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.Ladisla's whole notion of war was of ordering a glorious charge, then retiring to bed.Strategy and retreat were not words in his vocabulary."Yes," the Prince was muttering to himself, eyes fixed intently on the trees beyond the river."Prepare an attack and sweep them back across the border."The border was a hundred leagues away.West seized his moment."Your Highness, if I may, there is a great deal for me to do."It was no lie.The camp had been organised, or disorganised, without a thought for convenience or defence.An unruly maze of ramshackle canvas in a great clearing near the river, where the ground was too soft and had soon been turned into a morass of sticky mud by the supply carts.At first there had been no latrines, then they had been dug too shallow and much too close to the camp, not far from where the provisions were being stored.Provisions which, incidentally, had been badly packed, inadequately prepared, and were already close to spoiling, attracting every rat in Angland.If it had not been for the cold, West did not doubt that the camp would already have been riddled with disease.Prince Ladisla waved his hand."Of course, a great deal to do.You can tell me more of your stories tomorrow, eh, West? About Colonel Glokta and so forth.Damn shame he's dead!" he shouted over his shoulder as he cantered off towards his enormous purple tent, high up on the hill above the stink and confusion.West turned his mount with some relief and urged it down the slope into the camp.He passed men tottering through the half-frozen sludge, shivering, breath steaming, hands wrapped in dirty rags.He passed men sitting in sorry groups before their patched tents, no two dressed the same, as close to meagre fires as they dared, fiddling with cooking pots, playing miserable games of damp cards, drinking and staring into the cold air.The better-trained levies had gone with Poulder and Kroy to seek out the enemy.Ladisla had been left with the rump: those too weak to march well, too poorly equipped to fight well, too broken even to do nothing with any conviction.Men who might never have left their homes in all their lives, forced to cross the sea to a land they knew nothing of, to fight an enemy they had no quarrel with, for reasons they did not understand.Some few of them might have felt some trace of patriotic fervour, some swell of manly pride when they left, but by now the hard marching, the bad food and the cold weather had truly worn, starved, and frozen all enthusiasm out of them.Prince Ladisla was scarcely the inspirational leader to put it back, had he even been making the slightest effort to do so.West looked down at those grim, tired, pinched faces as he rode past, and they stared back, beaten already.All they wanted was to go home, and West could hardly blame them.So did he."Colonel West!"There was a big man grinning over at him, a man with a thick beard, wearing the uniform of an officer in the King's Own.West realised with a start that it was Jalenhorm.He slid down from his saddle and grabbed hold of the big man's hand in both of his.It was good to see him.A firm, honest, trustworthy presence.A reminder of a past life, when West did not move among the great men of the world, and things were an awful lot simpler."How are you, Jalenhorm?""Alright, thank you, sir.Just taking a turn round the camp, waiting." The big man cupped his hands and blew into them, rubbed them together."Trying to stay warm.""That's what war is, in my experience.A great deal of waiting, in unpleasant conditions.A great deal of waiting, with occasional moments of the most extreme terror."Jalenhorm gave a dry grin."Something to look forward to then.How're things on the Prince's staff?"West shook his head."A competition to see who can be most arrogant, ignorant, and wasteful.How about you? How's the camp life?""We're not so badly off.It's some of these levies I feel sorry for.They're not fit to fight.I heard a couple of the older ones died last night from the cold.""It happens.Let's just hope they bury them deep, and a good way from the rest of us." West could see that the big man thought him heartless, but there it was.Few of the casualties in Gurkhul had died in battle.Accidents, illness, little wounds gone bad.You came to expect it.As badly equipped as some of the levies were? They would be burying men every day."Nothing you need?""There is one thing.My horse dropped a shoe in this mud, and I tried to find someone to fit a new one." Jalenhorm spread his hands."I could be wrong, but I don't think there's a smith in the whole camp."West stared at him."Not one?""I couldn't find any.There are forges, anvils, hammers and all the rest but.no one to work them.I spoke to one of the quartermasters.He said General Poulder refused to release any of his smiths, and so did General Kroy, so, well," and Jalenhorm shrugged his shoulders, "we don't have any.""No one thought to check?""Who?"West felt the familiar headache tugging at the back of his eyes.Arrows need heads, blades need sharpening, armour and saddles and the carts that haul the supplies break, and need to be repaired.An army with no smiths is little better than an army with no weapons.And here they were, out in the frozen country, miles from the nearest settlement.Unless."We passed a penal colony on the way."Jalenhorm squinted as he tried to remember."Yes, a foundry, I think.I saw smoke above the trees.""They would have some skilled metal-workers."The big man's eyebrows went up."Some criminal metalworkers.""I'll take whatever we can get.Today your horse is short a shoe, tomorrow we might have nothing to fight with! Get a dozen men together, and a wagon.We'll leave at once."The prison loomed up out of the trees through the cold rain, a fence of great, mossy logs tipped with bent and rusted spikes.A grim-looking place with a grim purpose.West swung from his saddle while Jalenhorm and his men reined up behind him, then squelched across the rutted track to the gate and hammered on the weathered wood with the pommel of his sword.It took a while, but eventually a small hatch snapped open.A pair of grey eyes frowned at him through the slot.Grey eyes above a black mask.A Practical of the Inquisition."My name is Colonel West."The eyes regarded him coldly."So?""I am in the service of Crown Prince Ladisla, and I need to speak to the commandant of this camp.""Why?"West frowned, doing his very best to look impressive with his hair plastered to his scalp and the rain dripping off his chin."There is a war on and I do not have time to bandy words with you! I need to speak to the commandant most urgently!"The eyes narrowed.They looked at West for a while, and then at the dozen bedraggled soldiers behind him."Alright," said the Practical."You can come in, but only you.The rest will have to wait."The main street was a stretch of churned-up mud between leaning shacks, water trickling from the eaves, spattering into the dirt.There were two men and a woman in the road, wet through, struggling to move a cart laden with stones, up to the axles in mush.All three had heavy chains on their ankles.Ragged, bony, hollow faces, as empty of hope as they were empty of food [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]