The Iron Wars

EIGHT

It depressed Corfe to see Torunn again in the numbing drizzle of the new year, the smoke of the refugee camps hanging about it like a shroud and the land for miles around churned into a quagmire by the displaced thousands of Aekir. They were still squatting in the hide tents provided by the Torunnan authorities, and seemed no nearer than before to dispersing and rebuilding their lives.

“Our glorious capital,” Andruw murmured, his usual good cheer dampened by the sight, and by the swift miles they had put behind them in the last week. They had killed twenty-three horses in the retracing of their steps north, and even the tribesmen of the command were sullen and stupid with exhaustion. They had had enough, for the present. Corfe knew he could push them no further. Perhaps that depressed him too. He was as tired as any of them, but still all he could think of was getting out of here, up to the battlefields of the north. Nothing else held any attraction for him.

This, he thought, is what my life has become. There is nothing else.

The long column of filthy, yawning cavalry and silent mules wound down from the higher land overlooking the capital and came to a halt outside the city walls amid the tented streets of the shanty town. The folk of Aekir stared at the hollow-eyed barbarians on the tall warhorses as if they were creatures from another world. Corfe stared back at them, the white lightning-fury searing up in him at the sight of the muddy children, their ragged parents. These had once been the proud citizens of the greatest city in the world. Now they were beggars, and the Torunnan government seemed content to let them stay that way. He felt like dragging King Lofantyr out here and grinding his face into the liquid filth of the open sewers. When the warmer weather came, disease would sweep through these camps like wildfire.

He turned to Andruw and Marsch. “This is no damned good. Get the men bedded down beyond the camps, away from this.”

“We’ve no bedding, no food-not even for the horses,” Andruw reminded him. As if he needed reminding.

“I’m aware of that, Haptman. I’m going into the city to see what can be done. In the meantime, you have your orders.” He paused, and then added reluctantly. “You might want to slaughter a couple of the pack mules. The men need meat in their bellies.”

“God’s blood, Corfe!” Andruw protested quietly.

“I know. But we can’t expect too much. Best to prepare for the worst. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He turned his horse away, unable to meet Andruw’s eyes. He felt as though the anger in him could set the world alight and take grim satisfaction in its burning, but it left him feeling empty and cold. His men depended on him. If needs be he would lick the King’s boots to see them provided for.

The sentries at the main gate forgot to salute, so outlandish did he appear in his crimson Merduk armour. He turned over the options in his mind and finally pointed his horse’s nose towards the courtyards and towers of the Royal palace. His patron would, perhaps, be able to do something for him. He had passed the first test she had set him, at any rate.

“Colonel Corfe Cear-Inaf,” the chamberlain announced, a little wide-eyed.

The Queen Dowager turned from the window. Her hands fluttered up over her face and hair. “Show him in, Chares.”

Her chamber was warm with braziers and blood-coloured tapestries. A pair of maids sat quiet as mice in a corner. At a look from her they rose and left by a concealed door. She awaited him with regal poise, though her heart thumped faster in her breast, and she felt a winged lightness there she had not known in many years. It both cheered and irritated her.

He clumped in. He seemed to love that outlandish armour of his, but at least he had doffed the barbaric helm that went with it. He was a mud-stained, bloody harbinger of war, out of place, uncomfortable-looking. His face had aged ten years in the few weeks since she had seen him last. The light in his eyes actually unnerved her for a moment, she who had faced down kings. There was a strength and violence there she had not noted before, a reined-in savagery.

“So,” she said quietly. “You are back.”

“So it would seem.” Then he collected himself, and went down stiffly on one knee, clods of dirt falling from his boots. “Your majesty.”

“I told you before, I am ‘lady’ to you. Get up. You look tired.”

“Indeed, lady.” He rose as slowly as an old man. There was blood on him, she noted, and he stank of old sweat and horse and burning.

“For God’s sake,” she snapped, “couldn’t you have bathed at least?”

