The Ten Thousand (22 page)

Arkamenes, my
brother. Ashurnan reined in and sat his horse a hundred paces forward of his
Household’s line, the foremost man in the army. His companions he waved back as
they approached, to remonstrate with him about security, no doubt. He sat there
and watched the ranks of the enemy thicken, a hedge of spears and shields, a
mass of pushing and jostling and stumbling people all intent on finding some
patch of earth upon which they could stand and muster their courage. These were
Kefren opposite. He saw the banners of Tanis, of Artaka there, and with a
tightening of his mouth he beheld the sigils of Istar, and his cousin Honuran.

What price bought
you? he wondered, for he had loved Honuran, had counted him a true friend. They
had stayed together as best they could through the palace upheavals, Ashurnan
the serious, Arkamenes the proud, Honuran the trickster. A little triumvirate
of resistance, dedicated to foxing their tutors and making some space outside
the palace for themselves. They had all lost their virginity on the same whore,
had planned it that way so as to avoid the slick and murderous concubines of
the palace. They had drunk in wine-shops of the lower-city together, their
bodyguards fretting and nervous at every door. They had hunted together, boated
down the Oskus, broken horses as a team, been beaten by their tutors with all
their rumps bare in the air at the same time. Boyhood, and friendship. One
thought it was supposed to mean something. Perhaps it did. Perhaps I was too
serious—the Heir of the Great King. Did I wrong you, Arkamenes? It was not
through spite, only ham-fistedness.

Friendship. I do
not have it. My father was a lucky man. I take his leavings, worthy as they
are, and out of them I spin what I can. But I was never one to make great
friends, it seems.

The glory had left
him now. Ashurnan sat his horse and looked out at the enemy battle line with
eyes as cold as glass, noting the depth of rank, the armour, the level of
drill. My brother, he thought. I made you ruler of one third of this empire, in
fact if not in name—and it was not enough. I did it for love, for boyhood
friendship. I was mistaken. I shall kill you now, and weep not one tear when I
stare upon your corpse.

He kicked his
mount’s ribs savagely, and as the animal reared in fear and startlement he
calmed it with kind words, ashamed of himself.

The bow, the
horse, the truth. Very well. Even if it is only to please the memory of a dead
father, it is good enough.

He stared back
down the sloping ground to where his brother might be, then scanned the enemy
line, hunting out the legend, the much-vaunted mythical Macht. The familiar
half-made ranks of Kefren troops opposite had been a kind of comfort; one saw
this calibre of soldiery all over the Empire, and they were faintly risible
compared to the stern ranks of the Honai. He had a half-smile on his face as he
peered up the enemy line, the anger and betrayal in his heart fuelling a kind
of arrogance, the shield which few saw through, and which meant he would never
make the friends his father had.

The Macht.

Harder to make out
because they were not moving. They stood in patient files on the enemy right,
eight ranks of heavy infantry resting their shields on the ground so that they
leaned against the right knee. Their bronze was different. Ashurnan could not
quite puzzle it out, until he realised that it was old metal, tarnished and
dimmed. These men had carried their harness a long time. It was not a matter of
burnishing; it was a matter of years. And there was no decoration to it. They
did not take joy in their turn-out. They wore their panoplies with all the
pride and elan of labourers set to a day’s heavy shifting. Ashurnan’s mouth
began to sneer under the komis as he regarded them, and then his lips
straightened. Their formation was perfect, as though someone had gone running
along their front with a plumb line. They stood at ease, almost unmoving. They
were watching the armies moving into place to their front, but none of the
Kefren’s flinching restlessness went through their ranks. They seemed almost
bored.

Ashurnan turned his
horse around and cantered back to his own lines, his mind brewing all manner of
phantasms. To kill his brother—that was the self-evident mission of this
campaign. But now there was another filtering into place within his thoughts.
These Macht; they could not remain within the bounds of the Empire. They, too,
must be utterly destroyed. This legend must be brought to heel here in the mud
of the Middle Empire.

