The Iron Wars

Aras was talking to him. Corfe collected his thoughts quickly, mustering his civility. He had precious little of it to spare these days.

“I suppose you have heard the rumours, Colonel, you having been at the court for the arrival of the Pontiff.”

“No. Tell me,” Corfe said.

“It seems hard to credit it, but it would seem that our liege lord has hired Fimbrian mercenaries to reinforce Orma

Corfe had heard as much in the war councils of the King, but his face betrayed nothing. “How very singular,” he said, and sipped at his wine.

“Yes—though there’s other words I’d rather use. Imagine! Hiring our ancient overlords to fight our wars for us. It’s an insult to every officer in the army. The King has never been greatly loved by the rank and file, but this has enraged them as nothing else ever could. It makes it look as though he does not trust his own countrymen to fight his battles for him.”

Corfe privately thought that in this at least the King was showing some shred of wisdom, but he said nothing.

“So now we have a grand tercio of them marching across Toru

“I am sure that Martellus will know what to do with them,” Corfe said mildly.

“Martellus—yes—a good man. You know him, I suppose, having served at the dyke.”

“I know him.”

“He’s not a gentleman, they say—a rough-and-ready kind of character, but a good general.”

“John Mogen was no gentleman either, but he could fight battles well enough,” Corfe said.

“Of course, of course,” Aras said hastily. “It is just that I think it is time the new generation of officers was given a chance to prove their mettle. The older men are too set in their ways, and the world is changing around them. Now give me a couple of grand tercios, and I’ll tell you how I’d relieve the dyke . . .” and he launched into a detailed description of how Colonel Aras would outdo Martellus and even Mogen, and send the Merduks reeling back across the Ostian River.

He was drunk, Corfe realized. Many of the officers there were by now, having thrown back decanter after decanter of the ruby Candelarian, their glasses blood-glows brimming in the candlelight. Outside, Marsch and the Cathedrallers would be making their cold beds in Toru

I’m drunk myself, he thought, though the wine had curdled in his mouth. He hated the black mood that settled upon him with ever increasing frequency these days. He wanted to be like Andruw or Ebro, able to enjoy himself and laugh with his fellow officers. But he could not. Aekir had set him apart. Aekir, and Heria. He wondered if he would ever know a moment’s true peace again, except for those wild, murderous times in battle when all that existed was the present. No past, no thought of the future, only the vivid, terrifying and exhilarating experience of killing. Only that.

He thought of the night he had bedded the Queen Dowager of Toru

“—but of course we need men, more men,” Aras was saying. “Too many troops are tied down in Toru

“If all campaigns needed were bold words, then no war would ever be lost,” Corfe said irritably. “There are two hundred thousand Merduks encamped before the dyke—”

“Not any more,” Aras said, pleased to have caught him out. “Reports say that half the enemy have left the winter camps along the Searil. Less than ninety thousand remain before the dyke.”

Corfe tried to blink away the wine fumes, suddenly aware that he had been told something of the greatest importance.

“Where have they gone?” he asked.

“Who knows? Back to their dank motherland perhaps, or perhaps they are in Aekir, helping with the rebuilding. The fact remains—”

Corfe was no longer listening. His mind had begun to turn furiously. Why move a hundred thousand men out of their winter camps at the darkest time of the year, when the roads were virtual quagmires and forage for the baggage and transport animals would be nonexistent? For a good reason, obviously, not mere administration. There had to be a strategic motive behind the move. Could it be that the main Merduk effort was no longer to be made at Orma

A sense of foreboding as powerful as any he had ever known suddenly came upon him. He sobered in a second. They had found some way to bypass the dyke. They were about to make their main thrust somewhere else—and soon, in winter, when Toru

“Excuse me,” he said to a startled Aras, rising from his chair. “I thank you for a hospitable evening, but I and my officers must depart at once.”

“But . . . what?” Aras said.

Corfe beckoned to Andruw and Ebro, who were staring at him, bowed to the assembled Toru

“Corfe—” Andruw began.

“Have the men stand to,” Corfe snapped. “I want everything packed and ready to move within the hour. We move out at once.”

“What’s afoot? For God’s sake, Corfe!” Andruw protested.

“That is an order, Haptman,” Corfe said coldly.

His tone sobered Andruw in an instant. “Yes, sir. Might I ask where we are going?”

“North, Andruw. Back to Toru

“We’re going to be needed there,” he said.

T ORUNNA seemed the hub of the world that winter, a place where the fate of the continent would be decided. Around the capital, Toru

The nobility of Norma