The Guns of Empire

by Django Wexler

  “Everyone who couldn’t make the charge,” Abby said. “The old and the . . . young.” She closed her eyes. “The grandmothers killed all the rest, then cut their own throats.”

  “Oh, Karis above,” Winter said. “Saints and bloody fucking martyrs . . .”

  —

  For some time after, Winter made no attempt to enforce discipline. The other two forces arrived, and the news of what had happened, on the slope and in the cave, spread in whispers. Some of the soldiers reacted with rage. The partisan camp was torn apart, the pathetic scraps of their belongings ripped to pieces or fed to a hastily kindled bonfire. One ranker found the bundle that had belonged to the Sworn Priest and took possession of his ragged copy of the Wisdoms, tearing out the pages one by one. Most, though, simply sat in silence.

  Winter, sitting on the edge of the rock, could just about see the silver ribbon of the Intolin winding away to the south. Beside the river was the Grand Army. And Janus, who brought us here.

  Abby sat beside her and wordlessly offered a wooden flask. Winter took a cautious sip. Whatever was inside burned as it went down her throat. She took a longer pull, then handed it back.

  “They wrote something on the wall,” Abby said. “In blood.”

  “Do I want to know?” Winter said.

  “My Murnskai’s not so good,” Abby said. “But one of the rankers said it was, ‘You shall not have their souls.’”

  “You think the Sworn Priests put them up to this?”

  Abby nodded. “I don’t think there’s any doubt. We’re here to steal souls, remember? Karis Almighty.”

  Winter tipped her head back, squinting against the afternoon sun. The Church at Elysium. Maybe Janus is right. She’d known the Black Priests were out to get her, but in a sense she’d signed up for that, entered the war when she’d recited the Infernivore’s naath. That was one thing. But telling people to slaughter their own children? She felt a sudden, indiscriminate rage. We’ll burn Elysium to the ground and dance on the ruins. She looked at Abby, who was staring into the distance, and wondered if she was entertaining similar thoughts.

  “Someone is going to have to bury them,” Winter said. “We can’t just leave them in there.”

  “I know.” Abby looked down. “You should go back and report to Janus. Take Give-Em-Hell and his troopers. I’ll stay and attend to the . . . details.”

  “Abby . . .”

  Abby laid a hand on Winter’s arm. “It’s all right. Go.”

  Winter went, with equal measures of relief and guilt. Give-Em-Hell led the way back down the hill, to where his troopers had tethered their horses. They brought a half dozen of the lightly wounded enemy with them, tied together and with their hands bound. One of them was the woman Winter had cut, her face obscured by a bandage wrapped around her head.

  Winter shook her head as she approached the base of the hill, trying to rid herself of the vision of Liz’s face as she’d come out of the charnel house. How could they do it? She wondered if they’d fought, if—

  No. It was done, whatever she imagined, and conjuring nightmares wouldn’t help. She swallowed hard, trying to settle her stomach, then paused.

  It wasn’t her stomach that was bothering her. Infernivore had come awake again, the feeling of presence stronger now. It had been growing for some time, as the troopers led their horses down toward the destroyed village. Now she could feel the direction, and when she turned to orient herself she felt certain the source of the sensation was somewhere among the burned-out buildings.

  “Stop,” she told Give-Em-Hell. “I need to check something.”

  “Here?” he said. When she nodded, he shrugged. “Very well. Lead—”

  “No,” Winter said quickly. “You all stay here. If anything happens, get out of here, you understand?”

  “Don’t be absurd,” Give-Em-Hell said, drawing himself up to his full, diminutive height. “At the very least, I’ll come myself.”

  “No! Wait for me here. That’s an order.” Winter recalled that Give-Em-Hell was a division-general, too, and she wasn’t at all sure that she had the authority to give him orders. But he quieted, grumbling, and kept his troopers together as she walked toward what was left of the village.

  If it is a Penitent Damned in there, they’ll only get themselves killed. The three Penitents who’d come for her in Desland had slaughtered a half dozen Girls’ Own soldiers, and she didn’t want to repeat that experience. She kept one hand on her sword and let the other hang loose. All I have to do is get a hold on them.

