The Guns of Empire (16 page)

Marcus and Janus exchanged a look, and something passed between them that Winter couldn't follow.

“Good luck, General,” Marcus said.

“Thank you, sir.”

—

To her surprise, their cavalry escort was led by Division-General Stokes, old Give-Em-Hell himself, now in command of the Grand Army's cavalry reserve. He'd brought a squadron of forty troopers, all armed with carbines and sabers. Winter herself, after reading reports on the enemy's suspected strength, had brought Abby and five companies of the Girls' Own, about four hundred soldiers in all, which ought to give them a comfortable preponderance of numbers. As the small force milled about just outside the sentry line, getting itself in order, Give-Em-Hell walked over with the exaggerated swagger he affected while not on horseback.

“Ihernglass!” he said. “Good to be working with you again! Those were some hot times at Jirdos and no mistake, eh?”

Winter fought back a smile. Give-Em-Hell, at least, would never change. His small stature and puffed-out chest gave him the appearance of a pigeon about to take flight, and he barked out every sentence as though shouting at a sergeant on the other side of a field. In spite of this slightly comical mien, she had to admit he excelled in his chosen field; absolutely fearless himself, he inspired a matching fervor in his men. His few squadrons had outfought the vaunted Hamveltai elites and won the Battle of Jirdos almost single-handedly.
And he doesn't look down his nose at the Girls' Own, like so many of the old royal officers.

“They were indeed,” she said.

“Nothing half so exciting on this campaign yet,” he said. “Borel cowards hid in town and did all their fighting with cannons. Still, I daresay we'll see a bit more action when the emperor moves south. The wild tribes of the north are supposed to be the best riders in the world! That'll be some sport, I should think.”

“Something to look forward to,” Winter said. “I'm surprised to find you out here today, though.”

“Oh, I thought I'd come along and make sure it was done properly.” He leaned forward. “Between you and me, I have a bone to pick with these so-called ‘irregulars.' On one of their raids they slashed the tendons of a dozen cavalry horses! Had to put them down, poor things.” His eyes took on a dangerous gleam, and Winter felt a moment's pity for the Murnskai raiders.

“You're sure you know where they are?”

“We've got 'em nailed down, sure as thunder. They mostly move at night, and some of my men are on watch. It's a cave a few miles inside the forest, near one of their hamlets. We'll show you the way. Then your men can fan out—”

“And give 'em hell?”

“Precisely!” He clapped Winter on the shoulder. “I knew there was a reason I liked working with you, Ihernglass. It's like you know my mind before I do!”

They set out in a loose column, with the cavalry at the vanguard. Winter exchanged waves with Sergeant Graff of the First Company, one of the few men in the unit. He'd been one of her corporals in Khandar, and while he'd consented to becoming a sergeant in the Girls' Own, he'd steadfastly refused all further promotion, claiming he wouldn't feel right with stripes on his shoulders. His old comrade, James Folsom, had no such compunctions; he was a captain now in Sevran's Second Regiment. Anne-Marie Wallach, the hero of the siege of Antova, was serving as Graff's junior sergeant, her blond curls bursting out from under her cap.

Abby walked in the middle of the column. She and Winter, both indifferent riders, had left their horses behind for the trip into the forest, and Winter was starting to regret it by the time the sun reached the zenith. It wasn't
hot
like Khandar had been, where the summer sun could kill an exposed man in hours, but the soggy, humid air felt like the inside of a laundry.

“Abby,” Winter said, falling into step.

“Sir.” Abby glanced at her, a touch nervously, then looked back at the ranks in front of her.

“You sent Cyte to see me.”

“I wouldn't say I
sent
her,” Abby said. “We all got together and decided
someone
should go, and she volunteered.”

“I just wanted to thank you.”

“Oh.” Abby grinned sheepishly, relief rising off her like steam. “Sorry, sir. It wasn't my business and I put my nose in. I wasn't sure how you'd take it.”

“It was your business. You have to keep the women of this regiment as safe as you can, and that means making sure I do my job.” Winter smiled back at her. “If I'm ever being . . . stupid again, please tell me.”

“Understood.” There was only a hint of pain behind her smile. “It's a job I'm used to.”

They walked in silence for a while. The column was climbing as it wound north, away from the river, and the cooler air cut pleasantly through the
humidity. They left the cultivated farms behind, and the cart track they'd been following ran out amid weedy pastureland. A mile farther on, the forest began, a stark boundary where a line of ancient trees marked the edge of the territory claimed by man and his axes. One of the cavalry showed them to the beginning of a narrow track, little more than a game trail, and they strung out along it as it wound into the forest.

“General Stokes,” Winter called, as he rode by. “A moment?”

He nodded agreeably and slowed to a walk. “What is it?”

“You said there's a hamlet near this cave?”

His expression went grim. “Yes. We'll be passing through it soon.”

