Imperial Fire

XI

In a desperate attempt to evade the warships, the crews of Thetis and Dolphin had taken to their oars, only for the galleys to race down on them, their armoured prows shearing off one bank apiece as if they were toothpicks. Boarding parties had seized the transports, and now they were hull down over the horizon, closely attended by one of the enemy dromons. The other war galley shadowed Pelican a mile astern. At one point she’d closed with intent to grapple and had only dropped back when Vallon threatened to dump the gold and treasure over the side, along with Duke Skleros.

Lucas watched the galley’s sails flush red against the setting sun and then fade into the night before appearing again as parchment triangles under the light of a half moon.

He’d been mucking out in Dolphin’s hold when the dromons were sighted and clambered on deck to witness the spectacle of the ships bearing down on them. Like everyone else he assumed that Vallon had planned the rendezvous, and when the order came to evacuate, he had to be dragged kicking and shouting away from Aster. He was one of the last onto Pelican’s deck, and with his rudimentary Greek it took a long time to find out what was happening. Even after Josselin had assembled the men and told them about the duke’s treachery, there were some who thought the warships were genuine Byzantine naval vessels sent to prevent the general from making off with the emperor’s gold. Men spoke about Vallon’s intention to establish a colony on some foreign shore. Rumour and counter-rumour swirled.

At midnight the enemy sails were still in sight. On either side of the stern, water slopped past the twin quarter rudders. Fatigue weighed on Lucas, but he couldn’t sleep. He was still devastated by the loss of Aster, and Aimery had told him that tomorrow they’d make land and might have to fight a battle. Lucas gave a juddering yawn.

‘So much for our great expedition. Over before it’s hardly begun, and no chance of returning home.’

Lucas blinked round to find Aiken confronting him.

‘I don’t have a home.’

‘We’re as good as dead,’ Aiken said. ‘They outnumber us three to one and they have our horses.’

‘I still don’t understand why they would attack us. We’re here on the emperor’s orders.’

‘So is the duke and did you see what Vallon did to him? Lashed him to the trebuchet and threatened to hurl him into the sea. What kind of man could contemplate that sort of cruelty?’

‘Aimery told me it was a ruse to intimidate the enemy, a ploy to buy time.’

‘You don’t think Vallon would have done it?’ Aiken said. He brought his face close. ‘A man who murdered his own wife.’

Hearing it from another was like a cold blade inserted between Lucas’s ribs. He could barely force words past his throat. ‘Where did you hear that?’

‘It was you who gabbled about Vallon having to flee France with a price on his head. I asked Hero and he admitted it was true. Shocks you, doesn’t it? Not what you expected to hear about the great Vallon.’

Lucas grabbed Aiken’s tunic. ‘Tell me why.’

Aiken removed Lucas’s hand and spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘His wife took a lover when he was campaigning in Spain. He slaughtered them in the marital bed.’

Lucas responded without thought. ‘What happened to his children?’

Aiken was too wound up to wonder how Lucas knew that Vallon had children. ‘He probably killed them, too. Even if he didn’t, he condemned them to poverty and disgrace. The Duke of Aquitaine seized Vallon’s estate and declared him an outlaw. That’s the man you travelled so far to take service with.’

When Aiken left, Lucas slumped down, memories bubbling like foul vapours. The winter night two years ago when he held his dying sister in his arms, her breath coming in shallow gasps, the roads blocked by snow and not even a priest to administer the last rites. Two years before that and his brother poisoned by a blackthorn, threads of red running up his arm, the glands in his armpit swollen to the size of apples, delirious in his final hours and then so peaceful in death. And before that, long before that, the fiend reeling into the nursery like an ogre drunk on blood, gore dripping off his sword — the same blade Vallon carried to this day.

‘Easy, lad. We’re not done for yet.’

Lucas screwed tears from his eyes and looked up into Aimery’s serene face. ‘It isn’t that.’

‘Whatever fears haunt you, you’ll face them better on a full stomach. Cook’s made a thick broth. Get some inside you. Here,’ Aimery said, extending a hand. ‘I need you fit and strong. Today could be right lively.’

‘Land ahead!’ called the lookout.

Lucas ran with everyone else towards the bow. All he could see was a grey smear. By mid-morning, the sun hot and the air clammy, the prospect was no clearer. It was midday before the first contours began to take on form and colour. The coast was still miles away when Vallon addressed his squadron from the castle. Standing at the rear, Lucas strained to hear the general’s words.

