The Thousand Names

Chapter Ten

WINTER

Winter sighed and rubbed her weary eyes. The lantern on her little table had guttered low while she’d been working. She blew it out, added another inch of oil, and wound out more wick, then struck a match and relit it. The sudden flare of light seemed bright as noon in the darkness of her tent.

What I ought to dois sleep. But awake, she could feel the captain’s orders for tomorrow staring at her from where she’d tucked them in her coat, and every time she lay down to sleep she found herself faced with accusing green eyes.

Her only solace lay in work, of which there was fortunately a sufficiency. In spite of Winter’s intermittent efforts, the company books were still badly out of date. Not only did the various infractions, minor penalties, and daily logs of the march still need to be recorded and approved, but the deaths of nearly a third of the men still needed to be processed. Each of the dead had left behind some pathetic bundle of possessions, all of which Bobby had carefully inventoried and assessed. These would be sold at the first opportunity, and the proceeds forwarded to the dead men’s kin along with the army’s standard benefits.

The lists made for sad reading. Winter tapped her pen beside a line that read, “One locket or keepsake, brass, containing a miniature of a young woman. Of indifferent quality. 2f 6p.” She wondered whether the girl had been a wife, a lover, or merely some object of brotherly affection. Then, frustrated, she tossed the pen aside and leaned back on her elbows. Her eyes, itchy with fatigue and lantern smoke, filled with tears.

“Are you unwell?”

The voice was Feor’s-there was hardly anyone else likely to speak to her in Khandarai-but Winter started anyway. The girl was so quiet it was easy to forget that she was there. She lay on her stomach on the extra bedroll Graff had cadged from the quartermasters, reading by the flickering light of Winter’s lamp. Aside from the occasional rasp of a turning page, she might have been a queer-looking statue.

“No,” Winter said, blinking away the tears. “Well, yes, but not how you mean. I’m tired.”

“Your diligence does you credit,” Feor said. Sometimes the girl’s tone was so solemn that Winter was sure she was joking, but her face never showed any hint of it.

“I’m sorry. I must be keeping you awake.”

“It’s no trouble. Since I have no duties here, I have time enough to sleep.”

With a broken arm, Feor could hardly set up tents, or cook, or clean weapons or uniforms. She spent most of her time bundled in a white robe, trudging along with the quartermasters and the rest of the camp servants. Graff escorted her to Winter’s tent when they stopped for the day, and she stayed inside until full dark. Bobby or Folsom brought food in at dinnertime.

Winter had been worried that someone would notice, and undoubtedly many had, but it hadn’t attracted the attention she’d feared. The army had started out with a considerable “tail” of servants and camp followers, and had only added to it during the slow progress up the coast road toward Ashe-Katarion. However much the Khandarai might hate their Vordanai oppressors, it seemed as if some of them were not averse to washing those oppressors’ clothes, selling them food and wine, or sharing their bedrolls. Not if the price was right. So while it was an open secret that Winter shared her tent with a young woman every night, she was hardly the only one, and the only response from the men had been some wistful grumbling about the privileges of rank.

No doubt Davis and the others were laughing at what their “Saint” was up to. Thankfully, Winter had not run across the sergeant since the battle. If her earlier promotion had angered him, her brevet to lieutenant would drive him to a frenzy. She hoped idly that he’d gotten himself killed somehow, but she doubted she would be so lucky.

“I’m sorry I don’t have more for you to read.” Winter’s inquiries among the servants and camp followers had produced only a couple of slim volumes, mostly myths and tales for children. “You must have seen all that before.”

“I consider myself lucky that I was rescued by someone with such a command of our language.”

“Most of the Old Colonials speak it, at least a little.”

“You have more than a little,” Feor said. “You must have made a study of it.”

Winter shrugged. “Here and there. There wasn’t much else to do while we were in camp.”

“In my limited experience, most soldiers seem to be satisfied with drinking, dicing, and whoring. These did not appeal to you?”

“Not especially.” Winter cast about, eager to change the subject. “What about you? I suppose you lived on the sacred hill, before the Redemption started?”

Feor nodded. “In a special cloister, with the other naathem.”

“What was that like? The old priestesses never let any Vordanai so much as set foot on the holy ground.”

The girl reflected for a moment. “Orderly,” she said. “We live our lives for Mother and the gods. Our days were tightly circumscribed-so much time for prayer, so much for study, so much for chores.”

“That sounds familiar,” Winter muttered. “Did it bother you, living like that?”

“I knew no other way to live, until the Redemption. We were kept from contact with the unholy.”

“What about before you came to the temple? Did you have a family?”

Feor shook her head. “We were all orphans. The word is sahl-irusk, sacred children. Those entrusted to the temples in infancy. Mother chooses her naathem from among these.” She paused, and there was a hint of pain in her eyes. “The last few months have been something of a shock. The Redeemers have brought us. . chaos.”

“And you want to go back?”

“Yes,” Feor said. “I must return to Mother.”

“Even if she locks you up again?”

“It is for our own protection. Naathem are in danger from the unholy world. It would use us, or destroy us.”

Winter frowned. “Then why tell me?”

“You saved my life,” Feor said. “Lies seemed a poor way to repay you.”

Winter nodded. She still wasn’t sure what to make of this naathem business. Feor seemed ordinary enough, for a priestess. But she clearly believed the title meant something, and Winter had been hesitant to challenge her on it. Let her have her beliefs, if it makes her happy. The naathem of the stories were monstrous figures, powerful and malicious, but perhaps the priests of the sacred hill meant the term differently.

