K Parker - Colours in the Steel

‘We’ve tried three charges,’ the man said, a junior captain of the line. ‘It’s hopeless, we just can’t budge them.’

‘Why the hell are you bothering with that?’ Temrai panted. ‘Get your men out of my way so I can clear this lot out with my archers.’

Four volleys was all it took ( nock, mark, draw, hold, loose ) and then the few that were left standing broke and ran, leaving the way clear for another hundred yards or so. As his line advanced Temrai felt a cold rage inside him towards the young captain, the man whose mistake had cost the lives of many of his men; but he ignored it, concentrating on the way ahead, desperately trying to remember the geography, whether there was any point ahead that was likely to harbour an ambush, how the streets were laid out, whether there was another lane alongside this one that the enemy could come down and take them in flank and rear. Each time one of his men fell he wanted to run to him, protect him, get his body away from the danger just in case there was a little drop of life still left in him. But it was out of his hands now, he couldn’t afford the luxury of indulging his finer sentiments and his noble nature, not when everything that happened here was his responsibility. He couldn’t have run forward into the thick of the fighting even if he’d wanted to.

Sounds like an excuse to me , he told himself, but he knew that wasn’t true.

Where in hell were the enemy? Three squares they’d crossed and not an arrow loosed at them, nothing in their path except a few parked wagons and the occasional trader’s booth. A trap? Or were they struggling to bring their men up in time, or letting this district go so as to form a defence in strength at some more advantageous point? There was a map somewhere, but he couldn’t remember who’d had it last; besides, he ought to know these things. He looked round and shouted, furious that in spite of everything he’d said the line wasn’t keeping level. The right wing was trailing behind, the centre was too far forward. Gods, if they were to attack us now…

Down this one, Loredan muttered to himself, past the livery stable and the tavern that does cheap mutton pies, should bring us out opposite the beltmakers’ guildhall, and that’ll be right. Assuming they’ve advanced as fast as I think they have, and I haven’t missed a turning in the dark.

Here we are; but we’re too early, got to give them time to run up against the force blocking the chandlers’ arch. Then we’ll have them front and back, without room to turn or use their bows. At least, that’s the theory.

Wonderful thing, theory.

He stopped and raised his hand, and behind him the column bustled to a halt. Slowly he counted to fifty – why fifty? Well, as good a number as any – before dropping his hand and turning the corner back into the Grand Avenue, which was full of people.

It was like a Navy Day parade, seen from behind. In front, in the distance, a solid wedge of people squeezed down the street, followed by the stragglers, the people who couldn’t be bothered to walk fast and keep up. We’ll have them at any rate , he muttered to himself as he ran forward, quickly selecting a man at random.

Whoever he was, he can’t have known very much about it; and then he was down, with Loredan stepping over him and a scrum of soldiers close behind, surging forward and across to fill the width of the street. Only a few of the enemy had turned round to face them by the time they were close enough to make contact, and after that it was sheer hard work, swinging the arms and taxing the shoulders, like digging peat or cutting back an overgrown stream. It was possible to feel the ripples of panic spreading out, from the back of the crush where Loredan’s men were cutting out their path, on into the middle where men were packed so closely that their main concern was avoiding the sharp butt-spikes on the ends of the spears of the men in front. It was a little bit like watching something melt, seeing the solid turn to liquid under the heat.

Gods, it was a trap after all, and I fell for it . Temrai tried to look back and see the extent of the disaster, but there were too many heads in the way; all he could see was heads and shoulders and a forest of spears. But he could feel the shock running through his army as the men behind shoved forward to get as far away as they could from the shambles they couldn’t see. There didn’t seem to be a way out of it; not unless by some miracle another part of his army happened along and took the ambush in rear. For an instant, Temrai’s mind was full of a ludicrous vision of the Grand Avenue, crammed as full of men as a sausage skin, alternating strata of them and us, each layer stabbing the backs of the men in front, being stabbed by the men behind, until only the very front and rear detachments were left to fight it out on top of a mattress of corpses.

Someone was tugging at his arm. He turned his head.

‘… Through the houses,’ the man was saying. ‘Break through the walls of the houses; they’re only wood and brick.’

At first it sounded like gibberish, until Temrai realised what the man was trying to say. More or less opposite where they were standing, on the left-hand side of the avenue, there was a row of dilapidated cottages. He remembered them, recalled hearing that they’d been allowed to go to ruin by the owner, who’d bought them as an investment in anticipation of some development or other along this part of the avenue. On the other side of the cottages, if he’d got it right, there was a long alley that curved round the avenue like a strung bow curling back to its string. More than enough men to push in the walls of the cottages and then they’d be through, and the battle would effectively be rotated through ninety degrees. There might even be scope for an outflanking manoeuvre of his own.

‘Do it,’ he shouted over the noise. ‘Take as many men as you can get. And hurry, for gods’ sakes.’

Without tools or equipment, or any real idea of what they were meant to be doing, they threw themselves at the walls of the cottages, kicking in doors and shutters and scrambling through, burying axe-heads in the soft plaster. When the wall began to give the mass pressed forwards like a stampede of horses frightened by thunder on the plains. A few, maybe a dozen, were buried under chunks of masonry; the rest squashed and crushed their way through, like grass forcing its way up through a pavement. As soon as men started spilling out on the other side, Temrai could feel the tension relax, now that the men trapped inside the box had somewhere to go. He had no choice but to follow the flow towards the breach, wondering as he went how many of his people would be left behind, to be massacred as they tried in vain to get past and into the hole in the wall. Too many, he decided, and left it at that. It was a simple form of arithmetic, because no matter what the figures said, the result would always be too many.

Patriarch Alexius woke up to the sound of yells and people running. At first he assumed the building was on fire – it wouldn’t have been the first time – but somehow the noise was different. He strained to make out some words among the shouting.

Whatever it was that was happening, it sounded important. Common sense suggested that it would be a good time to get out of bed and put some clothes on, but for some reason Alexius stayed where he was. The confused shouting still wasn’t making any sense, and he’d woken up with a migraine. He closed his eyes, just for a moment-

– And saw a bench in a long, roomy workshop. He appeared to be at the dark end of the shop, but there was plenty of light near the open door, where two men were hanging what looked like a half-finished bow on a peg fixed to the wall. The younger man, who was little more than a boy, held the bow firmly on the peg with both hands while the older man (who was Bardas Loredan) slipped a hook over the bowstring and attached a cord to it. He fed the cord through a pulley, then looped it over one of the crossbeams of the roof; then he fished about under the bench and came up with a lead weight, marked on the side with tallies representing numbers. It was a heavy weight, because Loredan strained as he lifted it off the floor and held it under the end of the cord, cradled on his forearms, while he tied the cord to it.