Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

To Styke’s right, crimson-coated Riflejacks and yellow-clad garrison soldiers fought like mad dogs against the never-ending, if inconsistent, tide of Dynize soldiers coming in from his left. Corpses of all three groups lay scattered on the beach.

Styke gained his feet, discarding the carbine that had snapped in half beneath him on his fall, and grabbed the hot muzzle of a charging Dynize soldier, redirecting the short bayonet over his shoulder and felling the soldier with a single blow to the neck from his saber.

“Amrec! Amrec, damn it!” Styke searched the bodies of nearby horses for Amrec, but none of them was nearly big enough. He heard a horse scream somewhere in the smoke but could not pinpoint the source. He threw himself toward the closest skirmish between Dynize and Fatrastan forces.

The Dynize breastplates, like a cuirassier’s, were only armored on the front, held on by leather straps over the shoulders and around the back. Styke severed a Dynize spine from behind, laying about with the blade of his saber. A nearby Riflejack fell beneath a Dynize bayonet, and Styke grabbed the Dynize soldier by the back of the neck, squeezing until the woman went limp, then throwing her body onto the poor bastard she’d just skewered.

Another blast – a mortar – exploded nearby, and Styke felt the hot sting of shrapnel tear through his jacket, scoring his side and legs. He staggered from the force of the blast, nearly losing his head to a cannonball that glanced off the sand twenty yards away and bounced over his shoulder, blowing a hole clean through the breastplate of a Dynize musketman.

He continued fighting his way along the point of the bay, navigating by keeping the source of the sorcery to his left and the higher, rockier ground on his right. Occasionally a riderless horse ran through the smoke, bucking and crying, but none of them was Amrec.

The fighting grew more fierce, the more organized Riflejacks keeping the Dynize at bay at the end of their long bayonets. Styke found a uniformed body, crushed by the eviscerated corpse of a horse, and recognized the rider as one of his Mad Lancers, though the name escaped him after so many years.

A Dynize suddenly tore through the smoke, leaping bodies with the agility of a gazelle, a pair of bone axes in hand and torso protected by the now-familiar dark green leather of a swamp dragon. Styke coughed, spat up blood, and gave chase as the dragonman tore into a pair of Riflejacks, leaving them dead in his wake faster than either of them could raise a bayonet.

Styke caught up to the dragonman with long, painful strides, slashing with his saber. He missed, then leapt fully into the dragonman’s side as the warrior reached a squad of Riflejacks, sending them both tumbling through the group of soldiers.

The dragonman came out of the tumble on top, spitting sand and blood, and slammed the haft of an ax into Styke’s nose. Styke, his saber lost, punched the dragonman in the jaw, causing the Dynize to lurch back, dazed, before he caught Styke’s second punch and twisted his arm painfully to one side. Styke fought back, flexing, using every ounce of his strength, until the dragonman’s head suddenly snapped back and the sound of a pistol being fired at point-blank range left Styke’s ears ringing.

Styke shoved the body off him and got to his feet, only to find Olem – one arm bloody and bandaged, a deep slice along his left cheek, and his hat gone – standing with the smoking pistol among a squad of Riflejacks.

“I would have won it,” Styke spat, half-joking, half-serious. Blood pounded in his ears, and he felt every tendon tight and ready for movement, his body like an oiled spring.

“I believe you,” Olem said. “But we don’t have time for their shit. One of those assholes already wounded Davd.”

Styke didn’t bother asking who Davd was. “I lost my horse,” he said. “See a big bastard come through here?”

“I saw your second in command a few moments ago,” Olem said. He suddenly lurched sideways, caught by a sergeant on his left. He shook his head, as if he wasn’t sure where he was, then pointed. “Well timed on the cavalry, but you’re useless in this smoke. If you can rally your men take them west. Flint will have use for you.”

“You’ll be able to hold the shore?” Styke asked.

Olem managed a smile, causing the deep gash on his cheek to weep blood. “We need infantry, not dragoons. I’m pulling my boys back before this gets any worse. Go on, get out of here.”

Styke found Ibana less than fifty feet away. She was still on her own horse and held Amrec’s reins in her teeth, forcing both horses to twirl, hooves flashing, battering at the Dynize infantry that stabbed at her with their short bayonets. Her saber rose and fell, dripping gore, and within moments she’d cleared the Dynize and stopped her spinning. She spotted Styke and raised her sword in a greeting.

Styke limped over and snatched Amrec by the bridle, the shrapnel from the mortar starting to sting. He grabbed the saddle horn and pulled himself up, just as Major Gustar emerged from the smoke. Gustar’s horse had a definite limp, and his hand was bloody and hastily wrapped.

“This isn’t going well,” Ibana reported.

“We’re to pull back,” Styke said. “Get everyone out of this blasted smoke. Olem is letting the Dynize have the point of the bay.”

Gustar just nodded wearily, riding into the smoke. A moment later an Adran bugle sounded.

“Try not to forget you’re not wearing your armor anymore,” Ibana said, appraising the cuts on Styke’s side and arm.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Styke asked.

“It means you need to not ride into bloody sorcery and artillery fire, that’s what it means. Sorcery and grapeshot are going to kill you as easily as any other man.”

Styke looked at the blood soaking through his clothes. The pain was sharp, acute. It lit his senses like a fire. “I’ll try not to do anything stupid.”

“Letting the Dynize have any ground at all seems foolish.”

“No choice,” Styke replied. “They’ve paid for it in blood.” He urged Amrec into a gallop, racing west, and within a minute the smoke had all but cleared. He watched over his shoulder as Riflejacks, the Fatrastan garrison, and his own cavalry emerged from the haze, clear relief in their eyes at being given the order to withdraw. The Dynize didn’t seem to follow them out of the smoke, and he wondered if they’d finally used up all their men – or if they were just happy to take the beachhead and prepare for their next attack.

He ignored them all and set his sights on the causeway leading to Fort Nied.

Messengers streamed in and out of Fort Nied, leaving Vlora with an increasingly uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. The garrison was under heavy fire from troops that had landed north of the city, while Olem faced heavy losses at the point of the bay, and the smoke from musket fire over his position continued to rise as fast as the breeze blew it away, making it next to impossible for Vlora, Norrine, or Buden to give Olem any support fire.

Greenfire Depths was in flames, and the Blackhats had been seen fleeing the city en masse. She ordered the garrison to bring any and all cannons from the old forts scattered around the city to the eastern edge of the plateau, and diverted two thousand men from the southern side of the city to reinforce the north, and another nine hundred to help Olem.

“All of them!” she shouted at a messenger in a yellow Fatrastan jacket. “We’re not going to hold the bay, and I intend on making it next to impossible for the Dynize to take the plateau. Get me every weapon not nailed down inside the city. Raid Blackhat depots, I don’t give a damn!”