“That’s not important,” Ibana cut in. “Does she know what their plan is?” She gritted her teeth, and Styke could tell it annoyed her to ask Jackal a question for the spirits. Major Gustar remained silent, still looking skeptical.
“Their plan is to wear us thin,” Jackal said. “They tried engaging us directly and lost more men than they’d expected. They will harass us until we reach the coast and then try to break us.” He paused. “It seems they are not an ordinary cavalry unit.”
“I could have told you that,” Styke snorted.
“At the end of the civil war, they were the other emperor’s bodyguard. Or rather, they are what’s left of his bodyguard.”
“I’m being chased by four dragonmen and a damned imperial guard,” Styke murmured to himself. “Ka-Sedial needs to learn to let things go.” He cleared his throat. “How far are we from the end of the Hammer?”
Gustar spoke up. “A few days at our current rate.”
Styke mused over the possibilities. “We could just ignore them until we reach the coast and they’re forced to engage us.”
“They’ll bleed us dry,” Gustar said. “We’re down to less than six hundred able-bodied men. We could lose another two hundred in those days. My guess is they still have fifteen hundred left. That would leave us outnumbered nearly four-to-one.”
“We’ve faced worse odds,” Styke said.
Ibana put her hands on her hips. “I’ll remind you again: We had enchanted armor. Not everyone is able to walk off every engagement they end up in, Ben.”
Styke frowned, considering his cavalier attitude toward the deaths of others. He knew commanding officers whose hearts bled for every death under their command—Lady Flint was one of those. To some that was a weakness. Flint had turned it into a strength.
He turned his gaze to the west—toward the end of the Hammer and, if Ka-poel was to believed, their final destination. He wondered briefly at their end goal in regard to the godstone, whether they were to capture and hold it, or to destroy it, or to try to put it on a boat and sink it in the sea. He decided that was best left to Ka-poel. He, in turn, would take care of whatever killing needed done in order to get there.
His eyes fell on the sharp terrain. The geography at the end of the Hammer was a far different sight from the east coast of Fatrasta, where they’d begun. Gone were the plains punctuated by bogs, lazy rivers, and plantation houses. Even gone were the forests and rolling hills of central Fatrasta. The terrain through which they must now pass was a dense wood filled with steep ridges and deep ravines covered in hanging mosses. It reminded Styke of the sharp foothills of the Ironhook Mountains, but there were no mountains within hundreds of miles. The locals called it the Hock.
Superstitious people claimed that the Hock had been carved by a war between gods millennia ago. During his time in the labor camps, Styke had once been partnered with a geologist—one of those government-employed fellows sent to look for likely deposits of gold ore—who had insisted that this sharp terrain had been caused by immense mountains of ice creeping their way across the land tens of thousands of years ago.
Styke had always dismissed him as a lunatic.
“What will they expect us to do?” Styke asked, still staring at the edge of the innocuous-looking forest that marked the beginning of the Hock.
Gustar answered straightaway. “They have us heavily in numbers. They’ll expect one of two things: that we’ll make a run for the coast, in the mistaken belief we can find reinforcements from a Fatrastan fleet.”
“Or?” Styke asked.
“Or that we try to hide in the Hock, shake them loose, and double back. They know that we know we’re outnumbered and running out of options. They’ll expect us to use the Hock as our chance to get away.”
Ibana did not seem convinced. “There is a third option: that they know our reputation and expect us to turn and fight at the first opportunity.”
Styke tried to put himself in the shoes of the dragoon commander. She was crafty enough to stay unnoticed all the way across the country and then catch them unawares in ambush. She also—so Styke assumed—had orders to kill Styke. Probably the same orders that Ka-Sedial had given those dragonmen. Would she go around the Hock and expect to catch up on the other side? Would she follow closely on his heels?
“Do we have scouts back from the Hock?” he asked.
