Their ancient ways are forged in Unthank silver and carved in the grey stone of their heartland, their lives measured out in the turning of centuries, not years.
By contrast, the Sutherners live in the moment, their vitality much more immediate and ephemeral than their Anakim neighbors.
Fragile is the peace that has existed between these very different races—and that peace is shattered when the Suthern armies flood the lands to the north.
These two races revive their age-old hatred and fear of each other. Within the maelstrom of war, two leaders will rise to lead their people to victory.
Only one will succeed.
1
BROKEN CLOCKWORK
The rain had not stopped for days. The road was under six inches of brown water. Everything was underwater. Roper’s horse stumbled and collapsed onto its knees; it was all he could do to stay in the saddle.
“Up,” said Kynortas. “You must be twice the man you expect your legionaries to be.”
Roper dismounted to allow his horse to rise before swinging himself back into his saddle. The legionaries behind had not noticed; they marched on, heads dipped against the rain. “What effect will the rain have?” asked Kynortas.
“It will shorten the battle,” Roper hazarded. “Formations are easily broken and men die faster when their footing is unsure.”
“A fair assessment,” Kynortas judged. “Men also fight less fiercely in the rain. It will favour the Sutherners; the legions are more skilled and will struggle to assert their dominance in rain.”
Roper drank the words in. “How does that change our battle plan, lord?” “We have no battle plan,” said Kynortas.
“We do not know what we will face. The scouts report that the Sutherners have found a strong position to defend, so we know we must attack; that is all. But,” he went on, “we must be careful with the legions. They take hundreds of years to develop and because they will not run, they can be destroyed in a single battle. Remember this above all: the legions are irreplaceable. Preserve the legions, Roper.”
Marching at Kynortas’s back were close to ninety thousand soldiers: the full strength of the Black Kingdom. The column, lined with countless banners that hung sodden and limp, stretched miles back down the road and far out of sight. Even now they marched in step, causing waves to pulse through the floodwater. There had never been a call-up so vast in Roper’s nineteen years. No man liked summoning all the legions beneath a single banner; the propensity for catastrophe was too great. As Kynortas had said, the legions were irreplaceable. Losing them was the collective fear of every echelon of their nation.
On this occasion, there had been no choice. Their enemies had gathered an enormous army that threatened to capsize the balance of power in Albion. The force, a composite of Saxon and Frankish soldiers, with mercenaries from Samnia and Iberia, was so big that nobody knew how many men their enemies commanded. But it numbered many more than the legionaries under Kynortas.
“Why do we not do as the Sutherners do, lord?” asked Roper. “Unify all our peoples under a single banner?”
Kynortas did not countenance the idea. “Can you imagine any king surrendering control of his forces to another? Can you imagine a dozen kings all agreeing to back the same man?” He shook his head dismissively. “Perhaps one man in a million could unify the Anakim. Perhaps. But I am not the man to do it, and neither will I surrender the legions to any foreign sovereignty.”
Roper could not imagine a lord greater than Kynortas. As strong in face and limb as were his faith and convictions. Straight-backed and stern, with a thunderous brow and a face as yet unscarred by conflict. His men regarded him; his enemies despised and respected him in equal measure. He knew how to court an ally, cow an enemy and read a battlefield like a poem. He was a tall man, though Roper almost equalled him in that regard already. Theirs was reckoned a strong house, with Roper a promising prospect as Kynortas’s heir, his two younger brothers indemnifying the lineage.
At the head of the mighty column, the Black Lord and his young heir crested a hill to reveal a great floodplain. Across almost a mile of wind-rippled water lay a ridge of extraordinary length. Whether a natural formation or some ancient battle-works thrown up in this scarred land was not clear, but it stretched almost from horizon to horizon. Its northern flank was guarded by a great forest and on it was arrayed the Suthern horde. Thousands lined the ridge. Tens of thousands; protected by the mangled and rain-slicked slope. Their banners were as wilted as those of the legions but Roper could make out halberdiers, longbowmen, swordsmen and some who shone greyly on the wet day and must surely be men-at-arms. At the southern edge of the ridge, a vast mass of cavalry sat malevolently.
