The Last of the Etela, Chapter 5

The Pohyor arrive in force. The warlord makes a decision that his second-in-command questions, and a simple campaign is suddenly more complicated.

Previously… Kareva killed three northerners, then sent Turan to use their bodies as bait for the army they came from. The Hodrir abandoned their fortress and set themselves up in the desert at their defensive position of choice, and are waiting for the enemy to join them…

—

—

The first thing Ulegu noticed was the vultures.

He wouldn’t have given them a second thought if he hadn’t also seen the glint of metal on the ground right where they were landing. That piqued his curiosity, and he turned his horse and shouted to scare off the flock. They flew off, cawing resentfully, and he saw what had brought them.

The body had been baking in the desert sun for at least a week. The vultures had taken full advantage of the gaping wound in his abdomen, picking his spine and rib cage practically clean. The flesh underneath the rest of his robes was there in patches; the rest had been eaten or had sloughed off onto the rocky ground underneath him — as had the gaudy jewelry his killers had brazenly left him.

There were about a dozen rings scattered on the ground, along with a few gold chains, but it was the golden medallion directly below the body that confirmed Ulegu’s suspicions—the three spears crossed over each other, bound by the Eternal Ropes, the symbol of their warlord’s proud and ancient family. There could be no question the wearer was Ersev Vrangar’s man. This was the envoy the warlord had sent to subdue the Hodrir.

Ulegu heard one of the vultures’ wings flapping. The big, vicious scavenger touched down a few hundred feet beyond him. Ulegu couldn’t tell what it was perched on, and a gnawing sense of dread pulled him towards the spot. He drew his sword, just in case, and cantered his horse over to the bird, waving his arms to frighten it away again.

The vulture cocked its head, almost quizzically. Why are you bothering us? You don’t belong here. But it did oblige as Ulegu got close enough, joining the rest of its fellows in the air, circling, waiting for the interloper to leave so they could go back to their meal.

It took Ulegu a second to realize he was looking at hand. It was fastened to a stake dug into the hardscrabble. One finger, its rotting flesh torn to the bone in a few places, was pointing further down the path.

Ulegu instinctively pulled on the reins to point his horse in that direction—but then he paused. What would he find if he followed? Could he be riding into an ambush?

He had yet not found what he’d been ordered to find, either. There had been no sign of the carving of the scorpion in the rocks. To ignore that order and go chasing after whatever this grisly sign portended might cause him trouble with his own people, too. This felt like a decision he should not make himself. His superiors would know what to do next.

Ulegu turned his horse around and went back the way he had come.

—

“It’s him, alright. No one but Stasin would wear this much gold on a mission into the middle of nowhere.”

Four men now stood looking at the body of the envoy. The two oldest of them remained behind by a pace or two, taking in the scene quietly.

The third, who stood a head taller than any of his three companions, had taken a few measured steps forward to examine the jewelry in front of the corpse and to look at the wounds. He shook his head. There wasn’t enough evidence left to tell whether the barbarians had questioned the envoy before they killed him, but it was still abundantly clear that they were using him to send a message.

The youngest one had already moved on to pumping himself up for battle. “They want us to chase them? We’ll fucking chase them. We’ll tear them to pieces. We’ll send a clear signal to the whole region that anyone who dares to attack a man wearing our emblems will—”

“You’re wasting your breath, Oreik. Everyone else in the region is already mine or dead.” The younger man swung his head around, shut up immediately, and snapped to attention. It was impossible to mistake the resemblance between him and the man who had silenced him—they shared the same jawline, the same nose, the same eyes. But where Oreik and his father, the Khogon of Khogons, differed most was also impossible to mistake.

Ersev Vrangar turned his eyes to the huge brute standing closest to the body. “Miruz.”

“Yes, Mightiness?”

“How long has he been dead?”

“I can’t be completely sure, Mightiness. The vultures picked him pretty clean. But it’s been long enough that the barbarians have had time to do whatever they’re planning to do.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

The man next to the warlord had been quiet since Ulegu pointed out the rock where he had discovered Stasin’s remains. Ersev looked back toward him, gesturing to him to continue if he had more to offer.

Oreik couldn’t help himself. “What does that matter? What could they possibly have in store for us that should give us that much pause?”

