by Choi, Bryan
“I’m telling you, he totally finished in his britches,” sounded a faint voice in the periphery. Taki’s ears pricked up. Sometimes, he regretted having better senses than normal humans.
“You’re underestimating his virgin resolve. Endure for my sake, Onani-Master Natalis!”
“Shush! You’re too loud! He’ll hear us for sure!”
“I spent too much on this to lose to the likes of you, Emreis.”
“Eat a dick, both of you! I wanna see ‘em cuddle.”
“Dassa, are you actually getting into this?” Someone chortled. “You’re a bloody romantic, aren’t you?”
“You creeps are killing my delicate lady-boner.”
Taki leapt from the edge of the bed and stormed over to the tent flap, through which he could now see the impressions of three bodies pressed against the canvas. He grasped the edge of the cloth and whipped it aside. Hadassah tumbled in first, followed by Karma and Draco into a pile of limbs. Taki clenched his teeth and his eyes moistened.
“I hate you all! Go die in a fire!” he shouted, and bolted from the tent, leaving a confused Andromeda behind to also glower at the trio.
Taki ran to the edge of camp with his face burning and his nose leaking. He almost barreled head-on into a Pantheon lieutenant, but did not stop to apologize. His pride had been grievously wounded, and he wanted most of all to run away. From his squad, from Andromeda, from the Behelit, from Amilia Gillette, from impending death. When he ran out of breath, he finally crouched in between a pair of barrels and dry-heaved while tears fell from his eyes. He wanted to find an endless pit and jump into it until he could curl up into a ball in the gullet of the fallen Lucifer, trapped in eternal ice at the center of the earth. Judas had it good there: he didn’t have to deal with this much humiliation.
“Natalis?” Lotte asked from behind. Taki turned and glared at her fiercely. She scrunched her brow and approached. “What’s wrong?”
“You know what’s wrong, Captain! I thought… I thought you all were trying to help me, but—” He sniffled and sucked a stalactite of snot back into a nostril.
“Oh no, what did they do?” Lotte sighed, and crouched down beside him.
“Begging your pardon, but don’t play ignorant with me. Gillette showed me the letter with your signature on it.”
“That? He told me he wanted to give you something nice because he felt sympathetic after how the triada treated you. I assumed he wanted to buy you a courtesan, and I gave him leave to do so. Did this not happen?”
“Oh Captain,” Taki sighed, and wiped his eyes. “He did, but they were all trying to…to watch me! And they were taking bets on how long I’d last.”
Lotte rolled her eyes. “Idiots. I don’t suppose I can convince you that they actually meant well? Karma showed me what he was going to spend. Seven rounds of thirty-ought-six: enough to buy the only girl in camp without the pox. But it looks like they all shot themselves in the foot, yet again.”
“He spent that much?” Taki brought a hand to his mouth to hide his grimace.
“And now he’s out the full amount. But that’s their fault, not yours,” Lotte said with a knowing smile. She stood and offered her hand. “Walk with me for a bit. I want to stretch my legs after a rather dry and uninteresting meeting with our commanders.”
Taki nodded, and rose. Unlike Andromeda’s silky softness, Lotte’s grip was callused throughout. Lotte felt warmer, though. They walked in silence past mounds of night soil left by the cavalry and grog lines redolent of sweat, until she came to an outcropping at the northern edge of the camp, and motioned for him to sit down beside her.
“You can see the Imperial camp in the distance,” she said, and pointed far north. Taki strained his eyes. Despite the puffiness around his sockets, he could see flickering, almost ethereal specks of torchlight in the otherwise uninterrupted darkness. “And that outcropping is where you’ll use the Behelit.” She shifted her finger to a rest over ledge overlooking the pass.
“Right over the bottleneck?” Taki asked. “Won’t that be heavily contested?”
“Our side will pay dearly for every step. History says that whoever controls the hills near the pass wins the day. So that’s where we’ll be tomorrow.”
Taki swallowed and shivered, despite the balmy night air. He looked over to Lotte.
“Are we doing the right thing?”
