The Shadow Throne: Book Two of the Shadow Campaigns

by Wexler, Django

  No point in readying another volley. Muskets were already firing to either side, and each member of Winter’s company brought her weapon up as soon as it was ready and sighted through the shredded smoke. Muskets began to flash again, and more blue-coated regulars fell. Winter could see her people making mistakes—firing too high, or before they’d brought the musket level, so the ball raised a miniature burst of earth and grass only a few yards on. At least one ramrod, left sticking out of the barrel, went pinwheeling out like a stick hurled for a dog.

  Here it comes. Winter kept her eyes on the enemy lieutenants, walking or riding behind their soldiers. It was too loud to hear the orders at this distance, but she could recognize the gestures. And everyone in the volunteer line could see the regulars halt, their first rank kneel, and the muskets come up to their shoulders.

  “Down!” Winter screamed, with all the lung power she could muster. At the same time she threw herself forward, spread-eagled in the grass and pressing her face into the dirt. From the sudden lack of fire to both sides, she thought her command had been followed—God, I hope they have the sense to follow—

  A real volley rolled out from the regulars, tight and precise, hundreds of simultaneous musket blasts coming together into a wall of sound that rolled over Winter like a wave and set her ears to ringing. She could feel it, through the ground, along with the thwack, thwack, thwack of balls hitting the earth. On her stomach, she made a hard target, but she was hardly invulnerable, and it took a few moments to convince herself that she hadn’t been hit. She pushed herself up on her elbows and raised her head, but the enemy was still invisible inside the roiling fogbank of their own discharge.

  “Up!” Winter shouted. “Fire at will!”

  She could hear Jane and Abby repeat the command, which eased her mind a fraction, but now the shrieks and curses rising from the battlefield were not only coming from the enemy. It was impossible to tell, from a scream of pain, whether it came from a man or a woman, but when Winter climbed to her feet, not everyone in her company did likewise. Whether those who remained still were wounded, dead, or simply frozen in terror, she had no way of knowing.

  Muskets fired again, and the smoke was closing in. The rest of the line became vague figures in the fog, periodically outlined against pink-white stabs of flame. With their first volley spent, still under fire, the regulars had gone from organized volleys to the old soldier’s standby of shooting off rounds as fast as they could manage, at whatever they thought they could hit. Winter’s company, and the whole line of volunteers, were doing likewise.

  This was where the real killing began, the two forces working each other over at close range like boxers drawn into a clinch. There was nothing for Winter to do but shout “Hold and fire! Hold and fire!” over and over, until her throat went raw and her voice was a ragged croak. Every breath tasted of powder smoke, and her heart slammed painfully hard in her chest.

  The irony of the battlefield was that neither side could see what effect their fire was having on the enemy, who was hidden behind the billowing smoke, but both could easily tell how badly they themselves were being hurt. Winter, stalking back and forth between smoke-shrouded figures, heard balls zip and zing as they went past, and watched silhouettes crumple and fall around her. A girl two yards to her front gave a quiet “Urk,” dropped her musket, and doubled over. Another screamed, clutching her leg and rolling back and forth in the grass. Other figures passed her by, shuffling wounded to the rear, or unhurt and running away—there was no way to tell.

  The enemy, she knew, was having it worse. They had to be having it worse. Her own people were spread out, able to kneel, or to step forward out of their cloud of smoke and take aim at enemy muzzle flashes. The regulars, trapped in their line, could only load and fire blind, while their tight-packed ranks made for a wonderful target. But there were more of them, more muskets that could be brought to bear and more bodies to throw into the grinder.

  “Pull it back!” Winter said. “Back up the hill! Open the range!”

  She started backward, not running but walking slowly, keeping her face toward the enemy. Jane was still shouting—thank God—and the girls of the company followed. They emerged from the gray-white fogbank one by one, like ghosts, muskets clutched with white knuckles darkened to black by powder grime.