“Are the people there sympathetic to the partisans? Will they warn them we're coming?”

“They won't,” Give-Em-Hell said. “You'll see.”

An hour or so later the track widened into something close to a real path, then spread into a large clearing. Trees had been felled to make room for a dozen shacks, roughly arranged around a central green. The houses were all rough-cut timber with high-peaked shingled roofs. A logging and hunting village, Winter guessed, that traded with the farming communities down on the river plain.

Or so she surmised, from what remained. The shacks were little more than blackened ruins, stone hearths standing amid the charred debris. Beams and roof shingles were scattered where they'd collapsed. Most of the central green had been torn up, and half-burned wreckage stuck out of the top of the stone well.

“Saints and martyrs,” Winter said, coming up short. She looked up at Give-Em-Hell, who nodded grimly.

“What happened here?” Abby said.

“One of our foraging columns came this way.”

“Our foragers did this? Which regiment? Janus will be furious.”

The cavalry commander shook his head. “It was like this when they got here. The embers were still warm. They heard we were coming, you see. Apparently the damn Sworn Priests have been telling them the Vordanai are here for their children's souls and it's their holy duty to burn and destroy everything that might be of use to us.” He gestured at the well. “They even stuffed a rotting goat down there, so the water's no good.”

“Balls of the Beast,” Winter swore. “I thought the Redeemers were crazy.”

“At least the damned Redeemers would come right at you!” Give-Em-Hell agreed. “Give me a good charge out in the open any day of the week.”

“What happened to the people?” Abby said. “There's no bodies here.”

“That's where these irregulars come from, we think,” Give-Em-Hell said.

“It makes strategic sense, in a sick way,” Winter said. “Get the villagers to burn everything they have, and then tell them you need men to help fight the heathens. What are they going to do except sign up?” She looked at Abby. “Tell your soldiers to be careful if they see any priests.”

“I think we'll be careful regardless,” Abby said. “Which way to this cave?”

“About a mile that way,” Give-Em-Hell said, pointing northwest. A hillock of bare rock broke through the forest canopy, like an island rising out of the sea.

“We'll come at them from three sides,” Winter said. “Abby, send two companies out to swing around until they're southeast of that rock. You and I will take two more to the north side. General, can you and your troopers take the direct approach if we give you a company for backup?”

Give-Em-Hell nodded. “Of course.”

“Give us an hour, then.”

W
inter took the First Company, led by a Lieutenant Malloy, and the Seventh, led by a beanpole of a girl who introduced herself as Lieutenant d'Orien. Winter remembered Malloy vaguely from the Velt campaign, a short, dark-haired woman from the Transpale, with that region's soft, breathy accent. D'Orien was a more recent recruit, and seemed awestruck to be in Winter's presence. Some of the Girls' Own, the newer ones, were inclined to treat Winter as a kind of demigod, which she'd never gotten accustomed to.

They walked around the devastated village, skirting the edge of the clearing, and then plunged back into the woods on the other side. This time there was no track to guide them, and without the bulk of the hill visible off to their left, Winter would have been instantly lost. Fortunately, the forest here was old growth, with little ground cover under the massive, high-canopied trees.

Abby signaled a halt after forty-five minutes, comparing the position of the hill with that of the sun. She called the two lieutenants over.

“This should be about right,” she said. “Malloy, you take your company right and spread out, call it five hundred yards. D'Orien, you take the left. Each of you send me a half dozen muskets I can keep here as a reserve. Tell the girls to hold fire until they've got a target, you understand? I don't want any blind shooting. Any Murnskai try to run, you stop them.”

“Yes, sir,” Malloy said.

“Sir?” d'Orien said. “What if they won't stop?”

“Shoot,” Abby said. “If we let 'em run, they'll just come back at us tomorrow.”

“What if they surrender?” Malloy said.

Abby hesitated and glanced at Winter. The two lieutenants followed her gaze. Winter swallowed.

“We'll accept surrenders, obviously,” she said. “But be careful.”

“Tell them to lie facedown, well in front of the line,” Abby said. “I don't want anybody to ‘surrender' and then run off when we're not looking.”

“Or knife us in the back,” Malloy muttered. She and d'Orien saluted and went in opposite directions, to relay the orders to their squads.

Winter watched them go, feeling oddly apprehensive. She'd gone into battle so many times now it felt like it ought to be routine, especially against an outnumbered gang of partisans, but something nagged at the corner of her mind.
This is the first fight since Gilphaite.
But the Girls' Own, at least, seemed to have shaken off the setback they'd suffered there, and they didn't seem reluctant to be going back into action.
Then—

It was something else entirely, she realized. Something she hadn't felt in months, not since leaving Vordan and Feor. Deep in the pit of her soul, there was a flicker of motion, like a dozing dragon opening one curious eye. Infernivore, the demon that devoured its own kind, had come awake, and there was only one possible reason for that.

