Cry of the Newborn

by James Barclay

  The man who stared back at him was clean-shaven and heavy-framed. Deep blue eyes shone out of a face red from the battering of wind, snow and ice. He wore a white knee-length tunic slashed Advocacy green and cinched at the waist with a leather belt buckled with the Del Aglios crest - a rearing white horse with crossed spears beneath its front legs. His dark green leggings ended in hobnail boots, capped in shining steel.

  He nodded, satisfied. Undress uniform was acceptable enough for the orders of the day. He unhooked his fur-lined and hooded black cloak from the stand on which his beautifully polished and pressed dress uniform hung, and slung it around his neck, fastening it with a Del Aglios brooch.

  Roberto smoothed his hair, spun on his heel and strode out of his tent, pausing to take in the fresh, cool air of an early genastro morning in Tsard. Before him was a sight he would never have tired of seeing.

  To his left, the staggering forest of Sirrane. With evergreen and new growth thrusting through the canopy, it rolled away higher and higher, up slopes still hung heavy with snow. No one really knew the full scale of the forests or mountains. Conquord agents had been two thousand miles along its southern edge and had not reached its end. Could it really be as deep north to south. Its heart was the dominating peak of Gor Nassos, at best estimate in excess of thirty thousand feet high. On a clear day the snow-capped and awesome peak could be seen from hundreds of miles distant, thrusting above the tree line.

  The rumour was that the Sirranean capital city was at its feet, on the banks of a crystal blue lake but no one still alive had travelled that far. Sirrane was a nation of secrets that would be kept so long as the forest stood. No thought had ever been given by the Conquord to wage conquest war against it. Legions would be swallowed up in the dense depths of the forest, never to be seen again.

  And for their part, the Sirraneans had never shown any desire to expand beyond the outer boughs. They were born, lived and died in the forest, and were rarely seen more than a few miles from their homes. None had ever visited the Conquord. Roberto found them fascinating. Accepting of other countries, trading with them, but diplomacy was as far as it went. As to their culture, it remained like their political and economic systems, an enigma. If he had his way, his first job as a Conquord politician would be as emissary to Sirrane.

  Roberto let his gaze travel left to right over their intended destination for this campaigning season. It was a beautiful but worrying landscape for a general. Beyond the plateau on which they had camped, the land fell away quickly before racing away across an undulating plain that had been the scene of their last battle the previous season. A victory that had gladdened their hearts for dusas.

  Beyond the plain, the Tsardon hinterland reverted to its characteristic features. Sharp inclines, steep-sided valleys and river courses winding through treacherous rock-faced gorges, all carved out by the hand of God. Crags and rock towers studded the landscape like sentinels, daring invaders to continue.

  Hard terrain for marching, let alone fighting. Roberto knew he would have to work hard to gain the ground advantage when they made fresh contact with the ferocious and worthy Tsardon armies.

  Looking out over Tsard, its predominant green washed with the purple and blue of early heather flowers, he felt a pang of regret that this stunning landscape would soon be stained red with the blood of thousands of men and women. It would be littered with bodies too numerous to bury and scattered with broken leather and steel for local scavengers to dart out and take once the armies had moved on. All because the King of Tsard would not hear the wisdom of Conquord unity under the Advocate. How many more lives were still to be lost before they surrendered?

  Roberto acknowledged the salutes of his tent guards and strode out into the camp. It was a larger, more permanent version of a marching camp. Inside the tall, quadruple-gated wooden stockades, paved roads divided the camp into its constituent parts.

  His engineers had done a sound job. Guttering and drainage had been a primary concern, with raised wooden platforms a few inches above ground on which all the tents were pitched. Only the paddocks stood on the thawing earth and the churned mud beneath the horses' hoofs testified to the master engineer's wisdom.

  His cavalry, elite of the legions, were billeted close to him, along with his command staff. Legionaries and engineers circled him in order of age and experience; the triarii nearest to him, the hastati on the outer edge by the fortifications and in between them, the principes. Textbook. But then with the Conquord legions, it always was. There was no other way. Discipline, order, victory.