  “She’s dead,” someone screamed. “I saw her—”

  “Has anyone seen—”

  “My sister, it hit her foot, she’s still—”

  “Keep firing!” Winter screeched, banshee-wild. “Load! Fire!”

  Hesitantly, the rattle of musketry rose again. Winter could see their faces now, tense and determined, or crying, tears cutting through the black grit as they brought the muskets to their shoulders. One girl jerked, a fountain of blood blooming high on her chest and blood soaking her shirt. She raised her musket to her shoulder, fired, then collapsed backward into the grass.

  A new sound thrilled through the firing. A skirl of drums, not the low, steady beat of the march but the rapid heartbeat-fast pace of the charge. Winter pictured six thousand bayonets coming out of their sheaths, wicked-sharp points gleaming as they snapped home.

  “Back! Up the hill!”

  Standing to receive the charge would be suicide. A formed body of troops would go through the thin line of volunteers like a rock through fog. But the regulars, packed tight, would have a hard time running down their more nimble opponents.

  A few muzzle flashes came from the enemy line, men firing as they ran. Winter backpedaled as her company turned and ran, searching the smoke for laggards. Balls twittered and zipped overhead, but she didn’t turn to run herself until the leading rank of Orlanko’s men emerged from the cloud of smoke, trailing streamers of gray fog from their uniforms. Then she sprinted up the slope and after the girls of her company, catching sight of Jane well ahead.

  Here and there along the line there was a clash of arms, as some volunteer who’d been too slow turned to fight or tried to defend a wounded comrade. The regulars charged like lancers, spitting these unfortunates on their fixed bayonets, then carried on up the hill with a cheer. Winter saw one thin figure—whether it was a boy or a girl, she couldn’t be certain—jump up from the grass like a pheasant taking wing in front of a hunter, only to be brought crashing down by a blast of musketry from the advancing line.

  The majority of the volunteers escaped their pursuers, however, and the regulars quickly realized the chase was futile. They slowed down, then halted, sergeants shouting furiously to dress their ranks. The men cheered at the sight of their enemies in panicked flight.

  “Halt!” Winter shouted. “Halt and fire!”

  This, she knew, was the moment of truth. Conventional military wisdom said that, once a body of men had broken formation and started to run, it was impossible to get them to return to the fight until they’d fled out of sight of the enemy and their ingrained discipline and fear of their officers could overcome the terror of battle. If that was true, the volunteers would keep running, down past the guns and the Colonials, and likely panic the formation of pikemen along the way.

  On the other hand, as Marcus had explained the plan, this was a different sort of army, with a different sort of soldier. They didn’t have a complicated formation to maintain, and more important, they had a cause, something beyond their immediate survival or possible punishment by their officers to motivate them. Janus was gambling that this would make them tougher than the time-serving rankers who opposed them.

  Whether it was true of the volunteers in general Winter couldn’t say, but her heart lifted when it became clear that Jane’s girls, at least, were going to confound the tactics manuals. They stopped running at her command, and as she jogged up toward where they were gathered, they went back into their loading and firing, their shots cutting short the cheers among the surprised regulars. More muskets cracked along the line—while some had no doubt continued to run, it se
emed as though the volunteers had justified Janus’ faith. For a few minutes, the enemy was dumbfounded, as balls zipped over their heads and men fell in place. Then, ignoring the shouting officers who were still trying to reorganize the ranks, they began to fire back. The smoke grew thick once again, and the nightmare of dimly seen figures firing and falling in spasmodic flashes began anew.

  Winter could well imagine the enemy commander’s consternation. The roar of musketry was continuous, but the return fire from the volunteers did not seem to be slackening. If they couldn’t be broken with firepower, they had to be shifted with cold steel, but when his troops stumbled forward they found their opponents flitting back out of their reach like ghosts, only to stop when the attack had spent itself and return to their constant, galling fire. Twice more the regulars worked themselves into a frenzy of cheers and charged, and both times they caught only a handful of stragglers.