Winter closed her eyes and concentrated on the feeling. Feor had told her that any
naathem
—her Khandarai word for what the Church called a demon's host—could sense another
naathem.
Feor could track demons at a considerable distance, though she said that the ability to do so varied both with the
naath
and the training of the
naathem
. Winter wasn't sure which was missing in her case, but she'd never been very sensitive to Infernivore's nudges. This wasn't the full-fledged attention it paid when another demon was nearby, but it couldn't be
too
far, or she wouldn't be able to feel it at all.

She turned, slowly, trying to see if the feeling strengthened when she faced a particular direction. She
thought
it was a bit stronger facing roughly southeast, back toward the ruined village, but the difference was too subtle to be sure.
Hell.
As far as she knew, Feor was in Vordan and Raesinia was with the Grand Army's main camp. Apart from the two of them—and the occasional wild demon, like the unfortunate Danton Aurenne—the only demon-hosts she'd encountered were the Penitent Damned, the supernatural servants of the Priests of the Black.
If one of them is here, this is going to get a lot more complicated.

“Are you all right, sir?” Abby said.

“Fine.” Winter opened her eyes. Just a tiny handful of people knew the truth about demons; among the Girls' Own, she'd shared what little information she had only with Jane, Bobby, and Cyte. Janus had insisted she keep the knowledge close, but at times like these she wondered if he really understood
what he was asking.
How am I supposed to tell Abby to be careful if she doesn't even know what to watch out for?
“Just . . . thinking.”

Abby raised one eyebrow, but didn't comment. A dozen women formed a loose knot around the two of them, all looking up the slope toward the rocky summit.
Is the demon with the partisans?
If so, there was only one thing Winter could think to do.
I'll have to grab it as soon as it shows itself.
Infernivore could devour any other demon, as long as she could manage to touch the demon's host for a few seconds.
Unfortunately, if they're better at sensing than I am, they know I'm here, too.
If there
was
a demon up there, she had to hope it would come her way instead of attacking one of the other Girls' Own companies.
Damn.

As if to punctuate the thought, there was a single
crack
, like a distant handclap. It echoed through the trees for a moment, then was followed by two more, then a dozen all together. The woods on both sides of Winter were suddenly full of motion, the Girls' Own taking positions behind trees or against fallen logs, anything that looked like it would stop a musket ball. Several of the soldiers methodically checked the powder in their pans, making sure it hadn't spilled or gotten wet during the trek.

“Here goes,” Abby said. “You think they'll dig in up there or try to get away?”

“Digging in is suicide,” Winter said. “They have to know that. They'll run.” The question, though, was in which direction. The Girls' Own companies were arranged in a rough triangle around the hill, but Winter was acutely aware they were spread thin. “Be ready to move if we get word from the others.”

“Hey!” a shout came from down the line. “Somebody's up there!” It was quickly followed by a shot, a stab of yellow fire and a roil of smoke.

“Hold fire!” Abby shouted, shading her eyes with her hands. “You couldn't hit a barn at that distance!”

“There,” Winter said, pointing. Two or three hundred yards upslope, standing in the crotch of a split tree, was a tall, heavily bearded man in drab leather and homespun. A weapon hung over his shoulder, but he made no move to reach for it, nor to take cover. Abby was right—with a musket, at that range he might as well have been on the moon.

After a leisurely few seconds of observation, the man dropped back out of sight. A moment later a dozen people in similar dress started down the hill, dodging through the trees as they came closer. Abby's shouts reminded the Girls' Own to hold fire, and no further shots greeted the partisans. When they got to about a hundred yards' distance, they stopped, spreading out behind a stand of
close-growing birch trees. The barrels of muskets emerged from amid the cover, and flashes and smoke spread among the trees as they opened fire. Musket balls whined past or hit the dirt with
thok
sounds, and splinters flew where they clipped the trees.

“Hold fire,” Winter said, in response to Abby's questioning look. “They're not going to do any damage that far out.”

“We could work our way around either side and flank them out of there,” Abby said.

“Not yet.” The birch trees were rapidly becoming obscured in the smoke of the shooting. Winter squinted. “They want us distracted. Hold tight.”

The orders were passed down the line, and the Girls' Own clung to their cover, ignoring the partisans' musketry. For the most part, the balls passed harmlessly overhead, but Winter heard at least one shout of “Fuck!” from her right, indicating that a lucky shot had found a target. She was almost ready to give Abby the go-ahead to move in when the fogbank around the birch grove started to boil.

“Here they come!” she shouted.

She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to determine if the demon was coming, too, but the feeling was still distant. When she opened them again, the slope was alive with movement. The men who'd been shooting at them were in the lead, bounding downslope as fast as they could, but they were followed by at least a hundred more emerging out of the smoke. A few of the newcomers had muskets, too, or antique shotguns with long, flaring muzzles, but most of them seemed to be armed with nothing more than crude spears or axes. Some of them looked shorter than the leaders, but it wasn't until they all began shouting a battle cry that Winter realized there were women's and children's voices mixed in.

