Canu aimed to make some sentries happy. ‘All is clear,’ would not be this Mercomar’s first message of the day if he could help it.
He had never seen a heliograph up close, but how hard could they be to operate? It was just a matter of pointing mirrors to catch the sun.
The mist ripped opened and exposed him in the clear. He stood startled for a moment before bending down and pretending to work, rolling boulders free of muddy, mossy sockets, pulling up bushes by the roots.
His presence drew glances, but the slaves were too absorbed in their labors to challenge him. They seemed unusually healthy—well-fed, unbeaten, unbroken—probably newly captured. They also seemed quite tall and light-skinned for Giep’o. These observations nagged at him, but Canu prevented his mind from drawing unpleasant conclusions, attributing the urge to irrational fear.
A wall of fog sealed back over him. Canu dropped his ruse and edged closer to the Mercomar.
He veered close enough to one group to overhear them speaking in Venep’o. But that might only mean that their overseers had banned all local dialect, so no secrets could be kept, so uprisings could be plotted.
But where were these overseers? Canu had spotted only man who wasn’t participating in the physical labors, and there seemed to be no guards. These slaves could easily overwhelm their master. But they toiled placidly, with minimal supervision. Was their spirit so broken?
Behind one of the working parties, Canu stumbled across a collection of jackets and armor emblazoned with blue unit insignias. The sight made him quail. These men weren’t slaves. They weren’t slaves at all.
As the magnitude of his error registered, Canu’s innards sank, his pulse raced. The fog split open again, exposing him to the working party before him. Canu glanced towards the tree-line, wondering if he could wend his way back down without being noticed.
Rustlings in the heather – too erratic for the wind, too many to be birds. The militia had arrived on scene. Canu felt his courage bolster.
When the next bank of clouds rolled over, Canu continued up the slope. The tower of the Mercomar loomed over him.
The cloud drifted past. Through his peripheral vision, Canu spied a Crasac officer staring at him from the working party he had just passed. Canu took pains not to turn his head. The officer called for Canu to stop. He kept going. The officer clomped after him with much agitation in his step.
Canu scurried beneath the tower—a squat, bulky platform supported by columns of stone. Footsteps pounded on the timbers overhead, metal gears clanked. The heliograph was being prepared for the morning transmission.
The officer shouted up to the tower. The ladder creaked, legs appeared on the rungs. Canu ducked behind a column.
***
Ara saw Canu slip behind the Mercomar. She knew he had been spotted. “We have to attack. Now!” she said, her voice shrill. As she turned to Feril, the wind whipped loose hair across her face.
“But … we’re facing Crasacs,” said Feril. “Maybe we should reconsider.”
“Look at them!” said Ara. “They’re half-naked. They wield only shovels.”
“Vul needs more time to get around the mountain,” said Feril, his face blanching. “We would need to bring the reserves forward.”
“Then call them. Now!” said Ara, “Before we lose any chance of surprise.”
Feril stewed for a moment before leaning towards his sergeant. Ara couldn’t hear what he said, but waves of hand signals spreading from soldier to soldier in all directions down the ranks told her that he had given the order. Two lines of archers came forward, bows already strung. A back line of skirmishers with short swords and light shields formed up behind the archers.
Feril raised his hand. All eyes turned to him. The Crasacs continued to work, oblivious to their presence, many with their backs to the trees.
Feril’s hand dropped. The first line of archers let loose, followed by the second line the instant the first arrows struck. Several Crasacs fell, toppling stones they were in the process of lifting onto those below. The others stumbled and collided, careening about like angry ants.
“Now! While they’re disordered,” said Ara, raising her short sword. Before Feril could respond, she dashed out of the trees alone. Twenty-odd skirmishers surged after her, with Feril in their wake. A fire seized Ara like none she had ever felt.
