The Price of Valor (44 page)

“It's all yours,” she said. “Those Guardians are still in reserve, though, so you're in for a fight.”

Give-Em-Hell didn't bother to shout an order, only unsheathed his saber and pointed. He rode into the woods, and his men pounded after him, rank after
rank of cavalry in gleaming cuirasses. Winter watched them disappear under the trees until the last had passed out of sight.

The Girls' Own had gathered just behind where the Royals had been. Winter was pleased to see that none of them had kept on running, always a worry in any retreat. She sought out Abby, and to her relief found Jane by her side, winding a strip of bandage around her arm.

“Are you all right?” Winter said.

Abby grinned. “I wasn't looking where I was going and ran into a tree.”

“Typical.” Jane tied off the bandage, tight enough that Abby squeaked.

“How was it?”

“Hot,” Abby admitted. “But we did all right.”

“They certainly lost a hell of a lot more than we did,” Jane said.

“They had more to lose,” Winter said. “Take another few minutes to rest, then get back into the woods. They may try this again, and in the meantime we should pull all the wounded back here.”

As if to compensate for not being where the fighting was hottest, Winter found herself helping with this latter task, scouring the underbrush and following the cries of the injured. There were, as Jane had said, many more dead and injured in yellow uniforms than blue, but there were plenty of both. Every rock and ditch had been a defensive position to be fought over, and she found dead yellowjackets drifted three or four deep at the base of a boulder. A young woman had climbed a tree to get a better shot, and gotten her leg stuck there when she was hit, so her corpse hung upside down with her arms dangling and loose hair drifting in the wind. A Hamveltai boy with his intestines coiled in a gory pile in his lap calmly asked in heavily accented Vordanai if Winter could please kill him. She drew her saber and cut his throat.

When Bobby found her, they had run out of wounded, and had turned to the task of extracting the corpses. Winter was holding the legs of an older woman while one of the Royals took her shoulders. One of her hands had flopped loose and trailed limply in the dirt.

“Sir!” Bobby said.

“What?” Winter stopped. “Are they coming back?”

“No, sir! It's Give-Em-Hell!”

Winter waved over a nearby soldier to take up her burden and hurried back with Bobby to the edge of the woods. Yellowjacket corpses covered the slope of the hill, whole mangled rows of them lying where they'd been cut down by canister from Archer's guns. Scattered bodies in blue lined the edge of the woods,
where they'd been caught by answering volleys. The men and women tasked with retrieving them had stopped to watch the drama going on below.

Winter shaded her eyes with her hand, trying to make out what was happening. A large body of horsemen was in motion—that was Give-Em-Hell, the uniforms were blue, and the Vordanai flag snapped at their head. It was more of a disorganized mass than a formation, but it hung together, which was more than could be said for the Hamveltai cavalry. Yellow-clad riders galloped in every direction, escaping their blue pursuers, while riderless horses ran about and added to the confusion. A sprawling mass of dead and wounded men and animals marked the point where the two sides had first come together; evidently, the Hamveltai Guardians had not been as elite as they'd been made out to be.

As Winter watched, the Vordanai cavalry overran a line of guns that had been firing at the Vordanai on the hilltops. The cannoneers struggled to turn their pieces around and face the oncoming threat, but before they could get into firing position the cavalry was on top of them, sabers rising and falling. Panicked artillerymen fled, not just from that battery but from the guns on either side as well, and the horsemen rode on without a shot being fired at them. Ahead was the Hamveltai infantry, deployed into line for the final advance on the heights. Their officers saw the cavalry coming, and drums beat a frantic tattoo while the lines writhed and attempted to shape themselves into squares.

They didn't make it. Artillery fire from Janus' army was still coming hard and fast, sowing confusion and death in the Hamveltai ranks. When their men turned around, they could see the wreckage of the once-proud Guardians scattered across the field, and their own artillerymen running for their lives. The first battalion in the horsemen's path had half completed its evolution into a bayonet-fringed square, and a ragged volley of musketry emptied a few saddles, but Give-Em-Hell's men rode around the firm part of the formation and cut into it from the sides. Without the solidity of a line of bayonets, the foot soldiers were no match for the armored horsemen, and they knew it. A few moments of bloody saber-work, and the battalion was in full flight, scattered beyond any hope of recall. The two nearest Hamveltai units, still struggling to form their own squares, broke into panicked flight along with it as the men ignored the shouts of their officers and took to their heels.

