“What’s your name?”
“Lomnos.”
“Lomnos, if Jason does not get this message, I will come looking for you—you understand?”
The boy nodded, snarling, and then ran back the way he had come.
“Whistler, is that you? Not the head again.” Whistler’s bald pate had yet another slice out of it. He raised his hand and touched the blood. “Never felt it—I don’t feel nothing there no more—lucky for me, eh? Rictus, we’ve got to rein in these stupid fuckers before they burn the place down around us.”
“I know. Discipline is all to hell. Do what you can. I’ll try to get to the head of them.” Rictus took off up the steep city street at a run, grabbing men here and there, any face he recognised, any name he could shout out. Called like this, the men remembered their duty and followed him up the hill, but hundreds of Rictus’s mora were scattering through the city, killing and looting as they went, beyond the reach of their centurions. The bodies began to pile up in the streets.
The boy Lomnos panted out his message with the spittle spraying from his lips. Jason set a hand on his shoulder. He looked around, saw Aristos in the midst of the marching column, and called him over.
“Take your mora into the city, at the double. Rictus may need help.” Aristos grinned, face flushing with pleasure. He turned to go.
“And Aristos—keep them in hand!”
The lead mora broke into a run, clapping on their helms and sliding their shields from back to shoulder with the neck-strap. Jason looked round again, saw Buridan two hundred paces away. He pointed to the city and pumped his fist up and down. Buridan nodded, and shouted at his men. Immediately, this second mora began to pick up their pace as well. Two thousand men, sweating and gasping in their armour, now streaming towards the open gates of Ab-Mirza at a run.
“Shields!” Jason cried. The centurions around him took it up, and the five middle morai of the column immediately broke ranks and made for the baggage train, where their shields were stored on the wagons. Morai took it in turns to provide the shield-bearing rear and van guards, because to march all day with the shield was punishing. It would thus be some time before Jason could send more fully-armed morai into the city. For the moment, whatever was happening in there was the concern of Rictus and Aristos and Buridan alone.
Perhaps two hundred men held around Rictus in a body; all that he could gather out of his mora. These were mainly veterans who had been close to him at the Kunaksa, older men with more level heads, but even they were eager to be off and join their comrades. He could feel it. Some fool had knocked a cresset into a stable, and half a street was burning. Rictus found himself frozen, staring at the flames, remembering Isca, the sound of the city’s torture roaring up into the pine-shrouded hills.
Up the steep city streets more troops were advancing, hundreds of heavy spearmen, a curse-bearer at the head. He doffed his helm and became Aristos, lithe, olive-skinned, his face alight with happiness. “Well, lads,” he shouted, “Let’s finish what Rictus has begun. Remember my uncle Argus—remember Phiron! Teach these kutr their names!”
Vorus was woken by an orderly, a young hufsan with a set face. “General, I was told to wake you. Outside, there is something you must see.”
Mystified, Vorus threw a blanket about his shoulders and padded barefoot out of the tent. Dawn was almost upon them, and the great camp around him was stirring, the smell of woodsmoke and horseshit mingling on the air.
“General Proxis is on the mound, sir,” the hufsan said.
Vorus laboured up the slope of the small tell, all that was left of some indescribably ancient city. There was a lookout post at the top, this being the highest point for miles around. Proxis stood there now, along with three other Juthan of the Legion.
“Proxis.”
“Look west, General. What do you see?
A glow on the brim of the sky, red in the white mist-sea which blanketed the plain. Vorus’s face hardened.
“They’re burning a city,” he said. “Where would that be?”
“Ab-Mirza. It’s sixty pasangs from here; two days’ march.”
“I know it. The King’s messenger got through, then; they must have made a fight of it.”
“That, or the Macht are simply setting an example.”
“I don’t think they would,” Vorus said quietly. “What purpose could it serve? No; there’s been a fight in that city, Proxis.”
“And the city has lost. The Governor of Ab-Mirza has brought ruin down on himself. And his people.”
“Would you suggest we order all governors to throw open the gates of their cities to these brigands?” Vorus asked, angry now. “The King was right. We must make them fight every step of the way.”