***
Wren stared down at the plain, across the miles, to a place where many campfires had lately burned like fireflies. At that distance, most men would have seen nothing but the fields and the rivers, but Wren’s demon was with him. He could feel it in his eyes, a tight feeling like someone twisting knotted cords around his skull, and it sharpened his vision to excruciating precision. Tiny men in blue milled and marched and formed ranks, teams of horses were harnessed to cannon, and cavalrymen checked their saddles and mounted. An army, preparing for battle.
The brush beside him rustled. With his demon’s strength wholly poured into his eyes, Wren’s hearing was no better than a normal man’s, and only the discipline of long training kept him from starting at the sound. Instead he let out a long breath and forced himself to relax, letting his demon return to its resting state. Between blinks, the clarity of his vision faded, though it still would have put any hawk to shame. Sound rushed back in, every tiny rustle and animal noise of the forest now as obvious as a fanfare. He could hear the heartbeats of the two men who now stood beside him, and their breathing was as loud as the rasp of a bellows.
“The Vordanai are breaking camp,” he said. He spoke in Murnskai, the native tongue of those raised in the fortress-temple of Elysium. “But not to retreat. Vhalnich will offer battle to di Pfalen.”
“Bold,” said the man on his left.
He was much older than Wren, well into middle age, with a bald dome of skull sticking up from a ring of black and gray. His name, the only one that Wren had ever heard anyone use, was the Liar. Like Wren, he was dressed in simple peasant garb, but his hands might have invited comment: his nails were each at least an inch long, and painted with gleaming white resin.
“Di Pfalen has the numbers,” Wren said. “He has broken his force into three columns to attempt to cut off Vhalnich’s escape.”
The Liar snorted. “I might not be so confident in his place, given Vhalnich’s reputation.”
Wren shrugged. The Liar liked to pass himself off as an expert in military matters, as in everything else, but the basic situation was simple enough. The revolution that had broken out after the death of King Farus VIII had shocked the civilized world, placing a sacred monarch in thrall to a mere elected parliament. With due encouragement from Elysium, the great powers of the west—Borel, Murnsk, and the Free Cities League—had gone to war to restore the rightful order. But declaration of war was one thing, and action another. Seafaring Borel preferred the slow weapons of blockade and economic warfare, while vast, backward Imperial Murnsk could take months to assemble her armies.
The League, on the other hand, was not a nation but a bickering, fractious collection of semi-independent polities. Vheed, Norel, and the more distant cities had sent only token contingents or empty promises to the supposedly common cause. Only Hamvelt and its close allies had leapt at the chance to defeat their longtime rival. So it was here, to familiar plains between Essyle and Desland, where the ever-shifting border between Vordan and the League ran, that the Vordanai had sent their newly minted hero. Janus bet Vhalnich. Conqueror of Khandar, vanquisher of the Last Duke, savior of Vordan. Heretic. Sorcerer.
“We will observe the result,” the Liar said. “If Vhalnich falls, or is taken, our task is simplified. If not . . .”
The third man grunted. He stood with his arms crossed over his massive chest, more than a head taller than either of his companions. His craggy face was made ferocious by a thick, unkempt black beard like wild thornbush, and his small dark eyes glared out ferociously from deep, sunken sockets. While he was dressed like the other two, no one would ever take him for a simple laborer. Quite aside from his enormous frame, the air of menace he projected was unmistakable. His name was Twist. Wren had rarely heard him speak more than a single word at a time, and often he was not even that voluble.
“Either way,” Wren said, “we’ll need to get closer.” They were still a solid day’s ride from the place that would soon become a battlefield.
The Liar nodded. “We will seek another vantage. Ready the horses.”
Wren got to his feet, legs aching from too long spent absolutely still, and suppressed a frown. The Penitent Damned had no formal hierarchy among themselves, no ranks or chain of command apart from their shared obedience to the Pontifex of the Black. On the rare occasions when they did not work alone, their orders made it explicit who was to lead. The Liar was an agent of many years’ standing, and this was Wren’s first mission outside Murnsk, so it made sense that the older man was in charge. But Wren occasionally suspected the Liar of harboring a taste for idleness and worldly pleasures that was inappropriate for his position, and it led him to treat Wren like a servant instead of an equal. It was something to raise with the pontifex on their return.
