‘That’s the highest ground other than the ridge for a few miles.’ Tenner looked at the duke. ‘We need to retake it before the snow sets in. If the Empire holds the Hill over winter they’ll be too dug in to weed out in the thaw.’
The duke’s eyes wandered over the length of the map, the ripping of the bread crust the only sound in the confines of the tent.
‘We’ll take it back in two days’ time,’ said Ronart finally.
Another marshal choked on his food and coughed to clear his throat. ‘With what troops, my Lord?’
Ran froze and the gathered marshals paused. The duke studied the man across the pavilion. ‘That’s for the marshals and commanders to decide, isn’t it, Callide?’
‘Of course, sir, but that doesn’t change the fact we haven’t got the men to spare on an offensive.’
‘You think we’ll have enough by spring, when the snow thaws and they’re perched up on those ruins raining arrows on us?’ Ronart’s retort cracked through the pavilion’s silence and Marshal Callide’s face paled. ‘You think I should march the battalion reserves out here and line them up for Woaden target practice? Because I fucking don’t!’
He stood and stabbed a meat knife into the lines indicating where the Woaden held their portion of the Territory. ‘No one has troops to spare, neither the Woaden, nor us, so we hit them now and hang the expense. You think our soldiers are the only ones exhausted by this campaign? The enemy are suffering just as badly, so we kick them where it hurts and take the spoils!’
Ran watched, awed and terrified by his father. The desperation feeding the duke’s anger was evident in the darkness under his eyes and the pale skin around his knuckles. He held his remaining bread so tightly the stuff crumbled in his hand and fell to pieces on the floor. The duke tossed the mangled crusts on the table and put his hands on his hips, glaring at the marshals as if daring them to disagree.
Marshal Callide dipped his head in a slow bow. ‘I apologise, sir. I spoke from the edge of my weariness.’
‘You’re weary? We’re all fucking weary, but it’s no excuse for giving up and chucking it in.’ The duke took an angry gulp of wine then stabbed at the map with his finger. ‘We have a few weeks left before the snow comes. Every year these dark, dragging days are the hardest we ever fight. Every year they push hard and we push back, because we both know the other is at the end of their resilience. They know, and we know. We’re all just waiting for the snow so we can go home. We don’t have time to be fucking weary. We need the Hill back.’
‘Which companies will attack Signal Hill then?’ Marshal Tenner put himself between Callide and the duke to break the tension. As far as Ran could tell, it didn’t work. It simmered in the air, rising like heat from a brush fire, fanned by fatigue and wounded pride.
Ronart’s gaze slipped to his son’s face and fixed there, hazel eyes darkened by shadow and intent. Ran swallowed hard, not daring to guess at his father’s next move.
‘Captain Olseta’s company falls under Marshal Callide’s command, so it stands to reason that Callide should take over from here. Wouldn’t you agree, Captain?’ The duke’s tone cut through Ran like the icy north wind and he suppressed a shiver. The duke did not look away from his son as he continued, ‘And the Marshal shall stand in the vanguard, a demonstration to the troops on how to belay their weariness and do what must be done.’
A wave of pale dread washed over Callide’s face and more than a few of the assembled marshals cleared their throats awkwardly. The duke didn’t seem to notice, instead focussing his attention on a leg of roast fowl as an attendant refilled his cup. Ran’s heart raced, hammering against his ribs, and he risked a glance at Pallent, who stood rigid beside him, her face ashen and drawn.
‘Of course, sir,’ Callide whispered with a nod and bowed again. ‘I shall inform the troops and have them prepared.’
Ran tore his eyes away from Pallent, unable to stand the sight of her terror. She knew what this meant. They all did. The odds of taking the Hill this late in the campaign, even with a reinforced company, were insurmountable. If they did manage it, it would be at such an enormous cost that Ran doubted he’d ever see a single one of his surviving company again, and that number included Pallent.
Marshal Callide strode from the tent and Ran stared at the empty space left behind, swallowing a lump of fear. What was his father thinking? Surely the Hill wasn’t worth such a price?
