Stands a Shadow (33 page)

Jay nodded to him. ‘I’ll see you at the top,’ he said, and the man drew his sword and set off after them.

Halahan wished him luck.

‘Hurry up, man,’ snarled Sparus as his aide rushed from the Archgeneral’s tent with two slaves dashing after him, each one bearing pieces of his armour.

Sparus stood in his underclothing, barely noticing the cold as he studied the chaos unfolding in the camp below.

The Khosian cavalry was rampaging through the baggage train now. Moments earlier they had rolled in out of the night like a ghostly host, while most of the men of the Expeditionary Force slept in their pup tents or climbed to their feet too stunned to act. If they’d stopped there it would have been bad enough. But instead they raised hell as they carried on through the camp that stretched long and thin between the lake and the far ridgeline, so that now, in the exposed circle of the baggage train, flames were rising from blazing wagons.

Khosian skirmishers had followed in the wake of the cavalry, fighting within the camp itself. They were good, whoever they were, and Sparus watched groups of figures fighting amongst his surprised troops, avoiding those islands of order where his officers bellowed at their men and roused them into some kind of formation.

‘Is it a raid?’ asked the young priest who stopped by his side, his eyes bleary with sleep. It was Ché, Sasheen’s personal Diplomat.

‘No,’ Sparus told him, and looked to the west along the valley floor, where a bristle of spear-points glistened in the moonlight. The Diplomat followed his gaze, and stared at the sight without comment.

‘The Matriarch, is she up yet?’ Sparus asked of one of his aides as they helped fit his armour.

‘Barely,’ the harried aide replied. ‘She took a sleeping draught to help her sleep. A heavy one, they say.’

‘Romano?’

The aide was about to reply when a roar sounded from Romano’s tent, and they all turned in time to see an Acolyte being flung out into the snow with Romano emerging after him, naked and wild-eyed and gripping a shortsword in his hand. The young general staggered in the snow and righted himself. He saw Sparus strapping on his cuirass.

‘Tonight?’ he shouted across at him. ‘Tell me I’m dreaming, for pity’s sake!’

‘You are,’ drawled Sparus. ‘We all are.’

Romano rubbed at one of his eyes and swore.

‘Where is my armour?’ he hollered, stumbling back inside his tent.

General Sparus pulled tight on the last strap of his cuirass and grabbed one of his greaves from the hand of a slave. He checked the camp again, the flames bright in his eye.

They attack us, and at night
, he mused silently.

Beside him, the Diplomat spoke without looking from the approaching chartassa.

‘These Khosians have balls,’ he declared, as though reading the general’s mind.

It was a desperate sight that faced Colonel Halahan as he made it to the top of the bluff. Imperial infantry and riflemen had been posted there to guard the mortar crews, and they were making a fight of it.

Out of the darkness an imperial soldier ran at him, hollering with spirit. Halahan tugged a pistol from his bandolier, pulled back the primer that would pierce the cartridge of water and blackpowder, and aimed it between the man’s eyes. He pulled the trigger and watched through a blossom of smoke as the man fell back to the ground, half his skull missing.

Absently he reloaded the pistol, breaking it open to pull out the spent cartridge, replacing it with another, closing the piece again.

He spotted another soldier running in from his left where the Greyjackets were locked in hand-to-hand melee. Halahan fired again, and didn’t miss.

The colonel took in the progress of the fight, and decided it was still too close to call. Behind him, down at the base of the slope, the rearguard squads fired at the Imperials rushing across the stream at them. Unconcerned, he gazed out over the snowy plain to the west. He could see glints of steel massed around a thin core of flickering torches, the Khosian chartassa, moving to engage the Imperials.

Again he reloaded the same pistol, though four other pieces lay snug in his bandolier. He stood there and waited, and had time enough to feel pride for these men under his command even amongst the ugliness of the fighting. Their anger could be seen in the way that they fought. This was personal to them. They had scores to settle, families to be avenged, memories to be released through the sharp end of a blade.

The tide was beginning to turn in their favour now. He saw the moment in which it happened, and it was neither relief nor surprise that occupied him while he waited for it to be over. Instead it was simple impatience.

As the remaining few Imperials were dispensed with, he strode out amongst his Greyjackets, watching the medicos move in to do their work on the wounded. A man swore and scrabbled at his blinded eyes while his comrades tried to hold him down. Another had lost a hand; he stared balefully at the severed appendage lying in the trampled snow as though it was a wife who’d left him for another.

In one spot, two Pathian brothers worked with their knives on a wounded imperial soldier. They were making sport of him, drawing sobs from his lips. Halahan didn’t stop them.

Instead he took out a match and fired up his pipe.

The ridge was theirs.

Now, all they had to do was hold it.

Soaring flames roared into the darkness of the sky. A rider bore down on Ash with a lowered lance. Without thinking, he slashed his sword up and cut the lance in two. The rider veered away, heading deeper into the circled baggage train.

Ash ran on towards the burning wagons at the perimeter, but he found his way suddenly blocked by groups of camp followers, those who had been near enough to witness his quick work with the sword. They gathered around him with their own knives and makeshift clubs, clearly decided upon staying as close to him as they could. Ash struggled to free himself from the press. He growled and swept the flat of his blade to force a way through.

‘Get back!’ he shouted at them all, for he could feel his chances of reaching Sasheen in time slipping away by the moment.

It was no good. Still they pressed tight around him.

Ash smashed a man’s noise flat across his face with a single punch, spilling him to the ground. He kicked another in the kneecap, heard the crack of it even amidst all the noise. The crowd pulled back in shock.

He panted down at the two prone men, saw the darkness of blood upon the slush of the ground. They were holding their hands up, trying to ward off any further attacks.

His anger dimmed, turning to shame.

I haven’t the time for this
.

