by Choi, Bryan
“They withdraw!” Draco shouted from out of sight.
Taki groaned and tried to ease out from under the corpse. The prana use and subsequent fighting had drained him. It was tempting to simply play dead and go to sleep, but he knew he could not. Reluctantly, he shuffled the burden off and pulled himself to his knees. Bodies lay sprawled out around him, staining the dirt crimson. Lotte stood over him and offered a hand.
“Are you hurt, Natalis?” she said.
“Nay, just tired is all.” He took her hand, and she pulled him up.
The cries of the wounded and dying were the same regardless of native tongue. What soldiers could be saved had been dragged over to the surviving part of the phalanx, where they were attended to with care, if not necessary supplies or knowledge. In the distance, the Mandate army loomed—injured, surprised, and angry.
“Captain!” Draco rushed over with Hadassah in tow. “There’s a party approaching. White flag.”
“Say the word, and I’ll mow them down,” Hadassah said.
Lotte shook her head. “No. They may violate the rules of decent conduct, but we will not.”
“Except when convenient,” Draco added solemnly.
Lotte glared at him and rose to her feet. “Natalis, with me. The rest of you, patch up.”
The Mandate party numbered four, and at first glance seemed to follow the promise of their flag. The lead rider, a wizened monk in lamellar and hide, signaled a halt. “We are impressed by your valor, woman. Because you fought so well, we will allow you and your army to retreat with your lives and your weapons.” The horse stamped at the ground, and the monk grasped the reins tighter.
Lotte crossed her arms. “Tell your master that I appreciate his offer. However, we are proud and honorable warriors of the Argead Dominion. The day will not end until you have been routed from the field.”
The monk scowled and reared his horse. “Know your place, wench! Turn back, or we will stain your souls to ruin! You will spend a thousand kalpa in the world of hungry ghosts!”
With that, the Mandate party turned their horses and galloped off.
“What the hell did he mean by that?” Taki asked as they trudged back to the battle line.
Lotte furrowed her brow. “I’m not sure, but I don’t like it. We’d best head back and prepare for another fight.”
Soon, something stirred among the rebel lines. At the front of the army was a cart. In it were three girls with their hands tied behind their backs. The seemed to be hungry and thirsty, with sunken eyes and lined faces. Their legs were smeared brown from dysentery. Armored men dragged the girls from the cart and forced them to their knees. They faced the army.
“No,” Lotte muttered under her breath. “Natalis, don’t look.”
“I’m not a child—” Taki started to say, but the next sight made him wish he’d obeyed.
The rightmost of the captured students barely had time to scream before one of the men drew a knife and started to saw away at her neck. Crimson streamed from her throat and slowly dripped down from her rags to the dust while she struggled and shook and then fell still. Murmurs of shock and anger started to swell from the Imperial ranks.
“Captain, it’s a clear shot from here,” Hadassah said. “I’ll get the motherfucker before he does the next one in.”
“Hold your fire,” Lotte said. “They’ll just get another to do it, and another, and another, and you’ll be out of ammunition for when you need it most.”
The second captive writhed as her throat was slowly sawn apart. Some of the pikemen shouted for an attack while others knelt and wept.
“Lotte, come on!” Hadassah’s eyes were teary.
Lotte inhaled sharply. “If you won’t follow orders, go to the rear!”
Hadassah gnashed her teeth and slammed the butt of her rifle into the ground. The third girl flopped to the dirt with her lifeblood spilled on the sand. Two Mandate fighters stepped forward and unfurled a long banner, upon which was written: “Three will die at every half bell. The next will burn.”
Aslatiel rode up and dismounted next to Lotte. “What should we do?”
“This can’t go on,” Lotte said. “If the enemy carries out the threat, our men will charge without orders or just rout. We either advance on the fort and get torn to pieces by their artillery, or we do nothing and lose anyway.”
“Can we spread out to reduce casualties?”
Lotte shook her head. “It’ll save us a few deaths from cannon, but then their cavalry will shred us.”
