Mordraud, Book One (33 page)

Adraman stared at him in true amazement.

“May I ask why?”

“
I’ve grown fond of it, that’s all. I used it when you weren’t here...” Mordraud’s face reddened and he lowered his gaze. “To train, you know...”

“
Hmm, okay. Go and fetch it, go on.”

Mordraud dashed into the house, pleased, and slipped the weapon out of the rack. He felt safer with it – the symbol of all the days he
’d spent slashing at the air in the courtyard. When he turned to leave, his legs were trembling slightly. He lifted his eyes and saw Deanna at the head of the stairs, staring at him in silence.

“
D...”

Mordraud raised a hand but was speechless. She seemed like a snow-white shadow. Motionless and unsettling. He lacked the courage to run up to her and embrace her, even though he
’d have liked to. The way she was looking at him distressed him. Deanna’s eyes were wide open and dull, completely lifeless.

Mordraud rushed out, dragging the sword behind him, without glancing back.

“We can leave now. Thank you, Adraman... You’re very generous.”

The captain dug his heels into the horse
’s sides and went through the mansion gate.

“
Really? It’s just a piece of metal. One of many. Don’t trust your sword too much. Only trust your arm.”

The first lesson. Mordraud tried to push out the white phantom to make space for the rules of his new life, but he didn
’t manage it. He could still feel Deanna’s liquid eyes on him.

“
Thanks all the same...” he murmured, stroking the dark scabbard. The house slid away at their backs, and with it the attendants’ goodbyes. They were on the road, at last.

“On the Night of Fire itself?! Are you sure?”

“
That’s what they say...”

“
Isn’t it bad luck to break with tradition?”

“
Apparently the Emperor doesn’t care.”

Dunwich had heard the rumour among the troops f
or a few days now, but he had not given it any credibility. The Night of Fire was a strange festivity. As far as he knew, no commander had ever dared plan a battle for that precise date.

On th
e night marking the exact mid-point of autumn, the horizon would be tinged scarlet at dusk, the sun would go down, but the glow never faded. It burnt bright the whole night. The stars, the air and the land – everything would turn red, as if the entire world were enveloped in flame. A strip of crimson light appeared in the skies, with bloody tears raining down from it. It wasn’t so visible in the town, but it was such a terrifying vision over the fields that the country-folk in the east lit huge bonfires with their best wood, as a symbolic sacrifice to attract good luck.

“
It won’t be an attack like the others. Loralon’s asked the entire Lance battalion to lead the assault on the Rampart.”

Asaeld finished filling his pipe and lit it. The air swelled with the soft white smoke. The officers
’ inn was deserted – the best time for a little chat without too many eavesdroppers. And what Dunwich had to say was rather delicate.

“
Loralon’s insane! Attacking the Rampart during the Night of Fire?!”

“
I know.”

“
But you don’t seem worried, Asaeld!”

“
It’s some months away: it’s too soon to get worked up. He might change his mind. Or the front might shift and so we’ll just avoid the Rampart.”

“
I like the way you always manage to see the up-side of things...”

Dunwich shook his head and
drained his glass of wine in a single gulp. The bottle was empty, but at his nod the attendant immediately brought another just the same.

“
You should try it too. The days go by more smoothly,” Asaeld advised, sardonically.

“
The Rampart...” Dunwich muttered, troubled.

“
There is worse.” Asaeld drew in deeply and blew towards the ceiling. “Just think if we’d had to attack the post on the Hann Marshland.”

“
You’re kidding, I hope! The Hann Marshland’s nothing! The Rampart’s horrendous. It’ll be a nightmare manoeuvring the cavalry down there!”

“
And that’s why we Lances will be there. So just accept it,” concluded Asaeld dryly, swallowing down a puff of thick smoke.

The Rampart was one of the oldest stronghol
ds in Eldain’s resistance. A mud wall taller than three men, it coasted the woods, crossed the valley squeezed in between two mountain chains, and protected the vulnerable underbelly of the allied fiefdoms – the notorious Eastern Passage. It had been erected before the war, many centuries earlier. The reason for its construction and its more remote history were unknown. Eldain, and his father before him, had been careful to draw advantage from it in defending the region from Cambria. The Empire had been trying to seize it for decades – without a single success.

