“The way he phrased the offer; the fact that he’d have known it was beyond our means anyway. He was goading us into attack.”
Kynortas brooded on this. “Perhaps. So they’re over- confident.”
Roper stayed silent. Who could be over-confident going into battle against the Black Legions? There must be a reason for their belief. They must have a plan. But Roper did not know the way of these Sutherners. Perhaps their numbers gave them confidence. Perhaps they were just a confident race. Roper did not know and so stayed quiet.
“Stay with me,” Kynortas said to Roper. “Watch as I do. One day, you will be responsible for the legions.” The Black Legions were advancing into the flood waters. Holding the right wing, with the vast majority of the cavalry, was Ramnea’s Own Legion; the elite soldiers of the Black Kingdom, second only in martial repute and prestige to the Sacred Guard. On the left was the Blackstone Legion; veteran, battle-hardened and with a reputation for savagery. Some men said the Blackstones were even more efficient than Ramnea’s Own as line- breakers. Most of those men were Blackstones themselves.
The legates—the legion commanders—had each ridden out in front of their legion. On horseback they presented themselves to their warriors and held their arms high to the air as a pair of legionaries rode up behind them and invested each with a vast rippling cloak of liquid-brown eagle feathers. These were fastened over the shoulders, draping much of the horse as well, and flashed and glimmered as the legate dropped his arms. Clad in this holy raiment, they rode along the front of their advancing legions, holding out before them a branch of holly, an eye woven from the pointed leaves at the top of the branch. The eye looked over the ranks, inspecting their courage for the combat to come and blessing those who were worthy.
Roper and Kynortas trotted behind the battle line, a clutch of aides following in their wake. Kynortas sent them streaming out in all directions with instructions to hold fast, keep the line together, discharging regards and advice to the legates. He was so calm, the Black Lord. So still. His confidence, his faith in the legions, radiated around him like the ripples his horse made in the flood waters. Roper watched his father, hoping to absorb his presence and character by looking. Even when they had advanced into the shadow of the ridge, when longbow arrows began to spit into the waters around them, bouncing off the armour of two of the aides, the Black Lord appeared unfazed.
The Sutherners on the ridge above were chanting. Swords thumped on shields, polearms rattled together and the men screamed and jeered. Devils, the Anakim were. Demons. Freaks, monsters, destroyers. They worked themselves into a frenzy of drumming and screaming to drown the awful, gut-wrenching fear they had of the giants they opposed. “Kill!” screamed a lord.
“Kill, kill, kill!” roared his men.
“Kill!” the lord insisted.
“Kill, kill, kill!” bayed his men.
“Scream at them!” bellowed the lord. “They’re the murderers of the Black Kingdom! Scream at them!” His men screamed. “These are fallen angels, cast down from Heaven! God wants these demons banished from our lands! Do your duty this day by God!” The shields and pikes began to thump in time and the Sutherners stamped their feet. The sound, like a mighty drum being pounded, was enough to create ripples in the flood waters through which the Anakim marched.
The Anakim had their own drums, but they were not like their enemy’s. Each legion beat its own tattoo on the advance, the drummers standing in the rear ranks and driving their warriors forward. The noise was not feral and savage like the Sutherners’. It was mechanical and crisp; a regular wave of sound.
Thousands of banners rose forest-like above the Anakim ranks. They had the great squares of embroidered linen that the Sutherners flew, but also long tapestries of woven silk, held aloft by up to six standard-bearers and depicting ancient battles in stark Anakim colours. Next to these stood giant eyes, woven from leafy withies of holly, willow and ash, or perhaps a great stretched bearskin, or a pole suspended with half a dozen tattered wolf pelts that swirled raggedly in the breeze. Where the legates rode, enormous bolts of linen impregnated with eagle feathers were held aloft, rippling and flashing in the wind. All of these banners but the last would be dropped when their bearers joined combat.
The legionaries themselves did not scream or shout on the advance. They did not clash their weapons, as the Sutherners were doing. They sang. Low, eerie battle hymns spread across the line, clashing and swelling; growing in volume and emotion until the Sutherners were sick with the unfamiliarity of it all. The music reflected the tangled wilderness which surrounded them; the grey agitation of the sky above and forests that rustled and shifted on their flanks. The breeze was intensifying, as though the Sutherners were surrounded by Anakim allies who answered the call of that unearthly singing. This was Anakim land. The Black Kingdom: every inch as barren and unholy as the Sutherners had feared.
On the Suthern Right, Kynortas could make out the upstart Bellamus riding along the front of the line, roaring at his men. In his wake, men stood straighter and hefted their weapons. Kynortas took note: One day, he thought, I will have to face an army commanded by that man alone.
No sooner had this occurred to him, than the Suthern Right broke. Perhaps Bellamus had over-excited them to the extent that their officers had lost control. Perhaps, after all, he knew no more about war than his lowly station suggested and he was foolhardy in the face of his steady enemy. Whatever the cause, Sutherners had begun to flood down the ridge, slipping and sliding through the mud in a mad charge against the Blackstone Legion. They broke formation and so lost the only advantage they had held: the
