by Paul Kearney
The Cathedrallers were in position. A line of horsemen six hundred yards long, four ranks deep, completely silent, spectators of the vast carnage in the valley below them. Their scarlet armour gleamed in the thin sunlight, their banner flapped in the raw wind. Some of the enemy were becoming worried now about the motionless cavalry on the hill. A few hundred men had spread out into skirmish-line to counter any move round the Merduk right flank.
Corfe cantered over to Andruw and put out his hand. “Good luck, Haptman. If we don’t meet again, it’s been an honour serving with you.”
At that, Andruw grinned, gripping Corfe’s iron gauntlet in his own. “We have seen some sights, Corfe, haven’t we?”
Corfe took up the position he had assigned for himself in the middle of the front rank. He turned to his trumpeter. “Cerne, sound me the charge.”
Cerne, a heavily tattooed savage who would gladly have died for his colonel, raised his horn to his lips and blew the five-note hunting call of his own hills. Corfe drew out John Mogen’s sword, and it flashed like a quiver of summer lightning above his head. Then he kicked his mount into motion, whilst around him the line began to move, the ground shook at the thunder of over five thousand hooves, and the battle-paean of the tribes issued from a thousand throats.
T HE Merduks in the valley looked up, and the Torunnans and Fimbrians who were fighting their desperate battle for survival saw a long line of cavalry come raging down from the hilltop like a scarlet avalanche. One thousand two hundred heavy horses carrying men in red iron, their lances a limbless forest against the sky, and that terrible, barbaric battle-hymn roaring down with them.
They sped into a gallop, their lines separating out, and the wicked lances came down from the vertical. The Merduk skirmishers took one look at that looming juggernaut, and began to run.
The first rank of the Cathedrallers rode them down, spearing them through their spines and galloping on. Half a dozen of the horsemen went down, their mounts tripping on the broken ground, but they closed the gaps and kept coming. The main Merduk formations below frantically tried to change their facings to meet this new, unlooked-for enemy clad in their own armour but glowing red as fresh blood and singing in some barbaric tongue. A regiment of Hraibadar arquebusiers stood to fire a volley, but the approaching maelstrom was too much for some of them to bear, and they ran also. Their formation was scrambled, even as the first rank of the Cathedrallers smashed into them.
The big horses rode down the Merduks as though they were a line of rabbits, and the terrible lances of the riders speared scores in the first clash. Horses went down, cart-wheeling, screaming, crushing friend and foe alike, but the charge’s momentum was too powerful to stop. They rode on, and behind them came the second rank, and the third, and the fourth. More horses falling, brought down by the corpses underfoot, their riders flung through the air to be trampled by the ranks behind them. Corfe lost sixty men in the first thirty seconds, but the Merduks died by the shrieking hundred.
The entire Merduk right wing recoiled, the Cathedrallers ploughing through it in a cataclysm of slaughter. The Merduks were crushed together so tightly that men in the centre of the press could not even raise their arms, and scores were trampled to death in Torunnan mud. The entire enemy battle-line shuddered backwards as officers tried to pull their men out of the disaster and reorganize them. But the Cathedrallers kept coming. Most of their lances were lost or broken now, and the tribesmen had swept out their swords and were cutting down the enemy like scythemen harvesting corn. Nothing could withstand the sheer impact of those hundreds of tons of flesh and muscle and steel, but they were slowing down. The sheer numbers of the enemy were bringing the charge to a halt, and while the horsemen had speared and hacked and crushed a path into the very heart of the Merduk right wing, they were now becoming surrounded as reserve regiments were rushed up around them.
Corfe could feel blood stiffening on his face. His horse’s neck was black with it, and the Answerer was shining vermilion to the hilt. This was the first time since Ormann Dyke that he had met Merduks on the battlefield, and for a few minutes he had forgotten he was an officer, the commander of an army. He had ridden into the enemy with the fury of an avenging angel, screaming wordlessly, his battle-cry the silent reiteration of his dead wife’s name ringing through his mind like an agonizing accusation. Men had quailed before the naked murder on his face, and always in the charge he had been the foremost, desiring only to kill, forgetting strategy and tactics and the responsibilities of command. But now the battle-lust was fading, and he was seeing clearly again.