“No,” he said simply. “There was nowhere else to go. We have only just got in.” He swayed as he stood, and she saw the deep bone-weariness in him. Her lips thinned, and she clapped her hands. Chares entered at the main door, bowing. “Your highness?”

“Have a bath brought here at once, a fresh uniform for the Colonel and a couple of valets who know their job.”

“At once, highness.” Chares withdrew hurriedly.

“I haven’t the time,” Corfe said. “My men-”

“What do you need?” she demanded.

He blinked stupidly, as if the question had caught him unawares.

“Quarters for three hundred men, and food. Stabling for nearly eight hundred horses and two hundred mules. Fodder for them, too.”

It was her turn to be taken aback. “Horses?”

The shadow of a smile. “Spoils of war.”

“I’ll see to it. You have been busy, it seems, Colonel.”

“I did what was expected of me, I believe.” Again, that ghost smile. This time she returned it.

His armour was rusted to his back. The buckles had to be cut free by two owl-eyed palace valets while a flurry of others brought in a bronze hip-bath and filled it full of steaming water, kettle upon kettle of it until there was a mist hanging in the room. Others carried in fresh clothing and footwear. The Queen Dowager withdrew behind a screen, stifling a laugh when she heard Corfe curse away the flunkeys who fussed over him. She sat herself at her writing desk and in her swift, stabbing hand drew up the necessary orders, sealing them with her signet. It was the twin of her son the King’s. That much authority she retained. She snapped her fingers for a servant.

“Give this to the Quartermaster-General,” she told him, “and be quick, too.” She raised her voice. “Colonel, where are your men?”

A grunt, the clump of a boot hitting the floor. “By the southern gate, outside the camps. Haptman Andruw Cear-Adurhal commands at the moment. You’ll find them by the smell of roasting mule.”

The attendants left at last, and she heard him splashing in the bath beyond the screen. It would be over the palace in minutes, that the Queen Dowager had a muddy colonel of cavalry bathing in her private chambers. It was a signal she sent out quite deliberately. People would tread more warily around her protege as a result. It was his reward for the passing of the first test.

And besides, she liked having him here.

The splashing had stopped. “Corfe?”

She peered round the screen. He was asleep in the bath, arms dangling over its sides, mouth open.

She rose and approached him, silent as a spider in her court shoes. The floor around him was a mess of mud and water. As she crouched by his side it soaked the bottom of her skirts.

Some of the lines faded when he slept. He seemed younger. His forearms were scarred with old wounds, and the bathwater was bloody where a more recent one in his thigh had reopened. She touched the wound, running her hand over him under the water. She closed her eyes and the gash healed under her fingers. The bleeding stopped.

He came awake with a violent start that sent the bathwater spraying. His hand gripped her wrist. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” she said softly. “Nothing at all.” She leaned over and kissed his bare shoulder and felt him tremble under her lips.

“You don’t fear scandal much, do you?” he remarked.

“As much as you.”

His hand, calloused from rein and sword-hilt, caressed her cheek gently. For a second he seemed almost a boy. But the second passed. The lines settled in his face again. He hauled himself out of the bath and reached for a towel to cover himself. He seemed almost bewildered.

“I must get back to my men.”

“Not yet,” she told him, her voice becoming harder as she rose with him. “Your men are being looked after. You, I need here for now.”

“For what, payment?”

“Don’t be a fool,” she snapped. “Get dressed. We have much to discuss.”

He held her eyes for a moment, and she was sure her need for him would betray her, spill out of her and plead with him. She turned away. The attendants had left decanters of Gaderian, a joint of venison, apples, cheese, fresh bread. She poured herself some of the blood-red wine whilst he towelled himself dry and pulled on the black Torunnan infantry uniform which had been left for him. As a cavalryman, he should have been in burgundy, and she thought it would suit him, but she knew also that he would prefer black.

“Eat something, for God’s sake,” she ordered. He was standing motionless as though on parade, obviously hating the court version of the uniform, the lace cuffs, tight collar and buckled shoes.

He seemed to experience some kind of inner struggle. It flitted across his face.

