‘Don’t let that worry you, boys,’ Amber yelled cheerfully. ‘Stick those priests full of arrows and the Aspects’ll be gone like piss in a river.’ He just hoped he was right about that.
He turned to leave for his own assigned command, fifty yards further on, where a beastmaster was standing holding Lord Styrax’s hissing wyvern on a long rein. The blue-green beast was saddled and ready for battle. It sat up on its haunches and peered towards the enemy, half-unfurling its pale blue wings until the beastmaster gave the reins another hard jerk and pulled the head down to his shoulder.
‘Cover up that ugly mug, Sergeant, they’re coming,’ he called over his shoulder. Deebek’s laughter followed Amber as he pulled his scimitars from their sheaths and knocked the pommel of one against his own helm to ensure it was snug.
‘Wouldn’t want to frighten the bastards, eh, Major?’ the sergeant called, and he raised his sword above his head in acknowledgement.
As the sound of hooves came closer he picked up the pace to reach his position, making sure he slapped his gloved hand on the helm of every man he passed. Captain Hain gave him a quick salute and looked nervously back at the snarling monster.
‘Major,’ called a voice, and Amber spotted his commander, Colonel Uresh, riding towards him, with Army Messenger Karapin and a green-clad mage following close behind. ‘All done?’ The old soldier looked invigorated by the coming fight, his lined face showing an energy at odds with his age - he and Amber’s father were born in the same year. He might not be in the thick of battle himself, but still he wore heavy infantryman’s armour.
‘Aye, sir,’ Amber replied, saluting in turn. ‘Every officer’s got his orders, every man knows his place.’ He pointed towards the Farlan centre. ‘Looks like Lord Chalat’s leading the charge; we’ll need an extra regiment or two to stop him breaking the line.’
The colonel stood up in his stirrups to get a better view of the battlefield. ‘I’ll give the order. Anything more, I’ll be with the Reavers, waiting to signal our reserves. Good luck, Major,’
As soon as Amber returned the salute Uresh spurred his horse and was off again, leaving the two younger men behind pushing hard to keep up. The major took a quick look at the mist-covered fens, where Lord Styrax had stationed the rest of the Third Army - together with a pair of Adepts of the Hidden Tower, and six scryers who were most likely fainting with exhaustion as they continued to keep the presence of so many men hidden from the Farlan scryers. They had to be praying the Farlan hadn’t started to wonder about the mist, which hadn’t shifted at all. Luckily, the grim weather made it look much more natural. ‘Think our luck’s going to hold, Hain?’ he asked quietly.
The young captain grinned as he raised his long axe, the head painted with Lord Styrax’s fanged skull emblem.
‘Luck? You know we don’t need that! We’ll be building another monument to our lord’s glory before the day is out.’
Out of habit, Amber’s finger went to the ceramic plaque fixed to his breastplate. Every soldier in the army had one, no matter what regiment he belonged to. ‘Aye, there’ll be more skulls than Death himself knows what to do with,’ he said with a smile, while his mind conjured up the image of books on magical theory and theology piled on a desk in the Fearen House. For the first time he wondered whether there might be more to the monuments they had built in Kastan Styrax’s honour.
Karkarn’s horn, aren’t I glad to be Menin?
he thought with heartfelt sincerity. He turned to the beastmaster, who was still struggling to keep the wyvern under control. ‘Time for you to go; tell Lord Styrax he’s got a good half-hour before we’ll need him.’
The man saluted and yanked the reins hard, pulling the wyvern down far enough for it to let him scramble up into the saddle strapped to it. After a few eager hops the creature unfurled its wings and took off. Amber watched as the beastmaster directed an obscene gesture towards the advancing Farlan and then went to business.
‘Archers ready!’
‘Second group; attack!’ Suzerain Torl yelled to his bugler and wrenched his horse around to head away from the enemy. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Count Macove lead out the second wave of Brethren knights, but he couldn’t follow their progress until he’d gone another hundred yards and turned around, and by then the men had switched from bows to engage with lances. With the Brethren and Bloodsworn both in dark uniforms it was hard to tell how they were faring at that distance, but he could hear the brutal crash of weapons.
‘Bugler, tell the reserves to advance,’ he ordered.
