The Tattered Banner (Society of the Sword Volume 1) (56 page)

C h a p t e r   5 6

THE DRUMS OF WAR

T
here was something stirring about marching to war, and as soon as Soren found out that he would be going the excitement occupied most of his thoughts. The morning they rode out of the city, Soren had pride of place at the head of the army beside the Duke. His banner had arrived just in time and it was with great pride that he watched it flutter in the air at the end of his lance, just beneath that of the Duke, which was his privilege to carry.

An honour guard of five thousand men had been chosen for a procession through the city before they joined with the main body of the army that was camped outside the walls. The streets were lined with people as they passed through the city, from the Palace through Highgarden down to Crossways and then out of the North Gate. Alessandra was there; standing with other well dressed ladies in an enclosure at the side of the road that had been cordoned off for them. Beautifully dressed and catching the eye of every soldier that filed past her, his eyes were the only ones she met. It angered him that after all that had passed between them she could still have such an overwhelming effect on him with nothing more than a gaze. There was a sadness in her eyes, but Soren refused to allow himself to be baited by it. He hardened his jaw and directed his gaze ahead, like a good soldier. He hated himself for doing it, but he could no longer admit how much he loved her, even to himself. It simply hurt too much.

Soren loved being in an army encampment, the activity and the order of it all. There was no time to be wasted however, and as the honour guard passed through the camp, parts of it were being packed up as the men waited to fall in behind them and join the march. The army was so large that many of the men would be sleeping where their tents were that night, not having to pack and begin the march until the following morning. It made the army he had been part of in the east look like a small scouting force.

They only marched for a few hours before they camped for the night. Soren was a little surprised when they came upon the Duke’s compound, already set up over a small rise in the road. A party had ridden on ahead to set it up so that it was all ready for him when they arrived. Considering the eagerness that all of the senior officers had been speaking with when talking about joining with the enemy at the earliest possible opportunity, Soren had expected that there would be several long forced marches in the early days of the advance. It surprised him to see that this army was going to be moving so slowly. It seemed that these officers were of a different calibre to those that had led the army in the east, all pomp and ceremony but no grit.

They dined that night with a full silver service, fine wines and crystal goblets. The officers then all retired to their personal tents, while the army was settling in around them. Privileged aristocrats ran this army, and it made Soren uneasy to think what would happen when they were finally engaged in battle.

The food was good, and he could appreciate that; he would never turn his nose up at a meal no matter how inappropriate he might consider its trimmings. He was thankful that the Duke had dedicated tasters though. The days when a full belly was worth the risk of being poisoned were well and truly behind him. He sat to the Duke’s right and to all intents and purposes was one of the privileged men that sat around the table despite never feeling like one. The only difference was that he was the only man at the table who was armed. Even dal Dragonet had surrendered his weapons as a gesture to the others, one or more of whom it was feared could be part of the conspiracy against the Duke. General Kastor was not there; he was in command of a division somewhere to the rear and hadn’t made it to the officers’ enclosure in time for supper. That, at least, was one threat avoided. He determined there and then that whatever unwitting role he had played in aiding the conspiracy, he would play a very conscious and determined role in pulling it apart and seeing that its perpetrators suffered the full consequences of their treachery.

After supper, Soren was relieved by dal Gawan. While he slept, the New Guard would watch over the Duke. He strolled out amongst the tents in the fresh evening air. Officers stood around communal fires, smoking twists of tobacco and laughing and joking. Most of them would never have been to war before. They would all be well-trained swordsmen, having had to pass through the Academy, which in most cases was a formality of their station in life, but they would lack the experience that combat brought.

Near the edge of the officers’ camp and where the neatly laid out grid pattern of the army’s camp began, there was a small cluster of tents that were of a very different character to the rest. When he heard the first feminine voice, he smiled to himself. Where an army marched, a coterie of camp followers tagged along. They would be wives and sweethearts of the soldiers, some welcome, some not so, and enterprising whores who were willing to endure the privations of the road to earn a little extra money. Before the war was over, he fully expected that some of the wives and sweethearts would end up as whores, and some of the whores would end up as wives and sweethearts. Such was the way of war.

