The Crimson Campaign

Chapter 18

Tamas waited for the return of his night scouts and listened to the familiar sounds of his soldiers breaking camp.

There was a light chatter this morning – something missing over the last two weeks’ worth of march since the fall of Budwiel. Someone laughed in the distance. Nothing like a full belly to bring a man’s spirits up. Combine that with elation at the victory over the Kez vanguard, and Tamas could almost call his men happy.

Almost.

Tamas didn’t like eating horse. It reminded him of hard times in Gurla, of starvation and disease and the desert heat, when they’d been forced to slaughter their own healthy horses to stay alive. The taste was slightly sweet, and gamier than beef. Meat that came from cavalry chargers tended to be tough.

Then again, at least his stomach didn’t rumble.

“What is it, soldier?”

Vlora stood at attention on the other side of his cook fire. She snapped off a salute.

“Kez spotted, sir. Riding under a white flag.”

Tamas flicked a bit of fat into the fire and watched it sizzle. He stood up, wiping his hands on an already soiled handkerchief. Another problem they faced – no camp followers meant no laundresses. Both his uniforms were dirty and stained, and he smelled like a cesspool.

Adom forbid you do your own laundry, a little voice in the back of his head said. Tamas chuckled.

“Sir?” Vlora asked.

“Nothing, soldier. I’ll meet them on the edge of camp. Olem!”

“Coming, sir.”

Tamas was joined by Olem and a small bodyguard of Olem’s Riflejacks. Among the Ninth, stationed as the rear guard, the last tents were being rolled and stowed in packs and cook fires put out. They’d be on the march in twenty minutes. The advance elements of the Seventh were already half a mile down the road.

He passed a row of wagons. They’d been able to salvage them from the abandoned remains of Hune Dora. The bottoms were already stained from the blood of the wounded, and they smelled like death at ten paces. Today, they would carry the wounded that had survived the last two days.

“Have those washed out,” Tamas said to Olem. “In fact, I want bathing mandatory. There’s plenty of mountain streams in these woods. Organize it with the scouts. I want fifty men to stop and bathe in every mountain stream we pass. If we don’t look to ourselves, we’ll have disease rampant in the camp.”

“Yes, sir.” Olem rubbed at his dust-caked uniform. “I could use a little freshening up myself.”

They left the edge of the Adran camp and passed the rear pickets. The forest beyond was still, the only sounds that of chattering squirrels and the call of birds. Tamas welcomed the birdsong. It reminded him of peace, distracted him from the harsh call of the carrion crows and the memory of piled corpses that lingered behind his eyes.

Tamas saw the Kez riders before they saw him.

There were a dozen of them. They were still mounted upon their chargers in the middle of the road, watching the Adran pickets impassively. They wore the heavy breastplates of cuirassiers over tan uniforms with green trim. They dismounted as Tamas drew closer and one of them removed his helmet and approached.

“Field Marshal Tamas?”

“I am he,” Tamas said.

“I am General Beon je Ipille,” he said in Adran with a light accent. He extended his hand. “The pleasure is mine.”

Tamas took the general’s hand. Beon was a young man, perhaps in his late twenties. His face was boyish, touched by the same cabal sorceries that kept every king of the Nine looking young far beyond their years. That alone would have told Tamas that Beon was one of Ipille’s sons, if not for the name and reputation.

“The king’s favored son. Your reputation precedes you.”

Beon tilted his head modestly. “And you, yours.”

“To what do I owe the honor?” Tamas said. This was all a formality, of course. Tamas knew why Beon was here.

“I’ve come to inquire as to your intentions in my country.”

“Only to return to my own, and defend it from the aggression of a tyrant.”

Beon didn’t even blink at the insult against his father. Tamas made a mental note of that. He was more levelheaded than his older brothers, it seemed. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

“So we are at an impasse.”

“Not an impasse, I think,” Beon said. “I’ve come to request your surrender.”

“An impasse. I will not surrender,” Tamas said flatly.

Beon nodded, as if to himself. “I was afraid you would say that.”

