The Belly of the Bow (60 page)

While the wood was cooling down and taking its set, he cleaned the last few ribbons of meat off the bones that would make up the belly, flicking the scraps into the sizing glue pot to give the mixture a touch more texture.

(‘What do you want with all this junk?’ Niessa had demanded suspiciously.

‘I want to make a bow for Gorgas,’ he’d replied.

That had taken her by surprise. ‘I thought you couldn’t stand him,’ she’d said.

‘I’ve reformed,’ he’d replied. ‘Forgive and forget, that’s me from now on. After all, family’s family, and we’re all in this together whether we like it or not.’

She hadn’t known what to say to that. ‘You’re going to booby-trap it, aren’t you?’ she’d said. ‘Or put poison on the handle, or saw through it so it breaks in the middle of a battle.’

He’d scowled at her for that. ‘Give me some credit,’ he’d said. ‘I may not be much, but I take a pride in my craft. If I build Gorgas a bow, you can be sure it’ll be the best bow the world’s ever seen. Besides, when all is said and done, I owe him. He gave me a Guelan sword to defend myself with when Perimadeia fell. I want him to have a really fine bow,’ he went on, ‘for when the Foundation sacks Scona.’)

Once he’d pared the rib-bones down to firm material, he cut the splices to join the sections together, using his finest fretsaw blade and a narrow scraper ground out of a razor. Cutting the double fishtail splice in each section was a long, difficult, nerve-racking job, one which had to be done right. It took him the best part of the day on which Gorgas fought the battle in the river bed.

 

Sergeant Cerl Baiss had been a sergeant for precisely three weeks. Before that, he’d been the superintendent of the second-largest flour mill on Scona, managing a staff of sixty men, doing a job he liked and doing it exceptionally well. Gorgas Loredan had decided he had leadership and administrative abilities that were badly needed for the war effort, and had drafted him into the reserves a fortnight ago. He’d just had time to master the basic elements of archery, such as how to string the bow and fit an arrow on the string so that it didn’t fall off again as soon as he took his hand away, when the reserves became the Town garrison, making Cerl Baiss the man responsible for the defence of Scona Town in Gorgas’ absence.

The news that Sten Mogre was fifteen miles from the Town gate with two thousand halberdiers hit Sergeant Baiss like a falling wall.

‘If Gorgas got our message,’ the young, brash ensign was saying, ‘he’ll most likely take this road here.’ He pointed to a squiggle on the map that Baiss had been assuming was a river, or a village boundary. ‘If he really gets a move on, he could be here -’ (another prod with the finger) ‘- by midday tomorrow, by which time Sten will be here, right on our doorstep, where he’d dearly love to be. Which really only leaves us with one course of action.’

One vice Baiss had never indulged in was false pride. ‘You’d better explain,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to get this wrong.’

The young ensign nodded. ‘These mountains here—’

‘Oh. Those are mountains. Right. Sorry.’

‘These mountains here,’ the ensign repeated, ‘are our only chance. Sten’ll have to come through them here,’ (prod) ‘or here,’ (prod) ‘and my guess is he’ll take this fork here, even though it’s three miles out of his way, because he knows we could really string him up on the other pass. So we intercept him - he’ll be expecting it, mind, but that doesn’t alter the fact that we can make life pretty bloody for him - and just hope and pray Gorgas catches up in time to give him a boot up the bum. If everything holds together - if Gorgas comes - we might do ourselves a bit of good. If not, well.’

Sergeant Baiss stared at the map - he’d never understood maps - and tried to think like a soldier, something which came as naturally to him as swimming under the surface in mercury. Why was it, he wondered, that everybody in the army referred to the enemy generals by their first names, as if they were old friends?’

‘I think we should defend the other pass,’ he said.

The young ensign looked at him. ‘But that’d be asking for trouble,’ he said. ‘Sten’s too bright for that.’

Baiss shook his head. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘this is probably all first-grade stuff to professional soldiers, but if the obvious thing to do is go this way, wouldn’t he be better off going that way and missing us altogether? Especially as that’s the shorter way.’

The ensign shrugged. ‘You could go mad playing that game. I could say, “He’ll expect us to expect him to do that, so he’ll do that unexpected.” No way of knowing how many double-crosses to allow for, is there?’

