The Ten Thousand (25 page)

Ashurnan’s
bodyguard were the finest warriors of their race, mounted on the mightiest
warhorses the Empire could breed. And they had momentum on their side. The
Great King fought his way forward, and those who died under his blade saw that
there was a kind of gladness on his face, a recklessness. He did not expect to
live long, and so meant to live well for what remained of this life to be
measured in moments, the mere drips of an almost empty waterclock. His
followers had caught his mind and were with him in the moment, wholly
reconciled. Even Arkamenes, watching, thought there was a kind of beauty about
it. And for one broken second, he found himself loving the brother he had known
as a boy, who had been his conscience and his ally. That familiar face,
transfigured so as to be a boy’s again.

The second passed,
and there was only the murderous insane violence of the present and the task in
hand, something to grasp through the fog of fear and confusion. Arkamenes’s
bodyguard had been pressed back in a mass by the concussion of the King’s
charge, and now there was nowhere to go. Even if a man were able to dismount in
that milling crush he would be trampled underfoot within seconds.

The currents that
moved the melee were created by killing, by the sheer brutal struggle of one
against another. The Great King moved forward, horses going down as he and his
guards stabbed at the big veins in the neck, or transfixed them through the
eyes. Arkamenes’s bodyguards fought back with the savagery of the trapped, but
though they were Honai, they were not the Honai of Ashur, and they gave ground,
dying and falling and turning their faces from their own deaths instead of
trying to deflect the killing blades as they realised they had become carrion.

And so Ashurnan
and Arkamenes met in the middle of that vast bloodletting, in the end both
willing that it should be so, in the end neither afraid, in the end brothers
again.

Their eyes met but
they did not speak, though both of them had words they would have said. Their
blades clicked off one another. Under them the tall Niseians charged at each
other’s shoulders and tried to bite and rear, but were reined in by both their
masters as the swords flickered out and clashed and sought the life of the
other in a kind of dance, in its way a splendid thing. But Ashurnan had always applied
himself better to the learning of such skills, and it was his blade which
sliced home first. Though he had put his strength into the blow, he tried to
take it back as he saw it would go home, not even conscious of the reason. But
the keen blade did not need much muscle at its back to do the work, and the
edge took Arkamenes under the chin, severing the big arteries there and the
windpipe, before sliding free.

The rebel prince
dropped his sword and clasped both hands to his gaping throat. His mouth worked,
frog-like, and in his eyes there was terror, and a kind of regret. Then he
toppled from his horse. Around him, his bodyguards saw the death of all their
hopes, and sent up a kind of wail. Some threw down their swords and raised
their eyes to the sky as if in prayer, others turned their horses around and
tried to fight their way to the rear. The horsetail standard that signified the
presence of the pretender was cast aside, disappearing in that great mass of
bloody, struggling flesh. And as the standard fell, a kind of shudder, more
felt than seen, went through the ranks of Arkamenes’s army.

A FAREWELL TO THE KING

Phiron walked out
to the front of the phalanx and held up his spear. Up and down the endless
lines of the heavy infantry the order was passed along:
“Halt.”

Pasion joined him,
and as the minutes passed so did a few other centurions, standing like curious
spectators at a street fight. “Is that the—?” Durik began to ask.

“The Great King
has proved himself a man, it seems,” Phiron said. He levered off his stinking
helm, his black hair plastered down flat as a seal’s back beneath it. “They’re
at it hand to hand, bodyguards and all.”

“And what about
these bastards?” Pasion asked, gesturing to the enemy ranks not half a pasang
from them along the hilltop. Kufr spearmen now as irresolute and fascinated as
their officers by the close-packed cavalry battle in the valley below and the
two standards waving in the midst of it, mere yards apart.

“If they fight it
out, that’s the whole battle down there, won or lost in a moment,” Orsos said.
He joined them, breathing heavily. “Jason covers our rear, Phiron. He’s seen
off the Arakosan cavalry. It’s a fucking slaughterhouse down there.” Even he
seemed shocked by the carnage of the day.