It was to be Roper’s first battle. He had never seen one before. He had heard them, rumbling and crashing from afar like a heaving ocean beating against an iron-bound coast. He had seen the warriors return, most weary and bereft, a special few energised and inspired; all filthy and battered. He had seen the wounded treated; watched as surgeons trepanned the skulls of unconscious men or extracted slivers of steel from their forearms, thrown off by the clash of blades. His father had discussed it often, indeed talked of little else to his heir. Roper had studied it; had trained for it from the age of six. His life had so far revolved around this sacred clash and yet he felt utterly unprepared for what he saw before him.
Laying eyes on the enemy, the Black Lord and his son spurred out of the column’s path. Kynortas snapped his fingers and an aide trotted to his side. “Deploy our army in battle formation, as close as possible to where the flooding begins.” Kynortas rattled off a list of where each legion should be placed in the line, concluding with the observation that all their cavalry would be on the right, “save for those from Houses Oris and Alba, who take the left.”
“That’s a lot of orders, lord,” said the aide.
“Delegate.” The aide complied. “Uvoren!”
A mounted officer detached himself from the column and rode to join Kynortas. “My lord?” His high ponytail, threaded through a hole in the back of his helmet, identified him as a Sacred Guardsman. A silver eye was inlaid into his right shoulder-plate, his helmet covered his eyes and he grinned roguishly at his master.
“You know Uvoren, Roper,” Kynortas introduced them. Roper had heard of Uvoren; there was no boy in the Black Kingdom who had not. The Captain of the Sacred Guard: a role every aspiring warrior dreamed of playing. There could be no higher endorsement of your martial capability than appointment to such an office. Over his back was slung his famous war hammer: Marrow-Hunter. It was said that Uvoren had had Marrow-Hunter’s gorgeous rippled-steel head forged from the combined swords of four Suthern earls, each put down by the captain himself. When hope had seemed a distant memory at the Siege of Lundenceaster—the greatest of Albion’s settlements, far to the south—it had been Marrow-Hunter which had at last cleared a foothold on the wall. At the Battle of Eoferwic, its great blunt head had broken the back of King Offa’s horse and then smashed the downed king’s head like a rotten egg, crumpling his gilt helmet.
Yes, Roper had heard of Uvoren. Playing in the academy far in the north, Roper had always pretended to be Uvoren the Mighty. The little stick he wielded had not been a sword but a war hammer.
Now, he nodded silently at the captain, who beamed back at him. “Of course he does.”
“Captain of the Sacred Guard and model of humility,” said Kynortas acidly. “Uvoren: parley. Roper will accompany us.”
“You’ll enjoy this, young lord,” said Uvoren, curbing his horse next to Roper and gripping his shoulder. Roper did not respond beyond staring wide-eyed at the guardsman. “Your father’s good fun when treating with the enemy.”
The three of them rode together down onto the floodplain, accompanied by another Sacred Guardsman bearing a white flag. “Carrying a white flag comes naturally to you, Gray,” Uvoren called to the guardsman. Gray’s reaction was merely to stare unsmiling at his captain. Uvoren laughed. “Stay calm,
Gray. And learn to laugh.” Roper looked to Kynortas to see what to make of this, but the Black Lord had ignored the exchange.
They splashed into the flood waters which proved to be no more than a foot deep. Beyond the water, atop the ridge, a group of horsemen detached themselves from the Suthern army and rode out to them. To Roper, there seemed a significant disparity in power between the two groups. He, his father, Uvoren and “Gray” numbered four; riding against them were close to thirty. Three unhelmeted lords led the party, accompanied by two dozen knights in gleaming plate armour, visors down and horses billowing in embroidered caparisons.
“Will this be your first battle, little lord?” Uvoren asked of Roper. “The first one,” confirmed Roper. Being taller than most already, he was hardly little but the term did not feel strange from a man as elevated as Uvoren.
“There is nothing like it. Here is where you will discover what you were born for.”
“You loved your first one?” asked Roper. He was not accustomed to struggling with words, but stuttered slightly when addressing Uvoren.
“Oh yes,” responded the captain, beaming again. “That was before I was even a legionary and I bagged my first earl! Fighting these Sutherners is not hard; look here.” They were drawing close to the group of horsemen.
