Century of the Soldier: The Collected Monarchies of God (Volume Two) (52 page)

The King nodded. "I expected word from you sooner. Did you find it, Murad, your Western Continent?"

Murad sat down beside the King on the stone bench that stood sun-warmed in the garden. "Yes, I found it."

"And was it worth the trip?"

For a second, Murad could not speak. Pictures in his mind. The great cone of Undabane rising out of the jungle. The slaughter of his men there. The jungle journey. The pitiful wreck of Fort Abeleius. Bardolin howling in the hold of the ship in nights of wind. He shut his eyes.

"The expedition was a failure, sire. We were lucky to escape with our lives, those of us who did. It was - it was a nightmare."

"Tell me."

And he did. Everything from the moment of weighing anchor in Abrusio harbour all those months ago, through to mooring the ship again that very morning. He told Abeleyn virtually everything; but he did not mention Griella, or what Bardolin had become. And Hawkwood's part in the tale was kept to a minimum. The survivors had pulled through thanks to the determination and courage of Lord Murad of Galiapeno, who had never despaired, even in the blackest of moments.

The birds sang their homage to the morning, and Murad could smell juniper and lavender on the breeze. His story seemed like some cautionary tale told around a sailor's fireside, not something which could actually have happened. It was a bad dream which at last he had woken from, and he was in the sunlit reality of his own world again.

"Have you breakfasted?" the King asked at last when Murad was done.

"Yes. But I could do so again. I threw up most of this morning's."

"Then come with me. I also have a tale to tell, though no doubt you've heard a part of it already."

The King rose with an audible creaking of wood, and the pair of them left the garden together, the birds singing their hearts out all around them.

T
HE MESSAGE WAS
brought to Golophin in the palace by a breathless boy straight from the waterfront. He had eluded every footman and guard in the place and was bursting with news. The
Gabrian Osprey
had returned at last, and her captain was having some precious form of supercargo sent to his tower in the hills. It would be there around mid-afternoon. Captain Hawkwood would like to meet with him this evening, if it was convenient, and discuss the shipment. The whole dockside was in a high state of excitement. The surviving crewmembers of the
Osprey
were being feted in every tavern that still existed in the lower city, and they were telling tales of strange lands, stranger beasts, and rivers of gold!

Golophin gave the boy a silver crown for his pains and halted in his tracks. He had been on the way to see the King, but he had an idea he knew what Hawkwood's cargo was. Instead, he snapped to an eavesdropping palace attendant that he wanted his mule saddled up at once, and then repaired to his apartments in the palace to gather up some books and herbs that he thought he might need.

Isolla found him there, packing with calm haste. "We were meant to be meeting with the King fully ten minutes ago, Golophin."

"Give the lad my apologies, Isolla. Something has come up. I must leave for my tower at once. I may be gone a few days."

"But haven't you heard the news? Some lord who went off to find the Western Continent has come back. He's to be the star of a levee this afternoon."

"I had heard," Golophin said with a smile. "Lord Murad is known to me. But a friend of mine is - is in trouble. I am the only one who can help him."

"He must be a close friend," Isolla said, obviously curious. She had not thought Golophin close to anyone except perhaps the King himself.

"He was a pupil of mine at a time."

A page-boy knocked and poked his head around the door. "The mule is saddled and ready, sir."

"Thank you." Golophin slung his packed leather bag over one thin shoulder, clapped his broad-brimmed hat on his pate, and kissed Isolla hurriedly. "Watch over him while I'm away, lady."

"Yes, of course. But, Golophin -"

And he was gone. Isolla could have stamped her foot with frustration and curiosity. Then again, why not indulge herself? Much though she liked Golophin, she sometimes found his air of world-weary superiority infuriating.

She would miss the levee, and the explorer's tales, but something told her that Golophin's urgent errant was tied into the arrival of this ship from the west.

Isolla strode off to her chambers. She needed to change into clothes more suitable for riding.

Eleven

T
HE ARMY WOKE
up in the black hour before the dawn, and in the frigid darkness men stumbled and cursed and blew on numbed fingers as they strapped on their armour and gnawed dry biscuit. Corfe shared a mug of wine with Marsch and Anrdruw while the trio stood and watched the host of men about them come to life.

"Remember to keep sending back couriers," Corfe said through teeth clenched against the cold. "I don't care if there's nothing to report - at least they'll keep me updated on your location. And don't for God's sake pitch into anything large before the main body comes up."

"No problem," Andruw said. "And I won't teach your grandmother how to suck eggs, either."

"Fair enough." The truth was that Corfe hated to send the Cathedrallers off under someone else's command - even if it were Andruw. He was beginning to realize that his elevated rank entailed sacrifice as well as opportunity. He shook Marsch's and Andruw's hands and watched them disappear into the pre-dawn gloom towards the horse-lines. A few minutes later the Cathedrallers began to saddle up, and within half an hour they were riding out in a long, silent column, the sunrise just beginning to lighten the lowering cloud on the horizon before them.

