Paul Kearney - Corvus

“Any more of this and we can float over the walls of Machran in fucking boats.”

“That’s the plan,” Fornyx said. “Didn’t you know? Back to camp, lads – there’s nothing doing out here that needs watching.”

The little band of men followed their leaders back along the flooded length of the Imperial road, wading through the cold water with the stoicism of those who have seen it all before. To the east, the vast bivouac of Corvus’s all-conquering army sat like a flooded squatter’s camp, motionless in the unending downpour.

Rictus, also, was staring at the rain. He stood in the doorway of Corvus’s command tent and watched the rills of brown water curl and thicken about the corduroyed pathways of the camp. As far as the eye could see the horizon was an unending mass of brown tents. The latrines had flooded out, and the stink of ordure hung over them. This was no place to remain long. Men sickened when they gathered together in great numbers. It was as if they produced an air unwholesome to their own existence.

He thought of Aise and the girls. Up in the highlands the snow would be thick and deep, the world closed down in mountain winter. They were safe, now – nothing and no-one would be able to make it through the drifts to Andunnon until the spring thaw. There was that to be thankful for.

“Some warmth in a cup,” a voice said.

It was Ardashir, the tall Kufr. He proffered the brimming goblet to Rictus with a smile.

“Corvus is out digging drains with his Companions, to set an example. He will be a while.” The Kefren marshal was liberally plastered with mud himself.

“I did my turn of digging this morning,” he explained.

Rictus took the wine. Thin, watered stuff, but welcome all the same. The roads had been washed out and the supply-trains were not making it through. The entire army was on half rations. Another reason they could not stay here.

“It would seem Antimone is on Karnos’s side for the present,” he said, sipping the execrable wine.

“Your Antimone, goddess of pity and of war. A strange deity. Myself, I believe that Mot, the dark blight of the world, is passing over.”

“Different gods, same rain,” Rictus grunted. He walked away from the uplifted side of the tent and stood at the map table. They were so close.

Some two hundred and thirty pasangs separated them from the walls of Machran.

That, and the army which Karnos had managed to cobble together with incredible speed to throw in their path. It was not yet the full muster of the League, but it was a respectable showing all the same. Perhaps twenty thousand men were encamped on the other side of the hill, enduring the same rain as their enemies, and he did not doubt that more would be marching in over the next few days, mud or no mud.

“We should hit them hard, now, before the other hinterland cities send their contingents,” he said. “This waiting is… unwise.”

Ardashir came to the table, towering over Rictus like a totem. “In this weather?”

“Men have fought in worse.”

“I know they have, Rictus. But we talk not only of men. What of horses?’ Cavalry cannot operate in this swamp. We must delay now until the plains dry out. Corvus foresaw that this might happen. He talks of glory, and he means it, but there is always a stone cold reasoning behind what he does. Until we have hard ground to fight on, the army cannot go on the offensive. If it does, then it will simply be two bodies of spears slogging it out, and in that contest, numbers will be more telling.”

“I had not thought of your horses,” Rictus conceded, throwing back his wine. “It is not something a Macht would usually take into account.” He looked the tall Kefren up and down.

“Tell me, Ardashir – tell me honestly – what-in hell are you doing here?”

Ardashir grinned. He had a kindly face, but so elongated and strange did it appear that it was easy to miss the humanity in his eyes.

“Corvus is my friend, the best I have. I would follow him anywhere.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s one answer.”

Then Ardashir inclined his head. “Very well. Then know this; my father was Satrap of the province of Askanon, maybe ten years after you and your Ten Thousand passed through it. He was a good man, an honourable man, but even good men can have worthless brothers.” The Kefren’s face changed. It was if the bones of it became more pronounced; a mask that was truly alien – like those of the Honai that Rictus had faced at Kunaksa.

“He killed my father, took my sister – his niece – to wife against her will, and proclaimed himself Satrap. I was a child, smuggled out of my father’s palace in Ashdod by our family steward. He took me to Sinon, where my uncle could not touch me, it being a Macht city. And there I spent much of my boyhood, in poverty. When Kurush our steward died, I was left alone. All that remained of the life before was this -” Here he unsheathed the curved sword which hung at his flank. It was a plain Kefren scimitar with an hourglass hilt, and set in the pommel was a small incised ruby. He rubbed his thumb across it. “Our family seal. This was my father’s sword. All I have of him.”

His face brightened. “And I met Corvus, playing on the shore outside Sinon one fine day some twelve years ago. He was an undersized child, half my height, but he was the leader of all the local boys, and he made me, a Kufr, part of his friends. I have never forgotten that.” He looked down at Rictus.

“Corvus does not care about Macht and Kufr. He cares about friendship. Once he gives it, he will never betray you.”

Rictus stared up at the tall creature who stood before him. He had learned how to judge men over the years, and to judge soundly. He knew that Ardashir was not lying. More, he found himself liking this quiet Kufr, this dispossessed prince who had followed his mad friend west in pursuit of an insane idea.

He looked down at the map table again, seeing writ across it the fate of his world, his people.

“There is Kufr blood in Corvus, isn’t there?” he said.

Ardashir nodded. “His mother was a hufsa, one of the mountain tribes. But she was an educated and refined woman. You and I can see it in him, as can all those who have known a little of both worlds; but most Macht have never met a Kufr; they think we are all horse-faced demons with glowing eyes.” He smiled.

“So who was his father?”

“I never knew him, and nor did Corvus. He had left or died before the boy was born.”

Rictus looked across the interior of the tent to where the Curse of God, the armour that Corvus would not wear, sat perched on its stand like some amputated statue. A sudden insight went like a shiver down his back.

Corvus’s father had been a Cursebearer.

He might have said something, but as if summoned by their talk, Corvus himself entered the tent, flapping the rain off his cloak and bantering with Teresian, who was with him. The leader of the army was as plastered with mud as if he had been rolling in it; his teeth and eyes gleamed out of a brown face. His smile widened as he saw Rictus and Ardashir at the table.

“Ha! Steering clear of the muck, are we? And winecups in your hands! Come, Ardashir, this is a disgrace; lend me a gulp, will you?” He drank deep out of the Kufr’s cup.

“Not Minerian, Rictus, sorry to say. But it all leaves us in the same way, whatever the vintage – Teresian, pour us more. I swear I have mud in my very gullet.”

Corvus’s spirits seemed undimmed by the rain and the morass his army found itself in. He threw off his cloak and one of the page boys came forward from the shadows to catch it – Rictus had not even known he was there.

“Thank you, Sasca,” Corvus murmured, and when he set a hand on the page’s shoulder the boy’s face lit up.