‘I’ll make this short. First, I assure you that the ships pursuing us aren’t vessels of the Byzantine navy. They’re pirates, and the only reason they haven’t closed with us is because we hold the duke, the gold and the treasure. Guess which they covet most? As soon as we reach land, they’ll press home an attack, so we have to disembark with all speed. I’ll go first, together with a squad carrying the bullion. Next, a squad to escort the duke and the other hostages. Officers, work out a drill for an orderly evacuation. I want everyone to reach shore ready for combat. That’s it. Any questions?’

Captain Iannis intervened before anyone else could respond. ‘General, I can’t land you directly on that shore. The water’s too shallow and we’re approaching on an ebb tide. Pelican will run aground.’

‘That can’t be helped and may be to our advantage. The enemy ships have deeper draughts than us.’

A trooper put up a hand. ‘What about the horses, sir? Without them the enemy will mow us down.’

Vallon gauged distances. The leading war galley was less than a mile in arrears, its sister ship and the transports only just in sight. ‘We’ll have to fight without horses.’

Lucas spoke without thinking. ‘I’m not leaving Aster.’

Vallon pointed. ‘Put that man on a charge.’

Gorka elbowed Lucas. ‘You twonk.’

Vallon raised a hand. ‘Our situation’s not as bleak as you might think. From what Otia and the captain tell me, horses won’t be much use on that coast. It’s marsh and lake for miles inland, only a few narrow causeways leading across it. I don’t think the enemy will waste time getting the horses ashore. They’re not cavalrymen and they’ll be so keen to lay their hands on the gold that they’ll come after us like hounds after a doe. Don’t worry, though. I’m determined to get our horses and supplies back. Stand down. Get something to eat.’

Lucas dressed for battle in his cast-offs and watched the coast take on definition — a swampy littoral cut by sluggish creeks and lagoons, lush green hills beyond under a backdrop of cloud-swathed mountains, pockets of snow showing through rents in the overcast. South of the rivermouth a few small ships plied in and out of a port. The rest of the shoreline seemed to be empty.

‘Steer to the north of the estuary,’ Vallon ordered.

‘Why don’t we head for that port?’ Lucas asked Gorka.

‘Because the Georgians hate us. And even if they didn’t, running into a foreign harbour carrying treasure and with pirates nibbling our heels isn’t the brightest of moves.’

Josselin supervised the evacuation with his customary calm.

‘Form up by squad both sides of the bow.’

Lucas found himself almost in the rearmost rank, only the muleteers and grooms behind him. In his padded armour his body ran with sweat.

‘Enemy taking to their oars,’ someone yelled.

Lucas looked behind to see foam creaming from the blades, a wave building at the dromon’s bow.

‘Order your men to do the same,’ Vallon told Pelican’s captain.

‘General, I’m not going to wreck my ship.’

‘You, your dromon and your crew serve at my will and disposal.’ When the captain hesitated, Vallon raised his voice. ‘Otia, take two squads below and keep the rowers hard at it until I give the word.’

Troopers sprinted below and Lucas felt Pelican spring forward as the oars bit. A glance behind showed that the effort wouldn’t be enough. The war galley was only half a mile astern and closing fast.

Vallon pointed at a huddle of shacks set back from a lagoon. ‘Make for that village.’

Lucas saw people fleeing from the settlement. The coast was no more than a quarter of a mile away and the sea had taken on the colour of thin ale.

‘Hold tight,’ said a trooper. ‘We’re going to hit smack-bang and wallop.’

‘Suits me,’ said another. ‘I can’t swim.’

Vallon swung his sword down. ‘Lower sails. Stop rowing.’

Oars crabbed and lifted. Before the sailors could reef sails, Pelican shoaled with a long skidding hiss, the deceleration sending Lucas lurching. Only fifty yards separated them from the shore.

‘Boats away,’ Otia shouted.

The two gigs splashed into the sea. ‘Bullion and prisoner squads.’

When the boats had pulled clear, the next two squads jumped into the sea, one on each side of the bow, and waded chest deep towards the shore, holding their weapons above their heads. The war galley was only a long bowshot behind Pelican, still bowling along under sail and oar.

‘Next two squads. Go! The rest move up.’

Lucas plucked at his mouth. ‘We’re not all going to get off in time.’

‘Shut it,’ Gorka snapped.

‘The bastards are going to ram us,’ said a trooper.

‘Prepare for boarders,’ someone shouted.

Lucas braced himself and watched the galley’s onrush. By now only four squads remained on board Pelican. Forty men against hundreds.

‘Next two squads. Go!’

The first men off had reached the shore and were running up into the village. Lucas concentrated on the oncoming galley. It was still committed to a collision course, soldiers massed on her foredeck and beating on their shields.