The man sounded a flurry of notes, which were repeated back a few moments later. The division was arranged in three lines, bows at the ready, no more than a hundred yards from the fighting. Torl looked for the short figure of Suzerain Saroc, but he couldn’t pick out his friend amongst the crowd. The only man not in a Brethren uniform was Chaplain Wain, who was standing up in his stirrups and waving his moon-glaive like a berserker.
Under Torl’s commands his own division reordered itself and turned to face the enemy again, advancing to the right wing of the reserves with a clear gap between. They had the advantage of speed over the Bloodsworn and the minotaurs; as soon as they clashed, there’d be no avenue of escape and the Farlan men would likely be crushed.
On Torl’s extreme left, a division of Farlan light cavalry were doing their best to distract the minotaurs and break up the Menin line, but their arrows didn’t seem to be having much effect. The beasts had been making a terrible racket even before they took any casualties, and as Torl watched, they pulled further left, having seen their Menin counterparts creeping around behind the minotaurs, trying to out-flank them. The Menin light cavalry were holding back, cautious of a head-on charge they wouldn’t win. Although they’d really only drifted from one side of their lines to the other, looking for an opening, Torl knew he couldn’t afford to let them get around.
‘Call Macove back,’ he called, judging the benefits of his forward momentum to have finished now. As the bugler sounded the order, some of the soldiers began to peel away even before the order was repeated. ‘Come on,’ he said, gripping his reins, ‘you’re hating this, so just fucking charge us!’
‘Bastards aren’t listening, sir,’ Brother-Captain Sheln said from beside him. He wore an open helm which had only a leaf-shaped nose-guard to protect his face. For the first time that Torl could remember there was colour in Sheln’s cheek - obviously leaving his lance-head in a knight’s throat had a better effect on some than others.
‘They won’t,’ Torl predicted. ‘Looks like everything we’ve heard about the Bloodsworn is true. Bugler, tell the reserves to advance and fire on the minotaurs - let’s see how much punishment they can take.’
‘Arrows!’ called a man, pointing ahead as dark streaks began to slam into Macove’s retreating division, courtesy of a group of crossbowmen who had appeared on the centre ground. There weren’t that many men, but the crossbows were powerful weapons and it wouldn’t take many volleys to leave the division disordered and vulnerable.
‘Division advance at the canter,’ Torl roared, ‘bows ready! Close the range and fire as you go!’
As he urged his horse forward, he saw the majority of the centre line had closed with the Menin line - a fine idea if one were leading the Ten Thousand, no doubt, but in this case it was a waste, using cavalry to fight on infantrymen’s ground.
We’re not going to break them on this flank. The minotaurs are their only weak point here and we can’t bring a sustained attack to bear. If you do have a plan, Chalat, now’s the time.
Amber swivelled and chopped down through the shaft, swinging up his shield as the Farlan passed him and smashing it into the man’s side, almost knocking him from the saddle. Hain jumped forward and hacked into the man’s back with his axe, the man screamed as his horse carried him on past, and the two Menin were on to the next enemy soldier.
The stretch of wall they’d been defending had collapsed under the weight of a falling horse and the Farlan were piling towards the gap. Although they couldn’t charge, they still had the advantage of height.
Amber chanced a step forward again and gasped as a spear missed his face by scant inches. The man who’d thrown it was already reaching for his mace when a crossbow bolt knocked him from the saddle, but a moment later he was replaced by another. They wore filthy robes over their mismatched armour and sported symbols of the Gods. Amber hadn’t heard the Farlan cults had been recruiting, but that’s what it looked like to him. Penitents of Karkarn were a common enough sight back home and he recognised the War God’s black dragon’s head symbol sewn over the man’s heart.
The penitent was unable to get his horse past the wall, so he leaned over in his saddle and struck down at the shield of a private standing next to Amber. The blow sent the man to his knees, but it gave Amber the opening he needed. More spears were thrown; the Farlan charge had been halted for the moment, held by the Menin line of infantry. Amber bellowed words of encouragement which were taken up by the sergeants along the line.
The Farlan were unable to use the weight of their horses in a charge, so they were getting picked off one by one. It wasn’t long before the recall was sounded.
