The Long War 02 - The Dark Blood (48 page)

He couldn’t argue or even respond and his head began to burn with the enormity of the voice speaking to him.

‘You follow those of nobility
and
honour. The Purple clerics were intended to have both.’

‘Who are you?’ The words spluttered out and the knight saw a distant vision of a cleric, standing in plate armour and wearing a tabard of nobility.

‘I am the shade of Brother Torian of Arnon,’ replied the speaker, ‘and you are the exemplar of the One.’

* * *

When he awoke, his mouth was dry and he had a headache. He didn’t feel the slightest bit rested and the dream stayed with him in more vivid detail than he would have thought possible. He knew the name he’d heard, but he had not seen Brother Torian since his youth in Ro Arnon and only vaguely remembered the cleric’s face. They had never spoken, and Fallon did not know what had become of Torian.

It was coming on night-time now and, as Fallon pondered his dream, he felt even more content with his decision to save Verellian and defy Jakan. He had been allowed to sit at the entrance to his tent and watch the spectacle outside. As soon as the sun went down, the trebuchets had begun their bombardment and now, with the coming of darkness, they had been hurling boulders at South Warden for three hours. The army was in high spirits, with few duties to attend to other than watching the engineers annihilate the wooden stockade of the city. There was much good-natured banter from the Darkwald yeomanry, who were expecting a quick victory.

He had seen Vladimir Corkoson march back and forth across the lines and had, on a few occasions, tried to attract the Lord of Mud’s attention. Of all those present, Fallon felt that the lesser noble of the Darkwald would be the best person to talk to about his dream. Without Verellian to confide in, the newly faithful knight found himself seeking additional counsel. It had only been a dream, but Fallon couldn’t shake the feeling that something had changed. He knew that he was the exemplar of the One, but he did not yet know what that meant – only that it meant everything, and that his honour was the only armour he needed.

He turned back to the city of Scarlet Company and observed that the Ranen had built South Warden well. It contained gates and killing grounds designed to snare an invading army. From this distance, Fallon could not make out any of the city’s defenders, but he guessed that they would not have been prepared for the range of the Ro siege equipment and had chosen to stay under cover, hoping for a chance to meet their attackers face to face.

Scarlet Company had a reputation as fearsome warriors and, given the chance to swing their axes, they would surely cause a dent in the king’s army. Unfortunately, following the strategy of Cardinal Mobius, the army of Ro was not offering the Ranen a target to aim at or an enemy to fight. They had catapults mounted on the western defences, but the Ranen heavy weaponry did not have the range to reach the army massed on the plains of Scarlet. They simply had to wait out the bombardment.

Fallon’s unit was nowhere to be seen and he guessed that they were stationed at the far end of the lines to keep them away from their captain. Though he had gained a new respect for Theron, he doubted that his loyalty would stretch to a rescue. The bond between knights was strong and they would remain his men until the end, an end that was rapidly approaching. If he did manage to escape, he felt that his knights should not have their reputations tarnished by assisting him – not that escape seemed possible, and he wondered why the shade of Torian should have appeared to him now, when he was of little use to the One God.

More rocks were hurled and Fallon’s attention was drawn back to reality. He could hear the distant sound of screaming and saw jubilant knights chanting death to the Ranen. Across the plains, the trebuchets had breached the outer walls and killed a number of warriors within. Purple clerics were shouting boisterous prayers, and Mobius himself stood on a raised dais facing the front. The cardinal was slightly manic as he led his clerics in raucous prayer. The king was nowhere to be seen, but his bodyguard, Cleoth Montague, was standing next to Mobius, joining in the prayers. Fallon felt uncomfortable listening to the nobles of the One, their words tinged with the same hollowness he had sensed in his dream.

His head began to throb again and the presence of Brother Torian entered his mind. He was not asleep, and the shade’s face came from all around him, but very much in the real world. ‘Am I supposed just to watch this?’ asked the Red knight, without taking his eyes from the Purple clerics.

‘You are supposed to act as your honour dictates,’ replied Torian’s shade. ‘You are not alone and it is not your destiny to die in a tent.’

An ironic smile appeared on Fallon’s face. ‘You can’t be a Purple cleric, you made me laugh,’ he said.

