The Crimson Campaign

by Brian McClellan

  He reached out and felt the powder of the Kez infantry. A thought was all it took to light it. He used his mind to warp the blast away from him and away from the earthworks. The sound rang in his ears, sending him to his knees. Every ounce of powder within a dozen yards went up.

  Powder smoke rose in the air, and charred corpses littered the earthworks. Groans and cries for mercy rose from the wounded. Men farther down the line had stopped their fighting to stare at Taniel. He took a step toward them, going to help hold the earthworks at the next spot, when he realized he couldn’t see an infantryman in a blue jacket on his feet anywhere.

  It was just a sea of sandy uniforms. The Kez had taken the earthworks.

  The boy was still alive and coughing blood. Taniel slung his rifle over his shoulder and grasped the young soldier under the arms, pulling him backward toward the Adran camp.

  It was a long haul, half carrying the boy over a hundred paces to the next set of earthworks. Most of the Kez ignored him. A few potshots skipped off the dirt nearby, but the Kez were too busy securing the new ground. They’d level the earthworks and move back to their own camp, where they’d push their artillery forward another hundred paces and prepare for tomorrow’s charge.

  Exhausted, his head still buzzing from the powder trance, Taniel reached the Adran army. “See to him,” Taniel said when a surgeon came running. The surgeon balked and her eyes were wide.

  “He’s dead, sir.”

  “Just bloody see to him! Make him comfortable!”

  “No, sir. He’s not just dying. He’s dead already.”

  Taniel dropped to his knee beside the young soldier and put his fingers on the lad’s throat. No pulse. He used the same two fingers to close the young soldier’s eyes.

  “Damn it,” he said.

  The surgeon got on her knees next to him.

  “I’m fine!” He pushed away her fingers.

  “Your arm, sir.”

  Taniel looked down. His uniform had been torn through, leaving a bloody, jagged cut along his left arm. He’d not even felt it.

  “Surgeon,” a voice said, “tend to someone who’s worth it.” Major Doravir stalked toward them, her brown hair wild and her cheeks black with powder burns. Her jacket was gone, her white shirt stained with sweat and blood.

  Taniel got to his feet. “Major Doravir,” he said. “Didn’t have the decency to die with your men, eh?”

  Her backhand jerked his head to the side. He touched his cheek. That had been hard enough to rattle his teeth. “Do that again and I’ll break your hand.”

  “I was the last one away from the front on the retreat,” Major Doravir snarled.

  “No,” Taniel said. “I was. We could have held that bulwark. Instead we lost ground and who knows how many hundred men.”

  “I obey orders. You don’t. No more warnings, Captain. I’ll see you hanged.” The major spun on her heel and marched off, shouting for the provosts.

  Taniel rubbed at his chin and caught Ka-poel watching him from a distance. She headed toward the battlefield, where Kez soldiers were leveling the earthworks and civilians from both sides were already collecting the dead and wounded.

  “Where the pit are you going?” Taniel shouted.

  She pointed toward the battlefield and held up a doll. Damned girl. That wouldn’t work like it did on Kresim Kurga. There were too many enemies here, and not enough dolls.

  Taniel glanced toward Major Doravir. She was speaking to two soldiers with the insignia of Adran provosts on their shoulders. Military police. Doravir pointed to Taniel.

  He decided it was a good time to make himself scarce.

  CHAPTER

  13

  Tamas climbed out of his tent and finished buttoning up the front of his uniform. He adjusted the gold epaulets on his shoulders and he wondered if they’d have rain that day. The sky over the Adran Mountains to the east had just barely taken on a light halo, while the rest of the world slept on in darkness.

  Tamas gazed at that slight brightening and wondered how things went on the other side of the mountains. Budwiel had fallen. The Kez were no doubt pushing their way up Surkov’s Alley. Tamas hoped that his generals could handle the defense. He grimaced to himself. With Budwiel gone, the fight could only go in Kez’s favor. His men needed him. His country needed him. His son needed him. He had to get across these damned mountains.

  He could hear rustling in the camp, and the low whistles of sergeants as they kicked their men from their beds. The smell of smoke came from cookfires that no doubt had little over them.

