The Thousand Names (19 page)

One soldier, knocked down by the corpse of the priest’s mount, found a horse riding directly over him. He thrust his bayonet point upward and rolled aside as the animal collapsed with a shower of blood. The rider on the left found another man jabbing at him and leaned forward to aim a cut at the soldier’s hand. His attacker rolled backward with a cry and a spray of gore.

The third horseman, hefting a spear, came directly at Winter.

Her first instinct, to get out of the path of the charging animal, saved her life. The horseman reined up beside her and thrust, but she threw herself aside just in time. He circled, fending off an outthrust bayonet, and came at her again. This time she had to roll as he passed, and fetched up against the corpse of a young man in blue, hands still clenched around his musket. She snatched the weapon, swung it clumsily to point at the rider, and started fumbling with the cock. The pan clicked open, letting the priming charge trickle out into her face.

Winter spat, tasting the salt of the powder, and blinked a few grains from her eyes in time see the spear coming down at her. Abandoning any attempt to fire the musket, she blocked the swing with the barrel and thrust the bayonet back at him. The Redeemer shouted when the point scored on his arm, and dropped his weapon. He wheeled away just in time for the rider who’d been unhorsed to charge her, screaming. Winter scrabbled away, leveling the musket like a spear, but the man kicked the barrel with his booted foot and it jolted from her hand.

Something flashed past her, dressed in blue. Bobby charged with all his weight behind his bayonet, like a medieval lancer. It caught the man high in the chest and sank in until the barrel was flush with his skin. The Redeemer toppled, dragging the musket from the boy’s grasp. Bobby sank to his knees beside the corpse, but a half dozen soldiers swarmed past him and Winter. Dimly, she saw them butcher the wounded horseman like a hog, then move on to close the gap opened by the dying horse. Around the outside of the square, the rest of the late priest’s companions were shying away, and at that moment another volley boomed out, pressing them into full flight.

Winter’s heart hammered so fast she was certain it was about to explode. She searched her body for pain, and discovered with mounting disbelief that she seemed to be relatively intact. Another volley exploded all around her, chasing the fleeing Khandarai, but her battle-numbed ears barely registered it. She rolled over and crawled to where Bobby sat staring into space in the direction the Khandarai had come from.

“Bobby!” Winter said, her own voice distant and ringing in her ears. “Corporal! Are you all right?”

Bobby looked at her quizzically, as though she were speaking in a foreign tongue, and then blinked and seemed to recover himself a little.

“Fine,” he said. “I’m fine.”

Winter staggered to her feet. The square was intact, the first rank of men kneeling grim-faced with leveled bayonets while the second rank busily loaded yet another volley. Beyond that, she could see nothing. The smoke had piled up around the company like a fog bank, and even the sun was only an unseen presence overhead.

She heard a couple of cracks, distant gunshots, but they sounded a long way off. Before long, even the drumming of hooves on dry earth had faded like departing rain. A light breeze coming down the valley started to shred the smoke, and snatches of blue sky became visible.

The second rank had loaded and leveled. Winter saw Graff and Folsom looking at her for orders. Bobby was still immobile on the ground.

“First rank, load,” Winter croaked. She turned in place, wishing she could see. Beyond that smoke, the Redeemers could be waiting, re-forming for another assault—

But they were not. By the time all the company’s muskets were reloaded and ready, the dense bank of smoke was drifting into tatters, and the valley floor became visible. For as far as the eye could see in any direction, it was empty. The Redeemer cavalry had moved on, the vast bulk of the horsemen simply sweeping around the tiny square and on toward the main Vordanai column. In the immediate vicinity of the Seventh Company, the ground was littered with shattered, screaming horses, wounded men, and corpses. On the slope of the northern ridge, patches of blue marked where Vordanai soldiers had been cut down as they ran. Some of them moved feebly, but most were still.

Winter stared in dumb disbelief. She felt someone move to her side, and looked up to see Graff, his bearded face twisted into a parody of a smile.