Regez of Led smiled patronizingly at his master’s son. “Forgive me, princeling. Remind me, how many battles have you commanded against these barbarians?”

Oreik stepped forward aggressively. “You condescending prick. They’re no match for us, and I intend to prove it. Father, let me have this command. I’d love nothing more than to show this worried old man what’s what!”

Miruz, from behind Oreik, cocked an eyebrow at Regez. That had escalated quickly, hadn’t it?

“Silence.” The warlord was in Oreik’s face with surprising speed. “Regez is my closest counselor—and your superior officer. You will show him the proper respect. You will listen to whatever he has to teach you, and you will be grateful for the lesson.” He turned back to his advisor. “You were saying?”

Regez nodded. “Mightiness, the man who told me where to find this tribe told me that, if it came to war, they would likely try to keep the women and children hidden in their secret fortress and have the men lead us a dance. Either they’ll make us chase them around the desert until our supplies run out, or they’ll fight us in a place where they can defend themselves. If I were in their place, I’d try to delay and stretch our supply lines, but my informant says we should expect a battle. I imagine the hand is pointing to where they want us to fight them.”

Ersev narrowed his eyes, thinking. “But they know we know where to find their fortress.”

“Perhaps they did what they did,” Regez mused, tilting his head towards the grotesquery on the rock, “to try to make you lose your temper and distract you from looking for their fortress?”

Miruz stifled a chuckle, and Ersev smirked. “As beloved as dear Stasin was, we will all have to find a way to put our terrible grief aside for the moment and think clearly. Oreik?”

“Yes, father?”

“Have you learned anything from this conversation?”

“Yes, father,” responded Oreik, a bit too quickly.

Regez tried and failed to avoid rolling his eyes. Ersev smiled thinly. “Alright. You will lead our forces to wherever these barbarians are waiting for us.”

Regez’s head whipped around. “Wh—Mightiness, are you certain?”

Ersev nodded. “This is the last tribe that we need to pacify in this region, and then who knows how long it will be before there’s another battle to fight. He needs to be seasoned.”

Regez leaned in closer to Ersev. “Mightiness, please. We’re far from home, and we don’t know where they are, and he is not ready.”

Ersev did not so much as turn his head to respond. “Enough. Oreik, go back to camp and get the men ready to march.” Oreik took a step or two into his adversary’s personal space, grinning like a hyena, before making his way back to the horses. Ersev raised his voice slightly. “Miruz, you’ll go with him to advise.” The big man nodded and hurried to catch up to the warlord’s son.

Regez and Ersev remained behind. The two stayed silent until the others were out of earshot. Ersev tilted his head to one side as he turned towards his oldest friend. “Come on, Re’z, you know better than to push a disagreement with me that far in public. Even just in front of your protégé and my son. It is not done. I know you have misgivings about Oreik, but if he is going to lead this horde one day, he will need to learn the responsibility of command, and he’ll need to start building his reputation.”

Regez did not back down. “He already has one, Sev. You and I both know his talents are better suited to chasing down their women and children, like the last few—”

“That’s enough. If you were anyone else, I’d have your tongue out or your throat cut.” Ersev paused to get control of himself. “He is my son, damn you. You have to show him a little more respect. To help you remember your place, I am leaving their women and children to you.”

Regez breathed in sharply, stunned and insulted, but held his tongue and nodded curtly.

Ersev went on. “You will take five hundred men—in fact, you’ll take my son’s men.”

Regez gritted his teeth. Oreik’s retainers were mostly local men plucked from Toskalne and Ikune or anywhere else Oreik had visited a tavern in the past few years. They were not Pohyor tribesmen. In fact, they weren’t trained warriors, and they didn’t seem to be particularly good at anything but drinking and hurting people who were physically weaker than them. They were the men who usually went out on missions like this, of course.

“Yes, Mightiness.”

“Find the scorpion carving you were told about, follow the path to their fortress, and kill everyone you find. If they’ve gone, follow their trail and kill them wherever you find them. Leave no one alive. On this, my son and I agree: we will answer the murder of our representative with their complete extinction. A message must be sent.”

“Yes, Mightiness.”

Ersev patted his advisor on the shoulder. “Alright. And we’ll figure out how to calm everything down between you and Oreik when you return. There is much he still has to learn, admittedly, and there’s no one I’d rather have than you by my side to help me teach him, my friend.”