  Among the volunteers, confidence was steadily increasing. Balls struck home, and men fell here and there along the line, but their loose formation made for a much harder target than the disciplined shoulder-to-shoulder ranks of the enemy. Janus’ artillery had joined in as well, switching its fire to the infantry and arcing balls to bounce through the enemy line. And when the breeze tore gaps in the wall of drifting smoke, they could see the damage they were inflicting. A carpet of blue-coated bodies marked the slow progress of the regulars across the valley floor and up the slope, mounding in drifts in some places where they’d halted to exchange fire.

  Whoever was in charge over there—Orlanko, Torahn, some army colonel—had one card left to play. How long will he hold it back . . . ?

  “Abby!”

  Jane’s shout jerked Winter’s attention back to the here and now, amid the skeins of drifting, powder-scented smoke. She saw a knot of her girls gathering, and hurried in their direction, trying to listen through the earsplitting din of musketry.

  “Spread out!” Winter croaked. Her voice was almost completely gone, and she resorted to grabbing the clustered girls by the arm and pushing them to either side. “Don’t make a target! Spread out!”

  “Winter!” Jane was bending over Abby’s prone body. Her voice was as raw as Winter’s. “I think she’s hit, but I can’t find where.”

  “We should—”

  “Help her,” Jane said. Her eyes were very wide, and her dark crimson hair had faded to dull gray under a layer of grime. The hand that reached out for Winter was gray as well, cut by streaks of sweat.

  Damn. Winter looked down at Abby, then up at the enemy. Damn, damn, damn. She knelt beside the girl, curtly waving for Jane to back off.

  Abby lay on her side. Winter took her shoulder and pushed her onto her back, limp arm flopping into the grass beside her. No time for half measures. If she’s dead . . . But taking a pulse was impossible amid the constant crash and jar of muskets and cannon.

  There was a crust of blood and a sticky trail, right at Abby’s hairline. Winter probed it tentatively with one finger, anticipating the soft, sick shifting that meant a shattered skull. Instead she found only a narrow ridge of torn flesh. Abby’s mouth opened, and she gave a low moan.

  “She’s alive.” Jane put her arms around Winter and squeezed tight, as though she were somehow responsible. “We have to get her out of here.”

  “We can’t leave the others,” Winter said. “Find a couple of the taller ones—”

  She stopped. Another sound was barely audible, under the blasts and concussions of the battle. More shouts, not the cheers of excited troops but screams and warning. And, beyond that, the rumble of hooves.

  “Run,” Winter said. She tried to raise her voice, but it came out as a hoarse squeak. “Run! Jane, tell them to run!”

  “I’ll take Abby—”

  “No!” Winter jumped to her feet and grabbed Jane by the arm. “Come on. There’s no time!”

  It was a few moments before Jane realized what was happening, and she allowed herself to be dragged a half dozen steps before digging in her heels. “What are you doing? We can’t just leave her!”

  “No time,” Winter gasped. Another couple of figures loomed out of the smoke, two of Jane’s girls. Winter grabbed one with her free hand, eliciting a squeak of surprise.

  “Help me with her!” she said, nodding at Jane. “We have to run. Back to the Colonials!” From somewhere, she found the energy to raise her voice one last time. “Run! Over the hill!”

  Gradually—thank God—the cry was taken up, passed down the line by those who still had the voice to spread it. The two girls took Jane by either arm and dragged her up the hill, away from where Abby had fallen, heedless of her orders and protestations. By the time they’d gotten clear of the smoke, the need for haste had become obvious to everyone.

  The cuirassiers, sweeping around the ends of the line of regulars, were converging on the volunteers from both sides. Even if they’d had fixed bayonets, without a tight formation there was no way to halt the cavalry charge. That was, after all, why the shoulder-to-shoulder line had made its way into the military textbooks—without a solid front of bristling steel, infantry was always vulnerable to a sudden rush by enemy horses.

  The volunteers ran for it. This wasn’t the steady jog they’d used to retreat from the regulars, but a true, panicked flight, streaming up the hill and over the crest. Some men tossed their muskets away in the panic, while others fell to the ground and lay still, hoping to be passed over. The cuirassiers were in among those who’d reacted slowly, sabers rising and falling in sprays of blood, cutting men down and trampling them into the dirt.

