Winter War Awakening (Blood Rose Rebellion, Book 3)

by Rosalyn Eves

  My wingbeats were steady and sure, slicing through the air above the puszta as I made my way back to the World Tree.

  * * *

  Hadúr did not seem particularly surprised to see me again, which rather spoiled the effect of my triumphal return. Bahadır said only, “I’m glad you’re back.”

  “No more running,” I said.

  Hadúr summoned us both to his tactical room, where colored swaths of soldiers still sprawled across the maps of the regions. I wondered if his diagrams had shown him anything of my slaughter of Windisch-Graetz’s army. I would never know, because Hadúr drew the story out of me as surely as a fisherman with his rod. At the end of it, Bahadır looked grave, but Hadúr only grunted.

  “You were a fool to take on an army alone, táltos. That dragon of yours can be a powerful protection to this country, to the World Tree, but only if used well. If unchecked, that hunger will drive a monster that cannot ever be fed.”

  I didn’t say anything. What could I say? I had been a fool.

  “But your story tells me a couple of important things. First, I have been unjust to keep you from searching for your sister. The needs of the war compel me until I have a hard time seeing beyond that: I forget the urgency of individual human needs. So, we will do better.

  “Second, we have neglected some aspects of your training: among them, protecting your mind from Coremancers and other magicians.” Then he clapped his hands, and nothing more was said about my rogue behavior.

  And yet, after that, the texture of the training changed. Perhaps it was that Hadúr granted us both a little more autonomy in what we studied, even soliciting our feedback. Or that he wove tactics for finding Noémi into our routine. In any case, those new trainings left me feeling more a colleague than a mere student.

  Hadúr taught both of us to guard against Coremancer attacks by building our mental control: envisioning a wall around our thoughts and letting nothing escape. “Coremancer art thrives on weak regulation of thoughts and emotions,” he said. Not surprisingly, Bahadır was better at this than I was.

  When I’d begun to exhibit a little more control, Hadúr taught me how to walk into dreams.

  “Dream walkers of old possessed two different skills: sending their spirit abroad in the physical world, and sending their spirit into the dreams of others. With the first skill, your spirit moves through an environment you already know. Walking in dreams is both easier and harder: easier, because you do not have to travel so far, but harder, as dreamscapes can be unfamiliar and dangerous. Far more táltos walkers have lost themselves in dreams than in the physical realm.”

  That did not sound particularly promising.

  Hádur tapped his fingers together, a surprisingly refined gesture for a man of his bulk. “In the first form of dream-walking, you send your spirit into the physical realm while you are in a trance—not a true sleep. In the second form, you send your spirit into dreams while you sleep truly, retaining only enough control of your dreaming mind to recognize that you dream, and to step outside it.

  “All dreams exist in a world apart from our physical world, one that coexists with it but does not map perfectly across it. As you step out of your own dream, you should be able to see the dreams of others swirling around you as bits of mist that solidify as a sleeper dreams. I am not a dream walker, so I do not perfectly understand the practice, only the theory.”

  He took a sip of brandy from his glass, then wiped his hand across his mouth. “You might have more luck finding your sister in this fashion: I am told that the dreams of familiar souls appear brighter to the dream walker.”

  In the days since I had returned, I had tried several times to find Noémi by sending my spirit abroad, but I had seen no sign of the praetherian soul sparks. I’d finally concluded I was looking in the wrong places, or the brightness of Hadúr and the grey ladies had something to do with the World Tree, not praetheria in particular.

  Hadúr had me practice by giving both myself and Bahadır sleeping drafts. Before swallowing his, Bahadır gave me a sidelong look and muttered, “Am I a miserable friend if I hope you fail at this? I’d rather not have you stomping through my dreams.”

  I grinned at him. “That’s only because your imagination falls short of the splendor of dreaming of me.”

  “Oh, I can imagine that just fine,” Bahadır said. “It’s only that I prefer sweet dreams to nightmares.”

  Then Hadúr made us drink drafts—I think to shut us up.