“I should get some sleep,” Winter said. She glanced at her coat, as though she could read the orders through the pocket lining. “Tomorrow is going to be. . busy.”

“Another battle?”

“I hope not. God willing, we’ll just get a little wet.”

Feor nodded, but thankfully didn’t press for details.

“If. .” Winter coughed. “If something goes wrong, and we’re. . captured, or something like that, you may end up on your own. If you stick with the army, you shouldn’t have too much trouble.”

“I can wash clothes with the rest, if need be.” Feor fixed her with an oddly calm stare. “But you will return.”

“Is that a prophecy?”

Another little smile. “No. Just a guess. But hopefully an accurate one.”

Winter snorted and blew out the lamp.

• • •

If she dreamed, she was too tired to remember any of it. When Bobby came to wake her, an hour before dawn, Winter got out of bed feeling almost refreshed. She dressed in darkness and slipped outside to find the Seventh Company waking up around her, men emerging from their tents grumbling and bleary-eyed. Watching them tighten their belts and take their weapons from where they’d stacked them the night before, Winter felt the first fluttering of the anxiety she’d fought all the previous day.

That anxiety was in full flood by the time the men had formed up and begun the short march to the river. Winter walked at the head of the column, looking over her shoulder every few moments to make certain they were still following. Why should they follow? Her stomach roiled. A week ago I was Ranker Winter Ihernglass. Then sergeant. That wasn’t so bad. I still just had to follow orders. But now? The captain had given her the assignment, and there would be no one else to blame if it went wrong. Or if I get my people killed, like d’Vries did. The lieutenant had been a fool, but. . I’m sure he didn’t think of himself as an idiot. Who’s to say I’m any better?

The sky was gray with predawn light by the time they reached the river. The Vordanai column had camped a few miles to the west of the Tsel, behind a ridge that would hide their bivouac from any lookouts across the water. They’d left the coast road the day before, behind a strong cavalry screen, and Winter’s men trudged across sodden fields and goat tracks to cover the last stretch to the riverbank. The Tsel stretched out before them, looking more like a lake than a river. It was nearly a mile across, milky brown in color, and placid as a millpond.

“Whatever you do,” Winter passed the word, “don’t drink the water.” The warning hardly seemed necessary. After crashing down from the southern highlands and winding its way across the plains, the mighty Tsel was more like an oozing flow of liquid dirt than a proper river. Not to mention that half of Khandar uses it as a sewer.

The boats were waiting for them, drawn up on the bank with a guard of a half dozen cavalry troopers. They were a sorry-looking bunch of craft, mostly small fishing skiffs that wouldn’t hold more than four or five men, with a couple of shaky-looking rafts and a tub of a barge that looked to have been recently patched and pressed back into service.

“The Auxies aren’t stupid,” Captain d’Ivoire had explained to her. “They’ve pulled all the heavy transport over the east bank. But they didn’t expect us so soon, so they didn’t have time to be thorough. Give-Em-Hell is out there right now, rounding up whatever’s left in the fishing villages, and he tells me there’s some bits and pieces. Not much, but it should be enough to get your company across, plus a few more men to work the oars. We’re volunteering anyone who’s ever worked on a boat before.”

He’d gone on to explain the strategic situation, pointing here and there on a leather map, but it had rolled over Winter like water off oilcloth. All she’d absorbed was the pertinent facts: you and your company are going across the river.

“Right!” she told her men, when they’d gathered around. “Starting putting those boats in the water. Get in a man at a time until it looks like the next man will swamp the thing. Then get down and stay down. I’m not coming back to fish anybody out of the river!”

“But, Sarge, I can’t swim!” someone said from the back, and there was a round of laughter. It sounded forced. They’re nervous, too, Winter realized. Somehow that made her feel a little better.

“Graff,” she told the corporal, “you take the barge; that’s the biggest. Folsom, one of the rafts. Bobby, stay with me.”

The captain’s estimate had been accurate, and what was left of the Seventh Company managed to cram aboard the little flotilla, along with the “volunteers” from the rest of the regiment. These rowers were without gear, to keep the load as light as possible, and most of them had stripped their uniforms to the waist in anticipation of a long, hard day’s work.

When the last man was aboard, the boats shoved off. Oars flashed, disturbing the smooth brown flow of the river. As the captain had promised, the oarsmen had been chosen from those who knew what they were about, and their progress was steady. The big barge wallowed precipitously low in the water, but with the river so glassy still it hardly seemed a danger.

She’d told the men not to talk once they’d begun to cross. Sound could carry queerly over water, and she was determined not to alert the Auxiliaries until she could no longer avoid it. The morning seemed unnaturally quiet, and every cough or rustle of cloth was audible, even above the creaking of the boats and the steady splash of the oars.

Before long the west bank of the river had dwindled until it was a mere smudge, brown on brown. It was almost like being at sea, with nothing visible but water and a barely distinguishable shoreline. But the sea was never so calm, even on the mildest day. Compared to the gentle rock of the waves, the Tsel felt like something decaying and dead. Even the smell of it was the rich, earthy scent of rot, drifting up from the accumulated silt of a hundred winding miles.

The east bank came into view, so gradually that Winter had to lean forward and squint to be certain. There was a fishing village at this spot on the Auxiliaries’ side of the river, a middling-sized place that boasted a long stone quay. Ordinarily it played host to the riverboats that carried grain and produce to satisfy the city’s appetite, but General Khtoba had designated it as one of a half dozen spots for his men to store the vessels they’d appropriated from the west bank villages and fisherfolk.

