by Paul Kearney
“Ask the troops if they would prefer the optimism or the caution. They pay for our mistakes with their blood. Sometimes even sultans forget that.”
“Hush, my friend, it is not good to say such things where there are ears to hear. Come, let us ride to the camp. My tents have been set up and there is good wine waiting. A glass or two may sweeten our outlook.”
The banner-bright knot of officers and mounted bodyguards took off towards the west, scattering clods of mud from the hooves of their horses. And all the while, the Merduk host continued its march upon the face of the land like a huge, integral beast crawling infinitesimally across the earth, as unstoppable as the approach of night.
H ERIA was in his dreams again, and her screams brought him bolt upright in the narrow bunk, as they always did. Corfe pressed his hands against his eyes until the lights spangled in the darkness there and the vision was gone. She was dead. She was beyond that. It was not happening.
He looked up at the narrow windows high above his head. A faint light was turning the black sky into velvet blue. It would be dawn soon. No point in lying back and trying to burrow down into sleep again. Another day had begun.
He pulled on his boots, yawning. Around him other sleepers snored and tossed and grumbled on their rickety beds. He was in one of the great warehouses which surrounded the citadel in the southern end of Ormann Dyke, but many of the warehouses, built to house the provisions of the garrison, were empty and had been turned into dormitories so that the least hardy of the refugees might sleep out of the rain.
But he was a refugee no longer. He wore the old blood and bruises again, an ensign’s sash under his belt and a set of heavy half-armour under his bed. He had been attached to Pieter Martellus’ staff as a kind of adviser. That was promotion of a sort, and the thought made his mouth twist into a bitter smile.
He hauled on the armour and made his clinking way out to one of the battlements to sniff the air and see what the day had in store.
Dawn. The sun was rising steadily into an unsullied sky. If he turned his back to the light in the east he could almost make out the white line on the horizon that was the Cimbric Range, eighty leagues to the south-west. Beyond the Cimbrics was Perigraine, beyond Perigraine the Malvennor Mountains, beyond them Fimbria and finally the Hebrian Sea. Normannia, the Land of the Faith as the clerics had sometimes called it. It did not seem so large when one thought of it like that, when a man might fancy he saw clear across the Kingdom of Torunna at a glance one morning in the early dawn.
He brought his gaze closer to home, staring down on the sun-kindled length of the Searil river and the sprawling expanse of the fortress that ran alongside it. Miles of wall and dyke and stockade and artillery-proof revetments. The walls zigzagged so that the gunners might criss-cross the approaches with converging fire were any enemy to cross the Searil and assault the dyke itself. They looked strange, unnatural in the growing light of the morning, and the sharp-angled towers that broke their length every three hundred yards seemed like monuments to the fallen from some lost, titanic battle.
To the east, across the Searil, the eastern barbican lay on the land like a dark star. Its walls were flung out in sharp points and within them the fires of the Aekirian refugees were beginning to flicker and stipple the shadows there. Behind it the bridge barbican, a collection of walls and towers less strong and high, guarded the approach to the main bridge, and on the other side of the Searil was the island, so-called because it was surrounded by the river on the east and the dyke to the west. Another miniature fortress rose there, connecting the Searil bridge with the main crossing of the dyke. There were two other, smaller bridges of rickety wood, easily demolished, which crossed the dyke to north and south of the main bridge. These were to aid the deployment of sorties or to let the defenders of the island retreat on a broad front were it to be overwhelmed.
To the west of the dyke was the fortress proper. The Long Walls stretched for a league between the crags and cliffs of the ridges that hemmed in the Searil north and south. The citadel on which Corfe stood was built on an out-thrust crag on one of those ridges. In it Martellus had his headquarters. A general standing here would have a view of the entire battlefield and could move his men like pieces on a gaming board, watching them march and countermarch under his feet.