They toppled like skittles as the hull ploughed into the seabed and the ship ground to a stop within its own length, the masts groaning with the strain, stays twanging apart.

‘Enemy lowering boats.’

An arrow glanced off Lucas’s helmet and buried its head in the deck. He looked around in bemusement. Gorka tugged his arm. ‘What are you waiting for? Come on. We’re next.’

Lucas faced the shore, sucked in breaths and prepared to jump. Josselin held him back.

‘Not so hasty. We’ve already had a couple of accidents.’ He waited for what seemed an age before thumping Lucas’s back. ‘Off you go.’

Lucas hit the sea, went under and surfaced spitting brine. He ploughed through the water, grunting like a beast, and staggered ashore, tripping over the two javelins he carried. Gorka pulled him upright. ‘Who said you could take a rest?’

Weighed down by his weapons and waterlogged corselet, Lucas jogged through the hamlet onto a causeway elevated a couple of feet above the marsh.

‘What’s the plan?’ he gasped.

Gorka flashed him a look. ‘If I fucking knew, I’d be a general. Keep going.’

Lucas found his second wind. The wetlands stretched away to a mist-softened horizon. All around lay a waterworld of lakes, creeks, bogs, reedbeds and islands overgrown by stands of alder and willow, oak and ash. Beside him, Gorka grunted and clutched his ribcage.

‘Need a hand, boss? I’ll carry your shield if you want.’

Gorka’s glance would have curdled milk.

Lucas lifted his knees and increased pace. ‘Just say the word, boss.’

Half a mile up the causeway, Wayland and his dog stepped out from a patch of boggy woodland. He nodded them past. ‘Not far now.’

Where the causeway emerged from the wood, it made a sharp turn before crossing a wide and reedy lake. A furlong up the track, Vallon was organising two squads into a defensive formation. He held up his hand to halt Aimery’s squad.

‘How long have we got?’

Aimery bent over, hands on knees. ‘Not sure, sir. They hadn’t reached land when we left the coast.’

‘Form up behind the wall. Did you see Wayland?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘There are three squads hidden in the trees each side of him. We draw the enemy onto this wall and block them.’ Vallon nodded towards a squad of Turkmen archers further along the causeway. ‘They’ll make your job easier. When you’ve halted the enemy attack, the squads in the wood will engage, cutting off the enemy’s retreat.’ He interlocked his fingers. ‘We’ll squeeze them between us.’

‘Understood, sir.’

Vallon noticed Lucas. ‘I didn’t expect you to face action so soon. Are you sure you’re up to it?’

‘I want to stay with my squad.’

‘Good lad. Acquit yourself bravely and I’ll forget your insubordination.’ He clapped his hands. ‘Go to it!’

The foremost ten-man squad arranged themselves in a foulkon, a defensive formation usually used by infantry against cavalry. The first rank of five knelt on bended knee with their shields resting on the ground in front of them, their spear butts planted in the earth and the points angled upwards to resist a charge. They completely blocked the narrow causeway. The second rank remained standing, their shields locked with those of their companions and their spears held at chest height. To an attacker, the shieldwall would be an intimidating sight, the men behind it invisible and apparently invulnerable. Lucas had practised the formation only once, kneeling in the subordinate position, and had found it intensely uncomfortable, the shields above snagging against his, leaving him no room to manoeuvre.

The second and third squads formed up four ranks deep, shields overlapping, each man armed with two javelins, one in the hand, the other stuck butt down in the peaty soil.

Gorka hauled Lucas into position at the rear of the formation. ‘Don’t get carried away. Wait for Aimery’s command before you hurl your javelins. I’ve seen men skewered by overexcited idiots standing behind them.’

Lucas waited, soaked in sweat and seawater. The muleteers and other non-combatants came wheezing up the track, scourged on by Josselin. Cursing their tardiness, the shieldwall shifted to let them pass.

Silence fell. The causeway stretched away empty. Lucas’s heart knocked against his ribs. His craw was tight. He’d dreamed of battle many times, but never had he imagined combat in such a strange and constricted setting. What made it more unreal was the tranquillity — reeds whispering in a light breeze, frogs croaking and waterfowl babbling, a warbler carolling in the sedges. From the corner of his eye Lucas spotted a bright green snake undulating through a scum of weed. A heron flew a stately transit across the lake with an eel wriggling from its beak.

Gorka nudged him. ‘Bearing up?’

‘It’s the waiting.’

