The Second Empire

ELEVEN

The army woke up in the black hour before the dawn, and in the frigid darkness men stumbled and cursed and blew on numbed fingers as they strapped on their armour and gnawed dry biscuit. Corfe shared a mug of wine with Marsch and Andruw while the trio stood and watched the host of men about them come to life.

“Remember to keep sending back couriers,” Corfe said through teeth clenched against the cold. “I don’t care if there’s nothing to report; at least they’ll keep me updated on your location. And don’t for God’s sake pitch into anything large before the main body comes up.”

“No problem,” Andruw said. “And I won’t teach your grandmother how to suck eggs, either.”

“Fair enough.” The truth was that Corfe hated to send the Cathedrallers off under someone else’s command-even if it were Andruw. He was beginning to realise that his elevated rank entailed sacrifice as well as opportunity. He shook the hands of Marsch and Andruw and then watched them disappear into the pre-dawn gloom towards the horse-lines. A few minutes later the Cathedrallers began to saddle up, and within half an hour they were riding out in a long, silent column, the sunrise just beginning to lighten up the lowering cloud on the horizon before them.

By midmorning the remainder of the army, some six and a half thousand men in all, was strung out in a column half a league long whose head pointed almost due east. In the van rode Corfe, surrounded by the fifteen or so cuirassiers who were all that remained of Ormann Dyke’s cavalry regiment. His trumpeter, Cerne, had insisted on remaining with him, and Andruw had ceremoniously left behind a further half-dozen of the tribesmen as a kind of bodyguard. Behind this little band of horsemen marched five hundred Torunnan arquebusiers followed by Formio’s two thousand Fimbrians, and then another group of some three thousand arquebusiers under Ranafast. After them came the mule train of some six hundred plodding, bad-tempered, heavily laden animals, and finally a rearguard of almost a thousand more Torunnans.

For the first few miles of their advance they could actually glimpse the Cathedrallers off close to the horizon: a black smudge in an otherwise grey and drear landscape. But towards noon the country began to rise in long, stony ridges across the line of march which slowed their progress and obscured their view of the terrain to the east. By early afternoon the cloud had broken up and there were wide swathes of sunlight come rushing across the land, let slip by fast-moving mare’s-tails high above their heads. At the eastern limit of sight, they could see black bars rising straight into the air and then leaning over as they were taken by the high altitude winds. The smoke from the towns aflame along the River Searil. The infantry stared at the smoke as they marched, and the winding column of men toiled along in simmering silence.

Camp was made that night in the shelter of a tall ridge. Sentries paced its summit and Corfe allowed the men to light fires, since the high ground hid them from the east and south. It was bitterly cold, and the sky had cleared entirely so that above their heads was a vast blaze of stars, the larger winking red and blue.

A courier came in from Andruw at midnight, having been five hours on the road. The Cathedrallers were bivouacked in a fireless camp some four leagues south-west of the river. They had destroyed three roving bands of Merduk scavengers at no loss to themselves, and were now turning south-east, parallel with the Searil. There was a large town named Berrona there which seemed not to have been sacked yet, but from the increasing numbers of the enemy that Andruw was encountering, he thought that their main body must not be too far away and Berrona would be too plump a target for the Merduks to pass by.

Corfe sat by his campfire for a few minutes whilst the courier snatched a hasty meal and some of the cuirassiers rubbed down his horse for him and saddled up another to take him back.

Squinting in the firelight, Corfe scrawled a reply. Andruw was to scout out the environs of Berrona with one or two squadrons only, keeping the rest of his men out of sight. The main body would force-march to his location in the morning. Corfe estimated it was some thirty-five miles away, which would be a hard day’s going, but his men would manage it. Then they would await the turn of events.

If the army was to return to Torunn in any kind of fighting condition, then this was the only chance Corfe had to bring a large Merduk force to battle. Another two days, three at most, and they would have to head for home, or start cutting rations even past the meagre amount they were subsisting on at present. And that would almost certainly mean that the horses would start to fail, something which Corfe could not afford to let happen.

The weary courier was sent on his way again. He would reach Andruw just before dawn, with luck, having ridden seventy miles in a single night. How he found his way in a region wholly unknown to him, over rough ground, in the dark, was a mystery to Corfe. He and Andruw had taken a series of maps north with them, only to discover that they were years out of date. Northern Torunna, in the shadow of the Thurians, had always been a wilder place than the south of the kingdom. It had few roads and fewer towns, but strategically it was as vital as the lines of the Searil and Torrin rivers. One day, when he had the time, Corfe would do something about that. He would make of the Torrin Gap a fortress and build good roads clear down to the capital for the passage of armies. The Torunnans hitherto had relied too much on what the Fimbrians had left behind them. Ormann Dyke, Aekir, Torunn itself and the roads which connected them-they were all legacies of the long-vanished empire. It was time the Torunnans built a few things of their own.