  He walked past the legion and alae standards planted outside the command quarters, snapping in the fresh breeze. Emotive banners of veteran fighting forces. The 8th and 10th Estorean regulars, known by their legionaries as the Screaming Hawks and the Hammer Fists respectively. And the 21st and 25th Atreskan alae, cavalry-dominated and going by the names of God's Arrows and Haroq's Blades.

  Ducking under the loose tent flap, he was greeted with the multiple scrape of chairs, shouts for attention and the thumps of left fist striking right shoulder.

  'At ease,' he acknowledged. 'Sit, sit.' Roberto made for the angled table on which were pinned the quartermaster's numbers, the best maps they had of the surrounding area and details of the path already travelled. He brandished his messenger papers.

  'Dusas is officially over.' There was a short cheer, though the twenty assembled in front of him already knew it. 'We strike camp at the earliest opportunity, which I have deemed will be in seven days. You all know what you and your centurions must do to get your citizens into battle trim. Here are your additional orders.

  'The Arrows and Blades, I want your mounted scouts in the field from today onwards. I want settlements visited, provisions secured and best routes plotted. We are all aware of the potential for ambush. Get as much information from the locals as you can. Pay them well; my mother's war chest is deep indeed.' A chuckle. 'I want scouts four days ahead of us at all times on the march and I want messages daily. I will not be surprised by encounter with the enemy. I trust that is clear.' He waited for the relevant masters of horse to confirm.

  'Good. Hawks, your scouts will travel the eaves of Sirrane. I will not be flanked. Distance and messaging as with my alae. Fists, your scouts will mark our rear and maintain communications with the eastern front. Supply will be difficult and I will not tolerate interruptions due to information negligence on your part. Agreed? Excellent.

  'Master of Engineers, Rovan Neristus. We're rolling. We have just spent dusas next to the best source of timber in the world. I trust our supply contracts are in place. If not, you have seven days. Don't come to me on the march telling me a scorpion or wagon must be abandoned due to lack of raw materials or you will find yourself fighting with the hastati.'

  The pigeon-framed engineer scowled at him. 'I am sure the hastati would be proud to have me with them, Roberto.'

  'Let's pray we don't have to find out. Again, you have leave to pay. Quartermasters have my accounts. Remember, all of you, that we are not at war with Sirrane and our aim is never to be so. You will not take liberties. Except perhaps with their whores.'

  Another chuckle. He held up his hands.

  'Two pieces of news for you. One good, one not so. While we are not receiving reinforcements, the eastern front will benefit from four new legions. They are going to be raised from Avarn, Neratharn, Morasia and Bahkir who are all underrepresented on this campaign.

  Conscription is already underway but we cannot expect them into the fight until solasfall at best. That, my Atreskan friends, means that your country is not suffering any more drain from its fields and businesses.

  'But before you get too happy, I have to tell you that while the messenger service and the supply lines from Gosland and Atreska are being strengthened, both by late genasfall, the border forts will not be. I have been given no reason but I suspect it is money and available bodies.'

  There was a single voice of dissent and Roberto nodded.

 
; 'I know, Goran, I know. But this is the reality. We must use it as a spur to win decisive victories early in the campaign to force raiders at our backs to join the armies in front of us.

  'Make no mistake, we will win this campaign this year. We all want to see our homes again. Mind your discipline, mind your troop morale. I will not hesitate to remove command from those who demonstrate their inability to perform in the field. In the last five years, none of you have failed me. See that it remains that way. Dismissed.'

  Thomal Yuran, Marshal Defender of Atreska, sat in the throne room of the principal castle in Haroq City, now called the basilica since their accession to the Estorean Conquord. The former King of Atreska was long dead, preferring to be executed rather than bend knee to the Advocate. Yuran had thought himself the rightful if fortunate successor and he had been honoured to be the first unfettered Marshal Defender of the province. Now he was not so sure.

