‘I don’t want to remember, Fornyx. Not those things. I don’t want those memories in my mind, the knowledge of what happened after…’ His voice thickened.
‘Tomorrow, when the thing begins, I will be where I belong; standing beside you in the front rank.’
‘Rictus — ’
‘Hold your tongue and drink, Fornyx. You think I would let a little shit like you take my Dogsheads into battle? The last battle, if Corvus is right. You say you would not miss it for the world. Well, neither would I.’
Rictus smiled. He was drunk at last. He felt it come upon his mind like a blessing.
‘My wife is a long time dead, brother. I know that. But her face has been in my head ever since Machran; it is clearer to me than the faces of my grandchildren, than that of any man I ever killed. But in the othismos; in that black dream of Phobos where there is nothing but blood and sweat and death — in that heart of battle — it is then that I feel free, and unafraid. Only then. It is the only place I know where the memories cannot follow.’
He squeezed the last of the wine down his throat while Fornyx watched.
‘In the morning, little brother, I shall be by your side where I belong.’
SEVENTEEN
There had been reports of dust clouds to the west, and scouts had been sent out to investigate, but none had returned. For three days now, the Great King had been ordering parties of cavalry into the west to find his enemy, and in all that time none of them had come back, save one.
But the Macht were out there somewhere, as Kouros could testify.
He rode in the swaying palanquin with his father, the motion of the elephant easier on his wounded shoulder and knitting ribs. He bore the pain better than he once would have, and he found the Great King looking at him now and again in a kind of reappraisal. The feverish paranoia of earlier days had gone. Rakhsar was dead, and for the first time in his life, Kouros felt at ease. There was no-one else now. The intrigues were over at last.
They were far back in the endless column, which was itself one of several unending snakes of men and animals trickling their way across the flat, fecund country west of the Bekai River. The city of Carchanish, sixty pasangs behind them, had been transformed into an enormous supply dump. Foodstuffs, waggons, fresh horses, armour and weapons were flooding into a vast stockaded second city which had been constructed on the east bank of the river. This was their base of operations. If they did not contact the enemy some time in the next few days, that base would have to be brought forward, with all the labour that entailed. And this was one of the reasons why the progress of a large army was so agonisingly slow.
I never knew that the waging of war could prove so tedious, Kouros thought.
Rakhsar’s face, as the blade went into his belly. That sneer gone at last. Kouros dwelled on the image, warming himself at it like a man at a fire.
His father was watching his face, as if he knew what his eldest son was thinking. Kouros shifted on the padded cushion, his ribs flaring into pain. He could not meet his father’s eyes, even now.
Horses galloping past. They stamped to a halt, and there was shouting, an unthinkable breach of protocol so close to the King’s person.
‘What are they at?’ Ashurnan muttered, disturbed from a reverie.
‘My lord — my lord!’ A familiar voice.
Both Kouros and Ashurnan lifted aside the gauze curtains of the palanquin and looked down. It was Dyarnes, helm off and komis thrown down around his chin.
‘What is this, Dyarnes?’ Ashurnan demanded.
‘Forgive me, my king, but we have sighted the enemy — they are directly to our front and already in line of battle.’
‘What?’ Ashurnan sputtered. He looked up at the sun in some bewilderment. It was early morning, and the column had barely gotten under way. The men at the rear had not even begun marching out of last night’s camp yet.
‘How close are they?’
‘We must form the line at once, lord. With your permission, I deem it imperative that we bring in the other columns and deploy for battle.’
‘Are they advancing?’
‘Not yet. They’re just standing there.’
‘How many?’ this was Kouros, hissing with pain as he leaned over the rail of the palanquin. The elephant tossed his head under them and the whole construction rose up and down like a boat on a wave.
‘They are not many, my prince — not a fifth of what we have brought.’
Then why stand and wait for us? Kouros wondered.
‘Bring in the columns — deploy the troops,’ Ashurnan snapped. ‘We must attack as quickly as possible, before they can get away. Move up your leading elements, Dyarnes, and send a courier to the rear. The men behind us will have to run. We must crush them, Dyarnes — do you hear me? They must not escape. And bring me my chariot.’
So this was what happened when the enemy was tracked down at last.
Chaos.
Kouros could not remain on the Great King’s elephant without the Great King, nor was he fit to ride a horse, so he joined his father in the royal chariot. This was an immense affair drawn by four black Niseians and crewed by a driver and two bodyguards, Honai chosen by the Great King himself. A parasol overhung it to keep the sun off their heads, and there were holsters of javelins in front of either wheel.
The vehicle was beautifully sprung, ornamented with enough precious stones and chased silver to buy a city, and it had loops of red Bokosan leather to steady oneself by. The floor, also, was red leather, criss-crossed straps embroidered with golden wire. And rearing above it, the purple imperial banner was suspended from a cross- piece of varnished oak. It had been built to catch the eye, to provide a focal point on the battlefield, and to reassure the assembled thousands that their lord was in their midst, watching them.
It thundered up the roadway now, scattering everything in its path, preceded and followed by a hundred picked cavalry from all over the empire, though most wore the blue-enamelled armour of Arakosia. The Great King himself took the whip, and flicked it over the rumps of the straining Niseians with a smile in his beard.
Kouros studied his father discreetly. For days the old man had been withdrawn and uncommunicative. He had not been told that Rakhsar and Roshana were dead, but he seemed to know nonetheless. He had watched Kouros with that odd new look, and bade him join him on the back of the elephant, an honour not bestowed lightly.
Could it be respect? The Arakosans had gone out to look for Kouros and brought him back more dead than alive. Ashurnan had expressed no concern, asked no questions. But he had treated Kouros differently ever since.
And for once, Kouros had enjoyed writing a letter to his mother.
The column had fractured all around them, and companies of infantry were spreading out across the plain on all sides, some running, all being screamed at by officers both mounted and afoot. There seemed to be little order involved, but the milling mobs were at least all moving the right way. Every one of them had their faces turned to the west, and the sun was behind them. Even the simplest peasant conscript could be told to keep the sun on his back. The army was disordered, chaotic and confused, but it was advancing in the right direction; a flood of men pouring across the earth in the rising dust.
Let the King of the Macht try and halt this tide, Kouros thought. And he gripped the hilt of the cheap iron kitchen knife in his sash. He had kept it as a kind of talisman. His brother’s blood was still black upon it.
The green country around them was leached away. The land rose slightly, becoming a plateau many pasangs wide standing somewhat above the fertile plain. The ground was stonier here, crossed by the dry ruin of
