The Company of Shadows (Wellington Undead Book 3) (15 page)

The mood among the ranks might best be described as…
odd.
Nichols pondered it for a while, trying to come up with a better word — and failing miserably. The men weren’t exactly sullen, but there was a definite lack of their usual good cheer to be found. Only a week before, these men were the undisputed victors upon the field of Assaye. Despite having incurred some truly horrendous losses, they had broken the back of a vastly superior Maratha army, crushed its regular
and
its irregular
compoos,
and set the broken remnants to flight.

Maybe Wellesley should have pursued them then,
the CSM mused, but quickly discarded the notion as being foolish. The redcoats had been battered and exhausted, having given their all in the assault — and that wasn’t even taking into account the horde of reanimated corpses that had risen from among the mounds of dead of both sides, who wanted nothing more than to sink their teeth into the flesh of the closest living redcoat or Maratha soldier.

The second British army, under the command of Colonel Stevenson, had been set nipping at the heels of the fleeing enemy, but by the time his force came within range of the Maratha stragglers, the main body of its retreating troops had escaped to the north-east. Neither Stevenson nor Wellesley had been able to force a decisive battle out of the enemy ever since.

Of course, the fact that Wellesley had even survived that night of blood and fire at all was nothing short of miraculous. He had been locked in mortal hand-to-hand combat with his arch-enemy, the shape-shifting tigress named Jamelia, who commanded one of the enemy
compoos.
Dan shuddered, his mind going backward in time to that terrible night, but was almost immediately jolted out of its reverie by the
rat-tat-tat-tat-ing
of a drum.

It was time, then.

As the beating of the drum grew louder, four figures appeared slowly out of the gathering darkness. The first was a drummer boy, a twelve year-old lad from Yorkshire who would double as a stretcher bearer when the army went into battle. Tonight, his only task was to beat out a steady cadence, marking the timing for the two guards who were escorting the prisoner, one standing on either side of the pathetic-looking figure. Where they marched smartly in near-perfect step with one another, the prisoner hobbled along weakly, with all the enthusiasm of a man walking to his own execution...which, of course, he was. His hands were bound behind his back with rope, and every time he slipped or stumbled, one of his escorts had to reach out and grab his arm in order to prevent him falling flat on his face in the dirt.

The prisoner had already been stripped of his red jacket, and along with it, every trace of his identity as a Corporal in the 33rd. The General had to be taking
that
particularly hard, Dan mused, watching the shuffling convict come closer; for although a senior officer was never supposed to play favorites, he had commanded the 33rd personally during his tenure as a Colonel, and still maintained a soft spot for them in whatever passed for a heart with a vampire. It was something of an open secret among the army’s officers and senior NCOs that General Wellesley took the death of
every
man personally, even those who had done something as heinous (and quite frankly, bloody
stupid
) as Corporal Wilkins had done.

Flanked on either side by a Corporal from his own regiment, Wilkins was escorted into the center of the square. The the guards climbed the wooden gallows alongside him, halting him at the top just in front of the dangling noose. In the orange glow cast by the burning torches, Dan could see the terrified look on the man’s face as he stared directly at the means of his execution.

A figure emerged from the shadows at the firelight, walking laconically across to stand at the foot of the gallows. Dan recognized Colonel Connolly, commanding officer of the 33rd. No human officer ever managed to look that relaxed; even simply standing there, Connolly practically oozed the superiority and uber-confidence of one who knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that his position in life was at the very top of the food chain. He wasn’t alone in that. Most of the army’s vampire officers had adopted the same manner, and the CSM had long since given up trying to figure out whether it was genuine self-assurance or simply an affectation.

Connolly was in full dress uniform, as befit the solemnity of the occasion. His short dark hair, streaked with grey that would never change no matter how many more years or centuries he lived, was combed straight backward and powdered, which made it less of a nuisance to manage. Every part of his uniform, from the boots that were polished until they gleamed, to his spotlessly turned-out red jacket and white breeches, was utterly immaculate.

“Corporal Wilkins,” the Colonel began. “Or should I say,
deserter
Wilkins — for you no longer deserve the courtesy of the rank which you once held — you have been been found guilty of the crime of desertion by court martial, and sentenced to hang by the neck until you are dead. Do you have anything to say before the sentence is carried out?”

Wellesley turned to regard the condemned man quietly, his eyes glowing a bright red in the darkness of the night. That was the only outward sign of the anger and turmoil that Dan knew he had to be feeling. Wilkins didn’t dare meet his General’s gaze, choosing instead to look down at his feet and stand mute.
A good choice,
the CSM nodded to himself. After all, there were some fates worse than simply
dying
where vampires were concerned.

“Very well.” Connolly turned and nodded curtly. “Sergeant Pace, carry on, if you please.”

A dependable old salt and a solid NCO, David Pace had been Corporal Wilkins’ Sergeant, and was therefore taking the man’s desertion even more personally than the General was, if such a thing were possible. Short and stocky, Pace marched forward out of the ranks with a clockwork precision that would not have been out of place on a parade square back in England. He climbed the six wooden steps up to the platform without breaking stride, his boots thudding to a halt just inches behind Wilkins’ own bare feet. The prisoner trembled, closing his eyes as though by doing so, he could shut out the pain and indignity of what was about to happen.

A vampire officer would never dirty his hands with something as menial as executing one of his own men,
Dan thought, his upper lip curling with distaste.
That’s what we have NCOs for.

Pace reached an arm out over the condemned man’s right shoulder, reaching for the rope. He slipped the noose underneath Wilkins’ chin, making him flinch. Pace ignored him, tightening the knot at the back in a position calculated to achieve the desired effect. With a nod from him, both Corporals of the escort marched down the steps and returned to the ranks. Pace was right behind them, and took up position on the right-hand side of the gallows. He braced to the position of attention.