Regez sighed and bowed his head. “Yes, Mightiness.”

—

Regez’s source had said the scorpion carving at the foot of the rock wall was so subtle it would have been impossible to stumble upon if you weren’t actively looking for it, and they’d been actively looking for it for the best part of two days before Ulegu sent a messenger to tell the First Sword that they’d found it.

Regez spent most of that time in his tent, trying to calm himself and get ready to do his master’s bidding. The bulk of the horde was traveling through the rest of this accursed rock formation, looking for the next bloody breadcrumb their foes had left for them. His tribe had an actual chieftain, his cousin Oruz, and the company of warriors he usually led were guarding the warlord himself, and under his personal command.

And the men he was leading on this mission had quickly proven themselves, to a man, to be irredeemable pieces of shit. In fact, Oreik’s collection of drunks, blowhards, and cutthroats were even worse than Regez had expected them to be from a distance.

They were already past the point of gloating at the prospect of easy kills and spoils after only a single afternoon of milling around looking for a clue in the rock. Without their ringleader around, they were bored, sulky, and completely unhelpful. Regez would usually have relished an opportunity to make an example out of one of them, but no single one stood out in their terribleness—and given the tension between him and Oreik, beating one or two (or, in a perfect world, every last one) of the princeling’s flunkies to death probably wasn’t the best course of action right now.

They were watching him right now as he passed, smirking at him. The little shit must have told them all about how Regez ended up here—or at least some version of it that he thought made him look impressive.

Regez made a point not even to look their way as he strode purposefully along behind the runner they’d sent to find him.

Ulegu was crouching at the foot of one of the boulders on the south side of the pass. “This has to be it, my Lord.” He pointed to a carving in the rock about six inches off the ground.

Regez saw it immediately. It was the tail, long and pointed and held aloft above the rest of the creature, that was unmistakable. He peered around the corner. The crevice seemed to narrow as he peered farther down the path. He took a few steps past Ulegu into the rocky corridor and saw what he was looking for: the rock wall opened into a cave.

This was it, alright. And now the ugliness would begin in earnest. He turned back around and walked back to the main path.

“What are your orders, Lord?” The man who’d brought him to see Ulegu was standing next to the tracker. Neither of them seemed particularly excited to explore any distance off the beaten path.

“Get everyone together and get torches lit. There’s a passage underneath the mountain. We’re going through.”

—

A dozen miles further down the trail, Oreik was excitedly looking at a different type of carving.

“It’s another hand, Miruz! We’re on their trail. What in God’s name is keeping everyone back there? You take their horses away and suddenly they’re slow as fucking tree sap…”

Miruz kept his thoughts to himself. The last day and a half had taught him exactly how useful it was to try to ‘advise’ the warlord’s son. He’d always known what Oreik was, but it was always funny before—probably because it had never really mattered before.

But five minutes ago he’d found it necessary to quietly countermand yet another order to keep advancing down the trail, in order for the horde not to get too far ahead of their supply of food and water. It was the fourth time today he’d had to give the rest of the commanders permission to ignore that exact same order. More disturbing than Oreik continuing to demand that they speed up was the fact that it had yet to even occur to him that someone might be slowing them down against his wishes.

Not that anyone would have needed to: the men were clearly not enjoying themselves on this horrible rocky path. Pohyor were horsemen by nature. That meant more than simply preferring to ride rather than to march: separating the Pohyor from their horses (who were presently being herded back the way they had came, to the entrance of the mountain pass, to graze and be kept safe) was a surefire way to make these men worry. Men worrying about their horses would be distracted, and they would fight poorly.

On top of that, they were hot and tired from marching in full gear through the desert, and their food and water were farther behind them than they were used to or comfortable with…

Suffice it to say, Miruz no longer found the warlord’s idiot son amusing. Regez had been right, of course. Regez was usually right. And the fact that the warlord had been willing to discipline him for voicing his concerns was worrisome.

The rest of the chieftains would not take kindly to their men being led by a fool, and Ersev knew it. What was he thinking? It wasn’t worth asking out loud, obviously; the warlord would be more likely to kill the man who asked that question than to answer it. But it felt like Ersev was leaving himself open for no reason. And against a desperate enemy on his own chosen ground, this fight could get very bad, numbers be damned.

