Cold Iron (Masters & Mages)

by Miles Cameron

  Aranthur turned Rasce and rode back to his friends.

  ‘No idea what we’re doing,’ he said.

  Two hours after midday Aranthur’s part of the column crested the high pass and suddenly he could see the plains of Armea laid out before him like a cartographer’s map. He felt as if he could see for a thousand miles.

  He could see a river valley far away, at the eastern edge of his vision, and a ribbon of water, and low hills almost at his feet …

  ‘Hereketsiz qalsin!’ shouted a dekark.

  ‘He’s telling us to keep moving,’ Sasan said with a smile. ‘In strong language.’

  ‘You speak – what was that, Pastun?’ Aranthur asked.

  ‘Kipkak,’ Sasan said. ‘Or close enough. All these people are from the lands north of Safi.’

  The ride down the pass on the far side was more difficult and slower than riding up had been, and they were forced to keep moving even as the sun crept down the sky. Equus was everywhere, up and down the column, encouraging, jostling, joking, and even threatening.

  ‘We can’t make camp up here,’ he said. ‘Move it.’

  Aranthur looked back, and there, silhouetted against the afternoon sky, were the last troopers in the column. He adjusted his carbine strap for the three hundredth time, because the weapon kept sliding off his shoulder, and leant back as best he could to help Ariadne as best he could. Rasce was already back with the remounts, exhausted from the climb.

  It was still light in the pass when they reached the plains below, but it was dark at the foot of the mountains, and they were ordered to camp without fires. The watch was doubled, which halved Aranthur’s sleep. His friends had no watches and were inclined to linger, lying on their saddles.

  ‘Some of us have to get up in two hours,’ he snapped.

  ‘Oh, the army life,’ Prince Ansu said, but then they were quiet.

  A cold morning, and no fires, no quaveh, and no food. Aranthur knew it might have been worse; on his watch in the very early morning, forty troopers and a dekark had been sent east and north to look for the General, with one of their Black Lobster guides.

  The whole column was moving before dawn, which was much earlier this side of the mountains. It was all too clear that it was going to be hot. The plain seemed virtually waterless, and before ten bells of the morning, there were heat shimmers in the distance and horses started to walk with their heads down.

  A handful of scouts returned as the sun reached zenith above them. The column turned sharply north at the next crossroads, threaded its way through a veritable maze of stone walls, collected a herd of sheep, and disgorged into a gully that led them to a deep, clear river.

  Aranthur was happy – inasmuch as he was anything but exhausted – to be with veterans. They knew how to water horses carefully and the whole column proceeded carefully. Aranthur was sent out on Rasce to be a guard, so he sat on his horse in the shade of a pine grove on a very slight hill and watched the road to the south.

  Dahlia rode up to him. ‘I’m bored,’ she said.

  ‘Me too,’ Aranthur said.

  ‘Peace?’ she asked, and handed him a piece of hard bread and a chunk of sausage.

  ‘Of course.’

  She smiled. ‘You have any water?’

  ‘No.’

  She gave him a mouthful of water, lit a pipe, and they passed it back and forth.

  Somewhere between one puff and another, a little dot of dust had appeared on the south road.

  ‘Ride back behind the hill and tell the dekark “alarm post four”,’ he said.

  Daliah didn’t argue. She handed him the pipe and led her horse over the low hill and then he heard her riding away.

  The dust was moving straight for him. Aranthur had the usual reactions, including relief that he hadn’t made the whole thing up. Nonetheless, it seemed a long time until Equus rode over the hill, dismounted, and shook his head.

  ‘I can far-see,’ Dahlia said.

  ‘If you please,’ Equus said.

  Dahlia cast, and the dust cloud seemed to move towards them.

  ‘From the south,’ Equus said.

  His officers were coming up the hill.

  ‘My horse hasn’t had water,’ Aranthur said.

  Equus nodded sharply. ‘See to that. Tell Anda Qan that we’ll form up facing south.’ He looked at his wagon master. ‘Hitch up and go north. The General can’t be more than two hours away.’

  ‘Yes, syr.’

  Aranthur rode down to the river, handed Rasce to one of the Nomadi grooms, and mounted Ariadne. He had the sense to move his puffer from the holster on Rasce to the holster on Ariadne’s saddle, and then he passed on the centark’s orders.

