Century of the Soldier: The Collected Monarchies of God (Volume Two) (30 page)

"Ah, so we are all here. At last," the King said as Corfe came in. Lofantyr looked as though he had not slept in a week. There were grey hollows under his eyes and new lines of strain about his mouth. "Very well, Fournier, proceed." The King sat himself down in a canvas camp chair. Everyone else had to stand.

Fournier, rather ridiculous in antique half-armour that had not a scratch on it, cleared his throat and toyed unceasingly with a wooden pointer.

"Our scouts have just returned, sire, and they report that the enemy is in three camps. The largest is some four leagues to the north-west. They estimate there are some eighty to ninety thousand men within it. It is not fortified, and they have horse herds picketed around its perimeter and patrols of light cavalry as well as the regular sentries." Fournier cleared his throat again. "The second camp is a league to the east of the first. The scouts estimate that it holds some fifty thousand, including
Ferinai
heavy cavalry and many arquebusiers. It is fortified with a ditch and palisade. The third is farther yet to the north, perhaps another league from the first two. Within it are the elephants, many more cavalry and the main baggage train. It is believed that the Sultan himself is in this third camp, and his - his harem. Another forty or fifty thousand."

"Why does he split up his army so?" someone muttered.

"Flexibility," Corfe said. "If one camp is attacked, the attacker will find columns from the other two on his flanks."

Menin frowned at Corfe. "The general idea was that we would attack their main camp and remain immune to assaults from the other two. But we had not bargained for the camps being so close together. Suddenly this campaign looks a lot riskier than it did."

"You can still do it, if the assault is swift and powerful enough. To rouse the men of a large encampment, get them into battle-line and then march them a league will take at least two to three hours. In that time, given a little luck, we could cripple the
Minhraib
contingent of the Merduk army - the bulk of its troops. We would then be in a position to deal with the other two armies as they came up, or we could withdraw. In any case, it would be wise to detach strong formations to the flanks, in case we're still heavily engaged when the Merduk reinforcements come up."

"Yes. Yes, of course," Menin said. "My thought exactly..." He trailed off, appearing old and apprehensive.

"Ninety thousand men in that first camp," someone said dubiously. "That's three times our strength. Who says they'll be an easy target?"

"Their camp is unfortified," Corfe pointed out. "They'll be keeping warm in their tents. Plus, they are nothing more than the peasant levy of Ostrabar, conscripts without firearms. So long as we retain the element of surprise, they should not prove too much trouble."

"I am relieved to hear it," the King said. He looked with obvious dislike at his youngest general. "You seem to have an answer for everything, General Cear-Inaf. I see we no longer have need of strategy conferences. All we need do is consult you."

A series of titters throughout the tent. Corfe was impassive. He merely bowed to his monarch. "My apologies, sire, if I overstep my station. I worry only about the good of the army."

"Of course." The King stood up. "Gentlemen, regard this plan here. Fournier, will you oblige us, please?"

The count unrolled a page of parchment with a pattern of diagrams drawn upon it. They gathered closer to look.

"This is how the army will go into battle. General Menin, kindly explain."

"Yes, sire. Gentlemen, we shall be in four distinct commands. In the centre will be the main body, eighteen thousand men under His Majesty, myself and Colonel Rusio. Within this formation will be the field artillery - thirty guns under you, Rusio - and the cuirassiers - three thousand horsemen. His Majesty will lead the heavy horse personally.

"On the right flank of the main body will be a smaller formation, a flank guard to deal with the possibility of a Merduk assault from that quarter. This will be under Colonel Aras, and will number some five thousand, primarily arquebusiers. To the rear will be General Cear-Inaf's command, eight thousand men. These constitute our only reserve, and will also have the task of guarding the baggage train. Am I clear, gentlemen?"

"What about the left flank?" Corfe asked. "It's up in the air."

