The Second Empire (32 page)

Some of the first salvo was long; instead of hitting the Merduk front line it landed in the rear elements, sowing chaos and slaughter—but that was just as good. The gunners had orders to elevate their pieces to maximum once their own infantry passed them by, and keep lobbing shells on an arc into the Merduk rear. That would disrupt the arrivall of any reinforcements.

Four salvoes, and then the infantry was running past the guns. They were in a line a league long and four ranks deep, a frontage of one yard per man—and despite his quip the night before, Corfe had kept back some three thousand veterans as a last-ditch reserve, in case disaster struck somewhere. These three thousand were in field-column, and formed up beside him as he sat his horse surrounded by his bodyguard and a dozen couriers.

The first Torunnan rank halted, brought their arquebuses into the shoulder, and then fired. Six thousand weapons going off at once. Corfe heard the tearing crackle of it a second after he had watched the smoke billow out of the line. The enemy host was virtually hidden by a cliff of grey-white fumes. The other three Torunnan lines charged through the first and disappeared into the reek of powder-smoke, a formless roar issuing from their throats as they went. It would be like a vision of hell in there as they came to close quarters with the enemy.

That was it: the army was committed, and had caught the Merduks before they had properly deployed. The first part of his plan had worked.

A NDRUW reined in his horse and held up a hand. Behind him the long column of men halted. He turned to Ebro. “Hear that?”

They listened. “Artillery,” Ebro said. “They’re engaged.”

“Damn, that was quick.” Andruw frowned. “Trumpeter, sound battle-line. Morin, take a squadron out to the north. Find me these bastards, and find them quick.”

“It shall be so.” The tribesman grinned. He shouted in Cimbric, and a group of Cathedrallers peeled off and pelted away after him northwards.

“We should have run across them by now,” Andruw fretted. “What are they doing, hiding down rabbit holes? They must be making slower time than we’d thought. Courier, to me.”

A young ensign pranced up, unarmoured and mounted on a long-limbed gelding. His eyes were bright as those of an excited child. “Sir!”

“Go to General Cear-Inaf. Tell him we still have not located the enemy cavalry, and our arrivall on the battlefield may be delayed. Ask him if our orders stand. And make it quick!”

The courier saluted smartly and galloped off, clods of turf flying in the wake of his eager horse.

“Twenty-five thousand horsemen,” Andruw said irritably. “And we can’t find hide nor hair of them.”

“They’ll turn up,” Ebro said confidently. Andruw glared at him, and realised how easy it was to be confident when there was a superior around to make the hardest decisions. Then, “Hear that?” he said again.

Arquebus fire, a rolling clatter of it to the south of them.

“The infantry has got stuck in,” he said. “That’s it—they can’t break off now. They’re in it up to their ears. Where the hell is that damned enemy cavalry?”

C ORFE sat his horse and watched the battle rage before him like some awesome spectacle laid on for his entertainment. He hated this—watching men dying from a distance with his sword still in its scabbard. It was one of the burdens of high rank he thought he would never get used to.

What would he be doing if he were the Merduk khedive? The first instinct would be to shore up the sagging line. The Torunnans had pushed it clear back to the row of trees, but there the Merduks seemed to have rallied, as men often will about some linear feature in the terrain. Their losses had been horrific in those first few minutes of carnage, but they had the numbers to absorb them. No—if the khedive was second-rate he would send reinforcements to the line; but if he were any good, he would tell the men there to hang on, and send fresh regiments out on the flanks, seeking to encircle the outnumbered Torunnans. But which flank? He had his cavalry out on his right somewhere, so the odds were it would be the left. Yes, he would build up on his left flank.

Corfe turned to the waiting veterans who stood leaning their elbows on their gun rests and watching.

“Colonel Passifal!”

The white-haired quartermaster saluted. “Sir?”

“Take your command out on our right, double-quick. Don’t commit them until you see the enemy feeling around the end of our line. When you do, hit them hard, but don’t join our centre. Keep your men mobile. Do you understand?”

“Aye, sir. You reckon that’s where they’ll strike next?”

“It’s what I would do. Good luck, Passifal.”

