The Trials of Empire, page 18
“Shit,” I said. I was not prepared for this in the slightest. I had anticipated some night-time exploits per Vonvalt’s suggestion, some examination of our enemy under cover of darkness; sabotage and subterfuge. Instead, we were both caught out in the open.
“Indeed,” von Osterlen agreed. She took in the group of Templars to the north. Even to my untrained eye it did not look like a particularly cohesive force, and certainly not ten thousand men. There could not have been more than a tenth of that. “Look, they are in disarray. Prepare yourself; this will move very quickly.”
She was not wrong. Already I could see the Grasvlaktekraag shifting as the news worked its way down the company. I watched as the Kasar began to remove the leather caps from their halberds and horses’ horns, watched as they began to discard their baggage without ceremony, to be recovered after the battle. Those who had stripped off their armour for the journey were hastily donning it, pulling on their mail shirts, buckling scabbards about their waists, checking that their scimitars drew cleanly and did not stick.
The Templars, who must have been just over half a mile away, were shifting as well, adopting bedraggled formations, but only a quarter that I could see were mounted, and there was no sign of a baggage train. Any misgivings I might have had were buried under a surge of optimism. The Kasar, already bigger and stronger than mortal men, as well as rested and fed and spoiling for a fight, would make mincemeat of this detachment of Claver’s force.
Vonvalt rode up to us as Zuberi began to direct the company in Kasari.
“You two remain in the rear,” he said.
I was secretly relieved at this injunction, though von Osterlen’s features creased in annoyance. She was cut off, however, before she could defy him.
“With me,” Vonvalt added. “Let the soldiers do the soldiering. Our mission is too important to throw our lives away on a skirmish.”
The Grasvlaktekraag lined up, a single formation two ranks deep. I had seen what a Sovan destrier did to a person, but even that enormous beast had nothing on a Plains horse. Each Kasar wielded its halberd with the haft across its back, blade extended out to the side, and I knew that this one charge alone would be devastating – decisive, even. My heart surged; this whole mission, many weeks in the making, had seemed hare-brained. Now, it seemed like genius.
Zuberi sounded the charge with a horn, and the Grasvlaktekraag let up a great roar. The horses kicked forward, and I felt the plains rumble beneath my feet as the charge began.
“It is much too far for a charge,” Vonvalt shouted to us over the wind in our ears as we followed at a much slower – though still fast – pace. “They will burn out well in advance of the Templar line.”
“You were warned of their impetuosity,” von Osterlen said. She herself seemed to be in high spirits, which was unsurprising in the circumstances. The Savaran Templars had been rivals to Südenburg long before they had been an enemy of the state.
And then, her expression fell.
She squinted at the Templar host, and what cheer had marked her features melted away like ice in the midday sun. Now there was in its place an expression of profound horror.
“In the name of Nema, Konrad, call them off!” she shouted.
Vonvalt looked completely baffled. “What are you talking about?” he demanded. “We’ll not get a better chan—”
“It’s Luther!” Von Osterlen screamed, kicking her horse into the hardest canter it could muster. “It’s not Claver, it’s the Saxan Knights! It’s Südenburg!”
“No!” I shouted. I squinted at the distant Templar line, to see that von Osterlen was right. The livery was all wrong. The Savarans wore a white star against black; and though black cloaks were in abundance, I could clearly see livery of the Order of Saxan Knights – a black cross against a white background, centred by the deer’s head of Nema.
“Prince of Hell!” Vonvalt shouted, kicking his own horse into a canter. He began to bellow at the Grasvlaktekraag, but their blood was up, and he had no hope of making himself heard over the thundering of their horses’ hooves and battle cry.
I followed suit. Vonvalt had taught us – prophetically, it felt – the word for ‘stop’ in Kasarsprek, and I screamed it as my Plains horse charged forward, though I had even less hope of being heard than von Osterlen and Vonvalt. I watched with horror as the Templar cavalry initiated their own charge – for what choice did they have? – and I felt sick as the two cavalry companies smashed into one another.
