Wrath of Empire

Chapter 60

Vlora sat on horseback, watching as rows of Riflejacks marched past her along the winding, treacherous foothills of the Ironhook Mountains. Less than fifty hours had passed since Flerring had cracked the godstone, and even with a swift departure from Yellow Creek they were only thirty miles or so east of the town. Supply wagons – and the big oxcart carrying the capstone – slowed them down, as did the rough terrain itself. Their only saving grace was that the men themselves were relatively fresh from days loitering outside of Yellow Creek.

But an army could only move as quickly as its slowest piece, and in this case it was the capstone. Sixteen extra oxen and a whole company of soldiers and engineers stood by to push or pull the wagon through mud or up steep embankments, to repair broken wheels or switch out tired animals. They worked with efficiency found nowhere else in the world, and yet it still wasn’t enough.

“Where’s Colonel Olem?” Vlora asked one of her aides, eyeing a particularly steep part of the road up ahead. The capstone would be along soon, and the engineers would have to deal with that hill, slowing down the whole army even further.

“I think he’s coming up just behind us, ma’am,” the aide answered.

Vlora acknowledged her response with a nod and headed back down the column, where she found Olem conferring with several of their engineers, walking beside them as he led his horse. She caught his eye and he broke away, mounting up and coming over to join her.

“We just had word from our scouts,” he reported before she could speak. “The Dynize are coming up on us quickly – there’s a full brigade just a couple hours behind us.”

Vlora swore. “How the pit did they catch up so quickly? Didn’t they at least head to Yellow Creek?”

“They didn’t.” Olem unfolded a hand-drawn map of the region and held it where Vlora could see. “As far as we can tell, they changed directions at this road here, heading to cut us off. Either they had better scouts than we expected or their Privileged were able to sense the capstone moving east and they made some quick assumptions.”

Vlora tried to look on the bright side. “They’ve taken the bait.”

“That they have. By the time they catch us, Burt will have the rest of the godstone up in the Ironhook passes. No chance of the Dynize following them up there.”

It was, Vlora had to admit, a terribly satisfying thing to know that she’d outmaneuvered Ka-Sedial once more. It took an enormous amount of anxiety off her chest. However, she didn’t need to remind herself that the Dynize could still slaughter her and all of her men. Saving the world from a Dynize god had been her first priority. Now she needed to get her people back to Adro in one piece, and Olem had not said “if” they catch us, but rather implied “when.” “Do we have any chance of outrunning them?” she asked quietly.

Olem looked toward the engineers, his expression souring. “I think we can stay ahead of them if we keep moving, it’s just that …”

“Don’t lie to me,” Vlora told him.

Olem glanced away, grimacing. “Dragging this capstone with us, we have no chance of staying ahead of the Dynize. As long as we’re in the foothills, we can block the roads and keep them from flanking us, but as soon as we break out onto the plains, we’ll be surrounded by five brigades of infantry.”

Vlora tried to keep from spiraling into a well of despair. “I’ve gotten us all killed, haven’t I?”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Olem said confidently.

“That kind of pressure isn’t exactly helpful.”

“Hasn’t stopped you before.”

She wanted to slap that reassuring grin off his face. “If we live through this, my love, please make me retire.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Vlora turned to watch as the cart with the capstone was manuevered up the steep hill on the road ahead of them, and was pleasantly surprised when none of the ropes snapped or the oxen stumbled. It was up and over the hill in just a few minutes, leaving her in a slightly more optimistic mood. She wondered what Tamas would have done in this situation, and realized she’d been with him in a tangle not so dissimilar during the Adran-Kez War. Had the odds been better, or worse? She couldn’t quite remember.

“How hard will it be for the Dynize to get around us?”

“While we’re on these foothill roads?” Olem asked. “Fairly difficult.”

“Good. Tell the engineers I want them to keep that wagon going as quickly as possible, no matter what the rest of the army does.”

“You intend to stop and fight?” Olem asked with surprise.

“ ‘Stop’ is a poor word for what I plan. We’re going to bloody their noses a little, and see what kind of sorcerous support they have. Fetch me Taniel, Norrine, and Davd.”

Vlora listened to the screaming of horses as she lined up her next shot.

Finding a proper line of sight in these foothills was next to impossible. It took climbing a tree on the next ridge over just to be able to witness the ambush the Riflejack rear had arranged for the Dynize vanguard. The ambush itself was in full swing – six hundred of her riflemen firing staggered volleys into a column of dragoons. The column went back down the valley for as far as Vlora could see, and had clearly not expected to run into the Riflejacks so quickly. Once the firing had begun, they had milled for almost a minute, the front line pushed ahead by the advancing column behind them, before charging up the hill toward her Riflejacks.

