A chapter that describes the battle to defeat the Alwan Tyrant of the Upper Nile thus saving Khartoum and Nobatia from invasion.

The Angry Mermaid 36

Or

Y Morforwyn Dicllon 36

Mabina. The youngest daughter and Twin to
Drustan Her twin brother.
Grandpa Erin the twins grandfather.
Giana The twins grandmother
Caderyn The twins father.
Herenoie The twins wise and beautiful mother.
Morgaran The Twins oldest brother.
Aiofe The twins oldest sister. Famous for her beauty.
Tara The twins second oldest sister. Famous for her grace.
Feidlim Twins aunt (Caderyns’ beautiful sister.)
Mogantu Twins uncle (Married to Feidlim.) Chief of the Gangani tribe.
Brun. Twins 2nd cousin and the Acaman clans’ blacksmith.
Feorin. Twins second brother. Also training to be a blacksmith.
Rhun Feidlims’ son and Feorins’ favourite 1st Cousin. (Both red-heads.)
Arina Child of a Demetae fisherman, (rescued by Aiofe, Drustan and Mabina.)
Penderol Dumnonii Minor chief.
Udris Young Dumnonii warrior.
Dryslwyn High chief of the whole Celtic nation. Dwells in Brithony.
Bronlwyn Dryslwyn’s wife (and queen.)
Magab The moor who taught numbers.
Eric Saxon galley slave rescued from Corsair pirates.
Carl Another Saxon galley slave rescued by Drustan.
Torvel Celtic galley slave rescued from the same captured corsair ship
Arton. Turdetani Chieftain Holder of Gibral Rock.
Carinia Arton’s wife.
Isobel. Arton’s adopted daughter.
Appotel King of the Turdetani Tribe. (Southern Iberia.)
Bramana Queen. (Wife of Appotel)
Pilus King of the Capetani.
Shaleen Pilus’s queen and sister to Bramana.
Pedoro Lord Marshal of the Southern border region.
Lady Shulaar Lord Pedoro’s wife.
Taan. The scullery maid.
Isaar. Pedoro’s oldest son.
Ferdie Pedoro’s 2nd son
Sular Pedoro’s 3rd son
Gontala Pedoro’s youngest son.
Shenoa Pedoro’s only daughter.
Portega. Tyrant King to the west.
Portua. Portega’s grandson.
Jubail. Old Fisherman.
Mutas Magab’s younger brother and usurper.
Walezia King of Malta.
Alviar Megalomaniacal bishop of Carthage. (Hates Drustina.)
Ethelia Female healer who treats Drustina during her pregnancy.
Seripatese Drustina’s faithful horse.
Astos & Amitor Minor royalty who govern Alexandria. King and Twin Queen.
Meronee Nubian Queen of Nobatia The northern Kingdom of the Nubians.
Horam The Egyptian master Boat builder.
Muraa King Astos’s male partner.
Tuk Makurian general.
Fantu. Makurian Captain.

The Angry Mermaid 36.

The trio of General Tuk, Captain Fantu and the pregnant Queen Drustina arrived at Meronee’s encampment in the early morning after riding all night. It had been a slow journey because Drustina was beginning to feel the effects of her pregnancy.

Meronee’s army was camped at the sixth cataract awaiting whatever news came to them. The mounted Ta Seti bowmen had proved themselves doubly valuable as gatherers of intelligence as well as high speed ‘artillery’ and Meronee was only waiting for Drustina’s return. The news was mainly good. The three dissenting generals could muster about three divisions but more importantly, the Makurian troops could rely upon the good will of the local Makurian population to help with food supplies for Meronee’s forces. For like the Alwans, Meronee also suffered from the distance away from their supply base. Whosoever could win the support of the local population could at least expect more reliable supplies and win the logistics war.

Once again Drustina’s experience as a guerrilla fighter enabled her to advise Queen Meronee as to the best way to win over and keep the people’s support. Captain Fantu and his newly formed Makurian cavalry were at least known to the Makurian peasantry and they knew him to be on their side. Already stories of theft and ‘appropriation’ were beginning to emerge from villages where the huge Alwan Army had passed on their slow and troubled march north.

With the first phase complete, Drustina was free to take a back seat and recover from her exertions as her pregnant condition began to slow her down. It was to be another two weeks before the Allies were to tempt the Alwans into the trap between the two tributaries of the mother river where the battle lasted a day and a night.

The massive Alwan army had endured two weeks of constant privation, from repeated ambushes and food shortages as they marched north through Makuria. As Drustina had predicted and Captain Fantu was thrilled to learn, lightening fast and accurate attacks by mounted bowmen were proven to be an effective tactic, for not only did it cause attrition and material loss to the Alwan column; it also destroyed moral.