They had six horses, enough to carry their gear and provide remounts if they needed a burst of speed. Wren went through the familiar ritual of preparing saddles and tack, loading the camp supplies, and fixing each animal with his supernatural senses for a few moments, listening to their breathing and heartbeats. Satisfied that nothing was amiss, he led them one by to the edge of the woods. Last in line was Twist’s mount, a huge, stocky gelding matched to the big man’s weight.
Twist took the reins from him with another grunt and heaved himself gracelessly into the saddle, provoking a snort of complaint from the animal. The Liar mounted more skillfully, a testament to half a lifetime spent in the saddle in the service of the order. Wren paused in front of his favorite mare, staring out to the north.
“Wren?” the Liar said. “Is something wrong?”
Wren closed his eyes and let the demon rush to his ears. The sounds that had been barely a shiver in the air a moment ago were now loud and distinct, low crumps and rumbles like distant thunder. In between, he could even hear the faint skirl of drums.
“Wren?” the Liar repeated, words booming in Wren’s ears like the voice of God.
Wren opened his eyes and let the demon slither away inside his skull.
“It’s begun,” he said.
Part One
Chapter One
Winter
“Keep it up! They’re giving way!” Winter Ihernglass shouted.
The air was thick with acrid smoke, slashed by the brief brilliant flares of muzzle flashes. Musketry roared around Winter like a continuous crackling peal of thunder, and she had no way of knowing whether her soldiers could hear her. Her world had contracted to this small section of the line, where a dozen young women of the Girls’ Own stood behind the shot-torn hedgerow, each going through the drill of loading her musket: ramming the ball home, priming the pan, and bringing the weapon back up to firing position.
The Hamveltai were unseen in the murk, visible only by the flash of their own muskets. But they were weakening—Winter could feel it—the return fire becoming more scattered and sporadic. Just a minute more. She walked along the line, shouting herself hoarse and slashing the air with her sword, while the constant din of the muskets rattled the teeth in her skull.
Ahead, she saw one of the casualty teams, made up of girls too young or too small to carry a musket. They worked in threes and fours, running up to the hedge whenever a soldier went down and dragging her back a few paces to assess the injury. As Winter watched, the team ahead of her abandoned a woman who’d taken a ball high in the chest and leaked a wide swath of blood into the muddy earth, and went back to retrieve a plump, matronly woman who’d fallen on her side, clutching a shattered hand. As they got her to her feet, one of the smaller girls suddenly doubled over, clutching at her gut with both hands. One of her companions looked her over, shook her head, and left her where she fell.
Brass Balls of the Beast. It was a scene Winter had witnessed before, but she couldn’t get over how quickly girls who’d been selling flowers in Vordan not three months earlier had adapted to the brutal necessities of the battlefield. She thrust away a pang of guilt. Th
ere wasn’t time for that. No time for anything but survival.
Winter hurried past the casualty team, stepping quickly around the dying girl, and continued down the line looking for Bobby. The young woman, who’d been a corporal in Winter’s company on Janus’ Khandarai campaign, now sported white lieutenant’s stripes on her shoulder. A knot of women were gathered behind a dense spot in the hedge, loading awkwardly while crouched and then standing to loose another shot into the thickening bank of smoke.
“Bobby!” Winter said, grabbing her arm and pulling her close enough to hear over the din. “Go to Jane, tell her to move in!”
Bobby’s pale skin was already grimed with powder residue. Like Winter, she was one of the few in the Girls’ Own to have an honest-to-goodness regulation uniform; unlike Winter’s, hers was no longer tailored to conceal the truth of her gender from prying eyes. When Janus had created the all-female Fifth Volunteer Battalion from the ragtag group of volunteers Winter and Jane had led into battle at Midvale, Bobby had elected to discard her disguise. She had been the one who’d taken the nickname “Girls’ Own”—a play on the name old royal regiments, the King’s Own, and the Boy’s Own Guide series of books for children—and turned it from mockery into a badge of honor. Next to Winter and Jane, she was probably the most respected officer in the battalion.