Baiss felt his patience getting thin. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘we’ll toss a coin for it.’

‘Might just as well,’ the ensign said with a grin. ‘You’re the boss, it’s your decision, thank the gods.’

That wasn’t what Baiss wanted to hear, but if he’d been a soldier rather than a naturally gifted mill superintendent, he’d have chosen the shorter road. ‘We’ll defend this one,’ he said. ‘How soon do you think we can get there?’

The young ensign walked his fingers across the map. ‘Four hours,’ he said. ‘If you’re right, my guess is that Sten’ll be there in eight.’

In the event, it took Baiss and his three hundred archers two and a half hours to reach the pass, which was just as well since they’d been two hours behind schedule setting off. As a token gesture, he’d sent fifty men to the other pass, trusting the young ensign’s assurance that any more than two hundred and fifty men would be a hindrance rather than a help in the sort of battle he was anticipating. Fifty men wouldn’t be enough to do more than make Sten Mogre angry if he chose the other way, but that was really beside the point.

An hour later, the enemy arrived; a great surge of armoured men squeezed so tight into the narrow gallery between two sheer sandstone walls that Baiss could hear shields and arm-guards scraping against rock. That was good, but not as good as he’d hoped. He’d been relying on being able to deploy his archers so that they’d all get a shot, but with the best will in the world he couldn’t accommodate a firing line more than sixty strong, and the pass curved about so much that the longest distance the enemy would have to cross in full view of the defending force was less than a hundred yards.

‘Five volleys if we’re lucky,’ the ensign said gloomily, ‘and then they’ll be on us like a dog on a rat. Of course, hand-to-hand in this sort of terrain will suit them down to the ground.’

Baiss frowned, trying to concentrate. Six fives are thirty, so three hundred; but of course, not every shot will count, so reduce that by, what, half? He had no idea. Say by a third. A hundred of the enemy shot down before they made contact. Was that enough to break an army’s morale? Or would it just make them so mad they’d fight like demons?

(
An idiotic war; a bank, led by a baker, is fighting a university in a place where of necessity both sides will cut each other to ribbons.
)

‘Here they come, anyhow,’ the young ensign said, and his voice was weak with fear. To his surprise, Baiss realised that the terror he’d been trying to cope with ever since Mogre’s army had been traced had somehow slipped away. Rationalising, he came to the conclusion that it was because there was nothing he could do now, no options remaining except to stick by what he’d decided and see it through. The prospect of his own death didn’t worry him, and the men under his command were proper soldiers, they’d know how to deal with the matter in hand.

‘Does everybody know what to do?’ he asked. The young ensign nodded.
Except me, of course
. Not for the first time, he wondered what in the gods’ names had possessed Gorgas Loredan to drop a civilian into a position in the chain of command where he might just possibly be called upon to lead an army into a major battle. When he’d asked Gorgas that question, though not in so many words, he’d been told that there were only ten regular sergeants in the army and four of those weren’t fit to lead a goat on a short string. ‘It’s all right,’ Gorgas had told him with a wide smile, ‘
none
of us have done anything like this before. I know I haven’t. You’ve got what it takes, you’ll manage.’

‘On my mark,’ the young ensign shouted, his voice high and shrill but clear nevertheless. ‘Draw. Aim. Loose.’

Baiss had never seen anything like it in all his life. The nearest he could come to it was a clump of tall thistles, the sort that grow head-high in overgrown pasture, toppling and falling together as one scythe-stroke slices through them. The front rank of the halberdiers had simply gone down, and the men behind had walked right over them; not because they were callous or exceptionally well disciplined, but because there wasn’t time to slow down or swerve to avoid them. Someone in the advancing mass shouted an order, and the formation changed from a brisk walk to a trot, the pace at which a middle-aged clerk runs after a hat blown off in a wind. The second volley took down two full ranks and made a mess of the third; this time there was stumbling and falling over, jogging men trying to jump clear over the fallen and either barely succeeding or spectacularly failing; the ranks behind running into the scrambling men in front and shoving them forward, so that more still went down and joined the jerking, twitching tangle; men wading through a sprawl of arms and legs like foresters picking a way over ten years’ growth of brambles in an abandoned ride; the young ensign, his eyes tight shut, calling
Loose
a third time.

