Sins of Empire

Chapter 62

Styke strode toward Fidelis Jes, chest heaving from the ride, every bit of tiredness that had threatened to make him call a halt on the journey south of the city now gone from his mind. He gripped his saber in one hand, his other balled in a fist, and he ignored the startled shouts of the Blackhats around him. Behind Jes stood Taniel, sword drawn, and behind him Ka-poel and another Blackhat were still on horseback.

Jes looked between Taniel and Styke as if unsure from which direction the fight was coming, but Taniel stepped back and gave a slight bow. Jes turned his attention entirely to Styke.

“I’ve already killed you twice,” Jes said. “I’m going to make sure the third time is more permanent.”

Even Styke had to admit Jes cut a fine figure. He wore the Blackhat uniform, black on black with the buttons up the side of his jacket, tailored to hug his muscled chest and legs. He wore a thin white scarf around his neck and a Platinum Rose pinned to his left breast, with Styke’s lancer’s ring on his thumb and boz knife at his belt. Styke spared a glance for Jes’s horse, saddlebags weighed down for a long journey. Flint was right – the Blackhats had abandoned the city.

Styke discarded his saber and drew Ibana’s knife, forcing himself to breathe evenly. At the sight of this, Jes let out a barking laugh. He sheathed his own sword and pulled Styke’s big knife out of his belt, brandishing it mockingly.

Styke’s mind flashed through all the mistakes he’d made last time – coming into a fight wounded, overcome with anger, letting his emotions overrule his senses. He tried to expel all of that. He knew he was hurting, tired, but something felt righter about this fight. The Privileged that Ibana had kidnapped had partially healed Styke’s crippling wounds. He was Colonel Ben Styke again, the Mad Lancer of Landfall. He wouldn’t be put down like a dog. He looked at his knife in Jes’s hand, the ring that touched the handle. “Those are mine.”

“Not anymore.” Jes spat the words as he came at Styke at a run. His knife flashed high in a feint, then plunged low for Styke’s belly.

Styke tossed Ibana’s knife aside and grabbed the blade of his stolen weapon, stopping Jes dead in his tracks. He ignored the sharp blade biting through his flesh, scraping the bones of his fingers, and brought his right fist around to connect with Jes’s nose. The Blackhat grand master’s head snapped backward.

“This isn’t about revenge,” Styke said. “This is because you’re an asshole.” Styke let go of the knife blade, snatching Jes’s sleeve with his bloody, slippery fingers, and jerked him forward. He slammed his fist once more into the bridge of Jes’s nose and the grand master dropped into a heap at his feet.

Styke leaned over and slid the ring off Jes’s thumb and over his own finger, relieved to feel the familiar weight of it. He took his knife out of Jes’s lifeless hand, and then with two quick strokes severed his head. He lifted it by the hair, ignoring the blood that soaked his shirt and trousers, and stared into the dead, faintly surprised eyes. He sighed, wishing he had more than a few moments to relish the corpse at his feet, and looked up to find Ibana on horseback, pushing her way to the front of the assembled Blackhats. He tossed her the head, which she caught easily in the crook of her arm. “We don’t have time to make a saddle,” he said.

Behind him, the Blackhat with Ka-poel was noisily ill.

Ibana held the head at arm’s length, examining it, then nodded. “This will do.”

“Taniel,” Styke said with a nod, noting the blood-red color of his hand. He remembered reading something about a rebel named the Red Hand years ago. Funny that it should be the infamous Ghost of the Tristan Basin. “You’ve got a lot of secrets, don’t you?”

“We all do,” Taniel responded, sheathing his sword.

Styke eyed Jes’s Blackhat bodyguards. They were silent, shifting wordlessly in their saddles, staring at the headless body of their grand master. “Who’s in charge here?” Styke demanded.

“Technically he is,” Taniel said.

Styke turned to look at the Blackhat still mounted beside Ka-poel. The man was green-faced, wiping the corner of his mouth with his sleeve. He gave a sickly smile and waved at Styke. “Gold Rose Bravis at your service, Mr. Styke.”

“Colonel Styke,” Styke corrected, letting the word roll off his tongue. Pit, he never thought he’d enjoy saying that so much.

One of Jes’s bodyguards, openly wearing his Silver Rose on his uniform, pointed at Bravis. “Jes said he was a traitor.”