Roper had never beheld a Sutherner before and their appearance shocked him. They looked like him, just smaller. Though all were tall among Anakim, not one of Roper, Gray, Uvoren or Kynortas stood below seven feet in height; even on horseback they towered above their enemies, who were on an altogether smaller scale. The disparity in power vanished.
Now Roper came to inspect them more closely, there was something different about the faces of these Sutherners as well. They were somehow child-like. Their eyes were expressive and their emotions and characters stood out on their faces with a clarity that made them almost endearing. Their features were softer and less robust. By comparison, Kynortas’s countenance might have been carved from oak. These Suthern faces put Roper in mind of something domesticated, like a dog. Something far from the wild.
Kynortas raised a hand in greeting. “Who commands here?” Though he spoke good Saxon, he delivered these words in the Anakim tongue. The knights shivered slightly as the speech of the Black Kingdom washed over them.
“I command here,” said a man in the centre of the group in a halting, accented version of the same language. He rode towards Kynortas, seemingly indifferent to his size. “You must be the Black Lord.” He sat straight in his saddle, wearing a suit of plate armour so bright that Roper could make out his own reflection in the breastplate. He had a dark beard and a mane of curly hair. His face, what could be seen of it, was reddened by drink. “I am Earl William of Lundenceaster. I lead this army.” He gestured to his left. “This is the Lord Cedric of Northwic and this,” he gestured to his right, “is Bellamus.”
“You have a title, Bellamus?” demanded Kynortas.
William of Lundenceaster answered for him. “Bellamus is an upstart without any sort of rank to his name. Nevertheless, he commands our Right.” Earl William regularly substituted Anakim words that he did not know with the Saxon equivalent, knowing that Kynortas understood anyway.
Kynortas looked intrigued at the earl’s words and Bellamus raised a hand in acknowledgement. He was good-looking, this upstart, with a touch of grey at the temples of his dark, wavy hair and he appeared prosperous. He alone of the Sutherners present was not dressed in plate armour but instead wore a thick jerkin of quilted leather, with gold hung at his neck and wrists. His high boots were of the finest quality, so new that they looked as if they might rub. He wore a rich red-dyed tunic beneath the jerkin and sat on a bearskin draped over his horse. He also had the two outermost fingers missing from his left hand. Next to the austere, armour-plated lords, it was the upstart who stood out.
The Black Lord looked back at Earl William.
“You have invaded our lands,” said Kynortas, his voice harsh. “You crossed the Abus which has been a peaceful border for years. You have burned, you have plundered and you have raped.” Kynortas advanced his horse, bearing down on Earl William. His huge physical presence was more than matched by his implacable bearing. “Leave now, un-harried, or I will unleash the Black Legions. If I am forced to use my soldiers, there will be no mercy for any of you.” He cast an eye over the ridge behind the Suthern generals. “In addition, I doubt you can bring an army like this here and have left anything to defend your homelands. You have violated our peace and once I have decimated your army here, I will advance to Lundenceaster and strip it to the bone by way of reparations. The violence,” he leaned forward, “will be extreme.”
Uvoren laughed loudly.
“We could withdraw,” suggested Earl William, who had not flinched as Kynortas advanced. “But we’re very comfortable here. We are well supplied; we have a strong position. And the reason you even offer us the chance of withdrawal is that you do not want to lose soldiers. You value them too highly and they are too dearly replaced. You do not want to attack us.” Earl William had a slight squint. He gazed frankly at Kynortas, who waited for the offer that was about to be broached. “Gold,” said the earl softly. “For the lives of your legionaries. Thirty chests would make our time worthwhile. That and the meagre plunder we have already taken from your eastern lands.”
Kynortas did not respond. He just stared at Earl William and allowed the silence to stretch.
Roper watched. Thirty chests was an absurd figure to propose. The Black Kingdom’s wealth was not based on gold; it was based on harder metals, beyond the manipulation of the Sutherners. They could not provide thirty chests of gold, as Earl William would surely have known; not if they scoured the country from meanest hovel to most magnificent castle. The earl had also been provocative in his demand of the tribute, though not obviously so. All of which led Roper to one conclusion; he did not want his offer to be accepted, but was trying to pretend that he did. The Sutherners had some kind of plan and had already decided how they wanted these negotiations to play out. Roper suspected Earl William was trying to goad Kynortas into a rash attack, where the legionaries could be killed trying to scale the mud-slicked ridge.