  Genastro had brought precious little in the way of warmth to his heart and bones and a brooding anger had settled on him since his frustrating visit to the Advocate the previous dusas. The freezing temperatures that had swept across the Conquord and into Tsard had matched his mood and the wait for a reaction to his demands and the investigation into his province's finances had been interminable.

  But it was done now and the papers awaited him once his audience with Praetor Gorsal from Gull's Ford was at an end. She waited for him to respond to her latest plea even now. He took a moment. The throne room bore Estorean marks. White columns had been raised on which to mount busts of great Atreskan rulers and they managed to look completely out of place in the tapestry-filled room with its vaulted stone roof.

  The original throne had been destroyed, a symbol of a government dismantled, to be replaced by a wide, low uncomfortable seat of office. And the uniforms of his guards all bore deep green trim, as did the Atreskan crest of a crenellated tower crossed by swords. Right now it all stood for very little. Genastro had come and the raids would begin again in earnest.

  He looked across at Gorsal whom he had bade sit though it was against protocol. She was shivering from her journey, sick with fever and fear for her people whom he had been so unable to protect from the Tsardon.

  'I wish I could promise more than I already have. Already, I am dragging too many away from their lives and damaging our economy to fight a war we do not want and to protect borders we should not have to protect. Unless the Gatherers outside my door now have news which surprises me, I can offer you no security barring that within the walls of this city.'

  'We will not leave Gull's Ford,' rasped Gorsal, coughing violently enough to double over with the effort. 'So we will burn when they return and the deaths will be on your head. The end of the cycles of so many under God. Can you live with that?'

  Yuran bit back his retort. He thought nothing of the Conquord religion, only agreeing to his Marshal Defendership when it was clear Atreskan religions, which had more in common with the Tsardon than Estorean, would be allowed to continue. The civil strife over which he presided made him wonder if that too had been a mistake. No wonder he returned to his shrine every night to beg for direction from the lords of sky and stars.

  'What would you have me do? There are fifty villages in your position. I cannot defend them all, or one above another. We must hope for an end to the Tsardon campaign. Pray for that at your House of Masks.'

  Yuran cursed himself for the look of contempt that crossed Gorsal's sick, pale face.

  'I have hope,' he said. 'Really I do. Though I can give no more, I feel the Advocate will agree to staff the border forts with Conquord legions.'

  'Another empty promise from the luxury and decadence of Estorr,' sniffed Gorsal. 'As empty as Jhered's.'

  'Then come here to Haroq until the trouble is over. Rebuild when our soldiers return to the countryside,' he said.

  He felt so torn. Estorea still held his respect though it diminished by the day. Its officers and politicians haunted his corridors. What choice did he have but to remain in step? Yet, at the same time, he tasted the emptiness in the words he spoke. Platitudes, no more.

  Gorsal shook her head. 'We are strong in the outlands,' she said. 'We have pride in our way of life. All we ask is that the Conquord returns the loyalty we have shown in it. Defend us. Defend your people. Or one day we too will listen to the rebels and be lost to the Conquord.' She stood up. 'And we will not be alone. Bring us hope, Marshal. It is all we have ever wanted.'

  Yuran sighed as he watched her go. He smacked his palm on the arm of the throne and leant forwards, wiping the stinging hand across his brow. Around him, his advisers were silent. He suspected them all of being Estorean spies. He had appointed none of them, after all. At least they could report back on his continued loyalty.

  Footsteps echoed through the throne room. Three walked towards him, two men flanking a woman. Gatherers. He waved them forwards, examining their expressions. Unreadable.

  'So,' he said. 'What of my books? And what of the decision of the Advocacy to grant my desires.'

  The woman, a Gatherer Appros, a senior accountant and soldier, handed him a single sheet of parchment sealed with the Del Aglios crest.

