by Simon Brown
‘It is the heart of the world,’ Hetha told him. She was a calm-looking woman in her early forties, who never showed any displeasure, even when she was disciplining her Axkevlerens, and never showed any pain. Arden remembered when she had stood on a nail one time. All her Axkevlerens panicked. Two fell in a swoon. But not Hetha, and not her Beloved. Hetha had sat on a stool hurriedly brought out from the kitchen, then asked for one of her small lizards to be brought to her. While this was happening, the Beloved lifted up the foot, studied the wound and without any hesitation pulled the offending nail straight out. Arden had watched the whole thing, and to prove he was not afraid had come up close to see it. When the lizard was brought to Hetha she killed it quickly by biting it behind its neck, then muttered a quick incantation. The bleeding had stopped immediately.
And now, here on this cold ridge and on this freezing morning and overlooking the heart of the world, Arden remembered all that, and how proud he was to be Hetha’s Axkevleren. Particularly now, because her father Richer was dying and she would soon be Empress Hetha of Hamilay, the greatest person in the world.
Oh, how much he loved her.
Even though it was so bitterly, bitterly cold.
Hetha turned towards him, and her face had changed. Now instead of the pale white face shaped by black hair, there was a narrow face with light hair and intelligent eyes that made him want to laugh.
‘Heriot,’ he sighed.
*
Gos Linsedd was ready for the Hamilayans at the first crossing. There was no convenient hollow here so he had a whole company of Kydan militia lying down as flat as possible in the grass. Once they stood and fired there would be no hiding, so he arranged them in two ranks, one to fire while the other reloaded. As a reserve, also lying flat in the grass but further back, he had the three companies of militia Lannel Thorey had recruited from along the rivers; because they were using the old-style firegons which had the same limited range as the weapons used by the Hamilayans, he had them fix bayonets and kept them in columns for a sudden charge.
It was near the end of the day that the enemy appeared. Skirmishers first, with cavalry in support, and further west the regular infantry. When the skirmishers found the ford they signalled the lancers, and they rode their mounts across the ford to the other side. Gos had not expected this, and waited to see if he would have to spring the ambush early. As soon as any of his people were spotted he would order the Kydan company to stand and fire, but he wanted more of the enemy in range before he did that.
The cavalry were not being particularly daring, and Gos was sure this was partly a result of what they must have witnessed happen to their own infantry earlier in the day. But his luck ran out when one of the lancers caught sight of a red jacket and gave the alarm. What happened next flabbergasted Gos as much as it must have demoralised the Hamilayans. The cavalry, in great confusion, retreated back over the ford.
Instead of ordering his company to stand and fire, Gos decided to wait and see what happened next.
When nothing happened, the officer in charge of the cavalry openly castigated the trooper who had claimed to have seen one of the already-feared redjackets. Even Gos could hear the reprimand. The trooper protested his innocence but was ignored. The skirmishers, who had watched the whole thing, laughed at the lancer’s expense. It was all too much for the cavalry officer and he ordered his troop across the river. This time they were followed by a good number of the skirmishers. The regular infantry was still several hundred yards away, but was closing now that a crossing had been found.
When all the lancers were across, and a good number of the skirmishers, Gos gave the order to attack. The Kydan company got to its feet as one and, with practised precision, smoothly brought their firegons up to their shoulders and aimed. The first line fired, then knelt, and the second line fired. When the haze of smoke had cleared, all that was left of the cavalry were twenty horses, none with riders, and a few dismounted lancers, dazed and confused. The skirmishers behind them had fared a little better, and were obviously deciding what to do next, but seeing the first line of redjackets stand again with reloaded firegons decided it for them and they fled back across the ford.
‘Hold your fire!’ Gos ordered.
In the distance the enemy infantry had halted, but then resumed their advance. By now his second line had reloaded and were ready for action as well.
‘Range four hundred yards!’ he called out, and the militia automatically aimed just above the heads of the enemy, knowing the bullets would fall over that distance. ‘Front rank, fire!’ The first salvo crashed out. ‘First rank kneel! Second rank fire!’ The second salvo crashed out.
