Blade Of Fire (Book 2)

by Stuart Hill

  Al-Khatib paused and took a sip from his sherbet as he pondered his reply for a moment. “In my life, I have seen many lands and more warfare than most, and I know that the countries in the north use size and weight to overbear the opposition. Their horses are gigantic and the weaponry used by the warriors is massive and heavy. But we Desert People fight with speed and agility. Our horses are slender and as dextrous as dancers; they outpace the wind and have the hearts of lions! The warriors who ride them are built likewise, and use weapons of finesse and subtlety like the scimitar, a sword with the cutting edge of a striking eagle’s talon, with the speed of lightning and the weight of a breath of wind.”

  Charlemagne fell silent as he digested all this: stories of weapons almost as light as air, and famous warriors with greater disabilities than his own, that set his mind buzzing. Could it really be true? Surely yes; everything else Al-Khatib had said had the ring of truth. As he took a drink from his goblet of sherbet, the tiniest seed of an idea planted itself in his brain. And though it would be many weeks before it began to grow, it had a fertile imagination to nourish it.

  Over the next few days Sharley became a regular visitor to the dhows, sometimes in Maggie’s company and sometimes alone. But always he insisted that the Captain and his crew speak to him in their own language, and his agile brain eagerly absorbed the new vocabulary and grammar. Within a matter of days he was holding simple and stilted conversations with the highly flattered crew, who screwed up their faces in concentration as the foreign Prince attempted to communicate. Within an amazingly short period of time Charlemagne could make himself understood, in both the polite forms of Al-Khatib’s vocabulary and the more earthy language of the crew.

  But exactly why he threw himself into learning the tongue of the Desert People – though Maggie seemed inordinately pleased by it – remained unclear to Sharley. If he bothered to stop and think about it at all, he simply told himself that he was filling his time while the ships were being repaired. But deep in the unconscious recesses of his mind, the beginnings of a plan were starting to form.

  CHAPTER 11

  In the confined space of the pass the ear-shattering noise of the explosion was magnified ten times over. Huge chunks of ice cascaded into the air, thrust skywards in a bursting flower of flame and smoke. Slowly, the last echoes died away, leaving only the rattle and clatter of falling debris as the air emptied itself of the flotsam that had once been the wall of ice blocking the pass into the Icemark.

  Silence gradually returned, disturbed only by the slow, deliberate clip-clop of hooves. Three horses approached the site of the explosion, each one ridden by a man with one hand on his hip and wearing highly polished armour. An enormous amount of gunpowder had been packed around the foot of the ice wall, as well as into tunnels that had been dug deep into the compacted snow. But even so, there could be no guarantee that the explosion had been successful.

  The horsemen drew rein at the shattered remnants of the blockage. Great boulders of ice lay tumbled and heaped before them. But the ice wall had gone, and any infantryman worth his pay could easily scramble over the small hill of debris that remained. The cavalry, however, was a different matter.

  “Organise the first three regiments into a working party and have them clear a way through. I expect to be marching in less than three hours,” Scipio said quietly. His tone allowed for no argument, and his sons saluted and trotted away. Bellorum continued to gaze at the mound of ice before him, then dismounted and scrambled nimbly up to the top. The bitter, acrid scent of the gunpowder filled his nostrils, and the once pristine ice and snow lay blackened and crushed all about him.

  Ahead lay the route into the Icemark. He was back, and this time he would take no chances.

  He’d earlier sent another half-dozen spies ahead to report on troop movements, and the four who’d survived reported that the pass, and all land in its vicinity, were empty of human life. When Bellorum quietly pointed out that not all Icemark opposition would be human, the spies had hastily amended this to ‘empty of life’, and he’d nodded in satisfaction. Even so, the orders of the day were to advance in full armour and in defensive formations. After all, this was the land of Thirrin Freer Strong-in-the-Arm Lindenshield, Wildcat of the North, and nothing could ever be considered certain.

