Cry of the Newborn

by James Barclay

  Hoofbeats, loud. She swung forwards. The Tsardon mace was already on its way. She got her sword in front of her but it was beaten aside and the weapon struck her breastplate. The metal bent inwards, the pain intense and shocking. She was lifted from her saddle. Out of control, she went backwards and down. The last she saw was the rear end of her own horse before the uprushing ground knocked her senseless.

  He was just an ordinary citizen but his skill with the bow was exceptional. A potter by trade and a hunter for relaxation. He had struck every target square in the middle as each was moved from behind cover by the wires laid across the arena. Even Tuline had propped her face up on one hand to watch.

  As was his right, he was shown to the Advocacy balcony to receive his prize; the gilded leaves of the Conquord, embossed with bow and arrow. Herine slapped Tuline's leg and waved her to a properly seated position as the man came through the curtains, dusty and delighted. He received his prize with an extravagant bow.

  'A most impressive display,' said Herine.

  'Thank you, my Advocate,' he gushed. 'I never thought I would be standing here before you. So many are more skilled.'

  'And most of them are in Tsard,' muttered Tuline.

  Herine shot her a dangerous glance. There would be words later. 'Ignore my ignorant daughter.' She smiled. 'Though General Gesteris could use a man as skilled as you to help him.'

  The man blushed crimson. 'He needs no help to secure victory for the Conquord,' he said. 'Though if I am called I will be proud to serve you.'

  Herine kissed his forehead and the cheers began. 'You are a credit, citizen. Enjoy your moment.'

  Nunan stood with his hastati, keeping them strong though the fear was building within them and their confidence draining. Next to him, a youth of no more than eighteen stood shaking, waiting to enter the fight. All day he had been standing and watching while his comrades fought hard, were injured, killed or withdrawn to rest. His time into the front line was soon and he wore his fear like a mask under his helmet. He cowered behind his shield.

  And now the stones were falling, the ground was shaking and men were being dashed to fragments behind him. The smell of vomit and piss was mingling with sweat, leather and blood: Nunan could see it was all the boy could do not to run.

  'You know me, citizen?' he said. He had borrowed a shield from his triarii and had set it before him against the arrows that fell at random.

  'Yes, Master Nunan.'

  'Then stand with me and we will fight side by side. Have courage. The cavalry will break the onagers and we will have victory.' 'Yes, sir.'

  The noise here was deafening. Nunan had forgotten what it was like and felt the strains of stress in his own muscles too as he waited. In front, three ranks ahead, Conquord shields punched forwards, forcing space to open and allow the gladius thrust. The Tsardon with longer swords and oval shields, blocked and countered. Casualties were still relatively light but blood sluiced around their feet, mixing with mud. The sound of sudden death chilled the heart as it always would.

  'Wall!'

  The word carried across the lines. Shields flew up to cover the sky. Stones whistled overhead. Nunan held his breath. Beside him, the boy prayed through clenched teeth. The stones hit. Immediately to his right, daylight and devastation. Nunan was rocked on his heels. Men and women screamed. Mud fountained into the air and sprayed sideways. He turned his head away reflexively, feeling wet impacts on his helmet.

  He looked back to the boy who had dropped his sword and was staring at his hands. They were covered in gore. His face was drenched in it and those eyes were the eyes of a man ready to break.

  'Leave the field,' ordered Nunan. 'Go with my blessing.'

  But the boy just stood while the maniple rippled around him and the hideous calls of the crushed wounded laid over the clash of steel on shield.

  'Press!' Nunan yelled. 'Strength and order.'

  His shouts were taken up by the centurions but more cries were filtering across the field. He heard panic and rumour in them and for the first time in his career, he felt the army waver. The phalanx had been broken.

  'Hastati, hold and defend.' He spun and ran out to give orders, praying that Kell would break through. 'Three maniples of principes to the fore, triarii to the phalanx. Don't take a backward step, don't turn away.'

