Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

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 muffled. When Winter heard a low, agonized groan, she assumed it came from her party, but it was followed by a hiss and a muffled 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 impassive.

“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 attitudes 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.

“Hello?” 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 glass. 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 hell 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 reassuring. 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?”

“Goddamned 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.”