Guardian of Heaven and Earth
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New Yogo
Part 1 - War
Chapter 2 - Soldiers at Dawn
The wind blew morning mist gently across the plain. The sun rose over the horizon, bathing the Tarano Plains in soft spring sunlight.
Tanda’s eyes passed over the archers at the front of the long line of soldiers. Men carrying shields were directly behind them to protect from counterattacks. Tanda and his unit were behind the men carrying shields. The sunlight reflecting off the Amata Mountains was blinding. The mountains themselves looked like a black line cutting across the sky.
A large, dark mass moved over the plain in the half-darkness. As they drew near, Tanda realized that they were pikemen. He looked to the left and right and all the way across the plain; there was no end to the vast army that he saw. The heads of the army’s pikes and spears glinted in the dawn light. The wind howled behind them, pushing them closer as they ran toward New Yogo’s much smaller army.
It was difficult to make out much of the pikemen’s forms or faces. They were so densely packed together that they resembled a giant, mobile wall.
Tanda wondered what the Yogoese army looked like to the Talsh. Could they see the sweat on their faces? The fear in their eyes?
There was a signal horn; the Talsh pikemen marched faster toward the Yogoese army. Tanda and his unit stood with their spears held at their hips so that they could skewer the enemy. Their commander had prepared them for the initial assault, but their enemies had spears and pikes, too. Tanda didn’t think they had much of an advantage.
Tanda hadn’t given much thought to what would happen if he ran someone through-or if someone else ran him through. But he knew it would happen. Those were the only two outcomes. He would kill the enemy with his spear, or they would kill him with theirs.
Tanda felt the muscles of his stomach and chest pull tight from nerves. Kocha, a boy who’d been recruited with Tanda, stood near him a little up the slope. His pale and bloodless hands clenched his spear in terror.
I hope we never hear our own signal. I hope this battle never starts.
Tanda was torn between wanting to stay frozen in this moment forever or wanting to get it all over with as soon as possible. He was too exhausted to remain so fearful and on edge for very long.
“Think of your families,” the commander’s lieutenant had said while handing out weapons to the Yogoese soldiers. His own expression had been pinched and solemn. “You are soldiers. Soldiers die, but you are all alive. Think of your families, your children, and stay strong. If we fail to stop the enemy's cavalry from advancing now, many of your villages could be overrun by Talsh and Sangal. This is war, men. You are the shield that protects your wives and daughters and sons and homes.
"Think about your children's faces. Pray for the strength to cut down our enemies when they attack. Save your families, and yourselves.”
There was a sound like distant thunder. Tanda glanced up in surprise. He didn’t have to wait very long before he saw war drums; their beat resonated through his entire body. The drummers set a fast pace meant to speed up the advance of the Talsh army.
Tanda heard the signal for the Yogoese archers to fire. Despite the lieutenant’s frequent exhortations, Tanda didn’t think about his distant parents and siblings at all.
The Yogoese army was camped in the foothills along one edge of the Tarano Plains. The army’s commander, General Tokkasam, looked out at the opening of the battle with the Talsh army. His nervousness was plain on his face. He shielded his eyes with his hand and gazed at the horizon line. His stomach felt like it was sinking toward the ground.
General Tokkasam wasn’t related to Army General Rado Yugaraku at all. He was a distant cousin of the deceased Crown Prince Chagum through the Harusuan family. Along with Navy Admiral Tosa, he’d been one of Crown Prince Chagum’s strongest allies in the imperial court of New Yogo. That was why Army General Rado had given him such a difficult assignment. It was no great loss to Rado if someone disloyal to him died.
“What a strange formation,” Tokkasam’s lieutenant said. He should have been recording the Talsh numbers and their advancement in their war records, but he, like Tokkasam, was too distracted by the vastness and strangeness of the Talsh army.
Like the Yogoese army, the Talsh put their archers out front. The infantry soldiers behind them were variously armed and marched together with long strides that must take extraordinary cooperation and coordination; Tokkasam had never seen anything like it. They were lined up so perfectly and moved so much together that it was like watching a huge black box march toward the Yogoese army.
The Talsh army had almost no cavalry forces, which was unexpected. Tokkasam guessed that their were about two thousand mounted warriors on the right side of the advancing horde, but why were they all clustered there? It wouldn’t be easy for them to get more mounted reinforcements from here; they’d have to bring them over the Tohata Mountains.
The riders seemed to be defending a large object pulled by the soldiers that looked something like a rolling black tower. They must have prepared that the previous night; Tokkasam didn’t remember seeing it before. The men around him gasped; they hadn’t seen it, either, and could only guess what it was for.
“I’ve seen towers like that mentioned in our war records,” the lieutenant said. “It’s a siege engine. They’re used to break down walls of castles and fortresses.”
Tokkasam nodded. “They probably plan to launch large stones and other ammunition on us while we’re fighting on the plain. There’s no easy way to defend against that.”
Tokkasam’s hands were shaking. He took a deep breath and got himself under control. He knew that New Yogo had no chance of winning. He felt like the Talsh army was taking them lightly; they’d just arrived and had already build fortifications to harden their own position, but New Yogo wasn’t capable of doing the same. Talsh soldiers were hardened veterans; New Yogo’s were raw recruits.
But Tokkasam couldn’t afford to panic. He had no time to indulge his own hopelessness. This was the first battle New Yogo would fight against the Talsh; he had to win or die trying.
He considered the enemy’s position. Their biggest disadvantage was reinforcement; they wouldn’t be able to gather more men from the south very easily, so it made sense to use a defensive formation and preserve as many of their troops as possible. The army had appeared vast at first glance, but looking at it with fresh eyes, Tokkasam guessed that Talsh had only fielded an army about the size of New Yogo’s.
New Yogo was also entrenched and had the high ground; the Talsh would have to fight this battle uphill. They might ride around the Tohata Mountains and try to seize the high ground themselves, trapping the Yogoese soldiers in a pincer attack, but the distance around the mountains was quite far and the Talsh seemed to be in a hurry. It would also be difficult to signal their other allies from the mountains, even if they used flags and signal fires, since New Yogo’s army would notice those things, too.
So Tokkasam dismissed the idea that the Talsh would send their main force around the Tahata Mountains, at least for the moment: doing that would take too much time. He considered the trap he’d laid for the Talsh army. It was hidden in the Yogese battle formation. New Yogo had never been to war, but that didn’t mean it lacked warriors and generals who’d studied it.
There was a long line of spearmen and pikemen set up behind the Yogoese archers. Behind them, there were pit traps with sharpened stakes at the bottom. The enemy kept advancing as they were, they’d fall directly into those traps. Even if the the riders progressed all the way to the pit traps, the horses wouldn’t be able to cross the trenches. They made the Yogoese position on the battlefield much more defensible.
The next phase of Tokkasam’s plan was to place temporary bridges over the trenches and surround the Talsh Army on either side, picking them off with arrows and driving them toward the trenches and the pit traps. The men on the front lines of New Yogo’s army now were nothing more than decoys to lure in the main Talsh force. Gathering the enemy’s forces in one place and attacking from all sides was a sound strategy, assuming Tokkasam had the numbers to make it work.
The main thing Tokkasam was worried about were the riders protecting the siege engine. The siege engine itself was a complication that he hadn’t foreseen.
Tokkasam realized that his hands were shaking again. It’s all right, he reassured himself. Our army will win. I just know it.
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