The Thousand Names (30 page)

At a gesture from Winter, the men on the barricade opened fire. The crash of nine muskets at once, in the echoing confines of the boat-crowded quay, sounded more like a battalion volley. Smoke billowed along the barricade, and here and there in the front rank of the approaching formation men twitched and went down, or dropped out of line and stumbled off to the sides. A hundred yards was still a long shot for a musket, but the target was wide and packed shoulder to shoulder, so some balls inevitably struck home.

As soon as they’d fired, the men on the barricade turned and handed their weapons to soldiers waiting behind them, accepting fresh ones in return. Winter watched the exchange with a touch of pride. For something she’d improvised on the spot, they handled it nicely. Another volley crashed out, more ragged than the first as the individual men fired as quickly as they could mark a target. More Auxiliaries went down. The brown-and-tan column closed up around the casualties, its ranks swallowing the fallen like some amorphous multibodied creature. Winter could hear the shouts of the Khandarai sergeants pushing their men to keep the line straight in spite of the losses.

Another volley, and another, until all cohesion was lost and there was simply a steady rattle of shots. New muskets were handed up as quickly as they were fired, while the balance of the company worked on reloading. The tread of the Auxiliaries’ boots was audible under the intermittent cracks of the shots and the fast beat of the drums. Winter watched the remorseless advance of the column with rising dread.

Come on,
she thought at them.
You don’t like this, do you? Break off—

The drums stopped, and then the footsteps.

“Down!” Winter shouted.

A moment later, the first two ranks of the column cut loose. The roar of musketry drowned the sound of the balls striking the boat, but Winter could feel the barricade shiver and jump under the impact. More shots zipped and whistled overhead.

“Fire!” she called, and the men who’d ducked behind their makeshift breastwork popped back up and continued their withering barrage. At fifty yards, nearly every ball told. The few that didn’t hit the dirt in front of the Auxiliaries, throwing up little fountains of mud.

Another volley from the Khandarai made the boat shake and splinter. Once again, the Vordanai ducked, which rendered the shots mostly ineffective. The Auxiliaries’ fire-discipline was breaking under the stress and excitement of battle, as it always did once soldiers were hotly engaged. The next volley was ragged, with shots continuing to sound a considerable time after the main blast, and from that point on the shooting dissolved into a general racket on both sides as men fired, loaded, and fired again as fast as they were able.

One of Winter’s nine leapt back from the barricade, cursing and clutching the bloody mess of his left hand. Graff gestured and one of the loaders took his place, taking up the fallen musket and firing into the gathering smoke. It was becoming difficult to see, but judging from the pinkish yellow muzzle flashes the Auxiliaries were still out at fifty yards, some distance from the base of the quay.

Winter could well imagine their commander’s consternation. Only his first two ranks could fire, but that still gave him eighty muskets engaged to her nine. On the other hand, Winter’s men were getting off three or four shots for every one the Khandarai loosed, and they were protected by the barricade.

Moreover, he had few options for rectifying the situation. The closer he got to the quay, the more the barges lining the sides would restrict his visibility, until he was reduced to the same nine-man front. The only other option was to charge and hope to carry the barricade with bayonets, but the tactics manual said that a bayonet charge would be effective only against an enemy already shaken or routed by fire, and the defenders here were clearly anything but shaken.

Winter hoped like hell the man stuck to the tactics manual. The Auxiliaries had plenty of bodies in the rear ranks to replace those that fell, she knew, but how long would they stand it? No matter how well trained, there was a limit, and no soldier liked to stand in a position where he was obviously getting the worst of it.

One of the men in blue flopped backward from the barricade, thrashing on the quay like a landed fish. Winter glanced in his direction and then looked away with a shudder; the ball had carried away a quarter of his skull, and he’d splashed the stones with blood and bits of slime when he fell. Graff sent another man up the barricade and detailed two more to drag the dead man to the rear and out of view.

She turned back to the battle, only to find it dying away at last. Either panic had triumphed over discipline or the enemy commander had recognized the futility of his position and backed away voluntarily. Whatever the case, there were no more muzzle flashes in the smoke, and no skirl of advancing drums. The men on the barricade fired a few more shots on general principle, then let out a cheer to hurry the Khandarai on their way.

