ran a hand across his bald scalp; scratched at the back of his neck. ‘We’re missing at least thirty ships from last night, and one of those is a powder ship. Meaning we have a third less blackpowder than we were hoping for. That isn’t the worst of it. Most of our heavy cavalry have gone, sunk or blown off course – we don’t yet know. And four transports of auxiliary infantry.’
A sudden gust roared through the space, so that they all turned their heads away from the stinging sands. Sparus waited with his one eye closed until it had passed. ‘Also, we’re still waiting for our air support to turn up. After that storm, though, there’s no telling if any of them will.’
Sasheen leaned back and chuckled to herself, a sound wholly incongruous with the tone of his words. ‘You make it sound as though we are already doomed, Sparus. And yet look at us. We are here, sitting on Khosian sands, with an army behind us and a nation awaiting its own downfall.’
Sparus blinked at her, keeping his thoughts to himself. He wasn’t in the habit of looking on the bright side. It did you little good.
Besides, the Coros disaster was fresh on his mind today. Nine years had passed since he had last stood on Mercian soil, yet still the memories were raw within him; the chartassa of the Free Ports cutting through the imperial forces twice their number, their ranks ragged from grape and grenades and missile fire, yet not stopping until they had hewn the invading imperial army in two and broken it.
Sparus had only been a minor general then; as had Creed, leading the small contingent of the feared Khosian chartassa. The islands of the democras had won that day, and Sparus would be damned if he was going to let such a disaster befall him again. To be beaten twice would be unforgivable; better to take a knife to his own heart. Sparus was Archgeneral now; Creed the Lord Protector. To defeat Creed here in Khos would seal Sparus’s reputation as the supreme general of his time.
Sparus would win this campaign he had been so opposed to commanding, but he would do so not with a hopeful complacency, but in the supremacy of their own logistics and might. This time, they had an army large enough for the task at hand, and an army of veterans at that, not nervous recruits. And he was older, wiser, a better general by far. He’d learned from their mistakes. At his own insistence the imperial heavy infantry had developed their own phalanxes of heavy pikemen, capable – he hoped – of taking on the mighty chartassa.
Still, he thought: the loss of so many warzels in the storm was a heavy blow to the campaign, and before it had even truly started.
‘It’s always this way, yes,’ he said to the gathering, though he directed his words mainly to Sasheen. ‘Always you have a carefully prepared plan that falls to shreds the first moment it engages with reality. That’s why we prepare for the worst. And why we will make do with what we have now, as we always make do.’
Sasheen narrowed her kohllined eyes. ‘Surely there must be some good news too? Something to rouse the army’s spirits?’
Sparus looked away for a moment to take in the long stretch of white beach beyond the dunes. It was chaos down there. Half-crazed zels ran amok with their harnesses trailing loose, leaping over scattered boxes of equipment and spilling men out of their way. Squads of infantry wandered around, trying to find their commanding officers; stragglers were still coming in from along the coast, stumbling over the sand like the blind. Sparus had never seen a beachhead in such disarray.
Still, it could have been much worse.
‘Good news?’ he heard himself say to them all, and tossed the stick in his hand into the wind ‘We’re still alive, aren’t we?’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
An Ambush
The meeting of general staff had ended barely a half-hour ago – for Creed was counting the minutes on his precious waterclock as he sipped on his lukewarm cup of milk – when the doors crashed open for the second time that morning, and in stamped the Michinè in all their righteous anger, their gold and diamond links jingling over the rustle of their silk clothing.
Chonas and Sinese were at the front of the crowd, their painted faces pale contrasts to the fervour in their eyes. At the sight