'Where's Keita?'
'Gone,' she said, shivering. 'He was hit square on. There's nothing left of him. We're losing this fight, Master Nunan.'
'No, we are not,' snapped Nunan. 'Get back in. Stand with your citizens. We will win.'
He shoved her away, back to the phalanx rear division. The sarissas held high were wobbling, not bolt upright as they should be. Alarm. More stones. More fear. Nunan prayed for fortune. He didn't get it. Forty missiles slammed into the legions once again, ploughing their furrows through the mud and slaughtering and maiming where they travelled. Three more hit the phalanx. Immediately the Tsardon pushed harder, archers poured arrows into the mid and back lines. Nunan heard them rattling over shields.
'Hold!' he bellowed. 'Hold!'
Uncertainty threatened to swamp the legions. The onagers were still firing and the Tsardon were ferocious, sensing victory. He would not taste his first defeat. Not while he had strength in his limbs and breath to shout. Further forward he went, into the thick of the jostling, stinking line. His presence brought people back from the brink, made them believe again. He raised his gladius and led the rally.
The next stones came in, cascading down behind him and covering at least the four maniples either side of him. But the expected impact vibrations and screams didn't come. Instead a curious silence passed briefly through the ranks. Nunan felt liquid splash across his back. He turned briefly. Blood and gore was everywhere. Some were covered head to toe in it. No one had escaped the splatter. They hadn't been stones. They'd been blood sacks.
'God-spare-us,' breathed Nunan. He swung back round. 'Brace, brace, brace! Dogs. Dogs coming in.'
And in the next heartbeat they could all hear them. Snarling, barking and howling. In front of the Conquord, the Tsardon stepped back a pace and through came the dogs. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of hounds. Driven by hunger and crazed by the scent of fresh animal blood. The blood that covered the legions.
The dogs, a powerful hunting breed, boiled over the front ranks that went down under the tide of fang and claw, their shields and gladiuses rendered useless. They burrowed into spaces no Tsardon could go, seeking the blood and the flesh they craved.
Nunan lashed out, slicing one across the back. It yelped and turned to bite him, missing his hand by a whisker. He hacked again and again. Dogs were all around him now, swarming by him and driving deep into the Conquord ranks. The Tsardon roared them on.
'Fight, Conquord, fight.' His shout was taken up by centurions and triarii alike.
Throughout the forward maniples, weapons stabbed down. They slashed and ripped into dog flesh, filling the air with squeals, cries and screeches. But for every dog they downed, another two leaped to bite and tear at every spurt of blood.
Legionaries went down with jaws clamped around their throats, over their faces or deep into arm, leg or side. The blood sacks came down like filthy rain but were now interspersed with stones, both cold and flaming, adding to the chaos. Nunan spun to strike out at an animal and another knocked him from his feet. He dragged his sword in as he fell. The dog bared its teeth and darted in to grab at his back where blood had sprayed over his armour. He arced a cut deep into its flank and it jumped away. He got to his knees. The animal came back at him and he speared it through the chest.
Regaining his feet, he looked about for order. There was little. Blood was slicking the mud. All around him, the hastati lines were fractured and the problem went into the principes behind too. The dogs had caused confusion everywhere. Tsardon arrows flew thick once more and their infantry charged across the short divide.
Nunan yelled men to him, urged them back into the front line and ran in himself. Triarii were about him. Senior soldiers, seeing the danger and cutting swathes through the dogs that still ran around in their hundreds, scattering hastati, too many of whom had turned to run.
'Stand!' he bellowed. 'Stand with me, Conquord.'
The arrow caught him through the shoulder, having come down a steep arc. The impact was as surprising as it was agonising. He felt the point slice through at the joint of his breastplate and shoulder guard. He staggered and clutched at it, his gladius tumbling from his hand as the strength left it. The weight drove him to his knees and men running behind him knocked him further down.
Nunan squeezed his eyes shut against the wave of pain. He felt hands around him, trying to pull him away. When he opened them again all he could see was the blood sluicing from the wound. He shuddered. Surrounding him, the faces were anxious, frightened and uncertain.