  Olem sat beside Tamas’s tent. His forage cap was pulled over his eyes, his legs propped on a log in front of him, and his hands thrust deep in his pockets. The pose was an affected one. Olem’s Knack eliminated the need for sleep.

  “Quiet night?” Tamas asked, squatting beside the small, smoldering fire and rubbing his hands together. The heat of the summer didn’t touch the early morning, not in foothills like this. He poked the coals with a twig, then tossed in the twig. No more than ash. There wasn’t much to burn on the high steppe.

  “Little bit of rustling, sir. Some grumbling, too.” Olem sniffed as if the grumbling were no more than an annoyance.

  His men were hungry. Tamas knew it, and it pained him.

  “I put a stop to it, sir,” Olem said.

  “Good.”

  Tamas heard soft footfalls on the dirt. Olem shifted, and his hand emerged just a little from his coat. He had a pistol.

  A carcass thumped to the ground beside Tamas. He started.

  “Elk, sir,” Vlora said as she squatted down next to him.

  Tamas felt a little spell of relief. Meat.

  “Any more?” he asked, his voice a little too hopeful.

  “Andriya bagged one, too. He’s portioning it out to the powder mages. This one’s for the officers.”

  Tamas chewed on the inside of his lip. “Olem. Have it butchered and distributed to the men. A small, raw piece for each. Let them cook it themselves. We break camp in two hours.”

  Olem climbed to his feet and stretched. He returned his pistol to his belt and headed off, calling a few names.

  “We’ll reach Hune Dora tomorrow by midday, sir,” Vlora said. Her shoulders were stained with blood from the elk. She had to have been burning a powder trance, otherwise there was no way a girl of her size could have carried an entire elk over her shoulders.

  “How far?”

  “About sixteen miles. Went up that way while hunting.”

  “And?”

  “A small town, just like Gavril said.”

  “Walled?”

  “The wall is an old ruin. Eight feet high, maybe. I wouldn’t worry about it, though, sir. The city looks abandoned.”

  Abandoned? Tamas had hoped there would be some population, just so he could loot their stores of powder and food.

  “Anything else up that direction?

  “The terrain turns steep. The road seems to follow the contours of the mountain ridges. Lots of bridges, from what I could see. Once we’re in the forest, the dragoons will have a hard time encircling us.”

  “As I’d hoped.”

  “The bad news is, the road narrows considerably. We’ll be able to march maybe just three or four men abreast.”

  That would require Tamas’s column to extend to almost four miles long. Not conducive to an army being dogged by dragoons. Tamas swore under his breath.

  He watched the sky for a moment. There wouldn’t be rain today, he decided.

  “I lied, before,” Tamas said.

  Vlora frowned at the embers of the fire. “Sir?”

  “Back in Budwiel you asked me if there was any news about Taniel. I lied.”

  Vlora opened her mouth, but Tamas went on before she could say anything.

  “A few days before we went through the caves, I received a message from Adopest. Taniel’s savage was awake.”

  “And Taniel?”

  “Nothing. But if one of them can come out of it, presuma
bly the other. And I wouldn’t think that little savage girl is stronger than my boy. He’ll…” He heard his voice crack. “He’ll make it.”

  He examined Vlora out of the corner of his eye. He thought he saw a tear on her face.

  “How is your leg, sir?” she asked.

  Tamas looked down at his leg. Mihali had healed it. He could walk. He could ride. Pit, he could dance if he wanted to. But deep inside the calf, it still hurt. The pain throbbed, right where they’d taken that blasted star of gold out of his flesh. Despite the healing powers of a god, there was still something wrong with it.

  “It’s fine,” he said. “Good as new.”

  “You still walk with a limp,” Vlora said.

  “Do I? Just habit.”

  Vlora leaned back on her haunches. “I’ve heard that healed tissue has a problem readjusting itself. It needs help. Plenty of exercise and massage. If you’d like…”

  “I don’t think I need the gossip that would come out of you rubbing my leg,” Tamas said. He chuckled, and was relieved when Vlora laughed as well.

