The Price of Valor

by Django Wexler

  “Thank you for being frank with me, Lieutenant,” Winter said. “I’ll consider what you’ve said. You’re dismissed.”

  Fear turned to triumph in Novus’ eyes. “Oh yes. Consider it.” He shook his head. “You are a fucking coward, aren’t you? I can see that now. I should have known it all along. Go ahead, then. Lead us to disaster. Once your girls get slaughtered, we’ll be there to pick up the pieces.”

  He turned on his heel and stalked away. Winter sucked in a long breath and blew it out again.

  Well, then. She looked after the lieutenant and shook her head. Now what?

  “You’ll have to get rid of him,” Cyte said as they watched the formations assemble. “I probably would have fired him on the spot. Or slugged him.”

  “It’s more complicated than that,” Winter said. “Being an asshole isn’t against regulations.”

  “Using that kind of language to a superior officer is,” Cyte said. “Besides, I think Janus has already set the precedent when he kicked out de Ferre and his friends.”

  “I’m not Janus,” Winter said. She caught sight of Lieutenant Novus, on the other side of the drill field. He looked from Winter to the men and women getting into formation and back again, then shook his head and stalked away.

  “Janus would back you if Novus tried to go through channels. And if he tried anything else, you’d be within your rights to have him arrested.”

  “Maybe.” Winter was only half listening, scanning the crowd that had turned up to watch the morning’s drill. “I need to talk to Sevran and see what he thinks.”

  “Don’t wait too long,” Cyte said. “If Novus gets it into his head that he can run roughshod over you, there’s going to be trouble.”

  “Yeah.”

  Winter went stiff as she found what she was looking for. A flash of glorious red hair, in the middle of a knot of Girls’ Own spectators. She tried to catch Jane’s eye and failed. But at least she’s out of her tent.

  “Okay,” she said to Folsom, who stood ready to repeat her commands. “Let’s get started.”

  “Close up!” Folsom’s voice rang through the misty morning air like a clarion call. “Skirmish line, forward! Main line, loading drill!”

  It was Lieutenant Vidolet’s company on the field. He wasn’t part of the noble clique around Novus, and Winter didn’t think he’d deliberately sabotage the drill. His men certainly looked as though they’d been practicing, going through the manual of arms with smooth precision. He shouted, “Fire!” and a chorus of clicks answered him.

  Abby’s company of the Girls’ Own had improved as well. Their loading was faster, and they seemed more comfortable in their two-woman teams, trading off firing as fast as they could ram home imaginary musket balls. They also seemed to be more enthusiastic about the exercise. Playful shouts went up with each shot.

  “Got one!”

  “Take that, you damned Elysian!”

  “Bagged myself a general!”

  “No, you didn’t, you only knocked off his hat!”

  But the next part is the real test. Winter nodded to Folsom, who took a deep breath.

  “Skirmish line, fall back! Main line, prepare to pass skirmishers!”

  Abby’s company turned at once and sprinted back toward Vidolet’s, where the men halted in their loading and firing and presented their muskets in a stiff line, as though they were brandishing bayonets. The Girls’ Own soldiers surged toward them, a confused mass of running, laughing women, and Winter braced herself for the collision.

  It never came. The Royals turned neatly in place, opening holes in the line just wide enough to run through, and Abby’s company passed through as cleanly and quickly as a pebble dropped into a cup of water. The women came out the other side of the line, whooping and hollering; Abby herself, who was waiting there, immediately began getting them to form a line of their own. In less than a minute, they were all through, and the Royals closed ranks again to present an unbroken line of muskets to the “enemy.”

  “Fire!” Vidolet shouted, to another round of clicks.

  The soldiers began their loading drill again, and Winter let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

  “It works,” Cyte said.

  “Get them to try it again,” Winter said. “Then switch companies. I want every soldier to have a chance to practice before we break camp today. If that all goes well, tomorrow we’ll see if they can do it with bayonets fixed.” Assuming we get another day to practice. They were only fifteen miles from Gaafen, where the enemy was reported to be digging in.