'Fight,' he managed. 'Fight. For me.'
He wasn't sure which way they were moving when his world dimmed away.
Gesteris saw it begin to unravel and flagged orders for the triarii to take the front line. He had to get a steadying influence at the crisis point. But the Tsardon artillery had been awfully effective and on the left flank, Kell's cavalry were scattered and fighting small skirmishes against steppe riders perfectly suited to such combat.
Through his magnifier he had seen his finest cataphracts picked apart by the steppe cavalry. He had seen stones tearing great rents in the guts of his infantry while too few enemy died on the sword or the arrow tip. He had seen the phalanx break at its front and in its heart. He had seen the blood sacks drop and the dogs swarming like ants. And he had just seen Nunan fall.
For a moment, there was a hiatus. The battle raged along the front and arrows clouded the sky. But Gesteris was running out of options. Forty more stones hurtled down, smashing everything in their path and, finally, the hastati broke and ran. Through their dying comrades, through the fighting triarii and principes, chased by dogs biting at their heels. It began in the centre of the phalanx and swept out like a wave across the shore. The Tsardon saw it and poured forwards.
'Damn you, no,' he said. 'I will not lose this.' He drew and raised his sword. 'Extraordinarii, with me. Raise the standard.'
He kicked his horse to the gallop and charged at the enemy. Conquord cavalry came from the right to help him. He raced right across the front of the Tsardon, heedless of arrow or sword. His own blade licked out. He took the sword arm from one man, slashed backwards into the shoulder of another and battered the helmet from a third.
He chased them back, fifty extraordinarii and a hundred cavalry with him. He pulled up where the line had already fractured completely and wheeled around hard, meaning to run back the way he had come.
'Fight on,' he shouted at any who could hear him. 'Get them running.'
He began the second charge. He forced his mount into the faces of Tsardon who stumbled back in front of him. The horse reared, its hoofs taking a soldier in the face. Behind him, triarii were following him in, bringing wavering hastati and principes with them. And for one glorious moment, the enemy looked uncertain.
But more and more infantry were chasing round him, determined not to let the pressure off. For all he forged a gap, it was just forty yards in a battle line ten times that length. And everywhere, the Conquord standards were wobbling. His citizens were being cut down like weeds and the surge was unstoppable. Steppe cavalry moved across his vision to the right. They slammed into unprotected maniples trying to keep some semblance of a fighting line together. They didn't stand a chance.
Gesteris wheeled again and began to gallop away from the shattered battlefront. Ahead of him now, all pretence at legion order was gone. Hastati were pouring past his more experienced units. Helpless to halt the tide, they ran too. The rout was headlong. Tsardon mixed with Conquord soldiers, keeping them running or hacking them down. Here and there knots of his cavalry tried to defend their legionaries but the steppe cavalry were approaching in droves from both flanks.
'General!' someone shouted. 'General!'
He looked around. His extraordinarii were around him.
'We have to get to the first ford. We have to turn the reserves round. Break the Tsardon advance.'
He urged his frightened horse to another gallop. He ignored friend and foe alike, hoping against hope to reach the fords while the armies there still held. But there were tens of thousands of men and women swarming across the plain now. The noise was indescribable. The ground resounded to running feet. The air was full of shouts and screams and cries of triumph.
And at the fords, they had watched it coming with complete helplessness. From across the river, the Tsardon had launched an all-out assault, engaging the Conquord with renewed ferocity. Already, Gesteris could see reserve maniples starting to turn and run back towards the camp.
'No, no,' he muttered. 'You have to stand.'
They would not. He had not reached the first ford before the steppe cavalry had bludgeoned into the open flank of the reserve and the few cavalry not committed in defence on the river bank. He watched the army move and ripple like fields of corn in the breeze. Hundreds of heads turning, their focus on their task lost. All the
Tsardon had to do was push a little harder. They executed the move perfectly.