Oh, saints and fucking martyrs—why—

The Girls' Own opened fire at fifty yards. Running figures went down, punched back off their feet or tripping and rolling down the hill until they came to rest. Some of the battle cries turned to screams, but most of them kept on coming. The men with muskets halted, dropped to one knee, and fired, then stood up again and continued the charge. More shots came from the Girls' Own line as soldiers farther along turned to add their fire to the carnage.

It wasn't going to be enough; Winter could see that immediately. “Bayonets!” she shouted, voice straining to be heard above the tumult.

In front of her, Abby's reserve soldiers fixed bayonets, just as the first of the
partisans threw themselves forward. There were men in leather coats with huge, bristly beards, and women with long, drab skirts tied up between their legs to leave them free to run. A boy not yet old enough to shave was coming straight for them, until a shot from the side spun him around and he tumbled to a halt against a tree. A few more partisans fell, brought down by soldiers who'd reserved their fire for point-blank range, and others halted to shoot back. One of the soldiers in front of Winter staggered back, screaming, her face torn to shreds by a hail of shot from a blunderbuss. The first partisan to reach the line was a girl, her long hair tied back with a red kerchief, an ax raised in both hands over her head. A Girls' Own soldier stopped her with a bayonet thrust to the stomach, the butt of the musket set against her own midriff, and they stood frozen for a moment, separated by the length of the weapon.

Then Winter tore her sword free of its scabbard, and had no attention to spare for anyone else. Two men and a woman came at her, one of them burying an ax in the ribs of a Girls' Own soldier as he passed. The other man had a spear, just a long length of wood with a sharpened point, and he aimed it at Winter like a lance with all the momentum of his downhill charge. She danced aside, and he couldn't adjust his strike in time. As the point slipped past her, Winter stuck a foot in his path; he didn't fall, but it took him a few moments to recover.

The second man and the woman came at her together. He was big, with a woodsman's muscles and a long-handled log-splitting ax. He used it well, swinging in wide horizontal sweeps that kept her outside his reach. Winter feinted left, dodged his swing, and brought her sword down on his hand as the ax went past. Something went flying—his thumb, she thought—and he dropped the weapon with a hoarse shriek. The woman pushed past him, swinging a carving knife with wild abandon, and Winter hastily spun aside, her sword licking out almost automatically in a backhanded slash across her attacker's face. As the woman screamed and stumbled away, Winter closed on the axman, who was scrabbling for his weapon with his off hand, and sank her blade in his ribs. He keeled over with a moan.

The man with the spear had dropped it, running pell-mell down the hill. He made it a dozen paces before an earsplitting
crack
rang out and he fell forward, thudding face-first into the turf. Abby stepped up beside Winter, lowering her smoking pistol.

“Are you all right, sir?” she said, through the ringing in Winter's ears.

Winter nodded, looking around. Bodies littered the slope, but there were only a handful in blue. Fury had not helped the partisans make up for their lack
of weapons or tactics. She saw one boy in leathers straddling the corpse of a Girls' Own soldier, stabbing her over and over with a short-bladed knife. He was sobbing and shouting something—Winter, who'd been spending some time with a Murnskai phrasebook, thought it was “You killed her! You killed her!”—but before she could say anything, a sergeant came up behind the youth, jerked his head back by the hair, and slashed his throat. Blood bubbled forth, and when she let go, he collapsed atop his victim, gurgling.

“Balls of the Beast,” Winter swore, letting her sword fall to her side.

“I certainly wasn't expecting
that
,” Abby said. “I'm sorry, sir. We should have been more careful.”

“It's all right,” Winter said. “That wasn't a charge; that was mass suicide. I didn't think . . .” She shook her head.

“I've got runners out to the others,” Abby said. “But I think that was about all they had.”

Winter nodded. She reached down to the body of the man she'd stabbed, wiped her sword clean, and sheathed it again. Her arm felt numb, and her ears were still ringing; it took her a moment to realize the woman she'd cut was still screaming.

“Gather up the wounded,” she said. “Ours and any of theirs that will make it. Janus will want to question them.” She looked up at the looming bulk of the hill. “Then we need to push on. This may not be over.”

A half hour later, after they'd confirmed there'd been no attack on the other two forces and detached half a company for the grisly duty of going over the battlefield, the remaining soldiers picked their way past the bodies of the fallen and up the hill. The Girls' Own moved in silence, Winter noted, not so much from a desire for stealth but in a kind of numb shock. The skirmish—massacre, more like—had felt different from a battlefield encounter.
This wasn't an army. This was a village coming after us with pointed sticks and kitchen knives.