The Price of Valor Page 3

  “Here they come!” someone shouted.

  With the ground wet, there was no dust cloud to mark the advance, only a yellow line coming over the hill, sunlight flashing here and there on polished steel or silver. A moment later, the sound of the yellowjackets’ drums reached them, the steady beat of the march pace. They were already deployed into their line, extending for some distance to either side of the road.

  Time stretched like taffy. The Hamveltai troops seemed at once impossibly close and enormously distant, as though they were both right on top of Winter and her men and so far away they would never arrive. Each beat of the drum, accompanied by the synchronized tramp of a thousand boots, closed the gap further. When it was close enough, some of the women standing in front of Winter were going to die. Some of the men over there were, too. Winter wondered if they felt the same horrible anticipation—

  The range closed to a hundred yards, and the yellowjackets showed no signs of stopping to fire. Winter raised her voice.

  “Ready!”

  Muskets came off shoulders, rattling up and down the line.

  “Level!”

  Four hundred barrels swung up into line. Winter gave them a heartbeat to steady.

  “Fire!”

  The volley crashed out with a roar. At a distance of perhaps eighty yards, it wasn’t the most effective shooting—it was easy to over- or undershoot a target at that distance, even without the inherent inaccuracy of a smoothbore musket—but the smoke that puffed out over the Girls’ Own was what Winter really wanted. They couldn’t afford to let the Hamveltai get a really good look at what was in front of them; if they realized they outnumbered the defenders by better than two to one, they might charge at once, and Winter didn’t think her troops would hold in the face of a thousand bayonets. Baiting the yellowjackets into a firefight would buy time.

  Men dropped, all along the advancing line, and were swallowed by the formation as it closed up. The Hamveltai continued their march while the Girls’ Own frantically reloaded, each woman ripping the top off a paper cartridge with her teeth and pouring the premeasured powder down her barrel, then spitting the ball in after. The fastest of them were just firing their second shot when the drums beat a new command, and the yellowjackets halted. Their first two ranks raised their weapons. Winter stared at the line of muskets, standing out like quills on a porcupine, and fought the instinct to curl into the fetal position. She was close enough to hear the officers on the other side scream in Hamveltai.

  “Envir!”

  The Hamveltai line lit up like a flash of lightning, swallowed immediately by a roil of smoke. Once again, Winter was surrounded by the whir of balls passing overhead and the pock of impacts on the dirt, accompanied by the wetter-sounding thwack of lead meeting flesh. Women toppled forward, or sagged against their neighbors, or stumbled back out of the line with screams and curses.

  “Close up!” Winter shouted. She had to gasp for air; she’d been holding her breath. “Close up! Hold the line!”

  Jane, Abby, and the other lieutenants took up the call, and the sergeants—chosen from volunteers Winter had hoped wouldn’t panic under pressure—echoed them. The line contracted, rankers shuffling sideways to fill in gaps, pushing the fallen aside or stepping over them. More muskets banged, with the irregular rhythm of rain drumming on a window, each soldier firing as soon as she was ready. The second Hamveltai volley, when it came, was nearly as neat as the first, and another chorus of screams was added to the familiar sound of battle.

  It was what Winter had wanted—a firefight, instead of a charge—but it was worse than she’d imagined. The yellowjackets were good troops, well trained, and their volleys were as regular as the tolling of a clock. At every blast, more soldiers fell, the survivors pushing into the gaps, or being hit in their turn and collapsing atop dead or dying comrades. The banging of their own musketry started to sound pathetic by comparison, ragged and useless against the unwavering will of the Hamveltai elites.

  “Close up!” Jane shouted on the right. “Hold the line!”

  “Close up, you shit-stinking daughters of fucking goats!” Becca screamed, voice hoarse with excitement or terror. “Hold the fucking line!”

