The Iron Wars

by Paul Kearney

  “Take your guns over to Aras’s position and make ready to repel an attack on the hills, Colonel,” Corfe said briskly. “How much ammunition is left in your limbers?”

  “Ten rounds per gun.”

  “Then I suggest you send galloper carts back to the baggage for resupply. You’ll need every round you can muster in a little while.”

  “With respect, sir, we seem to be driving them beautifully. I was given no such orders in my briefing. I don’t see why—”

  “Do as you’re damn well told!” Corfe snapped, his patience fraying. “This is an army, not a debating chamber. Go!”

  Rusio, Corfe’s elder by thirty years, glared venomously again, then spun his horse off without another word and began bellowing at his gun teams. Thirty guns, each pulled by eight horses, pounded off eastwards.

  The Merduk camp was wreathed in a pall of smoke. Flames glowed sullenly at its base and tiny black figures flickered in mobs like throngs of ants. It would be utter chaos in there, Corfe thought, as bad for the attackers as the defenders. But chaos favoured the smaller army. It was easier to control eighteen thousand in that toiling hell than ninety thousand. So far, so good.

  It was full daylight now, a dull morning low with cloud, the snow showers coming and going. The trained warhorses of the Cathedrallers were restless and sweating despite the cold; they could smell the stink of battle, and their blood was up. The men were much the same, and the ranks of horsemen buzzed with talk. In the centre of Corfe’s line the dyke veterans had their arquebuses primed and ready, laid on the Y-shaped gunrests they had stabbed into the ground before them. And on the far right the black-armoured Fimbrians stood like raven statues, their pikes at the vertical.

  Andruw cantered over and doffed his helm. “What’s our job in all this, Corfe?” he asked. “To make notes?” He had to shout to be heard over the titanic din of battle.

  “Hold your water, Andruw. This thing is only just begun.”

  Andruw joined his general in staring out at the left of the battlefield, to the west of the Merduk camp. Men were streaming away there, fleeing enemy trying to escape the murderous hell within the tent lines, tercios of Torunnans firing at their backs as they ran. But beyond them there was only a huge stretch of empty hill and moorland, completely deserted.

  “You think they’ll hit the left?” Andruw asked.

  “Wouldn’t you? We’re killing conscripts at the moment. The professionals have yet to arrive. Aras will hold on the right I think, what with Rusio’s guns and the terrain. But the left is another thing entirely. We have nothing there, Andruw, nothing. If the Sultan makes even a cursory reconnaissance, he’ll realize that and he’ll come roaring down on us there.”

  “And then?”

  “And then—well, we’ll have a fight on our hands.”

  “That’s why you’ve kept us so far back. You think we’ll have to move up to support the left.”

  “I hope not, but it’s as well to be prepared.”

  “Aye. At any rate, the King is doing his job. Another hour and he’ll have wiped half the Merduk army off the map.”

  “Getting into the fight is one thing, getting out is something else.”

  “Do I detect a note of envy, Corfe?” Andruw grinned.

  “It’s a glorious charge, but I wish he’d stop and take stock for a minute. The army is hopelessly disorganized in there. It’ll take hours to reform them and withdraw.” Corfe smiled. “All right, maybe I envy him his glory a little.”

  “Give him his due, he took them in there like a veteran. I’d best get back to my wing. Cheer up, Corfe! We’re making history, after all.” And he galloped off.

  Corfe sat his restive horse another half an hour. The fighting in the Minhraib camp went on unabated, though it had spilled out on to the plain beyond the tents. He could see Torunnan arquebusiers and cuirassiers fighting intermingled, banners flashing bright through the smoke. Beyond the camp a great cloud of men took shape as the Minhraib abandoned the tent lines and strove to reform in the open ground to the north-west. Twenty, thirty thousand of them dressing their ranks unmolested whilst the Torunnans were embroiled in the terrible struggle within the camp. The enemy had taken huge losses, but he had the numbers to sustain them and he was bringing some order out of chaos at last. It was time to get out. The Merduk reinforcements would be on the march by now.

