by David Hair
Wind raked the plains, whistling through the city of tents, setting the canvas slapping and the guy-ropes whistling in a scattered rhythm. Fields full of tents, boxes, barrels and mountains of grain were infested by swarms of dockers, worker ants dumping, shifting, carrying, loading and unloading thousands of tons of supplies for the war. The soldiers were the smallest part of this temporary nest of humanity. This place was Portage XXVI, three hundred acres of land ploughed and flattened for the windships to land on, and the same again for a camp swarming with the men of the legions. Outside the soldiers’ camp were twice as many more people: merchants and traders, wives and fiancées and children, whores of both genders, beggars and opportunists. Forty legions – roughly 200,000 men, were marching over the Bridge into Dhassa to join the eight legions already there, and two others in Dorobon colours were preparing to be shipped to Javon: a scarlet tide was bearing down upon Antiopia. The Crusade had begun. Already the vanguard were marching onto the Bridge, and every day two or three more legions joined them as the bottleneck of soldiery resolved itself.
The last two weeks had been a blur of motion for Ramon, starting with a windship journey from Norostein to the Brekaellen Valley. From there he’d taken further ships, cramped little vessels filled with a dozen fellow magi, mostly by-blows of magi promiscuity, with the odd disgraced high-blood horrified to be sharing the journey with such riff-raff. He was the only southerner, and the Argundians, Hollenians, Andressans and Metians onboard had been delighted to have someone to practise their bigotry upon. He could barely wait to lose them all. He shouldered his pack and scuttled away before anyone could manage a parting shot, verbal or otherwise.
The camp was a bewildering mess, the normal rigorously applied legion camp lay-out falling apart under the pressure of so many noncombatants and so much equipment and supplies. The livestock enclosures alone were larger than most of the legion camps. They were filled with either horses or hulkas, the massive bullock-constructs bred to move supply trains. The hulkas stood twice the height of a man, weighed eight to ten tons, and were bred by animism-gnosis, combining aspects of oxen and giant Antiopian beasts called elephants. They had neither horns nor tusks, and were bred to be placid and endlessly patient. Thanks to a radical recent gnostic advance, they now understood simple verbal commands and needed no driver. Some cavalry units had been similarly blessed with intelligent steeds; khurnes were horses bred for strength and speed, with a single vicious horn on their foreheads, and like the hulkas they had the intelligence to understand verbal commands.
Gazing up at the watchful eyes of a hulka, Ramon was reminded of his old college classmate Boron Funt, who was similarly massive, and similarly dour. ‘What do you want?’ he demanded grumpily. The hulka blinked slowly and looked away, as if its thoughts were too profound to share. Creepy damned things.
He found a ragged child who agreed, for a copper, to guide him to the tent flying the legion flag with the number XIII emblazoned upon it. He flipped the kid his coin, then pushed his way tentatively inside.
A man looked up, squinted and scowled. ‘Sensini?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s “Yes sir”,’ the man growled. ‘And salute when I address you.’
‘Yes, sir, sorry, sir.’ Ramon saluted like he’d seen other men do and that seemed to suffice.
The man before him – his new commanding officer – was as ugly a mage as he’d ever seen, broken-nosed and belligerent-looking, with a receding hairline and the blotched skin of a drinker. Most magi took some care of their appearance, encouraged by the Church’s desire for magi to at least try to look semi-divine, but this man clearly didn’t care. His uniform was tatty, his boots scuffed, but he exuded tough competence.
‘I am Legate Jonti Duprey, Commander of the Thirteenth.’ Duprey looked over Ramon disapprovingly. ‘And you’re a sixteenth-blood mage? I asked for a damned half-blood!’ Duprey ran his fingers through his remaining hair. ‘What kept you?’
‘Delays in Norostein, sir,’ Ramon replied. He wondered how Alaron was. Had he found Cym yet? Leaving Alaron to cope on his own felt like sending a lamb into the desert, but if he hadn’t shown up for this legion posting, his paterfamilias would have turned nasty.
Duprey tapped the paper on his desk. ‘We march in two days, Sensini.’ Then the tent-flap opened and a hulking blond youth came in. Duprey peered at him. ‘Kippenegger?’
