“Corporal Heavy,” I said, promoting the man on the spot. “Don’t let us down, will you?”
“No Captain,” he grunted. “She’ll be safe with us.”
I leaned in close and whispered. The Saviour wasn’t close enough to hear what I said. “Good. If in doubt, do what you think is best, even if she orders you to do otherwise.”
He nodded his understanding. “We’ll keep her safe, no matter the cost.”
I knew that Corporal Heavy was a man of few words, but generally when he spoke it was something worth listening to. I was sure that he’d treat his new responsibilities with the utmost respect. The others that Craddock had chosen were all similarly burly, but paired their strength with intelligence. They’d not be fooled into an error, nor pressured into one by a strong-willed young woman.
With the Saviour’s protection now less of a concern, I ventured into her room. She was lying on her bed and stared upwards at the wood-panelled ceiling. She turned her head to face me.
“A part of me wants to hate you for what you have done, Captain Charing,” she said. “But I know you have lost much in doing your duty. I want you to know that you have done the right thing and you have my thanks.”
I was relieved that she understood and that she hadn’t let anything hang between us.
“I am sorry that it had to happen this way,” I replied. She said nothing else on the matter, but her expression was easy to read. I didn’t see any blame in it.
“You can leave me now, Captain,” she said. “The seeking is easier if I am left alone.”
I gave her room a final check for weak points. It had no windows and only the one door. Leerfar wouldn’t have been able to get in even if she’d still had two hands, rather than one.
“Very well,” I said. “I will await your news.”
I made my exit. She knew the urgency of the situation and I didn’t bother to emphasise it by opening my mouth again.
In the end, the luxury of time was taken away from us. Only an hour after I’d left the Saviour to her search, Sprinter burst into the office I’d reclaimed from Lieutenant Craddock. The man always looked as if he were out of breath, though I knew he could run for days without having to slow down.
“Captain,” he said, betraying no surprise at my return.
“What have you found, Sprinter?” I asked.
“Horsemen to the south, about five miles distant. Few in number, but if I was forced to express an opinion I would say that it’s Lord Trent.”
“It is Lord Trent,” I said. “Any sign of others? I’m expecting a few thousand footmen to be coming soon.”
“I didn’t see any sign of them, Captain. Flight is still out there somewhere. I came when I saw what I took to be an advance force.”
“That’s fine, Sprinter. Get back there when you’re ready. Keep us informed.”
He left the room, but not before I’d told him to advise Sinnar, Craddock and Ploster that I wanted to speak to them.
“Trent’s here,” I said.
“Does he know we’re here?” asked Sinnar, cracking his knuckles as if he were already imagining raining blows upon Trent’s unprotected face.
“Probably,” I said. “I doubt he’ll come rolling in before the rest of the men arrive. I don’t recall him being renowned as the first man into the breach.”
We laughed nastily at that. The First Cohort hadn’t spent much time with Lord Trent. I’d met him once or twice and found him to be an over-confident and arrogant bastard. It would have been no surprise if he’d played the rumoured part in establishing the justiciars in their enforcement role.
The discussion was interrupted by the sound of tramping feet in the corridor. They stopped outside and our lady came in, looking flustered.
“Am I to put up with these twelve men escorting my every footstep?” she asked.
“I’m afraid you are,” I told her. “There is absolutely no chance that I will allow you to be murdered again.”
“I will not be such easy prey this time,” she muttered, and I understood from her words that she blamed herself more than anyone. She was young and inexperienced, but most definitely not lacking in sorcerous powers. The matter was forgotten when she spoke her next words.
“We are in trouble,” she said. “Not just us, but everywhere from here to Blades and beyond.”
“What is it, my lady?” asked Ploster.
“Whatever it is that comes from the north, it is determined to destroy us.”
“Have you seen what it is?” I asked.
“It remains shrouded from me. I have followed the threads of power and I can sense that something passes over them, but whatever it is, it is far older than anything I have come across before. It sees us and it hates what we are. Yet I cannot pierce its veils and it remains hidden. Even so, I can feel the malice.”
“Could you learn more if given time?” asked Ploster. He leaned forward as if to express his worry.
“Nothing can remain hidden from me forever,” she said without pride. “My powers have grown, but my skills in its use are still only part-formed.”
There were many questions to be asked and I was sure that even with Warmont’s men on our doorstep there was time for me to ask them. Still, I focused on the ones which might have a direct bearing on our next course of action. I waved the other men to silence so that they would not interrupt with their own questions, however well-intended.
“This thing you describe – is it men or something else? And does it come for us here in Gold?”
“I do not think it is men,” she said. “And it does not know us specifically. I believe it will sweep to the south until it is stopped or it has killed us all.”
“How far away is it?” I asked.
“I believe that it has ventured little further than Nightingale, but its movements are sporadic and I have not been able to see if it can move quickly.”
“Lieutenant Craddock has heard reports that the attacks on Turpid and Nightingale came swiftly. I think we must assume that our enemy can move at speed if it feels the need to do so.”