Just like that, five hundred horsemen had put to flight five or six times their number. But the Hamveltai infantry were thick on the ground, and a canny commander might still have saved the situation. Before anyone could try, however, a wave of blue appeared at the crest of the hill, Vordanai infantry filing out into
line and marching down to join their mounted countrymen. The artillery paused to let them pass, then thundered over their heads at the Hamveltai battalions that had managed to form square, wreaking havoc on such tight-packed targets.

It was too much. First one battalion began to crumble, then another, and then the entire Hamveltai flank fell to pieces before Winter's astonished eyes. Ten thousand men, as finely trained and equipped as any army in the world, were converted in a moment into a fleeing, helpless mob. They overran their own guns and the few officers who tried to stop them, sitting helplessly on their horses amid the human flood. They didn't try for long, as the Vordanai infantry broke into a charge, firing wildly into the mass of panicked enemy. Hundreds of yellowjackets, unable to get clear, were throwing down their weapons and waving frantically in surrender.

For a long moment, there was dead silence on the wooded ridge, among the piled dead.

“Sir?” Bobby said, stunned. “What just happened?”

“We won the battle,” Winter said.

There was still firing at the far end of the line, men fighting and dying for a cause they didn't yet know was lost. Heavy columns of Vordanai infantry were marching down from the hills in that direction, in case they needed convincing.

Two women standing beside Winter let out a hesitant cheer, which was quickly joined a half dozen more. Moments later the whole forest was ringing with triumphant shouts, and bayonetted muskets waved in the air. Winter snatched off her cap and joined in, though in truth she was still too numb to feel much elation. In any case, once the celebration was done, there was still the grisly work of clearing out the corpses to attend to.

THE DIRECTORY FOR THE NATIONAL DEFENSE

T
he triumphs of the past few days had done much to insulate Maurisk against shock, or else he was still feeling the effects of the treasures he'd looted from the liquor cabinets of Durenne and his allies. Either way, when he turned back to his desk to find Ionkovo standing in the corner of the room, he gave little more than a startled grunt.
Maybe I'm just getting used to him.

“It appears,” the Penitent Damned said, with his customary lack of preamble, “that congratulations are in order.”

“I'm not sure I'd go as far as congratulations,” Maurisk said. “But things do seem to be in hand, for the moment.”

“In hand,” Ionkovo said. He stepped away from the wall and circled the desk. Almost unconsciously, Maurisk retreated, sidestepping to put the desk between them. “Yes, I think that might be a good description.
Your
affairs are in hand.”

“I'm not sure—”

“Your enemies languish in dungeons, the Deputies-General are firmly cowed, and that toad who commands your guard will jump whenever you dangle a pretty bauble in front of him.” Ionkovo leaned forward and put his hands on the desk. “
My
affairs, however, would seem to have been . . . neglected.”

“Plans are in motion, I assure you.”

“Like your plan to seize d'Ivoire? Your men were
late
.” Ionkovo straightened up. “I cannot abide lack of punctuality.”

“D'Ivoire can't hide forever,” Maurisk said. “And we still have the queen—”

“You do not, in fact, have the queen,” Ionkovo grated. “Indeed, I begin to doubt if you ever did.”

Maurisk found the courage for a bit of indignation. “If you doubt my word—”

Ionkovo cut him off again. “I don't doubt your word, only your competence. Let me remind you that all of your political triumphs will be worth
nothing
if I don't get what I want. The legions of Murnsk and the Borelgai fleet will grind this country to dust, and you will be remembered as the man who presided over the final destruction of Vordan.”

Sweat trickled down Maurisk's neck and into his collar. “I assure you, I am making every effort. I will investigate the matter of the queen. And in the meantime—”

“Forget the queen for now,” Ionkovo said. “One of my associates will see if there is anything useful to be learned from that farce. But more important, you have captured one of Vhalnich's men, have you not?”

How could he possibly know that?
Maurisk swallowed and nodded. “Yes. He denies it, but we're certain he's working for Vhalnich. He must have left a cadre in the city to protect the Thousand Names.”

“Of course he did. And what has he told you?”

“Ah . . . nothing, so far. But I have men who are skilled in loosening tongues. He'll talk before much longer.”

“I have extremely limited patience. Your men are restricted to . . . conventional methods, while my associates are not. One of them is waiting outside. You will accompany him to this prisoner, and he will practice his craft. I will join you there. Understood?”

“Now?”

Ionkovo smiled. “Now.”