  Winter’s company, in the center of the line, had more warning than the others. They ran—even Jane, who’d fought free of her minders—and reached the line of artillery before the horsemen caught up with them. The artillerists waved them on, standing beside their pieces with flames in hand, ready to fire. Up ahead, over the crest of the hill, Winter could hear the steady beat of the Colonials’ drums. Square, square, form square.

  The riders ought to have pulled up, once they’d sent their prey running. But they’d spent the day being hammered at long range, and their thirst for revenge combined with the fox-hunt spirit of the chase to drive them onward. In the smoke, it was easy to keep going, chasing the next fleeing figure, hacking him down, and moving on to the next. By the time they broke out of it, they were too close to the guns to stop.

  One by one, the cannon boomed and belched loads of canister in the ranks of the oncoming cavalry. Swarms of iron balls buzzed and stung like hornets, blasting great gaps in the squadrons and tearing horses and riders apart. The remaining cuirassiers broke into a vengeful charge, but most of the artillerists had already joined the tide of running volunteers, and those that remained ducked beneath the smoking tubes of their guns, leaving the cavalry to slash at them impotently with too-short sabers.

  The momentum of the charge was too strong to stop. It came on, over the crest of the hill, following Winter and the others toward the formed ranks of the Colonials. The four blue-coated battalions had reshaped themselves into four diamonds, edges fringed with bristling steel. Sergeants behind the line were bellowing at the oncoming volunteers, shouting for them to get down and clear the field of fire. Others beckoned them forward, into the interior of the squares.

  Winter, legs burning, took the lead and led her company toward the First Battalion flags. Someone recognized her, or else had orders to let the volunteers in, because a couple of ranks of bayonets moved aside just in time to prevent the girls from skewering themselves. They poured through the gap, tumbling into the clear space beyond like broken dolls, spreading themselves across the grass and gasping for air.

  Jane. Winter found her on her hands and knees, sobbing and coughing all at once. She knelt to help her, but Jane looked at her, eyes furious, and waved her away. Winter stood up, blinking, and rubbed her eyes with a filthy sleeve.

  The gap in the s
quare had closed behind her. The cuirassiers were coming, big men on big horses, breastplates gleaming on their chests and sabers unsheathed in their hands. There was the familiar pause as they closed—seventy yards, fifty, forty—

  Then, from a dozen throats at once: “First rank, fire!”

  MARCUS

  We let them get too far ahead, Marcus thought, fists clenching tight as he watched the volunteers streaming over the ridge. Karis’ mercy. It’s going to be a slaughter.

  But the charging cavalry were not as close behind as he’d thought. Some clearheaded officer had ordered the retreat well before the cuirassiers had actually made contact, and they’d cleared the line of guns in time to allow a last thudding volley of canister to sweep away huge swaths of the enemy. The thinned ranks that came over the hill were moving at a full gallop, spurring madly and waving their sabers, but their formation was broken and there weren’t enough of them.

  They’re not going to break the squares. The volunteers were still streaming past on all sides, or making their way through the ranks, but Marcus permitted himself a smile, and a moment of pity for the advancing horsemen. Those poor, brave bastards.

  Their impetuous pursuit of the fleeing volunteers was going to cost them dearly. A volley stabbed out from the squares as the horsemen closed, toppling horses and punching riders from their saddles. It was suicidal for them to try to charge home against the wall of bayonets, and equally suicidal to rein up and try to turn about in the face of all those muskets. They had no choice but to keep riding, splitting like a stream around a rock, taking fire from the sides and rear of the squares as they went. By the time they’d made it out of musket range, they were no longer a formation, just a scattered band of panicked men and animals, curling out to either side in flight.

  “It’s a rare cavalry captain who can rein in his men when the enemy is before them,” Janus commented. “I hope your Captain Stokes makes a note of the potential consequences.”

  “I doubt he will, sir.”