“No!” I screamed again, my throat raw. I watched as Templars were cut in two, their armour like paper against the huge war halberds of the Kasar. One man was literally hewn in half. I saw a Frontier courser decapitated. The clash was so violent that I saw one Templar horse half-somersault, its belly gored by the Plains horse’s horns. Its neck snapped as it landed – as did the back of its Templar rider underneath.
Vonvalt and von Osterlen moved like people possessed, shouting and screaming in both Saxan and Kasari. But now they had the sounds of battle to contend with, too. Not only the screams of the men and horses and the roars of the Kasar, but the clash of armour against armour, scimitar against short sword and spear.
A horrible, plunging despair took root in me as I reached the rearmost part of the battle. Except it was not a battle. It was a massacre. That the Templars had stood to fight at all spoke volumes of their incredible courage, for the Kasar were absolutely terrifying – and feral in the heat of battle. If the Kasar truly were divided into two parts, human and wolf, then they reserved the former for their leisure, their business and trade, their cities and places of civilisation.
On the battlefield, I was watching animals at work.
I rode past a Templar who had had his head, top half of his chest, and left arm cut off. I saw another man skewered on the end of the halberd and lifted into the air like a roasted hog. In one part of the field I saw a dismounted Kasar, his halberd discarded, punch a man so hard in the face it caved inward as though his facial bones were eggshell.
The rout was sudden and total. I know not how long the engagement lasted, but it could only have been a minute, perhaps two at most. The ferocity of the Kasari charge, the energy of the impact, the spectacular gore of the melee, had crushed the Templars’ will to fight to a fine powder. As both a demonstration of martial prowess, and a tragic mistake, it was without peer.
The Templars fled. Those on foot discarded anything that might hinder them – swords, shields, even mail. Those cavalrymen who had survived simply broke off and cantered away. It was only then, after Vonvalt and von Osterlen’s frantic screaming at Zuberi, that the Kraagsman pulled out the same horn he had used to sound the charge and blew a different pattern, a sequence of regular blasts which was met with singular confusion. It was easy to see why; the Kasar wanted to charge the Templars down and slaughter them to a man. In their minds, these were the Savarans, men and women who had made it their business to attack Kasari lands, holdings and personnel for little reason other than to blood themselves. Unchecked, they would have reduced every Templar on the field to bloody rags.
Even as the call-off was sounded, some Kasar attended their final kills. I saw at least a dozen men and women who might otherwise have survived dispatched with predatory zeal. The Kasar wielded weapons, certainly, but they had clawed fingers and powerful jaws, too, and these were used to great effect.
I realised I was weeping as the massacre ground to a halt. Zuberi blew on the horn incessantly, and I could read in his lupine features a sense of urgency. Slowly, the Plains horses came to a stop. Immediately some began to idly crop at the grass, oblivious to the tragedy which had just unfolded. One Kasar dismounted and was about to dispatch a wounded Templar, when I shouted “stop” in Kasarsprek – and the wolfman looked over at me.
I dismounted, misjudging the distance to the ground and nearly rolling my ankle, and ran up to the Templar. The Kasar who had been about to execute him growled in anger and frustration, but let me past.
“Are you wounded?” I asked the man. He had the dark skin of a Grozodan, a greying black beard, and creased, careworn features. I realised then that I recognised him. “Luther,” I breathed. “By the gods.”
“Helena?” Luther de Rambert said between deep breaths, eyes wide in fear and confusion. “What are you doing here? What is going on?”
My tears pattered down on his surcoat. “I’m sorry,” was all I could say. “I am so, so sorry.”
XIII
On to Sova
“Human hands, human mistakes”
SOVAN PROVERB
We limped into Grunhaven. Like Kalegosfort, a small merchant outpost of the same name had grown up next to it, and it was into this nascent town that we pulled the survivors.
