Fallowblade Read Free Page B

whip cracks, drum rattles, trumpet blasts, and shouts of approval from the civilian onlookers amassed around the periphery of the field.
    Tidings of imminent invasion from the south had not yet escaped from Slievmordhu’s royal city, Cathair Rua, to reach the northern kingdom of Narngalis. Uabhar had placed a ban on the news. Nor had he openly declared war according to ancient, honourable custom. Instead he left it to his foes to discover belatedly, so that he could take them by surprise. As the ultimate controller of his kingdom’s communications network, he had made every effort to suppress the information for as long as possible. He silenced the semaphores of Slievmordhu. He prohibited the flying of carrier pigeons. For the first time in history, pigeon pie was encouraged as a patriotic dish; if any such birds were observed in the skies, wild or tame, they were targeted with sling stones or arrows. Throughout the realm of Slievmordhu, northbound travellers were intercepted on the road and interrogated, and their bags searched for letters, and if they were suspected as spies, or at the whim of their captors, they were taken prisoner. Despite Uabhar’s exertions, rumours of unrest had begun to trickle from his net; nonetheless, no clear-cut evidence of his plans had yet reached the lands he intended to seize.
    This censorship lasted long enough for the military commanders of the two southern kingdoms to mobilise their armies in secret.
    The infantry battalions of the Slievmordhuan and Ashqalêthan vanguards, comprising longbowmen, shortbowmen and crossbowmen, had long since departed from Cathair Rua, led by High Commander Risteárd Mac Brádaigh riding beside his Ashqalêthan counterpart. Sixty companies of archers had gone striding forth, bearded and burly, carrying their round shields on their backs, their yew bows thrusting up from behind their shoulders. At each man’s belt hung sword or axe, according to his disposition, and over the right hip there jutted out the leathern quiver, with its tufts of goose, pigeon and peacock feathers. Behind each company of bowmen marched two drummers beating their nakirs, and two trumpeters in particoloured clothes. The beat was brisk; no laggards would be suffered.
    After their departure a tremendous press had thronged into formation on the field. The main-battle of each army consisted of two battalions of foot soldiers—spearmen and archers—and four of heavy armoured cavalry equipped with swords and lances, geared up to charge enemy formations. Of the cavalry, the principals were Ashqalêth’s foremost knights, the Desert Paladins, under their own leader, and several companies of Slievmordhu’s elite chevaliers, the Knights of the Brand.
    One of the latter companies, led by Conall ‘Two-Swords’ Gearnach, was notably missing. King Uabhar had sent the Commander-in-Chief of the Red Lodge on an expedition to the South-Eastern Moors, and he had not yet returned. Though he was a popular officer, his absence at this time was not entirely unwelcome to those who were close to him. Since the feast that had been hosted for King Thorgild at Orielthir, Gearnach’s own knights often hesitated to traffic with their hitherto approachable leader. In private they asserted that he had turned into a live volcano, ready to erupt into fiery wrath at the slightest provocation, and without notice. His unstable temper was attributable: Uabhar Ó Maoldúin had used their leader badly. The king had compromised the knight’s honour, trapping him between two vows, so that he could not help but be forsworn either way. Subsequently, while the Knights of the Brand were absent from the Red City at the feast in Orielthir, Uabhar had burned down the Red Lodge in order to betray and capture the weathermasters on the fabricated pretext of treason. Those of Gearnach’s men who rode out from Cathair Rua alongside the Desert Paladins wondered how their leader would respond when he received the tidings of