“Well, that seems to be over.” He scratched the side of his nose. “What the hell do we do now?”

MARCUS

T
he Colonials went through the evolution from march column into square with considerably more expertise than they’d shown a few days before, though they were still too slow for Marcus’ taste. From above, they would have looked like a chain of four diamonds strung out along the road, points aligned with one another so that the faces of the squares could shoot without risking friendly fire. The Third and Fourth battalion squares, at the back of the column, had formed around the artillery and the vulnerable supply train, while Give-Em-Hell’s cavalry were gathering nearby.

The diminutive cavalry captain himself rode over to where Marcus, Janus, Fitz, and the regimental color party waited by the First Battalion square. He reined up and, his eyes gleaming, ripped off a tight salute to the colonel.

“Give me leave to charge them, sir,” he said, his pigeon chest swollen with pride. “I’ll clear that ridge in a flash.”

Janus raised a polite eyebrow. “You don’t think you’re at too much of a numerical disadvantage?”

“Each man in blue is worth a dozen of those cowardly goat-fuckers,” the captain said.

Marcus winced at this, but Janus was unperturbed.

“Indeed. Though, if our scouts are even marginally trustworthy, they would outnumber you roughly thirty to one. Possibly more.”

“But they won’t be ready for it!”

The colonel shook his head sadly, as though he would have loved nothing better in the world than to let the captain off his leash.

“I’m afraid the cavalry has too important a part to play in today’s battle to risk it at this stage, Captain. Keep your men close. You’re to shelter inside the Second Battalion square, understand?”

“But—” Give-Em-Hell caught Janus’ eye, and somewhat to Marcus’ astonishment he subsided. “Yes, sir. As you say.” He put his heels to his horse and rode toward where his men waited, near the front of the column.

Marcus leaned toward his commander. “I apologize for Captain Stokes, sir. He’s a good cavalryman, just a touch overeager.”

“Eagerness has virtues all its own, Captain.” Janus shrugged. “There is a place for every man, whatever his talent or temperament. Captain Stokes will have his turn.” He looked up at the ridge. “I can’t imagine what they’re up to. If they take much longer, I shall have to order up some artillery to hurry them along.”

The hilltop was dark with enemy horsemen gathering around a dozen black-clad priests who chose that moment to break into their sweet, high song. They all hit subtly different notes, and the result was a ringing harmony that echoed down from the ridge with a weird, unearthly beauty. Marcus felt his jaw tighten, but when he looked at Janus he saw that the colonel was sitting with his eyes closed, absorbing the melody. He opened them again only when the keening was answered by a roar that seemed to come from thousands of throats.

“Do Khandarai priests always sing like that before they enter battle?” Janus asked.

Marcus shrugged. “I don’t think so, sir. As far as I’m aware, it’s a Redeemer thing.”

“Hmm.” Janus looked thoughtful. “Pity.”

“Perhaps we ought to take shelter, sir?”

Janus examined his hand for a moment, flicked a bit of grit from under one fingernail, then looked up again at where the enemy horsemen were beginning to pour over the ridge. “Very well. Let’s find a safe vantage.”

The interior of the First Battalion’s square was a bare patch of trampled earth seventy yards or so to a side. Behind the triple ranks that formed the edge stood the lieutenants, one to each company, while the sergeants prowled back and forth. All around him, men loaded their weapons and fixed their bayonets.

Janus had produced a spyglass, a fearsomely expensive-looking thing in brass and blond wood. His horse’s height let him peer over the heads of the men around him, and he shook his head regretfully.

“A mob. Nothing more than a mob.”

Marcus watched the horsemen thundering down from the ridge. Without the aid of a glass, most of what he could see was the dust raised by their passage. The priests were still at the front, waving the others forward, and he could see a few of the “soldiers,” ragged men with improvised weapons, riding scrawny horses.

“A
big
mob,” he said. “From what the scouts said, there have to be three or four thousand of them.”

