Penny

Shields of the Empire

The funeral rites proceeded properly. Phaedra watched as the yew twigs were removed from the necks of the dead women and then lit from a charcoal brazier before being thrust into the kindling beneath the pyres. The corpses were naked save for where their ancient tribal markings had been daubed in mud. The surviving members of their Syndi spoke the ritual words. There were only two Syndi who had lost more than one member, those pairs of women had been first to light their pyres. After the rite was concluded they would form a new group out of the two half Syndi. The others would remain threesomes until new recruits were found or casualties reduced them to pairs which could be properly combined. Idly Phaedra wondered whether the inhabitants of Arbela might furnish any new recruits. Judging from the hard looks they were shooting the Miravet, that seemed unlikely, but one never knew. In any community there were young women who wanted to escape their lots in life, and desert dwellers tended to produce hardy sorts who could take to the training. She would see to it in a while.

"They are Imperial," Zoe said in soft voice as she slid in beside her commander. The scout leader hadn't been in the field herself but she had scattered her own people out among Brasidas own scouts. Naturally they had verified that the approaching force was friendly. It was a hard learned lesson that not all Imperial outfits took scouting as seriously as the Miravet, though from what Zoe had said she hadn't found much to complain about in Brasidas' troops.

"How are we doing for arrows?" Phaedra asked as her eyes tracked eastward to the approaching force.

"Assuming our commander doesn't want us to wait all night to gather them up we should be fine," Zoe replied. Phaedra didn't quite manage to keep a smile from touching her lips at the dig. Already she could here the ringing of hammers from Arbela's few blacksmith shops. Phoebe, the blacksmith for the regiment, was already supervising the local blacksmiths as they hammered fresh arrow heads out of steel looted from the dead. Shafts and fletching would be affixed in due time, and if they had enough time, local arrows would be fitted with Miravet arrowheads.

"Think we will be moving out soon?" Zoe asked as they watched the swelling dust of Tychon's approaching troops.

"By the Huntress is that thing human?" Phaedra cut in. Zoe was also goggling at the enormous bear of a man who rode between Brasidas and Salf.

"That poor horse," Zoe empathized, though in truth the big draft mount didn't seem to be too upset with its situation.

"I think you had probably best have the girls ready to ride, while I think of it, do we have anyone who speaks good Atvari?"

"Thalia does, and Antonina," Zoe replied, "Hespia did but..." Zoe trailed off guesturing to the pyres sadly.

"Ok, Get Thalia and Nina and see if any local girls are looking to get out a life of dirt farming, or whoring," Phaedra instructed.

"Let them know we wont be staying here if they are worried about the Great King appearing to punish them," Phaedra continued. Leaving Zoe to her work she turned and headed for the entrance to town where Brasidas and his companions were approaching. With any luck Tychon had news and they could start making some concrete plans.

Shields of the Empire

Phaedra's face was stony. Eudoxia set her jaw in a familiar expression that Phaedra had seen directed at many Imperial officers in the past. Phaedra could read the expression clearly: Was this man was kicked in the head at birth? The transperency of her second made her smile and broke her own tension. She didn't know if Brasidas really thought the town would be loyal to the Empire but if he did he was a bigger optimist than she even dreamed of being. In four centuries of warfare these border towns had changed hands many times but the Atvari would be back here, in a week or in a year and these peasants would give their loyalty cheerful to whichever army held the ford.

"See that the wood you have gathered goes to the dead from the ambush Second," she said formally.

"I'm sure that their Syndi are already asking for it." Miravet riders grouped into social groups of four in formal ceremonies. The four women formed would share campfires, tend a wounded member and, most importanly carry out the proper funeral rites if a sister fell. Though the group was primarily religious in origin, for practical reasons the women were always from different Tets. The practice meant that all four were unlikey to fall in a single battle, and was good for the cohesion of the whole force as different elements were kept in contact by the small groups. Those who had lost sisters in the ambush two nights before, would doubtlessly be eager to kind the fires for their departed friends whose bodies by now were blackening in the heat. The Miravet religion held that a woman's soul would remain close to her body until it was destroyed either by fire or decay. Fire was seen as the quickest and healthies way of releasing the spirt. Although there was no hierarchy, it happened Eudoxia, Zoe and Iona were the other members of Phaedra's Syndi.

"Tandi Pey," Phaedra added in the tribal language of the Miravet. The expression didn't translate precisely but was probably closet to 'it is what it is.' Eudoxia sighed.

"Tandi Pey," she agreed, too wise to say anything more even though it was unlikely anyone other than the Miravet would be able to understand.