The army was on the march again before dawn. Corfe and his Cathedraller bodyguards rode ahead of the main body, leaving old Ranafast in charge behind them. They passed isolated farmsteads that had been burnt out by Merduk marauders and once came across a lonely church which had inexplicably been spared the flames, but within which the enemy had obviously stabled their horses for some considerable time. The charred remains of two men were bound to a stake in the churchyard, the blackened stumps of their legs ending in a mound of dead embers and ash. Corfe had them buried and then rode on.

They halted at noon to rest the horses and wait for the infantry to come up. Corfe gnawed salt beef and bit off chunks of hard army biscuit while ceaselessly searching the eastern horizon for signs of life. Around him the tribesmen talked quietly in their own tongue to each other and their horses.

A solitary horseman appeared in the distance and the talk ceased. He was riding at full, reckless gallop, yanking up his mount’s head when it stumbled on loose rock, bent low in the saddle to extract every ounce of speed out of the beast. A Cathedraller, his armour winking like freshly spilt gore. Corfe waved at him and he changed course. A few minutes later he had come to a staggering halt in front of them, his horse spraying foam from its mouth, nostrils flared and pink, sides heaving. He leapt off his steed and proffered a despatch case.

“Ondruw-he send me,” he gasped.

“Good man. Cerne, give him some water. See to his horse and get him a fresh one.” Corfe turned away and shook out the scroll of tattered paper Andruw had scrawled his despatch upon.

Merduk main body sighted three leagues south of Berrona. Some fifteen thousand men, plus two thousand cavalry out to their front. All lightly armed. My position half a league north of the town, but am withdrawing another league to the north to avoid discovery. Looks like they intend to enter Berrona this afternoon. Citizens still unaware of either us or the Merduks. How soon can you come up?

Andruw Cear-Adurhal Colonel Commanding

Corfe could sense the desperate plea in Andruw’s words. He wanted to save the town from the horror of a Merduk sack. But men can only march so fast. It would be nightfall before the army was reunited, and Corfe did not intend to launch the men into a night attack after a thirty-five-mile march, against a superior foe. What was more, he could not even afford to let Andruw warn the townsfolk of the approaching catastrophe-that would give away the fact that there was a Torunnan army in the region, and when his men came up in the morning they would find the Merduks prepared and ready for them.

No, it was impossible. Berrona would have to take its chances.

There had been a time when he might have done it, when he had less braid on his shoulders and there was not much more at stake than his own life. But if he crippled this army of his, Torunna would be finished. He scribbled a reply to Andruw with his face set and pale.

Hold your new position. Do not engage the enemy under any circumstances. Infantry will be with you tonight. We will assault in the morning.

Corfe Cear-Inaf Commander-in-Chief

There. It gave Corfe a sick feeling in his stomach to hand the return despatch to the courier, and as the man set off again he almost thought better of it and recalled him. But it was too late. The tribesman was already a receding speck soon lost to view. It was done. He had just consigned the citizens of Berrona to a night of hell.

“What are we to do with the prisoners?” Ranafast asked as the endless column of trudging men filed past.

The infantry had come up, and after the briefest of rests was on the move again. The sun was already westering, and they still had a long way to go to effect the rendezvous with Andruw and the Cathedrallers. But not a single man had dropped out, Ranafast and Formio had informed Corfe. The news that they were about to pitch into the Merduk raiders had filled the troops with fresh energy, and they stepped out with a will.

“Let them go,” Corfe said. “They’re nothing but a damned nuisance.”

Ranafast stared at him, dark eyes glittering over a hawk nose and an iron-grey beard which looked as though it had been filed to a point.

“I can have the men take care of them,” he said.

“No. Just set them free. But I want to talk to them first.”

“Sir, I have to protest-”

“I won’t make the men into murderers, Ranafast. We start slaughtering prisoners out of hand, and we’re no better than they are. The men will have plenty of chances to kill themselves a Merduk tomorrow, in open battle. Now have the prisoners sent to me.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing, General,” Ranafast said.