“Four thousand or forty, it makes no difference,” Janus said. “A charge like that will never break a solid square.” He gave Marcus a smile, his big gray eyes unreadable. “Assuming our men are up to it, of course. If not, things will become exciting very quickly.”

“They’re up to it, sir.” Marcus put a certainty into his voice that he didn’t feel.

“We’ll soon see.”

Marcus watched the approach of the riders impatiently. There was nothing for him to
do
, not now. The lieutenants would give the orders to load and fire, and they knew their business—or if they didn’t, it was too late to teach them. The gleaming line of bayonets shifted slightly as the men on the sides of the square turned in place to face the oncoming tide. Marcus felt oddly detached as the huge cloud of dust glided toward them, like the leading edge of a sandstorm.

“Level!” The shout, from a dozen throats at once, brought Marcus back to reality. The horsemen were only sixty yards away, coming on at the gallop, and their shouts filled the air. Fifty yards, then forty—

He never heard the order to fire, only a single musket’s
crack
followed by a roar that spread along the formation like a blaze catching in dry tinder. Two sides of the square flashed and boiled with smoke. He could see a few horses fall, but most of the effect was hidden by the dust. The first rank of soldiers knelt, bayonets braced in the dirt, while the third rank began to reload. The second had reserved their fire, the points of their blades projecting between the men of the first.

The last Marcus could truly
see
of the battle was the riders splitting against the point of the square, flowing around it like water breaking around a rock. Unable to charge home, they ended up riding along the faces of the formation, slashing impotently at the ranked bayonets. The second rank fired, and more horses went down. Then the dust of the riders’ charge mingled with the smoke to obscure his view entirely. He could hear the calls of the sergeants, to load and fire, but the organized crash of volleys was gone now. Each man fired at fleeting targets, or at no target at all, flinging his lead into the gritty fog and trusting that some Redeemer would stop it. Muzzle flashes from outside the square showed here and there through the murk, but few of the riders had pistols or carbines. Those that did seldom got a second chance to use them—the unmistakable glare of a shot instantly drew a dozen answering blasts from the faces of the square.

The other squares were fighting, too. Marcus could hear the thunder of their fire, but for all he could see they might as well have been on the face of the moon. He glanced across at Janus. The colonel sat, reins held lightly in his hands, his eyes closed in contemplation. The expression on his face was utterly relaxed, lips curved in a slight smile. It made Marcus look away, uncomfortable, as though he’d walked in on his superior doing something private and sordid.

It went on that way, and on and on and on, longer than Marcus would have believed possible. Out in the smoke, the riders circled, rode past, formed and charged, but all invisibly. Men fell on the faces of the square and were dragged into the center—here one who’d lost the fingers of one hand to a saber, there a boy with his elbow shattered by a carbine’s bullet. One by one the square filled with these unfortunates. The toll on the Redeemers was worse, far worse. Marcus knew it had to be, but the only evidence was the shouts of men and the screaming of horses. He began to feel as though there was no end to the men out there, as though his own soldiers would be picked off, one by one, until only he and Janus remained, alone in the fog—

The colonel opened his eyes, and his smile broadened.

“Well,” he said, “that would appear to be that.”

It was a few moments longer before Marcus realized he had the truth of it. The sound of hoofbeats on hard earth was fading, and the cracks of muskets sputtered out like a dying fire. The screams of the wounded, human and animal, seemed to rise in volume now that they were the only sounds on the field. Slowly, the fog of smoke and dust began to dissipate, prodded by the sea breeze.

Janus flipped his reins abruptly, and his horse trotted toward the edge of the square. A lieutenant hastily pushed his men aside to make way. Marcus followed. Their mounts picked a careful path through the dead and dying men who littered the ground around the square until they had fought clear of the dusty murk and emerged into bright sunshine. Marcus was astonished to see how little the sun had progressed. He would have sworn they’d been fighting for hours.

All around them, the enemy were fleeing, toiling up the slope or galloping east and west along the coast road. None of them even paused for a look at the two horsemen in blue.

