Faerie Knight 161

161 - The Battle of Maʿīn I: The Plague Quarter

Disease can destroy an army more quickly than battle.

• The Campaign Journals of General Aurelius, volume III

☀

17th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297

The outskirts of Maʿīn had become a place of horror.

Before anything else could be done, Ismet had to order her men to drag hundreds of plague-ravaged corpses out from where they rotted in empty dwellings.  The soldiers braved swarms of flies and the reek of decay, piling the corpses in great pits dug outside of the city, where they could be burned.  All the while, atop the curved wall that separated the Medina from the poor who lived outside the city proper, the Caliph’s guards watched them.

The entire process took the better part of two days, and only the evening after the labor was complete did Ismet meet with her commanders and advisors.  “Exarch Samara,” she began, once they had all gathered, “is still blessing the souls of the departed to send them on their way to the Angelus.  She will join us if she can.  What was the final count?” Ismet asked Fazil.

“Nine-hundred and sixty-four,” Fazil ibn Asad answered.  “There were a handful who still clung to life when we found them, but all have passed on now.  We did learn from them,” he continued, “that everyone who could walk fled once they learned an army was coming.”

Ismet’s father, Salah, shifted to make himself more comfortable where he sat on the carpets of her tent.  “That will be a problem,” he pointed out.  “Every village they pass through will be infected with the plague.  This is going to spread all up and down the coast.”

“We cannot prevent that now,” Ismet admitted.  “We do not have the men to round up thousands of refugees.  It is my hope that, if we kill Valeria and the Plague Dancer, the disease will wane.”  She turned her head, speaking to the invisible presence over her shoulder.  “Perhaps you might speak on that, Epinoia?”

Every man in the room bowed when the Angelus manifested, her white wings drawn in close so that they did not crowd the tent.  “Agrat and her Exarchs are able to infect mortals with a touch,” she explained, in her voice that was as clear as bells.  “Worse, they are able to accelerate the progression of the sickness: where plague might normally take seven days to show symptoms, they can bring the sores and coughing in only one or two.  Every stage of the disease is made more rapid: it is contagious earlier, it kills earlier.  At the Plague Dancer’s touch, it can burn through a city like a wildfire.  And every person who dies feeds them - we must assume that between the two, they have taken a thousand Tithes or more.  They will be fat on the power released by this catastrophe.”

A thousand Tithes.  The number was staggering; Ismet had difficulty even conceiving of the effect.  Even if Valeria only received half that total, it would be enough for the infernal Exarch to strengthen all of her Boons to the same level that someone like Avitus must have reached.

“There is a limitation, however,” Ismet assured the men present.  “Boons must be earned.  Valeria has spent most of her life hiding in the shadows, not performing great deeds.  I would guess that she now has more Tithes than she can possibly use.  That power will sit, wasted, until she can earn a new Boon.  We cannot give her time to do that.  We must strike now.”

“We will need siege engines,” she continued.  “When I marched north with General Shadi, we brought them along in our baggage train, disassembled.  That option was not available on our march through the desert.”  Ismet turned to her father.

“There is plenty of wood here,” Salah told her, drawing on his lifetime of experience as a soldier and a leader of men.  “We can have the men use the poor quarter, outside the city walls, to make ladders and rams.  Anything more complicated than that is beyond the time or the skill we have available.”

“See it done,” Ismet commanded.  The flap of the tent was drawn aside, and she paused, glancing over to see that Samara, Exarch of Nāshiṭāt, had joined them.  “You’ve finished sending them on their way?” she asked the other woman.

“I have,” the Exarch said, finding herself a seat as part of the circle.  “But there is something else you need to know.  Nāshiṭāt has felt the destruction of Hafaza the Guardian.”

The tent was filled with gasps and oaths, but Ismet spoke over the chatter.  “If the Angelus is dead, the Exarch will be as well,” she said.  “It will be the two of us alone against Agrat, in that case.  When the time comes, and she reveals herself,” Ismet said, turning to Fazil, “command will pass to you.”

Fazil ibn Asad looked around the tent nervously.  “General,” he began, “Your father has much more experience than I do.  Certainly he would be a better choice to command the army.”

Salah ibn Yassar shook his head.  “I am not as young as I was, and the men need a leader they can follow in the thick of the fighting,” he said.  “I agree with my daughter.  I will help you and advise you, but you are the only man here who has fought on a battlefield against daemons.  Your time in Narvonne has taught you much.”

“You all honor me,” Fazil said, bowing his head.  “As you wish, General.”

“Good.”  Ismet looked around the group.  “Tomorrow, we make siege weapons.  The day after, we begin the assault.”

☀

Hungry for wood, the army consumed the poor quarter of Maʿīn like a tide of locusts.  The men worked quickly, leaving the inner ring of buildings to provide shelter from the archers on the walls, who had not yet begun to harass them.  Nonetheless, the possibility of it was oppressive, particularly to the men who went into the narrow streets with hammers and knocked down walls and roofs, returning with stout beams of wood.