With some relief Winter identified the long, low shapes of the quay and the high-sided barges tied up all around it. It was always good to know that things in the field really were the way the officers had said they’d be, if only because this so rarely turned out to be the case. As they closed, she was further relieved to see no signs of life from the village or evidence of sentries at the riverside. The villagers, no doubt, had fled or been evacuated when the soldiers had arrived.

The quay was so crowded with boats there was no room for her little flotilla to dock. Instead they coasted up beside it, riding next to the enormous grain barges and sleeker fishing skiffs. The shore was a murky mess of mud and cattails, strewn with the skeletons of wrecked boats left there to rot long ago. These obstacles meant they could approach only into the shallows, with the barge bringing up the rear.

Winter waved her hand, and the men piled over the sides, boots sinking in slimy mud and water lapping at their shins. The little boats rocked at the shifting weight, and brown water slopped into the bottoms. Those in the lead waded ashore, raising their knees high to shake off the muck like a troupe of high-kicking dancers. The rest followed. When Winter’s turn came, she braced herself and stepped out into the river. Instead of the chill she’d been expecting, the water was as warm as a bath, and her boot sank through a few inches of mud before it met something solid. Something slimy and many-legged brushed against her thigh.

She gave no instructions-this part had all been prearranged. Graff led two dozen men on a broad sweep into the town, to search for and hopefully capture any Auxiliaries who might be on guard. Winter and Bobby gathered the rest of the company on the shore, assembling on a rough, stony path that ran along the riverbank. The oarsmen swarmed out down the quay, looking for the vessels most likely to suit their purpose.

Graff hadn’t returned by the time their leader, a thin-faced corporal Winter didn’t recognize, reported back. He kept his voice low, unwilling to break the sepulchral silence.

“We should be able to get a least a dozen of those big barges back for this leg,” he said. “Those’ll carry a company apiece, easy.”

“How many men will you need?” There were too few of the rowers to move the larger boats, so some of the Seventh would have to be drafted as extra hands.

“Call it three dozen.”

Winter chewed her lip. That would leave her barely fifty to hold the quay on this side until the boats returned. The captain had been quite specific-they’d need every one of the boats to get the entire regiment and its supply train across. Winter’s task would be to make sure the Auxiliaries didn’t catch wind of what was going on and wreck the remaining craft before enough men could cross to put them into service.

Things seemed quiet enough, though. She gave a decisive nod and directed the corporal to Bobby, who started telling off men for rowing duty.

The last of the newly crewed barges was just casting off when a pair of shots came from the direction of the village, shockingly loud in the morning quiet. The corporal, aboard the barge, looked back at Winter, but she waved him on and turned to Bobby.

“Corporal Folsom, guard the quay. Corporal Forester, with me.” She pointed out another dozen soldiers, and they fell in behind her. They set out into the village at a jog, spurred by another pair of shots that echoed like falling trip-hammers.

The village would barely have qualified as a hamlet in Vordan. It was just a cluster of clay-and-thatch houses, not more than twenty in all, arranged in a rough circle. The occupants were long gone, and the empty doorways gaped at Winter as she passed. Up ahead, against the walls of the last couple of huts, were a dozen men in Vordanai blue. Graff trotted up to meet her, his face grim.

“One of ’em got away. Sorry, sir.”

Winter shoved down a sudden thrill of panic. “How many were there?”

“Four. Out a good distance, away from the houses, so we couldn’t get close without them seeing. We got as near as we could and tried to bring ’em down, but that was still a long shot.”

“Only one escaped?”

“Yessir. We got two, and one whose horse was hit surrendered. They got one of ours, though.”

“Who?”

Graff pursed his lips in disapproval at the question, but said, “Jameson. He’s dead, sir.”

No time for regrets now. “Take me to the man you captured.”

Graff nodded and conducted Winter forward. The men Graff had brought with him were still on guard, muskets loaded and at the ready, as though they expected the Khandarai to return any moment. The unfortunate Jameson lay on his face where he had fallen, a bloody hole the size of Winter’s fist between his shoulder blades. Winter looked away.

Two Khandarai lay out in the field beyond the village, while a third sat cross-legged under the watchful eyes of a pair of Vordanai. He surveyed his captors with an arrogant air, and, guessing that none of them spoke Khandarai, amused himself by insulting them to their faces.

“You, on the left. If you were not born of the union of a bitch and a goat, then your mother must have been a woman of such surpassing ugliness I wonder that any man would stoop to lay with her.” On seeing Winter, he added, “Ah, and here comes the commander, who is evidently a boy of twelve. Drop your pants, sir, and let us see if there is any hair on your cock. Or perhaps you were born without one?”

“Shall I order them to strip you,” Winter snapped in Khandarai, “so that we can have a comparison?”

The man sat up a little straighter, but said nothing. Winter shook her head.

“Should I bother asking questions?” she said. “Or should I just tell my men to begin beating you?”

The Khandarai blinked. He was a young man, in the brown and tan uniform of the Auxiliaries. His dark hair was gathered at the back of the neck, in the Khandarai fashion, and his chin was covered with a bristly fuzz that he probably thought of as a beard. By his lack of insignia, he was a ranker-the Auxiliaries used the same ranks as the Royal Army-but he wore an armband of red silk, daubed with the ubiquitous open triangle of the Redemption in black ink.

All in all, aside from the uniform, Winter wouldn’t have given him a second glance if she’d passed him in the streets of Ashe-Katarion. She might even have shared a drink with him, if they’d met in a tavern. But now. .