Gorka laughed. ‘If I had a solidus for every time I heard that, I’d be richer than the emperor.’

‘Here they come,’ said Aimery. ‘Don’t make a sound.’

Lucas tugged at his throat. He heard metallic clicks, the tread of cushioned feet and rasping breaths. And then around the corner at the edge of the wood the first of the enemy trotted into sight. The front runners stopped when they saw the shieldwall, the men following up barging into them. An officer raised a hand and shouted. The enemy mustered behind him, score upon score backing up along the causeway.

‘Don’t let their numbers dismay you,’ Aimery said. ‘They can only attack five or six abreast.’

The weight of men piling up behind the enemy’s vanguard began to shove it forward. Those in the rear couldn’t see the obstacle blocking their path and piled against the forward ranks. Yielding to the crush, the leader raised his sword, gave the order to advance and led his force forward at a brisk march.

Lucas watched them come, the mass resolving into individual faces contorted by fear and frenzy. A wordless cry welled in his throat. How could they just stand in silence while a hundred warriors strode forward to annihilate them?

‘Steady,’ Josselin said.

Arrows from the archers behind ripped low over Lucas’s head. The attacking force seemed to give a collective twitch. The second flight stung them into a headlong charge. Attacking along a front only fifteen feet wide, they found it hard to maintain formation. Feet tangled and tripped. Elbows collided. Men on the flanks found themselves shoved off the causeway. Through the war cries Lucas heard curses and recriminations.

A third volley of arrows tore over in a shallow arc and the officer leading the charge staggered and ran himself into the ground until he pitched on all fours, spewing blood. The men directly behind hurdled him. One of them clipped him with a foot and tumbled flat on his face, bringing down a companion as he fell. Another man went careering into the water with windmilling arms. Now the enemy were too close for the archers to aim at the vanguard, and their next volley landed in the ranks behind.

Someone gave a thin squeal and was still squealing when the nearest attackers closed. Lucas stood rooted to the spot until the yell delivered in unison by his comrades released him from his paralysis. The roar that had been building in his belly erupted. His face knotted and his lips rucked. The squad ahead of him rocked back and launched their javelins, were reaching for their second darts before the first had landed. They ducked down and Gorka backhanded Lucas across the chest.

‘Now!’

Lucas’s first throw was a dismal misaim, his second truer. The javelin was still in flight when the enemy crashed into the shieldwall, the weight of their attack driving grunts from the defenders. The wall buckled but held. A trooper went down and a man from the third rank scrambled to fill the breach. The noise was horrendous — sword clashing against sword, shield on shield, vile obscenities and a formless baying from those not yet engaged in the fray.

‘Stand your ground,’ Vallon shouted from behind.

They did. The Outlanders’ front rank, better trained than their enemy, fresh from the wars and hardened in battle, had slain the first narrow wave of attackers, laying them low so that those who took their place had to find their footing on fallen bodies, not all of them dead. Those in front were jammed between the shieldwall and the soldiers pressing from behind, with little room to wield their swords. Some took to the water in an attempt to get round the bottleneck. Turkish archers picked them off or speared them. The attackers were so tightly hemmed in that one soldier whose head had been split in two by a sword stood propped among the living like a swaying stump. Lucas glimpsed another with his back turned, his head hanging upside down between his shoulders, suspended by a flap of skin.

A trumpet blared, announcing the attack in the woods. When the threat communicated, panic swept the enemy, the rear peeling away first, followed by the front. What remained of the shieldwall was too exhausted to follow up, and when they slumped down, sobbing with exhaustion, Lucas saw what carnage they’d wreaked. In front of them lay a mound of bodies three deep, some still alive, limbs stirring. Lucas was used to the sight of blood, but nothing had prepared him for the atrocity of war — gore lying in thick pools, men clutching coils of viscera, a victim holding his severed leg with an expression that would rack Lucas’s dreams for months.

With hideous whoops, the second squad began climbing over the carnage in pursuit.

‘Follow up in good order,’ Vallon bellowed. ‘Don’t engage unless you have to. I want them alive.’

Gorka wrenched Lucas’s arm. ‘Here we go. Don’t let’s miss out.’

‘What?’

‘Booty time, you idiot. Everything the enemy carries belongs to us.’

Lucas found himself quick-stepping down the causeway after the fleeing troops. When they found their way blocked by the formation in the woods, some of them stripped off their armour and tried to escape across the lake. Marshalled by an officer, a few determined souls turned at bay.

‘Form up in close order,’ Josselin shouted.

Before the enemy could organise a counter, Vallon barged to the front. ‘Another attack will meet the same bloody end. You’re trapped front and rear. Surrender and I promise to spare your lives.’

