defending themselves. Every strike from their swords felt as if they put all their strength into it. They did not want to survive, only to kill. How could you fight men like that? The sane could not withstand the insane.

Slowly, the tide began to turn. The Imperial advance slowed, stopped, and then reversed. The two thousand soldiers led by Mata Zyndu were now completely surrounded by the forty thousand Imperial soldiers, but it was as if a python had swallowed a hedgehog who did not know what it meant to die or to give up. The Imperial soldiers began to back up, break ranks, and then flee from the blood-crazed fury in their midst.

The remaining Cocru soldiers standing by the shore seemed to finally wake from the shock of General Roma's death. With a shout, they followed their brothers. The rout was on.

Now that it was clear that the Imperial army was going to lose, Huye Nocano, the Gan commander, rediscovered his rebel heart. He gave the order for his men to join the chase.

“Our Cocru allies need us!”

Now that it was clear that Marshal Marana's promises could not be kept, Owi Ati, the Faça commander, reawakened his hatred for the empire. He gave the order to join the fray and cut off the retreating Imperial forces.

“Faça will strike her blow against the empire!”

Twenty thousand soldiers of the emperor died during the Battle of Wolf's Paw. Twenty thousand more surrendered. Nine times the Imperials tried to rally and make a stand, and nine times Mata Zyndu's berserkers broke through. The battle lasted ten days, though its outcome had been determined on the first.

The Imperial ships could not enter Toaza Harbor, filled with burning ships. They milled about in confusion for a while until it became clear that the battle on land was lost. The armada retreated back up the eastern shore of Wolf's Paw, hoping to regroup near Big Toe.

The airships made attempts to land and rescue some of the senior army officers, but Zyndu's berserkers were always so close on the heels of the fleeing Imperials that such attempts failed time after time. Five airships were even captured as they struggled to lift off, dragged down to the earth by panicked Imperial soldiers hanging on to the gondola and one another's feet like anchor chains made of men.

By the time the armada reached the Imperial camps at Big Toe, it was too late to salvage anything. The young men of Xana who had followed Marana and Namen across the empire, filled with hope and dreams of martial glory, were all either dead or kneeling as prisoners of the rebels.

The Imperial ships, now light and empty, sailed aimlessly into the northern waters. The surviving airships, after dropping a few salvos of tar bombs on the triumphant rebels below—hollow, useless gestures—left Wolf's Paw and followed the armada.

Tanno Namen and Kindo Marana had hoped to enjoy their greatest triumph close up and were thus not aboard the airships.

They regretted that decision now. The rebels surrounded the last detachment of Imperial soldiers, and Namen and Marana looked longingly at the distant silhouettes of fleeing Imperial ships.

Namen thought about Tozy at home on Rui and wondered how the old dog was getting on in the cold weather with his limp.

“Old friend,” Marana said, “it would have been better if I had never come to your house on the shores of Gaing Gulf. Now instead of pruning wolfberry shrubs and sailing your fishing skiff, you will spend your last years as a prisoner. I do not understand why we lost today. . . . I am truly sorry.”

Namen brusquely brushed off Marana's apology. “I spent my life fighting to see Xana exalted above all other Tiro states. To have the chance to serve the empire again in my old age is an honor.

“But we live at the mercy of the gods. The race goes not always to the swift, nor the battle always to the strong. We have fought as well as we were able, and the rest is mere chance.”

“You're kind to lay no blame on me.” Marana looked around and sighed. “We should prepare to surrender. There's no sense in letting more men die needlessly.”

Namen nodded. Then he said, “Marshal, before you give the order to surrender, would you do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“If you get the chance, look in on my old house, and see that Tozy, my hound, is provided for. He likes to have a lamb's tail to chew on once in a while.”

Marana saw the smile on the old warrior's face. He tried to find something to say to delay the moment, but he knew it was too late.

“Thank you for indulging my last bit of vanity. I have never surrendered.”

Namen unsheathed his sword and wiped its sharp edge across his gaunt neck. He fell like a great oak tree. For minutes, his strong heart continued to pump the blood out of his body into a spreading pool around him.

Marana knelt next to the body and mourned until the heart that so loved Xana finally stopped beating.