[Warhammer 40K] - Sons of Dorn Read online

  “It’s as I said,” Benoit said to his companions. “The little woman pisses herself with fear at the thought of tomorrow’s battle.”

  The other young men scoffed, laughing at Jean-Robur’s expense. He knew that few of them would have the courage to openly mock a son of one of Caritaigne’s noble houses, had his cousin Benoit not called the tune. And not just out of fear that casting aspersions on a young noble might hinder their own chances of advancement at court.

  “I tire of your gibes, cousin,” Jean-Robur answered, his tone pure acid. He paused, and then chuckled. “Though I can almost forgive you calling me a woman, addressing me as ‘mamzel’. Your repellent features clearly suggest you have no real experience with actual women, and likely wouldn’t recognise one if they disrobed before you.”

  That garnered a few chuckles from the crowd, though sharp glances from Benoit to his friends quickly stifled any laughter.

  “I still say you are a rank coward,” Benoit spat, jabbing a finger at Jean-Robur. “You may step lively at the salles d’armes back home, but put you up against the enemy and I wager you’ll soil yourself and run crying for mama.”

  A few of Benoit’s friends laughed, but seeing Jean-Robur’s hand stray to the handle of the falchion sheathed at his side, most began to exchange uneasy glances. Not yet blooded in battle, Jean-Robur was already considered one of the most promising young fencers in all of Caritaigne, and in the last few years he’d already won more duels than fencers more than twice his age.

  “You are a braying ass, Benoit,” Jean-Robur snarled. He drew his master-crafted falchion partway from its scabbard, the blade glinting reddish in the moonlight. “Call me a coward but once more, I dare you, and we shall see whether I can do more than merely ‘step lively’.”

  For the briefest moment, it seemed as though Benoit might take up the gauntlet Jean-Robur cast down, taking a half-step forwards and reaching towards the hilt of his own sword. But after one of his companions placed a hand on his shoulder and whispered a word in his ear, Benoit demurred, giving Jean-Robur a mocking half-bow.

  “Please accept my apologies, Monsieur du Quest,” Benoit said, voice dripping with oily mockery. “I certainly had no intention of giving offence.”

  With a final dismissive glance, Benoit turned and led his companions aft, away from the forecastle, leaving Jean-Robur alone.

  The young duellist sneered at his cousin’s back, and let his falchion slide back into the scabbard. He turned to face the dark silhouette of the island. At least the morning would bring the possibility of a real challenge, and even if it didn’t he would still have won his spurs in combat, and would never again have to hear the foolish jests of his cousin and those like him. And once Jean-Robur’s falchion was sated on the blood of Caritaigne’s enemies, then Jean-Robur would sate himself with a few sacks of wine. He just hoped it was worth the long voyage, and the months spent away from the comforts and vices of home.

  At that moment, on the eastern shores of Eokaroe, the forces of the feudal lords of Sipang had already beached their landing craft, and by the crimson light of the moon above were girding themselves for battle.

  Zatori Zan held the blade of his tachina in one cloth-wrapped hand, carefully running a fold of paper along the cutting edge with the other. He’d already cleaned and oiled the blade, then dusted it with whetstone-powder, and was now honing the edge to a razor’s keenness. It was unnecessary, of course—he’d cleaned and sharpened his sword every day of the journey west from the islands of Sipang, and the blade was already sharper than any razor could have possibly been—but still Sipangish tradition called for the warrior-elite to observe certain rites and rituals on the eve of battle, and Zatori had never been one to disregard tradition.

  He was not yet one of the warrior-elite himself, of course, even though he carried a warrior’s blade; he was instead a squire to a battle-monk with years of indentured servitude to go until he earned his freedom. Still, Father Nei was a fair master, and treated Zatori well. And he had not simply instructed Zatori in the art of combat, granting him the rare licence to carry a tachina, but had taught his young squire everything he needed to know about proper etiquette and decorum, all that he would need to go on and take his place among the warrior-elite in the service of the Sovereign of Sipang.

