Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

“I’m going to have to send someone to confirm,” Cole said. “The grand master’s office made it clear that this thing is important to them, and I’m not interested in messing it up. No offense meant, sir, but I just can’t change it without written confirmation.”

Michel tried not to let his panic show on his face. It had almost worked, damn it. “Of course, Major Cole. But don’t say I didn’t warn you if the grand master is furious over the delay.” He looked pointedly toward the smoke rising over Landfall, then turned around sharply, retreating twenty feet from Cole and his soldiers before whispering to Taniel and Ka-poel, “What do we do?”

Ka-poel lifted the satchel off her shoulder and began digging around inside, a frown on her face, while Taniel stared at the monolith. “That thing is a blight,” Taniel spat.

“Tell me about it. I felt it when it fell,” Michel said.

“It’s like a knot of power, just lying out here in the middle of farmland, waiting for someone to come pick it up.”

“And that someone is Lindet,” Michel said. “We need to either come up with a new plan, or get the pit out of here.”

Taniel nodded over Michel’s shoulder, and Michel turned to find Major Cole approaching, an unhappy look on his face. “My apologies, Gold Rose,” he said. “I’ve just got word that Dynize have landed farther south along the coast, cutting off our road to Dalinport. We don’t have much time to get this moved, but we’ll have it heading north as quickly as we can. You said it’s bound for Herrenglade?”

“Yes, Major,” Michel said, trying not to look relieved. He settled on smug. “And it’s best we get moving quickly.”

“Right,” Cole said, snapping a salute. “We’ll get things moving and I’ll have my men arranged in a rear guard.”

“How many soldiers do you have here?”

“About six hundred.”

Michel glanced at Taniel, who gave a slight shake of his head. If the Dynize knew where the godstone was, and were headed directly here, six hundred men would not be enough. Michel said a silent prayer that the garrison would come out to help them.

Styke grunted as his lance smashed through the breastplate of a Dynize soldier and ripped out the back of the soldier’s uniform, dripping blood and gore. He leaned into the lance, trying to drag it free of the soldier’s body, only for the corpse to catch on the belt of another Dynize. Styke let go of the lance with a frustrated shout so that the weight of it wouldn’t knock him out of the saddle.

Beside him, Ibana’s lance took a Dynize musketman through the eye, tearing the side of his head clean off, and then the Dynize front line was under their hooves.

The vanguard of the Mad Lancers spread out on the road, the thunder of their hooves almost drowning out the screams of men and horses at the impact of lances against bayonet-ready muskets. They swept forward, mowing down every Dynize that would not leap out of their way, while the Riflejack cuirassiers came on slowly behind, forming a fan that cleared the sides of the road of anyone who’d managed to escape the lancers’ charge.

Styke drew up on a knoll, trying – but unable – to get a good look at the beach several hundred yards to their left. A thick haze of smoke rose above the sand, and the sound of muskets and carbines exchanging fire drifted over the dunes.

He had a much better view of the road heading toward Landfall, where several regiments of Dynize soldiers had fallen into line and advanced swiftly into withering fire from the garrison.

“Do they even see us?” Ibana asked, reining in beside him.

“They see us,” Styke confirmed, watching as messengers rushed between officers behind the Dynize lines. A few faces glanced back toward him and his lancers. “They just don’t care.”

“We’ve got cavalry coming up behind them, and they don’t have anyone on horseback.” Ibana leapt from her own horse, picking up a Dynize musket and giving it a quick examination. “These bayonets are not long enough to form an effective pike line against us.”

“They’re going to try and break the garrison before we can reach them.”

Ibana stood on her tiptoes to look toward Landfall. “The garrison has gotten reinforcements. They outnumber the Dynize.”

“And I’ll give you ten-to-one that the Dynize troops are far better trained than the Landfall garrison. How thick are those breastplates?”

Ibana knocked the butt of the musket she held against the breastplate of a fallen Dynize, then turned it around and ran the bayonet through his neck. “Thick,” she reported. “The angle on the front gives them a good chance of deflecting a musket ball at anything but close range.”

“Shit.” Styke stood in his stirrups, looking toward the beach. “You notice anything about these assholes?”

“Other than the fact we’re outnumbered?” Ibana asked.

“Yeah, other than that. They don’t give a shit. They’re not running.” He turned his horse around and rode back through the carnage to where he’d left his lance in the chest of a Dynize soldier. He dismounted, ripping his lance free, then climbed back into the saddle and rejoined Ibana. “Give the signal to re-form,” he said, sweeping his eyes across the Dynize they’d just crushed. “We surprised two companies and they didn’t so much as waver.”

“They jumped out of our way,” Ibana said, getting back in her saddle.

“Yeah, but they didn’t break. What kind of infantry doesn’t break in front of a surprise charge by twice their number in enemy cavalry?”

“Stupid ones?” Ibana suggested.

A nearby Riflejack cuirassier looked up from wrapping his blood-soaked arm. “Sir, infantry that doesn’t break wins the day.”

“Not all the time,” Ibana said.

“But enough,” Styke responded. He lifted his nose to the air, breathing in deep of powder smoke, getting hints of Privileged and powder mage sorcery like a vintner might test wine. There was something else beneath the more obvious scents, but it was so subtle that his Knack was at a loss to identify the source.

“That’s the idea,” the cuirassier confirmed. “Riflejacks don’t break. That’s how we win. It was the whole backbone of Field Marshal Tamas’s tactics.”

Styke could still hear fighting on the beach, and realized that the dragoons might have bitten off more than they could chew. Something was off about this Dynize army, and it wasn’t just their sudden appearance. He felt the urgent need to get to Lady Flint and find out what was happening at the rest of the battle.

“All right,” Styke said, “the garrison is on their own. Lancers! Carbines at the ready! Sweep down onto the beach and help our dragoons – once we clear the sand, we charge into the rear of the Dynize and keep going toward Landfall.”

“What do you mean they’re not running?” Vlora demanded.

“I mean they’re not running,” Buden slurred in Kez, next to impossible to understand with his half tongue.

Vlora stood up, looking out over the walls of the fort and tracking a Privileged with the sights of her rifle. He was half a mile out, hands raised as he directed sorcery toward the point of the bay where Olem, the garrison, and the Riflejacks fought to hold the shore against the longboats continuously landing in the shallows. She squeezed her trigger, detonating two extra powder charges with her mind and pushing them behind the bullet, willing it to fly longer and farther than any normal flintlock shot.

The bullet soared in a perfect arc, helped by the nudge of her sorcery, until it slammed into the Privileged’s chest, knocking him into the foaming ocean.