“Your men are being fed as we speak,” she said. “Stop playing the noble leader and get something into your own stomach. You look half-starved.”

At last, he unbent. She saw it was all he could do not to wolf down the food like an animal. He made himself chew it slowly, and sipped at the wine. Again, the tiredness in his face making him look so much older. How old was he? Thirty? Not much more, perhaps even less. He took a seat by one of the glowing braziers with a brimming wine glass in one fist and a chunk of bread in the other, taking alternate bites and sips. Finally he paused, conscious of her eyes on him, and said, “Thank you” in a low voice.

She sat down opposite him wishing she’d had time to ready a few rejuvenating spells. She was very aware of the liver spots on the backs of her hands. She hated herself for feeling so absurdly self-conscious.

“You are your own courier, it seems,” she said. “I take it the business in the south was concluded satisfactorily?”

He nodded. “Aras is still down there. I left him the last of the mopping up.”

“Your tribesmen did well.”

“Amazingly well.” For the first time some real warmth came into his voice, and his face became more animated. He gave her a brief outline of the short campaign, neither boasting nor deprecating. When he was done she looked at him in some wonder.

“So the Felimbri make soldiers. If we’d known that twenty years ago it would have saved the country some grief. You are down to three hundred now, you say.”

“Yes, plus some two dozen wounded I had to leave with Aras.”

She smiled, glad to be able to give him the news. “It’s lucky your savages acquitted themselves so well. There are a thousand more of them currently awaiting you at the North Gate. News travels fast in the mountains, it appears.” Better not to tell him that these men had almost been sent to the galleys by the King. He would find out soon enough.

His eyes were glittering, fingers whitening around the wine glass. “By the Saints-” He bowed his head and for an astonished instant she thought he might weep, but she heard him give a strangled laugh instead. When he looked up the relief was engraved in his features like the words on a tombtop. She saw then how tautly strung he was, and had some inkling of the strain that bent him.

The wine glass shattered in a spray of scarlet.

“Forgive me.” He shook the liquid from his fingers, grimacing. His palm was gashed and trickling blood.

“Corfe…” she said, and took his bloody hand, pulled him across to her. It was like tugging on the branch of an unyielding tree for a moment, before he gave in. He knelt on the floor and buried his face in her lap with a sigh. Summoning the Dweomer, she smoothed away the slash in his palm, restoring the skin as though she were shaping warm wax. As the spell worked the energy in her flickered. She felt her years dragging at her limbs, age baying for her life.

He would have risen, but she held him there, suddenly needing his youth close to her.

“You can rest a while. The Merduks have drawn half their army off from the dyke. Campaigning has finished for the winter. I will see to it that your men have all they need.” Stay with me.

“No.” He raised his head. His eyes were dry. “It’s just begun. I believe they’ve outflanked the dyke somehow. Martellus is in trouble, I know it.”

The soldier again. He had retreated from her. She let him go, and he rose to pace about the room, pausing to stare at his healed hand and then at her.

“You are a witch then.”

“Indeed,” she said wearily. “What nonsense are you talking about the dyke?”

“It’s a feeling, nothing more. Has Martellus sent any dispatches lately?”

“Not for ten days. But the roads are bad.”

“He’s cut off already then.”

“Oh, for God’s sake! Are you an oracle, who knows this through intuition alone?”

He shrugged. “I know it. For what purpose would the Merduks mobilize a great army in the depths of winter? They are making another assault, that’s clear-but not a head-on one this time. They’re doing something else, something we have no idea of. And time is not on our side. I must go north.”

She saw she could not move him. “You need rest, you and your men. I’ll have couriers sent to the dyke. We’ll find out the truth of it.”

He hesitated. “All right.”

Their eyes locked. Odelia knew there was greatness in him, something she had glimpsed before with John Mogen. But there was something else, too. An injury that refused to heal, old agony which racked him yet. She thought it might be that pain which drove him on, which had changed him from the lowly ensign of Aekir to the man who stood here now, his star on the rise. But still, the pain was always there.

