Hawkwood's Voyage

The aide started in the saddle. The old man’s eyes had seemed so vacant, so far away, that he had thought his general was in some sort of tired daze.

“Yes, Khedive. The materials are already on the road. Once the army is in position about the dyke, the work will go on apace. We have rounded up some thirty thousand head of labour from the countryside. The new road will, the engineer tells me, be finished in sixteen days. And it will bear the elephant waggons.”

“Excellent,” Shahr Baraz said, and stroked the silver-white moustache that fell past his chin in two tusk-like lengths. His black eyes glittered between their almond-shaped lids.

“Read me again that dispatch from Jaffan at the dyke.”

The aide fumbled in a saddlebag and produced a piece of parchment. He squinted at it intently for a moment, making the old man’s eyes narrow with humour. Officers had to learn to read and write before being seconded to his staff. For many it was an arcane chore that did not come naturally.

“He says,” the aide reported haltingly, “that . . . that the refugees are all across the river and encamped about the fortress, but the—the bridges have not yet been cut. Ramusian forces are making sorties east of the river, harrying his troops. He wants more men.” Finished, the aide blinked rapidly, relief on his face.

“He will have sixscore thousand of them in his lap soon enough,” Shahr Baraz said casually, his eyes still fixed on the unending files of men and horses and waggons that were moving west. “I want another dispatch sent to Jaffan,” he went on, ignoring the sudden rustle of paper and scratch of quill. “The usual greetings, et cetera.

“Your orders are changed. You are to cease the harrying of Ramusian forces east of the river and concentrate on reconnaissance of the enemy position. You will send squadrons to north and south of the dyke looking for fords or possible bridging points. The eastern bank will be reconnoitered for at least ten leagues on either side of the dyke. At the same time you will, using whatever means necessary, ascertain the strength of the fortress garrison and find out how many men have been detached for service further west. You will also confirm or deny the constant rumour I have been hearing that the head of the Ramusian Church did not die in Aekir but is alive and well in Ormann Dyke.

“May the Prophet Ahrimuz watch over you in your endeavours and the enlightenment of the true faith constantly illuminate your path. I and my forces will relieve you within a week. Shahr Baraz, High Khedive of the Armies of the Sultanate of Ostrabar. Et cetera . . . Did you get that, Ormun?”

The aide was scribbling frantically, using his broad pommel as a writing desk.

“Yes, Khedive.”

“Good. Get it off to the dyke at once.”

Ormun galloped away as soon as Shahr Baraz had inscribed his flowing signature on the parchment with elaborate flourishes of the quill.

“An enthusiastic young man,” he noted to Mughal, one of his senior officers.

The other man nodded, the horsehair plume atop his helm bobbing as he did. “You are a legend of sorts to them, the young men.”

“Surely not.”

“But yes, old friend. They call you ‘the terrible old man,’ even at court.”

Shahr Baraz allowed himself one of his rare grins. “Am I so terrible?”

“Only to your enemies.”

“I have seen eighty-three winters upon the face of the world, Mughal. This will be my last campaign. If I am spared, I will make a pilgrimage to the land of my fathers and see the open steppes of Kambaksk one last time ere I die.”

“The Khedive of Ostrabar, mightiest warleader the east has ever seen, in a felt hut eating yoghurt. Those days are done, Ibim Baraz.” Mughal used the general’s personal name as he was entitled to, being a close friend.

“Yes, they are done. And the old Hraib, the warrior’s code of conduct, is gone too. Who out of this current generation remembers it? A different code rules our lives: the code of expediency. I believe that if I conclude this campaign successfully and do not step down, I may be forced to.”

“Who by? Who would do—?”

“Our Sultan, of course, may the Prophet watch over him. He thinks me too soft on the Ramusians.”

“He should have been at Aekir,” Mughal said grimly.

“Yes, but he thinks I let the refugees escape out of chivalry, some outmoded sense of the Hraib’s rules of conduct. Which I did. But there were sound tactical reasons also.”

“I know that. Any soldier with sense can see it,” Mughal said.

“Yes, but he is not a true soldier—he never has been, at heart. He is a ruler, a far more subtle thing. And he resents my popularity with the army. It might be best for me were I to quietly disappear once Ormann Dyke falls. I have no wish to taste poison in my bread, or be knifed in my sleep.”

Mughal shook his head wonderingly. “The world is a strange place, Khedive.”

“Only as strange as the hearts of men make it,” Shahr Baraz retorted. “I am constantly harried by orders from Orkhan. I must advance, advance, advance. I am allowed no time to consolidate. I must assault the dyke at once. I do not like being hurried, Mughal.”

“The Sultan is impatient. Since you gave him Aekir he thinks you can work miracles.”

“Perhaps, but I do not appreciate meddling. I am to launch an assault on the dyke as soon as sufficient troops have come up. I am not allowed to probe the Torunnan flanks because of the time it will waste. I am to throw my men at this fortress as though they were the waves of the sea assaulting a rock.”

Mughal frowned. “Do you have doubts about this campaign, Khedive?”

“I am not my own man since Aekir, my friend. Aurungzeb, may the sun shine on him, has appointed commissioners to oversee my movements. And to make sure I take my Sultan’s tactical advice. If I do not attack and take the dyke speedily enough to suit them I have a feeling there will be another general commanding this army.”

“I cannot believe that.”

“That is because you—and I—are not creatures of the court, Mughal. I have taken Aekir, accomplished the impossible. Everything that follows is easy. So thinks Aurungzeb.”

“But not you.”

“Not I. I believe this dyke may give us more trouble even than Aekir, but my opinion does not count for much in Orkhan these days. The would-be generals are already lining up at court to fill my shoes.”

“The dyke will fall,” Mughal said, “and in no time. It cannot resist this army—nothing can. Their John Mogen is dead, and they have no general alive of his calibre, not even this Martellus.”

“I hope you are right. Perhaps I am getting too old; perhaps Aurungzeb is right. I see things with an old man’s caution, not the optimism of youth.”

“Ask the troops if they would prefer the optimism or the caution. They pay for our mistakes with their blood. Sometimes even sultans forget that.”

“Hush, my friend, it is not good to say such things where there are ears to hear. Come, let us ride to the camp. My tents have been set up and there is good wine waiting. A glass or two may sweeten our outlook.”

The banner-bright knot of officers and mounted bodyguards took off towards the west, scattering clods of mud from the hooves of their horses. And all the while, the Merduk host continued its march upon the face of the land like a huge, integral beast crawling infinitesimally across the earth, as unstoppable as the approach of night.

H ERIA was in his dreams again, and her screams brought him bolt upright in the narrow bunk, as they always did. Corfe pressed his hands against his eyes until the lights spangled in the darkness there and the vision was gone. She was dead. She was beyond that. It was not happening.

He looked up at the narrow windows high above his head. A faint light was turning the black sky into velvet blue. It would be dawn soon. No point in lying back and trying to burrow down into sleep again. Another day had begun.

He pulled on his boots, yawning. Around him other sleepers snored and tossed and grumbled on their rickety beds. He was in one of the great warehouses which surrounded the citadel in the southern end of Ormann Dyke, but many of the warehouses, built to house the provisions of the garrison, were empty and had been turned