Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

“No idea.”

“Did he do this?”

“Seems so,” Olem said. “We already dragged off fifteen wounded.”

Vlora chewed on that information for a moment, trying to catch up. It didn’t make any sense. Palo tended to be scrappy fighters, but they dropped like anyone else against trained soldiers with bayonets fixed. “How did” – she did a quick count – “a single old man inflict almost forty casualties on the best damned infantry on the continent?”

“That,” Olem said, “is a really good question.”

“And…?” She gave him a long, annoyed look. It was one that sent most of her men scrambling. Olem, as usual, seemed unaffected.

“The boys say he moved too fast for the eye to follow. Like…” Olem paused, meeting her eyes. “Like a powder mage.”

Vlora reached out with her sorcerous senses, probing into the Else. As a powder mage she could feel every powder charge and horn within hundreds of yards, each of them showing up in her mind’s eye like points on a map. She focused on the body. The old man didn’t have an ounce of powder on him, but she could sense a sort of subtle sorcery around him the likes of which she’d never felt. Further examination gave her a headache, and she closed her third eye.

“Well,” she told Olem, “he wasn’t a powder mage. There’s something… sorcerous about him, but I can’t pin it down.”

“I didn’t feel it,” he responded. He had his own Knack, a minor sorcery that allowed him to go without sleep. But his ability to see into the Else was not as strong as hers.

Vlora knelt next to the body, giving it a second look without sorcery. The old man’s hair had long since faded from red to white, and his gnarled hands still clutched a pair of polished bone axes. Most Palo dressed for their surroundings – buckskins on the frontier, suits or trousers in the city. This warrior, however, wore thick, dark leathers that didn’t come from any mammal. The skin was ridged, tough to the touch, textured like a snake.

“You ever seen anybody wear an outfit like this before?”

“It’s swamp dragon leather,” Olem observed. “I’ve seen satchels and boots, but the stuff is damned expensive. Hard to tan. Nobody wears a whole suit.” He ashed his cigarette. “And I’ve definitely never seen a Palo fight like this. Might be cause for concern.”

“Maybe,” Vlora said, feeling suddenly shaken. Being stuck in the swamps with the swamp dragons, snakes, bugs, and Palo was bad enough. But out here, the Riflejacks had always been at the top of the food chain. Until now. She ran her fingers over the leather. The stuff appeared to make an effective armor, thick enough to turn a knife or even a bayonet thrust. “It’s like a uniform,” she muttered.

“Rumors are going to spread,” Olem said. “Should I put a stop to idle talk?”

“No,” Vlora said. “Let the men gossip. But give them an order. If they see somebody wearing an outfit like this, they’re to form ranks and keep him at the end of their bayonets. And send someone running for me.”

Olem’s brow wrinkled. “You think you could fight someone capable of cutting through this many infantry?” he asked.

“No idea. But I’ll be damned if I let some Palo yokel carve through my men like a holiday ham. I can at least put a bullet in his head from thirty paces.”

“And if there’s more than one?”

Vlora glared at him.

“Right,” Olem said, finishing his cigarette and crushing the butt underfoot. “Form line, call for General Flint.”

Vlora and Olem stood in silence for several minutes, watching as the rest of the corpses were carted off and the fires finally put out by the bucket brigade. Messengers dropped reports off to Olem, and a flagpole was raised above one of the few remaining fort towers. The Fatrastan flag, sunflower yellow with green corners, was run up it along with the smaller, red and blue standard of the Riflejacks.

Vlora watched as a woman on horseback rode through the shattered fort gate and guided her horse through the crowds and the chaos of the battle cleanup. The woman examined her surroundings with a jaded, casual air, a sneer on her lips for the Palo prisoners on their knees in the street. Vlora didn’t know the woman, but she recognized the yellow uniform well enough – it matched the flag her men had just run up the pole. Fatrastan military.

The rider came to a stop in front of Vlora and Olem, looking down on them with a fixed scowl. No salute. Not even a hello.

“You General Flint?” the woman asked.

“Who wants to know?” Vlora responded.

“Message from Lady Chancellor Lindet,” the woman said. She pulled an envelope from her jacket and held it out. Olem took it from her, tearing it open with one finger and smoothing the paper against his stomach. The woman turned her horse around without a word and immediately rode back down the street, heading for the fort gate.

Fatrastan soldiers tended to be arrogant pricks, but Vlora had seldom seen one so rude. She tapped the butt of her pistol. “Would it be terribly unprofessional of me to shoot her hat off?”

“Yes,” Olem said without looking up from the letter.

“Damned Fatrastan army needs to show more respect to the people doing their dirty work.”

“Console yourself with the fact that you make far more money than she does,” Olem said. “Here, you’ll want to see this.”

Vlora turned her attention to the letter in his hand. “What is it?”

“Trouble in Landfall,” he said. “We’ve been recalled. We’re to head to the city immediately.”

Vlora’s first thought was to do a little dance. Landfall might be hot and fetid, but at least it was a modern city. She could have a real meal, go to the theater, and even take a bath. No more of this damned swamp or – she glanced at the body of the little old man that was only now being removed – its dragon-skin-wearing Palo.

Her relief, however, was quickly squashed by a creeping suspicion. “What kind of trouble?” she asked.

“Doesn’t say.”

“Of course it doesn’t.” Vlora chewed on her bottom lip. “Finish the cleanup,” she said, “and send the prisoners to Planth with a regiment of our boys. Tell everyone else we’re leaving at first light.”

Vlora waited by the Tristan River while her men boarded the waiting keelboats that had been sent to retrieve them. Heading downriver by keelboat would get them to Landfall in just a few days, but she wondered what could be so urgent that they needed to be recalled in such a manner. It made her nervous, but she put that in the back of her mind and turned to the box in her lap.

It was an old hat box, something she’d had since she was a teenager, and it was filled with letters from a former lover now long dead and gone. Taniel Two-shot had been a childhood friend, an adopted brother, even her fiancé at one point, but he’d also been a hero of the Fatrastan Revolution. Eleven years ago he’d fought for Fatrastan independence from the Kez through these very swamps, creeping through the channels with his musket, killing Privileged sorcerers and officers.

They were both Adrans, foreigners to this place, and the experiences Taniel wrote to her about had become a wealth of information for her own career in mercenary work on this blasted continent.

“They’ve sent us enough keelboats for the infantry only,” a voice suddenly said.

Vlora jumped, reaching to hide the letters, but stopped herself. It was only Olem, and there were no secrets between them. “And what do we do with our dragoons and cuirassiers?”

Olem crushed the butt of his cigarette under his boot, peering at the letters in her lap. “I’ll have Major Gustar bring them along. It’ll take them about a week longer to arrive in Landfall, so let’s hope we don’t need them sooner. Are those Taniel’s letters?”