Брайан Макклеллан - The Mad Lancers

Blye puffed on his pipe, blowing a ring of strong-smelling smoke. He exchanged a look with Styke. “You came to kill the governor.”

“So?”

“So I know you’re bloody Ben Styke, but a governor’s bodyguard is too much even for you. You need help, and we want to give it.”

Styke wondered whether they’d been turned and were here to lull him into a false sense of security and then kill him. He wasn’t normally paranoid, but the fever clawing at his mind was allowing in things that he might have otherwise disregarded. “Why?” he asked again.

“They killed Cherry,” Blye said flatly.

It took Styke a moment to catch up. Cherry was – or had been – Blye’s niece. A fourteen-year-old girl with a head for numbers. Blye’s brother had been saving up to send her to university.

“One of them murdered my mate Semm,” someone spoke up.

“Burnt down my farm.”

Another voice called from the back of the group, “Tommy’s never going to walk again.”

Names were spoken, misdeeds recalled until the faces surrounding Styke turned from curiously concerned to outright angry. He forced himself to hold his tongue while he considered this, letting his slowed thoughts work through it naturally. These people were angry. They were soldiers who’d lost friends, property, family, and lovers to a vengeful prick of a governor who couldn’t handle the idea of being chased out of a sleepy little town.

“You’re all decided about this?” Styke asked.

“We are.”

Styke thought about the resources that the governor had at hand – the thousands of troops he could summon from Landfall in addition to his personal bodyguard. He thought about the Privileged sorcerer that the governor had with him, then considered his own plan of action and decided that maybe he didn’t have as much of a shot at succeeding as he’d thought.

“Find somebody to stitch up my forehead,” Styke grumbled. “It’s a fight then, I suppose. We’re probably all going to die.” He laughed darkly to himself.

“What’s so funny?” Blye asked.

“We’ll need a name. One we can yell it when they torture those of us they haven’t killed.”

“Sirod has a Privileged,” Blye told Styke in the morning.

A night’s sleep had done Styke wonders. The fever was almost completely gone, and the pain in his muscles had subsided to the kind of weakness one might feel from a common cold. The men broke camp, grumbling about the dew and the heat and the lack of meat and a cooking fire. He was amazed they hadn’t been found yet.

Jackal lurked nearby, watching Styke. Styke could remember waking at several points in the night to find Jackal crouched in the darkness, eyes open.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” he answered Blye. “I’m trying to figure out how to deal with it.” Looking at Jackal, he said, “Do you sleep?”

“On my feet,” the Palo responded.

“That’s handy.”

“Picked it up in the cotton fields. Eighteen hours of labor in the summers. Needed to get the sleep somewhere.”

“Shitty way to pick up a good habit,” Blye commented. He eyed Jackal. “Why does he have a horse and doesn’t ride it?”

“Ask him.”

“Why do you have a horse and don’t ride it?”

Jackal flinched away from the question, looking like he’d been struck. Styke recognized that sour, angry look sliding back onto the boy’s face and saw Jackal’s fist tighten. It was, apparently, a more sensitive topic than Styke had realized.

“No one taught him to ride,” Styke interjected. “He saved my life, so I told him I’d teach him when we get out of this.” Jackal might be a scrappy youth, but he’d have a bad day if he took a swing at Blye.

“I don’t want to learn,” Jackal said.

“Too goddamn bad. You want to follow me around, you have to learn to ride.” Styke turned to Blye. “What do you know about Sirod’s Privileged?”

Blye sucked on his pipe thoughtfully, smoke curling out of his nostrils. “His name is Bierutka. Not very powerful as far as Privileged go – he has some strength in healing, but not a lot else. He pissed off the king and wound up here in exile.” Blye tapped the side of his head. “I’ve heard he’s a bit thick, but… don’t underestimate a Privileged. It’s not a good idea.”

A low call went across the small camp, and Styke got to his feet, instinctively heading towards Deshnar. A young man named Gredain, not much older than Jackal and fairly new to the company, sprinted down from the lip of the hollow, out of breath. “Two hundred Kez cuirassiers sweeping across the fields,” he reported.

Styke began saddling Deshnar, working quickly while Blye tapped out his pipe. Styke asked, “Did they see us?”

“I don’t think they know we’re here. They’ve got the governor’s feather, and they’re taking it nice and slow.”

Styke locked eyes with Blye. “They’re still looking for one man. Assholes think I’m just going to sit in a cotton field and wait for them? Get everyone ready.” He finished saddling Deshnar and rode up to the lip of the glen, where he could see a company of cuirassiers spread out across an entire field, their horses walking between the rows of cotton as the riders occasionally swung at the plants with their riding crops. Even at a distance, the company looked bored.

Their path would take them past the hollow within minutes, at which point they could either turn down a narrow dirt path and head down into the hollow – which seemed likely if they were serious about their search – or they could continue through the field.

He didn’t want to give them the chance to make that turn.

Styke took a few deep breaths, gathering his strength. He was still weak from the fever and several wounds. But he had help now, and he needed to take advantage of his lancers and finish this soon. He raised his hand. “Keep ’em quiet, and follow me.”

The company pulled out of the hollow in the opposite direction and looped around, using the willows as a thick screen, until they were well behind the line of enemy searchers. Styke led them back across the stream that fed the hollow and to the edge of the willows.

He caught sight of Jackal, hanging at the back of the group, still walking with the reins of his captured horse dutifully in hand. Styke rode to him quickly. “Stay here,” he instructed. “If any of them flee this way, smack them in the face with a tree branch.” He returned to the edge of the wood, where he was joined by Blye and Cardon.

“I gave you an out,” Styke told Cardin.

Cardin was ashen-faced. “Prost was an evil man. Sirod is no better. When I joined the army, I thought it was to fight against such people – not for them. I intend to change that from this day forward.”

Styke let the words hang in the air, then turned to Blye. “You’re sure you want to be involved?”

“We’ve already committed treason by killing the king’s soldiers,” Blye said. “Might as well kill a king’s governor.”

“Good enough for me. Loosen your lances, boys,” he called over his shoulder. The sound of creaking leather followed, and Styke urged Deshnar out into the field of cotton.

It was about a hundred yards from the edge of the willows to the backs of the Kez cuirassiers. Styke quickly urged Deshnar into a gallop, feeling the joy in the powerful beast, and listened to the pound of hooves as his lancers fell in behind him.

Normally, he would wait to lower a lance until the last minute, first unloading a carbine barrage into the enemy to soften them before the clash. He had no interest, however, in attracting nearby soldiers with the sound of gunfire.

Their gallop was noticed at seventy yards. A general, panicked shout erupted from among the cuirassiers, and they attempted to wheel around. At twenty yards, the cuirassiers had mostly turned to face the charge, some of them drawing their swords. A single carbine shot rang out before the lancers slammed into the loose line of confused cavalry with the sound of steel lance tips striking cuirasses, quickly followed by the screams of men and horses.