“Well,” Janus said, “it seems the men are up to it.” He expressed no particular emotion at this, as though it were merely another piece of data in an interesting experiment. He stared into the distance for a moment, then turned to Marcus. “Order the regiment back into column. We’ll march clear of the field, rest a quarter of an hour, then continue down the road.”

“Sir?” The men would be exhausted. Marcus himself was quivering with released tension. A quarter of an hour didn’t seem like nearly enough.

“We’re not finished yet, Captain. You heard the scouts’ report. The enemy infantry awaits us.”

“Might it not be better to withdraw, then?” Marcus asked. “We could take a strong position to the west—”

“No,” Janus said. “We must press our advantage.”

Marcus was a little dubious that they
had
an advantage. By all accounts, the Redeemer host was at least twenty thousand strong, outnumbering the Vordanai army five to one. True, they were mostly peasants and fanatics recruited by the hysterical appeals of Redeemer priests, but twenty thousand men was still twenty thousand men.

“What about the casualties?” he said.

Janus pursed his lips. “Detail a company to care for our wounded. The dead can wait until nightfall, as can the business of gathering prisoners.”

“Yes, sir.” That sat poorly as well. The men wouldn’t like not being able to stop to bury their fallen comrades, although Marcus was dubious that they’d be able to bury
anyone
in the sun-scorched, iron-hard earth.

But orders were orders. Marcus rode in search of Fitz.

•   •   •

A vast cloud of dust marked the Redeemer army, rising above the coast road like a grounded thunderhead. A similar plume trailed the Vordanai column, leaving the rearmost battalion and the drivers in the train spitting grit. Marcus glanced sidelong at Janus, who was riding as carefree as if he were off to the theater.

“Sir,” Marcus said after a while, in case the colonel hadn’t noticed the looming cloud.

“Captain,” Janus said, “I’m aware that we have not reached the stage in our relationship where I have your full trust, but I hope you’re prepared to believe that I’m not actually
blind
.” He pointed a short way ahead. “There’s a bit of a ridge there, and the road veers slightly north. Not much, but every bit helps.”

After another few minutes, the colonel reined up, and Marcus stopped beside him. Fitz, in his role as aide-de-camp, was still trailing at a respectful distance. To Marcus’ eye, there wasn’t much to distinguish this barren patch of roadway from what they’d been riding along all day, but Janus seemed satisfied.

“This will do,” he said. “Draw up, all four battalions in line. Tell Captain Stokes to take the flanks, but that he’s not to go riding off without my express orders. And find me Captain Vahkerson, if you would.”

Marcus nodded, still fighting the sour feeling in the pit of his stomach, and started dictating orders to Fitz. Before long the dust was everywhere, and with it the clatter and shouts of men getting into formation. The battalions went through the evolution from columns into long, three-deep lines with the usual hesitation and confusion, and Marcus winced every time a sergeant cut loose with an angry tirade. If Janus noticed or cared about the poor performance, however, he didn’t show it.

Captain Vahkerson—the Preacher to all the Old Colonials—turned up, on foot and covered head to toe in dust. He saluted grimly.

“Lord’s blessings be on you, sir,” he said, doffing his peaked artilleryman’s cap. He was a rail-thin man, with long, wiry arms patched with ancient powder burns. His hair was thinning from the top, as if in natural imitation of a monk’s tonsure, but he maintained his ferocious beard and whiskers. A Church double circle, wrought in brass, hung around his neck and flashed when it caught the sun.

“And you, Captain,” Janus said solemnly. “Bring up your guns. Half batteries on the flank and the outer intervals. Leave the center to me.”

“Yessir,” the Preacher said. “We should have a nice field of fire once the dust clears.”

“As to that,” Janus said, “you’re to hold fire until the infantry opens. Load with double case and wait for my order, you understand?”

“Sir?” The captain frowned, then caught Janus’ expression. “As you say, sir. I’ll see to it.”