  But at the back of the lines he could see soldiers breaking off and moving backwards. The Tsardon were throwing everything at them now. Arrows were thick in the air and the enemy taunts began to ring true. Nunan sprinted for the centre, surrounded by gladius-wielding triarii. He rallied centurions to get faltering citizens back into the fight, to force the legions to stand fast. He moved triarii forward, needing their experience and sheer courage. Fear would sweep through the army and take hearts and wills more surely than any plague.

  'We're still winning this,' he called again and again. 'Fight for the Conquord. Fight for me. Fight.'

  But the phalanx was in real trouble. The centre had been hit by stone after stone, the front ranks were under pressure from Tsardon who had dropped their spears and were forcing through the forest of sarissa tips with sword and shield. Triarii were sprinting in to bolster its collapsing core while to the right, cavalry were pressing hard to alleviate the infantry pressure.

  Nunan looked for the phalanx's commander but he was nowhere to be seen. He caught the collar of a frightened young woman.

  'Where's Keita?'

  'Gone,' she said, shivering. 'He was hit square on. There's nothing left of him. We're losing this fight, Master Nunan.'

  'No, we are not,' snapped Nunan. 'Get back in. Stand with your citizens. We will win.'

  He shoved her away, back to the phalanx rear division. The sarissas held high were wobbling, not bolt upright as they should be. Alarm. More stones. More fear. Nunan prayed for fortune. He didn't get it. Forty missiles slammed into the legions once again, ploughing their furrows through the mud and slaughtering and maiming where they travelled. Three more hit the phalanx. Immediately the Tsardon pushed harder, archers poured arrows into the mid and back lines. Nunan heard them rattling over shields.

  'Hold!' he bellowed. 'Hold!'

  Uncertainty threatened to swamp the legions. The onagers were still firing and the Tsardon were ferocious, sensing victory. He would not taste his first defeat. Not while he had strength in his limbs and breath to shout. Further forward he went, into the thick of the jostling, stinking line. His presence brought people back from the brink, made them believe again. He raised his gladius and led the rally.

  The next stones came in, cascading down behind him and covering at least the four maniples either side of him. But the expected impact vibrations and screams didn't come. Instead a curious silence passed briefly through the ranks. Nunan felt liquid splash across his back. He turned briefly. Blood and gore was everywhere. Some were covered head to toe in it. No one had escaped the splatter. They hadn't been stones. They'd been blood sacks.

  'God-spare-us,' breathed Nunan. He swung back round. 'Brace, brace, brace! Dogs. Dogs coming in.'

  And in the next heartbeat they could all hear them. Snarling, barking and howling. In front of the Conquord, the Tsardon stepped back a pace and through came the dogs. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of hounds. Driven by hunger and crazed by the scent of fresh animal blood. The blood that covered the legions.

  The dogs, a powerful hunting breed, boiled over the front ranks that went down under the tide of fang and claw, their shields and gladiuses rendered useless. They burrowed into spaces no Tsardon could go, seeking the blood and the flesh they craved.

  Nunan lashed out, slicing one across the back. It yelped and turned to bite him, missing his hand by a whisker. He hacked again and again. Dogs were all around him now, swarming by him and driving deep into the Conquord ranks. The Tsardon roared them on.

  'Fight, Conquord, fight.' His shout was taken up by centurions and triarii alike.

  Throughout the forward maniples, weapons stabbed down. They slashed and ripped int
o dog flesh, filling the air with squeals, cries and screeches. But for every dog they downed, another two leaped to bite and tear at every spurt of blood.

  Legionaries went down with jaws clamped around their throats, over their faces or deep into arm, leg or side. The blood sacks came down like filthy rain but were now interspersed with stones, both cold and flaming, adding to the chaos. Nunan spun to strike out at an animal and another knocked him from his feet. He dragged his sword in as he fell. The dog bared its teeth and darted in to grab at his back where blood had sprayed over his armour. He arced a cut deep into its flank and it jumped away. He got to his knees. The animal came back at him and he speared it through the chest.

