The Thousand Names

by Django Wexler

  Winter cursed silently, then said, “I wondered, sir, if perhaps we’ve come far enough.”

  “Far enough?” He looked down at her disdainfully. “We haven’t found anything!”

  “Yes, sir,” Winter said. “But we were ordered to hold the ridge—”

  “And to make contact with the enemy!” the lieutenant said.

  She gave a quiet sigh. He’d said the same thing at the outset. “But, sir, if we’re attacked—”

  He barked a laugh. “Then my men will have to show their mettle!”

  Winter felt lost. She wanted to explain that mettle wasn’t the issue—if they located a substantial force of the enemy, a mere hundred and twenty men weren’t likely to be able to make much of a stand, however valorous they were. But d’Vries would only laugh and call her a coward.

  “In any case,” he said, “this is my first assignment, and I’ve been ordered to locate the enemy. I do not intend to return as a failure!”

  That there were a dozen companies with similar orders, up and down the line of march, had apparently made no impression on him. Winter saluted and turned away, feeling the day’s heat throbbing against the back of her neck and soaking her uniform in sweat. Her breasts ached where she’d bound them too tightly; she’d had only a few hours with the sewing kit, and hadn’t gotten the measure quite right on her replacement undershirts. Her skin itched where it rubbed against the soaked cotton.

  Most of the men were suffering equally, if in different ways. A few days of drill had helped, but it took longer than that to truly become accustomed to the hellish sun. As they passed the stream, they took the opportunity to drink, refill their canteens, and splash water on their faces. The little brook was brackish and warm, but it was pleasant even so.

  They were advancing in loose order, not the shoulder-to-shoulder line they’d practiced on the drill field. The men took advantage of the laxer discipline to talk and joke with one another as they trudged across the bottom of the valley and started up the opposite height. They didn’t seem worried. Winter flinched at each burst of laugher, but she was the only one.

  She kicked savagely at a dry puff bush as she passed, and it exploded satisfactorily into a thousand drifting seed pods. The hell of it was, more than likely nothing would come of all her nerves. So far none of the scouts had sighted anything more than distant horsemen, who turned and fled at the first approach of anything in blue. Give-Em-Hell’s cavalry ranged out ahead of the column, covering the most likely approaches of an enemy force. These reconnaissances were just a precaution. But, of course, try telling that to d’Vries.

  Bobby drifted over to her. The boy was plainly exhausted, sweat running down his face in rivulets, but he struggled gamely onward under the weight of pack and musket. He even managed a smile.

  “Aren’t—aren’t—” He labored for a moment to catch his breath. “Aren’t we getting a bit far out?”

  Winter snorted. “D’Vries thinks the colonel has ordered him personally to chase down the entire enemy army.”

  “He’ll get a dressing-down from Captain d’Ivoire, I bet.”

  “Maybe.” Winter shrugged. “Captain d’Ivoire’s a busy man.”

  “Think he’ll call a halt when we get to the top of the next ridge?”

  “God Almighty, I hope so.” Winter looked at the perspiring troops now struggling up the slope. “Otherwise we won’t even need to run into the Redeemers. The sun’s bad enough.”

  Bobby nodded wearily. They walked on in silence, picking their way around occasional screes of loose rock or clumps of hardy shrubs and grass. This ridge was taller than the one that ran along the road, and Winter imagined it would afford quite a view. She hoped that d’Vries would be satisfied with taking a look from the top.

  There was a surprised shriek from her right, followed by a burst of laughter.

  “Sarge! I think something bit Cooper!”

  More laughter. Winter left Bobby’s side and hurried over to a small group of soldiers, acutely aware that getting bit by something in Khandar was no laughing matter. In the city she’d known a Khandarai trapper who’d claimed there were a hundred and seven varieties of snakes in the Lesser Desol, and at least a dozen kinds of scorpions. Each was dangerous in its own particular way.

  On inspection, however, Cooper turned out merely to have stepped in a prickerbush, whose barbed thorns had snagged his trousers and drawn angry red scratches down his leg. Winter got the lad disentangled, much to the amusement of his companions.