  The late-afternoon sun threw long shadows from the scattered beams and posts that still stood among the wreckage. Winter followed Infernivore’s call, feeling like a hunter trailing after a dog with the scent of prey. Her demon was fully awake now, boiling just beneath the surface of her skin, eager.

  At the edge of the clearing, one hut hadn’t burned all the way through. Two walls were still standing, with a bit of roof left between them, throwing a deep shadow. Winter approached it cautiously. She thought she could make out a human form, curled up in the corner.

  “Hello?” Winter said. No sense in being quiet. If I can feel them, they can feel me. “Come out where I can see you.”

  “I don’t think so.” It was a young woman’s voice. Winter had unwittingly spoken in Vordanai, realizing too late that no one here was likely to understand it. But the other woman answered in the same language, though she had a Hamveltai accent. “Who are you?”

  “I’m with the Grand Army of Vordan,” Winter said.

  The shadowed figure let out a sigh. “And you have a demon.”

  Winter nodded. There didn’t seem to be much point in denying it.

  “Then . . .” The other woman coughed. It sounded wet and unhealthy. “You work for Janus bet Vhalnich?”

  “Who are you?” Winter said. “What do you want?”

  “I have come . . . a long way . . . to find you.” The woman’s breathing was labored. “And I think . . . I’m going to pass out again. Please. Janus . . .”

  There was a long, rattling breath, and then silence.

  After a moment Winter stepped forward, hand still on her sword. The shadow in the corner didn’t respond. Moving closer, Winter could see a young woman lying on her side, curled in on herself as though in pain. She was in her late teens, Winter guessed, with dark, filthy hair and a strange mix of clothes—a ragged shirt and trousers, with an overcoat and boots that looked like they’d come off a much larger Murnskai soldier. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was quick and shallow. Winter knelt beside her and put one hand against her head, finding the skin hot to the touch.

  Infernivore leapt to the front of her mind, its energy surging into her arm and down to her fingers, where skin brushed skin. It would take only the tiniest effort of will, a relaxation of control, to set it loose, tearing into the girl’s body and devouring her demon. As weak as she was, Winter guessed that would kill her.

  Maybe it would be for the best. This girl didn’t look like a Penitent Damned, but neither had Jen Alhundt. The Church’s assassins were subtle. This could be a trick to get to Janus. She pictured bringing someone like Jen into the camp, someone with the power to stop bullets and tear stone to shreds. The safe thing to do would be to leave her here.

  Winter stared down at the slight movement of the girl’s chest, Infernivore still raging in her fingertips. No. The safe thing to do would be to kill her, here and now. As long as her power was unknown, she was a threat of unknown magnitude.

  That’s the way they think, isn’t it? The Priests of the Black. They saw the whole world like that. Every demon, every naath, was a threat to the precious Grace that Karis had bought for humanity, hastening the Day of Judgment when the Beast would be unleashed once more. Every bit of knowledge, every hint of opposition, every wild demon like Danton had to be gathered to Elysium or destroyed. And they don’t car
e who gets hurt. She thought about the cave at the top of the hill.

  She’d saved Feor, once, in a similar scene of destruction and massacre. At the time she hadn’t known what she was getting into, hadn’t known anything about demons or naathem. She’d just found someone who needed help. But now . . .

  Winter pulled her hand away slowly and got to her feet. She walked back toward the edge of the village, where Give-Em-Hell and his troopers waited anxiously.

  “There’s a girl here,” she said, gesturing them over. “We’ve got to take her back to camp. Be careful. I think she’s hurt.”

  At least this time I don’t have to hide what I’m doing from my commander. Janus would want to know about this.

  —

  “It was . . . I don’t know. Sick,” Winter said. She took a drink from her tin cup, which was half-full of something thick and purple Cyte claimed was Borelgai. “Just a whole village coming down the hill, right at us. Families. Can you imagine charging an enemy line like that, with your parents and your brothers and sisters all around you, getting killed, and you have to keep going?”