By the time the Alwans had circumvented a fortified Khartoum and left a siege force to try and starve the city into submission, the remaining forces had been sucked into the trap of the narrow peninsular pocket where the two great Niles met. With their forces now divided and separated the Alwans were already a partially beaten force. Meronee was delighted with Drustina’s guerrilla campaign for it had achieved not one but three objectives.

It had won over the local population to Meronee’s side, it had reduced much of the Alwan forces and preparations to a ‘holding operation’ and it had caused their massive army to be divided. The siege to Khartoum was still a very serious issue for the city but that was the Makurian King’s problem. Meronee had little sympathy for the king just then because she had yet to confront the main Alwan force that still outnumbered her and her Makurian allies led by General Tuk.

Although encumbered by her swollen belly and therefore unable to assist in the guerrilla campaign directly, Drustina was at least still moderately mobile. Her trusty craft, the Angry Mermaid had, after much effort, been hauled above the sixth cataract and now served as a useful ferry to meet and supply Fantu in his Guerrilla campaign. The advantages of her presence had convinced the allies that it was worth the effort to gather as many craft as they could for the final campaign. Transporting troops by river and ship was proving an extremely effective activity.

Drustina’s mare Seripatese also served her loyally as she monitored the guerrilla’s progress and occasionally met up with Captain Fantu who commanded the campaign. The first phase of their campaign had been successful insofar as it weakened the Alwan cavalry who had charged into trap after trap in their attempts to pursue the Ta Seti mounted bowmen after every ambush. Each ambush had been carefully planned and laid thus Captain Fantu was riding a spectacular learning curve as Arina explained about traps and ambushes and double blinds. By the time the Alwans had reached Khartoum, their cavalry was virtually a spent force but the Alwan Tyrant King was too damned angry and intractable to admit it. He had managed to deliver a couple of siege engines to attack the walls of Khartoum and with these he remained convinced he would win through.

In the guerrilla camp other developments were emerging as well. Captain Fantu was growing exceedingly fond of the stunningly beautiful and exotically coloured Arina who was acting as an advisor, passing on the hard-earned lessons of Drustina’s Carthaginian war. Every time Drustina met with the guerrilla commanders she noticed the growing attraction between Fantu and Arina.

‘It was hardly surprising really,’ she surmised.

Fantu was an exceedingly handsome Nubian with dark blue-black skin and a well defined muscular body that any woman would find attractive. By contrast, Arina with her rich red-gold titian hair and emerald green eyes was a stunningly beautiful and well formed Celtic girl. Drustina was not surprised to learn they were sharing a bed and she was secretly a bit envious, though not jealous.

Eventually the Alwan King had set up his main camp to lay siege to Khartoum. This suited Drustina’s ideas for it gave her guerrilla troops a fixed target to harry and an opportunity for Tuk’s water-born troops to test their mettle against fixed Alwan forces. Amongst Tuk’s men were Meronee’s Nobatian forces who, after recovering from the hard slog south through the desert, were now refreshed enough to make a powerful contribution to the skirmishes that would eventually lead to the main pitched battle. Everybody knew — none better than Drustina- that there would have to be a final showdown but for as long as possible they would continue to harry and prod the huge Alwan force.

As more ships were dragged up the Sixth Cataract, Queen Meronee and Tuk finally concluded they had enough strength to set and spring the trap to destroy the Alwan forces. The plan was to land from the river a considerable force enough to sting the Alwan Tyrant into greater action. The Allies would launch a water-born attack of sufficient size to tempt the tyrant to chase them back down the east bank of the White Nile. Meronee and Tuk had deliberately armed their men lightly so that they could retreat quickly along the bank of the White Nile and make it look like a defeated panic. There were several notable places where the bank was muddy and sticky, here Drustina hoped to outmanoeuvre the pursuers. The second part of the plan was for Drustina to launch a second, heavier force behind the pursuing Alwans at a drier position better suited to armoured troops and positioned below the buttress where Fantu waited with his Makurian bowmen. Thus she hoped to cut the Alwan pursuers off from the main force still besieging Khartoum. Meanwhile, Captain Fantu and his mounted Ta Seti Archers would post themselves on the lip of the ridge and move parallel to any Alwan pursuers and preventing them from escaping to the east. The plan was to try and wipe out the pursuing force and thus reduce the Alwan army yet further.

Every little ploy and trick would serve to better the allied cause. This one was a dangerous trick but if it worked, then General Tuk and his Makurian companions would achieve their aims, namely permanent freedom from the Alwan threat.