  “Close u—” Chris said, then cut off. Winter glanced to her left, squinting against the smoke, and saw that a ball had gone right through her throat, producing a spectacular arterial spray. The big woman slapped a hand against the wound, bright red pulsing through her fingers, then crumpled in place.

  They’re going to break. They had to; there was no other way out. Stubborn pride and the unwillingness to show fear in front of their fellow soldiers would keep the rankers in the patently unequal firefight for a while, but it could have only one outcome. The Hamveltai certainly weren’t going to give up, not with the return fire visibly slackening. When it had faded enough, they would fix bayonets and charge.

  We have to fall back. But that would be as bad as a rout. Maybe if we run for the village, some of us will make it. They could barricade a building, hold out for a while. Until de Ferre gets his head out of his ass. Unless, of course, the colonel decided the day was lost and ordered a retreat. Then, cut off and surrounded, they would have no option but to surrender or fight to the death. Winter wasn’t sure she was capable of giving either order. She felt paralyzed, watching her soldiers cut down by measured volleys, like the ticks of a funereal clock, unable to do anything to get them out of it—

  Someone grabbed her arm, shouted in her ear. It took her a moment to parse the words over the blasts of musketry, and a moment longer to recognize Bobby.

  “—coming up the road!” she was saying.

  Winter blinked. She looked over her shoulder and saw a mass of men and horses behind them, working energetically around the low, deadly shapes of cannon. An officer was frantically clearing the teams and caissons out of the way, and artillerymen were already ramming home the first loads.

  Bobby was still talking, but her words were distant and indistinct to Winter’s abused ears. The sense behind them, though, was obvious.

  “Fall back!” Winter shouted. “Back! Form behind the guns!”

  Other voices took up the cry. She heard Jane’s—thank God, thank God—and Folsom’s bass roar. He must have come back with Bobby. The line had been leaking troops to the rear for some time, walking wounded making their escape, probably including some who weren’t actually wounded at all. The shouts of their officers snapped the bonds of pride and duty that held the women of the Girls’ Own in place, and they turned away from the firefight as one body, as though a mechanism had been suddenly tripped. Winter had to backpedal frantically to keep from being trampled by the mass of rankers; not screaming or throwing away their weapons, but shoving forward with a silent, earnest determination not to be the last in line.

  One more volley stabbed out from the Hamveltai line, cutting down the rearmost stragglers and those whose wounds had made them slow to retreat. Winter heard the yellowjackets cheering, and their officers shouting orders. The drums thrilled faster, to the charge pace.

  She turned away, running along with the rest. In a few moments she was among the guns, passing between the big, many-spoked wheels, and then into the clear space beyond. It took an effort of will to stop running, with the image of all those bayonets following close on her heels fresh in her mind, but Winter was pleased to see that most of her soldiers had managed it. They pulled up short, doubled over and breathing hard, fell to their knees or flopped to the ground. One girl caught Winter’s eye, hands clasped in front of her face as she repeated a frantic prayer of thanks, over and over.

  Behind them, the cannoneers were getting ready. Most of the Girls’ Own were past, and only a few limping wounded were still on the road in front of the guns. As these last stragglers lurched past the muzzles of the artillery, the pall of smoke rippled, and the massed ranks of the yellowjackets emerged, still marching in step. A ripple ran th
rough their line at the sight of the guns, but it was too late to stop. They gave a hoarse cheer and broke into a charge.

  A young lieutenant of artillery brought his hand down, a dismissive, peremptory gesture. Gunners brought their burning brands to the touchholes of their weapons. Winter had time to slam her hands over her ears, and a moment later a blaze of light and a crashing roar seemed to fill the world.

  * * *

  Winter could see that Colonel Broanne de Ferre was already sweating into his too-tight collar.

  “My lord—” he began.

  “As we are engaged in military service,” General Janus bet Vhalnich said, his tone precise, “my social rank is not relevant.” Seated behind his portable map table, one long-fingered hand resting on a stack of scouting reports, Janus eyed de Ferre coldly. The rigors of campaigning had thinned the general, Winter thought, and he hadn’t had much flesh to lose. His young face was still dominated by those extraordinary eyes, huge and gray, but now they stared out from deep sockets in what was practically a death’s head.

