Sarkiades: The Echoes of Resolution
Part 3: The Battle for the Bridge
“What did you find?” Targan asked the shadowy figure making it's way down the steep gully that hid their campsite from view.
“A big pile of stomped up horse shit.” Galtus replied. “No tracks. No sounds. Nothing at all that would suggest that there's a single living soul in that village.”
“They wouldn't just leave a place like this completely undefended, would they?” Quistos asked.
“Yeah I'm sure that's exactly what happened.” Sevetria cut in. “After mustering up a dozen of their best tracking teams and sending them loose in the countryside with orders to capture us regardless of the cost, the Ukni came to this shit little village with the only working bridge for miles and thought 'you know what, fuck it, none of this is worth the effort.'”
While Sarkiades liked to think that he would have phrased his objection more diplomatically, there was no denying that the Minairoi knew what she was talking about. With Galtus' help, their small company had been able to evade the Ukni search teams for days, and in response the enemy had switched tactics: choosing a handful of key choke points along their route and setting up elaborate ambushes instead of spreading their forces out across the countryside. The idea that they wouldn't notice the only bridge over the steep network of crags and canyons separating them from the southern foothills of the Lianin Mountains was as ludicrous as a wolf forgetting to use its teeth.
“So we know that we have to cross that bridge, the enemy knows that we have to cross that bridge, and we know that the enemy have some kind of ambush set up. All we gotta do now is figure out what we're gonna do about it.” Sarkiades said.
“Well, if you were the enemy, what would you do?” Targan asked.
“I'd probably torch the bridge.” Falviun answered. “Force us to abandon our horses, wait until we're far enough down the cliffs that we can't be a threat and then lay down a barrage of arrows from above.”
“What a cunning plan.” Sevetria snapped. “I'm sure the guys who forced half their cavalry to pull their dicks out of their horses asses to stop King Telemeus from discovering their surprise attack are just gonna be jumping up and down for a chance to destroy the only bridge for miles that has even a chance of supporting all that heavy siege equipment they'll need to actually capture Lyst.”
“Well when you put it that way, it raises the question of whether that bridge should be standing at all?” Falviun replied.
“Now there's an idea I can get behind.” Sevetria said.
“We can worry about burning the bridge just as soon as we're on the other side.” Targan said. “Until then, our main concern is figuring out how we're gonna get across.”
“I've come through this town a few times in my work for King Telemeus.” Sarkiades said. “If I remember correctly, the gatehouse on the opposite side of the bridge was built fairly recently, but the one on our side is pretty old, from long before Piristrus took control of the region. If I'm right, then the northern gatehouse should be equipped with all the defenses and murder holes that you usually to see in wartime architecture. If I were planning an ambush, that's where I'd hide.”
“Except for the fact that it's the dead of night. Even if they had an entire garrison's worth of archers stuffed into that tiny gatehouse, dumb luck would be the only thing guiding their arrows. We could just charge across and the odds are pretty high that none of us would get hit.” Sevetria replied.
“So, does the enemy have any tools at their disposal that would allow them to illuminate an area on short notice. An area that happens to already be lined with torches?” Sarkiades asked.
“Oh fuck.” Sevetria replied, a sentiment that slowly spread to the faces of the other crewmen as they recalled how Ukni priests would often use their magic to ignite large banks of torches in their temples and Zuthruhk rituals.
“Let's not get ahead of ourselves here.” Targan said. “The Ka'ina aren't omnipotent. It's true that they can do all kinds of trickery with light and fire, but of all the schools of magic they are perhaps the most dependent on ceremony and preparation. In order for them to be a threat in a real fight, they normally have to inscribe their environment with wards and Zuthruhk runes ahead of the actual engagement. That's why the Ka'in prefer setting elaborate traps and working in small numbers to accompanying Ukni armies into battle, with the exception of certain specialized duties like controlling Onguloch. If our enemy intends to use one of the Dark God's priests to light the torches along the bridge and surprise us with a barrage of arrows when we're halfway across, then there should be some kind of glyph or inscription on each of the lanterns. Galtus, do you think you can-”
“It took him hours to scout out the city the first time around.” Falviun cut it. “If we wait for him to make another trip then the enemy won't even need a Zuthruhk priest to see us coming.”