Finally, further west, beyond the buildings and complexes of the fortress, the dark shadow of the main refugee camp covered the land, a mist rising from it like the body heat of a slumbering animal. Almost two hundred thousand people were encamped there, even though thousands had been leaving day by day to trek further west. Martellus had managed to round up a motley force of four thousand volunteers from among the younger men of the multitude, but they were untrained and dispirited. He would not place much reliance on them.
One man for every foot of wall to be defended, the military manuals said. Though one man would actually occupy a yard of wall, the second would act as a reserve and the third would be set aside for a possible sortie force. Martellus had not the numbers to afford those luxuries.
Three thousand men in the eastern barbican. Two thousand manning the island. Four thousand manning the Long Walls. One thousand in the citadel. Two thousand set aside for a possible sortie. The four thousand civilian volunteers were in readiness behind the western walls. They would be fed on to the battlements as soon as the assault began to eat defenders.
It was impossible. Ormann Dyke was widely recognized as the strongest fortress in the world, but it needed to be garrisoned adequately. What they had here was a skeleton, a caretaker force, no more. With a general like Shahr Baraz commanding the attackers, there could be little doubt about the outcome of the forthcoming battle.
But this time, Corfe thought to himself, I will not run away. I will go down with the dyke, doing my duty as I ought to have done at Aekir.
C ORFE broke his fast in one of the refectories, a meagre meal of army biscuit, hard cheese and watered beer. There were no problems with the dyke’s supply lines—the route to Torunn was still open—but Martellus was also having to feed the refugees as well as he could. It was, Corfe considered, the reason why so many of them remained in the environs of the fortress. Had he been in command he would have stopped doling out rations to them days ago and sent them packing, but then he no longer responded to the same impulses as he had before Aekir’s fall. Martellus the Lion was a man of compassion, despite his hard exterior.
As well for me he is, Corfe thought. The other officers would as soon as hung me on the spot for desertion.
He joined his general on the Long Walls, where he was standing amid a knot of staff officers and aides, all of them in half-armour, all looking east to the Searil and the land beyond.
There was a table littered with maps and lists, stones weighing down the parchment against the breeze. It was a fine morning, and sunlight was gilding the old stone of the battlements and casting long shadows from their far sides. It caught the many puddles that were strewn about the land and lit them up like coins.
“There,” Martellus said, pointing out beyond the river.
Corfe stared. He could see a line of horsemen coming down the slopes of one of the further hills, pennons snapping and outriders out to flanks and rear. Perhaps two hundred of them.
“The insolent dog,” one of the other officers said hotly.
“Yes. He is happy to ride around under our very noses. A flamboyant character, this Merduk commander. But this is only a scouting force. Light cavalry, you see? Not a glint of plate or mail among them, and unarmoured horses. He is here to take a look at us.”
There was a hollow boom that startled the morning, a puff of white smoke from the eastern barbican, and a moment later the eruption of a fiery flower on the hillside below the horsemen. They halted. Martellus was grinning like a cat sighting the mouse.
“That’s young Andruw. He was always a restless dog.”
“Shall we assemble a sortie and chase them away?” one of the officers asked.
“Yes. I’ve no
wish to make their intelligence-gathering easy. Tell Ranafast to saddle up two squadrons, no more. And see if he can take some prisoners. We need information as much as they.”
“I’ll tell him,” Corfe said at once, and before anyone could respond he ran down from the battlements.
Ranafast was commander of the five hundred cavalry that the garrison possessed. A quarter of an hour after Corfe reached him they were riding out of the eastern barbican at the head of two squadrons: eightscore men in half-armour carrying lances and matchlock pistols. They were mounted on the barrel-chested Torunnan warhorses that were most often black or dark bay in colour, much larger than the beasts of the Merduk horsemen who preferred the smaller ponies of the steppes and mountains for their light cavalry.
The two squadrons shook out into line abreast, cheered on by the occupants of the eastern barbican, and thundered up the slopes beyond the river at a fast, bone-shaking trot.
It had been a long time since Corfe had been on a horse. He had originally been a heavy cavalryman in the days before the Merduk siege of Aekir had rendered the city’s cavalry superfluous. It took him back to his former life to be part of a moving squadron again, the lance pennons of the troopers whipping about his head.
