Cry of the Newborn

by James Barclay

  'I need help here!' he shouted over his shoulder, where only dust hung in the air. Pointless. The noise of the battle below was too great. The Tsardon spread out around him. Two had bows strung, four held their slightly curved swords and oval shields. 'Oh, shit.'

  The bowmen fired. Jhered ducked. Both shafts missed high, sailing over the bluff and lost. He stood again. The Tsardon had stopped. Hardly a surprise. The bowmen bent their weapons again. This time one of the shafts slammed into his shield, the other into the ground. He glanced behind him. Mirron was lost in her Work. Jhered really only had one choice. He ran straight at them.

  Keeping his head and body inside his shield he roared determination, covering the thirty-yard gap at speed. The bowmen flexed and released, flexed and released. One arrow parted his plume. Another bounced from his shield. A third bit into the earth at his feet. He made for the middle of the six. He wanted them all around him, concentrating on him, giving Mirron the maximum time to work and escape.

  The Tsardon stood their ground, expecting him to pull up to strike. He had no such intention. He barrelled straight into the central pair, battering them down. He fell, half-twisted and rolled on to his back, scrambling to his feet even as they turned to face him. He was up fast. By his feet was a groggy Tsardon. Jhered stamped on his neck and launched himself back at the four standing. His shield clattered into an enemy's. His gladius thumped into another. He ducked a flailing blow, feeling it shear across his defence, splintering the finish.

  He backed off a pace. The bowmen had swords now. Behind him, the surviving Tsardon was getting to his feet. He butted his shield forward again. His target dodged aside, striking out with his blade. Its tip scored across the Conquord emblem. Sparks flew. Jhered backed off again, moving left this time, bringing the fifth enemy into view. All of them had their backs to Mirron now. He took a glance behind him. The edge of the bluff was at his heels. The Tsardon spread into an arc.

  'Which one of you is good enough to take me, eh?' He hefted his gladius. 'Well?'

  They rushed him.

  Prosentor Kreysun could feel the wheel turning in his favour. Never mind that the other Conquord force had managed to approach without him seeing. Never mind the evil gale that had blinded his men. He had so many warriors. And now he was pushing back on the border defence; the new front was steadying though still just on the retreat, and his onagers were finding their targets.

  Conquord rounds from the fort exploded into the ground around him, obliterating men and splashing their fire across the little snow that still remained. He turned to his crews, forty at least.

  'Faster. Let's give it back to them. I want these bastards running back into the hinterland.'

  He marched to the lines of onagers. All of them were turned to the east now and moving forward in steps, trying to get the range of the Conquord's pieces. Pitch fires glowed hot and his engineers worked feverishly to get stones covered and lit while the arms of the catapults cranked back.

  Heat came from nowhere, like a hot gust across the steppes when solastro was at its height. He frowned. Perhaps the fires were hotter than he thought though he wasn't standing that close. Kreysun saw it all happen but he still didn't believe it. Engineers backed away from a pitch fire glowing far too hot. Flame was spilling over the iron barrel, gouts of orange shooting into the air, coiling and jabbing down at clothing and shield. He saw men begin to smoulder. He saw hair singe and shield blacken.

  'Korl spare us,' he whispered.

  A wide tongue of fire lashed out from the barrel and engulfed the onager. The crew turned and ran. The heat was immense, stopping him in his tracks, leaving him able only to stare. The fires burned through rope, enveloped the arm and wheels, took the support frame and weakened the hinges. It would be so much ash in no time. He took a pace backwards. One after another, his pitch fires blossomed to bring the onager into their destructive embrace.

  'Put them out!' He began to run amongst them. 'Put them out.'

  But his crews barely heeded him. Most of them were running, their backs already indistinct in the choking smoke of dozens of fires.

  Kovan jumped from his horse and ran past Mirron's crouched form. Ahead, Lord Jhered took a battering blow on his shield and his legs half-buckled. His gladius stabbed out but missed its target. The sword blows rained in again. Four men stood around him, two bodies lay on the ground. Jhered blocked one, took another two on his shield and the fourth missed his left leg by a whisker.

