The Guns of Empire

by Django Wexler

  “Anything important?”

  “Most of it is just army logistics, of course. Supplying us is a massive effort. But Feor included a note saying that she hasn’t felt any new naathem and that her training program is achieving some results. She mentioned that she had spoken with our . . . ah . . . unexpected ally.”

  “The Steel Ghost?” The mysterious Khandarai, who’d once fought against Marcus, had aided them against the Penitent Damned, though Raesinia still had no idea as to his true motivations.

  Marcus nodded.

  “He came to me before we left, you know,” she said.

  “Really?” Marcus frowned. “You might have told him we had questions.”

  “Answering questions doesn’t seem to be his style.”

  “What was he there for, then?”

  “To warn me that he couldn’t watch out for me once I went north,” Raesinia said. She cut a bite of the toast and speared it with her fork, lard glistening in the candlelight. “He’d been keeping me safe from Penitents, but with Janus and the army out of the city, he said he was going to stay behind and protect the Thousand Names.”

  “Janus has his own arrangements for that,” Marcus said grimly. “Do you trust the Steel Ghost?”

  “He did save our skin from that monster of a Penitent.”

  “He did,” Marcus said. “But why? Why would he help us?”

  “He seems to hate the Black Priests as much as Janus does.” Raesinia popped the bite in her mouth, salty and thick with grease. “The enemy of our enemy, I suppose.”

  “And if we beat the Black Priests, then what?”

  Raesinia shook her head. It all comes back to Janus, doesn’t it? Damn. She sighed. “I think I liked it better when we only had Orlanko to worry about.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Marcus said, smiling. “Even if things are more complicated, it’s nice to know that we’ve got a lot more muskets on our side.”

  It’s not complicated for him, though, is it? Raesinia watched Marcus as the servants brought in the main course. He trusts Janus. All he has to do is follow orders. Raesinia wished, just for a moment, that she could do the same. But the responsibility that had driven her to start a revolution against her own government rather than see it usurped by Orlanko would not let her rest. I have to see this through.

  —

  The next day the main body of the Grand Army reached Vantzolk. It was an impressive sight. Not the town itself, a few hundred wood-and-plaster buildings huddled around an ancient stone bridge, but the camp that had been constructed in the fields alongside it. Acres of rye and potatoes had been crushed underfoot to lay out a supply depot larger than most market squares, with military consumables of every description piled as high as they could be stacked. Crates of hardtack, barrels of powder, cases of solid shot, wagons of fodder, boots and shirts and trousers, canteens and cartridge boxes, rack upon rack of spare muskets. Even more impressive were the animals, endless strings of horses for the officers and the cavalry, mules and oxen for pulling carts, cattle to be driven in the army’s wake and slaughtered for meat as the need arose. Just keeping the vast herd fed and hauling away the shit employed enough handlers to form a new battalion.

  In addition to the fleet of vehicles the army had gathered on the march, Vordan had been pressed into supplying anything that rolled. Raesinia saw carriages intended to carry ladies to grand, glittering balls, their tops hacked off and filled with dried corn; cabs from Vordan City, markings still advertising their fares, rattling and squelching along full of sacks of coffee or casks of butter. The edges of the camp looked like the Exchange on a particularly busy day, jam-packed with angry, shouting drovers and irritated animals.

  Adding the Grand Army itself, a group of soldiers as large as a medium-sized city, turned the situation into utter chaos in spite of the best efforts of the officers assigned to direct them. Raesinia stayed out of the way, her servants erecting her tent on a small rise well inside the sentry cordon, but at a decent distance from the unfolding mess. She was not surprised when a messenger arrived from Marcus to say that he would not be joining her for dinner.

  Somehow, staring out at the mountains of goods made it all seem more real. The colossal effort required to bring these things here was only the beginning. Invading Murnsk had been a byword for foolhardy, fruitless endeavors for centuries, but Janus really intended to go through with it—to push this vast army, and all the matériel that supported it, hundreds of miles over bad roads and through trackless forests, in spite of whatever the Emperor of Murnsk tried to do to stop him. This is the man we made First Consul. Saints and martyrs. The most frightening part was, she believed he could do it.

