Sergeants shouted louder than ever as soldiers streamed off the barges and boats and river galleys. “Move!” they bellowed. “Move fast! Help your friends! We do this the right way, we all get to go home afterward!” If anything would make the men fight like fiends, that was it.
As soon as he was on the south side of the Enipeus, Grus mounted his horse. As a rider, he remained a good sailor. King Lanius, not far away from him, had a much better seat. But Grus stayed on, and he stayed out in front of his men. “Come on!” he shouted. He waved his sword, and didn’t quite cut off the horse’s ears with it. “We’ve got ’em where we want ’em now! This time, we finish ’em!”
The men cheered. Lanius said nothing at all, and didn’t try to keep up with the van of the onrushing army. Grus knew his fellow king was unhappy with him. He also knew Lanius wasn’t, and never would be, a warrior.
Grus had more urgent things to worry about, anyhow. Before long, his soldiers started scooping up men who’d fought for Corvus and Corax. “What are you bastards doing here?” one of them snarled as he went off into captivity. “You’re supposed to be up there.” He pointed upstream, where Hirundo’s men unquestionably were.
“Life is full of surprises,” Grus answered. The rebel only gaped at him.
Others who fought for Corvus and Corax must have galloped ahead to let the brothers know they were under attack from front and rear at once. Before long, Grus found rebels drawn up in a ragged line across a field of barley. He pointed his sword at them. “Can they stop us?” he yelled. His men roared in response, and he led the charge at a gallop, hoping all the while he wouldn’t fall off his horse.
Some of the rebel horsemen and foot soldiers had bows. Grus watched a rider take aim at him. He hoped the fellow wasn’t taking dead aim. The archer let fly. The arrow hissed past Grus’ head. Then he and his men were on the soldiers who followed Corax and Corvus.
Battle, as always, seemed a blur. Grus struck and turned blows and shouted and cursed and urged his followers on. Sometimes he missed; sometimes his sword bit on flesh. Even when the blade did strike home, more often than not he had no idea how much damage he did. Everyone on the field was shouting and groaning and screaming. What was one more cry of pain among the rest?
“We’ve broken them!” someone yelled. It was, Grus realized, someone on his side. Sure enough, the rebels—those of them still on their feet—streamed off in flight.
“This is only the beginning,” Grus called. “This was just a rear guard. They wanted to slow us up. We didn’t even let them do that. We’ve got to keep moving now, come to grips with the rest of the army, and break it, too.” He pointed west. “Forward!”
His men cheered. Why not? They’d won a fight, and hadn’t suffered much doing it. That made them ready for more.
They got it, too. A scout came galloping back with news: “Corax and Corvus are mixing it up with Hirundo’s men. If we pitch into their rear now—”
“That’s what we’re here for,” Grus agreed. He shouted, “Forward!” again at the top of his lungs.
As his scouts told him what the rebels were doing, so their outriders warned them his army was on the way. His men couldn’t simply pitch into their rear, taking them by surprise. But Corvus and Corax didn’t have enough soldiers to withstand Hirundo and Grus at the same time. When the rebel leaders pulled men out of the fight against Hirundo to confront Grus’ advancing army, Hirundo pressed them harder. And Grus could see how the line they’d quickly turned about and formed against him wavered.
He spied Corax, who was crying, “Kill the king! Kill the false king!”
“Come and try it!” Grus yelled. He spurred toward Corvus’ brother. The rebel count, seeing him, booted his own horse up into a gallop. Grus wondered if he’d made a mistake, and if he would live through it. Unlike him, Corax really knew what he was doing on horseback. The noble’s sword sparkled in the sun.
No matter what Corax knew, it didn’t help him. An arrow caught him in the face. That bright blade flew from his hand. He slid off his horse and thudded down into the dust. He might have died even before he hit the ground. Grus, clutching the hilt of his own sword, allowed himself the luxury of a sigh of relief.
And seeing him fall broke the rebels’ spirit. Some of them ran off in all directions, thinking of nothing but saving themselves. More threw down swords and spears and bows and flung up their hands in surrender. Only a stubborn handful around Corvus fought their way free of the disaster and headed south in any kind of order.
By then, the sun was almost down. Grus let that last knot of rebels get away, not least because he doubted any pursuit could catch up with them. He was, for the moment, content to see what he and his men had won.
He turned to Hirundo, who had a bloody rag tied around a cut on his forehead just below the brim of his helmet. “Let’s camp here for the night. We’ll care for the wounded and go on from there in the morning.”
“That seems fine, Your Majesty.” Hirundo sounded as weary as Grus felt. He had a dent in his helm that hadn’t been there the day before; maybe the wound to his forehead had come when the brim got forced into his flesh. He waved. “The men are camping here whether we want them to or not.”
Sure enough, tents sprouted like toadstools at one edge of the battlefield. Soldiers prowled the field, plundering the dead and looking for missing friends who might have been hurt. Grus tried not to listen to the moans of the wounded. He always tried. He always failed. To take his mind off them, he pointed to an especially large tent and said, “There’s King Lanius’ pavilion.”
Hirundo nodded and pointed in a different direction. “And here comes Lanius himself.”
“Good.” Grus waved to his fellow king. He’d hardly seen King Lanius since the fighting started. He was glad Lanius had come to him now. He didn’t want them quarreling. Lanius waved back, and Grus’ bodyguards stepped aside to let the young king join the older one.
And then, altogether without warning, Lanius jerked out a dagger and stabbed Grus in the chest. He let out a horrid, wordless cry of dismay when the point snapped off—King Grus still wore a light shirt of mail under his tunic.
Grus’ response was altogether automatic. His sword sprang from its scabbard. He struck once, with all his strength. His blade bit deep into Lanius’ neck. Blood fountained. It smelled like hot iron. With a groan, head half severed, the young King of Avornis fell dead at his feet.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Chaos in the camp. The racket a little while before had been bad enough. Anyone who hoped to sleep would have had a hard time of it. Now the endless moans of the wounded—and their shrieks when surgeons set about trying to repair their wounds—were joined by a sudden chorus of outraged shouts. And those shouts didn’t ebb. They spread over the whole encampment like wildfire, getting louder and more furious at every moment. Running feet were everywhere, too. All at once, no one in Grus’ army or Hirundo’s seemed content to walk anywhere.
At first, the shouts had been wordless—expressions of raw, red rage and horror. Little by little, though, men started yelling one king’s name or the other’s. And they started using a word that, when connected to any king’s name, meant nothing but trouble and worry and sorrow ahead for the realm the man had ruled. They started yelling, “Dead!”
Up till then, it had been possible to ignore the racket, especially for someone who wanted nothing but food and rest. But hearing the word dead connected with the name of Grus and with the name of Lanius proved impossible to ignore, even for the most detached, scholarly individual in the whole encampment.