They’re still coming
, Baiss thought in astonishment; but of course, it was the safe thing to do, much safer to go forward than try and fall back through that unspeakable hedge of dead bodies and trampled men. They were running now; no more formation trotting, these were men running for their lives away from the shambles, ducking under the inslanting arrows, following the line of least danger. The third volley hit them at no more than thirty yards; it was like watching water flung hard from a bucket splashing against a wall as they went down in a flop, gone from all movement to dead still in a bare moment. Maybe five men, all told, were still on their feet; the line parted to let them through (standard drill manoeuvre, so he’d learnt a whole eight days ago) and as soon as they skidded to a halt they were grabbed by the reserve lines like fighting drunks scooped up by their friends and made harmless. That was all that was left of that charge; the detachment behind stayed where they were, for some reason, and didn’t join in.

Victory
, Baiss thought.
Well, bugger me
.

‘Stand to,’ the ensign yelled - Baiss still hadn’t a clue what that actually meant, and he remained none the wiser since nobody in his army appeared to react to it at all. ‘Casualties, report.’

‘All present and correct,’ someone shouted back, and a few enthusiastic souls cheered.

Baiss tried hard not to look at the bodies of the enemy who were still alive out in the heaps and drifts of corpses. It was another hot day; if he was lucky enough to live through it, he’d have the privilege of watching them slowly dying.

Nothing happened for a long time after that. Where was Gorgas Loredan? Shouldn’t he be here now, with his
professional
army, to take over and make this slaughter worthwhile? Baiss had done his bit, he’d won his victory. Surely he ought to be allowed to go home now?

‘The scouts just got back.’ It was the young ensign again, looking slightly crazy and grinning like a skull. ‘Guess what.’

‘You’ll have to tell me,’ Baiss said.

‘There’s not two thousand men out there,’ he said. ‘More like four hundred. The rest of Sten’s army must have gone the other way. We’ve been had.’

 

‘I think they came this way,’ someone said.

Gorgas walked to the head of the column and examined the scene. A few halberdier bodies were scattered among the rocks, like hastily discarded clothes on a bedroom floor. A little further on he found a mat of dead archers. They’d been backed into a dead end and cut to pieces. In this confined space, with bodies tightly packed together, there hadn’t been room to use the six-inch spike of the issue Shastel halberd; it had been an awkward affair of carving and slicing with the long curved blade, held overhead and brought down on throats, faces and shoulders. Afterwards, the halberdiers had tracked bloody footprints over the rocks.

‘These things happen,’ Gorgas said, stooping down and dipping a finger in a sticky brown pool. ‘This wasn’t long ago,’ he added. ‘We’ll catch up with them.’

‘What happened to the rest of the army?’ someone asked. ‘There’s only about, what, fifty of ours here?’

‘They ran, I suppose,’ someone else said.

Gorgas shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘My guess is this lot was a token force just to show willing; the main army must be guarding the other pass. In which case,’ he went on with a sigh, ‘we’ll have to deal with Sten Mogre on our own. Let’s go.’

For men who hadn’t eaten or rested properly since the night before the battle in the river bed, they kept up a respectable pace in their disintegrating shoes. They seemed to have mastered the quick trudge, the characteristic tempo of men who won’t have time to be exhausted until the job’s done. In many respects, they reminded Gorgas of what he’d heard about his Uncle Maxen’s legendary army, which had reputedly lived like this from battle to battle for something like seven years. The thought of that made him wince.

Even so, it was nearly dark by the time they came down out of the mountains onto the more gentle downlands that lay between them and Scona Town. From this point the road ran straight, with nothing to hold Mogre up except a shallow river and a small wood. Gorgas sent out a few scouts, but he was fairly sure he could guess what the enemy were doing. If he was Sten Mogre, he’d hide his army in Lox Wood for the night and make his attack on Scona first thing in the morning, planning to arrive there just after first light. In which case, he had two choices: to try and get to Scona before Mogre did, shut the gates and stand him off in a formal siege - not a bad plan, on the assumption that Scona still controlled the sea, but effectively giving up on the rest of the island - or to make a stand between Lox and Scona and take his chances in a pitched battle in the open. In either case, it meant marching all night, again. It would be asking a lot of his men to expect them to be able to stand up straight in the morning, let alone fight. There was also the small matter of arrows, shortage of.