Miruz found himself idly wondering how easy it would be to goad Oreik into leading from the front on the first charge.

—

Regez walked towards the dim light coming from the other end of the cavern. Behind them, the rest of the trackers were filling skins with water from the pool they’d just found after a long night of stumbling around through the tunnels that led under this mountain.

Ulegu had been looking for more scorpion carvings the whole time but had yet to find one. It occurred to Regez that there probably would not be one: after that one carving to signal the tunnel’s entrance, the inhabitants would have no reason to mark the inside. No one who wasn’t already very familiar with this maze should be easily able to find his way through. Another line of defense.

“Over here, Lord!”

Ulegu was standing under the stars. In front of him loomed a dark stone structure that had to be the Hodrir fortress. Regez felt a thrill pass through him as he walked out to join his scout.

“You did well.”

Ulegu gestured towards the fortress—more specifically, towards the wide open gate. “Don’t think they’re here, Lord.”

“We’ll have to go in and make sure.”

The inside of the fortress was deathly silent. Regez directed some of the soldiers to wait outside, while the rest explored in groups of three or four. He himself strode to the door of the largest building within the fortress, flanked by Oreik’s two biggest, strongest men-at-arms.

The door to the hall swung open with ease.

The flunky on Regez’s left snorted derisively; nothing of value appeared to be left inside. Regez stifled the urge to rebuke him and walked to the back of the room, coming to a stop in front of the massive stone chair rising out of the fortress’ stone floor. He brought his torch in closer to get a better look at the details chiseled into the wall behind it.

The carvings were an orgy of death and battle, eerily perfect renderings of the warriors of the south destroying each other (and outsiders, probably) amid the mountains and deserts of this horrible place. The central panel showed an important man being sacrificed: he seemed to be bleeding from countless wounds from the two men standing to either side of him, but he was still standing upright. Behind him a woman, clearly a goddess, standing twice as tall as any of the warriors, looked down at them all, watching the proceedings. Behind them was flat, empty desert—and in the next panel suddenly stood a massive rock formation where the goddess had just been. Some chieftain or warlord had given his life to the gods in exchange for this fortress.

Regez was suddenly very uncomfortable. He took an involuntary step backward.

“Just a chair, Lord Commander,” came a chuckle from behind him. One of Oreik’s favorite oafs—Regez was making a point not to remember any of their names—had been watching him the whole time. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much.” He was carrying a big, heavy axe, and before Regez could think to warn him that the whole structure was made of stone and not wood, he was swinging his axe at the central panel. The head of the axe broke off, clanging to the floor and leaving the big man holding the haft and cursing, shaking one of his ringing hands.

Regez was too uneasy even to fully register and enjoy this idiot’s discomfort. What if these southern gods were real, and loved the Hodrir enough (and were powerful enough) to make them a gift of this fortress? What if their blood had truly made this place, mixing with the desert sand to create these stones? What evil would befall those who went after their women and children?

Maybe they’d already gotten too far away to be found. Maybe their gods could hide them, and he wouldn’t have to do what he had come here to do.

Probably not. But he could hope…

“Lord?”

He whirled around. Ulegu stood at the door to the hall.

“What is it?”

“A trail. Two trails, actually. One leading towards that odd-looking mountain to the east—and one out into the desert in the opposite direction. Maybe ten days old.”

Regez sighed. “Alright. Let’s go get them.”

—

The last signpost before the end of the Pass had already fallen apart: the bones of a human foot were scattered beneath its former resting place: a full-length spear, easily nine feet long and maybe more—another detail that Miruz made note of that he was sure Oreik had completely missed. A weapon like that would be lethal in the right hands, and on the right ground. If the Hodrir had enough of them, they could hold up an advance on foot for as long as they had the stamina to carry them.

There was only so much time to ponder that thought before it was utterly erased by the view in front of him: sand, everywhere, with one dark red lump off in the distance that could be some sort of fortified hill a mile or two out into the desert…or something much larger, farther away…

Oreik nodded when he saw it, utterly self-satisfied. “That’s where we’re going, boys.” Miruz looked back at him, doing everything he could to keep his face from betraying his disgust. The boy hadn’t asked a single question the entire march. He hadn’t sent out the few horsemen he still had to scout the area, or done any of the other small, simple things he could do to get extra information. He was sure they would win simply based on their numbers; that was enough for him.