  It also, she had to admit, brought with it a feeling of pride. We did this. Vordanai. Since the War of the Princes, Vordanai power had been at a low ebb, broken by the alliance of Hamvelt and Borel. Now mighty Antova had fallen, the Hamveltai were humbled, and the legendary Duke of Brookspring had barely escaped annihilation. And Janus was going to take his army where even Farus IV never had, to Elysium itself.

  The next stage of the march was the sixty miles to Tsivny, on the river Norilia. The Pilgrim’s Road left the river behind here, narrowing to a rutted strip of earth that would barely be deemed a farm track in Vordan. Janus had given strict orders that the column stay close to the trail, though, and as they moved farther from the river and into the hinterland Raesinia could see why. The road wound around hills, following the terrain, and the farther north they went, the closer and thicker the forest became. Soon they were riding in the shadow of the trees, the enormous column squeezed down to an impossibly thin line of blue that stretched back for miles. Compressing the whole length into a single camp became impossible, and each division pitched its own tents wherever it found itself when night fell. The cavalry, pushing out ahead to make sure no enemy threatened the army in this awkward state, was run ragged by the constant patrols Janus demanded.

  Every evening Marcus arrived for dinner looking tired but satisfied. She realized he hadn’t been trying to snub her, back in Talbonn, when he said he was happy to be in the field again. This work, the endless small crises of moving an army through a hostile countryside, was what he felt most comfortable doing.

  “You’re probably right,” he said when she mentioned this. Grinning, he leaned forward. “Take it as a lesson, Your Majesty. There are different tools for every task, and war isn’t just about fighting battles.”

  “You’ve fought battles,” Raesinia protested.

  “Of course I have. But I would never claim more than basic competence.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the command tent. “Janus is what a real battle commander ought to be. He knows his men, the terrain, the enemy army. He knows the mind of the enemy commander, probably better than the man himself does.”

  “He’s not unbeatable,” Raesinia said, a little uncomfortably.

  “No one’s unbeatable,” Marcus said. “He’s just very, very good. But to him, all this, the marching over bad roads and so on, it’s just preliminaries to be gotten out of the way before the main event. Whereas if you need someone to straighten out a traffic jam or organize a camp so nobody gets in anybody’s way, that’s more my forte.” He smiled, a little sheepishly, and scratched his beard. “Actually, when you put it that way, it doesn’t sound very impressive, does it?”

  —

  “Your Majesty . . .” Sothe said quietly.

  “I know,” Raesinia said. “You think this is a bad idea.”

  “These people are dangerous.”

  Raesinia gestured around them. The large tent, big enough for a company to eat dinner, was empty except for herself, Sothe, and five guards from the Girls’ Own. She and Sothe sat on a bench on one side of a long table, like hosts waiting for their guests to arrive.

  “I think we’ve taken adequate precautions,” Raesinia said. Lowering her voice, she added, “And
they’re hardly dangerous to me.”

  “It’s still a risk, however slight. I don’t understand what you hope to gain.”

  That was a point on which Raesinia wasn’t prepared to have a debate, but she was saved from the necessity by the arrival of a small procession. It was led by a Girls’ Own sergeant, a big woman with a barely tamed frizz of red hair, and followed by four more soldiers. They were evenly spaced around the prisoners, two women and a young boy, dressed in the drab browns of Murnskai peasants.

  Raesinia got to her feet as the captives were escorted to the other side of the table. Their hands were bound behind their backs, she noted, and they were absolutely filthy, clothes stiff with mud and skin still crusty with dried blood. The taller of the two women had bandages wrapped around her head, with an angry red inflammation peeking out from underneath them. Something stank, the sick-sweet smell of a festering wound.

  “Sergeant,” Raesinia said. “General Ihernglass assured me these prisoners were being treated properly.”

