The Price of Valor

by Django Wexler

  “More important,” Maurisk said, “do we know what they took?”

  “It’s not clear,” Zacaros said. “Nothing of military importance.”

  “I’m not worried they stole a cannon. Was there anything there that could compromise us?”

  “Possibly. Copies of some messages, perhaps—”

  “Messages are to be destroyed once encoded!”

  “The clerks may have been . . . lax. But it seems likely the attackers were surprised before they had time to investigate.”

  “Likely.” Maurisk drummed his fingers on the desk. There was only one decision he could possibly make, one throw of the dice that might produce success, but still he hesitated. Damn, damn, damn. I need more time.

  “I—” Zacaros began.

  “Shut up. We’re moving up the timetable.”

  The Patriot Guard commander blinked. “When?”

  “Now. Tonight.”

  “That’s not possible,” Zacaros said. “We need time to prepare—”

  “You’ve had weeks. If you’re not ready now, you never will be. All the orders are already printed. You only need to hand them out. If the enemy—whoever they are—knows about the warehouse, they’ll know everything soon enough. This is the only chance we have to still achieve surprise.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t forget it’s your head in the noose, too.” Maurisk smiled nastily. “Or possibly the Spike. That bastard Durenne has always been fond of poetic irony.”

  Zacaros swallowed, swiping his hand over his scalp and further disrupting his hair. After a moment, Maurisk saw his eyes harden in decision, and he straightened to his feet, coming to the best approximation of military attention his overweight frame could manage.

  “As you say. I’ll make the arrangements at once.”

  “I want regular reports.”

  “Of course.” Zaracos nodded again. “If you’ll excuse me?”

  He went to the door without waiting for an answer. Once he was gone, Kellerman looked in.

  “Sir? Can I—”

  “A drink.” Maurisk waved the empty bottle.

  “I believe that was the last bottle of the flaghaelen, sir.”

  “I don’t care what kind. Just get me a goddamned drink!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Maurisk leaned back in his chair and settled in to wait.

  * * *

  Three hours. Three hours to go from despair to euphoria.

  It had little to do with the indifferent white wine Kellerman had scrounged up. Maurisk had stared into his glass, imagining his orders fanning out across the darkened city, thinking of everything that could go wrong. Zacaros could betray him, or simply bungle the job. The Patriot Guard might balk, in spite of all their careful preparation. The Radicals might be more prepared than they seemed. The Beast of Judgment might appear in Farus’ Triumph to proclaim the End of Days. Waiting.

  And now . . .

  Giles Durenne’s famous nose had been broken rather badly, and was now turning a ripe red color and swelling to twice its original side. Maurisk watched the Radical leader as two Patriot Guards forced him to his knees in front of the desk, and decided he liked the way it looked. He’s practically a clown already.

  He’d wondered, over the past few weeks, what Durenne would say when it all finally played out. Even made little bets with himself, in fact. Now he waited, savoring the moment, as the Minister of War coughed and spit blood on the floor.

  “Have you,” Durenne said, voice made stuffy by his broken nose, “have you gone mad?”

  Dreadfully unoriginal. That was Durenne, though. Unimaginative to the last.

  “No,” Maurisk said. “Merely had my eyes opened.”

  “This is absurd. Release me at once.”

  “So you can continue your treasons with your Radical friends? I think not.”

  “I am an elected deputy and Minister of War! I demand—”

  “You are in a position to demand nothing.” Maurisk felt suddenly tired. It was nearly five in the morning, and the nervous tension that had kept him going all night seemed to go out of him in a rush, leaving him barely able to keep his head up. “You will have a trial, eventually. We both know what will happen when the truth comes out.”

  He fixed Durenne with a very slight smile, which said, I win. You lose. That’s all there is to it.

  “If there’s a traitor here, it’s you,” Durenne snarled. “But you won’t get away with it. The army won’t sit still for this.”

  “We’ll see.” Maurisk sat back and waved at the guards. “Take him away.”

  Kellerman appeared again, a paper in his hand, as the frantic Radical was dragged off.

  “Matters are proceeding on schedule, I trust?” Maurisk said.

  “Yes, sir,” his assistant said, consulting the page. “Two-thirds of the arrests have already been carried out. No real resistance thus far.”

  “I want every one of those men under guard before dawn.”

  “They will be, sir.”

  “Has d’Ivoire been taken?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  “You gave the commander my instructions?”

  “Yes, sir. D’Ivoire is to be taken alive, no matter the cost.”

  Maurisk grunted. With the queen in hand, and arrangements already made to draw Vhalnich’s fangs, that left the Thousand Names. What Ionkovo wanted with a Khandarai relic, he had no idea, but d’Ivoire was their best chance of finding the blasted thing. The last thing I need is for him to be killed in the cross fire.

  Speaking of Vhalnich.

  “Send a messenger to General de Ferre. Tell him the new Minister of War directs him to begin his mission at once.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  WINTER

  “Magic,” Jane said.

  “I know it sounds crazy,” Winter said. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t been there.”

