The Crimson Campaign

by Brian McClellan

  “What I said, Tamas – sir, I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way. Not in front of the men.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have.”

  Vlora stiffened. “I’ll accept whatever reprimand you see fit.”

  Tamas didn’t know his heart was capable of breaking. Not after all these years. He took a deep breath. “You’re a grown woman. Olem is a good man. He’ll make you happy.”

  She seemed surprised by this. But not in the way Tamas expected. “He’s just another man,” she said. “Someone to warm the nights.” She closed her eyes. “We’re soldiers. Tomorrow, one of us might be dead. Even if we both survive the battle, we’ll move on and find others. It’s the life we’ve chosen.” Her eyes opened again and she looked across the camp. “All of us.”

  Ah. What every soldier knew so well. Lovers were brief, passion burning like a candle – hot at the center and easily doused. It was too hard to keep the flame kindled longer than a season or a campaign. “It can be a lonely life,” Tamas agreed.

  “You think we can win tomorrow?” Vlora asked.

  Tamas looked toward the forest. At his soldiers going about their tasks. They were dragging trees across the floodplains now, toward the camp. The sound of billhooks hitting wood carried in the night. A rifle fired somewhere. Soldiers foraging, or powder mages scaring off Kez scouts?

  “I think we can win every battle,” Tamas said. “This… this will be difficult. The whole fulcrum of my plan could topple if the Kez catch too good a look at my preparations. We are low on powder and bullets, and the men are half-starved. We have to win tomorrow, or we’ll die here.”

  He felt cold suddenly, despite the heat, and very old.

  “I don’t want to die here, sir,” Vlora said. She hugged her rifle.

  “Neither do I.”

  “Sir.”

  “Yes?”

  “Gavril… he said you buried someone beside the Little Finger, long ago. Who was it?”

  Tamas felt himself whisked away. Felt the spray of the raging river on his face, the mud and blood caked on his fingers from digging a grave by hand.

  He forced himself to stand, trying not to favor his bad leg. It needed the exercise. “I’ve buried countless friends. More enemies. Kin, and those close enough they might as well be. I want to see Adro again. I want to know if my son survived his ordeals. But before then, there is a lot of work to do. That is all, Captain. Dismissed.”

  Taniel sat brooding in his quarters, watching out the window as a line of wagons carried wounded soldiers away from the front. He thought about opening the window and asking how the battle was going. But he already had a guess: badly. This lot had probably taken a mortar round – their wounds were bloody and varied, and by their uniforms they were all from the same company.

  General Ket had sent him to an inn about five miles behind the line, under guard twenty-four hours a day. It seemed like weeks since Ket had given Taniel her ultimatum. He knew it had been a single night.

  The provosts had demanded to know where Ka-poel was. Taniel had shrugged and told them to stuff it, but inside he’d worried about what they’d do when they caught her. Had they been given orders to give her a beating like the one they’d given Taniel? Or worse? Without dolls of them, would Ka-poel be able to fend off the provosts?

  General Ket had come by his quarters early this morning to tell him that every day he refused to apologize to Major Doravir was another day that men died on the line.

  Taniel would be up there now if it weren’t for General Ket. He wouldn’t let her convince him it was his fault that the line was being pushed back again.

  Outside his window, Taniel caught sight of a young man. It was a boy, really. Couldn’t have been more than fifteen. His leg had been taken off at the knee. Whether by a cannonball or a surgeon, Taniel didn’t know, but he was struck by the calm on the boy’s face. While men three times his age wailed over any number of flesh wounds, the boy sat stoically in the back of a wagon, his stump hanging off the edge, watching serenely while a fresh group of conscripts were sent to the front.

  Taniel lifted his sketchbook and began to outline the boy’s face.

  A knock sounded at the door. Taniel ignored it, wanting to give the boy’s portrait some shape so that he could finish it later.

  He’d almost forgotten there even had been a knock, when it sounded again. The wagon outside was moving on, and the wounded boy with it. Taniel dropped his sketchbook on the table and went to the door.

