“I don’t know if I can,” Taniel said.
Etan slapped him. Taniel felt his cheek burn from the force of the blow. “Promise me.” Another sharp blow nearly turned Taniel around. Even lying on the ground, unable to move his legs, Etan was strong. “Promise it!”
A woman, one of the surgeons, threw herself to the ground on Etan’s opposite side. She looked him over, a frown on her face. “Where’s the wound?”
“My back’s broken,” Etan said. His voice cracked. He looked Taniel in the eyes. “Promise me.”
“No.”
Etan’s eyes were glassy with tears. “Coward. If I were dying, you’d promise me. Because you wouldn’t have to answer to me then. But I’m not dying, and you won’t promise it. Bloody coward.”
Taniel turned his face away. He knew it was true.
They brought out a cart, one of the ambulances with a covered top and four cots to hold the wounded, to take Etan back to camp. Etan turned his head away from Taniel, and Taniel didn’t walk beside him as they carted him away.
They had destroyed the Kez attack. Probably a thousand of the enemy soldiers dead. Twice that many wounded and another few hundred taken prisoner. It took Taniel a moment to realize he was surrounded by soldiers. The Twelfth Grenadiers. The smallest of them was a hand taller than Taniel. He wondered how many had died in the melee. Their losses had to be staggering.
One of them approached him. Taniel thought about turning away. He could push through them and head back to camp. Had they been listening? Did they hear their colonel tell Taniel he was a coward?
The stout man had his bearskin hat in one hand. His other hand was empty. Clenched in a fist. Taniel lifted his chin and waited to be punched.
“Sir,” the grenadier said.
“Go ahead. I deserve it.”
The grenadier seemed confused. He looked down at his fist, then flattened his hand. “Sir, you’re not a coward. The colonel… no man wants to end up like that. The things he said… you’re not a coward. We just watched you charge a brigade of Kez infantry by yourself. I want you to know: If you need something, anything, you just say so. I’ll be there. I suspect most of these boys will say the same.”
There was a round of nodding, and then the grenadiers began to trudge wearily back to camp.
Taniel stood alone in the field for several minutes, watching the surgeons cart off the dead and wounded. He felt someone behind him. He didn’t have to turn around. Ka-poel.
He wiped the tears from his face with the sleeve of his jacket. “Don’t you have bodies to examine, or some such thing?” he asked.
She took his hand. He wanted to pull away, but couldn’t.
They stood together in silence as the blood of the living and the dead and the dying mingled together and made a red sea of Adran soil. Taniel lifted her hand in his. The movement was impulsive, sudden, and he wondered later what thought drove him, but he touched her hand to his lips firmly.
“I’m going to end this,” he said. “I’m going to kill Kresimir. For good. You need his blood? I’ll get it, even if I die doing it.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw her give a slight shake of her head.
Without warning she stepped in front of him and wrapped one hand around the back of his head and pulled him down to her, pressing her warm lips against his. It seemed as if fire raced through his veins at the touch, and when she finally stepped away, he was breathless. He fought the impulse to drop to his knees, telling himself it was just blood loss that left him so weak.
Then the moment was past, and silent as always, Ka-poel went about her business, leaning over the body of a dead Adran soldier.
Stunned, Taniel watched her for several minutes until something far behind the Kez line brought him out of his reverie. In an instant he was a soldier again: vigilant, watchful, ready to defend against new threats from the enemy.
The Kez soldiers were raising something into the sky above their camp, just north of Budwiel’s city walls. It must have been eight stories high for him to be able to see it from this distance. He took a small hit of powder, sharpening his eyes.
It was an immense beam, hewn from what looked to be one giant tree. Soldiers and prisoners milled about the base and spread out in a fan behind it, pulling on long ropes tied to the top of the beam. It was lifted high and then suddenly it dropped ten or twenty feet – probably into a slot dug out of the ground – to stand straight in the air.
Taniel frowned. He could see something on the side of the beam. A person?
He focused his powder-heightened eyes. Yes. A woman, it seemed. Stripped naked, she was nailed to the beam by her wrists, and her hands were missing. A rope about her waist secured her to the beam.