  Jhered surged upright again, forcing the enemies back. But they were strong and there was only going to be one outcome to the fight. They spread just a little and he couldn't hope to defend against them all this time. Kovan wouldn't make it. He shouted but they didn't hear him. Ten yards away and it might as well have been ten miles.

  There was only one thing he could do to distract them. He threw his gladius and prayed. The blade tipped end over end. Ahead a Tsardon raised his sword for a fatal blow. Kovan's gladius speared into his back knocking him forward off his feet. The others paused a fraction of a heartbeat. It was enough. Jhered thumped his shield into an open body and rammed his gladius into the throat of another.

  Two left, one of them winded. Kovan snatched a curved blade from the first body he passed, feeling its unfamiliar weight and balance. He took it in both hands and swept it through the legs of one of the enemy. The man pitched back, screaming. Jhered punched his shield again and again into the last man, driving him to the ground where he finished him through the heart. Kovan stabbed the Tsardon blade through the stomach of the other, leaving the sword quivering.

  He straightened and wiped a trembling hand across his mouth. Jhered was in front of him, handing him his own sword back and smiling.

  'Just in time, young Vasselis, thank you.' He clapped a hand on Kovan's shoulder. 'It's a good job you're in love with Mirron, isn't it?'

  Kovan felt himself blush. 'I don't—'

  'No one comes back to save the taxman, boy.'

  Jhered laughed and led the way to Mirron. She was lying on her side now, breathing heavily. Kovan knelt by her and stroked her lank hair.

  'It's all right, Mirron, I'm here.'

  She clutched at his arms. 'I did it. I stopped the fire stones.' 'And so much more,' said Jhered.

  Kovan followed Jhered's gaze down on to the battle. The enemy onagers were burning. All of them. Black smoke clouded the sky and Tsardon were running in all directions. Behind, there was a great roar from the Conquord lines as word was passed. The legions surged. Down below them, cavalry galloped hard into their counterparts, forcing a slight hole. And into it poured Conquord troops, led by a man with a red shield.

  'That's—'

  'Davarov,' said Jhered. 'Come on. Kovan, get her up. Time we were leaving.'

  Roberto signalled the artillery to advance and he galloped across the back of the line, spreading the word of the destruction of the Tsardon weapons. They had done it. The Ascendants. He didn't know how, and right now he didn't much care. This was the moment and with Davarov probably aware his targets were already gone, the Atreskan master would be able to put his maniples to different use.

  'Commit to the lines,' ordered Roberto as he passed. 'Principes to the front. Let's break them.'

  He urged his horse to the north end. A critical break here and the Tsardon were lost. He watched Cartoganev's cataphract break up a charge by the steppe cavalry. Horse archers thundered along in their wake, filling the air. A sword detachment rode into the skirmish, forcing the enemy to turn to regroup.

  He looked behind him. 'Come on Rovan, let's have those arms swinging.'

  He needed the stones to fall without reply. From the fort they still fell trailing smoke and flame but there were not enough of them to shiver the Tsardon morale. Roberto reached the right flank perimeter. Principes were adding to the weight. Down amongst them,

  Davarov led his maniples into the gap the cavalry had forged. Tsardon were turning to cut them off.

  'Archers, shoot behind the front line.
Do it.'

  The order was passed. Arrows flew in high arcs, falling out of sight. The right edge rippled and moved forward again. Just a yard but a big advance.

  'They're turning,' he yelled at his centurions, to anyone who could hear him. 'They're turning.'

  Rovan Neristus's stones scoured the grey sky. Roberto watched them go. He saw them plunge into the centre of the Tsardon reserve where it was grouping to defend. Where they thought they were safe.

  'Not any more,' said Roberto. 'Not any more.'

  The Conquord legions closed their shields under command of their centurions. Flags dropped, horns sounded afresh. They rushed the weakening line. Discipline. Order. Victory.

  Somewhere out there, he could have sworn he heard Davarov shouting the self same words. Roberto smiled. Perhaps, just perhaps, they could save the Conquord after all.

