Kings of Morning

by Kearney Paul

  But he was their king – that much he had earned – and Rictus, thinking on it, found himself almost surprised at the sense of protectiveness he felt towards the young man who had conquered them all.

  I never had a son, and I will never have one, now. But if I could have had one like Corvus, I would have been content.

  THAT NIGHT, THEY trooped into Corvus’s great tent, stinking of smoke and blood, their feet blackened with soot and their faces smeared with it. The long trestle table was cleared of maps and pointers and inkwells and the paraphernalia of military planning, and the high officers of the army sat in their sweat-sodden scarlet chitons and passed jugs of wine up and down, drinking from them in turn like brothers at a wedding.

  His Marshals, Corvus called them, and he had formalised the rank within the army. Each of these men commanded many thousands, and all of them had shed blood together. Each was as powerful as a king unto himself.

  They were all Macht save one, all veterans of many battles, and yet most of them were young, though Corvus was still the youngest of them all.

  Rictus sat with Fornyx on one side and the Kufr Ardashir on the other. Save for Valerian, who was now second of the Dogsheads, these were perhaps his closest friends, if one did not count the King himself. Fornyx had fought at Rictus’s shoulder for going on twenty-five years, and Ardashir had saved his life at the siege of Machran.

  Further along the table was dark Druze of the Igranians, who never seemed to lack a smile or a cup – usually with dice in it, not wine. He was fuller-faced than he had once been, but he could still run down a horse. It was his men who had been first into Ashdod after the walls were breached. The ensuing slaughter did not seem to have dimmed his humour.

  One-eyed Demetrius, almost as old as Rictus, led the conscript spears, and was a harsh, unsmiling man who was one of the finest trainers of men Rictus had ever known. He could take a snivelling boy and make a soldier of him, in a process he had refined over the years into a model of efficiency and brutality. He was lame now, though, the legacy of a wound he had taken at the Haneikos River. He had stood in the water there and held the line while the river ran red around his knees.

  Teresian sat beside him, an unlikely other half. He was a tall strawhead that a stranger might have said was Rictus’s close kin, so similar did they seem. He commanded the Shieldbearers, those spearmen who had volunteered for the army and were in the ranks for life, because they found that the life suited them.

  In a previous era they would have been mercenaries, but since the world had changed they were now part of the standing army that Corvus kept in being at all times. Before his coming, a city might have maintained a professional cadre of a centon or two to train its citizens. Since the Macht had acquired a king and become a nation, that had all changed. The Shieldbearers were kept ten thousand strong at all times. Even Rictus did not know if, in this, Corvus had been inspired by the original Ten Thousand, or by the Honai of the Great King.

  The last of the Marshals was a small, round-shouldered but heavily muscled man with a bald head. He did not seem like a soldier, and in fact at one time he had been Corvus’s chief scribe. This was Parmenios. He had a genius for building and engineering projects, and was even more ingenious at engineering their destruction. He was master of the siege train, which since Machran had become a permanent part of the army’s establishment.

  His sprawling kingdom embraced oxen, mules and slaves by the thousand, wagons, teamsters, metal-workers, tanners, rope-makers and angular machines of war, all built to his own designs, dismantled, and reassembled every time the army came across a walled city which insisted on shutting its gates in the face of the Macht. It was his rams, catapults and siege towers which had brought down the walls of Ashdod, and which were even now being taken down and repacked within their heavy long-bedded waggons for the advance into the mountains.

  That completed the list of Corvus’s high command. These men who sat at the long table sharing the wine led an army which dwarfed the one Corvus had used to unite the Macht, and more soldiers were pouring over the narrow straits between Idrios and Sinon every day.

  There were no more wars in the Harukush. Corvus had left behind a garrison at Machran under Kassander, who had once been polemarch of that city’s army. The cities still trained new classes of fighting men as they always had, but these now tramped east for a stint in the overseas army instead of remaining at home, where the temptation to foment mischief might prove too much. So it was that Corvus harnessed the energies of his people, and gave them outlet in an exotic, faraway campaign.

  Fornyx, unwilling to grant Corvus credit for anything, had once told Rictus that they had created a great beast which had to keep on the move to survive, eating up the world as it went.