  He continued to scrutinise the land ahead for another ten minutes or so, but all seemed as lifeless as his spies had reported. The sound of marching then caused him to turn, and he watched as the working parties arrived. He made his way back to his horse, mounted, and rode slowly to the cliff that made up one wall of the pass, where he watched as the men began to clear the debris. His silent presence spurred them on more than any number of whips in the hands of the most vicious overseers. This was General Scipio Bellorum, a man who’d once had a regiment’s entire cadre of staff officers executed because it had been broken by an enemy charge.

  After two hours the last of the ice had been heaved aside, and Bellorum gave the order for the advance regiments to march up. They approached with fife and drums beating out a rapid tattoo, announcing to the world that the Polypontian Empire was about to invade another land. As they passed the General each and every soldier turned his head, saluted, and marched on along the cleared route.

  At the head of the vanguard marched Quintus Severus, a young and promising officer with over ten years of battle experience. He’d joined the Imperial Army as a private when he was only sixteen, and was the youngest of a large family from the slums of Romula, the Empire’s capital. He’d been decorated three times with the Laurel Crown, the highest order of merit and bravery that the Empire could bestow, and he’d steadily climbed his way up through the ranks until he’d become a Deputy Commander of a Cohort, with over three hundred men under his command.

  But on the eve of this invasion, the General himself had promoted him in a special ceremony to the rank of full Commander and granted him the signal honour of leading the vanguard into the Icemark. He was now the youngest Cohort Commander in the entire Imperial Army. He personally commanded over six hundred men and he was particularly proud to note that only five levels of rank stood between him and the General’s own sons.

  As he led his soldiers through the narrow pass into the Icemark he felt enormous pride. But he had taken the precaution of sending scouts ahead and had ordered that all weapons be in a state of readiness. Behind him the spears of the pikemen advanced like a disciplined and mobile forest, while the acrid smoke of the musketeers’ matches – lengths of smouldering cord used to ignite the gunpowder – swirled about the advancing soldiers in a blue-grey fog.

  He quietly gave an order to the Regimental Centurion, and immediately the command was relayed in a gravel-voiced bellow to the Company Centurions, who repeated it all along the marching line:

  “Shield-bearers! Shield-bearers prepare!”

  Immediately, the silken rasp of thousands of swords being drawn by the infantry echoed along the pass.

  Quintus Severus looked about him. As usual, the army looked invincible. He smiled confidently; not even the legendary Snow Leopards would be able to stop them, although his thoughts remained silent on the subject of Queen Thirrin. Her name could strike fear in the hearts of the toughest soldiers. Even Bellorum’s reputation was challenged by that of the barbarian queen.

  The vanguard continued its march, the scouts maintaining visual contact and waving them on. After fifteen minutes or so the pass began to widen and the true entrance into the Icemark opened up before them. The drums and fife still shrilled out their martial music and Severus gave the order for the army to fan out. Immediately, pike and shield-bearer regiments began to manoeuvre to left and right, preparing to cover both flanks as the vanguard moved out on to the rocky plain before them.

  But then a sudden blood-curdling howl erupted into the air and was answered by an entire chorus. The scouts had been wrong, the enemy was here! A murmur ran through the ranks of the Imperial troops. All of them had heard of the monsters who fought alongsi
de the soldiers of the Icemark, and the hideous howling proved they were not the products of legend and imagination that the Polypontians had hoped.

  Severus barked an order and pikes were driven into the ground, and the shield-bearers formed a defensive wall while the musketeers levelled their weapons.

  None of the soldiers had fought werewolves before, and they gazed about them waiting for the creatures to appear. But then a sudden rain of arrows smashed into their ranks, and dozens fell. Orders were shouted and the vanguard tightened into a defensive half-circle, closing off the entrance of the pass and presenting a wall of shields to the outside world. Wave after wave of arrows rained from the sky and although the Imperial soldiers continued to fall, their discipline held and they waited grimly for the enemy to show themselves.

  The arrows stopped and a silence fell.

  Suddenly, werewolves erupted into view, cascading down the rocky slopes in a swarm of snarling, howling fury.