‘Yar, ycha bie Fridryk Kippenegger.’ The newcomer was clearly Schlessen. He had a pale complexion, his blond hair fell past his shoulders and he was built like a bull. He was clad in a tooled leather breastplate and wore his arms bare with copper armbands shaped like snakes coiled about them. His biceps were as big as any other man’s thighs. He wore two throwing axes and a sword as long as Ramon’s body.
Duprey rolled his eyes. ‘Sir. You call me “Sir”.’
‘Yar.’
Duprey waited, stony-faced. Ramon suppressed a smile.
Eventually the Schlessen twigged to what was expected. ‘Yar, sir.’ Kippenegger glanced at Ramon. ‘Rimoni?’
‘Silacian.’
The Schlessen grunted. ‘Stay away from my things.’ But he said it with a little smirk, perhaps a flash of the alleged Schlessen sense of humour.
‘You’re here to report to me, not chat,’ Duprey snapped. He sighed heavily. ‘It’s like this every fucking time: I have experienced, disciplined troops, but every Crusade I get new magi who know nothing about the legions. Why we can’t begin the conscriptions a year in advance of the march I don’t know. Actually I do: money.’ He hawked as if to spit, then decided against it – it was his own tent, after all. ‘So, welcome. Our full complement of magi will be allotted tomorrow.’
‘Allotted, sir?’ Ramon asked.
‘There’s a ballot for those magi not already commissioned to a specific legion. Most legions have a peacetime core of six magi, and then add the rest from the volunteers by allotment. You were assigned to us on graduation. You’ll be battle-magi, assigned to a specific maniple, understood?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Kippenegger blinked. ‘Yar.’ He frowned at the silence. ‘Er … sir.’
Duprey sighed heavily. ‘Right. Sensini, you’ll be assigned to the Tenth Maniple – I presume your papers mentioned this?’ He waited with a look of tired expectancy on his face. Legions were roughly five thousand men, divided into ten maniples. The Tenth Maniple was the non-combat unit: scouts, engineers, clerks, cooks and logistics, plus a contingent of archers: they were considered the lowest of the low. Most magi thought themselves above such an assignment.
‘That will be fine, sir,’ Ramon replied, trying to keep his voice neutral. In truth, his paterfamilias had practically skipped for joy when he’d read Ramon’s assignment letter: in his view, whoever controlled supplies and wages controlled the legion.
Duprey blinked, then looked relieved. ‘I suppose as a sixteenth-blood you had no higher aspirations, eh? Kippenegger, you’ll be battle-mage of the Ninth Maniple. I can’t imagine I’ll get anyone else as low-blooded as you two. The rest will be assigned from the allotment.’ He grimaced. ‘Bloody latecomers, thinking they can wander in at the last minute and get the pick of the legions. Cretins.’
Ramon winked at Kippenegger. ‘Yes sir.’ The Schlessen stifled a grin.
‘Did I ask for an opinion?’ Duprey glowered sourly. ‘Forty-odd legions are crossing into Antiopia, four by windship, and the rest marching. Thank your lucky stars you’re magi; you’ll get a horse. Go and unpack and take the weight off your feet. We’ve added a new Secundus earlier this month, and we’ll get six more magi tomorrow so if you want the best beds, you’d better choose smartly.’ He jabbed a finger at the studious-looking aide-de-camp in the corner. ‘Nyvus, see these two to the mage-barracks, please.’
The aide was probably a non-mage, but he had an air of authority beyond his years. He led Ramon and Kippenegger from the command tent towards a larger pavilion. Not far off, Ramon could see a crowd of a hundred or more magi, ob
viously all recent unassigned arrivals, clustered about a big white pavilion near the command tent. He recognised faces from his own windship voyage and hoped none would be assigned to the Thirteenth. But let’s face it, whoever we get are going to be pricks.
Inside the mage-tent, fourteen beds had been set out, each half-screened from the others. All were empty but three, which had sleeping men sprawled on them. The nearest woke the moment they entered.
‘Wha—? Oh.’ The man rubbed his eyes. Evidently some kind of security ward had jolted him awake. He waved a hand at Duprey’s aide. ‘Thank you, Nyvus, I’ll look after them from here.’ The aide left with a smart salute. ‘Nyvus is the most military man we’ve got,’ the mage commented, looking Ramon up and down. ‘Let me guess: Sensini?’
‘Si.’
‘And Kippenegger?’
‘Yar.’
