Rictus looked down at the hooded youth, frowning. “Indeed.”
Fornyx broke in. “Well, what say you we go take a look at this army of yours first? I want to see what all the fuss has been about.”
An army’s camp usually announced itself on the wind, with the stink of men’s excrement. That, and woodsmoke. As they tramped down from the high land to the plain below they were able to take in the smell on the breeze, and at once it brought back to Rictus a spate of memories.
In all the fighting he had done since returning with the Ten Thousand over two decades before, he had never been part of a force greater than two or three thousand men. The inter-city conflicts of the Macht were small-scale affairs, conducted almost to a kind of ceremony. Sieges such as that of his last campaign were unusual.
The fighting men of two cities would line up in the summer, well before harvest-time, and crash into each other with all the tactical refinement of two rutting slags. Often the battlefields they fought upon had been fought over by their fathers and grandfathers, cockpits of war since time immemorial. One side would win, one would lose, and the victor would dictate terms. It was rare that such an encounter would lead to the extinction of a city as a political entity – the Macht considered it vaguely impious to destroy a polity entirely.
There were special cases, however. Rictus’s own city, Isca, had been extinguished by a combination of her neighbours because Isca had drilled her citizens like mercenaries and made war on others with the intention of subjugating them entirely to her will, rendering them her vassals. To the Macht this was intolerable, unnatural. War in the Harukush was a bloody ritual, a way to make men of boys, and enhance a city’s riches and prestige. It was not conducted with the aim of outright conquest.
And now Corvus had changed all that.
How the hell did he do it? Rictus wondered. Who is this boy and where does he come from? He had so many questions, and he had not yet admitted even to himself that part of the reason he was here was sheer, avid curiosity. He wanted to see how it had been done.
The camp of Corvus’s army was huge, a sprawling scar upon the face of the countryside. Roughly square, it was perhaps twenty taenons of tents and horse-lines and wagon-parks, the largest encampment Rictus had ever seen in the Harukush. Fornyx halted in his tracks at the sight of it and ran his fingers through his beard. “Phobos! So all the bullshit is true, after all. You really have conquered the east, and you’ve brought half of it here with you!”
Corvus pointed out segments of the camp to them both.
“Those lines nearest to us are the conscript spearmen, citizens of the eastern cities who are here for the duration of the campaign. Behind them are my own spears, who have followed me since the fall of Idrios, two years ago. Druze’s Igranians are encamped on the north side, and in the rear are my Companions, the cavalry of the army.”
Rictus had seen large armies before. There had been over thirty thousand in the forces of Arkamenes, the Kufr pretender to the Great King’s throne, and Ashurnan had brought several times that to the field at Kunaksa. This was the camp of many thousands, but it was not the army he had heard of in the stories – it was too small.
“How many men do you have here?” he asked Corvus bluntly.
“Enough for the task in hand. I have had to leave several garrisons behind me.” Corvus cocked his head to one side in that bird-like gesture of his.
“The army you see here numbers somewhat under fourteen thousand.”
“Phobos!” Fornyx exclaimed again, but Rictus was not so easily impressed.
“You had best hope then that Karnos does not marshal all the forces of the Avennan League against you.”
“Numbers are not everything,” Corvus said. “You of all men should know that, Rictus.”
They walked down the descending slopes of the hills to the camp itself. There were mounted pickets out in twos and threes, unarmoured men bearing javelins, perched upon the tough hill-ponies of the eastern mountains. Closer to the mass of hide tents, spear-carrying infantry stood sentry. The Macht’ cities emblazoned the shields of their warriors with the sigils that denoted their city’s name, but Corvus’s soldiers all had the symbol of a black bird painted on theirs, their only concession to uniformity.
The nearest of them raised their spears and shouted Corvus’s name as he was recognised, and it seemed to send a stir throughout the camp, as wind will usher a wave across a field of ripe corn. The hooded boy walking beside Rictus threw back the folds of his highlander chlamys and raised a hand as he entered the encampment of his army, to be met by a hoarse formless shout from the crowds of men who saw him arrive.
“They love the little bugger,” Fornyx said, marvelling.
A tented city, with neat streets, the roadways within corduroyed with logs where the ground was soft. Latrines had been dug at every crossroads, deep slit trenches with men squatting over them. Fresh ones were being dug even as Rictus watched. There was discipline here, a level beyond that of the usual citizen-army.
An open space before the largest tent they had yet seen. A line of tall wooden posts with outspanning arms had been embedded in the earth along one side, like a series of gibbets.
“What’s this?” Fornyx asked.
“The execution ground,” Corvus told him. “And here is my tent. Rictus, I would be happy to make you my guest.”
“Where are my men?” Rictus demanded. “I wish to see them.”
Corvus nodded to Druze, who sped off. It had begun to rain, a cold drizzle clouding down from the mountains. “Come inside. They’ll be here presently.”
The tent was tall, a draped house of hides upon which the rain had begun to drum more insistently, with one entire wall lifted up on poles. There were braziers within, bright and hot with charcoal, a broad table covered with maps, a simple cot, and an armour stand hung with weapons and a black cuirass. Two sentries stood stolid as marble by the wide entrance, ignoring the rain running down their faces.
“This is home for me,” Corvus said, discarding his sodden chlamys and spreading his fingers out to the heat of a brazier. A pair of boys, not more than fifteen, took the cloak and brought wine to the table in a jug of actual glass.
“After I took Idrios, I had it made – it took the hides of eighty cattle. In the past two years I have not slept under a proper roof more than a half-dozen times.” He raised his head, smiling. “I like to hear the rain beat upon it.”
He seemed to snap himself out of a reverie. “Drink – it’s not Minerian, but almost as good. I eat at dusk. You’ll meet the other commanders of the army then. We have much to discuss.”
Rictus drank, admiring the glass jug, discreetly studying the maps upon the table. For the most part they showed the eastern Harukush: its rivers, its roads, its cities and towns. But there was one that portrayed the lay of the land all the way up to Machran and its broad hinterland, the ring of cities about it that were all members of the loose confederation known as the Avennan League, named for the city of Avennos in which it had been formed, over twenty years ago.
This boy standing at the brazier had in two years conquered his way across some eight hundred pasangs of the Harukush, and by these maps he now controlled at least a dozen major cities, as well as all the countless towns and villages in between.
Where in the world had he come from?
“I might have known I’d find you pair with cups in your hands,” a voice said. It was Kesero, grinning so wide as to show every thread of silver ringing his teeth. And beside him Valerian, the ruined beauty of his lop-sided face alight with something akin to relief.
“Rictus – how went it at the farm – is everyone – is Rian -”
“My family is well,” Rictus said formally, unsmiling. “Report, centurions. How are my men?”