Robert Lyndon - Imperial Fire

Like Vallon.

Altogether the squadron had trapped sixty soldiers and killed or injured more than thirty. After stripping the captives of their valuables, Gorka worked his way back along the dead, scavenging gold and jewels like a malign magpie. Lucas tagged along with loathing and didn’t take a thing. This wasn’t how he’d imagined war.

Gorka hopped knee-deep into water and levered up the head and torso of an officer clad in finely wrought lamellar armour who’d sprawled face down over the causeway. The Basque’s hand swooped and he held up a bejewelled brooch. ‘Worth forty solidi in Constantinople. Give me a hand.’

Lucas assisted Gorka onto firm ground while staring transfixed at the corpse. ‘His armour must be worth a count’s ransom.’

‘Too bulky. Stick to the portable high-value stuff.’ Gorka registered Lucas’s queasy fascination. ‘Do you want it? Looks about the right fit.’

Lucas glanced up the causeway.

‘If you don’t take it, someone else will.’

‘I didn’t do anything to deserve it. I never even blooded my sword.’

‘You held your ground. That’s good enough. Go on. He’s got no further use for it.’

Lucas manipulated the lolling corpse onto the causeway and began easing the armour over its head. A porridge of brain matter leaked from the skull. Lucas’s face took on the expression of a man straining shit through his teeth.

Gorka shoved him aside. ‘You’re not trying to grope a virgin on your first date. Like this.’

He removed the armour as if he were skinning a rabbit, swilled it in the lake and handed it over. Lucas regarded it with awe. ‘It must be worth ten times the price of your armour.’

Gorka stroked his shabby iron corselet. ‘Wear fancy armour and you become a target for every peasant with a billhook. In battle it’s best not to stand out.’

Lucas slung the armour over his shoulder. ‘I don’t intend to be one of the herd. One day I’ll be a general.’

‘You? Listen, lad. Stick close, do what I say and in five years you might win promotion to commander of four.’

He was still chuckling at Lucas’s fantasy when Vallon gave the order to escort the prisoners back to the coast.

‘Did you kill the man who wore that armour?’

Lucas, herding a group of captives at sword point, swung round to see Aiken, ashen-faced but otherwise immaculate. He hadn’t even got his feet wet.

‘Suppose I did?’

‘What’s it like to kill a man?’

A prisoner stumbled against Lucas and he rounded on the man in fright. The prisoner cringed, begging mercy.

Aiken persisted. ‘How do you feel now?’

Lucas began to pant. He flat-handed Aiken in the chest.

‘Hey!’ Gorka said.

Lucas shoved Aiken backwards. ‘You skulk in the rear and then have the nerve to ask me how it feels to face the enemy. If you want to know, join the shieldwall yourself.’ Spittle flew from Lucas’s mouth. ‘ Daddy’s boy! ’

Gorka almost wrenched him off his feet. ‘You never learn, do you?’

Lucas went slack and a sob racked his body. He looked up to find Vallon’s eyes boring into his. He gave an unhinged laugh.

‘You don’t scare me. You — ’

Gorka’s slap spun Lucas sideways. He stumbled away, clutched his knees and vomited a stream of throat-scalding puke.

‘Shock,’ Gorka told the general. ‘It was his first taste of combat. I’ll sort him out.’

Vallon gave a judicious nod. ‘Even so, his behaviour is intolerable. Put him in the supply train for a month. Keep him away from Aiken and out of my sight. I don’t want to set eyes on him again for the duration of our expedition.’

The remainder of the enemy, still formidably strong, stood arrayed in battle formation with their backs to the sea. Both dromons had floated free on the rising tide and the other enemy galley had landed its complement of soldiers and was loitering offshore. Thraco, the Greek leader, stepped out of the front rank.

‘We still have a crushing advantage in numbers and hold your ship, horses and supplies. Surrender the duke, the prisoners and the gold and we’ll leave you to go your own way. That’s my final offer.’

Vallon strolled forward, followed by two troopers dragging the duke by his bound hands. ‘If you have the beating of us, why waste time talking?’

Thraco didn’t answer. A muggy breeze rippled the Outlanders’ banners. Thunder growled inland. Vallon advanced another step. ‘Here are my terms. Land all our horses and supplies. When that’s done, you’ll let Pelican sail away without interference.’

‘Once you’re on board, any promise I make is void. There’s no way back for you.’

‘Who says we’re going back? When Pelican has sailed over the horizon, I’ll release all the prisoners except the duke. Refuse and I’ll kill them one by one in front of you. You’d better be quick. I’ve lost five men to your treachery and my temper threatens to get the better of me.’

‘Even if you kill them all, we’d still have the beating of you.’

‘Hear that?’ Vallon called to the Greek troops. ‘That’s how little your lords value the lives of your comrades.’ He let silence stretch. ‘So be it. Lead the first prisoner forward.’

Two Turkmen hustled a wounded officer out of the ranks, pushed him to his knees and slid swords from their scabbards. The prisoner raised his bloodied face towards Thraco. ‘Is this how you reward the men who fought and died on your behalf? Are we just pawns in a game designed to line the pockets of the duke and his relatives?’

Ugly murmurs of agreement bubbled through the Greek ranks.

‘Thraco, your men will die for nothing,’ Vallon shouted. ‘You’ll never get the gold. It’s cached miles inland. To reach it, you’ll have to wade through the bodies of the prisoners and a hundred other soldiers we’ll kill if you embark on that futile task. You’ll be forced to sail away empty-handed in the company of three hundred armed men who watched you sacrifice their comrades to your greed. Believe me, you won’t sleep easy on your voyage to Trebizond.’

‘Give him what he wants,’ yelled a prisoner, and two or three Greek marines echoed his demand before officers lashed them into silence.

Vallon laughed. ‘You can stop their mouths, but you can’t blow away that rank odour. Smell it? It’s the stink of mutiny.’

Thraco pawed his mouth. ‘Release the duke and then I’ll consider your demands.’

Vallon shook his head with slow finality. ‘Oh, no. The duke is never going home.’

Skleros lunged against his tethers. ‘Let me go,’ he begged. ‘I’ll plead your case.’

‘You’ll plead it from here,’ Vallon said. ‘And in the most abject terms.’

Skleros raised his hands. ‘Do what he says.’

‘Louder,’ Vallon ordered.

Skleros made a last appeal to venality. ‘I was too greedy. Half the gold for you.’ He shrank from the flame in Vallon’s eye. ‘Three-quarters.’

‘Kill him and have done with it,’ Vallon said. He flexed his sword. ‘No, by God, I’ll shear his head from his neck myself!’

‘Please!’ Skleros shrieked. He pumped his bound hands. ‘Accept the general’s demands in full.’

Capitulation sat ill with Thraco but the duke’s craven appeal and the troops’ simmering dissent left him little choice.

‘What I pledge today doesn’t hold for tomorrow.’

‘Right now I command my fate, and I order you to return to your ships, get your men off Pelican and allow her and my transports to tie up. I won’t release the prisoners until we’ve secured all our supplies and all the horses — the duke’s as well as our own.

Thraco’s features writhed. He turned with an airy wave as if he’d just lost a trivial bet.