  And even to himself, Rictus had to admit that there was some justice in that.

  THE WINE RAN to their heads somewhat, for it had been a long day. Lower down the ranks, this would have produced laughter, ribaldry, meaningless boastful exchanges and fistfights, but here in Corvus’s tent these men who led so many and had seen so much simply grew more thoughtful, spoke in quiet voices among themselves, and stared at the smoothworn wood of the table.

  ‘Where in hell is he?’ Fornyx asked.

  ‘Where else?’ Ardashir smiled, his long golden face hollow-painted with smoke. ‘He’s out checking on the men one last time.’

  ‘Or the horses,’ Rictus added. Corvus liked to walk the horselines at the end of the day. He loved the animals as much as he loved his troops, and seemed to find in their company some kind of peace.

  ‘He has half my men pushing up into the foothills. They’ll be camping in the heather tonight,’ Druze said. ‘It’s like Phobos is at his heels.’

  ‘There are fifty thousand Kufr swarming the countryside like ants who’ve lost their hole,’ Demetrius rumbled. ‘We cannot advance while the city is still burning – it’s chaos down there.’

  Teresian yawned. ‘Well, the men are happy. It was a rich city, and good pickings.’

  ‘Only for those who got there first,’ Fornyx told him. ‘Your greedy bastards swiped the lot, Teresian, and the fires took the rest.’

  ‘Fortune favours the light fingered,’ Teresian said with a smile, and finding his jug almost empty, he poured the last red drops upon the tabletop. ‘For Phobos. This was one of his days.’

  ‘For Phobos,’ Rictus repeated, and up and down the table they all, save Ardashir, repeated the phrase, faces suddenly sombre. The god of fear had been abroad today indeed. They had all seen the Kufr women who had thrown themselves from the walls rather than be captured.

  The sentries at the tent entrance clapped their spearheads against their shields and stood straight. A lithe, boyish figure stood with the darkness behind him, the light of the lamps within the tent vanishing as it struck the black cuirass he wore. He touched one of the sentries on the shoulder, called him by name, nodded at the other as though they were old friends, and then strode into the tent.

  At once, the assembled Marshals rose to their feet. The young man in the black armour stood still, and looked them up and down. He was lean as a snake, pale-skinned, with strange violet-coloured eyes that seemed almost to possess a light of their own. A silver circlet sat on his black hair, which shone with the lustre of a raven’s wing. He looked underfed, tired, and there was an old scar at the corner of one eye.

  ‘All hale and sound,’ he said. ‘Even you, Druze. You went over that wall so fast this morning I thought you must have had a bet on it.’ Druze grinned.

  ‘Rictus.’ The newcomer tugged at the neck of his cuirass. ‘Give me a hand, will you?’

  Rictus helped him unfasten the wings of the cuirass and raise them, and then undid the black arrow-shaped clasp under the left arm. The cuirass came open and he lifted it, then set it upon its stand at the back of the tent.

  Corvus stretched, and looked his Marshals up and down again. He seemed weary, and his strange eyes were sunk in orbits of purple flesh. But his hi
gh voice filled the tent.

  ‘Well, don’t tell me you’ve drunk all the wine, you dogs – Ardashir, go get the pages to bring in some more, for the love of God. And food, too – we’re all famished.’ Then he called after the tall Kufr. ‘No; water and towels. We’ll wash first. We’re not barbarians – not all of us, at any rate. Seat yourselves, brothers. It’s been a long day, and it’s not over yet, but we’ve seen off the worst of it.’

  THE TENT CAME to life. More lamps were lit, the pages ran hither and thither, braziers were kindled and sticks of meat set to grill upon them. The Marshals washed and were brought clean linen and oil. Then the table was laid. Cups of glass appeared, platters of bread and fruit and a wheel of hard army cheese. More wine, the fresh green drink of the outer empire.

  Corvus sat at the head of the table and it seemed that his presence among them had lifted some constraint. The tent filled with talk, and toasts were proposed, to the men, to the horses, to the wine itself. They did not speak of killing or burning or the sack of cities, but revelled in the fact that they were alive another day, with all their limbs and senses, and Antimone’s wings were beating elsewhere.

