Corvus (18 page)

“The enemy moves,”
Karnos said, raising his voice to be heard over the marching phalanxes on the
slopes below. The tents were emptying like a decanted jug, pouring a sea of men
out onto the plain of Afteni.

“Last night it
seems he conducted a reconnaissance of our camp. Today, he has set his troops
in motion. It would seem that his numbers have been exaggerated; we outnumber
him three to two, and what is more the ground is too soft for his cavalry. The
odds favour us, brothers” — how that word almost stuck in his throat - “and
while not all the promised city levies have yet joined us” - he paused, looking
his sombre audience up and down with a hint of accusation, a note of
disappointment - “we have the power here to defeat this Corvus where he stands.
He has made a mistake, one which we must make fatal.”

“You mean to fight
here?” Glauros of Ferai asked. “Today?”

“Today.”

“The ground may be
bad for horses, but it is too wet for spears also,” Ulfos of Avensis said. “Can
you see our morai advancing through that muck?”

Kassander spoke
up.

“Corvus is a
soldier of great talent. His strength is in manoeuvre. His troops are better
drilled than ours and thus more flexible. We must bog him down and bring our
numbers to bear.

“This place, at
this time, we can rule his cavalry out of the equation, and we cannot be sure
of doing that somewhere else, or at some other time. We have a unique chance
here. Citizen levies put their heads down and push; it is almost all they are
trained to do. We do that here, and our numbers will soak up anything he can
throw at us. We have the soldiers of twenty different cities here who have
never fought together before - brothers, we cannot let this thing get
complicated.

“We advance on a
long front, into the floodplain, and there we fight this Corvus to a
standstill. It will not be pretty, and Phobos knows there are many standing on
this hill today who will be on the pyre by nightfall, but it is the surest way
to take our kind of fighting to the enemy.”

There was a
silence as this sank in. They respected Kassander; he had been a soldier all
his life, a mercenary in his youth before old Banos had brought him in to train
up the Machran city guard. But his present position was due to Karnos, whom
they despised. Karnos could almost see the wheels turning in their heads as
they stood there cultivating their patrician aloofness, Katullos among them.

“Let this not be
about politics,” he said. “Whatever you think of me, consider the position as
it stands.

We are here,
brothers” - this time the word came easier, for he was sincere - “we are here
to preserve the liberty of our cities and our institutions from a tyrant. All
else is an indulgence.”

He caught Katullos’s
eye, and thought he actually saw a flicker of approval there.

“There are men of
Hal Goshen in the ranks across the way, and Maronen and Gerrera and Kaurios.
These have been conscripted into this Corvus’s army against their will, their
cities enslaved and their treasuries emptied. How hard do you think they will
fight for the invader?

“We have but to
hold the line, and they will see what way their freedoms lie. Without his
cavalry, this Corvus is nothing but a master of slaves.” There were a few arch
looks at this, from those who knew him. Karnos, whose wealth had been built on
the backs of slaves. No matter - he had them now. He and Kassander had swayed
them. Thank the goddess.

There would be a
battle today, the greatest fought in the Harukush for generations.

And he, Karnos, would
have to be in the middle of it.

His own rhetoric
had led him to overlook this.

As his father had
used to say, with the fatalism of the poor; you want to eat bread, you got to
grind the corn.

THE
FLOODED PLAIN

Rictus stood at
the forefront of his
men with his helm cradled in one arm. His shield was leaning against his
planted spear in the front rank. All of the Dogsheads were in battle-line,
shields resting against their knees, helms off, enjoying a last feel of the air
on their faces, a look at the sky.

They were back of
the front line, and the ground was a little drier here on the rising slope
leading east along the Imperial Road to the camp. Up front, the ranks of spears
had already trampled the sodden earth into an ankle-deep mire simply by getting
into formation. Most of the men were barefoot despite the chill of the day, for
the plain ahead of them would suck the best-strapped footwear off a man’s feet
in a few minutes of fighting.

