Morgan’s jaw set firmly at what she told him. He looked at Cheris, who was choking back sobs again. ‘Was it Trask?’
She nodded. They could tell she wanted to speak but no words could come. Both waited patiently, not wanting to hurry the girl. At last Cheris regained a measure of composure, her breathing was still ragged but words came falteringly.
‘They tried ... to kill me ... once they had finished. Two other mages ... dead. Trask fights with ... with our army ... but ... but ... he is a ... .traitor.’
Morgan’s face looked hewn from stone. ‘Where is Trask now?’
‘Back with the ... army. Baron Felmere does ... not ... know.’
He looked at the ground, then to the heavens where the clouds were almost black. ‘Shit!’ he said softly. ‘Mytha’s bleeding stools!’
Itheya looked between the two humans. ‘I am not sure I understand. This Trask is not a man to trust, I take it?’
‘Yes, my Lady, this is bad news. When I left here to see you he had disappeared for a while; I had hoped he had gone for ever. The Gods, you see, love chaos and he is their instrument. A renegade knight, I have fought both with him and against him. He has his own code of honour, far removed from most other people’s. He loves instilling fear in his enemies and taking what they have for his own. Raping the enemy’s women is a favourite trick of his. I am sorry, Cheris, but you weren’t the first or the hundred and first, and you won’t be the last either. I wonder which lord he fights with now?’
Cheris pinched her nose, trying to stop it running. ‘Fenchard,’ she said.
Morgan nodded his head slowly. ‘Of course. Why did I have to ask?’
Itheya continued to look puzzled. ‘He fights for you, for us then. Then why do what he did to this girl, why try to kill her?’
Morgan looked at the elf’s pale face, his world-weariness writ large in his dark eyes. ‘I think I have mentioned this before. Whereas you people argue constantly with each other and deal with all your disagreements face to face and honestly, with humans saying one thing and doing another is an art. Men of power do it all the time – it is what power does, what it is. Trask seeks to betray us somehow, probably for a large amount of gold, it being the thing he values above all others. I need to get to Baron Felmere before they fight the enemy again.’
Cheris had regained herself a little. ‘I, we, were due back at Grest with the army today. He was going to march against them on our return. I am supposed to be fighting for him.’
‘Then we have some little time. I take it Trask thinks you dead?’
Cheris nodded.
‘I congratulate you then. Most caught in his schemes do not survive the experience. My manners have deserted me also. Forgive me, Cheris, my name is Morgan, a soldier serving Baron Felmere and Tanaren. You are in no shape to fight. I will tell him that when I see him. He can be a little overeager sometimes, but the two of us go back a long way. He will listen to reason and you will be spared the next battle. In fact, it may be a good idea for you to return to your island and another mage sent, if that is what you wish.’
‘Thank you, Sir Morgan,’ Cheris said quietly, ‘but right now I do not know what I wish. I am having trouble thinking clearly.’
‘Of course you don’t!’ he said briskly. ‘Right now is not the time. Ride with us for now and make your decisions later, when we return you to the knights.’
‘If any are left,’ said Cheris wistfully. ‘Trask killed those that accompanied us.’
Itheya shook her head. ‘Your ways are strange to me. Traitors, that is zavuyugon in our tongue, are so rare in our history as to be almost unheard of. The punishments for ones such as they are ... terrible.’
Morgan cast around him, looking for something. He strode forward, crouched low and stood up again, holding a low, flat stone covered in dried mud at one edge. He held it up to both women.
‘Do you know what this is?’
Itheya laughed, a short, sharp exclamation. Morgan looked at Cheris; even she was smiling slightly.
‘Are stones so rare this side of the mountains? Perhaps you use them as jewellery here.’ Itheya picked up her bow.
‘You are right, of course; it is a stone but, more importantly, it is a Tanaren stone. Now, it has not been always thus. Over the last ten years, by my calculation, it has been Tanarese four times and Arshuman three, such are the amount of times this land has been passed back and forth between us. This does not count the other times where skirmishers or raiders have held this ground for a day or two. Now, in order to get possession of such an important piece of rock, our opposing forces have met in two to three great battles a year, along with hundreds of smaller conflicts involving under a hundred men or so. People have been skewered, burned, had their faces and limbs hacked off, been castrated and left to swing from a tree on innumerable occasions just for this stone.
