Justice

by Ian Irvine

  Glynnie had to tell all or she was going to die. She was probably going to be put to death anyway.

  “Rixium isn’t serving Grandys!” she cried. “And neither am I. We’re both on his death list—you must know that. We humiliated Grandys when we escaped from Bastion Cowly. I battered him to the ground with a length of timber.”

  “We’ve heard the story,” said Ricips. “But it can’t possibly be true. He would have torn you apart.”

  “He was so drunk he could barely stand up.”

  “Perhaps Grandys put the story about himself, to conceal his alliance with Rixium,” said Ricips.

  “That’s just stupid!” she said hotly.

  Ricips stiffened. His lips thinned.

  “Grandys has an ego the size of a palace,” she gabbled. “He would never spread a story about being humiliated by a little maidservant.”

  “Maybe not,” he conceded, “but it doesn’t explain how you got away with it.”

  “Grandys probably would have torn me apart, had not the men of Cowly counterattacked just then.”

  “Hunh!” said Ricips. “Why have you come back to Caulderon, Maidservant Glynnie?”

  For the first time, she thought she might have a chance.

  “To find my little brother, Benn,” she said desperately. “He went missing when Rixium and I escaped three months ago, and I can’t bear the thought of him being all alone and lost.” Without thinking, she reached out across the table to Ricips. “Please help me. Benn is all I’ve got.”

  He leaned away from her, grimacing as if the plea was distasteful to him. He consulted the list, then frowned.

  “Is he there?” said Glynnie. “Please?”

  “How dare you question me? Who gave you the night-shard?”

  “No one. I was attacked by a spy after I left our camp at Bolstir in the middle of the night. He hit me on the head.” She bent her head so he could see the bruise and the blood in her red hair. “I stabbed out in the dark and killed him. I didn’t mean to. He had the night-shard in his hand.”

  Ricips grunted.

  “Please?” said Glynnie. “Are you a family man? Benn is all—”

  To her surprise, he answered. “I am a family man, as it happens, and I accept that part of your story is true—the part about looking for your little brother. I would want to do the same, but—”

  “Is he on the list?” she said softly. “Is he still alive?”

  He looked down at his papers. “He was on the list, but nothing is known of him. I can tell you no more.” He looked up to the burly guard. “Take her to the holding cells, Ferdo.”

  “Holding cells?” said Glynnie, looking from Ricips to Ferdo. She saw no hope in either man’s eyes. “What for?”

  “The executions are done as humanely as possible,” said Ricips. “Once a week. You will die two days from this coming evening.”

  “But… I told you, I’m just looking for Benn. I’m not a spy. Please, give me a chance to explain.”

  “You have explained,” he said without looking up, “but I am tasked with the protection of my people, and it’s a duty I care about passionately. You may be innocent, however the association with Rixium Ricinus, and with the monster Axil Grandys, is so grave that I cannot allow you to live.”

  “Then why don’t you kill me now!” she screamed. “Go on, take out your sword and do it.”

  “It is not my business to execute. Only to try.” Ricips gestured to Ferdo, who heaved Glynnie to her feet and led her out.

  As she was taken to the holding cells, she reflected bitterly that Rix had been right. Only a fool would try to get into an occupied city in the middle of a no-holds-barred war. Guilt burned her. She had abandoned him, without saying goodbye, at the moment when he had most needed her support.

  She was a fool, and now she was going to die, for nothing.

  Worse than nothing. They had lost interest in Benn, but now she had drawn attention to him they would renew the search.

  If he was still alive they would probably kill him too.

  CHAPTER 31

  We’ll never get there in time, Rix thought. Grandys will be massacring my army by now.

  He and Jackery galloped north for several miles, splashed through the stream that ran down to Tinker’s Cleft, then rode up the slippery clay bank on the far side. Rix swung up a long, shallow slope, topped the rise, and the lowland called Lidden Field opened out before him. To the left was the expanse of the Lodden Mires: miles of trackless fens, fathomless lakes, and sticky bogs and marshes. He reined his horse to a stop, put the field glasses to his eyes and groaned.

