“The son of a bitch has gone and gotten hisself killed,” Orsos snarled.
Remarkable, how that information seemed to disseminate about the battlefield faster than a man could run. The Juthan Legion disintegrated first, just as the first knots of fleeing bodyguard cavalry came galloping past them, the riders beating their horses beyond reason, throwing away priceless breastplates to ease their load. Back down the slopes towards the Bekai River in the distance, what had been an army was now in the process of breaking up. Here and there, ordered formations survived and held together— they could see the troops from Artaka under Gushrun, who had marched all the way from the shores of the Tanean with them. But for the most part Arkamenes’s forces became a formless mob now running for their lives, and hoping to make the Bekai crossings before the Great King’s cavalry cut them off. Already, the superb ranks of the Asurians had given chase, thousands of richly clad horsemen yelling like maniacs and starting the grim sport of the pursuit. The Macht centurions on the hill watched in horror and something approaching awe. It was Phiron who collected himself first.
“We may well be fucked, brothers, but that does not mean we leave this world like lambs. Orsus—about-face your mora and link up with Jason. Tell him to pull up the hillside, and bring the skirmishers with him, what’s left of them. Brothers, we go into all-round defence and see what transpires. We do not run, nor do we retreat. The Bekai bridges are about to become a chokepoint, and the Great King will destroy the rest of the army before them. We must do otherwise.” He donned his helm once more. They stood looking at one another, all thinking the same thing. The battle had been won; another half hour of fighting and an Empire would have been gained. One Kufr’s stupidity had lost it, and with it, their lives.
“We are Macht,” Orsos said, spitting out the word like a curse. “We do not show our backs to Kufr. The morning is done, brothers; now night approaches. We will go into the dark together.”
In the Kefren centre, Vorus watched the death of Arkamenes’s army with a kind of wonder. Beside him, old Proxis set his fist on his heart and prayed a moment to the Juthan smith-god, in whose forge the world had been hammered out.
“I knew he was his father’s son, but even Anurman would not have staked all on one throw, Proxis. He is either a genius, or a fool.”
“He did right; the snake’s head is severed. He has saved his Empire.”
Vorus called over a battle-scribe and a courier. He scribbled quickly on the portable desk the hufsan scribe wore about his neck. “We are not quite done,” he said to Proxis, still writing. “There are men on this hill who will not be running.”
“The Macht? They are finished. They fought well, but their legs are cut out from under them now.”
“We must contain them at once.” And to the courier, “Take this to all the legion commanders in turn. Tell them they must not hesitate or break ranks; give them those words as well as the despatch.”
The courier nodded and ran off.
“We will surround them, and then destroy them,” Vorus said, and despite the resolve in his words, he looked sick to his stomach.
Out on the southern edge of the battlefield Jason’s mora stood easy now, shields at their knees, helms off. Around them what remained of the skirmishers went over the mounded corpses looking for wounded, for loot, for Kufr whose throats could still be slit. The runner found Jason sharing a skin of water with Rictus and Gasca, the three of them not speaking, just drinking in turns from the skin, their eyes glazed with that blasted look of men who have seen enough. The runner told them of events on the rest of the field, a strawhead youth who had cast aside all his wargear to run this errand. His account was tortured by the effort to breathe. Jason listened to him without comment.
“Rictus, what do you have left here, you suppose?”
Rictus’s face was an unknowable mask of dried blood, black gobbets streaking it, the only clean spaces about his lips and where he had wiped his eyelids. He looked around them at the shattered hillside and its ghastly carpet of bodies. “I’m thinking maybe eight hundred fit to fight, another two or three hundred lightly wounded, and as many again who will not see tomorrow unless they’re seen to right now.”
Jason rubbed his forehead. “We must get back up the hill and rejoin the other morai at once. We don’t have time...” He turned and looked northwards up the valley. Six pasangs away, the bulk of Arkamenes’s army covered the ground like a creeping rash from which glints of white light sprang out, reflected metal. Behind them the hill-crest was bare, the bulk of the Macht centons having moved beyond it. Standing here, it hardly seemed possible that the battle was not over.