“Stick close to me, Ensign,” Ranafast shouted. He was an emaciated-looking, oldish man whose hawk-like face was now almost entirely hidden by the Torunnan horse helm.
“Out matchlocks!” the cavalry commander ordered, and the lances were settled in their saddle and stirrup sockets. The men drew the already smoking pistols from their saddle holsters.
“East, lads! Close in on them first. Make sure we get the range.”
The line of horsemen advanced steadily, the horses labouring a bit to fight the gradient. Ribbons of powder-smoke eddied downhill in countless lines from the glowing slow-match of the pistols. The Merduk cavalry seemed to be somewhat disordered. Knots of them rode this way and that as though uncertain as to their course of action.
The Torunnans clattered and thumped closer, heavy men on heavy horses, a mass of iron and muscle. Ranafast raised his voice.
“Bugler, sound the charge!”
The bugler raised the short instrument to his lips and blew a seven-note blast that rose until it had the hair on the back of Corfe’s neck rising with it. The squadrons quickened into a canter.
Up on the hilltop the Merduks were still milling around with what looked to Corfe to be inexplicable confusion until he heard the booms over the noise of the Torunnan advance, and caught sight of the shellbursts which were peppering the slopes behind the enemy. The gunners in the fortress had the Merduks’ range and were deliberately overshooting, keeping the fast-moving horsemen from fleeing the approach of the Torunnan cavalry.
Corfe drew his sabre, possessing no lance or pistols, and leant low in the saddle to avoid the wicked Merduk lances.
They were at the hilltop. The Merduks were streaming away in disorder, the ground littered with smoking holes, dead horses, crawling men. The fort gunners were walking the barrage away eastwards, following their flight.
And then the Torunnans were upon them. The cannon had held back the enemy long enough for the heavier horses to close. The Torunnans fired their matchlocks, a great noise and smoke and riot of spouting flame, and then they were at full gallop, lances out and levelled.
There was no sense of impact, no rolling crash. The Torunnans melted into the rear of the fleeing Merduks and began spearing them from behind. Corfe picked a man on an injured horse, galloped up past him and took off most of his head with one satisfying, brutal blow of his sabre. He laughed aloud, searching for more quarry, but his horse was already tiring. He managed to slash the hindquarters of a fleeing Merduk pony, and then hack its rider from the saddle, but when he looked around again he saw that the Torunnan squadrons were over the hill. The fortress was out of sight and the cavalry was widely scattered, every man absorbed in his private pursuit. Ranafast and his bugler had halted and were blowing the re-form but the excited men on blown horses were slow to respond. It was the first chance many of them had had to inflict damage on the enemy in weeks, and they had made the most of it.
A line of Merduk cavalry, five hundred strong, came boiling up over the crest of the next hill.
“Saint’s blood!” Corfe breathed.
The furthest out of the pursuing Torunnans were engulfed in small groups as the Merduk line came on at an easy canter. The bugler was blowing the retreat frantically and dots of horsemen were turning and fleeing back the way they had come.
“A fucking ambush!” Ranafast was yelling. He had lost his helm and looked almost demented with rage.
“If we get back over the hill the gunners in the fort can cover our retreat,” Corfe told him.
“We won’t make it—not as a body. It’s every man for himself. Get you on back to the river, Ensign. This is not your fight.”
Corfe bridled. “It’s mine as much as anyone else’s!”
“Then save your hide so you can fight again. There’s no shame in running away from this battle.”
They gathered up what they could of the two squadrons and fought a rearguard action back up the slope they had galloped down a few minutes before. Luckily the Merduks did not possess firearms, so the Torunnans were able to turn in the saddle and loosen off a volley from their pistols every so often to rattle the enemy and stall his pursuit. As soon as Ormann Dyke was in sight once more, they galloped in earnest for the eastern gate whilst the gunners opened up on the Merduk cavalry behind them. It had been a close thing, and Ranafast brought back scarcely a hundred men through the gate, a loss the dyke could ill afford. As soon as the Merduks saw that the Torunnan cavalry were back within the walls of the dyke they called off the pursuit and retreated out of cannon range.
