Century of the Soldier: The Collected Monarchies of God (Volume Two) (109 page)

Both ships began firing again, broadside to broadside now. The
Revenant
had heavier guns and more of them, but the
Seahare's
were better served, and more accurate. She was slower in the water now, though, and her pumps were sending thick jets of water out to port - Murad must have holed her below the waterline.

The lean nobleman's spirits rose. His crew had taken severe casualties, but there were still enough of them to board the enemy. He shouted down the hatch to the tiller-deck below. "Hard a-starboard!"

The
Revenant
made the turn sluggishly, but managed two points into the wind until her beakhead pointed square at the xebec's larboard forechains. The gap closed frighteningly quickly, and before Murad could even shout a warning the ships had collided with a massive jolt that knocked everyone aboard them both from their feet. The
Revenant's
bowsprit splintered with a sickening crash and tore loose to rake down the xebec's side, only to be halted again by the mainchains. There it stuck in a fearsome snarl of broken wood and cordage and iron frapping, and the two ships continued before the wind hopelessly entangled, both out of command.

Murad recovered his wits and his feet quickly, and drew his rapier. "Boarders away!" he shrieked, and ran down the length of his ship to where the wreckage of the bow joined her to the enemy xebec. Two dozen unarmoured Zantu gunners followed him clutching boarding-axes and cutlasses and roaring like beasts. They crossed the perilous bridge of wrecked spars with the sea foaming below them and charged down onto the waist of the xebec. The
Seahare
was low in the water now; they had indeed breached her hull with their gunfire, and she was sinking under them.

Three or four gunshots met the invaders, and one of Murad's followers was blown off the side to plunge into the sea. Then Hawkwood was there -
Hawkwood, at last
- with a cutlass in one hand and a pistol in the other, and the two were glaring naked hate at one another while all about them their ship's companies engaged in a savage hand-to-hand fight in the waist and along the gangways of the
Seahare
.

Hawkwood's pistol misfired, a flash in the pan and no more. Murad laughed and closed with him, darting in the flicker of the rapier whilst his homunculus went for the mariner's eyes.

The pair were in the midst of a murderous mob of fighting men, but they might have been alone in the world for all the notice they took. Hawkwood drew his dirk and stabbed at the flapping homunculus even while clashing Murad's blade aside. The little creature screamed and fastened itself on the back of his neck, biting, reaching round for his eyes with its needle-claws, flapping its wings. Murad lunged forward, still laughing, and the tip of the rapier pierced the mariner's thigh a full three inches. He twisted the blade as he withdrew and Hawkwood fell to one knee. The homunculus had clawed out one of his eyes but he dropped the dirk and seized the little beast in his fist. He clenched his fingers about it and popped its tiny ribs, then threw it, dying, at Murad.

Murad batted it aside. It was not a familiar, merely a messenger, and thus no loss to him. He sprang forward again, a great joy rising in him, and drew back his sword for the kill.

But he was buffeted by the melee which raged about them, and thrown off-balance. Cursing now, he reached forward again but something struck him in the side, a blunt blow that knocked the breath out of him. He hissed in pain. A woman stood over Hawkwood -
it was Isolla.
Her face was scarred by fire but he knew her at once, though she wore a seaman's jacket over her skirts. Her face was white and resolute, fearless. She fired the arquebus at point-blank range.

And missed. In the push and shove of the scrum the barrel was knocked aside. The muzzle-blast scorched Murad's hair and half-blinded him. He grabbed the barrel with his free hand and stabbed at her with his rapier. His blade caught her below the collarbone and sank deep, deep through her heart. She crumpled and slid off the bloody steel to lie on top of Hawkwood. Murad grinned and raised the rapier to finish the job.

But there was a sudden, savage blow to the side of his neck. It numbed his left arm and made him stumble in astonishment and pain. His lemon-yellow eyes flickered as the Dweomer which bound his burned limbs together faltered. He turned, and the rapier slipped from his nerveless fingers.