To Styke’s surprise, Bravis slipped from his saddle and staggered over to the headless body of Fidelis Jes, nudging it with his toe. He whispered to Styke, “I’m working on the fly here, so just go with it.” He looked up at the bodyguards and in a loud voice said, “What did this shitheel tell you was going to happen to your families?” The uncomfortable silence continued, and so did Bravis. “Did he tell you they’d be evacuated from the city in due time? That there were more of us ready to help your friends and relatives make their way away from Landfall should the garrison fall?

“Or,” Bravis went on, “did he try to tell you that the Riflejacks would hold the city on their own while you all got as far as possible from the fighting?” He shook his head theatrically. “I can see those saddlebags. Thousands of you are packed for a journey, coming down to escort some ancient relic instead of protecting your homes. That sounds a lot like fleeing.”

The Silver Rose from earlier spoke up. “We’re not fleeing. We’re on the Lady Chancellor’s business.”

“The Lady Chancellor’s business is protecting Landfall,” Bravis snapped back. He reached down to Jes’s body, looking for a moment like he might vomit again, and plucked the Platinum Rose from Jes’s chest before dancing back just a little too quickly. He thrust his finger at Styke. “Fidelis Jes has been telling you this man – this hero of Fatrasta – is a dangerous criminal. Jes has been lying to you, just like he was lying to me, and this next lie will lose us the city we love, the city full of our friends and families.”

“And what would you have us do?” the Silver Rose demanded.

“A thousand heavily armed Blackhats? I’d have you protect the city. You see these flags?” He pointed behind the Blackhats, where the Mad Lancers had gathered up, and Jackal and the Riflejack bannerman rode side by side. “Ride with them. Ride with Ben Styke, hero of the Fatrastan Revolution. Ride with the Riflejacks, defenders of Landfall as appointed by the Lady Chancellor herself. What would I have you do? Fight. Now get back to the main column, gather the rest of the Blackhats, and ready yourselves for a fight.”

Three Blackhats, all of them wearing Silver Roses, conferred among themselves. They turned to Bravis. “Who’s in command of the Blackhats?” one of them asked.

Bravis drew himself up and pinned the Platinum Rose to his chest. “I am.”

There was a brief pause, and for a moment Styke thought they might laugh in Bravis’s face. But the Silver Rose grimaced, then nodded. “As you command, grand master.” He turned, leading the rest of Jes’s bodyguards through the Mad Lancers and galloping back toward where the main body of the Blackhats had formed up about half a mile away.

Styke joined Taniel beside Michel Bravis and took a long, hard look at him. The Blackhat had forgettable features – a weak chin, round face, and light brown hair mussed from a long ride. He was also trembling like a leaf. Compared to the corpse at their feet, he wasn’t a terribly convincing grand master. But, Styke supposed, he did have a head.

“Did you just convince them to protect the godstone by convincing them not to protect the godstone?” Taniel asked, tongue-in-cheek.

“Yeah,” Bravis said shakily. “I think I did.” He looked between Styke and Taniel. “I take it you two know each other.”

Styke looked at Taniel. Taniel wore a small smile, eyes very clearly saying that he was not yet done with Styke. Styke ignored it. “Yeah.”

“And you’re down here to intercept the Dynize that are south of us?” Bravis asked.

“Right on that account, too.”

Bravis looked about ready to faint. “Oh, thank Adom I got it all right. Whew.”

Styke eyed Bravis, not sure he was ready to trust a Blackhat with anything, even if he was obviously with Taniel. In fact, he realized, that might make him less trustworthy. “The godstone, is this the artifact Lady Flint sent me down here to protect?”

“It is,” Taniel confirmed.

“Do we know anything else about the Dynize we’re going to face?”

“Only that there’s at least four regiments.” Taniel lifted his chin in the direction of the Blackhat army. “And that, with the Blackhats, you’ve got an extra thousand men and two Privileged.”

Styke went and found the knife he’d borrowed from Ibana and put it in his saddlebags, taking a few moments to clean the deep gash along his fingers and bind it with a handkerchief. It stung badly, and it would hurt his ability to fight, but he could still flex his fingers.

He checked the blade on his own knife and cleaned the blood off it on Jes’s jacket. “Blackhats are little more than a bunch of thugs. They’re not going to be much good against four regiments of these Dynize. The bastards are tough, and they do not break.”

“Make them break,” Taniel said.