On the eve of the plan, the allied forces laboured over the complexity of the plan and strived to simplify it at every juncture. Complex plans invariably went wrong at some instant and left much scope for disaster. Drustina had already demonstrated the dangers of complexity to Captain Fantu in his ambushes and it had been a lesson well learned. Remarkably, because of his constant action in harrying the marching Alwan column, Captain Fantu had accumulated more real battle experience than even the three dissenting generals. Makuria had been at peace for the last thirty years, indeed the whole Nile River had enjoyed a generation of peace until the Alwan tyrant had got greedy.

Tuk and his two companion generals had seen very little real fighting, though Tuk had seen some action as a mercenary before joining the Makurian army but it was brief and a long time ago. Furthermore, Fantu had accumulated the most geographical knowledge of the war zone because of his native childhood experiences and his recent guerrilla activities. He had learned to assimilate physical geography with military capabilities. Queen Meronee, General Tuk and Drustina had cause to be grateful for his realistic and balanced observations when it came to assessing the future battle plan.

One evening as they dined on the river bank, General Tuk expressed his opinions of the young Captain.

“Good lad that. If he survives those guerrilla raids, he’ll go far.”

“Would it not be better to include him in the main battle,” Queen Meronee asked, “he’s a well experienced soldier now and something of a talisman for his troops.”

Tuk glanced at Drustina and grinned as she smiled to recognise their mutual conclusion; Captain Fantu would be best suited to what he had perfected ... fast unpredictable strikes where least expected.

“I’d leave him where he is,” Tuk replied as Drustina nodded agreement.

Meronee smiled as she recognised the mutual respect and friendship that had developed between her best general and her royal companion. It was good that the leaders of an army could agree and understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Then there was a small commotion outside their tent as Fantu arrived with Arina at his side. Even Queen Meronee had recognised they were becoming ‘an item’.

The pair made their reports then settled to finish off what was left on the table. They hadn’t eaten all day. Later, Drustina had a chance to chat to her erstwhile companion.

“You like him don’t you?”

Arina nodded shyly.

“He’s big, and strong and kind and intelligent. What more could a girl want?”

Drustina nodded sagely as she recognised the soft light of devotion and affection in Arina’s eyes.

‘Young girls often became infatuated at this age of fifteen or sixteen, Arina should be no exception.’

As they settled for the evening Arina expressed her disappointment that she would not be sleeping with Fantu but General Tuk had lots to discuss with the budding leader. Drustina smiled and shifted restlessly as she struggled to get her ‘bump’ comfortable. Arina glanced across and giggled.

“I could have Fantu’s baby.” Drustina sighed.

“I had hoped you’d have mine but if you love him then I suppose an old sow like me shouldn’t get in the way of young love.”

“Old sow!” Arina squealed. “Dru you’re only seventeen yourself!”

“Yeah but I’m still fat and clumsy with this shild inside me.”

“Not for much longer,” Arina offered encouragement.

“Yeah; well I wish it’d hurry up. I’m thinking it might be twins again. This bump’s as big as the last one.”

Arina slid out of her bed and slipped in to spoon up to Drustina. Her hands slid evocatively over Dru’s belly and the lump responded with a violent kick. Arina let out a squeak and remarked.

“I think it might be. You’re one of twins yourself so the odds are high. Hello, I think I’ve just felt another head, here, feel here.”

Arina led Dru’s hand to the bump and Dru was forced to agree. There seemed to be two heads. Drustina sighed again.

“Well, I suppose it’ll make Astos happy, especially if there’s one of each.”

“Let’s just get through the next couple of weeks,” Arina cautioned.

“I don’t think I’ll be much involved from now on,” Drustina advised her. “This bump is getting heavy.”

“You’ll have to show your face though. The men expect to see the Lioness of Carthage at their head.”

“Yeah, well if they want me out there posing like a bloody figurehead, they’d better get this battle over and done with quickly. I want these babies born in Egypt.”

“Will you be leading the archers from the ships on the river?”

“That’s the general plan. I won’t have to wave my sword around and play the duellist card. Oooh! Dammit! This bump’s the very devil!”

“Don’t let the bloody bishops here you say that,” Arina grinned, “they’ll take you literally.”

“Bugger the bishops. They don’t have to have babies.”

Arina adjusted herself to allow Drustina room to turn again and try to get comfortable. Thus they shared what was to become several weeks of restless nights when Arina was not abed with her infatuation, Fantu.

The following morning, Dawned with an unusual rain and the allies eyed it suspiciously.