‘I am the memory of a Purple cleric, and you are the first churchman of the One to glimpse a long-forgotten truth, that nobility without honour is meaningless.’

‘Tell that to him,’ replied Fallon, nodding towards Mobius.

‘The cardinal’s will is not his own. He follows another.’ Torian’s shade spoke with anger and a deep sense of regret.

‘The Seven Sisters,’ said the knight in a growl.

‘This army does not march under the banner of the One,’ replied the shade. ‘It unknowingly follows another god, a Forest Giant of pleasure and blood.’

‘And I’m a man in a tent with no sword,’ said Fallon drily, gazing out at fifteen thousand armed men. ‘Maybe I’ll just bide my time. I might sneak up on them unawares.’

Knight Commander Tristram was not joining in the boisterous praying but stood with his senior staff just outside his command pavilion, directing the bombardment of key points of the Ranen defences. The outer gates had gone and splintered wood was strewn across the first killing ground. The trebuchets were now concentrating their fire on the second gate.

The distant screaming had grown louder. Men wailed in pain and anguish, moving dead and broken bodies from the shattered gates. Several of the Ranen catapults fired hopelessly on to the plains of Scarlet in a gesture of pure frustration. A series of concentrated volleys directed at the second gate left the city of South Warden looking dangerously exposed. The two wooden palisades were now in a splintered heap, leaving a wide avenue undefended. Men moved across the empty space. Shields were raised and an attempt was made to plug the gap with hastily moved carts and wooden beams.

The men of Scarlet were distant, but the Red knights still jeered at them, shouting oaths of death across the dark plains of Ranen. Torches moved along lines of knights, creating a striking background to the army as it began to sense victory. After a few moments the bombardment stopped and the breach in South Warden’s defences was, to Fallon’s eyes, wide enough for a frontal assault.

A horn was blown from the centre of the lines and Fallon turned sharply to see King Sebastian Tiris emerge from his tent. The knights stopped shouting. Cleoth Montague and a unit of king’s guardsmen escorted the monarch to the raised platform occupied by Cardinal Mobius.

Vladimir Corkoson was now close to Fallon’s tent and the Lord of Mud looked both concerned and angry at what he was witnessing. Whatever orders Brother Jakan had given the yeomanry, they were not well received. The common folk of Darkwald had been instructed by their Purple cleric commander to form up in ordered ranks before the raised dais and behind the line of trebuchets. They were ordered beyond the knights, and Fallon experienced a sinking feeling as he recognized the telltale build up for a frontal assault.

‘My knights... my yeomanry,’ shouted the king in a cracked and manic voice.

The Purple clerics banged their fists on their steel breastplates and loudly saluted their king. The knights of the Red were less enthusiastic and Fallon again heard whispered words concerning the monarch’s state of mind.

The shade of Torian appeared next to him. Bathed in dull firelight was a fully armoured cleric, resplendent in the regalia of nobility. The shade shone brighter than the other Purple clerics, but was unseen by all but Fallon.

‘Should I just go and kill him?’ asked Fallon, only half-intending it as a joke.

‘That would accomplish little beyond your death, exemplar.’ The reply echoed with an intensity that again made Fallon wince in pain. ‘You must wait.’

‘I’m getting impatient and, without a sword, I’m of little use to you... or the One.’ He was growing angry. The spectacle of arrogant rhetoric and bloodlust going on before him was about to cost a lot of men their lives, both Ro and Ranen.

The king stepped to the front of the dais and, flanked by Mobius and Tristram, drew a highly ornamental longsword. ‘This night, we take back our land from these peasants and lesser men.’

He gestured to Brother Jakan, who was standing off to the side with Vladimir Corkoson. The Purple cleric was staring with righteous fervour as King Sebastian called him forward. He was wearing full dress armour and the purple sceptre on his tabard had been replaced since his duel with Verellian.

‘Your forces will have the honour of striking the first blow at the enemy, Brother Jakan,’ the king announced in a virtual shriek. ‘The breach lies before you... let the men of Darkwald take the first blood of the battle.’

‘It shall be done, my king,’ responded Brother Jakan. ‘We will kill these peasants and lesser men in your name.’

‘...and in the name of the One.’ The king’s eyes were wide and bloodshot.

