Брайан Макклеллан - Wrath of Empire

He finally reached a long, straight bit of road, only to realize that he’d run out of dragoons to attack. The echoes of carbine blasts were all behind him now, and he searched the forest for the woman with the orange epaulets. There was no sign of her ahead nor evidence that she’d fled into the woods.

He joined the mounted lancers as they caught up with him, finding Jackal bloodied and sagging, the Mad Lancers flag flying from a broken lance in his outstretched hand.

“Wounded?” Styke demanded.

“I’ll be fine.” Jackal’s eyes shone. “We ride through them once more?”

Styke assessed his riders. Less than half remained from the initial charge – more than he’d expected to make it. He flipped his reins and headed back down the road a few hundred feet, surveying the bodies of Dynize dragoons and the riderless horses running scared. He stopped twice to kill horses beyond help, and finished off several wounded dragoons. He found a few spots where hoofprints indicated that dragoons had fled into the forest, but still no sign of the woman with the orange epaulets.

He returned to Jackal. “We took a damned risk on those roads. I saw at least a dozen of us go down with lame horses. We wait here for Ibana and only head back if we hear a signal.”

The signal – a trumpet’s call – never came, and several hours passed while the blast of carbines became less and less frequent. Styke and his riders let their horses rest, tending to their wounds. Jackal had taken a bullet in the thigh. Styke’s face was scratched to pit by branches, and his calf was sliced by a dragoon’s sword. The same sword had cut a nasty groove down Amrec’s flank, so Styke cleaned and stitched the wound. He inspected Amrec’s hooves for cracks and tested his legs to make sure they hadn’t been hurt charging up and down the steep roads.

It was beginning to grow dark in the hollows of the Hock when Ibana – still on foot – limped into sight. She was followed by a long column of dismounted lancers, and they continued on toward camp as Ibana leaned against the moss-covered stump of a fallen tree. She rubbed her leg, grimacing, and looked up when Styke approached.

“You look well rested,” she said.

“I didn’t want to send the horses back along those roads.”

She waved him off. “That was the right call. How did it go?”

“I lost twenty-six riders. I imagine a few just lost their horses.” Styke spotted one of his old guard carrying her saddle, walking with the dismounted soldiers. “How about you?”

“Seven dead.”

Styke raised his eyebrows. “ Seven ?”

“Seven dead, about sixty wounded.” A sly smile spread on Ibana’s face. “We butchered the shit out of those slippery bastards. They didn’t expect a damned thing.”

“Did you make a count?”

“We counted eight hundred and thirty-some dead or wounded dragoons.” She waved back down the road. “Ferlisia and her scouts are gathering all the good horses they can find and bringing them with.”

“Their wounded?” Styke asked.

“Left where they lie,” Ibana said dispassionately. “If their friends come find them, they might live. If not …” She shrugged.

Styke walked Amrec beside Ibana all the way back to the Mad Lancers camp. They’d left behind fifty men to set up tents and act as a guard, and they reported that none of the Dynize had come this direction. Styke found Celine, and the two of them watched while Sunintiel stitched the bullet graze on Ibana’s leg.

“It was a good victory?” Celine asked.

“A very good victory,” Styke answered. He felt strangely melancholic. As Ibana said, they’d absolutely slaughtered the poor bastards. Less than half of the enemy force remained – and if they wanted to press the issue, they’d have to fight one-to-one with the Mad Lancers now. That should have sent his spirits soaring, but something felt … off.

Perhaps it was the ambush. Anyone could have been caught with their pants down in the Hock. Styke liked a good ambush as well as anyone, but a straight fight always felt better to him. The enemy commander’s greed had gotten the better of her.

He did the rounds, Celine by his side, checking in with the sentries and scouts and doubling their nighttime guard against an unlikely enemy regrouping before he headed to his tent. He lay back, using Amrec’s saddle for a pillow, and was preparing to drift off when he realized what was wrong.

He didn’t smell blood.

He found Ibana still doing her own rounds, startling her as he came out of the darkness. “Why aren’t you wearing pants?” she asked.

“I was in my tent,” Styke answered. “Have you seen Ka-poel anywhere?”

“Come to think of it, no. Not since before the ambush.”

Styke flared his nostrils, breathing in deeply. The scent of her sorcery – which had become so ubiquitous over the last few weeks – was nowhere on the wind.

“You sent her back here, didn’t you?” Ibana asked.

Styke recounted his footsteps. They’d been watching the Dynize scouts, and then he’d dismissed Ka-poel to return to the camp before the fighting started. There was no way she had gotten lost.

“Ben?” a voice asked.

Styke turned to find Celine rubbing her eyes.

“Go back to bed,” he said gently. “Wait … did Ka-poel return to camp earlier?”

“Yeah, she got here just a few minutes after the shooting began.”

Styke sniffed again. Still nothing. “Are you sure?”

Celine seemed to wake up fully, her expression growing startled. “Oh no.”

“What?”

“I was supposed to tell you something when you got back. Ka-poel said she was going to find the Dynize camp.”

“She what ?” Styke and Ibana both asked at the same time. Styke ran to Celine’s side, kneeling down beside her so their faces were inches apart. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

“Nothing happened. She just told me to tell you she had gone to find the enemy camp. She needed information.”

“How is she supposed to find the enemy camp if we haven’t been able to for …” Styke trailed off. Pit. She must have picked up some bit of detritus that allowed her to track them. “What the pit are we supposed to do?”

“She said to come get her in the morning,” Celine said.

Styke exchanged a look with Ibana. For a week they hadn’t had any luck finding the Dynize dragoons, and the bastards had shadowed them for far longer than that. Finding their camp now, without Ka-poel’s sorcery, might be next to impossible. He felt sick to his stomach at the idea of having ridden clear across Fatrasta only to lose the ward they were supposed to be protecting.

And he was mad as shit that she had just gone off without saying a word to anyone except a little girl. “We leave her,” he spat.

Ibana seemed startled by the suggestion. “She’s the whole reason we’re here.”

“And she damn well abandoned us. We’re her bodyguard, not her valet service. We’re not going to just come by and pick her up. These dragoons have caused us more grief than any cavalry I can remember and I’m not going to go looking for them.” Styke was furious. He knew he wasn’t thinking clearly, but he didn’t care.

“Major Gustar will be spitting mad,” Ibana cautioned. “He’s here to find the godstone on orders of Lady Flint. If we abandon that mission, he’ll take his Riflejacks and go.”

“Let him.” Styke squeezed his hands into fists, wishing he had someone to strangle.

Ibana remained silent. Her usual sour expression had been replaced by somber acceptance. “What will we do?” she asked quietly.

“Join the war. Head back and find something to fight. There’s no need lacking for good cavalry.”

“Ben,” Celine said.