58 - No looks of death

In the Games, there are two kinds of people; those who have never tasted real war, and those who have. Having been both, I know how it is. The unblooded tend to be earnest almost to the point of desperation, knowing that what they are doing is but a shadow of the real thing, and yearning to prove themselves capable. Ever aware they are with the blooded, they can never feel quite comfortable in their skins, like actors playing a part to which they know the lines but not the true meanings.

The blooded live by the old Games tenet, “all the joy of war and none of the pain.” It is so sweet to be out on the mountain with its scents of trees and fall flowers and the odd warm valley breeze full of the fragrance of harvested fields, never cut with the stink of opened-up entrails or rotting corpses or the rankness under your armour of your own fear.

It is such pleasure to run or ride in a charge, to cut and thrust and parry, with no blood spurting, no looks of death either intended or suffered in agony, no death-cries other than the overly-dramatic yells of those faking spectacular deaths in the attempt to win Meadowflop Awards, to roars of laughter.

It is a joy like a child’s to be the general watching it all play out on the field, and know that the worst thing you risk is having to try again next year, not your own death, the enslavement of your people or opprobrium for the rest of your life. It is joy beyond joy to see the corpses, even if you are defeated, all heave themselves up moaning about how their limbs are stiff and the ground was damp and it’s well past time for a big cup of wine.

Now I understood why blooded warriors are so happy to fight in games.

It is not perfectly safe; everyone comes away with bruises from wicker edges, cushioned arrowheads or lumps in the tapioca catapult-balls, and if you fall off your horse and are trampled by others, or are knocked off a ship senseless by a piece of rigging hitting you, it’s just the same as in war. Every few years someone gets killed.

As well, the passions of competition sometimes get out of hand, people quarrel over whether someone was truly tapped, or get angry that they were tapped too hard, and there are real fights. But in war, a white-shirted referee never steps in to stop the two, scold them and make them exchange colours thenceforth, the game version of chiravesa; nor do you see the two staggering out of a tavern with their arms around each other’s shoulders that same night, proclaiming slurringly and tearfully that they are heart-siblings forever.

We make it as real as we can, but in some ways it will always fall short. Without the possibility of true fear of death and hence the spreading panic that breeds routs, morale does not have nearly the importance that it does in war, which is the Games’ greatest failing. There is simply no way to replicate that.

Of course that means the pure dynamics of strategy and tactic, the positioning and direction of strength against weakness on the field, are more important, and that is good training in and of itself.

It’s also not possible to do such things as set ships or palisades or camps on fire, use catapult-stones to bring down walls, mount sieges (the longest a game is permitted to last is three days), make threats on pain of killing prisoners and so forth. Challenging an opponent or an opponent’s champion to a duel to settle a game is forbidden (else I might have done it); it’s supposed to be a test of merit as a general, after all.

So the drawbacks are there; but you do with what you have. Games are better training for war than no Games.

†

My final was against Nyereha Shae-Kiniko, who was in her late thirties, from Erealanai, and already a seasoned naval commander. Though we hadn’t been in the sort of war that makes for pitched sea-battles in more than a century, my father and then my aunt had insisted on plenty of practice for it, and Nyereha was the veteran of many run-ins with pirates, Arkan quinqueremes overstepping, and so forth.

On the other side was me, trained in deeply-landlocked Vae Arahi, then seasoned to war in deeply-landlocked south-western Yeola-e, and finally fighting all my preliminaries on land, as they are fought. All I knew of sea-warfare was from books, and from fighting as a common-ranker on Terera Lake, a handful times, in two previous Annual Games.

So when we were called for the draw the night before, I knew she was praying for the die to send us onto the Lake, while I—and I am ashamed to admit this, as a general should have no weaknesses—prayed just as hard for it to keep us on land. The odds very much favoured me, three to one; but I had to consider that the senior students, in their efforts to make it hard for me, might rig the draw.

What they announced, however, was not a draw at all, but that they had decided we would fight on land and water both, the eastern shore with its beaches, woods and swamps as our land-ground. Everything else was absolutely even; twelve-and-a-half-thousand warriors and twenty-five ships, all with skilled rowers and rowing-commanders, and sized for two-hundred warriors each, apiece.

They were indeed stacking it against me, changing those three-to-one odds into this; I could have lodged a complaint. But how would it look, Fourth Chevenga doing so? Of course they knew they could count on that.

It came clear with a moment’s thinking what I should do, though. Of the best naval people among the game-warriors I would get half; I’d just ferret out the best, name him my admiral, consult with him and a council of the second-through-tenth best people on my naval plans, then give him his head on the water while I commanded on land. Nyereha would likely do the opposite, of course, so probably our game-paths would never cross.

It might happen that she won decisively on the Lake and I on land; if so, the advantage was mine. Ships must put in to land, and of course the warriors on them don’t have time to dress ranks if you charge them right on the shore.

That put a stratagem into my mind. If you think of a strength, I have always held, enhance it; what I would do was engage on sea and land at once, but with my ships divided evenly in two lines with one held back as if in reserve; once the first line was engaged with hers, I’d have the second turn to shore full-speed, beach, disembark and charge the rear of Nyereha’s land force.

Of course she might do the same in answer, so I would deploy so as to be prepared for that, which she would not. She might give chase, also. Of course if all the ships ended up beached and warriors on land, good: that was my place of strength.

My council liked it well enough, though my admiral, Vehara Tingao, whose record was not unlike Nyereha’s, said drily, “I’m glad this is a game-battle, not a real one, Chevenga, since you’re sacrificing me.” So I was, possibly, as it is sometimes best that a general do; in a game it’s easier, so I might as well make that an advantage too.

I set my land warriors in two straight lines from the edge of the Lake to the inland game-boundary, with two-thousand Kadril on the lake side (everyone was using Kadril now, so game-pikes had become plentiful), eight-hundred horse on the boundary-side with a thousand heavy-armed behind them to advance into the gap once they charged, and three-thousand heavy-armed foot making up the rest of the line, and with five hundred archers behind each end to set up the usual crossfire. The back rank of Kadril were set back fifty paces or so, so as to leave room between if they must turn.

Nyereha put her Kadril on the lakeside wing too, but in one block; that would be interesting, as Kadril against Kadril always is, at least until we charged their rear.

I put myself on the ship that would lead the break-off; that way the timing would be on my head alone, and no one would have to feel that they’d lost me the game if they erred. I’ve learned over time also that I have a preference to lead the force that will make the crucial move, which might have given it away if I’d had a longer record in which to spot such habits. More likely she’d think I was using the ship as a command post, which was in part true. What advantages there were to being a youth, I’d use.

It all depended on speed, skill of rowing and cohesion. I picked the ships and shipfasts, the heavy-armed units and commanders, that would make the move very carefully. One other thing I did: in fall it is very typical for a fair breeze to blow up the length of Terera Lake, toward the town. The ships had been de-rigged of sails as is traditional for fighting; in the dead of the night before the game, I had people rig them back onto all of mine. When we broke we’d be able to unfurl sail and run to land on a broad reach, giving us that much more speed.

The day of my final dawned bright and clear. By the time the start-game gong sounded, the wind was blowing nicely.