She rose in her turn and padded over to him, wrapped her arms about him and kissed him on the lips, crushing her mouth against his.

“You will come to bed now.”

He was still tense, resisting her. “I have not yet reported to the King. And I must see these new recruits…” He faltered. “Why?” he asked. There was genuine puzzlement in his voice.

She grinned fiercely. “I want you there, and you need to be there too.”

At last he smiled back.

• • •

Fifty leagues, a crow might fly, nor-nor-east from the room where Corfe and the Queen Dowager shared a bed. Across the empty hills which bordered the Western Road, itself a brown swampish gash across the earth with old corpses littering its length. Thousands had died along that road, lying down in the mud and rain in the retreat from Aekir and the trek from Ormann Dyke, relinquishing their grip on a life which had become a waking nightmare.

But now Ormann Dyke was burning.

The smoke could be seen for miles, a black, thunderous reek of destruction. Men were fighting in the midst of it. A thousand Torunnans, valiant with despair, struggled vainly to stem the onslaught of the Merduk army. The enemy had already crossed the Searil in force and was overrunning the three-mile length of the Long Walls, which for the first time in their proud history were about to fall to an assault.

The rest of the dyke’s garrison was in full retreat, its artillery spiked and left behind to burn, its stores destroyed, the men marching with nothing more than the armour on their backs and the weapons in their hands. Their comrades left behind at the dyke were buying time with their lives, precious hours of marching which might yet save what was left of Martellus’s army.

The army moved in a vacuum. Around it, the countryside was alive with harassing clouds of enemy light cavalry which severed communications with Torunn and the south. No one in the capital even suspected that Ormann Dyke had fallen. The Merduk light horse had already slain half a dozen couriers which Martellus, in desperation, had sent south.

Thirty leagues away, another column of troops, this time black-clad Fimbrians, their pikes resting on their shoulders, their fast pace eating up the miles in a deadly race. They were coming in from the north-west, the last direction the Merduk High Command was looking. Their mule-mounted scouts ranged far ahead of the main body, seeking out the whereabouts of the third army in the region, striving to come to grips with it before it might descend upon Martellus’s flank and complete the destruction of the dyke’s garrison.

And the third army, the largest of the three, had left behind the ships which had transported it across the Kardian Sea and was steadily making its way north-west to cut off Martellus’s retreat. In its van rode the elite Merduk cavalry, the Ferinai, and behind them the shock troops of the Hraibadar, armed now with arquebuses instead of the spears and tulwars with which they had assaulted Aekir. War elephants by the score marched like mobile towers in their midst, and others in the rear hauled huge-bored siege guns through the mud whilst alongside strode the men of the Minhraib, the feudal levy of Ostrabar, and regiments of horse-archers from Ostrabar’s new ally the Sultanate of Nalbeni. A hundred thousand men moving in four columns, each several miles long. And in the middle of this moving multitude trundled the chariot of Ostrabar’s Sultan, Aurungzeb the Golden; to its rear were the eighty heavily laden wagons which transported the Sultan’s household, his campaigning gear and his concubines. Aurungzeb liked to go to war in style.

“They’ve gone,” Joshelin said with low harshness. “You can get up off your bellies, priests.”

Albrec and Avila rose out of the tall grass they had been skulking in. Behind them Siward stood and slapped out the burning end of his slow-match, then replaced the end in the wheel lock of his arquebus.

“What were they?” he asked his fellow Fimbrian. “Foragers, or scouts?”

“Scouts. Merduk light horse, a half-troop. A long way from the main body, I’m thinking. Where are the Torunnans? Looks like they’ve given over the whole damn country to the enemy.”

Albrec and Avila listened to the exchange in shivering silence. They were wet through, mud-stained and hungry and their legs wobbled under them, but the two old soldiers seemed to be built out of some other substance than mere human flesh. Twenty years older than either of the two monks, and they were as fit and hardy as youths.

“Must we go farther today?” Avila asked.

“Yes, priest,” Joshelin told him curtly. “We’ve done scarcely eight leagues today by my pacings. Another two or three before dark, then we can lie up for the night. No fire, though. The hills are crawling with Merduks.”

