Tylywoch ~ Prologue 

Fourth in my series of books ~ Abbalar Tales:

   General Aldor awoke, knowing, it would rain.  He could feel it, taste it, hear it spattering in the dust.   He could smell the quick damp earth: for sure it would rain!   Except the day was arid and dry just like hundreds that had gone before.

But, he was undaunted, ‘it was a great day to be alive’.   Then, his nostrils twitched and dilated, it was imminent.

The world was on hold, waiting...  

The ancients foretold of a turning tide changing everything irrevocably, for good or ill, depending as always on your viewpoint. 

He was aware of his companions the Tylywoch, waiting expectantly beside their tents: with jugs, bowls, hats, and water skins, to hand.   They knew not, how he did it, but they had faith in their leader.

His childlike features were animated as he peered tentatively, beyond the tent flaps, his eyes wide with expectation.   “Now,” he whispered.

 Taking it as a sign, the heavens darkened, clouds banked, and life sustaining rain oozed from a grudging sky.   Slowly, little more than a mist to begin with.  Then the droplets increased in size and quantity.   Aldor listened appreciatively licking dust-laden moisture from his lips.   Turning his face to the sky, he whispered, “thank you.”

What they collected would last them until they reached their next destination, a small border village, known simply as Weilla.

.-…-.

"They're coming!"

The alarm was raised by a seven year old perched in a tree.  They came from the nor-west, he should have been looking nor-east but, as boys do, he became bored so that his eyes and his mind wandered.   Even so, there was barely time for the villagers to hide their food and valuables before the visitors arrived. 

Every year at harvest-in, local bandits sweep down from the hills, carrying off food, valuables, and livestock.   In autumn the villagers leave enough to satisfy their visitors, whilst hiding sufficient to see them through the winter, replace livestock, and purchase seed for planting next season.

But, this year the bandits would not now be coming.  Their blackened bloated corpses were providing a late banquet for the carrion eating population of the province.  They, together with most of the towns and villages in the nor-west, had been wiped out. 

Hordes of mounted warriors - the Huren - descended upon them.  Like locusts, they despoiled and destroyed everything in their path.  Sleepy rural towns and villages had never known their like and would never do so again.  They killed the old, the young, and any who defended themselves: enslaving those who did not.  They tortured survivors forcing them to reveal where they’d hidden their food and valuables.  They took everything, poisoning the wells and water holes, firing the buildings and crops still remaining in the fields.  They were ruthlessly efficient; allowing none to escaped to give warning.   Those who evaded the attack could not outdistance the horses that ran them to ground.

.-…-.

Two days passed, before General Aldors band of itinerant players arrived, to set-up their carnival in the village.  Their sense of unease grew as they drew nearer: the smell of death was in the air.  They would have skirted the village but, they required fresh water for their livestock.  On viewing the carnage they knew the wells would be poisoned.   Fortunately one of their number was a healer skilled in medicines, poisons and panaceas.  He identified the particular poison prepared and administered an antidote.   The members of the band were all expected to learn additional arts, crafts, and skills to provide extra income and maximise their survival chances. 

General Aldor, was saddened by the passing of friends.  The inhabitants of Weilla had always been generous patrons when other villages were less supportive.  Even in bad times Weilla had been generous.  In recognition of their past generosity, Aldor ordered their dead to be buried.  It was a melancholy but necessary task.  Only when they were below ground would the gods accept their souls into the after-life.  Souls of the unburied were destined to wander Abbalar as disembodied spirits until their remains were interred.  The sad task took most of the day, but they were rewarded by unearthing several caches of food, and valuables.  They also discovered a new-born girl child, barely alive but strong of spirit, with a single-minded will to live.  She suckled hungrily at the breast of a young woman, who’d recently weaned a child of her own, whose milk had not yet dried up.  She agreed to wet nurse the child for an extra portion of the food and coin discovered with her.

They named the child Weilla in memory of her people.   They drew and purified water, sufficient for their needs, then moved on swiftly, to avoid the attention of evil spirits commonly drawn to such sites of violence and death.

When next they passed, nature would have reclaimed its own: it would be as though the village had never existed.

.-…-.

   They acted with military precision, moving on to their next destination, which had also been pillaged and burnt.  They increased their pace and urgency, no longer itinerant players--they were now the Tylywoch, soldiers of Cheilin Empire.  They moved swiftly,  fearing the whole country might be laid to waste, even so, it took five days to catch up with the Huren. 

 They were a mile away from their next destination when they saw the flames.   Dark black smoke curled high into the air, its acrid taint mingling with the smell of blood, sweat, and horses.   At this distance they could plainly hear the sounds of slaughter.   Aldor sent runners to the nearest Imperial Garrisons.   Warning them and providing a profile of the attacking force, numbers, weapons, tactics, speed and direction of travel.   With details of the action his band, the Tylywoch, would be taking to slow their advance and pin them down.   In addition, he suggested likely ambush sites.   Local commanders would know the area more intimately anyway, so he left this to their discretion.   For the most important part his communication was to confirm the urgency of the situation through his official seal of office.   

The late Emperor, Daidan III, had bestowed upon him the office of - General of Internal Security.  His seal would guarantee instant action from any Cheilin commander receiving it.   A simple device, known through-out the Empire: a letter ‘A’, partially eclipsed by a supine Tylywoch feather.  

