Paul Kearney - Corvus

“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.