The Iron Wars

by Paul Kearney

  “I don’t care. As long as we win. That’s all that matters.”

  She shook her head in mock wonder. “Such altruism! Even Mogen was not so selfless. Have you no lust for glory?”

  He had asked that question himself once, when Ebro was worried about the odds they faced. He could answer it honestly now.

  “No, lady. I have seen glory enough to turn my stomach.”

  “Have you, indeed?” The marvellous eyes looking him up and down, for ever gauging him. Then she rose, and stretched like a girl before him. “Well, you’ll receive your orders in the morning, and the army will march the day after tomorrow. Right into the maw of another blizzard, no doubt.” Her tone was off-hand, but he sensed a tenseness in her. The taut, velvet-clad abdomen was inches from his face. She set her hands on his shoulders, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to encircle the slim waist with his arms, and lay his head on her, burying his face in the warm velvet. Her fingers ruffled his hair like those of a mother.

  “My poor Corfe. You will never revel in your glory, will you?”

  “It’s bought with too much blood.”

  She knelt and kissed him on the lips. In a second, they seemed somehow to catch fire from one another. He tugged the gown down her shoulders and it fell to her hips, gripped it harder and rent the material so that it flowed down her thighs. A little explosion of dislodged pearls, her warm skin under his hands. She was entirely nude underneath the gown. He fumbled with his breeches, but she made a kind of sign in the air with her hand which left a momentary glimmer behind, and at once he was naked also. He laughed.

  “The Dweomer certainly has its uses.”

  Afterwards they lay before the fire on a tangled mat of their discarded clothing. She rested her head on his chest whilst he stroked the small of her back, the delicate bumps of her spine. As always, the sadness hit him, the desolation of loss as he recalled Heria, and the times they had been like this. But for once he fought the feeling. He was tired of seeing only the shadow cast by every light. He esteemed this woman—there was no need to feel guilty about that. He would not feel guilty.

  She raised her head and touched the tears on his face. “Time heals,” she said gently. “A cliché, but true.”

  “I know. It seems endless, though. I don’t want to forget her, yet I must.”

  “Not forget, Corfe. But she must not become a ghost to haunt you, either.” She paused. “Tell me about her.”

  He found it incredibly hard to speak. His throat ached. His voice when it finally came out sounded harsh as a raven’s.

  “There is not much to tell. She was the daughter of a silk merchant in the city—Aekir, I mean—and she ran the business for him. As the junior officer of my regiment, I was colour-bearer, responsible for our banners, which were of silk, like the Merduks’. They needed replacing, so I was sent to this merchant’s house, and there she was.”

  “And there she was,” Odelia repeated quietly. “She never came out of Aekir, then?”

  “No. I looked for her after the walls were overrun, deserted my post to try and find her, but our home was already behind the Merduk lines and that part of the city was burning. I was caught up in the flood of refugees, borne along the Western Road. I wanted to die, but did my best to live. I don’t know why. I just hope it was quick, for her. I have pictures in my mind . . .” He could speak no longer. His body had become rigid in Odelia’s arms. She felt the bottled-up sobs quiver through his frame, but he made not a sound and when she looked at his face at last she saw that he was dry-eyed again. There was a glitter in those eyes that chilled her, a light of pure hatred. But it faded, and he smiled at the concern on her face.

  “I am glad of this,” he said haltingly. “I am glad of you, lady. Time heals, perhaps, but you do also.” And he pulled her closer.

  She finally admitted it to herself. She was in love with him. The knowledge shook her, rendered her abruptly unsure of herself. She found herself hating the memory of his dead wife, envying a ghost for its hold on him. All her life, she had schemed and plotted and fucked to further her ambitions, to safeguard this kingdom. And she realized now that she would walk away from it—palace, kingdom, velvet robes and all—if he asked her to. She felt dizzied with fear and exhilaration in equal measure.

  “Is there hope for us?” she asked him.

  “I think so. If we hit them hard enough, quickly enough, and Berza’s fleet does its job down on the coast, they must withdraw. We will have won time, and a little space. But even so, it will not be over. Come spring, we will see the decisive battle.”

