Unlike the shah, the eran Vahriz had tasted the sourness of defeat in his time. The elderly soldier now whispered this to a stiffened Andragoras.
“My shah, there is little hope of our victory in this battle. Please, withdraw your men.”
The shah glared at his general and gave an angry snarl. How could he think that the ruler of Pars, who protected all the roads travelled through the continent to run away like a helpless pup. Did Vahriz feel no shame declaring this as a man of the military?
“My lord, have you forgotten? When Mosul’s great army invaded, they were at last repelled by the castle walls of Ecbatana. I implore you, swallow today’s pride so that you may bring about victory tomorrow.”
Within the capital Ecbatana were 20,000 cavalry and 45,000 footmen, and within each region of the kingdom there also remained around 20,000 cavalry and 12,000 footmen. Mustered with those men who had lasted through the day’s battle, they could still put up significant resistance to the Lushtanians.
Of course, calculations to this degree would have been apparent enough to a tactician such as Andragoras. He was not just a kingdom’s ruler; he also felt the pride of the one who protected the kingdom’s network of roads.
Those roads. With the kingdom of Pars as their midpoint, they were merchant routes that connected the expansive continent from edge to edge, stretching about 800 farsang (approx. 4,000 km) east and west. These trade routes, and the merchants who traveled them, received protection from shah of Pars, and were in turn taxed by him, taxes responsible for the kingdom’s prosperity. Was this, too, not all guaranteed by having undefeated military might?
The old general continued to reason with the shah. Yet what at last convinced his lord, was when he heard the name of his Queen Tahamine. What would become of her if left in the enemy’s hands—? Asked thus, the shah resolved to retreat, moving forward with the command of his troops. He did not command his whole army, however, to move at once.
“The shah is retreating! Andragoras III has fled.”
Within the disarray and bloodshed, that call spread throughout the fields spread like a gale. Those stationed under Kharlan stayed watchful of Andragoras’ state. They were discouraged by the decision of their leader, despite how hard they had fought this day.
“We put our lives on the line to fight for our kingdom, and yet the one who is supposed to lead as instead abandoned us? He has sullied the banner of Pars, and what is done cannot be undone.”
One of the marzbān Shapuhl took off his helm soaked with blood and dirt and threw it to the ground. Even so he had not lost his faith in his ruler, but there were those who expressed even greater despair.
“Enough is enough. Who is it that we even fight for? A ruler who abandons his followers and flees from battle deserves no sacrifice.”
The one-eyed Qobād turned to his subordinates and barked as he swung his claymore and shook off the blood of the enemy which it had struck. They returned his gaze with ones of consternation and unease.
“Come, what say you, Qobād?” shouted Shapuhl, who had pulled up beside him on horseback.
“How could a marzbān such as yourself tell your own men to flee! The shah has his duty, just as we must have our own.”
“Protecting his kingdom is the shah’s first duty. It is the very reason a shah has been entrusted with his authority. If the shah has abandoned his position, then we’d be wise to do the same. And wasn’t it you who just threw your helm to the ground in rage?”
“I did so in a moment of forgetting myself. The shah has not fled in jest. Undoubtedly, he returns to Ecbatana to plan his return to combat. As one his vassals, if you wish cast doubt upon our shah’s name, I consider you an ally not.”
“Oh, I see, you would point your sword then?”
The one-eyed general glared fiercely.
Among the marzbān, Qobād and Daryun were the youngest after Keshvar. At 31, within his engraved visage, what gave the greatest impression was his left eye closed like a punctuation mark. It went without saying he was a warrior brave and versed in the art of war, yet still within the court there were those who despaired him despite his martial prowess. It may have been in part because of his tendency to criticize, and that his losing his left eye was an injury he had sustained in battle with an azdahak at the distant Mount Qaf, or at least so the one-eyed man insisted. Since he had supposedly taken an eye from each of that fearsome hydra’s three heads, he often proclaimed it was now a three-eyed, rather than three-headed, beast, and there were those who did not understand this humor that saw him as rather imprudent.
At 36, Shapuhl was Qobād’s opposite, and to the utmost maintained a formal air. The two understood this about each other, and it was rumored when the twelve marzbān gathered that they chose to stand at opposite ends of each other.