  Zatori was ambitious, and dreamed of one day being called to the Royal Court

  itself, perhaps to serve in the Sovereign’s personal Honour Guard. But even if he died with the morning’s first light, he knew that he would fall having done his duty, to sovereign and country. Zatori did not know if he would ever see his father again, in this life at least, but if he did ever encounter the man again Zatori planned to thank his father for selling him into a battle-monk’s servitude. He had already travelled farther and seen more than any lowborn son of a goat-herder should have dared to dream.

  Or perhaps it was that a goat-herder’s son should not dare to dream at all, and as a warrior’s squire it was an allowable luxury. Even so, Father Nei frequently scolded Zatori for being too often lost in his own thoughts, mind filled with dreams of ambition and the promise of future glories.

  Zatori was lost in just such imaginings, his hands methodically polishing and sharpening his tachina’s blade without any conscious direction, when he felt a tap on his shoulder, catching him unawares.

  In an instant, Zatori reversed the bare blade of his sword, taking his tachina’s long handle in a two-handed grip and rolling to the side, sweeping the point of the blade up and behind him in a precise are. He had reacted without thought, as unconscious a motion as the movement of his hands mindlessly sharpening the blade, thoughts as pure as an uncarved block.

  Father Nei regarded the swordpoint that hovered less than a hand’s width from his chest, and then with a widening grin tapped Zatori’s tachina aside with a quick parry from the same walking staff that had tapped Zatori’s shoulder only a moment before.

  “Not bad, Squire Zan,” the battle-monk said, nodding slowly, expression flat and unreadable. “Not at all bad.”

  Zatori stifled a proud smile, and slid his tachina back into its sharkskin scabbard. Lowering his gaze, he dipped his head in an abbreviated bow. “Master.”

  “Of course,” Father Nei went on, face still expressionless, “had you not been lost to wool-gathering and idle fancy, you’d have heard my approach and never been surprised at the feel of my cane on your shoulder.” The battle-monk’s eyebrows knit together, his gaze narrowing. “What if I had been one of the island’s barbaric natives? Or worse yet, some decadent son of the Caritaigne oligarchy creeping up on you with murderous intent?”

  Zatori’s cheeks stung with shame. “I beg forgiveness, master. I fail you, but shall endeavour—”

  Father Nei silenced him with a quick motion of his hand. “Enough. It is sufficient that you understand your failing and resolve to improve. I need not hear endless self-recrimination.” A faint smile tugged the corners of the battle-monk’s mouth.

  “Now, as you are sharpening your already-honed blade—again—I can only assume that you have my arms and armour prepared and ready for the coming conflict?”

  Zatori nodded eagerly, and then pointed to the collection of sheathed blades and pieces of lacquered armour neatly stacked a few paces away. The forces of Sipang had come ashore with nightfall, but had not armoured themselves before reaching land for fear that the weight of their armour, even as relatively light as their lacquered leather, might drag them beneath the waves should one of the boats have the misfortune to capsize. Now the forces gathered together by moonlight, unwilling to give away their positions by lighting fires, and prepared to march with the morning’s first light against their ancient enemies, the servants of Caritaigne.

  This island of Eokaroe was simply the most recent battleground between the two powers, of some strategic significance in the ongoing war but of more symbolic importance than anything else.

  “Observance of the rites of battle is commendable,” Father Nei sa
id, nodding towards the scabbarded sword at Zatori’s side, “but sharpen that sword much longer and it will be whittled away to nothing.” The battle-monk studied his young squire closely. “I trust you will not disappoint the faith I showed in bestowing that blade upon you?”

  If the island of Eokaroe was of mere symbolic importance in the ongoing struggle, for Zatori Zan the coming battle was of considerably greater significance. He had engaged in minor skirmishes before, but this would be his first contest of note, and the first in which he carried a warrior’s sword—a sword already honed sharper than any razor.

  Zatori straightened, chin held high. “I will endeavour not to disappoint.”

