The Thousand Names (57 page)

By the fucking Beast.
Any kind of ordinary explanation had just gone out the window. Winter flattened herself against the crates for a moment, in an agony of indecision, then abandoned the shadows and followed the trio.

Davis’ two men walked ahead of and behind the lieutenant, as though escorting a prisoner. Winter kept far enough back that she could plausibly deny she’d been following them, but for all their nerves the pair made poor lookouts, and they never even glanced in her direction.

At the edge of camp, Will stopped for a moment and lit a lamp, which he handed to Buck to lead the way. Winter hesitated as they left the last of the sleeping soldiers behind and headed out into the open Desol. It was foolhardy to go after them on her own, and she wished vainly that she’d taken Graff up on his offer to come with her. If she stopped now, though, she would lose them. She muttered a curse and followed.

They walked for a long way, and without any challenge from the sentries. When they eventually came to a halt, well outside where the sentry line should have been, she waited a long moment before stalking closer.

“. . . don’t like it,” Will was saying.

“I don’t like the whole damned thing,” Buck said, and spat. “I don’t like being out in this goddamned desert, and I sure as hell don’t like the idea of drinking horse blood. And what I like
least
is having some fucking Desoltai son of a bitch cut my pecker off. The sooner we get away from here, the better. Getting to pop Smiley here is a side benefit.”

“Someone might hear,” Will said.

“Nobody out there,” Buck growled. “This is our section tonight, remember? And anyway, who gives a shit whether you like it or not. You do it, or else you explain yourself to the sarge.”

“I know. I’m just saying I don’t like it, is all.”

“Oh, by all the fucking saints. Give me the damned thing, then.” Winter heard the flat
crack
of flesh on flesh. “On your knees,
sir
.”

By now she was only a few yards away. Buck had set the lantern on a flat rock, and the trio were backlit, throwing long, twisting shadows across the sands. Will stood a pace or two back, closer to Winter, while Buck forced the bound figure to its knees. He had a pistol in his left hand, while his right went for his belt knife.

God above. They’re going to kill him.
Winter bit her lip, hard enough to draw blood, and groped in the darkness until she found a stone a little larger than her fist. When Will turned his back on her, she charged.

He was barely taller than she was, so she aimed high, bringing the stone against the side of his head in a powerful two-handed swing that met his skull with a sick-making
crunch
. He dropped like a discarded doll, without a sound, and Winter stepped across him toward Buck. He’d taken an automatic step backward in surprise, so her desperate blow whistled a foot from his face. Before she could recover her balance, he hastily shifted the pistol to his right hand and raised it to eye level, backing farther away.

“What in all the hells—
Saint
? Is that you, you little bastard?”

Winter considered throwing the stone at him, but she didn’t think she could do it before he pulled the trigger. She nodded slowly.

“What did you go and do that for?” Buck frowned down at Will. “Will, you all right? Say something if you’re all right.” After a moment of silence, he cursed softly and glared at Winter. “You’ve killed him, you son of a bitch.”

“Buck—”

“I should leave you for the sarge,” he said. “He’d know what to do with a traitorous little shit like you. But we ain’t got the time, not tonight. Give the good Lord my regards.”

He pulled the trigger. The hammer snapped down, flint striking sparks, but they fizzled and died in the pan without triggering the shot. Buck lowered the weapon, staring at it, then looked up again in time to catch Winter coming in fast. His hand shot up above her head to block the path of the descending stone, but she let her momentum carry her forward and brought her knee up hard between his legs, then gave him a sharp elbow in the back of the head as he doubled over. He groaned and collapsed into the dirt, the pistol falling away.

“Fuck the
goddamned
Savior with a red-hot poker,” Winter swore, fighting for breath. When she closed her eyes for a moment, she could still see the tiny glow of the pistol’s spark. Her breath came fast and ragged.

