The officers can do their arithmetic about how many men you want to send at a wall, but what I know is this: I’d rather be the one on top of it, than the one climbing the ladder.
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400">The Life and Times of Legionary Titus Nasica</li>
</ul>
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19th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297
Nasir al-Rashid’s reinforcements had brought scorpions.
Ismet grimaced, at a glance counting the siege engines along the top of the stone wall that stretched across Eish Alsaqr Pass. “Six,” she commented out loud. “That means at least a hundred of the men they brought are likely engineers. They won’t be any good at close in fighting.”
“And yet, with the siege engines, they are a problem,” her father judged. His old gelding, ''Arnaba, shuffled his hooves to Ismet’s left. On her right, Fazil sat his saddle easily, looking unconcerned.
“The Narvonnians had more than that at the Tower of Tears,” Fazil said. “And the tower itself, besides. If they force us to, we will take the pass.”
“Let us pray to the Angelus it does not come to that,” Samara ibnah Arif said.
Behind them, the entire force they had gathered was drawn up, with infantry in the center and two wings of horse archers and lancers at the flanks. They had no siege engines; there was not enough wood in the Maghreb Wastes to build them. The desert tribes fought in other ways.
On the wall, between the regularly spaced siege engines, lines of archers were easily visible by torchlight. The stout wooden gate in the center was closed, and whatever traffic might have been moving through the pass before the army was sighted had been shuffled out of sight, likely back down the other side of the mountain slopes. Behind Ismet and her men, the road descended the rocky heights of Jabal Al Nusur, the Mountain of Eagles, in a series of long switchbacks. There had never been any question of approaching by stealth; the fortifications commanded a view of the entire descent. They must have been seen coming, even in the darkness, at quite a distance.
“Raise the flag,” Ismet commanded Arkan, and her cousin’s husband lifted a banner of bleached white linen on a pole. With that, the five of them rode forward to approach the wall.
“Rizqullah ibn Zayyan, you old scoundrel!” Ismet’s father shouted, once they had reined in. “Are you up there? It has been too long since we’ve drunk a cup of Qahwa together!” Despite the likelihood of impending battle, Salah ibn Yassar wore a broad grin.
“I see you down there, Salah,” a gentle, wavering voice called down from above. Ismet’s eyes found a tall, thin man with a gray streaked beard, and she was surprised at how much the commander of the pass had aged since she travelled to the capital only a few years before. “I see a lot of other people, as well. I do not know that I have enough Qahwa for all of your friends.”
“That is a tragedy,” Salah admitted. “Perhaps just five cups, then. One each for me and my new nephew, a third for Fazil ibn Asad - you remember his father, don’t you, from that dawn raid on the Botis? And, of course, your two best cups for the Exarchs of Nāshi?āt and Epinoia.”
Ismet could hear the murmuring of the soldiers above at the revelation that two Exarchs were present. Perhaps they had been warned of her, prepared for the idea of facing a single rebel, but now there were two, and that changed things.
“As much as I would love to invite you up,” Commander Rizqullah replied, “I am afraid there is a man here from the capital who would not allow it.”
“Ismet ibn Salah!” The new voice came from a younger man, whose beard was pure black and whose face was all sharp lines and dark brows beneath his keffiyeh. “You are hereby ordered to surrender yourself and disband your rebel forces, to be taken before the caliph for judgement for your crimes!”
“You see?” Rizqullah said, with a shrug. “He is very insistent.”
“Nasir al-Rashid,” Ismet shouted up, finally breaking her silence, “is no caliph. What is your name?”
“I am Malik ibn Zain,” the dark browed man called back. “And it is not the place of a traitor to say who is or is not caliph. It is your place to submit, and to be instructed, as a woman should.”
It was fortunate, Ismet decided, that her veil prevented anyone from seeing how her mouth twitched at that particular statement. “A traitor to what?” she called back, turning her head to look up and down the wall. “I was placed under the command of General Shadi by the Caliph of Ma?īn, Rashid ibn Umar, and sent north to hunt a daemon waking in the Hauteurs Massif. We found the daemon Adrammalech, and more besides. After the Prince of Plagues killed General Shadi, I assumed command of the army to deal with the immediate threat of additional daemons. Who have I betrayed, by doing the work of the Holy Angelus in this world?”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“You allied yourself with the degenerate northerners,” Malik called back. “Drinking alcohol and whoring yourself to their decadent rebel prince. Spending the lives of our soldiers for the benefit of your Narvonnian lover.”
“You dare insult my daughter?” her father shouted back, dropping a hand to the hilt of his sword. “I will cut your tongue out and feed it to the vultures!”
On the wall, archers nocked arrows and raised their bows. “Hold!” Commander Rizqullah shouted. “Any man who looses without my order will be thrown in a cell!”
“I can answer for myself,” Ismet shouted. “Did I ally with the Narvonnians? Yes!” There was renewed murmuring on the walls at her admission. “And what are the results of that alliance? Adrammelech, Prince of Plagues, dead! Zepar the Scarlet, dead! Vinea the Stormbringer, dead! The Sun-Eater, fled from the field after I struck it blind in one eye! And the Plague Dancer, fled… fled with her daemonic Exarch, Valeria, to Ma?īn!”
At this, shouts broke out on the walls, in protest, shock and anger.