  Falling asleep was easy; dreaming, easier still. But it was not until I was halfway through a pleasurable dream of cards, where every hand I touched came up lucky, and gold spilled across the table, that I remembered I had a task other than sleeping.

  Step outside the dream. My first effort involved my dream self high-stepping like a dancer who had lost his cue. I decided perhaps I was trying too hard and let my consciousness drift.

  And then I was outside my own dream, floating in a featureless grey space, with bits of mist strewn around me, just as Hadúr had said. I didn’t see anything particularly bright that might be Bahadır, so I snagged the mist nearest me, and found myself, in an eyeblink, in another dream.

  I didn’t know the dreamer or the landscape of the dream—a reddish desert where the sand swirled into impossible monoliths and cathedrals of wind and dust. The dreamer trudged across the sand, oblivious to the wonders taking shape around him. There was nothing in the dream to keep me, so I attempted to drift out, as I had from my own dream.

  But drifting out didn’t work, so I trailed the dreamer across the sands until a powerful gust swept us both into the sky and the dreamer awoke with a start. Finding myself back in the grey lands again, I pinched myself awake.

  This dream-walking would take some practice.

  * * *

  Hadúr found us at breakfast a couple of mornings later. “There’s something you should see.” Following him to the strategy room, we saw that the colored armies of Hungary’s enemies had shifted: the yellow armies of Austria spread across the plains and cut down from the northern mountains in a wide swath of gold. The red Russian armies came in from the east to meet them, with Dragović’s blue Croatian soldiers still holding the south-central part of Hungary.

  In the southeast, where Hungarian white had been holding her own against Romanian purple, a new influx of Russian red covered the region. A smattering of Ottoman soldiers (green) showed up for the first time—worried, Hadúr explained, by the Russian presence.

  Bahadır fingered one of the Ottoman pieces but said nothing. I suspected he thought of his mother and sister, at home in Scutari.

  “The war is intensifying.” Hadúr picked up a white Hungarian piece and set it down on a point perhaps 60 kilometers northwest of us. “And the Hungarian armies are not unified: Kossuth has appointed a Polish general, Dembiński, to lead the armies instead of General Görgey, a move that has not endeared Kossuth or Dembiński to the troops. Dembiński is moving the armies toward Eger, hoping to draw the fighting away from Buda-Pest and Debrecen, where the government has re-formed.”

  I stared at the map, at the sea of colors. Everywhere, Hungary was surrounded, only the barest scattering of Ottoman green indicating possible allies.

  “It’s time,” Hadúr said. “Hungary needs us.”

  * * *

  Hadúr, Bahadır, and I set off on horseback the next day, following the silver ribbon of the Tarna as it flowed out of the north. My mount was even-tempered enough, but I missed Holdas, my ugly white horse, who had disappeared when Vasilisa captured me. We passed by a handful of military camps and small villages interspersed with forest before we spotted the spires of Eger in the distance: a pair of towers fronting the yellow dome of the basilica; another pair of church towers just off the main square. Rising above all this was the castle where Hungarian forces famously withstood a vastly superior Turkish army in the sixteenth century. />
  Rumors followed us, whispers that the Austrian army was not far behind.

  Though Eger was not a large city, it took us some time canvassing soldiers in the town square before someone could direct us to Dembiński, currently visiting a clergyman in a well-appointed house near the basilica.

  The manservant who opened the door did not seem inclined to let us in—and I’ll grant the sight of Hadúr in full copper battle armor was alarming. After I discreetly passed him a few coins, he became much friendlier, even sending for a servant to hold our horses. Casting one last, uncertain look at Hadúr, he admitted us to the house and went to check if Dembiński would see us.

  Dembiński came out, wiping his mouth on a napkin. We’d interrupted his lunch.

  “What is it? It had better be important.” His eyes caught on Hadúr and traveled slowly up the copper armor, lingering for a beat on the spreading ash tree engraved on the chestplate. “Who the devil are you, sir?”

