Two monks, two Fimbrian soldiers and two half-dead mules, all stained with the mud of their wanderings. They stood silent as standing stones in the sunrise until the shorter of the two monks, his face hideously disfigured, went down on his knees and clasped his hands in prayer. “Thank God, oh thank God.”
The soldiers were looking about them like foxes for whom the hunt is on, but the hills were empty but for wheeling kites. “You shall have your fire, then,” one of them said to the monks. “I doubt the Merduks will venture so close to the walls.”
“Why not continue into the city?” Avila protested. “It’s barely a league. We can manage that, I’m sure.”
“We’ll wait until it’s fully light,” Siward retorted. “If you approach the gates now you’re liable to be shot. Torunn is all but under siege, and the gate guards will be jumpy. I’ve not come this far to finish with a Torunnan ball in me.”
There was no more argument, and indeed the two monks were hardly able to advance another step. They had walked all night. Joshelin and Siward unloaded the bundle of faggots which one of the mules bore and began busying themselves with flint and tinder, after throwing the flaccid wineskin to their charges. Albrec and Avila squirted wine into their throats for want of a better breakfast, and sat gazing down on the last Ramusian capital east of the Cimbric Mountains.
“The Saint must have been watching over us,” Albrec said. His voice trembled. “What a penance this has been, Avila. I have never known such weariness. But it refines the soul. The blessed Saint—”
“There are horsemen approaching,” Avila cried.
Joshelin and Siward kicked out the nascent campfire, cursing, and threw themselves upon the ground, hauling the exhausted mules down with them.
“Where away?”
“My God, it’s an army!” Avila said. “There—a column of them. They must have come out of the city.”
Even the crannied features of the two Fimbrians fell with despair. “They are Merduks,” Siward groaned. “Torunn has already fallen.” Grimly, he began loading his arquebus while Joshelin worked furiously to light the slow-match.
“They are in scarlet,” Albrec said dully. “Sweet Saints, to think we came this far, only to end like this.”
It was indeed an army, a long, disciplined column of heavily armoured cavalry over a thousand strong. They bore a strange banner, black and scarlet, and some sang as they rode in an unknown tongue which nevertheless sounded harsh and savage to the two cowering monks. The horsemen’s line of march would take them within yards of the foursome, and beyond the hollow in which they hid the country was wide open for miles around. There was nowhere to run.
Albrec prayed fervently, his eyes tight shut, whilst Avila sat dully resigned and the two Fimbrians looked as though they meant to sell their lives dearly. The head of the column was barely a cable’s length away, and the two soldiers were gently cocking their weapons when they heard a voice shout out in unmistakable Normannic:
“Tell Ebro to keep his God-damned wing on the road! I won’t have straggling, Andruw, you hear me? Blood of the Saint, this is not a blasted picnic!”
Albrec opened his eyes.
The lead horsemen reined in and halted the long column with one upraised hand. The monks had been seen. A knot of troopers cantered forward, the thin birthing sun flashing vermilion off their armour. Their banner billowed in the cold breeze, and Albrec saw that it seemed to represent a cathedral’s spires. He stood up, whilst his three companions tried to pull him down again.
“Good morning!” he cried, his heart thumping a fusillade in his breast.
The leading rider walked his horse forward, staring. Then he doffed his barbaric helm. “Good morning.” He was dark-haired, with deep-hollowed grey eyes. He reminded Albrec of the two Fimbrians behind him. Hard, formidable, full of natural authority. A young man, but with a middle-aged stare. Beside him was another hewn out of the same wood, but with a certain gaiety about him that even the outlandish armour could not dim. In the early light the pair looked like two warriors of ancient legend come to life.
“Who are you?” Albrec asked, quavering.
“Corfe Cear-Inaf, colonel in the Torunnan army. This is my command.” The man’s eyes widened slightly as the rest of Albrec’s companions finally stood up. “Would you folk happen to be Fimbrians, at all?”
“We two are,” Joshelin said proudly. He held his arquebus as though he had not yet decided whether or not to fire it. “From the twenty-sixth tercio of Marshal Barbius’s command, detached.”
The cavalry colonel blinked, then turned to his comrade. “Get them going again, Andruw. I’ll catch up.” He dismounted and held out a hand to Joshelin, whilst behind him the long column of horsemen began moving once more. Hundreds of soldiers, all superbly mounted, weirdly armoured, many with tattooed faces. If they were Torunnan troops, they were certainly like no soldiers Albrec had ever seen or heard of before.
“Where is Barbius?” this Colonel Corfe Cear-Inaf demanded of Joshelin even as he gripped his hand.
“Why would you want to know?” the Fimbrian countered.
“I wish to help him.”
“A nd these pair are from Charibon, you say?” Colonel Corfe Cear-Inaf asked Joshelin. “They are clerics, then. What are you two, emissaries from the Pontiff?”
“Not quite,” Avila told him dryly. “Charibon’s reputation for hospitality is vastly exaggerated. We decided to seek our earthly salvation elsewhere.”
“They’re heretics, like you Torunnans,” Joshelin said impatiently. “Come bearing some papers for the other holy man you have stashed away here. Now I’ve told you, Torunnan, the marshal and the army were a week away from the dyke when we left them, headed south-east towards the coast. But listen—they go not just to link up with your Martellus. The marshal also means to assault the flank of the Merduk army coming up from the Kardian Gulf.”
“They have a high sense of their own prowess, if they think they can assault an army that size and live,” Corfe said shortly. His eyes bored into the Fimbrian before him. “And a high sense of duty, also. I salute them for it.”
Joshelin shrugged fractionally, as if suicidal courage were part of the normal make-up of any Fimbrian soldier.
“You cannot catch up with them before they make contact with the enemy,” he said. “I take it your mission is to preserve the dyke’s garrison.”
“Yes.”
“With thirteen hundreds?”
“I also have a high sense of duty, it seems.”
The two soldiers looked at one another, and the glimmer of a smile went between them. Joshelin unbent a little.
“You are cavalry, so mayhap you will move swift enough to be of use,” he admitted grudgingly. “What are your men? Not Torunnans.”
“They are tribesmen from the Cimbrics.”
“And you trust them?”
“Insofar as I trust any man. We have shed blood together.”
“You know your own business, I am sure. What of the Torunnan King? Is your command all he is sending out?”
“Yes. The King is very . . . preoccupied at present. He prefers to stand siege in Torunn and await the Merduk assault here.”
“Then he is a fool.”
Albrec and Avila caught their breath, awaiting some outburst in reply to this comment, but Corfe only said, “I know. But we will bleed for him nonetheless.”
“That is as it should be. We are merely soldiers.”
The long column of horsemen had passed them by, the rearguard a dark bristle in the distance. Corfe raised