“Afraid?” Tamas knew Beon’s reputation. Fear didn’t enter into it. Beon was almost recklessly brave. He seized opportunities a lesser commander might balk at. His courage had served him well.

“I do not relish chasing the great Field Marshal Tamas. You’ve already seen to my vanguard – how do you say, sending them back with their tails tucked between their legs?” He looked over his shoulder at one of the other riders. The rider was a dragoon, with a straight sword and lacking the breastplate of a cuirassier. “Their commanders barely escaped with their lives.”

“You could just let me go on my way,” Tamas said jovially. “I’ll be out of your country in a few weeks.”

Beon chuckled. “And my father would have my head. Your men are hungry, Tamas. You have no food, other than the horsemeat you salvaged from my vanguard. I’ll be fair. I’ll tell you what you face, and then you can decide whether to surrender. Yes?”

Tamas snorted. “That is more than fair.”

“Good. I have ten thousand dragoons and fifty-five hundred cuirassiers under my command. My elder brother is about a week’s march behind me with thirty thousand infantry. I know you have eleven thousand men. We outnumber you four to one. You have no hope of escaping this country. Surrender now, and your men will be treated with respect as prisoners of war.” He paused and lifted his hand, as if swearing upon the Rope. “I’ve studied you, Tamas. You do not throw your men’s lives away in needless causes.”

“If you’ve studied me,” Tamas said quietly, “you’ll know that I do not lose.”

Beon’s expression was bemused. “You are a dead man, Tamas. Do you have any requests?”

“Yes. I have over a hundred wounded. If I hand them over to you, will they be treated with respect as prisoners of war?”

“So that you may travel faster? No. Any wounded that fall into our hands will be executed as criminals.”

Beon was a gentleman through and through. It was entirely likely he was bluffing. Did Tamas dare risk it?

“Then, General, I have no more to say to you.”

Beon gave a respectful nod. “I would wish you good luck, but…”

“I understand.”

The Kez remounted and were off down the road within minutes. Tamas watched them go. That general would be trouble. Incompetence was practically bred into the Kez army, where nobles could purchase their commission or find themselves a general at the whim of the king.

Once in a while, though, talent rose above the chaff.

“Olem,” Tamas said.

The bodyguard snapped to attention, but his eyes never left the direction the Kez had gone. Tamas knew he was itching for a fight.

“Sir?”

“Get me an ax and meet me at the head of the column.”

The basic kits of all Adran infantry included a hand ax and a shovel. They were meant for cutting firewood and digging latrine pits.

A good commander utilized them for far more.

Tamas gathered his horse and rode to the front of the column. He found Colonel Arbor at the vanguard with his First Battalion. The colonel flexed his jaw, popping his false teeth out into one hand as Tamas fell in beside him.

“Nice day, sir. Trees keep the forest cool.”

Tamas examined the road. It winded along a steep, heavily forested hillside. Enough light reached the ground for there to be a thick undergrowth; thorny and tangled. Without the road, the terrain would be nearly impossible to traverse.

“A word, Colonel,” Tamas said. “Pick two platoons and bring them off to the side.”

Arbor hollered for the Nineteenth and Thirty-Fourth Platoons. By the time they’d shuffled off the road and into the forest, Olem had joined them. He dismounted and handed Tamas an ax.

Tamas removed his jacket and his shirt and looked around at the men. “We have fifteen thousand cavalry dogging our tails,” he said. “On horseback, they travel faster and easier than us. I mean to change that. Every time there’s a narrowing in the terrain, like that one there” – he pointed to where the road cut into the hillside up ahead – “we’re going to drop a few tons of rubble there. Gather rocks, fell trees. Any kind of debris. As soon as the column has passed, we’re going to stop it up.”

Tamas picked a nearby tree. It was wide enough that three men couldn’t have reached around its base. It would do perfectly. He positioned himself on the side of the tree facing the road and began to chop.

The two platoons set about hacking at trees with axes and billhooks and gathering everything they could from the nearby forest. They stacked great piles beside the road. Tamas pulled two more platoons out of the column, and by the time the last of his men had passed, they had half a dozen immense trees ready to fall across the road.