Buck groaned again. She turned and kicked him hard in the side, then again, until he got the message and rolled over, eyes still squeezed tightly shut. Winter retrieved the long knife from his belt, then found the pistol where he’d dropped it. She examined the weapon cautiously. There was a cartridge in the barrel, but no powder in the pan; he’d forgotten to prime it.

“You always were a lazy bastard, Buck,” she whispered. Setting the pistol aside again, she bent to free Lieutenant Warus.

They’d blindfolded and gagged him, as well as binding his hands, which explained his silence during the fight. When she removed the dirty cloth from his eyes, he looked around curiously, then up at Winter.

“Lieutenant . . . Ihernglass, isn’t it?”

“Yessir,” Winter said, and nearly saluted before she remembered she didn’t have to. “Seventh Company.”

“Far be it from me to question good fortune,” he said, “but what are you doing here?”

“I followed these bast—these two from Captain d’Ivoire’s tent.”

“What were you doing there?”

“Looking for the captain. Or for you, I suppose. One of my corporals was detailed to watch the tent, but he seems to have gone missing.”

“I see.” He looked up at her. “Then you have no knowledge of what’s going on?”

She searched his expression. “What’s going on, sir?”

“It’s mutiny,” Lieutenant Warus said. He touched the puffy side of his face and winced. “They’ve got the captain and the colonel, and probably your men as well.”

“Mutiny?” She could believe a lot about Davis, but that?
Not on his own hook. He’s not smart enough.
“By whom?”

“Captain Roston, at least. Some of the Fourth appears to be behind him, and apparently some of our men.” He looked down at the incapacitated pair. “Do you know these two?”

She nodded. “Will and Buck. From Senior Sergeant Davis’ Second Company.”

“Davis.” Fitz gave a little sigh of disappointment, as though he’d been told he’d be late for the opera. “I suppose I should have known.”

“What should we do with them?”

“‘We’?” He looked at her questioningly. “If I recall correctly, you served under Davis.”

“Long enough to know that whatever side he’s on is the wrong one,” Winter muttered.

“I see.” Fitz climbed to his feet, rubbing his hands to restore some feeling to them. He knelt to examine Will briefly. “This one is dead. I’d like to take the other with us, but I’m not sure the two of us are up to carrying him. Are there any of your men you trust?”

Dead?
Winter looked down at Will. He’d never been one of the worst of Davis’ lot. Not that he’d been kind to her, but he’d just gone through the motions of cruelty to fit in with the others. She hadn’t meant to kill him.

“Lieutenant?”

She shook herself and took a deep breath. “Yes. I have a few.”

•   •   •

Bobby was awake by the time she, Graff, and Fitz returned, carrying the semiconscious Buck between them. Graff told a couple of surprised rankers to sit on the man for a while, and then Winter led the lieutenant and her two corporals back to her own tent. She saw Fitz’s eyes flick to Feor, still curled up in her corner, either asleep or pretending to be, but he made no comment.

“This is bad,” Graff muttered. “A bad business.”

“I’m afraid that’s something of an understatement,” Fitz said. “We don’t know how much support Captain Roston has, but for the moment he seems to have the situation well in hand.”

“What happened to Folsom and the others?” Bobby said.

“In the best case, they’re captives,” Fitz said. “Shortly after the captain left to meet with Captain Roston, Second Company men arrived at the tent with loaded weapons. I believe they took your men into custody and led them away, then left a detail behind to collect Captain d’Ivoire when he returned. From what I overheard, they plan to hold him and the colonel captive while Captain Roston assumes command.”

“They were going to kill you,” Winter pointed out.

Fitz touched the massive bruise on his cheek again. “I’m not certain, but I believe that Senior Sergeant Davis bears me some personal ill will. He certainly seemed . . . vehement.”

“But . . .” Graff spread his hands, frowning under his beard. “Why? What’s the point?”

Fitz lowered his voice. “The colonel distributed new orders to the captains this afternoon. We continue the march east, into the Desol. My understanding is that Captain Roston objected, on the grounds that our supplies were insufficient.”