  It was not what she had meant, but she was glad he had misunderstood her. It was near dawn, and he had come quite far enough for one night.

  D AWN in Torunna was the sixth hour of the long winter night in Hebrion. Isolla paced the Royal bedchamber impatiently. Golophin was late, which was unlike him. If she opened the screens and peered out of the balcony she would be able to see the lights and merrymaking which had been going on throughout the night in the former monastery on the hilltop opposite the palace. A ball was being thrown there for the assembled nobility. It had been no great wrench on her part to turn down her invitation, but the faint, tinny clamour of the music penetrated even this room and intruded on her thoughts, irritating. She was beginning to doubt her role in this, and even found herself thinking nostalgically of the Astaran court, and especially her brother, Mark. What was she to do, send him a letter saying “I want to come home,” for all the world like a child sent away to a strange school? Her pride would never let her recover. So she paced the room with her long, mannish stride, and thought.

  The click of the secret doorway stopped her dead. The section of wall slid inwards, and Golophin appeared. He smiled at her. “My apologies for being late, lady.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” There was something different about him. Something—

  “Golophin!” she cried. “Your eye, it’s healed.”

  He raised a hand to his face. “So it is.”

  “Have you recovered your powers?”

  He stood before her. He had changed. His bones had fleshed out and he stood somehow taller. He looked twenty years younger than when she had last seen him, scant hours ago. But something was amiss. She could have sworn that he was confused—no, more than that. He was frightened.

  “Golophin, are you all right?”

  “I suppose I am. Very much so. I am wholly restored, Isolla.” Bale-fire clicked into life above his head, lighting the gloomy room. At the same time, every unlit candle in the chamber suddenly fizzled into flame.

  “But that’s wonderful!” Isolla exclaimed.

  The old wizard shrugged. “It is. It is, indeed.”

  “What’s wrong? You should be overjoyed. You will be able to heal the King. Our troubles are over.”

  “I don’t know how it happened!” he shouted, shocking her.

  “You don’t? But . . . How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know, lady, and my ignorance is driving me mad. Something happened to me this night, but I can remember nothing of it.”

  “It’s like a miracle.”

  “I don’t believe in them,” he said darkly. “Enough. This is not the time or place.” He rubbed his eyes. “I must go to work at once, if this damn council of theirs is to be thwarted. They’ll be voting on the regency tomorrow afternoon. Forgive me my bluntness, lady. I am somewhat out of order.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Just heal him.”

  He nodded and sighed as if exhausted, though he was fairly crackling with energy. Even the wattles below his chin had tightened and disappeared. She longed to pose question after question, but remained mute. They repaired to the King’s bedside. Golophin looked down on the unconscious, mutilated form, and seemed to calm. He glanced around. “What have we here to work with? Not a lot. We are in too much haste.” He stroked the heavy wood of the bedposts. “It will do for now, I suppose.” He turned to Isolla. “Lady, I need you to hold the King’s han
ds. Whatever you see, whatever he does, you must not let them go. Am I clear?”

  “Perfectly,” she lied.

  “Very well. Then let us draw up some chairs and begin.”

  She took Abeleyn’s hands. They were hot and feverish, but the King’s face was as still as that of a wax image. The sheets, though changed daily, were soaked with sweat. The King seemed to be burning away like a hearth of coals with a bellows feeding them.

  Golophin closed his eyes and sat as motionless as his King. Nothing happened. A quarter of an hour went by. Isolla longed to change her posture, stretch her neck, but she dared not move. She had been prepared for lightnings, thunder, a blaze of theurgy or a chattering of summoned demons—something. But there was only the stifling room, the weird flicker of the bale-fire, the wizard’s composed face.

  And then the creak of wood. She started as the bed began to tremble and shake. The canopy overhead billowed like a ship’s sail. It cracked and flapped, the heavy drapes whipping her across the face, and then the whole thing took off and tumbled end over end across the room.