  Dekark Anda Qan was the Nomadi’s senior dekark; he looked around.

  ‘Form four deep on me, facing south, on my word.’

  He walked his horse cautiously up the embankment, looking right and left, studying the ground, until he was satisfied. Dekark Lemnas, a tall woman, spurred her horse up the embankment and then began to count off distances as she rode away from Anda Qan.

  The troopers stood by their mounts, perfectly silent.

  The military wagoners were rehitching their teams. They were garrulous – a little afraid, louder than the troopers. Still, the wagons were getting hitched and were moving out, headed north, a long line of dust rising into the bright white sky.

  ‘Carabiniers on me,’ Lemnas said.

  Aranthur pulled at his reins and trotted to the dekark’s side.

  The dekark glanced at him. ‘Ain’t you the Messenger?’

  ‘Yes, Myr.’

  ‘I didn’t mean you,’ she said in good Byzas, but then she shrugged. ‘But I’ll take you an’ all yer friends. We’re going to take them in the flank, if it’s a fight.’

  Equus stopped at the top of the bank.

  ‘Listen up, lads and lasses. There’s about half again our numbers. They don’t look like regulars and they have an odd white and red silk flag. Our orders are not to engage, but there’s nothing we can do to avoid this – I have to cover the wagons. So listen up! This is the order: not a shot, not a blow, until you hear my trumpet.’

  The two dekarks nodded.

  Lemnas looked over the rest of her mounted carabiniers: men and women with rifles, as opposed to simple muskets.

  ‘On me. Across the water, and up the bank.’ She looked around. ‘And you’ll shoot when I say so. Centark didn’t mean us.’

  There were just twenty of them, with Dahlia, Sasan and Ansu. They crossed the cold water, and their mounts powered them up the stony bank. The river was lined in trees, tall cedars unlike the trees of home. The dekark stayed among them, watching the water now five paces below her, rocky and impassable to horses.

  ‘Damn,’ she said. ‘Damn and damn and damn. I need to cross back. This is already taking too long.’

  She stood in her stirrups. Peered ahead under her hand, and then glanced back at Aranthur and Ariadne.

  ‘That’s a good horse. You stupid, lad?’

  ‘No, myr,’ Aranthur said.

  ‘Good. Go ahead, find me a place to cross back.’ She pointed. ‘Don’t die, don’t take a risk. Go and look. Wave if you find a ford.’

  Aranthur looked back at Sasan and then trotted ahead. After a few paces he gave Ariadne her head and she ran, as if happy, despite the heat, to have a clear run on the good ground.

  As Aranthur cleared the end of the trees, he could see the Nomadi forming off to his right, across the river, a long ribbon of black armour and red khaftans and fur caps.

  Ahead of them, to his left, was a column of horsemen in flowing robes and fur-lined khaftans; the predominant colour was a dusty red, and most wore maille. Many of them had pointed helmets and looked like the figure illustrations in his Safian grimoire, except that these were quite colourful.

  The distant enemy began to loose arrows. A spattering of emanations flew from their ranks – workings of power. A dozen shields appeared along the Nomadi line.


  A handful of the enemy had musketoons; puffs of smoke appeared along their line.

  A scarlet khaftan went down among the Nomadi. Another screamed. A riderless horse burst from the Nomadi ranks.

  ‘Steady,’ called Equus clearly. His voice carried hundreds of paces. Augmented.

  Aranthur was riding at a canter along the stream, wondering how he came to be in a battle. Everything seemed dangerous.

  He could see a farm path or a cart track, and his heart rose. As he came abreast he could see that it continued on the far side of the river, marking the ford.

  He turned and galloped for the dekark, and waved. Then she had seen him, and the twenty troopers with carbines came trotting along. Aranthur reined in, checked the priming of his weapon, and watched the Nomadi regiment move forward. He and the carabiniers were well past the Nomadi, and the red-robed horsemen were moving past them. Some turned their heads and looked – two hundred paces away across the river.

  Some of the enemy archers loosed another storm of arrows and trotted away. They were just about level with the cart track when a storm of red lightning played over the Nomadi shields. One went down and there was a choked scream.

