Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 1 - The Fort at River's Bend

"As you can see, there is no glory to be found in war, lads. The real truth of it lies there, plain to be seen—death and distress and shame and pity; squalour and filth and madness; wrack and ruin and waste and destruction; a lack of grandness and a disbelieving urge to vomit and to weep with the pity of it all. No man dies well in battle, and none dibs gloriously. If you learn nothing else today, learn this: dead men do not win wars. Dead men lose everything, including their dignity, and starting with their lives. Only living men can be victorious. No one—ever—wins in death.

"All of those lifeless men below, littering the water's edge and floating in the waves, are dead because their leader was a fool, criminally lacking in judgment. He endangered all his men and all his fleet by being too rash, and he lost all of them. Had he survived, he should be hanged for his murderous folly, for to command is to bear responsibility for the lives of each and every man in your command. Those lives are yours to spend in winning wars, but you must spend them cautiously, judiciously and with unwillingness, taking great pains to see that none of them, not one, is wasted or uselessly lost. To send men into battle, thus exposing them to death, is the responsibility Of leaders, but to squander any one of them without need is murder, plain and simple. Bear that in mind from this time on, and remember these dead hundreds here today, squandered and murdered. Now go, both of you, and find your Aunt Ludmilla. Tell her, and Shelagh, that I am with King Derek and will rejoin them soon. Off with you, now."

Derek had watched all of this in silence, offering no judgment either by his look or bearing, and he had nothing to add as we made our way down from the walls and through the fort to his great house.

THIRTEEN

I remember that storm, and that visit to Ravenglass, as marking two events: the beginning of the end of an era in my own life, predicated upon a decision I made while I was there, and the first truly discernible step towards man's estate made by young Arthur Pendragon, in confronting, contemplating and coming to terms with the concentrated death and destruction in that harbour.

Connor appeared, under sails and oars and brightening rays of light from the rising sun, two days after we arrived, confirming Derek's guess that he had anticipated the great storm aid sheltered his fleet safely in one of the coves of the large offshore island known as Man. When the weather cleared, he had set out again and on the way had met and engaged the few, straggling survivors of the Sons of Condran's fleet, sinking all of them. He was concerned over the delays and conscious of how little time remained to him to deliver his passengers safely in the south, then turn north-westward again to meet with the remainder of his fleet returning from the north on their way to Eire. Thus, he wasted no time in embarking Ambrose, Ludmilla and all their goods and was soon making his way carefully back out to sea, threading a passage through the wreckage that littered the harbour.

We watched them leave, waving from the battlements until they rounded the bank ahead of us. Then we spent three days assisting Derek's people with the Herculean task of cleaning up the detritus of the storm, salvaging or demolishing the wreckage in the harbour so that it no longer threatened other vessels, and burying those bodies we could find, knowing full well that corpses would wash up on the surrounding beaches for months afterwards.

When all that could be done had been achieved, we made our way back to Mediobogdum beneath sunny skies, surrounded by the singing of a million birds and the lush greens of new, rioting foliage that was bright, in sheltered nooks, with heady, sweetly scented blossom: apple, pear and hawthorn, white and pink.

That homeward journey passed in reflective silence, by and large, each of us dwelling, according to our natures, upon what we might have faced on reaching Ravenglass had the storm not briefly gulled our enemies. I found myself recalling it already as a tempest.

We found the tangled mass of ruined trees still in place on the hillside, blocking the steeply sloping road up to our pass. We accepted its enormous presence with stoicism and yet also with vague feelings of surprise to find it all unchanged after a week had passed. Clearing it away, with axes and saws and ropes and teams of horses, and reopening the road would be our highest priority in the days ahead. We passed it by without pausing in our ascent, however, since we had left Lars and the single wagon safe in Ravenglass to await a summons once the way was cleared; it took us but a tiny fraction of a single hour to mount the steep, bypassing defile on horseback, proceeding in single file and grateful that this time we were unhampered by the torrents of cold water that had showered on us from every tree and sapling we had passed beneath on the way .down.

I was at pains to ride dose beside Lucanus on die most difficult section of the upward slope, for I had noticed some time earlier that he seemed to be in pain and to be making great efforts to disguise die fact: his face was pale and peaked, die lines around his eyes and mouth etched more deeply than I had seen them before. I made no mention of my concern, knowing him to be quick and querulous in denying such things, as though a sickness or infirmity within himself were deadly insult to his physician's craft. Rather than alert him to my suspicions, I merely contented myself to ride close by his side, saying little but prepared to seize him .should he begin to fall. Only when we had safely passed the worst of the upward climb did I leave his side, and then I moved directly to where Donuil and Shelagh rode ahead of us, side by side, talking quietly of their own concerns. Warning them not to look back at Luke, I alerted them to my concern and arranged with Shelagh to coax him to his bed as soon as we arrived safely at the fort.

A short time after that, we breasted die last steep gradient and saw the western wall of Mediobogdum bright in the midday sun, above us to our left. Dedalus blew a blast on a coiled, copper horn to announce our arrival, and by the time we turned off the road to approach the main gates, Hector and several others were on the way out to meet us. I felt myself smiling as I saw the welcome on their faces, but the major part of my awareness was concerned with the beckoning plume of shimmering smoke wafting from the flue above the bathhouse furnace. I greeted everyone as required, then hung my helmet and swordbelt from my saddle-bow, draped my cloak across the saddle and turned Germanicus over to Donuil, after which I made my way on foot directly to the baths.

The steam room had another occupant when I arrived and I sensed his presence immediately, even though he was invisible among the swirling clouds of steam. The voice of Marie, the young carpenter, answered my greeting. He was standing against the wall when I finally saw him, and he lowered his arms from over his head as I approached, then launched into a series of questions about our journey. Loath to be coaxed into a long and unwelcome chronicle, I forestalled him with an upraised hand, shaking my head and asking his forbearance, pleading weariness and the simple need to stretch out and relax. He shrugged and smiled and nodded, accepting my demurral, and returned to what he had been doing when I entered, raising one arm and reaching behind his head to press the fingers of his hand against his spine between his shoulders while he pushed the elbow backward towards his ear with his other hand. On the point of lying down, I watched him curiously instead, noting His closed eyes and the concentration with which he held his uncomfortable position for a count of perhaps twice ten before changing over and doing die same thing with his other arm. When I asked him what he was doing, he lowered his arms and smiled at me, his face flushing red.