Colours in the Steel

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The Prefect wiped the blood out of his eyes and looked down the wall, towards the bridgehouse, and then up, to where Loredan’s bastion used to be. On both sides, he could see large contingents of the enemy, each party outnumbering the force he’d managed to rally around watchtower sixteen.

Under different circumstances, he could justifiably claim to have done enough. Four simultaneous assaults from both directions by superior forces had been repelled, at minimal loss to the defenders. Enemy casualties had been heavy, not that that signified particularly; what did it matter how many were killed when they still kept coming?

Having assessed the situation and made what preparations he could, the Prefect took stock of his own condition, which wasn’t good. He’d taken a blow from an axe just above the rim of his helmet; the axe hadn’t penetrated, but the jagged edge of a crumpled piece of helmet trim had sliced deeply into his forehead, and the blood from the cut was making it hard for him to see. A short-range arrow had hit him in the ribs; again, the mailcoat had turned it, but the baffled impact had cracked at least one rib, possibly two, which made breathing a painful matter. He’d turned his ankle, which didn’t help, and pulled a muscle in his shoulder parrying a sword-cut from a much stronger man. As far as he was aware, none of the handful of offensive strokes he’d managed to make had done anybody any harm, but at least he was still alive.

He’d known for the last half-hour that he was going to die. Defeat is a gradual thing; it begins with the apprehension that things could be going better, develops into the perception that the situation is not favourable and that action must be taken to redress the balance; then, gradually, the emphasis shifts from they would appear to have an advantage to we might still win this if we pull something special out of the hat. Then, one by one, the possibilities for salvation are cancelled, until a point is reached where the brain acknowledges that realistically there can only be one outcome. After that, it scarcely matters whether the vanquished party fights bravely to the last or stands still and allows itself to be slaughtered. If they fight on, it’s for revenge (or spite, at any rate), or the instinctive feeling that falling in battle is somehow preferable, in some strange way better for you than being made to kneel in rows until someone yanks your head back by the hair and cuts your throat. And, even at the end, there’s a misguided glimmer of hope. The beating of the heart and the action of the lungs are a comforting prevarication, giving an impression of options being kept open.

The enemy came on for the fifth time; and as the Prefect shouted the order to form lines, his voice was weary. Before this night, he wouldn’t have believed it was possible to feel tired during a battle; there would always be the rush of excitement and terror that would damp down the pain in the arms and knees, compensate for the shortness of breath and the pain of wounds and injuries. Well; the first four times, possibly. The fifth and last time, no. Perhaps when the outcome is so patently obvious, the body can no longer make the effort.

Why haven’t they used archers to clear us off? he wondered. True, it was dark, not enough light to make out individual targets; but a line of men jammed close together on the walkway presented a target any archer could hit with his eyes shut. There were various possible explanations; archers more urgently needed elsewhere, run out of arrows, an unimaginative captain or an intimate-combat fetishist. Made no odds, really.

As the enemy came in – walking, not running, which gave the whole thing an unnaturally calm, almost serene feeling – the Prefect tightened his grip on his sword-hilt and promised himself he’d do his best, this being his last opportunity. All his adult life he’d dealt in honour and service, the way a furrier deals in furs or a vintner in wine. On his lips the terms had had specialised political meanings, and he’d long since stopped thinking about what the words stood for in the world at large. Now, unfortunately a little bit too late, he’d been granted a little gleam of insight; service is what makes you stand in the line when nobody would try and stop you if you ran away, and honour is what’s left when every other conceivable reason for staying there has long since evaporated.

Oh, well, here we go. A man loomed up out of the darkness, a shape under a leather cap, an arm thrusting with a halberd. The Prefect parried, realised the thrust was a feint, found it was too late to do anything about it. Now he was slumped against the parapet, still alive but suddenly too weak to move. The man had moved on, stepping over him and preparing to engage the next man who got in his way; he was no longer concerned with the Prefect, who was as good as dead and therefore no longer a factor needing to be taken into account.

I don’t think I’m going to be all right this time.

I wonder if…