  “What is it?” said Jackery.

  “They’re already fighting. Whatever possessed Hork to attack at Lidden Field, with the Lodden Mire at his back? He’s got no room to move, and if Grandys sends a detachment to the north to surround him—”

  “As he’s doing now—what are you going to do, Deadhand?”

  “If we race west along the cliffs of the bay,” Rix indicated the direction with a sweep of his left hand, “we’ll be concealed by woodland, then the marshes. We’ll swing north around Lodden Mire, turn east and head through that copse of pines up there. Then we’ll burst out into the open only a couple of hundred yards away from the enemy’s back line, there where it’s thinnest. We’ll hit them at full gallop and try to drive right through to our men.”

  “Two of us trying to fight through a hundred and fifty,” said Jackery. “Sounds like suicide.” He flashed Rix a savage grin. “Let’s ride.”

  They rode west at three-quarter pace along the pale cliffs, where the land was bare save for a few windswept sudel bushes, leafless at this time of year, their deadly black berries still clinging to the tips of the twigs. Ahead the path wound slightly down and they could no longer see the battlefield.

  As they crossed a path that ran down to another fishing village, Rix caught a snatch of the battlefield clamour—the distant, attenuated clang of sword on shield, the thunder of hooves—then lost it.

  They turned north, racing around the northern side of the Lodden Mires, and east again. He estimated the distance—a mile and a half to go. The best part of ten minutes’ ride in this country. Too long! Grandys could tear right through an army in ten minutes. Rix had seen him do it.

  There was no sound now save their own horses’ hooves and his thumping heart. They were low here and he would not see the battlefield again until they cleared the northern side of the marshes and emerged from the patch of pines beyond that.

  “I’m worried,” said Jackery.

  Rix was too. He had laid out the battlefield in his mind and was calculating possibilities, though they all ended badly. Even if he could break through the enemy lines where they were at their thinnest and take command of his army, how could he beat a superior force from such a strategically poor position?

  Which meant he was riding to his death.

  “Be damned!” he said aloud, as they skirted the northen edge of Lodden Mire and entered the patch of pines.

  “Sir?” said Jackery.

  He could hear the clamour of battle again. They galloped to the edge of the trees, then stopped. His horse was blowing hard, though not exhausted. A couple of minutes’ rest would do it good. Everything relied on the strength of the horses now.

  He looked out and down into the bowl of Lidden Field. His army had been corralled into a tight space only a few hundred yards across, with any escape blocked to the west by the curve of Lodden Mire and to the south by a small lake. Grandys’ forces enclosed them on the eastern side, with a crescent-shaped detachment on the northeast blocking their passage back to the camp at Bolstir. The crescent Rix had to break through.

  Clearly, Grandys’ plan was to annihilate Hork’s army. Judging by the litter of bodies on the ground, the toll had already been horrific.

  “We’re going to win,” Rix said fiercely. “We can’t consider anything else.”

  “Yes, Deadhand.”

  “I mean it. We’ve got to sa
ve part of our army, at least. When we get to our men I’m going to take command and try to fight our way out. Are you with me?”

  “I’m with you, sir…”

  “What is it, Jackery?”

  “What if this plan of yours is being influenced by enemy magery?”

  Rix faltered. No, he thought. I’m not under their influence. I’m not!

  “I don’t see how anything I do can make things worse. Let’s ride.”

  The enemy lines he was aiming for were only two hundred yards away, and ten ranks deep. He and Jackery backtracked through the woodland for fifty yards so the horses could get a good run-up. Rix drew his sword, made sure the mailed gauntlet was secure on his dead hand and spurred his horse. The great beast, eighteen hands high, accelerated smoothly; by the time they reached the edge of the forest it was going full gallop and already a few yards ahead of Jackery’s smaller mount.

  “Charge!” said Rix.