Gos put his hands behind his back so they would not fidget and waited for the smoke to dissipate. When it did he saw the enemy column had not slowed down at all, not that he had expected too much at that range.
When both of his lines were ready again he waited until the enemy were at three hundred yards and called the range. Each of the militia now aimed at the chest of the enemy.
‘Fire!’ and ‘Fire!’
This time there were gaps in the enemy formation.
‘Two hundred yards!’
They aimed at the waists of the Hamilayans, and this time when the smoke cleared the front rank of the enemy had stopped completely and were trying to spread out into a line so they could bring their own fire to bear, but their officers were shouting at them to get back into column, urging them on, telling them to cross the ford and engage the enemy at close range. The ranks behind started to compact and push the column out of shape.
‘Two hundred yards again!’ Gos shouted. ‘Fire!’
Many of the enemy’s officers fell, and as if that was the signal they had waited for, the Hamilayan infantry did away with any pretence at trying to cross the ford. They formed their own line and raised their firegons.
‘Down!’ Gos shouted.
The militia squatted on the ground, making an almost invisible target from two hundred yards. The enemy fired anyway. Balls whizzed overhead like angry mosquitoes. Two of Gos’s men keeled over with bloody holes in their heads.
More Hamilayan officers arrived, this time using the flats of their swords to slap the infantry back into a column.
‘Right,’ Gos said, ‘one hundred and fifty yards.’
The militia stood and aimed at the enemy’s knees. At that distance the recoil of their firegons made the bullets fly higher than where they were aimed.
Gos waited until the enemy column was almost at the ford.
‘Fire!’ and again ‘Fire!’
As soon as the second salvo had crashed out, Gos ordered, ‘Pull back, fifty yards!’
The Kydan infantry about-faced and in good order jogged back fifty yards, turned and reloaded.
This time the enemy cheered despite the awful casualties the last salvo had inflicted on them. Officers pulled the wounded out of the way so the column could march forward. Gos waited until they were halfway across and gave the range as one hundred yards. When the feet of the first rank of enemy touched the near bank, he ordered the Kydans to fire one more time.
The Hamilayan front line disappeared in a haze of smoke and suspended blood.
‘Now, Velan!’ Gos shouted.
Velan Lymok stood with his three companies of river militia from their hiding places between the Kydans and the river. The Hamilayan column reeled back almost as a single animal.
‘Charge!’ Velan cried, and the militia gave a bloodcurdling scream and ran full pelt towards the enemy caught halfway across the river.
When they crashed together the screams of the wounded and dying filled the air, and Gos had to resist the urge to join in. He saw some of his Kydans waver, their hands edging towards their own bayonets. ‘Hold there!’ he cried. ‘It’s our job to cover them!’
He moved fifty yards south of his position to find out what the other Hamilayan columns were doing, and could see that they were lining up to cross the ford, thinking it was going to be
a foregone conclusion.
The first Hamilayan column faltered, stopped, fell back. Soldiers started dropping their weapons, then some ran away, then the whole mass disintegrated as if the tegument holding it together had simply melted. Velan had to physically get in the way of his own troops to stop them following up by charging across the river themselves.
The second Hamilayan column, even though it had seen no action up to then, also stopped, and only the brave example and exhortations of their officers encouraged them to move on to attempt the ford for themselves.
It was time to go, Gos knew. In the end, even the obvious bravery of the river militia could not hold out forever against all the infantry the enemy could send against them. He rushed back to his Kydans and ordered one rank to fire a volley in the air. Velan in turn ordered his militia to pull back, taking their wounded with them. Almost as one they returned to their starting position. By now the second enemy column had reached the further bank. Velan joined Gos. ‘Time to go?’
Gos looked at the sky. The sun was down, and soon there would be no light at all for the enemy to pursue.
‘At the jog. Due east to our first rally point.’
Velan smiled and saluted.