  “We’ve done everything we can for ’em,” the sergeant said, bowing deep. “General Ihernglass said he doesn’t want us to lay hands on them more than necessary. We’ve offered baths and fresh clothes, but they won’t hear of it. Won’t let a cutter near them, either.” She glared at the captives. “If the stink displeases you, I can have the girls strip ’em down and rinse ’em off.”

  “No,” Raesinia said. “I think General Ihernglass has it right.” She turned back to the trio. “Has anyone tried to talk to them?”

  The sergeant scratched her cheek. “Not enough of us speak Murnskai, to be honest, Your Majesty. They’ve got a few words of Vordanai, but not enough for a conversation. General Ihernglass spoke to them a little bit, but after we wiped out the whole nest of ’em he didn’t think they’d have anything useful to say.”

  Raesinia nodded, still staring at the three. The woman whose face wasn’t bandaged was the oldest, and she met Raesinia’s gaze with hard, clear blue eyes. The boy couldn’t have been older than fifteen, and kept sneaking quick glances at Raesinia before turning his attention back to his shoes.

  “Good afternoon,” Raesinia said, blowing the mental dust off her Murnskai. She spoke slowly and probably overpolitely; everything she’d learned had been geared toward diplomatic functions. “I am Raesinia Orboan. What are your names?”

  The older woman blinked, unprepared to be addressed in her own language. Then, with a quick glance at her companions, she set her jaw and said nothing.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” Raesinia said. “I just want to talk. Would you like to sit down?”

  “I am Vitali,” the boy mumbled.

  The older woman heaved a sigh. “I am Nina,” she said. “And this is Lidiya.” Her eyes narrowed. “You are . . . empress?”

  “Queen, we would say,” Raesinia said. “Yes. I am the Queen of Vordan.”

  “Queen of the heretics,” Lidiya muttered under her breath. “Queen of filth.”

  Nina ignored this. “Why would you speak to us?”

  “I wanted to talk about what you did, back at the village. I wanted to . . .” Raesinia trailed off, shaking her head. Most of all she wanted to understand, impossible as that might seem. “You fought. All of you together, men and women and children.”

  “Of course,” Nina said. “My sons and I would not leave my husband on his own.” She blew out a breath. “I regret only that I must wait before I can see them again.”

  “And before that,” Raesinia said. “You attacked the army at night? The wagons, the supply lines. Correct?”

  “She will kill us,” Vitali muttered urgently. “Say nothing.”

  “She will kill us anyway,” Lidiya said. The bandage held her jaw shut, Raesinia realized, so all her words came from between clenched teeth.

  “Let her,” Nina said, making no attempt to hide her voice. “Yes. We did our part to drive your cursed army away.”

  “Why?” Raesinia said. “None of our foragers even came close to your village. We did nothing to you.”

  “Is that what you think of us?” Nina laughed bitterly. “That we are so cowardly as to ignore the houses your men burn, the girls they rape, the crops they steal, because they haven’t yet come to our village? That we value our lives so highly we would stand by while your demon general destroys Father Church and condemns the world to darkness?”

  “No villages have been burned,” Raesinia said. “We are here because your emperor declared war on us.”

  Even as she said it, it felt like sophistry. We’re here because Janus wants to destroy the Black Priests. The First Consul had made it clear that everything else was secondary.

  “The emperor serves by the will of God,” Vitali said. It sounded like a catechism. “The Church of Elysium is the will of God made manifest.”

  “Who told you to destroy your own village?” Raesinia said. “The priests?”

  “You understand nothing of us,” Nina said. “Everything we do is in accordance with the will of God. We feel it.” There was pity in her eyes for a moment. “A heretic would never understand.”

  “You’re right,” Raesinia said, feeling her anger rising. “I don’t understand what could drive people to murder their own children.” She looked from Nina to Lidiya and back again. “It’s what you did, isn’t it? Everyone too young or too old to join in your mad attack.”

  “They are with God now,” Nina said, her eyes hooded. “My mother. My daughter.”