  It was the first day out from Desland, and the Third Regiment was marching along in fine style on a pleasant autumn morning. Winter, Jane, Bobby, and Cyte rode together near the head of the column, far enough from anyone else that their conversation wouldn’t be overheard. Beside them, the Girls’ Own tramped in loose ranks, chatting and joking. There was a nasty edge to them, Winter thought. They were angry.

  They had a right to be. In addition to the two guards who’d died trying to defend her office, they’d found two other soldiers dead: a young man from the Royals with wounds to his face, who’d been stripped of his uniform, and a woman on watch at one of the gates, who’d been snapped in half like a toothpick by the giant on his way out.

  Winter hadn’t told everyone that the attack had been made by the Penitent Damned, of course, but there was no hiding the fact that there had been an attempt on her life. Rumor had filled the gap left by the absence of facts, and it was now widely accepted that the assassins had been sent by the Kommerzint, the Hamveltai intelligence service. Winter was happy enough to let that stand, since it was close enough to the truth to be believed.

  After the attack, when soldiers had rushed into the blood-spattered room and then out again to put the whole citadel on alert, Winter had only been able to steal a few moments with Jane. She’d promised a full explanation, but they’d passed a sleepless night simultaneously directing the search for the vanished attackers and rechecking the preparations for the next day’s march. At Cyte’s insistence, Winter had taken a few hours to fall into an exhausted sleep, but she’d been up with the late dawn to get the troops on the road.

  Now, with the march well under way, she reviewed the story she had to tell and winced. Damn. I wouldn’t believe me, either.

  “Me, either,” Bobby said. “I didn’t believe it, I mean. Not at first. Not until after Feor healed me.”

  “Who’s Feor?” Cyte said. Winter had expected more o
f a reaction from her, but she was only listening carefully, brow furrowed, as though she expected to be quizzed on the material later.

  “I’d better start from the beginning,” Winter said. “Which is Janus’ arrival in Khandar.”

  It took longer than she’d expected to lay out the bare facts. The Khandarai campaign, her own unwilling promotion, the Battle of the Road, and her chance discovery of Feor in the aftermath. Bobby’s nearly fatal wounding and her miraculous recovery. The fire that had consumed Ashe-Katarion, and their confrontation with Onvidaer and Mother. And, finally, the night that still lived in Winter’s nightmare, trapped in an underground temple full of walking corpses with glowing green eyes. How, with Feor’s guidance, she’d read the naath, or the name, or whatever it was that had invoked the Infernivore, and how she’d used it to defeat Jen Alhundt.

  “She worked for them. The Priests of the Black,” Winter said.

  “There aren’t any Priests of the Black,” Jane said.

  “There used to be,” Cyte said, “but they were disbanded nearly a hundred years ago. And the Priests of the Black were devoted to destroying the supernatural in all its forms. How could someone like that be one of them?”

  “Janus only explained a little,” Winter said. “He said the Priests still operate, but they do it in secret, because nobody believes in magic these days. They have these . . . agents, who call themselves the Penitent Damned. They believe that anyone who uses a demon is condemned to hell, but they do it anyway, because it helps to advance the cause.”

  “That,” Jane said, “is fucked up. This is why I never paid attention in church.”

  “Those three yesterday were Penitent Damned?” Cyte said.

  Winter nodded. “I think so. I can sense them, when they get close enough. The Infernivore gets . . . restless.”

  “You can feel what the demon is thinking?” Jane said.

  “Not exactly.” Winter sighed. “It’s hard to explain. It feels like it’s this thing, living inside my mind. Like it’s part of me, but it’s not me, if that makes any sense. I don’t think it’s very smart, but I can tell when it gets hungry.”

  “Yuck,” Jane said. “No offense. That sounds awful.”

  “Apparently, I’m lucky to be alive,” Winter said. “Janus told me most people who try to bind to a demon die in the attempt. I suppose I didn’t have much of a choice at the time.”

  “So that’s why he brought you with him from Khandar?” Jane said. “Because you had this thing he wanted to use?”

  “That’s one of the reasons,” Winter said, a little embarrassed. “It’s always hard to tell with Janus.”

  “What about you?” Cyte said to Bobby. “Can you feel your demon?”

  Bobby shook her head. “Feor tried to explain it to me. She’s got the demon, but she can’t use its power herself. She granted the power to me, but I don’t get the demon. If I died, she could give it to someone else.”

  “And it makes you . . . what? Invulnerable?” Jane said.

  “It keeps me alive,” Bobby said, with a wince. “But it still hurts.”

  There was a moment of silence. Winter could hear singing from somewhere up the column, the tramp of many feet, and the jingling of her horse’s harness. Absent were the creaking sounds of wagons and the occasional lowing of oxen. The slow-moving vehicles had been left to make their own best speed behind the column, bearing most of the regiment’s baggage and reserve supplies.

  “So, what does he want, in the end?” Jane said.

  “Who?” Winter said.

  “Janus.” She held up a hand and ticked off points on her fingers. “The Church, or the Priests of the Black, anyway, want to get rid of magic because the Wisdoms tell them it’s evil. So if this Thousand Names is like a giant spell book—”

  “It’s a set of steel tablets eight feet high,” Winter interrupted. “Not a book.”