The archers kept up a barrage over their heads, staggering their volleys. The skirmishers fell upon the breathless Crasacs, half-clothed and scrambling for their weapons. The few that stood their ground fell before the short swords of the skirmishers. The rest bolted across the mountain slope.
Pari’s group, coming up through the stunted trees on the left to extend their flank to the left, unleashed their arrows. They had been lucky to catch the Crasacs without their crossbows, probably left behind in some armory in the expectation of peaceful labors.
Ara hadn’t even needed to employ her blade, but she could see that condition would persist. Other working parties across the slopes, startled initially, had dropped their tools and dashed over to their stowed piles of gear. Some had already donned their armors and were forming up into assault blocks.
Some of the skirmishers were already pushing on towards the tower.
“Halt them!” said Ara to Feril. As much as she wanted to break to the Mercomar, dispersing now would render their small force vulnerable to a counterstrike.
Ara looked down the tree line, found Pari, and signaled a warning. The tide of the battle was about to turn. She could feel it.
***
Two Mercomar guards thudded down the ladder. Cries cascaded along the fortifications. Canu turned to see bolts and arrows flitting out of the tree line like startled flocks. The Crasac laborers scrambled for their armor and weapons.
The officer and the guards ran off in support of the defenses. Canu put down his armload of poles and hunted around for a better weapon, and found only a two-handled draw knife resting on a pile of logs. It made an awkward weapon, but it was the best he could find. He grabbed it and climbed the creaky ladder.
The attack down slope had caught the Crasacs unarmed and unarmored. Canu grinned. He had timed things perfectly.
A hand reached down a hatch in the platform. Someone wanted to help him up. Canu took a deep breath. The hand waggled impatiently. Canu maneuvered around the back of the ladder, seized the hand and pulled as hard as he could. A guard plummeted through the hatch and onto the log pile below, nearly hauling Canu with him.
Canu poked his head up above the platform. Heliograph assemblies were mounted on circular tracks in each corner but only one looked functional, with a full complement of mirrors and baffles to shape its flashes. He saw no guards. He hauled himself up, crouching low so as not to be seen over the rail.
A man appeared from behind the working heliograph, removing its protective sheathings, cranking it into position. He looked quite old, but wiry, white hair gathered in a long ponytail. Canu balanced the draw knife in his grip. It was an awkward weapon, but maybe the old man would back off if Canu simply brandished it at him.
The old man took one look at Canu, stepped away from the heliograph, and retrieved a long, slender saber from a crack between the floorboards. He strode towards Canu with a confidence that made Canu’s evaporate. He stopped several paces away, a gleam in his crinkled eyes. Scars on his cheek and chin suggested that the old man was no stranger to sword fights.
***
A block of Crasacs, six by six, linked their shields and came after Ara and the skirmishers. Another block was half-formed behind them and a third was coming around the curve of the summit. Arrows had little effect on their armor.
“Have your archers put away their bows and join us,” said Ara. Pari’s group had already responded, and came up out the trees against the assault block’s flank. That the assault pressed on before their support had joined up with them told either of the Crasac’s confidence in their abilities, or their disdain for the fighting prowess of Se
sep’o militia.
Feril looked at her anxiously. “Perhaps we should fall back?”
“Not yet,” said Ara.
Feril whistled, dutifully, and his archers came forward, bows slung, swords drawn.
The assault block slowed.
“Looks like they were bluffing,” said Ara. “They were hoping we’d break and run. Some of Pari’s group continued to snipe with their bows, and were taking a toll on the order of the assault formation.
But the other two groups of Crasacs were on the move and about to join up on either flank, along with some stragglers sprinting over from the far side of the summit.
“They’ll come when the others join them,” said Feril.
“Let us see,” said Ara, keeping her eye on the Mercomar.
***
For his age, the old man proved quick with his saber and lithe on his toes. He almost seemed to enjoy dueling Canu. Time and again Canu was late to parry. The mass at the end of the two-handled draw knife made it difficult to wield.
