Even as he displaced it, he felt its insubstantial nature, and the hair stood up on the nape of his neck.
Illusion.
Got you, muttered Harmodius through the Red Knight’s mouth, and he flicked a single point of light, a sphere the size of a pearl or a child’s smallest marble.
Aeskepiles managed to shield himself by draining his last amulet and his secret, invisible ring, but he was blown clear of his horse, which was killed in a spectacular manner, and the magister was knocked unconscious.
But the enemy archers were dismounted, their mounts had panicked and their bowstrings were cut. Both armies were filled with dread at the unsealy exchange of powers, a sight that filled them all with fear, and if the Moreans broke for their baggage train, the company soldiers stood rooted to the spot, unwilling to advance.
Harmodius was in full control of the Red Knight’s body. He flexed his fingers, and sighed, because he could feel that his opponent was dazed, and he himself was almost out of potentia.
He felt alive. He savoured it. He breathed, and watched the enemy break and run.
Bad Tom glared at him. ‘Bah!’ he said. ‘Come on, man! We can yet have them.’
The mad Hillman wanted to charge three thousand Moreans with two hundred Alban knights.
I don’t know what will happen if I smash this statue, said the Red Knight, deep inside his own palace. But I’m willing to bet it will end you, and I want my body back.
I just saved your army, you ungrateful whelp, Harmodius said. But with a last inbreath of the scent of grass and horses, he let go.
The Red Knight snapped back into full awareness, and he could see the men around him – Ranald and Bad Tom, Michael, Alison – straining in their saddles, eager to charge.
‘Advance!’ he ordered. At his side, the trumpeter raised his instrument and blew. The first call came out like the honking of a goose. The second rang as clear as day, and he repeated it once more.
‘That’s halt you idiot!’ roared the Captain. ‘Advance! Advance!’ he called, and rode out to the front where men could see him, his lance held high – but the damage was done. Confusion reigned supreme in his ranks for agonisingly long heartbeats.
By the time he had his lances moving, the last company of enemy stradiotes was retreating, a thousand paces away. The Vardariotes had wrecked the enemy Easterners, or perhaps subsumed them, and the enemy’s cadre of Alban mercenaries – the Latinikon – was scattered to the winds. Many were simply surrendering.
The Captain had a headache of monumental proportions, but he managed to indicate the surrendering knights to Bad Tom. ‘They look – look like men who want a new employer,’ he said.
‘You look like dog shit,’ Ranald said, and put a hand on his shoulder.
The Red Knight swore in a very undignified manner, and forced himself to sit upright and lead.
His knights rode forward as fast as they could in good order, and they pursued the retreating Thrakians over the Field of Ares. A mile out in the grass, they linked up with the scarlet-clad Vardariotes, and they rode side by side at a slow canter. Behind them, archers scrambled to retrieve their lost horses. Pages were cursed, but not very hard.
Cully took his horse from Nell and smiled at her.
‘Ain’t you goin’ ta follow the Cap’n?’ she asked the master archer. He and Long Paw were standing at their horses’ heads, but they weren’t mounting.
Cully looked down on her. ‘You’re a young ’un to tell me my trade, ain’t you?’
Long Paw nodded. ‘We’ve done our bit,’ he said.
The sun was going down in ruddy splendour over the city to the south and west behind them. When every basilica’s gilt roof was ablaze with the fire of the sun, the Thrakian infantry had to turn at bay or be ridden down in retreat. They were at the northern edge of the great field, and they halted between two of the low, round hills that defined the ancient drill field.
They faced about, got their aspides, their great round shields, off their shoulders, and they pulled their helmets down, set their feet, and prepared to give their lives. In the fifth and sixth ranks, archers restrung their bows and then moved out into the scrub on the hills and tried some long shafts at the Vardariotes.
The Red Knight watched it all with weary resignation. He formed his men-at-arms up in two companies under Ser Jehan and Ser Milus; both in broad, deep wedges.
The archers had emptied two Vardariote saddles when the scarlet-clad Easterners swept forward at the gallop – they rode all the way to just short of the enemy’s spear points and then shot down into their phalanx at point-blank range – and then galloped away, exchanging ranks with a dexterity that spoke of long practice and perfect horsemanship. When the dust settled, darkness was moments away and two dozen of the Thrakians were face down in the grass – but they closed their ranks grimly. And backstepped.
The Red Knight beckoned to Count Zac, who rode up. ‘I can do it again,’ he said with a shrug. ‘But they are not soft, these Thrakians. I don’t think they will break.’
The Red Knight shook his head. ‘If it were noon, we’d have them in an hour,’ he said. ‘But it isn’t, and we won’t. Let them go. I’m not willing to lose one more man-at-arms to break them. And they’re just his infantry. His knights are gone.’
Sauce laughed. ‘You sound like Ser Jehan,’ she said.
Ser Alcaeus shook his head in turn. ‘You need to learn to think like a Morean. His infantry are the heart of his army. His cavalry are not “knights”. They are soldiers.’
The Red Knight scratched at his two-day beard growth. ‘Let’s go see if Cully found any new bowstrings,’ he said. He looked at Zac. ‘You feel we should try them?’
Zac watched the infantry retreat into the gathering gloom. ‘No. Foolishness,’ he said. ‘Let’s go back to the city. You pay me, I sell you a horse. We drink. ‘
The Red Knight looked around at his officers. He kept his tone light, although fatigue and his unspoken war with Harmodius made it hard even to think. ‘I think we’ve come to the right place,’ he managed.
Bad Tom sat watching the Thrakians, and he shook his axe at them and then hurled the weapon into their ranks and roared, ‘Lachlan for aa!’ like a lion baulked of his prey. He rounded on his captain.
‘I want the fight! Christ damn their souls to hell-’
The Captain waved to Lachlan through a fog of fatigue. ‘See to your cousin,’ he said.
The sun was gone from the sky when the Red Knight rode through the Ares Gate at the head of the company. He had Ser Gavin at his side, half his men-at-arms at his back, then all the archers and pages together, and then the rest of the men-at-arms, with the wagons bringing up the rear with all the women, and finally Long Paw and a dozen veterans with Gelfred and the scouts. Moreans stood in the gate and the square on the far side and cheered them.
Sort of.
The cheers were half-hearted. Many people simply watched them ride in without a comment, and there was some heckling after they passed through the gate.
There was a strong guard of men with long-hafted axes on the gate, and they stood in rigid silence as the mercenaries rode past.
‘Brother, you are a study,’ Gavin said.
‘I’ve had better days. My hip is killing me. We should have had the thrice-damned Duke today.’ He observed a pair of Moreans who watched him with open contempt. ‘And these people don’t love us for all that we just saved them from a siege and starvation.’ He was, in fact, seeing spots in front of his eyes.
Bad Tom, in the rank behind, hawked and spat. Ser Milus spurred his horse out of the column and rode right up to the two local men. ‘See something you like, gentles?’ he asked.