  “Yes, sir!” Cyte said.

  “And once we make camp tonight, go and get decent food for everybody. Spend whatever we’ve got left.”

  Cyte nodded. “Yes, sir. What about Novus?”

  There had been a moment, as Novus had unleashed his tirade, that Winter felt absurdly grateful she hadn’t abandoned her male disguise, as Bobby had. It wasn’t a feeling she was proud of. But Novus’ reaction was the one she’d always expected would follow discovery—if not the outright rape and murder that had been on Sergeant Davis’ mind—and though when he’d found out Janus had not lived up to her fears, she suspected that Janus was, as usual, exceptional. If the old-fashioned royal officers or traditionalists like Colonel d’Ivoire found out, she suspected a verbal explosion like Novus’ would be the least of her worries.

  It’s all well and good for Bobby. As an officer in the Girls’ Own, she only has to answer to Winter. I have to work with the rest of the army . . .

  “We’ll get rid of him,” Winter said, shaking her head to clear her brief reverie. “But he’s Royal Army, so we need to do this properly, or he’ll tie us in knots with regulations. I’ll have to write to Janus. We’ll see if he grins at me when I’ve got a letter from the commanding general backing me up.”

  “I look forward to seeing his reaction, sir.”

  * * *

  Winter awoke to the sound of a whispered argument outside her tent.

  The news that they were getting a decent meal in place of army rations had lent the camp a carnival atmosphere. While Winter hadn’t issued any alcohol, there were plenty of locals willing to remedy that deficiency. Trying to keep it out of the camp altogether would have been futile, so Winter passed the word for the sergeants to circulate and make sure nobody got more than tipsy. There was another march tomorrow, after all, and possibly a battle after that.

  Even so, several competing choruses had kept up a running contest late into the night, alternating between patriotic anthems and the endless, bawdy camp songs that any group of soldiers seemed to generate spontaneously. Winter was fairly sure there was a bit of Abby’s “fraternization” going on as well, and that thought was almost enough to drive her from her tent in search of Jane. Instead she stayed put, going over regimental paperwork until her eyes drooped, then lying awake on her pallet, aware of every footstep nearby. If Jane was going to come back, after all, this would be a perfect time, and Winter kept expecting to hear the soft rustle of the tent flap and the murmur of her lover’s voice in her ear. Eventually she fell asleep, and dreamed of Jane’s lips on hers and Jane’s fingers sliding over her skin.

  She’d left instructions for the camp to be awoken a half hour later than normal, in deference to the fact that a few men and women would probably have sore heads. Blinking, she saw that it was still well before the appointed hour. The light trickling in through the canvas was the bright, angled sunshine of just past dawn, and the camp still seemed quiet.

  “I’m awake,” Winter said. The two voices broke off. “Bobby, is that you? Who’s there?”

  “It’s Captain Verity,” Bobby said. “She . . . would like to see you.”

  Winter sat up abruptly. “Send her in!”

  “Sir—”

  Jane pushed through the tent flap. Her hair was a tousled mess, and she wasn’t wear
ing her uniform jacket, as though she’d just rolled out of bed. Winter’s greeting died on her lips when she saw Jane’s face, which was a mask of fury.

  “This is your fault,” Jane said. “I fucking warned you, didn’t I? You think we keep watches around the camp for fun?”

  “Jane?” Winter said. “What’s going on?’

  “What’s going on is what always goes on. You had to trust Captain fucking Sevran, because he’s so delightfully charming, and he promised his men would be on their best behavior.” Jane snorted. “Like a gang of fucking soldiers is any better than a bunch of apes.”

  “Jane—”

  “One of your precious fucking Royals decided he didn’t have to ask permission to lay hands on one of my girls. What the fuck did you expect?”

  Winter sucked in a breath. “Balls of the Beast. Is—”

  “I think he’ll live,” Jane said. “But things have gotten a bit out of hand. Bit of a fracas, you might say.”

