Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

“Lieutenant Ihernglass will get us out.”

“He came with more troops. Got to be.”

“The lieutenant always figures something out. .”

Whatever reassurance her presence brought the men seemed to drain confidence from Winter in equal measure. She could feel the weight of their hope, their faith, stacking higher and higher on her shoulders until she wanted to collapse under the burden and simply die. She wondered briefly if this was how Captain d’Ivoire and Colonel Vhalnich felt every day. Is there some magic formula they teach you at the War College to deal with it? Or do you just go numb eventually? This was just a single company. She could hardly imagine what it would be like to have the entire regiment leaning on you for support.

Damn it. Focus! Her head felt like it was filled with cotton. There’s got to be something. From where she was standing, she could see the doorway, just fifty or sixty feet away. As close as that, and as distant as the moon.

If we can get there, we’re safe. The passage was only wide enough for three or four men at a time. The Seventh Company could defend that against these creatures for hours. The problem was that sixty feet. If we break the square, they’ll pull us down. But they’re not quick. She had outrun them easily in the tunnel. We just need a few seconds, really. Enough time to get past them.

And what have we got to work with? There wasn’t much. Sixty-odd soldiers and no supplies. The shots in their cartridge pouches, the coats on their backs, the boots on their feet. Plus three corporals and a Khandarai naathem half a step away from tears. And me.

Her eye lit on something just inside the edge of the square. It was a metal-framed lantern, scavenged from one of the wrecked carts. They must have carried it in with them. Now that she was looking, she could see several more, scattered where the men had dropped them. So add a half dozen lanterns to that tally. Does that help?

A few seconds. .

• • •

The hardest part was doing it all without weakening the square so much that the walking corpses would surge through. Orders had to be passed from man to man, since she didn’t dare distract them all by shouting. Plus, who knows how much those things understand? It was like a giant game of pass-the-story, each man telling his neighbor, with Winter following along behind to straighten out the inevitable misunderstandings.

Eventually, they had a pile of uniform jackets in the center of the square. Winter kept her own, since she was sweating enough that she didn’t trust her undershirt to conceal her properly, but everyone else was in shirtsleeves. Beside that they had a smaller pile of cartridge pouches, each a loose leather sack containing the twenty rounds of ammunition that the rankers kept on them. Bobby and Folsom were hard at work on those, while Graff helped her with the lanterns.

It seemed like hours before they were finished. Winter expected a charge the entire time, waiting for the green-eyed corpses to lose patience and simply surge into and over the bayonets to finish what they’d started. But they remained at bay, confident or just uncaring.

Finally, when everything was ready, she stood beside Folsom, facing the doorway. Graff hurried over, carrying an improvised torch in each hand, and Winter lit both with the last of her matches. He touched his torches to Bobby’s, and then to one more, which he handed to Winter.

“Okay.” Winter blew out a long breath and looked up at Folsom. “If this gets us all killed, let me just say in advance that I’m sorry.”

The big corporal grunted and hefted the cartridge pouch he held. A twist of cloth dipped in lamp oil served as a makeshift fuse. Winter gingerly touched her torch to the very end and sent up a silent prayer of thanks when the whole affair didn’t go off there and then. Once it was alight, Folsom didn’t wait. He gave the thing a heave, and it disappeared over the heads of the men in the square to fall in among the monsters.

They got two more lit and thrown. Then there was a single agonizing second of waiting, in which Winter pictured the pouches bursting when they hit the ground, or the tapers being snuffed out by the wind of their passage-

The sound of the first one going off was disappointing, more of a muffled thud than the massive boom of a cannon. It was accompanied by the merry zip and zing of lead balls ricocheting off the stone floor. After tearing open enough cartridges to mostly fill the little sack with powder, she’d stuffed musket balls in until it was nearly bursting. The idea was that it would be something like a load of canister, spraying balls in all directions. Without a musket’s barrel to channel the blast, the balls wouldn’t go far or hit hard, but she hoped it would still be enough to damage something.

Two more blasts, almost simultaneous, announced the explosion of the other two bags. The wall of green eyes in front of her thinned out as the corpses turned to see what was happening or were knocked down by the blasts. She heard someone cry out, struck by a stray ball. She’d been afraid of that, but it was too late to worry about it now. A few seconds.

“First rank, hold !” she screamed, tearing her throat raw. “Second rank, past me, charge !”

The men had been instructed by the same chain-of-whispers method, and she was frankly surprised when they did what she wanted them to. One face of the square, the one closest to the doorway, erupted with cheers and shouts as men surged forward, leading with their bayonets. Behind them, the second rank of each of the other faces-the innermost line of the square-dropped their weapons, rushed to the center pile, and picked up a uniform jacket in each hand. They rushed past her in a body, into the gap behind the advancing men, where the creatures were just starting to turn back to face their escaping prey.

Just beside her, a ranker tossed one of his jackets. It was a good throw, landing squarely across the face of one of the monsters. The thing plucked at the coat with both hands, but before it could tear the fabric away Winter reached out and touched her torch to the uniform’s sleeve. The lamp oil spattered across it caught instantly, and soon the entire jacket was a mass of flames. The sizzle of burning flesh mixed with the ever-present hiss, and black smoke gouted upward to discolor the white.

Bobby, Folsom, and Graff were all wielding torches, touching off the coats the rankers flung whenever they found a target. Those creatures they set aflame staggered away, or were pushed or kicked aside. Once he’d disposed of his burden, each ranker ran for it, sprinting for the doorway behind the vanguard of men still carrying bayonets.

“First rank, run !” Winter shouted.

The last of the square backed away a few steps and ran, holding on to their muskets. The monsters following hard on their heels were met by more flung coats, and once afire they blocked the path of their fellows. Winter saw a couple of men go down, tripped or grabbed from behind, but the rest made it past her. She started to backpedal as the wall of corpses approached, then turned to run.

Feor had gone ahead with the first wave, but she’d stopped by the doorway, while the rankers had sprinted out into the passage to press back any of the creatures that were still waiting there. Winter skidded to a halt beside her as the men of her company surged past, a river of tattered blue and white undershirts, carrying muskets or coats or no weapons at all.

“Go!” Winter waved them onward. Folsom had gone with the vanguard. Winter caught sight of Bobby trying to push backward against the tide of rankers, and she waved the corporal onward. Finally, the last few men hurried past, with Graff bringing up the rear.