Ships from the West

When only he and Golophin remained in the hall's vast emptiness, Corfe leant his forehead against the hot stone of the mantel.

'Golophin, how did she die?'

The old mage was startled. He seemed to take a moment to comprehend the question. 'The Merduk Queen? A knife, Shahr Baraz told me. There were maids close by, but they heard nothing. So he says.'

Corfe's tears fell invisibly into the flames below, to vanish with not so much as a hiss to note their passing.

'Sire - Corfe - is there something else the matter?'

'This is my wedding night,' the King said mechanically. 'I have a new wife waiting for me.'

Golophin set a hand on his arm. 'Perhaps you should return to her for a little while, before she hears the news from some­one else.'

Dear God, he had almost forgotten. He raised his head with a kind of dulled wonder. 'You are right. She should hear it from me. But I must talk to Cullen first.'

'Here then. Have a swallow of this.' The wizard was off­ering him a small steel flask. He took it automatically and tipped it to his mouth. Fimbrian brandy. His eyes smarted and ran as he filled his mouth with it and swallowed it down.

'I always keep a mote of something warming about me,'

Golophin said, drinking in his rum. 'Nothing else seems to keep out the cold these days.'

Corfe looked at him. The mage was regarding him with a kindly surmise, as though inviting him to speak. For a mo­ment it was all there, crowding on his tongue, and it would have been a blessed relief to let it gush forth, to lean on this old man as other kings had before him. But he bit back the words and swallowed them. It was enough that Albrec alone knew. He could take no sympathy tonight. It would break him. And others would need sympathy ere the night was done.

Footsteps the length of the hall, and Baraz was returning with the grizzled old palace steward. Corfe drew himself up.

'Cullen, you must have the Princess Mirren woken at once. She is to pack for a long journey. Have the stables harness up a dozen light wagons, enough for a suitable entourage. Ensign Baraz, you will, with my authority, pick out a tercio of cuir­assiers as escort.'

'Where shall I tell the Princess she is going, sire?' Cullen asked, somewhat bewildered.

'She is going to Aurungabar to be married. I will see her before she goes, but she must be ready to leave by daybreak. That is all.'

The steward stood irresolute for a second, his mouth open­ing and closing. Then he bowed and left hurriedly, drawing his night robes closer about him as if the King exuded some baleful chill. Baraz followed him unhappily.

A blessed quiet for a few minutes. Corfe felt an over­whelming urge to go down to the stables, saddle up a horse, and take off alone for the mountains. To run away from this world and its decisions, its complications, its pain. He sighed and drew himself up. His bad leg was aching.

'You had best stay here,' he said to Golophin. 'I will be back soon.' Then he set off to tell his new wife that she was an orphan.

The troop transports took up four miles of river-frontage. There were over a hundred of the wide-beamed, shallow-draught vessels, each capable of carrying five tercios within its cavernous hold. They had been taking on their cargoes for two days now, and still the wharves of Toru

'The day has come at last,' Formio said with forced light­ness.

'Yes. At one time I thought it never would.' Corfe tugged at the hem of his armoured gauntlets. 'I'm leaving you three thousand of the regulars,' he told Formio. 'Along with the conscripts, that will give you a sizeable garrison. With Aras and Heyd at Gaderion, and Melf and Berza in the south, they should not even have to see battle.'

'We will miss those Merduk reinforcements ere we're done,' Formio said gravely.

'Yes. They would have eased my mind too. But there's no use crying after them now. Formio, I have been over all the paperwork with Albrec. As soon as I step aboard the trans­ports you become regent, and will remain so until I return. I've detached a few hundred of your Orphans to take over the training from the Bodyguard. The rest are already boarded.'

'You're taking the cream of the army,' Formio said.

'I know. They have a hard road ahead of them, and there's no place for conscripts upon it.'

'And the wizard goes too.'

Corfe smiled. 'He may be useful. And I feel he is a good man.'

'I do not trust him, Corfe. He is too close to the enemy. He knows too much about them, and that knowledge he has never explained.'

'It's his business to know such things, Formio. I for one shall be glad of his counsel. And besides, we shall face wizardry in battle before we're done. It's as well to be able to reply in kind.'

'I would I were going with you’ Formio said in a low voice.

'So would I, my friend. It has seemed to me that the more rank one acquires in this world, the less one is able to do as one prefers.'

Formio gripped Corfe by the arm. 'Do not go.' His normally closed face was bright with urgency. 'Let me take them out, Corfe. Stay you here.'

'I ca

'Then be careful, my friend. You and I have seen many battlefields, but something in my heart tells me that this one you are setting out for shall be the worst'

'What are you now, a seer?'

Formio smiled, though there was little humour in his face. 'Perhaps.'

'Look for us in the early summer. If all goes well we shall march back by way of the Torrin Gap.'

The two men stood looking at one another for a long moment. They had no need to say more. Finally they em­braced like brothers. Formio moved back then and bowed deep.

'Farewell, my King. May God watch over you.'

Half the city came down to the waterfront to see them off, waving and cheering as ship after ship of the transport fleet pulled away from the wharves and nosed out into the middle of the estuary. The fat-bellied vessels set their courses to catch the south-east wind that was blowing in off the Kardian, and in line astern they began the long journey upriver.

Toru

PART THREE

Nightfall

Men worshipped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they wor­shipped the beast, saying, 'Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?'

Revelation ch. 13 v. 4

Sixteen

The sun was a long time clearing the Thurian Mountains in the mornings, and down in the Torrin Gap it remained drear and chill long after the surrounding peaks were bright and glowing with the dawn. The sentries paced the walls of Gaderion and cursed and blew into their hands whilst before them the narrow valley between the mountains opened out grey and shadowed, livid with frost, and out in the gloom the campfires of the enemy gleamed in their tens of thousands.