“We do,” Ibana reported. “There’s just one major road to the coast. It has one relay station that’s still manned by three Fatrastan troops, which means the Dynize have avoided the place entirely since they landed. So we shouldn’t run into an army in there.”
“And the dragoons haven’t gotten ahead of us?” He looked back to where he’d spotted the scout to their east a few minutes ago, but they had disappeared.
“Absolutely certain of it,” Gustar replied.
His two majors in agreement, Styke realized that rushing headlong into the forest had few consequences. “Bring me your scouts, some paper, and something to draw with. I want to know exactly what the terrain looks like before we head in.”
Three hours later, Styke crouched in the underbrush at the edge of the Hock, looking out onto the road that his troops had passed through not long ago. He could see clearly for almost a mile before the road curved over a hill. It was empty and quiet.
Ka-poel lay beside him, using his looking glass to scan the horizon. Celine was somewhere a couple miles into the Hock with the camp and most of the horses. Ibana and Gustar were each about three hundred yards to Styke’s left and right, respectively, lying in much the same position at the edge of the forest and waiting with bated breath for the Dynize dragoons to show themselves.
When Styke spotted the first scout, he rode not from the east but from the south. The rider came up just a few dozen yards from the edge of the Hock, riding parallel to the forest, peering into the trees as he went. Styke ignored the twinge in his leg and pressed himself lower into the brush as the rider came near.
The rider reached the road—an easy carbine shot from Styke’s position—and stopped. Only a few minutes passed and he was soon joined by another rider from the north and then, crossing the distant hill and coming toward them, a third rider. They joined in conference for a few moments before the first and second riders headed into the Hock, following the trail of the Mad Lancers.
“Let them go,” Styke whispered to Jackal. The command was passed quietly along into the forest.
Styke heard the clop of their hooves disappear and watched the third rider, who seemed content to wait.
Fifteen minutes passed, then half an hour, and then the two scouts reappeared to join their third companion. They conferred once again, and the third took off back down the road. “They’ll report back to their superiors,” Styke whispered to Ka-poel, “that we’re camped roughly two miles into the Hock in an open hollow that would be easily ambushed. The rest of the army will be here soon. I want you to go back to camp and keep an eye on Celine.”
Ka-poel gave him a thoughtful look and got to her feet, hurrying into the forest.
In less than twenty minutes, horses appeared on the horizon. They rode six across, carbines held sharply at the ready. Styke recognized the woman at their head—it was the same officer who’d slaughtered his rear guard and then tried to kill him last week. The column continued to snake down the road, extending for nearly a mile with room between the horses for them to maneuver. Styke guessed that they had a little under fourteen hundred riders, plus pack horses and spares.
They entered the forest so close that Styke could have thrown a rock at that officer. He crouched, his fingers itching to grab for his carbine, and waited the agonizingly long time until the end of their column had entered the forest before finally standing up.
The men around him climbed to their feet and followed him as they headed into the woods, following their tracks back to where they’d hidden their horses a few hundred yards up a slate-carved ravine that wouldn’t easily show their hoofprints. He had just
fifty men with him, but they were his very best—lancers who had been with him from the beginning. They reached their horses and donned their Dynize breastplates, mounting up.
“Send the signal,” he ordered.
Jackal cleared his throat and hooted loudly. The call was carried over the next hill, and a few moments passed before it came back to them from both the north and the south.
Styke leaned forward in the saddle, waiting.
Two more sets of hoots eventually followed, and Jackal nodded happily. “They’re in position,” he reported.
Styke allowed a satisfied smile to cross his face and hefted his lance. “Wait until the firing starts,” he said.
They did not have to wait long. Within minutes they heard the first stuttering report of a carbine salvo, followed by the screams of men and horses. Styke flipped Amrec’s reins and allowed the horse to pick his way carefully down the winding ravine, followed by his fifty lancers.