Bleyn stood there, his own stepson. And in his hand Hawkwood's dirk, bloody to the hilt. The boy's face was livid and glaring, though his cheeks were running with tears. Murad reached out his good hand towards him, utterly baffled. "
What
?" he began.

But Bleyn darted forward and punched the dirk into his chest. It stuck there, grating through his breastbone, and Murad sank to his knees.

"How?"

Hawkwood was staring at him, his remaining eye glittering, Isolla's body cradled in his arms. The inhuman light in Murad's own eyes winked out, and for a few seconds his old dark gaze met Hawkwood's maimed stare in startled disbelief. "I didn't know -"

Hawkwood simply gazed on him, without hatred or anger, and watched the life flit from Murad's face. The nobleman's chin sank on his breast and he toppled over onto the bloody deck, mere burnt carrion. Around him his followers saw their leader's death and faltered, and were beaten back into the sea.

T
HEY ABANDONED THE
Seahare
and tossed flaming torches up onto the decks of the
Revenant
as they took to the boats. In the gathering dusk the waves were full of dark faces and others were diving off the sides of the barquentine and swimming out to them. They shot them in the water or hacked their hands from the sides of the boats as they tried to climb on board. Finally they drew clear, their wake lit by the blazing ship behind them, and landed the ship's boats on the shelving shore east of Rone, and stood a while with the surf beating about their knees and watched the
Revenant
burning against the evening sky. At last the fire reached the powder-room, and the barquentine vanished in a bright explosion that echoed and re-echoed in a sharp, brief thunder about the hills of the inlet. For a long while afterwards the wreckage tumbled and splashed down in the quiet waters of the bay, and the evening darkened into night upon the waters.

R
ICHARD
H
AWKWOOD HAD
fulfilled his mission, and had brought Hebrion's Queen to Torunna; and they buried her on a hilltop overlooking the sea and set a cairn of stones upon her grave.

Twenty

T
HE COURIERS ARRIVED
in Torunn in the red light of dawn, their mounts near foundering, streaked with foam and slathered with mud. The men slid from their saddles in the courtyard of the palace and then half staggered, half ran to the great doors. The gate guards there took their despatches and, after a quick, urgent word, ran pelting to the Bladehall.

Formio, Regent of Torunna, stood before the blazing hearth therein and behind him on the massive mantle there was a lighter space where once the Answerer had hung. But it was gone to war in the hands of the king, and who knew if it would ever hang there again? The Fimbrian was rubbing his hands together absently at the fire and when the guards burst in with the despatch cases he did not seem much surprised. He looked at the seals, nodded grimly, and spoke to the panting soldiers who had brought them.

"Rouse out his Majesty the Sultan and bid him come here - humbly, mind. And then relay to Colonel Gribben my compliments, and he is to stand-to the entire garrison at once, and then join me here also."

As the men left him alone again, Formio snapped open the despatch-cases and read their uncurled contents, frowning.

Rone, 20th Forialon

The Himerians have struck here in the south. We knew they might, but they have arrived in much greater strength than we had expected and have incorporated the host of Candelan into their ranks. My command was worsted in a battle five miles east of the Candelan River and we have fallen back on Rone, where Admiral Berza's ships are based. Most of his vessels are in dock, being refitted, and he has agreed to turn over his marines to my command. I shall hold as long as I can, but I need reinforcements. The Perigrainians alone muster some twenty-five thousands. The enemy are infantry in the main, but they have also some of these accursed Hounds in their ranks, and the fear of them is out of all proportion to their numbers.

I believe that this is no mere raid, but a full-scale invasion. The enemy intends to overrun the entire kingdom from the south while our forces are engaged far to the north. I need men, quickly.

Yours in haste,

Steynar Melf,

Officer Commanding, Army South

Formio's lips moved in silent oaths as he read the despatch. There came attached a muster and casualty list and a rough map of operations. Melf was a professional if nothing else, but he was no military phoenix. And even with Berza's marines he had less than five thousand men left to withstand this great Himerian army.