  “Hadúr.” The glint in the war god’s eyes might have caused a lesser mortal to quail, but Henryk Dembiński was clearly made of sterner stuff. Or perhaps, being Polish-born and -bred, he simply didn’t recognize the Hungarian war god.

  “I suppose you’ve come to enlist?”

  “I’ve brought a táltos,” Hadúr said, and Dembiński’s demeanor shifted. Where he had been irritable and bored, he grew intent.

  “Eszterházy Mátyás,” I said as Dembiński stared at me.

  His gaze swept Bahadır. “And the rest of you?”

  Amusement curling his lips, Hadúr said, “I’ve some military training.”

  “Bahadır Beyzadi,” Bahadır said. “My father was a military man.”

  “We could use trained recruits,” Dembiński said. “The soldiers Kossuth sends me are raw as new-hatched chicks.”

  He led us back to the dining room. If the clergyman hosting Dembiński seemed put out at the sudden enlargement of the party, he said nothing, only beckoned for new places to be laid. The second man at the table, with his neatly trimmed facial hair and round eyeglasses, was Görgey Artúr—the general who was to have led the army before Dembiński showed up. I wondered if he resented his rival.

  Unlike Dembiński, Görgey clearly recognized Hadúr’s name, though his expression suggested he believed Hadúr to be an imposter laying claim to the god’s name rather than the actual god.

  Like Dembiński, however, he was interested in me.

  “Táltos, eh? What can you do?” Görgey asked.

  “Shapeshifting, animal persuasion, some dream-walking,” I said.

  “And when you are in the dream state, can you hear what is said around you?”

  I nodded.

  Görgey sat back in his seat, eyes shining. “But this is excellent! Coming by good intelligence in this campaign has been my Achilles’ heel. Either the riders I send out do not return or they return with information that is outdated by the time they arrive. Or worse, wrong altogether.”

  The talk moved more generally to strategies for the upcoming campaign, and I applied myself to my lunch, falling into a pleasant food haze—from which I was rudely pulled by a soldier darting into the room and announcing that fighting had been reported at Verpelét, some eight miles distant.

  “Impossible!” Dembiński said. “The Austrians cannot have reached us so soon. It is too soon!”

  “But there is cannon fire. I heard it myself,” the soldier said.

  “Only some distant thunder,” Dembiński insisted.

  Görgey sprang up and dashed to the window: the skies outside were clear. He flung open the window, and the sound came, undeniable. Cannon fire.

  “Damn and blast,” Görgey muttered.

  “It is too soon!” Dembiński repeated, looking vexed, as if someone had just spoiled the surprise of a party he had planned. Standing up, he asked for a carriage to be brought round at once.

  The clergyman looked uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, sir, but I have no carriage to offer you. No horses, either, those being conscripted for army use.”

  Dembiński whirled around to Görgey. “How came you here? By some vehicle, yes?”

  “Yes,” Görgey said. “But—”

  “Have it sent for,” Dembiński said, over the top of Görgey’s objection.

  When the “vehicle” was drawn up before the front steps, I understood Görgey’s hesitation. He and his chief of staff had traveled to Eger in a hay cart, pulled by a sluggish old mount.

  Dembiński eyed the cart, still piled full of hay, with revulsion. “I am commander in chief of the armies of Hungary. I cannot arrive at the battle in that. I will wait for a more suitable carriage to be found.”

  Görgey said, “That might be hours. Meanwhile, your men need you.”

  “You can borrow my horse,” Bahadır said as the servant approached with our horses.

  “Ah. Excellent,” Dembiński said, selecting Hadúr’s horse, and missing entirely Hadúr’s grim expression.

  I don’t know why Hadúr did not simply overrule Dembiński: perhaps he was still taking the measure of the man. In any case, Hadúr took his seat beside the cart’s driver, who looked at him with terror, leaving Bahadır and Görgey’s chief of staff to settle into the hay.

