Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

Then he caught it. The distant but unmistakable report of cannon fire.

Gustar thrust the looking glass at Styke. “To the east of Landfall,” he said.

Styke let his eye focus, holding his hands steady to find the ships out beyond the harbor. Gray plumes of smoke rose above their gunports. He lowered the looking glass, wiped the eyepiece on his sleeve, then raised it again. The Dynize were definitely shelling the city. He’d expected to return with a thousand cavalry as part of a show of force. Not to defend Landfall. “We’re under attack,” he reported.

“That’s insane,” Ibana said. “They’re supposed to have a diplomatic meeting today.”

“It must have gone wrong,” Gustar observed.

“Really damned bloody wrong,” Styke said. He swept the horizon with the looking glass, taking in the full size of the fleet and the hundreds of longboats in the water between the ships and the shore. “Fort Nied is returning fire, and the Dynize are landing troops. Tell everyone we’re in for a hard ride.”

He heard Ibana shift in her saddle. “We’ve ridden all afternoon. Our men and horses are tired. Pit, the lancers rode all night, too.”

“We’ve ridden all night to a fight before,” Styke said.

“Yeah, when we were all ten years younger. We’re old, fat, and out of shape. At least the rest of you are, anyway.”

Styke was about to lower the glass when he spotted something else: more ships, far to the north of where the fleet had engaged with Fort Nied. There were at least a dozen transports emptying their decks of longboats, which plowed across the shallows to disgorge their troops with alarming swiftness. Styke quickly examined the lay of the land out from the beach – marshes and streams, with the odd village, and flat, drained suburbs at the base of the plateau.

He spotted a brigade in dark yellow jackets marching out of the suburbs, heading double-time for the landing Dynize. At a glance, the Dynize already outnumbered them and with the heavy armor they wore they looked more than an even match for basic garrison troops.

“Major Gustar, how do you feel about charging across sand?” he asked.

“Depends on the kind of sand,” Gustar responded.

“I don’t think you’re going to get the chance to check.” Styke handed the looking glass back and Gustar put it to his eye.

He frowned, and seemed to come to the same conclusion Styke had. “The garrison is badly outmatched. My cuirassiers will sink in that sand, but the dragoons might have a chance. You want me to hit them from behind?”

Styke grunted an affirmative and gently woke Celine, who rubbed her eyes and peered toward the distant enemies. “Sunin,” Styke called.

He was joined by Major Sunintiel, her crooked yellow teeth framed in a broad grin. “Ordering a charge, Colonel? Been forever since I killed a man in battle, you know?” Sunin was old enough to be his great-grandmother, but looks were deceiving. She’d always been one of his meanest lancers – which didn’t mean she’d survive the shock of a charge at her age.

“I am,” Styke said, “but you’re not in it. Take Celine.”

“I’m not a nursemaid,” Sunin objected.

“You can also barely hold a lance.”

“Not true!”

Ibana snorted. “You’re about a thousand years old, Sunin. Keep the girl safe.”

Sunin grumbled, but she directed her horse up beside Styke. He took Celine by the back of the shirt, lifting and depositing her in front of Sunin. “Will you be all right?” Celine asked.

“Me?” Styke let Amrec prance below him. “I’ll be fine. You take care of yourself. This is going to get bloody.” He turned away from her. “Gustar, take your dragoons and sweep the beach. Ibana, draw up the Mad Lancers and the Riflejack cuirassiers on the road. We have killing to do.”

Michel, Taniel, and Ka-poel were forced to approach the dig site by horse, as the streets in and out of the city were all but impassable to cabs with pedestrians in a panic and the roads clogged by families and merchants fleeing the city. News that the Landfall bay was under attack by a Dynize fleet spread rapidly, and with it chaos.

They left the western plateau, forcing their way through the press of the industrial quarter, cutting across streams, parks, and yards, before finally rejoining the main highway just outside the city. It was a fraught ride, and Michel, who rarely, if ever, rode, felt like he was going to tumble from his saddle at any moment. His fear was only made worse when Ka-poel snatched his reins from him and led his horse in a gallop across the open floodplains.

He was only given a reprieve when they finally drew near the dig site and the three of them stopped a few hundred yards away, staring out across the farms at the cordoned-off, innocuous-looking excavation.

Taniel scowled in the direction of the monolith. Ka-poel raised her nose to the wind, as if trying to smell for something other than the smoke coming off Greenfire Depths. Michel, for his part, tried not to be sick from their ride and occupied himself with wondering what the other two were seeing.

He’d read a little about sorcery – it would be stupid to be a spy and not be aware of the ways he could be detected. But sorcery was as foreign to him as Gurla or Dynize, a distant concept that never really affected him in any significant way until he tripped those wards on the upper library and tipped his hand to Fidelis Jes. He thought of sorcery like he did politics: He knew it existed, and that it affected his life in deep, intrinsic ways, but he tried his best not to get any on him.

Yet here he was, leading a pair of godkillers to something that, if they were right, could actually create gods.

He lost his battle with his motion sickness, leaning over his saddle and vomiting noisily in the cotton field. Neither of his companions seemed to notice.

Taniel spoke up, his eyes still on the dig site, looking pensive and perplexed. “I wondered how it could have remained unnoticed for so long just outside the city, but even at this distance I can barely sense it.” He glanced at Michel. “You’re certain this is it?”

“I’m certain,” Michel answered, spitting out the taste of sick and wiping his mouth. “I can’t feel sorcery and that thing whispered in my head. I’ve never heard of anything that could do that. And even if I wasn’t certain before, Fidelis Jes confirmed it this morning. They’re digging up the godstone.”

Ka-poel clicked her tongue to get Taniel’s attention, then went through a series of hand motions too quickly for Michel to follow. Taniel watched carefully, nodding along. “What’s going on over there?” he asked, pointing.

Michel followed his finger to see that part of the palisade surrounding the dig site had been torn down, and that hundreds of horses were being corralled by their handlers. Some sort of massive undertaking was under way, and it didn’t take much for Michel to guess what.

“They’re getting ready to move it,” he said. “The professor in charge, Cressel, said they’d be ready within days. That was yesterday.”

Ka-poel gestured quickly, and Taniel translated, “The arrival of the Dynize must have moved up their plans.”

“Agreed,” Michel said, though he wondered why he bothered. This wasn’t his territory anymore. Taniel and Ka-poel were in charge, and he would let them have it.

Taniel removed a snuff box from his pocket and tapped a line of black powder out on the back of his hand before snorting it. He rubbed his nose and squinted toward the dig site. “There’s a couple of Knacked down there,” he said. “They’ll be able to sense something off about Ka-poel. No telling how they’ll react. They can’t sense a powder mage, though.”