The Black Robe (The Sword and the Spell) (16 page)

He had been careless; the poison must have been in his last meal, served by a man he hadn’t seen before. As soon as he realised what had happened, he had ordered the man’s arrest, but he was long gone, presumably back to Borman whose orders he had executed. Now all he could do was sit and wait and hide the pain and pray to the Goddess for their victory to come quickly. He had taken enough shrezbere essence to fell a war horse and he could feel it make his heart stutter. It was just a case of what killed him first; the drug or the poison and whether it would happen before the king noticed the blood soaking his breaches.

Gadrin eased himself forward in his saddle trying to relieve the pain and studied the battlefield. It had been a good strategy to draw Borman’s army up the slope to where the heavy infantry had been waiting, although it had cost him heavily in spearmen and bowmen and for that he was sorry. He had clearly underestimated the courage of Borman’s men behind the makeshift shields expecting them to turn and run a long time before they did.

What he couldn’t understand was why Borman hadn’t sent all his heavy troops into battle when he had the advantage. It was a sound strategy to hold back a reserve but to make that reserve half your army didn’t make sense unless there was something he wasn’t seeing. Yet they were still there in nice straight lines. Their discipline was outstanding, not one of them had moved since the attack had begun. Surely now, with his whole army in retreat, he would have to bring them into play.

Yes, they were moving, the large troop of horsemen on the right were moving across the centre and if he wasn’t mistaken that was the king himself leading them. Now was the time to bring up his own reserves and press the attack home; it was going to be bloody but decisive. He leaned forward to give the order, gasped as the pain slammed into his chest and slid from his horse.

Borman waved his sword in the air and cursed himself for a fool; leading his royal guards from the front had seemed to be the right thing to do when he was standing behind his map table, but now he knew it was rank stupidity. Five hundred screaming warriors on a mountain of horseflesh were just two strides behind him and if he went down there would be nothing left of him except a red smear on the shale of the river bank. In front and approaching far too fast for his liking was a wall of steel and whilst his mounted royal guards were likely to run straight through them, the first rank, himself included, would be flattened by the impact.

He tried to pull his horse back from its headlong gallop and then screamed in terror as his horse stumbled and threw him violently forward almost over its head. Borman dropped his sword and clung onto his horse’s mane and neck for all that he was worth catching a glimpse of the bloody remains of a man’s head which his horse had just pulped beneath its hooves. Behind him other riders swerved to avoid ploughing into their king, barging into each other and unseating at least a dozen of the royal guards. In moments what had been a fairly orderly line of charging horses turned into a snorting, swearing, disorganised rabble floundering about at the water’s edge.

Frantically Borman pushed himself back down into the saddle and grabbed for his missing sword knowing that the enemy’s wall of steel, which had been half way across the shallows before his near catastrophe, would be on him in moments. His guards must have thought the same as they fought to bring their horses into some sort of order to continue the charge. One rider came close enough to his side for him to reach over and grab the sword out of the rider’s hand, pulling the man from his saddle as he did so. The man screamed as he fell and then the sound was abruptly cut off as he disappeared under the horse’s hooves. Borman turned his horse back to the battle, grateful to have a sword back in his hand and then dragged on his horse’s bit and once again waved his sword in the air.

The enemy line should have been onto him using their swords to hack at the horse’s legs and their pikes to skewer the riders above but instead they were retreating, hurrying back across the river they had fought so hard to cross. The ones at the back, now leading the retreat, were already half way up the slope responding to the waving flags. He glanced across the ridge top to where two empty horses stood and grinned to himself in relief; perhaps his spies hadn’t failed him after all.

Newn watched the battle intently wishing that he had spent less time hunting and pleasing himself and more time studying the histories and battle tactics. He had discussed their strategy with Gadrin the previous evening, and Tarraquin had put in some ideas of her own which Gadrin had politely dismissed, but now it was actually happening in front of him, he could see the strengths and weaknesses of their chosen tactics.

