The Slave Mind

Banners flew from the walls of Irdru, and the sea was alive with hundreds of warships as the armies trod upon the ancient roads. The towers shook with the cries of bells and the sounding of war-horns, and crowds gathered to watch as the queen herself took up her armor and her sword, and led her legions upon the march toward battle.

She rode on a high saddle upon the back of her dragon, now draped with armor and with crimson silks. Well-fed and well-groomed, he was glad to be once more on the move, and the sun glowed on his golden-tipped tusks even as he left a trail of fire behind him where his flaming venom dripped from his jaws. The crowds cried aloud when they saw him, and he lifted his great head and roared in answer. Ashari stood tall in her saddle and held up her gleaming sword of shining glassteel, and she felt their adoration sweep over her like a wave.

In her wake came her legions of foot. Company after company of mercenaries all well-armed and armored with the best her wealth could buy them. They had lived well for years as her palace guard and city watch, now they would lift their swords in war for her cause. She left enough behind to secure her city and led thousands in her train. They drew behind them the wagons of supply and the war engines that would form the anvil of her strategy.

As they left the city and set forth upon the wide savannahs, they met the force that would be her hammer. The Horane peoples in their clans and war-bands, thousands and thousands of them all come to her call. She had spent years making alliances with them, making them welcome in the markets and bazaars, forging peace between the myriad tribes and lineages. Now they came in answer to her, and they came in a mounted horde that stunned the city-dwellers, who had never thought to see so many of them at once.

The earth shook as they followed and surrounded the army of foot. Keeping pace with the mercenaries was easy for the riders, and they laughed and galloped and chanted their battle songs beneath the rising red sun. Ashari moved on her path to war at the head of fifty thousands, and she was well pleased.

She had worked hard to forge the alliances that built this army, and now her efforts were rewarded. As queen of Irdru, she now stretched forth her hand, and she would close it into a mailed fist to strike at her enemy. Horane riders went forth ahead of her to scout the path, and she knew no ambush would escape them. She would meet the army of Kurux in battle, and he would find she still possessed her sting.

o0o

The night sky was a blaze of stars as they encamped high in the eastern hills. Far in the blue distance Ashari could see the shadowed mountains where she had once contended with a whispering death, so many years ago. The mercenaries set their tents, the Horane settled in their corrals for the night and sent out the night scouts, and at the center Ashari’s golden pavilion rose up to gleam under the broken moon.

Within, she had her table laid with the large map and her attendants set figures upon it to mark the field of war. Her commanders and guards assembled to listen as she spoke. “The scouts have marked smoke sign here, and here.” She gestured, and the black signs of the imperial forces were set upon the map. “As we were told, their army is divided. Some have gone southward to plunder Ysor, and that seems to be the largest force. A smaller detachment has been set to ravage Thran, and they draw close. In a few days they will come to the red pass, here.” She pointed to the map. “If they do not turn aside, they will reach it the second morning after tomorrow.”

Zanur, her mercenary commander, stepped closer and looked down at the map, studying distance. “We can make such a march, but the men will arrive exhausted and unready. They will not fight their best.”

“I will not ask them to,” Ashari said. “I will not give the emperor’s legions the courtesy of a fair battle. If we met them in the pass, they would bring all their strength to bear, and we would likely be overmatched. No, I will use the strength we have against their own weaknesses.”

She beckoned the war-chief of the Horane. “Tanas. I will send your men on ahead, and you will find the pass, yet remain out of sight of it. Wait until they begin to pass through, and then strike them by surprise before they are free of it. I do not ask you to break them, merely bleed them. Bloody them and then pull away.”

Ashari smiled, picturing it. “They will hurry to finish the passage, and then deploy for battle. You will stay back and wait for nightfall, and then attack again. Only small blows, cuts that bleed but cannot kill. Then, in the morning, the rest of my army will arrive. We will await them here, along the river,” she pointed to the map. “They will be eager for an enemy who will stand and fight, and so they will attack. Once they are enmeshed in battle, the Horane will strike them from the flank and crush them.”

“We have reports of their war-engines, and their weapons,” Tanas said. “It may not be so easy as that.”