‘Sorry to tell you this, Cheris, but thousands of women have been raped and hundreds of bastards fathered owing loyalty to no one but themselves. I have seen children tied to poles, covered in pitch and used as flaming torches in the early years, when terror could still shock. It has worked, too. I see myself as a reasonable man in most things, but I would kill an Arshuman soldier in cold blood without a second thought, such are the things they have done to us. No one knows why we are fighting anymore – for honour, I suppose – yet I doubt there are a dozen men in these lands who could tell you exactly what that word means. And now we have to ride with the speed of an arrow to Grest to warn Felmere not to commit an act of folly and trust a man for whom all of this is as the meat and drink of the Gods. Without this war, Artorus only knows what he would be, a drunk in a forgotten tavern somewhere, I suppose, or a sellsword wielding his blade in the far south. I can cope with his mercenary ways as long as it is a long way from here. Come, ladies, we have delayed long enough.’
He dropped the stone and headed back towards the horses. Itheya looked at Cheris and smiled. ‘Come, ride with me.’
Cheris thanked her and followed the elf in the same direction as Morgan. As she did so the first rumble of thunder sounded, followed shortly by scores of large heavy raindrops, filling the muddy hoof prints on the path before washing them away completely.
54
The army was deployed; the line was set. Rank upon rank of pale grim men stood behind their shields, their spears held aloft, gazing through the rain at the approaching enemy. Thunder rolled across the plain, turning the grass grey and ashen. Prior to this cloudburst, the opposing sets of light cavalry had been chasing each other over the open field, exchanging bow shot and insults. It had been entertaining but totally inconclusive, and once the rain started they had withdrawn back to their comrades. Baron Felmere trotted up and down the line making sure the men could see him; the rain was a good thing for him, for the enemy’s light cavalry would be slowed and the effectiveness of the archers reduced. He shouted this out to his soldiers time and time again, hammering home that they had superiority in numbers and troop quality and that this was the time to grasp the nettle and send the yellow demons to the furnace. His job done, he returned to the far left of the line where the knights were stationed.
‘Well, Reynard’ he said bluffly, ‘you know how bad my eyesight is. How is the enemy looking?’
‘They are nearly deployed; the jester in the golden armour is at their heart with their first unit collected around him. Take them out of it, though, and it looks like they have just three units of regular troops. I am guessing, too, that many of them are newly enrolled. There are, however, a couple of blocks of mercenaries, the Vipers, the Mailed Hand, Menneken’s Spears, and others. They are lining up to their right, opposite us; get among them early enough and they will break easily.’
Overhead there was a flash of lightning, the first Felmere had seen. Thunder followed shortly afterwards, intensifying the rain, making it even more difficult to see clearly.
‘Artorus’s eyes, damn this weather,’ muttered Felmere. ‘Still, let’s not give them tim
e to catch their breath. Let’s get the advance sounded and get this done with.’
The word went out and, shortly after, a blaring of trumpets jolted the troops into action. Following their drummers each unit started to march slowly, closing the gap on the enemy which currently stood at about a mile. Felmere watched them. Lasgaart was on the far left, a mounted man among infantry, his sodden banner dripping on to his helm. Then came his own troops, the largest group, a thousand war veterans under his captain, Mirik. After this the green of Vinoyen – Ulgar was there, his scarred face clothed in steel. Felmere heard his barked commands, as he got his drummer to increase the marching speed. Then it was Haslan Falls, a large group again, expensively clad though mostly untested. Fenchard himself sat atop a white charger, a preening peacock of a man undaunted by the drenching he was receiving. Felmere saw Trask at their head, by the banner; he seemed twice the size of the men around him. Finally, to their right, was Maynard with the lesser barons, each represented by a banner. Light cavalry flanked to the left and right in the traditional formation with a thin line of archers to the fore; they would melt back through the ranks once their job of disrupting and unsettling the enemy formation was done. When he was satisfied, Felmere nodded to both Reynard and Dominic, spurring the knights forward. They had noticed a low hill on the plain a quarter of a mile away and he had decided to observe proceedings from there, so that they could better judge the time to send the knights in when their charge would be at its most devastating.