  ‘Dismount,’ the dekark said. ‘Horseholders.’

  Aranthur slipped to the ground. Dahlia took his reins.

  ‘Mark a target. Fire as you will.’

  Aranthur was kneeling. Aimed …

  The carbines cracked. The range was short – perhaps seventy paces – and the enemy horse archers, broadside-on, made an easy mark against the light sky.

  Aranthur fired, and loaded, and fired again, his mouth full of the salt-sulphur tang of powder as he bit the back off his paper cartridges.

  An arrow landed almost at his feet. Another struck the ground nearby and exploded, bits of the cane shaft spraying around him. A third skidded along the ground just a few paces to his right.

  Without preparation, he flicked a working out of his head – a much less effective shield than Iralia’s, but enough for arrows. He fiddled with it for a moment, and it covered the little skirmish line of carabiniers, and Dahlia added a roof.

  ‘They will charge us, I think,’ Ansu said. ‘These are not Attians. These are the soldiers of the Pure. Look at their banner.’

  Indeed, the banner was all white.

  Aranthur spared a glance for the enemy. More than a dozen were down, and suddenly, like a bolt released from a machine, the Nomadi drew their swords, like the sparkle of a thousand meteors falling to earth, or the flash of a hundred mirrors in the brilliant sunlight.

  ‘Mount,’ the dekark ordered.

  The enemy riders coming to face the carabiniers were not as decisive as their officer wanted them to be. They were riding for the ford, but they were aware that none of their shafts were striking home. They were all too aware that the Nomadi trumpeter was blowing and a long line of red was moving across the stubble of the gleaned fields.

  They were going to be cut off.

  ‘Can you maintain those shields while we ride?’ the dekark asked.

  Aranthur tried to shrug, but the straps of his breastplate cut into his shoulders.

  ‘Never tried, myr.’

  ‘Try now,’ she snapped. ‘Move!’

  The carabiniers formed up close. Aranthur had trouble managing his simple shield, but Dahlia did not, and another flight of arrows tumbled harmlessly to the ground. The enemy riders coming to face them looked very human. Fifty paces away, they were dispirited by the lack of effect of their bows, and their faces showed it. One man had a modern carbine. He aimed, and Aranthur wanted to flinch. He fired, the crack audible over the distant sounds of battle, and a carabinier fell with a grunt. Aranthur’s heart seemed to lurch.

  Among their immediate opponents, a single figure in a flowing red robe dismounted.

  ‘Ware!’ called Dahlia. ‘It’s occulted!’

  Sasan bit his lip. ‘I’ve seen that before. It is one of their “Exalted”.’ He looked around. ‘It can kill … It will move faster than a wolf, faster than an antelope.’

  ‘Then we’ll shoot it,’ the dekark snapped. ‘Anyone loaded? Good lads. Take aim!’

  Aranthur sighted down his carbine, Ariadne perfectly still between his legs.

  The Exalted began to move. It was like a red streak, almost too fast to follow, except that it came straight at them from eighty paces away.

  ‘Fire!’ the dekark screamed.

  Aranthur’s carbine went off simultaneously with both of Sasan’s puffers and Ansu’s magnificent matchlock jezail.

  The scarlet streak staggered; despite its speed, they’d hit it, and it slowed.

  Dahlia’s puffer snapped, too close to Aranthur’s ear. He flinched, and his horse half-turned, and then half a dozen other carbines spat. The scarlet Exalted came on, into the little group of cavalry, and behind it came the enemy horse archers.

  Dekark Lemnas put the muzzle of her carbine against it as it cut at her and pulled the trigger. It had been hit multiple times, and it was no longer particularly fast; the last shot rolled it back into the dust.

  Sasan shot it again, even as the rest of the enemy struck them, catching their horses at a stand. There was a flurry. Aranthur found that he had a cut along his forearm, and his arm was tired, and they were gone, running back to their own lines.

  ‘After them!’ the dekark sang out. ‘We’re not going to walk or trot. On my word.’

  She drew her sword.

  ‘Charge!’

  Aranthur was so surprised by the riding skills of the men and women around him that he was left behind. Twenty horses went from a gentle walk to a gallop in a pace or two, and the only one of the four friends to keep up was Prince Ansu, who rode like a centaur.