  Winter could hear more voices from outside, Cyte’s and Folsom’s. And, behind them, a rising chorus of shouts, yelps, and thuds, mixed with the crunch of breaking tent poles and the ripping sound of tearing canvas.

  Oh, Brass Balls of the fucking Beast . . .

  Chapter Seven

  MARCUS

  The war, as best Marcus could see, was going very badly indeed.

  It was difficult to get an accurate picture, of course, from Vordan City. In part this was because news took a long time to arrive from the frontiers, and longer from some frontiers than others. A dispatch from Vayenne might take a week to be sailed up the Vor, while messages from the Murnskai frontier, seven hundred miles of awful roads, washed-out bridges, and treacherous passes away, might take a month to come if they got through at all.

  The other problem was that the news that arrived was often wildly inaccurate, or at least inaccurately reported and promulgated. The agents of the broadsheets and pamphleteers were everywhere, nosing up to every deputy and ministry for the latest tidbits. Every part of the new government leaked information like a sieve, but often only when it suited that particular individual’s purposes, or when that information could be carefully doctored to appear in a favorable light. Thus, one broadsheet might announce a famous battle won at the same time another blared about a military disaster, and various towns, fortresses, and river crossings changed hands with bewildering speed, depending on who was doing the writing.

  As time passed, however, the stories became more solid, and actual eyewitnesses to distant events began to trickle in, so some bits of truth could be discerned. Marcus’ instructions told him to pass along anything he thought credible to Janus, via the flik-flik line, and so he’d sat down with his maps and some of the more reliable reports to cull the wheat from the chaff. Once he began paying attention, however, the picture that emerged was worrying.

  The worst disaster had come in the north, on the Borelgai coast. There had been persistent rumors since just after the declaration of war that the Borelgai navy had laid siege to Nordart, Vordan’s primary northern port, and the Army of the Transpale under General de Brolge was variously reported to be relieving the garrison, maneuvering for a field battle, or retreating in disorder after a defeat by Borelgai forces. Now, however, all the reports agreed that things were far worse than that. After a brief standoff with the Borels, de Brolge had in fact gone over to the enemy bag and baggage, declaring his support for Orlanko—rumored to be in exile in Borel—and his contempt for the Deputies-General. Most of the royal regiments in the Army of the Transpale had followed him, and the volunteers had scattered in a panic, leaving no significant army between the Borelgai and Alver on the Pale. Ecco Island, once the primary base of the now-defunct Vordanai fleet, had been captured, and Enzport, at the mouth of the Pale, was widely expected to be next.

  Meanwhile, General Hallvez of the Army of the North, on the Murnskai border, had decided to steal a march on his opponents. The legions of Imperial Murnsk were vast, but also notoriously slow to muster and deploy, and Hallvez had thought that delivering an early blow was just the thing to rock the enemy back on his heels. What had happened next was not clear, but Hallvez had apparently marched his twenty-odd battalions into a trap, where they had been decisively beaten by a Murnskai force less than half their number. Hallvez, raving about sorcery, had retreated into Vordan with the remnants of his army, and sent message after hysterical message to the Ministry of War demanding reinforcements.

  Everyone was demanding reinforcements, in fact. The commander of every post within sight of saltwater, from Enzport to Essyle, was convinced that his little garrison was going to be the next target of the Borelgai fleet, and they all wanted more guns and more men. The generals and colonels had taken to writing editorials for the broadsheets, in an effort to stir the public about their particular menace and demand action through the Deputies-General. The Deputies, in turn, issued complicated and often contradictory instructions to Durenne at the Ministry of War, and were contradicted in turn by the decisions of the Directory for the National Defense. The fact that there were virtually no guns left to be had, and not many men, didn’t seem to bother the commanders fighting over scraps.

