Unholy War (13 page)

Gurvon said.

He was suddenly sure that that the mighty Lucia Fasterius was actually afraid.

Her mental voice dropped to a whisper so faint he barely caught it.

Then with a jolt he realised that he wasn’t supposed to have heard her at all. Her words were accompanied by a genuine sense of palpable fear, which she instantly masked. When she spoke again, she was brisk, and eager to be gone.

Then she was gone.

He blinked and stared about him slowly, his mind repeating those half-heard words:
Would that we did
.

‘What is this major card she doesn’t hold?’ he wondered.

The Conquest of Yuros

Ramon Sensini and his little delegation found Seth Korion beside a gap in the ruined walls, staring blankly at the sheets of rain. Visibility was thirty yards at best and they were all saturated, despite their heavy cloaks. Seth stood anxiously as he recognised those with Ramon. Fridryk Kippenegger and the two Argundians, Jelaska Lyndrethuse and Sigurd Vaas, were not amongst those Seth would count as friends.

‘What is it?’ he asked, trying his best to sound haughty.

‘We need to discuss the situation of the army.’

Seth winced and said morosely, ‘It’s trapped in a ruin by an enemy who can summon storms and defeat pure-blood magi. What else is there to say?’

Fridryk Kippenegger had shed his legion garb sometime during the battle; he was harnessed in a Schlessen kirtle over his chainmail vest. His bare arms were muscled like a warrior-king of old. He nodded at the torrential downpour outside. ‘Gut rain, yar? Just like home.’

‘Oh, it’s not so bad as that,’ Ramon said. ‘And as far as I can tell, thanks to the weather the enemy don’t even know we’re here. This storm is our friend. We can move while it lasts, using it as cover to wriggle out from under their noses.’

Seth glowered at him. ‘What do you care, Silacian? No doubt you’ll just fly away as soon as the storm lifts.’

Ramon had been expecting just such a remark, which helped him keep his temper over it. ‘
No one
is running away, Seth. I wouldn’t, even if my skiff wasn’t lying broken somewhere on the battlefield. We’ve all got too much invested in this army to just walk away.’
About three hundred thousand in gold in my case, though I’m not telling you that.
‘We’re going to get out of this, and find a way home.’

Seth looked at Jelaska and Sigurd. The Argundian pure-bloods had vast experience. Jelaska looked like an eccentric aunt, with a bony face and unruly tangles of grey hair, but she was a skilled and indomitable battle-mage who’d fought against the empire in the last Argundian wars. Sigurd had no less a reputation as a warrior – and as a drinker. He was a sturdily built man with a greying red beard.

‘Why talk to me?’ Seth asked bitterly. ‘I’m nothing more than a novice battle-mage.’

‘The survivors – the rankers – need someone to believe in,’ Jelaska said, her voice smoky. ‘We’ve done a quick count and we reckon there are two, maybe even three legions-worth of men hidden among these ruins and the surrounding slopes. That’s ten to fifteen thousand men. Pallacios XIII – your legion – is the only one that’s mostly intact. We’ve got Argundians, Noromen, even some Estellan archers and cavalry, as well as provincial Rondians from at least seven legions. If we’re to pull them together, we need a name.’

‘The name of Korion,’ said Sigurd Vas, his voice gruff, his face dour.

Ramon watched Seth’s eyes flicker nervously. The general’s son hadn’t been his friend at college.
In fact you were a bullying, supercilious, arrogant pezzi di merda, truth be told. But I know you, a little.
He suspected Seth would do anything to live up to the brutal demands of his fearsome father, never mind that he lacked the aptitude, personality or experience for the role.

We need the name of Korion if we’re to keep this army together.

Ramon was new to the military, but he’d kept his eyes wide open and made it his business to learn how it all worked since arriving, and the one thing he was certain of was that leadership was crucial. If the men believed that the man in charge of them was competent and would see them right, they’d do as they were told. Men who didn’t believe in that leadership did as they pleased and destroyed the cohesion of the whole. It was why Kip was a popular battle-mage who got instant obedience, though he was a Schlessen low-blood, while Renn Bondeau was loathed despite being a half-blood Rondian noble.

