“Are you coming, I said?”
“I’ll stay here.”
“Stupid, fat and cowardly too. Some Warrior!” Elliax looked around triumphantly and seemed to grow a little. “Ignore this oaf’s ignorant comments. I have been shown the way. The plan is made and King Mylor agrees.” Mylor looked up and smiled at hearing his name, then returned to plucking at his genitals. Elliax continued: “Have no fear. Zadar hasn’t got where he is today by attacking against impossible odds. We are completely safe.”
So the following dawn everyone who wasn’t too young, infirm or important to hold a weapon, around four thousand men and women in all, wandered at first light across the bridge to the big field and gathered between the two river bends. The mixed bunch of farmers, crafters and woodspeople from Barton village and its outlying hamlets and farms shuffled about confusedly but good-naturedly as Dug and others formed them into an as effective a line as possible, putting those with relatively decent shields and spears at the front. Dug herded a few people with longer spears to the rear, going by the theory that if those in front were engaged in a hand-to-hand mêlée, the back rank could still thrust their long weapons at the enemy. He knew it was futile—if this front line engaged with even half-trained troops then they were all fucked—but it kept him busy and showed that he knew his game.
The children and the elderly crossed the river and gathered behind them, standing on carts, boxes and barrels to watch Zadar’s army pass. The chief families arrived last, dressed in well-worn finery. Mylor, Elliax and his wife Vasin arrived last, with their chairs from the longhouse mounted on the biggest cart.
As the day warmed, a carnival atmosphere developed behind the spear line. The crazy druid stopped shouting, children played less frantically and the elderly forgot their gripes as they drank and talked of battles past. Puppies scurried between feet. Older dogs padded around looking for pats and scraps. The line grew ever more ragged as its members left to grab a drink, find somewhere to squat or just wander about.
Dug was pushing back through the line to say hello to some old boys with a gigantic barrel of cider that he’d spotted earlier when Zadar’s army rode into sight from behind a stand of trees some four hundred paces away. A few shouts got everyone’s attention and silence spread through the crowd like blood soaking into sand.
“Lift me up, please?” It was a small, skinny boy with huge brown eyes and a tuft of hair the red-brown of freshly ploughed earth. He stared up at Dug. “Please?” The boy’s eyes widened ever further.
Dug sighed and hoiked the boy onto his shoulders. He hardly weighed a thing.
“Is that Zadar?!”chirped the child.
“Probably. Yes.” A lone rider headed the procession. He wore a huge, golden, horned helmet, a shining black ringmail jacket and black leather trousers. His black horse—by far the largest Dug had ever seen—was similarly attired in a golden-horned pony cap and a draped sheet of black ringmail protecting its rump.
“What’s he wearing on his head?”
“Can’t you see?”
Dug felt the boy slump a little. Dug could see well over long and short distances, but he knew that a lot of people had trouble with either or both. As a young man, he’d made no allowances, convinced that everybody could see just as well as him but pretended not to be able to for perverse reasons. Age had made him more tolerant.
“His helmet has horns on it.”
The boy perked up. “Why?”
“Maybe to make him look scary, or maybe he’s trying to persuade people that he’s Kornonos, the horned god of animals. Probably he’s not very tall and he thinks people will think he’s taller if he wears a big hat. But of course people will think he’s just a wee man in a big hat.”
The boy giggled. Zadar in fact looked like quite a big man, but Dug was never one to let truth get in the way of belittling people he suspected to be puffed up.
“That coat he’s wearing—and that rug covering the arse of his horse—is ringmail. That’s hundreds or thousands—probably thousands in this case—of rings of iron all linked together. It’ll protect you from slingstones, a sword slash, that sort of thing. But it’s not much use against this.” Dug raised his warhammer. The boy jiggled with glee. The hammer was an effective but simple weapon, no more sophisticated than the rock-tied-to-a-stick design that had been popular for aeons. An iron lump the size and shape of a large clog was moulded around a shaft of fire-hardened oak a pace long and held in place by a tight criss-cross of leather strips. Both ends of the handle were sharpened into points.
“Only kings and Warriors are allowed to wear ringmail.”
“But you’re wearing ringmail!”
“Aye. That’s right. I’m a Warrior… Mine is more the hundreds of rings type, though not as supple or as light as his’ll be.”
“And is his horse a Worrier? Or a king?”
“Uh… neither. Thing about rules is that if you become powerful enough, you get to break them. And make them.”
“Your voice is funny.”
“I’m from the north.”
“What are you worried about?”
“What?”
“You’re a Worrier?”
“A Warrior. It’s a title, like king. But this one you earn. You have to kill ten people in a battle. If five people who are already Warriors agree that you’ve done that, then they say you’re a Warrior, and you get one of these.” Dug tapped the crudely made iron boar that hung on a leather thong around his neck. “And you’re allowed to wear ringmail, which is a neat way of making sure fewer people become Warriors and making life safer once you do. Being a Warrior also means you can claim a certain price as a mercenary. And people treat you better, like you might be given food at an inn on the understanding you’ll protect the place.”
“Can I have a boar necklace?”
“No. You’ve got to earn it.”
“But our smith could make one for me?”
“Aye, he could, but the punishment for pretending to be a Warrior is death by torture.”
The kid mused for a few moments on Dug’s shoulders.
“Probably not worth it.”
“No.”
“And the man dressed in black behind Zadar?”
“That must be his head druid, Felix.” Dug spat for good luck. They said that Felix, Zadar’s Roman druid, could command the gods’ magic like nobody in Britain had for generations. Dug had heard tales of Felix thwarting enemies’ plans by reading their minds from afar, and other stories of him ripping souls from people’s bodies or tearing then apart just by looking at them. You couldn’t believe all, or even most, of what the bards said and sang, but Dug had heard so much about Felix’s powers that some of it must have been true. He shivered despite the warmth of the day.
“And who’s that next lot? Oh gosh!” squeaked the boy.
“Aye.” Following King Zadar and Felix were fifty mounted men and women. Their helmets were hornless, their mail less polished and their horses’ spiked pony caps were dull iron. “Those are Warriors.”
Two hundred paces away they rode by, eyes front, not deigning even to glance at Barton’s suddenly pathetic-looking spear line. They’d obviously been ordered not to look to the side for effect, thought Dug. That told him two things. One, that Zadar was a showman, and two, that discipline was strong in the Maidun army. Worryingly strong.
By Stephen Aryan
Battlemage
Bloodmage
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
<
br /> Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Acknowledgements
Extras Meet the Author
Interview
A Preview of Bloodmage
A Preview of Age of Iron
By Stephen Aryan
Orbit Newsletter
Copyright
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2015 by Stephen Aryan
Excerpt from Bloodmage copyright © 2015 by Stephen Aryan
Excerpt from Age of Iron copyright © 2014 by Angus Watson
Cover illustration by Steve Stone
Cover © 2015 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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ISBN 978-0-316-29828-5
E3
Battlemage Page 46