Ships from the West (10 page)

Hung above the lintel of the huge fireplace at one end of the hall was John Mogen’s sword, the Answerer. Corfe had carried it at the North More, at the King’s Battle, and at Armagedir. A gift from the Queen, it had hung there with the firelight playing upon it for a decade now, for Torunna’s King had not taken to the field in all that time.

There were large tables ringed with chairs set about the floor of the lower Bladehall, and seated at these were several young men in Torunnan military uniform, trying hard to ignore the two muddy couriers who stood wearily to one side. Corfe encouraged his officers to come in here and read when they were off duty, or to study tactical problems on the long sand-table that stood in one of the side chambers. Attendants were permanently on hand to serve food and drink in the small adjoining refectory, should that be required. In this way, among others, Corfe had tried to encourage the birth of a more truly professional officer class, one based on merit and not on birth or seniority. All officers were equal when they stepped over the threshold of the Bladehall, and even the most junior might speak freely. More importantly, perhaps, the gratuities which army commanders had traditionally accepted in return for the granting of commissions had been stamped out. All would-be commanders started as lowly ensigns attached to an infantry tercio, and they sweated it out in the Proving Grounds the same as all other new recruits. Strange to say, once Corfe had instituted this reform, the proportion of gallant young blue-bloods joining the army had plummeted. He smiled at the thought.

There was as yet no formal military academy in Torunna, as existed in Fimbir, but it was something Corfe had been mulling over in his mind for several years. Though he was an almost absolute ruler, he still had to bear in mind the views of the important families of the kingdom. They would never dare to take the field against him again, but their opposition to many of his policies had been felt in subtler ways. They would see an academy of war as a means to build up a whole new hierarchy in the kingdom, based not on blood but on military merit. And they would be right.

The young men in the Bladehall ceased their reading. They stood up as Corfe entered and he returned their salutes. The two couriers doffed their helms.

‘Your names?’

‘Gell and Brinian, sir. Dispatches from—’

‘Yes, I know. Give them here.’ Corfe was handed two leather cylinders. The same dispatch would be in both. ‘Any problems on the road?’

‘No, sir. Some wolves near Arboronn, but we outran them.’

‘When did you leave Gaderion?’

‘Five days ago.’

‘Good work, lads. You look all in. Tell the cooks here to give you whatever you want, and change into some fresh clothes. I will need you back here later, but for now get some rest.’ The couriers saluted and, gathering up their muddy cloaks, they left for the refectory. Corfe turned to the other occupants of the hall, who had not moved.

‘Brascian, Phelor, Grast.’ These three were standing together. At a table alone stood a dark young officer of medium height. Corfe frowned. ‘Ensign, forgive me, I do not recall your name.’

The youngster stiffened further. ‘Ensign Baraz, your majesty. We have not yet met.’

‘Officers simply call me “sir” in garrison. Are you part of the Ostrabarian Baraz family?’

‘My mother’s brother was Shahr Baraz, the Queen’s bodyguard, and my grandfather was the same Shahr Baraz who took Aurungabar, your— sir. I kept the Baraz name as I was the last male of the line.’

‘It was called Aekir then. I do not know your uncle, but your grandfather was an able general, and a fine man by all accounts.’ Corfe stared closely at Baraz. ‘How is it that you are become an ensign in the Torunnan army?’

‘I volunteered, sir. General Formio inducted me himself, not three months ago.’

When Corfe said nothing Baraz spoke up again. ‘My family has been out of favour at the Ostrabarian court for many years. It is known all over the east that you will take loyal men of any race into your forces. I would like to try for the Bodyguard, sir.’

‘You will have to gain some experience then. Have you completed your Provenance?’

‘Yes, sir. Last week’

‘Then consider yourself attached to the General Staff for the moment. We’re short of interpreters.’ ‘Sir, I would much prefer to be attached to a tercio.’ ‘You’ll follow orders, Ensign.’ The young man seemed to sag minutely. ‘Yes, sir.’ Corfe kept his face grave.

‘Very good. There’s to be a conference of the staff here in a few minutes. You may sit in.’ He nodded to the other three officers who were still ramrod straight. ‘As may you, gentlemen. It will do you good to see the wrangling of the staff, though you will of course say nothing of what you hear to anyone. Clear?’