Ranafast and Corfe dismounted once they had clattered across the two bridges to the Long Walls. The surviving Torunnans were subdued, made thoughtful by their narrow escape.
“Well, now we know the strength of the enemy scout force,” Ranafast growled. “Caught like a green first-campaigner, damn it. What’s your name, Ensign?”
“Corfe.”
“Part of Martellus’ staff, are you? Well, if ever you want back in the saddle, let me know. You did all right out there, and I’m short of officers.” Then the cavalry commander stumped off, leading his lathered horse. Corfe stared after him.
T HE leonine Martellus bent his knee and kissed the old man’s ring reverently.
“Your Holiness.”
Macrobius inclined his head absently. They covered his ragged and empty eyesockets with a snow-white band of linen these days, so that he looked like a venerable blind-man’s-buff player. Or a hostage. But he was dressed in robes of lustrous black, and a Saint’s symbol of silver inset with lapis lazuli hung on his breast. His ring had been Martellus’ own, a gift from the Prelate of Torunna before the general had set out for the dyke. Perhaps there had been an element of prescience in the gift, because it fitted the High Pontiff’s bony finger almost as well as it had Martellus.”
“They tell me there was a battle today,” Macrobius said.
“A skirmish merely. The Merduks managed to stage an ambush of sorts. We came off worst, it’s true, but no great damage was done. Your erstwhile bodyguard Corfe did well.”
Macrobius’ head lifted. “Ah, I am glad, but I never doubted that he would not. My other companion, Brother Ribeiro, died today, General.”
“I am sorry to hear it.”
“The infection had settled in the very bones of his face. I gave him his last absolution. He died raving, but I pray his soul will take itself swiftly to the Company of the Saints.”
“Undoubtedly,” Martellus said stoutly. “But I have something else I would discuss with you, Your Holiness.”
“My public appearances, or lack of them.”
Martellus seemed put out. “Why, yes. You must understand the situation, Holiness. The Merduks are finally closing in. Our intelligence puts their vanguard scarcely
eight leagues away and, as you know, the skirmishes with their light troops go on daily. The men need something to hearten them, to raise their spirits. They know you are alive and in the fortress and that is to the good, but if you were to appear before them, preach a sermon and give them your blessing, it would be a wonderful thing for their morale. How could they not fight well, knowing they were safeguarding the representative of Ramusio on earth?”
“They knew that at Aekir,” Macrobius said harshly. “It did not help them.”
Martellus stifled his exasperation. His pale eyes flashed in the hirsute countenance.
“I command an army outnumbered by more than ten to one, yet they remain here at the dyke despite the knowledge that it would take a miracle to withstand the storm that is upon us. In less than a week we will see a host to our front whose size has not even been imagined since the days of the Religious Wars. A host with one great victory already under its belt. If I cannot give my men something to believe in, to hope for—no matter how intangible—we’d be as well to abandon Ormann Dyke here and now.”
“Do you really believe that I can provide that thing they need to believe in, my son?” Macrobius asked. “I, who played the coward at Aekir?”
“That story is almost unknown here. All they know is that by some miracle you escaped the ruin of the Holy City and are here, with them. You have evidenced no desire to go south to Torunn or west to Charibon. You have chosen to remain here. That in itself is heartening for them.”
“I could not play the coward again,” Macrobius said. “If the dyke falls, I fall with it.”
“Then help it stand! Appear before them. Give them your blessing, I beg you.”
Eyeless though he was, Macrobius seemed to be studying the earnest soldier before him.
“I am not worthy of the station any more, General,” he said softly. “Were I to give the men a Pontiff’s blessing, it would be false. In my heart my faith wavers. I am no longer fit for this high office.”
Martellus leapt up and began striding about the simply furnished apartments that were Macrobius’ quarters in the citadel.