  “Ah,” de Ferre said. He looked unhappy—clearly he would have preferred to speak to Janus as a fellow peer, rather than as his military superior. “Yes. Of course, General.”

  “Go on.”

  De Ferre swallowed, trying to regain his lost momentum. He was a stocky man in his middle years, the bulge of his stomach not completely concealed by his exquisitely tailored uniform. The silver eagles on his shoulders that denoted his rank had tiny chips of ruby to give them glittering red eyes.

  “Lieutenant Archer disobeyed my explicit orders,” he said. “His actions might have endangered the survival of my entire force.”

  Janus looked down at the papers on his table for a moment. “This would be when he brought his battery forward to the support of the Fifth Volunteer Battalion?” That was the official designation for the Girls’ Own. “Which by all accounts was thereby rescued from capture or annihilation.”

  “Yes, General.” De Ferre drew himself up with all the stiffness of an old military man. “The fact that his action happened to be successful is no excuse for insubordination. If I had needed his battery in another position, the battle might have been lost by his rash action.”

  “Bullshit,” said Jane, beside Winter. “If Archer hadn’t brought those guns up—”

  “Jane,” Winter said, putting a restraining hand on her shoulder. Jane shrugged it off.

  “Fuck that.” She pointed at de Ferre. “My friends are dead because this bastard didn’t have the balls for a fight, and now I have to stand here and listen while he blames the people who did help?”

  De Ferre’s round face was growing purple. “I object,” he sputtered, “in the strongest terms. Why is this . . . this female even present?” He eyed Jane as though she were some strange specimen of an unknown species. “You are fortunate your gender protects you, madam, because if you were a man an accusation of cowardice would have to be settled with steel.”

  “If you were a man, I might bother to bring a sword,” Jane shot back. “As it is, I’d be happy to settle you with my bare hands, if you’d care to join me outside, sir.”

  “Enough,” Janus spit. “Lieutenant Verity is an officer in the Fifth Volunteers, and will be treated as such.” He turned to lock eyes with Jane. “She will endeavor to restrain herself.”

  Winter had to give Jane credit. Most people, fixed with the full force of Janus’ stare, would have flinched, but she matched him for a long moment before he grunted and looked away.

  “General,” de Ferre began again, “perhaps we could meet in private—”

  “Colonel de Ferre,” Janus snapped. “Please explain why, when you received Captain Ihernglass’ message as delivered by Lieutenant Forester, you chose to ignore it?”

  “As overall commander, it was my responsibility to assess overall threats to my force—”

  Janus cut him off. “A regiment of Hamveltai regulars turning your right flank did not seem like a threat?”

  De Ferre’s eyes flicked from Janus to Winter, passing quickly over the fuming Jane. He cleared his throat. “I did not consider the information reliable, General.”

  “What were we supposed to do?” Jane burst out. “Send you a fucking engraved invitation?”

  This time, Jane allowed Winter to quiet her. Janus remained focused on de Ferre.

  “You doubted that Lieutenant Forester’s message was the one entrusted to him by Captain Ihernglass?” he asked.

  “No,” de Ferre said. He was sweating. “But you know these volunteer officers. If—if you’ll pardon the loose phrase, they’re always convinced that the sky is falling. It is the responsibility of the senior officer to commit his reserve judiciously, and not fritter it away whenever some captain thinks the entire enemy army is descending on him.”

  “Some might say that a senior officer ought to place himself so that he can make such observations for himself,” Janus said with the deadly calm of someone delivering a killing stroke.

  “I . . . that is . . .” De Ferre wiped his forehead. “We won the battle, General. My force did everything you asked of it.”

