Tylywoch ~ 01

 Tylywoch ~ 01  The Travellers

By Len Morgan

   Aldor awoke.   He knew 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 dry and arid; like hundreds that had gone before!

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

The world was on hold; waiting.   Ancients foretold of a turning tide changing everything irrevocably; whether for good or ill depending, as always, on your perspective.  

   He was aware of his companions, 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.

His childlike face was animated, as he peered tentatively beyond the tent flaps, his eyes widening in 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 grew 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 until they reached their next destination, in a day or so, a small border village known simply as Weilla.

.-…-. 

Fifteen miles suth-ard a priest prayed with fervour, to Asgath, for rain to save the crops and livestock of his flock.   He prayed in vain; his perspective was wrong! 

.-…-. 

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.   His eyes and his mind wandered.   Even so, there was barely time for the villagers to hide their food children and valuables, below ground before the visitors arrived. 

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

 This year, however, the bandits would not be coming.  Their bloated and blackened corpses were providing a late, and unexpected, banquet for the carrion-eating population of the province.  They had been wiped out, together with a number of the towns and villages to the nor-west.

Instead - hordes of mounted warriors - the Huren; rumoured to spend their whole lives in the saddle; had descended upon them.  Like locusts, they destroyed plundered and ravaged 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 attempted to defend themselves, enslaving those who did not.  They tortured survivors to reveal where their food and valuables were hidden.  They took everything, poisoning the wells, and water holes behind them, firing buildings, and any crops still remaining in the fields.  The Huren were ruthlessly efficient, none of their victims escaped to give warning to others.   They might evade the horses but they could not outdistance the foot soldiers; who relentlessly ran them down.

.-…-. 

Two days passed, before the band of itinerant players arrived, to set up a 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 urgently required fresh water again for themselves and for their livestock.   Then, on viewing the carnage, they knew the wells would be poisoned.   Fortunately at least one of them was a healer, skilled with medicines poisons and panaceas.  Well able to identify the agent used and provide an antidote.   All members of this band were expected to learn and practice arts, crafts, and skills that would provide extra income, and improve their chances of survival. 

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

The child was named in memory of her people, henceforth she would be known as Weilla. 

The band drew and purified water sufficient for their needs, and moved swiftly on, thus avoiding the attentions of evil spirits commonly drawn to such sites of violence and carnage.

When next they passed, it would be as though the village had never existed:   Its perspective had changed forever. 

.-…-. 

   The small band acted with military precision, moving swiftly on to their next venue, only to find it too had been pillaged and raised to the ground.  They picked up their pace, moving with increased urgency, fearing the whole country might be laid to waste by the Barbarians.   Despite their haste, it took them five days to run the Huren down.  Then, barely a mile distant, they could see a village in flames.   Dark black smoke rose high into the air, its acrid taint mingling with the smell of blood, sweat, and horses.   Even at this distance, they could plainly hear the sounds of slaughter.   Aldor sent runners, to skirt the carnage, and warn any unsuspecting villages, hamlets, and towns in the immediate path of the Huren.   The message was to flee for their lives with everything they could carry that wouldn’t slow them down, to bury what they couldn’t take, and to spread the word.   Aldor also sent messengers to the two nearest Imperial Garrison Forts, using his official seal.   He sent with each, a profile of the attacking Huren force, numbers, weapons, tactics, speed & direction of travel.   With details of the action his band, the Tylywoch, would take to harry and slow them down.   In addition, he noted likely places to spring an ambush and other known defensible positions of which he had knowledge.   Local commanders were likely to know the area more intimately anyway.   So the most important part of his communication was probably the credence given by his seal of office.   The late Emperor, Daidan III, had bestowed upon him the office of General of Internal Security.  The seal would guarantee an instant response from any Cheilin officer receiving it.  Just a simple device, known throughout the periphery of the Empire - the letter ‘A’, partially eclipsed by a supine Tylywoch feather.

Daidan III had returned unexpectedly to the wheel of life, months earlier.  He went peacefully in his sleep, naming his successor in a script to the ‘Knod’ weeks before.  His appointee would be the first Empress in living memory.

Aldor and his small band of travelling performers, just 36 in number, were far more than they seemed.   They were an elite intelligence gathering, and counter insurgence unit, members of the unofficial 13^th Clan of the Cheilin Empire.  They were pathfinders, bringing order and justice, to the border provinces and disputed outlying territories.   They carry out covert operations to aid and win the trust of the local inhabitants; usually by example.  Though not above the law, they were the only law in existence for hundreds of miles. 

    Whenever there was trouble, they would appear, though none would ever suspect their connection to the travelling carnivals.   

Aldor had learned from his scouts that the invading force comprised of 2000 warriors.   Mainly light cavalry, without armour, ideal for hit and run operations.   Half would assault a position, leaving one in ten of their number behind to protect supplies and the slaves taken in their previous actions.  The remainder, some 1000 warriors would encircle the target town or village, on foot, prior to the attack.   Only closing in when the attack was pressed home.   They were easily able to capture and punish any who attempted to flee.   At the conclusion of a conflict, sixty or so would carry their spoils back, ten to fifteen miles, to their supply train. 