“I think I know what you are building up to, Captain Charing,” the Saviour told me. I let her continue, hopeful that she had enough grasp of our options to have distilled the choices to their logical possibilities.
“We can either venture north to see what we face. Or we can go west to Septic. With either of those two choices we have to abandon the citizens of Gold to the Duke’s men. I assume that this time they will simply burn the town to the ground and the people with it,” she said.
“I am sure that the Duke’s patience with Gold was worn out when he dispatched his latest army to the north,” I told her. “Their orders are unlikely to involve any sort of negotiation with the townsfolk. I would say that the town will be destroyed within the week, assuming we don’t remain to stop it.”
“I won’t let that happen,” she said. “These are my people now and I will protect them.”
“Since there is no time to evacuate the town before the Duke’s army arrives, you are aware that the only remaining choice is to fight them.” I said it as a statement, rather than a question.
“My soldiers are ready to fight, are they not?”
“They are, my lady. They will be outnumbered, but Lieutenant Craddock has told me that he is impressed with their skills and how much they have improved since they joined us. Many of ours have survived the siege of the town and could therefore be classed as veterans, whilst I am sure that the ranks of the Duke’s army have been bolstered by unblooded young men. I doubt that many of them will retain their youthful exuberance once they meet our shield wall.”
She looked glum as I said that. “It is always the young ones they send in first,” she muttered. “How I wish they did not have to die for a leader who is already dead.”
“We can only hope that rumour has already reached them and that their morale is low because of it,” I said. “They might run when they see that their numbers will not break our line
as easily as they would like.”
“Muster the men, Captain,” she said. “We’ll meet them to the south. I do not wish for another street-by-street battle. I will risk everything for a decisive victory.”
I bowed my head in acknowledgement. I couldn’t find fault with what she said – sometimes it is best to chance everything in order to achieve the desired result. A slow loss from attrition was the cruellest form of warfare.
“Good news, eh Captain?” asked Sinnar. “You get to trip over guts in a muddy field filled with men screaming in agony. Just how you like it.”
We all laughed with genuine humour, except the Saviour. She was familiar with our bleak outlook, but had yet to become inured to our soldier’s fatalism.
It was late in the day and there was no chance that we’d see an attack before darkness, so I put things in motion for the men to be supplied and ready for the morning. Secretly, I must confess that I was itching to see what the next day would bring.
19
I didn’t get any sleep that night, nor did I even pretend to myself that I should bother trying. I spent some time with the men of the First Cohort, checking their equipment and their readiness. I wasn’t worried about either and, as I’d expected, all of the men were ready to fight. We numbered only three-hundred-and-twenty-nine now. I had yet to confront the enormity of our losses, but hearing this precise quantity of our strength at least cleared up some of the uncertainty I’d felt since I set off for Blades.
Sinnar had spent the evening passing around the word about what was to come. I guessed there’d be quite a lot of surprise at the suddenness of it, but I knew that a soldier’s morale tended to wither if he knew of a battle weeks in advance. With any luck, I thought it might play to our advantage.
I met with Lieutenants Trovis and Faye. I wasn’t at all surprised to find that the latter had stayed with us – she had impressed me enough with her skill and her loyalty.
“Gold is starting to feel like an old sock that two dogs are fighting over,” said Trovis. He tended to get carried away with his imagination.
“There’ll be nothing left of this sock soon,” said Faye. “Good to see you back, Captain Charing.”
I realised that they hadn’t been party to the discussions about the attacks from the north. I mentally chided myself for this oversight. I wasn’t a man who needed to keep an inner circle of favourites. Trovis and Faye deserved to know, so I filled them in on the details.
“Fuck!” swore Trovis, though Faye was quiet for a time. When she spoke, she had already considered the possibilities of what this might mean.
“There are six of the Duke’s bigger towns and cities which are about as far north as Gold,” she said. “It would be a disaster if they were all to be destroyed.” She didn’t need to say that one of those towns was Bunsen, where she hailed from.
I looked into her grey eyes and saw her fear. I was satisfied to note that it was the sort of fear that would drive her to fight, rather than drive her to run. I’d always liked Lieutenant Faye and I was pleased to see that she remained steadfast.
“We don’t know what might happen,” I said. “Though I will not lie to you and pretend that I think we will not be greatly challenged by it.”
The two of them knew what they had to do and they set about their tasks with dedication. Flight returned from his scouting duties at one point to let me know that there were nearly eleven thousand men heading towards the town. I’d almost stopped pondering the capacity of the Duke to keep finding so many men for his army, as well as being able to supply and pay them. At least here in Gold we didn’t have to worry about paying our soldiers yet, but I very much doubted any of the Duke’s men fought without requesting a pay packet. Supplies were starting to become more problematic for us, which was no longer my direct concern since I’d passed those worries onto Chartus. He’d once been our cook but was now our quartermaster.