"We do not feel that the left flank is particularly threatened," the King told him. "The only threat from that quarter is from the baggage and headquarters camp of the enemy. We feel that the Merduk Sultan will not detach troops which are guarding his person until he knows exactly what the situation is. By that time we will have withdrawn. No, the only real threat is on the right, from the camp of the
Hraibadar
and the
Ferinai
. Aras, you have the position of honour. Hold it well."

"I will indeed, sire, to the last man, if needs be."

Corfe opened his mouth to protest, and then thought better of it. There was a possibility that the King was right, but he did not like it. Nor did he think it wise to have the heavy cavalry in the centre, where their mobility would be reduced and they would face the prospect of a charge into a tented camp: no job for horsemen. It would do no good to point it out, though.

"We move out in the morning," the King went on. "Two days' march will bring us to the environs of the enemy. We will go into battle-line somewhere out of view from their camp, and sweep down on them in one grand charge at dawn. As General Cear-Inaf has said, numbers will be less important in the confusion. We have an impenetrable screen of cavalry about us, so the enemy should remain unaware of our intentions until it is too late. We hit them hard, and then withdraw. Admiral Berza's fleet will be attacking their coastal bases at around about the same time. After this double-pronged attack, the Sultan will have to retreat to the Searil, and Ormann Dyke is almost indefensible if one is attacking from the south. We will have delivered Northern Torunna from the enemy. Gentlemen, are there any questions?"

"This battle will go down in history, sire!" Aras exclaimed. "We are lucky to have the chance to participate in it."

The King inclined his head graciously. Even Menin looked a little impatient at Aras's toadying.

"You are dismissed, gentlemen," the King said. We will meet again the night before the battle commences to finalize things. Until then, fare you well."

The assembled officers exited, bowing. General Menin caught Corfe outside the tent flap and grasped his arm. In a low voice he said, "A word with you, if you please, General."

They strolled through the camp together. Menin's face was a study in night-dark and firelight. He seemed deeply troubled.

"This is not to be bruited about," he said in a subdued tone. "But if I do not live through the battle, I wish you to take command of the army and lead the withdrawal."

Corfe froze in his tracks. "Are you serious?"

The older man produced a sealed scroll. "Here it is in writing. The King will object, of course, but there will be little time for objections. His first choice after me for the command is Aras, and he has already been promoted beyond his abilities. This army must survive, whatever happens. Get these men back to Torunn, Corfe."

Corfe took the scroll. "You pick an odd time to finally show confidence in me," he said, not without bitterness.

"The time for politics is past. The country needs a soldier to lead it now."

"You will survive, Menin. This is unnecessary."

"No, General. My death lies there to the north. I know I shall not be coming back. But you make sure that this army does!" He gripped Corfe's forearm with bruising force. His face was stark and livid. There was fear on it, but not for himself, Corfe was certain.

"I'll do what I can, if it should prove necessary," Corfe said haltingly.

"Thank you. And Corfe, your men may be in the rear, but they will have the hardest job in the days ahead, make no mistake about it." And he walked away without further ceremony.

"H
ERE,
" A
NDRUW SAID,
offering him the wineskin. "You look as though you could use a snort. What did they do, overwhelm you with their strategic brilliance?"

Corfe squeezed a stream of acrid army wine into his mouth. "Lord, Andruw, I needed that."

Seated about the campfire were most of his senior officers.

He had asked them to await his return from the conference. They looked at him expectantly. In addition to Andruw, Marsch was there, and Morin beside him. Formio stood warming his hands at the flames next to Ranafast, and Ebro had paused in the process of whittling a stick to stare at his commanding officer. In the shadows beyond were many others. Corfe thought he saw Joshelin, the Fimbrian veteran, and Cerne, his trumpeter. His very heart warmed at the sight of them, doing away with some of the chill generated by Menin's words. With the loyalty of men such as these, he felt he could accomplish almost anything.

"We pitch into them in two days, lads," he said at last. "Ebro, give me your stick. Gather round, everyone. Here's how we're going to do it."

