Corvus

by Paul Kearney

  “I want the Dogsheads opposite the South Prime Gate,” Corvus said, cutting short any further exchange. “When Karnos sallies out, it will be from there, to meet up with the army marching north. Rictus, you will meet him, and drive him back into the city. That is your job. Demetrius, Teresian, you will each detach a full mora to Rictus’s command.”

  Both marshals straightened at that. “Corvus,” Teresian began.

  Corvus held up a hand. “We do not vote on these things, brother. Those are my orders.” He turned to Druze.

  “You, my friend, will also detach a thousand of your Igranians to help Rictus. You will then take command of the reminder, plus the other two morai we have here in this camp, and you will work with Parmenios and his machines.”

  Druze looked thoughtfully at the little man who was Corvus’s secretary, now clad in a linen cuirass reinforced with bronze scales. It was ill-fitting, made for a taller man. But Druze only nodded. “I am with child to finally see these things you’ve made in action, Parmenios. Will you join me on the wall?”

  Parmenios met Druze’s black eyes. “I will be supervising the advance of my command from the rear. I am not a soldier.”

  “Well, we’re agreed on something then,” Druze said, and winked at him.

  “I will be with Demetrius and Teresian and the Companions, south of Rictus’s positions,” Corvus said. “I will meet the relief army and defeat it, and then turn around and help Rictus’s command force an entry to the city.” He watched the men about the table. They were all staring at the outline of Machran on the map as though picturing to themselves the blood and chaos of the morrow.

  “If you have questions, brothers, I’ll listen to them.”

  “Not a question, but a fact,” Fornyx said. He stared at Corvus with undisguised hostility. “If you are defeated by the relief army, then Rictus’s command will be utterly destroyed - it cannot retreat.”

  “I’d best not be defeated then,” Corvus said.

  THAT NIGHT THE army abandoned its camps to the west and north of the city, the men leaving their tents standing and the campfires burning behind them. They marched in quiet columns through the darkness, following the lines of the stockades that ringed the city. They carried only the arms and armour they would be needing in the morning, skins of water, a few dry flatbreads to gnaw on before the sun came up.

  The position of the army and Corvus’s plans for it had been disseminated to all centurions, and it filtered down to the men in the long files in whispers as they marched. Slowly, the knowledge seeped through the army that this was the end. In the morning they would either take Machran, or they would face utter defeat. But one way or another the long siege would be over.

  “THE RUMOURS ARE true, then?” Kassia demanded. She clasped her hands together, knuckles as white as her face.

  “They are true.” Karnos kissed her. “Parnon must have the oratory of Gestrakos. A boy from his column made it through the lines yesterday. The League army will be before the walls in a few hours. When the sun comes up, we will open the gates and go out to meet it. Corvus will be caught between us like a nut for cracking.”

  The light in her eyes faded. “You’re going out with them? I thought Kassander -”

  “I will be with those men, Kassia. I would have it no other way.”

  She leaned against him and buried her head in his chest. “There is no need for it - what is one more man?”

  “I have been hiding in a box-chair for weeks now, afraid to walk the streets of my own city, Karnos, the Speaker of Machran. But I am also a citizen of this place. I am entitled to carry a spear in its defence.”

  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 sou
th 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.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  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 mora
i 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.

  To the east of this clash, Corvus was leading the Companions at a fast canter round the enemy flank. Every time he raised his hand, the centon next to him would peel off from the main body and remain behind, reining in their horses and stabbing their lances into the ground alongside them as if they meant to be there “for some time. Then the Kefren riders swung their deeply curved compound bows off their backs, already strung, and began fishing for arrows from the quivers hanging at their thighs.

  The overlapping morai on the eastern flank of Teresian’s spears had begun to move in on the flank to roll up the enemy line, but they hung back at the sight of Corvus’s cavalry flashing past. Periklus of Pontis jogged forward of the hungry advance. The men at the front could see only that they were about to outflank their foes, and it took him several minutes of shouting, grabbing centurions, and banging his spear on the shields of the file-leaders before they came to a ragged halt, the open flank of the enemy right in front of them, as inviting a sight as any spearman on a battlefield could wish for.