He pulled his mount out of the front line and looked around, panting, gauging the situation. He glimpsed the fresh enemy forces manoeuvring off to his left, and knew that his men had shot their bolt.
Cerne was still beside him, a bloody apparition of war, his eyes a maniacal glitter under his helm. “Stay by me,” Corfe told him, and forged through the murderous press of men and horses off to the right.
Black-clad infantry here, pikes outlined against the sky. His men had broken through to the Fimbrian line. Something tugged at Corfe’s shoulder, and he instantly raised his sword to strike but found Joshelin at his side. The veteran Fimbrian had a look in his eyes not unlike that in Cerne’s, and a wild gaiety about him.
“I’ll get them to pull back,” he shouted over the road. “I’ll talk to them. They’ll take it from me. But you have to get your men up the hill, or they’ll be overwhelmed!”
Corfe nodded. Joshelin gave him a crisp Fimbrian salute, and then rode off into the heart of his countrymen’s lines.
This was the hardest part, the worst manoeuvre to undertake in war—a fighting withdrawal. Did the Fimbrians have enough left in them to cover it? And where was Martellus?
“Colonel!” a voice shouted, and Corfe wheeled round. Joshelin was there, leading his horse, and with him a red-sashed moustached Fimbrian.
“I am Marshall Barbius,” the man said. “How many are you?”
“Thirteen hundreds.”
“That’s all? You’ve made quite a dent.”
Corfe leaned over in the saddle. He had received a heavy slash from a Merduk tulwar which had not penetrated his armour but which nonetheless was stiffening his entire torso. He hissed with pain as he shook the marshal’s hand.
“You must get your men out,” he told him. “Where is Martellus? I will save as many of you as I can.”
“Martellus is dead,” Barbius told him without emotion. “My right is encircled and the centre too closely engaged to break away. But I have given orders for the left wing to follow you out. We will cover your retreat.”
“How?”
“Why, by attacking, of course.”
The man was serious. Corfe did not know whether to admire or despise him.
“You must escape with me,” he told Barbius, but the marshal shook his head.
“My place is here. What is your name?”
“Corfe Cear-Inaf.”
“Then look after my men, Corfe. Joshelin, you go with him.”
“Sir—”
“Obey orders, soldier. You must go now, Colonel. I will not be able to hold them for long.”
Corfe nodded. “God go with you,” he said, knowing Barbius would not survive. The marshal turned without another word and strode back to his embattled line. Joshelin passed a hand over his face, eyes closed.
“Sound me the retreat,” Corfe ordered his trumpeter.
Cerne gaped at him a moment, and then put the horn to his lips and blew. High and clear over the clamour of war came the hunting call of the Cimbrics, this time announcing the kill. Corfe wondered how many of his men could hear it.
T HE battle opened out. The Merduk right wing, badly mauled by Corfe’s charge, was reorganizing. Freed from its clutches for the moment was a motley formation of some six or seven thousand men, Torunnans and Fimbrians, who began to withdraw up the hill behind them, whilst what was left of the Cathedrallers formed a line to cover their retreat. Corfe kicke
d his exhausted horse into a canter and regained the hilltop, watching the battle unfold below.
A thousand surrounded Fimbrians out on the right were tying up ten times their number of the enemy and building a wall of dead around their pike square. Here on the left the western forces were in full retreat, the Torunnans running in a formless mob, the Fimbrians withdrawing in orderly fashion, by tercio. Their arquebusiers continued to fire aimed volleys at any of the enemy who ventured too close. But Corfe was concentrating on the centre, that howling, murderous chaos into which Barbius had disappeared. The Fimbrians there—hardly two thousand of them—dressed their lines, and began to advance.
Andruw joined him on the hilltop, reeking with blood, his horse earless where he had made too low a sword-swing. He did not speak, but sat and watched with Corfe as around the two of them the remnants of the Ormann Dyke garrison and Barbius’s left wing streamed past.
“In the name of God,” Andruw said in a shocked gasp as he saw the Fimbrians in the centre deliberately assault the main body of the Merduk host, thirty, forty thousand strong.
