The men stood in silent crowds, ready to listen. They were tired and disheartened as they had not been after Kunaksa. They realised now that the thing was almost done. Fourteen thousand of them had taken ship with Phiron the year before. Of those, almost half were gone. They had marched more than three thousand pasangs, and had beaten every army brought against them, but now they felt that their luck was running out. They had had enough. Now all of them wanted to get home by the quickest route, to get over the mountains and march to the shores of the sea. They did not care if they were paupers when they got there; all that they valued now were the lives they lived.
Haukos has left us, Rictus realised, as he stood with the other generals amid the currents of talk. Hope has gone. We are no longer unbeatable.
And he bowed his head. Gasca, you are well out of this.
“We should have stayed at Irunshahr,” big Gominos was saying, as truculent as he was ugly. He reminded Rictus a little of Orsos, but Orsos had been a fine leader of men as well as a rapacious boor. “We could have taken our ease there, had slaves, refitted and rested—”
“We cleared that city out of every bean and husk it had,” Mynon said. “If we’d stayed there, we’d be starving in a week.”
“Starving with a roof over our heads,” Gominos retorted.
“The Great King has more than one army,” Mochran growled. “We stop moving and we die, simple as that. At least here in the mountains we’re less easy to find.”
“So we’re running headlong now after beating his best? Is that it?”
Rictus’s voice, though quiet, cut through the rising quarrel. “Mynon, how do we stand?”
A bird with a broken wing, Mynon set his head on one side. Jason had done the same on occasion; it warranted a kind of detachment. “One week, at full ration. But that’s for the men alone. Fodder for the draught animals is not to be had, not up here. They’ll start dying soon, and then we’ll be pulling the wagons ourselves.”
“We’ve done that before. We’ll hitch the mules to the wagons, and eat the oxen.” Rictus paused. “There are fewer of us now, anyway. Fewer mouths.”
Silence fell. The bonfire crackled and rushed, a soft roar in the blue gathering dark. Around the light of the flames the crowds of men drew closer, as if they could hear what was being said better in the light. Rictus saw Whistler there, and old Demotes from the Dogsheads. How many of them were left now, he wondered. Those nights in the Marshalling Yards of Machran seemed like a different world, and the boy he had been back then was someone else. Rictus raised his hand and touched two things which hung at his throat: Zori’s coral pendant and the tooth of a wolf, clicking together under his fingers. Small things, to hold such a cache of memories.
Aristos stepped forward to warm his hands at the flames. “We’re fewer now, it’s been said. I would go farther. I would say we are not an army any more. We have not been since Kunaksa. Phiron knew how to lead us, and he did it well. When he died, Jason took his place, and he was an obvious choice. He was a good man. But he did not have the skills of Phiron. That is why at Irunshahr, so many of us died.”
Rictus stepped forward, eyes blazing. “Is that why? Search your heart, Aristos. Is that really why?”
“Let me speak, Rictus.” Aristos held up a hand, as regretful and reasonable as one could wish. Out of the assembled men, voices cried: “Let him speak!” The chorus grew. “Let him have a say. Fair’s fair, strawhead.”
Rictus stepped back. He was unarmed, as were they all, but one did not need weapons in the Assembly to fight one’s battles. Words were better and he was not good with them, never had been. Jason was the man for that.
“I have seen a map of the Empire. Brothers, we are in the Korash Mountains. They are not so high as the Magron, but they are further north, and much colder. This valley we have been marching in, it runs all the way through them to the open lands of Askanon and Gansakr beyond. The mountains are some two hundred pasangs from east to west. Once we are through them the way is open to the sea, good marching country with cities on every side. And not the fortress cities of the Middle Empire, but smaller, many of them unwalled. Brothers, once we are beyond the mountains, it is a two week march to the sea. Two weeks.”
A ragged shout went up at this, and men turned to their neighbours, grinning and striking one another on the bicep. They had not dreamed it could be so close, the end of the illimitable Empire. Aristos looked at Rictus, and their eyes met. He knew exactly what he was doing. He raised a hand to still the hubbub.