Bobby hurried over and snapped a crisp salute. One of her sleeves was red with blood.
“Jane said you wanted to see me, sir?” she said.
“Are you all right?” A foolish question, Winter thought. Bobby was the one soldier on the field who was virtually guaranteed to live through the day’s fighting, thanks to the ongoing legacy of her experience in Khandar.
“What?” Bobby caught sight of the blood and shook her head. “Oh, it’s nothing. I was helping with the wounded.”
Winter nodded. “I need you to ride to Colonel de Ferre. Tell him we need reinforcements here, at least a battalion, to extend the line on the right. We haven’t got the strength to stretch that far, and if they get around us this whole position could come unstuck.”
“Yes, sir!”
Bobby saluted again and hurried rearward. There was a small aid post there, where the battalion cutters did what they could for the casualties until they could be taken for proper care. Beside it was a string of horses, kept ready for couriers and other emergencies. Winter watched her mount up, then turned back to the front.
The corpses of the fallen had been removed from the line, and the injured helped to the rear. Now small parties vaulted the hedgerow, cautiously, and searched among the dissipating smoke for enemy wounded. Any who seemed likely to survive were taken prisoner and sent through the line for treatment.
The enemy were Hamveltai regulars, called yellowjackets for their lemon-colored coats, striped with black and worn over black trousers. They wore tall black shakos with gold devices on the front and long red plumes fluttering from the peak, the very image of professional soldiers. The contrast with the Vordanai, whose only uniform was a loose blue jacket worn over whatever each soldier had brought along, could not have been greater. But neat uniforms did not seem to provide any special protection from musket balls.
They were treated gently—orders on that subject had come down from Janus himself. The reasoning was not humanitarian, but brutally practical. The League commanders had made noises about treating Vordanai volunteers as partisans or bandits rather than soldiers due honorable captivity if captured, and the best defense against any abuses was for the Vordanai army to gather its own stock of prisoners against whom it could threaten retaliation, if necessary. That went double for the Girls’ Own, who had no idea what to expect if they fell into enemy hands. Winter knew there was a quiet trend among her soldiers to carry small daggers in the inner pockets of their uniforms, to be used for self-destruction in the last resort. It wasn’t something she encouraged, but she couldn’t blame them for wanting the reassurance.
A certain amount of looting went along with the gathering of captives. Officially, they were only supposed to scavenge ammunition, food, and other military supplies, but Winter noted quite a few of the search parties returning with insignia, plumes, and other trophies. Another practice to which she felt she had to turn a blind eye. She didn’t want her troops turning into ghouls, cutting off fingers to get at the rings, but pride in a hard-fought victory was something to encourage.
An outburst of laughter caught her attention. Over on the left, a knot of young women surrounded the stocky figure of Lieutenant Drake Graff, who was attempting to demonstrate the proper way to level a musket. It was hard to be sure under his thick beard, but Winter thought he was blushing. Another woman in a makeshift lieutenant’s uniform was looking on, and Winter walked over to stand beside her.
“Sir,” Cyte said, her salute almost as crisp as Bobby’s.
Winter nodded her acknowledgment. “How is it?”
“We missed the worst on this side,” Cyte said. “Anna got nicked by a splinter and bled a fair bit, but she’ll be all right. No casualties in our company otherwise.”
No wonder they’re in the mood for laughing, Winter thought, as another round of giggles came from the cluster around Graff. Cyte, following Winter’s gaze, heaved a sigh.
“They like to tease him,” she said. “I’ve tried to get them to stop, but . . .”
Winter shook her head. “Don’t bother. You won’t be able to.” Soldiers would have their fun, regardless of what their officers wanted. “Just make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.”
“What’s out of hand?” Cyte said. “Last week a gang of them found out where he was having a bath in the river and jumped in with him. They like to see him blush.”
Winter had to work to stifle a giggle of her own, picturing the gruff, hard-bitten Graff frantically averting his eyes and muttering through his beard. When Janus had offered her the services of her former corporals to fill out her new regiment, Winter tried to make it clear to them what they were getting into. Folsom had fit right in, his quiet assurance off the battlefield and foulmouthed tirades on it provoking something like awe among his troops. Bobby, of course, had not been a problem. Graff had taken the longest to decide, grumbling about the impropriety of it all before finally agreeing on the grounds that someone had to take care of things. For an old soldier, he was surprisingly straitlaced, a fact that his women had discovered and exploited with gusto.
Cyte was another matter altogether. Winter had been surprised to find the University student among her early volunteers. She’d been among the revolutionaries whom the speeches of Danton Aurenne had mobilized, and she and Winter had fought together to free the prisoners of the Vendre. After the victory of the revolution and the ascent of the Deputies-General to power, Winter had expected Cyte to take up a marginally safer life in politics. Instead she’d turned up not long after the declaration of war, with a copy of the Regulations and Drill of the Royal Army of Vordan under one arm and a quiet determination to master the military life that Winter found strangely familiar. Winter had quickly made her a staff lieutenant—recruited as it was mostly from the young women of the South Bank, the Girls’ Own was desperately short of people with the basic education to perform an officer’s duties.
“Someone’s coming,” Cyte said.
She pointed out across the field, where a lone figure was indeed sprinting through the remaining haze of smoke, headed for the hedgerow. Winter recognized Chris, one of Jane’s Leatherback leaders, now wearing a sergeant’s pips. Chris saw her at the same time, and headed in her direction, coming up hard against the hedge.
“Winter!” she said without even an attempt at a salute. Military niceties were not the strong point of Jane’s old cadre. “The yellowjackets are back.”
“Hell,” Winter said, looking over her shoulder. No sign yet of Bobby, much less of troops marching to their relief. “How many?”
“Looks like two groups,” Chris said. “They’re lining up just that way, on the other side of that little rise.”
Two battalions, Winter translated, deploying into line for the attack. “One of them out by the road?”
Chris nodded, gulping air.
Winter grimaced. “Where’s Jane?”
Chris pointed, and Winter hurried back along the line. Jane was helping hoist the returning scouts over the hedgerow, and Winter grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her aside.
“You’ve heard?” Jane said.
Winter nodded. “Bobby’s not back yet. De Ferre must be balking.”
“Bastard.” Jane smacked a fist against her palm. “Want me to go talk some sense into him?”
“I’ll send Folsom,” Winter said. “I need you here.”
“You want to try and hold them off?”
Winter gritted her teeth. If we fall back, the whole line could come unstuck. But to stand and fight, against these odds, would mean serious losses even if the line held. And if it breaks, they might run us all down.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” she said.
Jane looked at her, an odd light in her green eyes. “You’re in charge here,” she said. “What’s the plan?”
Django Wexler was born in San Francisco and raised in Westchester. He current
ly works for Microsoft in Seattle, Washington.
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