  Horse and rider crossed the two hundred yards in ten seconds and slammed into the enemy ranks with bone-smashing force, the warhorse’s chest armour battering the soldiers out of the way and driving in to the seventh rank before slowing. Rix hacked to left and right, taking a terrible toll on the foot soldiers, who had not realised he was coming until it was too late.

  The lines of men before him panicked as the leviathan bored towards them; they went careering into the ranks to either side, knocking each other down. Rix ignored everyone save those enemy directly in front of him. The only thing that mattered was getting through to his army. He let out a great battle cry, spurred his horse on, took off a couple of heads and burst through.

  Jackery had also made it through, though, being a smaller man on a lighter horse, he’d had rather more trouble and was bleeding from a wound in his right hip and a cut at the top of his shoulder. Not bad wounds, though.

  Rix stood up in his stirrups so his men would be in no doubt as to his identity. They roared and surged towards him, though he could see no sign of Hork or any of his officers. Had they been killed in the first onslaught? It would be like Grandys to target them.

  “We’re fighting our way out,” he shouted. He held up a hand. “Cavalry first, infantry to follow!” He raised his sword high. “Cavalry, to me!”

  A hundred horsemen came around from the left flank. “Charge!” he bellowed, and turned back into the depleted enemy lines.

  The cavalry went with him and, after a sickening minute or two of trampling and slaughter, they burst through the enemy crescent. Hundreds of the enemy lay dead and the rest of the detachment on the northern side were fleeing into the trees, though already a larger force was streaming up from the south to plug the gap.

  Rix waved his sword over his head. Could he possibly get the rest of his troops out? “Infantry, to me! To me!”

  A quarter of his surviving army, taking heart from the sudden reversal, streamed through before the enemy’s reinforcements flooded in to close the gap. The rest of his troops pulled back into a defensive position.

  Rix used his cavalry to shepherd his rescued troops away to a safe distance, then turned.

  “It won’t work twice,” said Jackery, beside him.

  “No.” Rix was doing the numbers. “We got eighty riders out, and seven hundred men.”

  “Leaving another two thousand behind to die, and a thousand already dead.”

  “Thanks to that bloody fool, Hork,” Rix said bitterly. “Did you see him?”

  “Didn’t see any of the officers.”

  “How am I going to save the rest?”

  Jackery surveyed the enemy lines, which were now a phalanx of bristling spears twenty men deep. Ten ranks were facing him and the other ten had their backs turned. They were slowly moving towards the survivors of his once proud army, presumably intending to drive them into the marshes and the lake.

  Rix did a quick count of the enemy numbers and felt a twinge of alarm. “Have you counted Grandys’ men?”

  “Haven’t had a chance, yet.” Jackery made an estimate. “That’s odd. I only get four thousand.”

  “Me too. And maybe a thousand casualties. Where are the rest? Were they ever here?”

  “I don’t think so. And I’m not seeing Grandys either.”

  “Then who’s commanding them?”

  “No idea.”

  “If Grandys was here, he’d be out front, trying to take my head off,” said Rix. “This must be the trap he’s been planning for the past week and a half. He must be waiting somewhere nearby, to close the trap.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We’re not going to do anything useful here. Come on.”

  Rix signalled to his troops to follow, then rode south, heading over the low hills to the south of Lidden Field. It was one of the hardest things he had ever done.

  “The rest of your army think we’re abandoning them to die,” said Jackery.

  Rix did not reply.

  CHAPTER 32

  “Are we abandoning our men to die?” said Jackery as Rix, his eighty cavalry and seven hundred surviving men streamed south over the low hills beyond Lidden Field.

  “I’m working on a plan,” said Rix.

  “If you can save them it’ll be the most brilliant plan as ever was.”

  Rix kept a careful lookout but saw no sign of Grandys and the rest of his army. If there was a trap, it was well hidden. After a mile or two, when the armies behind him were out of sight, he turned west into a patch of scrub in the bottom of a valley and continued along it until it opened out into a broad, elbow-shaped swathe of marshland. He skirted it on the southern side and turned hard north.