Styke weighed the odds in his head. A thousand Blackhats. Eight hundred Riflejack and Mad Lancer cavalry. A few hundred Fatrastan soldiers already guarding the godstone. Two-to-one numbers in favor of the Dynize did not please him. “I’ve had worse odds,” he said, heading for his horse. “But you’re coming with me, Two-shot, and I want you to scatter the brains of any Privileged those bloody Dynize have with them.”

By the time Michel returned to the dig site, the land-barge and its cargo had already begun to move, creeping at a disappointing speed across the fields while horses pulled and the whips of teamsters rose and fell. Laborers helped push from behind, or rushed on ahead to smooth the ground with hands and shovels.

The monolith was moving, but Michel could already see it was going nowhere quick.

He forced himself to ignore the murmurs of the Blackhats behind him and rode up to Major Cole, who stared for a long time at the Platinum Rose on Michel’s chest. For better or worse, Michel was in charge now. He was not, however, confident of a command that began with the bloody murder of the last grand master. If he survived the day wearing this Platinum Rose, he promised himself, he’d be a very happy man.

“Sir,” Major Cole finally said, saluting.

Michel put as much bluster as he dared behind his voice. “Major Cole, we’ve received almost two thousand riders as backup from Landfall. Colonel Styke is taking command of the defense of the monolith. I asked him to keep the fight as far from us as possible, but I’m going to keep your soldiers in reserve here with the land-barge in case the Dynize make it past them.”

“With the what?”

“The land-barge.” Michel felt his cheeks redden. “I just thought it looked like…”

“A barge on land,” Cole said with a reluctant nod. “Yeah, I get it. It fits. We’ve all just been calling it the big wagon.”

“Mine is much better. Keep your men nearby, Major Cole.” Michel slowly trailed off, watching as orders were shouted, some confusion about the chain of command was cleared up, and then the Blackhats rode off behind Styke’s cavalry. He looked around, realizing that Cole had already gone to see to his own men, and found that his only companion was Ka-poel. “Did Taniel go with Styke?” he asked.

Ka-poel nodded.

“Right. That doesn’t leave us with much if the Dynize manage to break through the Mad Lancers.”

Another nod, this one slightly more solemn.

Michel’s horse suddenly lurched under him, nearly knocking him from the saddle, and he decided he’d had enough. “To the pit with this,” he said, climbing down once the animal had calmed. “I am not riding on that thing any longer. Horses were meant to pull carriages, not be ridden.”

Ka-poel didn’t look terribly impressed. She turned her own horse around to face the south, then pulled out her rucksack and began to rummage through it again while Michel approached the land-barge, dodging laborers and ropes. He pulled himself onto the platform, then walked alongside the horizontal monolith, doing his best not to touch it, until he reached where Professor Cressel stood at the very front of the land-barge.

The professor pushed his spectacles up, looking to the south. “Are we going to outrun the Dynize?” Cressel asked.

Michel looked pointedly at the ground, moving past at nearly a snail’s pace. He should be grateful they were moving at all, but he fought down his own rising panic and replied, “I’m afraid not, Professor.”

“Do we have enough men to protect the monolith?” Cressel asked.

Michel opened his mouth, thought better of his answer, and changed his “no” to a “maybe.” “Landfall sent a couple of Privileged. That should even the odds.” Unless they have Privileged of their own.

“Ah, excellent.” Cressel patted the monolith affectionately. “We absolutely cannot let this fall into enemy hands. It’s too important.”

Michel leaned on the monolith without thinking, jumping as a spark of static seemed to leap from the stone to his shoulder, then rubbed his hands together to try to get rid of the distasteful feeling the spark had left behind. The whispering in the back of his head had returned, no longer drowned out by the excitement of the move. He wondered if maybe coming up here had been a stupid idea, and looking up found that Ka-poel was riding slowly alongside, the reins of his horse tied to her saddle. She seemed to sense his discomfort and gestured to the horse.

“I’ll stay here,” Michel said. “Less of a chance of breaking my neck, thank you.” The land-barge suddenly lurched, nearly pitching him to the ground and beneath the wheels. He grabbed Cressel to steady himself.

“Are you all right, Gold Rose?” Cressel asked.

“It’s grand master now,” Michel said absently, pointing to the Platinum Rose pinned to his chest. “And no. I hate myself, I hate this stupid monolith, and I hate the bloody Dynize for the fact that I can now see them and – oh shit, Ka-poel, I can see them!”

Ka-poel raised her head, looking toward the south, where a dust cloud now enveloped the sky not a mile away. The distant report of musket fire reached them and Ka-poel went back to digging in her satchel.

