Unbound (57 page)

Captain Pereg sat with his boots up on his cot, leaning back in his chair while he stared, perplexed, at the layout of playing cards sorted face up on his bedside table. The jacket of his dark-blue uniform lay on his bed. The buttons of his white undershirt were undone, the collar wilted and damp with sweat. He scratched at one brown muttonchop, picked a card up, paused, then returned it to its place.

"Captain!" Tamas said, jerking Pereg's attention away from him game. "We could have made it."

The captain let out a long sigh. "I don't know what you expect me to say, Sergeant. General Seske did not agree, and he had a much better view of the battlefield than you."

"I was
on
the battlefield, sir."

"And he could see the big picture. There's no need to second-guess the general. He's been an officer for well over a decade."

"That somehow precludes him from making terrible decisions?"

"Too many soldiers died before they could reach the walls. The attack could have lost us even more men."

"Or could have been a successful follow-through that ended the siege," Tamas retorted.

"Seske's a general.
Our
general."

"Through no merit of his own," Tamas grumbled.

Pereg lifted a card, stabbing it in Tamas's direction. "Now look here, Sergeant. I won't have you disparaging the king's officers, not even in private—especially my aunt's husband, even if we don't have the best of relationships. You're a damned good soldier, and I'll put up with you because you're worth any three sergeants, but do not forget your place. You're a commoner. Seske has noble blood."

"That's the problem, I think."

Pereg shrugged. "And one we can't do a thing about."

Easy for you to say
, Tamas thought to himself.
You're the youngest son of a baron. You'll be a general in twenty years yourself while I'll be lucky to make captain in that time.

"You only lost, what, one man from your squad today?" Pereg asked.

"Gerdin's wounded, but we don't think he'll make it through the night."

"See?" Pereg said, flicking a bit of sand out of his ear, "you should be ecstatic. You've lived to fight another day and brought most of your men through it with you. That's a victory in my book."

I like you, Pereg, but you're an idiot
. "We were lucky. Nothing more. Captain, I
need
to get over that wall."

Pereg looked up from his cards sharply. "You're not still going on about a promotion, are you?"

"You said yourself, sir, I'm a commoner." Tamas leaned over Pereg's table. "The only way I can become a commissioned officer is through valor in combat."

"You're a powder mage," Pereg said. "A damned killing machine if I've ever seen one. In any other country you would have been hanged just for what you are. The Privileged," he lowered his voice, looking over his shoulder as if a sorcerer might be hiding in the corner of his tent, "the Privileged do not like your kind having any power. You should be grateful you've made it to sergeant. Get to master sergeant one day and you've got yourself a career to be proud of. By Kresimir, you're only nineteen and already a sergeant!"

Pereg was right, of course. Never mind his common blood—powder mages were universally despised by the nobility and their pet sorcerers. They claimed it was a base magic, used only by the very dregs of humanity. Tamas knew the truth—he knew they were scared of what he could do. He tried to figure out how to express to Pereg the urgency of his situation, of the weight on his chest every morning that he didn't make progress toward climbing the ranks. He couldn't afford to relax for even a single campaigning season, because everything about his career was stacked against him.

"I'll clear the damned fort by myself if I have to, sir. I just need to get inside the walls and the garrison will fall. I guarantee it."

"And I," Pereg said, scowling at his cards, "need to win this game or I'll break a fantastic streak."

Tamas wanted to kick the chair out from under Pereg and watch him fall on his ass. "The queen of rooks," he said.

Pereg's scowl deepened as he searched the cards, then his face brightened. "Ah, there we go. Thank you, Sergeant! Look, go give your men an extra ration of beer for work well done today." He looked up, tapping the queen of rooks thoughtfully. "And take my advice—ambition is not becoming of a commoner. It'll only get you killed."

* * * * *

"How's Gerdin?" Tamas asked when he returned to the small group of tents occupied by the twenty-second squad of His Royal Majesty's Ninth Infantry.

Private Farthing looked up from poking a long bit of sagebrush into the dung fire. He was of medium height, with a pockmarked face burnt from years in the Gurlish sun. When Tamas met him he'd been a round little cuss, gasping with every step, but the campaigns had turned him into a battered strip of shoe leather. "Died thirty minutes ago," he said.