“Then we'll stagger our arrivals.” Targan said. “We'll give Galtus a bit of a head start and then move out in his wake. If he finds any evidence of wards on the lanterns or activity in the guardhouse, then he'll rush back and we'll just leave. It'll cost us a few days circling around the Lianin foothills but it's better than walking right into an ambush.”
Sarkiades crouched low, guiding the reigns of his horse through the narrow alley and up onto the main avenue. Despite the fact that an ambush lurked around every corner, his thoughts were pulled towards his last trip through this town, whose name he could not even remember, the way that waves are inexorably pulled to shore.
In truth, he had been more embarrassed than anything by the way the townspeople had lined the streets to watch King Telemeus' new ambassador make his way to the capital. He'd just been promoted into the world of diplomacy, and he still hadn't gotten used to all of the pomp and ceremony that came with it. Still, he could not forget the way those village girls came running out with wreathes and garlands, giggling and laughing as they hung them around his neck. At the time, it had seemed absolutely ridiculous to go to such lengths for a man who'd been an ordinary officer the week before. It was only now, when all those layers of formality were shed like the leaves of autumn, when the portents of a winter as bitter as any before covered the land, that he truly understood the significance of any of it.
Sarkiades wondered what had happened to those girls. If fortune was kind (as kind as she can be in times such as these), then they would have fled for Lyst days ago. If by some miracle he was able to survive this, he wondered whether he would pass them in the streets as he made his way to King Telemeus' throne room. He wondered if they would see betrayal in his eyes as he looked down from atop his steed, or whether they would even remember him at all. Maybe it was ridiculous, but he could not help but think that, were he to see them again, they would ask for everything back. Not just the roses and garlands and hand-picked fruits but the naive hope that all those rituals that they dutifully observed and all those the envoys and soldiers filing past their homes on their way to more important postings somehow had the power to keep this nightmare at bay.
Far more likely, he realized, they'd simply fail to recognize each other. If those girls did make it to Lyst, then the price of that journey would have veiled their faces in so much gaunt desperation that he could ride right past them without realizing it. They, for their part, would be far to preoccupied with their own survival to notice one more pompous fool that they'd once been stupid enough to hoist their hopes upon.
Sarkiades was so lost in these thoughts that he didn't notice the rest of the company stopping until Targan grabbed the collar of his robes. Looking out towards the bridge, he could make out a solitary figure creeping along the side of the buildings. He didn't need to see Galtus' face or hear a word from his mouth to know that something wasn't right. He'd watched him sneak out of their camps to hunt or scout a dozen times now, and he was like a buck in the prime of youth: alert to the dangers around him, yet moving with a grace and beauty that belied his true position on the food chain. Now, however, his eyes jerked in every direction as he dashed from cover to cover. Even in the dead of night, with no sound to guide him, Sarkiades could make out the words he was desperately mouthing:
“Run.”
As if in answer, shouts and clomping hooves rang out from behind them. He looked towards the bridge just in time to see the lanterns spring to life one by one, casting the ancient masonry in a foggy, nauseating yellow hue.
“Sarkiades was right!” Galtus said as he sprinted over to them. “Those lanterns were covered in Zuthruhk runes and they must have twenty five archers in that gatehouse, but its worse than that. I was listening in on their conversation. They got half a Kechor of cavalry surrounding us. They're gonna drive us to the bridge.”
“Get off the main avenues.” Targan shouted. “If they're desperate enough to throw that many soldiers at us then they won't hesitate to put this whole town to the torch. We have to find some shelter, somewhere far enough from the main roads for us to regroup and come up with a plan.”
By the time they'd led their horses from the freshly illuminated avenues, the Ukni cavalry had completed their encirclement, and had begun the process of sweeping through the outer perimeter and main thoroughfares. A Kulnarn horse archer rode down the avenue at a gallop, looking down each of the side streets for any hint of movement. The darkness of their alley suddenly seemed much less so, and there was a moment where Sarkiades was sure that the rider's gaze had locked upon him, but he froze as stiff as he could and a second later the man rode past, shouting to his comrades that there was no sign of them.
