Richard Tuttle - Army of the Dead

“Then we are to ambush their soldiers coming to investigate the reason for the wagons not returning?” questioned Vand’s daughter.

“No,” Xavo sighed heavily. “There is no point in putting ourselves between the tribes and the Motangans. The time has come for us to go to Vandegar.”

“Surely my father will have learned of our treason by now,” balked Lady Mystic. “Going to Vandegar is not the brightest suggestion you have ever made. We will never get close to Vand.”

“Perhaps not,” shrugged Xavo, “but it is our destiny, or at least mine.”

“Your destiny is mine,” Lady Mystic smiled thinly. “If Vandegar is where you must go, I will go with you, but I want you to be aware of what awaits us there.”

“The same thing that has awaited us wherever we went,” replied Xavo. “We have cheated death quite a few times already. Why let potential consequences disturb us now?”

“Just because one successfully cheats death,” frowned Lady Mystic, “is not an excuse to keep tempting it. We could just forget this war and escape to someplace where we can live in peace.”

“Can we really?” Xavo shook his head. “Can I really abandon my daughter at the time of her greatest need? Can you walk away from the destruction that your father is foisting upon the world? How can we have an expectation of living in peace while the whole world is dying around us? No, my dear, we cannot flee from this savagery, not while we have any ability to stop it. Do not fool yourself for a single minute. There can be no peace in our hearts until Vand is vanquished.”

“At least you are not going to Vandegar merely to commit suicide,” Lady Mystic smiled weakly. “I will go with you and help you defeat my father, but promise me that you will not throw your life away. Promise me that you will try to give me the life of peace that I desire.”

“Nothing would please me more,” Xavo smiled as he embraced his lover, “but there are no guarantees in life. Vand most certainly will be expecting us. It will be tricky to stay alive long enough to kill him.”

“If we are even capable of killing him,” Lady Mystic warned softly. “There is no mage more powerful than Vand, and he will not be alone in his defense. He will surround himself with the most powerful mages available.”

“No one is indestructible,” replied Xavo as he broke the embrace. “We will head north from here to avoid anyone coming to investigate the smoke. We will also need to take a long, circuitous route to Vandegar to even get close to it without being detected. Come. Time is wasting.”

* * *

The weary Motangan army marched southeast, following Bakhai’s directions. The soldiers were tired and jittery. They had not had a decent night’s sleep in three days. Many of them still scratched welts from the insect attack two nights earlier. Others had been wounded in the fighting the night before when the Fakaran tribes attacked without warning. All of the soldiers were hungry, as no food had been delivered in over a week. The meager rations that were left from previous caravans were guarded jealously by the soldiers assigned to dole them out. There was not a smile on a single one of the two hundred thousand faces.

“The jungle,” General Luggar pointed as he rode alongside Premer Cardijja.

“Just where Bakhai said it would be,” nodded the premer. “Do you still take him for a spy?”

“I don’t know,” sighed the general. “We have had nothing but bad luck since he joined us. Then he miraculously disappeared during the raid on our camp. What else am I to suspect?”

“I imagine that he got scared and ran,” shrugged the premer. “I had promised him protection, but he must have known that I could not provide it. In his place, I might have run, too. As for bad luck pursuing us, the attack of the tribes had nothing to do with luck. It was a well coordinated and planned attack. They knew exactly where we were and chose their moment of attack at our weakest moment.”

“And the insects?” asked the general.

“Bad luck,” shrugged the premer, “but you can hardly lay that at Bakhai’s feet.”

“You miss him, don’t you?” asked the general, his eyebrow rising in sudden understanding.

“I do,” conceded the premer. “He was not a very bright lad, but he was likeable. Plus his knowledge of this strange land was invaluable. I hope he survived the attack of the tribes.”

“You had best not let too many know of your feelings for the lad,” warned the general. “All of the Fakarans are to be exterminated. That will include Bakhai in the end. If you attempt to alter the emperor’s orders to save the lad, your fate will be worse than his.”

“I know the emperor’s orders well,” scowled the premer. “I do not need you to remind me of them.”

“But you don’t agree with them?” questioned the general.

“We have known each other for many years, Luggar,” the premer said as he stared at his friend. “You know me well enough to understand that I favor other methods of defeating an enemy other than killing him. I have voiced my opinions to Tzargo before, so he knows where I stand. I have never understood why we could not just conquer and rule this new land. Why must we destroy it?”

“And how did Tzargo answer?” inquired the general.

“Harshly,” frowned Cardijja. “He threatened to remove me from command if I could not carry out his orders.”

“So we kill everything in our path,” Luggar nodded.

“Indeed,” agreed the premer, “but that does not mean that I have to like it. Even Bakhai will fall before our swords soon enough. I hope that he understands when the time comes.”

“Would you understand if you were in his place?” asked General Luggar.

The premer rode on in silence for a long time as he earnestly considered the question. Finally, he shook his head and sighed.

“I would like to think that I would try to understand,” admitted the premer, “but the truth is that I doubt that I would be able to. What harm would it be to overlook one death in all the thousands that we must kill?”

“Careful, Cardijja,” cautioned the general. “Such thinking will get you killed. Do not even consider such thoughts.”

Premer Cardijja opened his mouth to speak, but he quickly thought better of it. Instead he rode on in silence, staring at the approaching jungle. After a few minutes, he pushed Bakhai from his mind and addressed the general forcefully.

“I want all of the men into the jungle before dark,” ordered Premer Cardijja. “Make sure that the vanguard penetrates deep enough into the jungle to accommodate everyone behind them. Once we are all off of this infernal plain, I want to make camp for the night. Send out scouts to find food, and post a serious watch along the edge of the jungle. Quadruple the normal guard. If a single tribesman is seen on the plain, I want the entire camp to know about it.”

“I will see to it,” promised the general.

Premer Cardijja watched General Luggar ride towards the vanguard to deliver his orders. His mind started to drift to thoughts of Bakhai, and the premer forcefully fought to focus on the jungle instead, but it was a losing battle. What Cardijja had not shared with his friend was that Bakhai reminded the premer of his own son. His son would have been around Bakhai’s age had he not been attacked and killed by a krul gone mad years ago. Tears formed in the corners of the premer’s eyes, and he hastily wiped them away before anyone could notice. The premer knew that he had to snap out of his current thinking. He suddenly wheeled his horse and rode off to perform an inspection of his troops.

Three hours later, the last of the Motangan troops entered the jungle. Two hundred thousand men occupied a wide swath of the jungle and the perimeter guards numbered over ten thousand just to watch the edge of the jungle. General Luggar decided to forego guards on the other three sides of the encampment, as he wanted as many men to rest as possible. Hundreds of scouts were sent deeper into the jungle to forage for food, and many of them returned with roots, berries, and fruit. Encouraged by the findings, Luggar organized groups of soldiers to penetrate even farther into the dense jungle.