All along the ridge-top,
thousands of men were standing still, watching while the contest went on, the
sound of it a dull roar that echoed off the face of the hills. The Juthan
Legion had come to a halt halfway up the slope and now stood in a rankless mob
of several thousands, all looking back the way they had come rather than up to
where the enemy centre stood above.

“We stand here
like virgins in a fucking marriage chamber!” This was young Pomero, come
striding up to them with a face full of baffled anger. “What’s halted the
lines? We should be pitching into them right now, and the Juthan should be
hitting them from the flank. We have the battle won, here and now!”

Phiron did not
turn round. He closed his eyes for a second. “The battle is lost. Can you not
hear it?”

They watched,
silent now. The crush of cavalry which composed the battle below was opening
out. To the Macht, all Kefren looked the same, but it was possible to see that
their employer’s horsetail standard no longer waved above the ranks. The Great
King’s winged banner was advancing, whilst before it clouds of cavalry were
streaming away. All along the field, there came from Arkamenes’s Kufr troops an
eerie collective sound, half groan and half wail. It trailed for pasangs along
the flatlands of the valley floor.

“The son of a
bitch has gone and gotten hisself killed,” Orsos snarled.

Remarkable, how
that information seemed to disseminate about the battlefield faster than a man
could run. The Juthan Legion disintegrated first, just as the first knots of
fleeing bodyguard cavalry came galloping past them, the riders beating their
horses beyond reason, throwing away priceless breastplates to ease their load.
Back down the slopes towards the Bekai River in the distance, what had been an
army was now in the process of breaking up. Here and there, ordered formations
survived and held together— they could see the troops from Artaka under
Gushrun, who had marched all the way from the shores of the Tanean with them.
But for the most part Arkamenes’s forces became a formless mob now running for
their lives, and hoping to make the Bekai crossings before the Great King’s
cavalry cut them off. Already, the superb ranks of the Asurians had given
chase, thousands of richly clad horsemen yelling like maniacs and starting the
grim sport of the pursuit. The Macht centurions on the hill watched in horror
and something approaching awe. It was Phiron who collected himself first.

“We may well be
fucked, brothers, but that does not mean we leave this world like lambs.
Orsus—about-face your mora and link up with Jason. Tell him to pull up the
hillside, and bring the skirmishers with him, what’s left of them. Brothers, we
go into all-round defence and see what transpires. We do not run, nor do we
retreat. The Bekai bridges are about to become a chokepoint, and the Great King
will destroy the rest of the army before them. We must do otherwise.” He donned
his helm once more. They stood looking at one another, all thinking the same
thing. The battle had been won; another half hour of fighting and an Empire
would have been gained. One Kufr’s stupidity had lost it, and with it, their
lives.

“We are Macht,”
Orsos said, spitting out the word like a curse. “We do not show our backs to
Kufr. The morning is done, brothers; now night approaches. We will go into the
dark together.”

In the Kefren
centre, Vorus watched the death of Arkamenes’s army with a kind of wonder.
Beside him, old Proxis set his fist on his heart and prayed a moment to the
Juthan smith-god, in whose forge the world had been hammered out.

“I knew he was his
father’s son, but even Anurman would not have staked all on one throw, Proxis.
He is either a genius, or a fool.”

“He did right; the
snake’s head is severed. He has saved his Empire.”

Vorus called over
a battle-scribe and a courier. He scribbled quickly on the portable desk the
hufsan
scribe wore about his neck. “We are not quite done,” he said to Proxis, still
writing. “There are men on this hill who will not be running.”

“The Macht? They
are finished. They fought well, but their legs are cut out from under them now.”

“We must contain
them at once.” And to the courier, “Take this to all the legion commanders in
turn. Tell them they must not hesitate or break ranks; give them those words as
well as the despatch.”

The courier nodded
and ran off.

“We will surround
them, and then destroy them,” Vorus said, and despite the resolve in his words,
he looked sick to his stomach.

