Wrath of Empire

by Brian McClellan

  “You’re in no shape to go anywhere.”

  “It’s okay, I’m not going far.”

  CHAPTER 65

  Amrec’s hooves hammered the ground as Styke flew through the chaos of the camp of the Third Army. Soldiers milled about, throwing themselves out of his way as he passed, and it was clear no one knew what was going on. Sergeants bellowed at their infantry to fall in line; commissioned officers screamed at each other in confusion. Styke slowed only enough to find Colonel Willen near the entrance to the curtain wall.

  “What the pit is going on?” Willen demanded, looking up at the high towers now firing nonstop toward the ocean. “Who are manning those towers? What the pit are they firing at?”

  Styke sawed at the reins, Amrec dancing eagerly beneath him. “Dvory has betrayed us. Those towers are manned by Dynize, and they’re firing at a Fatrastan fleet.”

  “You must be joking.” Willen was slack-jawed.

  “Serious as pit. I just watched Lindet arrive. Dvory has captured her and now aims to sink her fleet. Unless my guess is wrong, he’ll turn the citadel guns on the Third within moments and …” Styke trailed off, realizing that the citadel guns would only make a dent in the fifty thousand men camped so close. The Third had some cannon and scaling ladders, and though they’d lose thousands, they would still be able to take the citadel. Dvory wasn’t that stupid. He had to have backup somewhere. “Your scouts! Have they reported anything suspicious?”

  Willen began to sweat visibly. “One of the outriders just came back with word of a large Dynize force nearby. He didn’t see them, just their trail.”

  “How far?” Styke demanded.

  “A few miles off.”

  “Damn it all, get everything in order. Turn your guns and ladders on the towers and hit them hard and fast.”

  “Our generals,” Willen objected, pointing at the citadel. Realization dawned on his face.

  “They’ve either betrayed you or been betrayed themselves,” Styke roared. “The colonels are in command now, Willen. Make it count!” He finally loosened his grip on the reins and Amrec was off like a shot, galloping through the camp and out onto the plains within minutes. By the time he reached the Mad Lancers’ camp hidden behind the hills two miles to the south, the entire company had already packed and was on horseback.

  Ibana and Gustar met him in the center of the gathered cavalry. “Starlight’s guns are firing,” Ibana called.

  Styke answered with a nod. “Either Dvory has betrayed Fatrasta, or the Dynize have tricked everyone. Lindet is in the citadel, either dead or a prisoner, and they are firing on her fleet.”

  “Pit.” Ibana gasped. “A shitload has happened in the last few hours.”

  “You have no idea. What do our scouts say?”

  Gustar cut in. “There’s a Dynize field army lurking out there. We think they screened themselves from us and the Third by circling the Hock.”

  “Shit.” Styke wasn’t sure whether not running into that army was a curse or a blessing. “They’re going to smash the Third against the Starlight citadel while the towers pulverize their rear.”

  There was a long silence, and Styke listened to the report of cannon fire in the distance. With Lindet captured and the Third destroyed, the Dynize would have free rein through the Hammer. They could surge north, take Redstone and the eastern coast, and Fatrasta was lost.

  “Do we help or run?” Ibana asked.

  Styke looked from Gustar to Ibana. He could see that they both had just had the same thought as he.

  “I wouldn’t mind letting Lindet rot in a Dynize cell,” Ibana mused.

  “I can’t disagree,” Gustar grunted.

  Styke tried to agree with them. Ten years in the camps. Torture, starvation, and hopelessness. Lindet deserved to reap what she had given him, but Styke also knew that without Lindet, Fatrasta was doomed.

  And no matter how much she deserved it, he couldn’t leave his sister to such a fate.

  “Ibana, you’re with me,” he said. “Give me twenty of our best fighters. Wrap their carbines in wax cloth and make sure everyone has a good knife. Gustar, the Dynize will either arrive with the storm and attack at night, or first thing in the morning. Either way, I want the Mad Lancers to wait until the Dynize have engaged the Third and then hit them in the flank. Can you lead a night charge, in the rain?”