Avila slumped. He rubbed a hand over his face and said nothing.

“Do you think the capital is safe yet?” Albrec asked.

“Oh, yes. These are merely part of the enemy screen. He sends out light cavalry so that we can learn nothing of his movements, while he learns all about ours. Basic tactics.”

“How ignorant we are, not to know such things,” Avila said caustically. “Can we ride now?”

“Yes. The mules have had a good rest these last three leagues.”

Avila muttered something venomous none of them could catch.

They had been four days travelling, the two monks and the two Fimbrians. During that time they had marched and ridden harder than Albrec had ever thought it possible for the human frame to bear. They had spent fireless nights shivering against the mules for warmth, and had eaten salt beef and army biscuit through which the weevils squirmed. Joshelin reckoned that another three days would see them in Torunn, if they continued to elude the Merduk patrols. Those three days loomed ahead of them like a long period of penance. Albrec found it easier to think only about putting one foot in front of the next, or getting to the next rise on the horizon. He had not even had the energy to pray. It was only the crinkling bulk of the ancient document he carried which kept him on his feet at all. When it was safe with Macrobius in Torunn, his mind as well as his body might know some peace at last.

At day’s end Albrec and Avila were numb and swaying on the backs of the two mules. Nothing in their lives had prepared them for this unbelievably swift, unencumbered travel across a wilderness. Their feet were blistered, the stumps of Avila’s lost toes weeping blood and fluid, and their rumps were rubbed almost raw by the crude pack-saddles. When the little party finally stopped for the night the two monks were too far gone to care. They had not even the energy to dismount. Their companions looked at each other wordlessly for a long moment, and then Siward began to lift the monks down off their steeds whilst Joshelin unpacked an entrenching tool and began to dig a hole.

They had halted in the eaves of a small wood, mostly spruce and pine with beech and pale-trunked birch on the outskirts. Farther in, the coniferous trees grew closer together, and their needles carpeted the ground making the travellers’ footfalls soundless as a cat’s. Night was fast setting in, and it was black in the wood already. Beyond it, the wind had picked up into a whine which roamed across the Torunnan hills like winter’s courier. Albrec thought that never had he felt himself so lost, or in such a place of desolation. During the day they had passed abandoned farms and had helped themselves to food from their larders. They had even sighted a roadside inn, as deserted as a mountaintop. The entire population of Northern Torunna, it seemed, had fled at the coming of the Merduks. Would the Torunnans ever make a stand and fight?

When Joshelin had dug his hole to the depth of his knees, he threw aside his entrenching tool and began gathering wood from under the deciduous trees at the outskirts of the forest. Siward threw the two shuddering monks a couple of greasy, damp blankets, and then unsaddled and rubbed down the mules before fitting them with bulging nosebags. The animals were so tired he did not even hobble them, but merely tied their picket ropes to a nearby tree.

An owl hooted in the ghost-dark of the wood, and something-a fox, perhaps-yipped and barked far off, the sounds adding to the emptiness rather than subtracting.

There was a flash, a jump of sparks which revealed the face of Joshelin bent and puff-cheeked as he blew on tinder. A tiny flame, smaller than that of a candle. He fed it as delicately as if he were tending a sick baby, and when it had grown a hand’s breadth, he lifted the small pile of twigs and needles into the trench he had dug and began feeding it with larger limbs. He looked as though he were peering into some crack in the earth which led to hell, Albrec thought, and then dismissed the image as unlucky.

The fire grew, and the two monks crawled over to its warmth.

“Keep it going,” Joshelin told them. “I have things to do.”

“I thought we were to have no fire,” Avila said, holding his hands out greedily to the flames. His blanket stank as it began to warm.

“You looked as though you needed it,” the Fimbrian said, and then strode off into the darkness with his sword drawn.

“Ignorant fellows,” Avila muttered. His eyes were sunken, and the firelight writhed in them like two worms of yellow light.