“Who can say? In the fire of battle lies purity. I’ve always found my truth there. But I can tell that you might think differently these days.”
“I…I will follow your orders no matter what. You are my commander, and no one else.”
“Thank you, Taki Natalis,” Lotte said. She inhaled and ran a hand through her hair. “So, were you at least able to lose it?”
“Lose what?”
“Your virginity. Did you do the deed?”
“No. I just kissed her. Now I feel bad for frittering away Gillette’s money.”
“Was it your first?”
“Yes.”
“Damnation, what a waste,” Lotte said, wistfully.
Taki hung his head. “You’re right. I should go apologize to him, after all.”
“No, I was cursing the fact that your first kiss was blown on some camp follower.”
Taki blinked in confusion. “Who else would I have given it to?”
Lotte leaned over, lifted his chin with her fingers, and pressed her lips to his. Taki stiffened in surprise, but quickly melted. A stray lock of her hair fell in front of his nose and tickled him with the scent of gun oil and leather. Andromeda smelled of flowers, and Lotte of warfare. His heart throbbed in his chest and his eyelids fluttered shut as they had before, but much more intensely now. When Lotte broke the kiss off, Taki’s lungs ached, his vision blurred, and his stomach twisted as if wrung by her hands.
“If only…If only you were older, I’d have—” she said with a note of bitterness, and looked away while clenching her teeth. After a few moments, she faced him again. “Well, it’s not much, but I hope this puts some salve on the wound.”
“Captain…” he whispered, and reached for her. His lips burned. His skin tingled madly, from the top of his scalp to his blistered soles. It was a horrific and yet exquisite sensation, this irrational, overpowering desire.
“Don’t expect more, Natalis,” she said, and rose to stand out of his grasp. “I’m your commander. I still own your ass, and I expect you to die when I say so.”
Taki swallowed on a dry throat and snapped back to reality. She was right, of course. A relationship between them was mere fantasy, especially when tomorrow was their last day on earth. She had merely shown him a hint of sweetness to assuage his disappointment, so that he would not be jaded forevermore. No wonder Hadassah and Draco revered her so much. No wonder Karma had chosen her over Jibriil, and if the archangel was representative of who lorded over the best companies, then Taki didn’t want to be in one of them anymore. He rose and saluted. With all that he’d seen, the prospect of dying for the exarch, for the triada, or for the Dominion was stupid and rage-inducing. But for Lotte, and even for his companions, he’d go out with a smile on his face. “Yes, ma’am!”
Tomorrow, Taki would perish a mere corporal in the worst unit in the Cloud Temple. And he was satisfied.
13
Thermopylae burned again before dawn. Bristling pike heads glinted in the light of smoldering Imperial war machines as Lacedaemonian phalanx punched steel into the bodies of their enemies. They buckled against charges by screaming Imperial halberdiers who tried to cut a path for their armored war-dozers to advance without being swarmed by infantry and saboteurs. Behind the phalanxes, Argead tanks sent up great plumes of exhaust as they maneuvered back and forth, trying to hit counterparts on the Imperial side. Errant shells plowed into the battle-lines, sending columns of men flying on both sides.
Cossack skirmishers melted in and out of Imperial formations, and picked off Dominion officers with well-placed head shots. Their efforts were answered by mortar r
ounds from the mountainside. Clay-covered shells splashed gelatinous fire on plate-armored shock troopers and cooked them in their carapaces. As soon as the artillery fired, however, their crews were melted by a deluge of molten lead from above. Bulbous, patchwork balloons hovered in the sky like distended waterskins, tethered to the ground by long lengths of rope and chain. Suspended under each distorted shape was a gondola where Imperials stoked fires to keep themselves afloat and keep their deadly payload hot.
“Now that’s just unsporting,” Draco sighed as another river of fire spilled from above and crashed to the ground on the Argead side. A column of Thracian peltasts dissolved under the onslaught and fled despite the curses of their officers.
“I want to peg it,” Hadassah said. “I’m pretty sure they’re committing some kind of crime against nature, like dentistry, or shaving the pudenda!”
“Never mind their devilry! Focus on what’s in front of you,” Lotte shouted. She glanced back at her squad who sheltered in the crater with her.
