Chapter 17: Generals and Kings
By the time Qemik caught up with Oyana, the burden of being the general of the First Hand was weighing heavily on her, enough that she welcomed his presence. Her task was almost impossibly daunting. Had she been a decorated general, well-known and respected, and had this force been made of disciplined, trained warriors who'd come ready to join this battle, there would still not have been time to organize them into an effective fighting force. But most of them did not know her, and though rumors were spreading quickly through the Haehînbór about the First Hand appointing generals, these rumors grew more muddled the farther they traveled. Not one of them was a warrior, or knew the first thing about tactics. And their determination was shaky at best; like a precariously balanced crockery jar on an overfull shelf, each of them was held up by the others, but every tremor threatened to topple and shatter them all.
Oyana had realized that her best asset was that they were, to a soul, used to taking orders and executing them without question. It made her feel a little sick to take advantage of that, but she reassured herself that, if they had to have one last mistress, better it be her than the Ortheri. The fact that many of them would be following her orders into a funeral pyre was something she tried to keep at a distance, out of her thoughts.
She was focusing her efforts on choosing lieutenants who could mobilize small groups, and captains who could carry directions to the lieutenants, when Qemik volunteered his aid. "I was starting to wonder how much longer before you would arrive," she said, to his consternation; he hadn't thought his arrival was inevitable. "I have already been instructing captains to follow your orders as they would mine. I expect the Ortheri will try to charge down our middle, counting on our lack of discipline after they've split our forces in half. You will take the side nearest the Spire, I will take the southern flank, that neither be without a leader to maintain order." She continued, talking quickly about tactics and the directives that would activate them, leaving Qemik scrambling to keep up.
Around them, the Haehînbór were milling about, but a keen eye would recognize that there was a hint of order emerging from their movements. They were forming into small groups, and within each group, they were choosing roles. As they did, shivers of fear also coursed through the mass of people. A man might with relative calm face the prospect of battle, while it was an abstract thought, and he was surrounded by thousands of his fellows. But when he is given a specific direction for a particular situation, he starts to absorb the very real likelihood of his injury or death, and his resolve begins to waver.
As he listened to Oyana, Qemik's eye took in the ripples in the army; he could feel their fear like the thrum in the ground when an aurochs herd is in the distance, neither seen nor heard yet, only felt. "We need to remind them of what they fight for," he said, cutting off Oyana in a discussion of contingencies. "I wish I had a horse," he muttered, then began to lope amongst the people, focusing his attention particularly on the most gregarious, those who would not just capture his enthusiasm but propagate it to others. "My people!" he shouted. "Since we were but striplings we have whispered to ourselves, every hour of every day, four words. A day will come. The day has come!" There was a hushed silence; across the valley, eyes were turning to him. "Today we take from the Ortheri what is our right: our freedom. Some of us may be injured. Some of us will die. But we do not fight this day for only ourselves. We fight for our children. For every man who falls today, for every woman who will not see the morrow, there shall be a hundred of our children who will walk free beneath the stars, will choose for themselves how to live, who to love, and what will come for their own families."
The more he shouted, the more ears turned to him, and now the ripples moving through the crowd were a wave of determination; people standing straighter, turning their eyes to the Ortheri with ferocity and certainty. "Our enemies think we will be meek and mewling. But tonight's moon shall rise on their end. Not on grain shall stand atop another. We have seen the signs! Five Spears have been cast! The First Hand even now moves to cry defiance to the sky itself, casting to the clouds the Sixth Spear from atop the Spire of Last Days!" He pointed to the ruined tower atop the hill, and every Haehînbór eye turned to follow. "A day will come! A day will come!" He repeated this, forming a chant that was soon taken up by the crowd, a rumble that would, if allowed, become a thunderous roar.
But the Ortheri chose this moment to move, perhaps to cut off this swell of fervor. The army let out its own scream of challenge and began to move as one. As Oyana had foreseen, they formed a spear-tip that thrust like a splitting wedge down the middle of the Haehînbór masses, driving them apart into two flanks. And the slaves withdrew, retreating north and south, ceding the center to them with nearly no resistance. Oyana stood atop a small rise, little more than a boulder, and peered until she could spy a man atop a horse, leading the charge. She fixed her eyes on him, and smiled. Indeed, he thought the Haehînbór were falling behind him out of fear and weakness; he was expecting an easy victory. He had not anticipated her giving directions that they allow the Ortheri to separate them. She counted the heartbeats until he and his cohort had come as far into the army as she dared to wait, then with a few cries and gestures, she parted from Qemik, remaining with the southern flank while he took the north.
Now the Ortheri found themselves hedged in on two sides instead of a single front, but their wedge formation also separated the Haehînbór into two fronts just as effectively, and each front consisted of unarmed men and women. Finding another boulder atop which to perch, Oyana watched, expecting the bloodshed to begin in earnest any moment. But the Ortheri simply held position, waiting for something. Their advance had broken the back of Qemik's chanting; the valley was eerily silent. Even the wind slumbered while they waited. She turned to peer up the slope to the north, seeking the Spire. By now Yîgeke and Kargöz should be there, raising the Sixth Spear. Every passing moment was full of dread, that they'd been captured or killed, that the Sixth Spear would never be cast, and this makeshift army's resolve would shatter unto dust. Sand in their breath, to the end of days.
There was a cry from amongst the Ortheri, and at once, a thousand heads turned to the southeast. There in the distance, she could barely make out a small group, not more than a dozen, riding to join her foes. The gleam of gold and silver caught the sunlight, but it was the paler shimmer of crystal that made her draw in a frightened breath. A globe of crystal, perched atop a scepter.
The Ortheri Baugcaun himself was riding to the head of his army, scepter in hand, clad in shimmering maille of brass and gold, with his personal guard around him. Gasps and whispers of despair were passing through the Haehînbór. He would not be here unless he were sure that his victory was assured; he would not put his own body in danger otherwise. Amongst the warriors of his army, there was cheering, cries, beating of spears and axe-hafts against breastplates, everywhere the tumult of blood-lust and the certainty of triumph. Some Haehînbór eyes were caught up in this spectacle, staring at it as one might stare at the axe coming for one's neck; others were cast up at the Spire of Last Days, where the Sixth Spear should have been seen by now.
When the Ortheri Baugcaun had taken his place at the spear-tip of his army's wedge formation, mere yards from dozens of Haehînbór, he held his scepter aloft. Sunlight kissed the crystal and cast scintillating beams of colored light, ever-shifting as the sand within the sphere danced, around him. "Your First Hand is cut off!" he shouted. "Go back to your masters now, and your punishments will be lessened. This is your final chance to avoid being ground under the heel of fate, sand in your breath."
Qemik and Oyana both bristled to hear the words of the prophecy in this Ortheri's mouth. These words, repeated so often and bearing such a weight of fear and hope, had a resonant power in the ears of every Haehînbór. Qemik had himself been using them for the same purpose minutes earlier, stirring up courage amongst the army. But that was his right as a Haehînbór. The Ortheri had taken from them everything else, their freedom, their labor, their fates, their very bodies and souls. But the prophecy, that alone, that belonged only to the Haehînbór, and the Ortheri had no rights to it.
Except, of course, it had been theirs all along, hadn't it?