Empire from the Ashes

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The stench was enough to turn a statue's stomach.

Eleven thousand Guardsmen lay dead. Another twenty thousand wounded littered the Keldark Valley, whimpering or screaming... or lying silent while they waited to die. Another thirty or forty thousand (the count was far from done) huddled in shocked disbelief under the weapons of their enemies.

A miserable, battered third of the Holy Host was still running as darkness covered the horror.

And horror it was. Sean stood beside a field hospital, watching the surgeons, and only his implants held down his gorge. Pardalians had a good working knowledge of anatomy and a kitchen sink notion of sepsis, but distilled alcohol was their sole anesthetic and disinfectant. There were no medical teams to rebuild shattered limbs; amputation was the prescription, and the treatment of men's wounds was more horrifying than their infliction.

Sandy and Harry were out there in the middle of it. Israel's facilities couldn't have healed a fraction of the suffering, but Brashan had sent forward every painkiller his sickbay had, and the iron-faced "angels" moved through Hell, easing its pain and following the anesthetic with broad-spectrum Imperial antibiotics. Guardsmen who cursed them as demons fell silent in confusion as they watched them heal their enemies, and hundreds who should have died would live... and none of it absolved Israel's crew of their guilt.

Sean and Tamman had visited their own wounded—blessedly few compared to the Host's—but their responsibilities lay elsewhere, and Sean turned away to stare out at the torches and lanterns creeping across the battlefield. He shuddered as he braced himself for another journey into that obscenity, yet he had to go. He squared his shoulders and started forward against the steady stream of litter-bearers, and Tibold followed him silently.

He tried not to think, but he couldn't stop looking... or smelling. The reek of blood and torn flesh mixed with the sewer stench of riven entrails, scavengers—some of them human—were already busy beyond the reach of the moving torches, and Pardal's small moon added its wan light to the horror.

More people had died with Imperial Terra than here, but they'd died without even knowing. These men had died screaming, ripped apart and mutilated, and he was the one who'd planned their murder. He knew he'd had no choice, that less than four thousand of his own lay dead or wounded because he'd gotten it right, but this moonlit nightmare was too much.

His vision blurred, and he stumbled over a body. His legs gave, and he sank to his knees before his lieutenant, trying to speak, fighting to explain his inner agony, but no words came. Only terrible, choking sounds.

Tibold knelt beside him, brown eyes dark in the moonlight, and a hard-palmed hand touched his cheek. Sean stared at him, twisted by shame and guilt and a wrenching loss of innocence, and Tibold raised his other hand to cradle his captain-general's head.

"I know, lad," the ex-Guardsman murmured. "I know. The fools who call war 'glorious' have never seen this, curse them."

"I-I—" Sean gasped and fought for breath, and Tibold's hands slid down from his head. The older man cradled him like a lover or a child, and Crown Prince Sean Horus MacIntyre sobbed upon his shoulder.

Tamman huddled close to the fire with his captains as aides came and went. Enhancement kept the outer chill at bay, but he hugged the fire's light, refusing to think about what lay beyond its reach. The chainmail on his right arm was stiff with other men's dried blood, his implants were busy with half a dozen small wounds, and he'd never been so tired in his life.

Branahlks whistled as some dragoons herded in more prisoners, and a messenger came in with a report from the troops Sean had sent to watch the fleeing Guardsmen. The messenger wanted nioharqs to collect another half-dozen abandoned guns, and Tamman cudgeled his brain until he remembered who to send him to. Another messenger trotted up on a drooping branahlk to announce his men had gathered up four thousand joharns, and what should he do with them? He dealt with that, as well, then looked up as Sean and Tibold walked into the fire lit circle.

The officers raised a tired cheer, and Tamman saw Sean wince before he raised a hand to acknowledge it. His friend's face was like iron as they clasped forearms tiredly, and the two of them stared into the fire together.

Stomald closed two more dead eyes, then rose from aching knees. The captured priests and under-priests of the Temple would have nothing to do with him. They spat upon him and reviled him, but their dying soldiers saw only his vestments and heard only his comforting voice.

He closed his own eyes, swaying with fatigue, and whispered a prayer for the souls of the dead. For the many dead of both sides, and not for his own, alone. Pardal had not seen such slaughter, nor such crushing victory, in centuries, yet there was no jubilation in Stomald's heart. Thankfulness, yes, but no one could see such suffering and rejoice.

A slender arm steadied him, and he opened his eyes. The Angel Harry stood beside him. Her blue-and-gold garments were spattered with blood, and her face was drawn, her one eye shadowed, but she looked at him with concern.

"You should rest," she said, and he shook his head drunkenly.

"No." It was hard to get the word out. "I can't."

"How long since you've eaten?"

"Eaten?" Stomald blinked. "I had breakfast, I think," he said vaguely, and she clucked her tongue.

