The Guns of Empire (36 page)

Winter nodded and turned to Bobby. “And you're sure you're feeling well enough?”

Bobby patted her stomach. “All closed up. Don't worry.” She grinned at Alex, the two of them sharing some private joke. “We'll catch up to her, no problem.”

“I hope so. I don't know how long we have.” She took a deep breath, feeling the icy cold in her lungs. “Where's the sergeant?”

Bobby pointed to a broad-shouldered woman with a mass of frizzy orange-red hair, only barely tamed by a leather cord. She was in the middle of retying the pack on one of the horses while simultaneously berating the hapless ranker who'd gotten it wrong in the first place. As Winter came over, the sergeant ended her harangue, and both women saluted.

“Sergeant Taring?” Winter said.

“Yes, sir!” She grinned. “Feel free to call me Red; most of the rest of them do.”

“And what's your name, ranker?”

“Videlia Litton, sir!” The young woman, a rangy teen, looked at Winter in awe. “It's an honor, sir!”

You may regret that honor before long.
Winter tried to banish the thought. None of the soldiers could be unaware of the risks they faced, venturing beyond the camp.
They know what they're getting into as well as I do.

“Sergeant,” Winter said, “let's get this company mounted up. I want us ready to move out in ten minutes.”

“Yes, sir!” Red raised her voice. “Let's move! Packs tied up and ready to go! Ivers, what the
hell
are you doing?”

Not more than a quarter hour later, they were on the move, a slim column of women and heavily laden horses. They circumvented the more crowded parts of the camp, moving around the perimeter to where the Penitent had made her breakout. One of the trackers, Ranker Margaret Jacks, was waiting there beside her own horse. She saluted as they approached, and pointed to the northeast.

“It's still pretty clear, sir!” she said. Even Winter could see that—the
Penitent's mad gallop had left rents like wounds in the gentle curves of snow. “Farah's gone ahead to mark the trail. That way we should be able to keep on past dark.”

“Good thinking,” Winter said. Abby had told her the two trackers, Margaret and Farah, knew their business; while most of the Girls' Own had come from the streets of Vordan City, the pair of them had been poachers and thieves before they'd taken shelter from the law with the Leatherbacks.

Margaret swung into her saddle and led the way, following the trail. Before long they came across a wooden stake driven into the snow, just long enough for the tracker to reach down and grab. Another few minutes and they reached the line of pickets, the last boundary of the camp. The men saluted as they rode past, standing at attention until the company was out of sight.

More stakes followed, at regular intervals. As the invisible sun slid past the horizon, they lit lanterns, following the trail and the markers laid down by Farah. North of the Kovria, the strip of civilized country was thin, and after only a few miles they were out of the fields and snow-buried hedgerows and back into the forest.

Winter found it too quiet for her liking. The snow smothered sound, and it seemed as though the noises they made—the breath of the horses, the creak and jingle of tack, the steady
crunch
of hooves on snow—were the only disturbances in an endless, silent world. Trees rose all around them, trunks like black columns extending up out of the lantern's reach. The Penitent's trail was harder to find in the dark and over the uneven ground, but the wooden stakes continued to mark the path.

They caught up to Farah just after midnight. She and her horse had taken shelter in the lee of a particularly massive pine, where the snow was thin. Farah, a skinny, dark-haired woman, offered a sloppy salute and a grin.

“Was beginning to think you weren't coming,” she said, with a broad Transpale accent. “Got this far before the sun set, an' I don't trust myself not to lose the trail in the dark. We can pick it up again once the sun comes up.”

“Thank you, Ranker Igniz,” Winter said, then raised her voice. “Thank you all. You know I wouldn't ask you to do this if it weren't important. We couldn't tell the army what had happened, but you deserve to know.”

She related a simplified version of the day's events, leaving out any reference to demons and magic. A Church assassin had poisoned Janus and had to be tracked down in order to recover the antidote. There were gasps and muttered curses.

“Get some sleep,” Winter said when they quieted. “We get back on the trail at dawn.”