The dragoons died by the score in that charge, but Vlora forced herself to ignore them and kept her eyes on the column behind the battle. Her senses ablaze with a powder trance, she watched as word of the ambush was passed back beyond the curve of the next hill. She kept her gaze there, watching, waiting for the logical Dynize response.

It came within about two minutes. A Dynize Privileged, white gloves already on, appeared from down the column, his bodyguard shoving their way through the dragoons as he attempted to make his way forward to deal with the ambush. A Privileged of reasonable power could do enough damage to her rear guard to allow his dragoons to advance. If he had a lot of power, he might be able to brush them aside single-handedly.

Vlora had no interest in finding out. She braced the barrel of her rifle on the branch in front of her as she focused on the Privileged. She opened her third eye, letting out a small gasp as the world turned into a black-and-white landscape with a few pastel brushes of sorcery dabbed across it. The Privileged glowed brightly in the Else, forcing Vlora to blink at the radiance. It took a few moments to notice that the Privileged had not come unprepared for this eventuality – that there was a half dome of hardened air just a few inches in front of him. It would be very difficult to punch through, and impossible to shoot around for all but the most skilled of powder mages.

The Dynize, it seemed, had learned from the battles they’d fought against powder mages.

Vlora shifted her attention to the woman sitting in the saddle just behind and to the right of the Privileged. She also glowed in the Else, and Vlora had seen enough bone-eyes by now to know them by their aura. The Privileged was focused on the battle ahead, no doubt trusting his shield of air, while the bone-eye seemed focused inward. Vlora had no doubt she was spurring on her soldiers, giving them the courage to charge uphill against her Riflejacks.

It was, so far, not working. Several hundred dragoons already littered the road, further slowing their compatriots. Vlora’s Riflejacks worked with mechanical precision, firing staggered volleys into whatever came next. It was utter suicide on the part of the dragoons – unless, of course, they were simply buying time for their Privileged to reach the front and lend them a hand.

Vlora readjusted her grip, took a long, steady breath, and breathed out as she squeezed the trigger. As the bullet flew from the barrel of her rifle, she burned powder charges in her kit, adding extra strength to the shot so that it would soar straight and true across nearly a thousand yards of open terrain. As it approached the enemy, she nudged the bullet down and to the right. The bullet skimmed the outer layer of the Privileged’s shield of hardened air and slammed into the bone-eye sitting next to him, snapping her head back and sending her tumbling from the saddle.

The Privileged whirled, watching his companion fall, right as a bullet tore through the base of his spine from the opposite direction. Another bullet killed the captain of the Privileged’s guard, while two more bullets downed nearby officers.

Vlora allowed herself a victorious smile, glancing across the valley to where Taniel hid on the hillside opposite her. Somewhere to his left were Davd and Norrine, but Vlora didn’t take the time to pinpoint them before turning her gaze back to the battle.

The Dynize faltered, the courage their bone-eye supplied suddenly gone. Some tried to flee back down the column, though there was no space for them to go, while others abandoned their horses and took cover in streambeds and ditches. Vlora found Olem standing with her rear guard, keeping them in check so that they held their ground. More than a few of them would want to press an attack, but Vlora had no interest in taking a single step back toward Yellow Creek.

The trap had drawn out the brigade’s Privileged and bone-eye, and Vlora pulled a mirror out of her pocket, flashing it toward Olem. He nodded toward her, giving an order to pull back. Let the Dynize stumble over their dead and wonder when the next ambush would come. In the meantime, the Riflejacks would march double time to catch up with the capstone and continue their sprint toward the coast.

Vlora was just about to climb down from her perch when her preternatural senses picked up something she did not expect – not up here. It was the sound of hooves on gravel, as well as the jingle of cavalry kit. It was, alarmingly, coming from behind her.

She swung her rifle around and over a branch, shifting her position so that she could face toward the crest of the ridge behind her. To her surprise, she saw well over a hundred Dynize cavalry in their shining breastplates mount the ridge and fall into line. She swore to herself angrily, wondering what damned goat track they had found to be able to flank the Riflejack position. The dragoons hadn’t just been buying time for their Privileged – they’d been buying time for their cuirassiers as well.

The charge was not an ideal one – through a screen of trees that hid the cuirassiers from the Riflejacks, across a tiny streambed, and then over a rocky field. Not ideal, but certainly possible, and with success it might be able to shatter her rear guard.

The cuirassiers finished falling into line, and their officer raised his sword.

“Piss and shit,” Vlora growled. She dropped her rifle to the ground, hoping it wasn’t damaged in the fall, and awkwardly pulled her pistol. Just as the officer lowered his sword, she pulled the trigger, floating a bullet fifty yards and, with an extra flare of powder, put a neat hole through his breastplate.