  Regaining his feet, he looked about for order. There was little. Blood was slicking the mud. All around him, the hastati lines were fractured and the problem went into the principes behind too. The dogs had caused confusion everywhere. Tsardon arrows flew thick once more and their infantry charged across the short divide.

  Nunan yelled men to him, urged them back into the front line and ran in himself. Triarii were about him. Senior soldiers, seeing the danger and cutting swathes through the dogs that still ran around in their hundreds, scattering hastati, too many of whom had turned to run.

  'Stand!' he bellowed. 'Stand with me, Conquord.'

  The arrow caught him through the shoulder, having come down a steep arc. The impact was as surprising as it was agonising. He felt the point slice through at the joint of his breastplate and shoulder guard. He staggered and clutched at it, his gladius tumbling from his hand as the strength left it. The weight drove him to his knees and men running behind him knocked him further down.

  Nunan squeezed his eyes shut against the wave of pain. He felt hands around him, trying to pull him away. When he opened them again all he could see was the blood sluicing from the wound. He shuddered. Surrounding him, the faces were anxious, frightened and uncertain.

  'Fight,' he managed. 'Fight. For me.'

  He wasn't sure which way they were moving when his world dimmed away.

  Gesteris saw it begin to unravel and flagged orders for the triarii to take the front line. He had to get a steadying influence at the crisis point. But the Tsardon artillery had been awfully effective and on the left flank, Kell's cavalry were scattered and fighting small skirmishes against steppe riders perfectly suited to such combat.

  Through his magnifier he had seen his finest cataphracts picked apart by the steppe cavalry. He had seen stones tearing great rents in the guts of his infantry while too few enemy died on the sword or the arrow tip. He had seen the phalanx break at its front and in its heart. He had seen the blood sacks drop and the dogs swarming like ants. And he had just seen Nunan fall.

  For a moment, there was a hiatus. The battle raged along the front and arrows clouded the sky. But Gesteris was running out of options. Forty more stones hurtled down, smashing everything in their path and, finally, the hastati broke and ran. Through their dying comrades, through the fighting triarii and principes, chased by dogs biting at their heels. It began in the centre of the phalanx and swept out like a wave across the shore. The Tsardon saw it and poured forwards.

  'Damn you, no,' he said. 'I will not lose this.' He drew and raised his sword. 'Extraordinarii, with me. Raise the standard.'

  He kicked his horse to the gallop and charged at the enemy. Conquord cavalry came from the right to help him. He raced right across the front of the Tsardon, heedless of arrow or sword. His own blade licked out. He took the sword arm from one man, slashed backwards into the shoulder of another and battered the helmet from a third.

  He chased them back, fifty extraordinarii and a hundred cavalry with him. He pulled up where the line had already fractured completely and wheeled around hard, meaning to run back the way he had come.

  'Fight on,' he shouted at any who could hear him. 'Get them running.'

  He began the second charge. He forced his mount into the faces of Tsardon who stumbled back in front of him. The horse reared, its hoofs taking a soldier in the face. Behind him, triarii were following him in, bringing wavering hastati and principes with them. And for one glorious moment, the enemy looked uncertain.

  But more and more infantry were chasing round him, determined not to let the pressure off. For all he forged a gap, it was just forty yards in a battle line ten times that length. And everywhere, the Conquord standards were wobbling. His citizens were being cut down like weeds and the surge was unstoppable. Steppe cavalry moved across his vision to the right. They slammed into unprotected maniples trying to keep some semblance of a fighting line together. They didn't stand a chance.

  Gesteris wheeled again and began to gallop away from the shattered battlefront. Ahead of him now, all pretence at legion order was gone. Hastati were pouring past his more experienced units. Helpless to halt the tide, they ran too. The rout was headlong. Tsardon mixed with Conquord soldiers, keeping them running or hacking them down. Here and there knots of his cavalry tried to defend their legionaries but the steppe cavalry were approaching in droves from both flanks.

  'General!' someone shouted. 'General!'

  He looked around. His extraordinarii were around him.

  'We have to get to the first ford. We have to turn the reserves round. Break the Tsardon advance.'