“It will not,” she said. “There will be dead on both sides. I do not ask you to overcome a feeble enemy. These are the legions of the empire, and they will not break easily. Yet we will break them nonetheless. We will wound them, frustrate them, deprive them of rest, and then when we give them a target for their wrath they will take it, and place themselves into the trap. The footmen will be the anvil, and the Horane, the hammer. Together, we will crush them in between us.”

o0o

The Horane readied themselves before dawn. The sky was afire with stars, and the east turned red as the sun began cut into the horizon. The army of the emperor was easy to follow, as it darkened the earth, and shook the ground with thousands of footfalls. Smoke rose from the death engines, and horns blew to command the soldiers into their ranks.

Tanas sat on his steed in his war-gear, crystalline lance in hand, and he waited for the proper moment. The enemy came on arrogantly, not sending forth scouts to seek for enemies, not maintaining a skirmish line to protect the main body. He could tell the difference between the mounted and foot troops by the way they moved in their ranks, and the way the army was deployed seemed foolish to him.

He waited. The enemy moved through the red stone of the pass like black smoke, gathering on the near slopes of the hillsides. It was not arrayed for defense, and he wondered if this was some trap laid for them. But there no sign that they had been detected. By night the sky-beasts did not fly, and even now he saw the first flights of them rise up and begin to circle.

Now was the moment. If he waited any longer they would be detected. He dipped his lance and pointed ahead, and every soldier who saw his sign repeated it and then spurred forward. Thus his command was given without horns or drums, so none would hear.

The great force began to move, and there was no disguising the thunder of so many steeds, yet in among the clamor of the legions, none would hear it. Tanas led the way, his blood quickening as they advanced. He kept their speed under control, saving the greater part of their strength for the charge. They forged through the brush and the high grass until the individual soldiers of the imperial legion were visible, and then he set spurs to his beast, and the whole horde surged ahead.

They charged across the open grassland, a mass of howling, blood-hungry warriors, and the enemy milled before them like herd beasts caught unawares. The enemy rushed to form into lines, to set their spears like a hedge of iron, and then the attack struck home.

The sound was tremendous, as spears meshed and crushed together like teeth in a great jaw. Armor and flesh and bone were rent and pierced and crushed underfoot. The wave of riders went up and over, breaching across the line of spearmen, and crashed through them. The line was broken, and Tanas felt the entire enemy lay open before him, disorder spreading through them like a grassfire, rippling back and away. He would not need stratagems or tricks to defeat this enemy. He would break them here with the strength of his own men.

Something swept across the battlefield like a wave. Unseen, visible only in the way it changed the way men moved and stood. The dissolving ranks of the enemy stiffened, men moving unnaturally as they turned and shouldered back into their formations. Tanas saw his men begin to shy away and cry out, he heard their steeds scream and saw them plunge in the tumult of battle, and then the wave struck across him like a wind.

It hammered against his mind, and he recoiled as from a physical blow. Fear and pain washed over him, so intense they almost tumbled him from the saddle. He clutched the reins, even as his mount screamed and shook its scaled head, began to thrash and fight to turn and flee.

Even as the charge lost momentum and began to break, the enemy formed into tight, close ranks and began to advance. Spears rent flesh, and arrows began to come down as if from the sky itself. Shafts slashed down in heavy waves like rain, and they fell on ally and foe alike, yet the soldiers of the empire did not flinch from them, even when they were struck down by their own men. They walked over their own wounded and slain and struck mercilessly.

Tanas could barely control his steed enough to stay in the saddle, and all around him his army dissolved. Warriors flung down their spears and swords and clung to their panicked mounts as they fled. Arrows fell all around him, and then the sky went dark as the flights of winged beasts came swooping down.

There were more of them, many more than he would have believed. They descended in wings of screaming death, and lightning scourged the earth before them. He saw some of his warriors caught in pillars of red fire and incinerated, their steeds blown apart to scatter scorched pieces across the battlefield. The winged monsters lashed down with stinger-tipped tails that scythed through men and left them torn in half.

