The Thousand Names Part 16

Marcus' lip twitched. He said nothing, but he was sure she could read everything she needed in his expression.

"And yet," she went on, "this is certainly a victory. Even His Grace can have no cause for complaint."

Enough is enough. "What are you getting at, Miss Alhundt? What do you want from me?"

"I want to know where your loyalty lies."

"Where it always has," Marcus growled. "With king, country, and the chain of command."

"In that order?"

"I'm not going to play word games with you."

"It's not a game, Captain. I need your help."

Just for a moment, Marcus thought he saw something genuine in her expression. The coy, clever smile was still in place, but there was something in her eyes. It was the look of someone treading water over an infinite abyss. Then she turned away.

"What's that?" she said.

"What?"

"That." She pointed with one hand. "The smoke. Has there been more fighting, do you think?"

Marcus lifted his eyes. Beyond the next bend in the road, a column of smoke was rising. It wasn't the gray-white color of powder smoke, which in any event tended to hug the ground like fog. This was the thick black smoke of burning wood and canvas, burning wagons and stores and blankets- "Bra.s.s b.a.l.l.s of the Beast," Marcus snarled, kicking Meadow to a trot. "What the h.e.l.l have they gotten into?"

Chapter Eight.

WINTER.

Winter hiked wearily back toward the ravine where she'd left what remained of her company. The immediate aftermath of the Redeemer's attack had been a desperate scramble to rescue what wounded they could and then run for the nearest cover. They'd ended up in a wind-carved defile through the high ridge, narrow enough at both ends to be easily defended. Only then had Winter felt secure enough to give most of the company a rest, while she and Bobby picked a cautious path up the empty hillside to find out what had happened.

When they returned, Graff shouted the men awake. Most of the survivors had dropped wherever they'd halted, sprawled across the narrow floor of the ravine like a blanket of corpses. But the corporal's yell produced a miraculous resurrection, and as Bobby related the good news the buzz of conversation spread, punctuated by whoops and hollers. Winter pushed her way through the jubilant throng and found Graff.

"Good to see you back safe, Sergeant," he said.

"Thanks." She jerked her head in Bobby's direction. "You've heard?"

"I'm not sure I believe it."

"We had the whole story from a couple of Give-Em-h.e.l.l's outriders," Winter said. "From the top of the hill you can see the Redeemer camp burning."

"Nice to get good news for once," Graff said.

"Better than the alternative," Winter agreed. "But we've still got a bit of a walk ahead of us, and it'd be best to make it before dark. How many of the wounded need to be carried?"

The corporal counted on grubby fingers. "Fox . . . Inimin . . . Gaff . . . Regult . . ." He looked up. "Four, I think."

"What about Eiderson?" Winter wasn't good with names, but she was starting to remember a few. Eiderson was a big, blond man with a sarcastic manner, p.r.o.ne to sneers, but he'd screamed loudest of all when they'd carried him from the battlefield with a carbine ball through the thigh.

"He died," Graff said quietly. "An hour or so back."

"Oh." Winter felt guilty that this news didn't affect her more. "Four, then. Eight men to carry them, and four more just in case. Bobby and I will stay with them. Can you take the rest of the men ahead?"

Graff frowned. "There could still be Redeemers about. Best to stick together."

She shook her head. "The outriders said we're in the clear. The more men we get back to a camp by nightfall, the less worried I'll be."

"As you say, Sergeant," Graff said. "Take Folsom as well, then. I can ride herd on the others."

Winter glanced up at the sun. It had touched the horizon, and lurking under the still-stifling heat she could feel the chill of the desert night, waiting to pounce.

They rigged stretchers for the four wounded men out of muskets and torn jackets, and fashioned makeshift torches from sc.r.a.ps and scrub gra.s.s for when night fell. Graff set off first, with the balance of the company, promising he'd send riders to escort them the rest of the way once he reached the regiment. Winter and her small party left the ravine just after sunset, picking their way down the center of the valley where the land was flattest. The wounded men whimpered and moaned, and any false step that jolted them produced heartrending screams.