As his four companies left the scene of battle, Gos waited to see what the Hamilayans did next. One column moved across to secure the ford, then stopped. It was getting too dark for them to do anything else. All around them were the dead, overwhelmingly their own.
‘That’s what you get for fighting on my land,’ Gos thought aloud, then followed his infantry east.
*
When Captain Ainchell was called by the watch for the second time that day he fully expected to see his three warships returning with the daring but very foolish Kydan ship that had earlier attacked the harbour. The fact that it had been a Kydan ship was confirmed by the woman Quenion, who said that indeed the red jack with three gold stripes was that city’s new flag.
What he saw when he got to the roof of the keep, however, was a flat-out one-to-one battle between the Kydan ship and the Star of Ember. Smoke from broadsides billowed over the sea, and firegons crackled in the mast tops as sailors tried to pick off enemy officers. Even as he watched he saw the enemy ship lose its jib boom. The watch cheered, and Captain Ainchell was not so severe he would reprimand him for that.
But where were his other two ships? Had they been sunk? He could hardly credit it. Perhaps they had run aground, which was not impossible when pursuing an enemy ship in unknown and shallow waters. Whatever, Star of Ember was now locked in mortal combat with an enemy. As time went on, neither side seemed to have a permanent advantage, and they were sailing away from Sayenna again after the enemy rather neatly turned away from an attempt by Ember to catch her in a rake. It might even get away for good.
‘This is not to be tolerated,’ Captain Ainchell said to no one in particular. He went to the stairwell and called down, ‘Ho, there! Send someone down to the harbour to prepare me a longboat!’ Then he turned to the watch. ‘Prepare another signal. I’m going to take out reinforcements!’
*
All during the night Rodin tried to formulate a plan that would allow him to continue his march towards Kydan, but nothing held together for him. If he split his army and marched on both sides of the river at the same time, the units on one side or the other could be isolated and defeated in detail while their companions on the other side watched on helplessly. If he carried on as he had today, with all his forces on one side of the river, he was no better off, even if he pulled back from the water. The enemy knew all the crossings and could come across at will to harass his line. In any other war, Rodin would have accepted that risk, trading casualty for casualty, since he had by far the larger force. But because of this new firegon the enemy were using he would not be swapping casualty for casualty. In fact, what he risked doing was suffering all the casualties.
He could think of ways around the problem, but they all involved an even larger force than he already possessed, or the deployment of a great deal more cavalry, particularly mounted infantry, such as dragoons, but most of his small cavalry force was now out of action and he had no dragoons. If the empress had not insisted the invasion start as soon as possible, Rodin might have had time to organise a properly balanced army, but as it was . . .
But as it was, empress or no, he was failing.
By the time he had made a decision, it was the next day. When his officers gathered for their orders he told them with a heavy heart that they had to withdraw to Sayenna.
34
Kadburn, with the help of Mycom’s directions, had found food and water for their temporary internment in the chancellery. During the day Mycom had put off inquiries from secretaries, students and masters, refusing to see anyone because of severe . . . and the tip of Kadburn’s scramasax would tickle his spine . . . back ache.
For the rest of the day the three shared Mycom’s office, waiting for one of Lerena’s invitations, amid the wreckage of wine bottles, breadcrumbs, the tails of two salted fish and several apple cores. The office was fortunately equipped with its own enclosed squat that overlooked a nice piece of thriving shrubbery.
‘How did she die?’ Mycom asked not long after noon when the office was getting very warm with the three of them inside.
Galys thought she should be offended by the question, but it carried none of Mycom’s usual tone of pedantry.
‘I don’t know exactly. When I found her she was covered in insects. There was actually very little left of her.’
‘That was not supposed to happen. At least, I had been led to understand that was not to happen.’
‘You said that before. How long had it been planned? The whole thing. With Lerena and the expedition and killing Maddyn?’
Mycom blinked when she used the empress’s and general’s names without any honorific, but said nothing about it. ‘Not long, really. It was the sudden opportunity to bring together various events that individually were already happening or on course to happen. Lerena melded them into one rather seamless activity. At the time I was happy to help. It did the university a great deal of good.’