A forest was, as these things went, a terrible place for cavalry to ambush cavalry. There was little room to maneuver for either side, and steep ravines meant an easy fall for a panicking horse. However, it was an excellent place for dismounted soldiers who’d had a chance to hide themselves to ambush an enemy cavalry force—and that’s just the ambush Ibana and Gustar’s men had performed.
Styke reached the end of the ravine and rejoined the main road just in time to see the panicking rear guard of the Dynize cavalry attempting some kind of counterattack. They were in utter disarray—a few had dismounted and leapt behind horses or into the foliage, looking for cover. Some scrambled about in a panic, reloading from horseback, and still others had attempted to charge their horses into the woods only to find themselves easy pickings on the steep banks.
A man with red epaulets stood in his stirrups, waving his carbine and shouting in an attempt to organize his men. Styke’s lance clipped his arm, and Amrec’s shoulder hit the rider’s poor horse, sending both tumbling down into the ravine on the other side of the road. Styke and his lancers entered the thick of the Dynize dragoons, plowing through them with the momentum of a downhill charge, barely slowing to fight as they trampled or scattered everyone in their paths.
They reached a switchback, arresting their charge just enough to turn, and then continued on down into the ravine. The road became a mess of horses and men. Styke traded his lance for a cavalry saber and fought his way to the bottom of the ravine. The road leveled out, giving him a chance to regain momentum, and he and his men surged forward.
This went on for well over half a mile—fighting, climbing, charging, hacking. The road wound as much as any mountain pass over ridges and through narrow valleys. Dismounted lancers spread along the entire trail, firing from the high points and retreating up the inclines if the Dynize attempted to chase, while Styke charged through the middle of it to break up any possible semblance of Dynize cohesion.
He finally reached a long, straight bit of road, only to realize that he’d run out of dragoons to attack. The echoes of carbine blasts were all behind him now, and he searched the forest for the woman with the orange epaulets. There was no sign of her ahead nor evidence that she’d fled into the woods.
He joined the mounted lancers as they caught up with him, finding Jackal bloodied and sagging, the Mad Lancers flag flying from a broken lance in his outstretched hand.
“Wounded?” Styke demanded.
“I’ll be fine.” Jackal’s eyes shone. “We ride through them once more?”
Styke assessed his riders. Less than half remained from the initial charge—more than he’d expected to make it. He flipped his reins and headed back down the road a few hundred feet, surveying the bodies of Dynize dragoons and the riderless horses running scared. He stopped twice to kill horses beyond help, and finished off several wounded dragoons. He found a few spots where hoofprints indicated that dragoons had fled into the forest, but still no sign of the woman with the orange epaulets.
He returned to Jackal. “We took a damned risk on those roads. I saw at least a dozen of us go down with lame horses. We wait here for Ibana and only head back if we hear a signal.”
The signal—a trumpet’s call—never came, and several hours passed while the blast of carbines became less and less frequent. Styke and his riders let their horses rest, tending to their wounds. Jackal had taken a bullet in the thigh. Styke’s face was scratched to pit by branches, and his calf was sliced by a dragoon’s sword. The same sword had cut a nasty groove down Amrec’s flank, so Styke cleaned and stitched the wound. He inspected Amrec’s hooves for cracks and tested his legs to make sure they hadn’t been hurt charging up and down the steep roads.
It was beginning to grow dark in the hollows of the Hock when Ibana—still on foot—limped into sight. She was followed by a long column of dismounted lancers, and they continued on toward camp as Ibana leaned against the moss-covered stump of a fallen tree. She rubbed her leg, grimacing, and looked up when Styke approached.
“You look well rested,” she said.
“I didn’t want to send the horses back along those roads.”
She waved him off. “That was the right call. How did it go?”
“I lost twenty-six riders. I imagine a few just lost their horses.” Styke spotted one of his old guard carrying her saddle, walking with the dismounted soldiers. “How about you?”
“Seven dead.”
Styke raised his eyebrows. “Seven?”
“Seven dead, about sixty wounded.” A sly smile spread on Ibana’s face. “We butchered the shit out of those slippery bastards. They didn’t expect a damned thing.”