The captives were a miserable looking bunch, guarded by a couple of Fimbrians who regarded their charges with detached contempt. They cowered before Corfe as though he were their executioner. Part of him was longing to order their deaths. He held no illusions about what they had been doing up here in the north, but at the same time he was thinking of the peasant army he had slaughtered down at Staed. Narfintyr’s tenants, small farmers forced to take up arms for a lord they barely knew and who regarded them as expendable chattel. It had sickened Corfe, the slaughter of such poor ignorant wretches, and these Merduks were the same. They had been conscripted into the Sultan’s army, leaving families and farms behind. Some of them did not even possess Merduk blood. He would kill men like these in their nameless thousands in the days and months to come, but that was the unavoidable consequence of war. He would not stain his conscience with their cold-blooded murder. He had enough blood on his hands already.

“You are free to go,” he told them. “On the condition that you do not rejoin the Merduk army, but instead try to find your way home to your families. I know you did not join this war by choice, but because you were forced to. So be on your way in peace.”

The men gaped, then looked at one another, jabbering in Merduk and Normannic. They were incredulous, too astonished to be happy. Some reached out to touch his stirruped feet and he backed his horse away from them.

“Go now. And don’t come back to Torunna ever again. If you do, I promise that you will die here.”

“Thank you, your honour!” the man Corfe recognised as the battered Felipio shouted out. Then the Merduks broke away, and as a group began running towards the long shadows of the Thurian Mountains in the north, as if trying to get away before Corfe changed his mind. The marching Torunnans watched them go, some of them spitting in disgust at the sight, but not a man protested.

Corfe turned to Ranafast, who still sat his horse nearby.

“Am I a bloody fool, Ranafast? Am I going soft?”

The veteran smiled. “Maybe, lad. Maybe you are just becoming something of a politician. You know damn well those bastards are going to try and rejoin their comrades-they’ve nowhere else to go. But if they make it, the news that the Torunnans treat their prisoners well will spread like a wildfire in high summer. If the Merduk levy thinks it will receive quarter when it lays down its arms, then it may not fight quite so hard.”

“That’s what I was hoping, I suppose, though I’m still not convinced of it. But I’ve come to a conclusion, Ranafast: we can’t win this war through force alone. We need guile also.”

“Aye, we do. Doesn’t taste too good in the mouth though, does it?” And Ranafast wheeled his horse away to rejoin the army column. Corfe sat his own mount and watched the freed Merduks running madly up into the foothills until they were mere dots against the snow-worn bulk of the Thurian Mountains on the horizon before them. For a crazed, indecipherable moment, he almost wished he were running with them.

Cathedraller scouts guided them in that night. The weather had deteriorated into a face-stinging drizzle which was flung at them by winds off the mountains, but the wind would at least muffle the sound of their marching feet and clinking equipment. The men had their heads down and were dragging their feet by that time, and in the blustery darkness half a dozen pack-mules had somehow broken free from their handlers and been lost, but in the main the army was intact, the column a trifle ragged perhaps, but still whole. Andruw had found a level campsite some five miles north of the town. There was a stream running through it, a boon to both horses and men, but as the weary soldiers filed into the bivouac their heads lifted and they peered intently at the southern horizon. There was an orange glow flickering in the sky there. Berrona was burning.

Andruw greeted Corfe unsmilingly, his face a pale blur under his helm marked only by two black holes for eyes and a slot for a mouth.

“Their cavalry entered the town several hours ago,” he said. “They took the men off to the south. Now they’re having a little fun with the women.”

Corfe rode up close until their knees were touching. He set a hand on Andruw’s shoulder.

“We can’t do it-not tonight. The men are done up. We’ll hit them at dawn, Andruw.”

Andruw nodded. “I know. We must be sensible about it.” His voice was cracking with strain.

“Have you scouted out the main body?”

“They’re still bivouacked to the south. Their camp is full of the loot and women from half a dozen different towns. These lads have been having a fine old time of it up here in the north. It must seem like a kind of holiday for them.”

“It ends tomorrow morning with the dawn, I promise you. Now get the officers together. I want you to tell us all you know about the dispositions of these bastards.”

Andruw nodded and started to move his horse away. Then he halted.

“Corfe?”

“Yes?”

“Promise me something else.”

Andruw’s voice was thick with grief but it was too dark for Corfe to read his face. “Go on.”

“Promise me that tomorrow we will take no prisoners.”

The wind and the subdued clamour of an army settling down for the night filled the silence that stretched between them. Politics, strategy, his talk with Ranafast; they rose like a cloud in Corfe’s mind. But smouldering there under all the rationalisations were his own anger, and his friend’s grief. When Corfe finally responded, his voice was as raw as Andruw’s had been.

“All right then. Tomorrow there will be no quarter. I promise you.”