  He was surprised to find Mihali there. The big chef held a silver platter aloft in one hand, a towel over the opposite arm. His apron was dirty with flour and what looked like smudges of chocolate.

  “Sorry to bother you,” Mihali said, sweeping past Taniel. Two provosts followed the chef inside. One held a folding table, the other a bottle of wine. “Right there,” Mihali told them. “Next to the window. Now some privacy, please.”

  The provosts grumbled, setting up the table and then retreating into the hallway.

  “Sit,” Mihali instructed, pointing at the only chair in the room. He deposited himself on the edge of the bed.

  “What’s this?” Taniel asked.

  “Dinner.” Mihali swept the lid off the silver tray. “Braised side of beef with quail’s egg quiche and sweet goat cheese, and served with a red wine. Nothing fancy, I’m afraid, but the wine is a lovely ’forty-seven and has been chilled.”

  Nothing fancy? The smell rising from the platter made Taniel shudder with pleasure. His mouth watered immediately, and he found himself at the table unable to remember sitting down, with a piece of beef already on his fork. He paused. “May I?”

  “Please, please,” Mihali encouraged. He popped the wine cork and poured two glasses.

  It was a little unnerving that Mihali watched him while he ate, but Taniel quickly learned to ignore the chef’s presence and was soon reaching for seconds.

  “What,” Taniel asked, eyeing Mihali, who was on his third glass of wine, “is the occasion?”

  Mihali poured Taniel another glass. “Occasion? Does there need to be an occasion to eat well?”

  “I thought so.”

  Mihali shook his head. “I heard they’d relegated you to quarters and were feeding you soldier’s rations. That qualifies as a war crime in my book.”

  “Ah.” Taniel smiled, but couldn’t be sure that Mihali was actually joking. He leaned forward, taking his wineglass, and noted that the wine bottle was still full after, what, five glasses between the two of them? Perhaps Mihali had a second bottle hidden somewhere.

  “I have a letter for you,” Mihali said, removing an envelope from his apron.

  Taniel paused, a fork halfway to his mouth. “From?” he mumbled around a mouthful of quail’s egg.

  “Colonel Etan.”

  Taniel tossed his fork down and snatched the letter. He tore it open and ran his eyes over the contents. When he was finished, he pushed his chair back and took a deep breath. He wasn’t hungry anymore, not even for Mihali’s food.

  “What is it?” Mihali asked.

  “None of your…” Taniel swallowed his retort. Mihali had come all this way from the front with a full meal, and delivered a letter that would likely not have reached Taniel otherwise. The chef deserved his thanks, not his anger. “I asked Colonel Etan to pull the quartermaster records regarding black-powder use in the army.”

  “Oh?”

  “He also pulled requisition orders. They don’t match up. The army has requisitioned three times as much powder as they’ve used, and nearly twice what has actually reached the front line.”

  “It’s getting lost somewhere?” Mihali asked.

  “More likely stolen. Corruption’s not unheard of in any army, even ours, but Tamas cracks down on it hard during wartime. These records” – he tossed the envelope on his bed – ”mean that the quartermasters are in on it. And at least one member of the General Staff. Someone is making millions off this war.”

  “As you said,” Mihali responded,
“it’s not unheard of.”

  “But powder… we’ll run out quickly at this rate. The whole country, and then it doesn’t matter how much better our troops are, we’ll be ground beneath Kez’s heel. Damn it!” Taniel drummed his fingers on the silver platter in front of him. He wanted to throw it across the room, but there was still a bit of beef left. “Can you get me out of here?”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t think so,” Mihali said with a sigh. “As I told you before, the General Staff doesn’t listen to a word I say.” Mihali patted his belly. “Tamas – now he has an ear for good sense, even if he is mistrustful of the person giving it. These generals can’t see past the ends of their noses.”

  Taniel leaned back and sipped his wine. Something about Mihali’s steady tone and unruffled attitude helped calm his nerves. “They’re some of the best in the Nine, believe it or not.” To his surprise, there was no grudge in his tone. “Though I can’t say that speaks well for Adro, or against the rest of the Nine.”