  Admiral Gaius Kortonius, Prime Sea Lord of the Ocetanas, breathed the cold sea air that blew across the Kester Isle plateau from the north west, bringing with it the first ice of dusas. The signs of the season were everywhere. From the sleet that had been falling on and off for five days; to the roar of the Ocetanas Palace hypocausts; and the sea mist that clung to the rocks and obscured the sea beyond two hundred yards.

  Normally, it was a time of year Kortonius loved. Born on the shores of the Tirronean Sea in a tiny fishing village north of Port Roulent, he was a proud Caraducian sailor. He had watched the mists roll in and out ever since he was a small child. It was a fascination that had never left him.

  There was a calm about the Isle and the sea when dusas called. The Quietening, the Ocetanas called it. When the bulk of the fleet was docked in the great caverns that arched beneath the plateau and the crews could rest in the city, spend time with their families and give thanks to sea Gods that would cause the Chancellor to boil over in pious rage.

  But not this dusas. The timing of the invasion, if such it really was, could not be worse. The normal duties of the navy were stretching and tiring enough. They were based on the capacity to stand down in stages over dusas. Kortonius had done what he could. Much of the Ocenii squadron was in the Isle, as were over half of his battleships.

  The scout ships and fast-attack triremes, though, were still out there. Forced to patrol the north of the Tirronean against the threat of the renegade Atreskan navy; required to patrol the entire eastern and western seas boards, particularly Estorr; and with a rolling blockade across the south of the Isle. Never mind the trouble in Gorneon's Bay and the Tundarran coast.

  Too many ships at sea for too long a time. Yet, if the Gesternan reports were accurate, the Tsardon had sailed from the Bay of Harryn. A brave move with the storms that assaulted the southern tip of Gestern at the turn of the season. He would match them. No one seriously believed the reports of the fleet's size.

  Kortonius turned away from his balcony and drained the last of his sweet herb tea. His breakfast was settling well in his prodigious gut and it was time for the constitutional the damn surgeon demanded to relieve his arteries. He laced up leather boots over his bare legs and hung a fur cloak about his shoulders. He smoothed down the front of his toga, slashed blue and gold in the colours of the Ocetanas. Finally, he pulled his pointless plumed helmet over his head. At least it would keep the sleet off his white hair, what little of it was left.

  He walked out of his rooms and along the arched and colonnaded passageway that bordered the great hall, the floor of which was three storeys below. At the end of the passageway, he opened the doors to the western ramparts and let the freezing air flood his lungs. The sleet was falling hard and the mist had closed in more than ever. The Isle wasn't quiet. Too many guards, too many lookouts and too much readiness among the artillery crews covering the rock.

  War. God-around-him but he used to love it. Now it was an irritation to the routine of his middle-age.

  He strode outside. Below him to the right, the south courtyards and gardens of the palace, were full of busts, columns, fountains and flags. And to the left, the Tirronean Sea and the shrouded coast of Gestern. He looked down over rock and terrace. At the edge of his vision, he could see the water spray against the base of the Isle, but the view was dominated by the mist, deepened by the steady fall of sleet on this still day.

  Today, he would do what the surgeon said he must every day and walk all the way to the watch tower at the far end of the ramparts. On his way he took salutes, nodded at senior civilian staff and stopped for the odd conversation with others taking the air. There was a certain sort that actively enjoyed the weather on the Isle and he could respect them for it. A life on the coast meant a love of it and an awe of the sea and the elements that never quite faded.

  Halfway up the stairs, he regretted his earlier determination to do the surgeon's bidding. He felt hot, his face flushed. He paused regularly on the long, spiral climb of three hundred steps, emerging barely in a state to take the surprised salutes of the watch crew. One of them pulled a chair up for him and he sank into it gratefully.

  'Thank you,' he said. 'A brave move and a welcome one.'

  'Health does not recognise rank, Admiral. We all ail from time to time.'

  Kortonius chuckled through his wheezing, his heart just beginning to calm. 'You are a born diplomat, young woman. I am merely overweight.'

