Ships from the West

in the snows. Hidden in their midst were three batteries of horse­artillery and their teams, awaiting the signal to unlimber and begin firing.

Behind this first wave, and closer to the left of the line than its centre, rode the Torunnan King himself at the head of his five-hundred-strong Bodyguard. He kept back with him a mixed formation of some two thousand Fimbrians and Tor­unnans to act as a general reserve, and also to bolster the open flank. For off on that flank, on the higher ground leading down to Charibon, the citadel of the Knights squatted, a grey low-built fortress around which were the tents and baggage of a small army. As the Torunnans advanced towards Charibon proper, they would have this fortress and encampment in their left rear. Not only that, but the fast-riding Cathedraller scouts which had been scouring the land about the army for days had only yesterday reported seeing a large body of infantry bivouacked some fifteen miles to the west of Char­ibon, square upon the Narian Road. They had not drawn close enough to this force to ascertain its nationality, but there was little doubt that it consisted of more levies on their way to swell the ranks of the Empire. And so Corfe had hurried his men through the night, to attack Charibon before this fresh army came up.

He had no illusions about the slimness of the thread from which his men's survival hung, and he knew that even if they were victorious before the monastery-city, there was little hope of their ever returning to Torunna. But this was the head of the snake here before him, and if it were destroyed, the west might yet rise again and throw off the yoke. That chance was worth the sacrifice of this army. And as for his own life, he knew that it had been twisted beyond hope of happiness, and he would be content to lay it down here.

Ahead of the Torunnans and Fimbrians as they formed up on the plain more tent encampments sprawled amid a web of gravel roads, and beyond them the tricorne tower of the Cathedral of the Saint loomed tall and stark, matched in height by the Library of Saint Garaso and the Pontiff's Palace close by, all connected by the Long Cloisters. That was the heart of Charibon, and of the Second Empire itself. Those buildings must all be laid in ruin and their inhabitants des­troyed if the head of this snake were to be cut off.

Albrec had passionately disagreed when Corfe had told him of his intentions back in Torunn, but Albrec was not a soldier, and he was not here, staring at the vast factory of war that Charibon had become. Corfe would rather a thousand books burn than he needlessly lose a single one of his men, and he would see the history of ages go up in smoke rather than let one scion of Aruan's evil brood escape. This he had impressed upon his officers and his men in a council of war held up in the hills, though Golophin, who had attended, had said nothing.

'They have no pickets out,' Ensign - Haptman rather -Baraz said incredulously. 'Sir, I believe they're all asleep.'

'Let us hope so, Haptman.' Corfe looked up and down at the line which stretched out of sight in the raw dawn light. Then he breathed in deep. 'Alarin, signal the advance.'

Corfe's colour-bearer was a Cimbric tribesman, a close kinsman of Felorin's. He now stood up in his stirrups and waved the sable and scarlet banner of Torunna forward and back, for no bugle calls were to be used until the army had joined battle. The signal was taken up all down the line, and slowly and in silence that huge ordered crowd of men began to move, and became a muffled creeping darkness which edged closer to the tents of the enemy, bristling with barbed menace. Anyone looking closely at the war harness of the army's soldiers would have rubbed their eyes and stared, for every man had welded to his armour short spikes of iron nails, and even the horses' chamfrons and breastplates were simi­larly adorned, whilst the spear points of the Fimbrians and lanceheads of the Cathedrallers were not bright winking steel, but black iron also. Save for the scarlet of the Cathedrallers, the appearance of the army was sombre as a shadow, with hardly a gleam of bright metal to be seen.

When they had advanced two miles Corfe ordered the reserve to edge farther out on the left, for they were passing the camps of the Knights Militant about their citadel. There was activity there now where there had been none before, and he could see squadrons of cavalry mounting their horses. And then a bright series of horn calls split the morning and from the summit of the citadel's tower a grey smoke went up.

'It would seem the enemy has clambered out of bed at last,' he said mildly. 'Baraz, ride to Colonel Olba with the reserve and tell him to drop back farther and cover our left rear. He is to go into square if necessary, but he is to be prepared to ward off the Knights Militant from the main body.'