“I don’t know what you’re doing here,” he said. “But you’d be best advised to surrender when Rahal-dan-Sendor fetches our men. You’ll be treated kindly, I assure you.”

“How many men in your force? How far away are they?”

He looked at her defiantly. Winter looked over her shoulder at Graff.

“Lay one across his jaw, would you? Then try to look menacing.”

“Gladly,” the corporal growled.

• • •

Winter was still fighting a sick, acid feeling in her gut when she returned, with Graff and Bobby, to the rest of the company.

“I don’t know what you said to him,” Graff said, “but that was neatly done.”

“Sergeant Davis was an excellent tutor,” Winter muttered. Her knuckles itched, as though she’d administered the beating herself.

Folsom had the rest of the men loading and checking their weapons. The big corporal stood up and saluted as they approached, and the rankers made to do likewise. Winter waved them back to their task.

“We’re going to have guests,” she told them. “There’s a Khandarai detachment not far from here. Four companies, unless our friend with the black eye was telling stories. We’ve got maybe twenty minutes before they arrive.”

There were a few groans from the men near enough to hear. Winter turned to Bobby.

“How long until the boats get back?”

“It took us nearly an hour to cross, sir.” The boy seemed perfectly composed, in spite of the bad news. “It’ll probably take the big barges a little longer. Plus they may take some time to get things arranged on the other side. Call it three hours total.”

“Captain d’Ivoire will have everything ready the moment they touch bank.” That was partly for the soldiers’ benefit, but it was also the truth, or so Winter devoutly hoped. She had a lot of faith in Captain d’Ivoire. “So we’ve got to keep them off the quay for a few hours.”

The three corporals nodded. Winter was a little surprised at the lack of protests. She felt as though, in their place, she would have said something like, “That’s impossible!” or “We’ll all be killed!” Even the rankers seemed more confident than she was. She took a long breath and tried to think.

“Right,” she said eventually. “Break into teams of three. Each team takes a hut. One man shooting, two loading. If you haven’t got a convenient doorway, knock a hole in the wall. I’ll take the first shot myself, so hold fire until you hear it.” She raised her voice. “Everyone got that?”

There was a ragged chorus of assent. Winter turned to the three corporals. “Folsom, Graff, get the teams set up around the center of the village. Bobby, you’re with me in case I need a runner.”

“Yessir!” The boy’s eyes were bright. He’s looking forward to this. How can he be looking forward to it?

“I don’t mean to contradict you, sir,” Graff said in a low tone, “but what if they don’t come in dumb? If I was in charge out there, I’d break out some men to search the houses. If it comes to hand-to-hand, they’ll swamp us.”

Winter risked a smile. “That’s because you’re not an educated man, Corporal. Did any of your old commanders do things strictly by the tactics manual?”

He scratched a bearded cheek. “No. At least not for long.”

“These Auxiliaries were trained to be model Vordanai soldiers. I should know; we used to have to train them.”

“So?”

“So they really believe in that tactics manual.”

• • •

Either the Khandarai had taken longer than Winter had expected to get organized, or else the twenty minutes had merely felt like hours. She hoped it was the former.

She and Bobby were crouched in one of the little clay huts. It was nearly empty inside, the inhabitants having carried away everything they could when they left. The only evidence of the occupant’s profession was a pile of half-mended net lying against the wall. The building was a simple dirt-floored affair, with a ring of stones in the center for a fire and a single doorway. It now also boasted an impromptu window-a few minutes’ work with bayonets had been enough to carve a head-sized hole through the soft clay. It was through this hole that Bobby was keeping watch to the northeast, the direction from which the prisoner had said the Khandarai would come.

When the boy waved her over, Winter’s tension ratcheted up another notch. She’d been halfway hoping the Auxie had been lying, out of bravado or a desire to frighten her off. Apparently not. Leaning out the doorway, she could see men in the distance, marching across the sodden fields. They were in close order, as though on parade, a wall of brown uniforms and glittering weapons.

At least she couldn’t see any guns. That would have spelled the end of any chance of effective resistance-these clay walls would offer little protection from cannonballs, and the Auxiliaries would be happy to blast the huts to pieces and march in over the ruins. As it is. .

She watched for a few tense minutes. Bobby, at the loophole, had a better view than Winter.

“They’re doing something,” he said. “Changing formation, or-”

“Breaking off.” Winter saw it, too. “Damn. They’ll send part of the force in and keep the rest as a reserve.”

“Should we change the plan?”

“No time now. Just don’t shoot until I tell you.”

While one group of men stood, staid as cows, out in the fields, the advance force closed in. Winter guessed there were two companies-two hundred forty men, give or take-in a neat column on a half-company front. The leading men passed between the outermost pair of huts, stepping in unison to the steady beat of their drums. She could see a lieutenant in front of the first rank, his drawn sword in his hand.

Winter sent up a silent prayer that her men would remember their instructions, and have the stomach to sit on their hands until the Khandarai got closer. Surprise was a precious thing, and they would get only one chance at it. Though with another two companies in reserve. . She shook off the thought.

Apparently the Almighty was listening. No shots echoed through the village as the Auxiliaries advanced, neat tan boots spattered with mud. The head of the column was nearly level with her hut now, which was most of the way to the waterfront. The rear was just entering the village.

“Think you can hit that lieutenant?” Winter said.

The boy frowned. “That seems a little unsporting, sir.”

“Sporting is for handball. Drop him.”