She was also—cursed, enchanted, Winter didn’t know what to call it—by the Khandarai naath that had saved her life. Winter knew that the scars of her wounds had healed, not in puckered skin, but as smooth, glittering stuff like living marble.
Bobby saluted to acknowledge the order, handed her musket to the nearest soldier, and hurried off to the right, bent double to keep her head from sticking above the hedge. For all the good that will do. A hedgerow might deflect a musket ball, but mostly it was good for hiding behind, and that only mattered against aimed fire. Nobody was aiming now; if not for their muzzle flashes and the accompanying noise, Winter wouldn’t have been able to say whether the enemy was still there. She turned back in the other direction, keeping her eyes open for any signs of wavering or incipient panic, and was pleased to find her soldiers still firmly committed to their bloody work. The Hamveltai were laying down a hot, heavy fire, but for the moment the Girls’ Own seemed to be standing up to the pressure.
As she moved toward the left, she could hear the deeper growl of artillery underneath the musketry. The hedge led to a small hamlet in that direction, no more than a dozen buildings, which was defended by a battalion of volunteers and half a battery of guns. Something was on fire—she could see the glow, even through the smoke—but the noise indicated the men there were still fighting hard.
On the right side of the line, the hedge took a dogleg forward a hundred yards before ending at a wide dirt path. Jane was waiting on the far side of that angle with another four companies, hunkered down and silent up until now, waiting to execute the trap. Winter didn’t want her troops going toe-to-toe with a battalion of regulars longer than they had to.
Reaching the center of her line, Winter pressed herself against the hedge between a pair of soldiers and listened. A couple of minutes for Bobby to run to Jane, a couple of minutes to get ready . . .
A chorus of hoarse battle cries, identifiably feminine even through the rattle and bang musketry, rolled out of the smoke on the right. All along the line, Winter’s soldiers echoed the cheer, which was followed in quick succession by a blaze of new firing. More flashes stabbed through the smoke, at right angles to the Hamveltai position, as Jane led her troops in a charge with fixed bayonets that took the enemy line end-on. As Winter had guessed, that convinced them that their position was untenable, and before another minute had passed there was no more shooting to her front. Along the hedgerow, the women of the Girls’ Own were cheering themselves hoarse.
“Make sure those muskets are loaded!” Winter shouted, over the celebration. “They’ll be back.”
“You should have seen the looks on their faces,” Jane said. “Bastards were so surprised they didn’t even have a chance to shoot back.”
“Nicely done,” Winter said. Though rumors of the infamous female regiment had no doubt spread through the enemy camps by now, the League soldiers were always startled when they came to actual face-to-face contact with the Girls’ Own. Winter was happy to use their hesitation to her advantage, if it meant keeping her troops alive. “Any prisoners?”
“A few dozen,” Jane said. “Plenty of wounded out there, but we didn’t take any that couldn’t walk.”
They were squatting in the muddy dirt, a few yards back from the hedge. With the lull in the fighting, some of the Girls’ Own were helping the casualty teams, carrying the wounded to a temporary station in the rear and dragging corpses clear of the firing line. Winter had cautioned them not to go too far. It was too easy to get caught up helping a wounded comrade and forget that the battle wasn’t over yet.
To the left, artillery still growled, but the musketry had died away, indicating that the attack on the hamlet had tapered off while the League cannoneers continued the argument with their Vordanai counterparts at long range. The smoke was beginning to drift apart, torn into scraps by the late-morning breeze. Looking at the sun, Winter thought it was still at least an hour before noon; she already felt as if they’d been there for days. She closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and returned her mind to the matter at hand.
“See if any of the men you took speak Vordanai. I’d love to know what else they’ve got out there.”