Formio looked up as the Merduk Sultan strode down the hall, flanked by two bodyguards. With him came Colonel Gribben, second in command of the garrison of Torunn, and a pair of aides. All of them had that bleared, dull look of men who have been roused out of sleep.

"My lord Regent," Nasir said, "I hope that this is -"

"How soon can you put your men back on the road, Sultan?" Formio asked harshly.

Nasir's mouth snapped shut. His eyes opened wide. "What has happened?"

"How soon?"

The young man blinked. "Not today. We have just made a long march. The horses need more rest. Tomorrow morning, I suppose." Nasir rubbed his unlined forehead, his eyes darting to left and right under his hand.

"Good. Gribben, I want you to pick out ten thousand of the best men of the garrison. They must be fit also, capable of a long forced-march."

"Sir!" Gribben saluted, though his face was a picture of alarm and perplexity.

"The combined force will move out at dawn tomorrow, and it will travel light. No mules or waggons. The men will carry their rations on their backs. No artillery, either."

"Where are we going?" the Sultan asked, sounding for a moment very like the boy he had so lately been.

"South. The Himerians have invaded there and defeated our forces. They have stolen a march on us, it seems."

"Who will command, sir?" Gribben asked.

Formio hesitated. He looked at Nasir and gauged his words carefully.

"Majesty, you have not yet commanded an army in war, and this is not the time to learn. I - I beg you to let a more experienced man lead the combined army." And here Formio nodded at Gribben, who had fought in all the Torunnan army's battles since Berrona, seventeen years before, and had been lately promoted by Corfe himself.

Nasir flushed. "That is out of the question. I cannot turn over the cream of Ostrabar's armies for you to do with as you will, not while I am here with them. I shall command them, no other."

Formio watched the young man steadily. "Sultan, this is not a game, or a manoeuvre on the practice fields. The army that goes south cannot afford to lose. I do not doubt your valour -"

"I will not stand aside for a mere colonel. I could not do so, and still look my men in the face. But do not mistake me my lord Regent. I am not some foolish boy dreaming of glory. If anyone takes overall command, it must be you, the Regent of Torunna, the great Formio himself. You, they will obey." Nasir smiled. "As will I, Sultan or no."

Formio was taken aback, but made his decision at once. "Very well, I shall command. Gribben, you will remain here in the capital. Majesty, I salute your forbearance. We have much to do, gentlemen, and only one day to do it in. By this time tomorrow we must be on the road south."

I
N THE NIGHT,
the wind dropped and the sky was entirely free of cloud. The little group of castaways huddled around their campfire in a dark, silent ring, but one of them, a broad-shouldered young man with sea-grey eyes, stood apart on a small rise some distance away and peered towards the horizon with the waning moon carving shadows out of his face.

"Another city burns," Bleyn said wearily. "Which one might that be?"

Hawkwood stared south and west with his good eye, shivering. "That would be Rone, the southernmost city of Torunna. As well we never reached it."

"The world is gone mad," Jemilla said. "All the old seers were right. We are at the end of days."

Hawkwood cocked his head towards her. Bleyn's mother was sat upon a folded blanket, hugging her knees to her breasts, and her hair hung about her face in a rat-tailed hood. She had lost weight during the voyage, for sea-sickness had prostrated her the greater part of it, and there were lines running from the corners of her mouth and nose that had not been so noticeable before. Age had claimed Jemilla at last, and she no longer held any allure for Richard Hawkwood.

She seemed to know this, and was almost diffident in his company. She had gathered wildflowers to set atop Isolla's cairn, something the old Jemilla would have scorned, and when she spoke her voice held none its old ringing bite. But Hawkwood sensed something about her, some secret knowledge which was gnawing at her soul. When he had been supported by Bleyn in their limping stumble inland he had found her watching the pair of them with an odd expression on her face. It held almost a note of regret.