  “I was going to say have Olem do it, sir.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be fine.” Tamas watched Vlora a little longer. She glanced up at him, then back at the fire. She still wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  He found he missed their old familiarity. If things had gone better, she might be his daughter-in-law by now. Back before she went off to the university, she’d been the one soldier with the gall to call him Tamas. She’d hung on his arm, even hugged him in public.

  Before she slept with that fop in Jileman and Taniel broke off their engagement.

  Tamas climbed to his feet. “I want you and Andriya to keep on hunting. We need as much meat as we can get.”

  “We’re going to run out of powder eventually, sir,” she said.

  “Get some from the Seventh’s quartermaster.”

  “I meant the whole army.”

  Tamas drummed his fingers on his belt. An army on the march, without resupply or even wagons and camp followers. They would run out of everything. Sooner, rather than later. Their only advantage was a swift march, and that was lost with having to forage and the exhaustion brought on by hunger.

  “I’ll be sure the mages get what they need.” His powder mages were still each worth more than a dozen men.

  Vlora nodded. “I’ll check with the quartermaster.” She stood and abruptly headed off into the camp.

  Tamas watched her go, and felt himself an old man, burdened with regret.

  The camp grew louder over the next few minutes as the last of the soldiers were roused from their beds. A few cheers went up, and Tamas guessed Olem must have distributed the elk meat. It wasn’t much, not when spread so thinly, but it was a bite more than they’d had.

  Tamas broke down and stowed his own tent. He’d just finished tying his bedroll when Olem returned with a bundle of bloody canvas.

  “I would have done that, sir,” Olem said.

  Tamas eyed the bloody canvas and felt his mouth watering. “I have you doing more important things. I was a soldier once, Olem. I can break camp as well as any man.”

  “If you insist, sir.” Olem knelt beside the coals and produced a skewer, then unwrapped the bloody canvas to reveal a hunk of elk meat.

  Tamas stood and looked to the south. Somewhere out there, the Kez cavalry were breaking their camp, probably hoping to overtake the Adran brigades before they were able to reach the relative safety of the forest.

  Tamas heard, more than saw, a horse galloping through the camp. A few moments later and Gavril emerged from the still-dark morning on a shuddering charger.

  Tamas grabbed the horse by the bridle as his brother-in-law swung down. The horse’s sides were lathered, its eyes wild. Gavril had been riding hard.

  “Sixteen thousand,” Gavril said. “Ten and a half thousand dragoons and another five and a half of cuirassiers. Three full brigades of cavalry.”

  Kresimir. How could they possibly fight that many cavalry? “How far?”

  “We can beat them to the forest if we leave now. I’ve not spoken with my northern outriders.”

  “Vlora just came from the north. We’re sixteen miles from Hune Dora.”

  Gavril accepted an offered canteen from Olem and took a swig, then poured the rest over his head. His body steamed. “We won’t have time to sack the city.”

  “She says it’s abandoned. I’ll have some men take a look, but we’ll probably head right past it.”

  “Abandoned, eh?” Gavril scratched his bearded chin. “We could make a stand there.”

  Tamas cast an anxious glance to the south. He couldn’t see the Kez cavalry, but it seemed to him he could sense them. “Maybe.”

  Olem stood and held out a pewter plate. On it was a steaming cut of elk.

  “Burned on the edges and raw in the middle, but it’s delicious,” Olem said with a grin.

  Tamas heard his stomach growl. There must have been two pounds of meat on that plate.

  “Share it with Gavril,” Tamas said. “I’m not hungry.”

  Olem cocked an eyebrow. “I can hear your stomach making bear calls from here, sir. You have to keep up your strength.”

  “Really, I’m fine.”

  Gavril grabbed the meat with his bare hands. “Suit yourself.” He tore it in half and plopped one half back on the plate. He began to cram the rest into his mouth. Around bites, he yelled out to another rider who’d just come into camp.

  “Sir,” Olem said as Gavril strode off, “you need to eat.”

