Kingmaker (35 page)

Sullivan had two thousand professional soldiers. Ellie had a hundred trained ninja and another hundred lightly trained local bandits. It wasn't even close.

Sullivan's army huddled together in a harvested field, protected by quickly formed berms of snow and a dozen fire circles where sentries watched for any movement.

Ellie went sentry hunting.

The snow was bitterly cold and had a nasty habit of getting under her uniform and melting against her skin.

She forced herself to ignore the pain. She had dug in an hour, between when Sullivan's scouts had marked out the campsite and when his main army arrived, creating a small cave under the snowdrifts.

When dusk fell, she poked a small hole through the snow and checked out Sullivan's camp.

He'd been smart enough to set fake sentry fires, hoping to create a distraction or to trick Ellie's guerillas into a trap.

She ignored the fires and looked for evidence of people.

Then she tunneled.

Beneath the hard ice crust, the snow was soft and easy to pack.

She dug her way as silently as she could until she was only a few feet from one of the sentry outposts.

At precisely midnight, she pushed her blow tube through the snow and puffed a thin dart, tipped with quick acting poison, toward the nearest soldier.

"What the—"

His shout and the crash he made as he collapsed alerted the sentries to danger—but Ellie was hidden beneath the snow—all but invisible.

She replaced the dart and blew two more times.

The third sentry was heavily dressed. His thick wool layers protected him from both cold and from poisoned darts.

"Poison dart,” the sentry shouted. “He's got to be over there."

He pointed directly at her, then grabbed a musket and fired.

She closed her eyes just as the musket went off but the glare of burning gunpowder pierced through her closed lids, reducing her night vision.

Snow exploded around her as the heavy musket ball slammed into a drift a foot to Ellie's left.

She drew her sword and pushed out of the drift.

If the shot had damaged her night vision, it had largely blinded the soldier who'd shot at her. He didn't even see her white-clad form as she slid across the snow and brushed the tip of her katana against his throat.

He tried to scream, but only a gurgle sounded from his ruined neck. Gore fountained past the hands he raised in a futile attempt to keep his lifeblood inside.

Ellie ducked, avoiding the largest gush of blood, then skied on to the next sentry who slipped on the snow as he tried to draw his sword.

He died with his weapon only halfway out of the sheath.

Ellie tossed a bomb into the tent where the remainder of the sentries had been huddled and closed her eyes to the flash.

Two made it out. The others weren't so lucky.

She could have killed the two who'd survived, but she'd warned her fellow ninja not to take chances. If she ignored her own instructions, she would have a hard time keeping them under control after this.

Instead of staying, she used her skis to skate away from the uproar.

They lost two ninja that night. One had been uncovered while the soldiers had been setting up the camp. The other had been hit by a freak musketshot.

They killed at least thirty of the sentries. Sullivan could stand those kinds of losses, but he wouldn't like it. More importantly, Sullivan's army looked discouraged and overly cautious as they continued their march the next day.

The fourth night, Sullivan's sentries were on high guard. They stomped around their campground making sure that no ninja could be hidden within a thousand feet of their outposts.

When the ninja had captured Ranolf's manor house, though, Ellie had found the bow she'd brought across the dimensions.

Unlike a musket, whose sound is a warning and whose red flash of fire pinpoints the shooter's location, the bow is deadly silent. In capable hands, the bow is more accurate than a musket and can be fired more quickly.

Ellie had capable hands. And the composite, space technology, bow was stronger and more accurate than anything this dimension had seen before.

She skied around beyond the reach of the lights shed by the camp, joining those of her fellow ninja who had been assigned the task of target acquisition, and fired her bow until she ran out of arrows.

Sullivan's army continued the next day, but it was noticeably smaller now. Between the arrows she'd brought across the dimensions and those her fellow ninja had fletched for her, she'd had over a hundred arrows. She didn't think she'd missed with more than half.

Sullivan retaliated against any peasants he found, but Ellie's ninja were faster, and had skied ahead to tell everyone about the slaughter outside of Dinan. Few peasants stuck around to find out if Sullivan had become more merciful after his defeat at Dinan. The foolish few quickly learned that he had not.

