Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

“Are you all right, Miss Alhundt?”

“He’s really committed now, isn’t he?” she said. “The colonel, I mean.”

“We all are. With the river behind us. .”

She nodded. “You don’t seem worried.”

He almost repeated the line about not being able to comment, but it felt wrong. This wasn’t a Concordat agent fishing for information, just a young woman looking for reassurance. He forced himself to relax a little.

“The colonel has been right so far.”

“He has.” She sighed. “Captain, can you keep a secret?”

“I like to think so.” Then, a little unfairly, “I didn’t think the Ministry was in the business of sharing secrets.”

She nodded, as though the jibe were no more than her due. “Not that sort of secret. This is. . one of mine.”

“Oh.” He shrugged. “Go ahead, then.”

She turned to face him, swinging her legs over the edge of the crate. “It was at the battle on the road. You remember?”

“I’m not likely to forget.”

“I was sitting on my horse, watching the charge come in-it was like watching the sea come in, a wave of screaming faces. And you and your men were out front, such a thin line, and I thought we’d all be pulled under. Just crushed underneath, like a wave lapping over a rock.”

Marcus said nothing. He thought back to the same moment, waiting desperately for the order to fire, this close to yanking Meadow’s head around and applying his spurs.

“I prayed,” she said, in a whisper. “I literally, honestly prayed. I can’t remember the last time I did that. I said, ‘God Almighty, if you get me out of this and take me back to my nice safe desk under the Cobweb, I swear to-to you that I will never leave it again.’”

“I think every man in that line had something similar in mind,” Marcus said. “I know I did.”

She let out a long breath and shook her head. “I asked for this assignment, you know. I was bored. Bored! At my safe little desk in the third sub-basement, where mad priests never came screaming over the ridge to try to roast me alive.” She looked up at him, glasses slightly askew. A strand of mouse brown hair had escaped from her bun and hung over her ear. “Do the Redeemers really eat their prisoners?”

“Only on special occasions,” Marcus said. At the look on her face, he gave a little shrug. “I expect not. They certainly enjoy setting fire to them, but eating them afterward?” He shook his head. “It’s just a rumor. Believe everything you hear in the streets and they’ll have you thinking the Steel Ghost is a wizard who can bend space and time, and that the old priestesses on Monument Hill can speak with the dead.”

She gave a weak chuckle, then lapsed into silence again. The last of the light had faded from the sky, and the barge rowed by torchlight. The constellation of fires on the far bank spread wider as they approached, as though to engulf them. Miss Alhundt’s knee, Marcus noted, had fetched up against his own. He could feel the warmth, even through two layers of fabric, though she didn’t seem to notice.

“I wanted to apologize,” she said.

“For what?”

“For the way I behaved before.” She looked uncomfortable. “I have to write a report-you know that, of course. So when I first met you I thought, ‘Aha, here’s a good source of information.’”

“I gathered that,” he said.

She winced. “Was I that obvious about it?”

“More or less.”

“This really isn’t my job. I read reports other people write, extract the salient points, and write another report. At first I thought this would be just like that, except I’d have to ask questions instead of reading. But. .” She paused. “When I saw the barges crossing, it sort of hit me. If we lose-if the colonel makes a mistake-or. . or anything , we’re all going to die. I’m going to die.” She looked up at Marcus again with a brave smile. “I’m afraid I’ve lost my detachment.”

“We won’t lose.” Marcus wished he felt as confident as he sounded. “The colonel knows what he’s doing.”

“You really admire him, don’t you?”

“Is that going in the report?”

She laughed. “I packed the report away. It doesn’t matter much now, does it? Either he wins, or else I won’t get the chance to send it.”

“Then yes. He’s-you have to talk to him to understand. He’s different . When I was at the War College, I knew plenty of colonels, but no one like Janus.”

“Janus?” She smiled again. “You’re awfully chummy with him.”

Marcus blushed under his beard. “He insists. Usually I can get away with ‘sir,’ though.”

“Better than ‘Count Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich Mieran,’ I suppose.” Her eyes glittered in the torchlight. “Well, if he’s Janus, I should be Jen. Can you manage that, Captain?”

“Only if I can be Marcus. ‘Captain’ sounds strange to me, anyway. Old Colonel Warus always called me Marcus, or just ‘Hey, you!’”

She laughed again, and Marcus laughed with her.

“Miss Alhundt. .”

“Jen,” she admonished.

“Jen.” In the quiet darkness, that felt oddly intimate. “So what are you going to do now?”

“The same thing as everyone else, I suppose. Hope like hell the colonel knows what he’s doing.” She sniffed. “I don’t even know why I’m here, not really. The Cobweb is that kind of place. You hear rumors, but you never know anything.”

“Not so different from the army after all, then.”

“But with us everyone thinks you know. You can see it in the way they look at you.” She glanced up at him again, and he was astonished to see tears in her eyes. “I’m just a clerk, really. It’s my job. I write reports and. . and that’s all. Just a clerk.”

Without really knowing why, Marcus put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her against his side. She gave a little jerk when he touched her, and her skin pebbled into goose bumps, but she raised no objection. After a moment he felt her head on his shoulder.

“I know,” he said. “It’s all right.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“It’s all right.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “It’s not your fault.”

For the rest of the journey, they didn’t speak. Jen soon fell into a doze. For his part, Marcus looked up at the growing ranks of stars and thought about Vordan, and the home that now existed only as a fading memory.

• • •

The drums started at sunup, in spite of the moans of exhausted men. Those who’d come over on the last relay of boats had gotten only half a night’s sleep, but the drummers were relentless, and bit by bit the encampment came alive. Given that he was one of those who’d been deprived, Marcus found himself sympathetic to the groaners.

“I’m still not happy about the split,” Janus said, when they met in the sodden fields outside the little fishing village. “But it’s the best we can do.”

Marcus nodded. He was taking the Old Colonials with him, and Janus the recruits, rather than splitting by battalion. It made more sense, given the nature of their separate tasks, but administratively it was a headache.

“Figure on four days, at the outside,” the colonel went on. “One to locate the enemy, one to destroy him, and two to return. Can you give me that long?”

“I can certainly try, sir.”

“Good.” His smile again, just a flicker, there and gone. “Good luck, Captain.”

Behind the two officers, the First Colonials formed up. The larger column, just over two-thirds of the men, all the cavalry, and half the guns, headed south with Janus toward the upstream ford. The remaining third turned their steps north, toward Ashe-Katarion and the canal that linked the city with the Tsel.