Chapter 13

Putting his hands on the saddle horn, Sid leaned forward and looked down the road as if searching for something. He could hear the sounds of a column of men on horseback, with the shuffle of men marching behind them.

Turning his head to look at Gregor, Sid said, “They are coming.”

“I can hear them,” Gregor said looking around. He asked, “Shouldn’t we get into the woods before they come around the bend in the road?”

“No, we’ll wait for them here,” Sid said with a wink of his eye.

“I don’t want to end up being a slave again,” Derek said looking down the road with a frown. He looked around at the small party waiting in the road. There were a dozen of them -- Sid, Gregor, Fred, himself, and eight men at arms who Connor had ordered to guard Sid from harm. From the sounds, it was clear that they were about to face over a hundred men.

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Sid said looking over at Derek. He added, “They won’t make us slaves, they’ll kill us. It will probably be a horrible and painful death.”

When Derek turned pale, Fred chuckled and said, “Sid, sometimes you are so reassuring.”

Sid chuckled and said, “Wait and watch. We’re the distraction.”

The head of the column came around the corner and held up his hand to get the troops behind to stop. He stared at Sid trying to make sense of the handful of men blocking the road. Two men rode up to the man at the front of the column. The discussion was short and heated.

Sid leaned over to Derek and said, “They are debating about rushing us or having a parley.”

“What if they chose a parley?” Derek asked.

“It’s too late for that. Half of the men behind them are about to be dead,” Sid answered even as shouts broke out down the road. The shouts grew loud and then started to die off. Sid listened to the sounds and said, “There goes the other half.”

“How do you know?” Gregor asked looking at Sid.

“The shouting has stopped,” Sid answered watching the three men down the road. The men turned their horses and rushed around the corner to investigate the noises.

A man slipped into view from the woods and waved to Sid. Kicking his horse, Sid said, “Let’s go see how many prisoners we have.”

“We were just down there. I didn’t see his troops,” Derek said to Gregor wondering what had happened around the corner. The two men realized Sid was halfway to the corner and kicked their horses to get them moving.

Gregor pulled back on the reins when he finally was able to see where the ambush had taken place. Half of the bushes that had bordered the forest were lying on the ground. Bending down, he examined the bush and realized that it was actually a bush tied to a very large shield. Looking up, he asked, “What is this?”

“Camouflaged shields,” Sid answered with a grin. Climbing off his horse, he picked up the shield and squatted behind it. From the front it looked like any other green bush that grew along side the road. The slight breeze hid any movement of the shield.

“That really does look like a bush,” Gregor commented.

Sid pushed the shield forward to reveal that he was behind it holding a bow. Looking over at Gregor, he said, “The man in this position would fire one arrow and then lift the shield back into place. From the edge of the woods across the road, a man would drop his shield and fire an arrow once the troops have turned to take care of the initial attackers. Those that go after the first set of attackers find that they are facing a forest of spears coming out from behind these bushes and arrows falling on their backs. Those that go after the second set of attackers only have to deal with the spears.”

Dropping the bow to the ground, Sid stood up. Stepping forward, he said, “Once the column has been broken into small groups, our men come out and take them down at a three to one advantage.”

“Nice,” Gregor said looking over the devastation of the battlefield. Sid’s men were dispatching the terminally wounded slavers and placing the bodies in a line beside the road. The others were bandaged and herded to one area where they were held under guard.

Horses, weapons, and supplies were quickly collected. Less than ten minutes had passed since the attack, and the area was almost clear of any sign of the attack other than the row of bodies. Derek watched and asked, “What will you do with the prisoners?”

“We’ll question them and then send them to the rear as indentured servants,” Sid said.

“Isn’t that slavery of a different kind?” Derek asked despite the fact that it was a common way of dealing with prisoners during war. It was just after his experience as a slave, he was exceptionally sensitive to losing control over his life.

“In a way, but it is just for the duration of the war,” Sid answered. He had thought about setting up prison camps, but that required more resources than he had to spare. The common practice of a limited indentured servitude was the only way he could see to deal with the numbers of prisoners that he expected.

The man in charge of the raid noticed Sid, and started walking towards where he was standing. Gregor pointed to the man before he asked, “Who is that?”

“That’s Hunter. He’s one of our young leaders. I’m planning on promoting him to command a thousand man brigade,” Sid answered.

Shifting in his saddle, Sid watched the man approach. He recalled when Hunter’s father had requested that his sons be allowed to join Sid’s army back at the Jones Citadel. His brother, Sneak, was one of the best scouts in the entire army. Both men were a credit to their father.