  As she straightened up, there were shouts from above, at the top of the ridge. Winter thought at first that another man had had an encounter with local wildlife, but from the volume it sounded as though the whole company had stumbled into a nest of snakes. Above it she heard the high, shrill voice of the lieutenant.

  “Back! Go back!”

  He came into sight over the top of the ridge, his terrified horse moving far too fast already, blood spotting the animal’s flanks where he’d kicked it viciously with his spurs. A few soldiers followed, picking their way down the rocky slope as fast as their legs would carry them.

  Winter spat a curse that would have given Mrs. Wilmore an apoplectic fit on the spot. She forced her weary legs to move, sprinting the last dozen yards to the crest of the ridge, and found most of the Seventh Company still gathered there. The thin line had contracted to a tight bunch as the soldiers instinctively huddled together.

  The top of the high ridge afforded an excellent view. Over her shoulder, Winter could see the ocean, though the coast road and the Vordanai army were blocked by the lower ridge behind them. Ahead of her, to the south, the furrowed land stretched on and on until it flattened out into the sandy wastes of the Lesser Desol.

  The objects of the soldiers’ attention were closer at hand, however. Off to the east, the coast road became visible again as it swung inland to avoid some obstacle, and there a vast host had gathered. It looked more like a camp than an army, with tents and crude banners showing the crimson flame of the Redeemers on a black field. Men milled around, reduced to ants by the distance, and there was no mistaking the flash of the sun from polished steel blades.

  Spreading south and east from the camp was an apparently endless tide of horsemen. They rode in small groups of twenty or thirty, and there were more groups than Winter could count, covering the valley at the foot of the ridge. They were shabby-looking men, un-uniformed and mounted on scrawny beasts liberated from their lives as cart horses or field animals, but they screamed and drew swords when they saw Vordanai blue against the horizon. Priests in black wraps egged them on, screaming loudest of all and waving the riders forward.

  The lieutenant was still shouting, barely audible over the shrieks of the Redeemers.

  “Back! Back to the column!”

  The closest groups were only minutes away. The slope would slow them, but not enough. Winter cursed again. She hurried to the mass of men on the ridge, only to find it melting away before she got there. The soldiers, momentarily transfixed by the sight, had recovered their wits, and one by one they were making the same decision as d’Vries had. There were only a few dozen left when she arrived, Bobby and the other two corporals among them.

  Winter grabbed Bobby’s shoulder. The boy looked up at her, eyes wide.

  “Wh-wh-what—”

  “Back down the hill,” Winter said. “But stop at the stream. Understand that? Get everyone you can to stop at the stream.”

  “We have to get back to the column,” Bobby gabbled. “We’ll be killed—oh, saints and martyrs—”

  “We’ll never make it,” Winter said. “Too far. If we run they’ll cut us down. We have to stand them off!”

  She glanced up at the other two corporals for support. Graff looked dubious, but Folsom nodded grimly. He took off down the hill at a run, bellowing at the top of his lungs.

  “The stream! Halt at the stream!”

  “Help me,” Winter said to Graff, and started grabbing men by the arm and pulling them away fro
m the crest. Mesmerized by the sight of their own deaths approaching at a gallop, at first they refused to move. Winter turned them about by brute force, shouted in their ears to form up at the stream, and pushed them so they stumbled down the slope. Graff followed her example. By the time the pair of them were the only ones remaining, the first of the Redeemer horsemen were already climbing the ridge.

  Winter spun at a piercing, inhuman shriek. D’Vries had tried to get even more speed from his mount, in spite of the rocky, broken ground, and the gray had put a foot wrong. The animal went down and rolled, screaming its terror, and the lieutenant was thrown free. Both came to rest near the bottom of the slope. The horse tried to rise, but immediately went down again, one foreleg refusing to bear its weight. D’Vries, miraculously unhurt, took one look at it and continued his run on foot, splashing across the muddy stream in his enameled leather boots and starting up the opposite slope.

  Folsom’s shouts were having some effect. The long-legged corporal had reached the bottom before most of the men, and he waved his musket in the air while he called on them to form. Some gathered around him, although no formation was evident, and those still coming down the slope headed for the crowd that was growing in the creek bed. Others, mostly those already past the stream, kept running after the lieutenant.