The enemy forces surged forward, and the Horane horde came apart and fled. Tanas held on for his life as his steed hurled itself across the high grass. Red lightning lashed across the earth, setting the grasses afire, leaving swaths of dead men and seared animals. Arrows pursued them like curses, and by the time the sun rose over the horizon, the attack was broken, leaving only a field of dead behind.

o0o

Ashari reached the river on her dragon, the foot moving in her wake. The sun was rising, and she had received no reports, and she knew that was a bad sign. She had some Horane with her as scouts and messengers, and she sent them ahead to find what had happened at dawn. Tanas should have reported by now. There should be messages and indications of the success of the attacks, of the movement of the enemy. Instead, ahead of her was only silence.

She cast her mind ahead, seeking anything she might find, and she found there only a wall, unseen and yet omnipresent, forcing her back, blinding her inner eye like a wall drawn across the earth, and then she knew they were very close to utter ruin.

“Zanur! Array the men for defense! Spearmen in the shallows, archers to the rear with the war engines! Light the fires!” She led her dragon ahead, wading in the slow waters of the river, looking ahead at the rolling grasslands. The air shimmered in the rising sun, and she saw movement where there was none.

Zanur did not question her, he simply gave commands and they were obeyed. The armored spearmen moved in and stood in the shallows, braced in among the reeds. Behind them the archers deployed, heaping arrows in great bales so they would not run short. The few mounted troops she employed as mercenaries moved to the wings where they would be able to repel attacks on the flanks.

As if at a signal, then, the shimmering air cleared, and there were revealed the legions of the empire on the march. As if a curtain had been drawn away, they saw the thousands of footmen and the marching columns of cavalry on their war-beasts. Giant, tusked siege-breakers moved among the troops like walking towers, and overhead flew a wing of Skylords on their serpentine steeds, lightning flickering from their lances.

Beyond them, at the crest of the hill, she saw something low and heavy dragged by broad-shouldered beasts, surrounded by guards and burning torches that sent columns of smoke into the air. She felt a power emanating from it, something that turned her mind aside and sought to reach past her to her men, and then she understood what had become of her cavalry.

The legions came onward, marching with murderous tread, and she felt her dragon shift and growl under her. Her men drew close, tightening their ranks, and then she felt the power wash over them all. Terror clawed at them, confusion and a panic that urged unreasoning flight. The force of it was unexpected, and she reeled in the saddle, even her dragon stepping back from it.

Ashari controlled herself, and then she calmed her beast. A glance showed her men were wavering, the formations coming loose. She could not guard them all from such an attack, but she could strike at the source of it. She drew her sword and bellowed for them to hold, and she flung her mind outward, reaching for the unseen mind, and she grappled with it.

There was a moment when she thought she could not reach it, but then she found where it pulsated and roiled with its dark energies, and she struck at it with a blow of the mind that made it shudder. She had an impression of a great brain – as long as a man’s body – suspended in a tank of pale fluids that seethed and bubbled around it. A dead mind that yet lived. It sensed her contact and recoiled, then lashed back with a tremendous blow that shook the back of her skull. It sent the legions streaming forward, and two battles were joined at once.

The mounted warriors of the legion charged, crashing through the shallow waters of the river, heedless if any of them stumbled or fell. In some places the water was too deep, and they foundered, but elsewhere the charge crashed home, and spears met shields in a clangor of war as arrows scythed down from overhead. The water of the river ran with blood and grew choked with corpses as men slew and died in the mud.

Ashari felt her dragon move beneath her, but her mind was far away. It seemed she dwelled in echoing caverns of blue light and endless shadow, and the unliving mind hunted her there. It rose up in pillars of strength and then struck at her, and she evaded it and sought out its weak points. It was strong, but it did not fight with speed or with ability. It sought to crush her with sheer force, but she would not be had so easily.

Her dragon vomited fire into the waters, and the burning venom drifted on the surface, engulfing those who came before it. It roared and swept through the enemy with its gilded tusks, and blood hissed as it seared in the dragonfire.

Above, the Skylords guided their screaming steeds downward, and lightning cracked and laced across the bright sky. They came low, and lances of red fire struck down, boiling the waters and ripping men asunder. Melted steel ran into the water and sent forth billows of steam, and the smell of cooked flesh spread outward like a stain.