  “Get the men on their feet,” Tamas said. A sudden urgency rose within him as a gust of wind nearly tore off his hat. “Have the advance column marching out of the camp in twenty minutes.” He stared south until Olem was gone.

  Sixteen thousand Kez cavalry. His two brigades of infantry would be ridden down. They’d die hungry, exhausted, and in a foreign land while the Kez burned their homes.

  He couldn’t let that happen.

  He wouldn’t let that happen.

  Tamas strode toward the nearest tents. “Companies,” he shouted. “Prepare for march!”

  Sergeant Oldrich and his squad of Riflejacks were staying at a retired barracks on the southeast side of the Ad River, not far from the Lighthouse of Gostaun. The barracks was a big building, abandoned and empty but for the odd feral dog. The front doors were barred and chained, but one of the many side entries had been left unlocked.

  Adamat entered the barracks through that door and crossed two empty parade grounds before he found the small mess hall where the captain and his squad were watching Adamat’s four youngest children put on a play in the center of the mess.

  Adamat stood in the door quietly, unable to keep the smile from his face as Astrit absently played with her black curls while she tried to remember the lines of the princess trapped in a tall tower by the evil Privileged who, judging by the costumes composed of robes and bedsheets, was being played by one of the twins.

  “Daddy!” Astrit cried, catching sight of him.

  He was mobbed by all the children crowding around him with hugs and kisses. He made sure to give each one a kiss, saying each of their names – except for the twins. He could never tell them apart, and he wasn’t about to admit it.

  Adamat wrestled on the floor with his children for several minutes before he was able to extract himself. He bid them return to their play, and joined Sergeant Oldrich at the table in the corner of the room.

  “Coffee?” the sergeant offered, chewing absently at the tobacco tucked in his cheek.

  “Tea, if you have it.”

  Oldrich called over to one of his men. “Tea!” He fixed Adamat with a frown. “You look awful. You got rolled, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.” Adamat found himself watching his children. They were beautiful kids. They really were. The thought of anything happening to them made his blood begin to boil and he forced himself to look away. “Got out of it fine, and I’ve found Vetas’s headquarters.”

  “
I didn’t think you could.” Oldrich lifted his coffee cup in a salute. “I figured the bastard would be in the wind after what you did to his boys in Offendale.”

  Adamat sniffed. “He’s not afraid of me,” Adamat said. “I don’t think he’s afraid of anything. You ever seen a machine powered by steam? They’ve got looms, hammers, printing presses…” Adamat was briefly reminded of his own failed foray into publishing but managed to push the thought away.

  “Yeah,” Oldrich said. “They have them in ships now, too.”

  “Exactly. He’s like a steam engine. Just keeps going. No feeling, no thought. Just a task to do and he’s going to do it.”

  Oldrich sipped his coffee. “Damn. Almost makes you feel bad for him.”

  “No,” Adamat said. “I’ll still rip his heart out when I find him.”

  “And I hope you get your chance. Shall we go get him?”

  “How many men do you have again?” Adamat asked, though he knew well enough.

  “Fifteen,” Oldrich said. “Two to guard the children…”

  “Five.”

  “Five to guard the children, that leaves us with twelve, counting you and me.”

  “Not enough.”

  “He’s got enough goons to take on a squad of the field marshal’s best?”

  “He’s got at least sixty enforcers and a Privileged.”

  Oldrich whistled. “Ah. I don’t think there’s anything we can do about that.”

  “Pit. Thank you,” Adamat said as a cup of tea was set in front of him. He added two lumps of sugar and stirred it to cool. “Have you seen the morning paper?”

  “No. You want one? Oi! Someone get the investigator a paper!”

  Adamat cringed inwardly. He was hoping to find out that Oldrich hadn’t seen a paper today. Not draw attention to one. Oh well. “Do you remember a Privileged by the name of Borbador?” Adamat changed the subject.

  “I do,” Oldrich said. His normally pleasant face was suddenly guarded.

  “I think he’d do it for us. Borbador was one of the cabal’s best and brightest. He held Shouldercrown against the Kez Cabal virtually by himself. I know Tamas left him alive and has him stashed in the city. If we could —”