Miruz was sure they would win, too, but he’d drawn starkly different lessons from their spring and summer spent smashing tribe after tribe in this region. Even outnumbered by ten or fifteen to one and with no effective way of using the terrain to defend themselves from the Pohyor’s unstoppable cavalry charges, the Etela had shown no fear. None at all. They had stood their ground with pride and taken many good men with them into death—more than they should have, based on all the other odds stacked against them.

Respect your enemy, and you won’t ever be completely surprised by him. That was the first thing Regez of Led ever taught him. Miruz had been nobody: a huge, vicious mauler from the gutters of Toskalne, with no discipline and no future, about to be executed for his part in a tavern brawl that had left seven members of the new Pohyor garrison dead (Miruz had gloated to the officers interrogating him that he’d killed three or four of them himself). Regez had invoked Ersev’s name to pull Miruz from the chopping block, sworn him to Ersev’s personal service, and taught him sword skill. And respect. Respect had been harder and more painful to learn. Respect was what separated him from being just like the warlord’s son—blissfully, gleefully ignorant, racing headlong towards whatever surprises waited for them on the way up that hideous-looking mountain, never giving a second thought to what it might cost the men he commanded.

They were still a few miles away when the sun went down, and Oreik was pouting as he gave the order to stop for the night.

—

“That’s a lot of fires.”

“We knew as much.”

“It’s just impressive to see them all.”

“True.”

Kareva and Alakuz were standing on the cliff overlooking the one viable path up the mountain. From their vantage point they could see the entire enemy force—thousands of warriors around thousands of small fires.

“They must have brought their own wood.”

“None of it will burn for long. They’ll be hungry and cold tonight.”

“I can’t believe they all chased us here. I mean, I can. Here they are. But remind me to congratulate Turan.”

Alakuz smiled. The newest of their captains had indeed done his job as well as could be expected. “Yes, Oproz.”

“Good. So. We put the archers here.”

“Where they’ll have no trouble hitting the target.”

“And we put our shield wall right at the entrance to the plateau.”

“Yes. You see how the path narrows naturally for a few hundred paces? It’ll force the attackers to keep their formations tight. I have instructed Harila to have his archers fire into the backs of their ranks as they approach. After a few minutes, the enemy will have to clamber over their own fellows’ corpses on their way up.”

“And we rotate the warbands out to let them eat and rest.”

“Exactly.”

“And there’s no other way to reach the plateau?”

“Not unless the enemy can fly. Or happen to have a few ladders lying around that are hundreds of feet tall.”

“The cliffside can’t be climbed?”

“I can think of maybe three of our people who could do it unencumbered. But carrying armor and weapons, or even enough rope to drop down from the summit? That would require the kind of warrior I hope never to face. And they’d need enough of those men to make a proper shield wall up here—and they’d have to have enough strength left to fight us, even after making the climb. If they can do all that, no army in the world stands a chance against them. And either way, it’s not a big enough risk to be worth spreading ourselves too thin.”

“Fair enough. We’ll leave it alone. And where are we on supplies?”

“Everything looks alright. If they were to try to starve us out, rather than come up to meet us, we’d still have enough food and water to feed everyone for at least another week and a half.”

“Good. That ought to give your man Kulava more than enough time to get the women and children to Makan Alabar.”

Alakuz nodded. “Our people will survive.”

“In spite of me. In spite of what I did.”

Alakuz turned towards his chieftain. “I think you know it’s more complicated than that. Yes, you put them in danger, but that envoy forced your hand, and so did your father. A more generous perspective might be that you killed a man that honor demanded you must kill, then gave away your life and your inheritance to protect those you put in harm’s way…what the hell is that?”

—

“Traitorous piece of shit!” Antaz ul-Edren wiped at his mouth to check if the punch he’d taken had drawn any blood. He got to his feet and threw himself at the pehtu who’d hit him. He tackled the bastard into a crowd of his fellow T'kar-Kulta, who’d heard the whole exchange and immediately jumped in.