“Their bite may not be quite so bad as their bark, I’m thinking,” said Albrec, blessing the warmth and the gruff thoughtfulness of their companions.

Chopping sounds, breaking wood, and then the two soldiers returned to the firelight holding a rough screen-like structure they had created out of interlaced branches stuffed with sods of turf. They planted it in the ground on the side of the fire trench that faced the border of the wood, and at last sat down themselves, pulling their black military cloaks about them.

“Thank you,” Albrec said.

They did not look at him, but threw over a wineskin and the provisions bag. “You’ll eat well tonight, at any rate,” Joshelin said. “That’s dainty fare we picked out of that farm.”

They had a chicken, already plucked and gutted, bread which was several days old but which nonetheless seemed like ambrosia after Fimbrian hardtack, and some apples and onions. The chicken they spitted over the fire, the rest they wolfed down along with swallows of rough wine which in Charibon they would have turned their noses up at. Tonight it slid down their throats like the finest of Gaderian vintages.

Siward produced a short black pipe from the breast of his tunic, filled it from a pouch at his waist and he and Joshelin smoked it in turns. The pipe smoke was heavy and strong and acrid. There was some tang in it that Albrec could not quite identify.

“Might I try it?” he asked the soldiers.

Siward shrugged, his face a crannied maze of light and dark in the fire-laced blackness. “If you have a strong head. It is kobhang, from the east.”

“The herb the Merduks smoke? I thought it was a poison.”

“Only if you take too much of it. It helps keep you awake and sharpens the senses, so long as you do not abuse it.”

“How do you obtain it?” Albrec’s curiosity awoke, taking his mind off his exhaustion.

“It is army issue. We get it along with the bread and salt horse. When there is no food to be had, a man can keep going for weeks by smoking it.”

“And can he then stop smoking it if he has a mind to?” Avila drawled.

Joshelin stared at him. “If he has the will.”

Albrec took the pipe Siward proffered rather gingerly and sucked a draught of the bitter smoke deep into his lungs. Nothing happened. He returned the pipe to its owner, rather relieved.

But then his aches and pains dimmed to a comfortable glow. He felt a new strength seeping through his muscles and his body became as light as a child’s. He blinked in wonder. The firelight seemed a beautiful, entrancing thing of bright twisting loveliness. He put out his hand towards it, only to have his wrist grasped by the hard fist of Joshelin.

“One must be careful, priest.”

He nodded, feeling foolish and exhilarated in the same moment.

“I haven’t seen you smoke it before,” Avila said to the Fimbrians.

Siward shrugged. “We are getting tired. We are men also, Inceptine.”

“Well, bless my soul,” Avila retorted, and wrapped himself in his evil-smelling blanket.

They took the chicken off the spit and ripped it into four pieces. Albrec was no longer hungry, but he ate the scorched meat anyway, no longer able to taste it. His mind felt clear as ice. His worries had vanished. He began to chuckle, and then stopped himself as he found his three companions were watching him.

“Marvellous stuff. Marvellous,” he muttered, and fell back into the soft pine needles, snoring as soon as he was horizontal.

Avila threw a blanket over him. It had holes in it from other nights spent lying close to campfires.

“I will dress your feet in the morning,” Joshelin told him.

The young Inceptine nodded distantly and took a huge swallow of the wine. “What will you do when you have escorted us safely to Torunn?” he asked.

The two Fimbrians glanced at each other and then into the fire. “We will await further orders from the marshal,” Siward said at last.

“You don’t believe you’ll get any further orders, though. Albrec told me his intentions. Your marshal is leading his men to their deaths.”

“Mind your own matters, priest,” Joshelin hissed with sudden passion.

“It is no matter to me,” Avila said. “I only wonder that you had not thought out what will become of you when you have run this errand for him.”

“As you say,” Joshelin grated. “It is no matter to you. Now get you to sleep. You need a lot of rest if you are to keep up today’s volume of whining on the morrow.”

Avila looked at him for a long minute, and finally his face broke out into a smile.

“Quite right. I would hate to let my standards slip.”