Брайан Макклеллан - The Mad Lancers

A proper lancer charge was a devastating thing. The cuirassiers, regardless of their armor, fell like wheat before the scythe. Styke killed three with his lance and another with his sword before he was on the other side of them and turning Deshnar in a lazy loop for another charge.

The second charge reduced the cuirassiers to a confused mess, most of them fleeing across the field. A handful remained, circling closely, making a brave stand around the body of their commanding officer. They fell to the third charge.

It was not difficult for the lancers – most of them with faster horses not weighed down with armor – to chase down the fleeing cuirassiers. It was a pitiful sight, but necessary, and Styke waited by the body of the commanding officer while they cleaned up those final enemies.

“Three of ours dead,” Blye soon reported, joining Styke in the middle of the field. “Eighteen wounded, none of them badly.”

Styke glanced around at the dead and dying cuirassiers, many of them begging for help or to be put out of their misery. A few of his lancers wandered among them; some offering solace, some mocking. A few just staring while wounded men wept. “That went well,” he said. “Not for them, of course.” He lifted his head, working the last of the kinks out of his neck, still thinking about yesterday’s fever. He could feel it deep in his bones. Another melee would exhaust him. He lifted his nose to the air, breathing in deep, imagining that he could pick up the scent of brimstone. “How far are we from the governor’s mansion?” he asked.

“Four miles, give or take,” Blye responded.

“And how many are in his personal guard?”

“Five hundred, I think. He can double it with a request from the Landfall garrison, or just summon the whole damn army. With this group gone, he’ll only have around three hundred left – and they’ll be looking for you in smaller groups.”

Styke considered their options. Most of the guard would be out like these poor bastards, beating the fields while they looked for Styke. Sirod would have kept fifty or sixty men nearby in case Styke attempted something stupid, and then . . . he quashed that thought. No, he wouldn’t have kept much of anyone nearby. He didn’t need to.

“Do you want to go hunting?” he asked Blye.

“More than anything.”

“Good. Take the boys in an arc around the mansion. Kill anyone wearing a Kez uniform. If they outnumber you, lead them on a merry chase.”

Blye’s brow furrowed. “What are you going to do?”

Styke thought of what Blye had told him of Sirod’s personal sorcerer. For most men, the strength of a Privileged didn’t matter – their reputation alone was enough to give them a wide berth. Styke was not most men. All he needed was will and a good knife. He had both.

“You’re going to bait the guard. I’m going to go kill a Privileged.”

Styke ignored Blye’s objections and took Deshnar, heading directly toward the governor’s mansion. He was a few hundred yards from their small field of battle when he remembered Jackal and turned around to find the Palo boy following at a distance with the horse he could not ride.

Styke rode back to him. “You should go. No room for someone on foot today.”

“You swore to teach me to ride,” Jackal said, expressionless.

Styke felt the corner of his mouth twitch. “You said you didn’t want to.”

“I want,” Jackal responded in slow, deliberate words, “to watch you kill a Privileged. I will suffer learning to ride if I get to see that.”

Styke considered this. “That sounds fair.”

They proceeded slowly, cutting across fields, following the small, wooded streams that divided plantations, and using ridgelines to their advantage. It took them most of the rest of the day to reach the outskirts of the governor’s mansion grounds, where they circled and approached from the deep, old forest that served as the governor’s private hunting ground.

The occasional baying of hounds reached them through the woods, but it always seemed to be heading in the opposite direction.

As the sun began to set, Styke left Deshnar tied to a tree beside Jackal’s nameless horse and crept to the edge of the wood, where he watched the distant manor. The sun was behind him, and he felt confident that no one would spot their spying.

They lay in last fall’s leaves, occasionally swatting at the flies as the shadows slowly grew longer and longer until the shade of the forest itself touched the distant manor.

“What are we watching for?” Jackal finally asked.

Styke tapped a finger against his nose. “Not watching. Smelling.”

Jackal responded with a look of bafflement.

“I have a Knack,” Styke explained. “A minor sorcery. It allows me to smell sorcery. Not terribly useful, all things considered, but it comes in handy on occasion.” He lifted his nose to the wind and breathed in deeply. The smell of brimstone he had imagined hours before was now real, and he tested it several times. “There’s a Privileged in there,” he told Jackal.

“If you’re a Knacked, can’t you just see Privileged?”

“Never practiced the skill required,” Styke responded. “Never needed it. Come on.”

The sun had finally gone across the horizon when Styke and Jackal, leading their horses and keeping a small hill between them and the mansion, crept close to the house and tied their horses in a small grove just a few hundred yards from the east wing. They moved from there toward the stables, which they found empty but for a handful of racing stallions.

“Let them out,” Styke instructed, “and make sure they get far away.” Once Jackal rushed to do his bidding, Styke crouched in the hay and waited. The brief rest was welcome, and he breathed deeply, steadying himself against whatever violence was to follow, hoping that his strength wouldn’t fail him. He would need it all – and more than a little luck as well – against a Privileged sorcerer.

Once he felt he’d waited long enough, he produced a match and set it to the dry straw.

It was ablaze within moments. He ran from the stables, catching Jackal by the arm and giving the last of the horses a good swat to send it running. They heard the yells from the mansion almost immediately, and they cut across the darkening yard to the very end of the east wing, where they waited another two minutes to let the blaze completely engulf the farm – and attract the attention of the entire staff – before slipping in through a garden door.

Styke paused for a moment just inside, before stopping Jackal with a hand on his chest. “Keep an eye out. You should be able to see the front drive from that room there. Watch for Sirod leaving, or his bodyguard returning.” He handed Jackal his carbine. “Fire off a shot if you see them.” With that, he set off on his own.

The house was enormous, and this servant’s corridor along the east wing stretched nearly as long as a drill field. It was dark but for a few gas lamps and the dancing of the flames from the stables through the occasional high window. Styke paused beside each of those long enough to look for any familiar figures out in the yard. He could see the rush of servants trying to put out the fires, reminding him of the people of Fernhollow attempting to do the same – only to be cut down.

Styke had no quarrel with the servants. Just with one man and his Privileged bodyguard.

He finally reached the end of the corridor, pausing to listen to shouts coming from what he guessed were the kitchens. He tried to orient himself, getting an idea of the layout of the house. He could smell that brimstone stronger here. The Privileged was close.

Styke slipped from doorway to doorway, soon catching sight of the servants as people rushed into the kitchens, the head maid shouting for buckets and bowls, and sending all the young men out to the garden pumps. A few of the maids crouched by a window, watching the whole event, whispering to each other.