His party dismounted as they approached the ruins of the hamlet around which Aras’s men had made their stand. The ground was too choked with bodies for the horses to be ridden further, and even the war-hardened destriers were becoming terrified by the din.
Aras’s command stood at bay like an island in a sea of Merduks. The enemy had poured around its left flank and was pushing into the right, where it connected with the main body of the Torunnan army. They were trying to pinch off the beleaguered tercios from Rusio’s forces, isolate and destroy them. But their assaults on the hamlet itself broke like waves on a sea cliff. Aras’s troops stood and fought in the ruins of Armagedir as though it were the last fortress of the western world. And in a way it was.
The Torunnans looked up as Corfe and his entourage pushed their way through the choked ranks, and he heard his name called out again and again. There was even a momentary cheer. At last he found his way to the sable standard under which Aras and his staff officers clustered. The young colonel brightened at the sight of his commander-in-chief, and saluted with alacrity. “Good to see you, sir. We were beginning to wonder if the rest of the army had forgotten about us.”
Corfe shook his hand. “Consider yourself a general now, Aras. You’ve earned it.”
Even under grime and powder-smoke he could see the younger man flush with pleasure. He felt something of a fraud, knowing Aras would not live long enough to enjoy his promotion.
“Your orders, General?” Aras asked, still beaming. “I daresay our flank march will be arriving any time now.”
Corfe did not have to lower his voice to avoid being overheard; the rageing chaos of the battle was like a great curtain.
“I believe our flank march may have run into trouble, Aras. It’s possible you will not be reinforced. We must hold on here to the end. To the end, do you understand me?”
Aras stared at him, the dismay naked across his face for a second. Then he collected himself, and managed a strangled laugh. “At least I’ll die a general. Don’t worry, sir, these men aren’t going anywhere. They know their duty, as do I.”
Corfe gripped his shoulder. “I know,” he said in almost a whisper.
“Sir!” one of the staff officers shouted. “They’re coming in—a whole wave of them.”
The Merduk counter-attack rolled into Armagedir like some unstoppable juggernaut. It was met with a furious crescendo of arquebus fire which obliterated the leading rank, and then it was hand to hand all down the line. The Torunnan perimetre shrank under that savage assault, the men crowded back on to the blazing buildings of the hamlet they defended. And there they halted. Corfe shoved his way to the forefront of the line and was able to forget strategy, politics, the worries of a high-ranking officer. He found himself battling for his life like the lowliest ranker, his Cathedraller bodyguards ranged about him and singing as they slew. The little knot of scarlet-armoured men seemed to draw the enemy as a candle will moths at twilight. They were more heavily armoured than their Torunnan comrades, and stood like a wedge of red-hot iron while the lightly armed warriors of the Minhraib crashed in on them to be hewn down one after another. Armagedir became cut off from the rest of the army as the Merduks swamped the Torunnan left wing. It became a murderous cauldron of insane violence within which men fought and killed without thought of self-preservation or hope of rescue. It was the end, the apocalypse. Corfe saw men dying with their teeth locked in an enemy’s throat, others strangling each other, snarling like animals, eyes empty of reason. The Minhraib threw themselves on the Cathedrallers like dogs mobbing a bear, three and four at a time sacrificing themselves to bring down one steel-clad tribesman and cut his throat on the blood-sodden ground. Corfe swung and hacked in a berserk rage, sword blows clanging off his armour, one ringing hollow on his helm, exploding his bruised face with stars of agony. Something stabbed him through the thigh and he fell to his knees, bellowing, Mogen’s sword dealing slaughter left and right. He was on the ground, buffeted by a massive scrum of bodies, trampled by booted feet. He fought himself upright, the sword blows raining down on him. Aras and Cerne were at his shoulders, helping him up. Then a blade burst out of Cerne’s eye, and he toppled without a sound. The detonation of an arquebus scorched Corfe’s hand. He stabbed out blindly, felt flesh and bone give way under the Answerer’s wicked edge. Someone hacked at his neck, and his sight erupted with stars and spangled darkness. He went down again.
A sunlit hillside above Aekir in some age of the world long past, and he was sitting on crackling bracken with Heria by his side, sharing wine. His wife’s smile rent his heart.
Andruw laughing amid the roar of guns, a delight in life lighting up his face and making it into that of a boy.
Barbius’s Fimbrians advancing to their deaths in terrible glory at the North More.
Berrona burning low on a far horizon.
A smoky hut in which his mother wept quietly and his father stared at the earthen floor as Corfe told him he was going for a soldier.
Dappled sunlight on the Torrin river as he splashed and swam there one long summer afternoon.
And the roar and blare of many trumpets, the beat of heavy drums rising even over the clamour of war. The press of bodies about him eased. He was hauled to his feet and found himself looking through a film of blood at Aras’s slashed face.
“Andruw has come!” he was shouting. “The Fimbrians have struck the Merduk flank!”
And raising his heavy head he saw the pikes outlined against the fuming sky, and all about him the men of Armagedir were cheering as the Merduks poured away in absolute panic. The dyke veterans were lined on a hillside to the north, blasting out volley after volley into the close-packed throng of the enemy. And the Fimbrians were cutting them down like corn, advancing as relentlessly as if they meant to sweep every Merduk off the edge of the world.
Corfe bent his head and wept.
TWENTY-TWO
T HE levee had gone very well, Murad thought. Half the kingdom’s remaining nobility seemed to have been present, and they had listened, agog, as Murad had told them of his experiences in the west. It was good of the King to have allowed him to do it. It announced that the Lord of Galiapeno had returned indeed and, what was more, enjoyed the Royal favour. But it had also been a draining experience.
Traveller’s tales. Is that all they thought he had to tell? Empty-headed fools.
The King had limped down from his throne and was now mingling with his subjects. He had a genius for gestures like that, Murad thought, though it was hardly fitting, not so soon after these same men who were now fawning about him had been conspiring to take the throne away from him.
If it were I wearing that crown, Murad thought, I’d have executed every last one of them.
His head was swimming. He had been able to keep down nothing but wine since stepping off the ship. I am back in my own world, he thought. And what a little world it is. Time to retire. He craved a dreamless slumber, something that would restore the weariness of his very soul. Oblivion, without the bloody pictures that haunted his sleep.