  The two generals mounted, I followed suit, and we cantered along the road to Verpelét. Dembiński continued to bemoan the early arrival of the Austrian troops. The decisive offense he had planned would be ruined entirely by early action.

  Görgey curled his lip at Dembiński’s ongoing complaints, though he took care not to let Dembiński see it. Sidling close to me, he said, “This state is the moral agony of a braggart, who, having pretended to be a strong swimmer, is now seized with mortal fear lest he should be drowned, because the water into which he has ventured happens to reach up to his neck.”

  I don’t know if Dembiński heard Görgey, or only marked his attitude, but he stiffened and said, “I came to Hungary entrusted with the supreme command over all the Hungarian troops. I have met you with kindness, because I know that it must mortify a Hungarian to serve under a non-Hungarian. But you reproach me for my orders, instead of obeying them!”

  Görgey stiffened in turn. “I obey every order that serves the interest of my country.”

  The two fell into an uneasy silence after that. While I was glad of the quiet, I could not help thinking: With such men as allies, we make our enemies’ job easier.

  At length, we came to a group of standard bearers holding aloft the tripartite flag of Hungary—red, white, and green.

  Dembiński pulled up. “Is the battle ahead?” He nodded down the road.

  One of the men shook his head. “Not here. In Kápolna.”

  After some frustrated hemming and hawing, Dembiński opted to follow the road to Kápolna. But when Görgey and I made to follow, he stopped us. “No. Go south; make sure the troops there hold their position along the river and keep the Austrians from advancing.”

  Görgey thinned his lips at the command but turned his horse without a word.

  It was dark by the time we reached the banks of the Tarna River. The army was still in position, so Görgey delivered his message to hold their place, and we returned to Kápolna under cover of darkness. All told, the journey had taken upwards of three hours—a singular waste of time for a general to carry a message that any foot soldier could have done, that I might have delivered in crow form in a fraction of the time.

  What was Dembiński playing at?

  When we finally found him, he was asleep in a farmhouse he had commandeered. The hay cart had arrived at the farmhouse too: Hadúr was studying maps near a low-burning fire and casting derisive looks at the sleeping general. It was Hadúr who told us that Bahadır and Görgey’s chief of staff had been dispatched with orders for outlying army corps.

  “I’d best be off,” Görgey said. “I’d h
oped for further word from Dembiński, but my troops can’t wait.” He glanced at me. “Will you undertake to ride to Richard Guyon’s troops and have them advance as soon as may be possible?”

  It was sometime past midnight, and I yearned to curl up in a corner of the room and sleep, but I had asked to be part of this. “Richard Guyon?”

  “An English gentleman, of a French family,” Görgey said, as though a foreign nobleman fighting for Hungarian independence were an everyday thing. I thought of General Dembiński’s Polish blood—and my friend William, who was Polish-Scottish. Perhaps it was.

  I debated carrying the message as a crow or riding on horseback. As the distance was not far, I decided it was better to arrive fully clothed than have to scavenge clothes, and so I mounted up once more.

  When I reached the camp, it was quiet, with only a pair of sentries awake to mark our arrival.

  I slid down from my horse, stumbling a little in my haste. “I’m here to see Guyon.”

  “Colonel Guyon is asleep,” the sentry answered.

  “Then wake him,” I said. “I’ve urgent dispatches from General Görgey.”

  The sentry saluted, and I followed him through the camp. I had the disquieting sense of walking through a graveyard, the pale canvas tents as tombs, the sleeping bodies as corpses not yet buried.

  The sentry ducked into a large tent near the center of the camp. A moment later, a young man emerged, already dressed, though it was not yet dawn. The ink smudges on his fingers suggested he’d been writing.

  “Gábor!” The exhaustion of the late night vanished, burned away by the surprised joy at seeing my friend.

  I held out my hand, and Gábor clasped it firmly. “Mátyás! How came you here?”

  “Bearing dispatches for Colonel Guyon,” I said.

  “Have you found Noémi?”

  “Not yet—but I’ve come to realize the war cannot wait until I find her.”