The boy nodded and bent to one knee, resting the barrel of his musket on the edge of the loophole. The man Winter had so casually marked for death was barely ten yards away, still oblivious, conducting the march with his shiny sword as if he were in review in front of the palace.

The crack of the musket was magnified in the tiny interior of the hut until it sounded like a mountain shattering. Smoke boiled up from the barrel and the lock of Bobby’s weapon, obscuring the view through the loophole, but watching from the doorway Winter could see the lieutenant spin and fall.

Almost immediately, shots cracked from all over the village, puffs of smoke rising from doorways and loopholes. The tight column was a difficult target to miss, and a chorus of screams and shouts from the Khandarai attested to the effect of the fire. Bobby grabbed Winter’s musket, loaded beforehand, and returned to the loophole. Winter watched a moment longer from the doorway.

As she’d hoped, the ground-in discipline of the Auxiliaries held them in position while their officers tried to make sense of what was happening. With the lieutenant down, some poor sergeant would be shouting orders. In the meantime, the column had halted, the men standing impassively in the face of balls that whistled by or stung like hornets.

That won’t last, though. Discipline or not, no soldiers would stand and be slaughtered without replying. The tight ranks of the Khandarai started to break up, individuals or pairs dropping to one knee or turning to find their tormentors. Muskets started to sound from the column, and the zip and whine of balls was soon accompanied by the pock-pock-pock of shots hitting clay.

Winter ducked inside, grabbed Bobby’s fired musket, and started to reload it. Bobby, having fired his second shot, hit the ground beside her to work on the other weapon. Outside, the fusillade continued. Winter had little doubt the Auxiliaries were getting the worst of it. It would be easy enough to see where the ambushers were firing from, as each loophole and doorway was marked by a cloud of powder smoke. Scoring a hit on the fleeting shapes beyond was another matter.

If they had any sense, they’d have run for it the minute we opened fire. Discipline and the tactics manual triumphed over sense, however. Winter fell into the simple routine-bite the cartridge open, pour in the powder, spit the ball down, and ram the whole thing home. Prime the pan, hand the musket to Bobby, accept a just-fired weapon in return. The barrels grew hotter with each firing, until they scorched her skin when she touched them, but she kept on. Shots hit the house in a steady rain. One or two even broke through the clay. Winter watched, fascinated, as a musket ball smashed through six inches above Bobby’s head, caromed weakly off the opposite wall, and rolled to a stop at her feet like a flattened marble.

And then there wasn’t another musket to load. The firing died away in fits and starts, but after a minute or so of silence, Winter risked a look out the doorway while Bobby stood vigil at the loophole with a loaded weapon.

The field of battle-if it could be called a battle-was empty except for corpses and a few wounded men, the latter beginning to raise piteous cries. It was hard to get a good sense through the smoke, but there seemed to be a great many corpses, for the most part lying in the neat rows in which they’d stood. Winter emerged from the hut and cupped her hands over her mouth.

“I’m coming out!” she shouted. “Everyone hold fire!”

She could hear a ragged chorus of laughter from the closest buildings. Bobby hurried to fall in behind her, still carrying his weapon, and Winter walked out into the center of the field. Smoke lay as dense as a blanket, drifting only sluggishly in the calm air. The smell of it assaulted her nostrils, an acrid, salty tang with an occasional undercurrent of blood or offal. There was no sign of any upright Khandarai.

Winter turned sharply when a pair of figures loomed through the smoke, but it was only Graff and Folsom. The rest of the company was beginning to emerge. As the realization of what they’d done sank in, here and there they sent up a ragged cheer.

Graff looked over the field of corpses with professional satisfaction. “They won’t forget that in a hurry,” he said. “Those that got away, anyhow.”

Winter gave a weary nod. All the Auxiliaries she could see were either dead or obviously nearly so. The retreating Khandarai had taken the more lightly wounded with them, for which she was grateful. The Colonials could hardly have spared the time to care for them.

“Right,” she said, more or less to herself. Then again. “Right. We’ve probably got a little while before they figure things out. Folsom, collect all our people and find out what we lost. Graff, take a detail and go over the field. The Auxies use the same muskets we do, so gather them all up, along with all the ammunition you can find. If there’s anyone out there who looks like they might make it, bring them along. Once that’s done, back to the river.”

“We’re not staying here?” Graff said. “We bloodied their noses-no reason why we can’t do it again.”

“We can’t do it again because they’ll be ready for us,” Winter said. “Someone out there isn’t an utter fool. They won’t come in dumb next time. Either they’ll break out and come at us in loose order, like they should have in the first place, or else they’ll skirt the village entirely and go straight for the boats.” She thought for a moment. “More likely the latter. So we fall back to the quay.”

“If you don’t mind my saying,” Graff said quietly, “is that a good idea? We’ll have no cover at all. The lads are willing, but we won’t last if we have to go volley for volley with four companies.”

Winter nodded. “Bobby, you’re with me. We’re going to see what we can do about that.”

• • •

“Pull!” Folsom shouted, his deep voice echoing off the barges. “Wait, two, three, pull!”

He demonstrated with a massive effort on his own part, muscles standing out in his arms like corded ropes. Two dozen men behind him added their strength to the line, and the barge groaned and jolted another foot up onto the quay. The rear end was out of the water now, dripping brown mud into the river.

Winter stood with the casualties at the far end of the stone pier. There had been four of these: one ranker who’d taken an unlucky shot through a doorway and lost the top of his head, two men wounded by balls that had punched through their protective walls, and an unfortunate recruit who’d accidentally double-loaded his weapon after failing to notice a misfire. Packed with twice the normal load of powder, the musket had exploded, leaving the side of his face a lacerated ruin.