Losing so many spearmen and bowmen in the first engagement had not been part of the plan and he was horrified at the mounds of dead at the water’s edge. On the other hand, drawing Borman’s heavy foot soldiers uphill so they were exhausted and then driving them backwards having the advantage of the slope had worked well. However they had not planned for Borman to bring the royal guard into the battle before he committed the rest of his reserves and wondered what Gadrin would do to counter this move.

He turned to the commander of his army and then shouted in alarm as Gadrin gave a distressed grunt and slowly slipped from his saddle. Newn was beside him in an instant, overwhelmed by the amount of blood that had soaked him through. He frantically looked for a wound thinking he must have been hit by a knife or a bolt but there was nothing. When he turned Gadrin over, his blank eyes told him he was too late to help, the old man had already gone. For a moment he could do nothing; the man had been like a father to him and since his return to Dartis, the man had been his strength and his guide. Gadrin had believed in him and had supported him as the rightful heir to the throne, and now he was dead. Newn clutched the body to him unable to prevent his tears of sorrow falling on the dead man’s head.

The sudden disappearance of their commander and then their king had caused confusion amongst the small group of officers who had been waiting for orders nearby. When they realised that something was seriously wrong they dismounted and hurried over and even some of the flag men dropped their flags and ran to see what was going on. They stood in a semi-circle behind their kneeling king to be and their fallen commander not knowing what to do. They were good men and Gadrin had trained every one of them but not one of them had been in battle before.

“Your Majesty,” stuttered Cowan, the eldest of them who had been Gadrin’s first officer and was now in command of the army. “Your Majesty, we need to do something, Borman is bringing his royal guards into the field.”

Newn looked up barely able to recognise the pale soldier who had spoken. He didn’t really care about the battle any more, he only cared that Gadrin was dead. “Sound the retreat.”

But, My Lord! We are half way across the river, shouldn’t we go on?”

“Sound the retreat, damn you!” snapped Newn through his tears and returned to holding the dead commander closely to him. “Get the men back to camp; there has been enough death here today.”

Borman watched the Tarbisian army retreat and resisted the urge to cheer.

“Your Majesty!” shouted one of the troop leaders of the royal guards who had ridden up beside him. “Shouldn’t we pursue them across the river and kill them whilst they are on the run?”

He looked at the man’s eager face, his blood splattered breast plate and his waving sword and decided he’d had enough for one day. Kings, particularly him, were not meant to lead suicidal charges, unlike the brute which sat next to him, eager to kill and eager to die.

“You’re right, troop leader. Take your troop and kill as many men as you can. I’ll bring the other troops and support you from the rear and sides.”

The troop leader grinned in delight, waved his sword in the air again and charged off across the shallows with his troop galloping behind him. Borman watched them go and waited until they had reached the rear ranks of fleeing men before he turned his horse away and led the rest of the royal guard back to their camp. He could hear the screams of dying men behind him as the troop leader pursued Tarbis’s retreating army up the rise. It was a pity that the troop leader wouldn’t be returning but sacrificing a hundred men to put the fear of hellden into a demoralised army who had just lost their revered leader was well worth the cost. He chuckled to himself; with any luck the troop leader might just make it to the top of the rise and skewer Prince Newn before someone stopped him.

Leading his disgruntled guards back across the shale beach was not a pleasant task as the wounded and dying lay everywhere. It was one thing trampling your own men when you were charging into battle with the enemy in front of you, but it was a different matter when you were walking away from the enemy without having engaged them. His royal guards must have thought so too as he could hear them muttering behind him. It irritated him that they were so ungrateful; hadn’t his order to withdraw just saved their lives? He turned around and glared at them until there was silence and then nearly fell off his horse as the animal shied sideways to avoid something red and mangled on the ground.

