Soldiers' Redemption (First Cohort Book 1)

by M. R. Anthony

  Soldiers’ Redemption

  First Cohort Book 1

  M. R. Anthony

  Copyright

  © 2016 M. R. Anthony

  All rights reserved

  The right of M. R. Anthony to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser

  Typography by Shayne Rutherford

  http://www.wickedgoodbookcovers.com/

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Soldiers’ Redemption (First Cohort Book 1)

  The soldiers of the First Cohort have fought on the wrong side for as long as they can remember. Led by their unflinching captain Tyrus Charing, they have travelled from one battle to the next at the bidding of the cruel Duke Warmont. The Duke rules with an iron fist, crushing rebellion and sacrificing his people to quench his endless thirst for death.

  Just when it seems as though all hope is gone, a saviour comes – a bold young girl to rally the people and fight back against repression. For Captain Charing, this is a chance to haul his men away from the brink and pay for the sins of their past.

  The Duke is not a tolerant man - his armies are vast and in his Circle of Five are his generals, each of them immense in their magical power and hatred. First amongst them is a dragon which even the Duke has not yet dared to unleash.

  The men of Captain Charing’s unit have their own strengths and they have never been defeated, but this time they have taken on far more than they could possibly have imagined. For behind the Duke stands the ancient Emperor Malleus, watching and waiting to see what transpires in this far corner of his lands. And against the Emperor, hope has no meaning at all.

  One

  My name is Tyrus Charing. I have been known by many names: murderer, killer, destroyer. These names haunt me, but I am not able to deny them, nor defend myself against their truths. A man can regret his past, and I have so many regrets. I fear that if I become consumed by what I have done, I will lack the strength to lead my men to redemption.

  “Captain?” I heard the voice call from outside my tent.

  “Come in,” I said. A man pushed aside the thick, waxy flap that kept out the cold wind which blew across the heath on which we’d made camp. It was Corporal Langs, his smooth skin looking chapped and worn from its exposure to the relentless chill of the Northdown Moors.

  “Captain Charing. Our scouts have detected a force of men gathered in the woods close by. Rebels by their livery. At least fifty and armed. No bows.” Corporal Langs was efficient to the last. He always gave me everything I needed to know in order to make a decision.

  “They’ll be after our horses tonight and anything else they can steal or burn,” I replied. “Speak to Lieutenant Sinnar. I want to catch those bastards. And tell him to make sure that it’s not another one of their tricks. I’ve heard what they did to Warmont’s men.” With that, Corporal Langs offered a salute and backed out of the tent, leaving me alone once more.

  The rebel forces from Nightingale were proving to be tougher and more persistent than Duke Warmont had anticipated. They’d sent his regulars packing on more than one occasion, battered, bloody and with their tails between their legs. Most of Warmont’s regulars weren’t used to a real scrap these days - they’d grown fat and lazy, scarce able to march for a day before they started to talk mutiny. The men he kept stationed so far from Blades were hardly worth their pay, but he had many others that he kept close to his core that were battle-hardened and tough. Warmont’s lands weren’t at peace. He pretended that they were, in order to placate the Emperor, but they never truly would be while the people were punished by death for even the smallest transgressions against the law. Even so, the Duke still maintained a healthy fear, walking a fine line between keeping his people in check and driving them into outright rebellion. The Duke was not a nice man, if indeed he was still a man at all.

  I sighed and stood up, stretching in the chill air of the tent and feeling the tension in my muscles. I was ancient by most measures, though you would not have thought it to look at me. I’d been sitting too long in the tent and felt the need to take matters into my own hands. I did not like inaction – the thought that an opportunity had slipped by while I pondered or worried was anathema to me. The men knew this and they trusted my choices, my decisions. It was what had kept them all alive this long.

  I left the tent and strode across the hard, churned ground. I knew what Lieutenant Sinnar would be doing – stalking menacingly around the camp, mentally selecting the men who would take part in the coming hostilities, anticipating the coming orders. I was not wrong. Sinnar was a brute of a man, well over six feet tall and built like tavern brawler. His face was broad and cruel, but intelligent with it - a good man to have in a fight. The men had feared him once, but he had earned their respect through a hundred battles, a thousand minor skirmishes. He was a rock against which many of our enemies had been broken.

  “Lieutenant Sinnar, please report.”

  Sinnar turned to me, snapping a perfect salute. “Captain Charing, sir! We have approximately fifty rebels watching us from those woods, half a mile to the east. They’ve picked their position well – we can’t reach them without being seen and giving them time to scatter and regroup.”

  “Then they can’t reach us likewise?” I asked. A band of fifty rebels was nothing more a thorn in our side - a distraction. Nevertheless, a distraction could become a major problem if they stole our supplies or torched our camp.

  “No sir, they can’t reach us either. Are we going to have them?” Sinnar replied.