The dead man was covered by a tarp, while Graff did his best for the three wounded. They hadn’t done a precise count of the Khandarai dead, but Winter guessed there’d been more than eighty, plus however many they’d dragged away. For fifty men against two hundred, that was no poor result, militarily speaking, but standing beside the boy with the torn face Winter couldn’t help but feel like a failure.

She focused on the river instead. The sun was well up by now, and the morning haze had burned away, but if there were barges on their way back across Winter couldn’t see them. Bobby, standing at her shoulder, correctly interpreted her thoughts.

“It’ll be at least another hour, sir,” the boy said.

Winter nodded and looked away. Her gaze fell on the man who’d taken a ball in the arm. Graff had torn his shirt off and wrapped it round the wound as a makeshift bandage, winding a scrap of wood in the linen to keep it tight. Bobby, following Winter’s eyes, gave a little shudder.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Winter said. A flying splinter of clay had given the boy a cut on the shoulder. Winter hadn’t noticed the damp patch on his uniform until after the fighting was over.

“It’s nothing, sir. Honestly.”

Graff stood and came over to them. “Perkins will be all right, but Zeitman will probably lose the arm once we get him back to the cutters. Finn-” He glanced at the boy with the mutilated face. “That needs cleaning out, but he screams if I so much as touch him. He needs a proper surgeon.”

“You’ve done what you could,” Winter said. “Go take over loading detail.” The weapons they’d gleaned from the Auxiliaries lay in neat rows on the quay, all bright wax and polish. A group of Colonials was methodically cleaning the barrels and loading them, one after another, from a pile of captured ammunition.

There was a great crash from farther up the pier as Folsom’s team flipped the barge end over end, so that its flat, dripping bottom was exposed to the sky. Resting lengthwise, it overhung the quay by a few feet on either end. She’d chosen one that was four or five feet high and made of sturdy-looking wood. The sides would probably stop a ball, at least at long range, and it would take a few moments for any attacker who wanted to use his bayonet to scramble over. Combined with the boats tied to the dock on all sides, it would provide a reasonable degree of shelter from fire from the shore. It was the best she could hope for under the circumstances.

Finn touched his face where the metal shards had torn it and gave a little screech. Bobby jumped visibly. Winter laid a hand on his shoulder and conducted him away from the impromptu hospital, back toward the barricade.

“Sir?” Bobby’s voice was hesitant. “I don’t mean to be. . that is. . can I ask you a favor?”

“A favor?”

Bobby stopped. His voice was low enough that only Winter could hear. “If I ever get-hit, you know, and-”

“Stop,” Winter said. “Everyone knows that talking like that is the next best thing to asking for it. The Lord Above loves irony.”

Bobby winced. “Sorry, sir. But this is important. If-you know-can you promise me something?”

“Maybe,” Winter said.

“Don’t let them take me to a cutter,” Bobby said urgently. “Please. Take care of me yourself.”

“I’m not much of a surgeon.”

“Then. . Graff, or someone you trust. But no cutters.” He looked up at Winter, and his soft face was full of desperation. “Please?”

Winter would usually have given her word at once, and then broken it just as easily when the need arose. A lot of soldiers had that sort of feeling about surgeons. It was only natural, if you’d spent any time in a hospital or watched the men hobble out short an arm or a leg. Winter wasn’t fond of the medical men herself. But when it really came down to it, she suspected she’d rather live as a cripple than die a slow, agonizing death from a festering wound.

Under ordinary circumstances, she would have put this down to pre-battle jitters, the sort of thing Bobby would forget about tomorrow morning. But there was something disturbingly sincere in the corporal’s eyes, so Winter chose her words carefully.

“Graff isn’t a surgeon, either.” She watched the boy’s expression. “Let’s be clear about this. If it’s a choice between going to the cutter or into the ground-”

“I’d rather die,” Bobby said immediately. “Promise me.”

After a moment of hesitation, Winter nodded. “I promise, then. But you’d better not get yourself hurt, or I’ll have a hell of a time explaining myself to Folsom and Graff afterward.”

Bobby gave a weak chuckle. Winter tried to think of a way to dispel the grim mood that had descended, but was spared the necessity. There was a shot from the barricade, and a cry of “Auxies!” The quay was suddenly a chaos of rushing men. Winter heard Folsom’s voice rising above the din, shouting soldiers into line.

She patted Bobby’s shoulder again and pushed her way forward, until she was up against the sloping wall of the upside-down boat. It rose slightly toward the center, forming a shallow keel, but the top was still flat enough to see over. She saw Graff upbraiding a man carrying a smoking musket.

The situation wasn’t as bad as she’d feared, then. Looking up the quay, between the wall of boats on each side and into the village, she couldn’t see any obvious sign of the enemy. She pulled Graff away and asked for a report.

“Sorry about that, sir. He shouldn’t have fired.”

“False alarm?” Winter said hopefully. Every minute the Auxiliaries delayed was a minute less they’d have to wait for reinforcements.

“They were there, right enough, but only a couple. I saw three men, but there may have been a few more. Back amidst the houses, sort of skulking, like. Ferstein took a potshot and they all started running.”

“Scouts, then.” Winter chewed her lip. “He knows we’re not in the village, and that we’re barricaded in here. Maybe he doesn’t know that we’re waiting for the rest of the regiment to cross. Could be he’s waiting for reinforcements of his own.”