Ramon had come to the conclusion that the commanding general was primarily a figurehead, but his role was still vital – a bit like Pater-Retiari, his familioso head, who inspired absolute loyalty, even in people who’d never met him. A general required a legend of success. Soldiers didn’t care whether that legend was won with fairness or brutality; they just needed to know that the man in charge was a
winner
. And there was no name higher in the arena of war than that of Korion.

Seth, the youngest of that name, stared at the ground and muttered, ‘I’m not a general. I’m barely a battle-mage.’

True enough
.

‘You’ll have plenty of advice,’ Ramon told him. ‘Sigurd and Jelaska have both commanded front-line maniples in Argundy against the Rondians.’

‘Then put them in charge,’ Seth spat, glaring at the Argundians.

‘My reputation is in fighting against your empire,’ Sigurd replied coolly. ‘The bulk of the survivors are Rondian – they will not accept me as commander.’

‘Nor would they accept me,’ Jelaska put in, adding dryly, ‘I have no cock, so clearly I’m not fit to command.’ There was no particular answer to that which wouldn’t lead to a shouting match, so the men just looked uncomfortably away.

‘What about Renn Bondeau?’ Seth asked morosely.

‘Bondeau is a dim-witted, arrogant
figlio di puttana
. He is the last person we should put in charge.’ Ramon jabbed a finger at Seth. ‘Accept it, Korion. You know it’s what you’ve always dreamed of.’

‘What do you know about my dreams?’

Ramon gave him a knowing look, and Seth coughed and dropped his head. ‘You don’t know what it is like, to have my father’s eyes fixed on you,’ he whispered. ‘Do you know that poem by Carriticus, about the last moments of a deer trapped by wolves: “
Transfixed by the amber glare
.” My father has eyes like that. You can’t breathe, you can’t think – all you want is for those eyes to smile, for him to say, “Well done” – but he never does.’

Ramon saw Sigurd’s eyes narrow and he looked at his fellow Argundian. Poetry and self-pity were not things either valued. He shook his head faintly at them both.
Be patient, give him time
.

‘I thought when I graduated I would gain his approval. But instead …’ Seth looked at Ramon. ‘You know, you were there. It was me they should have failed, not Mercer.
I
was the failure.’

Ramon nodded.
I do indeed know, Lesser Son
.

Seth’s voice sounded hollow as he went on, ‘When I got home after graduation, Father wouldn’t even see me. I wrote him letters –
from my room next door to his
– begging to see him. I was not invited to the hunts or the balls, or even to dine with him. Then he just flew away. I had to apply to join the Crusade myself, and I ended up in a disgraced legion. You must have thought it hilarious.’

Well yes, actually …

But watching self-flagellation wasn’t a pastime Ramon enjoyed. ‘Seth, we wouldn’t be here if we thought there was no substance to you.’ That might not be quite the truth, but even as he said it, he decided that maybe it was so. ‘Listen, no one believes being the son of an arsehole like Kaltus Korion is easy.’

Seth glared hotly at Ramon. ‘My father is not an
arsehole
. He is a
great
man. I would not expect someone like you to understand him.’

‘Most fathers allow their sons a little imperfection,’ Ramon retorted. ‘Just not him. But you can still grow into the man
you
want to be. Whether that’s someone your father would approve of, well, I neither know nor care, and neither should you. You’ve got a backbone in there. I do believe that.’

It’s amazing what you can talk yourself into believing.

Seth inhaled, exhaled. ‘Of course I’ve always wanted to be a general – a hero, like my father. But I wanted to
earn
leadership, not be given it as a stopgap. I wanted to
prove
myself, to learn at my father’s side. I’m not ready yet. I’ve never even led a charge.’

‘Seth, a general doesn’t
lead
charges. He organises people; he makes decisions; he sets the strategy – and then he lets others work out how to implement it. Most of all, he is calm, confident, and never wrong. And he is
visible
.’

‘It is as Sensini says,’ Sigurd Vaas put in. ‘Your father has not fought in combat for decades.’

Seth blinked. ‘But he led two Crusades, and he broke the Noromen, and quelled the Silacian revolt, and the Argundy-Estellayne border war, and—’

‘He trotted around on a horse giving orders. Others fought and died,’ Ramon replied, having to fight really hard to keep the scorn from his voice. ‘Mostly he just drank wine and raped serving girls.’