Tamas sank into a stool beside Farthing and rubbed his temples. Another man gone. Three dead from the previous failed charge at Tilpur's walls, and two the time before that. He wondered if they'd bother to give him any new soldiers or if they just planned on waiting until
he
bit it so they could incorporate his squad under another sergeant.

"And Mordecia's arm?" Tamas asked.

"Just a scratch. She'll be good to go in a week as long as it doesn't fester. Sarge, can I ask you a question?"

"What is it?"

"Rumor has it that another sergeant heard me complaining on the line today. They, uh, they won't put me in front of a firing squad, will they? It was just a little moaning on my part. They know that, right?"

Tamas stared into the low, flickering glow of the dung fire. "I'm not going to let them shoot you over a little bellyaching in the face of death, Farthing," he said with a sigh. "Anyone asks tell 'em the sun was getting to you. Worst thing you'll get is a week digging latrines."

Farthing breathed a relieved sigh. "Thanks, Sarge. You're a decent fellow. Want to hear some good news?"

"Always."

"Remember my cousin? The maid in General Seske's retinue?"

"Yeah."

"Saw her tonight. Said that she overheard that we've orders to pull out. Today's attack was the last big push and the higher-ups don't think Seske has the ability to take the fort before the end of the campaigning season."

Tamas let his face go slack, forcing a neutral expression. Inside, he felt like he'd been kicked in the gut. The end of the campaigning season, and he had yet to make master sergeant. If they pulled out without another fight he wouldn't have a shot of promotion until next year. He couldn't—wouldn't—wait that long. "Good," he said "That's very good."

"Anyway," Farthing continued, throwing another chip of dung on the fire. "How'd your talk with the captain go?"

Tamas grunted a response. He already had a reputation as an upstart, but even
he
knew better than to bitch about superior officers to his men. Besides, he had more to worry about. Good news? This was horrible news. His career—his life—stalled for another season because Seske wasn't more creative than tossing men at the enemy cannons and hoping the Gurlish ran out of grapeshot.

They sat in silence for several minutes, listening to someone from a nearby squad sing a quiet drinking song, the tune slowed down to account for the mood of the camp.

"Sarge, can I ask you something else?" Farthing said.

Tamas nodded.

Farthing scooted his stool a few inches closer to Tamas and looked around, then lowered his head. "This is bullshit, isn't it? I mean, throwing us at that big damned fort thousands at a time when they know we won't make it over the wall anyways. That's bullshit. Right?"

"Not our place to say," Tamas said, feeling a knot in his belly. This
was
bullshit, all right. The orders to pull out likely hadn't had a last assault written into them, which meant that Gerdin, and hundreds of other poor souls, had died on Seske's wishes and optimism. It wasn't any way to conduct a war. Tamas was a sergeant, a powder mage of low birth, and even
he
could see that. "But," he added, "if you don't shut your trap you
will
end up with more than latrine-digging duty."

"Yes, Sarge," Farthing said, falling quiet.

Tamas got up to walk through the orderly rows of tents, looking up at the desert sky. There was a certain rugged beauty in this place, thousands of miles away from home, but it was the stars that did it for him, shining bright without the interference of the street lamps of Adopest. He found a hill where he could see the stars above Tilpur, three miles away.

From this distance the fort looked like an upturned footstool into the desert, with full command of the only freshwater spring for eighty miles in any direction. Rumors were that they had provisions enough for another two years, and being built directly on the spring meant they never had to worry for water.

Tilpur had never once fallen out of Gurlish hands. The Kez had besieged it. The Brudanians. The Adran army had besieged it twice and, if General Seske's maid was to be believed, this second attempt had fallen short. The finest minds of the Adran officer corps could not figure out how to crack it.

It was too bad
, Tamas thought bitterly,
that the finest minds of the Adran officer corps were inbred dimwits from the least talented echelons of the nobility.

Though, as much as he hated to admit it, he'd not been able to figure out a way through those sorcery-warded walls either. Were ineffective artillery and suicidal charges really the best options available to a modern army, the pride of the Adran nation?

