A few groups spoke to us as we proceeded, but I was able to deflect them without having to resort to violence. Fires had started to appear here and there and I had little doubt that they had been started deliberately.
“Look there,” said Ploster, indicating a huge blaze along one of the town’s main streets.
“They keep the soldiers barracked in that building,” said Lieutenant Faye. “I wonder if many of them were still asleep inside when the fire started.”
“If they were, Captain Garg is even less competent than I have imagined him to be,” I said. “Under his command, these soldiers appear to be little more than a rabble.” I spat in disgust.
“We’d best hope so, Captain. Else we’ll be scrapping house to house tomorrow,” said Heavy. He didn’t usually volunteer input.
It didn’t take us much longer to reach the seedy underbelly of the town’s outskirts. Everything appeared strangely as it had before, as if the slums were entirely unimportant to the events that were unfolding deeper within Gold. It reinforced my initial impression that the squalor and despair here were so deeply ingrained that it could outlast dukes and emperors alike.
A couple of robber gangs chanced their luck with us as we hurried through. The first – a collection of five malnourished men with hoods to cover their faces – backed away instantly when they saw how well-armed we were. The second group was more determined and with greater numbers. Even their eagerness to steal our coin was no defence against Heavy’s fists as he bludgeoned their leader into a bloody mess. The rest of the gang vanished silently, leaving their head man groaning on the muddy pavement, his nose broken and his teeth scattered around him. In reality they’d got away lightly.
Away from the borders of the town it was pitch black. To my shame, I admit that I would have probably got lost on the way back to my men, were it not for our lady’s abilities. She could somehow sense where they were and Ploster later confided that she could read the glow of life from afar, in a manner that was subtle and powerful. I was curious to learn if she was able to detect the men of the First Cohort in the same way, but didn’t ask the question.
With our lady’s assistance and the direction of Lieutenant Faye, we followed the roads back whence we’d come and found our way into the rocky hills where the Saviour’s army camped. I was relieved to find that there was nothing to be concerned about and that our arrival had been observed well in advance, to demonstrate the effectiveness of our sentries.
It was well past midnight, but Lieutenants Craddock and Sinnar were waiting to greet us.
“All go well, Captain?” Craddock asked casually, as if the thought had only just occurred to him that it might not have.
“Passable fair,” I responded, playing the game.
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Craddock. “Any instructions for us?”
“Yes. We’re moving out in the morning. Rouse the men before first light.”
“Very well, Captain,” he said, snapping me a salute. He turned to our lady and offered her a shallow bow with a smile, before turning away and heading off to his place in the camp.
Twenty
We were ready to march the next morning as the sun rose. Rumour had defied logic as it always did, by spreading around the men seemingly as they slept, and everyone was in a state of nervous excitement. A fast march would take the edge off their twitchy energy and I wanted us to reach Gold as quickly as possible.
Even from a few miles away, I could tell that things had changed. There were more people heading away from the town than I would have expected, many of them with carts or bundles of their belongings. Not everyone has the stomach or the ability to fight for something and I held off from judging them. Who was I to say that a man with two young children and a third expected should throw himself enthusiastically into violent fray? If all the people of the world wished to become soldiers, it would not be long until we had all killed each other and only a few of us remained.
I spoke to a number of these travellers. The stories they gave were confused and occasionally conflicting. One woman told us with certainty that the Saviour had been killed by soldiers, while another told us that the Saviour had burned Warmont’s soldiers in their beds. Others said that the fighting had continued all night and some believed that there was no Saviour at all and the turmoil was caused by nothing more than thugs who desired to flout the Duke’s laws. The overall picture was one of uncertainty and while it was what I had expected, I didn’t like it. I’d hoped to hear that the soldiers had fled and the people had gathered in the squares and plazas for the Saviour’s arrival. I wasn’t downhearted – the people leaving the town were not necessarily the ones who would be fired up with fervour and zeal. I expected to find plenty of welcome within the town itself. I had seen what had happened in the Farmer’s Market and on the streets with my own eyes.
It was past mid-morning when we approached the edge of Gold. The smoke had been visible on the horizon for some time and I had been concerned that we might not have a town to occupy by the time we reached it. My fears were mostly unfounded – smoke hung suspended above the town, with little in the way of wind to disperse it. A single burning building can produce a surprising quantity of ash and smoke and I estimated that there had been eight or ten fires throughout the town, with the greatest volume still rising from the smouldering remains of what Lieutenant Faye had told us was the barracks building.
“The idiots – they could have burned the whole town to the ground,” said Ploster.
“When people look for an outlet for their troubles, they do not always think rationally, Jon.”
“Aye, I know that.” He watched the swirling patterns in the sky for a moment longer. “We should be thankful that the people felt strongly enough to act in the way they did.”
“That’s how we have to look at it,” I told him.
“Do you think we’ll be able to march straight in and get to work?” he asked.