  “Come on,” Winter said to Graff, and ran. Turning away from the horsemen was hard, and keeping herself from stumbling in the first dozen yards was harder. The small of her back itched, expecting a musket ball or a rider’s saber. When the ground leveled out enough that she could risk turning her head, she found she’d made better time than she’d thought. The first of the Redeemers were just cresting the rise, whooping and shouting at the sight of the Vordanai soldiers running for their lives. They wouldn’t be able to gallop down without the risk of ending up like d’Vries.

  She spotted Folsom in the crowd of nervous men, some of whom looked ready to take off running again. Winter cupped her hands to shout as she ran.

  “Square! Make them form square!”

  She covered the rest of the distance at a dead sprint, Graff behind her, his stubby arms pumping. Folsom was already at work, shoving the uncomprehending men into line. He’d managed to force the knot of men into a hollow oval, but it was open at the back, where the men were spreading out along the creek bed. Winter pulled up short, gasping for breath.

  “Fix—fix—” She coughed, mastered her lungs by sheer force of will, and managed, “Fix bayonets. Two ranks. Don’t shoot till they close. Graff!”

  The wiry corporal was beside her, hands on his knees. “Yes?” he replied, coughing.

  “Straighten them out. Hold fire. You understand?”

  She caught his eye, and he nodded. Winter ran around the face of the oval, toward where the line dissolved into an amorphous mass. Bobby was at the edge, still shouting at the men who were climbing the opposite slope behind the lieutenant. Winter grabbed the boy’s hand.

  “Listen. Bobby, listen to me!” Winter gestured up to where the riders were picking their way through the rocks, only minutes from contact. “We need a rear face to this formation. Otherwise they’ll just go around and take us from behind, you understand?” She became aware that the men nearby were listening, too, and raised her voice. “Form up! Double line! We have to guard their backs”—she waved at the men at the front of the square, now in a recognizable line—“and they’ll guard ours! Form up now!”

  Bobby raised his voice as well, high and girlish with barely mastered fear. The men started to form, pushing and shoving, and on the inside of the square Folsom started taking them by the shoulders and jamming them into the right positions. As the formation came together, the nerves of the recruits seemed to steady. It was agony to look away from the oncoming horsemen, as the back face of the square was obliged to do, but under Winter’s prodding they stopped staring over their shoulders and concentrated on their weapons. Bayonets came out of their sheaths, and each man fixed the triangular steel blade to the lug just below his musket barrel. Folsom still bellowed from inside the square.

  “Hold fire until my command! Any man who fires without my command is getting cracked over the head!”

  It was strange to hear the big corporal speak so freely, as though danger had finally loosened his tongue. Graff was at work on the right face of the square, and Winter went to the left, but the men didn’t require much steadying. Some critical threshold had been passed, and the Seventh Company had gone from a fleeing mob back to an organized body of soldiery.

  The sudden clap of a gunshot cut through the shouts of the men, and Winter saw a wisp of smoke rising from the ridge. The rider who’d fired lowered a stubby carbine and drew his sword. Other shots followed. Every bang and flash was accompanied by a collective swaying of the men in the square, each man individually attempting to dodge.

  “Hold fire!” Folsom screamed. “Hold your fire, by Karis the Savior, or you’ll wish you had!”

  The line of horsemen directly opposite the square slowed their descent, but those beyond it on either side swept forward with wild cries. Free of the rocky ridge, they spurred their horses to a gallop, starting up the smaller rill beyond. D’Vries had made it halfway to the top, with the men who’d fled straggling behind him, but the horsemen easily caught up to them. Some of the men turned to face their pursuers, and there was a ragged chorus of shots and a billow of smoke. Winter saw a couple of horses go down. Then the riders were on them, shouting and slashing with their sabers or jabbing with long spears. The last Winter saw of Lieutenant d’Vries was a brief glimpse of glittering gold and silver as four men closed in around him.

  Other men were cut down as they ran, or spitted on the spears. Some tried to fight, blocking the sabers with the barrels of their muskets, but the clang of steel on steel invariably drew the attention of another horseman, who cut down the unfortunate soldier from behind.