  The bedposts, thick carved baulks of timber as wide as her thigh, began shrinking. She gaped at them. They were disappearing from the top down. It was like watching the hugely accelerated work of termites. They had been taller than a man—now they were dwindling foot by foot as she watched.

  At the same time, the sheet covering Abeleyn shifted and moved. Isolla stifled a cry as something began to grow under there. It was the stumps of the King’s legs. They were lengthening, pushing up their covering. She glanced at the wizard. His face had not changed, but sweat had set it ashine and his eyes were rolling frantically behind their closed lids.

  Two feet poked out at the end of the sheet that covered the King’s body. Isolla jumped in horror. They were human, perfectly shaped down to the very toenails, but they were made of dark wood. And they twitched with life.

  The King groaned, and for the first time the wizard spoke.

  “Abeleyn,” he said quietly, but low though his voice was it made the very furniture in the room shake.

  “Abeleyn. My King.”

  The man in the bed growled like a beast. His hands, hitherto limp, clenched tightly upon Isolla’s, squeezing out the blood until her fingers were white. She bit her lip on the pain, determined not to cry out.

  Then the King’s body arched up in the bed, his wooden heels drumming on the mattress, his spine bent back like a fully drawn bow. His sweating hands were slipping free. In panic, Isolla threw herself on top of him. Convulsions battered her up and down. One hard knee came up and stove in a rib. The King shrieked, and she wept with the pain.

  The convulsions died, and he was quiet again. Isolla’s face was buried in his neck. She could not move. His hands loosed their awful grip and disengaged gently from hers.

  “What in the world?” the King said.

  She raised her head, peered into his face. His eyes were open, and he smiled at her, looking utterly bewildered and at the same time amused.

  “Issy Long-nose,” he said, and laughed. “What are you doing?”

  TWENTY

  A LL morning, the army had been marching out of the North Gate of Torunn. The line of men and horses and ox-drawn field artillery and baggage wagons and pack mules seemed endless. They had trodden the new snow down into the mud and carved a dark line across the hills north of the capital. On the flanks of the column patrolled restless squadrons of heavy Torunnan cuirassiers. The column’s head was already out of sight three miles away. Over thirty thousand men were on the march, the last field army left in the kingdom.

  “There is a grandeur in war,” Andruw said, blowing on his mittened hands. His metal gauntlets hung at his saddle bow.

  “I never thought there were so many Torunnans in the world,” Marsch admitted. “If we had known, we might not have fought you for so long.”

  “Numbers aren’t everything,” Corfe said.

  “Any sign of our lot yet?” Andruw asked.

  They were sitting on their horses on a knoll half a mile from the North Gate. They had been here an hour already, and still the stream of men went on.

  “Shouldn’t be long now,” Corfe said. “Here comes the main baggage train. We’re behind that.”

  A convoy of tall, heavy wagons drawn by mules and oxen. The baggage train held the spare ammunition and rations. Corfe had been given the job of guarding it, and the rear of the army. When the battle occurred, he and his men would be spectators rather than participants. Unless something went badly wrong.

  “The best troops in the army, and we’re guarding the wagons,” Andruw said disgustedly. “What a prick that Menin is.”

  Corfe disagreed. “He did what he could. It’s a miracle he persuaded the King to march out and fight at all. And besides”—he grinned at Andruw—“the rear is the post of honour. If the army’s beaten, then it’s we who have to cover the retreat.”

  “Post of honour my—”

  “Here they come,” Marsch interrupted.

  Corfe’s command began marching out of the gate behind the last of the wagons. The thousand-strong scarlet-armoured Cathedrallers were unmistakable, their stark banner flapping in the cold wind. Behind them came the black-clad, pike-wielding Fimbrians, marching in perfect time—two thousand of them, with Formio at their head. And finally, the last survivors of Ormann Dyke, five thousand arquebusiers and sword-and-buckler men under Ranafast. The command formed a column almost a mile long.