In front of the
red-cloaked mercenaries, Corvus’s army had shaken out into battle formation, a
line of infantry some two pasangs long.

Not long enough,
Rictus thought. He’ll be outflanked on one side, maybe both. What the hell does
he have in mind?

The cavalry had
left their horses back in camp and stood beside the Dogheads. There were some
two thousand of them under Ardashir, the orphaned prince. They were shieldless,
armed with lances and drepanas, clad in the short corselet of the horseman.
They were not equipped for phalanx fighting; against a line of heavily armoured
spearmen they would be massacred.

Though it had to
be admitted, they did lend an exotic sort of variety to the sombre,
mud-coloured army. They seemed to vie with one another to own the gaudiest
cloaks and most outrageous helmet-crests. And most of them were Kufr, head and
shoulders taller than the Macht, their skin seeming almost to glow in the pale
autumn sunlight. Ardashir their leader stood out in front of them, leaning on
the long, wicked lance of the Companions, his cloak folded around him.

Corvus was on
horseback, riding along the front of his troops and making a speech that Rictus
could not hear. The men clashed their shields in response to it, and a
full-throated roar travelled the length of the line.

Nine thousand
heavy spearmen, over half of them conscripts from the conquered cities of the
eastern seaboard led by one-eyed Demetrius, the rest dependable veterans under
young Teresian. On their left, two to three thousand Igranians under Druze,
whose left arm was in a sling, but who was not going to miss this for the
world.

As if he could
feel Rictus’s contemplation, Druze turned around, out on the left, and raised
his javelin in salute, his dark grin visible even at that distance. Rictus
raised a hand in return.

On the right,
nothing. Corvus had his right flank up in the air, and that was the flank held
by Demetrius and his conscript spears. It was as though he was inviting them to
collapse. True, the dismounted Companions were there to the rear, but they
would not be able to stop a serious rout.

Across the
flashing gleam of the waterlogged plain, the army of the Avennan League had
almost finished shaking out its line. They had been at it for hours now; the
men’s freshness would be gone.

It was one thing
to set up a line when a single city’s troops were involved, when the men knew
each other and their officers. It was quite another to co-ordinate the
interlocking phalanxes of twenty different cities, with their own rivalries,
their petty politics, their vying for prestige and advantage. Rictus had seen
it on a small scale over a lifetime of warfare; he could imagine what a
colossal pain in the arse it would be to command twenty thousand half-drilled
citizen soldiers with their own ideas about how they should be deployed. Even
Demetrius’s conscripts were better trained than the spearmen he saw standing in
half-dressed lines opposite.

But they had
numbers on their side. More than that, they were fighting for something they
believed in. That counted for a lot in war. It was why the Ten Thousand had been
victorious at Kunaksa; the choice had been to win or die.

Fornyx blew his
nose on his fingers and flicked the snot away. He was still angry about the
antics of the night before, about fighting here in this swamp, about being held
in the rear.

“Well,” he said, “you
got your war.”

“Yes, I got it,”
Rictus answered.

“What does the
little bastard intend to do, do you think, Rictus? He was closeted with
Demetrius and Teresian all morning. You think he means to give battle?”

“Truthfully? I don’t
know. He won’t refuse one - that’s not in his nature. But look at that ground,
Fornyx - you want to advance across that?”

“It’s not fit for
man nor beast,” Fornyx grimaced.

“Well, then I
suppose Corvus has a plan.”

“That’s all right
then.”

Corvus had
travelled the length of the line from north to south. He halted now in front of
Druze, and bent in the saddle to speak to the chief of the Igranians. They saw
Druze nodding, and Corvus set a hand on his shoulder, then cantered through the
open formless crowd of the skirmishers, raising a hand to acknowledge their
cheers, pointing at one or two of them and reining in to exchange witticisms
which set many of them roaring with laughter.

“He can work a
crowd, the little bugger, I’ll give him that,” Fornyx admitted.

Leading a line of
mounted aides like a kite trailing its tail, Corvus cantered over to the
Dogsheads and reined in. Like Rictus, he had not slept at all the night before,
but he looked fresh as a bridegroom.

