The Ithish were waiting. Their lines were longer, thicker, spear fighters ten, twenty deep, a mass of horses tossing plumed heads. The great Ithish warhorns, lower pitched than the trumpets of the White Isles, ringing with the music of bronze. Bells tinkling on the horses’ harnesses.
On both sides, the beat of drums.
The armies halted, as far apart as a man might run without being winded or a little more. Marith trotted to the front. Out into the dead land between them, the killing ground where the grass would soon be watered with men’s blood. The earth was already churned and pitted from the Ithish horses.
“Soldiers of Ith!” he shouted to the enemy. “Yield! Your king is mine! Your kingdom is mine!”
Osen rode up beside him, leading Selerie. Hardly recognizable, his wounds black with flies. But the Ithish army moaned like storm waves, seeing him. Marith drew his sword. “You see what I have done to him? So I shall do to you, and your children, and your cities, and your fields, unless you bow down to me and name me king and lord! Yield! Yield!”
A stir in the Ithish lines. The spears drew apart, opening like a door. A herald came forward with the blue and silver banner. His horse snorted, tossing its head, as it approached Marith. Its eyes were very wide. Blood flecked its bridle, where the bit had torn its mouth. It skittered and snorted and pawed the ground. Frightened. The herald wrestled with it in undignified panic to get it straight.
Another man rode up beside the herald. Leos Calboride. Selerie’s brother. Ith’s self-proclaimed new king.
“The soldiers of Ith will not speak with you, traitor and betrayer. Parricide, we name you, and false, and king of nothing but ruin and death! We outnumber you tenfold. We are the righteous, whose land you have invaded. The outraged. The betrayed. May the gods curse you.” Leos too drew his sword. “Death, we name you! Ruin and death! Go back to your accursed kingdom and leave us! Or die!”
Tenfold! The liars! It couldn’t be more than eight to one. And they were only ready and mustered at all because they’d been planning on helping him invade Illyr. The Illyians should be feeling pretty outraged themselves. The desire in Marith to ride out at them now, alone, cut them down. Death! Death and ruin! His hand itched on his sword hilt. The white horse reared. But he turned, rode back to his men.
A very long, aching silence, the banners snapping, the snorting of horses, the creak of leather, the tinkle of Ithish war bells. Metal moving on metal. Men coughing and shifting their feet. Neither side moving forward. The Ithish do not need to move. They can wait all day. Until the moon waxes and wanes and the seasons change and the seas rise to swallow the world. This pretty boy with a pretty sword who thinks he is the heir to a god. They outnumber him. Outflank him. They have more cavalry alone than he has men in his whole army. Heavy horsemen, thickly armoured, wielding long bronze spears.
The Ithish lines stretched almost a mile end to end. Horse in front, six or seven lines deep, a wall of infantry behind, sarriss points like the palisade of a town. And there, on a little knoll to the Ithish right, tucked back from the lines, scouts brought urgent word—some kind of defensive encampment, a screen of archers, heavy armoured swordsmen, a woman with a wooden staff. The whisper went down the White Isles’ lines in horror. A mage.
Marith’s lines were far shorter, interspersed blocks of infantry and cavalry, two corps of archers, one on either flank. A small line of sarriss dropped back behind his centre, in reserve. The Ithish flanks could easily encircle him, close on him like jaws. He therefore angled the flanks backward, his lines forming almost a square. The Ithish do not need to charge first. Marith cannot, for his men will be surrounded and overwhelmed. His whole battle plan must be defensive. And the Ithish have the mage. So they both wait. Drums and trumpets. The stamp of horses’ hooves.
Hold.
Hold.
Hold.
The White Isles men begin edging forwards. Slowly, crawling, beetle slow. The Ithish too begin moving. Not even clear if it’s in answer to an order: men lined up for battle must meet, and so they begin inexorably to move. All they have to do to live is refuse to go forward. Put down their spears. Nothing in the world and all the gods and demons and powers anyone could do to make them move and take up their arms and kill. But they move towards each other, slowly and inevitably, beyond any possibility of turning back. The secret hidden pleasure of every human heart, that it is waiting to die and to kill.