“Ready to carry out the sentence,
sah!
”

Connolly shot a questioning look at Wellesley, who simply nodded.

“You may proceed, Sarn’t Pace.”

“Very good,
sah!
”

The gallows scaffold may not have been elegantly constructed, but it was good enough for the job at hand. Pace slammed the lever forward, causing the trapdoor beneath him to fall away. Wilkins suddenly found his bare feet standing on empty air. Every muscle in the condemned man’s body tensed as gravity took hold. The drop was quick, the rope reaching maximum extension in less than a second, and Wilkins’ body jerked. In the case of most hangings, this was the point at which the victim’s neck would be broken.

This wasn’t most hangings.

The condemned man’s body bounced, but the
snap-crack,
that tell-tale sign of a fracturing neck, never came. Instead, the noose bit deeply into the soft flesh beneath Wilkins’ chin. He gagged explosively, flecks of spittle flying out of his grimacing mouth. Pace stood to attention at the man’s side, watching impassively as he jerked and spasmed, dancing at the end of the hangman’s rope. Wilkins was struggling, but his hand were bound tightly, and try as he might, he couldn’t reach up with already-trembling fingertips to relieve the pressure on his neck.

It took the former Corporal Wilkins a long time to die. The assembled redcoats and their officers watched in silence. Dan knew that the man’s death was close when his bladder and his bowels gave out, sending a torrent of yellow-brown filth splashing down one trouser leg. Clenched teeth bit down on the soft tissue of his tongue, making it bleed. Eyes bulged from their sockets, the whites filling with thousands of tiny red spots as the tiny capillaries that fed them ruptured, and Wilkins’ face had turned from maroon to a deep purplish-crimson. His back arched, and then with one last spastic jerk, his body went limp.

Nobody among the assembled ranks moved, or even seemed to breathe. Then Sergeant Pace hawked up the contents of his throat and spat them casually at the dead man. A gob of spittle landed on his shoulder, then began to dribbled down the front of his shirt.

“Scum,” the spitter cursed under his breath.

Wellesley spurred his horse slowly forward, halting it alongside the still-braced NCO. The General’s eyes glow redly in the darkness.

“You did that deliberately, Sergeant.” Wellesley’s tone wasn’t in the least bit accusatory; it was matter-of-fact, bordering on the conversational.

“Sir,” Pace acknowledged flatly, maintaining the position of attention and keeping his gaze dead ahead.

“At least you do not bother to deny it. Might I ask
why
you wanted the man to suffer a slow, excruciating death?”

“All due respect, sir, I don’t hold with being merciful to deserters.” Now he did look up: not insolently, for he knew that such a reaction on his part would be hazardous in the extreme, but Wellesley saw that the man was standing his ground, albeit in a respectful way. “They’re scum, sir, and an example needed to be set.”

“An example
was
set,” Wellesley countered harshly. “Wilkins paid for his crime with his life. That should have been an end to it.”

“Sir.”

From the sound of his voice, Pace wasn’t remotely convinced. Wellesley leaned down from his mount and lowered his own voice to a whisper. “If we cast aside the virtue of mercy, Sergeant, then we become little better than the creatures against which we must fight. Do I make myself clear?”

The Sergeant opened his mouth to speak — Wellesley knew that his answer would almost certainly be another monotone ‘sir’ — but he would never know for sure, because he was interrupted by the crackle of musketry from somewhere on the edge of camp. Flashes of orange and white light lit up the night for an instant, far off to their left.

Ah yes — the obligatory evening assault, courtesy of our undead friends…
Nichols had been quite blatantly watching the exchange between Wellesley and Pace, found the sergeant’s almost pathological coolness in the face of his commanding general fascinating to watch. Most mortal men would have wilted beneath that cold, haughty glare, but not Pace, it seemed. The musketry hadn’t made him so much as flinch. The more that the CSM thought about it, the more it seemed that Pace had undergone some sort of fundamental sea change since the battle at Assaye; studying him now, it was all too clear that the man’s affect seemed totally unconcerned with what was going on all around him. He simply did not seem to care any more. Pace would have to watch that, because it was a dangerous place to be so far as the army’s vampire officers were concerned.

There was no second volley of musket fire.
Must have been just one or two of ‘em,
Dan reflected. It happened more and more often these days, as the army chased the retreating Marathas through the foothills in what had so far been a vain attempt to bring them to battle, and hopefully to end this bloody mess once an for all.

General Wellesley turned his head sharply to peer into the darkness, his eyes glowing a pale red. Obviously his enhanced vampiric hearing had picked something up. Less than a minute later, two redcoats — a private and a corporal, both of the King’s 84th — emerged from the gloom, escorting a disheveled native man. Bill Norris, who was acting as sergeant of the guard tonight, brought up he rear, keeping a watchful eye on proceedings. Now that
was
interesting. If old Bill had gotten himself involved, there had to be something more to this than first met the eye.

The man’s age was hard to pin down, as was so often true with the natives of this land. Many lived a hard and difficult life, eking whatever existence they could out of the sparse wilderness that they called home. If pushed, Dan would have put his age somewhere between thirty-five and fifty; the sun-baked leathery skin made if impossible to tell for sure. His brow was wrinkled, and long crow’s feet extended outward from the corner of each eye. He was thin of frame and appeared exhausted, the rags that clothed him heavily sweat-stained, but as Dan watched the three redcoats escort him toward the commanding general, he thought he saw a strength in the man’s stride that lay just beneath the surface; a grim, dogged determination, perhaps. Whatever this man’s story was, the NCO doubted that weakness played any part in it.

For his part, Major General Wellesley watched the small party approach with an air of studied insouciance.
He’s giving Pace a good run for his money,
Dan thought, suppressing a chuckle.