“Could be, sir,” Graff said.

“Let’s assume not.”

Winter looked up at the boat Folsom had dragged into place. There was room for only eight or nine men to stand across the quay, shoulder to shoulder. That wasn’t a lot of fire, even with a good supply of loaded weapons. On the other hand, the enemy would be similarly restricted, and they wouldn’t have anything to hide behind.

“If they come, they’re going to get a kicking,” Graff said, echoing her thoughts. “I wouldn’t like to try attacking up this way.”

“Let’s hope they’ll be just as reluctant.”

• • •

As it turned out, they were not.

It was a further half an hour before the enemy commander decided the village was clear and marched his men in. All four companies, or what was left of them, formed up in the town square. They were three or four hundred yards from the edge of the quay, and twenty more from the barricade. Close enough for the Vordanai to shout and make insulting hand gestures, but too far for anything but an extremely lucky shot to carry.

There was one man ahorse just in front of the enemy ranks, who Winter assumed was the commanding officer. She hoped he’d display the same lead-from-the-front mentality that his lieutenant had shown earlier, but no such luck. When the brown-and-tan column lurched into motion, the mounted man stayed well to the rear. Winter signaled for her own men to make ready. Nine of them, chosen by general acclamation to be the best shots in the company, were crouching against the barricade. The rest of the rankers waited nervously behind them, spread out across the quay, sitting or on their knees to avoid showing their heads over the top of the boat.

The Auxiliaries were in a company column, forty men wide and a dozen or so deep. Their drummers quickened the pace as they approached, from the languid march rhythm to the pulse-fast beat of the attack. Winter’s men waited, bayonets already fixed on their muskets, until the column was a hundred yards out-still well away from the base of the quay but clear of the last few houses in the village.

At a gesture from Winter, the men on the barricade opened fire. The crash of nine muskets at once, in the echoing confines of the boat-crowded quay, sounded more like a battalion volley. Smoke billowed along the barricade, and here and there in the front rank of the approaching formation men twitched and went down, or dropped out of line and stumbled off to the sides. A hundred yards was still a long shot for a musket, but the target was wide and packed shoulder to shoulder, so some balls inevitably struck home.

As soon as they’d fired, the men on the barricade turned and handed their weapons to soldiers waiting behind them, accepting fresh ones in return. Winter watched the exchange with a touch of pride. For something she’d improvised on the spot, they handled it nicely. Another volley crashed out, more ragged than the first as the individual men fired as quickly as they could mark a target. More Auxiliaries went down. The brown-and-tan column closed up around the casualties, its ranks swallowing the fallen like some amorphous multibodied creature. Winter could hear the shouts of the Khandarai sergeants pushing their men to keep the line straight in spite of the losses.

Another volley, and another, until all cohesion was lost and there was simply a steady rattle of shots. New muskets were handed up as quickly as they were fired, while the balance of the company worked on reloading. The tread of the Auxiliaries’ boots was audible under the intermittent cracks of the shots and the fast beat of the drums. Winter watched the remorseless advance of the column with rising dread.

Come on, she thought at them. You don’t like this, do you? Break off-

The drums stopped, and then the footsteps.

“Down!” Winter shouted.

A moment later, the first two ranks of the column cut loose. The roar of musketry drowned the sound of the balls striking the boat, but Winter could feel the barricade shiver and jump under the impact. More shots zipped and whistled overhead.

“Fire!” she called, and the men who’d ducked behind their makeshift breastwork popped back up and continued their withering barrage. At fifty yards, nearly every ball told. The few that didn’t hit the dirt in front of the Auxiliaries, throwing up little fountains of mud.

Another volley from the Khandarai made the boat shake and splinter. Once again, the Vordanai ducked, which rendered the shots mostly ineffective. The Auxiliaries’ fire-discipline was breaking under the stress and excitement of battle, as it always did once soldiers were hotly engaged. The next volley was ragged, with shots continuing to sound a considerable time after the main blast, and from that point on the shooting dissolved into a general racket on both sides as men fired, loaded, and fired again as fast as they were able.

One of Winter’s nine leapt back from the barricade, cursing and clutching the bloody mess of his left hand. Graff gestured and one of the loaders took his place, taking up the fallen musket and firing into the gathering smoke. It was becoming difficult to see, but judging from the pinkish yellow muzzle flashes the Auxiliaries were still out at fifty yards, some distance from the base of the quay.

Winter could well imagine their commander’s consternation. Only his first two ranks could fire, but that still gave him eighty muskets engaged to her nine. On the other hand, Winter’s men were getting off three or four shots for every one the Khandarai loosed, and they were protected by the barricade.

Moreover, he had few options for rectifying the situation. The closer he got to the quay, the more the barges lining the sides would restrict his visibility, until he was reduced to the same nine-man front. The only other option was to charge and hope to carry the barricade with bayonets, but the tactics manual said that a bayonet charge would be effective only against an enemy already shaken or routed by fire, and the defenders here were clearly anything but shaken.

Winter hoped like hell the man stuck to the tactics manual. The Auxiliaries had plenty of bodies in the rear ranks to replace those that fell, she knew, but how long would they stand it? No matter how well trained, there was a limit, and no soldier liked to stand in a position where he was obviously getting the worst of it.

One of the men in blue flopped backward from the barricade, thrashing on the quay like a landed fish. Winter glanced in his direction and then looked away with a shudder; the ball had carried away a quarter of his skull, and he’d splashed the stones with blood and bits of slime when he fell. Graff sent another man up the barricade and detailed two more to drag the dead man to the rear and out of view.