They are shifting sideways, also, as they move, drifting south-west, Marith’s right flank coming slightly forward with his lines angled back, the Ithish lines shifting to keep in check. Again, unclear if this is in answer to an order or just something that is happening, like water flowing one way or another when the floods come. Marith’s left are perhaps frightened of the mage, moving slightly more slowly. Or Marith himself holds the right and is too eager, his men moving slightly too fast. The Ithish right themselves move forward faster to keep their lines firm. Inexorable. Inevitable. Good sense. But because of this, the mage on the Ithish right flank is stranded further behind and away from the Ithish lines. Too far, and she will be useless: the Ithish need to keep in total control of the battlefield, keep her close enough to engage. And the Ithish are angry, confident of their numbers, sickened by this treacherous half-Ithish boy and what he has done to their king.
The Ithish lines break. The Ithish left charges Marith’s right.
The ground trembles. Like an earthquake: in Tarboran they worship the earthquake in the form of a running horse. A crash like thunder and voices screaming. Metal ringing against metal. Dust. The line wavers, thrashing back and forth like a boy cracking a rope. Marith’s right were going too fast, too eager: they have summoned the charge. But the Islanders hold. Don’t go forward. Don’t retreat. Just hold.
Hold.
Hold.
Hold.
The Ithish right, too, lighter cavalry, charge Marith’s left. Osen’s men. Swordsmen, banefire archers. Osen’s voice roars at the troops to stand firm even as blue flames leap over the charging Ithish horses towards them, burning the front line, ripping at them like claws. Like water breaking on the seashore, pulling all that bends beneath it down. The strong, pungent smell of burned metal and burned flesh. Magecraft.
Hold.
Men from the reserve move into the back of the flanking positions, left and right. The centre, sarrissmen under Lord Bemann, move forwards, meet the Ithish centre lines. Long spears warding off the horses. Just dig in. Hold them. Keep them from breaking through. No heroics. No charges. Don’t break them. Just hold.
Hold.
On both flanks, the Ithish pushing forwards, coming round to encircle. The last of the Islanders’ reserve troops split left and right. Marith’s lines now stretching backwards giving slowly backwards, closing in on themselves, the centre breaking apart, the Ithish shouting as they drive the Islanders back. Like a book being forced back against its spine. A crack appearing in the centre, like the spine breaking. The Ithish moving round to surround them. Close up. Cut them down. The crack in the centre of Marith’s lines widening. The Ithish battle lines becoming two lines moving inwards towards each other like jaws. Biting. Closing shut. The Islanders holding, but giving ground.
Hold.
Mage fire searing into the left flank, taking Osen’s men there apart. The left weakening. If they collapse it is over, the Ithish will cut through them and encircle the Islanders entirely, catching them as in a net, the mage burning them at will. A troop of archers crawling forwards on their bellies, edging round to try to shoot her down from behind. If the vials of banefire they carried on their belts should break … The Ithish don’t seem to have seen them, too focused on the main body of the troops where the line is wavering, too many men burning, Osen frantically shouting “Keep the lines! Keep the lines! Just hold them! Hold!”
Hold.
A gap in Marith’s centre, his whole army slowly moving apart into two. Not retreating, not breaking, but being forced back and sideways, curved round and rolle
d up. The pressure on his lines growing. Crushing down and down. Keep pressing. Just keep pressing. Hold. Dead men are kept upright by the press around them. If a man or horse slips and falls, they’re crushed. The ground churned to red liquid. Dust. Fire. Screams. Burning metal. Burning flesh.
A gap appearing too in the Ithish centre, the Ithish lines splitting apart to enfold the Islanders’ army, moving forwards right and left, leaving the centre weakened. All their forces bent on shattering the two struggling wings. The archers on Marith’s right crushed and annihilated. Osen’s left falling apart. The archers on the left crawling towards the mage, half of them down and dead, shot in the back as they crawl or burned by their own flasks of green flames. The Islanders’ centre, the sarriss under Lord Bemann, pushing hard but moving apart left and right, broken like a broken spine.
