Django Wexler - The Shadow Throne

“Don’t.”

“If we lose,” the colonel continued remorselessly, “I have given Lieutenant Uhlan orders to place his entire complement at your disposal. I trust them implicitly. While I don’t anticipate being in a position to offer further advice, I might suggest that you allow him to conduct you to Mieran County. It is a remote place, and you would find it easy to disappear, even from the likes of Orlanko.” He smiled, briefly. “Of course, that is only a contingency plan.”

WINTER

The march was a mild one, as marches went. The day was warm, but there was a breeze to cut the heat, and the fertile green countryside they passed through was a pleasant change from the endless rocks and sand of Khandar. Jane’s girls carried no packs-there weren’t enough tents and bedrolls for all the new men, and the wagons carried their food and extra ammunition. It would make for miserable camping, but for the moment it meant not having to lug anything heavier than their muskets.

Jane walked at the head of the column, and Winter near the back, encouraging any of the girls who flagged and making sure none of the men around them did more than stare. There had been plenty of that during their training at Ohnlei, and a fair bit of name-calling and whistles as well, but Winter had been impressed at the girls’ stoicism. Here on the road, things had gone surprisingly well. By accident or design-with Janus in charge, Winter suspected the latter-the groups directly ahead and behind were mostly made up of dockmen, who had a healthy respect for Mad Jane and the Leatherbacks.

Another worry had been resolved the day before, when Abby had turned up at the training ground. She’d been reluctant to talk about her errand, other than to say that her father was all right.

“He’s a rotten old coward,” she said, and refused to say any more on the matter. Now she was walking up and down the column, exchanging a few words with the girls, smiling and keeping up a brave front. It was needed, Winter thought. The faces she saw around her were the faces of young women wondering what the hell they had gotten themselves into. They whispered together, walking side by side for a few steps and then throwing an anxious glance up at Jane or back at Winter. No one dropped out of line, though.

Abby fell back until she was next to Winter, looking worried.

“Word from the head of the column,” she said. Rumors traveled down the length of the marching army like sparks along a powder trail. “We’re turning off the road. Give-Em-Hell is taking the rest of the horsemen out front.” The recruits, imitating their veteran comrades, had adopted the nickname for the cavalry commander.

“Then Orlanko’s just ahead,” Winter said. She glanced overhead, where the sun hung near its zenith. “We’ll fight today. Maybe tomorrow, but probably today. Orlanko can’t afford to wait around, and our supply situation can’t be good.”

“Right. Today.” Abby swallowed hard. Her hand was tight around the butt of her musket, the barrel resting on her shoulder. “You think we can win?”

“It’s not our job to think about that,” Winter said. “We signed up for this army, and that means we agreed to fight where and when Colonel Vhalnich and the other officers think we ought to. Whether we should fight is their decision, and we have to trust them. Letting every ranker think about that for himself is the first step toward a rout.”

“Right,” Abby repeated. “Right.” She looked at the backs of the marching girls. “Do you think they’ll do all right?”

Winter nodded. “I think so. As well as any of the rest.”

“Right.” Abby took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “All right.”

Winter wondered if her nerves had shown so clearly the first time she’d gone into a real fight. Probably they did, and I was too scared to notice.

Up ahead, the road turned to the left, but a blue-coated lieutenant was directing the column off to the right. They broke through a thin belt of trees and tramped across a field of cabbages, cutting a muddy brown trail through the rows of ripening green vegetables. A low wall of unmortared stone had blocked the way here, but the leading battalion had dismantled it and left an opening wide enough for the wagons and guns to pass. Beyond, a low hill sloped up toward a grassy crest, where a few milk cows grazed peacefully and watched the marching intruders with incurious eyes.

On the near slope of the hill, the army of Janus bet Vhalnich was forming up. The First and Second Battalions of the Colonials were already there, assembling around their twin flags into a battle column. Sergeants screamed orders at the recruits as they came up, directing the pike-armed men into a great mass milling behind the two Colonial formations, while those with muskets were sent farther up, just below the crest of the hill. The wagons remained down at the base, while the guns were wheeled farther on, over the top of the hill and out of sight.

Winter saw Jane paused up ahead, talking to Marcus. She hurried forward, Abby at her side.

“Ihernglass,” Marcus said. “I wanted to. .” He looked at the young, female faces, gathered in a semicircle and staring at him, and rubbed at his beard distractedly. “Come here, would you?”

Winter stepped forward, and Marcus turned his back on the rest and spoke to her quietly.

“Look. The colonel has put you right in the center of the line. It’s the safest place, in some ways, but the fire is going to be hot. I don’t want. . if you want me to reassign your company to the reserve, I will. They’ve made their point. Nobody would think less of them.”

“They’re not here to make a point, sir.”

“You can’t be any happier with a bunch of girls getting shot than I am,” Marcus hissed. “We ought to do the honorable thing.”

Winter couldn’t help smiling. What was it Janus had once told her? Captain d’Ivoire missed his calling as a knight-errant. “They wouldn’t agree with you, sir. As I think you know, or else you’d be willing to say it to their faces.”

“All right.” Marcus looked over his shoulder and shook his head. “All right. You remember the plan.”

“Yessir.”

He pointed up the hill, to a spot directly in front of the two formed battalions. “Up there. Take about a hundred yards of line and wait for the signal.”

Winter saluted. “Yes, sir !”

After Marcus had walked off, shaking his head, Jane tapped Winter on the shoulder.

“What did he want?”

“To offer us a last chance to back out,” Winter said.

Jane laughed. “You think he would have learned better than that at the Vendre.”

The guns began to roar as the army finished its deployment.

It was a simple enough formation. Up ahead of where she was standing, on the descending slope of the hill, the artillery had set up in a long line. The Preacher’s field guns were directly ahead of them, while the flanks were occupied by a motley collection of smaller cannon gathered from the city. Somewhere down below were the siege guns pulled from the river defenses, but manhandling those into position might take all day.

Behind the guns, and just far enough on the near side of the slope that they were not yet exposed to the enemy, the musket-armed volunteers had formed a long, loose line. It wasn’t the shoulder-to-shoulder line of battle Winter had marched in against the Auxiliaries in Khandar, but a thinner formation with plenty of space between each man and his neighbor. Winter herself stood in the center of the stretch of line occupied by Jane’s girls, with Jane a dozen yards in one direction and Abby about the same distance in the other.

Below this cordon, the regular infantry of the Colonials waited in double-company columns, four battalions strong. There was a considerable empty space between them, enough room for each column to fold out into a line if it needed to, or alternatively to provide a killing ground swept by musket fire if they had to form square and hold off enemy cavalry.