'That is what I have learned. Now it is your turn. But unlike you, I will be brief and state each fact just the once.'
He turned to them and pointed forward to the stunning snowcapped peaks of Kark that ran the horizon from left to right and loomed larger with every hour that passed.
'In two days we will be landing in Ceskas. It is a frontier town where people have only ever known tough lives. It perches on the top of what you might well call a mountain but that these people and their Karku neighbours would call a hillock. The atmosphere is rarefied and you will tire quickly. However, we will be there only long enough to buy mules and supplies for our trek through the borders.
'We will take high passes because the flat lands are too dangerous to travel. Not because the Karku will kill you but because where they haven't forged a pass, there isn't one. Death lurks under every careless step. Up there in the heights, dusas will have jaws of wind so cold they can take the fingers from your hands and freeze the breath in your lungs. The snow and ice are so deep and so white they can blind you. And we will be so high you will fight for every breath.
'The Karku themselves are a secretive, powerful people. Just like the Sirraneans. They do not suffer incursion by large forces and will shoot first and ask your business later. They have rituals and religions to which they are bound more tightly than any Order Speaker. They have sacred grounds that none from the outside are allowed to see, let alone set foot upon. It is a country where a word or a gesture out of place can bring you pain and death. Nevertheless, they are honourable and they are allies. Respect is everything.'
He paused and glared at Gorian before continuing.
'We will be in Kark for a minimum of ten days unless any contacts I make give me new information. From there, we will strike north through eastern Atreska and into Tsard. In a straight line it is a journey of well over a thousand miles to Sirrane but we cannot travel straight. We will be travelling lands torn apart by war so our journey might be slow. We could find ourselves travelling near the Toursan Lakelands where the cannibals still live and the marshes suck you down in moments. Through the steppe lands where the horsemen are quick, skilled and deadly. We will not stop. We will not turn back.
'If we are lucky, hugely lucky, Roberto Del Aglios and his army will be marching south and you will have escaped the worst of the journey. Only then, of course, you will be required to do your bit to save the Conquord. If you do not, you stand to lose everything you love and the grief you feel now will be as a genastro day to that you will experience.
'You and I cannot afford to fail. You can halt armies with your power. You can bring fear so deep that enemies will turn and run from you. That is what I expect of you, and all your bleating about peace will fall on my ears so deafened. The Tsardon are coming and our allies turn against us.'
He looked at them all one by one, at the pallor in their faces and the fear in their eyes.
'I know you are all scared. You should be. You have lived lives of comfort and care in Westfallen but those are over. Now you are in my world and it is at war. And war takes everything from you. Even those vestiges of hope and love to which you cling. It takes them and grinds them underfoot. There will be nothing left if we should fail. Nothing.'
Chapter 53
848th cycle of God, 12th day of
Solasfall 15th year of the true Ascendancy
Roberto Del Aglios grabbed his scabbarded cavalry sword and flew out of his tent and into the muggy, still night. He was in the lightweight tunic and sandals he'd fallen asleep in. Praise God for tiny mercies.
Down by the principal gate, hastati tents were ablaze. He could hear the clash of weapons. Garish shadows danced in the harsh half-light. Soldiers were pouring down to the flashpoint from all across the camp. He shouted for them to get back to their tents. He shouted for his extraordinarii. He had no idea if anyone heard or heeded him.
Barking legionaries aside, he ran across hard packed ground, hurdled the embers of cook fires and stands of shields and swords. Closer to the fighting, the mass of people slowed him and he elbowed and shoved his way through infantry, cavalry and engineers. His temper shortened with each stride.
The conflict was extensive. On a road between the
8th
Estorean and the
15th
Atreskan, citizens fought with sword, spear, dagger and fist against a backdrop of flaming canvas. It was a confused mess of a melee. Hundreds of them sparring or sprawling and more were edging to join all the time.
Roberto stood and watched fo
r a few moments while his extra
ordinarii gathered about him and the more intelligent members of his army began to back away having seen him approach. A few of the combatants disengaged under his glare but too many more were lost in the passion of their dispute. There were injured lying on the ground and he could see at least one corpse. Enough.
'Get between them,' he ordered. 'Get them back across the road. Follow me.'
Roberto ran into the fight, forcing his way between two men with fists bunched. He pushed them aside, yelling at them to stand back. Further in, swords clashed and sparks flew.
'Get back,' he shouted. 'Stand aside. Weapons down now.'