The Templar fortress of Grunhaven was itself abandoned. Nothing sensible could be divined from the locals about the absence of a garrison, but to hear them speak of it, it was not a new state of affairs. As one of the southernmost Templar outposts, the fortress would undoubtedly have fallen under the purview of Zetland, so it made sense that Claver would have left the place to fallow and taken whatever soldiers there had been north with him. Though the real reason was never divined, it at least gave us a place to stay.
Vonvalt frantically summoned all able bodies in the town. I was dispatched to find a blue star that denoted a physician, found two, and collared them both. Great quantities of marsh ale were produced, as well as fresh water from a tributary of the Reka which trickled into the Jade Sea a mile or two north. Whilst the physicians tended to the most badly injured Templars – and there were plenty that would simply not survive – the small number of townsfolk, mostly fishermen and their families, and a sizeable cohort of itinerant merchants and their ships’ crews, began fetching water, vinegar and wine, and bandages, or anything that could pass for a bandage.
Strangely, I could not help but feel sorry for the Kasar, too. For all I had thought of them as wild beasts in the heat of battle, once word had been spread of the mistake, their demeanour had changed quickly and totally. With blood and tempers cooled, a heavy contrition set in. I could see it in their movements, in their features. Occasionally one would perform a jarringly human act, like rubbing the backs of their heads, clasping a hand over their mouths, or pinching the bridge of their snout. Several appeared to be consoling one another. They did what they could to assist, lashing wounded Templars to their horses, providing water from their own skins, and so on. But the damage had been done, and there was no undoing it. Now we had to mitigate what we could.
In and amongst the chaos of the field hospital, I found Vonvalt and von Osterlen. Both were stripped of their armour. Vonvalt’s shirt was unbuttoned to the navel and both sleeves were rolled up to the middle of his upper arm. Von Osterlen had foregone a top entirely and wore only a breast band. Her tunic she had ripped into strips and was soaking them in vinegar. Her expression was one of furious concentration. She conspicuously avoided talking with Vonvalt.
I set to helping. Vonvalt had long ago taught me basic aid, and I rendered what I could; but no sooner had I begun when he stopped me.
“Helena,” he said to me quietly. “Find Luther. Find out what they were doing here. And explain to him our mistake, if he will listen.”
I expected von Osterlen to leap up to attend with me, but she was entirely engaged with matters medical. I could only imagine what emotional agonies she was feeling. These were her people, her soldiers. She had left them in Südenburg under the auspices of her second-in-command, Luther de Rambert. And now here they were, hundreds of miles from their fortress, already in a sorry state, and that was before the Grasvlaktekraag had smashed them to pieces. She must have been feeling horror and sorrow, certainly; but knowing her as I did, I suspected her predominant emotion would have been one of guilt.
I picked my way back through the bloody streets, where a great many Templars lay directly on the road. The Kasar, at Vonvalt’s request, had gone into Grunhaven fortress itself to prepare it for occupation. I did not know how long we would be there, but it would likely be a day or two. Eventually, I found Luther de Rambert, still clad in his armour and surcoat, though helmetless. He was clasping the hands of another Templar, both of their eyes closed, and I could see de Rambert’s mouth moving in whispered prayer. I waited at a respectful distance for him to finish, and when he did and stood, the Templar whose hands he had been clasping remained motionless.
He looked at me. “Helena,” he said. I could see that he had been weeping.
“May I speak with you?” I asked. I had to repeat it a second time to get the words out. My voice was so hoarse from all the screaming. “Privately?”
De Rambert cast one more forlorn look about his men, and then nodded. Together we walked up on to the dusty, sand-coloured walls of Grunhaven. We made our way around the battlements until we were looking directly out over the Jade Sea. Shafts of golden late afternoon sunlight slanted under the low ceiling of cloud, giving the water a sparkling green colour in keeping with its namesake. Beneath us, the waves pounded and fizzed against the rocks on which the wall had been built.
“What happened?” I asked. “How did you come to be out here? We mistook you for Savarans.”
De Rambert watched the sea. He did not take his eyes off it as he spoke. “There are no Savarans here any more. You will find Keraq as empty as Grunhaven.”