Their lines of pikes seemed inhuman, unstoppable. They actually pushed the enemy back, and began carving a swathe of slaughter deep in the Merduk centre. The enemy formations there recoiled from the machine-like efficiency of the Fimbrians. But it could not last. Already, the Merduks were flooding round the flanks and rear of the pikemen.
“Let’s get out of here,” Corfe said, his voice heavy and thick. “We can’t waste the time they’re buying us.”
He kicked his horse into motion again. The animal could barely manage a trot. Around him his command was reforming. He saw Marsch there, and Morin haranguing the excited tribesmen, in some cases physically pulling at them to get them to retreat. They wanted to stay and fight, and Corfe could readily understand why. For a moment he wished that he, too, were down there in the valley with Barbius, making a glorious end. Easier to fight than to think. Better to fight than remember. But he had his job to do, and he had men depending on him. How many now? he wondered. How many left? He felt a weary disgust, but masked it as he always did. A black-garbed Fimbrian, his uniform in tatters under his armour, stood before him and saluted him.
“Yes?”
“Formio, sir, Barbius’s adjutant. His orders are—were—to place myself and my men at your disposal. May I ask what your intentions are, sir?”
The Fimbrian was young, younger even than Corfe. He spoke stiffly, as if expecting to be given offence. Corfe found himself smiling at him.
“My intentions? My intentions, Formio, are to get us the hell out of here.”
THIRTEEN
T HEY had forgotten that he had been blinded. His ravaged face was a shock which rendered them dumb. He wore the simple brown robe of an Antillian, a single ring and a fine Saint’s symbol of silver and black wood. A dozen Knights Militant, watchful, hard-faced men, ringed the walls of his chamber. There had been rumours of assassination attempts.
“Holy Father,” Alembord said, bowing deep to kiss the ring, “those whom I told you of are here.”
The High Pontiff Macrobius nodded and then spoke in a quavering voice, that of an old, tired man. “Strangers, introduce yourselves. And no ceremony, I beg. I hear your errand is most urgent.”
Albrec it was who spoke up. Siward was eyeing balefully the surrounding Knights, and Avila seemed taken aback, almost disgruntled.
“Holiness, we are monks fleeing Charibon, under the protection of a Fimbrian soldier. Our names are unimportant, but what we bear may seal the fate of nations.”
There was a long pause. Macrobius waited patiently, but Alembord snapped at last: “Well?”
“Forgive me, Monsignor, but what I have to say is for the Pontiff’s ears alone.”
“Merciful heavens, who exactly do you think you are? Holiness, let me take care of these upstarts. They are clearly eccentric adventurers, perhaps even in the pay of the Himerians. I will get the truth out of them.”
Macrobius shook his head with the first touch of asperity they had seen in him.
“Step forward, young man—the one who spoke to me.”
Albrec did so. As he came close to the Pontiff he heard the slight metallic grate of swords being gently loosened in sheaths as the Knights tensed. He moved slowly and deliberately until he was two feet from the Pontiff’s face.
And here Macrobius reached out and laid his hands on Albrec’s features, his old fingers feather-light as he traced his eyes, cheeks, lips—and the gaping hole which had been his nose.
“Your voice. . .I thought there was something amiss. What happened, my son?”
“Frostbite, Holiness, in the Cimbrics. We would have died had the Fimbrians not found us. As it was, we did not come away untouched.”
“A disfigurement can be a heavy trial,” Macrobius said with his blind smile. “But cruelty to the flesh can also refine the spirit. I see more now than I ever did when I had two eyes and sat in a palace in Aekir. Tell me your errand.”
Taking a breath, Albrec told him in a low tone of the ancient document he had found in the bowels of Charibon, a biography of the Blessed St Ramusio written by one of his contemporaries, Honorius of Neyr. In it Honorius stated that Ramusio had not been assumed into heaven in the twilight of his life as the Church had taught for over four centuries, but had set off alone to proselytize among the heathen Merduks of the east and had become revered among them as Ahrimuz, the Prophet. The two great religions of the world, which had battled each other for centuries and piled up a million dead in their names, were the handiwork of one man. The Saint and the Prophet were one.
The expression of an eyeless man is hard to read. As Macrobius leaned back again Albrec could not be sure if he were shocked, angry, or merely bewildered.
