The Crimson Campaign (18 page)

Taniel swung his kit over one shoulder and frowned at the west side of the Addown. The hillock on which he stood would make a good marksman’s spot – high above and several hundred paces behind the fighting. But from what he could tell, the Kez had been pushing back the Adran army every day.

The front was about five miles north of Budwiel. The city smoked, flames visible over the poorest quarters of the city. Taniel wondered what the Kez had done with all those people. Many, certainly, had fled north when the city fell, but not all of them could have gotten out. Now they were slaves, or dead.

The Kez had a reputation for brutality toward the people they conquered.

Ka-poel sat down on the hillock and opened her satchel in her lap. She removed a stick of wax and began to shape it slowly with her fingers. Taniel wondered who she was making this time.

“Can you do sorcery without those?” Taniel lowered himself cross-legged beside her. “Without the dolls, I mean. And some bit of a person?”

She raised her chin and looked down her nose at him for a moment before returning to her work.

“And where the pit do you get the wax? I never see you buy anything. Do you even have any money?”

Ka-poel reached inside her shirt and withdrew a roll of banknotes. She shook it under Taniel’s nose before putting it back.

“Where did you get that?”

She flicked him on the nose. Hard.

“Ow. Hey. Answer me, girl.”

She raised her fingers, ready to flick again.

“OK, OK. Kresimir, I’m just asking a question.” Taniel pulled his rifle into his lap and ran his fingers along the stock. No notches. A clean barrel. Brand-new, this was. Test-fired, according to the soldier who’d given it to him.
Never take a rifle you didn’t fire yourself into battle.
It was Tamas who’d told him that. Tamas, who was most likely dead and buried in a mass grave along with the rest of the Seventh and Ninth.

Where did that leave the Adran army? Where did that leave Taniel? He wondered briefly if Tamas had left behind a will of some kind. Taniel had never thought about that before. Since he was a boy he’d always thought Tamas would live forever.

The fighting below consisted of nothing but an exchange of artillery. Some of the shells hit the soft ground, skipping through the Adran ranks, while others smacked into unseen sorcery and split apart, falling harmlessly to the ground.

The exchange seemed almost like a formality. Neither side was losing more than a few men, and none of the artillery pieces were being hit.

“Do you have any redstripes?” Taniel asked.

Ka-poel shook her head.

“Can you make me more?”

She scowled at him and pointed at the wax in her hand as if to say,
Can’t you see I’m working on something?

“I need my powder now,” Taniel said.

Ka-poel stopped shaping the wax and looked at him for several moments, her green eyes unreadable. She nodded suddenly and pulled his powder horn from her pack.

Taniel’s hands were shaking when he poured the first bit of powder into the paper to make a powder charge. The black grit between his fingers felt good. Almost too good. It felt like… power. He licked his lips and poured a line out on the back of his hand, lifting it to his face.

He stopped. Ka-poel was watching him.

One long snort, and it felt like his brain was on fire. Taniel rocked back, his body shuddering, shaking. He heard a whimper – pitiful and low. Did he make that noise? Taniel put his head in his hands and waited for what seemed like several minutes before the shaking finally stopped.

When he raised his head, the world glowed.

Taniel blinked. He hadn’t opened his third eye. He wasn’t looking into the Else. But everything seemed to glow regardless. No, he decided. Not glow. It was like the lines stood out sharper than they’d ever been. The world was clear in a way that a regular man could never understand. As if every moment out of a powder trance was spent under water and only now had he surfaced.

Was it like this when he took the powder to fight that Warden in Adopest? Had he just not noticed?

How had mala ever felt like a good alternative to this? How could any drug compare?

Taniel felt the grin on his face and didn’t try to hide it. “Oh, pit. That’s good.” He finished loading a dozen powder charges before stowing them in his kit and hanging his powder horn from his shoulder. He got down on his chest and began to scan the enemy lines.

There were Privileged on the east side of the Addown. Most of them wore colorful uniforms and were surrounded by bannermen and bodyguards. A lot of Wardens, too. The Kez weren’t scared of powder mages, not with Tamas gone. They’d relearn that fear in the coming days.

Primary targets.
 