He felt another tug on his robe, and turned around to see that Galtus had found a narrow path leading the the rear entrance of a small tavern. The company led their horses inside, praying that no noise or sudden motion startled them as they moved through a maze of hastily abandoned chairs and tables.
“Alright, I can admit when I'm wrong.” Sevetria said, turning to Sarkiades. “If you got any schemes to get us out of this flaming coffin then I promise I won't say anything rude about them until we've made it to the other side that bridge.”
“Unfortunately, I can't give you any better odds than my charge through the gully, but if my lucky streak has enough wick left to burn a little longer, then there might be a sliver of hope hidden somewhere underneath all the shit.” Sarkiades said. “There were a couple times back in Lyst when we'd have to do these kind of unexpected, urgent searches. It'd typically happen after some Korvadun infiltrator managed to escape from capture or custody. Now I can't speak for the Ukni, but every time we needed to muster that many soldiers on such short notice, the high command would just put out a call to every company who happened to be stationed nearby. They'd bunch whoever was around into impromptu groups without regard for the usual command hierarchies. It's possible that our enemy are more organized than we ever were, but if I had to guess, after their disaster at the ridge the Gesatir probably just put out orders for every cavalry unit not engaged in vital activities to converge on our location. That means that, unlike a dedicated unit, where everybody knows everybody, most of these soldiers have probably never met before a couple days ago. Given how spread out they are with the search, I can't imagine that anyone would think much of six riders they'd never seen before. If we can discretely steal enough armor for each of us, then I think we'd be able to just ride out and play along with them until we found a chance to sneak across the bridge.”
“Well, I guess that's better than killing ourselves.” Sevetria conceded.
With a plan in place, the company settled in, waiting for an opportunity to ambush a small patrol. Sarkiades' sense of time dissolved within clouds of confusion and terror, his thoughts were stripped down to nothing more than awareness of the succession of shouts and crashes. Seconds or hours later, his ears pricked to the sound of three riders approaching their position, and a gentle tap on his shoulder confirmed that Galtus had selected their first targets.
The two of them crept silently up the stairs, coming out a window opposite the riders and climbing out onto the clay brick roof, carefully laying in a prone position to disperse their weight as they crawled along the edge of the rooftop.
Once they reached the main road, Galtus turned towards him, sketching out the shape of a square with one finger, then pointing at two places in the middle of adjacent lines and a third in the far corner. Sarkiades, who'd been listening to the Ukni horse archers as they made their way around each building one by one, nodded his understanding.
Then, he waited, hoping on everything dear and righteous that the rest of the crew would have the sense to get themselves and their horses away from the windows, his one good eye fixed on Galtus in anticipation of the signal.
His hand went up, and two arrows sang out in an instant, lodging themselves in their target's throats with such perfect synchronicity that it resembled something out of an archery show. As similar as the two shots looked, however, they were not equal. Galtus' man fell silently to the ground, crumpling onto his own body weight in a neat pile at the edge of the alley. Sarkiades' target lolled to the left, sending a rain barrel spilling out into the road as he collapsed into the street.
The third rider, now alert to the danger, came charging around the corner with his bow notched and ready. However, his half a second of warning might have purchased him the time to spot his comrade’s bodies, but it could not buy the man his life. The instant of recognition just barely covered the first syllable of his warning shout, which echoed through the darkness until the arrowhead cut the air loose from his lungs.
Within seconds, the two of them had leapt to the ground, stripping the bodies as quickly and as sloppily as his first night with a woman. Targan and the others came rushing out with the horses as the dead man's cry was picked up by the surrounding search teams, and the thrum of hooves rang out from all directions.
“What are we gonna do? There's only enough armor for three of us!” Galtus shouted.
“And there's only one of us carrying vital documents that the enemy means to intercept at all costs.” Sevetria replied. “Targan's the only one whose Nezlugz can almost pass for native, and the two of you won't make it very far without Galtus to cover your ass. Go! Rush for the bridge. The three of us will lure them back towards the main avenue. With any luck they'll think we tried to break out the way we came.”