'Sir!' Baraz galloped off.

'Ensign Roche.'

'Yes, sir.' The young officer's horse was dancing under him and his eyes were bright as glass. He was about to see a real battle at last.

'Go to Marshal Kyne in the middle of the phalanx, and tell him that he is to keep advancing for Charibon itself, even if he loses contact with the arquebusiers on his left. He has my leave to detach a flank guard if he sees fit, but he must keep moving regardless. Clear?'

'Yes, sir!' Clods of turf flew through the air like birds as Roche wheeled his horse away in turn.

Yes, the enemy was awake all right. A mile in front of the army men were tumbling out of their tents and forming up with confused haste. They were in Almarkan blue, arquebus­iers and sword-and-buckler men. Many thousands of them were now preparing to bar the way into Charibon. As they milled about, the bells of the Cathedral of the Saint, and those of every other church in the monastery-city began to peal the alarm, and Corfe could see that the streets of Charibon were clogging with troops rushing south and east to meet him. Out to the west of the city he could see other formations moving on the plain, Finnmarkan gallowglasses according to the word of his scouts. They had vast camps out there, but had two miles to march before they would be on his flank. Corfe drew the Answerer, and the ancient pattern-welded iron of John Mogen's sword glittered darkly as it left the scabbard. He raised it in the air and led the Bodyguard out to the left rear of the Cathedra Hers. The Torunnan army was eating up the yards to Charibon at a fearsome pace, and was now deployed in a great L-shape with the base of the L facing west. Not a single battlecry or shout came from the ranks; the only sound was the dull thunder of all those thousands of hoofs and feet.

'Ensign Brascian,' said Corfe to another of his young staff who clustered about him. 'Go to Colonel Rilke of the artillery. You will find him with the Cathedrallers. Tell him to deploy his guns to the west at once and commence to engage the Knights Militant. Then find Comillan and say he is to charge the Knights at his own discretion, but he is not to pursue. He is not to pursue, is that clear?'

'Very clear, sir.'

'He is to pull back as soon as the enemy is halted and in disorder, and the guns will cover his withdrawal. Then he is to hold himself in readiness for further orders.'

Seven or eight thousand of the Knights Militant had now formed up in a long line facing east, in front of their citadel and the tents that were pitched at its foot. They would advance very soon, and must be neutralised. Corfe watched Brascian pelt off, slapping his horse's rump with the flat of his sabre. He disappeared into the sea of red-armoured horsemen that was the Cathedrallers, and scant minutes later the ranks of the cavalry parted and the gun teams began to emerge and set up before them. The Cathedrallers halted behind the line of six-pounders and dressed their ranks. For all that they were composed mainly of the Cimbric tribes, they were as well disciplined as Torunnan regulars now, and Corfe's heart swelled at the sight of them. What had once been a motley band of ill-armed galley slaves had over the years become the most feared body of cavalry in the world.

The Knights Militant began to advance, a tonsured Pre­sbyter out to their front and waving them on with his mace. They too were heavily armoured, with the Saint's Symbol picked out in white upon their breastplates, and their faces were hidden behind their closed helms. Their horses were of the fine, long-limbed strain which had been bred as hunters and palfreys on the Torian Plains for centuries by the aris­tocracy of Almark, but they were smaller in stature than the massive destriers of the Cathedrallers. The horses of Corfe's mounted arm were descended from those brought east by the Fimbrians, back in the ancient days when some of their troops still went mounted, and the best of these had been stolen and raided by the tribesmen of the Cimbrics over the years, and for centuries after had been selected and bred purely for size and courage. For war.

The startling boom of a gun as the first six-pounder went off, followed by a close-spaced salvo from all three batteries. Rilke had trained his gun teams well. Hardly had the cannons jumped back on their carriages than his men were levering them forward again, worming and sponging them out, and reloading. They were using canister, hollow metal shells filled with scores of arquebus balls, and as the smoke cleared the carnage they produced was awesome to see. All along the front of the Knights' line horses were tumbling screaming to their