There were officers. Practically anyone on a horse, it seemed. Where were all their cavalry? Strange that the Kez hadn’t brought any of their cavalry north of Budwiel. Oh well. The officers would do.

Secondary targets.
 

There were artillerymen.

Tertiary targets.
 

Taniel felt the rumble in the ground before he heard the sound of hoofbeats. A few dozen yards to his left a group of some twenty Adran cavalry had gathered. Adran officers. A couple of generals. Taniel recognized a few of them.

General Ket was a handsome woman of about fifty – handsome, that is, if he didn’t account for the ragged bit of skin where her right ear had been. Her broad face seemed somehow familiar, as if Taniel had seen her recently, when he knew for a fact it’d been years since their last meeting. She was the general of the Third Brigade.

Ket wasn’t the only member of the group to have lost a bit of herself in battle. General Hilanska of the Second Brigade was morbidly obese and was missing his left arm at the shoulder.

None of them noticed Taniel.

They seemed agitated about something. Pointing and gesturing, all of them watching the battlefield through their looking glasses. Hilanska shouted for the artillery to be moved back.

Moved back? That was tantamount to conceding ground. Why would they…?

Taniel saw it now. Movement among the Kez lines. Whole companies coming up just behind their artillery. An assault. The Kez intended to push them back this day.

Taniel narrowed his eyes. There were huge men among those companies. Giant, twisted forms.

Taniel didn’t know if these were regular Wardens, or the new kind made from powder mages, like the kind that had attacked him in Adopest.

Either way, this would go poorly for the Adran army.

Taniel noted that the Adran artillery was staggered every couple hundred feet. The artillery out front could be pulled back while those beside kept firing. This was planned. Perhaps this was what they’d been doing the last ten days. It made sense, if they knew they were going to lose the front line anyway.

Taniel didn’t like it.

He left Ka-poel and headed down the hillock to join the officers, approaching General Hilanska.

“Sir, what’s going on?”

The general gave Taniel a dismissive glance, then a second, longer stare. “We’re pulling back, son.”

“That’s foolish, sir. We have the high ground. We can hold.”

General Ket brought her horse around behind Taniel, looking him up and down. He wondered if she remembered him. He must look different after four years.

“Are you questioning your betters, Captain?” General Ket asked.

“It’s a stupid tactic, ma’am. It assumes loss.”

“Captain, you’ll earn yourself a demotion without an instant apology.”

Another general, a blond man with a stiff bearing, added, “I’d imagine this is why he’s still a captain.”

General Hilanska held up his remaining arm. “Calm down, Ket. You don’t recognize our boy here, do you? Taniel Two-Shot, hero of the Fatrastan War for Independence. I’m glad to see you among the living.”

“General.” Taniel dipped his head. Tamas had told him a tale or two when he was a boy about what kind of man Hilanska was – loyal, passionate. The best kind of companion to have with you on the line. He was fat and and old now, but Taniel imagined him to be the same kind of person.

“I don’t care who he is,” Ket said. “No one disregards rank in this army and gets away with it.”

“Tamas —” Hilanska began.

“Tamas is dead,” Ket said. “It’s not his army anymore. If you’d —”

The argument was cut off by a messenger.

“Sirs, the enemy is advancing.”

Ket spurred her mount down the embankment toward the front, shouting orders.

Hilanska’s stallion pranced to one side as if in excitement. “Get my artillery out of there!” He looked down at Taniel. “I wouldn’t go down there,” he said. “They’ve got a new kind of Warden. Smaller. Smarter. Faster. Never seen anything like it. ‘Black Wardens,’ we’ve been calling them.”

“They’ve been turning powder mages into Wardens,” Taniel said. “They sent two to kill me in Adopest.”

“Glad to see they failed. Powder-mage Wardens. How is that even possible?” Hilanska gave him a weighing gaze. “All right, Captain. Go down there and hold that line and I’ll move my artillery back.”

Taniel returned to Ka-poel at the top of the hillock. She was making progress on her doll.

“The Kez are attacking,” Taniel said. “I’m going to fight.” Why was he telling her? Was she going to stop him? Go with him?

She didn’t answer him, so he grabbed his kit and headed down toward the front. Ka-poel would be safer back here out of the melee, he decided. But would he? Ever since Shouldercrown, he had wondered who was protecting who.