“Maybe,” I hedged. “Whatever happens, there’ll be bloodshed. There always is.”
Two hundred yards from where the buildings of Gold began, I called a halt and we waited, the banner of our lady held prominently above our centre. If there was any organisation behind the resistance, it would make itself known to us soon.
“They do not know my banner,” our lady said to me as we stood together, watching the town.
“They do not, my lady. But they know that it is not the banner of the Duke and that leaves only one possibility.”
We had not been in our position for long when the first people came out to look at us. They watched from what they felt was the safety of the streets at first, before a few of the bolder ones ventured along the road that ran by the fields we occupied.
“Lieutenant Craddock, get me one hundred men, please,” I told him. “No more than half from the First Cohort.”
With these men forming a guard around us, I escorted our lady closer to the town, until we were almost up to the outermost buildings. More people came, looking at us with curiosity but no fear. Word travelled quickly and the weight of numbers pushed the closest people even further towards us, allowing more and more people to come forth, until there were several thousand of them in a semi-circle. Our lady looked upon them from her horse and smiled. Many of them smiled back, tentatively at first. Then a there was a susurration of whispered voices. I could make out a few of them. It’s the Saviour, they said. She has come to free us. The susurration spread, until it seemed as though every man, woman and child was repeating a similar refrain.
The time for her to speak was now and I was concerned that I would have to tell her to do so. To my relief, she displayed the quickness of her learning and an aptitude for reading a situation that I felt would stand her in good stead in the times ahead.
“My people,” she said. “I thank you for the courage of your actions. I have come to free the people of Gold in the same way that I have freed the people to the north.”
As she said these words, I hoped that n
ews of Xoj-Fal the Wyrm’s flight to Treads and Farthest had not reached here, though there was no way that it could have done.
Already from the short time I had known her, I had learned that she was not a great one for speeches. She didn’t need to be, and I didn’t know if it was because it didn’t come naturally to her, or if she felt that her power over her people made the words little more than fleeting and unimportant disturbances in the air. “Are you ready to join with me?” she asked, her voice steady and confident, reaching out to everyone who could see her.
“Aye!” said a woman near to the front. “I’m ready.”
“And me,” said another.
In seconds, it seemed as though everyone was shouting their faith and their loyalty at the top of their lungs, with ever more people leaving the town to join them in the cacophony. Amongst the crowds, I saw a flag bobbing towards us – a white flag of peace. Like a powerful fish surging through water, the bearer of this flag came ever closer to us, until he emerged at the head of at least fifty armed men, dressed in armour and carrying their swords like they had been brought up with them.
The man with the flag was of medium height and rangy of build. I saw the same gleam in his eyes that I could see all across the crowds before us.
“Saviour!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, to make himself heard over the crowd.
I motioned for the men who surrounded our lady to step aside so that he could pass. He came through alone until he stood before her. He dropped to one knee and doffed his helmet, revealing his lined face and dark hair. It was a face I hadn’t seen in many years.
“Saviour, I am – was – Lieutenant Trovis in the Duke’s army. I am a man of Gold and I lead the men within the town who even now do their best to flush out those of the invaders who remain. Will you have us?”
“Lieutenant Trovis, any man who will fight the Duke is one of mine. You do not need to ask permission.”
Trovis rose to his feet with relief. I could almost hear his knees crack and I felt pity for the frailty of his body.
“Been a long time since Flense,” I said.
Lieutenant Trovis only then caught sight of me, so focused had he been on our lady. “Captain Charing?” he asked. “If you fight for her, then perhaps there is hope after all.”
I had half our men move into the town and the other half camp outside for the time being. As we marched through the streets in a long column, many people cheered, though many of us watched sullenly or with concern. Even under the Duke’s rule there would have been people who turned the situation to their advantage and earned themselves a tidy profit. Our arrival heralded the end of the known and brought with it only one certainty: that death would come. Our lady read this same message as I did and commented on it.
“Many of them are scared about the change we bring. They fear their own death.”
“Better a quick death than the death of a thousand cuts the land has felt under Warmont for so long. There comes a time when you have to fight for it.” The words were easy for me to say. I’d fought all of my life and it was part of me. I didn’t know if it was fair to condemn everyone who worried about their future, especially given that a new one was being imposed upon them. A man had once told me what’s right is right. To a young Tyrus Charing, those words had carried weight and importance. As I’d got older, I considered them simplistic and pointless – something to fire up the impressionable. There, on the streets of Gold I started to appreciate them again, but as a multifaceted representation of many possibilities. I had come full circle – the wisdom of my years taking me all the way back to the callow man I had been. I felt a strange shiver when I thought about it.
At first, we met no resistance. I had brought Lieutenant Trovis along with us and I spoke to him at great length about the situation in the town.
“Garg’s dead,” he told me. “One of the lads killed him with an arrow outside the barracks. Would you believe it? The single Gold man with loyalty to his town that could wield a bow, managed to get an arrow in his Captain’s chest. The town needed a bit of luck,” he said. Every soldier pays secret homage to luck, as if they are trying to court a forbidden lover into their bed for one final tumble.