The Darkwald yeomanry comprised ten thousand men, divided into companies of five hundred. They carried spears and maces, with the occasional crossbow or sword. Their armour was chain mail and of inferior quality compared with the breastplates of the knights. It was strange that they were being sent into the breach, and stranger still that only four companies were being committed to the first assault.

The two thousand soldiers shook with nerves as Brother Jakan ordered them to stand to attention in front of the rest of the army. The Lord of Mud was highly agitated and Fallon could see him angrily insisting that he be allowed to speak to Commander Tristram. His complaints were rebuffed and Corkoson could only stand by as his captains were ordered forward.

‘There are some very clever military minds out there,’ Fallon said to Torian’s shade. ‘So why are they letting an idiot child like Sebastian Tiris decide the strategy?’

‘You presume they have a choice,’ was the shade’s unhelpful response.

‘Two thousand auxiliaries have no chance at that breach. They need a slow advance to take the ground inch by inch, not a frontal assault.’

Fallon noted that Jakan was not intending to lead the four companies of yeomanry into South Warden. The cleric of nobility now sat astride a horse and was delivering empty words of encouragement to his new command – ill-chosen rhetoric about their service to the One God and their responsibility to Tor Funweir.

Through the press of knights, yeomen and clerics, Fallon caught sight of Knight Lieutenant Theron. He was at the rear of the column, on guard duty. He and Sergeant Ohms were standing casually in front of a small tent that housed a number of yeomen who had been caught drinking or sleeping on duty. Fallon’s unit looked bored and decidedly unimpressed at having been given such a mundane duty.

‘At least Theron won’t have to watch the men of Darkwald get slaughtered,’ said the imprisoned knight, mostly to himself.

‘This night will contain much slaughter, exemplar,’ replied Torian’s shade, ‘and you will have to watch.’

He began to respond, but a horn blew from the centre of the column and the four companies of yeomanry advanced. They moved quickly, crossing the plains of Scarlet as fast as they could to avoid any possible assault from South Warden’s catapults. The companies were disorganized and spearmen mingled with crossbowmen and standard bearers in no kind of recognizable formation. As they came into range of the Ranen catapults, several volleys caught the massed ranks of yeomanry and men fell before they had reached the outer walls. The sound of the advance grew indistinct as they moved beyond the first shattered gate and were into the narrow breach.

A moment of relative silence, then roars of defiance erupted from the Ranen. The defenders rushed from positions of cover and attacked the yeomanry from three sides at once. It was a brutal but effective strategy, which forced the common men of Darkwald into a bottleneck where they could be hacked to pieces by the axes of Scarlet Company. In moments, the shattered companies began to fall back. It was not an easy retreat and most simply ran into their own advancing men. They met a swift end as the Ranen continued their flanking attacks, cutting a path through the disorganized yeomanry and boxing them in.

‘Pull them back,’ shouted Vladimir Corkoson, his face livid with rage. He gestured wildly at Brother Jakan and jostled the Purple clerics around him to get closer to the command dais.

‘Silence, my lord,’ replied Cardinal Mobius, raising a hand and dismissing the Lord of Mud. He turned manic eyes back towards the walls of South Warden. ‘They will die in sight of the One.’

‘Fuck the One,’ roared Vladimir. ‘Those are my men, I won’t see them slaughtered like this.’ His words were not well chosen and a dozen Purple clerics surrounded him with drawn swords.

Fallon turned back to the city, where he could make out a handful of yeomanry limping away from the breach. The Ranen did not harry their retreat but melted away into their places of concealment.

‘Lord Corkoson, your blasphemy will not be tolerated,’ screamed Cardinal Mobius, his face eerily like that of the king. ‘My clerics, detain the Lord of Mud.’

Vladimir thought about resisting, but he was not a warrior and, faced with a guard of Purple churchmen, the lord of Darkwald had no choice but to submit. The yeomanry showed their displeasure as Vladimir’s sword was removed and his hands shackled, but a few stern words from Brother Jakan silenced them. The commanders exchanged looks with their lord, but Vladimir waved them down.

‘Stay your hand, exemplar... it is not yet your moment,’ said Torian’s shade.

‘They’ll kill him for that,’ replied Fallon.