  Aranthur cursed. So did Sasan, who also rode well and had hesitated.

  Aranthur left him and went forward.

  The mailed enemy fled. Most of them tried to shoot back over the cruppers of their little saddles, but they were too slow, and the lead carabiniers caught them; the Imperial horses were better to start, and fresher.

  The enemy lost a dozen men in seconds and their controlled flight became panic.

  Aranthur was behind, but Ariadne bore him nobly, opening out into a gallop. He passed a pair of armed men, and then he was in a dust cloud. He made an unconscious parry with his heavy sword as steel came at him out of the dust, as if the sword was thinking for him. He had the impression of a beard, teeth, a pale horse and black robe, and then he was fighting for his life, first on one side, then on the other, the heavy sword in both hands, in one hand, pressed horse to horse and flank to flank, so that he thought he might lose his leg. He had his long sword by the hilt and his left hand at mid-blade, and he was jamming it into another man’s maille as if he was using a spike to break ice. A heavy blow to his head, turned by the helmet, and one to his shoulder that felt cold, and then …

  It was over. There were men on the ground, and his horse trotted a few paces, head up, stopped without a signal from him and she put her head down and bit something.

  Aranthur turned her, got her head up. He could see Dekark Lemnas to his left and he rode to her. The whole line of the regiment had passed them, though, and they were out of it. Off to their left, there was a sudden whirl of dust, like a storm cloud. Then the red-clad troopers were forming on their standards and a bugle was sounding recall.

  Aranthur trotted back along the line of their very small charge. There were men in dusty red, in green, in black on the ground – some wounded, some dead. Sasan was kneeling by one.

  He looked up, and there were tears running down his face.

  ‘My people!’ he railed. ‘We are killing Safians! I am helping kill my own people!’

  He turned his face away.

  Aranthur went to fetch Dahlia.

  Prince Ansu came back, shaking the blood from his long sword, a broad smile on his face. Aranthur intercepted him, took his bridle, and led him away.

  Equus didn’t stop to interrogate his forty prison
ers, although he did order his Imoters to work on their wounded.

  ‘You are not surprised,’ Dahlia said.

  Equus turned and looked at her. ‘They attacked us.’

  ‘You expected to meet Safians,’ she said.

  Equus turned his horse. ‘Not my place to say,’ he snapped. ‘If your young gentleman would keep them calm, though, I’ll see them well treated.’

  Further back in the column, Dahlia shook her head.

  ‘He knows something he’s not saying.’

  Sasan shook his head. ‘We have headed east from the beginning. I know the mountains. We’re only four hundred leagues from my home – perhaps less.’

  Aranthur was surprised to find his friend in mail, with a spiked helmet.

  ‘They are the Pure,’ Sasan said bitterly. ‘Whether they volunteer or are driven like cattle. But it hurts.’ He touched his heart. ‘They are the very tip of the spear. They know we are here – they know all about the Empire invading Atti. Even now, they mock us. One boy says they have thirty thousand cavalry.’

  Prince Ansu whistled. ‘My arm could get tired.’

  ‘Don’t be thoughtless,’ Dahlia spat, before she leant over and kissed Sasan.

  Aranthur rode away, and found a place with the carabiniers, who were happy to have him. In fact, Lemnas gave him an extra ration of wine at dinner.

  ‘Neat trick, that shield.’

  ‘Happy to have you any time there’s iron in the air,’ said another man, in stilted Byzas.

  They weren’t allowed fires, and most of the troopers spent the night with their mounts, rubbing them down, keeping them warm. Aranthur stood his watch, smoked Dahlia’s pipe because he’d forgotten his own, and fell into a sleep troubled with dead men, and jerking recollections of the combat.

  He was up before dawn, and the centark had ordered just enough fires that everyone could have hot quaveh. No one had shaved for days. Even under the red khaftans, the troopers looked dirty. Most of them had so much dust on their faces that they looked like revellers wearing masks.

  ‘That’s the last of the sausage and the wine,’ Equus said to Aranthur. ‘My compliments to your friends. They were … very useful.’ He nodded at Sasan, who was sitting with two prisoners. ‘Tell Myr Dahlia that I was rude and I’ll apologise if she insists.’