Hold.
Everything utter confusion, pressed so tight, everything shattering. Shredded. Choking. Drowning in each other. Crushing too tight to breathe. Eyes staring, swallowing each other’s sweat. Everywhere swords and spears and horses and metal grinding remorseless against metal and skin and bone. Push. Push. Hold. The lines wavering. Thrashing like a boy cracking a rope. Osen’s left burning. Osen’s left falling apart.
Just hold.
Hold.
Hold.
Hold.
Dying. Burning. Shattering. The lines giving. So far outnumbered. Lost.
The lines giving. The cracks widening. Breaking like a broken spine.
The lines giving. The cracks widening. Opening like a door.
A gap in the lines. A doorway. An entrance. Inviting something in.
“Amrath! Amrath and the Altrersyr! Death! Death! Death!”
Marith charged with the last hundred of his horsemen.
The darkness followed him. The shadows.
Teeth and claws.
Chapter Thirty
The noise of the horses across the plain is a roar like men cheering. Hooves throwing up bloody dust. The riders behind Him shout His name over and over: “Ansikanderakesis Amrakane! King Marith! King Marith! Death and all demons! Death! Death! Death!” The shadows laugh beside them, dripping spittle, hungry. So hungry. The crash as they meet the Ithish lines like blindness. His coming is like night. His sword lashes out gloriously: Joy! Joy! Joy! Bright blood flies up at the stroke, spattering on His face, He licks His lips at the taste, blood and sweat and dust, the stink of the battlefield, sweet. He kills one man and then another. But you’re all dying anyway. Don’t you see? He kills another, and another, and another. The sword sings in his hand. Joy! Joy! Joy! His hands and face already filthy with blood.
The shadows come shrieking. Killing and tearing things.
A man is up in front of Him, heavy armour, sword thick and grotty with blood. No, not a man, green flashing eyes and fine cheek bones, a young woman. Blue and silver on her helmet plumes: royal kin. He kicks the horse forward at her, meets her head on, the two horses colliding, swinging out His sword with a shout. The Ithish princess hits back, the two swords colliding like the horses. Sparks. This beautiful moment, when everything is lost but the killing, hitting and striking each other, nothing else matters, nothing else just the two of them and the death in between. Killing. Killing. Kill and be killed. The shadows eat up the dying. They’re all dying. All of them. Frightened wide eyes looking at Him a moment. Wounded. Blood on the pretty face that has traces of His own. For a moment it’s Ti again, dying in pieces, cut up and slowly falling away into nothing, dissolving under slow long strokes of the sword. The wide eyes understood, looking at Him. No chance of winning. No chance of anything.
On the right flank the press of spears is breaking up, the enemy’s soldiers beginning to run. Osen’s swordsmen picking them off as they pull back from the spear heads. The horsemen swirling, birds in flight, eddies of water over rocks, swirling around the men on foot, cutting them, riding them down, Ithish cavalry engaging them but the shadows leap and tear and the horses screaming run mad.
The Ithish are dying. Oh, they’re dying! Kill them! Kill them all! Death! Death! Death! The blade of His sword shines with light that is clear like morning sunshine. The ruby in the hilt shines red. The mage comes at Him. Blazing with fire. The heat of her power strikes Him like fists. He raises His sword, brings it down on her. Silver light flashing. The sword strikes her like striking stone. A crash that must break mountains. Open a crack in the world. The mage falls dead.
His shadows tear at the Ithish. Devour them. He cannot remember, after, quite what they looked they. Like great cats, sleek with hunting. Like a wolf pack. Like men with long clawed fingers and no face. They devour without mouths, ripping bodies, tearing the life away, gutting through armour, sinking talons into beating hearts. The ground is running with torn bodies. The depth and innermost soul of a man, spilled out there shimmering in the mud. Screams loud enough to tear the sky. A few of the Ithish are trying to fight them. Stabbing. Jabbing spears. The spears snap. The swords buckle. The metal corrodes into rust. The shadows laugh and the earth shakes.