"That was eighteen hours ago." She sounded stern. "You're not going to do anyone any good when you collapse. Go get something to eat."

He gagged at the thought, and she frowned.

"I know. But you need—" She broke off and looked about until she spied the Angel Sandy. She said something in her own tongue, and the Angel Sandy replied in the same language. The laughter had leached even out of her eyes, but she held out her hand, and the Angel Harry handed over her satchel of medicines without ever removing her arm from Stomald's shoulders.

"Come with me." He started to speak, but she cut him off. "Don't argue—march," she commanded, and led him towards the distant cooking fires. He tried again to protest, then let himself slump against her strength, and she murmured something else in that strange language. He looked up at her questioningly, but she only shook her head and smiled at him—a sad, soft little smile that eased his wounded heart—and her arm tightened about him.

The Inner Circle sat in silence as High Priest Vroxhan laid the semaphore message aside. He pressed it flat with his fingers, then tucked his hands into the sleeves of his robe, hugging himself against a chill which had nothing to do with the cool night, and met their gaze. Even Bishop Corada was white-faced, and Frenaur sagged about his bones.

Lord Rokas was dead; barely forty thousand of the Host had escaped, less than half of them with weapons; and High-Captain Ortak had the Host's rearguard working with frantic speed to dig in further down the Keldark Valley. Ortak's report was short of details, yet one thing was clear. The Host hadn't been beaten. It hadn't even been routed. It had been destroyed.

"There you have it, Brothers," Vroxhan said. "We've failed to crush the heresy, and surely the heretics will soon counterattack." He glanced at High-Captain—no, Lord Marshal—Surak, and the man who had just become the Guard's senior officer looked back with stony eyes. "Exactly how bad is the situation, Lord Marshal?"

Surak winced at his new title, then squared his shoulders.

"Even with Ortak's survivors, we have barely seventy thousand men in all of Keldark. I don't yet know how many men the heretics deployed, but from the casualties we've suffered, they must have many more than that. I would have said they could never have raised and armed them, even with demonic aid, yet that they must have is evident from the result. I've already ordered every pike in Keldark forward to Ortak, but I fear they can do little more than slow the heretics. They can't stop them if they keep coming."

A soft sigh ran around the table, but Vroxhan looked up sternly, and it faded. Surak continued in a harsh voice.

"With Your Holiness' permission, I will order Ortak to retire on Erastor until more men—and weapons—can reach him. He can fight delaying actions, but if he stands, the heretics will surely overwhelm him."

"Wait," Corada objected. "Did not Lord Rokas say that an attacker needed twice or thrice a defender's numbers?"

Surak looked to Vroxhan, who nodded for him to answer.

"He did, and he was right, Your Grace, but those calculations are for battles in which neither side has demonic aid."

"Are you suggesting God's power is less than that of demons?"

Surak was no coward, but he fought an urge to wipe his forehead.

"No, Your Grace," he replied carefully. "I think it plain the demons did aid the heretics, and until I have Ortak's detailed report I can't say how they did so, but that isn't what I meant. Consider, please, Your Grace. Our men have been defeated—" that pallid understatement twisted his mouth like sour wine "—and they know it. They've lost many of their weapons. Ortak may have forty thousand men, but barely twenty thousand are armed, and their morale is—must be—shaken. The heretics have all the weapons abandoned on the field to swell their original strength, and demons or no, they know they won. Their morale will be strengthened even as ours is weakened."

He paused and raised his empty hands, palms uppermost.

"If I order Ortak to stand, he will. And as surely as he does, he'll be destroyed, Your Grace. We must withdraw, using the strength we still possess to slow the enemy until fresh strength can be sent to join it."

"But by your estimate, Lord Marshal," Vroxhan said, "we lack the numbers to meet the heretics on equal terms." The high priest's voice was firm, but anxiety burned in its depths.

"We do, Holiness," Surak replied, "but I believe we have sufficient to hold at least the eastern end of the Keldark Valley. I would prefer to do just that and open a new offensive from the west, were our strength in Cherist and Thirgan great enough. It isn't, however, so we must fight them here. I realize that it was the Inner Circle's desire to defeat this threat solely with our own troops, Holiness, yet that's no longer possible either. Our main field army has, for all intents and purposes, been destroyed, not merely defeated, and I fear we must summon the secular armies of the east to Holy War. Were all their numbers gathered into a single new Host under the Temple's banner, they would—they must—suffice for victory... but only if we can hold the heretics in the mountains until they've mustered. For that reason, if no other, Ortak must be ordered to delay the enemy."

"I see." Vroxhan sighed. "Very well, Lord Marshal, let it be as you direct. Send your orders, and the Circle will summon the princes." Surak stooped to kiss the hem of the high priest's robe and withdrew, his urgency evident in his speed, and Vroxhan looked about the table once more.

"And as for us, Brothers, I ask you all to join me in the Sanctum that we may pray for deliverance from the ungodly."