On the fifth night, Ellie sent the ninja on simultaneous frontal attacks on all Sullivan's sentry posts.

Around the camp, three dozen ninja squads simultaneously attacked. She personally led three ninja against an outpost near the main camp gate.

They struck just after nightfall, skiing in close before they could be observed, then slashing their way through the outpost, swords out and silent.

She kept low, stayed moving, tried to remember everything her father had taught her about the sword and everything she'd learned in a year of training and warfare in Lubica.

A musketshot from the camp splintered hardpacked snow near her face and she blinked quickly, then drew and cut.

The hardened steel of the katana cut through the cheap metal sword the sentry raised against her and continued through to his chest.

The sword caught on a rib, penetrated, and then stuck as her momentum pulled her forward and tipped her off balance.

She hated to leave it, but the katana was only a tool, not worth throwing her life away for. Her father would have been the first to remind her of that.

She had waited too long to let go, though, and felt herself falling off balance.

Without skis, she wouldn't have worried. But enough of the ninja had suffered sprains and breaks to make her terribly aware of the danger and the fact that the skis had none of the safety equipment Americans depended on.

She threw herself into the fall, managed a cartwheel, and came up with her skis under her.

She yanked out a dagger in time to stab another guard, left the second weapon behind her, and tossed another bomb over the snow barrier into the main camp.

They lost six ninja that night. The sentries had been ready and represented many of Sullivan's best troops.

But nightly attacks, spread over different times, wore on the sentries. That night, their attack killed at least forty of Sullivan's veterans. And she was replacing her losses with peasants dispossessed by Sullivan's destruction. Nobody was joining Sullivan.

The duke could have pressed, on but Sullivan wasn't stupid. His soldiers didn't like this kind of war and he wasn't conquering or occupying territory. The following morning, he burned Ranolf's chateau and turned back toward Moray.

Her guerilla force of two hundred had forced an army of well over two thousand to run, killed over a hundred professional mercenaries, while losing fewer than a dozen of her own troops.

Ellie, Micael, and Alys watched Sullivan's soldiers leave the still burning chateau.

"We'll harass them all day,” Ellie announced. “Micael, I want you to lead that effort. Slow them down, keep them ducking. Use my bow and whatever muskets you find. I don't think they're going to chase too hard. If they do, cut off and kill whomever they send out. Use your skis for mobility."

"Right,” he signed. Micael wasn't a born soldier but he was a fighter. He knew that you have to attack when you have an enemy beaten. Otherwise, he'll regain his footing, reclaim his confidence, and then turn on you like a wounded wolf. “What about you?"

"I'm going to ski ahead. See if I can set up a reception for Sullivan."

"Be careful,” he signed.

She laughed. “Not going to happen."

Sullivan had probably hoped to get farther, but Ellie anticipated that his soldiers would be overjoyed to reclaim the dubious shelter of the previous night's camp. They'd already thrown up snow berms, dug latrines, and gathered firewood and stomped down any snowdrifts that ninja could use for cover. Under constant attacks from Micael, they'd need to stop. Sullivan wouldn't be able to persuade them to march further.

If Ellie still had the barrels of gunpowder they'd captured in Harrison, she would have mined the camp, causing them no end of grief. But she'd left those, along with all heavy weapons, when she'd gone guerilla. She'd have to do this on her own.

She and Alys skied ahead to Sullivan's former camp and rested. They had plenty of time to prepare her hiding place.

At nightfall, a couple of her ninja skied up and let them know that Sullivan was close. He'd lost another twenty men that day, and was carrying another thirty or so with assorted injuries.

Ellie nodded. “I'll do it, then."

"Let me,” Alys offered. “What can you do that I can't?"

"I'm better with the sword."

"I'm better with the dart."

Ellie shook her head. “I'm staying. Bury me."

Alys shook her head, but piled the snow on top of her, then stomped it down so it would look like the rest of the tromped snow.