Duke Ronart yanked the meat knife from the table and propped his feet up on the boards as if nothing had happened to disturb the gathering. Slowly the marshals filled the air with their low chatter but none spoke too loudly nor disagreed with one another. No one dared draw the duke’s attention, or his ire, for what remained of the evening.
*
Ran found an empty chair at the back of the pavilion and remained there until the marshals begged leave of the duke and headed for their beds. The depths of the fire in the brazier were hypnotising, snaring his gaze with the glowing dance of the flames along the surface of the coals.
Images of the battle Callide and Pallent would face flickered before his eyes. He wanted to be there, wanted to lead and fight, but he knew his father would never allow it. Not now, not after his failure to hold the Hill in the first place, and certainly not now that retaking the position had become a suicide mission dropped in Marshal Callide’s lap. He brushed the pads of his shaking fingers across his lips and tried to comprehend the madness that drove his father to order one of his best marshals, a veteran of many campaigns at the front, to sacrifice himself for a defensive position on a hill.
He didn’t realise he was alone with his father until the older man dropped down into a chair across the fire. Startled, Ran blinked the swirling thoughts from his head and shook away the picture of Callide charging Signal Hill under a hail of falling arrows.
The duke did not speak for a good while, instead staring at the flames and draining cup after cup of wine. If Ran blocked out the murmured sounds of the camp, he could almost imagine they sat alone in the palace at Usmein after the war was over…
‘We’ve taken a beating in the last month and lost ground we couldn’t afford to lose,’ said Ronart suddenly, rubbing his rough hand over his eyes. ‘It’s a mess out there, Ran. The end of the autumn always is. It’s not so bad in the spring, when the companies have rested over winter and the snow clears away most of the shit.’
‘I’m sorry…’ began Ranoth.
‘Not your fault,’ the duke said, draining his cup and refilling it immediately. Ran gulped his own drink for want of something to do. ‘Should never have sent you out there. Should have listened to that tutor of yours when he wrote his official objection. If my father had heeded such warnings, your uncle would still be alive…’
Ran sighed and looked into the fire. He knew a little of the fate of the uncle he’d never met—his father’s older brother, pushed too soon into battle and lost to the Empire well before his prime. His father rarely spoke of it in detail, but he still carried the wound deep in his soul, and Ran saw it in his hesitance to set his son loose on the Territory. But he’d fought and he’d badgered, and the duke had given in. And his performance, or lack of, on the field of battle had proven both his father and tutor right.
The old tutor was more the “negotiation and diplomacy” type, determined that if Orthia and the other Free Nations of Coraidin simply talked with the Woaden Empire, some accommodation could be made. Ran had wondered the same until he’d seen the battle raging across the Territory. He’d known then that the Empire were not for talking, or listening, nor for negotiating or being diplomatic. They were for killing and taking, and that was the end of that.
Ranoth looked at his hands, then at the fire. His thoughts settled back on Callide and Pallent and the hill they would die on in a few days. ‘I wanted to help…’
‘Aye…’ The duke had clearly had too much to drink. He was a quiet and sullen man when he was deep in his cups.
Equally liquored, Ran shrugged.
‘I was fucking terrified at first.’
Ronart shook his head. ‘The only soldiers not shivering in their boots the first time they hit the battlefield, or losing their bowels when a charge is called, are those who would be locked up if it wasn’t for war. They aren’t right in the head. A man without fear is a man without half his mind. This place won’t kick the fear out of you, it’ll only teach you how to hide it.’
‘What about the marshals? They’re so relaxed about it. They hardly flinch…’
‘The things they’ve seen would make any boy of fifteen, or man of fifty, drop their guts right here.’ The duke paused to slosh some more wine into his cup. ‘Not a one of them has seen less than twenty years of this war. The Woaden have been swarming over those mountains long before they were even a dirty thought in their fathers’ minds. Some started out as runners; some were pickers, out after the horns collecting the dead and wounded. To a man, they’ve been in the thick of that fight and bled on that soil. The only reason I have the right to command them is because I’ve earned it.’