   Aldor and his small band of travelling performers, 36 in number, were not what they seemed.   They were an elite, intelligence gathering, counter insurgence unit; members of the unofficial 13^th Clan of the Cheilin Empire.  They were pathfinders, bringing order and justice, to the disputed peripheral territories.   They carry out covert operations to aid the inhabitants and win their trust; teaching by example.  They were not above the law, they were the only law for hundreds of miles.     When conflict arose, they appeared, yet none suspected their connection with the innocuous travelling carnivals. 

Aldor’s scouts informed him that the strength of the invading force was 5000 warriors.   Mainly light cavalry ideal for hit and run operations.   Half would assault a position, leaving one in ten behind to protect their supplies and slaves taken in previous actions.  The remainder, some 2000 warriors would encircle a town or village, on foot, prior to the attack; closing in only when the attack was pressed home.   

After the conflict sixty or so would carry their spoils back, five or ten miles, to their supply train.   

Aldor and the Tylywoch, now camouflaged, traveled parallel to this group picking off stragglers.   Keeping to the shadows, to whittle down their force, vanishing like mist when confronted, repeating their attacks until only a handful remained, then they struck.   They interrogated survivors, killed them quickly if they co-operated by providing intelligence.   The raiders were confirmed as being Huren from the nor-west; they’d infiltrated through the Sabre Tooth Mountains, during the long arid summer and drifted down into the outlying districts looking for easy pickings.   Their leader, was a renegade named Akess, a butcher whose nose had been bloodied, by the Tylywoch, in a similar but unsuccessful raid just two years earlier.   Aldor had crossed swords with his grandfather, in the dim distant past.   However this was most certainly their furthest incursion into Cheilin territory; without retaliation.  

Aldor was determined they would never live to tell of it.

 The liberated villagers were sent on to the nearest garrisons with despatches for their commanders.   Aldor was confident that his orders would be carried out to the letter.

.-…-.

They skirted the camp, noting the disposition of guards.   As night fell they moved in.  When the guard changed they eliminated the old guard first.   Then, disposed of the new guard before they were fully awake.    Moving silently from tent to tent they dispatched the occupants in their sleep; by morning it was done.   The released prisoners were sent on to the nearby garrison.  Aldor released pigeons to the Eternal city, Capital of the Cheilin Empire, informing the Empress ‘light of the world’ of the incursion.

  At mid-day a dozen Huren scouts returned to discover why the supply train had been delayed.   They were eliminated.   Their horses were, loaded with spoils and, sent on to the garrison.   He intentionally returned one horse, to the smoldering village, to entice Akess to do something foolhardy.  An hour later two hundred Huren charged up the hill.   The main group followed the obvious trail left by the freed villagers, leading towards the nearest garrison, three were sent back to report to Akess, they were killed and their horses herded back to the sacked village. 

 Aldor and two thirds of his force followed the main body of Huren: fully aware that a more substantial force would be following.   An hour later, they saw the tell-tale dust clouds rising behind them.

Three miles on, the track narrowed affording room for only two horses to ride abreast.   Aldor took to the slopes, on either side, and waited.  He was confident that the garrison troops ahead would deal with the advance guard.  The pass was thirty yards long; even so, two thousand of Akess’s picked cavalry rode through at speed.  Aldor was ecstatic; he had split his force a classic misjudgment!   The Tylywoch now hiding above the defile, watching the Huren negotiate the bottleneck.

 Akess’s orders had been, “Go after them, and bring them back!”  Whoever the commander was he had little finesse and no respect for the local forces, that would soon be remedied.   They rode on for two miles, where a rested and well trained Garrison of Imperial troops waited in ambush.   The Tylywoch were picking off tail enders even before they entered the box canyon where four good men could hold off an army.   There were more than that number waiting for them.  Others took station, at the top of the slopes on either side, raining arrows down on them without redress.  Several determined attacks failed to punch a way through.

  

Having lost a third of his force under withering fire, their leader decided to retreat, to the narrow section but, the Tylywoch were waiting for them there.   More withering fire built a barricade of Huren bodies to further frustrate their attempts to break free.  Then they tried scaling the slopes but were unable to establish a foothold.   They weren't even aware of the Garrison troops, moving in behind them, until they attacked.   For the first time in their campaign, the Huren tasted defeat.

.-...-.

The Garrison troops, attacking from the rear, threw them into disarray.   Though they fought like cornered rats, asking and giving no quarter, it was all over in twenty minutes.   The Garrison lost two hundred men; the Tylywoch lost two, with six non fatal injuries.   Of the Huren, a force, of 2000, none would see the sunset.   Women and children searched the killing fields, slitting the purse strings of the dead, and the throats of the wounded, as an act of charity.

   The remainder of Akess’s Northern Raiders briefly occupied the ruins of the sacked town.  It afforded them little comfort, for they’d burned it down, and only had the supplies remaining on their person, supplemented by what they had scavenged from the ruins.  Their mounts had no fodder; they’d indiscriminately fired the fields.   Surrounded by the combined strength of two Garrisons, 3000 hardened and well-trained troops, their half-hearted attempts to break out were crushed.   The Imperial troops played the waiting game intent on starving them out.   In a week they’d be eating their own horses.   From conquerors to conquered; their viewpoint had changed forever.

.-...-.

   In a week the small band of itinerant performers would have played to audiences at three venues.   They would visit seven or eight others before frosts sharpened the morning air and it became necessary to return to their mountain sanctuary where they could wait out the winter in comfort with family and friends.

To be continued/...

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