At first the stretcher bearers and their escorts kept up a lively chatter, Bobby among them, though Folsom had reverted to his usual silence and walked silently at Winter's shoulder. As twilight deepened from red to purple, though, the gathering darkness smothered conversation like a shroud. The four unburdened men lit their torches, which gave enough light to place their feet by, but no more. They filled the valley with flickering, dancing shadows, decorating every rock with a long black streamer.

A column of smoke was visible, rising from burning Redeemer stores and blotting out a chunk of the darkening sky. Winter directed them toward it, which was the direction the valley ran in any case. She'd intended to skirt the base of the conflagration once she arrived, but at ground level it was more of a cloud than a bonfire, with no clear edges. They were in the Khandarai camp, or the remains of it, before they realized it.

There was actually very little to mark it as a camp of any sort. There were no neat lines of tents, as in the Vordanai encampments. Bedrolls and sheets were scattered at random, interspersed with crude lean-tos of linen and sticks. Amidst these were all the detritus of an army on the march-weapons, spare or broken, sacks of meal or fruit, bones and offal from butchered animals, bits of clothing left behind for the final march into battle.

Most of what would burn had been blackened by fire, and here and there fitful embers still smoldered, sending up choking black smoke. Before long, full dark arrived, and the circle of light cast by the torches defined the limit of their vision. They walked in silence, objects coming into view a few paces ahead and falling into oblivion after they'd pa.s.sed, like floating wreckage flowing around a ship under sail.

Winter barely noticed the first body, blackened and charred by flame, curled into a ball amidst the crisped ruins of a bedroll. Only the skull marked it as something that had once been human. The next, though, was a ragged man coated crimson from a dozen wounds in the back, lying facedown in the dirt. Past him was a man with a spear still in his hand, the side of his head shot away by a musket ball. From then on, as they entered the center of the camp, they encountered more and more corpses, until they all had to tread carefully to avoid crushing stiff, outflung fingers or stumbling over twisted limbs.

There were women, too, Winter realized with a start. Some, dressed in rags and curled around the wounds that had killed them, were indistinguishable from the men, but this far into the camp any resistance had apparently collapsed, and the victors had found time for a bit of sport. They pa.s.sed one body naked and spread-eagled, her throat cut in a ragged red half circle like a broad grin. Elsewhere the torchlight revealed the pale b.u.t.tocks of three women laid facedown in a row, robes hiked up to their armpits. A gray-bearded old man lay nearby, killed by a single shot to the chest.

It went on, and on, and on. Winter wanted to scream, but she didn't dare. Inside the smoke cloud, she had no way to navigate, so all she could do was lead her men on a straight course and pray they'd come through it eventually. She watched the faces of the men in the flickering light. Folsom, behind her, might have been carved of stone, but Bobby's eyes were wide as saucers. The boy had dropped back when they found the first corpse, and with each successive discovery he pressed closer to her side. Winter reached out and found his hand with hers, tentatively. She wasn't sure if the gesture was unmanly, but Bobby twined his fingers through hers, and gripped tight.

She felt an odd need to explain, to make excuses. It's war. This is what it's always been like. After a battle, when their blood is up, men will do things they'd never consider otherwise. But her throat was too tight to speak, and the burning camp had the heavy, unbreakable silence of a cathedral.

Winter wondered how much of the devastation had been wrought by the Old Colonials and how much by the recruits. She had a depressing feeling that she knew the answer. Old Colonel Warus had taken a dim view of rape and pillage when it was committed under his eye, but he hadn't troubled to extend that eye very far. And when a village had been suspected of harboring bandits or rebels . . .

They were not the only ones in the camp, though no living person strayed into the circle of firelight. Other torches moved here and there, bobbing among the slowly dying flames like distant will-o'-the-wisps. Alone, or in groups of two or three, they picked their way through the ruins. In search of plunder, presumably, though there was little of value that Winter could see. She could hear them at times, too, rough voices calling to one another over the crackle and spit of the flames.