  “We can’t allow them to harry us when we take Nightingale. Ragar has already shown himself to be resourceful and tough. I’m not going to give him an opportunity to outmanoeuvre us.”

  I looked at the moorland around our camp. We’d chosen a good place to stop for the night. The ground was clear and unbroken for at least a mile, apart from the trees where the rebels hid. There’d be no traps here and nothing to catch us off-guard.

  Sinnar stood patiently by, awaiting my instruction.

  “Take one hundred men, Lieutenant Sinnar. Flush these rebels out before it gets dark. I want everyone to get some rest tonight.”

  “Yes sir,” said Sinnar, with another salute.

  “And Sinnar? Take care. Something feels out of place.”

  “Sir,” he repeated. I knew he’d take my warning seriously.

  I stood by, watching as Sinnar strode through the tents. “Knacker, Scram, Sods, get up! You’re coming with me. You - Roots, Heavy. On your f
eet. We’ve got some action for you.”

  A few of the men grunted as they stood to attention, armour plates rattling, shields scraping. We’d marched hard to get this far so quickly and they’d hoped to get some time to reflect by the camp fire, while they comforted themselves with a bowl of the cook’s foul stew. The life of a soldier in Warmont’s lands was not an easy one, and the First Cohort never got a chance to rest. I worried about what might happen to us if we did.

  As the men gathered in the centre of the camp, Jon Ploster approached. He was a short, stocky man with a gleaming bald head, and a beard down to his waistband. He was in a hurry, but even so, he gave the appearance of a man in comfortable serenity.

  “Captain Charing. I see you’re sending some men out to the woods.”

  “Fifty rebels, Ploster. We can’t have them at our backs.”

  “No indeed. They have a caster with them. She’s hiding herself well, but she’s out there.”

  “A caster? Why would Ragar commit one to such a tiny force?”

  “I don’t know, Captain. You have assumed them to be lying in wait for us? Perhaps they are simply here by accident.”

  I squinted at the woods - a miserable little clump of a few hundred trees. The Northdown Moors were covered in similar patches, all across their three hundred bleak miles. A caster was not a good portent, but the men would not be cowed by one. They had seen sorcerers before, beaten down their walls and brought their towers down around them. There was little the First Cohort had not fought and we were still there, while our enemies were dead, rotting in the ground.

  “Ploster, please join Lieutenant Sinnar and his men.”

  “Of course, Captain.”

  I watched Ploster join the men, his rough, grey robes marking him out as different to the others. He’d been with the First Cohort for as long as I could remember as my adviser, and the closest thing to a friend I had. A man needs advice - if there’s no one he can trust or listen to, then he risks becoming a stranger to what he once was. Every opinion needs balance, else every decision becomes a matter of stubbornness and pride. I would never walk down that path, not while there was breath in my lungs.

  In ten minutes, Sinnar had his muster. They set off across the grass in a loose formation, ten men by ten, Sinnar in the lead, the front and sides with shields lowered but at hand. I would not usually have chased a group in woodlands, but I planned to strike at Nightingale by first light, to catch them unawares. It would not have been wise to leave a force at our backs, however small.

  The men covered the half mile in quick time and crossed over the boundary into the trees. We were all fit and strong, with not an ounce of spare fat across the First Cohort. Even Ploster was lean and hard, though his robes gave the mistaken impression that he was carrying an excess of weight. In the camp, the men had an air of indifference, like they cared not a jot for their fellows, nor had any concerns for their safety.

  “Sinnar’s going to flush them rebels out, huh, Captain?” said Stabber, sat on his pack near one of the fires we’d set. I looked at him. He’d been a thief in a previous life. He was thin and wiry - even in his armour - his face pinched, his cheekbones high and a permanent trace of dark stubble over his chin. Everything about him suggested that he was a pickpocket. We used him as a scout and a spy - even after many years in the First Cohort he’d lost none of his skills in subterfuge.

  “Nothing to worry about, Stabber,” I told him. “A skirmish is all.”

  Another of the men, Chunky, had something to say, but I could tell he was nervous by the way he cleared his throat. The men knew when they could speak to me and knew when it was time to stop.

  “Captain?”

  “Speak up, Chunky.”

  He looked into the flame as he spoke. “Sir, the First Cohort is my life. It’s all of our lives.”

  There was something important on his mind that he had to speak, but was afraid to. I let the silence hang until he resumed. Another dozen faces around the fire hung on his words.

  “It’s this Ragar fellow. Well, he’s just doing what’s right, isn’t he? Protecting his family and all.”

  “Enough of this Chunky,” I warned him. “You know who pays our wages.”

  “Yes, sir, I know.”

  I stared at the men nearest. They looked weary. Not just weary from the march, but deep down weary. As if the burden of life was too much for them, but a burden that they were determined to carry for fear of what would happen if they put it down.