  A courier emerged from the cauldron, beating his half-dead horse up the slope towards Corfe’s line. Corfe cantered out to meet him. The man was a cuirassier. His mount was slashed in half a dozen places and his armour was a pitted mass of dents and scrapes. He saluted.

  “Beg pardon, sir—” He fought for breath. “But the King, the King—”

  “Take your time, trooper,” Corfe said gently. “Cerne! Give this man some water.”

  His trumpeter handed the man his waterskin and the courier squirted half a pint into his smoke-parched mouth. He wiped his lips.

  “Sir, the King wants your men in the camp right away. The enemy is fleeing before him but his own men are exhausted. He wants you to take up the pursuit. You must bring the entire reserve into the enemy camp and finish the buggers off—begging your pardon, sir.”

  Corfe blinked. “The King, you say?”

  “Yes, sir, at once, sir. He says we’ll bag the whole lot if only you make haste.”

  Just then a heavy fusillade of gun and artillery fire broke out on the right. Aras’s men had opened up on an unseen enemy below them. Corfe called for Andruw.

  “Have a courier sent to Aras. I want to know the strengths and dispositions of the enemy he’s firing at, and his best estimate as to how long he can hold them. And Andruw, tell Marsch to take a squadron out on the left a mile or two. I want advance warning if they start coming in on us from there.” Andruw saluted and sped off towards the ranks. Corfe fished out his pencil and grubby paper again and used the thigh-guard of his armour as a desk.

  “What’s your name, soldier?” he asked the battered courier.

  “Holman, sir.”

  “Well, Holman, take a look at the land beyond the Merduk camp, to the north. What do you see?”

  “Why, General, it’s an army, another Merduk army forming. Looks like it’s going to attack our lads in the tents!”

  “It’s not another army, it’s the one you’ve been fighting, but so far you’ve only tackled the half of it. The other half has withdrawn and has been reorganizing for the better part of an hour. Soon, it’ll be ready to charge back into its camp and retake it. And now Merduk reinforcements have arrived on the right, also. You must tell the King that his position is untenable. I cannot reinforce him—he must withdraw at once. And I want you to take this to General Menin first, Holman. It’s absolutely vital this message gets through. The army must withdraw, or it will be destroyed. Do you understand me, soldier?”

  Holman was wide-eyed. “Yes, General.”

  “My command will cover the retreat for as long as we can, but the main body has to fall back at once.”

  “Yes, sir.” Holman was eager and appalled. Down in the hellish mêlée of the Merduk camp no one had noticed the Merduk thousands beyond preparing for a counter-attack. Corfe did not envy the young man his errand. The King would explode, but Menin would probably see sense.

  Holman thundered off, his tired mount rolling like a ship on a heavy swell. At the same time Marsch and his squadron set off north-westwards to keep an eye on the left flank. Corfe slammed one gauntleted fist into another. To sit here, doing nothing, galled him beyond measure. He half wished he were a junior officer again, doing as he was told, in the thick of it.

  The courier from Aras, a tribesman whose mount was blowing foam, stamping and snorting. He handed his general a scrap of paper, saluted awkwardly and rejoined the ranks.

  6–8000 to my front, all cavalry—the Ferinai I believe. A body of infantry visible several miles behind. Artillery keeping them at a distance for now. They are massing for general assault. Can hold another hour or two, not more.
Aras.

  “Lord God,” Corfe said softly. The Merduk khedive had been quick off the mark.

  He kicked his mount into motion and cantered along the battle-line until he reached the Fimbrians. His men cheered as he passed and he waved a hand absently at them, his mind turning furiously.

  “Formio? Where are you?”

  “Here, General.” The slim Fimbrian officer stepped out from the midst of his men. Like them, he bore a pike. Only the sash about his middle differentiated him from a private soldier.

  “Take your men out to the hills in the east and reinforce Colonel Aras. He’s up against heavy cavalry—your pikes will keep them at bay. You have to buy us time, Formio. You must hold that position until you hear otherwise from me. Is that clear?”

  “Perfectly, General.”

  “Good luck.”

