Paul Kearney - Ships from the West

But out on the plains beyond the city the red horsemen of Torunna were advancing side by side with a Fimbrian pike phalanx, eight or nine thousand strong, to meet the gallow shy;glasses of Finnmark. Something in Bardolin stirred at the sight, some strange grief. He watched as the Cathedrallers charged forward, a scarlet wave, and the terrible pikes of the Orphans were lowered as they followed up. Scarlet and black upon the field, the colours of Torunna. He heard faintly over the roar of the battle the battle paean of the Cimbric tribes come drifting back to the city, fearsome and beautiful as a summer storm. And he watched as the gallowglasses were shunted backwards and the lines intermingled silver and red as the Cathedrallers' legendary charge struck home. The Finn-markans fought stubbornly, but they were no match for the army that Corfe Cear-Inaf had created, and eventually their line broke, and splintered, and fell apart. And the Orphans came up to finish the bloody work, their pikes as perfect as though they were being wielded in a parade-ground review.

A nudge, a subtle spike in his brain.

Now, do it now.

Bardolin rose with tears in his eyes. He raised hands to heaven and called out in Old Normannic. Words of sum shy;moning and power which shook to its foundations the build shy;ing whereon he stood. And he was answered. For out of the south there came a dark cloud which sullied the spring sky. It drew closer while the battle below it opened out heedlessly and the smoke of Charibon's burning rose to meet it. At last other men saw the looming darkness, and cried out around him in fear. In a vast flock of many thousands, the Flyers of Aruan came shrieking down out of the sun and swarmed upon the advancing armies of Torunna like a cloud of locusts. Even the destriers of the Cathedrallers could not withstand the sudden terror of that attack from above, and they reared and threw their riders and screamed and milled in confusion. The scarlet armour of the tribesmen was hidden as by a black thunderhead and in the midst of it, dismounted, buffeted by their panicked steeds, they began a savage fight for survival. The remnants of the gallowglasses, and the regiments of Himerians behind them, took heart, and began to advance. The Orphans moved to meet them, and Corfe's Fimbrians fell under the cloud also, and all that part of the battlefield became a whirlwind of shadow and darkness within which a holo shy;caust of slaughter was kindled.

The sunlight had gone, and a premature twilight had fallen upon the world. Great tumbling clouds had come galloping up from the south propelled by wizened smatterings of light shy;ning and a chill had entered the air. It began to rain, and with the rain fell long slivers of ice "which scored men's flesh and rattled like knives off their armour. The battle plain began to soften, and the churned footfalls of soldiers and horses sank into mud below them so that a vast quagmire was created, and within it heavily burdened men swung their weapons at each other and battled with the unthinking ferocity of animals.

Such was the press and congestion in the streets of the city that Corfe and his Bodyguard had to dismount and leave their horses behind. Armed with sabres and pistols, the five hun shy;dred men in raven-black Ferinni armour picked their way forward on foot, the rain dripping from their fearsome helms. They were tribesman and Torunnan, Fimbrian and Merduk; the cream of the army. As the regular Torunnans fighting there in the shadow of the burning houses saw them they set up a great shout. 'The King is come!'

The Bodyguard walked on until they came to the first of the street barriers behind which Almarkan arquebusiers were firing and reloading frantically. There came a sound like heavy hail rattling off a tin roof, and several of the Bodyguard staggered as arquebus bullets slammed into them. But their armour was proof against such missiles. They walked on, shielding the match in their pistols from the rain, and delivered a volley at point-blank range. Then they discarded their firearms and drew their sabres and began climbing over the barricades. The Almarkans ran.

The Torunnans marched on. Men were still firing at them here and there from upper windows but for the most part the Himerians had fallen back to the Great Square before the cathedral and the Library of St Garaso. They gathered there and were placed in order by Bardolin and Aruan and dozens of Inceptines. A few surviving Hounds squatted snarling on the cobbles and homunculi wheeled overhead like vultures.

Corfe and his men burst out of the streets and into the square itself. The rain had quenched every scrap of slow-match between both armies and the arquebusiers had thrown aside their useless firearms and drawn their swords. The tall helms of the Bodyguard as they formed up in the square made them seem like black towers alongside their more lightly armoured comrades, and behind them in the streets Olba's reserve, a thousand of whom were Orphans, were coming up at the double, their pikes resting on their shoulders, the sharpshooters felling them by the dozen as they advanced.

Charibon's Great Square was almost half a mile to a side. At its north end stood the Library of St Garaso, greatest in the world since the sack of Aekir. To the west loomed the towers of the Pontifical Palace, a newer construction much expanded in the last decade. And to the east was the triple-horned Cathedral of the Saint. The square, for all its size, was hemmed in by tall buildings on all sides and resembled nothing so much as a huge amphitheatre. Across it Corfe could see two glittering figures who must be Aruan and Bardolin. They wore antique half-armour worked with gold, and it flashed and gleamed in the rain. Even as he watched, the Torunnan King saw one of these two straighten before his troops, heedless of the invaders, and lift his arms to the lowering sky and the ice-mingled rain. He was saying some shy;thing in a strangely beguiling chant, and as he did his troops straightened and lifted their heads and looked at the fearsome Torunnans across the short distance of the square and were no longer afraid. They began to cheer and howl and beat sword-blade against breastplate so that a deafening din of clattering metal rose up under the rain.

Corfe's Torunnans had dressed their lines, and stood motionless and silent. The Bodyguard formed the front rank, with a thicker knot of them about the King. Behind them came a thousand Orphans, their pikes projecting over their shoul shy;ders, and behind them two thousand more Torunnan arque-busiers, fighting with sabres alone.

Golophin stood beside the King, the only man in all that densely packed square who wore no harness and carried no weapon. Corfe looked at him. 'Which one is which?'

'Aruan is the bald one with the hawk nose. Bardolin's nose is broken and he looks like a soldier. That is him, on the right.'

'And Himerius, where is he do you think?'

'Himerius is near eighty now. I doubt he'll take to the field.'

Golophin was not far off that age himself, Corfe realised. He set a gauntleted hand on the wizard's shoulder. 'Maybe you'd best go to the rear, Golophin.'

The wizard shook his head, and his smile was not altogether pleasant. 'No weapon will bite me today, sire. And I am not without weapons of my own.'

Corfe raised his voice to be heard over the clamour of the Himerians and the hissing rain.

'Then help me kill him.'

Golophin nodded, but said no word. He turned so that his wide-brimmed hat hid his eyes.

At that moment the Himerian troops in the square charged, screaming like fiends. They came on in a frenzied rush and, crashing into the tall armoured line of the Bodyguard, began to hammer upon the Torunnans like men possessed.

Corfe's line bent but did not break. The Orphans of the reserve came forward and leant their weight to the melee, some stabbing blind with their pikes, others drawing their short, broad-bladed swords and pitching in where a falling Bodyguard left a gap.