Amazing – but really, she didn’t mean to yield the field to the Imperials, did she? They’d just stand back and starve them out. The soldiers gathered at the wall did not appear pleased by their accomplishment; they were almost all staring silently out over the fields and Ivanr turned. There, halfway between the armies, stood a pyre of heaped wood.
The Imperials had also been busy last night.
While Ivanr watched, a detachment of some fifty horsemen slowly approached from the Imperial side. With them came a cart pulled by an ox and in the cart a slim figure in rags. Behind, the heavy cavalry were already in line, mounted and armed, pennants limp. Bearing witness. More and more men and women of the Army of Reform gathered now on the walls. He saw Martal in her black armour gazing from a nearby carriage.
Gods. What will happen? Will they rush out in a maddened fury? Isn’t that what these Imperials want? Disorder, blind rage?
Yet he sensed no rage around him. Only a quiet watchfulness; a collective breath held.
The detachment gathered to one side of the pyre. The woman – the Priestess, Ivanr could only assume from this distance – was dragged out. A priest of the Lady read charges, all in silence through the blowing snow. A tall figure in banded armour that glittered as if chased in gold led the detachment – the Emperor’s eldest son, Ranur the Third? He sat slumped forward, helm under an arm, apparently bored.
The woman was pulled up the tall heap and tied to a pole. Brands were thrust into the piled bracken, but due to the snow and sleet the pyre was reluctant to start. The Imperial soldiers tried to coax the fire to life, but it only smouldered. The woman stood straight throughout it all, unmoving, not even attempting to speak. Often, Ivanr knew, such victims had their tongues cut out prior to their execution.
The crowds of the Army of Reform massed on the walls and carriages and had to be pushed back as the plank-and-pillar construction could not support such a weight. The soldiers were sullen, but cooperative. The anger was now palpable to Ivanr – a simmering dark rage born of offence at the indignity being played out before them.
The gold-armoured figure dismounted, waving and giving orders. The woman was dragged from the smoking pyre and forced down to her knees. The man drew his sword. First, he pointed the blade in their direction in a gesture that needed no words, then he raised it over his head in both hands and brought it down in a clean sweeping cut. The Priestess’s head fell away and the troopers released her body, letting it slump into the mud and melting snow.
The wall Ivanr stood upon seemed to shake as hundreds flinched as one with that stroke.
Through the blustering snow the Imperials unlimbered a pike, set the head upon it, and left it standing on the field. They then mounted up and rode off, the ox cart bringing up the rear.
So ended the Priestess who brought the message of tolerance and worship of all deities to the subcontinent. What legends would arise, he wondered, from this day? That the fire refused to harm her holy flesh? That she went bravely to her end, scorning her tormentors? That the very sky wept to see it? For his part, Ivanr saw a sad and tragic end to a young life. A corpse in the mud and a head on a pike. He saw waste and a useless unnecessary gesture that solved nothing. Why did she comply? What lesson was there here for anyone?
Horns blaring within the compound brought Ivanr out of his reflections. The call for forming up? What was Martal thinking? He went to track her down. Pushing his way through the milling infantry, he came to the side of her big black stallion, took hold of her stirrup. ‘What are you doing?’
She peered down at him, steadied her mount. ‘What I must, Ivanr. And I’m sorry … she meant something to you, I know that.’
‘You build walls then you charge out on to the field? You’re doing what they want!’
‘Let’s hope they think so.’ She kneed her mount forward.
Yet perhaps you are, Martal. He climbed the nearest wall offering a view over the western fields. Crowds pushed a number of carriages aside and like an unruly mob the horde of pike-wielding infantry was disgorged from the fortress. They washed down the gentle slope, pikes upright, a rustling forest on the move. From the distant Imperial encampment horns answered the challenge. The heavy cavalry cantered forward.
Form up, damn you! What are you waiting for? More horns sounded, an urgent clarion call. The armoured mounts picked up their pace. Seven distinct waves sorted themselves out among the hundreds of cavalry. For now the lances remained upright, couched at hips – he knew they would not be lowered until the last possible moment.