  A series of shouted commands, a bugle call, and the Fimbrians moved into march column and then stepped off as smoothly as a great machine, every component perfect. Corfe hated splitting his command, but Aras would not be able to hold for long enough by himself. He felt like a man trying frantically to repair a leak in a dyke, but every time he plugged a hole in one place, the water erupted out of another.

  Andruw joined him again. “I have a feeling there’s hot work approaching,” he said, almost merry. Action always did that to him.

  “They’ll hit the left next,” Corfe told him. “And if they hit it hard, I’ll have to commit the rest of the command. There are no more reserves.”

  “You think we’ve bitten off more than we can swallow?”

  Corfe did not answer. He could feel time slipping away minute by minute as though it were his lifeblood ebbing from his veins. And with the passing of that time, the army’s chances of survival grew ever slimmer.

  TWENTY-TWO

  A URUNGZEB had not ridden a horse any distance for longer than he cared to admit. His thighs were chafing and his buttocks felt like a pair of purple bruises. But he sat straight in the saddle, mindful of his station, and ignored the snow which was thickening in his beard.

  “Blood of the Prophet!” he exclaimed, exasperated. “Can’t they move any faster?”

  Shahr Harran, his second khedive, sat a horse with more obvious ease beside him. “It takes time, Highness, to get an army on the march. These things always appear slow at first, but the Torunnans will be embroiled for hours yet. Our scouts report that they are fighting square in the midst of the Minhraib camp—they have their heavy cavalry engaged right among the tents, the fools. They will not escape us, never fear. And their left flank is still unguarded.”

  “What of those damned red-armoured horsemen everyone is so terrified of? Where are they?”

  “To the enemy rear, my Sultan, in reserve. And they number scarcely a thousand. We are sending in twenty thousand Nalbenic horse-archers on their left and Shahr Johor should be assaulting their right with the Ferinai any time now. The Torunnans cannot escape. We will destroy their army utterly, and it is the last field army their kingdom can possibly muster.”

  “Oh, hold the damn thing straight, can’t you?” the Sultan barked. This to the unfortunates who were striving to shield their lord from the spitting snow with a huge parasol, but the wind was wagging it like a kite above Aurungzeb’s head. “I am sure you are right, Shahr Harran; it is just that lately I have had my khedives assure me of Torunnan annihilation many times, and always the accursed Ramusians seem to be able to salvage their armies with some last-minute trick. It must not happen this time.”

  “It will not. It cannot,” Shahr Harran assured him.

  The two riders were surrounded by hundreds of others in silvered mail—the Sultan’s personal bodyguard. Beyond them a steady stream of lightly armoured cavalry trotted past endlessly. These were unarmoured, though well wrapped up against the cold. Their horses were light, high-stepping, delicate-looking creatures built for speed. The riders were dark men as fine boned as their steeds, armed with bows and with quivers of black-fletched arrows hanging from their pommels.

  “Where is my intrepid infidel?” Aurungzeb asked in a lighter tone. “I must hear what he thinks of this array.”

  A small, dark figure on a mule rode to Aurungzeb’s side. He was dressed in the habit of a Ramusian monk and his face was hideously disfigured.

  “Sultan?”

  “Ah, priest. How does it feel to look upon the might of Ostrabar, and know it shall soon accomplish the spiritual liberation of your benighted nation? Spreak freely. I value the nonsense you spout. It reminds me how hopelessly misled you Ramusians are.”

  Albrec smiled strangely. “Not only the Ramusians, Sultan, but your own people too. Both peoples worship the same God and venerate the same man as his messenger. It is the pity of the world that you war on each other over an ancient misunderstanding. A lie. One day both Merduk and Ramusian will have to come to terms with this.”

  “Why you arrogant little—” Shahr Harran sputtered, but Aurungzeb held up a hand that flashed with rings.

  “Now, Khedive, this maniac came to us in good faith, to show us the error of our ways. He is as good a jester as I have ever had.” The Sultan laughed loudly. “Priest, you have spirit. It is a shame you are mad. Keep up your insane pronouncements and you may even live to see the spring, if you do not endeavour to escape first.” And he laughed again.