One of the old man’s lunges proved serendipitous when the saber caught the free handle and lopped it off, giving Canu the equivalent of a short sword. The blade still curved the wrong way, but without the knobby handle, he could arrest and reverse his swings much more easily.
It still took all of Canu’s wiles to evade the old man’s rangier blade, stepping carefully around the platform, circling around the heliograph, always leaving enough room behind in case he needed space to dodge.
As Canu danced along the rail, he caught a glimpse of the battle below. He saw in that glance, the makings of a rout, with half-naked Crasacs either running away or battling the short swords of Feril’s fighters with shovels. The sight inspired him. His broken draw knife no longer seemed like such a bad lot.
The old man circled Canu slowly, panting and grinning. “I warned them you would come,” he said.
“Who, me?” said Canu.
“You are Cadre, no?”
“Militia,” said Canu. “From Suul.”
Canu’s words seemed dissipate some of the verve from the old man’s fight, as if he were disappointed to learn that his adversary less than elite.
Canu lured him close to heliograph and threw his weight against the structure supporting the mirrors. A cantilevered arm swung at the old man’s head, forcing him to duck. Canu dove at his ankles, toppling him. The saber stuck in the cogged gears of the heliograph and snapped. Canu kicked the hilt out of the old man’s hand and stuck the broken end of the draw knife against his throat.
“Go ahead,” said the old man, meeting Canu’s eyes without fear. He held his chin high and puffed out his chest. “Kill me.”
“What if I don’t want to?” said Canu.
“Don’t expect me to do it myself,” said the old man. “If I was younger you’d already been filleted.”
A break in the clouds suddenly bathed the platform in light.
“Show me how to work this and I’ll spare you.” Canu grabbed the broken saber and clambered up the frame of the heliograph.
“What message do you intend? Greetings to the Alar?”
“Never mind that. Show me how to work it or I’ll rip your throat.”
“When I don’t send the ‘all is clear,’ a thousand Cuasars will return the favor.”
Canu saw the old man reaching for the broken tip of his saber. Canu strode over and kicked it off the platform.
“You sit down against that post, grandpa!”
“Grandpa? Save it for someone who is not a eunuch.”
“I said sit!” said Canu.
The old man slid over to the post. Canu dragged over a sack of pebbles, used to keep the heliograph from rolling, onto the old man’s lap.
“Now stay there and shut up, if you’re not going to help me.”
Canu turned one of the cranks that positioned the mirrors.
“Wrong way,” said the old man.
“Oh? Now you’re helpful?”
“I’m curious,” said the old man. “I want to see what you send. Messages are my daily bread.”
Canu kept turning until a mirror caught the sun and blazed it into his face.
“That’s it, now turn the other one. Get the other mirror aligned with this one.”
Canu did as he said, concentrating the beams, moving them closer to the main mirror.
“How is it you speak such good Sesep’o?” said Canu.
“I am from Ijaji.”
“Ah! The land of pirates. No wonder.”
“Merchants,” said the old man.
“Same thing,” said Canu.
The mirrors aligned but the beam of the first passed above the second.
“Now you need the other crank,” said the old man. “Bring it down from the vertical.”
Canu did a double-take. The sand bags on the old man’s lap were half-empty. The old man had picked a whole in the corners and let the sand drain out. “Keep your hands on the rail or I’ll cut off your fingers.” Canu dragged another larger sack onto the old man’s his legs.
“What the devil are you doing in Gi?” said Canu.
“I could ask you the same … if I didn’t already know.”
“So you’re a traitor,” said Canu. “Abandoning your country.”
“Please. My country banished me.”
The beam came down and caught the large mirror. He yanked on a lever that folded back a bat-winged bellows. A flash of light burst forth before the bellows sprang closed.
“Too bad it’s pointing north,” said the old man. “No one to see it but bears.”
“You bastard!” said Canu. “You were guiding me the whole time. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m your enemy, not your tutor.”