  “That’s suicidal,” Gustar muttered.

  “Can you?”

  “I can.”

  “Good. You have command of the Mad Lancers. Ibana, tell Sunin to take Celine south and get her off the continent if the battle goes badly. Then find me my fighters. And bring me the bone-eye.”

  Styke, Ibana, Jackal, Ka-poel, and two dozen of the old core of the Mad Lancers galloped into the camp of the Third Army. Chaos still reigned as a heavy wind blew in from the ocean and the black clouds approached. Outside the curtain wall, officers attempted to form up their companies to face an as-yet-unseen enemy from the mainland, while inside the curtain wall crews attempted to bring their cannons to bear on the citadel towers.

  Styke didn’t spot Willen as they rode through, but he did see that the Dynize had finally showed themselves on the citadel walls. Sharpshooters on both sides exchanged fire, while gun crews on the interior towers worked to bring their own artillery to fire point-blank at the soldiers at the foot of the walls. A few courageous officers led charges with ladders, only to be raked by musket fire from above.

  He rode past all of this, ignoring the mighty blasts as the citadel cannon opened fire, closing his ears to the screams of the Third as grapeshot fell among them like rain. He leaned into Amrec’s neck, urging him faster, and listened to the pounding of hooves as they skirted the base of the citadel wall.

  “Here!” he bellowed, leaping from Amrec as they reached the groundskeeper’s trail at the north end of the citadel. His lancers dismounted, fetching their wrapped carbines, knives, and swords.

  Ibana looked uneasily at the base of the citadel. “It’s going to rain soon. It’ll be damned suicide to scale this wall in good weather. Pit, Ben, we haven’t scaled a wall for a decade.”

  “We’re not scaling it,” Styke said, wrapping his own carbine tightly and making sure his knife was secured at his waist. “We’re going around and under. The wax cloth isn’t for the rain—it’s for the ocean.”

  Ibana took a half step back, her chin rising. “Pit,” she breathed. “You want to fight your way up the inside of a fortified citadel?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  She looked around at their comrades. “We should have brought everyone.”

  “Too many bodies,” Styke replied, throwing his carbine over his shoulder. “Jackal, what do the spirits tell you about what’s inside?”

  Jackal pointed at Ka-poel. “She’s too close. I have one gibbering mad spirit sitting on my shoulder telling me we’re all going to join him. The rest have fled.”

  “I always knew the dead were useless.” Styke crossed to Ka-poel, lowering himself to one knee so that they were eye to eye. She regarded him coolly, her face placid, and he thought he saw a hint of violence in her eyes. “Can you help us in there?” he asked.

  She tapped the machete strapped to her thigh.

  “No,” Styke said, taking his knife and stabbing his own palm with the tip of the blade. He put his knife away and dabbed at the blood, holding out his stained fingers to her. “This. Can you help us with this? Protection, strength, speed—can you give me anything?”

  Ka-poel hesitated. Slowly, she reached out and touched his bleeding palm. She drew back, pressing the blood to her lips, then gave him a nod.

  “Good.”

  Styke stepped to the edge of the cliff, looking down the groundskeeper’s path. Ibana joined him. “Are you sure about this?” she asked.

  Styke thought of the times they’d charged into enemy cannonades or been unhorsed in the middle of a sea of bayonets. He thought of his old horse, Deshnar, and the power flowing through his muscles as they charge
d twenty times their number at the Battle of Landfall. He tried to wonder if he’d ever hesitated, if he’d ever shown the weakness that he now felt as he considered fighting his way through a fortress of Dynize.

  “I’m certain,” he replied.

  Ibana met his eye. “Why? Lindet isn’t worth this.”

  He remembered a time, as a child, that he’d been knocking at the gates of the pit with a fever. His baby sister had snuck into his room to put candies beneath his tongue, despite knowing their father would beat her if caught. “Not to you,” he replied, and headed down the path to the ocean.