Without another word, Sevetria, Falviun, and Quistos leapt up onto their mounts and kicked them in the direction of the closest team. The screams of horses and men rang through his ears as he struggled with the Kulnarn armor. Sevetria's battle cry, as fierce and desperate as a mother bear whose cub was caught within a gnashing metal trap, rose high above the others and fell silent. The three men leapt up onto their horses and spurred them through a gap between their pursuers, but by the time they circled back around and returned to the scene in their looted armor, there was no sign of any of them.
With the chaos of their failed ambush laying as a fog over the city, Sarkiades, Galtus, and Targan found that they could move more or less at will. They'd been smart enough to stash the three bodies in the tavern before they fled, and the one consistency in the dozens of conflicting accounts they'd overheard was that they were fighting a team of at least ten highly trained soldiers under the iron fist of some ferocious, screeching battle mage. It was clear that everybody expected this to end in a desperate last stand, and none thought to question the three men calmly riding their horses through the confused whirlwind of of Kulnarn riders, slowly approaching the bridge that had become the centerpiece of the Ukni defense.
As the hazy outline of arches and parapets emerged from beneath the Ka'ina's smoky haze and the clouds of dust kicked up by the Kulnarn, Sarkiades found his thoughts drawn to images of pestilence and famine. The way the sickly yellow light seemed to infect the pre-morning fog, veiling the bridge in a sepia haze of twisted silhouettes: it was as if the shadows themselves, those places forever obscured from light and warmth, had risen against them. No matter how often he reminded himself that it was nothing more than a trick of the lights, he could not shake the suspicion that the moment they stepped foot onto that bridge those shades would break loose from the bonds of their material hosts, falling upon them as one with nightmarish cries and gnashing teeth as they dragged them back to whatever lightless hell had spawned them.
But there were no unearthly howls or lurid phantasms as they crossed that threshold. Just the sharp cracks of hoof against stone and the same gnawing anxiety that had been with him since Piristrus, growing with the slow, unrelenting pace of a Blackgash Tree until he found himself wishing for the horrors of his imagination to spring to life just so he could get it over with.
Sarkiades felt a tug, and he looked over to see Targan gesturing toward a robed figure standing poised amid the rush of infantrymen and horse archers like a boulder rising up from pounding whitewater. A Ka'in: one of the priests in service of Saklugz who'd been granted the privilege of wielding his Zuthruhk magic. Of course, unlike Ka'inulz Hoshrak, who was one of the highest ranking members of the Dark God's priesthood (excluding the members of the Grevaburz, whose twisted use of the Zuthruhk to extend their lifespans left them confined to the tower Saghburzakh), this man was almost certainly a lesser ranked Ka'inur or Ka'inuv. Still, there would be no Shugatyad to save him this time, and the only member of their company with any experience facing mages in battle was busy building a palace from the bones of dead Kulnarn riders, if the stories he overheard from the passing soldiers bore any truth.
“You there.” a stiff looking man with the shoulder insignia of a Nulaikulj said. “What have you to report.”
“They appear to be attempting to break out along the northeastern perimeter, sir.” Targan said in remarkably fluent Nezlugz. “They've taken cover in some of the houses near the outskirts but we're in the process of flushing them out right now.”
“That's very interesting, because all of the reports I've received seemed to indicate that the fighting is taking place near the center of the city. Who's Hechor are you with?” the Nulaikulj asked.
“Sir, my friend and I serve under Satirkulj Gholk with the main expedition.” Galtus said, his thick Piristran accent more than apparent. “They needed riders who knew the lay of the land, so they sent us out here to help Targan's Zechor with the search.”
The Nulaikulj paused, placing Galtus' words on whatever scales he used to reckon their veracity before turning to stare directly at Sarkiades:
“So tell me then, how do two riders hand-picked for their superior command of the geography somehow manage to confuse the running engagements we've been fighting in the center of town with an attempted breakout along the perimeter?”
Like Galtus, the only thing that popped into Sarkiades' head were his earlier suspicions about a breakdown in the chain of command, alongside the newly acquired knowledge that this operation was being done with a mix of light cavalry and infantry units, with all the chaos that entailed.
