Damen was left then to spur his horse alongside Laurent’s as they took up positions, side by side. Laurent was straight-backed in the saddle beside him, a figure of polished metal. There was no sign of the hesitant young man of this morning. There was just an implacable profile.
The horns blew. The trumpets trumpeted. The whole vista of the united armies began to move, two rivals riding together, blue alongside red.
* * *
The watchtowers were empty.
That’s what the scouts were shouting, when they came pounding back on lathered horses with their uneasy news. Damen shouted back. Everyone had to shout to be heard over the cacophony of sound: the wheels, the horses, the metallic tramp of armour, the rumble of earth, the ear-splitting blow of horns that was their army on the march. The column stretched from hilltop to horizon, a line of sectioned squares that moved over fields and hills. His whole army was poised to descend in attack on the watchtowers of Karthas.
But the watchtowers were empty.
‘It’s a trap,’ said Nikandros.
Damen ordered a small group to peel off from the main army and take the first tower. He watched from the hillside. They cantered towards it, then dismounted, took up a wooden ram, and forced the door. The watchtower was a weird block shape against the horizon, with no activity in it; lifeless stone that should have habitation, and instead had none. Unlike a ruin, reclaimed by nature to form part of the landscape, the empty watchtower was incongruous, a signal of wrongness.
He watched his men, small as ants, enter the watchtower without resistance. There was a strange, eerie silence of minutes in which nothing happened. Then his men came out, mounted, and trotted back to the group to report.
There were no traps. There were no defences. There were no faulty floors to hurtle them downwards, no vats of heated oil, no hidden archers, no men with swords springing out from behind doors. It was simply empty.
The second tower was empty, and the third, and the fourth.
The truth was dawning on him, as his eyes passed over the fort itself, the lower walls of thick grey limestone, the fortifications above in mud brick. The low, two-storey tower was tile-roofed, and built to house archers. But the arrow slits were dark and did not fire. There were no banners. There were no sounds.
He said, ‘It’s not a trap. It’s a retreat.’
‘If it is, they were running from something,’ said Nikandros. ‘Something that had them terrified.’
He looked out at the fort atop its rise, and then at his army stretching behind him, a mile of red alongside dangerous, glittering blue.
‘Us,’ said Damen.
They rode past the jagged rocks, up the steep knoll to the fort. They passed unimpeded through the open forecourt gateway, which itself was four short towers, looming above them in a silent cul-de-sac. The short towers were designed to rain down enfilading fire, trapping an army on their approach to the gate. They were still and quiet as Damen’s men applied the wooden ram, and broke open the great doors into the main fort.
Inside, the unnatural quality of the quiet increased, the columned atrium was deserted, the still water of the simple, elegant fountain no longer running. Damen saw an abandoned overturned basket, lolling on the marble. An underfed cat darted across the wall.
He was not a fool, and he warned his men against traps, and contaminated stores, and poisoned wells. They progressed systematically inward, through the empty public spaces, to the private residences of the fort.
Here the signs of retreat were more evident, furnishings disordered, contents hurriedly taken, a favourite hanging gone from the wall here while another remained there. He could see in the disrupted living areas the final moments, the desperate war council, the decision to flee. Whoever had ordered it, the attack on the village had backfired. Instead of turning Damianos against his general, it had forged his army into a single powerful force and sent fear of his name sweeping across the countryside.
‘Here!’ called a voice.
In the innermost part of the fort, they had found a barricaded door.
He signalled his men to caution. It was the first sign of resistance, the first indication of danger. Two dozen soldiers gathered, and he gave the nod, approving them to proceed. They took the wooden ram, and splintered the doors open.
It was a light, airy solar still adorned with its exquisite furnishings. From the elegant reclining couch with its scrolling carved base to the small bronze tables, it was intact.
And he saw what was waiting for him in the empty fort of Karthas.
She sat on the reclining couch. Around her, she had seven women in attendance, two of them slaves, one an elderly maidservant, the others of good birth, part of her household. Her brows had risen at the crash as at some minor, distasteful breach of etiquette.
She had never made it to the Triptolme to give birth. She must have planned the attack on the village to stop him or stall him, and when it had backfired, she had been left behind, abandoned. The birth had come on her too soon. Sometime very recently, judging by the faint sepia smudges under her eyes. It would explain, too, why she had been left behind, too weak to travel while the others fled, with only those of her women willing to stay with her.
He was surprised to see that there were so many women. Maybe she had coerced them: stay, or have your throat slit. But no. She had always been able to inspire loyalty.
Her blonde hair fell in a coil over her shoulder, her lashes were pressed, her neck was as elegant as a column. She was a little pale, with slight new creases on her forehead, which did nothing to harm its high, classical perfection, and seemed only to enhance her, like the finish on a vase.
She was beautiful. As ever with her, it was something you noticed initially and then forcefully discarded because it was the least dangerous aspect of her. It was her mind, deliberate, calculating, that was the threat, regarding him from behind a pair of cool blue eyes.