King of Thorns (The Broken Empire 2)

“Why the Runyard?” Coddin wanted to know. Coddin couldn’t be put off the scent so easily.

“The Prince of Arrow doesn’t have assassins in my castle, Coddin, but he has spies. I tell you what you need to know, what will make a difference to your actions. The rest, the long shots, the hunches, it’s safe to keep locked away.” I tapped the side of my head. For a moment though the copper box burned against my hip and its thorn pattern filled my vision.

“I’d be happier on a horse,” Makin said.

“I’d be happier on a giant mountain goat,” I said. “One that shat diamonds. Until we find some, we’re walking.”

Three hundred men walked behind us. Armies are wont to march, but marching in the Highlands is a short trip to a broken ankle. Three hundred men of the Watch in mountain grey. Exiting the sally port amid the boulder field west of the Haunt where the tunnel rose through the bedrock. No crimson tabards here, or gold braiding, no rampant lions or displayed dragons or crowned feckin’ frogs, just tatter-robes in rock shades. I hadn’t come out for a uniform competition. I came out to win.

Behind us rockets took flight, lacing the dull morning with trails of sparks, and leaving a loose pall of sulphurous smoke above the castle. Wedding celebrations to amuse the Highlanders, but also a convenient draw for the eyes to the north of us, the uninvited guests.

The Prince’s army had started to move, units massed in their attack formations, Normardy pike-men to the fore, rank upon rank of archers on the far side, men of Belpan with their longbows near tall as them, crossbow units out of Ken, beards braided, brown pennants fluttering above the drummers, each man with a shield boy hurrying before him. The archers stood ready to peel off and find their places on the ridges to our east, the useless Orlanth cavalry at the rear. Their day would come later, after wintering in the ruins of my home, after the high passes cleared and the Prince moved on to increase his tally of fallen kingdoms. The Thurtans next no doubt. And on to Germania and the dozen Teuton realms.

We came down the slopes west of the Haunt in a grey wave, swords, daggers, shortbows. I’d spent most of dear uncle’s gold on those bows. The men of the Forest Watch knew the shortbow, and the Highland recruits learned it fast enough. Three hundred recurved composite shortbows, Scythian made. Ten gold apiece. I could have sat every man on a half-decent nag for that.

The Prince’s scouts saw us. That had never been in doubt. A sharp-eyed observer on their front lines might have seen us across the mile or so that remained. But why would they be looking? They had scouts.

I picked up the pace. There’s nothing like mountains for making you fit to run. At first when you come to the mountains everything is hard. Even the air feels too thin to breathe. Years pass and your muscles become iron. Especially if you climb.

We moved quickly. Speed on the slopes is an art. The Prince of Arrow wasn’t stupid. The commanders he had picked had chosen officers who had selected scouts who knew mountains. They moved fast, but the few men that fell didn’t get up again before we caught them.

It’s always nice to surprise someone. The Prince of Arrow hadn’t expected me to charge his tens of thousands with my three hundred. That’s probably why we were able to arrive only seconds behind the first word of our advance, and long before that word could be acted on.

Three hundred is a magic number. King Leonidas held back a Persian ocean at the Hot Gates with just three hundred. I would have liked to meet the Spartans. That story has outlived empires by the score. King Leonidas held back an ocean, and Canute did not.

I could feel the burn in my legs, the cool breath hauled in and the hot breath out. Sweat inside my armour, a river of it under the breastplate. Hard leathers these, cured and boiled in oil, padded linen underneath, no plate or chain today. Today we needed to move.

When I gave the shout, we stopped on the rock field, scattered on the slope, two hundred yards from their lines, no more, close enough to smell them. On this flank, far from the archers bound for the ridge, men of Arrow formed the largest contingent, units of spearmen in light ringmail, swordsmen in heavier chain, among them the landed knights who had levied the soldiers from farm and village or emptied their castle guard in service of their prince. And all of them, at least the ones we could see before the roll of the mountains hid the vast expanse of their advance, marched without haste, confident, some joking, watching the sparks and smoke above the Haunt. The great siege engines creaked amongst them, drawn by many mules.

I didn’t need to tell the Watch. They started to loose their shafts immediately. The first screams carried the message of our attack far more effectively than scouts still hunting for their breath.

Aiming at the thickest knots of men made it hard not to find flesh.

We managed a second volley before the first of the enemy started to charge. The Prince’s archers, massed on the far side of the army column a quarter mile off and more, could make no reply. Know thyself, Pythagoras said. But he was a man of numbers and you can’t count on those. Sun Tzu tells us: Know thy enemies. I had lost men I could ill afford patrolling these slopes, but I knew my enemy and I knew the disposition of his forces.

The Prince’s archers would have found us hard targets in any case, loose amongst the rocks and the long morning shadows.

Another volley and another. Hundreds killed or wounded with each flight. Wounded is good. Sometimes wounded is better than dead. The wounded cause trouble. If you let them.

The foot-soldiers came at us in ones and twos, then handfuls, and behind that a flood, like a wave breaking and racing across sand.

“Pick your targets,” I shouted.

Another volley. A single man amongst the forerunners fell, skewered through his thigh.

“Dammit! Pick your targets.”

Another volley and none of the runners fell. The dying happened back in the masses still milling in confusion, caught in the press of bodies. One of mine for every twenty of theirs. Stiff odds. If we’d managed ten volleys before they reached us we might have slain three thousand men. We managed six.

12

Wedding day

“Be ready to run,” I shouted.

“That’s your plan, Jorg?” Makin’s face could take surprise to a whole new level. Something in the eyebrows did it.

“Be ready,” I repeated. In truth if I had a plan I held no more than a thread of it, teasing it out inch by inch. And the thread I held told me, Be ready to run. Sun Tzu instructs: If in all respects your foe exceeds you, be ready to elude him.

“If that were the fucking plan,” said Makin, shouldering his bow, “we should have started two weeks ago.”

The first of Arrow’s soldiers reached me, purple-faced from the race up the mountain.

Katherine Ap Scorron fills my nights. More than is healthy. And all of those dreams are dark. Chella walks in some of them, stepping direct from the necromancers’ halls beneath Mount Honas, wicked and delicious. Her smile says she knows me to my rotten core, and Katherine’s face will writhe across hers as firm flesh turns to corrupt undulation.

The dead child will wander in and out of many dreams, holding the thorn-patterned box in crimson hands. He takes different names. William most often, though he is not the brother I knew. But he follows Katherine whenever I call her to my bed; fresh killed in some, the blood still running, and in others grey with rot.