Gesteris let his horse begin to slow. It was hopeless. The army at the first ford unpicked like a poor weave, whole legions turning and running away west. And as quick as brush fire, the rout spread to the second ford and then the third. Hastati led it. Breaking away from the front line, leaving the Tsardon free to run at unprotected, unprepared legionaries and defeating all attempts at formal retreat.
Gesteris saw flags waving. Commanders trying desperately to inject some order but getting nothing whatsoever. And in moments, they too were forced to turn tail and flee in the face of the Tsardon rush that threatened to overwhelm them all.
'General,' shouted an extraordinarii riding by him. 'We must turn now. The day is lost. We can hold them at the camps if we can get there before them.'
He nodded and pushed at his horse, the tears building behind his eyes. How had it been so easy? Where were his forward scouts to tell him?
The noise was awful now and whistled in his ears like wind around rocks. Conquord forces running blindly for the camps. Tsardon warriors striking out with blade and shaft at unprotected backs. Cavalry trying to buy space and being cut down.
At least the onagers were silent.
Gesteris was powerless. It was over five miles to the camps and the steppe cavalry was coming up fast. Conquord losses would be huge. Gesteris did the only thing he could. He spurred his horse and joined the stampede. And the only songs of glory that found his ears were in a foreign tongue.
Chapter 29
848th cycle of God, 1st day of
Solasrise 15th year of the true Ascendancy
When Dina Kell regained consciousness, the battle had moved past her. She pushed herself up on to her elbows. She felt completely disoriented. Her helmet had come off and was lying in the mud a few feet away. Through the trampled grass she could see the still mounds of horses and the crumpled tragedy of people, Conquord and Tsardon, littering the ground. There was a concerted roar behind her and a curious, breeze blown silence surrounding her. Nothing moved but mane hair and helmet plume. Distantly, dogs were barking.
She had no idea how long she had lain on the battlefield among the stamping hoofs of cavalry horses, the arrows, the blades and the tumbling of bodies. She supposed she was fortunate to be alive but the overwhelming sense of despair that gripped her obscured even her own physical pain and made a mockery of any notions of luck.
She groped for balance and pushed herself up on to her haunches. The world swam before her eyes. She was aware of a stabbing pain in her chest and that her right arm was hanging at her side. A brief look confirmed the mace blow had staved in her breastplate, no doubt cracking and breaking ribs. She presumed she must have landed on her arm when she hit the ground. It hardly mattered.
Kell fought her mind into focus and looked around her. Figures moved in the heat haze to her left and there was a dark mass away ahead of her. The armies. But they weren't fighting any more. There were none of the sounds she associated with the battlefront. The myriad clash of steel on steel, the rumble of horses, the thud and whistle of artillery. She didn't want to believe it but there could be no
doubt what had happened. Her shoulders slumped and she hung her head.
Now she was moving, the pains in her chest and arm intensified. She tried to keep her breathing shallow. She had to move. She was too close to Tsardon positions and a long way from her own people. Behind her, the river flowed on unconcerned at the disaster that had unfolded on its shores and the blood that would mingle with the waters once it had soaked through the ground.
Kell dragged herself painfully to her feet. She really was alone and for that she had to be thankful. She tried not to think about the chaos of eighty thousand citizens running across the mud, trying to get to the relative security of the camps. They were six miles and more from her position. If there had been no organised retreat, the carnage could be terrible, the numbers taken captive enormous.
Damn the Tsardon, their stones and their dogs.
She began to move back towards what had been the battlefront, picking her way between bodies. She veered towards the river, aware of her vulnerability. Alone behind the enemy. Every pace jarred pain into her ribs and though she tried to hurry, the ground was difficult. Her feet slithered in mud and blood and caught in deep hoof imprints. She stumbled repeatedly, gasping each time as if struck. Her vision wouldn't quite settle and she saw mirages of people and dark shapes that resolved into spears of rock or nothing but tricks of her mind.
Blood and bodies. Everywhere. Kell stumbled once too often and fell to her knees. The waste of war was laid out in front of her. Some of them were still moving feebly. Hundreds across her unfocused field of vision, scattered like seeds from the hand of God. Torn cloth fluttered. Weapons glinted in the mud. All was dark stained and stinking. Kell was suddenly very afraid.