The Ithish lines are retreating. Running. His men push on in pursuit across the plain. Filled with lust for blood. They have held and held and felt the Ithish vice close on them, holding on their spears perhaps five times their own weight. They have thought themselves dying. Now they know they are victorious. They will have no mercy. They will wipe the Ithish army from the face of the earth.
Chapter Thirty-One
At last, when it was over, Marith limped back to his camp. Exhausted. He could lie down and sleep for about a million years. His horse had taken a wound to the leg, he’d ended up dismounted, fighting on foot. On foot, soaked in blood like all of them, he was hardly recognizable. The men hardly gave him a second glance. A woman was handing out mugs of beer and bread crusts. And kisses. Marith sat down on a tuffet and drank thirstily. A troop of foot came in, laughing, singing the song about their beloved king and his big big sword and his cloak as red as widows’ eyes. Marith beamed into his mug.
Oh, and there was his horse. Limping also, with blood on its right ear, but otherwise unharmed. A young cavalry captain had it, had obviously kindly thought to look after it. He was leading it looking delighted. Marith wandered over to him.
“I think you’ll find that’s my horse.”
The captain said, “Your horse? I think you’ll find it’s my—” Eyes opened in terror. Went down on both knees with his face in the dirt. “My Lord King. My Lord. My Lord King. Forgive me.”
Pause. Marith eyed him, thinking, warm and cheerful and holding a pint.
“Oh gods, man, get up. Of course, you were merely looking after it. ‘It’s my Lord King’s horse,’ I’m sure you were about to say. It’s a lovely horse; I wouldn’t want to lose it and you have my thanks. A purse of gold and a place in my personal guard a fitting reward?”
The man rose, gibbering, mud over the blood on his face. “Thank you. Thank you. My Lord King. My Lord.”
“Take it to the horse lines, will you?” Marith smiled at him. The captain led the horse off, shaking with overawed delight.
So now, of course, everybody recognized him, he was surrounded by people kneeling, cheering, milling about shouting his name. Orders to be given, the camp to be secured; he sent Lord Bemann marching ahead to Tyrenae with a picked force of horse and half the sarriss. A squad of Ithish horse had got away south over the river, would need mopping up. A few hundred foot soldiers had broken through the baggage train and got up into the forest behind the camp: he sent Lord Parale after them with a troop of swordsmen and the surviving archers to secure a perimeter and set up watch posts in case they tried to creep back. A few Ithish nobles had surrendered: one or two he invited to join him, one or two he killed immediately with his own hand. Finally in his tent he sat down and began stripping off his armour. Osen himself knelt to help him with his sword belt and boots. Stiff and sticky, hardened with blood.
“You’ve done it.”
“I have, haven’t I? The beginning, a
t least.”
“Well done.”
Thalia would be safe, back in the hills, watching the battle. It felt right, briefly, that it was an old companion of his youth who was here with him in his moment of triumph. Carin’s ghost hung between them faint and fading. Osen, surely, had always been his friend. There is no bond closer than the bond of shared killing. Even with Carin there had never been that. Never would have been. The old battle hymns sang of the friendship forged in war, the trust of men knowing they held each other’s lives like a gift, that what they did together was like nothing else in the world.
“I’ll throw these away?” Osen asked of Marith’s boots. They were astonishingly bloodstained.
“Please do. And the armour. It’s a vile mess. Get that buckle cleaned up, though. It’s a nice one.” His cloak hung from a peg in his sleeping area, burned and tattered at the hem, even more sodden with blood and gore. Almost like lacework. Marith stood up naked, stretched. Osen helped him into his bath.
“When shall I tell the other lords you’ll see them?” Osen asked.
“Oh, gods … Yes, yes, I’ll need to. And the Ithish one. Say two hours? Get wine and meat set out for them. And see if Leos’ baggage has cups or anything we can use.” Gods, this had all been easier as a foot soldier with Skie and Tobias. Kill people, stop killing people when you’d run out of people to kill, get rat-arsed to celebrate/forget afterwards. Hot water sluiced deliciously over his head. He opened his eyes to Osen offering him a large cup of firewine.
The Tower of Living and Dying Page 20