Taniel was taken aback. Was she a traitor of some kind, put up there as a warning? The missing hands would indicate she’d been a Privileged. What could…
The body moved. Bloody pit, she was alive.
Her head lifted, and Taniel felt his blood go cold. He knew her. She’d fought him in Kresim Kurga, the holy city, when he tried to keep her from summoning Kresimir.
It was Julene.
CHAPTER
18
Tamas waited for the return of his night scouts and listened to the familiar sounds of his soldiers breaking camp.
There was a light chatter this morning – something missing over the last two weeks’ worth of march since the fall of Budwiel. Someone laughed in the distance. Nothing like a full belly to bring a man’s spirits up. Combine that with elation at the victory over the Kez vanguard, and Tamas could almost call his men happy.
Almost.
Tamas didn’t like eating horse. It reminded him of hard times in Gurla, of starvation and disease and the desert heat, when they’d been forced to slaughter their own healthy horses to stay alive. The taste was slightly sweet, and gamier than beef. Meat that came from cavalry chargers tended to be tough.
Then again, at least his stomach didn’t rumble.
“What is it, soldier?”
Vlora stood at attention on the other side of his cook fire. She snapped off a salute.
“Kez spotted, sir. Riding under a white flag.”
Tamas flicked a bit of fat into the fire and watched it sizzle. He stood up, wiping his hands on an already soiled handkerchief. Another problem they faced – no camp followers meant no laundresses. Both his uniforms were dirty and stained, and he smelled like a cesspool.
Adom forbid you do your own laundry, a little voice in the back of his head said. Tamas chuckled.
“Sir?” Vlora asked.
“Nothing, soldier. I’ll meet them on the edge of camp. Olem!”
“Coming, sir.”
Tamas was joined by Olem and a small bodyguard of Olem’s Riflejacks. Among the Ninth, stationed as the rear guard, the last tents were being rolled and stowed in packs and cook fires put out. They’d be on the march in twenty minutes. The advance elements of the Seventh were already half a mile down the road.
He passed a row of wagons. They’d been able to salvage them from the abandoned remains of Hune Dora. The bottoms were already stained from the blood of the wounded, and they smelled like death at ten paces. Today, they would carry the wounded that had survived the last two days.
“Have those washed out,” Tamas said to Olem. “In fact, I want bathing mandatory. There’s plenty of mountain streams in these woods. Organize it with the scouts. I want fifty men to stop and bathe in every mountain stream we pass. If we don’t look to ourselves, we’ll have disease rampant in the camp.”
“Yes, sir.” Olem rubbed at his dust-caked uniform. “I could use a little freshening up myself.”
They left the edge of the Adran camp and passed the rear pickets. The forest beyond was still, the only sounds that of chattering squirrels and the call of birds. Tamas welcomed the birdsong. It reminded him of peace, distracted him from the harsh call of the carrion crows and the memory of piled corpses that lingered behind his eyes.
Tamas saw the Kez riders before they
saw him.
There were a dozen of them. They were still mounted upon their chargers in the middle of the road, watching the Adran pickets impassively. They wore the heavy breastplates of cuirassiers over tan uniforms with green trim. They dismounted as Tamas drew closer and one of them removed his helmet and approached.
“Field Marshal Tamas?”
“I am he,” Tamas said.
“I am General Beon je Ipille,” he said in Adran with a light accent. He extended his hand. “The pleasure is mine.”
Tamas took the general’s hand. Beon was a young man, perhaps in his late twenties. His face was boyish, touched by the same cabal sorceries that kept every king of the Nine looking young far beyond their years. That alone would have told Tamas that Beon was one of Ipille’s sons, if not for the name and reputation.
“The king’s favored son. Your reputation precedes you.”
Beon tilted his head modestly. “And you, yours.”
“To what do I owe the honor?” Tamas said. This was all a formality, of course. Tamas knew why Beon was here.
“I’ve come to inquire as to your intentions in my country.”
