For the first time in a long while, it was not cold. The men slept on grass, not in squelching mud, and the breeze that ruffled the campfires was not bitter. Corfe could almost believe that spring was on its way at last, this long winter of the world finally releasing its grip on the cold earth. He had never been a pious man, but he found he was silently reiterating a formless sort of prayer as he walked between the crowded campfires and watched his men gathering strength for the ordeal of the day to come. Though killing was his business, the one thing in which he excelled, he prayed for it to end.
O N the topmost tower of Torunn’s Royal palace four people stood in the black hour before the dawn and waited for the day to begin. Odelia Queen of Torunn, Macrobius the Pontiff, and Bishops Albrec and Avila.
When at last the sky lightened from black to cobalt blue to a storm-delicate green, the boiling saffron ball of the sun soared up out of the east in a fierce conflagration of colour, as though the scattered clouds on the world’s horizon had caught light and were being consumed by the heat of some vast, silent furnace which burnt furiously at the edge of the earth. The foursome stood there as the morning light grew and waxed and took over a flawless sky, and the city came to life at their feet, oblivious. They watched the thousands of people who climbed the walls and stood waiting on the battlements, the packed crowds hushed in the public squares. The very church bells were stilled.
And finally, faint over the hills to the north, there came the long, distant thunder of the guns, like a rumour from a darker world. The last battle had begun.
TWENTY-ONE
The final clash between Merduk and Ramusian on the continent of Normannia took place on the nineteenth day of Forialon, in the year of the Saint 552.
The Merduks had a screen of light cavalry out to their front. These Corfe dispersed by sending forward a line of arquebusiers, who brought down half a dozen of the enemy with a swift volley. The rest fled to warn their comrades of the approaching cataclysm. The Torunnan advance continued, lines of skirmishers out to flanks and front, the main body of the infantry sweating and toiling to maintain the brutal pace Corfe had set. The line grew ragged, and sergeants shouted themselves hoarse at the men to keep their dressing, but Corfe was not worried about a few untidy ranks here and there. Speed was the thing. The Merduks had been warned, and would be struggling to redeploy their forces from vulnerable march-column into battle-line. But that would take time, as did all manoevres involving large numbers of men. Had he possessed more cavalry, he might have sent forward a mounted screen of his own, strong enough to wipe out the Merduk pickets and take their main body totally by surprise—but there was no point wishing for the moon. The Cathedrallers had been needed on the flank, and there were simply no more horsemen to be had.
He turned to Cerne, who with seven other tribesmen had remained with him as a sort of unofficial bodyguard.
“Sound me double march.”
The tribesman put his horn to his lips, closed his eyes and blew the intricate yet instantly recognizable call. Up and down the three mile line, other trumpeters took it up. The Torunnans picked up their feet and began to run.
Over a slight rise in the ground they jogged, panting. Corfe cantered ahead of the struggling army, and there it was. Perhaps half a mile away, the mighty Merduk host was halted. Its battlefront was as yet less than a mile wide, but men were sprinting into position on both flanks, striving to lengthen it before the Torunnans struck. Back to the rear of the line, a mad chaos of milling men and guns and elephants and baggage waggons stretched for as far as the eye could see. At a crossroads to the left rear of the Merduk line, the hamlet of Armagedir stood forlornly, swamped by a tide of hell-bent humanity. There were tall banners flying amid the houses. The Merduk khedive seemed to have taken it as his command post.
They had chosen their ground well. The line was set upon a low hill, just enough to blunt the momentum of an infantry charge. There was a narrow row of trees to their rear which some long-dead farmer had planted as a windbreak. Corfe could see a second rank falling into position there. The Merduk khedive had been startled by the unlooked-for appearance of the Torunnans, but he was collecting his wits with commendable speed.
Corfe looked west, to the moorland which rolled featurelessly to the horizon. Andruw was out there somewhere, hunting the Merduk cavalry. It would be a few hours yet before he could be expected to arrive. If he arrived at all, Corfe told himself quickly, as if to forestall bad luck.
The army was running past him now, and his restive horse danced and snorted as the great crowd of men passed by. He thought he could feel the very vibration of those tens of thousands of booted feet through his saddle. He heard his name shouted by short-of-breath voices. Equipment rattling, the smell of the match, already lit, the stench of many bodies engaged in hard labour. A distilled essence of men about to plunge into war.
Then the thumping of hooves on the upland turf, and Rusio had reined in beside him accompanied by a gaggle of staff officers.
“We’ve got them, General! We’re going to knock them flying!” he chortled.
“Get your horse batteries out to the front, Rusio. I want them unlimbered and firing before the infantry go in. First rank halts and gives them a volley: the other ranks keep going. You know the drill. See to it!”
Rusio’s grin faded. He saluted and sped off.
Galloping six-horse teams now pulled ahead of the infantry, each towing a six-pounder. The artillery unlimbered with practised speed and their crews began loading frantically. Then the first lanyard was pulled, the first shell went arcing out of a cannon muzzle—you could actually follow it if you possessed quick eyes—and crashed into scarlet ruin in the ranks of the deploying Murduks. A damn good shot, even at such close range. The cannon barrels were depressed almost to the horizontal, so close were the gunners to the enemy.
Twenty-four guns were deployed now, and they began barking out in sequence, the heavy weapons leaping back as they went off. Those gunners knew their trade all right, Corfe thought approvingly.
Some of the first salvo was long; instead of hitting the Merduk front line it landed in the rear elements, sowing chaos and slaughter—but that was just as good. The gunners had orders to elevate their pieces to maximum once their own infantry passed them by, and keep lobbing shells on an arc into the Merduk rear. That would disrupt the arrivall of any reinforcements.
Four salvoes, and then the infantry was running past the guns. They were in a line a league long and four ranks deep, a frontage of one yard per man—and despite his quip the night before, Corfe had kept back some three thousand veterans as a last-ditch reserve, in case disaster struck somewhere. These three thousand were in field-column, and formed up beside him as he sat his horse surrounded by his bodyguard and a dozen couriers.
The first Torunnan rank halted, brought their arquebuses into the shoulder, and then fired. Six thousand weapons going off at once. Corfe heard the tearing crackle of it a second after he had watched the smoke billow out of the line. The enemy host was virtually hidden by a cliff of grey-white fumes. The other three Torunnan lines charged through the first and disappeared into the reek of powder-smoke, a formless roar issuing from their throats as they went. It would be like a vision of hell in there as they came to close quarters with the enemy.
That was it: the army was committed, and had caught the Merduks before they had properly deployed. The first part of his plan had worked.