"Better set to recovering arrows and stockpiling what you can find," Phaedra added as the thought occurred to her. Likely that had already started, Phaedra didn't doubt her troops were systematically stripping the dead of anything valuable and arrows, their own and others were always in demand. She might have suggested gathering spears and armor for Brasidas' troops also, but she doubted that would have gone over very well.

"Lets get it done Doxy," she told her second in command dryly.

Shields of the Empire

Phaedra considered it. The goal of this expedition had been to punish raiders and repulse a possible Atvari probe. That had already been accomplished when Brasidas and his men had sacked Arbela, and doubly so with the crushing defeat of the local Khareeds. She wasn't best pleased to get all the way here only to have to march back to Kestos, but that seemed infinitely preferable to facing twenty thousand Atvari with miles of hostile desert between them and safety.

"Well we can do nothing till your man Tychon rejoins us," Phaedra replied, "and my Sisters have been riding hard for two days." Many Imperial units would have considered the entire march hard, but in truth Georgicus had set a fairly leisurely pace by Miravet standards.

"We can use a day to rest the horses and tend to our fallen," she said solemnly, waving away an offer of refill for her empty cup. There would be many tasks to accomplish before she turned in for what was left of the night and she couldn't afford to be slowed by too much wine.

"Lord! Lord!" came a cry from beyond the wagon barricade. Several distressed looking locals were being held back by the soldiers. There faces were anguished, though they obviously weren't going to try to force there way past armed Imperial troops.

"They are tearing down our houses! The house of my father and my fathers fathers. The devil women!" Phaedra placed her cup down and grimaced. The Miravet needed timber to build pyres and the only source was the wooden superstructure of the local buildings. Timber was expensive here and doubtless represented considerable hardship for the villagers who could do nothing but watch as the cavalry women pulled down their homes to feed the fires.

Shields of the Empire

Phaedra sipped wine from the clay cup as she considered her words. Desertion was a serious crime in the Imperial army. It was punishable by flogging at the very least, and desertion on campaign could be punishable by death. It didn't make any sense that a politically savvy and well connected officer like Georgicus to risk disgrace by abandoning his post.

"He and his entire command abandoned us just before we were ambushed by the Atvari," she explained, "left tents standing to make it look like they were coming back."

"I had considered that he was simply wiped out by the Atvari, but the tents were cleared out," she continued.

"It dosen't make any sense to me, he was technically in command," Phaedra told Brasidas. It was typical of the aristocratic class of the armies upper command that political connections went further than field experience and that was doubly true for regiments like the Miravet who were already considered only a cut above barbarians despite being part of the Empire for two centuries.

"Were you expecting more reinforcements? Even together we would have been up against it if we met those Khareeds in open, and the Satrap is only a couple of days ride from here, with what? Maybe twenty thousand plus whatever locals he can gather up?" She unfastened the clasps of her armor letting the scale hang rather than constricting her.

Shields of the Empire

"Food would be welcome, wine more so," Phaedra admitted. She pulled her helmet free and hung it from her saddle. Her hair, a dark lustrous black, was braided and coiled in a crown which sweat had plastered to her head. She gratefully took a a wet cloth from one of the protostates and wiped the spattering of blood from her face.

"We've army wine," Brasidas replied a hint of question in his tone. There were officers, Georgicus and his aristocratic ilk, who would sooner die than drink the harsh red that made up the standard army ration. The Miravet however were a frontier folk and wine of any kind was a luxury to them. Phaedra nodded gratefully, eager to wash the taste of dust from her throat. Brasidas led her back though the town. The damage of battle abated quickly, though the lack of civilians gave it an empty and haunted look. The entered a large square which fronted a modest temple, opposite the three pillared temple was a large stoa under which amphorae of grain, wine and oil had been stacked behind a barricade of wagons. A squad of Protostartes, all walking wounded, stood on guard, as much to keep their own soldiers from looting as to repel the enemy. They stiffened to attention as their commander approached though none of them actually saluted. They slid between two wagons and moved to a corner where several stools stood across a battered timber bar. Brasidas took a seat and Phaedra followed his examples. One of the soldiers ladled out two goblets of wine, not bothering to dilute it in the normal Imperial fashion. Phaedra drank gratefully, then squared her shoulder.

"I'm still waiting for a count," she began bluntly, "But I expect I have seventeen hundred riders still saddle ready."

"We had five hundred Keylaran's when we set out, garrison troops from Kestos," she explained, her voice so careful to avoid stressing the word 'garrison' that it was effectively a slap.

"Georgicus Andronikus was in command, but they vanished, deserted it seemed like," she continued.