  He urged his frightened horse to another gallop. He ignored friend and foe alike, hoping against hope to reach the fords while the armies there still held. But there were tens of thousands of men and women swarming across the plain now. The noise was indescribable. The ground resounded to running feet. The air was full of shouts and screams and cries of triumph.

  And at the fords, they had watched it coming with complete helplessness. From across the river, the Tsardon had launched an all-out assault, engaging the Conquord with renewed ferocity. Already, Gesteris could see reserve maniples starting to turn and run back towards the camp.

  'No, no,' he muttered. 'You have to stand.'

  They would not. He had not reached the first ford before the steppe cavalry had bludgeoned into the open flank of the reserve and the few cavalry not committed in defence on the river bank. He watched the army move and ripple like fields of corn in the breeze. Hundreds of heads turning, their focus on their task lost. All the

  Tsardon had to do was push a little harder. They executed the move perfectly.

  Gesteris let his horse begin to slow. It was hopeless. The army at the first ford unpicked like a poor weave, whole legions turning and running away west. And as quick as brush fire, the rout spread to the second ford and then the third. Hastati led it. Breaking away from the front line, leaving the Tsardon free to run at unprotected, unprepared legionaries and defeating all attempts at formal retreat.

  Gesteris saw flags waving. Commanders trying desperately to inject some order but getting nothing whatsoever. And in moments, they too were forced to turn tail and flee in the face of the Tsardon rush that threatened to overwhelm them all.

  'General,' shouted an extraordinarii riding by him. 'We must turn now. The day is lost. We can hold them at the camps if we can get there before them.'

  He nodded and pushed at his horse, the tears building behind his eyes. How had it been so easy? Where were his forward scouts to tell him?

  The noise was awful now and whistled in his ears like wind around rocks. Conquord forces running blindly for the camps. Tsardon warriors striking out with blade and shaft at unprotected backs. Cavalry trying to buy space and being cut down.

  At least the onagers were silent.

  Gesteris was powerless. It was over five miles to the camps and the steppe cavalry was coming up fast. Conquord losses would be huge. Gesteris did the only thing he could. He spurred his horse and joined the stampede. And the only songs of glory that found his ears were in a foreign tongue.

  Chapter 29

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

  When Dina Kell regained consciousness, the battle had moved past her. She pushed h
erself up on to her elbows. She felt completely disoriented. Her helmet had come off and was lying in the mud a few feet away. Through the trampled grass she could see the still mounds of horses and the crumpled tragedy of people, Conquord and Tsardon, littering the ground. There was a concerted roar behind her and a curious, breeze blown silence surrounding her. Nothing moved but mane hair and helmet plume. Distantly, dogs were barking.

  She had no idea how long she had lain on the battlefield among the stamping hoofs of cavalry horses, the arrows, the blades and the tumbling of bodies. She supposed she was fortunate to be alive but the overwhelming sense of despair that gripped her obscured even her own physical pain and made a mockery of any notions of luck.

  She groped for balance and pushed herself up on to her haunches. The world swam before her eyes. She was aware of a stabbing pain in her chest and that her right arm was hanging at her side. A brief look confirmed the mace blow had staved in her breastplate, no doubt cracking and breaking ribs. She presumed she must have landed on her arm when she hit the ground. It hardly mattered.

  Kell fought her mind into focus and looked around her. Figures moved in the heat haze to her left and there was a dark mass away ahead of her. The armies. But they weren't fighting any more. There were none of the sounds she associated with the battlefront. The myriad clash of steel on steel, the rumble of horses, the thud and whistle of artillery. She didn't want to believe it but there could be no doubt what had happened. Her shoulders slumped and she hung her head.

  Now she was moving, the pains in her chest and arm intensified. She tried to keep her breathing shallow. She had to move. She was too close to Tsardon positions and a long way from her own people. Behind her, the river flowed on unconcerned at the disaster that had unfolded on its shores and the blood that would mingle with the waters once it had soaked through the ground.