Ships from the West

carnage that the arquebusiers had wrought. Thousands of naked corpses littered the plain, in places lying piled in mounds three and four deep. The grass was dark and slimy with their blood.

The attack of the Hounds faltered. Even through the blood rage that impelled them they finally realised their mistake, and began to pull back from that deadly line of iron-clad men. They streamed away in their hundreds, trampling their Inceptine officers or, snarling, beating them aside. But there Was to be no chance even in retreat. As soon as they broke off the army's arquebuses were levelled again, and Corfe heard the voices of his officers bellowing out. Another volley, and another. Every round his men fired was made not of lead, but of pure iron, and the heavy bullets snicked and whined and scythed across the battlefield so that the surviving Hounds were cut down in swathes as they withdrew. When the smoke finally cleared again the plain was empty of life, and the corpses of Aruan's most feared troops littered it like a ghastly windfall. They had been utterly destroyed. An eerie silence fell over the field, as though all men were astounded by the sight.

Corfe turned to Astan his bugler and simply nodded. The tribesman put his horn to his lips and blew. The Torunnan advance began again.

'Golophin has betrayed us,' Aruan said, his voice harsh as stone. 'He has told the Torunnans how to kill us.'

Bardolin stood with the last shifting threads of the Dweo­mer dwindling about him. His clothes smelled slightly scorched and his face was wan with fatigue. 'Any hedge witch could have told them the same.'

'There are none left in Torunna. No, it was Golophin. He has chosen his side at last. A pity. I thought he would see sense in the end.' Aruan's eyes seemed slightly out of focus, as if they could not quite take in the enormity of the spectacle before them.

'Their infantry are entering the city’ he said. 'Bardolin, in God's name, what kind of men are these? Does nothing daunt them?'

The Hebrian mage did not answer his question. 'The Hounds have failed us, for the moment. There are others we can call on when the time is right. But for now we must fight the enemy sword to sword. Reinforcements are on their way from the north, and the south. Corfe has made a brave fight of it, but he cannot win, not against the numbers we will bring to bear on him.'

Aruan clapped him on the shoulder. 'That is what I like to hear. I am glad you came, Bardolin. I have need of your good sense. A man must be a stone not to lose a little of his equi­librium at a time like this.'

'Then I had best give you my news before you lose any more. Yesterday an army of Torunnans and Merduks under Formio defeated our forces in a battle near the town of Staed in southern Torunna. The invasion has failed.'

Aruan did not move or speak, but a muscle clenched and unclenched like a restless worm under the skin of his jaw. 'Is that all?'

'No. Our spies tell me that after the battle Formio received a young man at his headquarters who claims to be heir to the throne of Torunna, Abeleyn's illegitimate son by his one-time mistress. He told the Fimbrian Regent that Queen Isolla is dead. Murad killed her in the Levangore before being slain himself.' Bardolin looked down, and his voice changed. 'Richard Hawkwood is dead also.'

'Well, we must be thankful for what we are given, I sup­pose. Our plans have gone awry, Bardolin my old friend, but the setback is temporary. We have fresh forces on the way which will weigh heavy in the scales, as you say.' He smiled, and the perilous lupine light burned in his eyes, gloating with secret knowledge.

An Inceptine who was leaning over the tower parapet with his fellows threw back his hood and pointed south. His voice quavered. 'Lord, the Torunnans are advancing up the very streets. They are approaching the cathedral!'

'Let them,' Aruan said. 'Let the doomed have their hour of glory.'

The battlefield had grown, so that now the monastery-city itself had been swallowed by it. Corfe had wheeled the Orphans westwards once more so that their right flank was resting on the complex of timber buildings that constituted the southern suburb of Charibon. Those arquebusiers who had been positioned on the shore of the Sea of Tor now advanced northwards and began pushing towards the Great Square at the heart of the city while the Cathedrallers formed up south of the Orphans to protect their open flank, and Olba's reserve began moving at the double northward to join in the taking of the city. Buildings were burning here and there already, and the Himerian troops who were trying to hold back the Torunnan advance were confused and leaderless. The hard­bitten Torunnan professionals herded them like sheep, advancing tercio by tercio so that the once tranquil cloisters of Charibon rang with the thunderous din of volley fire and the screams of desperate men. No quarter was given by the iron-clad invaders, and they cut down every man, woman and black-garbed cleric in their path so that the gutters ran with blood.

But the Second Empire had not yet committed all its strength. From the west the glittering ranks of mail-clad gallowglasses advanced in unbroken lines with their two-handed swords resting on their shoulders and their faces hidden behind tall, masked helms. And beyond them more regiments of Almarkans and Perigrainians were forming up on the plain, preparing to push the Torunnans into the sea.

A wind off the Torian carried the smoke and stink of the battle inland and the sun came lancing in banner- bright beams though the curling battle reek, making of the armed forma­tions brindled silhouettes. For three square miles south of Charibon the wreck and smirch of war covered the earth, as though the battle were some dark flaming brush fire which left blackened carrion in its wake. And it was not yet mid-morning.

Rilke's artillery began to bark out once again and create flowers of red ruin among the ranks of the advancing gallowglasses. However, these Finnmarkans were not the frightened boys that the Almarkan conscripts had been, but the household warriors of King Skarp-Hedin himself. Their advance continued, and they closed their gaps as they came so that Corfe could not help but admire them.

He studied the battlefield as though it were some puzzle to which he must find the answer. Huge masses of men had almost completed the dressing of their lines behind the gallow­glasses; the foremost had already begun to advance in their wake. He was outnumbered several times over, and it would not be long before someone in the enemy high command had the wit to move round his left and outflank him. He could either pull his men back now and await the enemy onslaught, or he could throw caution aside.

He looked north. The outskirts of Charibon were on fire and his men were fighting their way street by bloody street into the heart of the city. That was where the battle would be decided: in the very midst of the hallowed cloisters and churches of the Inceptines. He must make a deliberate choice. Battlefield victory was impossible; he knew that. He must either fight this battle conventionally, harbouring his men's lives and hoping that they could stage a fighting withdrawal through the hordes pitted against them. Or deliberately send the thing he loved to its destruction, throw away the tactics manual and chance everything on one throw of the dice. All to accomplish the death of a single man.

If he failed here; if Aruan and his cohorts survived this day, then the west would become a continent of slaves and the magicians and their beasts would rule it for untold years to come.

Corfe looked at Golophin, and the old wizard met his eyes squarely. He knew.

Corfe turned to Ensign Roche, who was wide-eyed and sweating beside him again.

'Go to Comillan. He is to charge the gallowglasses, and follow up until they break. Then go to Kyne. The Orphans must advance. They will keep advancing as long as they are able.'

The young officer took off with a hurried salute.

And as easily as that: it was done, and the fate of the world thrown into the balance. Corfe felt as though a great weight had been raised off his shoulders. He spoke to Haptman Baraz.

‘I am taking the Bodyguard into the city. Tell Olba to follow up with his command.' And when the young officer had gone he turned to Golophin again.

'Will you be there with me at the death?' he asked lightly.

The old wizard bowed in the saddle, his scarred face as grim as that of a cathedral gargoyle. 'I will be with you, Corfe. Until the end.'

Twenty-two

Bardolin watched the charge of the Cathedrallers from the roof of a building off the Great Square. In all the