It seemed they'd been walking for hours in silence, and even the cries of the four wounded men were m.u.f.fled. When Winter heard a low, agonized groan, she a.s.sumed it came from her party, but it was followed by a hiss and a m.u.f.fled curse. She stopped, and held her palm up to halt the others.

Bobby's hand tightened convulsively, then slipped free.

"What is it, sir?" the boy said.

"I heard something," Winter said. "Someone's alive, near here."

The soldiers looked at each other. One of them, a sandy-haired youth holding one end of a stretcher, spoke up.

"Are you sure?" he said.

"I heard it, too," Folsom rumbled, and pointed. "Over that way."

The soldier glanced at his companions, then shrugged. "So what? It's got to be a grayskin."

"It could be one of ours," Winter lied. The curse she'd heard had been in Khandarai. "We can't just leave him." She surveyed their faces and came to a quick decision. "You keep on. The camp can't be much farther. If we can find him, Corporals Forester and Folsom will help me bring him in."

The man nodded. Another soldier kindled an extra torch and handed it to Folsom. The stretcher bearers and their escort trooped off, leaving Winter and the two corporals alone.

Bobby made a visible effort to control himself, shifting his musket from one hand to the other and shaking out stiff fingers where he'd gripped it too tightly. He took several long breaths and then turned to Winter, determination written in his face. Winter found her respect for him increasing. He was obviously scared, even terrified, and equally obviously determined not to let it prevent him from doing as he was ordered. Folsom, as usual, was impa.s.sive.

"Right," she said. "Let's go."

They walked in the direction of the sound, past torn blankets and smoking piles of rubbish. Corpses were everywhere, sprawled in att.i.tudes of fear and flight where they'd been cut down by their pursuers. Winter forced herself to look around, searching for movement. Bobby cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted a greeting, but it produced no reply, and he didn't repeat it.

Then Winter caught a flicker of motion. She pointed.

"There!"

There was an overturned wagon, a dead horse still tangled in the traces. Someone crouched behind it, a dark shadow against the dull red light from distant fires. Winter stepped forward, hands spread, trying to look nonthreatening.

"h.e.l.lo?" she said, then tried again in Khandarai. "Keipho?"

She half expected whoever it was to flee. She certainly did not expect the enormous shadow that rose up from behind the broken wagon, eyes glowing with reflected torchlight. It roared like a bull, a deep, animal sound with no human language in it, and charged.

It was a man, she could see, tall and thick-limbed, shirtless, with a hairy white belly that strained at his belt. His face was wild with rage, and in his hands was a curved sword half as long as Winter was tall. He vaulted the dead horse in a single stride, weapon held above his head.

From Winter's right came a bang that shattered the stillness like a rock through a pane of gla.s.s. Smoke billowed from Bobby's musket, but the boy had pulled the trigger before getting the weapon level, and the ball whined off into the night. The giant barely broke his stride, headed straight for Winter, his blade raised for a two-handed downward cut that would have chopped her in half.

Folsom stepped into his path, bulling forward underneath the stroke so that the pommel of the sword glanced off his shoulder. The corporal had let his musket fall, but he still held the torch in his left hand, and he pressed it against the giant's back. The big man roared, and his knee came up and buried itself in Folsom's stomach. Folsom gave a grunt and staggered backward, and the Khandarai came around with a backhand slap that lifted him off his feet and sent him sprawling in the dust.

Winter dove for the musket Folsom had dropped, rolled, and brought it to her shoulder as she came up. The Khandarai had his sword raised once more, this time to decapitate the fallen corporal, and Winter had the whole of his broad back as a target. She pulled back the hammer, hoped like h.e.l.l the jostling hadn't spilled the powder in the pan, and pulled the trigger.

The bang of the weapon sounded sweet in her ear, and even the mule kick against her shoulder was rea.s.suring. She saw dust fly from the giant where she'd hit him, and he went suddenly still, sword held high. The ball had gone in near the small of his back, and she could see blood begin to spurt, but he gave no sign of pain. Instead he turned, slowly, revealing a matching hole in his gut. His sword still raised, he took first one step toward Winter, then another.