  “If I remember rightly,” said Rix, “a narrow path runs north from here back towards Lidden Field, skirting the boggy eastern edge of the lake. Further north the path’s hidden by the rise of that hill. The path is cramped down to a few feet wide and from the north, if you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t see it.”

  “Is it wide enough to get seven hundred men and eighty riders through in time?”

  “It’d better be.”

  As they went north the track became ever narrower, squeezed between the rushy marshland on the left and the steep side of the small, curving hill to the right, until only two men could walk abreast and the riders had to go in single file.

  “At least we can’t be seen from the north,” said Jackery.

  “But if they send someone a mile south to the edge of the hill, and he looks down, he’ll spot us. Then it’ll be a simple matter to trap us here and kill the lot of us.”

  They continued forward until, after another mile, they could climb up and peer over the curve of the slope towards Lidden Field.

  “They’re cutting Hork’s force to pieces,” said Jackery, “and forcing them towards the lake. If we don’t attack soon—”

  “We can’t burst out into the open from here,” said Rix. “They’d have too much warning. We’ll keep behind the rise until it peters out.”

  He drew on his steel gauntlet and manually clenched the fingers, one by one. The hill on their right had dwindled to a low, curving rise. The lake stood a quarter of a mile ahead and to the left, with good ground to the north but endless mire on its western side.

  The enemy army extended in a menacing inverted comma from the south-east, where the great mass of the troops were, all the way to the northern side of the lake, enclosing Hork’s army and allowing no way of escape.

  “We follow the line of this rise around that way,” said Rix, pointing north-east. “There’s a narrow band of land between the rise and the edge of the marsh. It’s a bit wider there and if we’re careful, moving ten abreast, the rise and the rushes will give us cover until we’re only a hundred yards away. Then we’ll charge and try to tear a gap through the middle, isolating the southern mass of the enemy from the rest and trapping them against the lake. With a lot of luck we might get the survivors out.”

  “If we don’t hurry up,” said Jackery, “there won’t be any survivors.”

&
nbsp; Rix had to ignore that possibility. As soon as they burst into the open it would be on, bloody slaughter, because the enemy never retreated. He mounted and led the way, making sure his head did not show above the rise.

  “Stay back, Deadhand,” said Jackery from behind him. “A lucky arrow could kill you, and where will we be then?”

  “There’s only one way to lead men to their deaths—from the front.”

  Ahead, the rise curved around to the east, not much higher than a mounted man. Now reeds and tall rushes rose on the left, seven feet high. In places reeds choked the way ahead and Rix had to push between them, the horse’s hooves squelching and sucking. He could hear the battle now—the thud of sword on shield, the clang of blade on blade, the dreadful shrieking of men who had taken mortal wounds and now had to wait minutes, or hours, before death released them from their agony.

  After a couple of hundred yards he stopped, unsure he was doing the right thing.

  “Trouble?” said Jackery.

  “Just gathering my thoughts,” Rix lied. “Have the men stop for a one-minute breather.”

  Jackery held up a hand. Rix dismounted and cut across the edge of the marsh, trying to make no sound. The sounds of combat were louder here; he must be almost on them. He parted the reeds and peered through.

  The southern edge of the battle was only a hundred yards away and it was as he had feared. The enemy force was driving Hork’s battered army towards the eastern side of the lake. They were defending valiantly but the closest men were only ten yards from the edge and, as the enemy tightened their encirclement, Hork’s troops would have to choose between being hacked to pieces or drowning.

  Rix crept out, up the rise and peered over the top. The enemy had more than a thousand soldiers along this side and they had their backs to him. If he hit them hard with his seven hundred and eighty men and took them by surprise, he might just reverse the situation.

  He went back and explained the battle plan to Jackery and his other captains.

  “We’ll charge, fanning out as we go. Then, follow my signals.”