such appreciation of logistics and so he would have to do his best in absence of quartermasters and caravans.
As dawn broke on the next day, the day when the Mekhani would fall upon Aarisk like a red storm, the scouts were sent out and the rest of the army prepared to break their makeshift camp. Erlaan was eager to get moving and chivvied the shaman-chiefs into action, impressing upon them the closeness of their goal. Aarisk was built upon the shoulder of a mountain at the far end of the pass, perhaps no more than four hours away. The Mekhani had already passed several huts and lodges and farms — abandoned for the moment — which had caused considerable interest and excitement in the desert warriors. They seemed as enthusiastic for the coming attack as their king.
Tasking the shamans to hurry up, Erlaan headed after the front of the column, wanting to be the first to lay eyes on the Nalanorian town that would become his base for attacks into the rest of the empire.
Midmorning, Erlaan guessed it to be around the second or third hour of low watch, a party of scouts returned. They were agitated as they reported their findings to the shaman council. Erlaan intervened to find out what was wrong.
'The town, it is broken,' one of the scouts was saying.
'Broken?' said Erlaan, wondering if he had misheard. 'What do you mean?'
'It is broken, great Orlassai, ruler of the skies,' the scout said again, struggling for the right words. 'It is empty. The walls, they are broken. The fields, they are no more. There is nothing but the dust and the smoke.'
'Smoke? Dust? Make sense!' snapped Erlaan.
'Come with us, great Orlassai, and we shall show you.' The scout pointed to a ridge that curved coldwards, cutting across the arc of the valley floor. 'This way is quickest.'
On foot, the scouts led their king up the slope and, picking their way carefully between the rocks and scrubs, they ventured out onto the narrow ridge. The wind was strong, but Erlaan was grateful that the rain was little more than occasional showers.
Following a well-worn goat track, the party made their way along the ridgeline, at times meandering around great cracks in the rocks, sometimes scrambling across fissures and over patches of loose scree. In places the slope dropped down sheer. Though he was certain his toughened skin and flesh could withstand sword and spear, the king-messiah eyed these cliff faces uneasily, not certain if even he could survive such a drop. The Mekhani were labouring by the time they reached the height of the ridge, though Erlaan's heart barely beat any faster and his breath came easily.
He pulled himself up the last stretch of an escarpment after the others. From here he could see down the length of the pass, and into the hills and plains beyond.
Aarisk sat on the shoulder of the pass entrance as it had always done but it was… broken. The scout had been right. The buildings were half-ruined and burnt, and there were gaping holes in the curtain wall. The streets and houses were blackened with soot, and the gateway was unbarred by gates. Towers had been toppled on to the road that wound up the hillside, and a pall of smoke hung over the mouth of the pass. Through the haze, everything was dark. The hillside pastures were dead. The woods further up the mountains were a swathe of stumps and still-smouldering fires.
Everything had been destroyed.
Erlaan growled and clenched his fists. This was Ullsaard's doing. The people of Aarisk had razed their town rather than let it fall into the hands of the Mekhani. The Askhan king was willing not just to sacrifice Ersua, but to employ a scorched earth policy wherever the Mekhani might advance.
'What has happened, mighty Orlassai?' asked one of the Mekhani. 'What shall we do now?'
Erlaan looked down at the man's red face, eyes wide with doubt and pleading. It sickened the king-messiah. Every decision was his to make. Every detail, every smallest inconvenience, was his to resolve alone. The Mekhani were pathetic. They were like children, looking to him to solve every problem.
With a surge of anger, fuelled by Ullsaard's ruthless approach and the naive bleating of the scout, Erlaan grabbed the man by the throat. His fingers snapped his neck without effort, blood surging through the king- messiah's grip and splashing to the rocky ground. With a snarl, he hurled the corpse away, tossing it easily from the ridge.
The other scouts cowered back, both afraid and adoring, torn between their love and fear of their strange ruler. For a moment, Erlaan held his anger in check. What good would it do to lash out at these poor creatures? It was not their fault that the runes of the Temple made them slaves to the Orlassai's every whim; it was not their fault they were robbed of reason in the presence of their king-messiah.
The moment passed and loathing returned. What good would their deaths serve? They would sate the king's bloodthirst, which denied by Ullsaard's tricks now raged in his veins; that was cause enough.
Erlaan drew his huge sword and stepped towards the scouts, ignoring the shrieks of the terrified men.
Cavrina, Nalanor/okhar border
Spring, 212th year of Askh
I
'You have to admire their persistence,' said Naadlin. The First Captain of the Second shielded his eyes against the morning sun and smiled. 'But I much prefer their stupidity.'
'Don't praise stupidity too much,' replied Ullsaard, walking up from behind the cluster of legion commanders. 'Stupid men don't know when they're beaten and fight on regardless. If this amateur had any idea about strategy, he would have scuttled back to Mekha ten days ago when we nearly had him at Lastuun.'
Harrakil looked unconvinced.
'There are still more than forty thousand of them left,' he said. He looked at his king. 'How far away did you say the Seventh and Twenty-First are?'
'Twenty miles, no more,' said Ullsaard. 'I sent the messengers back telling their commanders not to dawdle. They'll be here mid-Noonwatch at the latest.'
'The Mekhani will get wind of it,' said Aklaan, the commander of the Third. 'They'll attack.'
'Good,' said Ullsaard. He turned and gestured to a nearby orderly to fetch his ailur. 'If they commit, they won't be able to get away again. I want a fight, but that bastard over there is either too canny to fall for my lures, or too stupid to recognise a seemingly obvious opportunity for victory. I guess we'll find out in the next hour or two.'
The Mekhani camp was a sprawling affair, disorganised and poorly defended in comparison to the march forts of the Askhans. For all that, the earth walls and ditches surrounding the disorganised spread of multicoloured tents were enough to give the king second thoughts about attacking. He counted fourteen behemodons at the centre of the camp, and rough revetments housed more than a dozen war engines of crude but lethal design. An assault would be costly, and if Ullsaard could tempt or taunt his foes out from under them, it would be for the better.
His officers' insults aside, the enemy commander had chosen to make his stand in a good spot. The plains stretched for several miles in every direction; the only two rises in sight being the hill on which the Mekhani had made camp and the shallower mound from which the king surveyed his enemy a few miles away. A river, though not wide, curved around the duskward side of the enemy-held hill and cut between the two encampments, and the slopes to coldwards, facing the Askhan army, were strewn with rocks and steep faces. The best approach would be to circle around to duskwards and attack from the other side, and wisely the Mekhani had sited their catapults and huge bows facing duskwards and hotwards to counter such a move.
'Should we send a parley, just in case they want to surrender?' suggested Naadlin.
'Not a fucking chance,' said Ullsaard, his finger rubbing at the scar on his lip from his last attempt to speak terms with the redskinned tribesmen.
'We could send out the kolubrids, launch some fire arrows into those tents. That'll stir them up.' Aklaan seemed excited by his proposal. 'Let a few of the bastards burn.'
