The Second Empire

The two bands of armed men faced each other squarely for several moments. Corfe could not speak. If they began to fight one another he knew that the army was doomed, irrevocably split between Fimbrian and Toru

“All right, lads,” Andruw said breezily, materialising like a ghost from the surrounding trees. “That’s enough. If we start into them, then we’re no better than they are. They’re criminals, no more. And besides, are you willing to see the day when a Toru

The Toru

“I too lost a home and family, Varian,” he said quietly. “All of us here have suffered, in one way or another.”

Varian’s eyes were hot blazes of grief. “I had a wife,” he croaked, hardly audible. “I had a daughter.”

Corfe gripped his shoulder. “Don’t do anything that would offend their memory.”

The trooper coughed and wiped his eyes roughly. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry. We’re bloody fools, all of us.”

“So are all men, Varian. But we were husbands and fathers and brothers once. Save the hatred for a battlefield. These animals are not worthy of it. Now go and get some sleep.”

Corfe raised his voice. “All of you, back to your lines. There is nothing more to do here, nothing more to see.”

Reluctantly, the throng broke up and began dispersing. Corfe felt the relief wash over him in a tepid wave as they obeyed him. They were still his to command, thanks to Formio and Andruw. They were still an army, and not a mob.

I N the middle watch of the night he did the rounds of the camp as he always did, exchanging a few words with the sentries, looking in on the horses. He took his own mount, an equable bay gelding, from the horse-lines and rode it bare-back out of the wood and up to the summit of a small knoll which lay to the east of the camp. Another horseman was there ahead of him, outlined against the stars. Andruw, staring out upon a sleeping Toru

On the vast dark expanse of the night-bound earth they could see distant lights, throbbing like glow-worms. Even as Corfe watched, another sprang up out on the edge of the horizon.

“They’re burning the towns along the Searil,” Andruw said.

Corfe studied the distant flames and wondered what scenes of horror and carnage they signified. He remembered Aekir’s fall, the panic of the crowds, the inferno of the packed streets, and wiped his face with one hand.

“I’m sorry I lost my head back there for a time,” Andruw said tonelessly. “It won’t happen again.” And the anger and despair ate through the numbness in his voice as he spoke again. “God’s blood, Corfe, will it ever end? Why do they do these things? What kind of people are they?”

“I don’t know, Andruw, I truly don’t. We’ve been fighting these folk for generations, and still we know nothing about them. And they know as little about us, I suspect. Two peoples who have never even tried to understand one another, but who are simply intent on wiping each other out.”

“I’ve heard that in the west, in Gabrion and Hebrion, the Sea-Merduks trade and take ship with Ramusian captains as though there were no barriers between them. They sail ships together and start businesses in partnership with each other. Why is it so different here?”

“Because this is the frontier, Andruw. This is where the wheel meets the road.

“I stood ceremonial guard in Aekir once, at a di

“Originally the Merduks were chieftains of the steppes beyond the Jafrar, but they followed the sun and crossed the mountains, and were halted by the walls and pikes of the Fimbrians. The Fimbrians contained them: we ca

“I must talk to Marsch. That mountain savage bit… I have to tell him—”

“He knows, Andruw. He knows.”

Andruw nodded. “I suppose so.” He seemed to be having trouble finding the words he wanted. Corfe could sense the struggle in him as he sat his horse and picked at its mane.

“They shamed us back there, Formio and Marsch and their men. There they were, foreigners and mercenaries, and they stood by you while your own people were almost ready to push you out of the way. Those men were at the dyke with us—they saw us there. A few even served under you in the barbican. There’s no talk around their campfires tonight. They have failed you—and themselves.”

“No,” Corfe said quickly. “They are just men who have been pushed too far. I think none the worse of them for it. And this army is not made up of Fimbrians and Toru

Andruw grimaced. “Maybe… You know, Corfe, I was ready to slit the throats of those prisoners. I would have done it without a qualm and slept like a baby afterwards. I never really hated before, not truly. In a way it was some huge kind of game. But now this—this is different. The refugees from Aekir, they were just faces, but these hills… I skylarked in them when I was a boy. The people up here are my own people, not just because they are Toru

“Yes,” Corfe said, “we were.”

“Are we doomed, do you think? Madmen fighting the inevitable?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care either, Andruw. All I know is how to fight. It’s all I’ve ever known. Perhaps one day it will be possible to come to some kind of terms with the Merduks. I hope so, for the sake of Varian and his family and thousands like them. If it does not prove so, however, I will fight the bastards until the day I die, and then my ghost will plague their dreams.”

Andruw laughed, and Corfe realised how much he had missed that sound of late.

“I’ll just bet it will. Merduk mothers will frighten children yet unborn with tales of the terrible Corfe and his red-clad fiends.”

“I hope so,” Corfe smiled.

“You think that snot-nosed boy was telling the truth about the Merduks marching on Charibon?”

“Possibly. It could be misinformation, but I doubt it. No, I think it’s time the army went hunting. The quickest road to the gap from Orma

“Any guesses on the size of the army we’re looking for?”

“Small enough for us to take on, I should think. The Sultan still believes the Toru