Ashari’s archers turned their bows upward and fired at the sting-tailed beasts as they flow low. Few of the arrows found ready marks in the leathery flesh and armored scales. It was the war engines that made the difference. Heavy ballistae fired iron-headed bolts upward at the swooping enemy, and more than one of them found blood and brought several of the beasts crashing down to the earth. They smashed into the waters covered with fire and seething with dead and wounded, and they screamed as they burned.

Within her mind, Ashari grappled with the alien brain, seeking a way to strike through the armored defenses that surrounded it like a fortress. She had never fought a battle quite like this, but then, she suspected, nor had her enemy. Its attention focused on her, and so it could not command its troops nor wield its power over the minds of her own men. She could feel her men fighting, their minds flickering out as they died, the enemy minds like black stones embedded in flesh, driven to war by this monstrosity, and she must put an end to it.

The legions hurled their strength against her line, and it began to buckle. The cavalry swept the flanks, keeping them from being surrounded by superior numbers, but they could not hold forever, none of them could. Ashari felt her body trembling, the exertion of this mental struggle all but overpowering her. She dwelled in a shadow world, while all around her arrows rained and blood flowed, and men burned and died in pillars of crimson lightning under the bloody sun.

She finally closed her grip upon it, and it threshed to be free of her with frightening power, but without any skill or thought. It was a mind, but not a truly intelligent mind. If she struck it one way, it responded in exactly the same way each time. She she goaded it, slipped away from its retaliatory strike, and then she lanced in and ripped deep into it while it was overextended.

It screamed, and she snapped out of the battle and back into her body. She was suddenly choked with the smells of smoke and death, and she saw the lines of the enemy begin to come apart, losing their unflinching cohesion. She called out with her mind for her men to renew their assault, and despite their pain and exhaustion, they gathered enough strength for a final convulsion of effort that hurled the enemy back.

In that moment she heard the horns of the Horane, and she saw a shadow darken the hills. Even as the enemy began to fall back, the remainder of her riders came striking from the south and ripped across the unprotected flank. Lances and swords flashed in the red sun, and screams of death rose up.

It was enough. The hard core of the legion withdrew, guarded by their own riders and the towering beasts that served as living battle-towers. Ashari’s instinct was to pursue them, and press her advantage, but she knew she could not. Her army was shaken and wounded, gasping with exhaustion from the hard fight, and the enemy still had enough strength to turn on them and crush them if they regained their will. The drakes wheeled overhead, but she knew a single command could send them down and the lightning would scourge her men and break them.

She felt after her enemy, seeking with her mind, and she felt only the slightest trails of pain left shivering in the invisible space between them. Whatever it was, she had wounded it, perhaps to death, yet she was not fool enough to think it was the only such enemy she would have to face.

Weary and coughing out the stench of smoke and burning flesh, she lifted her sword and gave the order to retreat. The men gathered their wounded up from the bloody grass, and the Horane riders turned back to join them as the day lengthened.

o0o

They camped at night, riders out on the rim to keep a watch, and she gathered her captains together in her golden pavilion. They gave their reports and she closed her eyes. They had delivered a check to the invaders, but not enough for what they had lost. She had set forth with almost fifty thousands, all told, and she returned with only forty. They had slain perhaps as many, or more, yet the cost was heavy. Tanas had not returned, but Zanur remained.

“I had hoped to turn them back, or break them,” she said, to herself as much as any of her commanders. “But I did not know the extent of their strengths. We hurt them, but not enough, and scouts report that the other column is turning back this way. They hope to catch us in between, and break us in two. They will not.”

“Zanur, when day breaks you will march the foot north to the sea and embark for Irdru aboard the fleet. I will accompany the Horane back by land, and we will meet again in the city.” She rubbed her lips and mused. “If I can lead them inland, it will allow you more time to escape and re-garrison the city. You will arrive before me and make all preparations to defend the walls.”

“Yes, my queen,” he said, bowing his head.

“They will come against us,” she said quietly. “And the judgment of battle will be decided beneath the very walls of our home. We must prepare.” She looked into the fire with her golden eyes, and in her mind she saw a dark malevolence crawling on the far eastern horizon. A formless malice that had once looked on her, and now it knew where she could be found. They would come, commanded by that inhuman intelligence, and in a hidden place in side herself, Ashari was afraid.