‘Yes, Father,’ replied Ranoth, his eyes trained on the glow of the fire. How had he ever thought he could earn the respect of such men? It seemed an impossible mountain for his inebriated mind to summit, so it switched to another question burning to be asked. ‘Do you think the war will ever end?’
Ronart cleared his throat, crossed his arms and leaned into his chair as though he saw the whole of Coraidin sketched on the tent wall above Ran’s head. The duke frowned. He liked to think his words over and let them stew before speaking, much to the frustration of Ran’s mother.
‘I doubt it. Not while we have resources they need to finance their push south. They’re getting desperate, Ran. They need what we have so they can take Isord and Arinnia. If I cut them a road from here to the gold mines, another through to the gem fields, and built them a weigh station to sift the minerals from the dirt, then they might sheath their blades and agree to peace. Of course, I’d also have to provide half our population as slave labour for the mines.’
‘They don’t want much do they?’ Ran muttered dryly. It was ever the Woaden way—if they didn’t have it, they’d happily kill for it. Expansion was central to the Woaden identity and Ran suspected from everything Perce taught him, they needed to extend the Empire to keep it alive.
‘Orthia is a coveted prize, son, full of precious minerals and gems, fertile farms and healthy trade—everything the Woaden want and more besides.’ Ronart waved his cup in a wide arc, the fire hissing as wine splashed down among the coals. ‘Without all that, we’d never be able to pay for reinforcements from the other Free Nations. As soon as they get a foothold in our lands, we’re fucked. Understand? We cannot lose ground—not now not ever.’
The duke stood suddenly, wavering on his feet and glancing around.
‘Best you get some rest, boy. The Empire will be up with the birds and ready to go again before the day is fully bright.’
‘Aye, Father.’ Ran watched his father leave the pavilion, then slipped behind a partition to find the cot and personal effects he’d left behind when he rode out for the Hill.
Sleep didn’t come easily, despite the alcoholic haze over his eyes. The sounds of the camp amplified in the cold air, drawing pictures of things he tried hard to ignore. Winter was blowing in from Marlow in the north, but it would be weeks until the noise of war was silenced by falling snow.
Beyond the tent walls and the comfort of furs and cushions, the wails of the injured and dying echoed through the trees and against the inside of Ran’s skull. He’d heard this chorus before, and no amount of time at the front had rendered it comfortably familiar or easily shut out.
Each night, a voice rose above the others, unhindered by the distance between the pavilion and the healers’ tents. Cries for a mother, or a wife, or for the soft thighs of a favourite whore. The voice groaned, gasped, moaned and wept, and inevitably faded as time passed, until it vanished altogether. Then another voice rose in its place, howling curses at the night as though fury alone could ease the pain.
The voices never returned; none of them ever called out a second time. Not here in the central command camp, or out on the Hill. Ran hoped they found comfort and relief in sleep, but he knew in the churning depths of his stomach that the soldier, weakened by wounds and wracked with fever, was dead. No healer could ease the kind of pain that caused people to wail like that. Only death ended that sort of suffering.
Four more cups of strong drink finally muffled the cries and erased the images dancing bloody steps across his mind. They would return again tomorrow, but for now, the numb ignorance of drink gave him peace.
Chapter Six
The Disputed Territory, Western Orthia
Morning broke with a shattering horn blast and screaming headache. Barely able to peel his eyes open, Ran groaned and pulled a blanket over his head to block out the cold light of day. His breath stank and his stomach rolled uneasily, not helped by the thought of what waited outside. He was due his traditional morning vomit, but this time it was not only fuelled by the overpowering stench of death and excrement, but a roaring hangover. The thought did him no favours and he fought the bile burning the back of his throat.
Another furious blast of horns cut through Ran’s head with the grace of a blunt axe and his eyes tore themselves open, heedless of the protests from his headache. There was something wrong with that call. It wasn’t the standard rouse played to wake the troops at sunrise—it was a desperate and hurried call to arms.
Ran sat up fast and the tent spun around him. Frantic shouts and the clash of steel banished the fog in his mind and he scrambled to pull his boots over yesterday’s socks.