  “It’s been a long campaign,” I said. “Once it’s over we’ll have a few days off in Blades, eh? Try out some of those famous taverns and get falling down drunk.” Even as I spoke the words, I knew them to be false. The First Cohort was too much in demand to be given time to rest. As soon as we returned to Blades, Warmont would have us off again, to another bleak moor and another rebel town with another good man leading them to their deaths in a futile stand against the Duke. The men didn’t look convinced, but none of them said a word. They’d follow me to hell and back if I asked them to. Not just for me, but for the First Cohort. They knew they were part of something greater than they. The First Cohort had taken them in and treated them as true men, given them a new start.

  From the distant trees, the faint sounds of metal upon metal reached us, becoming fainter and louder as the wind swirled and gusted over the ground. A few dozen men clustered along the edges of our camp, staring over with a practised nonchalance as if the skirmish beyond was scarce worth their interest or their time. I walked amongst them, clapping a few on the shoulders, uttering platitudes about the rebel scum.

  Evening approached and at this time of year the night darkened quickly. I would not have been so foolish to send my men into a fight amongst trees were it dark, but a gloominess embraced the moors. Suddenly, over the woods, there was a bright white flash, visible to us all. Shortly after, there was a stirring of the trees, with branches and leaves tumbling, easily discerned across the intervening space. The sound of a heavy concussive thump reached us. I didn’t know if it was Ploster who was responsible or the rebel caster, but this one lacked the signature of the First Cohort’s sorcerer.

  “Shit that’s a big one,” muttered a man close to me. Several of the others shuffled nervously. The light did not reappear and the sound of combat ended after a few minutes.

  “Look, someone’s coming,” said one of the soldiers, pointing.

  Men emerged from the woods. There were a few exhalations of relief as it became apparent from their formation and their colours that it was Sinnar returning. Even from here I could see that there was less than one hundred and two men in the group. Coming with them was a cart, drawn by two horses.

  “Lieutenant Sinnar, report,” I commanded, when the small force reached our camp. The men were dismissed immediately and they filtered back to their tents and the fires, preparing to fill eager ears with tall tales about their prowess.

  Sinnar offered me his salute, Ploster stood at his side. “There were fifty-three of them, Captain. Guarding this cart by the looks of things. They put up a fight, but their armour was shit and their swords old and dull.”

  I knew the sort. Men whose minds had been filled with tales of bravery and battle, dressed in their grandfather’s old armour, hoping that the righteousness of their cause would defend them against battle-hardened soldiers. The First Cohort had fought men like this on a hundred, aye a thousand, occasions and we’d beaten them all. It used to seem like a game to us, slaughtering them as they threw themselves against our shields. We’d laugh as we slew them, cutting them down and trampling them into the mud, caring not at all for their wives and children. Now there was nothingness. I could see it in the men’s eyes, even as they defeated the hopes and dreams of cities and armies. All that was left to them was the First Cohort and a loyalty to each other and to me, their Captain.

  “How many of us?” I asked.

  “Six. Custy, Front, Dirth, Ponder, Loots and Squint. The rebel caster burned them in their armours
, before Ploster did the same to her.”

  I shivered inside. Mageflame was not a good way to die.

  “Ploster? What about their tattoos?” I asked. Now that he was close, I could see a trickle of blood oozing from one of his heavy-lobed ears.

  “Their caster was young and inexperienced. Which is a lucky thing, because she nearly caught me with my guard down. She was still good enough to overcome a few of our wards and that’s not happened for a long time.”

  Ploster looked rueful and rubbed a thick hand over the top of his head in a gesture which I’d long since recognized meant he was nervous or preoccupied. He didn’t say any more and I didn’t ask. The rebel caster was dead and he was not. That was all I needed to know.

  “What’s in the cart?” I asked. It was more of a wagon than a cart and far too heavy for the two mangy-looking horses to pull comfortably over the rough moorland. It was piled high with wooden crates and sacks.

  “Weapons, mostly. A few dozen helmets. Nothing worth our while to keep I don’t reckon,” Sinnar told me.

  “Very well, Sinnar, I don’t need to look at them if you say so. Good work this evening. Assign some men to spoil these weapons and we’ll leave them behind. Get Horsemaster Tradis to look over the animals and see if we have a need for them. Slaughter them if not. It’s nearly two weeks since the men have had fresh meat. And have Chartus break open a barrel. We’ll have a toast for our lost.”

  Sinnar nodded. “Aye, Captain,” he said, walking off to complete his final instructions. The cruelty of his features belied his true nature. He’d once been a teacher, though he did not speak of it often. I liked the man.

  “Captain?” It was Ploster.

  “What is it?”

  “I need to speak to you.”

  I led the way back to my tent. It wasn’t a grand affair, made of stretched brown cloth and with a disreputable appearance. Inside, there was room to stand up and space for a table and four chairs. We travelled light in the First Cohort. Without waiting for an invitation, Ploster dropped down into one of the chairs.