Tamas turned his head at the sound of an approaching rider.

It was only Gavril. He reined in beside Tamas.

“You the last of our scouts back there?” Tamas asked.

“Aye,” Gavril said. “The Kez are a mile behind me. They’re not coming hard. I don’t think they’re in a hurry.” He examined the work Tamas had been doing. “Cutting trees like a logger. I like this side of you. I hope all this work was worth it.”

“It’ll take them hours to clear this,” Tamas said.

“Or they’ll go around.”

Tamas wiped the sweat from his brow. If they found a way through the forest, all of this was for naught. “Can they?”

“They’ll have to scout it,” Gavril said. “And they’ll be cautious in case you’ve laid a trap. You might have bought us some time.”

Tamas took his shirt from Olem, and a soldier brought him his charger. He climbed into the saddle. “Bring ’em down!” he shouted to the soldiers.

A few minutes later the trees crashed to the ground. They were felled so that they lay across each other, wedged to block the road. It wouldn’t be as simple as throwing a rope around them and dragging them away with teams of horses.

The rest of the rubble was thrown to block the way, and Tamas ordered the platoons to march double-time to catch up with the rest of the column.

“Have your scouts find me good spots to block the road,” Tamas said to Gavril.

“Consider it done.”

“Olem, see that those two platoons are given a double ration of horsemeat tonight. They earned it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tamas shrugged into his shirt. “Put your mind to anything else we can use to slow down the Kez. They might still dog us with a company or two, but I want to keep the bulk of their numbers as far behind us as possible.”

“I heard you met with the Kez general,” Gavril said.

“I did. It was Beon je Ipille. Ipille’s youngest son.”

Gavril grunted. “I’ve heard he’s a decent sort – for Ipille’s spawn, anyway.”

“He is.”

“How did it go?” Gavril asked.

“I have one regret and one hope.”

Gavril seemed intrigued. “Your hope?”

“That I didn’t make a grave mistake refusing to surrender.”

“And your regret?”

“It’s too bad Beon wasn’t Ipille’s first son. He’d have made a terrific king. I’m going to regret killing him.”

“I came as quickly as I could,” Adamat said.

“Have a seat.”

Adamat took a chair opposite Ricard and leaned back. Ricard’s face was grave. What hair remained on his balding head stuck out everywhere in unkempt wisps, and his eyes were tired, his beard uncombed, clothes rumpled. Very unlike Ricard.

Ricard stared at the floor. “You heard the news?” he asked, gesturing to the newspaper on his desk.

The paper proclaiming the death of Field Marshal Tamas was a week old now.

“All of Adro has heard it,” Adamat said.

Ricard finally looked up. When he glimpsed Adamat’s face, he nearly fell out of his chair. “What the pit happened to you?”

Adamat would have snorted if it didn’t hurt so badly to do so. He imagined he looked far worse off than Ricard. Little sleep, his nose recently broken and reset, cuts and bruises all across his face. Adamat was a horror, and it was interfering with his work. No one liked being seen doing business with someone who’d had the piss beaten out of them.

“I’ve had a few run-ins lately,” Adamat said.

Ricard waited for an explanation. Adamat wasn’t about to give him one.

“Yes, well…” Ricard slowly tore his gaze from Adamat’s face. “The country is in an uproar. The Kez are pushing the southern front, and with Tamas gone a few royalists have come out of the woodwork. He was the glue holding this whole nation together.” Ricard ran his fingers through his hair. “Tamas’s remaining councillors… we’ve already started bickering among ourselves. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

“Are you going ahead with the election?”

Ricard threw up his hands in exasperation. “We have no choice. We could declare martial law and delay the election, but the entire army is on the southern front trying to fight back the Kez.” Ricard rubbed his eyes. “Which brings me to why I asked you to come in: Lord Claremonte is making his move.”

Adamat sat up straighter. “And?”

Ricard spit on the floor, then seemed to immediately regret having done so. “He’s declared his intention to run for prime minister of Adro.”

“How could he?” Adamat breathed in disbelief. “He’s not even Adran!”

