Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

Ten years since he last sat in a saddle. His balls were going to be so damned sore by the end of the night. “We’ll leave at once,” he said.

Flint nodded as if their joining her was a foregone conclusion. “Good. Major Fles. Colonel Styke. Welcome to the Riflejacks. Now go pick up the rest of your command.”

“What’s her name?”

Styke stood beside a dirt path in the center of a small town in the marshes north of Landfall, slowly stroking his thumb along the nose of the horse at his side. His attention was drawn to the south, head raised to watch for anyone heading this way from the city. Celine sat in the saddle astride the horse, gently running her fingers through his mane.

“ She is a he ,” Styke said, glancing over his shoulder at Celine. She nodded at the correction, as if she’d been right all along. “He’s a gelding, and I haven’t named him yet.”

“What kind is he?”

Styke glanced sidelong at the horse, continuing to run his thumb down the center of his nose. “Mix-breed. He’s definitely a Brudanian draft horse, but…” He considered it a moment, running his hand down the length of the horse’s back, enjoying the coarse feel of hair beneath his fingers. It had been too long since he’d last ridden. He’d squeezed the reins so hard they had left an impression on his palm, and his inner thighs chafed like a bitch after just a couple of miles. But they were both good kinds of hurts.

Pain that reminded him he was a free man.

“His hindquarters are a bit sleeker than a regular draft horse,” he said. “Look at the coloring. The black with a little brown mottle on the neck, with the white on his rump, is pretty rare. You find that on Gurlish racing horses.”

“My dad bet on a Gurlish racing horse once,” Celine said.

“How did that go?”

“Lost a few hundred krana. Said betting was for fools and threw his hat in the Hadshaw.”

Styke snorted. “Everyone has to learn sometime.” He ran his hand down the horse’s neck again, enjoying the feel. Lady Flint’s stablemaster said this was the biggest beast he had, and about the orneriest, but after a little heart-to-heart in the stables Styke felt like they had come to an understanding. He wasn’t as big as Deshner, nor as strong, but he had some spirit. “Do you want to name him?”

“How about Precious?” Celine said.

“Absolutely not.”

“Juggernaut!”

“Where the pit did you learn a word like that?”

“From…”

“Your dad,” Styke finished for her. “Right, right. Regular ol’ genius, wasn’t he? How about we call him Amrec.”

“Amrec is a boy’s name.”

“And Amrec is a boy.” Styke leaned back to look at the gelding’s hindquarters. “Or at least he used to be.” He patted Amrec on the nose, fishing in his pocket for a carrot he’d grabbed from a merchant as he left town. “You like that, Amrec?” Amrec nearly took his fingers off taking the carrot, and Styke jerked down on the bridle gently. “None of that, hear me?”

He turned away from Celine and Amrec, looking back toward Landfall. They were a couple of miles out, and the plateau rose above the floodplains, hazy in the afternoon heat, while flies buzzed quietly around Amrec’s swishing tail. Styke had picked one of the few rises in this area so he had a pretty good view of the road. He waited, watching, wondering.

Ibana had gone to tell the Mad Lancers that they had a new command, and that they wouldn’t be tearing up the Blackhats – at least, not just yet. A little voice in the back of Styke’s head whispered that he no longer had it. That the lancers would give up in anger and go home; that they weren’t interested in his command, and just wanted to go out for blood.

He wouldn’t blame them if they did. The Blackhats hadn’t just beaten him; they’d broken the homes and businesses and, in some cases, bones of almost all the Mad Lancers veterans. Styke’s body and the bones had been mended by Privileged sorcery. The rest was gone – ten years of trying to make something out of themselves, all down the drain because Styke had dared to leave the labor camp.

He wondered, if he’d known what he would ruin for the rest of them, whether he would have taken Tampo’s offer.

Yes, he decided. He definitely would have. “No one else’s suffering is ever as acute as your own,” he muttered.

“What?” Celine asked.

“Nothing. Here.” He reached in his pocket for his last carrot. “Feed this to Amrec. Talk to him.”

“Will it make us friends?”

“Food, in my experience, is one of the few things that can cement a good friendship between strangers.”

He watched a small group of riders leave the Landfall suburbs and head north along his path. He waited until he could clearly make them out as Blackhats before he took Amrec by the reins and led him around to the far side of the little village, hoping the patrol would pass through without stopping.

If the rest of the lancers backed out, would Ibana still follow him? She still seemed like her old self. But ten years was a long time, and she’d been furious after they left Lady Flint’s. She’d cursed and yelled before storming off, and only a shout over her shoulder had given him any indication of where to expect her and the rest of the lancers to join him.

And now he was here. He had a girl, a horse, and the hope that a bunch of rowdy old veterans still thought of him as good enough to follow. By the position of the sun it was past seven in the evening. The others should have been here an hour ago. As it was, they’d have to ride well into the night to reach Jedwar and collect Flint’s cavalry.

He kicked at a clump of dirt glumly, then put a hand on Amrec’s flank – more to calm himself than the horse. Amrec suddenly stirred, snorting, and Styke reached for his knife and looked toward movement at the corner of his vision.

He let himself relax. It was just a Palo woman.

She was less than five feet tall, a slight thing with fiery hair, her skin spotted with the ashen freckles of her people. Her hair was cut short, just below the ears, and she wore a black duster that almost touched the ground when she walked. Her hands were lost in the sleeves, her face shaded by a matching, floppy-brimmed hat. Below the duster she wore weathered buckskins similar to those worn by Palo on the frontier.

Styke took a deep breath, deciding to just ignore her until she went away, when something pricked his senses.

He smelled rotten flesh and tasted copper on his tongue, but knew immediately neither of those senses came from this world. It was his Knack, warning him that there was sorcery nearby. Potent sorcery, belonging to a bone-eye.

Styke shifted warily, keeping his eyes on the Palo as she approached. He’d always found it hard to judge the age of Palo women, but she looked like she was in her late twenties or early thirties. She walked toward him slowly, calmly, her eyes sleepy and a half smile on her lips.

“Who is that?” Celine asked.

Styke shook his head. “Can I help you?” he asked in Palo.

The woman stopped about six feet away, her lips pursed, head tilting from side to side as she studied Styke. He felt tiny pinpricks along his skin, the smell of rotten flesh growing stronger. She removed her hands from her pockets and showed him that they were empty.

A Palo bone-eye. Fancy that. What could she possibly want with him? He gave her his best scowl. “Nothing here for you,” he said. “Best move along.”

She rolled the sleeves of her duster up, then went through a complex series of gestures. Styke found them almost impossible to follow, and he just shook his head at her and made a shooing motion with one hand. She snorted, then pointed at herself, then at him, and Styke inhaled suddenly, his nostrils flaring, as he remembered a Palo girl he met in the swamps back during the war. She was small, smelled of blood and sorcery, and she hadn’t been able to talk.