“How do I know you are not an agent of Himerius, come here to sow the seeds of heresy and discord in the foundations of our New Church?” Macrobius asked gently.
Albrec sagged. “Holiness, I know it sounds like the merest madness, but I have the document here, and it is genuine. I know. I was a librarian in Charibon. This is the work of Honorius himself, written in the first century and hidden away by the Founding Fathers of the Church to suit their own ends. This is the truth, Holiness.”
“These tidings, if they are indeed the truth, could tear up the world. I am an old blind man, Pontiff or no. Why should I act on your convictions? The world is in enough turmoil as it is.”
“Holy Father,” Albrec said hesitantly, “we met a man on the Western Road, a soldier who was going out to fight the Merduks, though he knew he was hopelessly outnumbered. He did not know if he would be coming back, but he went out anyway because it was his duty. And he knew you. He told us you were a good man, a humble one, and he bade me tell you to remember the retreat from Aekir.”
“What was his name?” Macrobius asked, suddenly eager.
“Corfe, a colonel of cavalry.”
Macrobius was silent for a long time, his face bent into his breast. A hush fell in the chamber, and Albrec wondered if he had fallen asleep. How could one tell, when he had no eyes or eyelids to shut? Finally, however, the Pontiff stirred. He rubbed his temples with his fingertips, raised his head, and said, “Monsignor Alembord!” in a voice that was startlingly clear and strong. Alembord actually flinched.
“Yes, Holiness?”
“Find suitable quarters for these travellers. They have journeyed a long way, bearing a heavy burden. And assemble the best scribes, scholars and copyists in the capital. I want them all gathered here tomorrow by noon, and quarters cleared in the palace for them also.”
Alembord’s mouth opened and closed like that of a landed fish for a few seconds, then he said, “It shall be done at once,” and shot a look of pure hatred at Albrec. The little noseless monk felt a wave of relief flood over him, leaving him drained and exhausted.
“Corfe saved my life when it was not worth saving,” Macrobius said quietly. “It was God’s will that it be so, and it is God’s will that you have
come here to present me with this last task. What is your name?”
“Albrec, your Holiness.”
“You shall be a bishop in the New Church, Albrec, and you are to have unhindered access to me any time you need it. Introduce your companions to me.”
Albrec did so. “I knew your father,” said Macrobius to Avila. “He was a rake and a spendthrift, but he had a heart as big as a mountain. He would never pay his tithes without a grumble, but no peasant on his lands ever wanted for anything. I honour his memory.”
Avila kissed the Pontiff’s ring, speechless.
“And I meet a Fimbrian at last,” Macrobius went on. “You have my thanks, Siward of Gaderia, for preserving my brothers-in-faith. You have done the world as great a service as any ever performed on a battlefield. So it is true that a Fimbrian army marches to the aid of poor, embattled Torunna.”
“It is true,” Siward told him. “But only through the efforts of your friend Corfe will any of my people survive. Small thanks do we receive for shedding our blood on your battlefields.”
“You have my thanks, for what it is worth.”
Siward bowed, and managed to muster up some courtesy in return. “For myself, it is enough.”
Macrobius nodded. “The audience is over. Monsignor Alembord will show you to your quarters. We will sup together tonight. Albrec, you shall sit by me and tell me what transpires in Charibon. It is time I concerned myself with the turning world again. For now, I must retire. I feel the need to pray as I never have before.”
A young Inceptine came forward to help the Pontiff out of his chair and through a door in the rear of the chamber. The three travellers were left with Monsignor Alembord and the surrounding Knights.
“Your platitudes may have convinced him,” Alembord told Albrec in a venomous whisper, “but I am not so simple. You had best watch your step, Brother Albrec.”
T HERE had been rumours flying about the capital for the past two days, travelling faster than any courier. A great battle had been fought up north, it was said, and Martellus was destroyed. The Merduk light cavalry which of late had been patrolling almost to the very walls had withdrawn, and the land to the north was uneasily quiet, scouting parties reporting it utterly deserted by man and beast. What this tense hush presaged no one could say, but the wall sentries had been doubled on the orders of the King himself.
