Brian McCLELLAN - Ghosts of the Tristan Basin - A Powder Mage Novella

“Fire!”

They reloaded and fired five more times, Taniel killing any officer that he saw trying to give orders, before the Kez rear lines managed to turn themselves around. It was a chaotic mess, men falling by the score, but Taniel feared it wasn’t enough. Three full companies of infantry faced his Ghost Irregulars now, marching toward the riverbank, and he had nowhere to go. They could throw themselves into their canoes and hope to draw those companies further down river.

Or they could stay and be slaughtered with the rest of their allies.

A saying his father had once told him sprang to mind: A glorious death only comes to two types of people: desperate men with no options, and fools. The canoes were his option, and Taniel opened his mouth to give the order to withdraw.

His words were swallowed by a cry from further down the bank. He turned his head to see what was happening, only to witness a small group of horsemen emerge from the Kez lines. A sniff of powder and the group came into focus – it was General Jiffou and his bodyguard and they were riding away from the battlefield.

The reason for their retreat was almost immediately apparent. A small group of lancers sprang from the melee to give chase. Styke was at their head, his armor smeared with gore, his horse seemingly no more the weary from its charge. At some point Styke had lost his helmet and his lance, and as he galloped after Jiffou he drew his carbine from the saddle and neatly picked off the bodyguard closest to Jiffou.

“By Kresimir,” Taniel heard someone say, “The Mad Lancers are still alive.”

Taniel looked toward the Kez infantry advancing toward his Ghost Irregulars. “Into the canoes!” he bellowed. “A hundred yards down stream then we’re out to fight again. The rear paddles, the front reloads.” He scrambled into his canoe, handing his rifle to Ka-poel, and they were off with a shot. He barely watched the water in front of him, his eyes glued to the small drama playing out behind the enemy lines as he paddled hard.

Despite being weighed down with their armor and having just charged through an entire brigade, Styke’s lancers closed the gap to Jiffou’s bodyguard until Jiffou was forced to turn and fight. The two sets of cavalry smashed into each other with an audible crack, the lancers outnumbered three-to-one.

Taniel threw down his paddle and took his rifle from Ka-poel, leveling it at Jiffou. He picked off a bodyguard and continued to reload, only pausing when he noticed another disturbance in the Kez rear line.

Two figures burst into sight, sprinting across the fields after Styke’s lancers. They ran hunched over, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on all fours, as swift as horses with long black hair streaming from ugly, misshapen faces. It was the two remaining Wardens that Lindet had warned him about. They would tear Styke apart before he could take down Jiffou.

“Ground us!” Taniel shouted, almost capsizing them as he leapt from the canoe. He waded to shore, climbing up on the bank, and brought his rifle to bear on the first of the running Wardens. The bullet ripped through the creature’s jaw, blood spraying its black coat, but it barely seemed to notice the wound as it continued forward.

Taniel swore and began to run, the strength of his powder trance letting him quickly outstrip the Ghost Irregulars that followed him to the bank. He was the only person here – probably the only person in this army – that could go toe-to-toe with a Warden. He wasn’t going to allow Styke to do it alone.

He reloaded as he ran, ramming two bullets down the barrel and letting himself pause, taking a deep breath to still his beating heart. Two of Styke’s lancers had fallen and most of Jiffou’s bodyguards, the last few men desperately trying to protect their general. All Styke needed was a little longer...

Taniel pulled the trigger. He aimed both bullets at the wounded Warden, muttering what his father had told him about shooting the foul creatures: “One for the head, one for the heart.”

The bullets struck true. The Warden tripped, stumbled several more feet and then collapsed, its body twitching several times before growing still. Its companion paused briefly, shooting a glance at Taniel, before charging ahead at Styke.

Taniel desperately tried to reload, but he could already see his fastest wasn’t good enough.

The Warden cleared the distance to the lancers and leapt up behind one in the saddle. It jammed a knife through a slit in the lancer’s armor, crimson spilling out across the polished steel, and the lancer tumbled from his horse. The Warden made a similar jump, dispatching a second lancer in the same manner in a matter of moments before full-on tackling Styke off his horse.

The pair landed in a jumble, rolling through the mud. The Warden ended up on top, straddling Styke, and its big fist rose and fell, slamming across Styke’s unprotected face with the force of a mule’s kick.

Taniel finished loading his rifle and lifted it, ready to take the shot, only to see Styke’s gauntlet slam into the Warden’s chin hard enough to lift it into the air. The Warden wheeled away, stunned, and Styke gained his feet. His face was a bloody mess, lip and brow streaming blood, but he looked nothing like someone who’d just been punched by a Warden.

He just looked angry.

The Warden charged Styke’s stomach, driving him back, but Styke did not fall. He wrapped one arm around the Warden’s neck and drove the other into the Warden’s side again, and again, and again. They grappled for several moments, slipping and sliding through the dew-damp grass before Styke let out a shout and lifted the Warden into the air, twisting the creature’s body.

At fifty yards, Taniel heard the snap of bone.

Stunned, he watched as the limp corpse fell out of Styke’s arms. Styke shook his head, casting about for his sword, and then saw Taniel. He shouted something, and it took Taniel a moment to realize what it was.

“Shoot the bloody general!”

Taniel raised his rifle, seeing Jiffou retreating back toward the ranks of his army with his last remaining bodyguard. Taniel put a bullet just under his left shoulder-blade and ran toward Styke.

He found the colonel wiping blood off his face with the Warden’s jacket, waving down one of his lancers.

“You just killed a Warden with your bare hands,” Taniel said. He couldn’t hide the shock in his voice. He wanted to tell someone, to tell everyone, never mind the battle still raging around him. A damned Warden!

“He had it coming,” Styke said. “Nice shot, by the way.”

“It was nothing.”

“Not Jiffou – the other Warden. I couldn’t have handled two of them. Well done.” Styke nodded his head toward the approaching lancer and held something out to Taniel. “Do me a favor and give this to Jack – he’s the boy coming up behind you.”

Taniel looked down to find a bugle in his hand. “Why?”

“Because that belonged to one of Jiffou’s bodyguards,” Styke answered, grinning. “And Jack can play their retreat command.”

It was raining, and Taniel dug Major Bertreau’s grave a mile west of Planth on a hummock among the roots of a big cypress tree. The Ghost Irregulars gathered around, Fatrastans and Palo alike, and six men lowered her to the bottom of the wet hole, her body wrapped tightly in buckskin blankets, her sword clutched in the one hand sticking out of the wrappings.

Taniel said a few words – he couldn’t remember after what they were, and he doubted anyone else could either – and then they filled the grave with stones, covered it with soil, and carved her name deep into the flesh of the cypress: here lies Major Bertreau, died defending Planth from the Kez in K.Y.1521 .