They were loosing arrows now, close enough to test Imperial plate. But Bardas had anticipated that; on top of the plateau, hedged around by the stockade, cluttered with tents and dead men, there wasn’t the room for hit-and-run tactics. He signalled the charge and his halberdiers pressed home; some of them fell, but not enough to throw out the accounts. The first archer Bardas killed held up his bow to block the thrust; the Guelan bounced off the sinewed back but Bardas turned the blade and guided it down across the man’s knees, leaving his head at a convenient height. An arrow punched through his right vambrace but stopped before it reached his skin. He paused to jerk it out, then held out his sword for a man to run on to, the way he used to hold the dustpan ready for the brush when sweeping the shavings off his workbench. The next man had drawn his scimitar and was holding it in a semblance of a guard, but Bardas was too many years past fencing to bother with that sort of thing and swung down directly on the top of his head, crushing the helmet and driving him to his knees; then he kicked him in the face and finished him off with the point. Victory to Bollo and the big hammer, he thought as his lips shaped the words of thanks, and then he was ready for the next man, and the next, and the one after that.
Then he saw Temrai, huddled in a small crowd of half-dressed men; he’d jammed on a helmet and a pair of knee-cops, but the cop-straps weren’t tight enough and they were sliding down his legs. Bardas smiled and walked towards them, but before he could start work someone ran past him, a tall man in a helmet and jack-of-plates, swinging a halberd and yelling at the top of his voice.
‘Theudas,’ he called out, but the boy wasn’t listening; he ran straight at Temrai like an arrow, and when one of the men lunged at him with a spear, he didn’t notice he’d been hit until he stopped moving, wedged up against the spear’s cross-bar. He tried to turn and slash at the spearman, but the spear-shaft was too long and he couldn’t quite reach, though he tried twice before he fell down. One of the other men jabbed him through the ear – the helmet had fallen off, being too small for him – and he stopped moving.
That’s not right, Bardas thought, and he tried to open his eyes, but they were already open.
Temrai’s party was backing away, trying to get deeper into the encampment, where there were more bodies to put between their King and the Guelan. Bardas followed them for a few yards, until something that had been chafing at the back of his mind became clear. There were, he realised, fewer people here than he’d have expected to find. Wasn’t this supposed to be the entire plains nation, every last one of them? True, it was dark; but he hadn’t seen more than a few hundred men -
He understood. Very clever, he thought. But I should have seen it coming.
By then it was too late. Someone down below gave some kind of signal, and the plains army broke out of cover, from tents and wagons, from supply pits and trenches; they had spears and halberds (copied from the Imperial pattern, the sincerest form of flattery) and they kept together in dense formation, pushing the Imperials away from the path and any prospect of escape. As the last of the decoys scampered out of the way (had they known that it was a trap and they were the bait? Bardas wondered; if it had been my plan, I wouldn’t have told them), the lines wheeled and extended – Imperial drill-sergeants couldn’t have done much better – to complete the encirclement. Meanwhile, reinforcements were coming up the path, led by Iordecai, the man who’d so helpfully opened the gates… That didn’t bode well; it implied that the pikemen who’d poured into the lower level had been driven off or killed. Me and my sense of historical symmetry, Bardas thought ruefully, looks like I’m going to get what I wished for. His wrists and forearms ached from the strain of handling the sword, all the jarring shock travelling down the blade from bone to bone (in a sense, the armour serves to prove the hammer) and the sweat, dripping down his forehead under the bevor of his helmet, was getting in his eyes. He closed them – Now what do I do? - but there was nobody home. From an abandoned cooking-fire nearby came the smell of coriander.
I hadn’t thought it’d be as bad as this, Temrai thought, as they hustled him away. I thought winning might be enough. But just knowing he’s there -
He forced himself to dismiss the image from his mind; Bardas Loredan walking towards him, armed. He wasn’t sure how he’d known who it was – a man in armour, with his bevor up; but he’d known all right. It was all he could do to keep from wetting himself.
‘Where’s Sildocai?’ he asked.
‘With the reserve,’ somebody answered. ‘Iordecai’s bringing up the main attack. Once we commit the reserve, it’ll be the hammer and the anvil.’
Whatever, Temrai thought. His mind didn’t seem able to hold on to a coherent train of thought; it slipped off, like a chisel point on tool steel. ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘What about the lower level? Any word from Gollocai and his people?’
‘Last I heard, it was all under control.’ He couldn’t see who was talking to him, and he couldn’t recognise the voice. ‘The rest of the army’s fallen back on the camp, and there’s absolutely no way this lot are going anywhere. It’s only a matter of time now.’
Temrai shivered. ‘Make it as quick as you can,’ he said. ‘And whatever else you do, make sure you get him, understood?’
‘Sure. Alive?’
‘Good gods, no. As dead as possible. I want to know his head’s been cut off before I go anywhere near him.’
Someone laughed, assuming Temrai had meant it as a joke.
‘By the way,’ someone else said. ‘That kid who made the suicide run just now; you know who that was?’ Nobody said anything, and the voice continued, ‘I recognised him; it was Loredan’s nephew. You know, the one who showed up a while back with the wizard.’
‘He wasn’t Loredan’s nephew,’ someone else pointed out. ‘I don’t think they were related at all, actually.’
‘Theudas Morosin,’ Temrai said.
‘That’s him. Anyway, that was him.’
‘Fine,’ Temrai said. ‘Now get me out of here.’
The line of spearpoints crowded in close, probing and groping for the joints and gaps in the Imperials’ armour – the inside of the elbow joint, the gap between breastplate and gorget, gorget and helmet, the inside of the thigh, the armpit. For their part, the halberdiers were fighting hard (the anvil proves the hammer), crushing helmets and smashing bones and blood vessels under the proof skin of mail. But the line had momentum, impetus; and as they advanced over the dead and fallen, like the sea washing round rocks on the sea-shore, the axemen and hammermen cracked open helmets and armour like thrushes knocking open snails, or a man at a good dinner-party prising open oysters. If Anax had been alive to hear them he could have told the story of the battle from the sounds alone; the clear ringing of the blade on sound armour, the duller clack on compromised armour, the wet crunch when there was no armour left. The battle was mostly in the dark now; Bardas’ men fought with their backs to the camp-fires, masking the light. There wasn’t much need to see when the enemy was all around, precisely a spear-length away.