  How many years since Machran – six, seven? Rictus and Fornyx had been new to this table then, feeling their way through a certain amount of hostility and resentment, slightly bewildered by the strange-eyed boy at the head of it and his vast dreams. Now Rictus knew the men around the table as well as he had known anyone in his life. There was still friction there, even conflict from time to time, but they were all harnessed to the one chariot, and the charioteer handled them with consummate skill.

  Fornyx was telling one of his inexhaustible filthy stories. Most they had all heard before, but every time there was a fresh embellishment which would set the company in a roar. Rictus peered up and down the table, studying his fellow marshals; and caught Corvus doing the same.

  The King never truly rested. Even now, he was looking them over as a rider will examine his horse after a race. He was distracted only once, when a page came over and whispered in his ear. He smiled, said something inaudible back to the page, and touched him on the arm. The boy left the tent, aglow with the King’s momentary attention.

  Rictus had led men most of his life. He knew he was a fine commander, a born leader. But Corvus possessed a quality that soared above such prosaic gifts. He could inspire. He made men want to please him, to be like him. It was a marvel to watch, and even now Rictus felt privileged to be able to see it close-to.

  Corvus caught his eye and smiled crookedly. After ostentatiously downing his first glass of wine at a gulp, he had shifted to water as was his wont, and he barely picked at his food. But he joined in the belly laughter as Fornyx came to the scabrous climax of his story, and thumped the table with as much vigour as the rest.

  AT LAST, THE tide went out, the meal was done and the table cleared. Back came the maps and the pointers and the inkwells, and the sound sank again. They could hear the shimmer of the cicadas outside, and the night-time noises of the camp around them. Thousands of men were bedding down in the dark about hundreds of campfires, and the hulk of Ashdod was sunk now to a sullen red glow in the distance. But despite the food and the fine wine and the new linen and the laughter, many in Corvus’s tent could still taste smoke in their mouths.

  The King rose, picked up an ivory pointer and let it range over a map of the country on both sides of the Korash Mountains. The men at the table became silent, watching.

  The pointer traced the route from Sinon, where the army had crossed from the Harukush, to the Haneikos River, where they had destroyed the army of the satrap Darios, east across Gansakr to Ashdod, which now lay in ruin behind them, and so to the foothills of the mountains, and the pass of Irunshahr, where once the Ten Thousand had walked.

  ‘Brothers,’ Corvus said quietly, ‘Here we stand. Two day’s march from the high country, some two hundred pasangs from Irunshahr on the far side of the mountains. We have crossed the sea, established our base of operations at Sinon, and beaten back the first riposte from the enemy.’ He paused.

  ‘I do not expect any more organised resistance on the part of the empire for some time. We will be in the Land of the Rivers before the Great King can gather his forces.’ He tapped the tip of the pointer lightly upon the inked vellum. ‘That is where the decisive battle will take place – if we are fortunate.

  ‘Common rumour has it that Ashurnan has already begun marching west to meet us, with the Honai and the imperial troops. This is the main effort of the enemy. What has gone before has been mere skirmishing.’

  There were some murmurs at this, and Corvus smiled.

  ‘We faced some fifty thousand men at the Haneikos River, the greatest army all of us save Rictus has ever seen. But I tell you, brothers, that when the Great King himself takes to the field, we will be fighting many times that. This Kufr has fought the Macht before – he saw what they could do, at Kunaksa, and again at Irunshahr. There are some things even old men do not forget.’

  A rustle of amusement as Fornyx patted Rictus on the back solicitously.

  ‘The battle of the Haneikos, and the sack of Ashdod, have shown him that we are not mere raiders, nor are we here to annex a few outlying provinces of his empire. He knows, now, that we mean to take all of it from him.’

  ‘Are you so sure of that?’ Fornyx asked.

  ‘I have made sure of it. I sent him a letter.’

  Exclamations up and down the table. Druze laughed aloud, incredulous.