Further along the causeway, the same ultimatum rang out. The fighting down there continued for a while before the cries and clash of weapons died. The trapped soldiers cast about like frightened animals, waiting for someone to take the initiative. An officer pushed through the scrum and addressed Vallon.

‘How can we trust you?’

‘My word. It’s minted in a currency less debased than the one the duke deals in.’

‘You swear it?’

‘On the cross.’

The enemy folded up, propping themselves on their swords, many weeping for shame and relief.

‘Collect their weapons,’ said Vallon. ‘Offer no violence except in return.’

Gorka nudged Lucas’s arm. ‘You just won your first battle. Now it’s time to reap your reward.’

So Lucas, who hadn’t used his sword in anger, found himself gathering the blades from the foe and handing them back to the baggage servants. He found it hard to meet the prisoners’ faces. Taking a sword from one sobbing captive — a man old enough to be his father — it struck him how easily their positions could have been reversed. That’s when he realised how fickle the fortunes of war could be, and that’s when he resolved to be a soldier who would leave as little as possible to chance.

Like Vallon.

Altogether the squadron had trapped sixty soldiers and killed or injured more than thirty. After stripping the captives of their valuables, Gorka worked his way back along the dead, scavenging gold and jewels like a malign magpie. Lucas tagged along with loathing and didn’t take a thing. This wasn’t how he’d imagined war.

Gorka hopped knee-deep into water and levered up the head and torso of an officer clad in finely wrought lamellar armour who’d sprawled face down over the causeway. The Basque’s hand swooped and he held up a bejewelled brooch. ‘Worth forty solidi in Constantinople. Give me a hand.’

Lucas assisted Gorka onto firm ground while staring transfixed at the corpse. ‘His armour must be worth a count’s ransom.’

‘Too bulky. Stick to the portable high-value stuff.’ Gorka registered Lucas’s queasy fascination. ‘Do you want it? Looks about the right fit.’

Lucas glanced up the causeway.

‘If you don’t take it, someone else will.’

‘I didn’t do anything to deserve it. I never even blooded my sword.’

‘You held your ground. That’s good enough. Go on. He’s got no further use for it.’

Lucas manipulated the lolling corpse onto the causeway and began easing the armour over its head. A porridge of brain matter leaked from the skull. Lucas’s face took on the expression of a man straining shit through his teeth.

Gorka shoved him aside. ‘You’re not trying to grope a virgin on your first date. Like this.’

He removed the armour as if he were skinning a rabbit, swilled it in the lake and handed it over. Lucas regarded it with awe. ‘It must be worth ten times the price of your armour.’

Gorka stroked his shabby iron corselet. ‘Wear fancy armour and you become a target for every peasant with a billhook. In battle it’s best not to stand out.’

Lucas slung the armour over his shoulder. ‘I don’t intend to be one of the herd. One day I’ll be a general.’

‘You? Listen, lad. Stick close, do what I say and in five years you might win promotion to commander of four.’

He was still chuckling at Lucas’s fantasy when Vallon gave the order to escort the prisoners back to the coast.

‘Did you kill the man who wore that armour?’

Lucas, herding a group of captives at sword point, swung round to see Aiken, ashen-faced but otherwise immaculate. He hadn’t even got his feet wet.

‘Suppose I did?’

‘What’s it like to kill a man?’

A prisoner stumbled against Lucas and he rounded on the man in fright. The prisoner cringed, begging mercy.

Aiken persisted. ‘How do you feel now?’

Lucas began to pant. He flat-handed Aiken in the chest.

‘Hey!’ Gorka said.

Lucas shoved Aiken backwards. ‘You skulk in the rear and then have the nerve to ask me how it feels to face the enemy. If you want to know, join the shieldwall yourself.’ Spittle flew from Lucas’s mouth. ‘Daddy’s boy!’

Gorka almost wrenched him off his feet. ‘You never learn, do you?’

Lucas went slack and a sob racked his body. He looked up to find Vallon’s eyes boring into his. He gave an unhinged laugh.

‘You don’t scare me. You — ’

Gorka’s slap spun Lucas sideways. He stumbled away, clutched his knees and vomited a stream of throat-scalding puke.

‘Shock,’ Gorka told the general. ‘It was his first taste of combat. I’ll sort him out.’

Vallon gave a judicious nod. ‘Even so, his behaviour is intolerable. Put him in the supply train for a month. Keep him away from Aiken and out of my sight. I don’t want to set eyes on him again for the duration of our expedition.’