The men were becoming subdued. Rain tended to do that. Summer was the true fighting season when a man could fight the enemy rather than the elements and wounds would bleed fast but heal quickly. Despite Felmere’s best efforts, the news of the absence of the magical healer had spread among the men. That, together with the march to battle coming without any time for the customary prayers and blessings, had caused much muted grumbling among the rank and file. The Baron let them moan; once battle was joined, no one would be thinking of such things.
He gained the hill and remained there with the knights, watching the infantry progress towards the enemy. The Arshumans had finished deploying and were waiting, stock still, for their foes to come to them. Their king in his ridiculous armour had found his own high ground and looked down upon his charges as they unfurled their yellow banners defiantly against the storm. The mercenaries, a mishmash of weapons and armour waiting under banners of simple cloth, stood slightly apart from the Arshuman troops. Lasgaart would engage them, Felmere thought, and he already had the mind to send the Silver Lances crashing into their flank once they were engaged. If they broke their formation, it would compromise the Arshumans defence considerably, it would give his men some impetus, maybe then they could roll across the Arshuman line, putting the untested troops under pressure. Hopefully, it would break their will and put them to flight. The battle would be won then; it would just be a matter of time.
‘How much did you offer for the King’s head?’ Dominic Hartfield asked him. As with the last battle, Felmere stayed with the Silver Lances, leaving Reynard a little further forward ready to charge in if something went amiss.
‘Fifty crowns if we win the battle; ten if we don’t. I will obviously still need the money then.’
‘Mytha’s spear, that is a fortune! More than many of these fellows see in a lifetime!’
‘It is supposed to be an incentive.’ Felmere reminded him.
‘It is their king, I suppose; his death would probably end this war in a trice. Why would he show himself in battle at this hour, I wonder?’
‘Desperation, hopefully; maybe an attempt to shore up the morale of his men – that is, if they haven’t got some poor soul desperate for coin to run around in it while the real king sits in Roshythe surrounded by all the serving girls his appetites can handle.’
‘I had thought that, too.’ Dominic’s face was grim, not that Felmere could see it; conditions were getting wetter by the minute. ‘What do you think the chances of it being the case are?’
‘Evens I daresay. Still, we have to treat him as though he is the King; it is important we take him here, alive or dead. Just getting his armour would be worth it; we can send it to Leontius. The new Tanaren high fashion. When you return there you will see everyone wearing a suit.’ Felmere chuckled at his poor joke, not realising how accurate their conjecture was, for King Aganosticlan was many miles away, at Tantala, secure from the predations of his enemies.
Dominic did not reply; he was staring at the advancing row of men.
‘Our line is getting a bit ragged – it must be the weather – we need to signal them to tighten things up a bit.’
Felmere sheltered his eyes with his hand. What the knight had said was true – the right flank in particular was looking pretty uneven with Fenchard’s men dropping rapidly behind Vinoyen’s, and Maynard’s men, unsure who to align themselves with, just drifting between the two.
Felmere cursed and passed a message to the flag-bearers and musicians to get them to order Fenchard and Maynard to speed up a little. That done, he grabbed some bread off one of the foot messengers; he hadn’t eaten that morning as his stomach was playing up and he suddenly felt desperately hungry.
There was about a quarter of a mile between the opposing forces. Arrows were flying between them but were having a negligible effect in this weather; cavalry sorties were also going on but they seemed equally half-hearted. And still Haslan Falls were behind the line. If anything the gap had increased, their front rank now being behind Ulgar Vinoyen’s final rank. Maynard’s men had pushed on and were holding the correct position again, so if Baron Fenchard’s men fell back any further then the opposing cavalry could fill the gap and fire arrows at the exposed flanks to their left and right.
