The magister began to raise power. The ops was rippled and strained. He was not the only workman in this brickyard, and the wound he’d taken from the Emperor’s spymaster and bodyguard was a distraction that weakened his casting. ‘They have a powerful mage with them,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘By the crucified Christ, my lord – they have two.’ He breathed, and then spoke as if he’d run a race. ‘No, four. Perhaps five- Parthenos, my lord!’
‘He beat Tzoukes and he has another force. He’s not showing me all his spears,’ the Duke said. ‘Nonetheless, he’s a barbarian and we are not. Let’s push him.’ He waved to his banner bearers. The trumpeters had horns made of wild aurochs, and they raised them, and the horns echoed like the cries of Wild creatures.
The Morean army marched. Their dressing was impressive – their own mercenary knights on the left, the five big blocks of infantry in the centre, and the Duke and his stradiotes on the right, with a thin second line a few hundred yards behind – mostly ill-mounted men and camp guards, but a second line nonetheless.
The army was small enough for a short speech so he rode to the centre of his line, tilted his steel cap back on his head, and stood in his stirrups.
‘Companions!’ he roared. ‘These foreigners are more of the same – barbarians who come to take our wealth and our daughters and leave us with nothing but the right to be slaves when our fathers were lords. This mercenary has nothing but his arrogance to sustain him. We have God on our side. Go with God!’
His men roared. The spearmen in the centre – his veterans from his first days – raised gilded helmets on their spearheads and bellowed his name, calling him Imperator.
Duke Andronicus cantered back to his small command group and gestured to his son. ‘We overlap him on both flanks. See to it that your Easterners turn his left so my Hetaeroi can finish him.’
Golden-haired Demetrius saluted smartly. ‘As you say, Pater!’ he shouted cheerily and cantered away to the right.
Kronmir sat comfortably on his horse’s back, watching the distant city gate. ‘It seems to me he is expecting help,’ he said.
‘He is merely arrogant. Galles and Albans – I’ve beaten them both.’ The Duke smiled soberly. ‘That sounds too much like hubris. But with God’s help-’ He looked west, towards his enemies.
The enemy baggage train was rolling forward.
As the Duke watched, walking his horse at the same pace that his marching spearmen were crushing the long grass, he saw the enemy baggage train split into two. There was confusion somewhere in the middle, and he smiled.
The enemy was in the process of dismounting. But their trumpet calls sounded tuneless, and the men at either end of the line were obviously unclear as to what to do. They were still three hundred paces distant, and Duke Andronicus watched his textbook attack roll into the barbarians. He looked to his left – the mercenary knights were drifting to the left, intentionally improving their flanking position and cutting the enemy off from the gate. Ser Bescanon knew his business.
On the right, his son was carefully maintaining the line. He wouldn’t swing wide until the fighting had started. Barbarians never saw anything beyond immediate threat.
Two hundred and seventy-five paces. The capture of his most faithful vicar and two battle icons was annoying, but Andronicus intended to rescue all three before the sun set. The sun was beginning to set now, so if the contest ran longer than an hour the rays would fall in the eyes of his men. A small thing, but the sort of detail that Imperial commanders were careful about.
The last of the barbarians were dismounted. He had to admire the discipline of their horse holders, and he cursed that the barbarians were rich enough to mount every man while the Empire scrabbled to afford a few hundred professional cavalry of their own.
The enemy infantry were archers. He’d known it – but he was still a little surprised by the density of their first volley, especially considering the range.
Men went down.
As his men stolidly marched forward, Andronicus strove to understand what had happened. Men in the armoured infantry had gone down.
The second, third, and fourth volley struck so close together that he lost track. The centre was staggered – it slowed, and the line bowed.
Ser Christos, one of his best officers and the Count of the Infantry, spurred out of the centre, took two arrows on his heavy shield, and still managed to raise his sword. ‘Forward, companions!’ he called, his high-pitched voice carrying like song, and the infantry surged forward, any momentary hesitation forgotten.
‘Now that’s an army,’ said Bad Tom with satisfaction. ‘Good thing irks don’t react like that, eh?’
Three horse lengths in front of Tom, the company archers were grunting and releasing their shafts as fast as they could, and the Imperial infantry were soaking up the volleys on their shields. There were men down, but their huge round shields were three boards thick and formed of leather and bronze as well, and the men behind them were big, tough louts wearing heavy mail or scale, and they were still coming – close enough now that the archers could see their faces.
The Captain looked to the right, where, instead of covering his flank with a wagon wall, he had a snarl of panicked wagoners.
Even as he watched, Mag the seamstress leaped up on a wagon and began to yell at the men around her. She did something hermetical – he felt the odd hollowness that practioners could always sense before another cast – and he saw a wagon freeze in place, horses vibrating like lute strings.
He wished her well, but whatever she did was going to be too late, because five hundred enemy knights were intending to turn that flank.
She’s using a great deal of power, and she’s attracting the enemy magister’s attention.
Shut up, Harmodius! The Captain put a hand to his head. If you make me sick now, we’re lost.
He turned. ‘Tom – there.’ He pointed with his lance.
Bad Tom grinned his mad grin. ‘With me, boys!’ he shouted. He must have seen Sauce, because he said, ‘And girls! Hah! Wedge, now – on me.’
The Captain had a third of the company’s men-at-arms gathered around him – Ser Gavin, Ser Michael, Ser Alcaeus, Ranald and all the Hillmen, and others.
‘Go!’ shouted the Captain.
In a moment he was alone behind the line of archers, and Tom’s wedge was forming, and Mag was still screaming at the men and women of the baggage train.
His hip hurt.
To no one in particular, he said, ‘I’ve fucked this up.’
He backed his horse and turned the plug’s head to look off to his left. There, the wagons had formed better, and Bent already had the end of the line covered by wagon bodies while the wagoners unhitched horses and hitched chains. They’d practised this, but it was obvious they hadn’t practised it enough.
He looked at the oncoming wall of Morean infantry. There were holes in their line, and it looked a little like a waving flag. If he had another hundred men-at-arms, he could-
‘Gelfred!’ he called. ‘Go all the way past Tom’s wedge and do what you can.’
Gelfred’s scouts, well behind his command, were all he had of a reserve. The rest of the men-at-arms and squires were dismounted with the archers.
Off to their front left, ops swelled. He could feel the working emanating from someone very powerful indeed-
Harmodius . . .
I knew you’d need me.
Whatever the enemy cast, it sliced the grass on its way to the archers’ line. Men flinched, and then the great scythe was lifted as if it had never been there. A few men on the left felt an icy cold at their knees, and then they nocked and loosed.