—

In some strange way, in spite of how unnatural it was,
this
version of Murnsk felt right. It was the Murnsk of stories and penny operas, a frozen wasteland of trees and snow, with no trace of civilization. Winter almost laughed when she realized she was looking around with a kind of satisfaction.

The forest was dark, even during the day. Between the canopy overhead, where wilting leaves still clung, and the omnipresent gray clouds, the sun only managed to wash the land in a weak gray twilight. The snow seemed to glow in the semidarkness, startlingly white, with the tree trunks dark, shadowy shapes against it.

Winter's back and sides already ached. She'd managed a few hours of fitful sleep, curled inside coat and blanket against a tree. After a breakfast of dried meat, hardtack, and water, they were in the saddle again, following Farah and Margaret.

Worse than the saddle pains, though, was her left hand. She'd gotten only a brief glimpse of it—red and steaming as it thawed, most of the skin torn away or hanging in strips—before Hanna had bound it up again. The cutter had said much of the damage was superficial, and she'd retain the use of it, though it would likely be seriously scarred. It hurt like the jaws of the Beast, though, a constant burning pain, and she had to fight the urge to scratch it through the dressing. She barely had enough flex in her bound fingers to hold the reins of her horse.

She'd left Edgar behind, partly because his easygoing nature was poorly suited to this sort of chase, and partly out of sentimentality; they might have to abandon horses for lack of fodder if the chase went on long enough, and she wasn't sure she could stand to leave Edgar alone in the snow. Instead, she had a young, excitable mare with a name she hadn't learned, whose energy was a trial to manage after Edgar's placidity. She had endurance, though, which was more important than comfort. Slogging through the snow was no easier on horses than on humans.

If we'd had time, we could have built a sledge.
Her thoughts were drifting.
Carry more supplies that way. Maybe I could ride with the boxes.
Winter blew out a long breath, watching the dragon's spume of steam puff away. It was hard to focus—the white forest and the plod of the horses had an almost hypnotic effect. So little changed, they might have been riding in circles.

We'll catch her.
The Penitent had only one mount and no extra fodder. She was wounded.
She can't get far.

“Sir?”

Winter tightened her left hand. The spike of pain woke her up a little; she blinked and found Farah riding beside her.

“Ranker Igniz,” she said. “Has something changed?”

“You'd better have a look at this.”

—

The dead horse lay sprawled in the snow, a red slurry surrounding its throat, long furrows dug by its final kicks.

“This is the one the Penitent was riding?” Winter said.

Farah nodded. She and Margaret were crouched by the corpse. The rest of the party was well to the rear, to avoid disturbing the snow.

“It's one of ours, anyway,” Farah said. “Can't be Murnskai; they use different shoes. And it's certainly not one of the white riders'.”

“All right.” Winter stared at the dead animal. There was foam around its mouth. “She rode it hard, and when it couldn't go any farther, she cut its throat.”

“We think she spent the night here,” Margaret said. “The snow's scooped out over by that tree, see?”

Winter looked for the sun and couldn't find it through the trees.
It can't be much past two or three in the afternoon, though.
If the Penitent had spent the night here, they were only half a day behind.

“Here's the bad news.” Farah pointed past the corpse. The snow was churned up, as though by the passage of many feet. A few outlying tracks showed a strange crosshatched shape, instead of the U-shaped horseshoe Winter was familiar with. “Those are the white riders. Not deep enough to be anything heavier than their ponies.”

“When?” Winter said.

“Sometime today.”

“Then we're even closer. She waited here until they came for her.”

Margaret frowned. “It's hard to tell how many, but there were at least a dozen of them. Maybe more. Maybe a
lot
more, if they're deliberately taking care with their trail.” She glanced back at their two dozen. “And if they split up, we won't know which way the Penitent went.”

“We'll deal with that when it happens.” Winter turned back to the group. “Alex! A moment, please?”

Alex, nearly as inexpert a rider as Winter herself, brought her mount over.
Cavalry horses were trained not to shy at the sight of blood, but it still gave a few uncomfortable snorts.

