Chapter 9

At least I got up before breakfast, and for once all my women were at the table to eat with me. Damn, it was actually pretty nice. Most of them teased and flirted through the meal, but when I let it slip Pentah's capture had been moved to the back burner by King Frata's actions in Kahtal, Christina and Ceelicee both perked right up with questions.

"King Frata just can't take a joke. He is very upset with our treatment of him in Quancho. He is busily raising and training an army to lay siege there. In fact, he has the entire city of Kahtal working at making arms and armor," I said.

"What will you do my husband? Is his army very large? I thought you had destroyed much of it the last time he visited," Jareeta said.

"We did destroy most of his troops and also captured many, along with the majority of their equipment, but apparently he has been beating the bushes for new recruits since then. My information is he will have twelve thousand men when he starts this way."

This news distressed them all, though Christina and Ceelicee didn't seem as anxious as the others. In fact, Christina seemed to grin about it after a minute or so and then Ceelicee caught on somehow.

"How do you already know so much about it?" Christina asked.

"It's where I went on my short trip. A man from Kahtal showed up here about ten days ago. After Chungi found him and brought him to me we got part of the story. Since then Frankston has trained the man to use a Glock and one of our rifles and the two of them have gone back to Kahtal with a radio. They will be spying and reporting back to us.

"Big'un, Quasterson, Jones, Calhoun, and I made a scouting trip to Kahtal, or nearly to it. We have located an excellent place for an ambush along the road."

"But how can you ambush twelve thousand soldiers?" Ceelicee asked.

"It won't be easy, but the place we've selected is excellent for the purpose. We will build a trap in the densest wooded section of the road before it reaches Quancho and we will have a small team of our men disable several of the wagons of supplies which will be coming at the rear of the march. King Frata's soldiers will have no choice, but to try escaping through the woods on either side. The confusion should allow our archers to thin their ranks considerably," I said.

"But if there are twelve thousand their task will be impossible?" Christina said.

"Do you know how many archers we have dear?"

"No, but I assumed it would only be a few hundred," she said, smelling something suspicious.

"I had that same assumption, but it seems some of my original men have been busy hiring and training them. Since they understand women can use bows nearly as well as men can they have taken all the women into the army who wanted to join," I said, and grinned.

"But how can a woman be a soldier?" Jareeta asked.

"When a man has an arrow in his chest it doesn't matter much if it was a man or woman who put it there," I said, and it surprised them so they ended up laughing about it.

"Does it even leave enough women to be camp followers?" Shaela asked.

"We won't be having any camp followers. We are going to kill soldiers, not on a camp out for assing around in the day and fucking at night. If the men don't know how to jack off we will teach them."

This brought even more laughter from my women, but then more questions too.

"Well who will cook for them, and take care of their weapons?" Christina asked.

"If a soldier doesn't know how to take care of his own weapons or if he's too lazy to do it he will be buried when they fail him. Wars and battles are not for the comfort of the soldiers. We are going to kill other soldiers. All our preparations have that intention in mind."

"But with no camp followers there will be no one to cook for your men. Surely they can not fight for long without food," Shaela said.

"No, they can't, but we are having thousands of quick meals prepared. They will be issued to the men every day and it will be plenty of food for them. They may not be the best meals the soldiers have ever had, but they will be adequate.

"We have made one other change to the dietary habits too. There will be no ale or wine at all allowed. They will drink water with their meals or they will eat them dry. We won't be having time for hangovers to subside in the mornings."

"I feel sorry for King Frata. He thinks he is marching off to make an easy siege of Quancho. You don't intend to let him even reach the city, do you?" Christina said.

"Of course not. Why should I? He is coming here to kill my citizens and me. I don't owe him a fair chance at it. I will kill him, and all his men who won't surrender as soon as I can. If any of them do make it back to Kahtal they will find we have taken the city in their absence," I said, bragging and I knew it. It took another hour to explain how we'd accomplish this little trick.

After the conference with my women was over I left the table and decided even a late start was better than no start. Big'un was the first of my original men I encountered. When I tried to tell him what I thought we should do first I got a wonderful surprise. While I'd been sitting on my ass and bragging to my bedmates, he and the others had started the ball rolling.

"Calhoun and Jenkins are selecting two thousand men to enter Kahtal, a few at a time, and then take over after the King and his army have marched. Frankston and Cabalta have already made friends with one of the night shift gate-guards and they think they can bribe him to let a couple of wagons of trade goods in via an inconspicuous gate during the night. The wagons will carry the weapons for the men we're sneaking inside.

"Quasterson is the one who is outdoing himself. He's already decided that there will be plenty of time to dig the fire ditch across the road after King Frata moves out of Kahtal. He's gone now to explore along the two miles of woods along the road - back from where the fireditch will be, intending to figure out what we can do to slow any escapes through the woods. He says tomorrow he and a crew will start a makeshift road to cut off all the meandering the current road does. He doesn't think he can do anything like the job on the new road to Quancho, but he says he can hack out something to save at least ten miles pretty quickly.

"He plans to have the containment ready within two weeks and he said if they give us four he'll have the temporary road hacked out," Big'un said, explaining the progress they were making.

"Hell, y'all don't even need me, I might as well rejoin my wives," I said, trying to sound peeved but grinning like a fool.

"Remember to keep your strength up. I've heard King Frata has a very pretty new young wife and that's he's also keeping the previous one close at hand. They say she's a beauty too and the King only demoted her because she was getting long in the tooth at twenty-five," Big'un said, and then laughed like hell at me.

I went into the room I'd claimed for my office and sat at what passed for a desk. There were troubling decisions I needed to make and they had nothing to do with the upcoming battle, or massacre in my expectations. I was going to have to find a few good men, and not for marines either.

Quancho and Katahalana had been rocking along pretty much by inertia so far. We'd made a few changes but we weren't really doing justice to either city, government wise. Finding Silbitsa and making him judge was our most productive move by far, and we still didn't have a decent judge in Quancho. Silbitsa had been going back and forth every few days. He was supposed to be finding and training another judge but I hadn't heard of any progress, and it wasn't the only problem.

We'd been building shithouses in every available spot, but they weren't really a solution. We needed a city sewer system and I didn't think it should be such a problem. The natives knew how to make a rudimentary form of concrete and I was sure Quasterson could teach them how to make the real thing. After that, a few moulds would get us to concrete drain pipes and culverts.

In my opinion that was the first step and running water was the next. I didn't know shit about coming up with water pipes, but I hoped one of my original men would have an idea at least. I had to face it, cities in this stage of a civilization were shitty places and I was determined to bring it to a screeching halt in every one of them I gained control of. I couldn't do it all myself though and being honest, I knew I couldn't even do much on my own.

I wasn't about to mention democracy to anyone either. I guess it worked ok when you only had a small population, but it had to be very small to my way of thinking, and it had to have a vigorous legal system - worst of all, it required lawyers and judges to keep things even half-assed fair. I damned sure wouldn't stand for that, or for the career politicians who would come next.