  “My sisters,” Vitali said. “And my brother. One of your girl soldiers cut his throat.”

  “They didn’t have to be,” Raesinia said. “If you’d stayed in your homes, we would have left you alone!”

  “Lies,” Lidiya said. “You lie, you . . . you . . .”

  Her emotion overcoming her limited ability to speak, she took hold of the bandage and tore it away. A crust of dried blood and pus went with it, and fresh gore spattered across the table. Raesinia instinctively averted her eyes from the ruin of the woman’s face, where a long diagonal cut was dark with rot at the edges.

  “You think you can fool us, harpy,” Lidiya shouted. “Slut. Queen of whores. Look at you, dressed like a boy to please your general. He must fancy little boys.”

  The Girls’ Own sergeant stepped forward, frowning, but Raesinia held up a hand. She felt Sothe tense.

  “I should have stayed home and done nothing?” Lidiya said, blood spraying with every word. “My children are safe now in their eternal reward. I should have let you take their souls? Make them into freaks like your whore soldiers?” She jerked her head at the guards and sneered, dry flesh cracking. “Murnsk and Father Church will build a mountain of your heretic corpses, and then you will scream forever in hell.”

  Lidiya ran out of breath, panting, a steady patter of blood dripping onto the table. Nina squared her shoulders.

  “Well?” she said. “Will you kill us now?”

  “No,” Raesinia said, wiping a spot of blood off her cheek. “Sergeant?”

  “Your Majesty?” The sergeant was staring at the maimed woman.

  “Take these two away.” She indicated Nina and Vitali, then pointed at Lidiya. “Find a cutter and tell him to do whatever he can for her.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” The sergeant gestured the guards forward. “Although it may be too late.”

  “Tell him to try regardless.” Raesinia sat down heavily on the wooden bench. “Thank you for your help, Sergeant.”

  “Of course.” The sergeant bowed and followed the retreating prisoners.

  “You were right,” Raesinia said, when Sothe sat beside her. “This was a bad idea. I thought . . .” She wasn’t sure what she’d thought. “That maybe if we’re fighting the Priests of the Black, we could convince everyone else to stay out of it.”

  “It would be easier for all concerned,” Sothe said. “But you know it’s
impossible.”

  Raesinia shook her head. “I thought some of them could be convinced, perhaps. They’ve just seen their families slaughtered on Elysium’s orders. They should hate the priests for that. But . . .” She looked up at Sothe. “They’re going to fight us, aren’t they? All the way to Elysium.”

  “All the way,” Sothe agreed.

  A hundred more villages like this one. A hundred more little massacres. Knives in the dark and burning villages.

  “It’s what needs to be done,” Sothe said, watching her expression.

  To keep me safe from the Priests of the Black. Raesinia took a long, shaky breath. Does that make this my fault or theirs?

  “Your Majesty?” Sothe said. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Raesinia said. “Go back to the tent. I want to . . . walk for a while.”

  —

  After the rot-tinged air of the tent, the cool air outside felt like a tonic. Raesinia walked away with no clear destination in mind, turning at random through the close-packed tents of the Girls’ Own camp. There were women everywhere, cooking, cleaning weapons, playing dice or cards, and attending to all the other incomprehensible little chores that soldiers busied themselves with on the march. Some of them recognized her, and she left a trail of startled looks and sketchy bows in her wake.

  Eventually she felt the strange, almost-pain sensation in her head that she’d learned meant the nearby presence of another demon. Raesinia hadn’t managed to become adept with this new sense, but she could usually tell when Winter was nearby, at least. This time it felt unusually strong, and she expected to find the general right behind her, but when she finally stopped, she was standing by the flap of a tent halfway down the row. Winter noticed Raesinia at the same time and bowed as she approached.

  “Your Majesty,” Winter said. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Just clearing my head,” Raesinia said.

  Winter exchanged a look with a captain standing beside her.

  “You’re not here to visit Alex?” Winter said.