She forced herself to look around. There were figures, Tsardon doubtlessly, moving among the dead. Concentrating on picking through the bodies lying across the field; aiding their fellows, hastening the ends of their enemies. Soon she would be seen too and she did not want to die. Not here and not like this.
She slipped down on to her left-hand side, hoping the lie of the land and the confusion of bodies would obscure her progress, and began to grope her way to the river bank. She dared not look back. Beneath her, the mud was slick. Above her, the late afternoon sun was boiling her inside her armour. Sweat mixed with blood and covered her skin. Every movement was torture. She guessed it to be no more than fifty yards to the bank and cover. It took her an hour of desperately slow movement to get there with the thought of a sudden hand on her shoulder picking at her courage with each passing moment.
She crawled through puddles of blood, across the corpses of her comrades and through the innards of horses split with steppe blade lances. By the time she dragged herself over the lip of the bank and slithered painfully down the slope to rest in the cooling water's edge, tears of loss and despair had already soaked her face.
Kell rolled full on to her back and let the water drench her while she wept. She kept a hand tethering her to the bank and stared up at the sky. The sun was below the bank and a cool wind was blowing along the river. Kell's body chilled quickly and she hauled herself out onto the mud in the lee of the bank.
The lip overhung the river above her head. She was safe here for now. Roughly level with the battle line of the day, she was out of sight of the whole field. It was about a mile to the first ford around a bend in the river. A long way from the camps she doubted were still standing. Two thousand miles from Estorr as the bird would fly.
Images of the day played out in her head though she tried to stop them. How arrogant they had been. How certain of their ultimate victory. And how comprehensively they had been out-thought. How many of those who had marched out singing the Conquord anthem now lay under God's perfect blue sky? Friends, lovers and great soldiers. So many would be gone. Hopeless exhaustion swept over her and she closed her eyes. At least the tears stopped.
It was the songs that woke her. Her eyes snapped open onto a starlit night. Confusion gripped her momentarily before her parlous situation forced itself on her mind. They had not been Estorean songs of glory. They had not been sung on a lush green field by the Bear Claws of Estorr. The dream faded beyond her grasp.
The night was warm and humid despite the clear sky. Kell waited until her eyes had adjusted to the dark before she tried to move. She did well to stifle the scream. Her arm and chest had stiffened while she slept and she couldn't move her hands far enough to unbuckle her crushed breastplate. When the sweep of pain had faded she moved again, more slowly this time.
The despair she had felt when she had passed out was gone, replaced by a desire for knowledge. She knew the defeat had been total but she also knew that thousands of her people would be scattered and running away from the battlefield, trying to pick a way home in front of the Tsardon army. Some would reform and organise as best they could. Others would run and hide and be lost forever, victims of their terror. She had to get amongst them, help them, try to find information about the magnitude of the disaster.
Kell slipped and slithered along the river bank as quietly as she could, looking for a place where she could more easily climb the lip. Every move was a sickening jolt to her injuries and even the most shallow climb she could find was a trial. Looking out across the marshy plain towards the camp, the tears, the dread despair and the grief threatened to overwhelm her again.
Tsardon songs of victory rolled across the open space. Their laughter mocked her. Their fires covered the ground, a macabre carpet of flame illuminating cavorting silhouettes. But none was bigger than the blaze that marked the position of the once proud Conquord camps. Home to eighty thousand. Now pyre to how many, she wondered.
She stared at it all until her eyes fixed on the dancing flames. The enemy were all around her. Along the plain in either direction, choking the ground between her and the camp and ahead of her at the fords. She stood little chance of escaping them by attempting a crossing of the plain now. Even less so given her injuries.
But at least when they marched she would have certainty of their positions and direction. And if she could find a horse, she would have more speed than a marching army too. She could afford to wait them out but one way or another, she had to get to Estorr. To Atreska or Gosland even. It was the duty of all Conquord citizens from the routed army.
Someone had to tell them what was coming.