Taki cleared his throat. “If I may make a suggestion.”
“Speak quickly, Natalis,” Lotte said.
“We need to cut off the head. Get into the fort somehow and take their guns out, or kill the rebel leader and make sure their army knows it. Only then will our men have a chance to survive.”
“Aslatiel, can you spare any of your number?” Lotte asked.
Aslatiel nodded. “We’ll have my cavalry dismount and serve as extra musketeers. I’ll lead a group to circle around the rear and infiltrate. There’s no guarantee it’ll work, but it’s better than sitting around. Lotte, you have to keep them distracted on the field, or we’ll be overwhelmed inside.”
“We’ll gut as many of the bastards as we can. Also, take him with you.” She pointed to Taki. “He’s our best caster.”
“Will do,” Aslatiel said. “Natalis, mount up and follow me. We have less than a half bell to do this.”
“Captain, wouldn’t I be better by your side?” Taki said. “Especially because we don’t have artillery?”
Lotte shook her head. “Nay. You said it yourself. We need the serpent’s head off. You’ve seen what our enemy’s willing to do. I’ll take care of things down here.”
Taki swallowed. “Promise you won’t do anything rash.”
Lotte laughed. “I refuse to die today. I still have debts to call in.”
Taki struggled to control his ragged breaths as he skittered up a rocky incline and into a scrubby trench to join Aslatiel. The last hundred meters had to be crossed on foot, as the horses were spent from a merciless gallop. Soldiers on foot were much harder to spot, anyway. Their efforts had paid off, however, and now they were at the base of the Gyantse Dzong’s rear wall.
“Climb it. Ten meters apart,” Aslatiel signaled. Taki nodded and crept along the trench while hugging the wall. There were sentries pacing overhead, though they would hopefully be distracted by their desire to observe the battle. Taki opened his gates and started his ascent. The walls of Gyantse Dzong were in rather good condition for their age and only offered miserly handholds at best. He huffed and continued to pull himself up.
Enilna climbed nearby. Why her? Taki wondered. Why not actual hardened killers like Elsa or Mikhail? At least the Prince of Maladies is with us. Concentrate on the mission. Footfalls overhead made him freeze, and he heard the rustling of clothing. To his horror, a stream of golden-yellow liquid flew by, barely missing him.
Enilna’s eyes widened, and she looked as if she were about to go into convulsions. Taki glowered at her and continued his ascent. Near the top of the wall, he again heard footfalls. When they moved away, he decided to act.
Silently, he pulled himself over the edge and crouched behind a sentry clad in a leather jerkin and a loincloth. Taki slammed his knife home into the man’s kidney, withdrew the blade, and then sank it into the base of the skull. Brown slurry dripped from the sides of the sentry’s loincloth, and Taki stepped back in disgust. He looked around and noticed that Lucatiel had also made the ascent. Two heads rolled at her feet. Aslatiel and Enilna climbed over the wall a second later.
“That door,” Aslatiel whispered, and nodded to an open entrance nearby. “From here, split up. Luca, you and I look for the powder magazine. Natalis, you and Shpejtspate head up to top. Find and kill their leader. Dangle his body over the walls. Now go!”
Taki nodded to Enilna, and they made their way inside.
The interior of Gyantse Dzong was similar to the
Potala: dank, dark, and smoky. Inside, they could hear the sounds of men scurrying back and forth. Cannon fire reverberated through the halls. Taki suppressed the sick realization that his companions were being shelled. If we hurry, we’ll screw up. Breathe. He turned to Enilna and pointed at a set of stairs up. She followed, rapier in hand.
The first Mandate fighter they encountered was behind a doorway, squatting over the jakes. Taki’s blade pierced him true, and the man’s eyes rolled back in shock. The second, Enilna got from below with a rapier thrust that entered his lower back and came out his chest. The third, Enilna also claimed when she bashed his face in with the butt of her sword and then opened his throat. Taki felled the fourth through seventh by blasting them with a khala timed for the roaring of the cannons. So far, neither had heard gunshots, which meant that the von Halcons had managed to keep quiet.