  Albrec bowed in the saddle. His feet had been lashed to his stirrups and the mule was connected by a leading rein to a nearby warrior’s destrier. Escape was a possibility so remote as to be laughable. But he did not want to escape. He would not have chosen to be anywhere else. His ravaged face was impassive as he watched the mighty army that coursed endlessly past—and this, he had learned, was only one third of the whole, and not the greatest third at that. His heart twisted in his breast at the thought of the slaughter that would soon begin. Torunna could never hope to win this awful war through force of arms alone. His mission among the Merduks was more important than ever.

  They had beaten him, the night he staggered into their camp on the wings of the storm, and he had almost been slain out of hand. But some officer had been intrigued by his appearance, thinking him perhaps a turncoat who might have useful information, and he had been sent to the Sultan’s camp, and beaten again. At last the Sultan himself had been curious to see this strange traveller. Aurungzeb spoke Normannic well enough to need no interpreter. Albrec wondered who had taught him—some captured Ramusian or other, he supposed. The Sultan had been first astonished and then intensely amused when Albrec had told him of his mission: to convince the Merduk peoples that their Prophet was one and the same as the Ramusian’s Blessed Saint. He had called in a pair of Mullahs—learned Merduk clerics—and Albrec had debated with them all night, leaving them as astonished as the Sultan. For Albrec had read every scrap he could find about the Merduks and their history, both at Charibon and then in the smaller library in Torunn. He knew Aurungzeb’s pedigree and clan history better than the Sultan did himself, and the monarch had been oddly flattered by the knowledge. He had kept Albrec in light chains in the Royal pavilion, for all the world like a performing bear, and when the army’s officers assembled for conferences, Albrec had been there and was told to stand up and do his party piece for the amusement of his captors.

  Many of the men he had spoken before had not been amused, however. What the Sultan considered a diverting madman, others deemed a blasphemer worthy of a lingering death. And still others said nothing, but looked troubled and confused as Albrec told of the Blessed Ramusio’s coming into the eastern lands beyond the Jafrar, his teachings, his transformation into the Prophet who had enlightened the eastern tribes and brought to an end their petty internecine warfare, moulding them into the mighty hosts which threatened the world today.

  There had been a woman present on one of these occasions, one of the Sultan’s wives, dressed as richly as a queen, veiled, silent. Her eyes had never left Albrec’s face as the little monk had gone through his sermon. The light-coloured eyes of a western
er. There was a despair in them, a sense of loss which wrenched at his heart. He seemed to remember seeing the same look in someone else’s eyes once, but he could not for the life of him remember whose.

  The distant roar of battle jerked his mind back to the present. The Sultan was talking to him again.

  “So do you know who this general is who leads these red-clad horsemen, priest? My spies tell me nothing of use. I know that the Torunnan King is no phoenix, and his High Command are a bunch of old women, and yet against all expectations they have come out to fight us. Someone among them is a true warrior at least.”

  “I know little more than you, Sultan. I have met this general you speak of, though.”

  Aurungzeb twisted in the saddle, eyes alight with interest. “You have? What manner of man is he?”

  “It was a brief meeting. He is—” Suddenly Albrec remembered. That look he had seen in a woman’s eyes, above a veil. Now he knew who it reminded him of. “He is a singular man. There is a sadness to him, I think.” He recalled the hard grey eyes of the officer named Corfe he had encountered outside Torunn, the line of scarlet, barbaric cavalry behind him, passing by like something out of legend.

  “A sadness! What a fellow you are, priest. By all accounts he is their best general since Mogen, and a raging fury in the saddle. I should like to meet him. Perhaps I will order him to be kept alive after we have broken his army.” And Aurungzeb chuckled to himself. “Listen to me! I am becoming like Shahr Baraz, chivalrous towards enemies.”

  “Magnanimity becomes a great ruler, Sultan,” Albrec told him. “Only lesser men indulge their cruelty.”

  “What is that, one of your Saint’s platitudes?”

  “No. It is a saying of your Prophet.”

  A NOTHER courier, the snow freezing on his shoulders and matting his horse’s mane. “I come from Marsch,” he said, and pointed westwards to reinforce the statement.

  “Well?” Corfe demanded.