Kovan Vasselis found Mirron walking alone in the orchard. The day was peaceful with the sound of gulls echoing distantly up the cliff sides from the bay. It was bright and the sea breeze kept the temperature bearable. She was dressed in that simple blue tunic dress that seemed to enhance her beauty so effortlessly and Kovan felt overdressed in the formal toga his father made him wear when they visited Westfallen. It was slashed with Conquord green and Vasselis blue. His gladius in its gold weave sheath hung from the leather belt at his waist.
She was sitting with her back to a tree and gazing into its sick-looking branches while her hands were planted firmly in the grass. He noticed the green stems had grown around her fingers as if in response to her presence.
'I didn't realise that happened,' he said, thankful of a way to open the conversation.
He found his mouth dry and his stomach full of nerves. Silly really. She was three years his junior but she had always had the same effect on him. Only latterly had he fully realised what that meant and he was determined to win her despite the competition. She started and looked round at him sharply, her face melting into a smile as she recognised him.
'Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you,' he said, standing a respectful distance from her.
'It's all right,' she said, sounding soft and musical. 'I was miles away, lost in the tree. I'm trying to find out why it's dying. What did you say?'
Kovan pointed to her hands. 'The grass. I didn't realise it just grew like that around you.'
Mirron looked down and nodded. 'We're getting closer to everything that grows,' she said. 'I love it that the plants respond to me like this. Like I spread health wherever I go.'
She spoke quite without arrogance and her voice was full of wonder and joy. Kovan smiled and moved closer.
'It's amazing what you can do,' he said. 'Is it all so natural now?'
'No,' she said. 'Any Works take concentration and energy like always. But Father Kessian says our latent energy is what does things like make the grass grow if we rest our hands on it for any length of time. It's the same energy that helps us renew ourselves and takes the wrinkles away.'
'Do you mind if I sit by you?'
'Of course not.' She patted the ground. 'Plenty of grass to spare.'
That close to her, he was almost overwhelmed. He could hear her breathing, see the turn of her mouth and smell the freshness of her scent and clothes. He was desperate to touch her and terrified at the prospect. She might recoil, after all, and he didn't think he could stand that. He kept his hands in his lap
'So what's wrong with the tree, then?' he asked.
There were curled dead brown leaves and twigs at the end of each branch and the bark was flaking and split.
'I don't know yet.'
'Oh.' He paused. 'So why are your hands on the ground?' 'Because I'm starting with the roots. Seeing if they're diseased.' Kovan nodded. 'I see.'
A sudden panic gripped him. His mind had blanked and for the moment, he couldn't think of anything to say. He felt the silence stretch out and become heavier with every passing moment and all he could think to do was nod and say, 'I see' again. His relief when Mirron spoke was written on his face he was sure.
'I was about to start on the trunk when you came along. I think it might be rotten inside though I don't know why.' She stopped and turned a smile on him that tipped his heart on its head. 'That's my excuse for being here. What's yours?'
'I.' Kovan stalled. His face felt terribly hot. 'I just. Well I just wanted to be sure you were all right here on your own.'
'Why wouldn't I be?'
'Oh, no reason. But, you know, what with all that went on with the investigation . . .' He trailed off, knowing he wasn't being at all convincing.
'Kovan, that was ages ago. Well, twenty days and more. But thank you. It's always good to know I have a protector.' 'Always,' he said.
Her expression sobered. 'Can I ask you something?' 'Of course,' he said and a thousand possibilities clamoured in his head. Her words didn't match any of them. 'We were talking and—' 'We?' he asked quickly. 'Gorian and me.' 'Oh.' His heart sank.
'Has your father said anything to you about what might happen to us?' She looked across at him, so vulnerable and afraid for a moment. 'We don't want to leave here. Will we have to?'
'God-surround-us but I hope not,' he said. The thought of her in Estorr so far away was a pain in his chest that would not go away.
'You know what Exchequer Jhered said to my father though, don't you?'
She nodded and stared at the ground. 'Father Kessian told us. But we thought your father would be able to make them see it wasn't necessary. That if they wanted to watch us they could do it here.'