“Lies!” Malik tried to shout them down, but Ismet continued.
“I am the Exarch of Epinoia, and I do not lie!” Ismet continued, without giving him space to respond. “We are not Narvonne. Our caliphs have always been chosen by the Angelus. Nasir al-Rashid is not caliph simply because his father was! That is the way of Narvonne, not Ma?īn! Where is Isrāfīl? If Isrāfīl wishes Nasir to be caliph, why has the Angelus not spoken?”
“It is not for you to question the Caliph!” Malik roared.
“Why is Isrāfīl not in the capital, but a daemon is?” Ismet pulled up on Sarkha’s reins, so that the mare danced back on her hind legs, rearing up at her command. “Why do I hear rumors of plague in the Ma?īn, even from out in the Maghreb? Why is it that two Exarchs stand before you now, and you refuse to heed the words of the Angelus?”
The word ‘two’ could be heard from the walls, and Samara kneed her own steed forward. “Hear me, people of Ma?īn,” she called, taking her place beside Ismet. “I am Samara ibnah Arif, Exarch of Nāshi?āt, and I will ride to Ma?īn. Any man who stands in my way, stands against the Angelus. I do not ask you to believe my words, but the evidence of your own eyes!”
At that, the two Angelus appeared above the army, higher then even the walls, shining down with their own inner light. Nāshi?āt and Epinoia were the brightest things in the pass, nearly blinding, with their white wings spread wide.
“Stand aside,” Epinoia’s voice rang like bells.
“Open the gate,” Nāshi?āt followed. “We are coming to Ma?īn to bring justice. Woe to any who would bar our path.”
On the wall, bows were lowered, and Ismet could feel the men panicking.
“Stand down!” Commander Rizqullah shouted to his men. “Open the gate!” There was a quick, violent movement, and Rizqullah fell with a strangled cry. Next to Ismet, her father cried out also, as if he was an echo.
“That is the fate of traitors,” Malik shouted, and by the light of the Angelus above Ismet could see dark blood on his drawn blade. “Any man who flees, will be executed! You will hold the gate, at the order of your caliph! These people are rebels and traitors. Archers! Draw!”
“We should pull back,” Fazil said, reining his horse around. “Out of range.”
“Malik ibn Zain,” Ismet shouted, standing her ground. “You are a murderer, and the pawn of daemons. Yet even now I offer you mercy. You have three days to open this gate. Do so, and you will be judged for your crimes like any other man. Do so, and we will pass peacefully, without giving battle. Fail to open the gates, and we will raze your walls to the last stone, and I will kill you myself.”
“Loose!” Malik shouted, and a scattering of arrows fell down out of the sky. Ismet drew her blade, refusing to move back, and cut an arrow out of the sky before it could reach her. Then, slowly and deliberately, she turned Sarkha’s head and rode back to her army.
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“That honorless jackal,” her father ranted, storming back and forth across the rugs of Ismet’s tent. “He cut down Rizqullah without a word! I will slit his belly open and stake him out for the buzzards!”
Fazil was helping Ismet to remove her armor. “You have picked men for me?” she asked Arkan.
“I have,” her cousin’s husband assured her. “I asked for volunteers, and then chose the smallest. I measured each of them against a length of twine cut to your height, Exarch. None of them will be taller than you, though some are more broad.”
“How many?” she asked, buckling her sword back on now that she was clad only in sarwal, belted at the waist, and a silk jubba over her torso. Ismet didn’t want to get stuck in the drainage cut because a piece of armor caught on the rock.
“You will have six men,” Arkan answered. “If you will have me, I would be the seventh.”
Ismet stepped forward, finding her eyes level with his chin. “It would appear not, cousin,” she said. “It is not a matter of bravery. It is a matter of making it through the tunnel.”
Arkan nodded, though he did not look pleased. “They wait for you outside the tent.”
“Then I will see them.” Ismet strode forward, off the carpets and onto the hard rock scrabble of the mountain pass. As Arkan had said, six men were assembled in front of her in a line. None of them wore armor, but they had swords and daggers aplenty. She picked out the widest, a muscular man whose wide shoulders seemed nearly as broad as he was tall. “Your name?” she asked.
“Rayan ibn Aadil,” he responded, back straight.
“You go last, Rayan,” Ismet said. “If you get stuck, we will have to leave you. Is that understood?”
“It is, Exarch,” the soldier assured her. Ismet nodded.
“Very good.” She stepped back to the center of the line of men, and addressed them. “We are entering a drainage tunnel that leads into the lower levels of the fortifications cut into the mountain. It will be tight, dark, and wet. There will be metal grates to bar our path. I will go first to remove them. When we reach the cellars, I will lead us up and to the gate winch. We will go quickly and silently, and we will kill anyone in our path, without mercy. We will open the gate, and then we will hold it until the rest of our troops arrive. This will not be easy. You may die. Any man who cannot do this, step back now and leave.”
Not a single man moved.
“Follow me,” Ismet said, and turned down the slope.
“May the Angelus guide you, daughter,” her father called after her.
“We will see you at the gate!” Fazil said.
Ismet and her six chosen men walked through the camp, and everywhere they passed, men prayed to the Angelus for blessings upon them. Then, they were out past the picket lines, headed down the mountain under the light of the bright stars above.