Die, Winter begged, half a prayer. Die, please just die! But he came on, blood gouting down the curve of his belly in regular pulses. She raised the musket in a halfhearted attempt to block his downward blow, knowing he could easily hammer the weapon aside.

Another bang from behind her, and the huge man sprouted another gaping red wound, this time high on his chest. He staggered like a drunk, grounding the point of his sword as though he meant to lean on it. Then finally, mercifully, he toppled, with one last roar that was more like a moan. The impact of his collapse seemed to shake the ground, and for a long moment Winter couldn't look away, fearing that he would once again clamber to his feet. When she finally managed to look over her shoulder, she saw Bobby standing with a leveled musket, smoke rising from the lock and barrel.

Folsom groaned, and the sound seemed to break the spell. Winter rolled over and managed to get to her knees, and Bobby let his weapon fall and hurried to her side.

"Sergeant!" he said. "Sir! Are you all right?"

"Fine," Winter said, when she had the breath. "He didn't touch me. Check on Folsom."

But the big corporal was already getting to his feet. The left side of his face was blotchy and smeared with blood from a few small cuts, but he waved away Bobby's offered hand and went to Winter's side. Together, the two of them hoisted her to her feet and helped her remain there, in spite of some unsteadiness around the knees.

"What?" Bobby said. "What in the name of all the saints was that?"

"G.o.dd.a.m.ned monster," Folsom muttered.

"He was a fin-katar," Winter said. Her own voice sounded distant through the blood rushing in her ears.

The two of them looked at her. "A what?" Bobby said.

"A fin-katar," Winter repeated. "It means *a divine shield.' They're kind of a holy order. The personal guards of the Khandarai priesthood." She frowned. "The old priests. Not the Redeemers."

Folsom frowned. "How d'you know?"

"Look at the size of him," Winter said. "They all look like that. The priests do something to them."

The big corporal made the sign of the double circle over his heart. "Sorcery."

"I've heard it said," Winter said. "Or some trick with powders and potions. Someone once told me the fin-katar eat only poison pear and drink only scorpion venom." Her brain felt like it was slowly starting to work again. "What the h.e.l.l was he doing here, though?"

"Plenty of priests with this army, looked like," Bobby said.

"The Redeemers hate the old priesthood," Winter said. "They blame them for leading the people astray in the first place."

Folsom shook his head. "Infidels."

Winter hadn't known the big man was particularly pious, but then she knew little enough about him. Or any of them, for that matter.

"You can't tell me that was what we heard moaning," Bobby said, eyeing the enormous corpse.

"No." As her heart calmed, weariness seeped back into Winter's limbs. She found that she'd suddenly lost her taste for her mission of mercy. "But maybe we ought to go back. G.o.d only knows who else is hiding somewhere around here."

Folsom nodded fervently. His cheek was already purpling into what promised to be a hideous bruise. Bobby looked less certain, though.

"It sounded like it came from somewhere close," the boy said. "Maybe-"

Another voice, thin and papery, like the whisper of a ghost. "Please. I'm here."

Bobby looked around, startled, and Folsom grabbed for one of the muskets. The words, Winter realized after a moment, had been in Khandarai. Neither of the corporals understood the plea as such. She waved them hurriedly to silence and spoke aloud in the same language.

"Where? Where are you?"

"Wagon . . ." The voice was faint. "Please . . ."

Winter looked at the overturned wagon. It was big and solidly constructed, really too much for a single horse. There was a s.p.a.ce under it, where the walls held the bed off the ground. The front was blocked by the driver's box, but the back was open where the tailgate had been knocked away.

"Are you underneath?" Winter said, still in Khandarai. "You can come out. We won't hurt you, I swear." The voice sounded young, and probably female.

"Can't," it said. "Stuck." There was a long pause, and then a m.u.f.fled scream. When it came again, the voice was thick. "I can't . . ."

"Hold on."