The raft was foundering, listing to one side as the logs came apart. The men on board were frantically trying to stop the cannon rolling into the water. But it was too heavy and was at an angle, its big mouth pointing down into the river. The alarm had been raised and more men were swimming to help as the raft foundered. Four soldiers on board tried to hold on to the cannon but they were sinking as timber shifted under them. There was nothing they could do.
Stern lay on his back in the water, paddling gently with hands and feet, unseen in the darkness. He listened to the enemy’s shouts and curses and watched the raft sink until there was nothing but blackness.
Benet suddenly emerged from the water beside him, laughing, and grabbed him round the shoulders and bore him down in the water. Stern struggled free and rose spluttering, then tried to dunk his brother just as they did when they were boys in the sea at Adrastto. They were both elated, triumphant at their victory. The only enemy soldier to spot them had been the fat oaf struggling along at the back of the army. Benet was doing him a kindness when he’d throttled him. He’d never have made it to the south shore anyway.
They swam upstream and when they waded up out of the water, eager hands reached to help them.
‘Well done, men,’ said Hayden, his face unsmiling but his eyes warm. ‘You have given them something to think about. They will place stronger guards on their weapons now they know they are being followed. This will be a setback to their plans, and their pride.’
‘They’ll send scouts,’ predicted Stern, rubbing himself down with a hairy blanket.
‘I hope so,’ Hayden said. ‘If I were their general I would send out the best, and that is who we will capture. It’s time we found out something about our enemy.’
‘Your orders, sir?’
‘We march through the night. We follow the shore eastwards – as many leagues as we can traverse in one night – then we cross at dawn. They will be waiting for us to cross here.’
He smiled then and lifted his voice to address the rest of the army. ‘We have won our first victory, comrades. The loss of one of their cannon will be a blow to them, to their plans and to their pride. We could not have done better if we had killed one hundred of their soldiers. They will feel the defeat keenly and will be seeking revenge. They will probably send a force against us tomorrow. If so, what will we do?’
The soldiers raised their voices as one. ‘Kill them all!’ they roared.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
SCOUTS HAVE A vulnerable role in any army. They travel alone through enemy territory and their fate, if captured, is grim. Nevertheless, Hayden had found, working alone appeals to a certain type of soldier and volunteers are usually easy to find.
So the general was taken aback when he asked for two volunteers and the reaction was one of shifty silence. He looked expectantly at his small army. None of them looked back.
‘General,’ said Stern, at his side, ‘City soldiers are not given to volunteering.’
‘Why?’ Hayden snapped, angered beyond reason. ‘They all know the value of scouting the terrain ahead. Each of their lives was certainly saved at some time by scouts.’
‘In the City army,’ Stern explained quietly while the soldiers muttered and grumbled among themselves, ‘no one is asked to volunteer. They are ordered.’
In the end two men raised their hands. One was the soldier with the badly injured face, known to his comrades as Shivers, for even in the balmiest of days he trembled with cold. The other was a one-eyed soldier who had joined them just before the Narrows. His name was Casmir and he was a City veteran with an air of independence which marked him in the general’s mind as a possible leader of men, or a troublemaker. The fact that he had only one eye was not ideal for a scout, but Hayden was content that at least he had not had to order men on this perilous mission.
They had crossed the Narrows without casualties, except for one old donkey which had drowned. The City soldiers muttered that this was a bad omen. A lot of things were considered bad luck among City troops, the general had learned in recent days. A snake in your path was a bad omen, though in the Petrassi army it was a portent of great good fortune. Bafflingly, mice were also thought to bring ill luck, but as the creatures were not seen far from the City this had scarcely been a problem.
Casmir and Shivers set out at dawn. Hayden had ordered them to take a circuitous route, avoiding enemy troops who might still be on the south bank of the Narrows waiting for them to cross. The pair were charged with locating the army, assessing its direction of march – now scarcely in doubt – and its number and complement.
The two scouts returned separately the next day. Shivers, though he had the reputation of a surly bastard, according to Stern, arrived at dawn full of news. The enemy generals had split the army in two. One part, including most of the cavalry, was heading due south, the other marching straight for the north wall of the City and probably the Great North Gate. He guessed the latter number at forty thousand men. Most of the wagons were also going that way, including the remaining cannon. Their intent was clear: to attack the north of the City and, probably, the breach in the Adamantine Wall to the south.
It was late in the day when Casmir returned, mounted on a piebald gelding, grinning with success. He had been trailing the enemy force southward. They were travelling fast, he said, but had taken time to obliterate three villages in their path, small villages struggling to recover since the end of the previous war. He had found only corpses: men, women and children. More than a hundred in all. The horse he had ridden back had wandered in during the night and when the sun rose that morning had been cropping grass nearby. Casmir saw it as a good sign and Hayden could not but agree.
‘How much ground are they covering each day?’ he asked.
Fifty leagues, the two scouts agreed after a brief discussion. Casmir added, ‘The southern army is staying far to the east of the walls, out of sight of the City.’
‘Very well,’ said Hayden, ‘then I need another volunteer.’
