Paul Kearney - The ten thousand

“What, kit out the old men and boys with panoplies? I’d rather be under strength,” Orsos snorted.

“There’s likely enough lads among them,” Pasion said, glaring at the Bull. “We have the gear; it’s weighing down the wagons as we speak. Better it sits on a man’s back than in a wagon-bed.”

“I’ll bear it in mind,” Phiron said quickly, smothering the birth of the quarrel. “Brothers, to your morai. Brief your centurions, and have all ready. Pasion will inspect each centon’s baggage this evening. Let your men sleep this afternoon. Any questions?”

There were many. Phiron could feel them hanging before him in the air, dancing in the heat-shimmer above the hill upon which they stood. Finally, inevitably, it was Orsos who spoke up. Despite his years, the mass of kneaded flesh which formed his face made him look like some huge, brutish child.

“You put this whole deal together, Phiron, and for that we all here give you credit”-a collective murmur of assent, but grudgingly given. Phiron raised an eyebrow, and moved his feet like a man about to receive a blow-”but you’re not to forget that this here is now a Kerusia, an Army Council. The men elected ten of us out of a hundred centurions, but no one elected you-or Pasion there, if you come to it. We know you’re the only one among us speaks Kufr, and so there’s no thought of pushing you out of the way; but when it comes to decisions made for the army, we make them together now.”

“You’re not a king, brother.” This was white-bearded Castus. Old as he was, he had the blackest heart of any of them. The scar that ran into his beard turned his smile into a leer. “You know these foreigners, it’s true, but me, or Argus here, or Teremon, we all have more campaigns under our belt than you.”

“And in battle, Castus, shall we take a vote on it every time I want a centon to hoist their shields?” Phiron asked lightly, but there was a wire in his voice.

“Don’t be stiff-necked. We’ll be working with these here Kufr when the time comes, so it makes sense you give the orders. Yonder would-be King will be sending you couriers by the dozen once the fur begins to fly. But for other things, for the ways we march and the places we stop, you come to us, this here Kerusia, and we puts a vote on it. Fair’s fair.”

“All right.” Phiron bent his head a little. Castus, Orsos, Argus, and Teremon. The most experienced centurions in the army, a little quartet of killers. The younger generals- Pomero, Durik, Marios, and Jason-these formed another group. They even stood a little apart from the rest. And the crowd-pleasers, the talkers: Mynon and Gelipos. These would watch the way the wind blew, and make their votes the deciders.

“Anything else?” The ten generals looked at each other, nodded, shrugged. Pomero cracked his knuckles with a show of nonchalance. Argus spat into the dust and rubbed the liquid into a little turd with his foot.

“Very well then, brothers. Let us go about our business.” And as the knot of men broke up, “Jason, stay a moment.”

Three remained. Phiron, Pasion, Jason. The tell upon which they stood was no more than three spear-lengths high, and looked to have been made by man; there were ancient clay bricks peeping through the dirt at their feet. It made a fine vantage-point to survey the encampments of the army. They had not erected tents, but each centon had marked out its bivouac with cairns of heaped stones. The men had laid their bedrolls on the rolling dust of the plain in neat rows, two paces per man, and the company wagon in the middle. All told, the Macht camp was two pasangs long and somewhat wider. Not even Phiron had ever been part of so large an army before, or seen it spread out before him as it was here on the sere plain that bordered the Gadinai Desert.

But that was not the whole. The Macht lines were drawn some six pasangs from the eastern walls of Tanis, but between them and the walls was an even larger encampment. This was less ordered, a hiving, chaotic and many-tented city of some tens of thousands. A haze of dust hung over it, along with the smoke of a thousand cooking fires, and out upon its western borders great herds of animals darkened the earth. These were the beasts and soldiers of Arkamenes himself, his own household and the troops which Gushrun of Artaka had granted him. There were perhaps thirty thousand of them all told, and that did not take into account the camp-followers. Their camp was closer to the river, where there was still some grass. In the spring, all this would be a lush plain and there would be reed-beds down by the Artan, for the river flooded twice a year, swelled by some unknown source far back in the uncounted wildernesses of the interior. For now, the Macht were using a series of ancient wells out here on the plain and getting used to the sensation of sand in their teeth.

“If yonder host is ready to move at nightfall, then I’m a lady’s maid,” Pasion grunted, still kneading his jaw. “What is it, Phiron? There’s a lot to do.”

“Our elders in the Kerusia made a good point, Pasion, about talking to the Kufr. It had occurred to me also. To that end, I have something here.” Phiron had bent and was rolling up his calfskin map. It was a gift from Arkamenes, and detailed the lands from Tanis to the Magron Mountains. Sometimes he wished he had never seen it. Four hundred pasangs on that calfskin was no more than a handspan. He thrust it into the oxhide bag he had been carrying on his back for twenty years, and dug out something else instead. “Jason, for you. Pasion, you may use it too if you’ve a mind to.”

A close-written scroll. Jason opened it in his hands, dragging the spindles apart. “What’s this? I see words here, Machtic script, and then some gibberish opposite.”

“It’s a word-hoard, a dictionary. Arkamenes’s vizier, Amasis, had a scribe in Tanis write it out plain and fair for me. It tells you Machtic words in Asurian, the common tongue of the Empire, written as they sound in our own script.” Phiron grinned, for Jason’s face had lit up like a boy’s. “We need someone who can understand what these bastards are saying besides myself. We can’t always be relying on interpreters, or the charity of our allies.”

“The charity of our allies…” Pasion mused on the phrase a moment before continuing. “We’ll need that charity by the ton ere we’re done, Phiron. What food will take us across this desert we can take on our backs, and you say there’s water-holes out there too. But when we get to Geminestra, the bag is empty. I hope our princely employer has some skill with logistics, or we’ll be eating mule before a month is out.”

“It’s been arranged, Pasion,” Phiron said testily.

“I’m quartermaster. I like to arrange these things for myself.”

Phiron tapped a finger on the scroll Jason held. “Then read this. Learn these things. If you cannot speak to the Kufr, how can you tell him what you want?”

Pasion set his jaw. He smiled a little. “As you say. Jason, I wish you joy of your studies. I go to count up sacks of grain, and hope they have multiplied in my absence.” He turned and descended the hill, shielding his eyes against the glare of the sun.

“He’s a professional, and thus dislikes being brigaded with amateurs,” Phiron said, watching him go. “Can’t say as I blame him. We march on the word of a Kufr, and from now on will eat and drink on his say so.”

“If we run short, there are always other ways of making up the difference,” Jason said. He rolled up the scroll and set the closer in place. “Thank you for this, Phiron. I’ll put it to good use.”

“What? No, no. I know what you’re saying, Jason. But we cannot pillage lands we hope to win to our side. Arkamenes will look after us- it’s in his own interest after all. I do not fear being betrayed or neglected, not by him. At least, not while he still lacks a crown.”