The Iron Wars

TWENTY-THREE

A vast cavalcade of horsemen, numerous as a locust swarm. There was no order in their ranks and as they trotted along they jostled one another and expanded and contracted with ever dip in the terrain. They had a frontage of half a mile, but as they advanced the rear ranks broke into a canter and began to move up to left and right, extending that yard by yard. By the time they had come within sight of the Minhraib camp and the battle that was tapering off there, they had expanded into a great arc, a shallow new-moon sickle which stretched almost half a league from tip to tip and whose coming seemed to make the frozen earth quake and quiver below their hooves. Twenty thousand of Nalbeni’s finest men, come here in alliance with the Sultanate of Ostrabar to close the trap on the enemy and grind the Torunnans into the snow.

Corfe watched them from the trees, and could not help but feel a kind of admiration. They were a magnificent sight. In these days of cannon and gunpowder they were like something out of the barbaric past, but he knew that their powerful compound bows had virtually the range of an arquebus, and were easier to reload. They had teeth in plenty.

Behind him, hidden in the line of trees which extended all the way to the rear of the Torunnan line, his Cathedrallers waited with growing impatience. The Nalbenic horsemen would sweep past them on their way to take the King’s forces in the flank. He in turn would attack them in the rear, and hit them hard. But first they had to be halted. They had to meet the anvil before the hammer could fall.

And the anvil was in place, awaiting their arrival.

Clouds and spumes of powdery snow were blowing across the slopes of the hills. The sky had lightened a little, but the day had become much colder and Corfe’s breath was wreathing a white filigree about the front of his helm. The blowing snow would cover the fume of four thousand coils of burning match. Ranafast and his men, in two ranks over a mile long, lying out there somewhere in the snow, waiting. Corfe’s anvil.

He had found them a long reverse slope where they could lie hidden until the last moment, and the blowing snow had quickly broken up the stark blackness of their uniforms. It would be cold out there on the hard ground with the rime blowing in their faces, but they would have warm work soon enough. How long had the fighting been going on? It seemed to have lasted for ever, and yet Corfe’s sword had not yet cleared its scabbard. That was part of the price of command: ordering other men to die while you watched.

Not for much longer, by God. Soon the enemy-

A huge tearing sound, like heavy fabric being ripped. Off to the right a wall of smoke rose. Ranafast’s men had fired.

Corfe sat up in the saddle. His horse was dancing under him. He drew out Mogen’s sword and held it upright. He could feel the eyes of his men on him in anticipation of the signal. It was like sitting with one’s back to a bulging dam, waiting for it to burst.

The lead ranks of the Nalbenic horsemen looked as though they had simultaneously hit a tripwire. Ranafast had fired at point-blank range-less than a hundred yards. As Corfe watched, the second rank fired. He could faintly hear the commands in the brief moments between volleys: “Ready your pieces! Prime your pieces! Give fire!”

The enemy had been halted as if they had slammed into a stone wall. They milled there for a few deadly minutes with the heavy lead bullets snicking and ripping and slamming into them. Horses screaming, rearing, kicking, tumbling to the snow, men jerking as the heavy balls impacted, flying out of the saddle, shrieking, grasping at bloody holes. The press of animals was so great that the riders who were being decimated at the front could not retreat from the murderous fire. Showers of arrows were fired, but Ranafast’s men were lying down and presented a minuscule target. The thousands of horsemen in the fore of the Nalbenic host were caught there like a beetle on a pin, the victim of their own numbers. In the space of a hundred heartbeats a veritable wall of writhing bodies built up, hundreds, thousands of them. It was one of the most ghastly things Corfe had ever seen. With a flash of intuition he realized he was looking at the death of cavalry-of all cavalry.

But it was not enough. The work had to be completed. The Nalbenic formation was beginning to become more fluid. They were backing away, rear ranks streaming in retreat so the wretches at the front could get clear of the withering barrage. Soon they would open out, find the ends of Ranafast’s line and envelop him. They had to be packed together again, forced back upon the anvil.

Corfe brought down Mogen’s sabre. “Charge!”

The hammer fell.

The King of Torunna wiped the soot from his face and, grimacing, realized that his gauntlet had been dripping with blood. He was trembling with fatigue and his armour seemed twice its normal weight. He was mounted on his third horse of the day, his ankle so badly twisted by the headlong fall of the first that he could no longer walk. His crowned helm had given him an almighty headache and below it the sweat ran in streams. His throat was dry as sand, and his voice had become a croak.

Around him the remains of his three thousand cuirassiers clustered. Two thirds of them were dead or too injured to lift a sword, and nine tenths of them were afoot. They had been in the forefront of the attack all morning and had performed wonders. He was proud of them-he was secretly proud of himself. His first battle, his first charge, and he had acquitted himself as a king should, he thought.

The rest of the army was reforming, crowds of men being harangued into line by their surviving officers. The Minhraib had withdrawn for the moment, and the camp was his, what was left of it. It was a dreary, smoking wasteland strewn with mounded corpses, collapsed tents and dead horses, shrouded in smoke. Here and there the wounded writhed and wailed, but there were not many of those. No quarter had been asked or given, and when a man on either side fell helpless he would find his throat cut soon after. There was a sputtering of arquebus fire where the perimeter tercios were still contending with the enemy out in the smoke, but for the most part the army had fallen back to reform and prepare for the final push. Now where were those damned reinforcements he had ordered?