His extraordinarii, thirty of them and more, moved past him, placing themselves and their blades between groups of trouble. Roberto put his shoulder into a legionary, sending him sprawling. The man came up again, sword raised. Roberto flicked off his scabbard and placed his blade to the man's chest.
'Don't even think about it,' he said. 'Back off, soldier.'
He turned at the sound of more swords and the thud of metal on cloth. Blood sluiced from a wound. Friends came to the aid of the stricken man, angry voices raised. The blow had been struck by a huge Atreskan. He swung round, looking for another target. He saw Roberto in his way. His gladius came up and down. Roberto parried easily, stepped forward and crashed the pommel of his own blade into the man's face, putting him down. He made to rise again, blinded by his fury, but a sword point nicked his neck. He let his own weapon fall from his hand.
'That would have been a very big mistake,' growled Davarov.
'I want this stopped now!' roared Roberto into the lessening din. 'I will have order in my camp.'
And slowly, he got it. Senior soldiers joined with the extraordinarii, pushing the two sides apart. Silence spread out from the centre of the conflict. Abuse still carried from both sides and the tent fires still crackled, despite the efforts being made to extinguish them.
'I will have quiet,' said Roberto.
He looked around him. The camp road was stained dark with blood in a dozen places. Injured and dead men and women lay on the ground. He counted thirty and there would be more damage among those hidden by the faces that stared back at him. Angry faces. He walked up and down between the lines of hastati. No one would meet his gaze. He handed his sword to Herides, who had appeared at his left shoulder.
'I am glad you were not involved in this stupidity,' he whispered to the young man, then raised his voice. 'Surgeons and stretcher parties, clear the wounded. I will talk to them later. As for the rest of you—'
'They called us traitors,' came a voice from the Atreskan side accompanied by gesticulating and more abuse.
'Quiet!' Roberto stalked across to the speaker. 'When I want to hear the reasons for this waste of blood, I will demand them.' He turned away. 'The next one who speaks before I order it will be flogged. The one after that will be executed. Am I clear?'
Silence.
'If the Tsardon are watching, they are surely celebrating victory tonight if they were not before. After all, they do not need to raise a blade against us and yet we shed blood and die. And this is how you, in all your wisdom, feel we should defeat the threat to our homes and families? Perhaps I should remove myself from this army and let the hastati decide where we march and when we fight.'
He let his voice swell to a shout.
'How dare you spill the blood of your comrades. Men and women with whom you have fought side by side these past years. How dare you lessen the reputation of this army. My army. Do you really want me to demand you leave your swords at the gates when you enter the camp? Are we children or are we the Conquord's finest?
'Well?'
There was a roar of assent.
'Yes. Yes we are,' said Roberto. 'And what you few have done is damage the wills of all. And you have disappointed me.'
He walked the lines again, saw the heads hung and the regret creep into the faces of those who dared look towards him. Around his feet, the surgeon teams were moving the injured and dead.
'I know some of you by name. I have heard your pride at serving in my army. Where is that pride now? Are you so delicate that you cannot take jibes? Is your mental constitution really so frail? Any who think so know where the gates to this camp are. I will not have you in my army. I will not have you fight under my mother's banner. You disgrace it, you insult it, you sully it.
'Do you think I care where your individual personal sympathies lie? You march as one under the Conquord banner. I will not have dissension. And I will not have any of those under my command raise a blade against another. We will build a ring for those who wish to fight over their petty grievances. And that is the only place it will happen.
'Anyone who breaks that rule from this moment on will be executed. No trial. No appeal. We are at war and I do not have the time for the unworthy.' He shook his head a final time. 'Idiots. All of you. Pathetic, posturing idiots. Look forward to long years in the hastati because neither the principes nor the triarii will have you. Get out of my sight.'
He spun and marched back towards his tent, calling his command team to him. Both Shakarov and Davarov were at his side in moments, both speaking into his ears. He ignored them until he reached his tent by which time all eight he expected were with him.
'Sit down, Goran, Davarov. Sit, sit.'
'General, you cannot let these slurs—'
'Goran, I will not repeat myself. This is already a long night, please do not make it any longer.'
Davarov put a hand on Shakarov's shoulder and the two of them sat. Elise, Dahnishev and Neristus were there. His masters of horse for his Atreskan legions were there too and the Master of Sword for the
8th
Estorean.
'No one sits here without bearing a measure of guilt,' he said.
'General, there was pr—'
‘I
won't hear it, Goran. I just won't. Do not whine at me. You and I and all of us share this problem. We knew there would be tension when Nunan confirmed the Atreskan rebellion. We knew the alae would be torn and their morale hit. We knew the Estorean legion would feel under threat and outnumbered. We sat here in this tent and discussed all these things and how we would avoid them boiling into conflict.