None of his cuirassiers seemed to notice him fall as they plunged over the lip of the ridge, charging through the screen of trees without a word, while the attention of the Riflejacks was split between shooting dragoon stragglers and preparing to pull back.

Vlora shouted for Olem across the valley, but the noise was lost among the screams of men and horses down on the road. She swore again, reaching out with her senses, and set off the powder carried by the six closest cuirassiers. The kickback of the sorcery almost knocked her off her branch, but the blast had the intended effect – causing the cuirassiers to falter, and Olem and the rear guard to look toward their left.

With her rifle dropped, Vlora could do nothing but watch as Olem shouted, waving his sword in the air as he kicked riflemen into a loose line and gave the order to fix bayonets. It came not a second too soon, as the Dynize cuirassiers slammed into the reeling Riflejacks. Vlora’s heart leapt as Olem went down beneath the swinging sword of a cuirassier, and the line was broken by the sheer power of the charge.

Taking her eyes off the fight, she glanced beneath her and leapt from her hiding spot, hitting the rocky ground hard and rolling into a crouch. Fetching her rifle and leaving her hat behind, she sprinted toward this new battle, fearing the worst.

She reached the road in time to see the last of the cuirassiers pulled from his horse and butchered by angry riflemen. The length of their entrenchment was a scene of chaos, with horses and soldiers dead and dying in a hundred-yard swath. She could see in an instant that the cuirassiers had simply brought too few men. With an extra hundred they might have completely dislodged the rear guard, and even without them their charge had been devastating. Her rear guard was still reeling from the hit, officers attempting to organize their men back into ranks in case the dragoons mounted another attack.

A dragoon charge did not come. Vlora found Olem lying in the mud, blinking at the sky, his brow caked in blood. She dropped to her knees beside him, overcome by relief when his eyes immediately focused on her. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“I … I think so. Caught a horse’s knee to the face. Does it look bad?”

It did. “You’ve had worse.”

Olem struggled to stand up, and Vlora put her arm beneath his shoulder to get him back to his feet so that they could survey the damage. “The dragoons are pressing,” Olem commented.

“Too many dead clogging the road,” Vlora responded. “They won’t be able to mount another charge at this point. All their cards were in that cuirassier charge.”

“Pit, that scared the shit out of me. Damned good thinking, detonating some powder. Otherwise they might have hit us before we even saw them.”

Vlora didn’t feel as if she’d added much of anything to that fight. They should have seen that possible flanking maneuver and been ready for it. Frankly, she was furious with herself for overlooking it. “Looks like our boys are pretty mauled. We need to grab our wounded and fall back, double time.”

“Agreed.” Olem pushed Vlora away, testing his footing, then headed down the road shouting orders as if he wasn’t still bleeding heavily from his forehead. Vlora grabbed a nearby infantryman, pointing at Olem.

“Find the colonel a surgeon. Make sure he gets stitched up within five minutes,” she ordered.

Vlora spotted Taniel coming down the side of the opposite valley from her, his rifle slung over one shoulder. He stopped beside a dead cuirassier, watching one of the horses panicking in a nearby bush, before finishing his walk toward Vlora. “Those cuirassiers just came out of nowhere,” he commented. “I was so focused on the battle, I didn’t see them until you caused a ruckus with their powder.”

“I barely saw them in time myself, and they were right behind me,” Vlora responded. “I’m lucky one didn’t spot me and put a bullet in my back.” She shook her head, staring bleakly at the carnage one more time. This was supposed to be a way of discouraging the Dynize – clog the road, kill a few hundred of them, draw out their sorcery support, and then flee. Instead, the Dynize had managed to flank them in mere minutes. “Whoever is in command isn’t someone I want to play games with.”

Taniel remained silent.

“Pit,” Vlora said softly. “Now we have wounded to haul.”

“They’ll slow us down less than the capstone.”

“Yes, but we can ditch the capstone if we need to.”

Taniel seemed surprised. “You’d really do that?”

“Burt has the rest of the godstone. The cap won’t do them any damned good. If we need to drop it, we drop it.”

“It might do them some good,” Taniel said hesitantly. “It’s still potent old sorcery.”

“It’s not worth the lives of my men,” Vlora insisted.

Their argument was cut off by the arrival of one of Vlora’s scouts. It was a young woman, dusty and glassy-eyed from a hard ride, her horse worked into a lather. The woman didn’t bother to salute before barking out her report: “Ma’am, we’ve just caught sight of another Dynize army.”

Vlora’s head snapped up. “Where?”

“To our southeast. Two brigades, coming on quick. They’re going to cut off our escape the moment we get out of the foothills.”