It wasn’t until the cheering became general that Winter noticed that one of the soldiers leaning on the boat wasn’t joining in. She had a couple of men pull him away, and they found he’d taken a ball in the chest and died in place, painting the woodwork red with gouts of arterial blood. In the confusion of battle, no one had noticed.

That dampened the atmosphere somewhat. Winter stared out into the swirling smoke while Graff conducted the poor dead boy to the end of the pier. Her apprehension increased by degrees, until by the time he returned she was certain something was wrong.

“They’re not gone,” she told him. “We’d have heard them shouting if they’d really broken.” She looked around at her own men. “Quiet! Graff, get them to be quiet.”

“Quiet!” said Graff, and Folsom took up the cry at a bellow. One by one the men fell silent, all looking toward the barricade, and hands tightened around weapons. Finally, all that could be heard was the gentle creaks and scrapes of the boats riding against the quay, a little splashing from the river, and—quiet conversations, close at hand. Too low to hear the words, but Winter didn’t need to. A horrible picture had sprung full-formed into her mind.

“They’re not gone,” she said. “They split up and spread out along the shore, behind the boats.” While the wall of high-riding barges protected the defenders from enfilading fire from attackers on the riverbank, it also mostly concealed the bank from view. There was only one reason to take up such a position. “They’re going to try to storm us.”

Graff spat a vile curse and turned to the men. “Fix bayonets! Helgoland, you’re on the wall. The rest of you form up—no, stay on your knees! Two ranks, loaded weapons, hold fire until my command!”

“Sir,” Bobby said by Winter’s elbow, “we’d better move back.”

That rankled, but she could see the logic in it. There was no sense in being in the line of fire, where she might prove an impediment to her own men. She and the corporal threaded their way through the double line of kneeling men that Graff was organizing, and took a position beside Folsom and the remaining dozen men of the company, who were still loading muskets as fast as they could ram home powder and ball.

Graff joined them, and just in time. A shout from the men at the barricade warned that the Khandarai were approaching, boiling out of the smoke at a run. There was no careful drum-timed advance this time, just a swarm of brown uniforms and the wicked gleam of fixed bayonets.

The Colonials at the barricade needed no encouragement. They fired at once. At less than twenty yards, the volley had a dreadful impact, bowling men completely off their feet and spraying blood across those who came behind them. The charge had too much momentum to stop, however, and the Auxiliaries came on like maddened hornets, trampling the bodies of their comrades in the narrow confines of the pier.

They reached the boat and started to clamber over, stumbling a little on the still-wet surface. One man lost his footing and crashed back into his fellows, but more made it to the top. For a moment, they were silhouetted against the afternoon sky, brown on blue.

“First rank,
fire
!”

Graff timed it nicely. The men on the barricade had thrown themselves flat after firing their volley, and with the range barely over ten yards the Colonials had a target any game hunter would have envied. The roar of the volley was louder than thunder, and the men standing on the boat jerked or spun away, sliding off the curved wood to land bonelessly on the pier.

There were more behind them, though, pressed forward by the tight confines and the momentum of the rear ranks still pouring onto the quay. Graff waited until a few had gotten their footing before calling for the second rank’s volley, which cut them down like wheat. More tried coming over on their bellies, slithering across on the slick undersurface of the upturned boat, but the men who’d crouched in the shadow of the barricade grabbed these brave souls as they emerged and dragged them to the ground to apply their bayonets.

More dangerous were the shots that were starting to come from the Auxiliaries packed against the barricade. Cover worked both ways, after all—now it was Winter’s men who were exposed on the naked stones of the quay, while the Khandarai had the boat to hide behind. A man in the second line jerked backward with a screech, toppling against one of the barges. The rest, having retrieved loaded muskets from the fast-diminishing stock, fired back in an effort to force the Auxiliaries to keep their heads down.