The man stood up. He was wrapped in the crumpled blue cloak that denoted a pilot-mage. Ramon blinked at the geometrically patterned skirt beneath it. ‘Baltus Prenton, Windmaster of the Thirteenth, at your service.’ He was clearly from Brevin, a cold wet northern province bordering Schlessen that had been ‘civilised’ by the Rondians, which had resulted in Brevians being held in contempt by both peoples.
‘You dress like a woman,’ Kippenegger observed grumpily. Ramon suppressed a smile. It appeared that thoughts made their way from the Schlessen’s brain to his tongue fairly unchecked, which promised to be amusing. Ramon wondered if he was trying to pick a fight with Prenton for some obscure reason, or whether there was some requirement among the Schlessens for chest-beating when dealing with other northerners.
The Brevian just smiled. ‘Why so I do. “Brevin, where men wear skirts and women wear trousers”, so the old jest goes. We call it a “kilt”, old boy.’
‘The men of Brevin are just hairier women,’ Kippenegger told Ramon with heavy contempt.
‘Can we dispense with the whole “my tribe’s better than your tribe” thing?’ Baltus Prenton replied mildly. ‘It’s rather tiresome and it serves no purpose, don’t you think?’
Ramon said quickly, ‘Fine by me. No one has anything good to say about my people anyway.’
‘That is because you are rodents,’ Kippenegger informed him. Then he frowned. ‘Ach, I suppose you are right. We’re going to have a bunch of Rondian shizen assigned to us so best we “vassals” are friends, yar?’ He extended his left hand. ‘Call me Kip.’
Ramon and Prenton shook hands right-handed with each other, then left-handed with Kip, and the Brevian gestured towards the two other men, still sleeping obliviously. ‘Coulder and Fenn: my countrymen, both battle-magi – Duprey’s not assigned the upper maniples yet; he’s waiting to see who he gets from the allotment.’ He nudged a bottle on the small table. ‘There is Brician red, if you want it.’
‘No beer?’ Kip grumped.
‘I was lucky to get the wine,’ Prenton told them. ‘The stores have practically everything except what you want, the traders are all thieves and everything’s being shipped east, so no one knows where anything is anyway.’
‘Is that normal?’ Ramon asked. He smiled internally: when officers had no idea what was going on, there were profits to be made.
Prenton harrumphed good-naturedly. ‘Normal? What is normal? Listen, this is the second Crusade I’ve been on. Did you hear about last time? Damned nightmare, I tell you. The Thirteenth was assigned to a region in west Dhassa where nothing was supposed to happen. The men went crazy stuck in the desert with nothing to do while the villagers crept around at night slitting throats and poisoning the wells. Finally the legate snapped and loosed us on the town – total rampage, but against orders, you understand. We got decimated for mutiny – you know what that means?’
Ramon and Kip both nodded: one man in ten executed, by lottery.
Prenton shuddered in horror at the memory. ‘The survivors had all amassed pay and pensions cancelled. The rankers had to start from scratch.’
Ramon and Kip looked at each other. ‘So the men of this legion are all mutineers?’
‘Most. Some have left, new men have come in, but we’re a punishment legion now, so the recruits are no better. The officers were all disgraced, of course, so me, Duprey, Coulder, Fenn, even poor Tyron and Lanna who spoke against the rampage, we were all bound over to serve another twelve years in the Thirteenth. The taint remains, you know. The rest of the army think we’re rabble.’ He shook his head grimly. ‘Anyone with connections avoids us like lepers. Kore knows where we’ll be assigned this time. Anyway, pleased to have you with us, lads.’
‘The legate said we’d have more magi allotted to us.’
Prenton laughed. ‘Indeed. Right now all those who were too lazy or badly connected to get themselves assigned earlier are pleading, begging, offering their virginity or selling their firstborn to get into one of the glamour legions. What they don’t know is that those positions went months, even years ago. The only places left are in the workhorse legions.’
‘How do they decide who goes where?’
Prenton smiled wryly. ‘Bribery and cock-sucking, the usual.’ He waved a hand. ‘Pick a bunk and settle in. Each legion gets fifteen magi: five command positions and ten battle-magi. We’ve got Legate Duprey, Secundus Marle – he’s a nutter, so watch him – Coulder and Fenn, we three, plus the chaplain and healer, so six more to reach full complement. They’ll whine like buggered nuns when they’re allotted to us – it’ll be as tedious as all Hel.’
