So this is war.
The Black Legions were in headlong retreat. They were marshalled into columns by their officers, who threw confused looks at where the Almighty Eye of the Sacred Guard flew and where they knew somebody must be in command. Thousands of Anakim bodies lay in the flooding, arrows protruding from their flesh and bodies weighted down by armour. Only the Sacred Guard had shed Suthern blood and that because they had been forced to in defence of Roper. Trumpets were pealing out across the battlefield as the Anakim army condensed and the Suthern cavalry tore after them, searching for an opening. They were being held back by the Anakim cavalry, which was charging and re-charging, using their discipline to extricate the legions.
Pandemonium. Hundreds of Blackstones were half crawling, half swimming after the retreating soldiers. The other warriors, no longer in neat ranks but wading as quickly as they could through the flooding, were streaming away from the ridge where the Suthern infantry had begun to advance.
The Sutherners were after them.
2The Hindrunn
There was always one oasis of calm in the Black Kingdom. Regardless of what war ravaged the rest of it, the great fastness at the border, the Hindrunn, would be safe. Built over centuries by one of Roper’s ancestors, it was a thirteen-hundred-year-old honeycomb of black granite, lead and flint. Its presence, so dark and malevolent when observed from Suthdal—the land below the River Abus, occupied by the Sutherners—was the reason the border had barely changed over centuries. Within its tangle of broad, cobbled streets dwelt the legions.
When these returned, tradition dictated that they should be greeted by the women and children of the fortress. Crowds would line the streets, armed with little bunches of herbs to be thrown into the path of the legions. The bitter smell of rosemary, lemon balm and comfrey, crushed underfoot, was an evocation of celebration and relief. The warriors had returned home and once again they had been successful. Word would already have reached the Hindrunn of who had fought with particular bravery or skill and their names would be called out by the throng. The young boys would watch their warriors, imagining the day when the armour of the Black Kingdom would fit them and when it would be their turn to march through these streets.
The Sacred Guard would be first to enter the Great Gate. They would march in step, always in step, up the cobbled street; the crowds on each side ever-optimistic about the gap through which their legionaries could squeeze. People would lean from the upper windows of the houses to throw their herbs and the warriors, stern and proud, would try not to grin. Roper had been there once; part of the crowds that welcomed back the legions. He had not imagined taking his father’s place, resplendent on a white horse at the front of the column, but a little further back, wearing the armour of a guardsman. Black Lords might be rare, but they were born. A Sacred Guardsman was self-forged; made through his own merits. There could be no more splendid thing and it had been decades since the Black Legions had failed on the battlefield.
The crowds were not accustomed to defeat.
So it was that when news reached the fastness that the legions had been whipped, that they were marching home with their tails between their legs and that the great Kynortas, Black Lord of forty years’ dedicated service, had fallen on the battlefield, the reaction was first one of incredulity. It was simply unthinkable that the legions could have failed so badly and the report of tens of thousands of Sutherners swarming across the Black Kingdom must be exaggerated. Then the stream of refugees began to arrive, confirming that at their back was a marauding enemy force, and the incredulity turned to anger. Some were claiming that the army had not even fought the Sutherners. They had just turned and run in the face of a strong defensive position and a swarm of angry arrows. This was not just a defeat: it was humiliation. What seemed even clearer was that Roper had wilted in the crucible, as so many are wont to do, and having inherited command, had panicked and insisted on retreat. He had not even stayed long enough to retrieve his father’s body; it had been left to be stripped and degraded by the Sutherners.
Roper was not sure who had commanded the army on the bleak march back to the Hindrunn. It did not seem to have been him. Nobody came to ask him for orders and Roper did not know to whom he should volunteer them or what form they should take. Indeed, he had been ignored by all but two people on the march. The first was a surgeon, who had silently extracted the arrow from his shoulder and staunched his wounds. Roper had gritted his teeth as the head was dragged from his flesh and had no more than a couple of deep breaths to sustain him before a glowing brand was pressed into the wound. He made no sound, but the hiss and smell like cooked meat had been too much. His vision faded into white and he swayed where he sat. When it was over, he was unsure whether he had stayed conscious or not.
It was at the same time that Roper’s second visitor approached: Uvoren. He stood quietly and watched Roper setting his jaw, again apparently fascinated by the wounds, though he must have seen many. He smiled roguishly at Roper. “A troublemaker, eh, lord?” Lord. “Never seen our army’s leader ride alone into a press of the enemy before.”
Roper looked up at Uvoren, teeth gritted. “Not fast enough.”
Uvoren shrugged. “You couldn’t have saved him, lord. He