The unearthly din of a great battle. Unless it had been experienced, it was impossible to describe. Heavy guns, small arms, men shouting to encourage themselves or intimidate others. Men screaming in agony—a noise unlike any other. It coalesced into a stupendous barrage of sound which stressed the senses to the point of overload. And when one was in the middle of it—right in the belly of that murderous madness—it could invade the mind, spurring men on to inexplicable heroism or craven cowardice. Laying bare the very core of the soul. Until it had been experienced, no man could predict how he would react to it.

Passifal’s troops doubling off, a dark stain on the land. En masse, soldiers seen from a distance looked like nothing so much as some huge, bristling caterpillar slithering over the face of the earth. Men in the centre of a formation like that would see nothing but the back of the man in front of them. They would be treading on heels, cursing, praying, the sweat stinging their eyes. The heroic balladeers knew nothing of real war, not as it was waged in this age of the world. It was a job of work: sheer hard drudgery punctuated by brief episodes of unbelievable violence and abject terror.

There! Corfe felt a moment of intense satisfaction as fresh Merduk regiments arrived to extend the line on the right, just as he had thought they would. They were getting into position when Passifal’s column slammed into them, all the weight of that tight-packed body of men. The Merduks were sent flying, transformed from a military formation into a mob in the time it took for a man to peel an apple. Passifal re-formed his own men into a supported battle-line, and they began firing, breaking up attempts by the enemy to rally. He might be a quartermaster, but he still knew his trade.

Corfe looked back at the centre. Hard to make out what was going on in there, but Rusio still seemed to be advancing. That was the thing: to keep the pressure on, to deny the enemy time to think. So far it was working well. But men can only fight for so long.

He turned his face towards the deserted moors in the north. Where was Andruw? What was going on out there?

“I find them, Ondruw! I find them!” Morin crowed, his horse blowing and fuming under him, sides dank with sweat.

“Where?”

Morin struggled to think in Torunnan units of distance. “One and a part of a league east of here, in long—” He grasped for the word, face screwed up in concentration.

“Line? Like we are now?”

The tribesman shook his head furiously.

“Column, Morin, are they in column, like along a road?”

Morin’s face cleared. “Column—that is the word. But they have their
Ferinai
out to front, in—in line. And they have men on foot, infantry, coming behind.”

Formio came trotting up on his long-suffering mare. He had taken to horseback for the sake of speed, but he clearly did not relish it any more than she did. “What’s afoot, Andruw?”

“Morin sighted them, thank God,” Andruw breathed. “That was good work. Spread the word, Formio. We’re going to pitch into ’em as we are. Cathedrallers on the right, Fimbrians in the middle, Ranafast’s lads to the rear.” Then he hesitated. “Morin, did you say infantry?”

“Yes, men on foot with guns. Behind the horsemen.”

Formio’s face remained impassive, but he rode up close to Andruw and spoke into his ear. “No-one said anything about infantry. I thought it was just cavalry we were facing.”

“It’s probably just a baggage guard or suchlike. No need to worry about them. The main thing is, we’ve located them at last. If I have to, I’ll face the arquebusiers about and we’ll make a big square. Let them try charging Fimbrian pike and Torunnan shot, and see where it gets them.”

Formio stared at him for a moment, and then nodded. “I see what you mean. But we have to destroy them, not just hold our own.”

It was Andruw’s turn to pause. “All right. I’ll hold the Cathedrallers back. When the time is ready, they’ll charge and roll them up. We’ll hammer them, Formio, don’t worry.”

“Very well then. Let’s hammer them.” But Formio looked troubled.

The army redeployed towards the east. The Fimbrians led the advance while the Cathedrallers covered the flanks and the Torunnan arquebusiers brought up the rear. Just over seven and a half thousand men in all, they could hear the distant clamour of the battle rageing around Armagedir and marched over the upland moors with a will, eager to come to grips with the foe.

Thirty-five thousand Merduk troops awaited them.

