‘Give up?’ Alexius asked, and the skull’s eyes opened -
– ‘What?’ Bardas asked. There was a man standing over him. ‘Gods, is it morning already?’
‘Staff meeting,’ the soldier replied. ‘Then weapons training; it says on your schedule you’re doing wounds and death with the ninth, tenth and twelfth platoons.’
Bardas yawned. ‘I’d completely forgotten. All right, tell ’em I’ll be out in a minute or two.’
Another agreeable thing about the Imperial army was its eagerness to learn. Two centuries ago, the Sons of Heaven had hit on the happy notion of performance-related bonuses for field armies. These awards were calculated at platoon level (to take it further down the command structure would be to risk encouraging soldiers to place individual opportunity above corporate goals) and were based on the number of confirmed kills attributable to each platoon during a battle. Naturally, any kills achieved in the face of or to the prejudice of explicit orders from an officer were discounted; only the platoons that saw action were eligible, which had the beneficial effect of making each unit eager to take its turn in the front rank. In consequence, combat tutorials from an expert like Colonel Loredan were regarded as a genuine opportunity to increase a platoon’s earning power, and were very well attended.
‘Today,’ Bardas said, looking over the top of the mass of attentive faces, ‘we’re going to look at the mechanics of killing; this is all about making your blows count, doing as much damage as you can with as little exposure and risk as you can get away with.’
You could have heard a coin drop. Bardas suppressed a grin. If you could see me now, Alexius; a college lecturer.
‘Quite simply,’ he went on, ‘there’s two ways of doing damage with the sword and the halberd, namely thrusting and cutting. Now then, hands up anybody who’s studied fencing or something similar outside the service.’ A couple of hands appeared; Bardas nodded. ‘Well, first thing you’ll be doing is forgetting everything you were taught in fencing school about thrusts being better than cuts. Sure, thrusts kill better than cuts, but they kill slowly. You’re in a battle and the other man’s trying to kill you: you don’t just want him dead, you want him dead now. Most of all, you want to stop him being able to hurt you; which is why a cut that does relatively little damage – snips off a thumb, say – is quite likely going to be more use to you than a neat thrust through the lung that’ll drop him dead as a stone in ninety seconds’ time.’
The audience shifted a little in their seats. Bardas knew why; they weren’t sure which they were more interested in, staying alive or racking up a healthy body-count. Very good; let them keep that division of priorities firmly in mind.
‘If you’re going to kill a man or take him out of play, you’ll need to damage either the works or the pipes; works are things like muscle, sinew and bone, pipes are veins and arteries. But damage isn’t everything; you can do fatal damage and still not do the job. Just as important as damage is shock. Always remember that, if you can.’
Bardas paused and took a sip of water.
‘For a good military kill with a thrust, don’t bother with the head too much. Skulls are thick; unless you’re lucky enough to get a fluke shot in through the eye, the ear or the mouth, chances are that all you’ll do is make your enemy even more bad-tempered than he was before. Necks are good, especially if you twist the blade once you’re in, but the neck’s a damn fiddly small target; so’s the heart, come to that. If you go for the heart, ten to one you’ll get tangled up in the ribs, which are springy and a right pain. You can make a real mess of someone’s chest and still not stop him; it’s a low-return shot, not something you want to muck around with in a serious battle.
‘If you’re fighting cavalry, of course, you’ve got the option of a thrust up under the ribs – also if you’re kneeling to receive an infantry charge. As well as the heart, you’ve also got a clear shot at the liver and a big fat artery. Gut-shots are probably the easiest kind of thrust; but you’ll be amazed at the amount of junk there is inside there that you’ve got to get through before you reach anything worthwhile. Also bear in mind that the stomach muscles convulse when they’re cut, enough to move your shot off line. By the way; when you prick a stomach, it goes pop as all the air comes rushing out; it’ll startle the life out of you the first time you hear it, so be prepared for that.
‘Actually, if you’re thrusting you can do a lot worse than go for the arteries in the groin, the small of the back, upper arm, armpit, knee and so forth. Lay one of those open and you’ll almost certainly have a kill; but please, always bear in mind the fact that bleeding to death takes its own sweet time, during which he’s still armed and dangerous. Even if you’ve got him fair and square in a good place, always follow up, preferably with a big cut, just to make sure he ends up on the deck. Same goes for kidneys, lungs, all that stuff. If all you’re interested in is killing, get a job in a slaughterhouse. If you want to be a soldier, concentrate on killing quickly.’
He paused for breath. Still got their attention? Good.
‘Cutting, on the other hand,’ he went on, ‘is as much about shock as damage. Cut a man’s hand off and suddenly he’s not a threat any more, even if he lives to be a hundred. Remember, pain is your friend, it’ll stop him trying to get you; a perfectly lethal thrust might not hurt enough to notice, and if a man doesn’t know he’s dead, he might not stop attacking you until it’s too late. Now, the choicest cuts are to the head and neck; but don’t fool about trying to chop the other man’s head off when a nice crunching slash across the neck artery will do just as nicely. For one thing, while you’re swinging your sword up for the really big hit, you’re the next best thing to an open target yourself. Short, meaty cuts across bones are what bring home the bacon; so long as you stop him cold, you can always finish him off with the next one.
‘Finally, people will tell you the thrust’s quicker than the cut; maybe so, but that sounds to me like you’re taking too big a swing. Get close first, then take your shot; use your feet to close up the gap, move your body and your arm at the same time, and you won’t need to worry too much about slow cutting. Do it right and they’ll never know what hit them. All right, any questions? ’
There were questions, plenty of them and for the most part intelligent and informed. Once again Bardas reflected on what a pleasure it was to work with people who really cared about technique and craft. If only he’d had a few students of this calibre (instead of only one) when he was running his fencing school, perhaps it might have worked out a whole lot better.
Later that day, the first timber wagons rolled back into camp, and the tempo changed noticeably. In no time at all the lumber was unshipped and hauled to where it was needed, giving the engineers barely enough time to finish their designs. As he watched the teams of men dragging the heavy logs into position, he couldn’t help remembering the spectacle of Temrai’s men as they shifted lumber and built their trebuchets and catapults under the walls of the City. No matter which side you’re on, there are few sights more inspiring than a large number of men working well together on a big, ambitious project; watching them lever and winch huge bulks of timber about as if they weighed nothing at all, even hoist them into the air on cranes and pulleys, is enough to make a man feel proud to be human. Is this how Temrai felt? he wondered. He’d have been entitled to, no question about that. It was odd; being back here, doing this sort of thing, was almost enough to make him feel young again.
Young and in charge, like Temrai against Perimadeia. Young and supremely confident, like Bollo starting to swing his hammer. Young and with a lifetime of opportunity ahead of him, like Bardas Loredan leading Maxen’s army home from the wars. He thought for a moment about the young lad who’d briefly been his apprentice on Scona, when he’d been trying to make his living as a bowyer. He remembered what it had felt like, on the night of the Sack, twisting Temrai’s arm behind his back with one hand, holding the cutting edge to his throat with the other. That had been one of the most intimate moments of his life.