Corvus (9 page)

Rictus had seen
large armies before. There had been over thirty thousand in the forces of
Arkamenes, the Kufr pretender to the Great King’s throne, and Ashurnan had
brought several times that to the field at Kunaksa. This was the camp of many
thousands, but it was not the army he had heard of in the stories - it was too
small.

“How many men do
you have here?” he asked Corvus bluntly.

“Enough for the
task in hand. I have had to leave several garrisons behind me.” Corvus cocked
his head to one side in that bird-like gesture of his.

“The army you see
here numbers somewhat under fourteen thousand.”

“Phobos!” Fornyx
exclaimed again, but Rictus was not so easily impressed.

“You had best hope
then that Karnos does not marshal all the forces of the Avennan League against
you.”

“Numbers are not
everything,” Corvus said. “You of all men should know that, Rictus.”

They walked down
the descending slopes of the hills to the camp itself. There were mounted
pickets out in twos and threes, unarmoured men bearing javelins, perched upon
the tough hill-ponies of the eastern mountains. Closer to the mass of hide
tents, spear-carrying infantry stood sentry. The Macht’ cities emblazoned the
shields of their warriors with the sigils that denoted their city’s name, but
Corvus’s soldiers all had the symbol of a black bird painted on theirs, their
only concession to uniformity.

The nearest of
them raised their spears and shouted Corvus’s name as he was recognised, and it
seemed to send a stir throughout the camp, as wind will usher a wave across a
field of ripe corn. The hooded boy walking beside Rictus threw back the folds
of his highlander chlamys and raised a hand as he entered the encampment of his
army, to be met by a hoarse formless shout from the crowds of men who saw him
arrive.

“They love the
little bugger,” Fornyx said, marvelling.

A tented city,
with neat streets, the roadways within corduroyed with logs where the ground
was soft. Latrines had been dug at every crossroads, deep slit trenches with
men squatting over them. Fresh ones were being dug even as Rictus watched.
There was discipline here, a level beyond that of the usual citizen-army.

An open space
before the largest tent they had yet seen. A line of tall wooden posts with
outspanning arms had been embedded in the earth along one side, like a series
of gibbets.

“What’s this?”
Fornyx asked.

“The execution
ground,” Corvus told him. “And here is my tent. Rictus, I would be happy to
make you my guest.”

“Where are my men?”
Rictus demanded. “I wish to see them.”

Corvus nodded to
Druze, who sped off. It had begun to rain, a cold drizzle clouding down from
the mountains. “Come inside. They’ll be here presently.”

The tent was tall,
a draped house of hides upon which the rain had begun to drum more insistently,
with one entire wall lifted up on poles. There were braziers within, bright and
hot with charcoal, a broad table covered with maps, a simple cot, and an armour
stand hung with weapons and a black cuirass. Two sentries stood stolid as
marble by the wide entrance, ignoring the rain running down their faces.

“This is home for
me,” Corvus said, discarding his sodden chlamys and spreading his fingers out
to the heat of a brazier. A pair of boys, not more than fifteen, took the cloak
and brought wine to the table in a jug of actual glass.

“After I took
Idrios, I had it made - it took the hides of eighty cattle. In the past two
years I have not slept under a proper roof more than a half-dozen times.” He
raised his head, smiling. “I like to hear the rain beat upon it.”

He seemed to snap
himself out of a reverie. “Drink - it’s not Minerian, but almost as good. I eat
at dusk. You’ll meet the other commanders of the army then. We have much to
discuss.”

Rictus drank,
admiring the glass jug, discreetly studying the maps upon the table. For the
most part they showed the eastern Harukush: its rivers, its roads, its cities
and towns. But there was one that portrayed the lay of the land all the way up
to Machran and its broad hinterland, the ring of cities about it that were all
members of the loose confederation known as the Avennan League, named for the
city of Avennos in which it had been formed, over twenty years ago.

This boy standing
at the brazier had in two years conquered his way across some eight hundred
pasangs of the Harukush, and by these maps he now controlled at least a dozen
major cities, as well as all the countless towns and villages in between.