  The three lookouts all found their magnifiers requiring close attention. Kortonius couldn't see over the edge of the wall from his seat. The watchtower was narrow up here. Only room for eight or so people. It held a small iron stove under a fluted cover on its landward side as well as a pair of chairs. A bell and a flag pole marked its centre.

  Kortonius stood and moved to the seaward edge. 'A thankless task on a day like today.'

  The legionary woman opened her mouth to speak but a bell sounded away towards the southern end of the isle. Its urgent tone was picked up by others, the sound getting louder. Whatever it was that had been seen by the remote towers, it was coming closer.

  Kortonius's heart thrashed anew in his chest. He moved to a spare magnifier, set on a pole at head height and put his eye to it. The mist obscured everything down at sea level and away to the south.

  'Flags are going up,' said one of the watchers.

  Kortonius swung the magnifier to the nearest tower to the south. The red flag was flying, the watchers pointing south. He could see a rider galloping along the cliff path towards the palace. He moved the magnifier back out to sea. There were shapes in the mist, and every passing heartbeat chilled him more and more.

  The water was crowded with masts, hulls and oars. Looming out of the mist, moving serenely into view. Biremes, triremes, warships and finally, huge artillery galleys. Rumoured to have over as many as two thousand oarsmen, over ten times the crew of an attack trireme. Great, ponderous vessels. Siege ships.

  'Where's my blockade? What happened to my blockade.'

  Evaded or sunk without a trace. The major part of the southern defence was already gone. The din of the bell sounded over his head. The red flag unfurled.

  'Ocetarus save us,' he muttered. 'How did they get this close without us knowing.'

  'Admiral?'

  He shook his head to clear it. 'Order the exodus, method one. I want every ship crewed and out on the water. Get the sea gates open. Get the Ocenii among them. Signal the fleet north. Messages to Gestern and Estorr. Go, go.'

  Two of them left, one had to stay to ring the bell. Kortonius stared at the Tsardon fleet rowing towards them, ships fading and growing from the roiling mist. He couldn't take his eyes from the siege galleys. Two of them now, lumbering up the sound. They couldn't take the Isle. Could they?

  Perhaps they could. Already, they were too near the sea gates for comfort. And if they could blockade the harbours before his ships were at sea in enough numbers, the battle would be over before it had begun.

  He yelled down the steps for the watch team to run faster.

  Chapter 69

  848th cycle of God, 2nd day of Dusasrise 15th year of the true Ascendancyr />
  In the end, led by Davarov and the Atreskans, it had descended in to massacre. It had been as distasteful as it had been necessary. Roberto nor the Gesternans wanted thousands of Tsardon prisoners. And he was not prepared to chase more than he had to through Atreska.

  He still had much of his cavalry and light infantry in the field despite the fact that the light was beginning to fade. They were herding the fleeing remnants of the Tsardon army to the east, hoping they took the only option Roberto would leave open and returned to their home country. A few survivors taking stories of witchcraft and devils back to Tsard could do considerable good besides removing them from the war.

  The rest of his army was celebrating victory, clearing the battlefield or working with the Order ministry to return the Estorean dead to the earth. Tsardon dead would be burned this time. Roberto would not allow their collection this far into Conquord lands and the risk of disease was too great.

  Jhered rode with him to the Gesternan encampment a couple of miles behind the border fort, leaving the Ascendants with his army. Roberto chuckled, feeling his exhaustion lift. Jhered turned to him, a cut he had sustained protecting Mirron livid on his cheek in the light of lanterns carried by his extraordinarii.

  'What is it?' asked the Exchequer.

  'Just musing on the change of the army mind,' said Roberto. 'Five days ago, any of them would have killed Ossacer for laying hands on them. Just before we left, I heard someone complaining that they weren't getting the right treatment because the lad is tired and resting. And the lascivious glance at Mirron has become the fatherly

  arm. There's hardly one amongst them that would see her harmed. Her work on the Tsardon onagers will live long in the memory.'