They had mobilized hours beforehand, seeking to get an early start to the overlook. They had gone with the Wolf Pack and Pantheon as well as a company of Cretan musketeers. In total, almost five hundred fighters. From the moment they had set foot on the rocky hillside they were at a disadvantage, for the high ground was already swarming with enemies. Pantheon engaged Varangians early on, only to discover that spetsnaz were embedded among the heavy-armored fighters. Gunfire quickly turned to elemental discharges punctuating aerial duels to the death. The Wolf Pack was forced to attempt a flanking maneuver to bail their companions out, leaving Lotte and her soldiers on their own.
They pushed on with half of the musketeers in tow. Now they were less than a hundred meters from their destination, but were pinned down at the far end of a sedge field. Janissaries had taken over an Argead artillery tower and turned the cannon and ballistae around. Shells and bolts raked the ground and tore the hillside to muddy pieces, while cavalry harassed them from the sides with charges and feints. An ancient shepherd’s wall of piled stone and a few miserable holes provided the only cover.
“Emmy, spot for me! I’ll see if I can take out the gunners inside,” Hadassah said. A four-pounder ball sailed overhead and its wake kicked loose pebbles against her head. She spat in annoyance and slapped the bottom of her magazine to assure that it was seated properly. Draco cautiously rose and snuck his spyglass over the jagged rim of stone.
“I wouldn’t do that,” he said, panning his view across the field. “They have enough men operating the guns to replace whoever you kill. If we become enough of an annoyance, they’ll just blow up our cover and we’ll be screwed.” Further ahead, a group of ten Cretans behind a fallen tree decided to charge. Half of them rose and fired over the barricade, while the other five made a dash for another crater. Hundreds of lead balls from a load of canister shot smashed into the men and left only their boots. Draco withdrew his glass and crouched down again.
“So we’re stuck here? Until what? I refuse to pee in such cramped quarters,” Hadassah said.
Hoofbeats thundered nearby and she shouldered her rifle. Through its scratched reflex sight, she eyed a quintet of charging Imperial kataphracts whose lances aimed to skewer the squad. She cackled and tenderly squeezed her trigger. Bullets roared from her barrel and smashed into the lead man’s breastplate. He dropped his lance, grasped at the tiny hole in his armor, and fell gracelessly from his horse to the mud. The second round Hadassah fired slammed into another kataphract’s helmet with a resounding clank and he tumbled backwards. By this time Taki and Karma had unslung their carbines and were ready to fire.
“Kill the horses!” Lotte shouted. The Argead flanks had fallen, to allow a cavalry charge so deep into their lines. Burst of fully-automatic fire pierced the chain armor on the kataphract mounts and the massive chargers toppled to the ground along with their riders. The Imperials were fully prepared for this possibility, however, and easily wriggled out from under their stricken horses. Spiked pole-hammers in hand, they charged on foot.
“Allow me!” Draco said. He bounded forward to roll under the sweeping arc of a hammer, and whirled around to smash his fighting iron into his attacker’s neck. The force was enough to shatter vertebrae underneath steel, and the man dropped. Another attempted to stick Draco with a sidesword, but missed. Draco swept his enemy’s legs with the fighting iron and brought the man down on his back. Before he could get up, Draco smashed a charged fist into his helmet. The impact cratered steel and splattered brain tissue through the faceplate. The remaining fighter dropped his hammer and drew a double-barreled scattergun from its scabbard on his chest. Draco zigzagged to dodge the first load of shot, and drew his revolver. Before the second round could go off, six rounds tore into the kataphract’s chest and dropped him where he stood. Calmly, Draco returned to cover and methodically ejected the spent rounds from his pistol.
“Major! Can you somehow protect us from the cannon?” Taki asked, as he replaced the depleted clip in his Bastard with a fresh one. Deflecting the last charge had won them some respite, though it would be short.
“But it’s fun to watch you dodge cannonballs,” Hecaton drawled. To Taki, she appeared to be not so much hunkering down under fire, but languidly sunning herself while sipping from a flask of rotgut.