  Cyte shook her head. “My father and I have never been close. But . . . no.” She sipped her own drink. “Mind you, I can certainly picture my mother charging a line of muskets with a kitchen knife.”

  Winter grinned. “She sounds formidable.”

  “She was.”

  “Hell.” Winter sighed and lifted the bottle. “I’m sorry. More?”

  “Please.” Cyte let her cup fill nearly to the rim before waving Winter off. “It’s all right. It was years ago.”

  “Can I ask what happened?”

  Cyte shrugged. “Oh, she charged a line of muskets with a kitchen knife.”

  Winter stared, not sure how to react, until Cyte gave an impish grin. Winter smiled back, and before long they both dissolved into laughter.

  “That’s a hell of a thing to joke about,” Winter said.

  “Sorry,” Cyte said. “Couldn’t help it. Mother would have approved, anyway. She was always telling me”—she took a deep breath and puffed out her cheeks—“‘Temperance, why are you always so serious? It’s not healthy for a growing girl!’”

  There was another pause.

  “Temperance?” Winter said.

  “Oh. Yeah.” Cyte’s face went red. “That’s . . . the name my parents gave me.”

  “Karis Almighty. I can see why you changed it.”

  “Right? Maybe you can explain it to my father.”

  “I don’t think anyone who names their daughter Temperance gets to complain when she turns out to be serious, though.”

  “I believe I spoke those exact words to my mother on more than one occasion.” Cyte took a long drink. “She died when I was twelve. Some kind of fever of the brain. My father was devastated. My siblings are all older, so I was the only one left in the house, and he . . . fussed over me, I guess you’d say.”

  “I can see how that would be a bit smothering.”

  “At the time I couldn’t wait to get away.” Cyte sighed. “I should go visit the old man, I suppose, once this is all over.”

  Winter nodded, her thoughts going back to the bodies tumbling down the slope, what they’d discovered in the cave. She took a hasty drink.

  “Your family was very religious, then?” Winter said.

  “My father was,” Cyte said. “My mother more went through the motions.”

  “Free Church, I assume?”

  Cyte nodded. “Why?”

  “I’m just . . . trying to understand what could make someone do what they did. I never—” She hesitated. “I haven’t told you much about my childhood, have I?”

  “I know a little bit. Camp gossip.” Cyte smiled again. “I didn’t want to pry.”

  The smile, Winter reflected, transformed her face, wide and bright and as uninhibited as she usually was self-controlled. Then again, Cyte had changed a lot in the time Winter had known her. She remembered a thin, sallow girl, eyes bruised from too many late nights studying and overfond of dark makeup. In spite of the notoriously inconsistent army diet, the regular exercise had helped her fill out to good effect.

  Winter blinked, hesitated for a moment, and took another drink to cover it. This stuff is stronger than it tastes.

  “I grew up in an orphanage,” she said. “We all called it Mrs. Wilmore’s Prison for Young Ladies.”

  “You don’t remember your family?”

  Winter shook her head. “Not more than snatches. They told me I arrived when I was about four, which was young. Most girls don’t wind up there until they’re ten or eleven.” Jane had arrived about that age. They’d locked eyes, that first night, as the new arrivals were introduced—

  She coughed. “In any event . . . My point was that we were brought up pretty strictly in the Free Church. Lots of lessons from the Wisdoms, lots of study of the saints, lots of prayer. And I guess I believed it, for the most part.” She remembered wanting to believe, anyway, looking at the faces of the girls around her, lowered in prayer, and wanting to get the same comfort they got. Then, after she’d spent enough time with Jane, wondering if they were just faking it like she was. “But I can’t imagine doing something like those villagers did, just because a priest said it was the will of God.”

  “Father may be pretty strict,” Cyte said, “but if our priest ever told him to murder his children, I’m pretty sure he’d have gone home with the Wisdoms crammed up his ass.”