“Ah, but he is. Or at least that’s what the records he provided to the Ministerial Review Board says. Fell! Fell, get in here!”

The young woman Adamat had previously met slipped into the room. Her hair was done up in a braid that went over one shoulder, and she wore a frilled blouse loose about the neck. “Sir?”

“Fell, what have you got on Claremonte?”

“Nothing,” Fell said. “If his birth records are forgeries, they’re extremely good. We have people going over all the information we have on him. He’s never actually claimed to be Brudanian, and the Brudania-Gurla Trading Company doesn’t require Brudanian citizenship to become the head.”

Adamat found himself watching Fell, suddenly suspicious, and he wasn’t quite sure why. “Keep… keep talking,” Adamat said.

“Sir?” Fell asked.

“Have you found a stronger connection to Lord Vetas?” Adamat’s own knowledge about Vetas and Claremonte’s relationship came through the Proprietor’s eunuch, and through Vetas’s own admission. If he’d been misled in some way, it could derail his entire line of inquiry.

“None that we can find.”

“Why could he possibly want to be prime minister of Adro? Ricard, didn’t you tell me yourself that the prime minister will be a figurehead?”

Ricard shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “That is my vision of the prime minster, yes.”

“The truth is,” Fell said, without waiting for Ricard’s instruction, “the first prime minister will be the one to set the standard for every one to follow him. How much power the prime minister holds, and how he wields it, will depend entirely on how aggressive the first man to hold the office decides to be.”

Adamat smoothed the front of his jacket. What was bothering him so much about this woman? There was something about her mannerisms that he’d not noticed before… something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “So if Claremonte is elected, there is the potential for him to wield as much power in Adro as a king?”

“Not as much as a king,” Ricard said. “The design of the system has put parameters on that. However… quite a lot of power.”

“Pit,” Adamat said.

Fell crossed to Ricard’s side. “Sir, if I may…”

“That’s it!” Adamat stared at her.

“What?” Ricard asked.

Adamat reached in his pocket slowly, grasping the butt of his pistol. “You have the same way of speaking,” he said to Fell. “Some of the same cadence as he does. It’s not readily noticeable. Not like you’re family or anything, but as if you’ve been trained at the same finishing school.”

“As who?” Ricard asked.

“Lord Vetas.”

Ricard and Fell exchanged a look.

“This is bad,” Fell said.

Ricard agreed. “Very bad.”

Adamat’s gaze moved between the two. He found himself squeezing the butt of his pistol in one hand and the head of his cane with the other. He felt his jaw clench. What was going on here? What did they know that he didn’t?

Ricard said to Fell, “I’m going to tell him.”

“This isn’t common knowledge,” Fell said with a frown.

“What the pit are you two talking about?” Adamat asked.

Ricard leaned forward on his desk, leaning his chin on one hand. “Have you heard of the Fontain Academy in Starland?”

“No,” Adamat said. Neither Ricard nor Fell seemed unduly ready to leap at him, so he loosened his grip on his pistol and cane. “A finishing school?” he guessed.

“Of a sort,” Ricard said. “It’s a very exclusive place. Of every thousand students they have, only one graduates.”

“What makes it so difficult?” Adamat asked.

“The rigors,” Fell spoke up. “Eighteen hours of work every day for twenty years. Training of every sort: martial, sexual, memory retention, etiquette, mathematics, science, politics, philosophy. Exposure to every school of thought in the known world. No contact with friends or family for the rest of your life. The willingness to become beholden to one man or organization against bribery or threat of pain or death.”

“Sounds awful,” Adamat said. “I would have heard of such a place.”

“No,” Ricard said. “You wouldn’t have.”

Fell was looking at her fingernails. “Only prospective clients know about the Fontain Academy. It costs as much as thirty million krana to purchase a graduate.”

“Purchase? So it’s slavery?” Adamat rocked back in his chair. Thirty million krana. That was a kingly sum. There were less than fifty people in all the Nine with access to that much money, and he didn’t think Ricard was one of them.

Adamat wasn’t sure if he believed this. How could an organization like that exist? Certainly slavery was still openly practiced in the world, but in the Nine? Not for hundreds of years. “Are you asking me to believe that you and Lord Vetas are graduates of the Fontain Academy?”