On reaching him, Hunter said, “We had one death and four wounded. The enemy had seventy four dead and thirty one wounded. We captured their leader. He is a Colonel in the Slaver Army.”

“We’ll have to question him. He’s the highest ranking man we’ve captured,” Sid said thinking about the intelligence they could get from the man.

Puzzled by the rank, Gregor looked at Sid and asked, “What’s a Colonel?”

“It is a high rank in the army we’re fighting,” Sid answered while distracted by some very nasty thoughts. He couldn’t help wondering what such a high level officer was doing there.

“You don’t look happy. What’s the matter?” Gregor asked thinking that they had a stroke of luck.

“It would be the same as having Hunter, here, leading a patrol of ten men. It is way beneath his command level,” Sid answered thoughtfully. Turning to Hunter, he said, “Have some men take him back to River Camp.”

“Yes, Sir,” Hunter said recognizing that he had been dismissed. He walked away to task someone with the job.

“I don’t like it when an officer in the enemy army isn’t acting his rank,” Sid said.

Looking at Sid with a wry grin on his face, Gregor asked, “So what are you doing here?”

Sid laughed at the question and said, “Point taken.”

Gregor went over to where the bodies were being laid out. Each man was wearing a common uniform. That practice was exceptionally rare in Chaos. Usually armies were comprised of mercenaries who wore their own clothes. Normally the only group that ever wore something that looked like a uniform was a city guard and they were a permanent force of men. He had seen the uniform several times when he was first taken as a prisoner, but it was only now that the full significance was dawning on him. Squatting down beside one of the bodies and looking up at Sid, he asked, “Do they all wear uniforms?”

“Yes, this is a permanent standing army,” Sid answered.

“You say you are up against twenty thousand or so troops?” Gregor asked beginning to understand fully the scope of the war that Sid was fighting.

“I estimate the full size of the army to be around a hundred thousand,” Sid answered.

The significance of that statement was not lost on Gregor. Usually each city guard was supported by taxes received from fifty locals. To have a standing army of a hundred thousand required a significant proportion of the tax money went to the army. It wasn’t just the cost of paying the men. It was also the cost of outfitting them, housing, and feeding them. He figured that housing them would require between five thousand and ten thousand buildings. Looking over at Sid, he said, “I’ve never heard of a standing army of even a hundredth that size.”

“Impressive accomplishment, isn’t it?” Sid asked. It had taken him a long time to realize just how difficult it was to support an army of that size in a culture that had only limited sources of iron. Chaos was basically an agrarian society in which the productivity of individual farms was barely above subsistence level.

“You’re going to have to start destroying their supporting infrastructure. At that size, I imagine it is pretty fragile,” Gregor said. Trying to assure that food, clothes, materials, and money flowed to that many troops had to be a logistical nightmare.

“Our first job was to take out the men who were turning entire towns into slaves. We’ve stopped the raids along a front that is almost eight weeks march in length. Our next job was to start growing our army by freeing slaves. Now we’re engaging their army.”

“It’s going to take a lot of engagements like this to get their numbers down,” Gregor commented.

“We’ve been striking small groups of them with engagements like this one. We’re hitting them five and six times a day across the front. At first they sent out ten men units, but now they are up to a hundred. They are pulling back into fixed positions. The only time they leave them is to engage us. These engagements are getting to be more and more like full scale battles. It wouldn’t surprise me if we don’t start facing five hundred man brigades before long,” Sid said.

Derek shook his head at the thought of a thousand men on a battlefield fighting it out. This engagement had been an ambush. Good planning, surprise, and ruthlessness had won the battle before it even began. He couldn’t help but wonder how Sid would fare in a head to head battle. He asked, “What’s next?”

“We’ll start destroying their distribution points and warehouses next,” Sid answered.

Derek shook his head and said, “I don’t see how you’re going to win.”

“You’re forgetting something very important,” Sid said.

“What?”

“Five out of seven people in enemy controlled territory are slaves. That’s a big force to have behind enemy lines,” Sid answered with a grin.

A rider came charging down the road and stopped in front Hunter. The two talked for a minute and then the rider took off back up the road. The other man called out to the woods and four men came running. There was a brief discussion and then the others went back into the woods. Looking over in the direction of Sid, Hunter shook his head and started walking over towards them.

Hunter stopped in front of Sid and said, “There’s another patrol coming. They’ll be here in about thirty minutes.”