Through Fiery Trials

by David Weber

  Laurahn chuckled sourly, but, damn it, Chaiyang had a point. A good one, really. But there were possible downsides to it, as well.

  He looked away from the sergeant major while he considered it.

  Corporal Gwun Fenghai was one of the reasons they needed those streetlamps. He was big, strong, brutal, and none too bright or he would have attained more than junior noncommissioned rank in the fifteen years he’d spent as one of the Emperor’s Spears. The man was effectively illiterate and he spent his off-duty time sleeping, drinking, or fornicating, with emphasis on the latter. When he combined both of the latter, he had a tendency to rape any female who crossed his path. Sometimes the females in question had fathers or brothers who were foolish enough to take exception, at which point he demonstrated his one true talent.

  He was very, very good at killing people. Probably because he enjoyed it so much.

  That made him valuable, in the same way a vicious guard dog was valuable. And the truth was that his taste for rape and brutality had been a net positive as a Spear, despite all the disciplinary issues. It was the Spears’ job to be brutal, to make peasants and serfs so terrified the thought of rebellion would never enter their heads.

  Zhailau Laurahn had been a Spear in his previous life, as well. In his case, he’d been a somewhat over-age captain of bows, commanding a single platoon in the town garrison of Qwaisun, with Hanbai Chaiyang as his platoon sergeant and Gwun Fenghai as one of his corporals. That was before they’d discovered that even with Fenghai’s contribution, the Spears hadn’t been brutal enough—or that there hadn’t been enough of them, at any rate. When the Rebellion exploded, with hordes of enraged serfs and free peasants overrunning garrisons right and left, Captain of Bows Laurahn had decided he had no desire to be overrun when they got around to him. He’d deserted, and Chaiyang had quietly picked out his more trusted cronies to invite along. Over a hundred men had joined them, and they’d gotten out only a couple of five-days before several thousand rebels stormed Qwaisun and massacred the garrison, Spears and regular Army alike.

  That was before they took their time sending every aristocrat or suspected sympathizer sheltering in the small, overcrowded city after its butchered protectors.

  Laurahn had envisioned finding a quiet, defensible spot and setting himself up as the local warlord, and he’d settled on Qwaidu, a smallish town sixteen miles or so northwest of Sochal. The town was nowhere near as defensible as he might have liked, but it was where he’d washed up as winter set in, and he’d managed to surprise it before the local citizens and surrounding farmers could disappear. More importantly, before the farmers could make the contents of their barns and granaries disappear.

  Despite that success, though, that first winter had been hard. Even his troopers had grown gaunt as the icy five-days dragged by, and probably a quarter of Qwaidu’s pre-Rebellion population had perished of hunger and cold. He and Chaiyang had held the men together somehow—part of the current problem with Fenghai stemmed from the fact that they’d had to turn their heads and look away from some of the troopers’ more egregious conduct—but he’d doubted they could survive another winter at Qwaidu. If for no other reason because so much of the labor force had managed to creep away, despite his vigilance, or simply died. For men who had spent their entire careers repressing farmers, his deserters seemed remarkably unaware of the fact that farms with no farmers produced no food.

  Despite that, his total manpower had grown to over a thousand over the course of the winter months. Half the new recruits were deserters, like his core force, but the other half were ex-serfs and ex-peasants. On the face of it, they made odd companions for his ex-Spears, except that they didn’t. The important thing was that all of them were “ex” whatever they might once have been, and most of the rebels who’d wanted to join him had made themselves outcast among their erstwhile fellows by their actions. For that matter, at least two-thirds of them had been brigands, not rebels, even before the Rebellion.

  But in many ways, the augmented manpower had been as much of an embarrassment as a reinforcement, and he’d realized he couldn’t over-winter at Qwaidu a second time. His “regiment” was too large for the depleted farmers to support, yet if he found it another home, it might well be too small to hold that home against the other carrion-eaters tearing at the Empire’s corpse. No doubt quite a few other Qwaidus had been used up over the winter by other Laurahns and their men, so the list of possible havens had shrunk … and the competition for those that remained would be fierce.

