Stands a Shadow (Heart of the World 2)

by Col Buchanan

  The skud was shedding height fast as it approached the enemy positions, picking up speed in its descent. Halahan shifted around in his crouch to look back along the deck over the heads of his men. Following the skyboat, he could see the odd flush of light against the night sky as one of the other skuds fired a brief burst, manoeuvring itself to stay on course in their wake. Seven squads of men in all, ten Greyjackets in each one. He hoped it would be enough to take the ridge and hold it.

  The pilot burned the thrusters for another second, but then the lookout raised her hand and made a fist.

  The pilot cut the thrusters and they drifted downwards in silence.

  They were sailing over a fringe of the camp now. To the left, Halahan could see the road exposed beneath churned snow, and the distant travellers’ lodge and cottages around it, their windows all lit, and the countless glimmers of the camp covering the surrounding plain. Shadows were flitting across the open ground. Specials, running towards the enemy lines in their four-man squads.

  A cloud was moving clear of the moons, lighting up the scene below once more. The struts creaked as the gunner scanned the skies ahead, searching for Mannian birds-of-war. Ice cracked on tensing ropes. The high breeze was pushing them slightly sideways as they went, and the pilot peered through the gloom at the luminous glove of the lookout, but she held it held it there, still clenched in a fist, not moving.

  There it was. A ridge of high ground running along the southern flank of the imperial camp, its slopes dotted with sparse, scrawny trees. The skud was approaching on a diagonal course that would take them past the westernmost point of the ridge, where it rose in a steep and treeless bluff. Soldiers were moving on the ground directly beneath them, rousing themselves and gathering arms, though it looked as if their attentions were fixed on the attacks in the main camp.

  The skud was coming in low now. A treetop brushed against the bottom of the hull. Halahan peered over the side with anticipation surging in his veins.

  One minute, the lookout signalled.

  Halahan’s Greyjackets gathered by the rails next to the furled rope-ladders. The nose levelled off and the skud began to slow. Still the breeze carried them sideways. Halahan spotted a few faces looking up at him, but their shouts of alarm were lost in all the confusion. The skyboat passed over a frozen stream, and then the snow on the ground became broken and uneven, and white pools of ice stood amongst fronds of marshgrass that ran all the way to the base of the bluff. The area here was clear of men.

  Something flashed on top of the bluff. A shot skittered against the hull, then another.

  The lookout turned back to the men on the deck, her eyes hidden by the Owls. She jabbed downwards with her thumb.

  At once the Greyjackets cast the rope-ladders over the sides and began to clamber down them. Sergeant Jay was first off the boat. Halahan adjusted his hat and climbed down after him, the ladder swaying beneath his boots.

  He landed ankle-deep in water as his feet broke through a thin crust of ice.

  Wonderful, he thought. Now I’ll have wet feet all night.

  It was darker here with the moons hidden by the rise of ground. Shots were slapping into the water all around them. Halahan crouched down amongst the marshgrasses as his men spread out into a skirmishing line and began to return fire.

  The skud rose sharply as it shed the weight of its load. A few Greyjackets had to jump from the ends of the ladders. A second boat was coming in now, more Greyjackets climbing down from the ladders. Halahan saw the third skyboat crossing the stream. Shots were racing towards the drifting skuds from the top of the bluff, the odd one leaving a brief fiery trail like an afterimage in the eye.

  ‘Riflemen!’ Sergeant Jay shouted with a hand on his helm. ‘I was hoping they’d all be archers!’

  The first skuds had ignited their thrusters on full and were climbing away to the right, their swivel-cannons spitting flames and grapeshot through the defenders on the ridge. Halahan saw pieces of wood flying; a scraggly yellowpine on the slope topple in half. He waited until the third skyboat had unloaded, knowing there was no time to wait for the others, and signalled for the second and third squad to advance on the bluff, while the first maintained fire to cover their approach.

  He glanced back across the stream. Imperials were gathering and moving on their position. The remaining skyboats were coming in hot, with their thrusters trailing fire, the Greyjackets on board shooting down from the rails at the approaching men.