  Father Nei nodded, then held out his hand, motioning for Zatori to hand the sword over. For a moment, Zatori wondered if his answer might not have given some offence, with his master deciding at the last moment not to let his squire go to battle armed with a warrior’s blade after all. Instead, though, the battle-monk held the tachina up before him, fingers brushing the emblem of the holy duality worked into the circular hand-guard that separated blade from hilt.

  “May you cleave always to the principle of the Sacred Duality,” Father Nei intoned in prayer, eyes half-lidded, “and may this blade act as a lodestone to lead you down the Path of Balance between light and dark.”

  The battle-monk opened his eyes, and handed the sword back to his squire.

  “Remember all that I have taught you, Squire Zan,” he said, laying a hand on Zatori’s shoulder in an almost fatherly gesture. “Keep your wits about you and you will prevail. And remember above all that it is not ambition or glory that should drive you, but duty.”

  “Yes, master,” Zatori said.

  Father Nei smiled. “Now come, help me on with my armour. With any luck you and I will celebrate our victory tomorrow, and if we do not, then perhaps we shall serve together again in another life.”

  As the forces of the two great Triandrian powers massed on either side of the island, another force was gathering unseen in the dark forests at the island’s heart. Neither the Caritaigne nor the Sipangish armies had given them much thought, but if the warrior clans of Eokaroe were successful in their plans, the two great nations would soon learn to respect and fear their prowess.

  The islanders had dwelt in the forests and hills of Eokaroe longer than memory stretched, since the days when their myths told them that two great warriors had led the People to this world from the stars. Eokaroean legend told how the People had been divided one group against another when one of the two warriors had betrayed his brother, and brought ruin and evil into the world. Only among the Eokaroeans had the true faith of the Great Father in the Sky been preserved, and for the untold generations since that time the warrior clans had remained steadfast, abhorring any contact with the fallen and faithless wretches who occupied the other lands that lay beyond the ocean’s waves.

  The purity of the Eokaroeans had not come without a price, the islanders had learned to their sorrow in recent generations. The faithless who dwelt beyond the waves had prospered in turning from the Great Father, though their souls had shrivelled in the bargain. But while the Eokaroeans did not possess ships that could sail over the waves as fast as bird’s flight ahead of the wind, nor did they possess cannons capable of propelling great hunks of metal through the air, still the warrior clans were proudly defiant.

  For long years had the two great faithless powers sent emissaries to Eokaroe, to beguile the clan chiefs and lure the Eokaroeans to their respective cause, but the warrior clans had remained resolute. Now, the two faithless nations intended to seize the island by force, fighting each other as if the home of the faithful were merely some bauble that they could wrest from one another’s grasp.

  Neither side would claim their prize if the warrior clans had any say in the matter.

  Taloc s’Tonan held his ironbrand in a two-handed grip, raising the sword’s blade to the heavens in silent homage to the Great Father in the Sky. He had worn the ironbrand at his side since before he was as tall as the sword was long, but its blade had never yet tasted an enemy’s blood. The ironbrand had not yet earned a name, or brought favour to the son of Tonan or to the clan. Taloc begged the Great Father in his thoughts that the coming dawn would change all that.

  Taloc’s father and the other warrior chieftains of Eokaroe’s principal clans were still in council, though the council firepits were unlit and cold. In former times the warrior clans would have gathered in this season to hold the tourney, a fierce contest of martial skills in which young warriors competed to determine the standings of their clans for the coming year. The clan whose champion won the day would rule the island until the following spring, and any champions who had lost their lives would be mourned by all Eokaroe as the very flower of manhood.

  Taloc had only been of an age to vie with his cousins for the chance to be the clan’s champion since the previous summer, once he was past his thirteenth year, but had been denied the chance to test his mettle when the chieftains had decreed that there would be no tourneys until the faithless had been driven back to their homes beyond the waves.

  In the ceremonies that marked the beginnings of each year’s tourney, the boys who had come of age since the last spring were put to the test, and their manhood recognised if they won through. With no tourney, and no manhood tests, Taloc was still technically just a child, despite his years.

  When the chieftains finished their council, they could call together the warriors to receive the benedictions of the shamans, who would anoint them with oil and ash, and beseech the Great Father in the Sky to protect them in the coming battle.