“It appears that way,” Fell said. “I couldn’t confirm it for certain, but for you to make the observation you did transcends coincidence.”

“Then what can you tell me about him?”

“Every graduate has different specialties. But if he is a graduate, then he’s dangerous. He’ll be adept at blackmail and sabotage. He’ll be smarter than most of the people in this city, including you. Proficient with all weapons, but likely favoring knives and pistols.”

“What’s your specialty?” Adamat asked.

Fell gave him a thin smile but didn’t answer.

“Can we speak alone?” he asked Ricard.

Ricard nodded to Fell.

“Sir,” Fell said. “The Fontain Academy is not a secret, strictly, but we do not advertise ourselves. This information is to be kept private.”

“I’ll respect that,” Adamat said.

Fell left the room, leaving him alone with Ricard.

Adamat watched his friend for nearly a minute before he spoke. “You purchased a woman?”

“Adamat…”

“I didn’t think even you would stoop to that.”

“It’s not like that, I–”

“It’s not, is it?” Adamat raised his eyebrows.

“Well, maybe a little. But that’s not why I did it.”

“Then why?”

Ricard’s face grew grim. “I love this country. I love my union. I will not see either torn apart by the machinations of a foreigner. I’ll be the first prime minister if it kills me – or if I have to kill to do it.”

“When?”

“When what?”

“When did you… purchase… her?”

“I finalized it over the summer. She arrived four weeks ago.”

“And where the pit did you get thirty million krana?”

“She was ten million,” Ricard said. “About half my fortune. She’s only had ten years of schooling at the academy – it’s normally twenty years.”

Adamat shook his head. “Ten million for that girl. What were you thinking?”

“She runs my organization better than I can,” Ricard said quietly. “In one month – just one – she’s made me fifty thousand krana. She’s straightened my ministerial campaign. Before her I had some good ideas, but now I have a serious chance at being the prime minister of Adro. She’s worth every penny I spent on her.”

“Can you trust her? What’s to stop her from killing you and taking control of the union, if she’s so smart.”

Ricard said, “Loyalty. For the next thirty years of her life she belongs to me. It’s the price of schooling at the Fontain Academy. And reputation. If she were to turn on me in some way, the academy would kill her themselves.”

Adamat smoothed the front of his coat again. This was all too much. “That reminds me,” Adamat said. “I need to borrow money.”

“You still owe Palagyi money?” Ricard said, seemingly relieved to steer the conversation away from Fell. “I’m glad you finally got some sense into you. What the pit was that all about, refusing to let me pay him?”

“Palagyi is dead. And no, not that. I need fifty thousand krana. Now. In banknotes.”

Ricard blinked at him. “Fifty? I can write a check for fifty. I’d do it in a heartbeat for you.”

“It needs to be cash.”

“Can’t do it. No bank in Adro would let me take out fifty thousand all at once. I could have it for you in a couple of weeks.”

“That’s too long,” Adamat said. He rubbed his eyes. Ricard was his only hope of getting the money to pay Colonel Verundish to release Bo. How could he himself possibly come up with that sum in a week?

Well, perhaps Ricard wasn’t the only hope.

“You smell like the southbound end of a northbound ass,” Gavril said.

Tamas sat and watched his charger nibble on a bit of dry grass beside the road. The column had stopped for a short rest, and he was up near the vanguard.

In the distance Tamas could hear the crack of rifles. Another Kez scouting party close enough to engage. The Kez had been dogging their heels ever since Tamas’s meeting with General Beon. Their dragoons stayed close, traveling in groups of ten or twenty, flanking the rear guard and causing whatever mayhem they could.

Tamas was weary of it. He’d set a dozen traps, killed hundreds of Kez dragoons, but his men couldn’t even stop to scavenge or they risked finding themselves flanked by more than just a few squads.

Gavril sniffed at the wind, as if to punctuate his previous statement.

