Paul Kearney - Corvus

Karnos was in the third mora. His heart was thumping high in his chest as he shuffled forward, and as the pace picked up he began to march, keeping his spear snug against his side to avoid entangling the man next to him. No-one was talking now, and every man had that hard, distant stare which comes at the onset of battle. They could hear the Paean being sung by the formations out on the plain, and deeper yet, the low rumble of thousands of horses.

The Companion Cavalry of Corvus was on the move.

“Stand fast,” Rictus said, raising his voice to be heard. “Hold your positions until I give the word.”

He was standing out in front of the Dogsheads, as were all his senior centurions. His men were assembled in an arrowhead. The leading ranks were all red-cloaked mercenaries, trained up by the original Dogsheads over the preceding weeks until they were deemed worthy of the colour.

Behind them were the morai on loan from Teresian and Demetrius, a mixture of veteran spearmen and recent conscripts, though the distinction between the two of them had faded with the duration of the campaign. And on their flanks, hanging back like scavengers, were hundreds of Igranian skirmishers.

Fornyx had the left, Valerian the right. Kesero stood close by Rictus, holding aloft the ancient banner of the Dogsheads, entrusted to Rictus by Jason over twenty years before. Jason, whose son was now leading two thousand heavy cavalry out to the east of the approaching League army, and dropping off centons of horsemen as he went. Whatever plan he had for dealing with the League forces, Rictus was not privy to it.

The city garrison was still pouring out of the South Prime Gate and spreading out in a ragged line. Rictus counted the sigils, and nodded to himself. No surprises there. Karnos was taking half the garrison out on this sally, risking all for the opportunity to link up with the League morai. He would have done the same himself.

“I never saw such a complicated fucking battlefield,” Kesero said, his voice hollow inside his helm. “Look, Rictus: Parmenios’s infernal machines are on the move. I had a bet with Valerian he’d never get them past the wagon park.”

Maybe five pasangs away, the tops of the siege towers could be seen over the city walls. They ground forward like sullen titans, and now Rictus could make out motes of fire sailing through the air towards them.

“They’ve set light to the ballista missiles. They’re going to try and burn them down.”

“Phobos,” Kesero said. “I’m glad I’m standing on my own feet and not cooped up in one of those damn things.”

“Look sharp, Kesero,” Rictus said, as he walked up and down the line, peering this way and that. “Nearly time.”

He took his place at the apex of the arrowhead. He was not quite himself, not yet; the strength he had lost had not been regained.

I don’t heal as fast as I used to, Rictus thought.

He could not help but wonder how many more days like today he had left in him.

Over half the Machran morai were now outside the walls and in formation, maybe two thousand men formed up in line, and two thousand more still inside the gate, pushing through.

“Brothers,” Rictus said loudly, “Remember your drill. Watch the man in front. Keep together, and don’t think about anything else than what’s ahead of you. Other battles are being fought around us, but for now all you have to think about is this one.

“To those of you who wear the scarlet in war for the first time today, do not disgrace it, either in the thick of the fight or afterwards. The colour has been worn by both good men and bad for centuries, but it has never been worn without courage.”

He raised his spear. “Forward!”

TO the south of the Dogsheads, the spearline of Teresian and Demetrius was the first portion of Corvus’s army to make contact. The Paean” was snuffed out as they crashed into the morai of the Avennan League, three thousand men in a compact phalanx in a head-on collision with seven thousand others. The appalling clatter of the impact carried clear across the plain to the walls of the city.

To the east of this clash, Corvus was leading the Companions at a fast canter round the enemy flank. Every time he raised his hand, the centon next to him would peel off from the main body and remain behind, reining in their horses and stabbing their lances into the ground alongside them as if they meant to be there “for some time. Then the Kefren riders swung their deeply curved compound bows off their backs, already strung, and began fishing for arrows from the quivers hanging at their thighs.

The overlapping morai on the eastern flank of Teresian’s spears had begun to move in on the flank to roll up the enemy line, but they hung back at the sight of Corvus’s cavalry flashing past. Periklus of Pontis jogged forward of the hungry advance. The men at the front could see only that they were about to outflank their foes, and it took him several minutes of shouting, grabbing centurions, and banging his spear on the shields of the file-leaders before they came to a ragged halt, the open flank of the enemy right in front of them, as inviting a sight as any spearman on a battlefield could wish for.

But the men on the outside of the formation had seen the cavalry, and were turning to meet it. The right wing of the League forces curled in and then out again, a great swirl of close-packed men. Orders were- shouted and then countermanded. The lines within the formation began to merge. File-closers found men behind them, and file-leaders looked over their shoulder to see strange faces there, their own file dislocated by the momentum of the confusion.

And then the first arrows came raining down on them.

There was no dust to cloud the air, and the ground was cold and firm for the horses. Corvus cantered two lengths ahead of the rest of his cavalry, trailed by his banner-bearer and Ardashir. He looked back quickly and saw the growing confusion of the League right wing; that end of the line had bunched up and halted, the senior officers bellowing at their men, the first casualties slumping in the press with arrows in their necks.

“Pick up the pace, brothers!” he shouted in Kefren, the language of the Great Kings. The remaining Companions broke into a gallop, the big Niseians rocking under them like boats on a stiff swell. He still had some fourteen hundred cavalry following after him like a great thundering cloak of flesh and bronze trailing across the plain. He was in the rear of the League line now, a pasang from the file-closers. The Kefren on their massive warhorses leaned forward in their saddles and braced their lances on their shoulders, following the slight figure and his raven banner at their head.

Druze wiped the sweat off his face and exchanged a grin with the man next to him. It was close-packed in the confines of the tower, and the massive structure creaked and rumbled under them. They were in the belly of a beast, a rancid darkness stinking of green hides and pitch and newly sawn wood. The whole structure lurched, and the men inside fell against each other, swearing and wide-eyed as hunted deer.

“This ain’t no way to go to war,” Druze’s neighbour said.

“Make way there, lads – I’m going to puke,” another snapped out.

There was a massive crash full on the front of the tower. Druze leapt back instinctively as the broad blade of a ballista bolt smashed through the wooden ramp in front of his nose. Sparks and gledes spattered into the interior with it, and men began stamping them out feverishly. The reek of burning was added to the other stinks and men began to cough and heave for breath.

“Phobos help us – the thing’s on fire!” someone wailed.

“It’s just the hides on the front,” Druze said. “Stand still, you fucking girls. “Show these westerners how Igranians can take the pain. We’ll be on the walls before you know it.”