"Right before we got ambushed by the Atvari, night before last," Phaedra explained.

"First?" came a woman's voice from beyond the barricade. Eudoxia pressed through the barricade, the soldiers didn't quite try to stop her, though they were clearly ready to do so if Brasidas offered any objection. Fortunately he chose not to.

"Eudoxia Eushenko, my second," Phaedra explained. Eudoxia gave Brasidas a measuring look but didn't salute.

"Zoe's back, she broke off a half hour ago, we have a hundred twelve dead, as many wounded," she reported. Phaedra nodded. It was actually better than she expected, better even than the ambush two nights ago.

"Let everyone out of discipline," she told her subordinate, "get some wine and food organized too."

Shields of the Empire

"We are going to need to go back in," Iona opined. The Tetrarch had remounted on a horse which had belonged to a fallen rider. Phaedra scanned the churning battlefield with a practiced eye. She drew an arrow and loosed, the arrow punching through the coif of a Khareed who was attempting to rally his troops. Eudoxia and her riders were cutting into the northern flank, their fresh horses and fresh lances were making the difference as was the reformed Imperial line.

"I think..." Phaedra began and then the Atvari broke. It was as though a dam had broken. At one moment they seemed like they would hold and in the next they were running for the ford like a human stampede. A few of the braver Khareeds were still attempting to rally resistance. Miravet arrows turned on those centers of resistance like the tongues of anteaters, smashing them before they could begin to stem the tide.

"Now we are going back in," Phaedra snapped, fitting her helmet back into place.

"It's over, why waste lives?" Iona objected.

"Sound the charge Tetrarch," Phaedra ordered, wiping the blood from her spatha. There were far too many Atvari wandering around to let this army regroup. None of them would be safe if the Atvari simply regrouped out in the desert. The horns blasted and the Miravet hung their bows, drew their swords and charged.

_____

"Now its over," Phaedra panted. Her arm ached and blood mattered her hair from a stray arrow which struck her helmet. The Atvari were streaming away into the desert. Zoe's riders were pressing them hard, but they would give off the pursuit soon. Night had already fallen and it would soon be too dark to risk chasing desert nomads who knew the terrain. The rout was more than complete. Thousands of enemy dead littered the dusty ground. Imperial soldiers were moving among them, delivering death blows to the worst of the wounded and gathering the less severely wounded for whatever care could be found.

A dismounted Miravet waved a bloody spear overhead as Phaedra approached. Erine, her skin still blacked with patches of boot polish she hadn't yet removed, was grining like a cat which had been at the cream. Phaedra couldn't help but smiling back. That young woman was in for a promotion.

"First!" she called, "Atronarch Brasidas is over by the gate." She gestured with the spear to a gate of mud bricks. It had once been a part of the wall, but Brasidas and his men had torn the walls down when they took the city. That had been good practice when there had been a large Imperial force heading east, but with Gergicous gone who knew where, Phaedra was no longer certain that was true. She trotted over to where the armored commander stood with a knot of men whom Phaedra assumed were his senior officers.

"Atronarch," she called, sliding from the saddle. The ground seemed unsteady after so long on horseback and her legs cramped. The feeling wasn't unfamiliar and she flexed her legs twice before clashing her fist to her breast and then extending her hand in an abbreviated Imperial salute.

"Protus Kapetanos Phaedra Commnenus," she reported, flexing the cramp out of her sword hand.

Shields of the Empire

"These poor bastards," Iona chuckled as she watched the battle unfolding below. They were in full view from the battlefield below, but no eyes were looking there way. It wouldn't matter if they were spotted now in any case, there wasn't a commander in the world who could extricate a force from such a bloody chaotic encounter now.

"Lets save our sympathy for someone other than the stinking Khareeds," Phaedra said as she pulled her hair back and pulled her helmet down over her head. Iona matched the action and hefted her bow.

"With your permission First?" Iona asked formally. Phaedra nodded at her Tetrarch.

