Corfe looked back at the centre. Hard to make out what was going on in there, but Rusio still seemed to be advancing. That was the thing: to keep the pressure on, to deny the enemy time to think. So far it was working well. But men can only fight for so long.
He turned his face towards the deserted moors in the north. Where was Andruw? What was going on out there?
“I find them, Ondruw! I find them!” Morin crowed, his horse blowing and fuming under him, sides dank with sweat.
“Where?”
Morin struggled to think in Torunnan units of distance. “One and a part of a league east of here, in long-” He grasped for the word, face screwed up in concentration.
“Line? Like we are now?”
The tribesman shook his head furiously.
“Column, Morin, are they in column, like along a road?”
Morin’s face cleared. “Column-that is the word. But they have their Ferinai out to front, in-in line. And they have men on foot, infantry, coming behind.”
Formio came trotting up on his long-suffering mare. He had taken to horseback for the sake of speed, but he clearly did not relish it any more than she did. “What’s afoot, Andruw?”
“Morin sighted them, thank God,” Andruw breathed. “That was good work. Spread the word, Formio. We’re going to pitch into ’em as we are. Cathedrallers on the right, Fimbrians in the middle, Ranafast’s lads to the rear.” Then he hesitated. “Morin, did you say infantry?”
“Yes, men on foot with guns. Behind the horsemen.”
Formio’s face remained impassive, but he rode up close to Andruw and spoke into his ear. “No-one said anything about infantry. I thought it was just cavalry we were facing.”
“It’s probably just a baggage guard or suchlike. No need to worry about them. The main thing is, we’ve located them at last. If I have to, I’ll face the arquebusiers about and we’ll make a big square. Let them try charging Fimbrian pike and Torunnan shot, and see where it gets them.”
Formio stared at him for a moment, and then nodded. “I see what you mean. But we have to destroy them, not just hold our own.”
It was Andruw’s turn to pause. “All right. I’ll hold the Cathedrallers back. When the time is ready, they’ll charge and roll them up. We’ll hammer them, Formio, don’t worry.”
“Very well then. Let’s hammer them.” But Formio looked troubled.
The army redeployed towards the east. The Fimbrians led the advance while the Cathedrallers covered the flanks and the Torunnan arquebusiers brought up the rear. Just over seven and a half thousand men in all, they could hear the distant clamour of the battle rageing around Armagedir and marched over the upland moors with a will, eager to come to grips with the foe.
Thirty-five thousand Merduk troops awaited them.
Back at Armagedir, the morning was wearing away and the Torunnan advance had stalled. Rusio’s men had been halted in their tracks by sheer weight of enemy numbers. The line of trees had changed hands half a dozen times in the last hour and was thick with the dead of both armies. The battle here was fast degenerating into a bloody stalemate, and unlike the Merduk khedive, Corfe did not have fresh troops to feed into the grinder. He could hold his own for another hour, perhaps even two, but at the end of that time the army would be exhausted. And the Merduk khedive had fully one third of his own forces as yet uncommitted to the battle. They were forming up behind Armagedir, molested only by stray rounds from the Torunnan artillery. Something had to be done, or those thirty thousand fresh troops would be coming around Corfe’s flank in the next half-hour.
Where the hell was Andruw? He ought to at least be on his way by now.
Corfe made up his mind and called over a courier. He scribbled out a message while giving it verbally at the same time.
“Go to the artillery commander, Nonius. Have him limber up his guns and move them forward into our own battle-line. He is to unlimber there in the middle of our infantry and give the enemy every charge of canister he possesses. When that happens, Rusio is to advance. He is to push forward to the crossroads and take Armagedir. Repeat it.”
The courier did so, white-faced.
“Good. Take this note to Nonius first, and then to General Rusio. Tell Rusio that Passifal’s men will support his right flank. He is to break the Merduk line. Do you hear me? He is to break it. Here. Now go.”
The courier seized the note and took off at a tearing gallop.
Something had happened to Andruw, out in the moors. Corfe could feel it. Something had gone wrong.
Then another courier thundered in, this one’s horse about to founder under him. He had come from the north. Corfe’s heart leapt.
“Compliments of Colonel Cear-Adurhal sir,” the man gasped. “He has still not found the enemy. Wants to know if his orders stand.”
“How long ago did you leave him?” Corfe asked sharply.
“An hour, maybe. No sign of the enemy out there, sir.”
“God’s blood,” Corfe hissed. What was going on?
“Tell him to keep looking. No-wait. It’ll take you an hour to get back to him. If he hasn’t found anything by then, he’s to come here and attack the Merduk right. Throw in everything he’s got.”
“Everything he’s got. Yes, sir.”
“Get yourself a fresh horse and get going.”
Corfe tried to shake off the apprehension that was flooding through him. He kicked his horse into motion and cantered southwards, to where Passifal’s men were standing ready out on the right. They were the only reserve he had, and he was about to throw them into the battle. He could think of nothing else to do.
Andruw’s command charged full-tilt into the enemy with a shouted roar that seemed to flatten the very grass. The Ferinai, the elite of Merduk armies, came to meet them, eight thousand men on heavy horses dressed in armour identical to that worn by the Cathedrallers. And the tribesmen spurred their own mounts into a headlong gallop, drawing ahead of the Fimbrians and Torunnans.
There was a tangible shock as the two bodies of cavalry met. Horses were shrieking, some knocked clear off their feet by the impact. Men were thrown through the air to be trampled by the huge horde of milling beasts. Lances snapped off and swords were drawn. There was a rising clatter, like a preternatural blacksmith’s shop gone wild, as troopers of both sides hammered at their steel-clad adversaries. The struggle became a thousand little hand-to-hand combats as the formations ground to a halt and a fierce melee developed. The Cathedrallers were pushed back, hopelessly outnumbered though fighting like maniacs. But then the Fimbrians came up, their pike-points levelled. They smashed a swathe through the halted enemy cavalry, their flanks and rear protected by Ranafast’s arquebusiers. The combined formation was as compact as a clenched fist, and seemed unstoppable. Andruw led the Cathedrallers back out of the battle-line, and re-formed them in the rear. Many of them were on foot: others had dismounted comrades clinging on behind them or were dragged out by the grasp of a stirrup. Andruw had lost his helmet in the whirling press of men and horses, and seemed infected by a wild gaiety. He joined in the cheer when the Ferinai fell back, their retreat turning into something resembling a rout as the implacable Fimbrians followed up. The plan was working after all.
Then there was a staggering volley of arquebus fire that seemed to go on for ever. The Fimbrians collapsed by the hundred as a storm of bullets mowed them down, clicking through their armour with a sound oddly like hail on a tin roof. They faltered, their front ranks collapsing, men stumbling backwards on their fellows with the heavy bullets blasting chunks out of their bodies, cutting their feet from under them, snapping pike shafts in two. The advance ground to a halt, its furthest limit marked by a tideline of con torted bodies, in places two or three deep.