“Can you feel anything?” Winter said, keeping her voice low.

“Apart from you?” Alex closed her eyes, turning her head slowly from side to side. “It's hard to say. Maybe just a hint.”

“If we can't get close enough to sense her soon, she won't need fresh snow to get away,” Winter said. “Keep trying, and tell me when you've got something for certain.”

“Got it.” Alex glanced at the trail, then at the sky. “We're west of the Pilgrim's Road now. There's inns along the way, but they're staying clear of that. I bet they're taking the direct route to Elysium.”

“How far is that?”

“At this pace?” Alex shrugged. “Five, maybe six days.”

“We have to catch them before then.” Winter raised her voice. “Red! We're moving out. Can we pick up the pace?”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said. “It'll be hard on the poor beasties, though.”

“Do it. If we lose the assassin, this is all for nothing.”

“Right.” The sergeant's voice boomed through the frozen forest. “Move out!”

—

“Janus?” Raesinia said. “Can you hear me?”

Janus bet Vhalnich, First Consul of the Kingdom of Vordan, lay shirtless on his camp bed under a thin blanket. A rag, packed with snow from outside, sat on his forehead, dripping melt-water into his hairline. The wound on his cheek was a scabbed red line, widened under Hanna's exploratory scalpel.

His eyes were open, but they didn't seem to be looking at anything in the tent. They flicked from side to side, as though watching something move in the heavens beyond the canvas roof.

“Hear . . .” he muttered. “Who? Who's there?”

“It's me,” Raesinia said. “Raesinia.”

“Raesinia.” Janus' brow creased. “Poor girl. Dead, dead, and doesn't know it. Poor girl.”

“Janus?” Raesinia said. “Can you understand me?”

“Help her.” Janus blinked, heavy lidded. “How can I help her? Only one way to help the dead. Stuck in the dark. Mya . . . all of them . . . stuck in the
dark.” He let out a long breath that sounded like a sob. “Stuck in the dark. I'm sorry. So sorry . . . I should have . . .”

His eyes closed. Raesinia watched him breathe for a moment, slow and regular, and then felt his cheek. The skin was hot to the touch, and the melting snow mixed with beads of sweat.

Who was Mya?
The name meant nothing to her.
Someone who died, obviously. Like me.

She stood up, pulled her coat tighter, and left the tent. Hanna was waiting outside.

“He's asleep again.”

“Was he talking?” the cutter said.

“A little. But he wasn't making much sense.”

“Fever,” Hanna said. “Keep talking to him, if you get the chance. When a fever dream goes on for too long, people can get lost in it. Talking to them is supposed to help.”

“I will.”

The command tent, just across the way, was ringed by Colonial guards, just like the tent that had become Janus' sickroom. Marcus was taking no chances on the possibility of a second attack. They bowed to Raesinia, and she pushed her way through the tent flap. A fire in one corner kept the temperature tolerable. The chairs around the map table were all pulled out, and Marcus stood at the top of the map, looking down with a pained expression.

“How did it go?” Raesinia said.

“They're all worried,” Marcus said. He'd been meeting with the division-generals. “We've put out that there was an attack and Janus was wounded, but that he'll recover. Everyone's still a little shocked, but I'm not sure what will happen once that wears off.”

“No word from Winter?”

“Not yet.” He looked up at her. “How is he?”

“Conscious, sometimes, but not really lucid. He doesn't seem like he's in pain, but he's still burning up.”

“Damn.” Marcus rubbed his eyes. Deep, bruise-colored bags sagged beneath them; he hadn't been getting much sleep. “Well, the good news is the white riders seem to have stopped raiding our pickets.”

“Why?”

“I assume because they've figured out they can hurt us more elsewhere. That's about the
only
good news. They're hitting nearly every supply convoy
out of Polkhaiz, even with cavalry escorts. At the rate we're losing horses, we're going to have to cut rations again soon. They're losing plenty of men, too, but they don't seem to care.” He looked back down at the map, and his fists tightened. “This damn snow. Balls of the
fucking
Beast.”