It was only a short walk to the old Butchers' Union building, a blocky brick structure on one of the streets that led away from Farus' Triumph. Maurisk spent the time glancing at his companion, who seemed a remarkably ordinary sort of man, balding and a bit paunchy, walking with a slight limp. The only oddities were his fingernails, which were as long and white as an eagle's talons.

The Patriot Guards outside the Butchers' Union saluted and opened the doors, and Maurisk led the stranger through the darkened space. The sun had set, and no light came in through the many narrow windows. This had once been the killing floor, before the pressures of commerce had moved sanguinary operations to less savory districts south of the river. After that, the vast open space had been sluiced down, refurnished, and rented to firms in need of temporary accommodation. With the drop-off in trade caused by the war, it had rapidly emptied out, and been taken over by the Directory for its own ends. During the
day, it served as a muster hall and meeting ground for the Patriot Guard, and the cellars that had once secured sides of beef and curing hams had proven ideal for sensitive prisoners.

Another pair of guards waited at the stairs, and yet another outside the room itself. Maurisk kept looking over his shoulder, expecting to see Ionkovo skulking in the shadows, but the Penitent Damned made no appearance. One of the guards unlocked the door with a key from his belt, and Maurisk led the bald man into a dry, windowless space, illuminated by a single candle in a wall bracket.

In one corner, tied to a chair at his wrists and ankles, was the prisoner. He was a lean young man, with several days' growth of beard and a wound under one ear that was crusty with dried blood. His clothing was rank and filthy.

“Shut the door,” the bald man said. He had a Murnskai accent, much thicker than Ionkovo's.

Maurisk glanced nervously from the prisoner to the guards, then put his shoulder against the door. It swung shut with a hollow
boom
, locking itself with a final-sounding
click.

“This is our man, then?” said Ionkovo, stepping out of the shadows.

Maurisk gritted his teeth to keep from shouting.
Sorcery.
He swallowed, regaining his composure, and nodded.

“What makes you think he's one of Vhalnich's?”

“He made regular visits to a particular set of cafés, always waiting in the same places, and every so often he'd leave what looked like a sign. Folded papers, twisted napkins, that kind of thing. A local woman tipped us off because she thought he was a spy.”

“So he's a spy. But is he Vhalnich's?”

“He's Mierantai. If you can persuade him to speak, you'll hear it in his accent. The men of Mieran County are notorious for their close-minded loyalty, so I can't imagine him working for anyone else.”

The prisoner raised his head, regarding his captors through a ragged fringe of hair. His eyes went from Maurisk to Ionkovo as they spoke, but his face remained impassive.

“Well,” Ionkovo said, “we'll know soon enough. My associate here is known, in our circles, as the Liar, and this is his area of expertise. If you would?”

“Gladly,” the bald man said. He stepped in front of the prisoner, regarding the man blandly. “Now, this won't hurt a bit.”

“Watch,” Ionkovo said. “You may find this instructive.”

Maurisk watched. He watched as the Liar's nails began to glow a bright blue,
and watched as the bald man sank these burning claws into the prisoner's face as though it were made of butter. Maurisk felt his gorge rising, but he felt Ionkovo's eyes on him, and dared not look away. It was obvious that there was a purpose to this exercise beyond simply gathering information.
He wants me to know that it could as easily be me in that chair.

As his blood ran down his face and dripped onto his shirt, the Mierantai spoke in a slow, careful voice, answering every question the Liar put to him. It was, Maurisk thought, when his instinctive horror of the supernatural subsided a little, considerably more efficient than the beating and flaying his own people relied on to achieve the same end. When the Liar was satisfied there was nothing more to be wrung from the wretch, he withdrew his hand. The young man gave a few final twitches and died.

“Well,” Ionkovo said, “it appears you were correct.”

“I'll get a force together.”

“Do so,” the Penitent said. “One of my people will accompany them.”

“Cinder?” Maurisk said apprehensively. The old woman's ability was anything but subtle, and keeping her involvement a secret always involved a regrettably large number of extra casualties.

“No,” Ionkovo said, with a slight smile. “Not this time. Liar, would you please inform Twist that his services are required?”

“Of course,” the bald man said, ducking his head. The politician in Maurisk noted that there was a simmering resentment in the Liar's gaze when he looked at Ionkovo.
So there are rivalries among even the Penitent Damned?
He filed the thought away for later perusal and kept his face blank.

“This time,” Ionkovo said, stepping back into the darkness, “there are to be no mistakes.”