Whatever the case, even within the limited ranks of the valorous marzbān, the two did not now see eye to eye. The cavalry of pars looked on appalled, but before it could come to the point of deadly blows, a cry signaling the enemy made to attack sounded throughout the battlefield. Observing the battalion of Lushtanian cavalry that approached them, Qobād tugged at the reigns of his horse.
“Running away Qobād?”
Insulted by the question, the one-eyed marzbān retorted, “I’m more than sick of this battle, but I see there’ll be no exit without first getting through this Lustanian horde. Perhaps when we’re done with the lot I can discuss with you the nature of a vassal’s duty.”
Shapuhl returned with a sharp glare, then galloped off to command his subordinates.
“I’ll remember this, should a tomorrow come,” Qobād said, treading the line between humor and seriousness, then turned back to his own regimen.
“Well then, about a thousand of you remain. Should be enough. If you’re looking for a bit of entertainment, follow me.”
It was on a narrow road that ran along the flowing Milvalan river that party of Andragoras was stalled in their retreat. It was when the ringing of spears and swords had grown distant behind them and they had thought they had separated from the field of combat, that an arrow had suddenly flown and pierced the helm of one of the knights. As if the scream of the knight as he went head over heal to the ground was their cue, with the rumbling that sounded like a swarm of locusts taking flight, arrows began to rain down. It was an ambush. On either side of the shah and his eran men and horses began toppling like unseated stone columns. The arrows that did reach the shah and eran both pierced armor and tasted flesh.
When it ceased, there breathed not a living soul next to the ruler and his general. A lone knight sat on his horse in front of them. His armor was not Lushtanian but that of Pars, but still there was something about him that caught their attention.
It was the man’s silver mask. In which only small slits had been opened for the eyes and mouth. More, from each of eye slits leaked however faint a cool light.
If the shah and eran had seen this under a bright sun, they may have shared a laugh together. The silver-colored mask gave off an altogether gaudy impression and hardly looked like something real at all.
However, the ash-gray mist obscured today’s sun, and within that darkness where all light seemed drowned out like a painting done in black ink, the mask looked like it had frozen over upon gathering entirely within itself the ill-omens of the world.
“Without shame, you have abandoned your followers and ran, haven’t you, Andragoras? I expected as much from you.”
From that slit above the mouth flowed the language of Pars. Yet the voice would have frozen any who heard it over with fear.
“My shah, let us abandon this place, if it so protected by this corpse…” said Vahriz as he brandished his sword and made to protect his shah from the silver-masked man, even as five arrows had pierced his flesh.
The silver-masked men let fourth an eerie light from his eyes. Eyes that shown with anger and wrath.
“You have lost, old man… know your place!”
Accompanied by a thunderous roar, the shamshir gleamed white as it struck the eran’s head with a great blow.
The general was old and may have been gravely wounded, but Vahriz who was still the eran of great kingdom of Pars was unable to counter and was cut down by that stroke. It was a breathtaking display of swordsmanship.
Shah Andragoras saw the body of his elderly retainer fall heavily to the ground with eyes stupefied by what they had just witnessed. His sword arm would not move. It seemed the arrow that had pierced his arm had damaged a nerve. Having lost any means to resist, he sat powerless like a doll upon the saddle of his horse.
“I will not kill you…”
The silver-masked man’s voice shook. Of course, not out of fear, but rather that intensity of his emotion caused his controlling voice to shake. It was incomparable to the tone it had used when speaking to Vahriz.
“I will not kill you. For I have waited for this day for 16 years. You think I would let you die so easily?”
At the man’s signal, around five or six knights brought Andragoras down from his horse. The shah endured the burning pain from the arrow impaled in his arm.
“What are you…?” Andragoras asked with a low voice as he was being tied armor and all within thick leather rope.
“Now you will know. Now I will let you know. Or, Andragoras, have you continued to do such evil without needing to know the malice of the ones you have hurt?”
In between the words, the unsettling sound of grinding metal was present. The sound of grinding teeth. It appeared that the silver-masked men had spent many a day out of sight, grinding and grinding away.When he noticed the chill in the expressions of his subordinates who witnessed him in that state, the silver-masked man silently tugged his horse. Along with the captured Andragoras, the unit marched along the river’s edge not with the pomp of victory, but in a dismal silence.