So it was, at first light the next morning, three-thousand-two-hundred-and-fifteen men mustered in the plaza which had once been the home of the Farmer’s Market. A few of the stalls had returned, but it was easy to see that the town was finished, or at least would be on its knees for years to come.
I walked around the men we had gathered, noting to myself that their weapons were sharp and their armour well-maintained, though battered in places. I preferred it if a soldier was comfortable with what he carried and wore, rather than insisting that they kept their items pristine. They all wore a white cloth band on their arm, and on each band was a yellow circle to depict the sun. These were replicas of the Saviour’s banner and it was all the uniform they needed to identify them.
I had been away in Blades for a significant amount of time and I had never got to know these men as well as I’d wished. Still, I recognized a few faces. The jaws of many were set, clenched firmly closed, as is often the case so close to a battle. I met the eyes of each man I passed, hoping that my outward show of confidence would rub off onto them. Here and there I saw men who displayed new tattoos on their faces and the bare parts of their limbs. I thought it good that they wanted to be like us and kept my fingers crossed that their deeds would match their aspirations.
We marched out of the town, heading through the broken buildings of the south side. The cold was sharp and the breaths of the living steamed in the air as the soldiers shivered in their armour. They’d warm up once we got properly moving and there are few activities that can warm you up as much as swinging a sword and doing your best to avoid being stabbed in return. The townsfolk stared at us, mouths open in surprise. One or two shouted questions, though we didn’t provide answers. There was little need to spread panic amongst the town’s populace, since we weren’t leaving anyone behind to keep the peace.
I was at the front, alongside our lady. She was the only one who rode and she sat atop a white horse. I had no idea if it was the same beast that she’d always ridden since Treads and didn’t bother to ask. I disliked horses, thinking them to be skittish and stupid creatures. The Saviour had her bodyguard of twelve grouped close by. I noticed that Heavy carried her banner for the moment, since her previous standard-bearer had been killed by Leerfar. Lieutenant Sinnar was next to me and I spoke to him.
“Will the new men hold up in battle?” I asked. It was Sinnar who had been assigned the task of instilling discipline.
“I think so, Captain,” he said. “Most of them are good lads. Strong and ready. They are fired up by something they believe in, but not eager to throw their lives away. It makes a good combination.”
“Today is going to be a tough one,” I said. “Especially since we don’t know exactly what we’re facing.” We’d had reports, but they weren’t filled with detail – most of our scouts’ sightings had taken place in poor light, which would make any commander think twice before relying on what he heard.
“Aye, Captain. There’ll be no men from the coast coming at the last minute to turn the tide. Not this time.”
About half a mile outside of Gold, we caught our first sight of the enemy. On top a hill a few hundred yards away, we could see a dozen or more men on horses.
“Trent,” I said.
The horses remained where they were, their riders watching us insolently. It mattered little, since I wasn’t expecting to remain hidden. We reached the place I’d chosen. It was a sloping field, just away from the main road that led to the town. It was surrounded on all sides by a waist-high stone wall, which was enough to prevent the escape of sheep and to slow down men and horses alike. We took command of the high ground, since the field stretched close to the top of a low hill. I wanted any attackers to either run uphill or to be forced out of formation by climbing over the walls. I immediately set squads of men to the task of knocking over part of one wall where it came closest to the road. I didn’t want the Duke’s men to simply hem us in with a few thousand while the rest marched on the town. We needed to be able to get out of the field and onto the road if the situation dictated it.
“The Duke’s me
n always liked to rise at mid-morning, eh Captain?” asked Bolt. I was pleased to see him close to me in our ranks.
“Lazy fuckers, one and all,” said Lemon. I’d not been near to him in our line for a while. His pinched face didn’t look any mellower than the last time.
A couple of our scouts came back to report that the Duke’s men were on the move and little more than thirty minutes away. Both men estimated the numbers at close to eleven thousand, with no archers or cavalry. Warmont had always favoured his infantry over mixed troops – it was all he’d ever needed. In other parts of the Empire, there were armies with huge numbers of archers or horse. I was glad that we weren’t going to fight against all of these components. I doubted we could win against charging cavalry while arrows rained down into our ranks and footmen bore down upon us.
I checked over our positions. I’d placed the First Cohort to the left of the field as you looked towards the road. We were on the farthest flank from the town and I wanted us to be closest to the wall which our enemy would likely try and climb over to attack. In the middle was Lieutenant Faye and to the far right was Lieutenant Trovis, standing in lines four deep. I was already cursing myself for not having a horse. Usually I commanded fewer men than this and liked to be in the fray. Here, it seemed likely that I’d need to stay back, in order to obtain a better overview of the situation. The Saviour was right in the middle of the field, behind all of the troops. They didn’t need to see her, and we could all feel the power flowing out of her, comforting us with its warmth.
I wanted things to get going quickly – if our enemy tarried, there was the risk that the hands of our men would become too cold to properly feel their weapons. I’d known swords and shields to fly from the hands of soldiers on the coldest of days and it was a certain death for the unfortunate men to whom it happened.
Strength of Swords (First Cohort Book 2) Page 23