“Only to return to my own, and defend it from the aggression of a tyrant.”
Beon didn’t even blink at the insult against his father. Tamas made a mental note of that. He was more levelheaded than his older brothers, it seemed. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”
“So we are at an impasse.”
“Not an impasse, I think,” Beon said. “I’ve come to request your surrender.”
“An impasse. I will not surrender,” Tamas said flatly.
Beon nodded, as if to himself. “I was afraid you would say that.”
“Afraid?” Tamas knew Beon’s reputation. Fear didn’t enter into it. Beon was almost recklessly brave. He seized opportunities a lesser commander might balk at. His courage had served him well.
“I do not relish chasing the great Field Marshal Tamas. You’ve already seen to my vanguard – how do you say, sending them back with their tails tucked between their legs?” He looked over his shoulder at one of the other riders. The rider was a dragoon, with a straight sword and lacking the breastplate of a cuirassier. “Their commanders barely escaped with their lives.”
“You could just let me go on my way,” Tamas said jovially. “I’ll be out of your country in a few weeks.”
Beon chuckled. “And my father would have my head. Your men are hungry, Tamas. You have no food, other than the horsemeat you salvaged from my vanguard. I’ll be fair. I’ll tell you what you face, and then you can decide whether to surrender. Yes?”
Tamas snorted. “That is more than fair.”
“Good. I have ten thousand dragoons and fifty-five hundred cuirassiers under my command. My elder brother is about a week’s march behind me with thirty thousand infantry. I know you have eleven thousand men. We outnumber you four to one. You have no hope of escaping this country. Surrender now, and your men will be treated with respect as prisoners of war.” He paused and lifted his hand, as if swearing upon the Rope. “I’ve studied you, Tamas. You do not throw your men’s lives away in needless causes.”
“If you’ve studied me,” Tamas said quietly, “you’ll know that I do not lose.”
Beon’s expression was bemused. “You are a dead man, Tamas. Do you have any requests?”
“Yes. I have over a hundred wounded. If I hand them over to you, will they be treated with respect as prisoners of war?”
“So that you may travel faster? No. Any wounded that fall into our hands will be executed as criminals.”
Beon was a gentleman through and through. It was entirely likely he was bluffing. Did Tamas dare risk it?
“Then, General, I have no more to say to you.”
Beon gave a respectful nod. “I would wish you good luck, but…”
“I understand.”
The Kez remounted and were off down the road within minutes. Tamas watched them go. That general would be trouble. Incompetence was practically bred into the Kez army, where nobles could purchase their commission or find themselves a general at the whim of the king.
Once in a while, though, talent rose above the chaff.
“Olem,” Tamas said.
The bodyguard snapped to attention, but his eyes never left the direction the Kez had gone. Tamas knew he was itching for a fight.
“Sir?”
“Get me an ax and meet me at the head of the column.”
The basic kits of all Adran infantry included a hand ax and a shovel. They were meant for cutting firewood and digging latrine pits.
A good commander utilized them for far more.
Tamas gathered his horse and rode to the front of the column. He found Colonel Arbor at the vanguard with his First Battalion. The colonel flexed his jaw, popping his false teeth out into one hand as Tamas fell in beside him.
“Nice day, sir. Trees keep the forest cool.”
Tamas examined the road. It winded along a steep, heavily forested hillside. Enough light reached the ground for there to be a thick undergrowth; thorny and tangled. Without the road, the terrain would be nearly impossible to traverse.
“A word, Colonel,” Tamas said. “Pick two platoons and bring them off to the side.”
Arbor hollered for the Nineteenth and Thirty-Fourth Platoons. By the time they’d shuffled off the road and into the forest, Olem had joined them. He dismounted and handed Tamas an ax.
Tamas removed his jacket and his shirt and looked around at the men. “We have fifteen thousand cavalry dogging our tails,” he said. “On horseback, they travel faster and easier than us. I mean to change that. Every time there’s a narrowing in the terrain, like that one there” – he pointed to where the road cut into the hillside up ahead – “we’re going to drop a few tons of rubble there. Gather rocks, fell trees. Any kind of debris. As soon as the column has passed, we’re going to stop it up.”