“Did you say Ka-poel?” Cressel asked curiously. “Ka is a Dynize title. Is she a Dynize? Are you a Dynize?” Cressel’s eyes suddenly widened. “That’s a Dynize bone-eye title. That woman is a blood sorcerer?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” Michel said.

“Blood sorcery! That would explain so much. It could be the key to what we’ve been missing, I…” His ramblings dropped in tone to a mere mutter, and Michel was content to let them stay that way. Nervously he watched the dust cloud, quickly becoming black from powder smoke, and silently willed the teamsters to move the land-barge a little bit faster.

A Silver Rose rode up beside Styke, eyeing him and the banner flying from Jackal’s lance before giving a nervous salute. “Sir, we’re not trained cavalry. I’m not sure how effective we’re going to be against the Dynize.”

“You’ll be plenty effective,” Styke replied, not trusting himself to look the Blackhat in the eye. He considered the irony of him, here, giving orders to a contingent of Blackhats instead of grinding their bones to dust, and then forced himself to think of the much happier fact of Jes’s head now in a sack hanging from Ibana’s saddle.

“We haven’t exactly trained for this.”

“No,” Styke said, “but you’ll manage anyway. Can your men shoot from horseback?”

“Most of them, yes.”

“Good. Split into two groups. I’m not going to bother throwing you at their center – your men aren’t capable of such a charge, and your horses don’t deserve it. I want each group to peel off from our main column and circle the enemy flanks. You’ll act as light skirmishers. Hit them from the sides, and hit them hard with everything you have. Fire at will and all that. Put one of your Privileged on either side and tell them to focus on any Privileged the enemy may have, and then to turn on the infantry.”

The Blackhat seemed relieved not to be participating in a charge. “I think we can do that,” he said.

Styke reached over and snatched the Blackhat by the arm, nearly yanking him out of the saddle. “You’ll know you can do it,” he growled. “You bastards have been gunning for me for two weeks, and if you don’t show some spine and make these Dynize bleed, I’ll hunt you down personally when I’m done with this and put your head in the same sack I put Jes’s. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” the Blackhat managed to choke out.

Styke pushed him right back in his saddle and gave him a toothy grin. “And if you keep their flanks off my ass for long enough to win this battle then maybe, just maybe, we can be friends. Now go make sure your men understand all that very clearly.”

The Blackhat rode off, and Styke focused on the approaching Dynize. The infantry were coming on at a double march, arranged in four solid columns that, as Styke drew closer, gradually slowed and fanned out into rows. Styke blinked through sweat dripping into his eyes and pushed back against the niggles of dread and doubt that exhaustion let permeate his brain.

Outnumbered two to one. Cavalry against infantry – infantry that, it seemed, refused to break in the face of superior enemy action. Routing an enemy was the best chance cavalry had against such odds and Styke did not like their prospects one bit.

“Taniel!” he called, turning in his saddle to look for the powder mage. He discovered Taniel about twenty feet behind him, standing in the stirrups, a rifle held to his shoulder, sighting down the barrel as Ibana held his reins. “What is he doing?” Styke shouted.

“His job,” Ibana responded. “They have six Privileged and –”

Taniel’s rifle jumped, the crack making Ibana flinch slightly and then rub one finger in her ear. Taniel watched the horizon, focused, rifle still raised, his lips moving as he counted silently. Several seconds later he lowered his rifle and immediately began to reload. “They have four Privileged,” he reported.

Styke laughed despite himself. “Jackal, relay orders. I want every one of ours with an unbroken lance to form a spearhead. Behind them, the Riflejack cuirassiers, then after them the dragoons. Line us in a column tight and hard, narrow like a flared lance. Six rows of four, then six rows of five, six rows of six, and on. Wedge formation.”

“Do I have to remind you,” Ibana called, “that we don’t have our bloody armor anymore?”

“And the Dynize don’t have sword bayonets.”

“Knife bayonets aren’t a joke.”

“To the pit with them,” Styke said. “If the bastards won’t route, we’ll cut through their center and then tear them apart from behind. They won’t know what hit ’em.”

Taniel raised his rifle to his shoulder, aimed, then looked over at Styke. “You really are a bloody madman.”

“Everyone keeps telling me that,” Styke said. “Jackal, get me a new lance. I’ll tip the wedge.”

Styke’s people were outnumbered two to one. The Dynize, he decided, should have brought more men.