She turned back to the battle, only to find it dying away at last. Either panic had triumphed over discipline or the enemy commander had recognized the futility of his position and backed away voluntarily. Whatever the case, there were no more muzzle flashes in the smoke, and no skirl of advancing drums. The men on the barricade fired a few more shots on general principle, then let out a cheer to hurry the Khandarai on their way.

It wasn’t until the cheering became general that Winter noticed that one of the soldiers leaning on the boat wasn’t joining in. She had a couple of men pull him away, and they found he’d taken a ball in the chest and died in place, painting the woodwork red with gouts of arterial blood. In the confusion of battle, no one had noticed.

That dampened the atmosphere somewhat. Winter stared out into the swirling smoke while Graff conducted the poor dead boy to the end of the pier. Her apprehension increased by degrees, until by the time he returned she was certain something was wrong.

“They’re not gone,” she told him. “We’d have heard them shouting if they’d really broken.” She looked around at her own men. “Quiet! Graff, get them to be quiet.”

“Quiet!” said Graff, and Folsom took up the cry at a bellow. One by one the men fell silent, all looking toward the barricade, and hands tightened around weapons. Finally, all that could be heard was the gentle creaks and scrapes of the boats riding against the quay, a little splashing from the river, and-quiet conversations, close at hand. Too low to hear the words, but Winter didn’t need to. A horrible picture had sprung full-formed into her mind.

“They’re not gone,” she said. “They split up and spread out along the shore, behind the boats.” While the wall of high-riding barges protected the defenders from enfilading fire from attackers on the riverbank, it also mostly concealed the bank from view. There was only one reason to take up such a position. “They’re going to try to storm us.”

Graff spat a vile curse and turned to the men. “Fix bayonets! Helgoland, you’re on the wall. The rest of you form up-no, stay on your knees! Two ranks, loaded weapons, hold fire until my command!”

“Sir,” Bobby said by Winter’s elbow, “we’d better move back.”

That rankled, but she could see the logic in it. There was no sense in being in the line of fire, where she might prove an impediment to her own men. She and the corporal threaded their way through the double line of kneeling men that Graff was organizing, and took a position beside Folsom and the remaining dozen men of the company, who were still loading muskets as fast as they could ram home powder and ball.

Graff joined them, and just in time. A shout from the men at the barricade warned that the Khandarai were approaching, boiling out of the smoke at a run. There was no careful drum-timed advance this time, just a swarm of brown uniforms and the wicked gleam of fixed bayonets.

The Colonials at the barricade needed no encouragement. They fired at once. At less than twenty yards, the volley had a dreadful impact, bowling men completely off their feet and spraying blood across those who came behind them. The charge had too much momentum to stop, however, and the Auxiliaries came on like maddened hornets, trampling the bodies of their comrades in the narrow confines of the pier.

They reached the boat and started to clamber over, stumbling a little on the still-wet surface. One man lost his footing and crashed back into his fellows, but more made it to the top. For a moment, they were silhouetted against the afternoon sky, brown on blue.

“First rank, fire!”

Graff timed it nicely. The men on the barricade had thrown themselves flat after firing their volley, and with the range barely over ten yards the Colonials had a target any game hunter would have envied. The roar of the volley was louder than thunder, and the men standing on the boat jerked or spun away, sliding off the curved wood to land bonelessly on the pier.

There were more behind them, though, pressed forward by the tight confines and the momentum of the rear ranks still pouring onto the quay. Graff waited until a few had gotten their footing before calling for the second rank’s volley, which cut them down like wheat. More tried coming over on their bellies, slithering across on the slick undersurface of the upturned boat, but the men who’d crouched in the shadow of the barricade grabbed these brave souls as they emerged and dragged them to the ground to apply their bayonets.

More dangerous were the shots that were starting to come from the Auxiliaries packed against the barricade. Cover worked both ways, after all-now it was Winter’s men who were exposed on the naked stones of the quay, while the Khandarai had the boat to hide behind. A man in the second line jerked backward with a screech, toppling against one of the barges. The rest, having retrieved loaded muskets from the fast-diminishing stock, fired back in an effort to force the Auxiliaries to keep their heads down.

That’s it, Winter thought. I’m out of tricks. Her men wouldn’t flee-couldn’t, really, with their backs literally against a wall-but at this rate they’d be wiped out. She looked at the tight-packed mob of soldiers on the other side of the boat and wished, absurdly, for a cannon-a single load of canister would have cleared the quay. Of course, if we could have gotten any guns across the river we wouldn’t be having this problem-

She blinked in disbelief. The mob was breaking up. Auxiliaries were starting to run, first those at the rear, then the men closer to the front as the pressure from behind started to ease. The rest of the Colonials saw it, too. Cheers started to rise again, louder and louder.

But-they finally had us! Why. .

It wasn’t until Graff let out a satisfied sigh that Winter finally turned around. The end of the quay-the only space through which she’d been able to get a view of the river-was now blocked by one of the high-sided grain barges. The front hinged down to make a ramp, and men in blue were pushing past the cheering defenders, weapons at the ready. As the fighting faded, Winter could hear firing elsewhere along the riverbank.

Behind the first wave of fresh troops came a neat figure in dress blues, eagles glittering on his shoulders. His deep gray eyes took in the scene on the quay for a few moments, and then he turned to Winter and smiled. Winter, only partly recovered from her shock, managed a hesitant salute.

“Well done, Lieutenant,” said Colonel Vhalnich. “Very well done indeed.”