Antaup gritted his teeth and dug in his heels. All bloody amateurs. And good men would be paying for it.
He jumped a hedge, jolting down, saw a set of men hiding on the other side in the midst of pulling off their brightly coloured jackets. Deserting before they’d even reached the enemy. He was tempted to turn his horse and ride the bastards down. But they weren’t alone. He saw others scattering northwards across the fields, occasionally glancing back with terrified eyes.
“Bastard cowards!” he hissed into the wind.
He wished Jurand and Glaward were there. He’d always known what they were. Nothing to be proud of but they were good men still. Leo could be so bloody stubborn. Once he had an idea in his head, there was no shaking it free.
“Out of the way!” he roared, men flattening themselves against the railings of the wooden bridge as he clattered across. One messenger scarcely flung himself aside in time, a flash of his wide eyes, a snatch of his shocked whoop as Antaup whipped past him and on towards Steebling’s tower-house.
He was working up a new story. Something to really gild his reputation. A nobleman’s wife, this time. Lady something or other. Probably better not to think up a name, that could get him in trouble later. I’ll take it to my grave and all that. Mysterious older woman. Terribly wealthy. Frisson of danger. Husband couldn’t get it hard any more. They’d swallow it whole. Antaup, you dog! How do you do it? Easy when you made it up. And a lot more fun than having to actually persuade women to take you to bed. He’d no patience with women at all.
The hill the tower stood on crawled with activity, but the neat grey lines of Angland’s army weren’t waiting at the foot any more. He could see the dust from the formations as they crossed the stubbled fields to the south.
“Damn it,” he whispered, giving his horse a moment to rest and easing his helmet back to wipe his sweaty forehead.
Had Leo got impatient? Hardly the first time. Or had something forced his hand? He felt a guilty pricking of nostalgia for the days when Lady Finree had been in command. That sense of calm control as she considered the maps, the men, the terrain. No place for a woman, maybe, but no one ever doubted that she knew exactly what she was doing. That she knew exactly what everyone else should be doing. Now no one seemed to have the faintest idea.
He pushed down an unfamiliar feeling of panic. Get to Leo. Tell him what was happening. Do his duty. Like Ritter and good old Barniva had, if that was what it took. He pushed on south, towards the dust clouds, the rows of glinting steel. The buildings of Stoffenbeck grew closer through the gloom. The tall clock tower. He tore on past clusters of wounded men, past stretcher-bearers, past wagons laden with supplies.
He noticed bolts poking from the stubbled fields to either side now. All pointing at the same angle. Within flatbow range, then. Leo would be where the danger was, of course. It was one of the things you had to admire about the—
There was a strange little click, Antaup gasped as his horse swerved, and suddenly he was in the air. He took a whooping breath, clutching at nothing, driven out in a great groan as he hit the ground. The world tumbled and jolted as he rolled, bounced, tumbled and slid to a stop.
He lay there, looking at the sky for a moment.
The sun a bright smudge against the clouds. Peaceful.
He came back to himself with a jolt. He moved his arms and legs, wriggled his fingers. A couple of bruises perhaps, but otherwise uninjured. The ladies of the Union and, indeed, the world, could breathe again. That had been an exceedingly close thing.
His horse lay on its side, kicking weakly, a flatbow bolt buried in its flank.
“You absolute bastards!” he roared at no one in particular.
Canlan pulled the trigger and sent another bolt flying towards the neat blocks of Anglanders.
He didn’t wait to see where it came down. That wasn’t his business.
“Load!” shouted that arsehole of a lieutenant, barely old enough for a beard.
“Arsehole,” mouthed Canlan as he lowered his bow and started to crank.
Drum gave a little snigger, but he was easily amused. “Let’s have some more bolts over here!” he roared over his shoulder.
“They’ll come when we need ’em.” In Canlan’s experience, it didn’t really help thinking about where the bolts came from and certainly not where they were going. And Canlan had a lot of experience. Been a soldier all his life, more or less. He’d shot flatbow bolts in every significant war the Union had been involved in. He’d shot ’em at Gurkish and Northmen and Styrians and Stariklanders. He’d shot ’em at Ghosts on the barren plains, at pirates on the rolling sea, even at some Imperials, once, in a desultory exchange of arrows outside of arrow range somewhere near the border of the Near Country. Now he was shooting ’em at Anglanders, who in every way that counted should’ve been on his side.
The string was cranked all the way now and he hefted the bow, plucked up a bolt, slotted it home, all smooth and practised. He paused a moment, wondering how many bolts he’d shot in his life. But his job wasn’t to count ’em, just to put ’em in the air, calmly and carefully and quickly as possible.
He lifted the bow to his shoulder, knocked the dowel out of the trigger, lined up on the ranks of marching pikemen, their armour gleaming dully in the sun as they came on. Gave him a worried feeling, for a moment, seeing ’em like that. Weren’t quite close enough to make out their faces. Weren’t quite close enough to tell who they were. But they soon would be. He frowned as he lifted the bow to adjust for distance. So he was looking towards the sky, rather than towards the men. That was better. Who they were wasn’t his business.
“Shoot!” said that arsehole of a lieutenant, and Canlan pulled the trigger, and put his bolt in the air, and straight away set to cranking his bow again.
Starling gasped as something bounced from his shoulder plate, flicked his helmet and clattered away behind.
“Was that a flatbow bolt?”
“Keep steady!” called Captain Longridge. “March!”
Starling swallowed. Armour was a good thing. Armour was a very good thing.
“Come on,” someone was growling, just beside him. “Come on.”
Bloody hell, they were getting close now. Over the shoulders of the three ranks in front, he caught a glimpse of the enemy’s lines. A drystone wall, he thought. Some tree trunks with stakes hammered into them, poking out in all directions. Some trenches, maybe. Glitter of steel as a gap in the clouds passed overhead.
A man fell, screaming. As he looked around, Starling saw he had a bolt in his face. A horrible red flash of it before he went down under the stumbling men, and someone near tripped over his pike as he dropped it, everyone wobbling and clanking into each other.
“Close up!” roared Longridge. “Close up the ranks there!”
Starling found he was marching with his eyes slightly narrowed. A shield would’ve been a very good thing, too, but damn, the pike was so heavy, there was no way he could’ve managed both.
“Forward, men!” Starling glanced over his shoulder. The Young Lion himself! On his great warhorse with his officers around him and his sword drawn. A bloody hero, like in the storybooks. Starling joined up ’cause of what that man had done at Red Hill. And beating Stour Nightfall in the Circle, and all. He’d seen the way the girls gasped when they heard the tale told and thought, Bloody hell, that’s the job for me.