He slept well that night, which was not something he did often. It confirmed in his mind that he was best suited to a martial lifestyle. He enjoyed the hard living and plain requirements. Being the Duke’s personal bodyguard was as high as a swordsman could hope to rise at such a young age, but it was largely boredom and struggling to look the part in a world that he had once coveted, but now realised he was completely unsuited to. He had been a fool, dreaming and wishing of having a place in high society. When the war was over and the conspiracy dealt with, he determined to resign from the Duke’s service. He would return to the Academy and complete his studies, and after that there was always plenty of mercenary work to be had. It was in combat that he felt most alive, as though that was his place in life.

Waking to the sounds of a military camp coming to life was a cheering thing for him. It was a world he understood and felt comfortable in. He could act with authority here, not concerned that he was committing some faux pas that would mark him out as a social pariah.

‘We break camp at ten bells, Banneret Soren,’ an adjutant called to him, when he walked out of his tent.

Ten bells, Soren thought with surprise. It was only six. In his experience, an army’s camp would be broken with the army on the move by eight bells at the latest. He shrugged and waved a response to the adjutant, who smiled at the acknowledgment. In the Palace he was ignored like part of the furnishings. In the camp of an army he was a man of authority. He liked that.

He made his way to the tent where they had eaten supper the night before in the hope of scrounging up some breakfast. What he found made him smile. The cooks had clearly been up at the appropriate waking time for an army, and the table was fully laid out in anticipation of the arrival of the earliest rising of the officers. As Soren was the first, he had his choice of the freshly cooked food. He over-ate a little, spending longer at the table than he would have were it not for the fact he had four hours to kill before the army would be getting under way.

He returned to his tent and checked his kit, then rechecked it, and then oiled the blades of his sword and dagger. Eventually when ten bells came, he was waiting outside the Duke’s tent. Calling it a tent was somewhat deceptive, as it was more like a portable mansion, with thick carpets and heavy furniture that would be packed up and loaded onto carts to be taken to the next camp location.

There was more activity in the command tent than he would have expected and it didn’t seem as though anyone was in a hurry to move. Although he had no role in the command hierarchy, as the Duke’s personal bodyguard, he had access to all areas. He wandered into the tent, passing the sentries with a cursory nod. Dal Dragonet leaned on the campaign table, his arms wide and his head hanging low.

‘We shall go out and meet them on the field of honour!’ barked a noble in a pristine uniform.

‘You don’t understand, my Lord,’ dal Dragonet replied, his head still hanging down, his voice sounding strained. ‘The army is not fully assembled, and we will be unable to meet them with sufficient force to stop them. We should retreat to the walls of the city where we will be able to form up the army in full strength and fight on reasonably favourable ground.’

Soren turned to one of the adjutants waiting in the background. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘The scouts that came in overnight have reported that the Ruripathian army is less than a day to the north. Our pickets have already spotted some of their foraging parties. It seems like they really got the jump on us.’

‘Rubbish!’ barked another of the officers, drawing Soren’s attention back to the conversation at the table. ‘We cannot be seen to be running from the enemy. They have advanced far enough into our territory. Not one step further!’ This was met with resounding acclaim from the other officers. All men with trumped up notions of honour and no experience of war. Dal Dragonet’s was the only voice of reason, but he was not being listened to.

‘We shall send them yelping back to their frozen wasteland like the dogs they are!’ added another officer, which was received with another chorus of cheers.

Soren had had about as much as he could stomach, so went back outside. He looked north and wondered just how far away the Ruripathian army was. It was impressive that they had marched so far so quickly, but it was entirely possible that the Ostian scouts had been slow in reporting their crossing the border, and that they had been moving south for longer than had been thought.

Dal Dragonet walked quickly from the tent and when he spotted Soren he walked over to him. ‘The army is to march to engage the Ruripathians. You saw most of what happened in there. Gods help us!’

Unlike on the march from the city, the Duke and his retinue were to make up the rear guard of the advance into battle. Each of the division commanders had gone to join their regiments so his camp was relatively quiet. The army was to advance in battle order and it took some time for the divisions to spread out in line abreast. It was late afternoon before they finally got under way and despite the apparent foolishness of their advance, it was a magnificent sight to behold, thousands of men in blue tunics, lined up in ranks underneath their different coloured regimental banners.

When the army finally began to move off, the Duke’s camp looked very much as it had that morning, with no real preparation for the advance having been undertaken. The only concession that dal Dragonet had been able to win from the Duke was the agreement that he would remain well behind the line and in relative safety. It was expected that battle would be met early the next day, so the decision was made to remain where they were for the night, and to continue on at dawn. If they moved quickly, they should re-join the army before it engaged.