“Sir, the three of us were participating in the peripheral sweep when we heard a commotion and hushed muttering in one of the houses in our search area. We proceeded to engage the targets through the window, but they put up quite a bit of resistance so we were forced to call in reinforcements, at which point high command sent us over to you to report what we'd discovered, sir.”
“Let me ask you this. Were you able to visually identify that the targets were the six we've been looking for before you started shooting?” the Nulaikulj asked.
“Unfortunately it was too dark to confirm their identities, but as soon as we opened fire they immediately returned it.” Sarkiades answered.
“You brainless shit-fuckers are attacking our own infantry! Of all the inbred country horse rapists who've found their way into the Kuln, you three have to be the dumbest yet. Holy fuck this could cost me my career. You three wait here and try not to kill any more of our own soldiers before I get back. I'm not done with you yet, do you hear me?”
They all nodded their heads as sheepishly as they could, but before the Nulaikulj had even crossed the dozen paces between him and the other commanders, shouts broke out from the direction of the city proper. Men were screaming and falling back as geysers of molten rock shot loose from cracks in the pavestones, giving three riders enough of an opening to come pounding out onto the bridge.
Galtus drew out his sword and rushed towards the cluster of officers, slicing straight through the neck of the Nulaikulj as he turned his head to look at them.
“Well, I tried.” he said as he jumped clear onto his mount and spurred her forward.
Behind them, the Ka'in alone obstructed Sevetria's path. Lights and flames flashed as he raised up dozens of wards, but none of it slowed down her charge. While it was certainly true that Zuthruhk magic was the most feared strain of sorcery in Aios, and that the creatures forged by it could stand against nearly any mage, in a one on one fight without recourse to traps or schemes, Saklugz's priests were unambiguously inferior to the Minairoi. Still, Sarkiades could not suppress his fear as he watched Sevetria's molten geysers dissolve against the Zuthruhk wards. While immensely powerful, the Minair was at heart a scholastic school. Unlike the more intuitive or emotional traditions of the Xunju or Ghazra, the magic of Naviras required years of monotonous study to even begin to be wielded properly. He simply could not imagine the coarse, foul-mouthed woman he'd come to know having any talent for the deeply contemplative process by which the Minairoi mentally ascended from the physical manifestations of our material world to the fundamental structure of those substances all the way up to the nature of reality itself, altering the character of their surroundings so that water can be turned into ice and solid stone transformed into geysers of lava.
Falviun and Quistos were now coming up from behind, sweeping around Sevetria just as the ground beneath their feet began to tremble like jelly. The instant they were past, the entire midsection of the bridge gave out in a tremendous firestorm, save for a narrow aisle just large enough for the two flame veiled figures it supported. The Ka'in threw everything he had into a blazing wall of Zuthruhk defenses, a sphere of flames and hazy light whirling around him like an agitated beehive as half a bridge worth of molten rock pounded him like breakers in a storm. Sarkiades had to shield his eyes from the brightness, and as he lifted them back up he saw the Ka'in standing there, his Zuthruhk shields expended, hunched over yet very much alive. But Sevetria was no delicate scholar. She didn't need to destroy all of the Ka'in's defenses, she just needed them gone long enough for her to close the distance between them. She leaned forward over the crest of her horse and swept out her blade. The Ka'in's head leapt up, dancing through the pallid torchlight and plunging down into the molten lake churning wildly beneath their feet.
“What the fuck are you morons waiting for?” Sevetria shouted. “Get moving before this whole thing comes down on us!”
Sarkiades spurred his horse into motion, unsure if he was more frightened of the hundreds of Ukni riders shouting threats and wheeling around at the other end of the bridge or the lone, enraged woman who kept any of them from following.
"Sarkiades: The Echoes of Resolution" has been published freely online in order to introduce readers to the world of the "Under the Burning Tower" series. Because of this, hiring an editor for the project simply isn't feasible. If you happen across any typographical or grammatical errors while reading, especially if you see something that looks like a missing paragraph, please feel free to reach out and let me know.