“It will turn the ground sticky and muddy. Troops will not be so mobile and we depend a lot on speed to match their heavier troops.” Tuk observed soberly.

“Then stay where it’s sandy and the soil drains easily.” Fantu suggested.

“And where is that?” Meronee asked.

“Away from the fields and plantations where the soil is sediment from the annual floods. Don’t forget, I was born to a farming family; humble origins I’ll warrant, but I do know this area. If we pick the higher, better drained sites and predetermine the best connections between them we can outmanoeuvre them.”

“Can you do that before we dispose our forces?” Tuk pressed.

“Some of it.” Fantu replied. “We’ll have to do a fast reconnoitre now while we’ve time.”

“Then to horse Captain.” Meronee urged.” Be about it and report as best you can and as much as you can. We start our plan tomorrow dawn.”

Needing no more urging, Captain Fantu took his lieutenants and sergeants to complete as much of a reconnoitre as they could before their forces met the Alwan army already showing signs of preparation. With each passing hour the lightly mounted officers sent back information with fairly accurate maps of the best sites along the river bank. And with each drip of vital information, Tuk was able to emplace his forces to increasingly better advantage. Drustina and her ship commanders simply prepared to deliver the troops as and where Tuk ordained. Queen Meronee was wise enough to recognise in her allies that she had a competent and effective reservoir of knowledge and experience. Meronee took something of a back seat and monitored the situation back at their main base camp as eventually, Tuk had his forces disposed as he felt best. As evening fell, Fantu finally took up their position on the ridge overlooking the first landing ground that Drustina was preparing to approach even as the Alwan Army was making its first rumbling north to put paid to the Nobatian Queen. The gap between the river bank and the buttress end of Fantu’s ridge was something of a choke point just like the palisade at the Carthage peninsular and Drustina watched developments like a hawk as she also watched Fantu’s signaller tucked away on a rocky ridge while Fantu and his bowmen waited until the opportune moment to strike.
For a couple of hours the Alwan column rumbled north driven by the tyrant king’s rage to finish the Nobatian bitch and her interfering once and for all. From their position hidden in the reed beds on the opposite Western bank of the White Nile, Drustina watched the column tramping north. She turned to her soldiers and remarked.

“We are well outnumbered men but remember your job is simply to hold the narrow strip for a few hours while their king decides what he’s going to do. Our main function is to gain the initiative, and hold it long enough to sow confusion and uncertainty amongst his troops. We are hoping he will turn some of his army to return to secure the strip. For a short while you will be facing his army on both sides. When the fight gets too hot, we withdraw and simply start to rain arrows down on his turned troops. Fantu will then join with us to simply pour arrows into their assembled ranks both facing each other as we return to our ships.
Plan B is to join our main front with General Tuk north of the strip if we find them either too hard pressed to hold the Alwans or going forward and south against the weakened Alwan Force. After that, it’s in the laps of the gods.

A silence fell upon Drustina’s troops as they realised the sobering thought that this was not a foregone conclusion. Then one of the young lieutenants turned to her.

“Will we have to withdraw?”

“If the fight gets too hot, yes. I don’t intend to sacrifice men unnecessarily.”

“We may lose men in the withdrawal.”

“If we have to withdraw, we will definitely loose men. It won’t be easy retreating back to ships off a beach despite having cover from the archers.”

“Best we don’t lose then.” The young man grinned.

Drustina smiled, she could have kissed him for his fatalistic optimism. The men murmured assent as his mood spread to his own platoon and then through the rest of the small force. With the mood improved they set sail up the White Nile in the darkness, to hide the ships on the opposite bank in anticipation of the bait being despatched along the dry routes by general Tuk. These ‘bait men’ were lightly armoured, mobile troops and they wore brightly coloured tunics so that Fantu and Drustina’s archers could easily recognise them and avoid hitting them. It would serve nobody any good if the ‘bait soldiers’ fell victim to their own archers.
As dawn broke it rained again but this suited the Allies.

General Tuk’s force arrived by boat at the commencement landing point and struck hard at the Alwan camp. It was akin to hitting a wasp’s nest as Alwan forces erupted along pre-planned routes to retaliate. Tuk’s forces fought briefly at the north border of the besieging camp and the Makurian King watched contemptuously from the mighty walls of Khartoum as the Alwans appeared to gain the upper hand. Eventually it appeared that Tuk’s force was compelled to yield and his force withdrew to the north. The Makurian King turned to his chief of staff.

“I don’t know what that impetuous fool Tuk was trying to do. The Alwan army is far too large for such a ridiculously small force. Just look at them running for their lives.”

