Corvus (39 page)

Kassander appeared
in the doorway. “Karnos!” he stopped short at the sight of his sister in Karnos’s
arms.

“Kassia, for God’s
sake leave him alone - you can kiss him all you want after you’re married.
Karnos, we must go. The morai are assembling down at South Prime.”

“You go on,
Kassander. I have one or two things to clear up here.”

“Well, make it
quick - it’s two hours until sunrise.” He disappeared from the doorway, and was
back again two seconds later. He clanked into the room, already in full armour
with his helm in the crook of his arm. He bent over Kassia and kissed her on
her forehead. “You be safe, sister.”

“Look after him
for me, Kassander.”

Kassander snorted.
“He’s big and ugly enough to do that for himself. Karnos, hurry!” He was gone
again.

“You might have
wished your brother well too, you know,” Karnos said with a smile.

“He knows me, and
all that I wish him, Karnos.”

“Come with me.” He
took her by the hand. “I want your help with something.”

The long room,
with the cabinet of Framnos at one end. Every lamp in the house had been lit,
and the household were all up and about though it was still the middle of the
night. Polio was there, and all the household slaves. In a corner Rian stood
with Ona at her side, and by them was Philemos. He wore a soldier’s cuirass.

The cabinet door
was open, and the Curse of God that had belonged to Katullos stood within like
some icon of shadow. Karnos lifted it from its place and held it out to Kassia.

“Help me put it
on.”

She was reluctant
to touch it, but as he settled it over his shoulders, she clicked shut the
black clasps that held the halves of it together, and pulled down the wings
that settled snug into place over his collarbones.

Karnos exhaled.
The cuirass seemed to settle on him. He was no longer fat, and the black stuff
of the armour closed in against his torso and gelled there, a black hide
matching the contours of his chest perfectly.

“Now you are a
Cursebearer at last,” Kassia said. There were tears in her eyes.

He gripped her arm
a moment, and stepped forward to the table upon which the rest of his panoply
lay. A plain bronze helm, a shield emblazoned with the sigil of Machran, a
spear, and a curved drepana in a belted scabbard. But he did not touch these,
taking up instead a small iron key.

He walked over to
Polio, and set the key in the old man’s slave-collar. With a click, he loosened
it, and carefully took it from his neck.

“You are free, my
friend. I am only sorry I did not do it sooner.”

Polio rubbed his
throat. He looked down on Karnos like a stern father. There was a gleam in his
eye, though his face never changed.

“I was never a
slave in this house,” he said.

Karnos gave him
the key. “Free them all, Polio -they can come or go as they please. I will own
no more slaves.”

Something like a
smile crossed Polio’s face. “You have grown, Karnos.”

Karnos tapped the
side of his black cuirass. “I thought I had shrunk.”

The two men stood
looking at one another. Now that Karnos had become thin and gaunt they could
almost have passed for father and son.

“I shall be here
when you return,” Polio said. “This is where I belong.”

Karnos nodded.

He turned to
Philemos and the children of Rictus. “Stay here. The streets will not be safe -
better to stay behind stout walls tomorrow, whatever happens.”

“I’m coming with
you,” Philemos said, and Rian clutched at his arm.

“You are needed
here,” Karnos told him. “Stay in my house, and look after those you love. You
will do more good here than in a spearline.” He half-smiled. “That is my order,
as Speaker of Machran.”

Then he went back
to the table, and set the bronze helm on his head.

The sun began
to rise, and with the
dawn a stillness fell across the city. The walls were lined with spearmen of
Machran and Arkadios and Avennos, and gathered together in the square within the
South Prime Gate a mass of spearmen, thousands strong, had formed up and stood
silently, looking at the grey lightening of the sky.

On the blasted
plain before the walls, the army of Corvus formed up, massing to the east and
south of the city. They stood in ordered ranks, waiting like their foes within.

And over the hills
to the south a third army came into view. It shook out from column into line of
battle, and as the sun cleared the Gosthere Mountains to the east, so the men
who marched in its ranks took up the Paean, the death hymn of the Macht, and
the sound of it rolled over the plain and filled the air like the thunder of an
approaching storm.