This time several of the warriors showed their hands and the general chose Casmir, who had already shown good judgement and had brought them a horse.
‘Are you a fast rider, Casmir?’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘Then I want you to ride to the City and take a vital message to the empress.’
The one-eyed man gave the ghost of a smile.
The general told him, ‘I will write a message and you will take it to— which gate, Stern?’ Although Hayden knew the geography of the City better than most of its soldiers.
‘The Paradise Gate is closest to the Shield,’ said Stern.
‘Then head for the Paradise Gate, soldier. We must get information to the White Palace on our position and number, and ask the empress to send help, reinforcements if possible, and weapons. Take this,’ he struggled to pull a heavy carnelian ring from his finger, ‘and the empress will recognize you have come from me.’
Casmir took the ring and put it in his pouch. Then he stood waiting, his single dark eye expressionless. Hayden was suddenly unsure he could trust this man, but the decision had been made and he rarely went back on a decision made. That was one of the things the general considered bad luck.
He squatted down and dug out paper and a quill from deep in his pack, unwrapping them from their waterproof bindings. In the last light of the westering sun he wrote a few words informing Archange of the number of the enemy force and its probable intent. He warned of the cannon, and told of his plan to stay in the rear of the army and harry it with his small force. He rolled up the paper and put it in a wooden message cylinder. Casmir was eating and drinking and the horse was being fed and watered. By nightfall he was ready, now clad in a black jacket decorated with silver which shone in the light of the campfire.
‘Good luck to you, soldier,’ Hayden said, handing him the cylinder. ‘Your mission is vital. The Immortal will be eternally grateful to you.’
He watched as the one-eyed soldier rode out of sight,
filled with misgivings.
As Casmir rode slowly south on the long leagues of undulating grasslands that stretched between the Narrows and the north walls of the City, he marvelled at the varied hands fate had dealt him, both glorious and appalling. He had plumbed the depths in torment and degradation more than once, and pleaded to the death gods for release. Yet, just as he had struggled, maimed and traumatized, back to the City twenty years ago after losing his eye, then forged a brilliant career as agent to one of the City’s great lords, so this time he had survived the cruellest torture and been chosen by the empress for vital work.
And, although that did not work out, here he was, a free man with a horse, with food and water and the liberty to go anywhere he wished – as long as it was away from the battling armies.
Yet he carried on riding towards the Paradise Gate.
He took out the general’s ring and looked at it in the starlight. It was clearly valuable. He put it on. He had been tempted to throw the message away as soon as he was out of sight of the camp yet the cautious part of his nature got the better of him and he kept the wooden cylinder nestled in the breast of his jacket. It was always good to keep your options open. He could certainly never go near the empress – he was not only a messenger of bad tidings, always a perilous role, but he would have to admit failing in his duty to abduct a helpless girl. The empress would have him executed or, worse, return him to the pitiable state in which she had found him. He was not sure she could do this but he was not willing to risk it.
For all he had done, Casmir thought of himself as a man of honour. Any deaths he had caused, by his own hand or those of his agents, had been in the service of the City, its generals and lords. He did not kill lightly and he did not kill women. In fact he had no interest in women at all, another result from the terrible events which had cost him his eye. He had always enjoyed the company of soldiers. And he had been surprised and, perhaps, a little moved when the unfortunate Shivers, in a fit of comradeship, had given him his own jacket before he set off.
Neither of the two scouts had told the general the full detail of their adventures. They had merely reported their findings in the laconic way expected of them. Shivers would no doubt be regaling his fellows with tales of his heroism while they sat round the campfire that night. Casmir regretted a little that he was not there.
The pair had stayed together at first. They had been unlucky to meet an enemy scout almost immediately – or rather, it had been the scout’s ill luck. They had slit his throat and moved on and as they neared the foreign army they were surprised by two more of the enemy. It was a gallant, if short skirmish. Shivers proved a ferocious fighter fuelled, Casmir guessed, by long-held rage. But at one point the disfigured man had dropped his sword, his arm briefly paralysed by a blow to the bicep. Casmir had spotted his predicament and, stepping back briefly from his own fight, had thrown his knife at the other opponent’s head. It was a poor throw – he was out of practice – but it rattled the enemy’s helm and gave Shivers a heartbeat in which to grab his sword from the ground and bring it up to gut the man. Casmir, distracted, had nearly lost his arm to a vicious sword-thrust, but he had swerved at the last moment and the sword had ripped through his jacket, tearing off the sleeve.
Hence – Casmir guessed, for Shivers had said not a word – the gift. It was a splendid jacket of black leather and silver, much like the uniform of the Thousand. It had clearly been in battle and had suffered a clean sword-cut to one arm and a tear on the shoulder, but someone had rubbed off the worst of the blood. Casmir suspected Shivers had stolen it from a cadaver, which in no way lessened its value. It fitted Casmir perfectly, far better than his old one, and would also fit his future status as a man of wealth and power. He would return to the City, sell the general’s ring, and retrieve his savings from his banker in Otaro. Then he would assume a new name, buy a house and perhaps marry a woman of breeding. He would give up the sword and live a life of ease.