At the top, Taki crouched near a large wooden doorway and silently gathered his prana. The door wouldn’t budge, so there was no other option but to blast it down and enter shooting. Enilna had drawn her Colt and clutched it to her chest. There was always the possibility that causing a ruckus would make things harder for the siblings below them, but Taki figured that Aslatiel was the type who would anticipate such an event.
“I’ll start,” he whispered. With his Herstal ready, he placed his left hand on the door right over where the bar would have sat on the opposite side. He started to chant. There were mantras that would enhance the power of most sutras. Those required time to prepare, but the effects were spectacular. With any luck, the ensuing blast would kill everyone in the next room with wood shrapnel. The thought of prisoners on the other side crossed his mind. He shook his head to clear away the thought. They were all dead if he did not succeed.
“My body is pierced by swords and fire, and thus I wake from this fleeting dream called life. My child, I beg of thee to bury me near water. I will rise again as a Sea Dragon and fight the hated aggressors from the east.”
The doorway shook, seemed to stretch, and exploded inward along with a good chunk of the stone around it. Taki whirled around and took aim. His bullets ripped into a man wearing dented plate and charging with an axe and also downed a tribesman trying to aim a swivel gun. Enilna’s Colt spouted fire and blew out the back of the last man’s skull before he could stick her with a spear. The dust started to settle, and Taki quickly looked around at the bodies. Besides the three who tried to attack, there were two others who’d been standing near the door and absorbed the brunt of the shrapnel. They were almost unrecognizable as humans.
“Which one?” Enilna asked.
Taki shrugged. “All of them, I guess. I don’t know which one was the leader. It’s disgusting, but we should start hacking off heads to display before anyone else comes in here for backup.”
Downstairs echoed the faint roar of gunfire. Probably the siblings’ handiwork, he reasoned.
“Yeah, that’s super gross, but you’re right,” Enilna said. “I have to find something better suited than my sticker.” She holstered her pistol and picked up the broad-headed spear she’d been threatened with.
Taki put his gun away and looped his arms under one of the corpses to drag it closer to the others. Too late, heard the rustling of fabric behind him. He whirled, only to face Jamukha.
“Hands on your head, Natalis. Turn to face the girl.”
Taki weighed his options. Jamukha pointed a sawn-off rifle at him; it looked like a butchered version of the Nagant that Hadassah had once used. A hit from that gun would easily pierce his armor and kill him. At this range, there was little hope of being able to dodge the shot. He put his hands on his head and faced Enilna. Her eyes narrowed to slits, and she shifted her grip on the spear.
“You’re no smuggler,” Taki said.
“Correct, Natalis. I lead these patriots. Like-minded souls who seek to restore the old ways.” Jamukha drew closer and grasped the back of Taki’s jerkin near the neck while pressing the gun into his spine.
“The three girls on the field,” Taki said. “Were you responsible?”
“I was.”
“Why the messy execution?”
“I wanted to send your leaders a message. The battlefield is no place for a woman.”
“So you stoop to barbarism? I thought you were a prouder man.”
Jamukha inhaled sharply. “Of all the indignities I suffered in the army, do you know what the worst one was? Having to take orders from a female. Really, when you give them that much power, they let it go to their heads quickly. Everyone suffers as a result. They have no sense of—” His words ceased abruptly as the tip of Enilna’s spear slammed into his face and split his head open.
Taki felt the spray of warm blood against his scalp and instinctively lurched away and tumbled to the ground. Madly, he slapped his palms against his chest to feel for a wound that didn’t exist.
“Sorry, I just couldn’t stand the rambling!” Enilna bent over and offered her hand with a smile.
Taki blinked and allowed her to help him. “Who the hell are you?”
“You don’t have to be so sour about it,” she pouted, and crossed her arms.
“I’m not being sour!”
“Yes, you are!”
“You could’ve killed me.”
“But I didn’t.”
“You’re too reckless.”