Panic appeared to grip the pike men and women. They milled in a shapeless mass, flinching back towards the fortress walls. Form up! Have you forgotten everything? Then a final brilliant blast upon the Imperial horns and the pace surged into a charge. Lances edged forward at an angle. Ivanr felt the reverberation of tons of flesh and iron pounding the ground.
The infantry flinched back in a near-retreat to the walls, only to hold fast at the last possible moment, presenting a layered serried fence of iron blades. And in their midst Martal, mounted, bellowing orders.
Ivanr clenched the wood in a spasm as the iron wave of armoured men and horse came on, charging into the wall of set pikes. The crash sent rippling shockwaves through the massed infantry. Wood shattered, horses screamed, wounded coursers tumbled through two, three ranks. The charge penetrated much farther than any Ivanr had yet witnessed. Men and women scrambled over the fallen cavalrymen and pulled down those caught in the press, knives thrusting through gaps and visors.
Yet Ivanr watched with dread as behind, down the slope, the second wave now surged forward to charge, lances descending. Martal was waving, sending orders. Horns sounded the re-form. The mass of infantry retreated yet again to set their lines just behind the carnage of the first wave. Ivanr watched in amazement as the second came on regardless, unflinching, as if their own impetus would carry them through the mass of flesh and out the other side. Many leapt the fallen horses and men; some failed, clipping the corpses or wounded to tumble through the lines like thrown boulders. And into these gaps further cavalry pressed, lances shattered, drawing swords.
The impact penetrated even through to the wall, causing it to shudder as horseflesh and impetus struck unyielding iron. A new horn sounded among the Reform ranks: withdrawal.
Withdraw! Why even sortie in the first place? For this? Martal! What were you thinking?
And the third wave came thundering on. Pikes steady, the Reform infantry withdrew step by step, rear ranks filing back into the fortress. And beyond, far across the field, the Imperial archers were left far behind. They’d outstripped their support! Was this—A noise as of a forest of wood bending brought Ivanr’s attention around.
The enclosed ground within the fortress was one solid mass of archers. Bows raised almost vertical, they strained, arrows nocked.
The third wave of cavalry smashed into the triple-layered wall of razor iron. The impact drove through to shock the wall as infantry hammered back into it. A nearby carriage rocked as Imperial cavalry pressed upon it. A barked order brought the archers on the wall rearing up, firing at will. No need for great range now, he saw: all that was required was a quick rate of fire. Secondary banging and clattering shook the carriage and he peered down to see the shutters swinging open. With a shuddering recoil the ballistae let loose, clearing the field before it in a blast of four-foot iron bolts.
Behind him a great thrumming shook the air and a sleet-like hissing rose overhead. The archers on the walls and carriages loosed as well and Ivanr flinched, ducking. The salvo came sheeting down for the most part just beyond the wall of pikes, though some did strike their own. The fusillade raked the field, leaving carnage behind. Complete slaughter. Horses fell kicking, crippled. Men tumbled, tufted like targets. The ground itself was stubbled like a field after harvest. The following cavalry waves heaved to right and left, sloughing aside, curving back upon themselves. A further salvo chased them off. The chevrons turned, coursing in a broad circle,
unwilling to close.
The remaining pike infantry slowly withdrew by brigade, all in order, and the carriages were pushed back into place.
Ivanr looked out upon the field. Already snow drifted wind-tossed over bodies. Wounded called. Parties slipped out through narrow doors to retrieve Reform wounded, at the same time finishing off any Imperials. The Imperial cavalry cantered back to their encampment, pennants flying and plumes still high. He went to find Martal.
Aides surrounded her: she sat on a field stool while a bonecutter removed her armour. Blood splashed her left side. Her cuirass lay beside her and her mail-and-leather hauberk underpadding came off over her head revealing a deep gash high under her left arm. Whatever Ivanr might have wanted to say he set aside. When she saw him, a weary smile came to her glistening sweat-sheathed face. ‘Not how you would have done it, eh, Ivanr?’ she said while the bonecutter wrapped her torso.
‘No,’ he allowed. ‘But maybe that’s how it had to be done.’
‘Not going easy on me, are you?’ She winced as the cutter had her raised up.
‘She has to rest,’ the man said to Ivanr, who nodded. Two aides helped her walk off.
