“I see. Now take them down to Formio. When we halt for the night I want them brought to me-in one piece, you understand?” This was for the benefit of the glowering Torunnans who were standing in perfect rank but whose knuckles were white on their weapons.
“It shall be so.” Then Marsch displayed a rare jet of anger and outrage.
“They are not soldiers, these things. They are animals. They are brave only when they attack women or unarmed men. When we charged them some threw down their weapons and cried like children. They are of no account.” Contempt dripped from his voice. But then he rode close to Corfe and spoke quietly to his general so that none of the other soldiers overheard.
“And some of them are not Merduk. They look like men of the west, like us. Or like Torunnans.”
Corfe nodded. “I know. Take them away now, Marsch.”
All the rest of the day, as the army continued its slow march north, the prisoners were cowering in Corfe’s mind. Andruw was grim and silent at his side. They had passed half a dozen hamlets in the course of the past two days. Some had been burnt to the ground, others seemed eerily untouched. All were deserted but for a few decaying corpses, so maimed by the weather and the animals that it was impossible to tell even what sex they were. The land around them seemed ransacked and desolate, and the mood of the entire army was turning ugly. They had fought Merduks before, met them in open battle and striven against them face to face. But it was a different thing to see one’s own country laid waste out of sheer wanton brutality. Corfe had seen it before, around Aekir, but it was new to most of the others.
Andruw, who knew this part of the world only too well, was directing the course of their march. The plan was to circle around in a great horseshoe until they were trekking back south again. The Cathedrallers would provide a mobile screen to hide their movements and keep them informed as to the proximity of the enemy. When they encountered any sizeable force the main body of the army would be brought up, put into battle-line, and hurled forward. But so far they had not encountered any enemy formation of a size which warranted the deployment of the entire army, and the men were becoming frustrated and angry. It was four days since they had left the boats behind, and while the Cathedrallers had been skirmishing constantly, the infantry had yet to even see a live Merduk-apart from these prisoners Marsch had just brought in. Corfe felt as though he were striving to manage a huge pack of slavering hounds eager to slip the leash and run wild. The Torunnans especially were determined to exact some payment for the despoliation of their country.
They camped that night in the lee of a large pine wood. The horses and mules were hobbled on its edge and the men were able to trudge inside and light their first campfires in two days, the flames hidden by the thick depths of the trees. Eight thousand men required a large campsite, some twelve acres or more, but the wood was able to accommodate them all with ease.
Once the fires were lit, rations handed out and the sentries posted, Formio and four sombre Fimbrians brought the Merduk prisoners to Corfe’s fire. The Merduks were shoved into line with the dark trees towering around them like watchful giants. All about them, the quiet talk and rustling of men setting out their bedrolls ceased, and hundreds of Corfe’s troopers edged closer to listen. Andruw was there, and Ranafast and Marsch and Ebro-all the senior officers of the army. They had not been summoned, but Corfe could not turn them away. He realised suddenly that if it came down to it, he trusted the discipline of his own Cathedrallers and the Fimbrians more than he did that of his fellow countrymen. This night they were not Torunnan professional soldiers, but angry, outraged men who needed something to vent their rage upon. He wondered, if it came to it, whether he would be able to stop them degenerating into some kind of lynch mob.
He walked up and down the line of prisoners in silence. Some met his eyes, some stared at the ground. Yes, Marsch had been right: at least four of them had the fair skin and blue eyes of westerners. They were no doubt part of the Minhraib of Ostrabar, the peasant levy. Ostrabar had once been Ostiber, a Ramusian kingdom. The grandfathers of these soldiers had fought the Merduks as Corfe’s Torunnans were fighting them now, but these men had been born subjects of the Sultan, worshippers of the Prophet, their Ramusian heritage forgotten. Or almost forgotten.
“Who amongst you speaks Normannic?” Corfe snapped.
A short man raised his head. “I do, your honour. Felipio of Artakhan.”
Felipio-even the name was Ramusian. Corfe tried to stop his own anger and hatred from clouding his thinking. He fought to keep his voice reasonable.
“Very well, Felipio. The name of your regiment, if you please, and your mission here in the north-west of my country.”
Felipio licked dry lips, looking around at the hate-filled faces which surrounded him. “We are from the sixty-eighth regiment of pistoleers, your honour,” he said. “We were infantry, part of the levy before the fall of the dyke. Then they gave us horses and matchlocks and sent us out to scout to the north up to the Torrin Gap.”
“Scouting, is it?” a voice snarled from the blackness under the trees, and there was a general murmur.
“Be silent!” Corfe cried. “By God, you men will hold your tongues this night. Colonel Cear-Adurhal, you will take ten men and secure this area from further interruption. This is not a God-damned court-martial, nor yet a debating chamber.”
Andruw did as he was ordered without a word. In minutes he had armed men, swords drawn, stationed about the prisoners.
“Go on, Felipio,” Corfe said.
The prisoner studied his feet and continued in a mumble. “There is not much more to tell, your honour. Our Sub-hadar, Shahr Artap, he commanded the regiment, gave us a speech telling us that this was Merduk country now, and we were to do as we pleased…” Sweat broke out on Felipio’s forehead and rolled down his face in shining beads of stress and terror.
“Go on,” Corfe repeated.
“Please your honour, I can’t-”
Andruw stepped forward out of nowhere and smashed the man across the face with a mailed fist, bursting open his nose like a plum and ripping the flesh from one cheekbone.
“You will obey the General’s orders,” he said, his voice an alien growl which Corfe could scarcely recognise.
“That’s enough, Andruw. Step back.”
Andruw looked at him. There were tears flaming in his eyes. “Yes sir,” he said, and retreated into the shadows.
Another murmuring from the surrounding men. The night air crackled with suppressed violence. The firelight revealed a wall of faces which had gathered around despite Corfe’s orders. Naked steel gleamed out of the dark. Corfe met Formio’s eyes, and held the Fimbrian’s gaze for a few seconds. Formio nodded fractionally and walked away into the trees.
“On your feet, Felipio.”
The squat Merduk rose unsteadily, his face a swollen, scarlet mess through which bone gleamed. One eye was already closed.
“How far north did your regiment go-clear up to the gap?”
Felipio nodded drunkenly.
“Are there any other Merduk forces up there? Is it true your people are building forts?”
Felipio did not answer. He seemed half conscious. Corfe watched him for a moment, then moved down the line of prisoners to the next fair-skinned one.
“Your name.” This one was little more than a boy. He had pissed in his pants and his face was streaked with tears and snot. Not too young to rape, though. Corfe seized him by the hair and drew him upright.
“Name.”
“Don’t kill me, please don’t kill me. They made me do it. They took me off the farm. I have a wife at home-” He started sobbing. Corfe reined in an urge to strike him, to let loose his own fury and hatred and beat his stupid young face into a bloody morass of flesh and broken bone. He lowered his voice and whispered in the blubbering boy’s ear.