battle-line, and hurled forward. But so far they had not encountered any enemy formation of a size which warranted the deployment of the entire army, and the men were becoming frustrated and angry. It was four days since they had left the boats behind, and while the Cathedrallers had been skirmishing constantly, the infantry had yet to even see a live Merduk—apart from these prisoners Marsch had just brought in. Corfe felt as though he were striving to manage a huge pack of slavering hounds eager to slip the leash and run wild. The Torunnans especially were determined to exact some payment for the despoliation of their country.
They camped that night in the lee of a large pine wood. The horses and mules were hobbled on its edge and the men were able to trudge inside and light their first campfires in two days, the flames hidden by the thick depths of the trees. Eight thousand men required a large campsite, some twelve acres or more, but the wood was able to accommodate them all with ease.
Once the fires were lit, rations handed out and the sentries posted, Formio and four sombre Fimbrians brought the Merduk prisoners to Corfe’s fire. The Merduks were shoved into line with the dark trees towering around them like watchful giants. All about them, the quiet talk and rustling of men setting out their bedrolls ceased, and hundreds of Corfe’s troopers edged closer to listen. Andruw was there, and Ranafast and Marsch and Ebro—all the senior officers of the army. They had not been summoned, but Corfe could not turn them away. He realised suddenly that if it came down to it, he trusted the discipline of his own Cathedrallers and the Fimbrians more than he did that of his fellow countrymen. This night they were not Torunnan professional soldiers, but angry, outraged men who needed something to vent their rage upon. He wondered, if it came to it, whether he would be able to stop them degenerating into some kind of lynch mob.
He walked up and down the line of prisoners in silence. Some met his eyes, some stared at the ground. Yes, Marsch had been right: at least four of them had the fair skin and blue eyes of westerners. They were no doubt part of the
“Who amongst you speaks Normannic?” Corfe snapped.
A short man raised his head. “I do, your honour. Felipio of Artakhan.”
Felipio—even the name was Ramusian. Corfe tried to stop his own anger and hatred from clouding his thinking. He fought to keep his voice reasonable.
“Very well, Felipio. The name of your regiment, if you please, and your mission here in the north-west of my country.”
Felipio licked dry lips, looking around at the hate-filled faces which surrounded him. “We are from the sixty-eighth regiment of pistoleers, your honour,” he said. “We were infantry, part of the levy before the fall of the dyke. Then they gave us horses and matchlocks and sent us out to scout to the north up to the Torrin Gap.”
“Scouting, is it?” a voice snarled from the blackness under the trees, and there was a general murmur.
“Be silent!” Corfe cried. “By God, you men will hold your tongues this night. Colonel Cear-Adurhal, you will take ten men and secure this area from further interruption. This is not a God-damned court-martial, nor yet a debating chamber.”
Andruw did as he was ordered without a word. In minutes he had armed men, swords drawn, stationed about the prisoners.
“Go on, Felipio,” Corfe said.
The prisoner studied his feet and continued in a mumble. “There is not much more to tell, your honour. Our Sub-hadar, Shahr Artap, he commanded the regiment, gave us a speech telling us that this was Merduk country now, and we were to do as we pleased…” Sweat broke out on Felipio’s forehead and rolled down his face in shining beads of stress and terror.
“Go on,” Corfe repeated.
“Please your honour, I can’t—”
Andruw stepped forward out of nowhere and smashed the man across the face with a mailed fist, bursting open his nose like a plum and ripping the flesh from one cheekbone.
“You will obey the General’s orders,” he said, his voice an alien growl which Corfe could scarcely recognise.
“That’s enough, Andruw. Step back.”
Andruw looked at him. There were tears flaming in his eyes. “Yes sir,” he said, and retreated into the shadows.
Another murmuring from the surrounding men. The night air crackled with suppressed violence. The firelight revealed a wall of faces which had gathered around despite Corfe’s orders. Naked steel gleamed out of the dark. Corfe met Formio’s eyes, and held the Fimbrian’s gaze for a few seconds. Formio nodded fractionally and walked away into the trees.
“On your feet, Felipio.”
The squat Merduk rose unsteadily, his face a swollen, scarlet mess through which bone gleamed. One eye was already closed.
“How far north did your regiment go—clear up to the gap?”
Felipio nodded drunkenly.
“Are there any other Merduk forces up there? Is it true your people are building forts?”
Felipio did not answer. He seemed half conscious. Corfe watched him for a moment, then moved down the line of prisoners to the next fair-skinned one.
“Your name.” This one was little more than a boy. He had pissed in his pants and his face was streaked with tears and snot. Not too young to rape, though. Corfe seized him by the hair and drew him upright.
“Name.”
“Don’t kill me, please don’t kill me. They made me do it. They took me off the farm. I have a wife at home —” He started sobbing. Corfe reined in an urge to strike him, to let loose his own fury and hatred and beat his stupid young face into a bloody morass of flesh and broken bone. He lowered his voice and whispered in the blubbering boy’s ear.
“Talk to me, or I will hand you over to
“There are other regiments up north,” the boy bleated. “Four or five of them. They are building a big camp, walls and ditches. Another big army is coming north… they are going to—to the monkish place by the shores of the sea. That’s all I know, I swear it!”
Corfe released him and he sagged, hiccuping and crying. So the Merduks were going to launch an expedition against Charibon, and they were fortifying the gap. Something worth knowing, at last. He turned away, deep in thought. As he did a large group of men advanced out of the shadows, the wall of faces dissolving into a crowd which surged forward.
“We’ll take care of them from here, General.”
“Get back in ranks!” His bellow made them pause, but one stepped forward and shook his head. “General, we’d follow you to hell and back, but a man has his limits. Some of us have lost families and homes to these animals. You have to leave the scum to us.”
At once another knot of figures appeared, with Formio at their head. Sable-clad Fimbrians with their swords drawn. Cimbric tribesmen in their scarlet armour. They positioned themselves with swift efficiency about Corfe and the Merduks as though they were a bodyguard. Formio and Marsch stood at Corfe’s shoulders.
“The General gave you an order,” Formio said evenly. “Your job is to obey. You are soldiers, not a mob of civilians.”
The two bands of armed men faced each other squarely for several moments. Corfe could not speak. If they began to fight one another he knew that the army was doomed, irrevocably split between Fimbrian and Torunnan and tribesman. His authority over them hung by a straw.
“All right, lads,” Andruw said breezily, materialising like a ghost from the surrounding trees. “That’s enough. If we start into them, then we’re no better than they are. They’re criminals, no more. And besides, are you willing to see the day when a Torunnan officer is obeyed by Fimbrians and mountain savages and not by his own countrymen? Where’s your pride? Varian—I know you—I saw you on the battlements at the dyke. You did your duty then. Do it now. Do as the General says, lads. Back to your bivouacs.”