Instantly, a dozen other pehtur jumped in to try to pull their comrade out of the scrum, shouting their own challenges at the T'kar-Kulta who had picked the fight.

The gold-bladed knife that had started the argument lay on the ground between them, forgotten for the moment, as if it were waiting to fall into the wrong hands and tear the entire army to pieces.

The sound of steel leaving sheath made the brawlers pause for a second and look up: another ten T'kar-Kulta were on the scene now, weapons in hand. The Pehtur fell back to where the rest of their linemates were standing, and suddenly several dozen more swords were out.

This was getting out of control. Antaz saw the dagger next to him on the ground and crouched to grab it, then shuffled backward to join his friends. If these traitors were going to come after his company, they’d pay for it.

Both sides hesitated for an instant, waiting for the other side to take the final, irrevocable step, and suddenly the last three living Daughters of Vei appeared in the gap between them.

Fully armed and dressed in their chain mail, holding two swords apiece rather than shields, the three women took up positions a few feet from each other—close enough to defend each other, but with space to stop anyone from either side of the conflagration from crossing into no-man’s land.

None of them said anything.

It was unclear if anyone had even ordered them into the breach, but Antaz saw the look on their faces and knew that no one was going to challenge them.

Suddenly, the one in the middle broke the silence. “Whoever started this will step forward, unless they are cowards.”

Antaz stepped forward. So did the pehtu who’d hit him. They had no choice. Cowardice was a vile, ugly thing. Worse than any other sin. Worse than disloyalty. Neither of them could accept that stain on their honor.

The Daughter of Vei put her swords down by her sides. “Come with me.” She walked off a few dozen paces towards the edge of the plateau, and Antaz and the pehtu followed her.

Antaz had noticed some dim light coming from the desert before, but hadn’t given it much thought. It got slightly brighter as he approached the ledge, and when he looked down into the desert he saw the source: fires. So many fires. Too many to count. He stood transfixed.

The woman warrior’s voice, louder than before, broke the spell. “Those people down there don’t give a shit what side you were on six years ago. You want to kill each other? Kill each other. Vei will suffer no fools in her hall.”

Antaz looked back behind him and saw the rest of his company and a lot of the pehtur, brawlers and bystanders alike, crowding at the cliff’s edge to get a look at what she wanted to show them. In the cold light of the distant fires, their faces all shared the same expression.

The Daughter of Vei took Antaz’s arm and looked him directly in the eye. “How do you wish to die?”

—

“So what happened, exactly?”

By the time Alakuz and Kareva had gotten to where the shouting was coming from, the conflict was over. They’d arrived to see Sivridi showing the disparate elements of the Hodrir army their collective destiny. Then, everyone had retreated calmly to their corners, and Kareva had seen no point in showing himself and being forced to hand out any punishments that might stir things back up.

Sivridi shrugged. “Something stupid about a dagger. One of the T'kar-Kulta misplaced his signature golden blade for five minutes—”

“Idiot,” snorted Alakuz. “Katuz ul-Uzan would have his ass for that.”

“—and saw one of Metan’s boys wearing one, didn’t know they’d been told to keep their weapons when they’d mustered out of their previous companies, and accused him of theft.”

“And some offense was taken, I guess?” Kareva was staring out over the ledge again.

Sivridi smirked. “You could say that, Oproz. And by the time my sisters and I made it over there, at least fifty swords were out.”

“What a damned mess.” Alakuz shook his head in wonderment, then turned to Sivridi. “It’s a good thing you were there. Thank you. We are fortunate that the Daughters of Vei are among us.”

Sivridi nodded solemnly. “Ohta.”

“So. What the hell do we do now?” asked Kareva. “I separated them from each other to repair the integrity of the warbands, and now they go after each other in battle formation instead of a few at a time. I am out of ideas.” He turned to Alakuz. “What shall I do to fix this?”

It was Sivridi who responded. “Nothing, Oproz.”

“Nothing?”

“It’s already resolved. Unlucky for the northerners, really. If they’d marched a bit slower, gotten here a day later, we might very well have saved them the trouble of fighting us at all. But your warriors will all have seen the enemy by now and know how hopelessly outnumbered we are.” She looked out over the sea of fires, now flickering a bit in the desert wind. “They will remember that they are Hodrir, and they’ll do everything they can to die well.”

—

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