  He’d cast longing eyes on the Chynduk Valley, especially when tales of the stuffed barns and larders of the Valley’s peasants—tales which, he was sure, had grown in the telling over the hungry winter months—flowed around his improvised barracks. But the one tentative move he’d made in that direction the previous fall had been soundly trounced by Valleyer militia. He was confident he could have beaten the defenders—his men had been better armed, although not that much better, and more numerous at the point of contact—but he’d have lost too many to hold any sizable chunk of the Valley afterward. In fact, not even his entire “regiment” would have been equal to that task, even with no casualties at all, given how many Valleyers there were.

  No, he’d decided he had no choice but to move on, hope for greener pastures somewhere else. Possibly even bargain his way into a better-established warlord’s service. That might be the safest way to get through the upcoming winter, and a quiet assassination could always change who sat in the warlord’s chair, when all was said.

  And that was when he’d been approached by Duke Spring Flower.

  It was only Baron Spring Flower in those days, but Kaihwei Pyangzhow aspired to greater heights, and he’d been scaling them steadily. Laurahn had seen quite a bit of his correspondence with Yu-kwau over the months since then, including his passionate proclamation of loyalty to the Emperor. All he was doing was acting in the Emperor’s name to restore the imperial authority in His Majesty’s realm. He was beset and surrounded by traitors, thieves, outlaws—rebels!—yet he would persevere in His Majesty’s name to the very end!

  The baron had been busy stealing his neighbors’ estates at the time he and Laurahn met. Two other local barons and their families had been mysteriously murdered—no doubt by their rebellious serfs—leaving him no choice but to merge their fiefs with his own, although he craved the Crown’s forgiveness for the expedients to which the desperate emergency had driven him. There’d been the small matter of Fangkau’s charter as a free town which he’d been forced to abrogate, as well, when the burghers of the town council refused to subsidize his operations against the rest of countryside, although he begged His Majesty’s ministers to understand that only the imperatives of sustaining the Crown’s authority could possibly have driven him to such a move. Or to make such demands upon the town in the first place! Unlike the other petty—and not so petty—nobles seeking their own aggrandizement, his only and earnest desire was to see the day His Majesty returned to his realm in triumph.

  Laurahn didn’t know if anyone in Yu-kwau bought any of that, but they couldn’t change what was happening on the ground anyway, and the Emperor was clearly desperate to hear such protestations of loyalty. He’d been pleased to elevate Spring Flower’s barony first to an earldom and then to a dukedom, and the terms of his grant strongly suggested that the boundaries of that dukedom would be whatever borders the new duke could create.

  All in the name of the Crown, of course.

  In the process, Spring Flower had assembled a small army of men very like Laurahn’s, but the baron—or earl, or duke—had no military experience of his own. Then he’d heard about the interlopers at Qwaidu, which he viewed as part of his new duchy. Faced with the possibility of moving against them with his own, far more numerous force, he’d chosen to parley, instead. As he’d pointed out, both forces would be badly hurt if they clashed, and neither he nor Laurahn could afford that. So, instead, acting as the Emperor’s liegeman, he’d offered Laurahn a new imp
erial commission, with no embarrassing questions about where he’d been for the past year or so. In place of Laurahn’s self-awarded rank of captain of foot, the equivalent of a major in other armies, he’d offered direct promotion—recognized by crown warrant—to lord of foot, the equivalent of brigadier’s rank, with promises of more to come. And just to sweeten the pot, he’d offered to subenfeoff Laurahn as one of his own vassals, the new Baron of Qwaidu, with the confidence that the Emperor would confirm his new title.

  Which was how the brand new Baron of Qwaidu to be—the Crown had not yet assented to the ennoblement—came to be standing here in the breezy autumn chill thinking about a campaign he really didn’t want to fight.

  Oh, he would enjoy the hell out of humbling the arrogant Valleyers in the end. It was just that getting to the end was likely to prove … unpleasant.