‘Ranoth! Up, now!’ Duke Ronart bellowed and threw back the dividing curtain. ‘Get your blade, boy!’
‘What’s going on?’ Ran stumbled to his sword belt as his father’s massive hand collected him by the arm and shoved him through the tent’s rear door.
The grey light of an overcast day blinded him and he collided with an unseen soldier rushing past. Ronart’s grip tightened and dragged him into a run. Ran pumped his legs hard to keep up, blinking to clear his reluctant eyes and shift the dizziness from his vision.
His father charged on like an enraged bull, roaring orders and shoving soldiers aside as if they weighed nothing. There was nothing Ran could do but follow and hope his father didn’t lose hold of his arm.
‘Father, what’s happening?’ he shouted into the storm of men and horses tearing through the camp.
‘They mounted an attack! A fucking dawn attack! I’ll have their general’s guts for breakfast when I’m done, then I’ll ride across the bloody border and raze Wodurin to the fucking ground!’
‘The Woaden are attacking? How did they get this close?’ Ran couldn’t believe it. It made no sense. How had they crossed the lines without anyone noticing?
Cold realisation washed through him and he shivered.
The Hill…
Had Captain Denover failed to hold the advance at the Ford? Had the lines broken because Ran had lost the Hill?
The duke stopped and rounded on Ran, his hands squeezing his son’s shoulders so hard he thought the bones might pop from the joints. ‘I don’t know. Look Ran, you have to get out of here. I can’t have you here if this goes to shit. You understand me? I should never have brought you here, not this late in the campaign. You have to go…’
‘But I can stay, I can—’
A howl of rage filled the air and the duke stabbed his sword into the space beside Ran’s head. Ran spun away as a spray of blood hit the side of his face and he staggered back from the gurgling corpse of a Woaden soldier. Ronart’s sword had skewered the attacker’s throat, and blood flooded down the front of the man’s armour as his sword arm fell limp at his side.
Ran’s meagre challenge of his father’s decision died in his throat. With a flick, Ronart freed the body from his blade and resumed his grasp on Ran’s arm. He didn’t argue or resist. Inste
ad he found himself silently praying to whatever gods were listening that he and his father might make it through this alive.
A vanguard of Orthian soldiers swarmed them as they hurried forwards, dirt and blood muting the shining silver shield etched on their armour; the crown, scythe and pickaxe of his father’s arms completely covered in muck.
‘Sir, this way!’ A marshal shouted and the group veered right, following the marshal and cutting a path through the chaos to the rear of the Orthian camp.
Ran glanced back at the battle and his breath caught in his throat. Imperial soldiers teemed through the encampment, swooping on it like ravenous vultures on a carcass.
The Orthian troops struggled to form a counter attack under the assault, scrambling to retreat and conserve their strength and numbers. Duke Ronart was right—the end of a campaign was a mess. The tired, battle-worn soldiers caught in the onslaught dropped quickly and without much of a fight. Many frantically glanced his way before turning on their heels and bolting into the woods and Ran’s heart skipped a beat.
The men looked at him, at his father, and saw their leaders not simply retreating, but fleeing. They didn’t see a duke taking his son to the rear of the fight—they saw a duke making a break for safety while leaving his troops for dead.
‘Father, stop!’ Ran snapped away from his father’s grip and the duke shuddered to a halt, keen eyes scanning the fight. ‘They’re fleeing because we’re running!’
Through the mud and blood, soldiers deserted in droves, scrambling to the relative safety of other camps dotted along the ridge. The controlled retreat formations, drilled endlessly in the fields near Usmein, collapsed into frantic sprinting. If they had any hope of forcing the Woaden back into the Disputed Territory, they had to bring the retreat under control, and quickly. They had to, or the Imperial Army would spread into Orthia and devour it from within.
‘Fuck me, Tenner sound the retreat horns and get them to pull back like soldiers, not piss-weak children!’ The duke seethed and cursed furiously at the failure of his troops to hold their composure.
Blood of Heirs Page 5