The crowd parted before him as he sprinted onwards.

Ash didn’t look back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

In the Soup

The line of chartassa appeared out of the night with spear-tips raised and shields interlocked, their eyes and teeth gleaming within the curves of their plumed helms, each man shouting in time to the drumbeats that were helping time their steps.

The purple-cloaked Hoo marched at the fore of the advancing Khosian army, forming the chartassa at the very tip of its warhead formation, while the Red Guards formed the flanks and the rear. In the first two ranks of each chartassa, the men bore short stabbing swords with leaf-shaped blades, designed for the intimate butcher’s work of the front line; in the ranks behind the swords were sheathed, and the men carried their massively long chartas raised in the air, ready to lower them once the enemy was close enough to engage.

Behind the line of phalanxes, and in the spaces in between them known as the gutters, step sergeants jogged to and fro with staves in their hands, bawling at those who were stepping out of time, lashing with their sticks at sections of men bulging outwards, maintaining the mobile coherence of their chartassa. Command flags appeared above the heads of the men. Shrill whistles blew.

The bristling forest of spears descended as one with a unified
hoo
.

Panic sounded from the enemy soldiers scattering before them. With the steady, unstoppable momentum of a ship cutting through water, the Khosian formation carved its way into the imperial camp.

Time was crucial here, and all knew it. With each collective step they took they thrust deeper into the disorganized encampment, leaving a swathe of dead and wounded in their wake. Given long enough the Mannians would rally, and the imperial predoré would crush against the flanks of the many chartassa like a vice. Already, action was occurring at the front, while imperial battle colours were being raised all around them, men massing in ranks and files.

Bahn trod behind the centremost reserve chartassa, keeping in close step with its captain and General Creed. He wiped sweat from his eyes and watched their three skyships flying overhead, scattering grenades onto the imperials below. Beneath his armour, his whole body shook from head to toe in its usual physical response to violence. His movements were awkward, clumsy even. It felt like a dream, walking ever deeper into the imperial encampment, like stepping into the sea until your feet lost the bottom and the riptide caught hold; too late to turn back.

At least General Creed was in his element here. The Lord Protector was surrounded by his personal bodyguards, their shields held high to protect him from the occasional incoming arrow. Creed was hardly making it easy for them. He wore a pair of Owls over his eyes like the other high officers of the army, and he strode from one side of the chartassa to the other, spotting along the gutters between it and the next one, spying out the lie of the land ahead.

‘What of the Specials?’ Bahn heard himself ask as the general returned to his position.

Creed’s eyes left the growing intensity of the fighting ahead and settled on his lieutenant. ‘What?’ he shouted through the noise.

‘The Specials, sir,’ repeated Bahn, and almost tripped on something – the body of an imperial soldier. ‘They should be heading back by now.’

‘No sign of them,’ replied the general, distracted. He was looking for something amongst the imperial masses.

‘Nidemes!’ he hollered to the commander of the Hoo. The old general was ranging behind the line of chartassa much in the same way as Bahn and Creed. He turned at the sound of his name.

General Creed chopped his hand sideways, telling him to veer his men left. Nidemes acknowledged and shouted the commands. Flag bearers waved the change in direction for the benefit of the captains. Within moments, whistles were blowing to inform the men. The entire line began to shift about.

Bahn caught a glimpse ahead and saw what they were turning towards. A small mound of ground in the distance backlit with stars; tiny glimmers of tents with the Matriarch’s personal banner flying high above them, a black raven on white.

The general was aiming the army straight for Matriarch Sasheen herself.

On the plain of Chey-Wes, Ché saw how the Expeditionary Force was rallying at last, thanks to the arrival of Archgeneral Sparus. While the Khosian formation thrust its way deeper through the camp like a glistening warhead, imperial squares of predoré engaged them now on all flanks, stretching and pushing them out of shape. Even though surrounded, they continued to push closer towards the Matriarch’s position – for it was clear now that
here
was their intended destination, and it was Sasheen herself whom they wished to confront.

‘Leave me be,’ came Sasheen’s sleepy voice amidst the splash of water, her aides dragging her from the wooden bathtub filled with snowmelt.

‘Matriarch,’ Sool tried again. ‘
We are under attack
.’

‘Yes, I heard you the first time,’ mumbled the Matriarch.

Sasheen stood naked on a rug with the wet cast of plaster on her arm. She swayed in her half sleep as they dried her roughly with towels, trying to revive her as best they could.

‘Some rush oil,’ she said to Heelas, her caretaker. ‘Fetch me some.’ Heelas already had a pot of the stuff in his hand, and he opened it and handed it to her. With a grimace, Sasheen rubbed the white cream onto her lips.

Ché stood at the entrance of her great tent. His sword was belted around his waist, as was a large knife and a pistol that he had already loaded with a single, poisoned shot.

Outside, Acolytes and priests were hurrying back and forth through the Matriarch’s encampment. Her personal honour guard, fitted out for battle, had already gathered with their mounts. One of them held the reins of her white war-zel. The creature was twitching with impatience.

‘For my son,’ he heard Sasheen say from within, and her voice already sounded a little firmer. ‘I will dedicate this victory to my son.’

Alarum came marching into the tent, wrapped in a heavy wool cloak. He clapped Ché on the arm as though glad to see him. ‘They had to choose tonight, didn’t they?’ he said as he stomped the snow from his boots.

Ché watched him as he went inside to speak to the Matriarch, then turned back to the night plain beyond. He was intent on the distant action, though in a detached way, removed from it by distance and lack of sentiment, so that he felt like a spectator at the Shay Madi, watching two gladiators competing to win and live. What held him so rapt was the obvious skill and discipline of the Khosians. He possessed some vague understanding of what it must take to move so many men in unison and fight at the same time, even more so to change their direction during a battle.