A chorus of
yes sirs
and a bobbing of heads and hastily smothered grins.

Menin Field was the name given to the new parade grounds which had been flattened out to the north of Torunn. They covered hundreds of acres, and allowed vast formations to be marched and counter-marched without terrain disordering the ranks. At their northern end a tall plinth of solid stone stood dark and sombre: a monument to the war dead of the country. It towered over the drilling troops below like a watchful giant, and it was said that in times of trouble the shadows of past armies would gather about it in the night, ready to serve Torunna again.

General Formio raised his eyes from the courier-borne note to the knot of officers who sat their horses around him.

‘I am wanted by the King; news from the north, it seems. Colonel Melf, you will take over the remainder of the exercise. Gribben’s tercios are still a shambles. They will continue to

drill until they can perform open order on the march without degenerating into a rabble. Gentlemen, carry on.’ He wheeled his horse away to a flurry of salutes.

Formio had years before bowed to necessity, and went mounted now like all other senior officers. He was Corfe’s second-in-command in Torunn, and had been for so long now that people almost forgot he was a foreigner, a Fimbrian no less. He had changed little since the Merduk Wars. His hair had gone grey at the temples and his old wounds ached in the winter, but otherwise he was as hale as he had been before Armagedir, from whose field he had been plucked broken and dying sixteen years before. Queen Odelia had saved his life, and her ladies-in-waiting had nursed him through a series of fevered relapses. But he had survived, and Junith, one of those ladies, had become his wife. He had two sons now, one of whom would be of an age to begin his Provenance in another couple of years. He was not unique: almost all the Fimbrians who had survived Armagedir had taken Torunnan wives.

Of the circle of officers and friends which had surrounded the King in those days only he and Aras now remained, and Aras was up in the north holding Gaderion and the Torrin Gap against the Himerians. But there were fresh faces in the army now, a whole host of them. An entirely new generation of officers and soldiers had filled the ranks. They had been youngsters when Aekir had fallen, and the savage struggle to overcome the hosts of Aurungzeb was a childhood story, or something to be read in a book or celebrated in song. In the subsequent years the Merduks had become Torunna’s allies. They worshipped the same God, and the same man as his messenger. Ahrimuz or Ramusio, it was all one. There were Merduk bishops in the Macrobian Church, and Torunnan clerics prayed in the temple of Pir-Sar in Aurungabar, which had once been the cathedral of Carcasson. And in the very Bodyguard of King Corfe himself, Merduks served with honour.

But the years of near-peace had bred other legacies. The Torunnan army had been a formidable force back in King Lofantyr’s day; now it was widely held to be invincible.

Formio was not so sure. A certain amount of complacency had crept through the ranks in recent years. And more importantly, the number of veterans left in those ranks was dwindling fast. He had no doubts about his own countrymen - war ran in their blood. And the tribesmen who made up the bulk of the Cathedrallers viewed war as a normal way of life. But the Torunnans were different. Fully three quarters of those now enrolled in the army had never experienced the reality of combat.

It had been ten years since the Himerians had sent an army into the Torrin Gap. There had been no effort at diplomacy, no warning. It was obvious to the world that the regime which was headed by one pontiff could never recognise or treat with the regime which protected another.

The enemy had advanced tentatively, feeling their way eastwards. Corfe had moved with breakneck speed, a forced march out of Torunn that left a tenth of the army by the side of the road, exhausted. He had not paused, but had launched into the enemy with the Cathedrallers and the Orphans alone, and had thrown them back over the Torian Plains with huge loss. Formio remembered the wreckage of the Knights Militant as they counter-charged his lines of pikes with suicidal courage but little tactical insight. The big horses, disembowelled and screaming. Their riders pinned by the weight of their armour, trampled to a bloody mire as the Cathedrallers rode over them to finish the job. The Battle of the Torian Plains seemed to have given the Himerian leadership pause for thought. It was said that the mage Bardolin had been present in person, though it had never been confirmed.