*
They spent the afternoon settling in and washing their kit while Nyvus came and went, officious and efficient. At dusk they sat outside with Prenton on fold-up chairs, watching the blood-red sunset which promised good weather to come.
Many of the legions had already gone, and more marched every day. In two days it would be them, stepping out onto three hundred miles of stone, trusting in the engineering and gnosis of Antonin Meiros and his Ordo Costruo. It was a daunting thought, despite the numbers who’d already done it and survived. Tales of freak storms in the ocean swamping the Bridge and washing away swathes of men ran riot through the ranks, though no one could say exactly which legions had supposedly perished.
They met Coulder and Fenn briefly, though neither was interested in speaking of anything but dicing, but Baltus Prenton was more than happy to chat, mostly about the low quality of recruits this year: petty criminals with no respect for authority, bankruptees trying to work off debt and minor dissidents punished for saying and doing the wrong things – crimes not serious enough to warrant incarceration or execution. ‘It means the bastards question every order,’ Prenton grumbled goodnaturedly. ‘At first, anyway. Then the centurions lash a few; that knocks the rebellion out of them.’
‘Can we count on them in a fight?’ Ramon asked.
Prenton snorted amiably. ‘A fight? Dear Kore, this is a Crusade, lad, not a war. There’ll be no fighting, only endless days of marching around from ruin to empty ruin. There may be a bit of looting and pillaging thrown in, if we’re lucky. The Keshi don’t fight back. They run and hide.’ He pulled a face. ‘The biggest risk is their God-awful food.’
Ramon thought the camp food unpalatable enough. They ate slowly, trying to savour a mush that definitely contained potato and beans, but little else that was identifiable. There was wine – of sorts: a Brician chardo that was almost certainly off. But Prenton was pleasant enough, and gradually Kip and Ramon relaxed.
‘So who is Duprey?’ Ramon asked Prenton.
‘The legate? He’s a bankrupt merchant. Well, that’s how he ended up in the legion, but he’s been army for fourteen years,’ Prenton replied. ‘He was a battle-mage during the mutiny and was put in charge afterwards when the previous bastard used his political connections to get a pardon. Like us all, he’s hoping he’ll get enough plunder from this Crusade to get out.’
‘Is there really plunder to be had?’
Prenton’s nose twitched. ‘Last time the Kirkegarde and the Imperial Guard got it all. They confiscat
ed whatever they could get, even from their own men.’
‘But you’re all back for more,’ Kip commented.
‘What choice is there? Anyway, Pallas have put Echor in charge this time. That lifted the musters: Echor will look after the provinces.’
‘Will he?’ Ramon asked doubtfully.
‘Perhaps. If he thinks it’ll give him a chance to bully Constant. You know the story, right? Duke Echor is Constant’s uncle, but only by marriage. Emperor Hiltius made him Duke of Argundy when he married Hiltius’ sister. But then Hiltius died—’
‘Was murdered,’ Ramon put in.
Prenton put a finger to his lips. ‘We never say that, even amongst friends.’ He wiped his mouth, then lowered his voice even further. ‘Magnus took the throne and led the First Crusade before he too “died”. His eldest child was Princess Natia, by his first wife Alitia, who died in childbirth. By then he had a son by his second wife, Lucia: Constant, whom he despised. Natia and her husband, Echor’s brother, had been groomed for the throne by Magnus, but when Magnus died, Lucia turned the tables on them. She had the husband executed and Natia imprisoned and Constant’s arse on the throne in time for the Second Crusade, and the rest, as they say, is history.’
Ramon knew all this, but Kip clearly had been only vaguely aware. ‘Is Natia still alive?’ the Schlessen asked.
‘Reportedly, but no one has seen her for years. She was imprisoned when she was fifteen –she’d be in her thirties by now. She’s probably gone mad, if she’s even still alive.’ Prenton raised two fingers. ‘Constant has two young children, Cordan and Coramore, so Echor has been bumped down the succession. He favoured Natia, obviously, but when Constant came to the throne, Echor was too powerful in Argundy to dismiss. So they’ve been treading very softly around each other.’
‘How did Echor get the command?’ Ramon asked.
‘I imagine he flexed some muscle or made some trade-off behind the scenes,’ Prenton replied. ‘Some are saying he could come back from this Crusade with money and glory enough to seize the throne. That’s the real struggle going on, not fighting the Keshi.’