  “I’m turning in,” he told Chaiyang abruptly. “I’ve got the day’s dispatch to write up still. Fenghai’s on one of the pickets right now?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Well, why don’t you just go have a word with him. You tell him to keep it in his trousers for the next few five-days, or else I’ll cut it off with a dull blade before I string him up.”

  “Yes, Sir.” The sergeant major grinned. “And about those brothers of hers?”

  “Tell him—” Laurahn paused, then grimaced. “Tell him he’d better have at least three witnesses, and not just those drinking buddies of his, that it was self-defense or the same thing goes. Except I’ll heat the blade first.”

  “Yes, Sir.” The sergeant major’s grin broadened. “I’ll make sure he gets that message directly. Maybe with just a couple of bruises t’ help it through his skull t’ be sure he takes it t’ heart?”

  “With a lot of bruises, as far as I’m concerned, Hanbai,” Laurahn replied, then nodded brusquely and headed for the ex-mayor’s office. The sooner he got his daily dispatch to the Duke written, the sooner he could move on to more enjoyable pursuits.

  * * *

  “—an’ after that, I’m gonna find the son-of-a-bitch who squealed, an’ I’m gonna rip his fucking arm off an’ beat him to death with it before I shove it up his arse! An’ then—”

  Private Gaidwo Mai-ku nodded sagely while doing his best to let the words in one ear and out the other. It was difficult, because Gwun Fenghai had been rambling on about it for the last solid hour and showed no sign of tiring anytime soon. The corporal had a way of chewing any thought to death … probably because he had so few of them. At the same time, it was risky to not at least appear to listen to him. He had a tendency to take out his frustrations on anyone who seemed to ignore him.

  And the thumping the Sergeant Major gave the stupid bastard’s not making him any damned easier to live with!

  Mai-ku kept that thought to himself, as well.

  “—not like the stupid little bitch didn’t have it coming, either! Swishin’ her little arse around, wavin’ it under ever’body’s nose, an’ then lookin’ down her nose at me like she was some kinda nun or somethin’ and—”

  “What was that?” Mai-ku said suddenly, straightening from his slouch and reaching for the rifle leaned against the tree beside him.

  “What was what?” Fenghai growled, obviously pissed off at the interruption of his monologue. “I didn’t hear noth—”

  The corporal started to turn in the direction Mai-ku was looking just in time to see a blur of motion as the double-edged fourteen-inch bayonet slammed through his throat and interrupted that monologue rather more emphatically.

  Mai-ku was still fumbling to get his rifle into position when a second bayonet sent him after the corporal.

  * * *

  “Long-winded bastard, wasn’t he?” Private Yonduk Kwo grunted, withdrawing his bayonet from the ruins of Fenghai’s throat. “Least he died quiet!”

  “And unless you want to talk to the Commander, be a good idea to keep it quiet yourself,” Sergeant Yuhnzhi Taiyang whispered back ferociously, clouting the private none too lightly across the back of his head.

  Kwo looked at him, then rubbed the back of his head and grinned. No one would have confused the discipline among Tangwyn Syngpu’s men with spit and polish, but it was effective. Besides, even though Kwo might be almost ten years older than Taiyang he was also six inches shorter. Only an idiot took liberties with the tall, burly runaway serf, and there was a reason the sergeant had taken charge of the platoon’s first two sections personally tonight.

  “’Pears to me you’ve got a point, Sarge,” he whispered back.

  “Good.” Taiyang looked around. The other seventeen men of his two slightly understrength sections drifted out of the darkness to join them, and he nodded.

  “In that case, let’s get to it,” he told them, and pointed at the strings of lanterns glowing like lost blink-lizards along the lanes and alleys of Ranlai.

  * * *

  It was, perhaps, unfortunate for the Baron of Qwaidu (designate)’s men that no one had warned him about the Chynduk Valley’s latest immigrants. Zhailau Laurahn had heard of Syngpu’s band, although their paths had never previously crossed. And if he’d had any idea Syngpu was in the vicinity, their paths wouldn’t have crossed now, either. Although he’d taken the precaution of putting out sentries, it had been largely pro forma, a matter of avoiding bad habits rather than out of any sense of urgency, because he’d “known” he faced only timid townsmen and well-cowed serfs.