  How would they fight together? There was a strong bond between them, Corfe knew. It came from the North More battle, when they had faced annihilation together. And they collectively despised the garrison soldiers of Torunn, most of whom had never fought in a single pitched battle. But they were certainly a disparate bunch. Wild mountain tribesmen, Fimbrian professionals and Torunnan veterans. They had had a chance to recover from their ordeal at the North More, and were rested, refitted and their morale was superb. If things went well, they would hardly need to fire a shot in the forthcoming contest. Corfe hoped it would be so, much though he would have liked to wield this new instrument of his in battle.

  “Snow’s starting again,” Andruw noted gloomily. “God’s teeth, will this winter never end? Bloody unnatural time of the year to be campaigning.”

  “Let’s join the column,” Corfe said, and the three riders cantered down the slope, kicking up a cloud of snow which the wind bore away like smoke behind them.

  T HE army marched a mere six miles that first day, the endless procession of men halting and starting again, the wagons getting stuck in the mud that lay beneath the snow, the heavy guns losing wheels, mules going lame. Corfe’s men finally halted for the night three hours after the head of the column had pitched their tents. As far as the eye could see, the wink of campfires stretched over the hills and lit the sky from afar. It was good to be in the field again. Things were always simpler here.

  Or so he thought. While he was at the horse-lines with Marsch and Morin inspecting some lamed mounts, a courier brought him a message from the High Command. There was to be a strategy meeting that evening in the Royal tent, and his presence was required.

  Resigned, he made his way through the vast firelit camp. Everywhere, men sat around their campfires heating their rations and drying their boots. A few flurries of snow had fallen during the day and it was getting colder. The mud was starting to harden underfoot, and the snow crunched.

  The King’s tent was a massive leather affair with half a dozen shivering sentries posted about it, their armour beginning to glister with frost. On his own authority, Corfe ordered them to build themselves a fire.

  Inside the tent three braziers were glowing merrily. The King was there, dressed plainly in the leather gambeson that soldiers wore under their armour. With him were Count Fournier, General Menin, Colonels Aras and Rusio and seven or eight more junior officers whom Corfe did not recognize. Colonel Willem had been left in command of the five thousand or so men who remained in the capital.

/>   “Ah, so we are all here. At last,” the King said as Corfe came in. Lofantyr looked as though he had not slept in a week. There were grey hollows under his eyes and new lines of strain about his mouth. “Very well, Fournier, proceed.” The King sat himself down in a canvas camp chair. Everyone else had to stand.

  Fournier, rather ridiculous in antique half-armour that had not a scratch on it, cleared his throat and toyed unceasingly with a wooden pointer.

  “Our scouts have just returned, sire, and they report that the enemy is in three camps. The largest is some four leagues to the north-west. They estimate there are some eighty to ninety thousand men within it. It is not fortified, and they have horse herds picketed around its perimeter and patrols of light cavalry as well as the regular sentries.” Fournier cleared his throat again. “The second camp is a league to the east of the first. The scouts estimate that it holds some fifty thousand, including Ferinai heavy cavalry and many arquebusiers. It is fortified with a ditch and palisade. The third is farther yet to the north, perhaps another league from the first two. Within it are the elephants, many more cavalry and the main baggage train. It is believed that the Sultan himself is in this third camp, and his—his harem. Another forty or fifty thousand.”

  “Why does he split up his army so?” someone muttered.

  “Flexibility,” Corfe said. “If one camp is attacked, the attacker will find columns from the other two on his flanks.”

  Menin frowned at Corfe. “The general idea was that we would attack their main camp and remain immune to assaults from the other two. But we had not bargained for the camps being so close together. Suddenly this campaign looks a lot riskier than it did.”

  “You can still do it, if the assault is swift and powerful enough. To rouse the men of a large encampment, get them into battle-line and then march them a league will take at least two to three hours. In that time, given a little luck, we could cripple the Minhraib contingent of the Merduk army—the bulk of its troops. We would then be in a position to deal with the other two armies as they came up, or we could withdraw. In any case, it would be wise to detach strong formations to the flanks, in case we’re still heavily engaged when the Merduk reinforcements come up.”