“Ondruw-he send me,” he gasped.
“Good man. Cerne, give him some water. See to his horse and get him a fresh one.” Corfe turned away and shook out the scroll of tattered paper Andruw had scrawled his despatch upon.
Merduk main body sighted three leagues south of Berrona. Some fifteen thousand men, plus two thousand cavalry out to their front. All lightly armed. My position half a league north of the town, but am withdrawing another league to the north to avoid discovery. Looks like they intend to enter Berrona this afternoon. Citizens still unaware of either us or the Merduks. How soon can you come up?
Andruw Cear-Adurhal Colonel Commanding
Corfe could sense the desperate plea in Andruw’s words. He wanted to save the town from the horror of a Merduk sack. But men can only march so fast. It would be nightfall before the army was reunited, and Corfe did not intend to launch the men into a night attack after a thirty-five-mile march, against a superior foe. What was more, he could not even afford to let Andruw warn the townsfolk of the approaching catastrophe-that would give away the fact that there was a Torunnan army in the region, and when his men came up in the morning they would find the Merduks prepared and ready for them.
No, it was impossible. Berrona would have to take its chances.
There had been a time when he might have done it, when he had less braid on his shoulders and there was not much more at stake than his own life. But if he crippled this army of his, Torunna would be finished. He scribbled a reply to Andruw with his face set and pale.
Hold your new position. Do not engage the enemy under any circumstances. Infantry will be with you tonight. We will assault in the morning.
Corfe Cear-Inaf Commander-in-Chief
There. It gave Corfe a sick feeling in his stomach to hand the return despatch to the courier, and as the man set off again he almost thought better of it and recalled him. But it was too late. The tribesman was already a receding speck soon lost to view. It was done. He had just consigned the citizens of Berrona to a night of hell.
“What are we to do with the prisoners?” Ranafast asked as the endless column of trudging men filed past.
The infantry had come up, and after the briefest of rests was on the move again. The sun was already westering, and they still had a long way to go to effect the rendezvous with Andruw and the Cathedrallers. But not a single man had dropped out, Ranafast and Formio had informed Corfe. The news that they were about to pitch into the Merduk raiders had filled the troops with fresh energy, and they stepped out with a will.
“Let them go,” Corfe said. “They’re nothing but a damned nuisance.”
Ranafast stared at him, dark eyes glittering over a hawk nose and an iron-grey beard which looked as though it had been filed to a point.
“I can have the men take care of them,” he said.
“No. Just set them free. But I want to talk to them first.”
“Sir, I have to protest-”
“I won’t make the men into murderers, Ranafast. We start slaughtering prisoners out of hand, and we’re no better than they are. The men will have plenty of chances to kill themselves a Merduk tomorrow, in open battle. Now have the prisoners sent to me.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing, General,” Ranafast said.
The captives were a miserable looking bunch, guarded by a couple of Fimbrians who regarded their charges with detached contempt. They cowered before Corfe as though he were their executioner. Part of him was longing to order their deaths. He held no illusions about what they had been doing up here in the north, but at the same time he was thinking of the peasant army he had slaughtered down at Staed. Narfintyr’s tenants, small farmers forced to take up arms for a lord they barely knew and who regarded them as expendable chattel. It had sickened Corfe, the slaughter of such poor ignorant wretches, and these Merduks were the same. They had been conscripted into the Sultan’s army, leaving families and farms behind. Some of them did not even possess Merduk blood. He would kill men like these in their nameless thousands in the days and months to come, but that was the unavoidable consequence of war. He would not stain his conscience with their cold-blooded murder. He had enough blood on his hands already.
“You are free to go,” he told them. “On the condition that you do not rejoin the Merduk army, but instead try to find your way home to your families. I know you did not join this war by choice, but because you were forced to. So be on your way in peace.”
The men gaped, then looked at one another, jabbering in Merduk and Normannic. They were incredulous, too astonished to be happy. Some reached out to touch his stirruped feet and he backed his horse away from them.
“Go now. And don’t come back to Torunna ever again. If you do, I promise that you will die here.”
“Thank you, your honour!” the man Corfe recognised as the battered Felipio shouted out. Then the Merduks broke away, and as a group began running towards the long shadows of the Thurian Mountains in the north, as if trying to get away before Corfe changed his mind. The marching Torunnans watched them go, some of them spitting in disgust at the sight, but not a man protested.
Corfe turned to Ranafast, who still sat his horse nearby.
“Am I a bloody fool, Ranafast? Am I going soft?”
The veteran smiled. “Maybe, lad. Maybe you are just becoming something of a politician. You know damn well those bastards are going to try and rejoin their comrades-they’ve nowhere else to go. But if they make it, the news that the Torunnans treat their prisoners well will spread like a wildfire in high summer. If the Merduk levy thinks it will receive quarter when it lays down its arms, then it may not fight quite so hard.”
“That’s what I was hoping, I suppose, though I’m still not convinced of it. But I’ve come to a conclusion, Ranafast: we can’t win this war through force alone. We need guile also.”
“Aye, we do. Doesn’t taste too good in the mouth though, does it?” And Ranafast wheeled his horse away to rejoin the army column. Corfe sat his own mount and watched the freed Merduks running madly up into the foothills until they were mere dots against the snow-worn bulk of the Thurian Mountains on the horizon before them. For a crazed, indecipherable moment, he almost wished he were running with them.
Cathedraller scouts guided them in that night. The weather had deteriorated into a face-stinging drizzle which was flung at them by winds off the mountains, but the wind would at least muffle the sound of their marching feet and clinking equipment. The men had their heads down and were dragging their feet by that time, and in the blustery darkness half a dozen pack-mules had somehow broken free from their handlers and been lost, but in the main the army was intact, the column a trifle ragged perhaps, but still whole. Andruw had found a level campsite some five miles north of the town. There was a stream running through it, a boon to both horses and men, but as the weary soldiers filed into the bivouac their heads lifted and they peered intently at the southern horizon. There was an orange glow flickering in the sky there. Berrona was burning.
Andruw greeted Corfe unsmilingly, his face a pale blur under his helm marked only by two black holes for eyes and a slot for a mouth.
“Their cavalry entered the town several hours ago,” he said. “They took the men off to the south. Now they’re having a little fun with the women.”
Corfe rode up close until their knees were touching. He set a hand on Andruw’s shoulder.
“We can’t do it-not tonight. The men are done up. We’ll hit them at dawn, Andruw.”