Ismet set Samara to monitoring the soldiers for any sign of disease.  There was no way to avoid exposing her army to the plague, and the knowledge ate at her.  If she was in Valeria’s place, Ismet would wait until the high point of the assault, and then set the ravages of pestilence free to break the attacking army.  Ismet had no way to stop it; the only thing they could do was to move with more speed than the defenders were ready for, try to overwhelm them immediately.

To that end, on the morning of the fourth day since their arrival, Ismet and her commanders waited at the head of the army, formed into a semicircle in the cleared area south of the city.  The dim white ring in place of a sun rose in the east, just beginning to crest the mountains, but not bringing sufficient light or warmth to hide the stars scattered overhead in the darkness.  The camp of the attacking army and the stations of the men atop the walls were both lit by torches, casting small circles of flickering orange light in the perpetual night.

When a white flag was raised above the southern gate, Ismet’s mouth twisted into a scowl, despite her best efforts.  Of course Valeria would want to talk.  She was like a desert scorpion, hiding beneath the sands unnoticed until her time to sting.  “Samara,” Ismet said.  “Come with me.  If they break the parley,” she continued, turning to Fazil, “attack at once.”

The two Exarchs kicked their horses forward, riding through the last rows of houses that still stood, until they drew rein at the foot of the city walls.  Above the gate, a woman veiled in sky-blue stood next to a man that Ismet recognized: Nasir al-Rashid.

“You traitors who dare come armed before the walls of the caliph’s great city,” a palace guard shouted down, “You are given one last chance to throw down your weapons.  Do so, and the great caliph will show mercy.  Only your leaders will be executed, and the common man allowed to return home.  In his limitless beneficence, the caliph promises the safety of your families from retribution, even the families of your leaders.  End your blasphemy and your revolt now, we beseech you, and return to the fold of the Angelus.”

“We have come to speak with Nasir, not his guards,” Ismet shouted back.  Her desert mare, Sarkha, must have sensed the tension, for she pranced skittishly across the paving stones of the road leading up to the gate.  “Nasir al-Rashid, you once thought well of me,” she called up to the gate.  “If you still hold me in any regard, I ask that you trust me now.  The woman at your side is a monster.  She serves the daemon Agrat, the Plague Dancer.  She’s killed Ashar and Hafaza the Guardian, and I suspect she killed your father as well.  Whatever she has told you is a lie.  Open the gates, and we will deal with her.”

“Ismet ibnah Salah,” Nasir shouted down.  “I loved you once, yes.  I would have made you my wife, if you had not betrayed the Caliphate for the chance to be the whore of a northern prince.”

“I am no man’s whore,” Ismet shot back.  “Is this truly all because I would not wed you?  Are you truly so small a man that you would turn from the Angelus out of jealousy?  That you would stand aside while plague kills your people, all to feed the monster at your side?”

“The time of the Angelus in Maʿīn is at an end,” Valeria said, finally speaking.  “The time of the Angelus in this world!  What need do we have of them?  To kneel to their commandments and grovel at their altars?  They are no more gods than we are,” she shouted, turning up and down the city walls to make herself heard.  “They would rather show their favor to a woman who has betrayed her home, betrayed her people, than to the loyal son of our last beloved caliph.  It is the Angelus who have turned their back on Maʿīn,” she argued, stridently.  

“They killed your own father!” Samara shouted up, at last, unable to remain silent.  “Is your heart a stone, Nasir?  Is it not the duty of a son to take vengeance for his father’s death?  Instead you stand at her side.”

“My father was old,” Nasir said, after a moment’s consideration.  “He would have passed from this world soon in any event.  And when he did, who would have been chosen to take his place?  I have spent my entire life learning how to lead this land,” he ranted, his face becoming more and more flushed as the words tumbled out.  “I sat at his right hand in every council, every negotiation.  But never once did Isrāfīl show the slightest favor to me.  And my father, who should have been my champion, what did he do?  Did he take any action to see that I would be his chosen heir?  No!  He would rather the Angelus choose a shepherd from the mountains than I, whom he trained to rule!  I would have been another man’s vizier, nothing more.  I say no!  The old way of doing things is dead.  From now on, the son of a caliph shall rule after the passing of his father.”

“That has never been our way,” Ismet called back.  “But I see now there is no hope of peace between us.  When Agrat and her slave are dead, then we will see what mercy is left for you, Nasir al-Rashid.”

“And who is going to kill us?”  Valeria shouted down.  She leapt to the top of the parapet, then down, falling the entire height of the walls to land in a crouch before the gate.  The stone of the road cracked and broke beneath her impact, and without the slightest sign of discomfort, the northern lady stood, drawing a dagger from inside her sleeve.  “You?”

Fazil will know what to do, Ismet told herself.  She swung her leg over her saddle, dropped down to her feet, and slapped Sarkha on the rump, sending the mare back to the army’s encampment.

“Few things would give me more pleasure,” Ismet answered.  With the scrape of steel on leather, she drew her sword.