By midmorning the remainder of the army, some six and a half thousand men in all, was strung out in a column half a league long whose head pointed almost due east. In the van rode Corfe, surrounded by the fifteen or so cuirassiers who were all that remained of Ormann Dyke's cavalry regiment. His trumpeter, Cerne, had insisted on remaining with him, and Andruw had ceremoniously left behind a further half-dozen of the tribesmen as a kind of bodyguard. Behind this little band of horsemen marched five hundred Torunnan arquebusiers, followed by Formio's two thousand Fimbrians, and then another group of three thousand arquebusiers under Ranafast. After them came the mule train of some six hundred plodding, bad-tempered, heavily laden animals, and finally a rearguard of almost a thousand more Torunnans.

For the first few miles of their advance they could actually glimpse the Cathedrallers off close to the horizon: a black smudge in an otherwise grey and drear landscape. But towards midmorning the country began to rise in long, stony ridges across the line of march, which slowed their progress and obscured their view of the terrain to the east. By noon the cloud had broken up and there were wide swathes of sunlight come rushing across the land, let slip by fast-moving mare's-tails high above their heads. At the eastern limit of sight, they could all see black bars rising straight into the air and leaning over as they were taken by the high altitude winds. The smoke from the towns aflame along the Searil River. The infantry stared at the smoke as they marched, and the winding column of men toiled along in simmering silence.

Camp was made that night in the shelter of a tall ridge. Sentries paced its summit and Corfe allowed the men to light fires, since the high ground hid them from the east and south. It was bitterly cold, and the sky had cleared entirely so that above their heads was a vast blaze of stars, the larger winking red and blue.

A courier came in from Andruw at midnight, having been five hours on the road. The Cathedrallers were bivouacked in a fireless camp some four leagues south-west of the river. They had destroyed three roving bands of Merduk scavengers at no loss to themselves, and were now turning south-east, parallel with the Searil. There was a large town named Berrona there which seemed not to have been sacked yet, but from the increasing numbers of the enemy that Andruw was encountering, he thought that their main body must not be too far away, and Berrona would be too plump a target for the Merduks to pass by.

Corfe sat by his campfire for a few minutes whilst the courier snatched a hasty meal and some of the cuirassiers rubbed down his horse for him and saddled up another to take him back.

Squinting in the firelight, Corfe scrawled a reply. Andruw was to scout out the environs of Berrona with one or two squadrons only, keeping the rest of his men out of sight. The main body would force-march to his location in the morning - Corfe estimated it was some thirty-five miles away, which would be a hard day's going, but his men would manage it. Then they would await the turn of events.

If the army was to return to Torunn in any kind of fighting condition, then this was the only chance Corfe had to bring a large Merduk force to battle. Another two days, three at most, and they would have to head for home, or start cutting rations even past the meagre amount they were subsisting on at present. And that would almost certainly mean that the horses would start to fail, something which Corfe could not afford to let happen.

The weary courier was sent on his way again. He would reach Andruw just before dawn, with luck, having ridden seventy miles in a single night. How he found his way in a region wholly unknown to him, over rough ground, in the dark, was a mystery to Corfe. He and Andruw had taken a series of maps north with them, only to discover that they were years out of date. Northern Torunna, in the shadow of the Thurians, had always been a wilder place than the south of the kingdom. It had few roads and fewer towns, but strategically it was as vital as the lines of the Searil and Torrin rivers. One day, when he had the time, Corfe would do something about that. He would make of the Torrin Gap a fortress and build good roads clear down to the capital for the passage of armies. The Torunnans hitherto had relied too much on what the Fimbrians had left behind them. Ormann Dyke, Aekir, Torunn itself and the roads that connected them - they were all legacies of the long-vanished Empire. It was time the Torunnans built a few things of their own.

The army was on the march again before dawn. Corfe and his Cathedraller bodyguards rode ahead of the main body, leaving old Ranafast in charge behind them. They passed isolated farmsteads that had been burned out by Merduk marauders and once came across a lonely church which had inexplicably been spared the flames, but within which the enemy had obviously stabled their horses for some considerable time. The charred remains of two men were bound to a stake in the churchyard, the blackened stumps of their legs ending in a mound of dead embers and ash. Corfe had them buried and rode on.

They halted at noon to rest the horses and wait for the infantry to come up. Corfe gnawed salt beef and bit off chunks of hard army biscuit while ceaselessly searching the eastern horizon for signs of life. Around him the tribesmen talked quietly in their own tongue to each other and their horses.

A solitary horseman appeared in the distance and the talk ceased. He was riding at full, reckless gallop, yanking up his mount's head when it stumbled on loose rock, bent low in the saddle to extract every ounce of speed out of the beast. A Cathedraller, his armour winking like freshly spilt gore. Corfe waved at him and he changed course. A few minutes later he had come to a staggering halt in front of them, his horse spraying foam from its mouth, nostrils flared and pink, sides heaving. He leapt off his steed and proffered a despatch-case, gasping.

"Ondruw - he send me -"

"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 again, 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 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 now, Torunna would be finished. He scribbled out 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.