  Sergeant Jay looked to Halahan as the assault squads jingled past them, their rifles on their backs and their shortswords naked in their hands, a few armed with pistols or miniature crossbows. Under gunfire they splashed forwards towards the slope.

  Jay nodded to him. ‘I’ll see you at the top,’ he said, and the man drew his sword and set off after them.

  Halahan wished him luck.

  ‘Hurry up, man,’ snarled Sparus as his aide rushed from the Archgeneral’s tent with two slaves dashing after him, each one bearing pieces of his armour.

  Sparus stood in his underclothing, barely noticing the cold as he studied the chaos unfolding in the camp below.

  The Khosian cavalry was rampaging through the baggage train now. Moments earlier they had rolled in out of the night like a ghostly host, while most of the men of the Expeditionary Force slept in their pup tents or climbed to their feet too stunned to act. If they’d stopped there it would have been bad enough. But instead they raised hell as they carried on through the camp that stretched long and thin between the lake and the far ridgeline, so that now, in the exposed circle of the baggage train, flames were rising from blazing wagons.

  Khosian skirmishers had followed in the wake of the cavalry, fighting within the camp itself. They were good, whoever they were, and Sparus watched groups of figures fighting amongst his surprised troops, avoiding those islands of order where his officers bellowed at their men and roused them into some kind of formation.

  ‘Is it a raid?’ asked the young priest who stopped by his side, his eyes bleary with sleep. It was Ché, Sasheen’s personal Diplomat.

  ‘No,’ Sparus told him, and looked to the west along the valley floor, where a bristle of spear-points glistened in the moonlight. The Diplomat followed his gaze, and stared at the sight without comment.

  ‘The Matriarch, is she up yet?’ Sparus asked of one of his aides as they helped fit his armour.

  ‘Barely,’ the harried aide replied. ‘She took a sleeping draught to help her sleep. A heavy one, they say.’

  ‘Romano?’

  The aide was about to reply when a roar sounded from Romano’s tent, and they all turned in time to see an Acolyte being flung out into the snow with Romano emerging after him, naked and wild-eyed and gripping a shortsword in his hand. The young general staggered in the snow and righted himself. He saw Sparus strapping on his cuirass.

  ‘Tonight?’ he shouted across at him. ‘Tell me I’m dreaming, for pity’s sake!’

  ‘You are,’ drawled Sparus. ‘We all are.’

  Romano rubbed at one of his eyes and swore.

  ‘Where is my armour?’ he hollered, stumbling back inside his tent.

  General Sparus pulled tight on the last strap of his cuirass and grabbed one of his greaves from the hand of a slave. He checked the camp again, the flames bright in his eye.

  They attack us, and at night, he mused silently.

  Beside him, the Diplomat spoke without looking from the approaching chartassa.

  ‘These Khosians have balls,’ he declared, as though reading the general’s mind.

  It was a desperate sight that faced Colonel Halahan as he made it to the top of the bluff. Imperial infantry and riflemen had been posted there to guard the mortar crews, and they were making a fight of it.

  Out of the darkness an imperial soldier ran at him, hollering with spirit. Halahan tugged a pistol from his bandolier, pulled back the primer that would pierce the cartridge of water and blackpowder, and aimed it between the man’s eyes. He pulled t
he trigger and watched through a blossom of smoke as the man fell back to the ground, half his skull missing.

  Absently he reloaded the pistol, breaking it open to pull out the spent cartridge, replacing it with another, closing the piece again.

  He spotted another soldier running in from his left where the Greyjackets were locked in hand-to-hand melee. Halahan fired again, and didn’t miss.

  The colonel took in the progress of the fight, and decided it was still too close to call. Behind him, down at the base of the slope, the rearguard squads fired at the Imperials rushing across the stream at them. Unconcerned, he gazed out over the snowy plain to the west. He could see glints of steel massed around a thin core of flickering torches, the Khosian chartassa, moving to engage the Imperials.