Seth stiffened, his eyes suddenly blazing. ‘You will retract that, or I will have satisfaction.’

Ramon met his eyes fiercely.
You really want to fight me?
Then he exhaled.
That would be counterproductive
. ‘I retract it. He
seduced
serving girls.’

Kaltus Korion’s reputation as a womaniser was too well known for Seth to take him up on those words. He bowed his head. ‘You know, they say my father has fathered forty bastards. And one legitimate son.’ He raised his head. ‘I will make my father proud. And I will learn to be a real general.’

‘There’s nothing like learning on the job,’ Ramon replied.

Seth took another deep breath. ‘Is this your idea, Sensini?’

‘It’s our idea. And it’s better than having Renn-rukking-Bondeau in charge.’

‘Kore’s Word,’ Sigurd Vaas breathed.

Seth bowed his head. Then he lifted it. ‘Very well. I accept.’

*

Seth Korion stood beneath the half-ruined platform of stone they’d chosen for the address, sweating and shaking. As many of the twelve thousand or so survivors of Echor’s army who could squeeze in were gathered around and above him, perched on the old battlements, filling every nook and cranny of the ruined fortress. They were frightened men who’d never thought to see a true defeat. Most of them probably hadn’t drawn a weapon until now except to extort plunder from frightened civilians. Now they were vividly confronted with the true fragility of life, trapped in a harsh land thousands of miles from safety.

Seth felt his knees tremble, and confessed to Ramon in a shaky voice, ‘I don’t know what to say.’

Renn Bondeau scowled in disgust and turned away. He’d spent the morning telling whoever would listen that he was the only one truly fit for command.

‘I’ll tell you the words,’ Ramon Sensini hissed in Seth’s ear. Seth glanced at him nervously. The little Silacian had been a figure of contempt at college, a victim for him and his friends to pick on, but in the six months of the crusade he’d grown in ways Seth didn’t begin to understand. There was an air of capability and subtle menace about him now – as if he knew exactly what he wanted to happen, and how to make it so. The men respected him and his hulking Schlessen shadow, Kippenegger. Somehow he’d usurped control, and got the girl too: Severine Tiseme was watching them, her hands folded across her swelling belly.

‘H-how?’ he asked shakily.

> Sensini whispered into his head.
.> He shoved Seth towards the steps.

Here goes …
Seth tottered up and found himself confronted with thousands of upturned faces, all with big, scared eyes. They swarmed closer and he swallowed and opened his mouth, but it too dry to speak.

Silence fell. He groped for his water-bottle and realised he’d left it below. ‘I need a drink,’ he croaked, and his words boomed off the rocks and walls. He flinched.

A ripple of grim laughter ran through the crowd of sweating soldiers. ‘Yeah, me too,’ several guffawed. Someone tossed him a metal bottle, which he barely caught. He unstoppered it, took a swig – not of water, but some kind of whiskey. He winced, and the men laughed at the face he pulled.

Ramon Sensini whispered his head.
.>

‘That’s strong stuff,’ he parroted awkwardly.

,> Ramon added.

‘Like us,’ Seth said, managing to get more firmness into his voice. More words flowed, and Seth began to feel calmer. He’d been a fair mage at the more sedentary and passive Studies. He might have been a poor fighter, but he’d always been competent at speaking – and whilst that might have been mostly addressing his ranked toy soldiers in his nursery, now he instinctively dressed up Ramon’s terse comments into something more, turning the relayed phrases into the bones of a real speech. ‘We’re still here!’ he shouted, eliciting more cheers. ‘We got out – some of us by the barest whisker. Some of us hacked our way free of hordes of screaming Keshi. We left brothers behind us, dead in the sands. But we got out!’

‘Yeah, we did,’ someone shouted. ‘In Kore we trust,’ another added.

‘But we didn’t escape that Hel to huddle in here, did we! We have people at home, loved ones, waiting for us! In Pallas and Bres! In Estella and Argundy! In Noros and Schlessen! Our wives and children, our mothers and fathers, our families are waiting for us. Are we going to let them wait for ever?’