Twenty-One

D
AWN OVER
N
ORTHERN
Torunna. In the Merduk camps the sentries were being changed and men were stirring the embers of their campfires in preparation for breakfast. Along the horse-lines, thousands of animals were champing on hay and oats and generating a steam of damp warmth into the frigid air. Supply waggons came and went in sluggish convoys. Over the tented cities of the Merduks a haze of smoke and vapour rose skywards, visible for many miles despite the low cloud. The conical tents sprawled for hundreds of acres, and streets had been laid down between their rows, fashioned of corduroyed logs. Women and children were visible, and there were market places and bazaars in the midst of the encampments where the canny traders that followed the armies had set up their stalls. The three vast winter camps of the Merduks were as peaceful looking as military settlements could possibly be. It was commonly known that the cowardly Torunnans were lurking behind the walls of their capital, preparing for the inevitable siege. There were no enemy formations for leagues around, apart from a few isolated bodies of cavalry. In a week or two the tent cities would be broken up and the armies would be on the move again, but for now the soldiers of the Sultan were more preoccupied with the problems of keeping warm and dry and well fed in the barbarous Torunnan winter.

Shahr Indun Johor, senior khedive of the Sultan's forces, had his headquarters tent in the midst of the encampments of the
Hraibadar
and the
Ferinai
, the elite of the army. Rank had its privileges, and he was dozing with his head between the breasts of his favourite concubine when his subadar, or head staff officer, poked his head around the heavy curtains of the tent.

"Shahr Johor." And again when there was no answer: "Shahr Johor!"

He stirred, a young, lean man, dark and quick as an otter. "What? What is it, Buraz?"

"It may be nothing, my Khedive. Some of the perimeter guards report gunfire coming from the west."

"I'll be a moment. See my horse is saddled." Shahr Johor threw aside his grumbling concubine and hauled on his breeches and tunic. He wrapped a sash about his middle, thrust a poniard in the folds and pulled on his heavy knee-high riding boots. Then he kissed his scented bed partner. "Later, my dove," he murmured, and strode out of the tent into the raw half-light of dawn.

Buraz awaited him with two saddled horses, their breaths steaming in the cold. The two officers mounted and cantered off to the perimeter of the vast camp, scattering soldiers and camp followers as they clattered along the timbered road. He sat in the saddle, breathing hard, staring at the empty horizon. It was still so gloomy that he could see the glare of the
Minhraib'
s campfires against the cloudy sky, three miles away. Thin flakes of snow had begun to fall, and there was more in the lowering nimbus overhead.

"I hear nothing. Who reported this?"

A
Hraibadar
sergeant stepped forward, a veteran with a hard, seamed face and black eyes. "I did, my Khedive. It comes and goes. If you wait, you have my word, you will hear it."

They sat still, listening, whilst behind them the great camp and its tens of thousands of occupants came to life in the growing light. And at last Shahr Johor caught it. A distant, intermittent thunder rolling in from the west, the fainter crackle of what might have been volley fire.

"Artillery," Buraz said.

"Yes. And massed arquebusiers. There is a battle going on out there, Buraz."

"It may be only a raid, a skirmish."

They both listened again. The
Hraibadar
sergeant angrily called for silence and around the two officers hundreds of men stopped what they were doing and paused, listening also.

The faraway thunder intensified. Everyone could hear it now. It seemed to echo off the face of the very hills.

"That is no skirmish," Shahr Johor said. "It is a full-scale engagement, Buraz. The Unbelievers have attacked the
Minhraib
camp."

"Would they dare?" his subordinate asked incredulously.

"It would seem so. Get me a trumpeter. Sound the alarm. I want the army ready to move immediately. And send a courier off to the Sultan in the northern camp. We will chastise these infidels for their impertinence. I shall come down on their flank with the
Ferinai
. You follow with the infantry. Make haste, Buraz!"