That’s it,
Winter thought.
I’m out of tricks.
Her men wouldn’t flee—couldn’t, really, with their backs literally against a wall—but at this rate they’d be wiped out. She looked at the tight-packed mob of soldiers on the other side of the boat and wished, absurdly, for a cannon—a single load of canister would have cleared the quay.
Of course, if we could have gotten any guns across the river we wouldn’t be having this problem—

She blinked in disbelief. The mob was breaking up. Auxiliaries were starting to run, first those at the rear, then the men closer to the front as the pressure from behind started to ease. The rest of the Colonials saw it, too. Cheers started to rise again, louder and louder.

But—they finally had us! Why . . .

It wasn’t until Graff let out a satisfied sigh that Winter finally turned around. The end of the quay—the only space through which she’d been able to get a view of the river—was now blocked by one of the high-sided grain barges. The front hinged down to make a ramp, and men in blue were pushing past the cheering defenders, weapons at the ready. As the fighting faded, Winter could hear firing elsewhere along the riverbank.

Behind the first wave of fresh troops came a neat figure in dress blues, eagles glittering on his shoulders. His deep gray eyes took in the scene on the quay for a few moments, and then he turned to Winter and smiled. Winter, only partly recovered from her shock, managed a hesitant salute.

“Well done, Lieutenant,” said Colonel Vhalnich. “Very well done indeed.”

MARCUS

“—Then he’d dragged a boat across the pier, to make a sort of breastwork,” Janus said, cheerful as a kid with a new toy. “You really ought to have seen it, Captain, it was a neat piece of work. Brown uniforms lying on the other side as far as the eye could see, and not even two dozen of ours so much as hurt.”

“That’s why you put them there, wasn’t it?” Marcus said.

“I expected them to have to keep off a few raiders. It was pure bad luck there happened to be four companies within an hour’s march. Most commanders would have packed their men onto the boats and rowed for it when they saw the odds.” He paused. “Most sensible commanders, anyway.”

Marcus could have done without the reminder that they’d nearly forfeited the campaign before they’d begun, just because a few hundred Auxiliaries had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. A symptom of inadequate intelligence gathering, of course. The lack of cavalry for reconnaissance had been a handicap from the beginning, but it made Marcus more nervous the closer they got to Ashe-Katarion.

“It may not have the sweep of Noratavelt or the romantic pageantry of Ilstadt, but if you ask me, there’s as much artistry in a well-executed skirmish as any proper battle. Or in any painting or sculpture, if it comes to that.” He cocked his head. “Another monograph, when I get the free time. ‘War as Art.’ I think the general’s job is harder than the painter’s; canvas doesn’t fight back, after all.”

Art had never been Marcus’ strong point. “Have you thought about what you’re going to say to the prince?”

“I’m going to tell him to look under his loincloth and figure out if he’s a man or a eunuch,” Janus said. “And if he does find a pair of balls, I’m going to suggest that he learn to use them.”

Marcus stopped in his tracks, so that the colonel walked a few paces farther before turning. Janus sighed at the expression he saw.

“No,” Janus said. “Not really. Has anyone ever told you, Captain, that you need to work on your sense of humor?”

“I’m not used to needing one around senior officers,” Marcus muttered. Janus, who had very good hearing, chuckled broadly.

The rigors of the march had reduced the prince’s ability to keep up his accustomed style, though his entourage made the best effort they could. He had an enormous tent, sewn together from four of the regulation army tents, but the exterior was plain blue canvas and the inside not much better ornamented. Much of what the royal household had been able to carry away from Ashe-Katarion had been loaded onto the fleet at Fort Valor. A few furs and some silk cushions were all the luxury the rightful occupant of the Vermillion Throne could manage.

Razzan-dan-Xopta was on hand to greet the two officers, but much of the rest of the entourage had been left behind, including the Heavenly Guard. Marcus approved—nothing slowed down an army like useless impedimenta—but he doubted the prince shared his reasons. He got the feeling the Khandarai ruler was skeptical about their chances.

Perhaps still stung from his last audience with Janus, the prince dispensed with the formalities. He barked out a question, and Razzan translated, for Marcus’ benefit if not the colonel’s.

“His Grace is concerned,” the minister said. “He wishes to know how you propose to defend him from his enemies when your army is on the other side of the river.”

“I must admit that I cannot,” Janus said. “Please tell His Grace that I would feel much more assured about his safety if he were to cross with us.”