Lofantyr could hear the glorious, sullen rumble of war continuing off to the right, where Aras and his men were fighting off the Merduk relief column. Nothing on the left as yet. Or was that arquebus fire he heard out there? No, it was too far away. An echo, no doubt. He had been right not to worry about the left flank. And they thought he was no strategist!

General Menin trudged wearily over, saluted. His sword arm was bloody to the elbow.

“Ah, General, what is the delay? Where is General Cear-Inaf and our reserve? The courier went out an hour ago.”

An enormous clatter of musketry to their front, the roaring of a host of men in onset. The ranks of the Torunnans stiffened, and they strained to see through the murk and reek. Of the eighteen thousand the King had led into the camp, perhaps twelve thousand remained, but they had inflicted four or five times their own casualties on the enemy. Those twelve thousand were now arrayed in an untidy line a mile long. In some places the line was only two ranks deep, in others a veritable mob would gather, exhausted and injured men drawing together, taking reassurance out of the proximity of others. The army was spent, and it was hardly midafternoon on the longest day most of them had ever known.

“The courier returned a few minutes ago, sire.”

“I see. And why did he not report to me?”

Menin leaned against the flank of the King’s horse. He spoke quietly.

“Sire, Corfe is witholding the reserve. He fears for the left flank. Also, he informs me that the Minhraib are about to counter-attack.” The general glanced northwards, to where the sound of battle was rising to a roar in the smoke. “In fact they may well be doing so already. He advises us to withdraw at once. I concur, and have already given the necessary orders.”

“You have what? You exceed your authority, General. We are on the edge of a famous victory. One more push will see the day ours. We need Cear-Inaf’s reserve here, now.”

“Sire, listen to me. We have shot our bolt. According to General Cear-Inaf, thirty to forty thousand of the Minhraib have reformed on the northern edge of the camp and will be about our ears any minute. Aras is fighting for his life on the right, and Corfe must keep the reserve ready to face any new eventualities. We must fall back at once.”

“By God, General-”

But his words were drowned. The clatter out in the smoke had risen to a crescendo, and men were appearing in ones and twos, running. Torunnan arquebusiers in confused flight, throwing away their weapons as they ran. And behind them the formless clamour of a great host of men, shouting.

“Too late,” Menin said. “Here they come. Men! Prepare to repel an attack!”

The exhausted soldiers braced themselves.

“Sire, you should go to the rear,” Menin urged Lofantyr. “I do not know if we can hold.”

“What? Nonsense! I’ll lead another charge. We’ll see who-”

The western line erupted in a ragged volley as the lead elements of the enemy came thundering into view. Too soon-the Merduks were still out of range. But they were bowling forward, an unstoppable wave of armoured infantry under the bobbing horsetail standards. Tens of thousands of them.

The King’s face paled at the sight. “My God! I did not think there were so many left,” he croaked.

The two armies met in an appalling roar. It was hand-to-hand at once all down the line, the Torunnan arquebusiers unable to reload their weapons fast enough to keep the Minhraib at a distance.

Murderous, lunging chaos around the King as an entire enemy regiment homed in on the Royal standard. The more lightly armed Torunnans there were swept away by the fury of the Merduk onset, leaving the ironclad cuirassiers standing alone like an island, swinging their heavy cavalry sabres to terrible effect. In moments the entire Torunnan battle-line had been thrown back. Menin and Lofantyr found themselves surrounded, cut off from the main body of the army.

Lofantyr’s mind froze. He sat his terrified horse and watched as the Merduks flung themselves upon the ranks of his bodyguard with suicidal abandon. The heavily armoured knights were slaughtering their attackers, but they were being overwhelmed. Three or four of the enemy would throw themselves upon each armoured Torunnan, bear him down to the ground under their bodies, then rip off his helm and slit his throat.

“We are finished,” Menin said.

Lofantyr read the words on his lips, though the din of battle suffocated the sound of his voice. Menin was smiling. Panic rose like a cloud in Lofantyr’s throat. He would die? He, the King? It was impossible.

One of the enemy broke through the shrinking cuirassier cordon and dived at the King’s horse. A tulwar glittered and the animal screamed as it was hamstrung. Menin decapitated the man, but the King was down. The warhorse crashed, kicking, on to its side, trapping Lofantyr’s leg beneath it. He felt the bones wrench and shatter, and screamed, but his shriek was lost in the cacophony that surrounded him.

Menin was standing over him, hewing like a titan. Bodies were falling everywhere, men squirming in the snow and muck. An unbelievable tumult, a pitch of savagery and slaughter Lofantyr had not believed men could endure. He scrabbled feebly for the sword that had been his father’s, a Royal heirloom, but it was gone. He felt no pain or fear, only a kind of crazed incredulity. He could not believe this was happening.

He saw four Merduks bring Menin down, the old general fighting to the last. They stabbed a poniard through one of his eyes and finally quelled his struggles. Where were the rest of the bodyguard? There was no line now, only a few knots of men in a sea of the enemy. The last of the cuirassiers were being torn down like bears beset by hounds.

Someone ripped off Lofantyr’s helm. He found himself looking into a man’s face. A young man, the eyes dark and wild, foam at the corners of the mouth. Lofantyr tried to raise an arm, but someone was standing on his wrist. He saw the knife and tried to protest, but then the swift-stabbing blade came down and his life was over.