“I reckon Garg had more than four and a half thousand men left after word reached the lads from Gold,” Lieutenant Trovis continued. “Nigh on eight hundred and fifty of us buggered off last night, once we’d heard what was happening. I’ve never seen the like before. We all just upped and left. Them that tried to stop us, well, we killed them stone dead. A few of the other men came with us too. Lads from Graster, mostly. They’ve got no love for Warmont, have they?”
I liked Lieutenant Trovis. If he spoke this much in battle, his men would probably be slaughtered before he’d managed to utter his first order, but I enjoyed listening to his embellishments, which made a pleasant change from the punctuated delivery of most commanding officers when they spoke to their superiors.
“What’s happened to Garg’s men?” I asked. “And the justiciars?”
“The justiciars? Probably hiding under a bed somewhere with shit in their pants and tears in their eyes. There wasn’t many more than three hundred of them here in Gold. I’ve had my lads kill them on sight, but we haven’t found many. Or at least many who’d not already been killed. Some of them with objects shoved painfully into places that you or I wouldn’t want to have them shoved, if you know what I mean.”
I smiled at that. Once you see through the veneer of fear, it’s amazing what you can do. The justiciars deserved everything they got.
“Are the Duke’s men holed up anywhere?” I asked. “Or have they all left the town?”
“You know something, I couldn’t tell you for definite. All I’m certain of is that the fighting has died down and that the Duke’s soldiers aren’t causing us any bother.”
I sighed inwardly, preparing to rebuke the man for his lackadaisical approach. Our lady saved me the effort.
“Lieutenant Trovis, are you telling me that Duke Warmont might still have several hundred or several thousand men hiding within my town? Or mustering somewhere close by?” Her face was disapproving and nobody wanted to see that look directed at them.
“I do apologise, my lady. I believe that many of the Duke’s men have fled to the south. I’ve had my own men out collecting the dead and there’re over five hundred of his soldiers and nearly two hundred and fifty of the justiciars accounted for so far. To add to that, there are eleven hundred men, women and children from the city who have perished. I have established a temporary headquarters in the council buildings and sent scouts out into the city to obtain more detailed information and to report back if they find any signs of the Duke’s men. In addition, I have summoned a number of prominent local leaders to my headquarters, where I will determine their leanings and deal with them accordingly. There has been so little time to do anything more and none of my men have had so much as an hour’s sleep since yesterday morning.”
I laughed at this. “That’s more like it, Lieutenant.”
By mid-afternoon I had imposed a greater order on the town. The extra thousand men I’d brought with us were deployed quickly, in groups of ten, rather than my favoured groups of five. I mixed those of the First Cohort with the men from Treads and Bunsen and warned my own that it would be for the best if they kept their identities secret where possible. I didn’t know how well we’d be received. The First Cohort hadn’t been involved in any suppression of Gold, but our reputation as Duke’s men was well-known and would take much time and many deeds before it faded.
I installed Chartus as our quartermaster and set him about the administrative tasks that I had little time or competence to deal with. I gave him charge of our coin and a quantity of men to ensure that he had the necessary resources to keep us functioning and without having to rob the local warehouses.
I still lacked specific numbers for the soldiers who had defected from the Duke, and the necessity to have everyone out on the streets thwarted my efforts
to find out. When it came to it I didn’t need to know immediately – there were something like a thousand extra soldiers for our ranks – but something in my brain demanded exactness, rather than approximation. Our lady now commanded almost four thousand five hundred men, by my guess. Most of them weren’t veterans, but they’d all seen combat. I’d have swapped them all for another twenty thousand, I thought, then chided myself for the futility of thinking such things.
The scouts came back in their ones and twos. They brought with them reports of the Duke’s men heading away to the south east. They had a long, long way to travel before they reached Furnace or Blades. There had been eighteen thousand who had assaulted Treads. More than ten thousand had escaped after their defeat. Between Treads and Gold, thousands more had mutinied or deserted. Now the remaining men had to find their way back to where they’d started from. I doubted if more than two thousand would make it there. Eighteen thousand would become a tiny fraction of what had started out. It wasn’t just the death of its soldiers that destroyed an army – there were many more difficulties in keeping one together.
Not all of the Duke’s men had fled and pockets of them remained in the town, holed up in houses here and there. They’d had ample chance to escape and I couldn’t imagine what they hoped to achieve by staying put. No one would thank them for it and the Duke would never hear of their bravery. They were probably little more than murderers anyway. I organised teams of men with the specific task of flushing out any such groups that were reported to us. Gold wasn’t huge, but it was more sprawling than many towns with a similar population and there were a number of large, unused buildings which could conceal soldiers intent on causing mischief. It was a hassle that I didn’t need.
Soldiers' Redemption (First Cohort Book 1) Page 22