Not once since then had there been a general engagement. The enemy had built outposts of stone and timber and turf and had advanced them as far into the foothills as he dared, but he had not cared to risk another full-scale battle. The Thurian Line, as this system of fortifications had come to be known, now marked the border between Torunna and the Second Empire.

Ten years, and another turnover of faces. The men of the Torunnan army were as well trained as a professional like

King Corfe could make them, but they were essentially unblooded.

This was about to change.

In the Bladehall the fires had been lit and the map-table was dominated by a representation of Barossa, the land bounded by the Searil and Torrin rivers to east and west, and by the Thurians in the north. Blue and red counters were dotted about the map like gambling tokens. In some respects, Formio thought grimly, that is what they were.

‘How are they shaping up, General?’ Corfe asked the Fimb-rian. He held an empty brandy glass in one fist and a crumpled dispatch in the other. Surrounding him were a cluster of other officers, several of whom looked as though they had yet to start shaving.

‘They’re good, but only on a parade ground. Take them out in the rough and their formations go all to pieces. They need more field manoeuvres.’

Corfe nodded. ‘They will get them soon enough. Gentlemen, we have dispatches just in from Aras in the north. The Sea of Tor is now largely clear of ice, and Himerian transports are as thick upon it as flies on jam. The enemy is massively reinforcing his outposts in the gap. At least two other armies are marching down from Tarber and Finnmark. They began crossing the Tourbering river on the fifteenth.’

‘Any idea about numbers, sir?’ a squat, brutal-looking officer asked.

‘The Finnmarkan and Tarberan forces total at least forty thousand men. Added to the troops already in position, and I believe we could well be talking in the region of seventy thousand.’

There was a murmur of dismay. Aras had less than half that in Gaderion.

‘It will take them at least four or five days to cross the river. Aras sent out a flying column last month which burned the bridges, and the Tourbering is in full spate with the meltwater from the mountains.’

‘But once they’re across,’ the squat officer pointed out,

‘they’ll make good time across the plains south of there. Any word on composition, sir?’

‘Very little, Comillan. Local intelligence is poor. We do know that King Skarp-Hedin is present in person, as is Prince Adalbard of Tarber. The northern principalities have historically been weak in cavalry. Their backbone is heavy infantry.’

‘Gallowglasses,’ someone said, and Corfe nodded.

‘Old-fashioned, but still effective, even against horse. And their skirmishers continue to use javelins. Good troops for rough ground, but not of much account in the open. My guess is that the Himerians will send out a screen of the light northern troops before probing with their heavies.’

They all stared at the map and its counters. Now the red blocks laid square across the inked line of the Tourbering river had a distinctively menacing air. Similar blocks were set in a line north-east of the Sea of Tor. Opposing them all was the single blue square of Aras’s command.

‘If that’s their plan, then it buys us some time,’ Formio said, breaking the silence. ‘The northerners will be almost two weeks marching across the Torian Plains.’

‘Yes,’ Corfe agreed. ‘Enough time for us to reinforce Aras. I plan to transport many of our own troops upon the Torrin, which will save time, and wear and tear on the horses.’

‘This is it then, Corfe?’ Formio asked. ‘The general mobilisation?’

Corfe met his friend’s eye. ‘This is it, Formio. All roads, it seems, lead to the gap. They may try and sneak a few columns through the southern foothills, but the Cimbriani will help take care of those. And Admiral Berza is liaising with the Nalbeni in the Kardian to protect that southern flank.’

‘Bad terrain,’ Comillan said. His black eyes were hooded and he tugged at the ends of his heavy moustache reflectively. “Those foothills up around Gaderion are pretty broken. The cavalry will be next to useless, unless we remount them on goats.’

1
know’ Corfe told him. ‘They’ve pushed their outposts right up to the mountains, so we’ve little room to manoeuvre unless we abandon Gaderion and fall back to the plains below. And that, gentlemen, will not happen.’

‘So we’re on the defensive, then?’ a voice asked. The senior officers turned. It was Ensign Baraz. His fellow subalterns stared at him in shock for a second and then stood wooden and insensible. One moved slightly on the balls of his feet, as though he would like to be physically disassociated from his colleague’s temerity.

‘Who in hell—?’ Comillan began angrily, but Corfe held up a hand.