‘Hold the line!’ Amber yelled at the top of his voice, but he needn’t have worried. The Cheme troops were content to watch the Farlan retreat; only a few crossbow bolts and the odd boo followed the retreating Farlan. Then Amber saw a flowing white figure twice the height of a man flicker suddenly and vanish: someone had taken out a priest. The Aspect’s disappearance was met with a renewed cheer. Judging by the bodies strewn on the ground and the horses milling around, the priests and their knights had put up quite a fight.
‘They’ll be back,’ Captain Hain commented, letting the axe handle slide through his hand until the butt hit the ground and he could rest his arm on the weapon, ‘but that could have gone worse!’
Amber nodded. ‘Took me by surprise, though. I was expecting something more than a straight charge.’
‘Maybe what we heard about Farlan cavalry is only rumour,’ Hain laughed. ‘Maybe they made it up themselves to make folk run away.’
Amber took a quick count of their losses; it didn’t take him long to confirm that the Farlan had been badly mauled. ‘Something’s wrong sure enough,’ he said. ‘They’re doing themselves no favours, fighting like this.’
‘We didn’t get the worst of it,’ Hain said, pointing east.
‘Aye, hope there’s something left of Larim’s coterie over there,’ Amber said. ‘Looked like they were having to deal with a whole lot of flames.’
Lord Chalat might have been deposed and turned mad with fanaticism, but his power was undiminished. The Chosen of Tsatach was well known for walking into battle wreathed in flame and directing great torrents of fire towards the enemy. They couldn’t match him for raw power, so three members of Larim’s new coterie had been ordered to do nothing but deflect his attacks throughout the battle, blunting his efforts to break the line.
Amber breathed deeply. The air felt cold in his lungs, as though evening was drawing in, but he knew it was no later than midday. Assuming there were no breaks in the line, they’d be defending for another hour, he guessed. The Menin didn’t have enough cavalry to counter-charge, and they needed to wait for the right moment before committing their reserves.
The minotaurs and Bloodsworn had loaded the right flank specifically to encourage the Farlan to attack the left. The main bulk of reserves were infantry, so they needed the Farlan close. If Lord Chalat broke through the centre, they would have to deploy the reserves and hope their cavalry would be enough to screen five legions of infantry from the waiting Farlan behind.
‘Come on, you bastards,’ he whispered, ‘take the bait.’
‘They’re redeploying, my Lord,’ General Lahk said, standing up in his stirrups. ‘Going to turn to the right flank.’
Isak looked back at the ongoing battle. His stomach was a tight ball of fear and nerves, and he knew he was clinging to the false hope that the departure of the wyvern meant Lord Styrax was absent. No plan, however brilliant, survived contact with the enemy, after all. The whole reason Isak had raced to the Circle City was to catch his enemies unaware - to act contrary to expectation.
‘How can you tell?’ Isak asked after a few moments. ‘You can’t hear the orders from here.’
‘Look over there, to the extreme right,’ Vesna advised. He pointed past the copse of ash trees that was the only cover bigger than a house anywhere on the whole Menin line. ‘The cavalry units there; they’re not penitents, they’re the Siul legions.’
‘And they’re engaging directly,’ Isak said, thinking aloud, ‘not trying to draw out pursuit.’
‘They would only do that if ordered,’ Lahk said, ‘which means Chalat wants to suck in some of the infantry units on that flank before he charges.’
Isak couldn’t help looking back at Byora; the Ruby Tower was easy to pick out at this distance. He had seen enough battles now to know that nothing would happen immediately - no matter how well trained the men, it takes time to react when the smallest unit involved is a division of five hundred.
‘Are you there, shadow?’ he whispered to himself. ‘Staring out of Ilumene’s eyes - or that little boy, maybe? Are you afraid yet? You thought you were safe here, and now you realise it’s luck, not artifice, that will keep you alive.’
‘Starting to move, my Lord,’ Lahk commented. ‘If the enemy has a trick up his sleeve, he’ll use it now.’
Isak turned back. ‘Torl’s going to be damn lonely on that left flank, isn’t he? He’s got to hold, or they’ll get rolled up by the minotaurs and Bloodsworn.’
‘Don’t worry about Torl, my Lord,’ Vesna said. ‘They won’t get around him, and they’ll have a hard time catching him. Remember, he usually rides with the light cavalry. He knows their tactics better than any Farlan alive.’