  Directly above, on the crest of the high ridge, a party of Redeemers was forming. They’d been quick to sweep around the sides of the square, giving it a wide berth to stay out of easy musket range, but none of them had yet challenged it directly. Here and there a carbine or even a pistol cracked, but at that distance the riders had little chance of hitting even the tight-packed ranks of the Vordanai formation. Winter could see one of the black-wrapped priests screaming at the top of his lungs, and the scattered horsemen gathered into larger groups. Many continued on, over the low ridge behind which the Vordanai main column waited.

  A group was forming on the other side of the square as well, and smaller units circled around the sides, like predators eyeing prey for a hint of weakness. Winter realized, belatedly, that she was outside the protective wall of bayonets. She looked around quickly to make sure she was the last one still standing beyond the line, then stepped sideways between two of the musket barrels that protruded like spears. The men shuffled aside to let her in, then closed behind her like a curtain.

  Corporal Folsom stood in the center of the tiny clear area inside. The faces of the square were only ten men wide, so the interior was about twenty-five feet across, bisected by the creek bed and the muddy, trampled ground around it. The corporal saluted, as though nothing unusual had happened.

  “Where’s Bobby and Graff?” Winter said. Folsom pointed to where the two of them stood side by side in the rear rank, and Winter pulled them out. Bobby looked white-faced and terrified, knuckles standing out bloodless as he clutched the barrel of his musket. Graff, grizzled and bearded, was harder to read, but Winter thought even he was looking a little gray. She did her best to appear unconcerned.

  “Right,” she said. “We each take a face. Hold fire until twenty-five yards, and then only one rank. Second rank holds fire until point-blank. You understand?” She caught Bobby’s eye. Graff was a veteran, and Folsom seemed to know what he was about, but the boy looked rattled. “Senior Corporal Forester, do you understand?”

  “Yessir,” Bobby said automatically. He blinked, and some life returned to his face. “Hol
d fire till twenty-five—”

  “Right. And whatever you do, don’t let them step back an inch. No horse alive will charge a row of bayonets, but if they waver—”

  The priest on the hill cut her off. He sang a single high note, close to a howl, breathtaking in its pitch and purity. It would have been almost beautiful if Winter hadn’t recognized it—the Redeemers in the city had given the same cry before they set light to the pyres of heretics. The riders answered with a roar, and there was a sudden thunder of hooves as they started forward. Winter couldn’t begin to estimate their numbers—hundreds at least—

  “Go!” she told the corporals, and ran to the south face, directly opposite where the priest had gathered the largest band of the enemy. Her voice rose to a hoarse shout, scraping her throat raw. “Hold fire! First rank, kneel and ready to fire on my order. Second rank, hold fire. Hold!”

  The horsemen started out slowly, picking their way down rough ground at the top of the hill, then gaining speed as the slope flattened out. The distance closed rapidly. Seventy yards, sixty, fifty—

  A musket cracked to her right, followed quickly by a couple of others as trigger fingers tightened in sympathy.

  “Hold your fucking fire!” Winter screamed, and heard the corporals echoing the call. Bobby’s voice was high and tremulous, while Folsom’s bass shouts carried over the thunder of hooves.

  Answering cracks came from the advancing mob. More carbines, and the range was shorter. Most of the shots went wide, but just in front of Winter a man grunted as if in surprise and slumped forward. From behind her, she heard a shriek.

  Thirty yards. The riders had to close in to match the narrow face of the square, until they were riding boot to boot and five-deep. Spears and sabers waved in the air, and gray-skinned faces twisted in fury. The red flame of the Redemption adorned every breast. Twenty-five yards.

  “First rank, fire!” Winter screamed, echoed moments later by the three corporals.

  For an instant all four sides of the square were fringed in fire, the yellow-pink glare of muzzle flashes, followed by a billow of smoke. With the enemy packed so tightly, they could scarcely miss, and every ball seemed to find either a horse or a rider. Men dropped from their saddles as though swatted by invisible giants, and horses screamed and collapsed, spilling their riders onto the unforgiving earth. Every horse that went down took two or three others with it, until they formed a pile of terrified, thrashing animals and screaming riders. Those behind broke to the left or right, avoiding the obstacle, or if they were particularly brave urged their mounts into a jump. Staggered and broken, the charge closed nonetheless.