ANGER
OF THE GODS

Ardashir hummed lightly
under his
breath, a cradle-song he had learned back in the Empire. The tune came to him
now and again, on sleep or waking, and reminded him always of a warmer world,
of blue skies and heat shimmering across yellow fields. It seemed Like a dream
from another life, but there was comfort in it.

The horses of the
Companions shifted and pawed at the ground restlessly. They were on the left of
a line extending just under two pasangs, facing south across the vast brown
bowl that had once been the famed fertile hinterland of Machran. To their
front, the army of the Avennan League was approaching, a line of bronze shields
which the rising sun caught and set alight in sudden, blazing ripples of yellow
light. Ardashir looked at the sky. At least there would be sunshine today,
something to give colour and warmth to this drab country.

Corvus sat his
horse beside him, his banner-bearer behind him. The leader of the army had
doffed his tall helm with its flowing white crest, and was smiling, the light
catching his eyes and kindling in them a violet flame. He looked today more
like a fine-boned Kefren than one of the heavy, stolid Macht. His mother’s
bones in him, Ardashir thought. He must have his father’s spirit.

Corvus turned to
him as though he had caught the thought. “Good hunting, brother,” he said.

The Macht spearmen
to their right had taken up the Paean, the men of Teresian and Demetrius’s
morai booming out the ancient song in time with their kinsmen across the way.
It stirred the blood, a dirge which was nonetheless a challenge to battle.

The horses in the
ranks of the Companions knew the sound, and began to prance and nicker under
their riders. They were ill-fed and overworked, but still they had the Niseian
blood in them, that of the finest warhorses ever bred, and the loom of battle
made them sweat and stamp where they stood. The brightly armoured Kefren riders
spoke to them and called them by their names. Soon they would be let loose on
the singing men drawing nearer minute by minute.

Ardashir turned to
his left. Shoron had his lance in one hand, his reins in the other, and a
bronze horn hanging from his cuirass.

“You think you’ll
have enough spit to blow that thing?” Ardashir asked him, grinning.

“I’ll blow it in
your ear and let you be the judge.”

“Good hunting,
Shoron.”

“Good hunting.”

Corvus rose up in
his saddle, balancing on his knees. He turned right and waved his arm. “Xenosh
- the signal. Give it now.”

Behind him his
banner-bearer lifted up the streaming raven-flag and moved it forward and back.

A moment where
nothing happened, but then a series of orders rapped out through the ranks of
the Macht spearmen. Centurions in transverse helms moved forward of the main
line, raised their spears, and bellowed to their centons.

The commands of
Teresian and Demetrius began to move, three thousand heavy infantry. The Paean
sank a little as they started out, and then rose up strong again, the beat of
the song marking their footfalls. The phalanx moved out to meet the challenge
of the men approaching from the south, who outnumbered them better than two to
one.

“The anvil is on
its way,” Corvus said. “Brothers, we are the hammer.”

Almost six pasangs
away, the
defenders of the East Prime Gate were craning their necks to watch what was
going on to the south, when someone shouted out in astonishment.

Their attention
shifted to the enemy troops along the Imperial road. These were not yet
advancing, but behind them something else was. Looming up out of the early
light came six huge towers, the rumble of their progress audible even on the
walls of the city. Each was the height of ten tall men or more, topped with
battlements, and encased in hides of all colour and hue. And they were moving
on wheels.

Perhaps two
hundred men drew each tower, and there were more pushing from behind.

As the six
behemoths reached the lines of Druze’s men, so the infantry moved forward with
them. On the towers of the city, crews began to crank back the immense bows of
the ballistae.

At the South
Prime Gate, a
centurion shouted down to the waiting centons and morai below.

“The enemy is
moving out to engage the League army!”

Kassander was
walking through the waiting ranks of men. “This is it, lads,” he said calmly, “Move
out nice and quick, but don’t bunch up in the gateway. Form up on your
centurions outside.”