“You’re pissed off because you were saved by a girl. Admit it.”
“I’m angry because I almost died! Look, let’s display his body and be done with it.”
Enilna opened her mouth to retort but then started to laugh. “I just noticed something,” she chortled.
“What?”
“When you get flustered, your lips twitch.”
“So what now?” Draco asked.
Lotte narrowed her eyes. “We advance. We win, or we die.” She gazed at Irulan. A ragged hole marred the front of the woman’s chestplate. “How badly are you injured, Surenovna?”
Irulan smiled and shook her head. “It’s not even worth—” She was cut off by a coughing fit and hacked up a line of blood into the sand. Elsa rested a hand on her, trying to stanch the hemorrhage.
Lotte shook her head. “Gillette, get Emreis and put her on a litter…”
“You’ll not keep me from the fight,” Irulan chuckled, and wiped her lips. “I have a bet with the rector. If she kills more of them than I do, I have to marry one of her grandsons.”
Lotte resumed her place at the front of the tercio and raised her baton to command them. “Those who can fight, to the front! Wounded, to the rear!”
“Here they come,” Draco said. He shoved a clump of rags beneath his armor to stanch the blood from an earlier spear thrust and straightened his posture. The last column of rebels began to move, preceded by a line of horse gunners. At a slow trot, their aim was impeccable, and they methodically fired and reloaded with practiced ease. Lhasa pikemen started to fall.
Draco spat. “I guess this is the part of the story where we all die, eh?”
Lotte stared ahead, pointing her swords at the oncoming army. A ball smashed into her shoulder, and she stumbled but regained her footing. The main gauche fell to the ground, but she held her thrusting sword firmly. Her wounded arm felt as if the flesh were boiling under her steel, but she bit her tongue and endured the pain.
Karma fell, clutching his midsection. The cavalry now broke to the sides, satisfied that the tercio was softened up. The Mandate infantry quickened their pace in anticipation of an easy slaughter. Lotte let out a throaty roar and lunged forward.
A high-pitched whine struck their ears before the ground seemed to well up and burst like a pustular boil, sending Mandate men and pieces of men flying. Lotte could barely comprehend the sight before there was another whine and another explosion, and then another, and another. An endless stream of explosions that turned the world white and orange and unbearable. When Lotte opened her eyes again, where the enemy had stood, there was now only smoke and crater.
Scattered p
ockets of rebels wheeled around in a fugue. Fewer still attempted to run back to the fortress, only to fall to their knees at the sight of a man’s body suspended over the parapets by his ankles. Beneath Jamukha’s corpse was an unbroken red stripe over immaculate white.
8
After the bones were set, bleeding stanched, and infections burned away, it was time to lay the fallen to rest. Whether friend or enemy, the bodies had to be burned. Otherwise, the spread of plague would cause tenfold more deaths in the months to come.
Before the row of blazing funeral pyres was a small altar to Tengri, the omnipresence who oversaw the endless plateau from on high along with his riders. Piled on the altar were bowls of rice and handfuls of fruit. Countless joss sticks smoldered atop it and released a sinuous cloud of perfumed smoke. Flanking the altar in two lines, saffron-clad monks beat against wooden fish, sending an undulating beat into the surrounding night. They chanted in a throaty basso, in a language at once familiar and ancient.
Taki knelt at the altar, feeling awkward. What he was doing would have counted as blasphemy, were he still in his homeland. But I’m not there anymore. I’ll probably never return. Just like so many in this army won’t. Only a sliver of the Fifty-Fourth Suppression Army had escaped harm. It seemed like a greater blasphemy to abstain from paying respect, even in a heathen fashion.
He glanced at Lotte, who knelt beside him. To his surprise, her face was streaked with tears. As long as he had known her, she’d seemed like one who only took enjoyment from battle. He chanced a whisper. The others wouldn’t be able to hear over the monks’ droning.
“Captain, do you feel ill?”
She turned her head to face him. “No. Why do you ask?”
“You look morose.”
“And what of it?”