The Great King’s
levies, drawn by a skein of frantic couriers, drew together on the sloping ground
east of the city of Kaik. Here, the land rose out of the floodplain of the
Bekai River and crested into a series of low heights that might once have been
the foundations of ancient cities, but which now had disappeared utterly and
were mere shapeless mounds. The heights had a name though; locally they were
known as the Kunaksa, the Goat’s Hills, and goats had indeed grazed there in
happier times. Now they provided dry footing for the Great King’s battle line,
and a vantage point from where the whole expanse of the plain could be made out
right back to the river itself. Below, in the sodden ground of the farmlands,
the traitor’s army had finished deploying and now occupied a solid front of
some six pasangs. The Macht out on the right made a line of shields just over a
pasang and a half long, and curled round their open flank was an amorphous
crowd of light infantry, skirmishers with spears and javelins and no armour to
speak of. The traitor Arkamenes had set a renegade Juthan legion on the Macht
left. There were his personal troops, his Honai, and behind that a mounted
Bodyguard of perhaps a thousand heavy cavalry. Further left, there were the
levies from Artaka, the Tanis garrison, and more Juthan troops. Between forty
and fifty thousand all told. On this wide plain their formations were as
perfect as could be imagined. He was short on cavalry and archers, but had a
solid wall of heavy infantry to fight with. If their morale held, that line
would take a lot to stop.

So thought Vorus,
looking down on them. Again and again, his eyes were drawn back to the
unyielding, insouciant line of blank bronze that was the Macht. Something ached
near his heart, a kind of pride. The Macht heavy spearmen had retained their
cloaks. They knew that battle might not be joined today and that they would
most likely have to sleep in line, so they had brought the scarlet badge of
their calling on their backs. They would die tomorrow with their red cloaks on
their shoulders. For a single, insane moment, Vorus wished with all his heart
that he was down there with them, part of that sombre spectacle.

Only for a moment.

KUNAKSA

Off to the north,
the Arakosan cavalry had begun to move, six thousand horsemen with the mist of
the morning grey about the bellies of their mounts. The ground was packed red
and hard under them, the chill of the night holding it firm. The rumble of the
horses could be heard and felt over the earth for pasangs on every side. A
harbinger of what was to come perhaps, a dark music borne upon the waking world.

The noise woke
Gasca from an uneasy sleep, and many others around him. They rose from their
cramped ranks, cursed the snag and jab of bronze on their shins, and tugged
their cloaks tighter about their torsos, the mist all around them, deep and
unknowable as the currents of the sea.

Old Demotes raised
his hawk nose to sniff the pre-dawn air and cocked his grey head to one side. “That’s
cavalry,” he said. He spat on the ground and bared what remained of his teeth
as he stretched his worn and warped limbs into function.

Around him more
men rose ahead of reveille, that dark murmur in the earth bringing them out of
what scant sleep they had endured. Close on ten thousand spearmen had lain down
the bright evening before with their heads pillowed on their shields and their
cuirasses biting their hips. Now it was almost a relief to stand up, to make
the blood work about the bones and face the thing which had brought them all
here.

Gasca checked all
his gear automatically, touched the upright planted length of his spear for
luck and tried to shiver some warmth into his limbs. The cloak had helped, but
his father’s layered cuirass had been stiffened by the cold. His flesh would
have to warm it into some kind of compliance before it stopped biting him.

Buridan was walking
down the line; he had taken over the Dogsheads after Jason’s promotion and now
had the transverse crest of a centurion on his helm. “Up, up, get in rank you
motherless fucks. We’ve a big day ahead of us.”

“I hope you slept
well, centurion.”

“I dreamed of your
mother last night, Bear.”

“Aye, she fucked
half the centon in her dreams!”