B ACK at Armagedir, the morning was wearing away and the Torunnan advance had stalled. Rusio’s men had been halted in their tracks by sheer weight of enemy numbers. The line of trees had changed hands half a dozen times in the last hour and was thick with the dead of both armies. The battle here was fast degenerating into a bloody stalemate, and unlike the Merduk khedive, Corfe did not have fresh troops to feed into the grinder. He could hold his own for another hour, perhaps even two, but at the end of that time the army would be exhausted. And the Merduk khedive had fully one third of his own forces as yet uncommitted to the battle. They were forming up behind Armagedir, molested only by stray rounds from the Torunnan artillery. Something had to be done, or those thirty thousand fresh troops would be coming around Corfe’s flank in the next half-hour.

Where the hell was Andruw? He ought to at least be on his way by now.

Corfe made up his mind and called over a courier. He scribbled out a message while giving it verbally at the same time.

“Go to the artillery commander, Nonius. Have him limber up his guns and move them forward into our own battle-line. He is to unlimber there in the middle of our infantry and give the enemy every charge of canister he possesses. When that happens, Rusio is to advance. He is to push forward to the crossroads and take Armagedir. Repeat it.”

The courier did so, white-faced.

“Good. Take this note to Nonius first, and then to General Rusio. Tell Rusio that Passifal’s men will support his right flank. He is to break the Merduk line. Do you hear me? He is to break it. Here. Now go.”

The courier seized the note and took off at a tearing gallop.

Something had happened to Andruw, out in the moors. Corfe could feel it. Something had gone wrong.

Then another courier thundered in, this one’s horse about to founder under him. He had come from the north. Corfe’s heart leapt.

“Compliments of Colonel Cear-Adurhal sir,” the man gasped. “He has still not found the enemy. Wants to know if his orders stand.”

“How long ago did you leave him?” Corfe asked sharply.

“An hour, maybe. No sign of the enemy out there, sir.”

“God’s blood,” Corfe hissed. What was going on?

“Tell him to keep looking. No—wait. It’ll take you an hour to get back to him. If he hasn’t found anything by then, he’s to come here and attack the Merduk right. Throw in everything he’s got.”

“Everything he’s got. Yes, sir.”

“Get yourself a fresh horse and get going.”

Corfe tried to shake off the apprehension that was flooding through him. He kicked his horse into motion and cantered southwards, to where Passifal’s men were standing ready out on the right. They were the only reserve he had, and he was about to throw them into the battle. He could think of nothing else to do.

A NDRUW’S command charged full-tilt into the enemy with a shouted roar that seemed to flatten the very grass. The
Ferinai
, the elite of Merduk armies, came to meet them, eight thousand men on heavy horses dressed in armour identical to that worn by the Cathedrallers. And the tribesmen spurred their own mounts into a headlong gallop, drawing ahead of the Fimbrians and Torunnans.

There was a tangible shock as the two bodies of cavalry met. Horses were shrieking, some knocked clear off their feet by the impact. Men were thrown through the air to be trampled by the huge horde of milling beasts. Lances snapped off and swords were drawn. There was a rising clatter, like a preternatural blacksmith’s shop gone wild, as troopers of both sides hammered at their steel-clad adversaries. The struggle became a thousand little hand-to-hand combats as the formations ground to a halt and a fierce melee developed. The Cathedrallers were pushed back, hopelessly outnumbered though fighting like maniacs. But then the Fimbrians came up, their pike-points levelled. They smashed a swathe through the halted enemy cavalry, their flanks and rear protected by Ranafast’s arquebusiers. The combined formation was as compact as a clenched fist, and seemed unstoppable. Andruw led the Cathedrallers back out of the battle-line, and re-formed them in the rear. Many of them were on foot: others had dismounted comrades clinging on behind them or were dragged out by the grasp of a stirrup. Andruw had lost his helmet in the whirling press of men and horses, and seemed infected by a wild gaiety. He joined in the cheer when the
Ferinai
fell back, their retreat turning into something resembling a rout as the implacable Fimbrians followed up. The plan was working after all.

Then there was a staggering volley of arquebus fire that seemed to go on for ever. The Fimbrians collapsed by the hundred as a storm of bullets mowed them down, clicking through their armour with a sound oddly like hail on a tin roof. They faltered, their front ranks collapsing, men stumbling backwards on their fellows with the heavy bullets blasting chunks out of their bodies, cutting their feet from under them, snapping pike shafts in two. The advance ground to a halt, its furthest limit marked by a tideline of con torted bodies, in places two or three deep.