At first the Atvari didn't pick out the horn blast from the other sounds of battle, but the sound of five hundred hooves drumming the ground was harder to ignore. Even so it wasn't until the Miravet cavalry burst over the low rise in a cloud of dust. The Atvari recoiled at the sudden appearance of cavalry at their rear. The Imperials, forewarned by Eriene, were ready for it and they surged forward into the faltering enemy. As they crested the rise each cataphract drew her bow and released an arrow before hanging their bows on their saddle horns and drawing their lances. A rippling wave of missles fell on the enemy from the rear, punching through the light backplates of the Khareed armor and sending men and horses tumbling down in a bloody ruin. The armored horsewomen hammered down the slope at a gallop, closing the hundred yards to the rear ranks in under a minute. To their credit, the Atvari at the rear, seeing the danger, managed to form a ragged line. Unfortunately those at the rear were not the best or the bravest, those soldiers were already being spitted by Brasidas and his men. They also lacked polearms and so the long lances of the Miravet left them all but defenseless in the inital second of contact. Metal and men screamed as the wedge of riders smashed into the rear ranks, killing hundreds of men in a few seconds, many were spitted on lances, but many more were simple rode into the ground by the weight of horses and armor. Phaedra dropped her shattered lance and drew her spatha, thrusting downward as she drove her horse towards the center of the battle line. They were terribly outnumbered, but the sudden shock of their attack was armor for as long as it lasted. Phaedra could hear nothing, over the din of battle and the pall of dust that five hundred horses and several thousand men kicked up was enough to obscure her vision more than a few dozen yards. She simply had to trust that Eudoxia and Zoe were carrying out their own assignments.

"Forward! Press them!" she shouted uselessly as she split the helm of a Khareed with a blow from her spatha. The impact jarred up her arm as her horse carried her passed into the mass of the dead man's retainers. The force of the charge was spending itself rapidly and while the mass of the Atvari infantry was breaking as there were knots of resistance beginning to coalesce around the dismounted Khareeds. As Phraeda watched one of her riders went down as a spear thrust into her horses flank, the woman hit the ground on her back and was immediately hacked open by half a dozen enemy soldiers.

“Iona, sound the…” Phraeda began but even as she spoke a bloodied Atvari hamstrung her Tetrarch’s horse. The stallion screamed as its rear legs gave out. Unlike the previous rider though Iona was not caught by surprise. She stood up in her stirrups and vaulted clear landing heavily on the dusty ground. It would have been a perfect dismount if she hadn’t tangled her feet on a corpse, the slippery entrails staggering her. An Atvari raised a curved sword to strike her, but before he could drive home Phaedra drove the iron wrapped edge of her shield down into his face. The heavy oak shield shattered the Atvari’s face in a spray of blood and teeth. Iona regained her feet, stabbed the reeling infantryman in the throat, then leaped up onto Phaedra’s saddle, getting one foot into the styrip and pulling herself up over the saddle bow. As soon as Iona was secure Phaedra drove her horse away. Iona unslung Phaedra’s bow and began to fire back over her body in the steppe fashion. For her own part Phaedra pulled her horn from her saddlebag and blew three sharp blasts. The Miravet riders wheeled away from the line, following Iona’s example and sending volleys of arrows back over their shoulders as they pulled back. The technique didn’t provide the kind of nail driving accuracy of their normal archery but it slashed into the staggered mass of Atvari with brutal effect. There was another horn blast, this one off to the north.

“Eudoxia is bringing her riders in,” Iona shouted over the screams and clamor of battle.

“Keep up the archery and reform!” she shouted, “We will drive back in if we have to.” She hoped she didn’t have to. Without the lances and with the enemy prepared, casualties would be much heavier. With luck Brasidas and Eudoxia would be sufficient to break the stalemate.




A hot wind blew down from the distant ridge bringing with it the smell of warm sand and desert flowers. The night was clear and as chill as the next day would be hot. The cavalry were encamped on one of the small rocky rises which rose from the floor of the desert at intervals, ancient mountains which had been ground down by millennia of grit blowing in off the Atvari plateau. Several hundred tents were pitched in rows as net as the terrain permitted. Horses were picketed in neat rows beside small fires, kindled on the scant fuel the cavalry could scavenge in such inhospitable country.

Penny's Pencils

Penny's Pencils

Shields of the Empire

"There sure are alot of them," Zoe observed somberly. Phaedra and her chief scout were laying on their bellies on the top of a shallow hill peering out across the battlefield, both women had shed their armor for the task but it was still hot enough to raise a sweat. Below them they could see the border town. It was a simple place of mud brick, which was a good thing as the only smoke Phaedra could see was rising from cook fires. Arbella was situated at the last reliable ford in the Kitri before the streams draining from the higher ground to the north combined to broaden and deepen it to the point that boats were needed to make the crossing. There was great bridge that spanned it a hundred miles down river at the provincial capital of Sidris but Sidris was protected by high stone walls, and two great citadels protected either end of the bridge. Any Imperial campaign had to begin with Arbela. The deepening river also meant that the lands beyond Arbela grew steadily richer as the increased water allowed the locals to cultivate wheat, apricots, dates and pistachios. More farmland meant more Khareeds, and it seemed every one of them had come to Arbela.