The Rampart could be manned with just a handful of soldiers armed with spears to hold back a horde of cavalry, and while the infantry toiled to scale the wall, they were slaughtered by the swords wielded by those waiting at the top. A defence structure that could seem weak and easily overthrown only to those who
’d never endeavoured to conquer it. Eldain was a fine strategist, and he’d used all his skill to plan and to train his men so they could use that huge mass of earth to their benefit. Both ends were closed off by dense knotted forests that climbed steeply and straddled the surrounding mountains. The ground was riddled with traps and pits. Archers perched among the branches. The hills prevented large battalions from overcoming the barricade. Eldain had the right men at the right points.

The Empire had tried breaking through to the north, but had had to re
linquish its hopes at the Allied bastions that blocked every other route. Even if they managed to pass beyond the first forts, they’d have to tackle a descent towards the Rampart to vacate it, thus finding themselves crushed between two points of attack: Eld and, of course, the Rampart. To the south, with its meanderings and treacherous swamplands, the Hann River acted as a natural barrier that had cost thousands of lives in the attempts to push beyond it. In those areas too, Eldain’s experience dominated unchallenged. There was no stream or pond that he hadn’t considered in his strategies, including the Hann Marshland – the long thin island that emerged at the heart of that watery territory. The Empire had lost countless platoons amongst those reeds enveloped in a perpetual sodden mist. And the few who had succeeded in getting through had then disappeared on the many branches of the river as these wedged between the jagged mountains of the harsh yet wretchedly putrid land.

“
The Lances could make the difference... but it’ll be a massacre in any case.”

“
So?! It’s a war, not a village fête! We have to just follow the Emperor’s orders – it’s our job.” Asaeld stared at him with an expression that was his alone: interrogator yet friend, with underlying menace. “Changing your mind, by any chance? No longer interested in being a Lance?”

“
Of course I am!” Dunwich replied, uneasily. “I was just commenting on the operation, that’s all.”

“
I’d keep it that way if I were you...”

Dunwich went back to his wine, but after a couple of glasses he already began feeling rather tipsy. It was time to go home. Asaeld didn
’t seem to be of the same opinion. After groping around in his cloak pocket, he stretched out a fine pale wood pipe to him, inviting him to smoke it.

“
I have some excellent tobacco tonight. They sent me it from the South, from beyond the Inland Sea. The finest quality. It’ll help you to clearer ideas.”

Dunwich accepted with little conviction, but the first puff was enough to make him change his mind. Dense, fragrant and rich in aroma.

“You should never refuse a smoke like this!” he exclaimed approvingly.

“
Well done, my boy... Now, let’s get back to more serious talk. How do you think we should tackle the assault on the Rampart?”

It was not
the first time Asaeld had asked his opinion. When he did, the Emperor intervened, radically changing their plans. An odd coincidence, but one that didn’t particularly strike him at that time. The wine and the pipe had loosened his tongue and had definitely made his head light.

“
I think the Lances should concentrate their forces at the sides, to then draw on the power of our choirs... the Night of Fires is already frightening enough in itself. If the rebels see deadly thunderbolts raining from the skies together with the blood, we might be able to break their courage...”

“
Interesting! Carry on!” Asaeld said, nodding slowly, while two wisps of smoke seeped out of his curled lips, brushing his cheeks.

***

“Remember: when I get back I want to see it gleaming like a mirror.”

“
But I cleaned it yesterday too...”

“
WHAT... DID... YOU... SAY?!”

“
Certainly, sir!”

Mordraud ju
st could not swallow taking orders. If it had at least been charging the enemy, hurtling his courage beyond the Rampart... Instead he had to clean, clean and clean some more. And polish. And clean.

Adraman had completely changed since they
’d reached the front. He expected the same formal servile conduct that any other soldier had to show the officers. In fact, he was harder on him than the others at times. He spared Mordraud nothing – whatever humble job needed doing at the camp, it was his.

A month had gone by since he
’d joined the army. He still hadn’t held a sword, and they hadn’t explained the slightest notions of strategy to him. Nothing at all. He hadn’t even practised riding a horse – something that, luckily, was not a problem for him, as he already knew he had a natural talent. Adraman spent whole days shut up in the command tent, speaking to Mordraud only to give him the list of skivvy’s jobs to do.