  “Thanks largely to the efforts of Captain Ihernglass.” Janus leaned back in his camp chair. “Colonel de Ferre, you are dismissed from command. Gather your baggage and report to the Directory in Vordan, and see if they have any further use for you. I do not.”

  “You can’t do that,” de Ferre snarled. “I hold a colonel’s commission signed by the King of Vordan.”

  “I think you’ll find that I can,” Janus said. “My appointment as commander of the Army of the East was approved by both the deputies and the queen, and within its sphere my authority is unlimited. But if you think my actions are illegal, by all means make your case to the deputies. Sergeant!”

  The tent flap opened, letting a gust of warm, smoke-scented air into the close confines of the command tent. A big man in a blue uniform poked his head through and said, “Sir?”

  “Please escort Colonel de Ferre to his tent and assist him with gathering his baggage. He’ll be leaving us in the morning.”

  The sergeant couldn’t have failed to hear what was going on in the tent behind him, but he kept his expression wooden and his manner courteous as he turned to de Ferre. “Sir. If you’ll come with me?”

  “This is a mistake, Vhalnich,” de Ferre said. “I have many friends—”

  “Some of whom will be joining you on the road at daybreak,” Janus said. “I hope you make for a merry company. Now go with the sergeant, please. I have work to do.”

  De Ferre stood stock-still a moment longer, his face increasingly resembling an overripe tomato. Just when Winter thought he might actually pop and shower them all in gore, he turned on his heel and stalked out with as much dignity as he could muster, with the sergeant escorting him at a respectful distance.

  Winter knew that the concept of a general was not a popular one in the Royal Army, which had gotten along for centuries without any rank higher than colonel. Which regimental commander gave the orders to a larger force was determined by a complicated formula that took into account both the seniority of the man in question and the age and prestige of his unit. The effect was generally to give command to the oldest and most powerful noble families who led the oldest and most respected regiments.

  In the frantic weeks after the declaration of war, the Deputies-General had improvised a number of new posts to coordinate the nationwide military effort, and it had been a given that one of them would go to the savior of the city. But while Janus was a count, his family was not among the most powerful, and he had commanded no storied regiment. Winter had heard that the Royal Army colonels were not taking his elevation well. But I never thought I’d get to see one of them given the sack. In the old Royal Army, a colonel served until he died, retired, or became embarrassingly senile; he was certainly never dismissed from his command, wh
ich was his by hereditary and financial right.

  Janus gave a long sigh, and ran one hand through his hair. “Captain Ihernglass, may I speak with you privately?”

  “Of course, sir. Give me a moment.” Winter turned away, her heart hammering, and bent toward Jane. “Go back to the camp. I’ll be there shortly.”

  “Are you going to be all right?” Jane said.

  “I’ll be fine. I’m sure it’s . . . nothing serious. Go and check on the wounded.”

  Jane nodded, saluted raggedly toward Janus, and slipped out. Augustin, Janus’ manservant, ghosted in through the open tent flap, acknowledging Winter with a respectful nod. He was an old man, silver-haired and dignified, but he’d served Janus steadfastly for years, even during the Khandarai campaign.

  “Tea,” Janus said. “And fetch something for the captain to sit on.”

  “Certainly, sir,” Augustin said.

  He bustled about, setting up a second camp chair for Winter and then busying himself at a kettle in the back of the tent. Winter sat, cautiously, and waited for Janus to speak, but the colonel seemed content to wait. After a few minutes, Augustin set two steaming bone-white cups and saucers on the table.

  “Strong, with a bit of sugar, if I recall correctly,” he said to Winter. “The blend is an indifferent one, I’m afraid.”

  Winter smiled. In spite of his complaints about the quality of food, tea, and furnishings, the old man was a wizard when it came to creating comfort for his master and his guests in the meanest surroundings, a valuable skill indeed in an army on the march.

  Janus pursed his lips and blew across the surface of the tea, then took a cautious sip.

  “Perfect,” he said. “Thank you, Augustin.”