Your humble servant must at this juncture confess a touch of understandable reticence, and could answer only in the negative. I, after all, had not the long experience, the consummate skill at arms, nor the natural immunity to fear with which the captain general was furnished. He, after all, was Nicomo Cosca. He laughed in the face of fear!
But no laughter escaped those well-formed lips now. ‘Something is amiss,’ he murmured as the time dragged out, and the men immediately stiffened for action. They knew from long experience that Nicomo Cosca was possessed of a special sense for danger almost magical, a sixth sense if you will, beyond the range of perception of the common man. Whether this was a thing learned by long and painful trials or an inborn talent I cannot say, but this humble reporter observed its operation on several occasions and its efficacy was not to be denied. Springing to his feet with the agility of an acrobat, and an instant later into his gilded saddle – a gift, as I understand it, from the Grand Duchess Sefeline of Ospria following his great victory on her behalf at the Battle of the Isles – the captain general roared, ‘To arms!’
Within a twinkling, several score men were mounted and pouring down the hillside towards Averstock, their deep and passionate war cries resounding across the picturesque valley. A timely signal given by mirror induced another detachment, carefully sited in trees on the far side of the settlement, to begin their attack at the same moment, such that not one rebel could possibly escape this deadly pincer. In battle the Company worked with the smoothness, precision and perfect accuracy of a priceless watch, with Cosca the master watchmaker, each of five hundred men giving himself utterly to his place in the grand machine.
How many heartbeats did it take for the speeding horses to reach the fence of the town? I cannot categorically state the number, but inconceivably few! How many more for the dauntless men of the Company to swarm over the defences, crushing the cowardly resistance at the walkways? But a handful more! I will not enter too deeply into the sordid details of the combat that ensued, in part because your humble observer, fearing for his very life, was kept at some remove from the hottest fighting, in part to spare the delicate sensibilities of my female readers, and in part because to describe such animal actions blow by blow ill befits a cultured readership.
Let me only note that I observed the captain general in combat himself and, though kitten in the company of his friends, he was a tiger and more in the presence of his enemies! Never has such wondrous dexterity with a throwing knife been seen, nor such deadly facility with a blade! At one stage this reporter witnessed, with his own two eyes, the remarkable sight of two men killed with one thrust of Cosca’s flashing blade! Run through. Nay! Impaled. Nay! Spitted, I say, like two writhing cubes of meat upon a Gurkish skewer. The gushing blood watered the windblown grit of the street, the quivering innards of the rebels laid open to the skies, with blood-curdling shrieks and womanly wails for mercy not given. Their intestines were unwound, eyes punctured, brains dashed upon the wattle walls of the settlement to be left as food for the flies. Fleshy bodies were savagely ripped asunder by unforgiving steel to divulge their vermilion cargoes of still-writhing offal upon the merciless dust! Oh, such the ugly truth of war, which we, the civilised, must not flinch from a full description of!
‘We must protect the townsfolk!’ bellowed Captain Jubair over the noise of combat, who, though born in Gurkhul and displaying all the superstition natural to his kind, had learned from Cosca a mercy and respect for the weak entirely foreign to his dusky race. At most times a gentle giant, the ire of his simple mind was fully inflamed by the possibility of injury to the helpless and now he fought like an enraged elephant.
Though it felt an age to this reporter, such was the righteous ferocity of the Company that the combat was finished in but a few savage moments, the cowardly rebels utterly routed, destroyed and put to the sword, without – oh, happy chance and vindication of their cause by fate – a single injury to the Company. Cosca had let fall retribution upon the base curs with such terrible speed – no more slowly than does the brooding storm smite the earth with blinding lightning – that they had not time to visit the promised massacre upon the townsfolk, and each and every precious hostage was released smiling from bondage to be happily reunited with their tearful families.
Here was a dangerous moment, for, the blood of the men being fully inflamed, there was the chance that some among them, gentle and forbearing as lambs though they might be under gentler circumstances, might forget themselves and stoop to plunder. But Cosca sprang now upon a wagon and, spreading his arms, called in such ringing tones and in such gentle terms for calm that his Company was instantly brought under control and returned to the proper discipline of civilised men.
‘I would rather we go hungry,’ the good general exhorted them, ‘than that there should be any loss of property to these good people, who may in future times call themselves subjects of His August Majesty the High King of the Union!’
And the Company sent up as one man a rousing cheer. One humble member, overcome by guilt, returned a clutch of eggs to the goodwife from whose coops he had removed them, muttering his most profuse apologies and weeping tears of deepest regret, but she begged him to keep them, and implored besides the grateful and hungry men of the Company to take all the eggs she had, and sent up in a higher pitch, frail hands pressed together, her own thanks to the king and his faithful and diligent servant his Eminence the Arch Lector for delivering she and her neighbours from the tyranny and foul depredations of the dread rebel.
At this moment, and your humble servant must admit he brushes away a tear of his own at the recollection, the corpse of noble Sufeen was discovered among the dead. His companions, with many expressions of manly sorrow and remembrances of his high qualities, let fall a river of tears. Nicomo Cosca, as in all things, was first among their number.
‘Oh, good Sufeen!’ The general beat upon his blood-spattered breastplate. ‘Oh, great heart and worthy friend! The regret of this sacrifice shall bear upon me until my dying day!’
The brave scout had fought like a champion, surrounded by craven enemies who had fallen upon him under flag of parley, and killed more than a dozen filthy rebels before they cut him down. A satchel of ancient coins was found near his mutilated body and instantly surrendered to the captain general.
‘Take an inventory of this money, Sergeant Friendly,’ spoke Cosca.
‘I shall count it,’ said Cosca’s faithful henchman, nodding his assent.
‘It shall be distributed according to our Rule of Quarters! Let one quarter be divided among the men in recognition of their brave work today! Let another be used to commission a competent stonecutter to produce a timeless monument to brave Sufeen! Let the third be spent in the purchase of supplies from the townsfolk, and let the final quarter be given to them for the repair of damage done by the rebels, and the founding of a hospital for the orphan children of those who have stood martyr to the cause!’
Another rousing cheer went up from the throats of the mercenaries for, though many were men of low origins, they all were men of high character, and base greed was foreign to their giving natures, gain always the very least of their motivations. They instantly began the work of returning the settlement to its original fine condition, extinguishing a fire the rebels had set in their extremity, and putting right the uncouth damage wrought upon the buildings and public spaces during the occupation.
I reported earlier that Cosca was the best friend to have, but he was also the worst enemy, and implacable in his punishment of wrongdoers. It gives me no pride, but at the same time no shame, to report that the severed heads of several of the rebel ringleaders were left mounted above the gates of the town as a dread warning to others. No one took the least pleasure in this awful operation, but this was the Near Country, far beyond the borders of civilisation, and outside the jurisdiction of Union, or even of Imperial justice, if there is any such thing in that benighted nation. Cosca, in the light of his vast experience, judged that strong lessons now might spare much bloodshed later. Such is the terrible arithmetic of warfare.