‘Oh I can see how much good it’s done the place,’ Galys sneered. ‘Almost no students and attached to a city with almost no people living in it.’
‘The university is here, isn’t it?’ Mycom demanded. ‘When everything else in the state is failing, the university is still here! And when every other institution and office is losing people and falling apart, my masters are all still alive, protected by me, and the university is still here!’
Galys blinked.
‘It’s something you never grasped, Strategos, when you and Albyn felt so free to make fun of me – oh yes, I know you both did – that my one ambition was not for myself but for this place and the good I could do its masters and students.’
‘Not true, Chancellor,’ Galys countered. ‘We understood that, but still despised you for your way with the Kevlerens.’
‘If it wasn’t for my “way” with the Kevlerens, you would not be here now!’
Mycom’s mouth snapped shut.
‘Exactly,’ Galys said sadly.
*
‘I can see the aviary,’ Beremore gasped.
Paimer slid off his horse and walked in a circle to exercise some of his other muscles. ‘Good. Not far, then.’
‘Why?’ Bayer asked, but everyone ignored him.
Beremore leaned over the saddle and grasped Paimer’s shoulder the next time he walked past. ‘What do we do when we get there? Where do we go?’
Paimer pointed to the aviary. ‘I think that is where we go. As to what we do?’ Paimer sighed and patted Beremore’s hand. ‘We will see.’
‘You don’t know?’
Paimer laughed dryly. ‘I am afraid to know.’ He stopped his circling and studied the high road they were on. He remembered that this route once carried a great deal of traffic, much of it commercial. So far, they had only passed one wagon, driven by a man and a w
oman and laden with household goods and a couple of snotty children, and that had been going in the other direction. With so little in the way, they would make the city by nightfall.
‘And us, your Grace?’ Dayof asked. ‘What do you wish the rest of us to do?’
Paimer looked up and for the first time in many days remembered that his party consisted of many more than just him and his family. He was responsible for them as well.
‘It is time for you all to go back,’ he said. ‘I should not have brought you this far, but to be honest with you, Dayof, I did not know exactly what would be needed of us this side of the mountains.’
‘Are you so sure we will not be needed?’ the old man asked, and Paimer discovered he wanted to protect him.
‘I am sure. Why don’t you make for my old estate? You can make everyone comfortable there, and I will return to you when I am able, together with Atemann and the others.’ He turned to the Rivald military escort Montranto had granted him. They had never wavered or complained despite the fact they were far, far from their own homes. ‘Go with Dayof as far as my estate here in Hamilay. When that is done you may go back home if you wish, or wait with the others until my return when we can all go back to Rivald together. But I leave that last choice to you.’
He gently pushed Dayof’s horse away from him. ‘Now go. Be safe. Hurry.’
None of his relatives made any objection to seeing their own Axkevlerens ride away, taking their military escort with them. It was a sign, Paimer thought, that the family was growing up at last. A little late, but there you were.
‘Hurry,’ Bayer said, and everyone looked at him expectantly. He looked back at all of them in turn and said, ‘Why?’
‘Let’s find out,’ Paimer said, and remounted.
*
Salo Mikhel rode through the city’s north gate without any guard trying to stop him. Mikhel did not think twice about it. Everything else in the country seemed to be falling apart; a missing guard here or there elicited no curiosity. He did not bother to leave his horse behind, either. His message was so important that the sooner he got to see the empress the better. After riding through the streets for a while, however, even he noticed how quiet everything was. He had a nasty moment when he thought he was too late, that the infection had already struck the city, but he realised that there were people around still, and in the poorer quarter he was now riding through quite a lot of people, but that none of them spoke, called, sang or even shouted at each other. There were no hawkers behind stalls, no children running around the streets. It was almost as if their voices had been stolen from them. Their voices and all their joy. In a way he imagined that this was how the city would look after the plague had been through it, not before, filled with lost souls weighed down by a tragedy they did not understand.