Does she just have fun, no matter who gets killed? he wondered.
“What about smoke? You used something similar when we were at Vergina,” Lotte said.
“Oh? This little guy? But he’s all I have left,” Hecaton said, drawing a small frog fetish from her pocket. Though miniscule, it had been crafted with exacting detail and an emphasis on vulgar, bulbous protrusions. From its open mouth protruded a fuse instead of a tongue. A lascivious grin to invite malfeasance. “I’ll let you have it for a hundred rounds of Old Nayto!”
“Send the bill to Babu!” Lotte said, snatching the fetish away from her Major. “Company! I’m going to throw this as far as I can. Invoke your best sutras and be ready to charge the front. When you get to the tower, storm them from the flanks. Smash them to pieces! Are you ready?”
Glowing blue Thureos fields surrounded bodies and shrouded eyes. Lotte lit the fuse, and satisfied that it was sparkling vigorously, hurled the frog with all of her might over the broken wall and into the field. A few seconds later, a small thump rang out and dark purple plumes shot into the air, almost tangible in their thickness.
They charged the field. Lotte ripped the canvas away from a heavy load she had carried all this way and unveiled what she had taken instead of her usual shield: an ancient belt-fed machine gun, ornately graven and heavily altered to allow a user to fire from the hip, and one of the archangel Michail’s most valued treasures. The air throbbed around her as she pulled the trigger and sent bursts of heavy fire toward the cannon tower. The heavy ammunition blew fist-sized holes in concrete and killed men crouching behind. Chaos erupted within the tower as soldiers crushed each other in a rush to leave.
Karma was the first to reach the battery. He quickly tossed a brace of stick grenades through the front slit, before darting around to the back entrance. Green-armored soldiers spilled out of the doorway as the charges went off, only to run into Karma’s swords. Draco and Taki swooped in from the other side to trap the Imperials. They emptied their guns into the confused men, drew their steel, and plunged into the fray. Lotte now joined Karma, and set to work with her flamberge.
Before long, the squad stood amidst dozens of bodies, panting heavily. Draco grimaced and squeezed a handful of his hair, which dripped red around his boots. Taki tried in vain to blow into his cupped hands to warm them and shake off a layer of frost left by casting sutra. Staccato cracking of pistol fire rang out from within the tower as Karma and Hadassah cleared the place of any last holdouts. After a few minutes, the two emerged from the smoking darkness, coughing and sputtering.
The surviving Cretans arrived with Hecaton in tow and set to stacking bodies and extinguishing fires so that the tower could be us
ed as their strongpoint again. Lotte flicked the gore off of her sword and fastened it back to her harness, then plopped down on a bale of straw outside. Since the battle at the citadel, she had been more conscious of conserving her energy.
“Everyone rest and eat,” she ordered. “We’ve won this field.”
The others muttered their agreement as they sat down on ruined pallets and clumps of straw around a small cookfire. Karma had located some salt-cured beef earlier, while Taki set to work cutting up a head of cabbage he found nearby. With the help of a dented cookpot nearby, they soon found themselves with a salty stew. Hecaton, of course, took the lion’s share.
“Much obliged for the break, Captain,” Draco said. He sipped steaming broth from a helmet.
“You earned it with your valor, Emreis,” Lotte said. She took a chunk of beef from his improvised bowl and plopped it into her mouth.
“Are we really about to extinguish the light of a hundred thousand souls?” Karma muttered. He topped off the magazine on his rifle with a few rounds, and gingerly fed it into the action.
“Didn’t you say it would be cool to watch?” Draco asked. Karma drew his charging handle back and let it slam home.
“A few pints of blood are necessary mortar for any kingdom, but an ocean? I wonder.”
Draco smiled. “Perhaps you aren’t a total psychopath after all, Gillette.”
“Hey now, don’t kill my mystique.”
Lotte stood and looked at the sky with trepidation. “We should move now. You lot reload and check your blades and plate for cracks. We’ll not be made fools of this time, especially if we’re going to get vaporized for our trouble.”
Taki spoke. “Can I ask one thing, Captain?”
