“From Tanis to Geminestra is four hundred pasangs, give or take,” Phiron said. He knelt beside the map, scanning the calfskin as a man might search a foreign horizon. In his hand a length of withered stick served as a pointer. “It’s desert, scrub land—rather like the plains about Gast back home.”
“Only a little warmer,” Jason said, and there was a rattle of laughter about the map-table. Phiron waved the flies from before his face. There was a drop of sweat hanging from his nose, more glistening along his cheekbones.
“Fuck this heat,” someone murmured venomously.
“I second that. We will march at night. I have already discussed this with our principal. We will lie up in the heat of the day. By all accounts, the Gadinai Desert is not to be trifled with.”
“Four hundred pasangs,” Orsos the Bull said. “Ten days’ march, if all goes well.” He had shaved his head, and the scalp was burnt pink. His face shone as if oiled.
“Fifteen,” Phiron corrected. When the centurions stared at him he raised both hands palm upwards, like a stallkeeper accepting a bad bargain. “The Kufr cannot march as fast as we can, it seems.”
“You march slower, you eat and drink more,” Jason said. “This is their country; what makes them so bad at walking across it?”
“They are not us,” Phiron said simply.
He looked up from the map, eyes screwed narrow against the glare. One hand eased the rub of his cuirass against his collarbone. “We will start out tonight. Pasion, you have the manifest. We will be in the middle of the column—”
“Eating his Royal Highness’s dust,” Orsos growled.
“Indeed. But the main part of the Kufr forces will be in our rear. We keep our own baggage train with us, in our midst. Brothers, whether we are part of this Kufr host or not, I intend to proceed as if were on our own. Skirmishers out to the flanks, heavy infantry in hollow square. Baggage animals in the centre.”
“We need to sweat,” Mynon said, blackbird eyes darting over the map. “The men are out of shape after the voyage, and they need to get the last of our employer’s wine out of their guts.”
“Agreed,” Phiron said “Pasion? You are close-mouthed this morning.”
“You keep your mouth shut and less flies get in it,” Pasion retorted. He was rubbing the side of his jaw, like a man with toothache. “I was just thinking. So, we’ve divided the army into ten battalions, morai, with ten generals to command them; but we’ve only enough spearmen for nine. We should perhaps think of making up those numbers out of the skirmishers.”
“What, kit out the old men and boys with panoplies? I’d rather be under strength,” Orsos snorted.
“There’s likely enough lads among them,” Pasion said, glaring at the Bull. “We have the gear; it’s weighing down the wagons as we speak. Better it sits on a man’s back than in a wagon-bed.”
“I’ll bear it in mind,” Phiron said quickly, smothering the birth of the quarrel. “Brothers, to your morai. Brief your centurions, and have all ready. Pasion will inspect each centon’s baggage this evening. Let your men sleep this afternoon. Any questions?”
There were many. Phiron could feel them hanging before him in the air, dancing in the heat-shimmer above the hill upon which they stood. Finally, inevitably, it was Orsos who spoke up. Despite his years, the mass of kneaded flesh which formed his face made him look like some huge, brutish child.
“You put this whole deal together, Phiron, and for that we all here give you credit”—a collective murmur of assent, but grudgingly given. Phiron raised an eyebrow, and moved his feet like a man about to receive a blow—”but you’re not to forget that this here is now a Kerusia, an Army Council. The men elected ten of us out of a hundred centurions, but no one elected you—or Pasion there, if you come to it. We know you’re the only one among us speaks Kufr, and so there’s no thought of pushing you out of the way; but when it comes to decisions made for the army, we make them together now.”
“You’re not a king, brother.” This was white-bearded Castus. Old as he was, he had the blackest heart of any of them. The scar that ran into his beard turned his smile into a leer. “You know these foreigners, it’s true, but me, or Argus here, or Teremon, we all have more campaigns under our belt than you.”
“And in battle, Castus, shall we take a vote on it every time I want a centon to hoist their shields?” Phiron asked lightly, but there was a wire in his voice.
“Don’t be stiff-necked. We’ll be working with these here Kufr when the time comes, so it makes sense you give the orders. Yonder would-be King will be sending you couriers by the dozen once the fur begins to fly. But for other things, for the ways we march and the places we stop, you come to us, this here Kerusia, and we puts a vote on it. Fair’s fair.”