Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

“More or less,” Mor growled. “Do you ever get sick of pulling Adrecht’s chestnuts out of the fire?”

“The thought has occurred to me,” Marcus admitted. “But there are at least six hundred men out there with him.”

“Right.” Mor blew out a long breath. “So what do we do?”

“I’m taking the First and the Third out in support. In the meantime, Val, set up a line here at the camp with the Second and the artillery. Once we break through to Adrecht, we’ll fall back on you and see how the Desoltai like the taste of canister.”

Val’s expression was sour. “Has it occurred to you that this could all be a trap?”

“It was a trap,” Mor said, “and Adrecht walked right into it.”

“This is the Steel Ghost we’re dealing with,” Val said. “There may be more to it than that.”

Marcus raised a hand to cut off the debate. “I’ve thought about it, but we haven’t got any choice. We can’t just leave the Fourth.”

“I know, damn it,” Val said. He ran his fingers along his pencil mustache, smoothing the ends. “It just feels wrong. I can’t put my finger on it.”

“This whole damned trek feels wrong,” Mor said. “Where the hell is the colonel, anyway?”

“Out doing whatever it is he does at night,” Marcus said, without trying to disguise his bitterness. “Which reminds me. Val, find him and bring him in. He’s got an escort, but we don’t want the Desoltai stumbling across him.”

“Right. What about Give-Em-Hell?”

“Keep him here with you, in case they try some sort of wide swing.”

Not that the handful of cavalry troopers remaining would help much in that event. Marcus felt a pit yawning open in his gut. There were too many variables, too many things that might go wrong, and far too much he didn’t know. He kept picturing Janus, one eyebrow slightly raised, gray eyes impassive.

“And that was your response, Captain? Interesting. .”

Fuck him. Marcus ground his teeth. He’s not here when we need him.

“Well?” he said to Mor and Val. “What are you waiting for?”

• • •

The spit and crackle of musketry as they approached was comforting, since it meant that the fighting wasn’t over. Marcus had fumed and sweated as the First Battalion formed up east of the camp, faster than they ever had at Fort Valor but still far too slow to suit him. They’d marched out in column as the Third mustered behind them, while the Second and the Preacher’s guns started creating a defensive line at the edge of the encampment.

There was no road to follow, but it was obvious enough which way Adrecht had gone, even without the reports from the scouts Fitz had interrogated. The sandy ground was marked by the passage of hundreds of pairs of boots, and here and there bodies had been left behind by both pursuers and pursued like a trail of bread crumbs. There were no wounded, though, which Marcus found ominous. It meant Desoltai riders had combed the area after boxing Adrecht in, as far back as the site of the initial ambush.

When the rocks came into view, Marcus could see that the story Fitz had heard from the survivors had left out a few details. He’d pictured a single hill of boulders, with the Desoltai crouched in the rolling badlands beyond it. Instead, three high promontories dominated a sprawling field of jagged, broken rock, forbidding in the shadowy half-light and shrouded by gunsmoke. The shots came in ones and twos, not coordinated volleys, and he could hear the distant shouts and screams of hand-to-hand fighting.

Saints and martyrs. Marcus’ heart sank. The rock field was a commander’s nightmare, with vision restricted to a few yards in any direction and no chance of maintaining control over his men. He felt a flare of anger. How the hell did Adrecht let himself get stuck in there?

He turned to Fitz, who waited at his side as always. “Any thoughts?”

“That’s not going to be fun, sir.”

“There’s an understatement.” Marcus looked over his shoulder. He could see the dust cloud raised by the Third, perhaps ten minutes behind him. “Send someone to Mor and have him form up on the edge of this crap to make a rally line. We’re going in. Two-company front, reserve companies just behind the leaders.”

“Yessir!” Fitz saluted and hurried off.

• • •

For once, things went the way the tactics manual said they ought to. It was impossible for Marcus to keep close track of the battle once his men had vanished into the rocks, but he could see the rising smoke and hear the echoing cracks of musketry. One set of flashes marked the progress of the First, while renewed activity from the central hills meant that the Fourth had seen the attackers.

Each pair of companies made a little bit of progress, order dissolving as they closed with the Desoltai among the rocks by a series of rushes. Eventually they would stall as individual soldiers ran out of stamina or courage and sought cover. Then the next pair of companies, still fresh, would rush past them and repeat the process. In the face of determined opposition it was a recipe for a bloodbath on both sides, but judging by the rate of progress, the Desoltai were falling back before the action got too hot.

Mor’s Third Battalion was forming up behind Marcus as he fed the last pair of First Battalion companies into the fray. Mor himself clambered down from his big brown gelding and hurried over, eyes on the fuming mess ahead of them. Here and there muzzle flashes were visible, and soldiers in blue flitted like ghosts between the rocks and the drifting smoke.

“Nearly there,” Mor said, after a moment.

Marcus nodded. “So far, so-”

Shouts from behind him were quickly drowned out by the boom of the battalion drums calling for square. Marcus turned in time to see Desoltai horsemen, not three hundred yards off, riding hard for the rear of the Vordanai formation. Where the hell did they come from?

Surprised or not, Mor’s men gave a good account of themselves. The way they formed square, if not parade-ground smooth, was fast enough to get the walls of bayonets up in plenty of time. The Desoltai saw it and sheared off well before contact, but even so a volley of musketry from the nearer face of the square sent a few of them tumbling. There were fewer of them than Marcus had thought, not more than a couple of hundred.

Something’s wrong. Val had been encircled by a force big enough to keep him pinned down for hours, but Marcus’ men weren’t running into anything like that level of opposition.

Mor, evidently thinking along the same lines, said, “Think they saw us coming and ran for it?”

“Maybe.” Marcus frowned. “Maybe they’re hoping we’ll get strung out on the way back.”

“Hellfire. That’s going to be a long march if they follow us the whole way.”

Marcus nodded. Then, catching sight of a familiar figure approaching the square, he hurried over.

Men of the First and Fourth Battalions were emerging from the rocks in small groups, while their officers began the wearying process of sorting them out. Among the first to arrive was Adrecht, with Fitz in tow. The captain of the Fourth was smiling, his uniform ripped by rocks and blackened with powder grime, one empty sleeve folded up and pinned with a silver hair clip. Marcus didn’t know whether he wanted to embrace the man or slug him. He settled on a nod, as though they were meeting by chance in a café somewhere.

“Well, this has been a hell of a morning,” Adrecht said.

“How many of yours are still with you?”

“All of them, more or less. The bastards were bluffing us. When we went to punch out, they’d thinned the line down to practically nothing.”