'But it hasn't worked, has it? There were bound to be taunts and insults. Boys and girls do it at school and they never grow out of it. But we're running an army here, not a playground, and a punch on the nose is replaced by a spear in the gut. Dahnishev, how many are dead?'
'Seventeen,' said the surgeon. 'And eight more will never fight again. The other ten will not fight again this campaign year. I don't know how many are too ashamed to come forward with anything more minor.'
Roberto shrugged and shook his head. 'We are throwing away lives in advance of fighting for them. I expected tension, I expected fist fights. But I didn't expect sword fighting. This will be nipped in the bud. And I will execute transgressors, make no mistake.
'We're in a very difficult position here. We have no room east because the Toursan Lakelands and marshes will swallow us whole.
We know the Atreskan border is compromised and we need to stay away from it as long as possible to avoid courting trouble. And my outriders are busy killing more Tsardon scouts than you have had nights' sleep.'
'Do you think it was organised or an argument gone too far?' asked Neristus.
'Davarov, any thoughts? Goran? Anyone for that matter,' invited Roberto.
'There was no armour,' said Davarov. 'People just grabbed what they could. It was not premeditated.'
'I agree,' said Shakarov. 'It will have been sparked by one slur too many from an Estorean mouth.'
Roberto bit back his first thought. 'Or the first stab of an Atreskan blade,' he said. 'You were not there, Goran. Perhaps if you had been, this could have been avoided. Blame is an irrelevance in this instance. None who picked up a weapon is innocent but I will not conduct a witch hunt. We cannot afford the time nor the tension. Short-term, though, I want you organising cavalry captains and centurions from across the legions to sentry the infantry tents.' He held up his hands at the protest. 'Just until we see a little more calm in the daily routine.'
'We need a fight to take everybody's mind off it,' said Davarov. 'Nothing unites us more than a sight of the Tsardon,' said Shakarov.
'Does it?' asked Roberto, finding himself at the heart of his fears. 'Or does it remind those that still dream of an independent Atreska that they can strike a blow for it by turning on us?'
'How can we ever know that?' asked Dahnishev. 'There are over seven thousand Atreskans out there.'
'Yes, and I do not want to see a quarter of them marching to stand with the Tsardon at our next encounter. That, Goran, is what taxes the Estorean soldier's mind. Can they trust the maniple they stand beside?'
Shakarov stared at the floor. 'You are suggesting a quarter of our people are traitors?' he asked quietly.
'Do I really need to answer that question, Goran?'
Shakarov raised his head. 'Well how many do you think it might be?'
'I don't know,' snapped Roberto. 'These are men and women under yours and Davarov's command. You tell me. What I saw out there tonight was not rebels fighting loyal Estoreans. It was people whose passions and fears had got the better of them to the detriment of us all. But none of us can afford to discount the fact that disaffected legionaries will have been amongst them, and may have struck the first blow. Tell me I'm wrong.'
The silence was answer enough.
'So what next?' asked Davarov.
'We march south. But we do so searching for an answer to these two questions. Do we have an army that will fight as one, side by side? And if we don't, how do we return it to that state? Because if these questions are not answered by the time we encounter significant Tsardon forces again, we might very well all be killed.
'Sleep well.'
But no one did. The shouts and taunts rang out throughout the remainder of a still night. Roberto gave up trying to sleep four hours before dawn and ordered the camp roused for the march. So much had changed over so short a time. From victorious campaigning force, through the closeness they'd forged in the wake of the plague, to this.
'It takes years to build an army's heart and a day to break it,', said Elise Kastenas.
She was riding by Roberto who had chosen to lead the marching column. Estorean scouts were in the field after the failure to return of six Atreskan riders. A foraging party from the
15th
Atreskan, the God's Arrows, was also overdue. More additions to Roberto's bleak mood.
'Proving we have failed at the most critical of times,' he said. 'I cannot believe I am having to place maniples of triarii in between bickering hastati of the
8th
and
21st.
Where did I go wrong?'
'You haven't gone wrong, Roberto,' said Elise a little sharply. 'The betrayal of Atreska cannot be attributed in any way to you.'
'But I should have seen the problems it would create. Taken stronger measures.'
'Your army is built on the independence of its command. It has worked for five years and we have never experienced anything close to defeat. But the fracturing of the Conquord rule in Atreska has ripped open old animosities.' She looked square at him. 'Don't doubt yourself. No one here doubts you.'