Absurdly pleased, Roper trotted Zephyr through the tunnel and onto the plains beyond, where the refugees still gathered, sheltered crudely beneath old cloaks and blankets. And even they, who had been shut out of the fortress for weeks after the destruction of their homes, got to their feet and cheered him. Roper acknowledged the applause with a raise of his sword, still beaming uncontrollably. He moved to the right to allow the column marching behind to pass him and turned back to look at the wall. Atop it stood a lone figure.
Uvoren.
Roper held Cold-Edge aloft, tip pointing at the Captain of the Guard. A salute; of sorts.
Uvoren raised a hand in acknowledgement, a wry smile discernible on his face. Let us play.
Leading an army was more complicated than Roper could ever have predicted. The legionaries were trained from the moment they entered the haskoli at the age of six to forage and procure their own food. Nevertheless, keeping the legions fully supplied was a near impossible task. Close to fifty thousand soldiers (including the troopers of the Cavalry Corps, whom Roper had discreetly removed from the fortress before Uvoren realised he was taking them), eight thousand horses and god knew how many beasts in the baggage train required vast granaries of wheat, beans, barley, oats and rye, as well as a small army of sheep for slaughter. They had taken supplies for two weeks with them, each warrior carrying much of his food on his back, but they would struggle to find more out in the field.
They were two days’ march out from the Hindrunn when someone realised that while each legionary had, as always, brought his own bow, they had no arrows with them. The legates informed Roper that this was usually the duty of the Skiritai. Tekoa, who commanded them, exploded that they had been working harder than anyone had a right to expect and that it had been somebody else’s responsibility to bring the bloody arrows. Men were sent back to fetch them.
Hours after the men had returned with wagons of arrows (still not enough; they would blaze through them in just a few minutes of battle), a trooper of the Cavalry Corps had reported to Roper that they were low on horseshoes. Roper had asked how that was possible just two days out of the Hindrunn and was informed that they usually had more notice if they were going on campaign. More men were sent back for horseshoes.
It was late autumn. Ordinarily, the campaigning season would be over already. The Sutherners had left them nothing; Roper’s forces moved through a scorched land. They trudged over blankets of hot, damp ash that had once been great villages. Forests had been felled and added to the conflagration. Sheep carcasses, sucked dry by the hungry Sutherners, were scattered liberally over the hills. Grain pits, granaries, storehouses: all had received special attention to ensure not so much as a bean survived obliteration.
And everywhere, there were human bones. Some black, grey and half-consumed by fire. Some white and gleaming, washed clean by the rain, resting on a bed of ash. Skulls. Vertebrae. Teeth.
At one village, they found a massacre. Anakim bones, bearing savage cut-marks that showed their owners had died by the sword, protruded from the ash. They were surrounded by axe- and spear-heads, the wooden shafts long destroyed by flame. “Ribs. Not bone-armour,” said Gray with disgust, kicking through the ash. “Not a single piece of it.” He looked up at Roper, eyes filled with rage and hurt. “These are women. They were here, fighting with axes and spears while we cowered behind granite!”
Roper looked down from Zephyr’s broad back. There were children’s bones amongst the women’s. Boys younger than six or girls below seven, who had not yet been sent away to their academies. With the legions called away in the Hindrunn, the women had mounted a last stand in defence of their village. “You once told me,” said Roper quietly to Gray, “to forget revenge on the Sutherners. Fight them for those that are still alive. What do you say now, my friend?”
Gray drew a deep breath. “There is no need for revenge. But our lands are better off without creatures that would do this.” He gazed down at the bones. “They must be defeated.”
Roper nodded. “Spread word amongst the men of what is here. We will need all the motivation we can get if we are to defeat this horde.”
The legionaries had all known this land when it bloomed with health. The fire caught them. It fed the rage inside them with each ruined village; each well and river poisoned by animal carcasses; each Anakim bone that peered so starkly back at them. While some of the soldiers’ families had fled into the refuge of the Hindrunn, most had stayed at their homesteads. These legionaries wandered the places where they thought their houses had once stood, seeking bones they might recognise. Some even picked up those that they found, eyes brimming, sure that they held in their hands their wife; their daughter; their son.
The rage in each man grew, smothering the fear of the enemy they hunted. Morale was low, but any thought of desertion or retreat was out of the question. A desire for vengeance flourished and Roper encouraged it, though Gray cautioned that this was not the way of the legionaries. Such all-consuming emotion was possession, pure and simple.
Finding the Sutherners would not be