Where in the world
had he come from?

“I might have
known I’d find you pair with cups in your hands,” a voice said. It was Kesero,
grinning so wide as to show every thread of silver ringing his teeth. And
beside him Valerian, the ruined beauty of his lop-sided face alight with
something akin to relief.

“Rictus - how went
it at the farm - is everyone - is Rian -”

“My family is
well,” Rictus said formally, unsmiling. “Report, centurions. How are my men?”

They stiffened,
raindrops streaking their faces. Fornyx stood silent beside Rictus. The two
older men were both in their black armour with the scarlet chitons and cloaks
of their calling. The rest of their gear had been carried for them by Druze’s
men, but they bore their swords, and looked every inch the hard-boiled
mercenary centurions. Valerian and Kesero, by contrast, were clad in grey
civilian chitons which had not been washed any time recently.

“The Dogsheads are
bivouacked half a pasang from here, on the south side of the camp,” Valerian
said. “All are present with their arms on hand, awaiting your orders.”

“We voted on it,”
Kesero said, his shaven head gleaming with rain. “They’re sticking with you,
Rictus. They’ve signed no contract, and will sign none without your say.”

Rictus looked at
Corvus. “I think we may be out of the territory of contracts. The game has
changed.”

“Something else to
talk about,” Corvus said. “But later.” Druze and a pair of aides had entered
the tent in the wake of Valerian and Kesero, and stood patiently. The Igranian
was as lit up with curiosity as a kitten watching a ball of yarn.

“I must go. Stay
here, Rictus, you and your officers. The pages will set up the place for the
evening meal in a little while - until then you can have the place to
yourselves.” His gaze travelled over the four mercenaries. He seemed to waver
for a second, then shook his head, and with a slice of his hand beckoned Druze
and the aides out into the rain with him.

“The conquering
hero leaves us,” Fornyx said drily. “Grab yourself some of this wine, brothers
-the boy keeps only the best on hand, it seems.”

But Valerian and
Kesero stood immobile, fixed in place by Rictus’s glare.

“Tell me what
happened,” he said, in a voice as cold as the rain.

“We were in a
wine-shop in Grescir when they took us,” Valerian said. “Three parts drunk.”

“It was just a
little shithole on the way to Hal Goshen,” Kesero put in. “We halted on the
march to let the men fill their skins. They must have been watching the road.
That black-eyed bastard Druze surrounded the place with what looked like a
thousand men, then sent in word that they had you and Fornyx and were
negotiating a contract with you.”

“They gave us safe
passage if we would follow them to their camp,” Valerian said. “By the time we
had formed up they had a thousand more on the hills outside the town, and
cavalry too. What the fuck could we do, Rictus?”

“You could keep a
better watch,” Rictus said quietly.

“This fellow
Corvus knows all about you,” Kesero rumbled. “Your history, your family, the
farmhouse. He must have had spies on every road from Idrios to Machran watching
out for the Dogsheads these last few months.”

“What about the
men - how are they provisioned ?”

“They’re being fed
by Corvus’s quartermasters. They’ve even been issued tents and a place in the
baggage train.” Valerian shook his head. “It’s all been organised, like it was
set up for us weeks ago.”

“I believe it was,”
Rictus said. “Corvus does not like to leave things to chance. I know that much
now.”

“So what’s the
play?” Kesero asked. “You want to try something, or are we to bow our necks to
this boy and let him fuck us up the arse?”

Rictus looked at
the maps on the table. Everything is deliberate, he realised. He left these
here to let me see what he has done, what he has achieved and what he means to
do.

What would this
phenomenon be like in battle, with his strange ideas, his men on horses? Once
again, the curiosity of it welled up in him.

“How stupid would
it be, to let pride get in the way,” he murmured, touching the map table,
seeing the whole of the Macht countries laid out there before him like some
picture of history already drawn. He thought of the petty, brutal campaign of
the summer and the winter before it. The crass incompetence of the men who had
hired him. And before that, the countless little quarrels he had fought in over
the last twenty years, purposeless warfare, squalid little battles with nothing
to show for them but the dead and the maimed and the enslaved.