Ellie waited.

An hour later, she felt the snow shift under the weight of marching men.

She'd counted on the force of habit, on Sullivan pitching his tent near the spot where he'd set it up the previous night.

After a miserable three hours buried beneath a foot of packed and stomped snow, Ellie dug herself to the surface.

As she'd hoped, Sullivan's tent was only a few feet away from her hiding place.

He had two guards in front of his tent. Neither looked especially alert and she was tempted to neutralize them before entering Sullivan's tent. She weighed the danger of one of them finding a slit cut in Sullivan's tent against that of another soldier stumbling across their corpses or Sullivan's unguarded tent and decided to let them live.

Her razor-sharp dagger made only the slightest sound as she cut through Sullivan's tent. She would have bet that no human would have heard the sound. It was a bet she would have lost.

Sullivan swung his longsword at her as she rolled through the hole and to her feet.

She barely got her own blade up in time. It wasn't the multifolded steel of her father's antique Japanese katana, but it wasn't the cheap ninja trash they'd been forced to use when their rebellion had been nothing but glorified banditry either. Harrison had real weapon smiths and they had been working hard since she and Mark had captured the city. Mostly they'd been experimenting with rifles but some made good swords.

Her blade held.

She riposted automatically—and almost had her sword stripped from her by Sullivan's strong counter.

His tent wasn't the over-decorated and fusty environment that Sergius insisted upon. Only a narrow camp cot, a small desk covered with maps and a five-pointed star icon distinguished his tent from that of his lowest soldier.

"I knew you'd get overconfident,” Sullivan growled. He looked leaner than when she'd seen him last, and a fresh scar snaked across his forehead. Maybe she'd gotten closer than she'd known with an arrow.

"Did I?"

He launched a cut at her shoulder without seeming to move. The man was a good swordsman. Better than Sergius. Better than Arnold. Better even than Dafed. Unless she was very lucky, better than she was.

She waited, making him commit before blocking, then slicing her blade down his, aiming for his hand.

Her counter would have worked against a katana with its small guard. Against his broadsword, it was ineffective. They locked and she felt his muscles bunch. She barely managed to jump back before he threw her off.

"How many thousand people did you kill outside of Dinan?” she demanded. She kept up her attack through her conversation, forcing herself to breath normally, as if she wasn't straining for every bit of energy. “Ten thousand? More? Too bad you couldn't do so well against people who fight back."

He stepped back, shrugged, then regained his guard. “They were peasants and it was war. What was I supposed to do? Feed them?"

He attacked again. This time, she tried a stop-thrust, ducking under his blade and thrusting her own sword at him.

The sharp point of her weapon caught him in the lower arm and Sullivan pulled back. “Damn. Guards! To me!"

But he'd waited too long. Outside, the sound of another ninja night attack distracted the guards.

"Looks like it's just us,” Ellie told him.

"For now. Then it'll be just me."

He bore in.

Sullivan was strong and he wasn't losing much blood. But he was angry. And emotion is the enemy of skill.

Ellie played with him, trying to increase his anger and frustration. She controlled her breath, ignoring the urge to gasp for air, let her face relax into a smile, and put on a clinic.

A swordsman can't really lose his skill, even in the heat of anger. Years of training embed it into muscle memory and make it automatic. Ten times, Sullivan's instinctive response saved his life.

"You know you're losing to a woman, don't you?” Ellie gloated. “And you thought you could be king?"

He shouted, then swung wildly.

She reached into her uniform, pulled out a shuriken, and tossed it.

Sullivan batted it to the side, but his block gave her the opening she'd been waiting for. She'd thrown high so she cut low.

Against a fencer, using foil or saber, her blade never would have penetrated. But the heavier weapon of medieval-style swordfighting—or that of the ninja—penetrates through the gentle parry of a fencer. Her blade cut deep into Sullivan's thigh.

He pulled away, grasping his leg with one hand while holding his sword in front of him. “Guards.” His voice cracked in pain but it penetrated. “Guards. A rescue."