“They’ll be annihilated when the Alwan cavalry catch up with them.” The Chief of Staff agreed.

“Is that not them now, setting out?” The king wondered.

“They’ll catch up with Tuk by the time he reaches the farms north of the ridge.” The Chief of Staff estimated. “Then they’ll be cut to pieces. Tuk is a reckless fool!”

And so it appeared to go. Tuk’s brightly coloured troops spread out amongst the farms thus appearing to scatter in disarray whilst in reality they were joining with their more heavily armed comrades who had moved quietly into the farms and onto higher ground where the going was firm. As the Alwan cavalry rampaged onto the soft tilled soil they realised that the black cloying soil of the irrigated farms was seriously impeding their horses. It was impossible to organise their forces into massed charges and deliver ‘sledgehammer’ blows to an enemy who was mainly ensconced inside farm buildings and armed with bows in addition to their swords and shields. As the cavalry started to mill about on the plantations they found themselves under fire from the farm houses and forced to retreat ... directly into the path of their own infantry who were only now arriving to do battle. As the infantry started to mass in preparation to ‘do something useful’ Tuk decided now was the time for Drustina and Fantu to reveal their forces.
With his heliographs facing south and east to capture the intermittent rising sun between the rain clouds, he gave the simple signal of a flashing light to order Drustina and Fantu to strike. On seeing the flashes, both commanders commenced their attack.
Fantu’s Ta Seti bowmen emerged from their hiding places on the ridge and started firing salvo after salvo of arrows down into the infantry column as the tail end passed the bluff. When Drustina came to land her forces it was virtually an unopposed landing for the pursuing column had passed north to attack Tuk while the remaining forces had separated from their comrades and returned to camp in anticipation of any more attacks. They left a void in the column that was gradually getting larger and Drustina hugged herself with satisfaction as she found her precious force making a virtually un-opposed landing directly at the foot of the bluff. She was now in a position to signal to Fantu and organise the next phase.

It wasn’t long coming as the Alwan commanders realised their forces had been split. Almost a quarter of their infantry and nearly all the cavalry were now surrounded by Tuk, Fantu and Drustina’s forces who all held advantageous positions. Furthermore, another contingent of Queen Meronee’s Nobatian army was arriving from the allies’ camp to reinforce General Tuk. It was to be mid-morning before the Alwans realised their pursuit force was in trouble and almost noon before they had organised a suitably mixed competent force to deal with the allied archers. Even as the force rushed north to break a path through Drustina’s plug between the bluff and the river bank they found themselves under fire from the bluff to the east and from the ships on the river to the west. They were running a gauntlet of death and they had yet to meet what few troops Drustina had mustered as a troop to act like the cork in the bottle. As the Alwan force struggled to march north, the allied ships full of bowmen kept pace with them and harried the western flank of the column constantly. By the time the Alwan van had reached Drustina’s small force she had withdrawn them back onto the ships to add to the water-born artillery that was the onslaught of arrows. By the time the debacle was finished in the early afternoon, the Alwans had lost their cavalry as a viable force as well as about a sixth of their infantry, and all due mainly to a variety of differently organised archery. That evening as the allies measured their progress, Tuk and Meronee had cause to thank Drustina for her imagination and Fantu for his newly acquired knowledge of mobile, mounted warfare. When Meronee sung Drustina’s praises the Celtic maid had to remind her that it was the stories of the Ta Seti bowmen defeating the roman legions that had made her realise that archers were the most formidable force on the field. She grinned as she reminded Queen Meronee.

“You have forgotten your own history your majesty. It was your own ancestors and their bows that beat the Romans when they had succeeded to defeat nations all around the middle sea.”

Tuk chuckled as he noted Meronee’s bemused embarrassment.

“Ah, you’re cunning commander lass, and no mistake. No wonder they called you ‘The Lioness of Carthage’; what should we call you? ... The crocodile of the Nile?”

“The battle’s not won yet general, there’s still a large force holding Khartoum under siege.”

“I don’t think their army has got the stomach for much more,” Tuk concluded.

Drustina kept her counsel. She had seen tyrants refusing to accept defeat before. Until the Alwan tyrant king was caught or dead, there would be little peace. Then she caught herself.

“God forbid girl, you’re a cynical bitch for one so young,” she told herself.

She excused herself from the table and made for her bed. It would be a lonely night because Arina had already made it abundantly clear she preferred Fantu’s bed.

“Is this how it always was for commanders and queens? Lonely and uncertain.” She asked herself as she laid her sword beside her then eased her clumsy belly onto her mattress and pondered the morrow.

o0o