Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

Marcus drove his troops hard, and they made good time, free at last of the cumbersome need to wait for the baggage train. The wagons were strung out on the road behind them, left to straggle in as best they could. Speed, Janus had agreed, was of the essence. By evening the canal was in sight, a winding ribbon of reflected light that looked more like a natural stream than an artificial construct. In spite of protests from the footsore grumblers, Marcus stretched the march until they’d reached the outskirts of the town that was their objective. Then, finally, they were allowed to rest, flopping down wherever they stood without bothering to set a proper camp.

• • •

Even then, there was no rest for some.

Marcus looked over his troops by torchlight. They were all First Battalion men, picked soldiers, those whom Marcus knew he could rely on when things got dangerous. At their head was Senior Sergeant Jeffery Argot, a grizzled hulk of a man who was among the longest-serving Colonials. He’d been commander of the First Company as long as Marcus had been in Khandar. What he lacked in imagination, he made up for in solidity. He was as completely unflappable as any man Marcus had ever met. The fact that he could wring a man’s neck like a chicken’s didn’t hurt, either.

By rights, it should have been Fitz leading the sortie. Not having the lieutenant there felt strange, like losing a limb. Marcus kept being surprised to find the vast, pockmarked face of Sergeant Argot watching him instead of Fitz’s dark, intelligent eyes. But there was no helping it-six companies of the First Battalion, all the recruits, were away with Janus, and Marcus wouldn’t have felt right leaving their command to anyone else.

Val and Mor were there, too, and Give-Em-Hell and the Preacher, leaving Marcus with only Adrecht and a handful of junior officers. It had seemed like a good idea at the time-if Marcus could not be there in person, it was the next best thing-but looking at the silent, brooding town in the flickering darkness he wondered if he should have been quite so quick to send them all away.

Adrecht will do what he needs to do. He had revived considerably since his brush with the colonel’s displeasure, attending regular drills and showing a renewed interest in command of his battalion. They hadn’t spoken much, but the few words they’d exchanged made it clear they didn’t need to, to Marcus’ vast relief.

Still. I would feel better if Fitz were here. He pushed the thought away- too late for that now -and turned to his picked crew. They numbered only two dozen, which he judged enough for the task at hand.

“I make it just past midnight,” he told them. “That means we’ve got three hours or so before first light. You’ve got that long to get into position. So be quick, and remember that if they hear a gunshot the game’s up. Everyone got that?”

They nodded. He watched their faces and was pleased by what he saw. No fear, just a steady determination. Even a bit of relief, he suspected. These were all Old Colonials, after all. In some ways they were as green as the recruits-marching in line of battle with flags flying and drums beating had been a new experience for all of them, Marcus included-but this sort of nighttime creeping was a familiar exercise.

“Right,” Marcus said. “Good luck.”

The sergeant doused the torch, and the little column set out. They left the road almost at once, heading due east to swing wide around the borders of the little town. Then, if all went according to plan, they would turn north and cut back west when they came close to the canal.

Marcus had made sure to take a good survey of the ground while there was still light, since he didn’t much trust his maps. They’d been drawn by Vordanai cartographers, working on secondhand sketches and descriptions, and were often woefully out of date as well. The town they were approaching was so small it hadn’t been granted the honor of a label with a Vordanai name, just a colored dot. From the locals they’d interrogated on the approach, Marcus had gathered its Khandarai name was Weltae-en-Tselika, or “Weltae on the little Tsel.”

Seen from above, it was roughly triangular in shape, with the point to the south and one flat side against the canal to the north. The ground rose slightly away from the canal, with a few rocky hillocks looming out of the sodden fields, and it was on one of these that the people of Weltae had constructed their temple. This heavy stone structure formed the point of the triangle. The road ran beside it, cutting through the center of town. The buildings lining the road were mostly clay and thatch houses, with a few wooden structures.

The town’s most important feature was at the canal. The “little Tsel” was unbridged outside of Ashe-Katarion, and in most places deep enough that a man trying to cross would have to swim the turgid water. Here, though, a dip in the ground caused the water to spread, and it was shallow enough to wade. Over the years, the Khandarai had made the crossing easier by tipping any stones they extracted from their fields into the ford, until it was very nearly a causeway.

For an army moving parallel to the Tsel, it was the only crossing short of making the long detour through the city streets. When General Khtoba moved to unify his divided forces, as he was surely doing even now, the three battalions at Westbridge would have no choice but to come down this road. By that time Marcus intended to be standing squarely in their way.

The locals had volunteered information readily enough-Redemption or no, the Auxiliaries were not popular-and Marcus had learned that there was a small garrison at the ford. It was hard to hide an army, even a small one, on this floodplain as flat as a billiard table, and they no doubt had seen the Colonials approaching. What they didn’t know, and what Khtoba would be eager to learn, was his numbers and intentions.

The southern approach to the village would therefore be watched, even by night. The sergeant’s circuitous route would take him as far north as the canal well to the east of the village, however, and hopefully stand a good chance of getting near the garrison undetected.

Any sign that the little party was in place would be tantamount to failure, but Marcus couldn’t help staring after them, trying to make his eyes resolve shapes in the darkened village by sheer force of will. Eventually he gave it up and started back to rejoin the Old Colonials, who were camped in the muddy fields up the road far enough to be out of sight of the Auxiliary garrison.

Not much to do now but wait.

• • •

Just after first light, with the sun still below the horizon and the sky a deep blue-gray, the Vordanai column began to form up on the outskirts of town. It was an ostentatious display-battalion flags flying, drummers beating for all they were worth, lieutenant and sergeants screaming orders-and by forming in columns of companies the Colonials partially masked the fact that each battalion was only a third the size it was supposed to be. Once these noisy preparations had been completed, the line advanced up the gentle slope toward the point of the triangular town and the stone-built temple that dominated it.

The Auxiliary garrison was not inclined to stay to receive them. They had been deployed to protect the ford against raiding parties, not to try to impede a general Vordanai advance, and clearly here were the “corpses” in considerable force. A few desultory shots rang out from the windows of the temple as the blue line came closer, at far too long a range to find their targets, and then the company of Khandarai retreated in good order through the center of town. Their duty now was to rejoin their main body and report on what they’d seen, and accordingly their lieutenant marched his men hastily up the road and toward the ford.