Thousands of Khareeds and their infantry auxiliaries were encamped on the eastern side of the village. Rough seige works ringed the town, a shallow ditch faced with sharpened stakes. The stakes were sparce and mostly on the western side of the city, timber being too expensive to permit a proper invesiture. Phaedra curled her lip, while Miravet were not reknowned for their seigecraft she had spent enough time in Imperial service and worked with the Imperial Engineers enough to view the works with contempt. They probably wouldn't stop Brasidas from breaking out if he decided it was necessary, but it would slow the process somewhat, perhaps enough to allow the Khareeds to block him.

"Maybe ten thousand," Phaedra opined, sweeping the large Khareed camp with her eyes. Their fine horses with their colorful ramients were drawn up in lines beside their infantry, most of whom were lightly armored. Several thousand Khareeds appeared to be dismounted to fight as heavy infantry. That showed better judgement than Phaedra liked to see in her enemies. Again her Imperial service had corrected her native prejudices. It had been infantry armies which had established the Empire when it rose from a simple city of shepards five centuries before, conquering much of the known world with their short swords and broad shields, and too this day there were no infantry like Imperial infantry.

"More like tweleve," Zoe corrected, "I wonder why he isn't holding down the ford." The ford was visible as a patch of lighter water. A broad dusty track dipped into the river and rose on the other side, marked by cairns of piled river rocks.

"Dosen't want to split his troops, plus if Brasidas did cross, the Khareeds can just follow on this bank and hit them in open contry once the river gets shallower up stream. The Khareed commander would probably be delighted to get him out into open country. Khareed heavy lancers were among the best in the world, and it would go poorly for an outnumbered force in open country.

"Judging from the week encirlement he is expecting reinforcements from Sidris, that or he just wants to force Brasidas to withdraw to the north west, away from the water, let the desert finish him off," Phaedra continued.

"Looks like they are starting to form up," Zoe remaked, nodding her chin towards where knots of Khareeds were begining to form. Like mold growing on bread the force began to coalece around the noble horsemen. Phaedra wiggled back behind the rise, squinting up at the sun. It was still perhaps an hour till sundown, but the sun was low on the horizon now, it would shine into the eyes of Brasidas and his men as the Khareeds made their assault, giving the Atvari a considerable advantage. Phadera smiled tightly. It would also keep them blind to the Miravet at their backs until the last possible moment. They might be outnumbered nearly three to one, but by the Huntress, these sorry bastards were going to learn a thing or two before the night was out.

The sound of trumpets heralded the beginning of the Atvari attack. It had taken most of an hour to get organised, that was actually pretty respectable for Khareeds, whose network of noble commanders and competing senses of honor often made such things an all day affair. It had been time enough for Phaedra to detach two of her four tets. Zoe and her troops had road back to the last ford and crossed the river moving up along the southern bank of the Kriti. Eudoxia had swung north, keeping the low hills between them and the Khareeds before emerging on the high ground to the north east. That left Phaedra and Iona with just over a thousand riders of their own to carry out the main thrust.

"I think we might have done better to keep Zoe with us," Iona complained as she swung up into her saddle. She was in full armor now and had settled the distinctive Miravet helmet with its three leaf design down over her face. Phaedra passed the long steel tipped lance up to her and Iona settled it into the stirup cup of her mount so it stood upright, then tied the leather cord around it so it wouldn't be in the way of using her bow.

"If we dont shatter them completely, then we will just be a slightly less outnumbered force when we join up with Brasidas, four hundred more riders won't help us in the charge, but it might make the difference at the ford between a defeat and a rout," Phaedra explained. Iona grunted, unconvinced but unwilling to argue the point. In truth Phaedra had taken an extra hundred riders from both Zoe and Eudoxia to stiffen her main force. It would have to be enough. Phaedra swung herself up into her own saddle and accepted a lance from another rider. She didn't don her own helmet though, not yet. More tiny trumpet blasts sounded from beyond the screening hills. The attack was underway now, in her minds eye Phaedra could picture the dismounted Khareeds pressing forward towards the town, their archers rushing forward to trade arrows with the defenders. It wasn't until the first clashes of weapons could be heard that Phaedra rode forward.

"These Atvari bastards only think they want to get into town," she called, her horse prancing dramatically as though enjoying the moment, "but wait till they have a thousand of us up their arses to encourage them. I'll bet you the poor bastards try to grow wings!" A chant began among the ranks of riders. Phaedra! Phaedra! Phaedra! She grinned like a panther and settled her helmet onto her head before turning her horse to the east. These sorry Atvari bastards were fucked.