  The only good news came from the east, where news of Janus’ victory at Diarach was now becoming generally known. It was widely acknowledged to have been unsatisfactory, however. Di Pfalen had been permitted to escape, withdrawing with most of his army toward Antova, the central nail on which the League hung its defense of the valley of the Velt. As long as the fortress remained untaken, no real progress could be made, but Janus had not even moved in that direction, instead pursuing a secondary enemy east toward Desland. Moreover, the Hamveltai had organized a second army, under their aged but famous Marshal Jindenau, which was expected to proceed to Antova for winter quarters and launch a direct invasion of Vordan in the spring once the passes were clear.

  Radical papers were shouting that the Directory was to blame, dominated as it was by Maurisk and the Conservatives, and that change was needed if victory was to be achieved. The Conservative press, for their part, had taken the defection of de Brogle very badly, and now saw treason and betrayal in every setback. Maurisk had ordered General Hallvez to report to the capital, along with a number of colonels suspected of less than enthusiastic prosecution of their duties, and dispatched representatives of the Patriot Guard to ensure that they complied. And every day, like the clockwork beast it was, the Spike did its bloody work, cutting the hearts out of the men and women the Guard dragged off the street. Yesterday an old woman had been spiked for wearing a fur coat of a vaguely Borelgai cut in public, thus expressing sympathy with the enemy; her protests that she had five grandsons serving with the armies had been in vain.

  Condensing all this down to the few sentences the flik-flik line was capable of transmitting was not an easy task. Marcus sent boxes of paper reports by courier, but by the time they arrived they would be doubly out of date. The most important thing, Janus had emphasized, was the conditions in and around the capital itself, and Marcus was doing his best to express the panic he saw rising in the screaming headlines.

  Political situation here v. bad, he wrote. Streets afraid and ready to turn on anyone suspect. Mass Patriot Guard presence keeping basic order for now, but maybe not for long. M. getting harsher by the day. He paused for thought, and rewet his pen. Military officers esp. under suspicion after defections. Watch for traps.

  He laid the pen aside and left the note to dry, just as there was a knock at his study door. Marcus had learned by now how to distinguish Raesinia’s excited rapping from the polite taps of the Mierantai servants, and this was the latter.

  “Come in.”

  “Sir,” said Lieutenant Uhlan, commander of the half dozen Mierantai riflemen Janus had left behind. “There’s a couple of soldiers at the door. They claim they were sent here by a Captain Vahkerson at your request.”

  Marcus stared blankly for
a moment, then remembered the note he’d sent to the Preacher asking for extra men to hold down the fort. Reliable as always. “Yes, of course. Send them in and have someone see to their things if they have any.”

  “Sir.” Uhlan saluted and slipped out. Marcus listened to his boots clomp down the hallway, and went back to scanning the panicky headlines. Before long there was another knock, softer and more hesitant.

  “Come in,” Marcus said again.

  Two soldiers, in the homespun and approximately blue jackets of the volunteers, came in and stood stiffly at attention in front of his desk. They saluted, and the young man on the left said, “Sir! Rankers Feiss and Dracht, reporting as ordered.”

  Ranker Feiss was a boy of seventeen or so, tall and lanky, with sandy hair and a face that was just emerging from childlike plumpness, badly savaged by acne. He stood at attention with such concentration that his back was as taut as a bowstring, his eyes firmly fixed somewhere above Marcus’ left shoulder.

  Ranker Dracht, in contrast, met his gaze levelly. Marcus guessed she was the same age as Feiss, but she was a head shorter, with unkempt brown hair tied back in a short queue.

  “Ah,” Marcus said, somewhat taken aback. “Welcome. Feiss and . . . Dracht, was it?”

  “Ranker Andria Dracht, sir,” the girl said. “But you can call me Andy. Everyone does.”

  Feiss nudged her with his elbow, which she ignored.

  “How much did the Preacher—that is, how much did Captain Vahkerson tell you?”

  “That you were in need of assistance on a matter of the utmost secrecy, sir,” Feiss said, a note of excitement creeping into his voice. “And that he was sending us because he was certain of our discretion.”

  “Where were you before this?”

  “In the hospital, sir. Soldiers who are rated fit for duty again are sent to Captain Vahkerson for reassignment.”