Abercrombie, Joe - The Heroes

A great line of Mitterick’s flatbowmen had then appeared from behind a hedgerow on the south bank and raked the Northmen with a savage volley, forcing them into a disorganised retreat back to their trenches, leaving the dead scattered in the trampled crops on their side of the bridge. The Tenth had been too mauled to take advantage of the opening, though, and now archers on both sides were busy with a desultory exchange of ammunition across the water while Mitterick and his officers marshalled their next wave. And, one imagines, their next batch of coffins too.

Gorst watched the whirling clouds of gnats that haunted the bank, and the corpses that floated past beneath them. The bravery. Turning with the current. The honour. Face up and face down. The dedication of the soldiers. One sodden Union hero wallowed to a halt in some rushes, bobbing for a moment on his side. A Northman drifted up, bumped gently into him and carried him from the bank and through a patch of frothy yellow scum in an awkward embrace. Ah, young love. Perhaps someone will hug me after my death. I certainly haven’t had many before. Gorst had to stop himself snorting with spectacularly inappropriate laughter.

‘Why, Colonel Gorst!’ The First of the Magi strolled up with staff in one hand and teacup in the other. He took in the river and its floating cargo, heaved a long breath through his nose and exhaled satisfaction. ‘Well, you couldn’t say they aren’t giving it a good try, anyway. Successes are all very well, but there’s something grand about a glorious failure, isn’t there?’

I can’t see what, and I should know.

‘Lord Bayaz.’ The Magus’ curly-headed servant snapped open a folding chair, brushed an imaginary speck of dust from its canvas seat and bowed low.

Bayaz tossed his staff on the wet grass without ceremony and sat, eyes closed, tipping his smiling face towards the strengthening sun. ‘Wonderful thing, a war. Done in the right way, of course, for the right reasons. Separates the fruit from the chaff. Cleans things up.’ He snapped his fingers with an almost impossibly loud crack. ‘Without them societies are apt to become soft. Flabby. Like a man who eats only cake.’ He reached up and punched Gorst playfully on the arm, then shook out his limp fingers in fake pain. ‘Ouch! I bet you don’t eat only cake, do you?’

‘No.’

Like virtually everyone Gorst ever spoke to, Bayaz was hardly listening. ‘Things don’t change just by the asking. You have to give them a damn good shake. Whoever said war never changes anything, well … they just haven’t fought enough wars, have they? Glad to see this rain’s clearing up, though. It’s been playing hell with my experiment.’

The experiment consisted of three giant tubes of dull, grey-black metal, seated upon huge wooden cradles, each closed at one end with the other pointed across the river in the vague direction of the Heroes. They had been set up with immense care and effort on a hump of ground a hundred strides from Gorst’s tent. The ceaseless din of men, horses and tackle would have kept him awake all night had he not been half-awake anyway, as he always was. Lost in the smoke of Cardotti’s House of Leisure, searching desperately for the king. Seeing a masked face in the gloom, at the stairway. Before the Closed Council as they stripped him of his position, the bottom dropping out of the world all over again. Twisted up with Finree, holding her. Holding smoke. Coughing smoke, as he stumbled through the twisted corridors of Cardotti’s House of—

‘Pitiful, isn’t it?’ asked Bayaz.

For a moment, Gorst wondered if the Magus had read his thoughts. And yes, it certainly fucking is. ‘Pardon?’

Bayaz spread his arms to encompass the scene of crawling activity. ‘All the doings of men, still at the mercy of the fickle skies. And war most of all.’ He sipped from his cup again, grimaced and flung the dregs out across the grass. ‘Once we can kill people at any time of day, in any season, in any weather, why, then we’ll be civilised, eh?’ And he chuckled away to himself.

The two old Adepti from the University of Adua scraped up like a pair of priests given a personal audience with God. The one called Denka was ghoul-pale and trembling. The one called Saurizin had a sheen of sweat across his wrinkled forehead which sprang back as fast as he could wipe it off.

‘Lord Bayaz.’ He tried to bow and grin at once and couldn’t manage either with any conviction. ‘I believe the weather has improved to the point where the devices can be tested.’

‘At last,’ snapped the Magus. ‘Then what are you waiting for, the Midwinter Festival?’

The two old men fled, Saurizin snarling fiercely at his colleague. They had an ill-tempered discussion with the dozen aproned engineers about the nearest tube, including a deal of arm-waving, pointing at the skies and reference to some brass instruments. Finally one produced a long torch, flames licking at the tarred end. The Adepti and their minions hurried away, squatting behind boxes and barrels, covering their ears. The torch-bearer advanced with all the enthusiasm of a condemned man to the scaffold, touched the brand at arm’s length to the top of the tube. A few sparks flew, a lick of smoke curled up, a faint pop and fizzle were heard.

Gorst frowned. ‘What is—’

There was a colossal explosion and he shrank to the ground, hands clasped over his head. He had heard nothing like it since the Siege of Adua, when the Gurkish put fire to a mine and blew a hundred strides of the walls to gravel. Guardsmen peeped terrified from behind their shields. Exhausted labourers scrambled gaping from their fires. Others struggled to control terrified horses, two of which had torn a rail free and were galloping away with it clattering behind them.

Gorst slowly, suspiciously, stood. Smoke was issuing gently from the end of one of the pipes, engineers swarming around it. Denka and Saurizin were arguing furiously with each other. What had been the effect of the device beyond the noise, Gorst had not the slightest idea.

‘Well.’ Bayaz stuck a finger in one ear and waggled it around. ‘They’re certainly loud enough.’

A faint rumble echoed over the valley. Something like thunder, though it seemed to Craw the weather was just clearing up.

‘You hear that?’ asked Splitfoot.

Craw could only shrug up at the sky. Plenty of cloud still, even if there were a few blue patches showing. ‘More rain, maybe.’

Dow had other things on his mind. ‘How are we doing at the Old Bridge?’

‘They came just after first light but Scale held ’em,’ said Splitfoot. ‘Drove ’em back across.’

‘They’ll be coming again, ’fore too long.’

‘Doubtless. Reckon he’ll hold?’

‘If he don’t we got a problem.’

‘Half his men are across the valley with Calder.’

Dow snorted. ‘Just the man I’d want at my back if I was fighting for my life.’

Splitfoot and a couple of the others chuckled.

There was a right way of doing things, far as Craw was concerned, and it didn’t include letting men laugh at your friends behind their backs, however laughable they may be. ‘That lad might surprise you,’ he said.

Splitfoot smirked wider. ‘Forgot you and him were tight.’

‘Practically raised the boy,’ said Craw, squaring up and giving him the eye.

‘Explains a lot.’

‘Of what?’

Dow spoke over ’em, an edge to his voice. ‘The pair o’ you can wank Calder off once the light’s gone. In case you hadn’t noticed we’ve got bigger business. What about Osrung?’

Splitfoot gave Craw a parting look, then turned back to his Chief. ‘Union are over the fence, fighting on the south side of town. Reachey’ll hold ’em, though.’