How boring it had
all been.

And he remembered
Kunaksa, the terrible glory of those days on the Goat’s Hills, fighting for the
fate of an empire. Creating a legend.

“We could do worse
things,” he said, musing aloud. He regarded his two junior centurions with one
eyebrow lifted. “You look like shit. How long have you been here?”

“Five days,”
Valerian said with a nervous grin. “We’ve been keeping ourselves to ourselves.”

“Clean yourselves
up - I want you in scarlet by the time we sit down with this fellow’s officers.
We’re not going to look like some vagrant bandits in front of him.”

“The same goes for
the men,” Fornyx added sternly, but there was a light in his eye. “We’re
professionals - this fellow Corvus, he’s just a gifted amateur.”

The officers of
the amateur’s army
trooped in later that evening, as the campfires of the host began to brighten
in the blue rain-shimmered dusk. Trestle tables had been set up, with narrow
benches lining the sides.

A group of
beardless boys waited on the diners. They were not slaves, and in fact held
themselves with a peculiar nonchalance. They watched Rictus and his centurions
with open curiosity.

The others were
more guarded. These were mostly young men, Valerian’s age. Corvus introduced
them as the food was placed up and down the table without ceremony. Plain army
fare: black bread, salted goat meat, yellow cheese and oil and vinegar to help
it down. The wine was local; Rictus had drunk it a thousand times before.
Apparently the best vintages were saved for special guests and occasions.

Druze was there,
as chieftain of the Igranians, and a broad shouldered strawhead named Teresian
was named as general of Corvus’s own spears. Looking at his face, Rictus saw
himself twenty years before, raw-boned, grey-eyed and withdrawn.

An older man,
perhaps in his thirties, was named as Demetrius. He had one eye, the other a
socket of whorled scar tissue - he was general of the conscript spears, the
levies which Corvus had brought east from each of the twelve cities he had
conquered. Rictus wondered how these men - there were some six thousand of
them, by all accounts - felt fighting far from home for a man who had destroyed
their independence. They were likely here as hostages for their cities’ good
behaviour as much as anything else.

But the real shock
was the leader of Corvus’s own Companion Cavalry. This fellow’s name was
Ardashir, and he was a head taller than anyone else in the room, with violent
green eyes and skin a pale gold. His face was so long as to be almost equine,
and he had dragged his long black hair into a topknot.

Ardashir was not
Macht. He was Kufr.

It had been a long
time since Rictus had laid eyes on a Kufr. From his own experience he knew that
the other peoples of the world came in many shapes and sizes. He had
encountered most of them in his travels, and while the Macht might lump them
all under the same derogatory label, he knew better.

There were many
castes in the Empire, but the highest were formed by those who came from the
heartland of Asuria, who spoke the language of the Great King’s court, provided
his bodyguards and administrators. By his appearance Ardashir was one of these,
a high-caste Kefren of the Imperial nobility. And he sat here at a Macht table,
commanding troops in a Macht army.

Rictus found the
tall Kefren studying him almost as intently as he was being studied. Ardashir
smiled. “It is not often one finds oneself breaking bread with a legend. Rictus
of Isca, I have heard your name in stories all my life, as have we all here. It
lifts my heart to think that we shall be fighting shoulder to shoulder from
this day on.” His voice was deep, melodious, his Machtic almost perfect.

“Come, drink with
me.”

Rictus found his
throat seizing up on him. The Kefren’s face had jolted his memories. He
remembered faces like that raging down at him in a line thousands strong,
crashing in close enough that their spittle sprayed his face, their blood
soaked his skin. He had trampled faces like that into the muck and mire of
Kunaksa. He had not believed the memories could be brought back so bright and
vivid while he sat eyes open and wide awake, and had to fight a momentary,
overwhelming urge to spring to his feet. He bowed his head and choked down a
cup of yellow wine.

The whole table
was watching him; Rictus, leader of the Ten Thousand, thrown into panic by the
sight of a single Kufr. He beat it down, grinding his teeth on the wine. When
he raised his head again his face was as blank as a flint.