  Mihali chuckled. “That certainly explains why we haven’t lost yet. Despite being so heavily outnumbered.”

  “How is it going on the front?” Taniel asked. “I mean, I can see…” He gestured out the window, the memory of the wagons full of dead and wounded still fresh. “But I’ve had no real news for two days.”

  “Not well. We lost almost a mile yesterday.” Mihali’s face grew serious. “You were about to change things, you know. Stopping that advance last week gave the men their first victory in months. They had heart. I could sense it. They would have charged after you, right down Kresimir’s throat.”

  “Pit. I have to get out of here. Back on the front. And I need to find out who’s profiteering off our black powder.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll strangle every quartermaster in the army until one tells me. You’re sure you can’t get me released?”

  “Most of the General Staff doesn’t even believe I’m a god. To them, I’m a mad chef. The only way you’ll get out of here, Taniel, is if you apologize to Major Doravir.”

  Taniel stood up and went to the window. “Absolutely not.”

  “Don’t pit your pride against General Ket’s,” Mihali said. “That woman makes Brude look humble.”

  Brude. One of the saints – er, gods. Taniel watched Mihali down a fourth glass of wine out of the corner of his eye. It was easy to forget what Mihali was. After all, one would expect a god to look, and act, as grand as any king. Not dribble wine out of the corner of his mouth and then clean it up with a shirtsleeve.

  “What can I do?” Taniel asked. He wondered if Mihali had given advice to his father. He couldn’t imagine Tamas soliciting advice from a chef, even if he did believe that Mihali was a god.

  “Apologize to Doravir.”

  Taniel blew air out through his nose.

  “I can’t see much,” Mihali said quietly, looking into his wineglass. “The future is always moving, always blurry, even to those with the vision to see it. What I can see is that if you stay in this room, we’ll continue to lose ground every day. The Kez will push us out of the valley and surround us, eventually forcing a surrender. Or we’ll run out of powder, and the same will happen.”

  Taniel scoffed. “I’m just one man. I can’t make that much of a difference.”

  “One man always makes a difference. Sometimes it’s a small one. Other times, he tips a war. And you… you’re not human. Not anymore.”

  “Oh? Then what am I?” Taniel asked. Mihali made less and less sense as he continued to speak.

  “Hmm,” Mihali said. “I don’t think there’s a word for it. After all, you’re the first of your kind. You’ve become like Julene.”

  Taniel heard his own sharp intake of breath. “I’m not a Predeii.”

  “No. Not precisely. You’re not immortal, after all. Then again, neither is Julene. She’s just ageless. I don’t think your sorcery would ever let you become ageless. Even with Ka-poel’s help. But you’re the powder-mage equivalent of a Predeii.”

  “This is ridiculous. Where is Ka-poel?”

  “Hiding. I offered her my protection – with some reservations, of course. That girl makes my skin crawl. She didn’t accept it. I might need her help at some point, though.”

  Taniel rubbed his temples.

  “Another glass of wine?”

  “I think I’ve had enough.”

  “Suit yourself.” Mihali poured himself another one. His cheeks were flushed, but other than that there was no sign he’d drunk seven glasses. The wine bottle, Taniel noted, was still full.

  “You said that you can see a little of the future,” Taniel said. “If I apologize to Major Doravir, what then?”

  Mihali stared into his wineglass. “Motion. That’s what I see. It’s a small event, but it stirs things up. It makes the certain uncertain. And right now, the certain does not bode well for us.”

  Taniel snatched a quill pen and took the back of Etan’s letter. Quickly, ink smudging the page, he scrawled out a note. “Can you get this to Ricard Tumblar?” he asked. “I can’t send it regular post. If someone on the General Staff is profiteering, they’ll have eyes everywhere.”

  “I can send one of my girls,” Mihali said, taking the letter.

  “Thank you. Do you know where can I find Major Doravir?”

  “As it happens… yes.”

  CHAPTER

  23

  Tamas watched the sunrise over the Adran Mountains to the east and wondered if it would be the last he would ever see.

