The Iron Wars

Their camp was a buzzing maelstrom of activity, night and day. Andruw and a couple of squadrons busied themselves with the collection of stores from a reluctant and somewhat outraged Torunnan quartermaster’s department, and had it not been for the goodwill of Quartermaster Passifal his men would never have been issued a single piece of hardtack. Others were occupied having the horses shod and the armour reconditioned, while Corfe conducted formation drill on the blasted plain north of the capital and the battlements of the city were lined with fascinated and in some cases derisive spectators.

He worked his men hard, but no harder than he worked himself. By the third day the three wings were able, with a certain amount of cursing and jostling, to move from road column to line of battle at a single trumpet call from Cerne, Corfe’s bugler. Their efforts would have made a Torunnan drill-master stare, but the end result was well enough, Corfe thought. There was no time to teach them any of the niceties. The image which chiefly disturbed him was that of his men breaking formation and reverting to some tribal warband, especially if they happened to push an enemy into flight. He impressed upon them, at campfire gatherings interpreted by Morin, that they were not to break from the line or advance without direct orders from their wing commanders. There was some muttering at this, and someone shouted out from the darkness at the back of the crowd that they were warriors not slaves, and they did not have to be taught how to fight.

“Fight my way,” Corfe shouted back. “Just once, fight my way, and if I don’t bring you to victory, then you may fight any way you please. But ask Marsch and his Felimbri if my way is not the best.”

The muttering died down. The men now knew of the battles the original Cathedrallers had fought in the south, the odds they had overcome. Corfe realized he was on trial. If he led these men to defeat, initially at any rate, then he would never be able to lead them with confidence again. They respected ability, not rank, and deeds rather than flowery declarations.

On the night before they moved out, he was summoned to meet the Queen Dowager again. He turned up at her chambers in his old, ragged uniform, aware of the whispers which followed him through the palace. Rumour was running like fire through the city: Torunn was about to be besieged as Aekir had been, the King was about to abandon the city to the enemy and pull the garrison south, a treaty was to be signed, a deal to be struck. Martellus was dead, he was victorious, he was a hostage of the Merduks. No one could tell fact from fiction, and already thousands were fleeing Torunn, lines of carriages and wagons and handcarts and trudging people heading south. At Aekir there had been hope, even confidence, that as long as John Mogen led them and the walls stood they would prevail. Here, hope was fleeing with the mobs of refugees. It sickened Corfe to his stomach. He was beginning to wonder if anything of the world he knew would survive another winter.

 

O DELIA was alone when he was shown in, sitting by a brazier with the shadows high and dark on the walls about her.

“Lady.”

Something scuttled away from the flame-light too quickly for him to make out, but the Queen Dowager did not stir. “You have been lucky, Colonel.”

“Why is that, lady?”

“You have been almost forgotten about. Thus far, you have been overlooked.”

Corfe frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean that my son the King has forgotten you in the . . . excitement of the present time. But someone else —Colonel Menin, or I should say now General Menin—has just been made aware of your existence. The sooner you are away from the city the better.”

“I see,” Corfe said. “Does he mean to make a fight of it?”

Odelia smiled unpleasantly. “I do not know. I am no longer privy to the workings of the government. My instincts tell me that the King is timid and his general is a buffoon. Menin’s lackeys have been watching your men drilling. Tomorrow morning you will receive a new set of orders. You will be ordered to turn over your command to another, more . . . amenable officer who only today arrived from the south.”

“Aras,” Corfe hissed.

“The very same. According to him, you left your work there half done, and he had the lion’s share of the fighting to do while you hot-footed it back to the bed of the Queen Dowager.” Odelia’s smile was like a scar across her face in the firelight.

“I left wounded with him, the dastard.”

“I have had Passifal quarter them in an out-of-the-way place, don’t worry. But you have to get into the field, Corfe, before they ruin you.”

“We leave at dawn. Or sooner, with this.”

“Dawn should be safe enough. But no fanfare. A discreet exit is called for, I think.”

“When have you found me anything but discreet, lady?”

She laughed suddenly, like a girl. “Don’t worry, Corfe. Just make sure when you come back you have laurel on your brow, and I will do the rest. I still have strings to pull, even in the High Command. But that is not why I asked you to come here. I have something for you.” She threw aside a cloth to reveal a long, gleaming wooden box. Intrigued, but chafing at the waste of time, Corfe stepped closer.

“Well, open it!”

He did as he was bidden, and there, set in silk padding, was the shimmer of a long, bright-bladed sword.

“It’s yours. Call it a lucky charm if you like. I’ve had it sitting here these six years.”

Corfe lifted the sword. It was a heavy cavalry sabre, only slightly curved, double-edged for all that, with a plain basket hilt, the grip wire-bound ivory darkened with another man’s sweat. An old sword which had seen use—there were several tiny nicks in the blade. Looking closer, he saw the serpentine gleam of pattern welding.

“It must be ancient,” he said, wondering.

“It was John Mogen’s.”

“My God!”

“He called it Hanoran, which in old Normannic means ‘The Answerer.’ It was an heirloom of his house. He left it here before he went to take up the governorship of Aekir. You may as well have it.” Her voice was off-hand, but her eyes bored into him, twin peridot glitters.

“Thank you, lady. It means much to me, to have this.”

“He would have wanted you to have it. He would have wanted it to taste blood again in an able man’s hands rather than lie here gathering dust in an old woman’s chambers.”

Corfe looked at her, and he smiled, the joy of the sword’s light, deadly balance upon him. The hilt fitted his hand as though it had been made for him. On an impulse, he knelt before her and offered it to her.

“Lady, for what it is worth, know that you have one champion at least in this kingdom.” He raised his dancing eyes. “And you are not so old.”

She laughed again. “Gallantry, no less! I will make a courtier of you yet, Corfe.” She rose, and indeed in that moment she looked young, a woman barely into her third decade, though she must have been almost twice that. She was beautiful, Corfe thought, and he admired her. One slim-fingered hand stroked his cheek.

“That is all, Colonel. I won’t keep you from your barbarians a moment longer. You must, must leave at sunrise. Fight your battle, come back with Martellus and his men, and I guarantee they will not be able to touch you.”

He nodded. The Answerer slid into his scabbard with hardly a click, though it was an inch too long. He took the battered sabre which he had carried from Aekir and tossed it into a corner with a clang. Then he bowed to her and left the room without a backward glance.

But Odelia the Queen Dowager retrieved his discarded sabre and, taking it, she placed it in the silk-lined box which had once housed Mogen’s blade, and then set the box aside as gently as if some great treasure were stored therein.

• • •

T HE grey hour before dawn, chill as a graveside. And in the broken hills which bordered the Western Road to the north of Torunn a small party of weary travellers paused to look down on the sprawl of the Torunnan capital in the distance. Torches burned along the walls like a snake of gems trailed across the sleeping land, and the River Torrin was wide and deep and iron-pale as the sky began to lighten over the Jafrar Mountains in the east.