The prince said something petulant. Razzan said, “The Chosen of Heaven points out that, on the other side of the river, escape would be impossible in the event that you are defeated.”

Marcus eyed Prince Exopter with distaste. The nobleman had made his preferences clear through an endless stream of “polite” missives, directing Janus to appear before him to “receive guidance on the direction of the campaign.” What that amounted to, apparently, was retreat. In spite of the victory over the Redeemer army, the prince wanted to flee to Vordan with his gold. But the fleet would not sail without orders from Janus, and Janus had simply ignored the messages.

And
this
is who we’re fighting to keep on the throne?
Marcus wondered again who, exactly, would be hurt if they just let Exopter scuttle away, if he wanted to so badly.
The Khandarai certainly don’t want him back.
In the end, though, it was the honor of the King of Vordan that was at stake, and implicitly the worthiness of a pledge of support from the House of Orboan.
Not to mention the small matter of the screaming fanatics who want to burn us alive, prince or no prince.

Among the things that had been left behind was the royal makeup artist. The elaborate red-and-white powder that had been the prince’s mask was nowhere in evidence. Underneath it was a rather ordinary face, with sagging jowls and thick, pouting lips. A thin fuzz of hair was just beginning to sprout around the crown of his head, but a patch on top remained bare.

“If we are defeated, Your Grace . . .” Janus paused. “You may tell His Grace that if we are defeated, all hope of regaining his throne falls with us, and so I regard it as my duty to press the campaign to the utmost.”

“Your duty to His Grace is to obey,” Razzan said, almost before his master had finished speaking.

“My pardon. I mean no offense, but my duty is not to His Grace the Prince of Khandar. Rather, it is to His Majesty the King of Vordan, to whom I have sworn my sacred oath. He has directed me to secure the Vermillion Throne, and I intend to do so or perish in the attempt.”

There was a long silence. The prince muttered something that sounded like an insult. Razzan, perhaps remembering that Janus understood well enough without the translation, rendered it after only a slight hesitation.

“You are a most impudent man, His Grace says. He promises that his friend and cousin the king will hear of your conduct.”

“I have no doubt of that,” Janus said.

Through the Last Duke, if nothing else.
He’d seen Miss Alhundt around the camp a few times since the battle, but he’d avoided speaking to her. So far she hadn’t pressed the issue. He wondered if he had justified an entry in the reports she sent home.

“His Grace will consider what you have said,” Razzan said. “You are dismissed.”

“Thank you,” Janus said. “The last of the regiment crosses by this evening.”

The two Vordanai bowed and retreated from the royal presence. The Chosen of Heaven did not look pleased in the least.

“He’ll consider what you have said?” Marcus repeated, once they were outside. “What does that mean?”

“It means he’ll cross,” Janus said, “but he didn’t want to say it, because he’d lose face. The last of the baggage train is over?”

“It should be by now,” Marcus said, glancing at the reddening sun. “I’ll speak to Fitz.”

“Good. Then get the Fourth moving. Save space on the boats for the prince and his retinue when they decide to turn up.”

“What if they don’t?”

Janus didn’t bother to answer that.

•   •   •

The prince turned up, of course. Janus embarked with the second-to-last boatload, and Marcus with the very last. He settled in for the trip among the stacked cargo at the front of the barge. It was well after sundown, and the colors were beginning to fade from the western sky. Ahead, a few stars were already winking. Fortunately the crossing was not hazardous, even in the dark—the broad, flat Tsel was as hospitable a river as could be imagined.

The prince’s servants had thrown up a silk curtain around him, cordoning off their lord and his noble attendants from the rest of those on the barge. The boat was only half full in any case, and the Colonials seemed inclined to give the Khandarai a wide berth. They accorded Marcus the same privilege. In the days before the Redemption, the men would have thought nothing about coming over to him to share the latest city gossip or grouse about the duty rosters. Now everyone knew he’d been spending time with the new colonel, and apparently Janus’ exalted status was contagious.

He was a little relieved, therefore, to hear the sound of boots on the deck behind him. The greeting froze in his throat when he turned to find Miss Alhundt looking down at him through her spectacles, hands on her hips, wearing a curious little half smile.

I want to know where your loyalties lie.
Marcus’ eyes darted like a cornered animal, but there was nowhere to run. He stood, instead, and sketched a bow.

