Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

The Mad Lancers hit the Dynize infantry from behind with enough force to break even the strongest-willed soldiers, but the bastards refused to run. They remained locked in combat with the garrison, faces flat in steely determination while Styke and his cavalry rode up and down the length of the battle, grinding the Dynize to a pulp beneath hoof, lance, and saber until the garrison – which had looked on the verge of retreat – finally found their spines and finished off the outnumbered Dynize.

A cheer went up among the garrison as Styke re-formed the Riflejacks and lancers and rode through a gap in the Fatrastan lines. He reined in by the highest-ranking officer he could find – a lieutenant – and took a grim assessment of the garrison.

They’d almost been shattered by half their number of Dynize. Men had fallen out of rank, broken their weapons, and some had even fled only to now come crawling back sheepishly while everyone pretended they’d never left. The lieutenant snapped a salute. “Timely charge, sir!”

“You’re not getting another one,” Styke warned. “We’re heading to the city. I lost hundreds of dragoons clearing that beach but more Dynize are on their way. I’ll try to get Flint to send you help.”

“We already requested more men,” the lieutenant said.

“Right. Form up right and quick, and pull your wounded back behind the line.” Styke gestured to the edge of the suburbs, some half mile behind them. “Pull back behind the marsh dikes and make it harder for them to reach you. The assholes don’t have very good bayonets but that armor stops the better part of a good volley and they fight like sin up close.”

“It’s, ah, pretty terrifying, sir. The bastards wouldn’t break, no matter how good we gave it to them.”

“Nothing’s more terrifying than death,” Styke replied. “Make them pay for every step, and I’ll make sure Flint sends you more men.”

He peeled off, joining his cavalry on their ride toward the city. Styke felt his exhaustion dragging at him and could see it in the eyes of his lancers. After two quick, bloody engagements they were sagging, already used up from a full day’s ride. They needed rest, and lots of it.

They weren’t going to get it.

“Your lance is broken,” Ibana said, slowing down to ride beside him.

Styke blinked at the shattered, bloody lance that ended just a few feet from his hand. He discarded it and leaned over Amrec, checking the horse’s neck and chest for any damage. There were half a dozen nicks and cuts, but nothing major enough to cause concern. He gestured to Amrec’s underbelly. “Legs?” he asked.

Ibana shook her head. “Good as gold.”

He ran his eyes over her mount. “Deep cut on the left flank. Will need stitches. Where’s Jackal?”

“Appropriating a horse from one of our fallen,” she said. “His broke a leg and had to be put down.”

Styke cringed. The death of men rarely bothered him, but the loss of a good horse always struck him as a tragedy. He turned Amrec around, standing in the stirrups, hoping the garrison looked in better shape from behind. They didn’t.

“Another attack like that one and they’ll break,” Ibana observed, shaking gore from the tip of her lance and raising it above her head.

Styke couldn’t help but agree. The garrison was slowly pulling itself together and drawing back in the lancers’ wake toward the marsh trenches as he’d suggested. Styke dragged a sleeve over his nose, trying to get the smell of powder and death out of his nostrils so he could breathe properly. That strange hint of sorcery was still there, touching his senses, but not quite comprehensible. “I smell something,” he said.

Ibana frowned. “Sorcery?”

“I don’t know. It’s there, just nothing I can identify. It feels like it’s in us, around us.”

“Bone-eye?” Ibana asked.

The thought hadn’t occurred to Styke. “The Dynize are known for the bastards, aren’t they?”

“And we have no idea what they’re capable of.”

Styke thought back to his encounter, real or imagined, with Ka-poel yesterday afternoon, and the blood that had disappeared from his face. He didn’t realize it at the time, but he now felt distinctly marked. He tried not to think about it and drew his heavy saber, checking the blade with his thumb.

“Don’t insult me like that,” Ibana snapped. “I sharpened it myself.”

“Just checking!” Styke assured her. “One of yours?”

“Dad’s actually. He still makes a common blade from time to time, just to keep his edge.”

“Is he…?” Styke asked, letting the rest of the sentence waver off in uncertainty.

Ibana didn’t meet his eyes. “When we left yesterday he was recovering. The Privileged healing almost killed him.” She frowned into the distance. “Is that smoke over Greenfire Depths?”

Styke’s whole attention had been on the coast until this point. He looked toward the plateau and was surprised to see thick black columns rising above the western half of the city. He felt his stomach clench. If Greenfire Depths went up in flame, they might lose the entire Palo quarter. Not that many Kressians would care, but that’s where Old Man Fles was now. “I’m sure his apprentices will get him out,” he said softly.

“I know they will,” Ibana retorted. She checked the pan of her carbine and then began to reload. “The last thing anyone needs is a riot in Greenfire Depths while we’re under attack.”

“If the fighting just started a couple of hours ago, does anyone in the Depths even know?” Styke wondered aloud. He couldn’t help but wonder how Lindet was dealing with all of this – she thrived under multiple pressures, and she had a lot of Blackhats in the city. She would probably draw them in close and use them only as a last resort. If the Dynize reached the suburbs the brutality of the fighting would make these engagements look like light skirmishes.

Styke pulled himself out of his thoughts and joined the vanguard, where he found Jackal now riding a blue roan beside a bloody-faced Major Gustar. The lance holding the Mad Lancers’ standard had been broken, then mended with a belt, and now flew just a little lower and more crooked.

Somehow it seemed fitting.

“Orders, Colonel?” Gustar asked, trying to salute but only managing to bring his hand halfway to his face.

Styke admired the man’s dedication but didn’t show an ounce of pity. These Riflejacks were no Mad Lancers, but they definitely had guts. “Hug the coast. We’ve got flatland between here and the port, and the garrison’s going to have their hands full with Dynize troops. We’ll sweep the beach and report to Lady Flint for orders.”

“Taking orders now, are we?” Ibana asked in a low, only slightly sarcastic voice. “Either you’re getting old, or you actually think Flint has judgment worth a damn.”

“Both,” Styke replied. “But we’ll find out for sure if we’re still alive at the end of this.” He cast his eyes around once again at the tired faces, the worn-out horses, and stood up in his stirrups, raising his saber into the air. “Ride for blood!” he ordered.

A fireball struck the ground with the force of a mortar shot just a dozen feet in front of Styke. Amrec went up on his hind legs, screaming in terror, and Styke – a sword in one hand and carbine in the other, his numb legs a poor purchase on Amrec’s sides – was thrown from his saddle. He hit the ground, ears ringing, breath knocked out like he’d been hit by a boulder.

Horses thundered by on the rocky sand of the point of the bay, and his surroundings were almost entirely obscured by the thick pall of powder smoke, lit from time to time by sorcery and exploding mortars. The shore was pounded by enemy guns as if the Dynize cared little whether they struck their own men.