Tamas picked a nearby tree. It was wide enough that three men couldn’t have reached around its base. It would do perfectly. He positioned himself on the side of the tree facing the road and began to chop.
The two platoons set about hacking at trees with axes and billhooks and gathering everything they could from the nearby forest. They stacked great piles beside the road. Tamas pulled two more platoons out of the column, and by the time the last of his men had passed, they had half a dozen immense trees ready to fall across the road.
Tamas turned his head at the sound of an approaching rider.
It was only Gavril. He reined in beside Tamas.
“You the last of our scouts back there?” Tamas asked.
“Aye,” Gavril said. “The Kez are a mile behind me. They’re not coming hard. I don’t think they’re in a hurry.” He examined the work Tamas had been doing. “Cutting trees like a logger. I like this side of you. I hope all this work was worth it.”
“It’ll take them hours to clear this,” Tamas said.
“Or they’ll go around.”
Tamas wiped the sweat from his brow. If they found a way through the forest, all of this was for naught. “Can they?”
“They’ll have to scout it,” Gavril said. “And they’ll be cautious in case you’ve laid a trap. You might have bought us some time.”
Tamas took his shirt from Olem, and a soldier brought him his charger. He climbed into the saddle. “Bring ’em down!” he shouted to the soldiers.
A few minutes later the trees crashed to the ground. They were felled so that they lay across each other, wedged to block the road. It wouldn’t be as simple as throwing a rope around them and dragging them away with teams of horses.
The rest of the rubble was thrown to block the way, and Tamas ordered the platoons to march double-time to catch up with the rest of the column.
“Have your scouts find me good spots to block the road,” Tamas said to Gavril.
“Consider it done.”
“Olem, see that those two platoons are given a double ration of hors
emeat tonight. They earned it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tamas shrugged into his shirt. “Put your mind to anything else we can use to slow down the Kez. They might still dog us with a company or two, but I want to keep the bulk of their numbers as far behind us as possible.”
“I heard you met with the Kez general,” Gavril said.
“I did. It was Beon je Ipille. Ipille’s youngest son.”
Gavril grunted. “I’ve heard he’s a decent sort – for Ipille’s spawn, anyway.”
“He is.”
“How did it go?” Gavril asked.
“I have one regret and one hope.”
Gavril seemed intrigued. “Your hope?”
“That I didn’t make a grave mistake refusing to surrender.”
“And your regret?”
“It’s too bad Beon wasn’t Ipille’s first son. He’d have made a terrific king. I’m going to regret killing him.”
“I came as quickly as I could,” Adamat said.
“Have a seat.”
Adamat took a chair opposite Ricard and leaned back. Ricard’s face was grave. What hair remained on his balding head stuck out everywhere in unkempt wisps, and his eyes were tired, his beard uncombed, clothes rumpled. Very unlike Ricard.
Ricard stared at the floor. “You heard the news?” he asked, gesturing to the newspaper on his desk.
The paper proclaiming the death of Field Marshal Tamas was a week old now.
“All of Adro has heard it,” Adamat said.
Ricard finally looked up. When he glimpsed Adamat’s face, he nearly fell out of his chair. “What the pit happened to you?”
Adamat would have snorted if it didn’t hurt so badly to do so. He imagined he looked far worse off than Ricard. Little sleep, his nose recently broken and reset, cuts and bruises all across his face. Adamat was a horror, and it was interfering with his work. No one liked being seen doing business with someone who’d had the piss beaten out of them.
“I’ve had a few run-ins lately,” Adamat said.
Ricard waited for an explanation. Adamat wasn’t about to give him one.
“Yes, well…” Ricard slowly tore his gaze from Adamat’s face. “The country is in an uproar. The Kez are pushing the southern front, and with Tamas gone a few royalists have come out of the woodwork. He was the glue holding this whole nation together.” Ricard ran his fingers through his hair. “Tamas’s remaining councillors… we’ve already started bickering among ourselves. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”