  “Whatever. The point is, it lets you do magic, so they want to destroy it, or hide it until Elysium. I follow that much. But what does Janus want it for? You said he went to Khandar to get it.”

  Winter frowned. “It’s not as if he shares his plans with me. But if I had to guess, he wanted it to help him get rid of Duke Orlanko. He told me that he always knew the Concordat were working with the Priests of the Black.”

  “Did he really need to go all the way to Khandar for that?” Jane said. “We threw Orlanko out, and I didn’t notice him blasting anyone with lightning bolts at the time.”

  “I have no idea,” Winter said. “Maybe there’s more to it than that. Does it matter?”

  “I . . .” Jane shook her head. “I’m not sure. This is a lot to take in.”

  Winter let out a deep breath. She felt curiously free, now that she’d told the story from beginning to end. No more secrets. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”

  “It’s all right,” Jane said. “I can’t imagine I’d have believed you.”

  “Those three last night,” Cyte said. “You think they were there to kill you?”

  “That’s the only thing that makes sense to me. We’re only one regiment. It’s flattering to think that I might be a good enough officer that they’d want me assassinated, but even if that were true they wouldn’t send Penitent Damned to do it. It has to be because of Infernivore.”

  “Do you think they’ll come back?” Cyte said.

  “We’ll be keeping better watches now that we’re in enemy country,” Jane said. “They won’t be able to sneak up on us again.”

  That was more confidence than Winter felt, but she nodded anyway. “They’re not invincible. Frightening, but not unbeatable.”

  “And I’m going to stay close,” Bobby said. “Just in case.”

  * * *

  As the day wore on, the march began to drag. They’d begun at first light, with only a short break around noon for lunch, and by the time the sun touched the horizon they still hadn’t reached the place the scouts had designated as a campsite, twenty-five miles from where they’d started. It was well into dusk before the head of the column got there, and mounted officers roamed the road by torchlight rounding up stragglers for hours afterward.

  Winter stood on the edge of the grassy hillock that was their campsite and watched the horsemen come and go, lights moving in the dark like windblown sparks. Captain Sevran, standing beside her, twisted his lip in concern.

  “Something wrong?” Winter said.

  “Just imagining what would happen if we got hit by a cavalry raid,” Sevran said. “They couldn’t ask for a better target.”

  “It’s a risk we’re going to have to run. If we take the time to be cautious, we’ll never make it.” Winter shook her head. “As it is, we’ll have to start well before dawn tomorrow. We can’t keep fumbling around in the dark like this. Get them on the road as soon as you can see your hand in front of your face.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sevran said, saluting. “After today, we’ve got a lot of sore feet and sprained ankles. Some of them are going to have to be left behind.”

  Winter winced, but there was nothing for it. Marching wore down men just as surely as it broke down wagons and animals, and abandoned casualties were one of the prices of fast movement. “Make sure they have enough food and water to last until the wagon teams catch up.” The lamed soldiers wouldn’t arrive in time for the battle, assuming Janus’ timetable was accurate, but at least they wouldn’t be on their own in enemy country. “And get me a report of how many men we’re talking about.”

  “Yes, sir.” The captain saluted again. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get a little sleep myself.”

  Winter waved him away. She herself was sore—she hadn’t been riding long enough that twelve hours in the saddle was something she could shrug off—and the day had been a long one. But there was one more thing to attend to, and once again she’d been putting it off. She turned her ba
ck on the stragglers and went looking for Jane.

  The camp bore little resemblance to the organized tent villages of earlier marches. The tents had been left behind, along with all the other equipment that the wagons normally carried, leaving the soldiers with only bedrolls and blankets to make themselves comfortable. Small fires blazed everywhere, and the men and women of the Third Regiment sat around them, leaning on their bedrolls or already stretching out on the uneven ground. The banter was good-natured—legs were sore and feet blistered, but for the moment morale seemed to be high.

  She found Jane in a rocky copse, near the edge of the hill, where Edgar and some other horses had been tethered. Their saddlebags had been neatly piled nearby, and Jane was rooting through hers. As Winter approached, she straightened up, triumphantly holding her prize.

  “Socks,” she said. “There’s a hole in mine and it’s rubbing me something awful. I knew I bought an extra pair after we got to Desland.”

  Winter did her best to put on a grin, but it must have looked as sickly as it felt, because Jane’s expression darkened.

  “We need—”

  “To talk.” Jane sighed. “Come on.”

  Winter followed her into the trees, out of sight of the rest of the camp. Jane found a small boulder and sat down, gingerly, and started unlacing her boots. Winter stood opposite her, arms folded. She realized she had no idea how to begin.

  “What were you doing at the citadel?” she said after a moment. It wasn’t the right question, but it was the only one she could think of. “You said you weren’t coming back.”

  “I’m not sure I remember anymore,” Jane said, pulling off one of her boots and setting it on the ground. “I think I came looking for a fight.”

  “You found one.”

  Jane chuckled. “Not the kind I wanted. I just thought . . . I don’t know. I was going to grab you and shake you until you understood.”

  “Understood what?”

  “I’m not sure I knew. I was pretty drunk.” Jane sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “You saved me. Probably Cyte and Bobby, too.”