  With the sun’s rise, the two great armies of Caritaigne and Sipang would clash on the green fields of the Eokaroean lowlands. One by one the faithless would fall to sword and cannon and musket, their numbers gradually depleting. Those who remained to fight would be drained and spent by their exertions, the long battle taking its toll.

  When the faithless combatants were at their weakest, the faithful warrior-clans of Eokaroe would emerge from the forest’s shadows, blessed and rested and ready to fight. They would drive the invaders from the island, back into the sea and fleeing towards their distant homes across the numberless waves.

  And then Taloc’s ironbrand would have earned a name, and the son of Tonan would at last be a man. Even if he lost his life in the attempt, Taloc s’Tonan would die a man with a named sword in his hand.

  The morning’s first light was greeted by a dawn chorus of birdsong from the innumerable species which nested in the upper branches of the island’s trees. Sunlight spilled like molten gold over the waves to the east, and drove back the night’s darkness to ever-shrinking pools of darkness in the inland forests.

  The armies of Caritaigne splashed ashore on the western beaches, while the forces of Sipang moved into position along the eastern approaches. And in the shadows, the warriors of Eokaroe lurked unseen, their villages emptied and the women and children sent to the highest points of mountain and hill to await their salvation.

  In moments, the Battle for Eokaroe would begin.

  And if any noticed that one of the evening’s stars still shone brightly over the southern horizon, growing brighter by the instant, they paid it little mind.

  Jean-Robur du Queste advanced, falchion in hand. Ahead of him at the vanguard marched his uncles and their fellow officers, proud scions of the noble houses of Caritaigne. On either side of Jean-Robur were his cousin Benoit and the other young men who had seen combat a bare handful of times at most, and who considered that their meagre experience made them hardened veterans. Behind them followed the pikemen and musketeers and grenadiers, nearly all of them the sons of landless families who lacked titles or holdings of their own, and who had turned to soldiery as the only alternative to lives of backbreaking labour or crushing poverty.

  Striding from the white-sand beaches into the morning cool of the island’s forests, surrounded by his brothers-in-arms and following in the footsteps o
f decorated knights like his uncles, Jean-Robur felt a swell of pride. It was only fitting that he was here, now, at this hour, about to prove to all and sundry that he was a true son of Caritaigne. This was his birthright, and his due. Jean-Robur knew that he was a virtuoso with the blade, as his many bouts and duels had attested, and once he had won his spurs in honest combat against the heathen foe, he could return to a life of ease and comfort in Caritaigne. He would draw his falchion to fence and to duel, but would never again have to leave behind the comforts of home, if he so chose.

  So far they’d had no sign of the enemy’s ground forces, though they knew from the reports of fast-sailing cutters who had sailed ahead of the Caritaigne fleet that the Sipangish had made landfall shortly before the Caritaigne had arrived. The two fleets were too evenly matched to face one another on the open seas, or so Jean-Robur had been told, and even so what did it profit them to gain a victory on the seas if the enemy forces were already on land?

  In the grey predawn hours, he had been forced to listen to the expedition’s commander addressing the force, warning them all that theory seldom matched practice, and that combat was not the same as contests in the salles d’armes or duels in the avenues of Caritaigne. Their enemies were not gentlemen, and might not observe the same rules of etiquette that governed their actions back home in Caritaigne. What was more, the commander insisted, circumstances might not always allow a level playing field, and it would only be those combatants able to adapt to realities in the field who would win the day.

  “Keep careful note of the path, Mamzel du Queste,” Benoit called over to Jean-Robur, leering. “You need to know the way back when you run fleeing in terror.”

  Jean-Robur replied with a rude gesture, but didn’t deign to speak. Continuing on, he thought back to the morning’s speeches, and the endless litany of instructions and exhortations they’d received. Jean-Robur had paid little attention to the old man’s droning. Rules and etiquette and level fields be damned, Jean-Robur was convinced that with a sword in his hand he was the equal to any who might stand against him.