My heart surged. “They have moved? Claver and his men?”
De Rambert nodded. “They came for us at Südenburg,” he said. “Margrave von Osterlen warned me that it was a distinct possibility, though to my shame I never truly believed it.” He looked at me suddenly. “I still took the necessary measures she had decreed,” he added, as though he had to justify himself to me.
“I am sure of it,” I murmured uncertainly.
De Rambert sighed, and seemed to deflate as he did so. “No, I never truly believed it. Even after what came to pass in Keraq.” Now he looked at me askance, as though I might somehow have been tainted by the demons which had engulfed the Savaran stronghold. I could hardly blame him; the same thought had crossed my mind on multiple occasions. “If anything, I thought that that devilry would convince them to abandon the whole enterprise. It is extraordinary to me that people can still see Obenpatria Claver as a pious man, when he has so obviously come completely untethered from all notions of piety.”
I nodded my agreement. It was an irony not lost on any of us that Claver, in seeking to reassert the authority of the Neman Church, was in the thrall of the Neman Church’s own historic nemeses. Who knew what intricate mental con tortions the man was performing to justify it all to himself?
“Margrave von Geier is a man of great strategic capability,” de Rambert said bitterly. “Südenburg is a large and powerful fortress, but it is not without its weak points. An enemy would not know them, or certainly not with any intimacy; but von Geier might as well have been studying the engineers’ blueprints. Not that he needed to.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“A few months past, we were attacked by the Saekas with blackpowder. It was an attack of two parts, a diversionary feint to the north and the main thrust to the south. They sought to breach the curtain wall with blackpowder – a thick wall, by any reckoning, but one that predates the discovery of blackpowder by a century or more.” He picked up a small stone atop the merlon and idly tossed it into the roiling green waters below. “They cracked it like an egg, but we thwarted the attack and let the masons patch it up.”
I realised what he was saying. We had been there when it happened. I could remember watching the battle from atop a nearby escarpment, and seeing the hole afterwards. “You are telling me it was a move planned months in advance?”
De Rambert spat over the edge. “Aye. They hit it again, the exact same place. This time the whole wall came down. We had been prepared for a lengthy siege, not a scrap like that.” He sighed again, shakily. “It was a massacre.”
I did not say anything for a little while. It did not seem like the right thing to do, to interrupt him.
“The powers that Claver and his priests are able to employ, it is beyond anything I have ever laid eyes on. They were able to…” He paused, words catching in his throat. I did not know what to do, so I simply did the Sovan thing and pretended I had not noticed until he comported himself. “They were able to force men to…” Still he grappled with it. “Kill themselves,” he said eventually. “They shout in some arcane tongue, and in so doing are able to command men’s minds. And they would force us to turn our own swords against ourselves. I watched men cut their own throats—”
He stopped again, gripping the merlon in front of him to steady himself. This time I put my hand on his shoulder, and to my surprise, he held it with his own. If I had felt guilty before, now I felt wretched. They had endured so much, only to face this fresh hell on the Frontier.
“How did you get away?” I asked.
De Rambert stiffened, as though someone had stabbed him in the small of his back with a dagger. “We fled,” he said with venom. “Those of us who could, we fled like cowards. And here, finally, we have faced our divine retribution in the form of these fresh devils.”
“I am so sorry that this happened,” I said. I explained to him what had come to pass with the Grasvlaktekraag.
He nodded bitterly. “Perhaps, then, we shall have a chance to make our atonement.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“We shall join you, of course,” de Rambert said. “What meagre force of ours remains. And we shall have our revenge on Claver. Obenpatria I will call him no more. We will see him killed, and all of those who call him master.”
And then de Rambert turned away from the wall, and made his way out of the fortress to once again tend to the wounded.
Vonvalt held a council of war that evening in Grunhaven fortress. In attendance was von Osterlen, de Rambert, Ran-Jirika and Zuberi. Salana, the Questioner, was an old Kasar and required rest, and had retired.
