If there ever was a time to pray, thought Sardec, now was it.
Sardec reeled back into what this morning had been their camp. All around were the signs of a hasty departure where people had simply picked up whatever possessions were nearby and turned and fled.
He paused for a moment, and the full magnitude of the defeat washed over him. The camp was lost. The baggage train was lost. The men would have surrendered if there had been anybody to surrender to, but the dead just kept on coming, and there was no alternative but to flee or to fight until your body was dragged down and became part of the attacking horde when it rose.
Desperately he looked around for Rena, searching through the debris of a camp made suddenly strange, looking for the spot where they had slept the night before. It felt now as if that had happened in another lifetime not merely a few hours in the past. At first he saw no sight of her or of any of the other girls or camp followers.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a group of people arguing. One woman was screaming and a bunch of children clustered around her crying. To his surprise he noticed that the Barbarian and Weasel were there as well, talking and gesturing and pointing towards the horizon. Relief surged through Sardec when he saw that Rena was amongst that small group as well.
As he approached a group he saw that the crying woman was Sergeant Hef's wife Marcie and the children were hers. It occurred to him then that there had been a real human cost to the battle today beyond the lives lost. This woman had lost her husband and those children had lost her father. None of which was going to count for much if they were still around when the Sardeans got here.
Rena rushed towards him and threw her arms around him. For once he did not push her away but kissed her hungrily not caring who saw them. It seemed absurd to worry about such things with the world falling into ruin all around them.
'Round up those people! Now!' Sardec shouted to the remaining soldiers. 'We've got to get them out of here.'
Marcie screamed and struggled. The Barbarian lifted her, still kicking, and tossed her across his shoulder. He told the children to come with him. They danced around him, aiming kicks and punches, having no more effect than if they had attacked a giant wyrm.
'The rest of you have got two minutes to grab what you can,' Sardec shouted, 'and then we're leaving. Anyone not with us can stay behind and argue with the dead men.'
Rena stared at him, as if she'd never seen him before, and he realised that she never had. He was covered in blood and muck and filled with an urgency to get them all out of here before disaster could overtake them completely.
The surviving Foragers shouted their acknowledgements and hustled the camp followers to get ready. In less than two minutes they were heading out of the camp and away from the battlefield, terribly aware of the whoops and howls of the Sardeans soldiers behind them. Sardec shouted at them to keep up the pace. He knew that he had to get as much ground between the survivors and the Sardeans as he could before nightfall.
It was extremely unlikely that any of them would manage to escape but looking at Rena and the children he felt he had to try.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sardec sat by the camp fire conscious for perhaps the first time in his life of the enormity of defeat. It hung over him like a vast shadow, making its presence felt in the chill of the breeze and the darkness that danced around the flickering embers.
He hoped they had put enough distance between themselves and the battlefield. He had led them northward away from the main track taken by the Talorean staff and all the other retreating soldiers. Any Sardean cavalry would follow the main road in the hopes of overtaking the officers, Generals and the rich pickings of their baggage train.
Rena was still trying to comfort Sergeant Hef's wife. The children sat round the fire, looking bleakly into the embers. Toadface talked with Handsome Jan.
“What do we do now, sir?” asked one of the new men. Sardec had not bothered to learn his name yet. He could not remember whether the man had told him it or not, and to be honest, he did not really care. He knew he should but he could not. All eyes focused on him. Everyone present was looking to him for a lead.
All of them, even Weasel and the Barbarian, normally so self-confident, had a beaten whipped-dog look. He was surprised that those two were still present. He had half-expected them to slope off on their own. But, like the others, they seemed to find some reassurance in numbers. And Sardec did not blame them. At this time he found their familiar faces oddly comforting even though he had never liked the men who owned them.
“We strike West,” he said as confidently as he could, trying not to think of all the long miles that separated them from Halim, let alone the Talorean border. “There will be a garrison there, and most likely reinforcements will have arrived.”
“What good will that do?” asked Handsome Jan. “They won’t be able to stand against the dead any more than we could.”
If you have any more constructive suggestions I will be happy to hear them, Sardec almost said but resisted the temptation. Now was not the time to get into arguments with the men. Now more than ever he needed to maintain his position in their eyes, and provide them with the sort of leadership they would need to get home. “It will get us back into the Queen’s service, soldier, and we will get another chance to throw back those Shadow- worshipping scum.”
There, he had said it, the words they had all feared to mention were out in the open now, and they all knew it. “Do you think the Princes of Shadow have really come, sir?” asked Toadface, licking his fat lips with his obscenely long tongue.
Sardec nodded. “You’ve seen the dead men walking; can you doubt it?”
“They just kept coming,” said the Barbarian. “I’ve never seen dark magic like it, not even when we were below Achenar. And sometimes when they pulled a man down he would get right up and fight alongside them, against his mates and all.”
He said the last as if it were somehow more obscene than the man rising from the dead in the first place. Perhaps to someone with his primitive code of honour, it was. Sardec smiled sourly. For the first time ever he had allowed himself to think that a man like the Barbarian might possess something like honour. It was a measure of how much his thinking on the subject had changed.
“I’m surprised we managed to get away at all,” said Weasel. Sardec was not. If any two men were able to escape from such a situation he and the Barbarian were them. The only other person who Sardec had encountered who equalled their slipperiness was the half-breed Rik. Had he and Asea managed to escape or had the half-breed’s astonishing good luck finally ran out? Sardec wondered if he would ever know.
“Perhaps God is preserving us for a reason,” said one of the newcomers, his eyes fixed on Sardec, begging for confirmation of this. They were all looking for any reassurance in the face of the vast supernatural evil that had reached out and touched their world. Sardec saw no reason to deny them this consolation. After all, who was he to say whether or not it was true? In times like this faith could be a source of strength and they were going to need all the strength they could find.
“Perhaps he has.” All of them were grateful for the words, and Sardec found himself oddly grateful to them for their faith in him. It was reassuring to feel trusted and needed in a time like this. Resolution firmed in his heart that he would not let them down while breath was still in him.
Sardec’s thoughts wandered back to Rena in the ensuing silence. He wished she had not come with the army. What chance did she have of surviving? The weather was getting worse. The walking dead were everywhere, and the Sardean cavalry would scour the countryside to round up survivors.
He shuddered to think what would happen to anyone they found. He had seen the Sardeans sabering any fleeing Taloreans they had encountered. He told himself that it was most likely that they were still filled with the fury and bloodlust of battle, but he had a suspicion that it was more than that, that they had been given orders to do so, to kill and leave the bodies so that they might rise again and follow the dreadful drumbeat to which the