  CHAPTER 66

  Vlora sat on a stone to one side of the highway that ran through the crack in Ishtari’s Crease, humming softly to herself as she drew a whetstone across the blade of her sword. Her jacket was neatly folded behind her makeshift chair, her pistols and kit on top of the small bundle. Her sword lay across her knees as she listened to the sound the whetstone made and watched as the Dynize Army emerged from the hills.

  They snaked down onto the relatively flat bit of highway about a mile and a half from her position—a column of infantry six across and probably miles and miles long. Officers rode horses alongside the column, with a handful of scouts out ahead. From their formation, they were clearly not expecting a fight, and had ordered their men to march double time to try to catch up with Vlora’s smaller force. Their advance scouts had probably seen her army continue through Ishtari’s Crease and head down into the forest below.

  She was running a light powder trance—enough that she could see the moment one of the scouts spotted her. The column ground to a halt, officers were consulted, soldiers stared in her direction through looking glasses. She’d changed into an old pair of crimson trousers, so they probably wondered what the pit a single Adran soldier was doing out here alone.

  She wondered how much time their hesitancy would cost them. Scouts were dispatched heading north and south along the Crease, no doubt looking for a trap. The general in charge of this field army had grown wary of her ambushes.

  It made her smile.

  It was almost a half hour until the column began to move again. It prowled forward, rolling toward her as inexorably as a boulder down a mountain but at a maddeningly slow pace. Though she tried to maintain her outward calm, her muscles cried out for the fight to start—for the beginning of the end. It reminded her of sitting in a theater next to Taniel, Bo, and Tamas, waiting for the most anticipated play of the season to begin while she clutched her handbill and hoped—in that way teenagers do—that the lead actor would look her way during the performance.

  Every minute or so, Vlora took another hit of powder. She increased the dosage by a tiny amount each time, until her senses practically hummed with all the information flowing through them. She could hear the wings of every bug for two hundred yards, smell every flower, feel the tiniest speck of dust on the tips of her fingers. Her hands felt as if they were trembling, but every time she held them out to look, they were steady as steel.

  She was so focused on the distant tramp of Dynize boots that she did not hear a single set of footsteps in the gravel behind her until they were almost upon her. She turned slightly, grasping the hilt of her sword. She wondered if a Dynize assassin had managed to sneak around her, or if Olem had escaped his ropes and come to try to talk her out of this.

  “There are simpler ways to kill yourself, you know.”

  Vlora looked up at Taniel as he came to stand beside her. “Shouldn’t you be with the capstone?” she asked.

  “Shouldn’t you?” Taniel’s eyes were on the approaching Dynize column. They’d be here in less than ten minutes.

  “I have other responsibilities.”

  Taniel snorted. “If you were facing down a company, I’d think you heroic. But you can’t win this—not even a chance. There’s a whole field army coming out of those hills and you will not stop them.”

  “I can slow them down.”

  Taniel was silent for several moments. “Enough to make a difference?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think so.”

  “Look, the Riflejacks are a week’s march from the coast. Then they have to find a harbor and ships to get them off the continent—if there even still is a safe harbor. If you gain them a few hours, it won’t mean a damned thing.”

  Vlora lifted her sword, examining the blade for chips and flaws. It was in good condition, considering it had gone through several major battles with her. “Did Olem send you?”

  “Nobody sent me. I caught wind and came myself. As far as I know, Olem is still trussed up like a pig per your orders. He’s never going to forgive you for this, you know.”

  “I’m not terribly worried about that. And yes, I think a few hours will make a difference. My boys have orders to ditch the capstone if the Dynize get within five miles of them. Once the Dynize have both my corpse and the capstone, they’re going to reassess this merry little chase. The northern Fatrastan coast is still Lindet’s territory, and the Dynize will be hesitant to chase them too far. They might just decide to let the Riflejacks go.”

  “Are you sure they will?”

  “I am not.”

  “And you’re willing to throw your life away on that uncertainty?”

  “I am.”

  Taniel gave an unhappy sigh. “Fine.” Vlora expected him to turn and stride off with a huff, but instead he removed his gloves—revealing his red hand—and then stripped off his jacket and folded it up, setting it on top of Vlora’s effects.