  The muskets fired a volley bringing down a number of the monsters, but most got up and ran on till they fell upon the ranks of the shield-bearers, forcing them back with the ferocity of their attack.

  The clash and roar of the fighting masked the steady beat of the advancing Icemark housecarles. They came on at a swinging trot, their shield wall holding solid so that they hit the Empire’s defensive phalanx like a rock slide, and their axes rained down on the Polypontian soldiers in a deadly hail of razor-sharp metal.

  As his line began to buckle, Severus desperately ordered reinforcements forward. Soldiers rushed to take the place of their fallen comrades and the line held. Drum and fife shrilled out a fighting rhythm, but it was drowned out by the howling of the werewolves and the insistent grinding beat of the housecarles’ chant:

  “OUT! Out! Out! OUT! Out! Out! OUT! Out! Out!”

  More arrows began to fall, hitting the rear of the Empire’s positions and bringing down rank after rank of soldiers. Severus looked about him, as close to panic as he’d ever been in his entire career.

  “We must pull back, Sir!” the Regimental Centurion shouted above the din. “Take the lads back to that spur of rock and they won’t be able to break us even if we’re all dead,” he said, nodding at an outcrop of granite that almost closed the pass a hundred metres or so inside the mouth of the entrance.

  Severus nodded, gave the order, and the soldiers began to fall back in good order until they held the narrow point with an impenetrable hedge of pike and musket.

  The housecarles reformed, then swung forward again with locked shields and smashed against the barrier, hacking and chopping at the enemy, holding their attention while the werewolves stealthily climbed the rock walls. For more than twenty minutes the Icemark soldiers pressed the enemy position, following the orders of their Commander as she directed them on, and redressed their line again and again as her soldiers fell. At last, their Wolf-folk allies were in position high up on the cliff walls, and with bloodthirsty howls the werewolf soldiers dropped down on to the Imperial troops beneath them.

  Severus beheaded one huge monster with a single sweep of his sword and swung round to hack down another that was threatening to take the regimental standard. As they fought on more werewolves leaped down from the cliffs, and the housecarles drove forward into the Polypontian frontline. When Severus realised he was about to lose his first engagement he decided to die rather than retreat any further.

  “Centurion Catullus, order the men to fall back about the standard . . .” His voice faltered as he watched a huge werewolf grab the jaw of his Centurion from behind and almost casually rip his head off. For a moment, the corpse of the soldier stood upright as blood fountained skywards from its torn arteries, then it fell. Severus screamed. He’d fought against any number of barbarian armies and never once felt anything but a vague contempt for their puny efforts. But this was different. He was being asked to fight creatures that belonged in his nightmares, and nowhere else. And not only that, but they were winning!

  The werewolf lapped at the blood of the fallen Centurion, then turned its attention on the enemy officer and grinned as it licked the blood from its teeth. Severus felt fear to a degree he’d never believed possible, and in blind terror he dropped his sword and ran. For a moment, the Imperial troops fought on, but the realisation that their Commander had left them gathered pace through their ranks and like a swiftly ebbing tide the entire vanguard broke and ran. If their Commander couldn’t face it, neither could they.

  The housecarles burst through the buckling line of pike and musket and joined their werewolf comrades chasing the fleeing enemy. For several long, confused and bloody minutes the rout continued as the Imperial soldiers ran from the teeth and axes that were hacking them down. But as pursuer and pursued rounded a long bend in the meandering path of the pass they all slid to a halt. Before them stood a line of six cannon, and with them, arrogant hands on hips, sat the three Bellorums on three tall horses.

  The defeated Polypontian soldiers immediately turned to face the enemy, thinking them marginally less terrifying than the General and his sons. But it was too late. They’d shown cowardice in the field and they’d forfeited the right to live.

  The General nodded, and the six cannon fired, spewing out a salvo of grapeshot that smashed through the air, filling the narrow defile with deadly shrapnel, and indiscriminately ripping apart werewolf and human soldiers of both sides.

