Брайан Макклеллан - Wrath of Empire

“Very good,” Flint said absently.

He left her to brood and returned to Ibana, who looked none too pleased herself. “We have to talk,” Ibana said.

Styke lifted the body of the enemy general onto his shoulder and began to walk. “I have to get my horse.”

Ibana rode along beside him until they were well out of earshot of Flint, then said, “We should get out while we still can.”

“I think we’re past that point already.”

“We’re not Riflejacks. We’re not Adrans. We can slip away tonight and no one left alive by the end of the week will even remember.”

The thought was both repellent and attractive to Styke. Ibana was right that they weren’t precisely Riflejacks. The Mad Lancers had ties to Fatrasta, even after all Fidelis Jes had done to destroy them, and if the Riflejacks managed to slip away and head back to the Nine, the Mad Lancers would likely remain here.

“We’ve fought beside them for three weeks. We’ve taken Flint’s money. That’s enough for us to see this through.”

“And see us all dead,” Ibana retorted.

Styke stopped, looking up the river, then back down it. He kicked at the muddy, bloody ground with one toe and decided he was close enough to the highway. “Give me your spare lance.”

“Excuse me?”

Styke reached up to her saddle and took it. He placed it handle-first against the ground and pushed, leaning on it until it was buried almost two feet into the soft mud. Once it was in place, he lifted the corpse of the Dynize general under the armpits, like lifting a child onto horseback, and then dropped it. The tip of the lance entered the small of his back and easily slid up the neck and out the top of his head, leaving the body with arms slumped like a scarecrow over a bloody field.

“Macabre,” Ibana noted.

“Give the soldiers of that new army something to think about.”

“You’re really going to stick around for Flint, are you?”

Styke admired his handiwork, wiping his hands off on his pants. “Where is Celine?” he asked.

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“And I want to know where Celine is.”

“She’s with Sunin. I saw the two of them up on the ridge half an hour ago. Now answer my question.”

Styke searched the ridgeline. “I need to find a horse for Celine,” he mused. “She’s plenty old enough.”

“Ben …”

He waved her off. “I’ll think about it. We’re sticking around for now. Attend to our wounded, and keep everyone on their toes in case I change my mind.”

Ibana finally nodded, seemingly content with the idea of a contingency plan. “We lost twenty or so of old bodies and maybe sixty of the new ones. More are wounded. You want me to try to fill our numbers from the refugees?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, I’ll …” Ibana trailed off. “Who is that?”

Styke turned to follow her gaze, and was surprised to see a dozen horses swimming across the current of the Hadshaw River. It was almost dark, and it was difficult to see their riders clearly until they reached the close bank of the river. The riders wore sunflower-yellow cavalry jackets just like Ibana and Styke, but Styke had never seen these men before. He was suddenly apprehensive, resting his hand on the hilt of his boz knife as they made their way toward Styke, coming to a stop with horses dripping.

The man at their front wore a colonel’s stars at his lapel. He was young and fresh-faced, no more than twenty-five, and he examined Styke’s old cavalry jacket with a troubled expression. After a few moments of silence, he finally cleared his throat. “I’m looking for General Vlora Flint.”

“Who are you?”

“Colonel Willis of the Eighteenth Brigade.”

Styke shared a long look with Ibana. “Did Lindet finally send some soldiers to help us fight this thing?”

“She did,” Colonel Willis said, stiffening.

“I hope it’s more than a brigade,” Ibana said.

Willis scoffed. “A brigade? The Second Field Army of Fatrasta is camped about ten miles from here.”

Styke felt a laugh bubble up from his stomach and escape his lips. He bent over, slapping his knee.

“I’m not sure what’s so funny,” Willis said.

“What’s funny,” Styke said, wiping his face, “is that we could have used you twenty-four hours ago.” He couldn’t help but wonder if this field army had planned on being late, hoping the Dynize would wipe out the Riflejacks. It was something Lindet would do.

“I can see that,” Willis said, sparing a decidedly haughty glance for the battlefield.

“Did you know there’s another thirty thousand Dynize camped just south of here?”

Willis pursed his lips. “We’ve been informed, yes. But that’s not my concern.”

“Then what is?”

“I’m here to arrest General Flint.”

Michel Bravis crouched in the doorway of a boarded-up shop in the northern suburbs of the city of Landfall. His eyes were blurry from lack of sleep and more than a few too many swigs from the flask in his jacket pocket. The air reeked of the dead morass of the nearby fens, and somewhere in the distance a pack of dogs began to bay and yip. A single pistol shot rang out, and they were silenced.

The city was eerily quiet, and he wondered just how many of the residents had managed to flee before the Dynize Army occupation. It seemed as though half the homes and businesses on any given street were abandoned. It was too quiet, even for this late hour of the night, and Michel had a constant, twisting pain in the pit of his stomach from the realization that this was no longer the city he had grown up in – the city he had sworn to two different masters that he would protect.

He tried to tell himself that Fatrasta had recovered from their war for independence from the Kez. They’d lost Landfall before, and regained it. But a voice in the back of his head told him that this was different – that everything had changed – and he had to constantly fight a rising terror.

Michel took a swig from his flask, grimacing at the bitter taste of the whiskey, and gave it a shake. Just a few more swallows, and he’d be out of liquid courage for the night.

“You don’t have time to be a coward, Michel,” he told himself.

“Easy for you to say,” he whispered back. “You’re getting drunk.”

“No, I am perfectly sober.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “No one should have to be perfectly sober in a city occupied by an enemy force.” He opened one eye hesitantly, squinting into the street, where the only light came from a single gas lantern fifty yards down the cobbles. His ears picked up a sound and he tilted his head toward the street, trying to make it out.

He was soon able to recognize the tramp of boots, and he willed himself farther into the darkness of the doorway of the boarded-up store. He heard an authoritative shout in a foreign language, and a few moments later a platoon of Dynize soldiers marched into view, bathed in the light of that single lantern.

It was a strange procession: men and women with fire-red hair, pale skin, and ashen freckles, armed with outdated muskets and curved breastplates, wearing old-fashioned morion helms with their finned, kettle-hat shape. Their uniforms were turquoise, decorated with colorful feathers and bleached-white human and animal bones. The word “exotic” came to mind, but it was a word often associated with “quaint,” and the army that had occupied Landfall was anything but that.

A soldier at the front, his breastplate decorated with a lacquered crimson stripe, called out an order and the platoon turned left at the lantern, heading down the street toward Michel. He inhaled sharply, fighting the urge to reach for his flask, knowing that any movement might attract the eye of a passing soldier.