  “What the pit are you doing?” Vlora asked.

  Taniel didn’t answer her. He undid his cuffs and collar, then rolled up his sleeves. “Do you remember when we first met?”

  It was an odd question. Vlora frowned at Taniel, watching as he dabbed out a bit of black powder onto the back of his hand and snorted it. “I do.”

  “Do you remember the day Tamas adopted you?”

  She forced herself to think back nearly two decades, picturing herself as a waif of a child, roaming the ins and outs of Hrusch Avenue, trying to survive between the uncaring streets and the cruelty of the orphanage. She’d met Taniel and Bo, and a cold-eyed gentleman whom she’d later come to know as Field Marshal Tamas. Vlora had gotten into some trouble, and Tamas had dueled a nobleman to save her life. He’d taken her in, given her a home, and trained her to be a powder mage.

  “It’s hard to forget. It was the most terrifying and the happiest day of my life.”

  Taniel gave her a peculiar look. “You’ve never been more terrified? With all you’ve been through?”

  “I couldn’t protect myself back then. I can now.”

  Taniel chuckled. “That’s fair. I don’t remember that day very well, but I do remember that night. Tamas took us all home. We had dinner together, back when we still did that, and I remember thinking how I’d never seen anyone eat so much. You didn’t want to leave the table, and fell asleep with your face next to your third helping of cherry tart. Tamas carried you to bed, tucked you in, and then he brought us in to see you while you were sleeping. Do you know what he said to us?”

  Vlora’s face felt warm, her eyes moist. She blinked through a sudden haze. “No, I don’t.”

  “He pointed to you and said, This is your little sister. I want you both to promise me that you’ll protect her, that the three of you will look out for each other even after I’m gone.” Taniel squinted into the distance. “I didn’t always get along with Tamas, but he protected the three of us until we could protect ourselves. Point being, I’m not going to leave you here to die alone.”

  Vlora felt the color drain from her face. She stood up, facing Taniel. “Don’t do this. Don’t try to guilt me into coming with you so that you don’t have to die with me.”

  “I’m not trying to guilt you. I’m fulfilling a promise I gave my father.” Taniel looked at her coldly. “And you will not deny me that.”

  Vlora sank back down to her seat on the rock, staring at her sword. Perhaps Taniel was right
. This was an enormous mistake. She didn’t mean to bring him into this, not when he had loved ones of his own, not when he had grand plans to change the world. She looked toward the Dynize column, the head of which was just a few hundred yards away. “It’s too late to run,” she whispered.

  “That it is. What’s your plan?”

  “You ever see someone slice a baguette in half lengthwise to make a sandwich?”

  Taniel’s eyebrows rose. “Yes?”

  “I’m going to slice straight down the column.”

  Taniel clasped his hands behind his back, smiling down the road. “I suggest you follow me in. I’m a little sturdier than you.”

  “I don’t think I can keep up.”

  “Do your best.”

  “Right.” Vlora stood up, sheathed her sword, and stretched her arms and shoulders. A handful of advance scouts rode on ahead of the column, coming straight toward her. They probably planned to pull her aside and question her while the column advanced past. Fine by her. She knelt down on the rocky highway, pulling four powder charges from her pocket and placing them between her palms, then raising her hands in front of her face as if in prayer. Eyes closed, she listened to the scouts ride up.

  “You there,” one spoke in bad Adran, “what are you two doing here?”

  “I’m enjoying the view. She’s praying,” Taniel responded in Palo.

  Vlora could hear the confusion in the scout’s voice. “Where is your army?” She pressed her palms together tightly and ground them together to destroy the wrapping around the powder charges, then opened them up as if she were miming a book and buried her face between them, inhaling as hard as she could. Powder flooded her nostrils and mouth, granules like little specks of static as they touched her saliva and the inner membranes of her face. Her whole body vibrated with powder, every second seeming to take an eternity as her sorcery attempted to compensate for the barrage on her senses.