Kynortas himself—wiser, battle-hardened and more experienced—had no such suspicions. Foolish, ignorant Sutherners. “We have no value for metal of such limited use,” said Kynortas at last. “We do not have thirty chests to satisfy your greed for things that are soft and impotent; nor would we supply you with them if we did.”
Kynortas suddenly jerked forward, leaning out of his saddle in a great creaking of leather harnesses, and seized the top of Earl William’s breastplate. Earl William’s face reddened still further and he leaned backwards desperately, trying to pull his horse out of Kynortas’s reach, but the Black Lord had him fast. The Sutherner was panicking, terror transparent on his face as Kynortas’s alien hand touched his flesh. With a mighty wrench and a screech of yielding metal, Kynortas tore the shining breastplate clean off, causing Earl William to spring back like a willow-board. Beneath his armour was revealed leather padding, soaked in sweat, and Kynortas snorted as he flung the breastplate aside. It had all happened so fast, Earl William’s knightly bodyguard had had no time to do anything more than look shocked. Earl William himself quivered, thunderstruck.
“Worthless,” said Kynortas, sitting back in his saddle. “And beneath, a feeble sack of bones. You cannot fight my legions. They will cut through your plate like carving a ham.” He smiled bleakly at Earl William, who had drawn his right arm across his vulnerable chest as though violated. The upstart Bellamus was looking across at his general with eyes crinkled in amusement. The two were evidently not friends. “Your last chance, Earl William. Withdraw, or I will release the legions.”
“You use your precious bloody soldiers, then,” boomed Earl William, his voice quivering with rage. “Watch them flounder and die in the filth!” He dragged his horse away from the encounter as though he could not bear to be in Kynortas’s presence a
moment longer. The Black Lord stood his ground and watched the retinue file away until it was just Bellamus staring back at him. The smaller man broke the silence first.
“Being blessed with bone-armour, I cannot imagine you know how it felt for Earl William to have his defences taken so contemptuously from him. Before this battle is over, I will show you how that feels.” His Anakim was flawless; he might have passed for a subject of the Hindrunn had his stature been less mean. He had spoken mildly and nodded at the four Anakim before clicking his tongue to coax his horse away and back up to the ridge. He rode slowly, raising an arm in retrospective salute.
“Do negotiations always end like that?” asked Roper as the four of them turned back to their own forces, still assembling on the plain.
“Always,” said Kynortas. “Nobody negotiates in negotiations. It’s an exercise in intimidation.”
Uvoren snorted. “Your father treats negotiations as an exercise in intimidation, Roper,” he corrected. “Everyone else goes into it genuinely hoping to avoid battle.” Uvoren and Gray laughed.
“They didn’t want to negotiate anyway,” said Roper.
Kynortas cast a glance in his direction. “What makes you say so?”
“The way he phrased the offer; the fact that he’d have known it was beyond our means anyway. He was goading us into attack.”
Kynortas brooded on this. “Perhaps. So they’re over-confident.”
Roper stayed silent. Who could be over-confident going into battle against the Black Legions? There must be a reason for their belief. They must have a plan. But Roper did not know the way of these Sutherners. Perhaps their numbers gave them confidence. Perhaps they were just a confident race. Roper did not know and so stayed quiet.
“Stay with me,” Kynortas said to Roper. “Watch as I do. One day, you will be responsible for the legions.” The Black Legions were advancing into the flood waters. Holding the right wing, with the vast majority of the cavalry, was Ramnea’s Own Legion; the elite soldiers of the Black Kingdom, second only in martial repute and prestige to the Sacred Guard. On the left was the Blackstone Legion; veteran, battle-hardened and with a reputation for savagery. Some men said the Blackstones were even more efficient than Ramnea’s Own as line-breakers. Most of those men were Blackstones themselves.
Blood of the Gods Page 74
