command. I shall hold as long as I can, but I need reinforcements. The Perigrainians alone muster some twenty-five thousands. The enemy are infantry in the main, but they have also some of these accursed Hounds in their ranks, and the fear of them is out of all proportion to their numbers.
I believe that this is no mere raid, but a full-scale invasion. The enemy intends to overrun the entire kingdom from the south -while our forces are engaged far to the north. I need men, quickly.
Yours in haste,
Steynar Melf,
Officer Commanding Army South
Formio's lips moved in silent oaths as he read the dispatch. There came attached a muster and casualty list and a rough map of operations. Melf was a professional if nothing else, but he was no military phoenix. And even with Berza's marines he had less than five thousand men left to withstand this huge Himerian army.
Formio looked up as the Merduk Sultan strode down the hall flanked by two bodyguards. With him came Colonel Gribben, second in command of the garrison of Torunn, and a pair of aides. All of them had that bleared, dull look of men who have been roused out of sleep.
'My lord Regent,' Nasir said, ‘I hope that this is-'
'How soon can you put your men back on the road, Sultan?' Formio asked harshly.
Nasir's mouth snapped shut. His eyes opened wide. 'What has happened?'
'How soon?'
The young man blinked. 'Not today. We have just made a long march. The horses need more rest. Tomorrow morning, I suppose.' Nasir rubbed his unlined forehead, his eyes darting to left and right under his hand.
'Good. Gribben, I want you to pick out ten thousand of the best men of the garrison. They must be fit also, capable of a long forced march.'
'Sir!' Gribben saluted, though his face was a picture of alarm and perplexity.
"This combined force will move out at dawn tomorrow, and it will travel light. No mules or wagons. The men will carry their rations on their backs. No artillery either.'
'Where are we going?' the Sultan asked, sounding for a moment very like the boy he had so lately been.
'South. The Himerians have invaded there and defeated our forces. They have stolen a march on us, it seems.'
'Who will command, sir?' Gribben asked.
Formio hesitated. He looked at Nasir and gauged his words carefully.
'Majesty, you have not yet commanded an army in war, and this is not the time to learn. I – I beg you to let a more experienced man lead this combined army.' And here Formio nodded at Gribben, who had fought in all the Torunnan army's battles since Berrona, seventeen years before, and had been lately promoted by Corfe himself.
Nasir flushed. 'That is out of the question. I cannot turn over the cream of Ostrabar's armies for you to do with as you will, not while I am here with them. I shall command them, no other.'
Formio watched the young man steadily. 'Sultan, this is not a game, or a manoeuvre on the practice fields. The army that goes south cannot afford to lose. I do not doubt your valour-'
‘I will not stand aside for a mere colonel. I could not do so, and still look my men in the face. But do not mistake me, my lord Regent. I am not some foolish boy dreaming of glory. If anyone takes overall command, it must be you, the Regent of Torunna, the great Formio himself. You, they will obey.' Nasir smiled. 'As will I, sultan or no.'
Formio was taken aback, but made his decision at once. 'Very well, I shall command. Gribben, you will remain here in the capital. Majesty, I salute your forbearance. We have much to do, gentlemen, and only one day to do it in. By this time tomorrow we must be on the road south.'
In the night the wind dropped and the sky was entirely free of cloud. The little group of castaways huddled around their campfire in a dark, silent ring, but one of them, a broad-shouldered young man with sea-grey eyes, stood apart on a small rise some distance away and peered towards the horizon with the waning moon carving shadows out of his face.
'Another city burns,' Bleyn said wearily. 'Which one might that be?'
Hawkwood stared south and west with his good eye, shivering. 'That would be Rone, the southernmost city of Torunna. As well we never reached it.'
'The world is gone mad,' Jemilla said. 'AH the old seers were right. We are at the end of days.'
Hawkwood cocked his head towards her. Bleyn's mother was sitting upon a folded blanket hugging her knees to her breasts and her hair hung about her face in a rat-tailed hood. She had lost weight during the voyage, for seasickness had prostrated her the greater part of it, and there were lines running from the corners of her mouth and nose that had not been so noticeable before. Age had claimed Jemilla at last, and she no longer held any allure for Richard Hawkwood.
She seemed to know this, and was almost diffident in his company. She had gathered wildflowers to set atop Isolla's cairn, something the old Jemilla would have scorned, and when she spoke her voice held none of its former ringing bite. But Hawkwood sensed something about her, some secret knowledge which was gnawing at her soul. When he had been supported by Bleyn in their limping stumble inland, he had found her watching the pair of them with an odd expression on her face. It held almost a note of regret.
He dropped his head again and continued to work on the rude crutch he was fashioning from a broken oar, then paused. His dirk still had some of Murad's blood on it. He wiped the cold-running perspiration from his face.
Jemilla was right, perhaps. The world had indeed run mad, or else those unseen powers which fashioned its courses were possessed of a bitter humour. Well, this particular race was almost run.
For a moment the light of the fire was a broken dazzle in Hawkwood's remaining eye. He had been loved by a queen, only to lose her almost as soon as he found her. And Murad was dead at last. Oddly, he could take no joy in the nobleman's end. There had been something in his dying eyes which inspired not triumph but pity. A baffled surprise, maybe. Hawkwood had seen that look in the faces of many dying men. No doubt he would one day wear it himself.
‘I know nothing of this part of the world,' Bleyn said. 'Whither shall we go now?'
'North,' Hawkwood told him, fighting himself upright and trying out the crutch for size. His breath came in raw, ragged gasps. 'We are in the country of friends, for now at any rate. We must stay ahead of the Himerians and get to Torunn.'
'And what then?'
Hawkwood hobbled unsteadily over to him. 'Then it'll be time to get drunk.' He clapped the boy on the shoulder, un shy;balancing himself, and Bleyn helped him keep his feet.
'We'll need horses and a cart. You won't get far on that.'
Jemilla watched them as they stood together beyond the firelight, so alike, and yet so unalike. Father and son. She wiped her eyes angrily, covertly. That knowledge would remain sealed in her heart until the day she died.
'Bleyn is now the rightful king of Hebrion,' she said aloud, and the sailors about the fire looked at her. 'He is the last of the Hibrusid Royal house, whether born on the wrong side of the blanket or no. You all owe him your allegiance, and must aid him in any way you can.'
'Mother-' Bleyn began.
'Do not forget that, any of you. When we get to Torunn his heritage will be made public. The wizard Golophin already knows of it. That is why we were told to take ship with you.'
'So the rumours were true,' Arhuz said. 'He is Abeleyn's son.'
'The rumours were true. He is all that is left of the Hebrian nobility.'
Hawkwood nudged Bleyn, who stood wordless and un shy;certain. 1 beg leave for leaning on the Royal shoulder, majesty.
Do you think you could stir the Royal legs and go hunt us up some more firewood?' And both Bleyn and the mariners about the fire laughed, though Jemilla's thin face darkened. The boy left Hawkwood and went out into the moonlit darkness on his errand, while the mariner stumped back to the fire.