Clean his armour. Polish his armour.

Groom the horses in the stables. Clear up the horses’ shit in the stables.

And so on, day after day.

‘They’ve even chopped my hair off, for love of the Gods... I look like a child...’ Mordraud mused in frustration. He could accept that the cropping was also for his good, to avoid the lice they got from always sleeping on the tent floor, but he found it hard to swallow. He’d liked his long hair. Besides, he saw that all the soldiers, except the new arrivals, kept their hair as they wished. ‘They only cut it on us new recruits... to take the piss out of us,’ he decided, bitterly.

The trip from Eld had been the only exciting interlude in what was proving to be a huge disappointment. He and Adraman had spoken about war, sharing stories of victories during great night-time raids on horseback, beneath skies infested with burning arrows – things Mordraud had fantasised about for years as he
trained alone. The feeling something was finally changing in his life forever had been a strong one, and he enjoyed it down to the last. When he found out that the Rampart was actually the safest place in all the Allied lands, it was like waking from a dream with a punch in the back.

Cambria hadn
’t dared attack the central front for months. Eldain had fought for years along that imaginary line that defended access to the heart of the region, and had slowly strengthened the boundaries until they’d become practically impenetrable. If Cambria were to declare war with all its bristling force, the Rampart probably wouldn’t withstand. But the Imperial forces only assailed the outlying areas, capturing a few spans of land that inevitably ended up being repossessed, then lost again, as in an endless dance. A couple of crushing defeats at the Rampart had cooled the heated spirits of those bent on attempting a frontal attack. Nobody dared take responsibility for a manoeuvre that could cost thousands of pointless deaths.

Adraman was stationed in the
main camp beneath the Rampart, but he would soon have to set out to inspect the other battalions positioned all along the front, while Mordraud was to stay there and await an inexistent attack.

‘
Perhaps I’m the only one here who’d like to be somewhere else...’ he mused as he polished the greaves to his master’s armour for the umpteenth time. Eldain’s soldiers assigned to the Rampart were considered very lucky. The most furious clashes seemed to be concentrated more to the south, near the Hann River. The Alliance managed to hold out down there thanks mainly to the swamplands, which evened out the odds and favoured those who knew the area well. The rebels, of course. Curious how Cambria persisted in getting itself bogged down in a war of position, thought Mordraud, mechanically repeating an interesting doubt Adraman had confided to him.

The armour shone like a mirror. Mordraud
’s hands ached from all the rubbing and cleaning. “I’ve gone from a sissy’s job to an even worse one...” he grumbled, as he put all the pieces back together in checking the buckles. He really needed to vent some frustration. He peeped outside the tent, and then went off towards the recruits’ section.

“
Hey,
Blackie
. Finished with the shit?!”

A chorus of sniggers welcomed his arrival at the large infantry tent. Just as usual, he thought, without reacting to the provocation. In the others
’ eyes, he was Adraman’s little pet. Nobody suspected he was in fact the oldest inside that tent.

“
Blackie, we’ve got a pail full of it here if you want it... Mind giving it a polish?”

He hated that nickname. Determined not to get into trouble, Mordraud headed straight for his bed – nothing more than a sack of straw, a couple of blankets and a hessian bag for his personal belongings. The soldiers
teased him, then went back to playing dice, shifting their attentions to another newcomer: a lanky freckled boy whose sole and great misfortune was being born the third son of one of Eldain’s cavalrymen. Straight into the army, branded for that career when he was still in swaddling clothes.

“
Look! Mr. Pockmark’s arrived! Come here. Fancy playing a game?!”

The lads were even rowdier than usual that day. Mordraud quickly rifled around under his bed groping for the sword. He kept it hidden in an old scabbard he
’d found behind the forge, for fear it could be tempting for some old hand with sticky fingers.

“
Blackie?”

Mordraud turned round, drawing his arm out from under the straw. The soldier was waving a sword above his head.

“Looking for this?”

It was his sword. They
’d found it in the end.

“
Give that back right now!” he yelled in rage.

“
Oh, did you hear?! Blackie wants back the pressie mummy gave him...”