it only needs to be about ten feet tall. Every half mile they put in a larger filled area, maybe a hundred fifty yards to a side, like towers along a wall. They keep the prisoners camped there and use the platforms for materials dumps.”
“I don’t see where you’re going.” “Shifter noticed that they’d stopped extending the levee but they were still stockpiling materials. Then he figured it out. They’re going to dam the river, partially. Just enough to divert water into the flood plain so they can drop the level at the Ghoja ford sooner than we expect.”
I thought about it. It was a cunning bit of business, and entirely practical. The Company had done a trick or two with rivers in its time. All it had to do was give them a day. If they got across unchallenged we were sunk. “The sneaky bastards. Can we get there in time?”
“Maybe. Even probably, considering you didn’t wait to leave Taglios. But at the rate we’re going it’ll be just barely in time and we’ll be worn out From fighting the mud.”
“Have they started damming yet?”
“They start that this morning, Shifter says. It should take them two days to get the fill in and one more to divert enough water.”
“Will it affect Numa?”
“Not for a week. The water will keep dropping there for now. Shifter’s guess is they’ll cross at Numa the day before they do at Ghoja.”
We looked at each other. She saw what I saw. The Shadowmasters had robbed us of what we had in mind for the night before Ghoja. “Damn them!”
“I know. This mud being what it is, I’ll have to leave today to get there in time. I probably won’t get back to Ghoja. Use Sindawe in our place. That town is a waste, anyway.”
“I’ll have to move faster, somehow.”
“Abandon the wagons.”
“But...”
“Leave the engineers and quartermasters behind. Let them make the best time they can. I’ll leave them the elephants. They’re no good to me anyway. Have each man carry a little extra. Whatever is most practical. Even the wagons might get there in time if they skip stopping at Vejagehdya.”
“You’re right. Let’s get at it.” I gathered my people and explained what we were going to do. An hour later I watched Lady and the cavalry file away to the southeast. Mogaba’s grumbling infantrymen, each carrying an extra fifteen pounds, started slogging toward Ghoja.
Even the old warlord carried a load.
I was glad I had had the luck or foresight to send out the bulk of the stuff several days early.
I walked with the rest of them. My horse was carrying two hundred pounds of junk and looking humiliated by the experience. One-Eye grumbled along beside me. He had Frogface out scouting for lines of advance where the earth would least resist our passage.
I kept one eye on Lady. I felt hollow, empty. We’d both come to think of the night before the Ghoja battle as the night. And now that would not be.
I suspected it would never be. There would always be something to stand in the way. Maybe there were gods who frowned on our admitting and consummating what we felt inside.
A pox on them and all their illegitimate children.
Someday, damnit. Someday.
But what then? Then we would have to give up a lot of pretense. Then we’d have to face some things, decide some things, examine the possibilities and implications of some commitments.
I did not spend a lot of time thinking about saving Taglios that day.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Before Ghoja
Take some ground and sog it real good, all the way down to the earth’s core. Bake it under a warm sun a few days. What do you get?
Bugs.
They rose in clouds as I slithered to the crest overlooking the Ghoja ford. The mosquitoes wanted to feed. The smaller guys just wanted to pitch camp in my nose.
The grass had grown since last time. It was two feet tall now. I slid my sword forward and parted it. Mogaba, Sindawe, Ochiba, Goblin, and One-Eye did the same. “Big mob over there,” One-Eye said.
We had known that beforehand. We could smell their campfires. My own troops were eating cold. If those guys over there didn’t know we were here yet, I wasn’t going to yell and let them in on it.
Mob was an operative word. That bunch was undisciplined and disorderly, camped in a sprawl that began at the fortress gate and stretched back south along the road.
“What you think, Mogaba?”
“Unless that’s show to fool us we have a chance. If we keep them that side of the crest.” He inched forward, looked at the ground. “You’re sure you want me on the left?”
“I’m assuming your legion is more ready. Put Ochiba’s on the right up the steeper ground. The natural tendency of an attack would be to push the direction that looks easiest.”
Mogaba grunted.
“If they push either one of you much without pushing the other, they open themselves up to heavier enfilading and quartering fire. If the artillery gets here, I’m going to plant some here and the rest down on that little hump there. Have them going both ways. Long as the hinge holds.” The join between legions would be at the road that split the field. “Should be good hunting for archers and javelins, too.”
Mogaba grumbled, “Plans are mayflies when the steel begins to sing.”
I rolled onto my side, looked at him directly. “Will the Nar stand fast?”
His cheek twitched. He knew what I meant.
Except for the thing on the river, which was a whole different show, Mogaba’s men had seen no real combat. I hadn’t found out till recently. Their ancestors had gotten Gea-Xle and its neighbors so tamed they just had to make noises to keep things in line. These Nar still believed they were the best that ever was, but that had not been proven on a field of blood.
“They will stand,” Mogaba said. “Can they do anything else? If terror turns their spines to water? They have made their brags.”
“Right.” Men will do damnfool things just because they said they would.
What about the rest of my mob? Most were veterans though few had been into this kind of thing. They had handled themselves on the river. But you can’t be sure what a man will do till he does it. I was not sure of myself. I have been in and out of battles all my life, but I have seen old veterans crack.
And I’d never been a general. Never had to make decisions sure to cost lives. Did I have the inner toughness it takes to send men to sure death to achieve greater goals?
I was as new to my role as the greenest Taglian soldier.
Ochiba grunted. I parted the grass.
A dozen men approached the ford on the south side. Well-dressed men. The enemy captains? “One-Eye. Time for Frogface to do a little eavesdropping.”
“Check.” He slithered away.
Goblin gave me a bland look that concealed intense irritation. One-Eye got to keep his toy and he didn’t. I was playing favorites. Children. What difference that that snake had damned near killed me?
Frogface came back.
They were coming in the morning. Early. They expected no resistance. They were gloating about what they were going to do to Taglios.
I had the word spread.
Wasn’t nobody going to get much sleep tonight.
Was my little army overprepared? I saw plenty of the anxiety that comes before the hour of blood, but also