“You think they’ll try it again?”
“I think they’ve got to. They want to push through here to take Janus from behind.” It felt odd to her to casually refer to the general of the army—much less a count of Vordan—by his first name, but it had become a universal practice among the troops he commanded, as a demonstration of their affection for their strange commander. “They tried a narrow swing around the hamlet, and ran into us. So what’s next?”
Jane shrugged. “You’re the soldier.”
Winter grimaced, but it was true, in a sense. While there were times when she still felt like a fraud—it was hard not to, when everyone but a select few thought she was a man—it was hard to deny that she had more military experience than anyone else in the Girls’ Own, with the possible exception of her ex-corporals Graff and Folsom. For that matter, she had more combat experience than almost anyone in Janus’ Army of the East, which was an awkward conglomeration of old Royal Army troops and scratch battalions of revolutionary volunteers.
Jane’s experience was of a different sort. They’d been lovers, long ago, at Mrs. Wilmore’s Prison for Young Ladies, before Jane had been dragged away into involuntary marriage to a brutal farmer and Winter had escaped to join the army. While Winter had spent three years in Khandar, lying low, Jane had escaped from servitude, freed the rest of the girls from the Prison, and brought them to Vordan City. There they’d fought criminal, tax farmers, and anyone else who got in their way, forming the core of the Leatherbacks and striving to provide a rough justice to the Docks. When Winter and Jane had been reunited in the chaos of the revolution—with a helping hand, Winter guessed, from Janus bet Vhalnich—Jane’s girls joined the fight to save the city from Orlanko.
Now they made up almost half the Girls’ Own, and Jane herself had accepted an officer’s rank, but she didn’t pretend to know anything much about tactics. Winter scratched a rough line in the earth with the toe of her boot. “If I were them, I’d feel us out to the right. If they’ve got another couple of battalions, they could throw one against us here and push another one down the road to get behind us.”
“And if we run for it, they can surround the town,” Jane said. She looked to the south, where only the occasional hedge broke the endless, open country. A lone wood-topped hill, miles distant, loomed like a distant gray monolith. “If they get us with horsemen in the open . . .”
Winter nodded. Jane might not have
had a military education, but she had good instincts. The Girls’ Own were brave, dedicated troops, but they didn’t have the training to form square and stand off cavalry in the open. The volunteers that made up most of the rest of the force Janus had left to blunt the League advance were the same. They had only one regiment of “Royals”—professional soldiers of the old Royal Army—and a retreat under those circumstances could easily become a rout.
“I’ll send Bobby to Colonel de Ferre,” Winter said. “If he brings up the reserve before they get here, we can give them another nasty surprise. They’ve got to get sick of banging their heads against this wall eventually.”
Jane nodded and got to her feet. “I’ll get some of the girls out past the smoke to give us a bit of warning.”
Winter stood a bit more slowly, her legs already aching. Her throat felt suddenly thick, in a way that had nothing to do with having spent the morning shouting at the top of her lungs.
“Be careful,” she said.
Jane smiled, her familiar, mischievous smile, and gave a slapdash salute. Winter fought a sudden impulse to wrap her arms around her. Instead she nodded, stiffly, and watched Jane stride back toward the front line.
A passionate embrace between the commander of a battalion and his chief subordinate might have been a bit unorthodox, by old army standards, but Winter wasn’t sure it would have made a difference if she’d given in to the temptation. Caution was an old, ingrained habit, though, and she tried to impress the importance of it on Jane. They lived in a weird fog of half-truths and lies—the fact that Captain Ihernglass was sleeping with Lieutenant “Mad Jane” Verity was an open secret, at least among the Girls’ Own, who gossiped as badly as the old Colonials had. But only a small cadre among them, Jane’s former Leatherback girls, knew the secret of Winter’s gender. So far, they’d kept her confidence—Jane’s girls were nothing if not loyal—but having that knowledge so widely spread made Winter intensely nervous.
The Shadow of Elysium (Shadow Campaigns) Page 6