“At least it’s not
raining,” he said, dismounting and clapping his horse on the neck with great
affection.

“You think they’re
going to join battle?” Fornyx asked him bluntly.

Corvus smiled. “Brother,”
he said, “before the sun climbs to noon, they’re going to be right in our laps.”

Druze’s Igranians moved
out, an
orderless crowd of ambling men picking its way across the flooded farmland like
a great herd of migrating animals. It still wanted some two hours until noon,
and the sun was at their backs. There was no urgency to them; they were like
men strolling home after meeting at the assembly.

Rictus could see
them talking amongst themselves as they advanced, and lightly armed as they
were, they did not break up the soft ground as a formation of spearmen would.
He saw them as a mass of dark speckles on the land, swallowed up here and there
by the sunlit glare of the lying water.

“Stay by me,”
Corvus said to him, his face grave now, eyes fixed on the enemy line only some
two and a half pasangs away, the tented camp rising like a mud-coloured city
behind it. “I want your Dogsheads ready to slot in anywhere along the line.”

“What’s Druze to
do?” Fornyx asked him.

“He’s going to
pick a fight.”

The Igranians
picked up speed, like a flock of birds all of one mind. They were moving out to
the south, to threaten the enemy’s right flank; the unshielded side.

There was a
corresponding ruffle of movement in the lines of spearmen there; a row of
bronze shields caught the sun one after another in a series of bright flashes.
Then Druze led his men in to javelin range -a hundred paces, maybe - and Rictus
saw their right arms go back, their bodies arced for the throw. It was too far
away to see the missiles go home, but the glitter of enemy shields catching the
sun came and went, flickering like summer lightning upon the sea.

“That’s really
going to piss them off,” Fornyx said, with a grin of sheer relish in his beard.

“I thought they
needed a prod,” Corvus said. “The morning’s a wasting.”

There was always
something almost joyful about watching a battle from a distance, Rictus thought.
First, you were glad you were not there, in the middle of it with the iron
tearing at your own flesh. But it could almost be like a sport, too. One could
study the moves of the players with detachment, see the evolutions of the
phalanxes with a clear eye, rise above the packed murderous terror of the
othismos and survey things with real clarity.

And with a flash
of epiphany, Rictus realised something about Corvus.

That is how he
sees it, all the time. That detachment, that clear-sightedness.

The enemy spearmen
were breaking ranks by centon, sending out detachments to try and come to grips
with Druze’s men, but the lightly armed Igranians evaded them like wolves
dancing away from the horns of a bull. As the centons withdrew again, the
Igranians closed in. For a few minutes they had actually closed with the enemy
hand to hand. Fornyx whistled softly at the sight.

“Those bastards
have balls like walnuts.”

“An Igranian must
kill a mountain-lion before he is considered a man,” Corvus said. “They belong
to an older time, when the Macht did not feel the need to congregate in cities.
Igranon itself has no walls; it’s little more than a glorified trading post.”

“A hard people to
tame,” Rictus said, raising one eyebrow.

Corvus shook his
head. “I did not tame the Igranians, Rictus; I merely earned their respect.
Their trust.” He watched the distant fight with his curious pale eyes. “You
have that, and they will follow you anywhere.”

The Igranians
broke off the battle, wheeling away from the League army. They had cut several
centons to pieces; Rictus had been able to make out men running back to their
own lines without shields.

In rear of the
enemy battle-line, there was now a strong column marching from north to south.

“He’s reinforcing
his right,” Corvus said. “Good.” He turned to one of his aides, seating on a
snorting horse. “Marco, go to Teresian, and tell him it is time.”

“Yes Corvus.” The
fellow kicked his horse into a whinnying canter and the mud from its hooves
spattered them all as he took off.

“The curtain
rises,” Corvus said. “Look, brothers. We finally woke them up.”

The enemy army was
on the move, that vast snake of men undulating forward over the plain. Faint at
first, and then louder, there came the sound of the Paean.