The Kez soldiers were already on their way, marching to the steady sound of the snare drums. Trumpets were sounding in the Adran camp, and more men rushed toward the front.

Taniel paused and scanned the approaching Kez. None of the Kez Privileged were advancing, but… there.

The Wardens in their black bowler caps and black jackets came through marching Kez infantry like dogs running out ahead of the pack. They practically flew across the empty field. Some carried small swords, others long pikes. They howled like animals, an eerie sound that lifted above the cannon fire and the snares and trumpets and made Taniel shudder.

Taniel dropped to one knee and sighted along his rifle. One breath. Two. Fire.

He willed the bullet on through the sky, burning the smallest bit of powder to keep it in the air. He focused on one of the Black Wardens. The bullet took only two or three seconds to bridge the space and…

He missed.

Taniel couldn’t believe it. He was far behind the line, steady as a rock, with no distractions. How could he miss?

He reloaded his rifle. The Wardens were coming fast. Once they reached the Adran line they’d cause untold chaos. Taniel lined up another shot and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet tore through a Warden’s eye, laying the creature out on the ground. None of the Warden’s companions seemed to notice. One even snagged the small sword out of the still-twitching hand, barely slowing his charge.

There was no way Taniel was going to be able to stop any more. He had… what? Another two shots before the Wardens reached the earthworks that marked the Adran line?

Taniel drew the bayonet from his kit and unwrapped it, fitting the ring tightly around the end of his rifle. He stood, ready to charge, pausing only to scratch a mark in the butt of his rifle with an old nail he kept in his pocket. He thought suddenly of Ka-poel and wondered if he should have left her alone.

He joined the flood of Adran infantry heading to the front, elbowing and shoving his way through. They weren’t moving fast enough.

A call went out to hold the line. Taniel wasn’t going to be there in time for the initial shock. His legs pumped beneath him, covering ground three times faster than any of the others. He felt a snarl rise to his throat.

“Aim! Fire!” a nearby officer yelled.

A plume of smoke rose from the front of the Adran line. Many of the Wardens staggered. Some of them fell. Not nearly enough.

There was one section along the Adran earthworks that rose higher than the others. Taniel could see that several officers had taken the high ground. It was precisely where the Wardens would head. They’d leave the flat ground to the regular infantry and go straight for the strongest spots.

Even as the thought went through Taniel’s head, he saw several of the Wardens change direction to run straight for the highest earthworks. One of the big brutes outstripped them all. He had several dark spots on his coat and his body twitched as more musket shots hit him, but nothing could take him down. He raised his sword and flew up the side of the earthworks, leaping over the top.

Taniel slammed into him in midair. The impact tore the air from his lungs, and they were both flung back over the earthworks, rolling down the side. He felt strong hands on his chest and was thrown off the Warden. He hit the ground and rolled to his feet to find the Warden already thrusting a small sword at his face.

Taniel parried with his bayonet and then thrust. The blade slid into the Warden almost up to the barrel, but seemed to have as much effect as the musket shots had.

The Warden threw itself backward, off of Taniel’s bayonet and out of range of another stab.

Taniel whirled as another Warden came at him from the side. Taniel ducked and thrust, putting the tip of his bayonet into the tender spot below the creature’s chin. He had to let go of his rifle and leap to one side to avoid the thrust of the first Warden’s sword. Taniel drew his own short sword and waited for the attack.

The Warden paused to throw a whole powder charge into his mouth. He gnashed at the powder with blackened teeth and spit the paper on the ground.

Taniel had never been all that good with a short sword. He was fast and competent, but if this creature had any amount of training, he’d cut right through Taniel.

Taniel caught one thrust and pushed the Warden’s sword to one side. The Warden bridged the gap with his other fist. Taniel was ready for it.

He caught the Warden’s fist and slammed his forehead against the Warden’s nose. He could feel the bone move back into the creature’s brain. That alone should have killed it, but Taniel still felt struggle in the Warden’s muscles. Taniel stepped back and slashed across the Warden’s throat. It gurgled and collapsed, clinging to life, but it wouldn’t be any more of a problem.