‘What by Artorus’s bollocks is he playing at?’ Felmere shouted in frustration.
‘I will send a man up to them,’ Dominic replied.
He did so and within the minute a knight of the Silver Lances was barrelling towards the Haslan Falls banner with all the speed he could manage over the soft ground.
The gap increased still further. There was clear daylight between Haslan Falls and Vinoyen. The men of Ulgar’s Company were turning to them, though whether they were exhorting them to push on or just shouting obscenities, Felmere could not tell. Ahead of them Reynard broke rank and started spurring his horse towards Felmere, who waited for him with curiosity. The storm was nearing its full fury now; it was not long after noon but the land was steeped in a grey murk, enlivened only by a coruscating flash of lightning that illuminated the toiling soldiers for less than a second, freezing them in Felmere’s memory, and still Haslan Falls were behind the others.
Reynard pulled his visor back, his eyes looked slightly panicked, something Felmere was not used to seeing.
‘Baron,’ he said, ‘I don’t know if this is important but Trask vanished for a couple of days in the last week, only returning yesterday. When I asked him where he had been he made up some story about visiting a prostitute. I didn’t believe him then and...’
‘By all the Gods,’ said Dominic softly, his voice reflecting Reynard’s concern, ‘you don’t think...’
Felmere wasn’t sure what the two men were trying to say, but the problem with the advance needed resolving immediately. He called over to the musicians at the top of his lungs. ‘Sound the halt ... now!’
The response was instant. The signal sounded, clear as crystal through the rain, yet again Felmere felt proud of the iron discipline of his men as they stopped their march almost in unison.
All except one.
Haslan Falls men continued forward. At first Felmere was pleased, thinking they would plug the gap in the line. Instead they started to veer to the left, putting them on a collision course with Ulgar Vinoyen’s men. From the Arshuman line cornets blasted a single piercing note, the signal for them to start their march.
‘The mages aren’t coming back,’ said Dominic ominously.
‘What do you mean?,’ said Felme
re. His patience with the two knights’ evasiveness seemed to be running out.
Reynard looked at Dominic and they both understood each other. Dominic spoke again: ‘Baron, we need to withdraw.’
‘Withdraw?’ roared Felmere with some anger. ‘Battle is about to be joined; we have the advantage. What milky-livered womanish cowardice is this? The battle is ours to win.’
‘Because we are being betrayed.’
Felmere’s jaw dropped like a stone.
Up ahead, Dominic’s knight reached the Haslan Falls banner. They saw him speaking to Trask, with Fenchard now alongside him. Dominic looked on in anguish because he now knew exactly what was coming next and could not do a thing to stop it.
As the knight leaned forward on his horse, neck craned to listen to the man on foot, Trask swung his arm around the man’s throat and dragged him off his horse. They could not see the denouement of this act but didn’t need to. The horse ran off as it no longer had a master to serve.
And then came the next stage in the proceedings. To Felmere, it seemed to take an eternity, as though every protagonist was wading through bone glue. As he watched, already aware of the horror about to be enacted, the men of Haslan Falls lowered their spears, broke into a well-coordinated run, and charged Ulgar Vinoyen’s unit in its unprotected rear.
Chaos would be the only word to describe what ensued over the next hour. Immediately, Felmere saw that this was not a battle to sit back and direct calmly. Spurring his horse, he and the other knights charged towards the turncoats of Haslan Falls.
It was patently clear to all concerned that this was going to be a disaster of some scale. Fenchard’s men outnumbered Vinoyen’s by two to one and had already scattered most of the surprised and panicked troops. Baron Maynard on the far right was left isolated and the Arshumans had sent all their light cavalry to surround him and pepper his men with arrows. So effectively, after a matter of minutes, the army of Tanaren was reduced to two units. Baron Lasgaart was engaging the mercenary force on the left and Felmere’s own men, along with the men of Athkaril, were fending off two units of the enemy who had just crashed into them, spear against shield. The shock of the impact could even be heard above the thunder.
The Forgotten War Page 77