***
Three assault blocks of Crasacs had linked up and filled in the gaps between them. A Crasac officer, standing behind the formation, lowered a striped flag and raised a red one. The Crasacs advanced into the angle formed by the two wings of militia. The fighters near Ara had fallen back behind the partially completed stone works. Some had taken up abandoned Crasac shields and bits of armor. Discipline began to crumble in the face of the imminent onslaught.
“We can’t stay here,” said Feril. “They’ll smash right through us.”
As much as it pained Ara to abandon Canu, she had to agree. She saw no sign from the Mercomar that Canu had even survived his gambit.
“Back to the trees,” said Ara, nodding.
Feril whistled, and his fighters, looking relieved, peeled away from the fortifications back to the tree line. Pari stood on a boulder, looking perturbed as she queried Ara with hand signals. Ara shaped the sign for an ordered retreat.
The Crasacs wheeled and loosened their blocks, believing perhaps that they had intimidated the militia into breaking and running. But Feril had his fighters stop just within the border of the thickets. Every other fighter strung their bows.
“I say two volleys and we go,” said Feril.
And then the Mercomar flashed, once, but very brightly, to the north.
“Wait!” said Ara. “We need to hold out. Just a little longer.”
The Crasacs advanced. Their lead ranks broke into a run, sabers raised, shields forward.
More heads appeared behind them, silhouetted against the sky, marching straight over the summit, filtering beneath the Mercomar.
“Another wave!” said Feril. “They’ll break us for sure.”
Ara squinted against the glare. Something seemed unusual about these Crasacs. Her heart leaped.
“These are … your own fighters,” said Ara.
“What?” said Feril.
“Vul’s come up the back of the mountain.”
The fighters on the summit took one look at the scene below them and charged. Their cries startled the onrushing Crasacs, stalling them before they reached the trees. Their commander equivocated over what command flag to raise, turning his troops every which way.
“Get them!” said Ara, rushing
back out the trees. Again the militia spilled forward with her into the ragged ranks of Crasacs.
***
Another large gap opened up in the mist. The sun perched like a fireball over the mountains beyond Maora, washing the Mercomar in its rays. Another bank of clouds threatened to soon close that window.
Canu hurried to get the heliograph redirected. Eight of flashes of eight didn’t seem possible but he would try his damnedest to send eight flashes before they took him. He spun the balky crank as fast as he could move it.
Panicked shouts came from the slopes below the tower. Canu couldn’t tell which way the battle was turning.
Steps pounded up the ladder. Canu grabbed the broken saber and leaped over to the open hatch, determined to slay whoever appeared to buy him some time.
The old man shouted a warning in Venep’o to those below.
“Shut up, you old bastard!” said Canu, raising the saber.
“Canu, is that you?” said Vul, poking his head through the hatch.
“Vul? You almost got yourself impaled.”
“With that … stub?” Vul climbed onto the platform. “Who is this man?”
“He’s the operator,” said Canu. “A mercenary from Ijaji.”
“The station master?”
“Perhaps,” said Canu.
“Canu, we need to go, there’s a large force coming up the mountain, Cuerti among them. We’ve stirred the hornet’s nest.”
“Not yet … I haven’t sent the signal.”
“There’s no time. We’ll just destroy it.”
“No!” said Canu, rushing over to the heliograph. “Help me … help me turn this.”
“Canu, we can’t—”
“Help me, Vul!”
Vul came over and helped Canu spin the crank until they got the main mirror, shielded by a spring-loaded baffle, aligned down the valley towards Raacevo. Canu then adjusted the array of smaller mirrors that concentrated sunlight onto the signal mirror.
“He learns,” said the old man.
Panicked shouts sounded below the tower. “They’re coming!” said Vul.
Canu peeked over the rail. The Crasac working party had retreated, but another larger force had emerged up the back side of the mountain and were advancing on the Mercomar.