He let his eyes wander over the distant silhouette of Tilpur and down to the mouth of the spring. It flowed from beneath the forts walls into a year-round river giving birth to an oasis below the southern wall. The oasis stretched for miles, a haven for wildlife and even the Adrans themselves, providing the only bit of respite in this inhospitable place. Tilpur was a prize that every army coveted and none could gain.

All he had to do was get inside their walls at the head of a few hundred infantry and he'd clear the fort in hours . . . the thought trailed off and he stared at the moonlit silhouette, pondering. What if he didn't even
need
a company of men at his back?

He sprinted back into the camp where Farthing, Lillen, and all the rest were gathered around the embers of the dung fire.

"Lillen," he said, after catching his breath, "do you still have that floor plan you drew of Tilpur?"

Lillen crawled into her tent and came back a moment later, handing the rolled-up parchment to Tamas. He spread it on the ground, poring over the detailed drawing before looking over at Farthing. "Do you think you could get me a dozen sets of crampons?"

* * * * *

General Seske was normally a jovial man, never too far from his wine and always able to find some native girl or hanger-on to share his bed. But something—probably the order of withdrawal combined with his failure to take Tilpur—had him in a foul mood when Tamas was finally able to rouse him from his bed at nearly one in the morning.

Seske was in his late forties. His dark skin marked him as a foreigner, but his marriage to an Adran duchess guaranteed him his rank in the Adran army. He ran his hands through his sparse, graying hair before pulling a thin silk robe on over his undershirt. He squinted at Tamas, then at Captain Pereg, who looked not all that more enthusiastic about the hour than Seske himself.

"What is this, Pereg?" Seske asked.

Pereg fidgeted with his bicorn hat. "I'm very sorry to get you out of bed at this hour, Uncle, but there's been an, erm, development."

"Development? What kind of development? I was having the very best of dreams. So unless Tilpur just tumbled down or Kresimir himself has returned to the realms of mortals, I hope the next thing out of your lips is a damned good explanation."

Tamas cleared his throat and moved a few things aside to lay Lillen's drawing out on Seske's map table. "Sir," he said, "I'm very sorry to interrupt your . . . sleep, but I think I may be able to give you what you're looking for."

"What's that?"

"A Gurlish surrender."

"Pereg, who the bloody devil is this?"

"Sergeant Tamas, Uncle. One of the best infantrymen under our command."

"Tamas. Tamas. Why do I know that name?"

"He's the powder mage, sir."

Seske harrumphed loudly. "Bah. Powder mages. Nothing better than dogs, if you ask me. No offence, Sergeant Tommy. Purely a professional opinion. I'm sure you're a good chap. Can't help what you're born with and all that. Now tell me, Pereg, why the pit is he in my tent?"

Tamas cleared his throat again. Late hour it may be, but a general should have a better attention span than a petulant child. He kept his expression appropriately reserved. "Sir, I have a plan to break the siege."

"What's that you say?" Seske searched his robe until he found his spectacles and put them on, peering at Tamas. "What do you mean?"

"If you'll humor me a question, sir?"

Seske adjusted his robe, raising his chin to look down his nose suspiciously at Tamas. "Go on."

"Why have we not sent a raiding party over the walls into Tilpur during the night? Men to spike cannons, slit throats, foul their powder—that sort of thing."

"Not very gentlemanly."

"War is seldom gentlemanly," Tamas said.

Seske snorted. "Because a raid would be bloody suicide."

"Only slightly more suicidal than a frontal assault with our infantry," Tamas said, hurrying on before it could occur to Seske to be offended. "But that "slightly" is what matters. Order men on a genuine suicide mission and you'd have a mutiny on your hands. Am I correct, sir?"

"Yes?" Seske said, his eyes narrowing.

"Even a frontal assault or a Hope's End has a tiny chance of success. A small number of men over the walls at night, however, will only find themselves trapped and slaughtered like dogs once they descended into the fort itself to light the munitions. Once they were inside, the hope of escape would close to none. Except . . . if you'd be so kind and take a look at this."