Then he bellowed at
the men in the gatehouse. “Open the gates! Machran, we are moving out!”

The gates swung
screeching on their ancient hinges, pushed by straining soldiers. Kassander
went to the head of the lead centon and raised his spear. The troops of Machran
and Arkadios and Avennos began to follow him out of the gates, close on four
thousand men in full armour.

Karnos was in the
third mora. His heart was thumping high in his chest as he shuffled forward,
and as the pace picked up he began to march, keeping his spear snug against his
side to avoid entangling the man next to him. No-one was talking now, and every
man had that hard, distant stare which comes at the onset of battle. They could
hear the Paean being sung by the formations out on the plain, and deeper yet, the
low rumble of thousands of horses.

The Companion
Cavalry of Corvus was on the move.

“Stand fast,” Rictus
said, raising
his voice to be heard. “Hold your positions until I give the word.”

He was standing
out in front of the Dogsheads, as were all his senior centurions. His men were
assembled in an arrowhead. The leading ranks were all red-cloaked mercenaries,
trained up by the original Dogsheads over the preceding weeks until they were
deemed worthy of the colour.

Behind them were
the morai on loan from Teresian and Demetrius, a mixture of veteran spearmen
and recent conscripts, though the distinction between the two of them had faded
with the duration of the campaign. And on their flanks, hanging back like
scavengers, were hundreds of Igranian skirmishers.

Fornyx had the
left, Valerian the right. Kesero stood close by Rictus, holding aloft the
ancient banner of the Dogsheads, entrusted to Rictus by Jason over twenty years
before. Jason, whose son was now leading two thousand heavy cavalry out to the
east of the approaching League army, and dropping off centons of horsemen as he
went. Whatever plan he had for dealing with the League forces, Rictus was not
privy to it.

The city garrison
was still pouring out of the South Prime Gate and spreading out in a ragged
line. Rictus counted the sigils, and nodded to himself. No surprises there.
Karnos was taking half the garrison out on this sally, risking all for the
opportunity to link up with the League morai. He would have done the same
himself.

“I never saw such
a complicated fucking battlefield,” Kesero said, his voice hollow inside his
helm. “Look, Rictus: Parmenios’s infernal machines are on the move. I had a bet
with Valerian he’d never get them past the wagon park.”

Maybe five pasangs
away, the tops of the siege towers could be seen over the city walls. They
ground forward like sullen titans, and now Rictus could make out motes of fire
sailing through the air towards them.

“They’ve set light
to the ballista missiles. They’re going to try and burn them down.”

“Phobos,” Kesero
said. “I’m glad I’m standing on my own feet and not cooped up in one of those
damn things.”

“Look sharp,
Kesero,” Rictus said, as he walked up and down the line, peering this way and
that. “Nearly time.”

He took his place
at the apex of the arrowhead. He was not quite himself, not yet; the strength
he had lost had not been regained.

I don’t heal as
fast as I used to, Rictus thought.

He could not help
but wonder how many more days like today he had left in him.

Over half the
Machran morai were now outside the walls and in formation, maybe two thousand
men formed up in line, and two thousand more still inside the gate, pushing
through.

“Brothers,” Rictus
said loudly, “Remember your drill. Watch the man in front. Keep together, and
don’t think about anything else than what’s ahead of you. Other battles are
being fought around us, but for now all you have to think about is this one.

“To those of you
who wear the scarlet in war for the first time today, do not disgrace it,
either in the thick of the fight or afterwards. The colour has been worn by
both good men and bad for centuries, but it has never been worn without
courage.”

He raised his
spear. “
Forward!
”

TO
the south
of the Dogsheads, the
spearline of Teresian and Demetrius was the first portion of Corvus’s army to
make contact. The Paean” was snuffed out as they crashed into the morai of the
Avennan League, three thousand men in a compact phalanx in a head-on collision
with seven thousand others. The appalling clatter of the impact carried clear
across the plain to the walls of the city.