‘Falcio?’ I hadn’t even noticed Valiana coming up alongside me. ‘It’s time.’
I looked down at the army below. I had no way of knowing if they were truly ready for what was about to happen.
Kest and Brasti came to stand with me. ‘Do you suppose we should have warned them?’ Brasti asked.
‘Who?’ I asked.
‘The Avareans.’
‘Warned them about what?’
Kest put a hand on my shoulder. ‘That some of us believe in the virtue of daring heroics. That for all its flaws, Tristia just might be a nation of heroes.’
I felt something quiet the shaking inside me: not a calm, exactly, more like a stillness. Valour, if you’re out there somewhere, I thought, as I tilted my head back and brought the horn to my lips, I’d really appreciate it if you could make sure I can blow this thing properly.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
The Bardatti War
They came for us. Even though we’d sounded the attack, the instant I blew the horn, the first boom of the Avarean war drums suddenly filled the air between us, a roaring rumble that made it seem as if the Avarean warriors were giants, and the earth was crumbling beneath their mighty footsteps. In perfect lines they came for us, following the drumbeat, chanting their damned warsongs. Coordinated. Controlled.
‘General Feltock?’ Valiana said. There was a trembling in her voice that made me wonder if the enemy really were shaking the ground beneath our feet.
‘My Lady?’
‘The weather looks fair.’
Feltock gazed out across the field. ‘A clear day, my Lady. Does it please you?’
‘It does not.’
The General grinned, then signalled to a Bardatti horn player standing next to him. ‘Let’s do something about that, shall we?’
The Bardatti sounded three short, piercing bursts, and from our right flank two dozen horses leaped onto the field, their riders carrying flaming torches in their hands. They were fast and furious – but they scattered long before they reached the enemy, as if their nerve had already broken. If the Avareans were watching closely, they’d have seen each rider dropping their torch on a small mound; we’d dug them when we’d first arrived, then covered them with snow.
If the Avareans were surprised by this odd manoeuvre, they showed no sign, only continued their march towards us. The torches hissed in the snow, but their amberlight flames didn’t go out. Instead they slowly melted the snow into water which soaked into the powder piled underneath until thick, billowing grey clouds started to rise from the ground. Nightmist filled the air, blanketing the field.
‘I’m starting to develop a real fondness for that stuff,’ Brasti remarked.
Feltock gave another signal, and suddenly our divisions, which had been slowly but steadily moving forward, changed direction, everyone running swiftly towards locations now hidden by the nightmist. Avarean archers fired on command, but their arrows were wasted; they could only guess where our troops might be. The advancing Avareans were beginning to look less certain: they were still marching in formation, but clearly not sure why.
‘They look confused,’ Brasti said. ‘I hope they don’t get upset.’
The drumbeat changed as the Avarean commanders issued new orders and the warriors, looking happy again – everything was under control – moved smoothly in their new directions, still singing their songs.
I turned to Nehra. ‘What now?’
‘Like us, they use drum-signals for troop movements. They use their songs to keep their warriors in line and focused.’ The smile on her face was fiercer than I’d ever seen on her before.
She walked over to her first war-drummer. The young man’s powerful arms and shoulders were bare despite the cold, except for the leather harness he wore over his neck and back, supporting his huge drum. ‘Merrick, let’s show them how the Bardatti wage war.’
The muscles on the young man’s arms tensed as he began. Unlike the Avareans, his strokes were precise, measured, each beat made up of the initial percussive strike and then a kind of echoing flutter. After a few moments, the other drummers picked up the rhythm. A moment later, the horns joined in, then the pipes, and then guitarists began playing, their sound muted in comparison to the melody of the horns and yet somehow just as potent, like a prickling feeling on the skin. The more I listened, the stronger the sensation was. The drumbeat felt raw, powerful. Looking down at those of our troops advancing on the enemy, I could see they looked more coordinated than before, and far more unified than the Avareans. But there was something strange going on: some weird chordal arrangement that the guitars played underneath the horns: it wasn’t unpleasant, but somehow . . . dangerous.
I knew something important was taking place, I just didn’t know what it was.
‘What song are your people playing?’ I asked Nehra. ‘I don’t recognise it.’
‘Listen,’ she said.
‘I am – I don’t—’
‘Not just to our players.’ She gestured towards the Avareans on the other side of the field. ‘Listen to the whole orchestra.’
I turned my attention outwards, to the Avarean drummers, whose rhythms now seemed confused, rambling. Their warriors were still singing, but they sounded . . . off, somehow . . . discordant. ‘What’s happening to them? Why have they changed their song?’
‘They haven’t,’ Nehra said, standing before her musicians. As she waved her hands in careful patterns in the air, I could suddenly see how she was changing the music. ‘The Avareans play the same rhythms, sing the same notes as before.’
‘Then what—?’
‘Did you think warsongs were nothing more than jolly tunes to amuse the troops as they go into battle? I composed us a warsong, Falcio. Our drumbeats are syncopating against theirs, breaking down the rhythms their troops use to stay coordinated. The notes we’re playing combine with the melodies they’re singing to create chords that are unnatural to the Avarean ear. This was why I had you bring back their songs to me.’
The Avarean front lines had not just lost their even pace; they had lost that sense of unity I’d seen before. Now they looked confused, anxious.
Nehra left her musicians to play on as she turned to see the effects of her work herself. ‘You came to take our country?’ she called out to them, her voice an instrument in itself, challenging them, taunting them. ‘You sought to destroy our culture, our music? Let’s see you come for us when your own hearts begin to beat too fast, too anxiously. Come for us as the rhythms of your own drums are brought crashing down upon you! Let’s see your vaunted skill in battle as we play the melodies that shatter your concentration, that make your ears beg for an ending, that take your own songs and drive you mad with them. This is our weapon. This is how the Bardatti wage war!’