“Did you make a count?”
“We counted eight hundred and thirty-some dead or wounded dragoons.” She waved back down the road. “Ferlisia and her scouts are gathering all the good horses they can find and bringing them with.”
“Their wounded?” Styke asked.
“Left where they lie,” Ibana said dispassionately. “If their friends come find them, they might live. If not …” She shrugged.
Styke walked Amrec beside Ibana all the way back to the Mad Lancers camp. They’d left behind fifty men to set up tents and act as a guard, and they reported that none of the Dynize had come this direction. Styke found Celine, and the two of them watched while Sunintiel stitched the bullet graze on Ibana’s leg.
“It was a good victory?” Celine asked.
“A very good victory,” Styke answered. He felt strangely melancholic. As Ibana said, they’d absolutely slaughtered the poor bastards. Less than half of the enemy force remained—and if they wanted to press the issue, they’d have to fight one-to-one with the Mad Lancers now. That should have sent his spirits soaring, but something felt … off.
Perhaps it was the ambush. Anyone could have been caught with their pants down in the Hock. Styke liked a good ambush as well as anyone, but a straight fight always felt better to him. The enemy commander’s greed had gotten the better of her.
He did the rounds, Celine by his side, checking in with the sentries and scouts and doubling their nighttime guard against an unlikely enemy regrouping before he headed to his tent. He lay back, using Amrec’s saddle for a pillow, and was preparing to drift off when he realized what was wrong.
He didn’t smell blood.
He found Ibana still doing her own rounds, startling her as he came out of the darkness. “Why aren’t you wearing pants?” she asked.
“I was in my tent,” Styke answered. “Have you seen Ka-poel anywhere?”
“Come to think of it, no. Not since before the ambush.”
Styke flared his nostrils, breathing in deeply. The scent of her sorcery—which had become so ubiquitous over the last few weeks—was nowhere on the wind.
“You sent her back here, didn’t you?” Ibana asked.
Styke recounted his footsteps. They’d been watching the Dynize scouts, and then he’d dismissed Ka-poel to return to the camp before the fighting started. There was no way she had gotten lost.
“Ben?
” a voice asked.
Styke turned to find Celine rubbing her eyes.
“Go back to bed,” he said gently. “Wait … did Ka-poel return to camp earlier?”
“Yeah, she got here just a few minutes after the shooting began.”
Styke sniffed again. Still nothing. “Are you sure?”
Celine seemed to wake up fully, her expression growing startled. “Oh no.”
“What?”
“I was supposed to tell you something when you got back. Ka-poel said she was going to find the Dynize camp.”
“She what?” Styke and Ibana both asked at the same time. Styke ran to Celine’s side, kneeling down beside her so their faces were inches apart. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
“Nothing happened. She just told me to tell you she had gone to find the enemy camp. She needed information.”
“How is she supposed to find the enemy camp if we haven’t been able to for …” Styke trailed off. Pit. She must have picked up some bit of detritus that allowed her to track them. “What the pit are we supposed to do?”
“She said to come get her in the morning,” Celine said.
Styke exchanged a look with Ibana. For a week they hadn’t had any luck finding the Dynize dragoons, and the bastards had shadowed them for far longer than that. Finding their camp now, without Ka-poel’s sorcery, might be next to impossible. He felt sick to his stomach at the idea of having ridden clear across Fatrasta only to lose the ward they were supposed to be protecting.
And he was mad as shit that she had just gone off without saying a word to anyone except a little girl. “We leave her,” he spat.
Ibana seemed startled by the suggestion. “She’s the whole reason we’re here.”
“And she damn well abandoned us. We’re her bodyguard, not her valet service. We’re not going to just come by and pick her up. These dragoons have caused us more grief than any cavalry I can remember and I’m not going to go looking for them.” Styke was furious. He knew he wasn’t thinking clearly, but he didn’t care.