But still he carried on riding towards the Paradise Gate.
He had decided that he would after all fulfil his mission – he was a man of honour after all. But first, he thought, he must find a way to hand over the message without being escorted to the palace for questioning.
Casmir halted when the night became too dark to see his way. There was a cold breeze from the north but he found the new jacket well padded across the shoulders and he turned his back to the chill and slept as deeply as a child.
By the next night Hayden’s warriors were camped five leagues north of the enemy, itself less than a league from the Great North Gate. The enemy was within sight of the walls, and by now the City would be aware of the approaching force and the watchers on the walls would be waiting. For Stern and his comrades the anticipation of seeing the City again, perhaps the next day, was almost unbearable. But because the enemy army now knew they were there, the possibility of attack was high and Hayden had sentries out as far as he dared. For one reason or another, he and his force would be getting no sleep that night.
Hayden was as weary as an old man can be who has walked all night and day. He lay back against his pack and closed his eyes, but he had no hope that sleep would claim him. He had slept less and less over the years, and not entirely due to the hard earth under his back. If asked, he would say simply that old men need less sleep than the young, but in truth it was because he fretted more. As a young general he would make his plans then lay his head down and sleep the sleep of the resolute. These days he picked and worried at his tactics, casting and recasting them in his head until his weary brain gave up and he fell into a brief, enervating slumber haunted by dreams of death.
The enemy might have little idea of the size of the army that was dogging its bootsteps, but its generals would be expecting an attack on their powder wagons and they would expect it at dawn in the time-honoured way. So Hayden kept his band at a safe distance, far back on the rolling grasslands, for any outright assault now on the heavily guarded black powder would be suicide and, besides, doomed to failure. Instead they would wait and see what the enemy did. Would they launch an all-out attack on the gate or the walls? Would they hold back the heavy cannon or bring them up to begin the assault?
The only way Hayden’s fighters could reach the powder wagons was by stealth, but stealth is difficult to achieve when your opponent is bristling with expectation. They were not only heavily guarded, the scouts reported, and taken into the very heart of the army, but they were protected from fire arrows by hastily built wooden screens. Opportunity might come once the enemy became engaged. The first action after a long and largely uneventful march would raise the blood, and excited soldiers were unobservant soldiers. Then would be the best time to infiltrate the enemy ranks.
Stern had volunteered for the covert mission, as Hayden knew he would, but the general refused him. Stern was proving too useful, not only in keeping his own men in order, but as a wise lieutenant. Hayden would not risk him on this perilous venture. Instead he chose one of his Petrassi, the infantryman Pieter Bly, and the City soldier Torix, a thin-faced, dour veteran. Each would follow a wide path round the foreign army then try to ease into its flanks, Bly on the left, Torix on the right. The enemy soldiers dug no latrines, like civilized troops, so it was common to see men leaving and joining the camp at will throughout the day. It was ill-disciplined, shambolic even, Hayden thought, and it would work to his advantage.
Hayden’s men had taken uniforms from enemy bodies they had found on their journey. Black ash mixed with water would be drawn on the infiltrators’ faces to mimic tattoos. Still they would scarcely survive the most cursory glance. They knew nothing of the enemy’s symbols and insignia, their passwords or codes – if they used such things – and, of course, they could speak no word of the foreign tongue. It was frustrating, Hayden pondered, that they knew so little about the enemy though they had tracked them for many days.
Dawn arrived in a glory of scarlet and gold, signalling not only a new day but the start of the slow slide i
nto winter. Taking a deep breath Hayden levered himself to his feet, knees complaining, back stiff. He stretched his spine, looking round at the ragged band of men and women who were rolling to their feet, griping, checking wounds and weapons and drinking from water skins, then he wandered over to where Stern and his brother were camped. Stern jumped up when Hayden approached.
‘Walk with me,’ the general said, beckoning two of his Petrassi officers to join them. What his own countrymen thought of Stern’s presence at the general’s meetings, and the fact that they were forced to speak the City tongue for that reason, Hayden could only guess. Adamus Brel and Josef Menier were professional men and Hayden wanted their experience and judgement. But he needed Stern.
‘The wounded?’ he asked, always his first question of the day, as the four men strolled out into the grasslands, the tall dry stalks whispering as their boots brushed by. Stern reported that the last few wounded were well on the mend after another night’s rest. ‘But five sick,’ he added.
‘Five?’ asked Hayden, and Brel could not resist adding, ‘I thought you City warriors never fell sick?’
Hayden frowned, feeling a worm of dread deep in his gut. This sickness, which had felled two men the previous day, was sudden and vicious, like nothing he had ever seen. The worst thing that could happen would be for it to spread.
Stern, ignoring Brel’s barb, went on, ‘Ague from the crossing, I expect. Or the enemy’s food we’ve been eating.’
‘The night scouts are back,’ Brel told his general. ‘Nothing to report. The army hasn’t moved.’
Hayden was not surprised. On every day of their journey so far the enemy had been on the march before dawn. They were in a hurry. But now they would have to stop and plan. No amount of long-distance reports could make up for their first view of their target – the City walls.
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