  Again he reloaded the same pistol, though four other pieces lay snug in his bandolier. He stood there and waited, and had time enough to feel pride for these men under his command even amongst the ugliness of the fighting. Their anger could be seen in the way that they fought. This was personal to them. They had scores to settle, families to be avenged, memories to be released through the sharp end of a blade.

  The tide was beginning to turn in their favour now. He saw the moment in which it happened, and it was neither relief nor surprise that occupied him while he waited for it to be over. Instead it was simple impatience.

  As the remaining few Imperials were dispensed with, he strode out amongst his Greyjackets, watching the medicos move in to do their work on the wounded. A man swore and scrabbled at his blinded eyes while his comrades tried to hold him down. Another had lost a hand; he stared balefully at the severed appendage lying in the trampled snow as though it was a wife who’d left him for another.

  In one spot, two Pathian brothers worked with their knives on a wounded imperial soldier. They were making sport of him, drawing sobs from his lips. Halahan didn’t stop them.

  Instead he took out a match and fired up his pipe.

  The ridge was theirs.

  Now, all they had to do was hold it.

  Soaring flames roared into the darkness of the sky. A rider bore down on Ash with a lowered lance. Without thinking, he slashed his sword up and cut the lance in two. The rider veered away, heading deeper into the circled baggage train.

  Ash ran on towards the burning wagons at the perimeter, but he found his way suddenly blocked by groups of camp followers, those who had been near enough to witness his quick work with the sword. They gathered around him with their own knives and makeshift clubs, clearly decided upon staying as close to him as they could. Ash struggled to free himself from the press. He growled and swept the flat of his blade to force a way through.

  ‘Get back!’ he shouted at them all, for he could feel his chances of reaching Sasheen in time slipping away by the moment.

  It was no good. Still they pressed tight around him.

  Ash smashed a man’s noise flat across his face with a single punch, spilling him to the ground. He kicked another in the kneecap, heard the crack of it even amidst all the noise. The crowd pulled back in shock.

  He panted down at the two prone men, saw the darkness of blood upon the slush of the ground. They were holding their hands up, trying to ward off any further attacks.

  His anger dimmed, turning to shame.

  I haven’t the time for this.

  The crowd parted before him as he sprinted onwards.

  Ash didn’t look back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  In the Soup

  The line of chartassa appeared out of the night with spear-tips raised and shields interlocked, their eyes and teeth gleaming within the curves of their plumed helms, each man shouting in time to the drumbeats that were helping time their steps.

  The purple-cloaked Hoo marched at the fore of the advancing Khosian army, forming the chartassa at the very tip of its warhead formation, while the Red Guards formed the flanks and the rear. In the first two ranks of each chartassa, the men bore short stabbing swords with leaf-shaped blades, designed for the intimate butcher’s work of the front line; in the ranks behind the swords were sheathed, and the men carried their massively long chartas raised in the air, ready to lower them once the enemy was close enough to engage.

  Behind the line of phalanxes, and in the spaces in between them known as the gutters, step sergeants jogged to and fro with staves in their hands, bawling at those who were stepping out of time, lashing with their sticks at sections of men bulging outwards, maintaining the mobile coherence of their chartassa. Command flags appeared above the heads of the men. Shrill whistles blew.

  The bristling forest of spears descended as one with a unified hoo.

  Panic sounded from the enemy soldiers scattering before them. With the steady, unstoppable momentum of a ship cutting through water, the Khosian formation carved its way into the imperial camp.

  Time was crucial here, and all knew it. With each collective step they took they thrust deeper into the disorganized encampment, leaving a swathe of dead and wounded in their wake. Given long enough the Mannians would rally, and the imperial predoré would crush against the flanks of the many chartassa like a vice. Already, action was occurring at the front, while imperial battle colours were being raised all around them, men massing in ranks and files.

  Bahn trod behind the centremost reserve chartassa, keeping in close step with its captain and General Creed. He wiped sweat from his eyes and watched their three skyships flying overhead, scattering grenades onto the imperials below. Beneath his armour, his whole body shook from head to toe in its usual physical response to violence. His movements were awkward, clumsy even. It felt like a dream, walking ever deeper into the imperial encampment, like stepping into the sea until your feet lost the bottom and the riptide caught hold; too late to turn back.

