“We advance on a long front, into the floodplain, and there we fight this Corvus to a standstill. It will not be pretty, and Phobos knows there are many standing on this hill today who will be on the pyre by nightfall, but it is the surest way to take our kind of fighting to the enemy.”
There was a silence as this sank in. They respected Kassander; he had been a soldier all his life, a mercenary in his youth before old Banos had brought him in to train up the Machran city guard. But his present position was due to Karnos, whom they despised. Karnos could almost see the wheels turning in their heads as they stood there cultivating their patrician aloofness, Katullos among them.
“Let this not be about politics,” he said. “Whatever you think of me, consider the position as it stands.
We are here, brothers” – this time the word came easier, for he was sincere – “we are here to preserve the liberty of our cities and our institutions from a tyrant. All else is an indulgence.”
He caught Katullos’s eye, and thought he actually saw a flicker of approval there.
“There are men of Hal Goshen in the ranks across the way, and Maronen and Gerrera and Kaurios. These have been conscripted into this Corvus’s army against their will, their cities enslaved and their treasuries emptied. How hard do you think they will fight for the invader?
“We have but to hold the line, and they will see what way their freedoms lie. Without his cavalry, this Corvus is nothing but a master of slaves.” There were a few arch looks at this, from those who knew him. Karnos, whose wealth had been built on the backs of slaves. No matter – he had them now. He and Kassander had swayed them. Thank the goddess.
There would be a battle today, the greatest fought in the Harukush for generations.
And he, Karnos, would have to be in the middle of it.
His own rhetoric had led him to overlook this.
As his father had used to say, with the fatalism of the poor; you want to eat bread, you got to grind the corn.
ELEVEN
Rictus stood at the forefront of his men with his helm cradled in one arm. His shield was leaning against his planted spear in the front rank. All of the Dogsheads were in battle-line, shields resting against their knees, helms off, enjoying a last feel of the air on their faces, a look at the sky.
They were back of the front line, and the ground was a little drier here on the rising slope leading east along the Imperial Road to the camp. Up front, the ranks of spears had already trampled the sodden earth into an ankle-deep mire simply by getting into formation. Most of the men were barefoot despite the chill of the day, for the plain ahead of them would suck the best-strapped footwear off a man’s feet in a few minutes of fighting.
In front of the red-cloaked mercenaries, Corvus’s army had shaken out into battle formation, a line of infantry some two pasangs long.
Not long enough, Rictus thought. He’ll be outflanked on one side, maybe both. What the hell does he have in mind?
The cavalry had left their horses back in camp and stood beside the Dogheads. There were some two thousand of them under Ardashir, the orphaned prince. They were shieldless, armed with lances and drepanas, clad in the short corselet of the horseman. They were not equipped for phalanx fighting; against a line of heavily armoured spearmen they would be massacred.
Though it had to be admitted, they did lend an exotic sort of variety to the sombre, mud-coloured army. They seemed to vie with one another to own the gaudiest cloaks and most outrageous helmet-crests. And most of them were Kufr, head and shoulders taller than the Macht, their skin seeming almost to glow in the pale autumn sunlight. Ardashir their leader stood out in front of them, leaning on the long, wicked lance of the Companions, his cloak folded around him.
Corvus was on horseback, riding along the front of his troops and making a speech that Rictus could not hear. The men clashed their shields in response to it, and a full-throated roar travelled the length of the line.
Nine thousand heavy spearmen, over half of them conscripts from the conquered cities of the eastern seaboard led by one-eyed Demetrius, the rest dependable veterans under young Teresian. On their left, two to three thousand Igranians under Druze, whose left arm was in a sling, but who was not going to miss this for the world.
As if he could feel Rictus’s contemplation, Druze turned around, out on the left, and raised his javelin in salute, his dark grin visible even at that distance. Rictus raised a hand in return.
On the right, nothing. Corvus had his right flank up in the air, and that was the flank held by Demetrius and his conscript spears. It was as though he was inviting them to collapse. True, the dismounted Companions were there to the rear, but they would not be able to stop a serious rout.
Across the flashing gleam of the waterlogged plain, the army of the Avennan League had almost finished shaking out its line. They had been at it for hours now; the men’s freshness would be gone.
It was one thing to set up a line when a single city’s troops were involved, when the men knew each other and their officers. It was quite another to co-ordinate the interlocking phalanxes of twenty different cities, with their own rivalries, their petty politics, their vying for prestige and advantage. Rictus had seen it on a small scale over a lifetime of warfare; he could imagine what a colossal pain in the arse it would be to command twenty thousand half-drilled citizen soldiers with their own ideas about how they should be deployed. Even Demetrius’s conscripts were better trained than the spearmen he saw standing in half-dressed lines opposite.
But they had numbers on their side. More than that, they were fighting for something they believed in. That counted for a lot in war. It was why the Ten Thousand had been victorious at Kunaksa; the choice had been to win or die.
Fornyx blew his nose on his fingers and flicked the snot away. He was still angry about the antics of the night before, about fighting here in this swamp, about being held in the rear.
“Well,” he said, “you got your war.”
“Yes, I got it,” Rictus answered.
“What does the little bastard intend to do, do you think, Rictus? He was closeted with Demetrius and Teresian all morning. You think he means to give battle?”
“Truthfully? I don’t know. He won’t refuse one – that’s not in his nature. But look at that ground, Fornyx – you want to advance across that?”
“It’s not fit for man nor beast,” Fornyx grimaced.
“Well, then I suppose Corvus has a plan.”
“That’s all right then.”
Corvus had travelled the length of the line from north to south. He halted now in front of Druze, and bent in the saddle to speak to the chief of the Igranians. They saw Druze nodding, and Corvus set a hand on his shoulder, then cantered through the open formless crowd of the skirmishers, raising a hand to acknowledge their cheers, pointing at one or two of them and reining in to exchange witticisms which set many of them roaring with laughter.
“He can work a crowd, the little bugger, I’ll give him that,” Fornyx admitted.
Leading a line of mounted aides like a kite trailing its tail, Corvus cantered over to the Dogsheads and reined in. Like Rictus, he had not slept at all the night before, but he looked fresh as a bridegroom.
“At least it’s not raining,” he said, dismounting and clapping his horse on the neck with great affection.
“You think they’re going to join battle?” Fornyx asked him bluntly.
Corvus smiled. “Brother,” he said, “before the sun climbs to noon, they’re going to be right in our laps.”
Druze’s Igranians moved out, an orderless crowd of ambling men picking its way across the flooded farmland like a great herd of migrating animals. It still wanted some two hours until noon, and the sun was at their backs. There was no urgency to them; they were like men strolling home after meeting at the assembly.