“Miss Alhundt.”

“Captain.” Her smile widened slightly. “I feel like you’ve been hiding from me.”

“Duties, I’m afraid. Colonel Vhalnich keeps me busy.”

“I imagine.” She gestured at the crate Marcus had been using as a bench. “Do you mind if I sit?”

Yes.
“Not at all.”

She placed herself delicately on one corner, and after some hesitation Marcus resumed his own seat. Together, they stared for a few moments at the black water of the Tsel, smooth as glass except for the fading scars torn by the other barges. The torches and lanterns of the new camp were tiny specks of light on the distant bank, winking like fireflies.

Miss Alhundt broke the silence. “I heard the colonel had a disagreement with the prince.”

“I’m not really in a position to comment,” Marcus said.

“No,” Miss Alhundt said. “No, I suppose not.”

There was something odd in her tone, as though the heart had gone out of her questioning. He waited, expecting another attempt, but when he risked a look at her face she was just staring at the water.

It
was
a pretty face, he noted absently. Soft and round, with a small nose and wide brown eyes. The spectacles and severe hairstyle lent her an air of formality, but it felt like a borrowed thing.
A mask.
He cleared his throat.

“Are you all right, Miss Alhundt?”

“He’s really committed now, isn’t he?” she said. “The colonel, I mean.”

“We all are. With the river behind us . . .”

She nodded. “You don’t seem worried.”

He almost repeated the line about not being able to comment, but it felt wrong. This wasn’t a Concordat agent fishing for information, just a young woman looking for reassurance. He forced himself to relax a little.

“The colonel has been right so far.”

“He has.” She sighed. “Captain, can you keep a secret?”

“I like to think so.” Then, a little unfairly, “I didn’t think the Ministry was in the business of sharing secrets.”

She nodded, as though the jibe were no more than her due. “Not that sort of secret. This is . . . one of mine.”

“Oh.” He shrugged. “Go ahead, then.”

She turned to face him, swinging her legs over the edge of the crate. “It was at the battle on the road. You remember?”

“I’m not likely to forget.”

“I was sitting on my horse, watching the charge come in—it was like watching the sea come in, a wave of screaming faces. And you and your men were out front, such a thin line, and I thought we’d all be pulled under. Just crushed underneath, like a wave lapping over a rock.”

Marcus said nothing. He thought back to the same moment, waiting desperately for the order to fire,
this
close to yanking Meadow’s head around and applying his spurs.

“I prayed,” she said, in a whisper. “I literally, honestly prayed. I can’t remember the last time I did that. I said, ‘God Almighty, if you get me out of this and take me back to my nice safe desk under the Cobweb, I swear to—to
you
that I will never leave it again.’”

“I think every man in that line had something similar in mind,” Marcus said. “I know I did.”

She let out a long breath and shook her head. “I asked for this assignment, you know. I was bored. Bored! At my safe little desk in the third sub-basement, where mad priests never came screaming over the ridge to try to roast me alive.” She looked up at him, glasses slightly askew. A strand of mouse brown hair had escaped from her bun and hung over her ear. “Do the Redeemers really eat their prisoners?”

“Only on special occasions,” Marcus said. At the look on her face, he gave a little shrug. “I expect not. They certainly enjoy setting fire to them, but eating them afterward?” He shook his head. “It’s just a rumor. Believe everything you hear in the streets and they’ll have you thinking the Steel Ghost is a wizard who can bend space and time, and that the old priestesses on Monument Hill can speak with the dead.”

She gave a weak chuckle, then lapsed into silence again. The last of the light had faded from the sky, and the barge rowed by torchlight. The constellation of fires on the far bank spread wider as they approached, as though to engulf them. Miss Alhundt’s knee, Marcus noted, had fetched up against his own. He could feel the warmth, even through two layers of fabric, though she didn’t seem to notice.

“I wanted to apologize,” she said.

“For what?”

“For the way I behaved before.” She looked uncomfortable. “I have to write a report—you know that, of course. So when I first met you I thought, ‘Aha, here’s a good source of information.’”

“I gathered that,” he said.

She winced. “Was I that obvious about it?”