Paul Kearney - Kings of Morning

‘It was we who faced the hopeless odds at Gaugamesh,’ Rictus retorted. ‘It is we who prevailed against them. Do not forget the men who died to bring you here.’

‘I never forget them,’ Corvus said simply. ‘Any of them. I mourn them as you do, Rictus. But I will not give up on life because they are gone. A whole world awaits us — we have but to begin walking and it will open under our feet. To realise that — it is what it means to live.’

He turned, still unsteady, but sombre now.

‘Would you be happy in the Harukush now, brother, in that little upland farm? Even before I knew you, you never really lived there — it was just somewhere to rest between campaigns. For men such as you and me, there is only the next turn in the road to look forward to.’

He looked back and smiled, boyish again. ‘Stay here a while, and see how it suits you. Within the month, I shall be taking the army east once more, across the Magron Mountains and into Asuria itself. Follow me if you like. I shall leave the princess Roshana in your care; I don’t think the girl cares much for armies.’

He lifted the wine jar in a final toast as he left, and raised his voice to a shout.

‘I will see you in Ashur, Rictus. I shall make kings out of us all ere the end!’

It was just past midsummer when the Macht army left Carchanis for what most assumed would be the final stage of the expedition.

By that time, eight thousand replacements had arrived from the west, large-eyed boys in their fathers’ armour who had been on the road from Sinon for the better part of two months. To begin with, they were folded into Demetrius’s command, whilst he transferred several morai of his conscripts — veterans now — to Teresian. Thus was the Macht spearline brought back up to strength.

There were other changes also. Marcan, son of Proxanon, the Juthan king, now led five thousand of his own people as an integral part of the army, and the Juthan prince was named a marshal, part of the regular high command. The move caused surprisingly little upset within the ranks of the Macht, though the Juthan camped separately from the rest of the infantry and there was as yet little mixing between the two races.

King Proxanon led the rest of his army back the way they had come, having signed a formal treaty of alliance with the Macht. He had finally secured his kingdom, which had been at war with the empire almost continually over the last thirty years.

The other cities of the Middle Empire varied in their response to Gaugamesh. Many sent representatives to Corvus at Carchanis, pledging allegiance. These were sent back to their homes with lavish gifts, and each was accompanied by a half-mora of Macht spearmen under a veteran centurion.

Some did not respond at all, and a few sent letters of open defiance. In the end, Corvus had to leave some six thousand men behind in Carchanish under Demetrius, an independent all-arms command which the one-eyed marshal was tasked with using to bring all of the rest of the Middle Empire to heel. He accepted readily, since in effect Corvus was making him de facto ruler of a vast swathe of the Asurian Empire.

The night after the appointment the old soldier finally married his camp-wife, a sour-faced little woman who had been following him from battlefield to battlefield for a quarter of a century. She bloomed overnight into a well-dressed lady and took to riding in a sedan chair borne by four brawny hufsan slaves. There were those who said that Demetrius would have been better off if he had stayed with the army.

That army was similar in size to the one which Corvus had brought over the Machtic Sea the year before, but there were many changes within it. The Dogsheads were gone, but Corvus now rewarded those who had excelled themselves on the field of battle by presenting them with silver-faced shields. In truth, they were made of highly polished steel, but the name stuck, and these men, many of them cursebearers, formed an elite within the infantry. They were commanded by a young centurion named Arsenios, who was a lion in the battle-line but whose principal prowess was in the field of wine-drinking. Most nights during the army’s stay in Carchanis, he would throw a drinking party at which the guest of honour was invariably the King.

Day by day, something built up around Corvus which had not been there before. Inevitably, there were more demands on his time than there had been even in Machran, and the bald-headed stocky little engineer, Parmenios, performed many of the duties of a chamberlain for him, which was no great leap since he had been the King’s chief scribe before his genius for invention had come to the fore. This meant that there was an extra layer to get through before a solitary soldier with a grievance could see his king in person. In the past, any member of the army might call upon the King’s tent at any time, sure that, given a moment, Corvus would always get around to seeing him. But not any more. There were too many people clamouring for an audience with the conqueror of Gaugamesh. The soldiers were referred back to their officers, and they watched as an unending procession of Kufr dignitaries from all over the western empire were conducted into the King’s presence without delay.

Part of this was city living, part of it was sheer administrative necessity, and part of it was down to changes in Corvus himself. He was less patient than he had been, more autocratic. Where once he would have won round his officers with at least the appearance of debate, now he simply issued orders, or better yet, had Parmenios’s secretaries write them down and then sent his pages out to deliver them. It was as though the nature of his achievements had finally begun to sink home.

The army itself was only part of his concerns. His rule now lay over many thousands of pasangs of a foreign world, and he was ruler of places he had not yet seen. Cities he had never visited were erecting statues of him in an effort to curry favour, and his lenient treatment of those who surrendered to him willingly meant that not a day went by without an embassy from some obscure imperial province wishing to secure its place in the new order of things.

‘It’s a relief to be going at last,’ Ardashir said. He stood over Rictus, as stately as a sunlit stork. ‘This time in the city has brought it all home to him. He’s at his best when on the move, nothing but that damned tent over his head.’

Rictus smiled. ‘He can’t be on the move forever, Ardashir. One day he will sit down and realise he can go no further. On that day, I will be glad to be elsewhere.’

‘On that day he will need you more than he ever has before.’

‘No. My time is past. I’m too broken and old now to ever stand in a spearline again. I am no further use to him.’

‘My, you’re a stiff necked bastard — as bad as he is.’

‘Keep an eye on him for me.’

‘Will you be coming east, Rictus, or will you stay here? You know that wherever you stay, Corvus will set you up like a king.’

‘I’ve no desire to be one. I am not Demetrius — I don’t have a wife whispering ambitious noises in my ear.’

‘Then you will come east — good — that relieves my mind.’

‘I didn’t say that,’ Rictus snapped. And then, ‘Yes, I suppose so. I’m to bring Roshana to him anyway, once Ashur falls.’

‘Does she know what her fate is to be?’

‘I don’t speak Kufr — I haven’t asked. It would not surprise me, though. She’s not stupid.’

‘If it happens, then Ashurnan’s grandson may one day be Great King. The more things change — ’

‘The more they stay the same.’ Rictus smiled up at the tall Kefre. ‘You be careful, Ardashir. You and Druze are the only people left with the army he still listens to.’