Drawing Ivanr aside, the grey-haired medic asked, ‘Was that her?’
‘Who?’
‘This morning. Was that the Priestess?’
Ivanr paused, thinking. How to answer that? Gods, what an awful choice to have to make! Finally, he nodded. ‘Yes. I think it was.’
‘But nothing happened,’ the man said as he wiped the blood from his hands.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘When she died – nothing happened.’
Ivanr took a deep breath. ‘No. Nothing. She was just a woman who carried a message. And that message hasn’t died, has it?’
The old man nodded, taking his meaning. ‘Perhaps that is part of her message.’
‘I believe so.’
He bent closer, lowered his voice. ‘And this morning …’ He inclined his head to the fields beyond. ‘What is your estimation?’
Once more Ivanr considered his answer. Personally, he thought it a draw but he knew he mustn’t say that. He said, loudly, so that all could overhear, ‘Every day they haven’t broken us is a victory for us.’
The old man’s answer was a knowing smile. He wrapped his bloody knives in a length of stained leather. ‘Now you’re talking like a leader.’
He was left thinking about that. Depending upon how badly Martal was wounded the lead may indeed fall to him. His vow said nothing against giving orders. It was long past the time he ought to talk to Captain Carr regarding what further surprises Martal might have set aside.
If Prince Ranur the Third was in charge of the assembled Jourilan Imperial forces, he gave them no time to recover from the blunting of their first cavalry charges. Ivanr failed to track down Captain Carr before alarm horns blared from the walls of the fortress. The splendidly armoured counts and barons of the lands were driving their massed crossbowmen and archers out on to the field. Ivanr recognized the coats of Dourkan mercenaries and Jasstonese free companies among the ranks of the local peasants and burghers.
Normally, a cavalry sortie would scatter such forces, but the Army of Reform’s cavalry, so greatly outnumbered for so long, had been reduced to almost nothing. Its commander, Hegil Lesour ’an ’al, now fought on foot in charge of a brigade. Before the heaving lines of the Imperial archers could be cajoled into range for a volley on the fort, horns blazed again, summoning the Reform pike units to debouch. Ivanr ran to a wall to watch as carriages were pushed aside and the infantry jogged out. A forest of the tall pikes rustled and clattered, held upright. More horns called and broad lines formed then advanced upon the Imperial skirmishing crossbow and archer forces.
Ivanr thought this lunacy. The skirmishers could dance round the pike formations; were these Martal’s orders? And who was in charge? Martal’s wound was too severe, surely. These pike men and women were exposed to counter-charges from the cavalry. It was worse than foolish to sortie. Yet she could not relinquish the field to these archers, could she? They would ring the fort and grind us down.
Sure enough: movement among the flags and pennants of the Imperial cavalry. They would answer this challenge. Far across the field, ranks of the heavy cavalry assembled before tents and wagons of spectators. Spectators! They’d brought courtiers from Jour. Perhaps members of the Imperial family as well. Gods. So sure were they of crushing these insolent peasants.
And before today Ivanr would have half agreed with such an estimation. But the dawn execution of the Priestess before the eyes of all these men and women who had set everything aside, risked everything they knew in their life, to answer her call, seemed to have changed that. He sensed in them a grim, annealed resolve that perhaps had been within them all along, which before today he had failed to notice – or, he could admit, had discounted.
Yet on the field the harassing crossbow mercenaries and archers had brought the pike units into disarray. Seeing their chance, the Imperial cavalry sounded a call and the distant reverberation of hooves reached Ivanr once more.
Form up! Ivanr urged from the wall; he cut his palms, so tightly did he clench the timbers. But the mercenaries and undisciplined Imperial archers – perhaps completely oblivious of the threat now plunging down upon them from behind – stubbornly kept the units engaged.
Horns blared and the knot of mounted guards and messengers of command parted, revealing the black-armoured figure beneath the Reform pennant. Martal! What was she doing? This would kill her! She was not gesturing: she seemed to have a death’s grip on the pommel of her saddle. Upon the field the pike units milled, hafts clattering. Out of this malformed ungainly mass ranks formed as if by magic and once again the layered serried points faced the cavalry. Ivanr raised a fist, recognizing movements he and they had worked upon for months, now perfected out upon the field.
