Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

“Jim was worried about you,” Graff explained. “He sees more than he lets on most of the time. There were three of them and just you, and we thought, well, that’s hardly fair. So I ran over and rounded up a few of the lads who looked like they’d been in a fight or two.”

“Thank you,” Winter managed.

Graff relaxed. “Thing is,” he said, “I’ve seen the type before. These backwoods sergeants are the worst-present company excluded, of course. They get a tiny bit of authority and they turn into little tin gods. Even worse when they’re big bastards like this Davis.” He shrugged. “Well, you don’t have to worry about him. That lot are all cowards at heart. Show them a strong front, and they’ll just scurry along.”

Winter shook her head. She knew Davis. He was a brute and a bully, and quite possibly he was a coward, but he also had overweening pride and a vicious cunning. Show him a strong front, and he’d find some way around it, some way to strike when you weren’t watching.

“I can’t do this,” Winter said quietly.

“Do what?”

“Any of this.” She waved a hand. “How am I supposed to be a sergeant? I don’t have the first idea what I’m doing, and now Davis. .” She shook her head, her throat thick. “I can’t do it.”

“You’re doing a first-rate job so far,” Graff said. “I’ve served under much worse, let me tell you.”

“But what am I supposed to do now?”

“Come back out and have dinner, for starters. You’ll feel better for a hot meal.”

Winter nodded slowly. Before she could rise, there was another rap at the tent pole, rapid and frantic.

“What?” Graff barked.

“It’s Bobby,” came the reply. “You’ve got to come out and see this!”

• • •

A squadron of cavalry had returned, walking down the aisle that separated the Seventh Company’s tents from those of the neighboring units. Winter recognized Give-Em-Hell at their head, looking as puffed up and proud as a rooster. A dozen of his men followed behind him in a loose square. In the center were four men on foot, and it was these that were the center of attention.

Most of the recruits had probably never seen a Khandarai, unless one had rowed the boat by which they’d come ashore. The natives were shorter than Vordanai, with dark hair and gray-brown skin. This last varied; they were called “grayskins,” and Winter had arrived expecting everyone to be the color of gunmetal, but in Ashe-Katarion she’d seen everything from the pale ash coloring of the nobility to the brown-black faces of the Desoltai, burned crisp by the desert sun.

These particular Khandarai were about average in that respect. They looked skinny and poorly fed, and they were dressed in fraying, baggy white cloth, painted all over with V shapes in red and yellow.

“Who are they?” Bobby asked, standing beside her.

“Not farmers, that’s for certain,” Graff said. “Look, they’ve got ammunition pouches.”

“Redeemers,” Winter said. She remembered that sigil all too clearly. “The triangles are supposed to look like flames.”

“What are they doing out here?” Bobby said. “I thought all the Redeemers were at the city.”

“Scouts,” Graff said grimly. Winter nodded.

Bobby looked from one to the other, confused. “What’s that mean?”

“It means that out there somewhere”-Graff pointed east-“there’s an army.”

“It means we’re going to have a fight before long,” Winter said. Staring at the sullen fanatics, she could almost forget about Davis after all.

JAFFA

“So, General,” said Yatchik-dan-Rahksa. “We see the true shape of your courage at last.”

Khtoba’s frozen face cooled another few degrees. “Courage?” He looked as though he wanted to spit. “Arrogant pup. Fight a few battles yourself before you speak to me of courage.”

“And how am I to do that, if I heed your counsel?” the priest replied. “You would have us cower here, praying the hammer does not fall on our heads!”

“ You may pray as you like,” the general said. “If you had studied the art of war as you’ve studied the teachings of the Divine Hand, you would know there is such a thing as strategy . We are strongly placed here, and there is nothing between Ashe-Katarion and the Vordanai but flyspeck villages and miles of worthless desert. Let them make the march. At the end of it, we’ll be that much stronger, and they that much weaker.”

“Are you so certain of that?” Yatchik said. “Already the people mutter that we fear to face the foreigners. Wait another few weeks and even the devoted may lose heart. Action is what is required.” He sniffed. “Besides, what need do we have of strategy? We have the blessing of Heaven. And we have the numbers.”

“Numbers,” Khtoba said, “aren’t everything.”

Jaffa sat, watching them go after each other like a couple of angry cats. They had been at it for some hours, circling around to side topics before returning again and again to the main issue. The Vordanai army had left its tumbledown fortress at Sarhatep and was advancing up the coast road. The Steel Ghost had told them as much, and Khtoba’s scouts had belatedly confirmed it. Yatchik was all for a general advance to meet and crush the foreigners where they stood, but the general was more cautious.

The real issue went unspoken. The authority of the Divine Hand rested on the violent sanction of the Swords of Heaven, the Redeemer host now nearly twenty-five thousand strong, gathered in the plain around the city. But that host could not sustain itself indefinitely, not without starving the people it was intended to protect. At some point the Hand would need to make the transition from revolutionary to ruler, to disband the army and restore a semblance of normal life to the city, but he didn’t dare to do so with the Vordanai still in the field.

Khtoba, on the other hand, had everything to gain by waiting. The Auxiliaries, smaller and better disciplined than the peasant horde, drew their supplies from well-stocked and — guarded depots. They were also the only claim to power Khtoba had, and he was loath to risk them. A defeat, or even a costly victory, might leave his ranks so depleted that one of his rivals would gobble him up.

And the Steel Ghost? Jaffa glanced at the silent figure in black, and wondered. He hadn’t said more than a few words during the whole affair. Jaffa had delivered Mother’s message to him, but he’d given no sign of his answer.

At this rate, nothing would be accomplished. Jaffa thought on his instructions from Mother and decided it was time to break the deadlock.

“My friends,” he said, interrupting their sniping, “might I make a humble suggestion?”

All eyes turned on him, Yatchik’s large and liquid, Khtoba’s piggy and red. The Ghost’s, of course, were unreadable behind his mask.

“The foreigners are a threat to the Redemption,” Jaffa said. “Perhaps even the greatest threat. But they are not the only threat. There are still followers of the prince hiding in the city, or gone to ground in the outskirts. Bandits and raiders multiply like locusts.”

Khtoba shot a glance at the Ghost. The Desoltai had always been the most feared, and certainly the most effective, of the “bandits and raiders.” For all that they were now allies of the Redemption, there was no love lost between the Auxiliaries and the nomads.

“So,” the general said, “you agree, then, that we must remain here.”

“Some of us must,” Jaffa replied, before Yatchik could object. “But we must also consider what the enemy may do. Suppose they decide to wait where they are indefinitely.”