The startled horse broke into a trot and he didn’t try to stop it; the sooner he was away from this place the better. He remembered his father telling him when he was a small boy about the sights and sounds of the aftermath of a battle. His father must have thought the description was something a boy of his age, when anything which involved blood and guts was exciting, would have enjoyed, but instead he’d puked up on the floor all over his father’s boots. His tutor had to come and fetch him and he had spent the rest of the day with a sore backside in his room in disgrace. Thinking about it, his father’s description had been pretty accurate, the only thing he had missed out was the smell, which was now turning his stomach and making him feel just as sick as he had been then.

Fortunately he had officers and healers to deal with the mess, so he rode on passed where the royal guards had their camp and up the rise to his own quarters. As soon as he pulled his horse to a halt his servants hurried forwards with hot water and fresh clothing. Despite him protesting that a king was also a soldier and was used to being bloody, he was hugely grateful to be rid of the cumbersome armour and be back in civilised clothing. By the time he had eaten a light snack of rainbow fish and oysters and had emptied a goblet of wine he had recovered enough to receive his officers’ reports, which were far from encouraging.

Now he stood behind the map table and frowned at the diminished numbers of markers on either side of the deep blue line. Despite all the blood and gore he’d lost remarkably few men. Around six hundred were out of the battle, either dead or wounded including the hundred horsemen who, unfortunately, hadn’t made it to the top of the rise on the other side of the river. Compared to the enemy that was pretty good. His officers had estimated his enemy’s losses at well over a thousand although at least half of those had been lightly armed foot soldiers. The inescapable fact though was that he was still heavily outnumbered and unless he could think of something brilliant, tomorrow was going to be another bloody day.

He looked up in irritation as three officers approached his command tent. He’d told them to go away and do whatever it was that officers did after a battle, whilst he considered the following day’s strategy, but it seemed that even the simplest of commands was too much for them to understand. The two at the rear were royal guards who had ridden with him that day, but for a moment he didn’t recognise the third. When he did, his scowl deepened and he picked up the knife at the table’s edge and tapped it irritably against his palm.

The three men stopped and Troop Captain Janus stepped forwards bowing nervously and looking petrified. “Your Majesty, I bring news from Guardcaptain Rastor.” He paused hoping that his king would give him some encouragement, but when he didn’t Janus continued in a shaky voice. “The Guardcaptain sends his greetings and his apologies for the delay in being at the appointed place at the appointed time, but the first Crosslands Bridge had been destroyed and it has taken a day to rebuild it.”

Borman shook his head; the poor boy was shaking like a maiden before her first ploughing. “Where is Guardcaptain Rastor now?” he asked in a voice that was so calm that it even surprised himself. He added a smile of encouragement to put the young man at his ease.

Janus looked a little less nervous and returned the smile. “He should have crossed the second Crosslands Bridge by now and will be in place by sunrise tomorrow if all goes well. He apologises for the delay and hopes that it has not caused you too much inconvenience.”

Borman shook his head again. Rastor had told him that Janus was a brainless fop, but he had still promoted the boy into his position despite Rastor’s advice. Perhaps he should have listened to his Guardcaptain after all. He stepped forward and put a fatherly arm around the shaking man who gave him a weak smile of gratitude and then a loud squeak of surprise as Borman’s knife ripped up through his abdomen and into his heart. The king dropped the twitching body and flicked droplets of blood from his hands.

“He really shouldn’t have said that.” He grinned slyly at the two stone-faced officers and laughed. “Well, at least we know now what tomorrow’s strategy is going to be, don’t we?”

*

There wasn’t much point keeping up the pretence that the stuffed uniforms were soldiers anymore; if they hadn’t moved from dawn to dawn even someone as inexperienced as Prince Newn would come to the conclusion that they were dummies. He wondered if the Prince would also come to the conclusion that if they were dummies then the real soldiers had to be somewhere else, probably behind him. Newn wasn’t an idiot, so he was bound to guess what was going on and even if he didn’t there had to be officers in Tarbis’s army who would. The question was what would he do about it? Would he split his army to meet the threat from front and rear or would he storm down the hill and cross the river in an attempt to annihilate one army before the other arrived?