Out on the
southern edge of the battlefield Jason’s mora stood easy now, shields at their
knees, helms off. Around them what remained of the skirmishers went over the
mounded corpses looking for wounded, for loot, for Kufr whose throats could
still be slit. The runner found Jason sharing a skin of water with Rictus and
Gasca, the three of them not speaking, just drinking in turns from the skin,
their eyes glazed with that blasted look of men who have seen enough. The
runner told them of events on the rest of the field, a strawhead youth who had
cast aside all his wargear to run this errand. His account was tortured by the
effort to breathe. Jason listened to him without comment.

“Rictus, what do
you have left here, you suppose?”

Rictus’s face was
an unknowable mask of dried blood, black gobbets streaking it, the only clean
spaces about his lips and where he had wiped his eyelids. He looked around them
at the shattered hillside and its ghastly carpet of bodies. “I’m thinking maybe
eight hundred fit to fight, another two or three hundred lightly wounded, and
as many again who will not see tomorrow unless they’re seen to right now.”

Jason rubbed his
forehead. “We must get back up the hill and rejoin the other morai at once. We
don’t have time…” He turned and looked northwards up the valley. Six pasangs
away, the bulk of Arkamenes’s army covered the ground like a creeping rash from
which glints of white light sprang out, reflected metal. Behind them the
hill-crest was bare, the bulk of the Macht centons having moved beyond it.
Standing here, it hardly seemed possible that the battle was not over.

Jason beat the
black flies from his face, grimacing. His grey eyes were cold as a spearhead,
but he closed them as he spoke, like a man tired to the marrow. “Kill the
severely wounded. Bring along the rest. We’ll cover your retreat. Bring along
what spares you can scavenge off the dead; arm heavy, if you can. It’s spearmen
we need now, not stick-throwers.”

Rictus shared a
glance with Gasca. “Kill them?”

Jason’s eyes broke
open, shot with blood. “You heard me. We can’t take them all with us, and the
Kufr will torture them. It’s a kindness. Besides, we’ll likely be joining them
soon enough.”

Rictus blinked
rapidly. “Who am I to be giving such orders?”

“You’re in fucking
command is what you are. Agrimos and everyone else above you are dead or
maimed. You take these men now, Rictus, and you get a grip of them. Do you hear
me? Now start them at it.” Jason strode away. There had been a quake in his
voice. Rictus watched him go, aghast.

“Promotion. Ain’t
it grand?” Gasca snorted, and drank from the skin again. He wiped his mouth,
and with a half-smile said, “Tonight you’ll be a centurion in hell.”

The Great King sat
his horse and looked down on the thing that had been his brother. Arkamenes had
been a handsome creature in life; his face now seemed nothing more than a mound
of meat, for the horses had trampled it. Below what had been the chin a
blackberry-dark gash gaped wide, a black mouth smiling at the sky, running with
flies.

“Cover him up,”
Ashurnan said unsteadily. “Bear him from the field. His bones will be buried in
Ashur, where they belong.”

The Honai bent and
laid a cloak over the battered remnants of Ashurnan’s brother. The Great King
wheeled his horse away and pulled his komis up over his face.

“Midarnes!”

“Yes lord?” The
commander of the Household troops drew level, bowing in the saddle.

“Leave the pursuit
to the cavalry. Tell Berosh to take our Juthan to the river also, and make sure
he takes and holds the bridges. The Household and the Honai are to remain
opposite the Macht lines, but are not to engage. Is that understood, Midarnes?”

“Yes, lord.”

Ashurnan looked up
at the sky. It was past noon. The morning had ended at last and the day was on
the slide, but there was enough daylight left for the things which had to be
done.

“I need scribes
and couriers, the best we have. We will send word to Istar, to Jutha, to
Artaka. The pretender is dead. These provinces must come back to me without
delay. If they do, there will be no repercussions. If they do not, I will bring
fire and the spear among them.”

“Honuran died on
the field,” Midarnes said, “But Gushrun of Tanis has not yet been caught.”

“Find him. Bring
him to me. He will be made an example of. I will impale his body upon the very
gates of Tanis.”

Midarnes bowed
again.

“Amasis also, the
chamberlain—he will be back with the baggage. We must take their baggage train,
Midarnes, without it these Macht will be without food, without water, without
so much as a spare spearhead.”