Aldor and the Tylywoch, now heavily camouflaged, travelled parallel to the returning group picking off stragglers with blowpipes, arrows, poisoned shuriken, and knives.   They kept to the shadows, whittling down the larger force until only a handful remained, then they struck.   Survivors were interrogated with ruthless efficiency and killed quickly if they co-operated.   The raiders were confirmed as being Huren from the nor-west, they’d made their way 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 known as Shapp, an evil and ruthless butcher, whose nose had been bloodied in a similar but unsuccessful raid two years earlier.   Aldor had crossed swords with his kin, probably his grandfather, in his far distant past.   However, this was most certainly their furthest incursion into Cheilin territory; without retaliation.  

Aldor knew they came for easy pickings and, was determined they would never live to tell.

 The liberated villagers were sent to seek the protection of the nearest friendly garrison.  They met up with an exploratory Garrison force within a day, and passed on further despatches from Aldor to their unit commander.  Aldor was confident that his orders would be carried out to the letter. 

.-…-. 

They skirted the camp, noting the disposition of their guards.   As night fell they moved in closer.  When the guard was changed they eliminated the old guard before they could return to their blankets and disturb those still sleeping.   Then they disposed of the new guard before they made the mental transition from off duty to on.    There was then nothing to prevent them moving silently from tent to tent methodically despatching the occupants in their sleep.  By morning, it was over.   The prisoners were roused, fed, watered, and sent in the direction of the nearest garrison.  Aldor released pigeons to carry word of the incursion back to the Eternal City, the Capital of the Cheilin Empire, and to his home base - a small mountain village far from the established trade routes - which served as a refuge, training camp, and home, for the Tylywoch.  The old, the sick, and the young remained there and farmed, in order to ensure there would be food and winter shelter for the travelling bands.  In addition, they defended and trained the young Tylywoch, who would continue their work.  

There were children barely able to walk, as ruthlessly efficient as fully trained warriors; Tylywoch in body, mind, and spirit.

  At mid-day 6 Huren scouts returned to find out why the supply train had not yet caught up with them.   They were eliminated quickly and efficiently.   The bodies were stripped, searched, and relieved of anything useful weaponry, valuables, and clothing.   The horses were sent on to the garrison, loaded with spoils.   One was returned, riderless to the still smouldering ruins of the village below, which had the desired effect.  An hour later several hundred Huren came charging up the hill.   After consultation, the main group followed the obvious trail, whilst three were sent back to report.   The three were killed and their horses herded back down the hill.  Aldor and two thirds of his force followed the main body of Huren down the now well beaten path, fully aware that a more substantial force would soon be in pursuit.   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. Here they took to the slopes on either side.  The narrow pass was about thirty yards long; even so, two thousand of Shapp’s picked cavalry rode through it without reducing speed. 

Aldor was ecstatic; Shapp had split his force a classic misjudgement!   The Tylywoch now hid above the narrow defile, watching the brash cock-sure Huren negotiate the bottleneck.

Shapp’s orders to the force commander had been, “Go after them, and bring them back!”  Whoever the commander was, he had little finesse and precious little respect for the local forces; this would soon be remedied.   They rode on for a further two miles, where a well trained and rested Garrison of Imperial troops waited in ambush.   Those at the rear were being whittled down, by the Tylywoch on either side of the track, long before they entered the box canyon and headed for the second bottleneck, where four good men could hold off an army.   There were considerably more than four men waiting for them.   Others waited at the top of the steep scree slopes on either side, raining arrows down upon them, decimating them without redress.  Several determined attacks on the bottleneck failed to punch a way through.

Having already lost a third of his force under withering fire, their leader decided to retreat.  Back, to the narrow section, where the Tylywoch were waiting to deny them any means of escape.   More withering fire built a barricade of Huren bodies to further frustrate their attempts to break out.  They abandoned that tactic and tried to scale the slopes, but were unable to establish a foothold.   They weren’t even aware of the Garrison troops moving up behind them until they attacked.   For the first time in their campaign, the Huren were sensing the bitter taste of defeat.

The Garrison troops attacking from the rear threw them into disarray.   Though they fought like cornered rats, asking and giving no quarter, in less than twenty minutes it was all over.   The Garrison lost less than two hundred men, the Tylywoch only two, with six serious but non fatal injuries.   Of the raiders, a force of almost 800, not one would greet the dawn.   Women & children searched the killing fields, slitting the throats of the wounded, and the purse strings of the dead; it was done as an act of charity. 

The remainder of Shapp’s Northern Raiders briefly occupied the ruins of the sacked town.  This afforded them little comfort, since they had burned all the buildings, and had only the food and supplies remaining on their persons, supplemented by what they had scavenged from the ruins.  Their mounts had no fodder, because they had indiscriminately fired the fields.   They were surrounded by the combined strength of two Garrisons, 2000 well trained battle hardened troops.   Their half hearted attempts to break out were ruthlessly punished.   The Imperial troops played the waiting game intent on starving them out.   In a week they would be eating the raw flesh from their own horses. 

By that time the small band of itinerant performers would already have played to packed audiences at two, maybe three additional venues.   There would be time to visit seven or eight more before the frosts sharpen the morning air, and it became necessary to return to their mountain sanctuary where they would wait out the winter in comfort amongst friends.  Aldor looked forward to seeing his wife Meillo once more, it had been a long absence.  But she well understood the responsibilities that fell on his shoulders.

(To be Continued) 

Copyright Len Morgan