  Rank after rank of musketeers fired into the seething bloody mass. The cannon were reloaded and fired again. The ear-smashing boom of explosions slowly died away until all finally lay still in the broken phalanx of soldiers.

  Scipio Bellorum gave a silent nod, and the order for ceasefire was given. His plan had worked beautifully. He’d drawn out the enemy and trapped them nicely, and as an added bonus he’d rid his army of Quintus Severus, a man whose bravery he’d always doubted – rightly, as it happened. The Empire needed loyal soldiers who took orders and were brave within the limits the General set them. There was no room for self-serving heroes.

  Scipio Bellorum smiled as the real vanguard of the invading army marched through the pass and into the Icemark.

  In Frostmarris, news of the invasion had already arrived, relayed by the werewolf messengers. It was just growing dark when reports of the massacre started to come in. Thirrin waited impatiently while Oskan and King Grishmak nodded grimly to each other, as the howling from the gatehouse sounded mournfully over the city.

  “What is it? What’s happened?” Thirrin asked.

  “The defence force in the South Riding has been wiped out,” Oskan explained.

  Thirrin walked quietly back to the table, where a large map of the Icemark lay spread out. She picked out a coloured marker from the map, placed it in a carved wooden box and closed the lid. The army of the South Riding no longer existed.

  Cressida slammed her fist down hard on the table. Like all of them, she knew that the small defence force had had little chance against the invaders. They were simply a token gesture made against overwhelming odds. But even so, thousands of human and werewolf lives had been lost, and such grim news coming at the very beginning of the campaign was far from welcome.

  “I could lead a counterattack against Bellorum and drive him back through the pass!” she said with quiet venom. She knew full well that the strategy of the conflict had been decided for months and none of it included her leading a strike force against the invaders, but the need to do something, anything, made her almost boil with rage and frustration.

  “No. Our plans are already made. The next stage of the war will begin at the Five Boroughs,” said Thirrin, turning to the map. “The towns of Allenby, Collingham, Middlehampton and Crawsby will slow Bellorum’s advance. He’ll have to take them before he can safely advance on Frostmarris. And they’ll die an expensive death. The Empire may well find it can’t afford the cost.”

  “In the meantime, might I suggest a little lunch?” said Tharaman-Thar, immediately breaking the tension. “We must keep up our strength for
the coming struggle.”

  “Good idea,” said Grishmak enthusiastically.

  Krisafitsa purred happily at her mate. “He’s right, you know, Thirrin – now’s the time to maintain our strength and determination, ready for the delivery of the counter-blow.”

  Thirrin sighed. “Yes, I know. It’s almost time for dinner anyway. Let’s go and see if they’re ready for us.”

  Almost instinctively they fell into the ranks of precedence, with Thirrin, Tharaman and Grishmak leading the way as ruling monarchs, and Oskan, Krisafitsa and Cressida following as Consorts and Crown Princess. The door from the Royal apartments opened on a rising wave of noise and they stepped out into the Great Hall, where soldiers of all species were arriving to fill the ranks of trestle tables.

  “The Vampires have always been unpredictable,” Oskan was saying calmly as he walked along. “But I’m sure they’ll be with us when we need them.”

  “I wish I had your confidence,” said Grishmak. “Personally, I’d sooner bet my pelt on a broken-winded nag than take a risk on them turning up for battle.”

  “The oath you made them swear before the last war will still hold them,” Thirrin said with more conviction than she felt.

  “Possibly,” Grishmak admitted. “But an embassy should be sent to the Blood Palace to remind them of their obligations.”

  “Agreed,” said Thirrin. “Does anyone have any objections to representatives from all of the allied species being sent?”

  “None whatsoever, my dear,” said Tharaman. “I think Taradan would be ideal for the job as Ambassador for the Snow Leopards – don’t you agree, Krisafitsa, my love?”

  “Absolutely,” the Tharina replied. “He has just the right level of dignity and an acute intelligence. Nobody could even begin to guess that he’s just a soft old pussycat at heart.”