  At least General Creed was in his element here. The Lord Protector was surrounded by his personal bodyguards, their shields held high to protect him from the occasional incoming arrow. Creed was hardly making it easy for them. He wore a pair of Owls over his eyes like the other high officers of the army, and he strode from one side of the chartassa to the other, spotting along the gutters between it and the next one, spying out the lie of the land ahead.

  ‘What of the Specials?’ Bahn heard himself ask as the general returned to his position.

  Creed’s eyes left the growing intensity of the fighting ahead and settled on his lieutenant. ‘What?’ he shouted through the noise.

  ‘The Specials, sir,’ repeated Bahn, and almost tripped on something – the body of an imperial soldier. ‘They should be heading back by now.’

  ‘No sign of them,’ replied the general, distracted. He was looking for something amongst the imperial masses.

  ‘Nidemes!’ he hollered to the commander of the Hoo. The old general was ranging behind the line of chartassa much in the same way as Bahn and Creed. He turned at the sound of his name.

  General Creed chopped his hand sideways, telling him to veer his men left. Nidemes acknowledged and shouted the commands. Flag bearers waved the change in direction for the benefit of the captains. Within moments, whistles were blowing to inform the men. The entire line began to shift about.

  Bahn caught a glimpse ahead and saw what they were turning towards. A small mound of ground in the distance backlit with stars; tiny glimmers of tents with the Matriarch’s personal banner flying high above them, a black raven on white.

  The general was aiming the army straight for Matriarch Sasheen herself.

  On the plain of Chey-Wes, Ché saw how the Expeditionary Force was rallying at last, thanks to the arrival of Archgeneral Sparus. While the Khosian formation thrust its way deeper through the camp like a glistening warhead, imperial squares of predoré engaged them now on all flanks, stretching and pushing them out of shape. Even though surrounded, they continued to push closer towards the Matriarch’s position – for it was clear now that here was their intended destination, and it was Sasheen herself whom they wished to confront.


  ‘Leave me be,’ came Sasheen’s sleepy voice amidst the splash of water, her aides dragging her from the wooden bathtub filled with snowmelt.

  ‘Matriarch,’ Sool tried again. ‘We are under attack.’

  ‘Yes, I heard you the first time,’ mumbled the Matriarch.

  Sasheen stood naked on a rug with the wet cast of plaster on her arm. She swayed in her half sleep as they dried her roughly with towels, trying to revive her as best they could.

  ‘Some rush oil,’ she said to Heelas, her caretaker. ‘Fetch me some.’ Heelas already had a pot of the stuff in his hand, and he opened it and handed it to her. With a grimace, Sasheen rubbed the white cream onto her lips.

  Ché stood at the entrance of her great tent. His sword was belted around his waist, as was a large knife and a pistol that he had already loaded with a single, poisoned shot.

  Outside, Acolytes and priests were hurrying back and forth through the Matriarch’s encampment. Her personal honour guard, fitted out for battle, had already gathered with their mounts. One of them held the reins of her white war-zel. The creature was twitching with impatience.

  ‘For my son,’ he heard Sasheen say from within, and her voice already sounded a little firmer. ‘I will dedicate this victory to my son.’

  Alarum came marching into the tent, wrapped in a heavy wool cloak. He clapped Ché on the arm as though glad to see him. ‘They had to choose tonight, didn’t they?’ he said as he stomped the snow from his boots.

  Ché watched him as he went inside to speak to the Matriarch, then turned back to the night plain beyond. He was intent on the distant action, though in a detached way, removed from it by distance and lack of sentiment, so that he felt like a spectator at the Shay Madi, watching two gladiators competing to win and live. What held him so rapt was the obvious skill and discipline of the Khosians. He possessed some vague understanding of what it must take to move so many men in unison and fight at the same time, even more so to change their direction during a battle.

  Watching them roar and shift their heading earlier had caused his lips to part and his pulse to beat faster. He hadn’t thought such things were possible.