Only now did the milling archers and hired crossbow mercenaries recognize their peril. They were caught between the two forces. The Imperials did not hesitate; further horns sounded, announcing an increase in pace, and lances angled down. The hired skirmishers panicked, scattering, and the coursers charged through. Pennants and flag heraldry went down beneath churning hooves. Entire units disappeared, ground into the muddied field like chaff.
The charge shuddered home on to the layered pikes and the reverberations of the impact rippled through the entire massed square. He wondered at the training and discipline necessary to force a horse to impale itself on sharpened iron and an impenetrable crowd of massed humans. First and second ranks disappeared beneath tumbling horseflesh, the armoured riders caught amid stirrups and strapping, crushed and broken. Helms and other unidentifiable pieces of armour flew overhead. Yet the square held, solid and unmovable. The trailing courses of cavalry swung off, circling to assemble for another charge.
Away from the centre, however, things were not going as well. The archers and Jasstonese mercenaries who had withdrawn to the extreme left now punished the pike brigade of that flank. Men and women fell, helpless beneath the withering volleys.
A second wave came charging down upon the centre. A call Ivanr didn’t recognize sounded from the Reform signallers and nothing immediately seemed to come of it. Then, just before the heavy cavalry struck, movement rustled amid the main square and men and women shifted aside, clearing three channels – effectively breaking into four smaller units. An extraordinarily dangerous move completed just as it should be, at the moment of impact. Many of the coursers struck home, smashing pike hafts and driving through into the ranks, but most of the horses curved aside despite the raking and thrusting of knee and spur, preferring these opened corridors.
The ranks then closed in upon the cavalry from either side. Heavy armour might prevent impalement but the impact unseated many riders. Mounts went down, snapping hafts thrust into flanks and necks. It was a slaughter as all those countless pikeheads of sharpened iron closed together like jaws upon the enemy.
Ev
en as the second charge was obliterated the left flank collapsed. That brigade broke to run pell-mell to the rear, effectively abandoning the field. Horns sounded as Martal, or Carr, or some other commander, ordered the centre to shift to the left. The hired Dourkan archers and Jasstonese crossbow companies jogged forward into the gap, sending up harassing fire, but seeing another disciplined square marching down upon them – one fresh from mangling their heavily armoured superiors – they melted away.
No third massing of Jourilan aristocracy appeared. Either they had had enough for the day, or, as Ivanr suspected, so supremely assured of their victory were they that all those barons or dukes interested in taking the field this first day had already done so. Others would have their day tomorrow.
And Ivanr wondered how the Army of Reform could possibly survive another day like this. Martal’s command group now turned to ride back to the fortress. He noted how closely two of her guard flanked her, covering her and simultaneously guiding her mount as she rode stiff and unmoving within her armour. He left the wall to be at her tent when she returned.
The men and women of the camp acted as if they had won a crushing victory. They cheered him, calling out, ‘Deliverer.’ The title surprised and irritated him, for behind it he sensed the cynical guiding hand of Martal. Two female pike infantry, dirtied and sweaty from the field, knelt in his way asking for blessing. The act embarrassed him excruciatingly, but he did not show it. Instead he raised them up and said loudly enough for all around to hear: ‘Your bravery is our blessing.’
The tears that started from their eyes burned him for the betrayer and impostor he felt and he moved on quickly, clearing his throat and wiping his own eyes. Damn them for tormenting me! Don’t they see I’m not what they think? That they are casting upon me the weight of their own hopes? Their own dreams? No one should be asked to carry such a burden. It’s impossible!
He found a circle of guards turning everyone away from Martal’s tent. They’d lifted her from her horse and now she lay within. The same bonecutter was removing her armour once more and cursing her and her aides as he did so. The woman’s face was white with agony and blood loss, wet with sweat – or perhaps shock. She was barely conscious, her eyes staring sightlessly upwards.
The Malazan Empire Series: (Night of Knives, Return of the Crimson Guard, Stonewielder, Orb Sceptre Throne, Blood and Bone, Assail) (Novels of the Malazan Empire) Page 175