  Even more unfortunately for his men, they—even Sergeant Major Chaiyang—had taken their cue from him. Not one of them even suspected what was sweeping through the chilly autumn night in their direction, and very few of their sentries lived long enough to find out.

  * * *

  Taizhang Yanzhi stepped out of the tavern, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist. He’d have liked something stronger than beer, but he had the duty in a couple of hours. If he was late relieving Fenghai’s post, the other corporal was likely to knock him on his arse … for starters. And if Sergeant Major Chaiyang smelled anything stronger than beer on his breath, the beating wouldn’t stop there.

  Yanzhi didn’t like beatings. He’d gotten enough of them as a boy on his local baron’s estate, and administered far more of them than he’d ever received by the time his beard sprouted. He’d never been a particularly large man, but he’d been quick, strong, cunning, and vicious, and the small gang of fellow toughs he’d recruited had taught their fellow serfs to be just as afraid of them as they were of the Spears. It was much easier to steal what they needed than to work for it, and life had actually been pretty good … before the Shan-wei–damned Rebellion came along and fucked everything up.

  Yanzhi scowled at that familiar thought as he started down the town’s central street towards the closer of Ranlai’s two inns. His platoon was quartered in its stables, and while he didn’t much care for the smell of manure—it reminded him of his father, who’d taught him the art of beating others by practicing on him—he’d had worse. Especially over the last winter. He and four of his gang had fled their home estate once it became evident the Rebellion was headed their way and that the same people who were hanging aristocrats would be just as delighted to hang them, too. It was unfortunate none of the others had made it through the winter, although he was sure Myngzhung Mau, the last of them, wouldn’t have minded sharing his extra coat with him.

  Especially after Yanzhi misplaced a dagger in Mau’s ribs while he was sleeping.

  He’d regretted that, because he and Mau had grown up together. But a man had to do what a man had to do, and they’d been running low on food, anyway.

  At least that wasn’t likely to happen this winter. He might not care for Chaiyang’s discipline, and he sure as Shan-wei didn’t like sharing the same platoon as Fenghai, but at least there was a roof overhead—even if it was a stable’s roof, at the moment. And Duke Spring Flower understood the importance of keeping the men he relied on to break heads for him well fed. It could’ve been worse, he reminded himself. Could’ve
been a lot worse, in fact, and—

  He paused in midstride, eyes narrowing as something stirred in the dimly lit inn yard. The inn’s lanterns were brighter than most of the ones the detachment had scrounged to illuminate the town, but that wasn’t saying much. And there were any number of reasons someone might be crossing that inn yard. Yanzhi wasn’t the only man out and about, despite the hour, after all. But something about that movement, the way its path had seemed to curve, almost as if it was deliberately seeking out the darkest patches—

  The eyes which had narrowed went wide as the chilly breeze carried a sound to him. It wasn’t much of a sound. In fact, it was almost lost in the sigh of the wind itself, but he’d heard too many wet, gasping gurgles like it.

  He spun on his heel, suddenly grateful he’d had only beer, and went racing back along the street’s uneven cobblestones. He even remembered the right thing to say, despite the relative briefness of his military career.

  * * *

  “Corporal of the guard! Corporal of the guard!”

  “Oh, shit,” Sergeant Taiyang grated. Private Kwo had taken care of the lone sentry standing at the inn yard’s gate quickly and efficiently. The man hadn’t died silently enough, however … as the screaming lunatic who’d turned to race back the way he’d come demonstrated. This was no time to waste breath cursing the luck, though, and he jabbed his right hand at the stable ahead of his double section, instead.

  “Get in there now!” he barked.

  The forty-three members of Taizhang Yanzhi’s platoon inside that stable outnumbered Taiyang’s men by better than two-to-one, but that wasn’t nearly good enough against men who’d been trained by Tangwyn Syngpu and Zhouhan Husan. And since the alarm had been so thoroughly raised, there was no longer any need to be quiet about it, either.