  'This is word from the Advocate,' she said. 'Meanwhile, our report on your books is being studied by your own accountants. It reveals little that can be construed as negligence.'

  He spread his palms before accepting the parchment. 'I told you that you wasted your time, Appros Menas. I give all I can. Presumably, therefore, I will not be asked to raise more soldiers or pay more taxes.'

  'Indeed not,' said Menas, her tone neutral, her face severe, scarred from an attack years before. 'Though you will also not be surprised to learn that a country that cannot give in taxes, cannot expect defence raised by the taxes of others, particularly when the Tsardon campaign is such a drain on the exchequer.'

  Yuran sagged. 'What? Surely that is precisely the reason for the Conquord. Central taxation for the good of all. Neratharn is not under attack. Its people can defend mine while we need it. Are we not a family?'

  'Yes, Marshal Yuran, we are. But it is the decision of the Advocacy that the remaining military budget to be spent on raising further legions to assure us of victory in Tsard. That is where the Neratharnese will go, among others.'

  'Then I am back exactly where I started,' he said. 'My people will die at the whim of the Tsardon raiders.'

  'Your country's defence is not my concern,' said Menas.

  Yuran didn't respond. He feared arrest for what he was liable to say when his temper broke. He cleared his throat and dragged open the parchment. It was a short message. Actually it was an invitation, one of those where there was no option to decline. He read it as if from over his own shoulder, such was the disbelief and the thundering in his head. He let it drop from his hands and fixed his eyes on Menas, who flinched visibly.

  'Is this some kind of a joke?'

  Chapter 19

  848th cycle of God, 1st day of Genasfall 15th year of the true Ascendancy

  The palace was busy, far busier than the Advocate would normally allow. The halls bustled with civil servants and local specialist businesspeople going about tasks handed down to them by the organisers. The hum of activity in the wide corridors and public audience rooms only served to deepen Jhered's anger.

  He had meant to bathe, having just stepped off ship from Gosland, but the banners on the streets, the air of fervour in the city and the industry on the Hill had given him a sick feeling. Instead, having discovered the reason for it all he slapped his gladius on to his desk, threw his filthy cloak across the office and strode into the palace, looking for the Advocate.

  Decorations adorned every column and insulted the statue of every general who had ever brought victory to the Conquord. Worse, they insulted every legionary and cavalryman out in the hinterland of Tsard facing the enemy. His boots echoed darkly off the marble floors of the great entrance hall, which had been converted into a makeshift project office. Heads turned towards hi
m, people so drunk with their own importance they looked on him with something bordering on condescension.

  Nodding curtly at palace guards, he swept along the central gardens, down the colonnaded passage to its left and up the stairs leading to the private levels, where the Advocate and her inner sanctum lived their lives away from public gaze.

  His expression as much as his rank granted him access up the huge sweeping white marble staircase with its balustrades carrying busts of former Advocates and its walls a mosaic of the defining battle of Karthack Gorge. A stunning victory where the Avarnese were finally

  defeated, to give the Conquord total dominion over the south of the continent and opening up the northwest to the legions. Jhered had had ancestors in that battle. One was a decorated general who had died for the Conquord in the gorge.

  It was a magnificent sight but Jhered had no time for it now. He took the stairs three at a time, all but flattening two people on their way down. All fine weave togas, bright colours and garish headwear. He pulled up just in time, recognising them. Rich landowners, grown fat off the efforts of others and with no sense of the world beyond their luxurious, cosseted existence. Poison in the Advocate's ear.

  'You'd better not have any part in this stupidity,' spat Jhered.

  They smiled at him indulgently as one might a miscreant child. 'Ah, the magnificent Exchequer Jhered,' said one, voice affected by wine. 'Box up your temper. We are saving the Conquord from implosion, reminding ourselves of our glories.'

  'You and your kind will bring us to our knees, turning a blind eye even while you burn.'

  He stalked past them, shoulder connecting heavily with the speaker who stumbled against his friend.