  ‘I have captured Darios, satrap of this province, alive. He survived both the Haneikos and the taking of Ashdod. I would hazard he is a resourceful man. So I have sent him east bearing a message for his master.’

  Corvus tossed the ivory pointer onto the map with a flourish.

  ‘I told Ashurnan that I have come for his crown, his cities, his palaces and all he possesses, and I will be satisfied with nothing less than all of it.’

  ‘Phobos!’ Fornyx cried. ‘You don’t do things by half, do you?’

  ‘He will take us seriously now,’ Corvus said, an odd gaiety creeping into his face.

  ‘But it will slow him down, too,’ Rictus mused. He stared closely at Corvus. ‘You’re betting he’ll take longer now to complete his levies, to gather as many troops as he can; and that we’ll be well beyond the mountains before he can intercept us.’

  Corvus nodded. ‘I do not mean to be hemmed in by rocks and stones when the thing happens. I want open country for the cavalry.’

  ‘They say the Great King has cavalry too,’ Ardashir said, with a raised eyebrow. ‘The Arakosans are not to be taken lightly.’

  ‘They damn near destroyed the Ten Thousand at Irunshahr,’ Rictus said quietly.

  ‘They are no match for the Companions. And besides, brothers, we will not be alone in this thing.’

  At this, Corvus held up one long finger, then turned without explanation and left the tent.

  The Marshals looked at one another. The silence was such that they could hear the spent charcoal shifting in the braziers.

  ‘Can this be done?’ Teresian asked at last.

  ‘The whole empire – he wants the whole thing,’ Fornyx said, shaking his head.

  ‘It’s what he has always wanted,’ Ardashir told them. ‘We knew it from the beginning, or should have.’

  ‘It can be done,’ bald Parmenios spoke up for the first time. ‘He has me on it, evening up the odds.’

  ‘Can you invent us fifty thousand new spearmen?’ Demetrius growled. ‘Because that’s what it’ll take. We don’t have the force to do this, not here, not even with the reinforcements coming in. And that’s to say nothing of the garrisons we’ll have to leave behind on the way. The boy’s a genius, but he’s lifting his throat to the knife with this.’

  ‘It can’t be done,’ Fornyx agreed. ‘Rictus; you have his ear more than any of us. You must speak to him.’

  Rictus’s face did not change. He stared at the map on the tabletop, at the names thereon,
where a generation before he had bled and killed and watched his friends die. At last he said, ‘Let’s hear him out.’

  Corvus chose that moment to re-enter the tent. He was not alone. Beside him walked a strange, squat figure with oddly dark skin whose eyes had the same yellow gleam as a wolf’s.

  ‘Brothers,’ he said. ‘Let me introduce someone. This is Marcan, and he has come a long way to see us.’ He raised a hand and a page came forward with a glass and jug. The boy spilled the wine as he poured it, and retreated again in some confusion. The newcomer flicked the liquid from his fingers, raised the glass to the astonished marshals and drained it, but tipped the last few drops out onto the floor of the tent.

  ‘For Mot, lest he thirst,’ he said in a deep, hard voice like the creak of timbers in a tunnel.

  ‘He is Juthan,’ Ardashir said, wide-eyed.

  ‘I am Marcan of Junnan, of the free kingdom of Jutha,’ the stranger declared. ‘I give you greetings.’

  The Juthan’s skin was a deep grey, and he came up only to Corvus’s shoulder, but was broad as the barrel of a horse. His hands were massive, shovel-like, and he had large, flat features. But there was humour in the yellow eyes, as he stood there and took in their open-mouthed stares.

  ‘Marcan is an emissary of King Proxanon of Jutha,’ Corvus said breezily. ‘The Juthans have been at war with the empire since the time of the Ten Thousand. Now it has occurred to both Proxanon and myself that we could be of use to each other. Brothers, shift up and let us find a seat for our new ally.’

  Seated, the Juthan was as tall as any one of them, so massive was his torso. It was as though some crag from the mountainside had been chiselled off and set in their midst.

  ‘What does this mean?’ Demetrius asked, his one eye blinking. He was kneading the half-healed wound in his thigh without realising it, bringing fresh blood to the dressing. Druze tapped his arm and he stopped.