  “Why would anyone listen?” Winter leaned back, cup dangling from her fingers. “In Khandar, the Redeemers were bad, I’ll grant you. But I felt like I understood them, at least a little. They were poor, starving people who wanted to turn out the prince and the fat temple priests and burn them in the streets. That’s not so strange. Hell, we did that in Vordan, only Dr. Sarton invented a special machine for it.”

  “The Redeemers wanted to burn you, too,” Cyte said.

  “Nothing mysterious about that,” Winter said. “Everyone can always get behind hating foreigners. But these people . . . I don’t know.”

  “You’re asking me?” Cyte said.

  “You’re the history student, aren’t you?”

  “My official historical judgment is that people have done a lot of fucked-up things over the years,” Cyte said. “Sometimes it’s priests telling them what to do, sometimes it’s kings, and sometimes it’s bankers or secret societies or . . .” She brightened. “Did you know that the Montrauk Tyranny was once ruled for an entire year by a chicken?”

  “You’re making that up.”

  “I swear by Karis.” Cyte pressed one hand to her heart. “They had this board, and they’d write the various decisions on it and then scatter some seeds over it and see which the chicken ate first. Apparently the previous tyrant had decreed that the chicken was sacred.”

  “What happened?”

  “The priests who were really running things fixed it so the chicken would decree the execution of one of the rebellious generals. He found out about it beforehand, and there was a bit of a bloodbath, although history does not record the ultimate fate of the chicken.”

  Winter stared. “You are definitely making that up.”

  “When we get back to Vordan, I’ll take you to the University library. There’s all sorts of strange things in the stacks.”

  When we get back to Vordan. Winter envied Cyte her casual confidence. We’re finally getting to the heart of things, Janus says. The Priests of the Black. If we win this time, maybe it really will be over. She wished she could believe that.

  “Are you all right?” Cyte said.

  “Fine. I think.” Winter set her cup down, swaying slightly. “Maybe a little drunk. It’s been a very long day.”

  “I’d better go.” Cyte gulped the last of her own drink, got to her feet, and stretched. Winter found herself staring and turned away befor
e the other woman noticed. “What about your prisoner?”

  “I’m not sure she’s a prisoner,” Winter said. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Is she going to live?”

  “Hanna thinks so.” Hanna Courvier, the Girls’ Own regimental cutter, had turned her acid tongue on the unconscious girl, who had apparently been traveling for a considerable time with a serious wound in her side. “She cut out some diseased flesh and said it hadn’t festered too deep. There’s a fever, but unless the poison’s reached her blood, she should recover.”

  “Are you sure having her in the camp is a good idea?”

  “No,” Winter said. “But she’s well guarded, and I’m having Bobby sleep in her tent, just in case.”

  Cyte nodded. She’d been there when Bobby had fought the ogrelike Penitent Twist to a standstill, saving all their lives in the process. “What about Janus?”

  “I sent a report. We’ll see what he says in the morning.”

  “In the morning, then.” Cyte lifted the tent flap.

  “Not too early, please,” Winter said. “For any of us. Abby especially.”

  “I’ll do what I can.” Cyte slipped out, the flap falling closed behind her.

  The lamp flickered slightly in the breeze. Winter sat still for a moment, then reached for her cup and tipped it back, letting the last of the drink trickle onto her lips.

  What am I doing?

  It wasn’t as if she’d never noticed anyone before. There were some striking women in the Girls’ Own—Anne-Marie came to mind, with her angelic face and soft, golden curls. And there had, of course, been times on the march—they bathed in shifts, after all, in whatever running water was handy, and Winter had now and again found her eyes lingering for longer than was strictly professional.

  But more than that—more than an impersonal appreciation—never. It had been Jane who’d woken those feelings in Winter, and she’d assumed they would always belong to Jane alone. Before, when the girls at the Prison had discussed boys—almost as though they were mythical creatures, like unicorns—Winter had dismissed it as a silly, useless pursuit. After she and Jane had begun their clandestine relationship, she still felt apart from the others. She had a secret, deep down in the warm depths of her heart, that they couldn’t share. And then Jane had been sent away with Ganhide, and Winter had fled the Prison for Khandar, and she’d assumed that part of her life was closed forever.