They rose, pissing
where they stood and garnering curses and shoves and the ribaldry which was the
meat of an army’s morning. The file-leaders geared up and strode forward a pace
or two, bitching and murmuring to each other about where precisely the line
should run, and behind them the hastily armouring men fell into their files one
after another, pushed, cajoled, and threatened by the file-closers, who counted
in each man. When he had six ahead of him, he clapped the shoulder of the man
in front, who did the same to the man before him, until the file leader felt
the thump on his own shoulder and knew that behind him the file was complete.
Buridan then strode down the front of the centon and as he passed each file the
leader raised his spear. All down the mist-choked length of the Macht ranks,
centurions were doing the same. In the half-light of dawn, the Macht had
reformed their battle line in a matter of minutes, whilst to their left the
Kefren troops were still milling in bad-tempered disorder, and their officers
were cantering up and down among them on horseback, waving swords to get them
into place.

The sun rose
through the mist; mighty Araian who loved her bed in the north, but in this
country seemed eager to rise and reluctant to quit the day. The mist thinned.
There was not the breath of a breeze. Even before the sun was well clear of the
Magron, the heat had begun to simmer out of the ground itself, and with it the
tiny black flies that plagued the low river-country. The ground softened as it
warmed, and the Macht spearmen sank an inch into it with all the weight of arms
and armour pressing upon their flesh. Gasca heard the file-closer, big Gratus,
talking to the light-armed skirmishers who had remained to the rear. “You keep
that water coming today. I don’t give a fuck if you have to fetch it all the
way from the river, but you keep the skins full, lads.”

“Any word from up
front?” someone beside Gasca asked. He was yawning himself, the bronze of the
helm constricting his skull. There was a worn spot in the padding within; he
should have replaced it before now.

“They’re on the
hill, same place as they was last night, except there’s more of them now.”

“Where’s Phiron, I
wonder?”

“Licking Kufr
arse.” And a mutter of hard laughter went down the ranks.

Arkamenes met with
the ten generals of the Macht to the front of their battle line. Phiron and
Pasion were there also, every one of them in the transverse crested helm of
officers, and every one wearing the Curse of God. They carried their shields on
their shoulders and bore spears the same as the lowest infantryman on the
field. Arkamenes looked down on them from his horse and when the eyes in the
T-slits of the close helms stared back at him he felt a kind of shiver trail
down his backbone. He was glad, so very glad, that he was not up on the hill
above, waiting to fight these things.

“We will attack,”
he said crisply. “My brother has the high ground; he will not leave it, so we
must go to him. Phiron, as you have suggested, your people will lead an
echeloned advance into his right, and smash that wing. The Juthan have been
told to hang back, and only follow on once you have engaged. Then the rest of
the line will move up in turn from the right. That way we are less likely to be
outflanked. My bodyguard and I will be in the centre. As soon as I mark out Ashurnan,
we shall attack him. If the King dies, it is all over. Any questions?”

“When?” Phiron
asked.

“I leave that to
your discretion. But it should be soon. The heat will be punishing today.”

“Thank you, my
lord.”

Arkamenes bent
over in the saddle and pulled his komis aside a little. He smiled, his golden
face disconcerting so close to theirs. “Good luck, General. If all goes well,
when evening comes we shall be rulers of the world.” Then he straightened and
kicked his horse, wheeling away to where his bodyguard awaited him in bright
and gaudy ranks back at the centre of the army.

Phiron looked
round at his fellow officers. “He’s leaving it to us to make the first dent in
their line. We must hit them hard as we are able, then wheel left, towards
their centre. There the battle will be decided. Arkamenes was right; if we kill
their king, they’ll fold.”

“There was cavalry
on the move before dawn, Phiron,” Pasion said. “Could be a flank move.”

Phiron nodded. “I’m
sure it was. That’s why your Hounds are out on the far right. They’ll have to
cover our arse. I need every spear up front if we’re to break these bastards
before noon. Jason, your mora is right-handest. The Hounds will be under your
orders. If they need help during the morning it is you who will be detailed to
assist them. You lead off when you’re ready and we’ll follow on.”

Jason nodded, eyes
bright within his helm. He had donned his party-chiton under his armour, and
the gold embroidery of it gleamed out incongruously in that sombre gathering.

The twelve of them
stood silent a moment, eyes flickering back and forth among themselves. Some of
them were smiling.