  The Kez dragoons had caught up with them late the day before. They made camp over a mile into Hune Dora Forest. He’d spent half the night watching their campfires flicker in the night and listening to them sing cavalry battle hymns. Every so often a gunshot would punctuate the distant sound as one of their scouts got too close and met a powder mage’s bullet.

  Now, the world was quiet but for the sound of the swift river on the rocks behind him. Tamas lay on the ground, leaning against his saddle about a hundred paces from the river. He held a powder charge in his hand, kneading the paper between his fingers.

  In his mind he could see the dragoons climbing from their tents, stretching in the crisp morning air and preparing Fatrastan coffee over their cookfires. They’d be unhurried. Restful. They knew that their heavy cavalry wouldn’t be here for some time yet, and that Beon wouldn’t attack before he had his full force.

  “Where are the cuirassiers?” Tamas asked. His breath fogged as he spoke. Despite the heat of the summer days, the mornings were still chill this close to the mountains.

  Gavril stared sullenly toward the tree line as if he expected the dragoons to appear any moment. “Not more than a few hours away. I’d expect them here by noon.”

  “They’ll be in formation by two o’clock. One, if Beon’s generals are organized.”

  “Not long to get ready.”

  “Long enough. Olem.”

  The bodyguard stirred from his lookout position a few paces from Tamas’s side. “Sir?”

  “Pull our pickets back from the forest. Are the rafts done?”

  “Aye, sir. Three big ones.”

  “Begin ferrying troops across the river. Start with the wounded, then the greenest troops. Take your time at it. I expect the Kez to attack between one and two o’clock. I want about a thousand of our men across the river by then. Enough to be convincing, but not enough to destroy our ability to fight.”

  “Very good, sir. Anything else?” Olem’s tone was crisp. Ready for battle.

  “Does everyone know where they are meant to be when the fighting starts?”

  “Yes, sir. We drilled them half the night.”

  “Make things chaotic. I want lots of milling about. Fistfights. If you have to ‘lose’ one of the rafts in the river, so be it. This has to be convincing.”

  “I spoke to Colonel Arbor last night, sir. His men are going to hide their kits and rifles. Make like they’ve abandoned them.”

  “Good. Dismissed. Wait. Find m
e Andriya and Vlora.”

  Olem flinched at the mention of Vlora’s name. He saluted and was off.

  The wind was blowing westerly, and Tamas could see a low cloud cover inching its way off the Adran Mountains. If rain was coming, it would make this a miserable fight. Beon might even delay his attack, making all of Tamas’s preparations be for nothing.

  He wondered idly if Mihali had heard his prayer last night.

  “What are you up to, Tamas?” Gavril asked.

  “Kind of obvious from this end, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve been ranging since you arrived yesterday. To me, it looks like a half-finished defense.”

  “Perfect.” Tamas climbed to his feet. The camp was shaped in a square. To the north, the Big Finger raged along its banks. To the east, a scree slope leading up to the mountain prevented a flanking maneuver by Kez cavalry. To the west and south, a mound of earth about three feet tall had been piled all around the camp. It was a standard short defense, from behind which infantry could take easy cover.

  It would barely slow a cavalry charge.

  To the west, the mound had been topped with tree trunks, propped together to form giant Xs. Between them, sharpened stakes had been driven into the ground. It was a thick, deadly defense against cavalry. A few hundred men worked hard at adding to those stakes as the mound of dirt swung around to defend the south. It wasn’t nearly enough men. There would be a gap in their defenses about an eighth of a mile long. A gap through which ten thousand dragoons would charge.

  “Sir.”

  Tamas broke away from his examination of the camp. Andriya and Vlora stood at attention. Neither looked like they’d slept all night. Damned fools.

  “Gather the powder mages,” Tamas said. “I’m sending you across the river.”

  They stared back at him blankly. “Sir?” Andriya said. His hands twitched on his rifle. “You promised we’d be killing Kez.”

  “You can do that from the other side of the river. I’m not risking any of my mages in the melee. I want you where you can shoot without being shot – or stabbed.”