Winter remembered the columns of black smoke rising from burning carts, and the daylong labor of the salvage teams. She hadn’t thought about their situation in those terms. “Are they? Sufficient, I mean.”

“According to my estimates, we have roughly two days of water remaining, given fairly tight rationing. Food will last somewhat longer, assuming we harvest the corpses of the pack animals killed in the attack.”

“Two days?” Graff blinked. “With two days left we won’t make it back to Nahiseh even if we start now!”

“And the colonel wants to keep going?” Winter shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I admit that I do not understand his reasoning,” Fitz said. “However, it may be that the colonel possesses private information that makes the situation more clear to him.”

“Goddamn,” Graff said, and whistled through his teeth.

Winter nodded in silent agreement. She’d seen the wreckage and the slaughtered pack animals, but the smoke and confusion had made it hard to assess the extent of the damage. She’d been under the impression that the Desoltai attack had been largely unsuccessful, since most of the Colonials seemed to have fought their way out of the trap.

“It’s still no excuse for mutiny,” she said, trying to sound more decisive than she felt. “If we lose our discipline now, the Desoltai will slaughter us.”

“Of course not,” Graff said hastily. “I didn’t mean that it was. I just . . . didn’t realize how bad things were.”

“The colonel must have a plan,” Bobby said.

“How many people know about the mutiny?” Winter asked Fitz.

“I’m not certain,” the lieutenant said. “It doesn’t seem to have become general knowledge in the camp. Davis’ men, obviously, and I suspect those of the Fourth Battalion Captain Roston considers reliable.”

“What about Captain Solwen and Captain Kaanos? If we go to them, could they put a stop to this?”

Fitz frowned. “It’s possible. But Captain Roston must know that he can’t proceed without at least their tacit approval.”

“Which means there’s no knowing whether he’s gotten to them already,” Graff said. “If we go running to them, they may just add us to the bag.”

“We have to do
something
,” Bobby said.

Winter grimaced. All the instincts she’d developed in two years under Sergeant Davis were telling her to lie low, let it slip by, join up afterward with whatever side seemed to come out on top. To
not make trouble
, because it would only attract attention.

But that wasn’t an option, really. She had a responsibility now to the men of her company, and some of them had been taken prisoner or worse.
More to the point, if we jump the wrong way here, we’re all going to die. Who seems more likely to find a way out—the colonel and Captain d’Ivoire, or Roston and Davis?
Put that way, it didn’t seem like much of a choice at all.

“They haven’t told the camp yet,” she said. “They don’t want it to look like a mutiny. The Old Colonials might stand for that, but the recruits”—she glanced at Bobby—“I don’t think they’d go along. So they’re doing it on the quiet instead. Grab Captain d’Ivoire, the colonel, and anyone else who might cause trouble, then make some excuse in the morning and Captain Roston takes command.”

“I came to much the same conclusion,” Fitz said. “Which, in turn, suggests a course of action, if you’re willing.”

Graff nodded. “They’ve got Folsom, haven’t they?”

Bobby nodded as well. Her eyes were bright, almost feverish. Winter wondered if she’d entirely recovered from what had happened on the hill.
Hell, she
ought
to be dead.

“You think we should break them out,” Winter said. “The colonel and Captain d’Ivoire, and hopefully Folsom and the others as well.”

The lieutenant agreed. “Captain Roston’s actions imply that he is not confident of his ability to persuade the men if the colonel is available to argue against him.”

“Right.” Winter frowned. “Assuming everyone is still alive.”

“Yes. I suspect that depends on the extent to which Sergeant Davis is in charge,” Fitz said.

“Goddamned Davis,” Winter muttered. “Why did it have to be Davis?” On some level, though, it
had
to be Davis. If there was something nefarious and unpleasant going on, it was virtually guaranteed that he would be mixed up in it.