Tamas looked down at his uniform. The dark blue didn’t show stains badly, but the silver-and-gold trim had seen better days, and the linen shirt beneath the jacket was yellowed from sweat, the cuffs stained dark from powder burns and dirt. A thin crust of dirt covered his face and hands like a second skin, and he didn’t dare imagine how his feet might smell once he peeled off his boots.

“I smell fine,” he told his brother-in-law.

“First rule of bathing,” Gavril said. “If you can’t smell yourself anymore, it’s time to wash. We’re stopped for lunch. The last of the horsemeat is gone, so the least we can do is give the men an hour of rest. Follow that stream back there up a few hundred yards and there’s a waterfall. Might give you some privacy.”

“Are you going to give me your report?”

“After you bathe.”

Tamas examined Gavril for a few moments. He was a different man from the one Tamas had met so many years ago. Jakola of Pensbrook had been a svelte, dashing character with a clean-shaven chin and broad shoulders. Gavril had gained a lot of weight during his time at the Mountainwatch. He carried it well, but Gavril would still be here long after the rest of them had starved to death.

The morbid thought gave Tamas a chuckle.

“I’m serious,” Gavril said.

Tamas climbed to his feet. It couldn’t be helped. A sudden boyish impulse struck him and he flipped Gavril a rude gesture before heading down the column. Men lay about the road, their uniforms soaked with sweat. No one saluted him. Tamas didn’t make an issue of it. A ways down the resting column, two men broke out in a fistfight. Their sergeant broke it up quickly. People were growing hungry again, and tensions would only get higher.

He found the stream where a few dozen soldiers had stripped to nothing, washing themselves in the cold mountain water. Tamas passed them and headed upstream.

The stream cut through a gully, surrounded on either side by steep earthen walls. The trees rose even farther, towering hundreds of feet above him, giving Tamas the slight feeling of claustrophobia.

As the stream cut around a corner, Tamas could hear the rush of falling water. He stopped and examined the top of the gully. This was a horrible place to be. An army could come upon him, and he wouldn’t hear it over the sound of the waterfall.

Every stop had pickets out a quarter of a mile. No one would come upon him without warning.

Tamas rounded the bend to find Olem was there already, stripped down to his trousers, standing with his face up against the shower of falling water.

Tamas stepped toward him, and a word of greeting died on his lips.

Vlora stood under the waterfall with Olem. She was completely nude, her uniform discarded with the rest of her gear on the bank of the stream. Olem had his hands in her dark hair, pulling them through the knots and tangles. She said something and Olem laughed, and then she turned toward him. She pushed her body up against Olem’s. She opened her mouth, and Olem tilted his head down toward hers.

Her eyes flickered open. She stepped smoothly past Olem and turned her body away from Tamas. Olem said something, then stole a furtive glance at Tamas. He was suddenly washing his own hair vigorously.

“What’s wrong?” A hand thumped Tamas’s shoulder. “Haven’t seen a naked woman before?” Gavril passed Tamas, heading toward the waterfall, already stripping off his shirt.

Tamas’s heart leapt, and he said a silent prayer of thanks that he didn’t jump two feet in the air. He quickly grew conscious of his voyeurism. He could feel his face growing red, so he strode to the waterfall, stripping off his uniform.

Vlora left the water and gathered her knapsack, dressing quickly. A minute later and Tamas was alone with Gavril and Olem.

“You know,” Gavril said to Olem, tossing his uniform on the rocks beside the stream, “you’re supposed to take your pants off when you shower.”

Olem cleared his throat and gave an uncomfortable laugh. He glanced in the direction Vlora had gone.

Gavril gave a belly-shaking laugh. “That is a good-looking woman. I can see why you left ’em on.” He elbowed Olem in the ribs, nearly knocking him over. Olem gave him a lopsided grin. A glance at Tamas and his grin disappeared.

“Vlora was engaged to Taniel,” Tamas said. “Up until the beginning of this summer.” He stared at Olem. What had he walked in upon? Had this been going on long, or was it a chance thing?

If Gavril noticed the tension, he ignored it. “Not engaged to him anymore, is she?” He shrugged his big shoulders. “Fine-looking woman is a fine-looking woman. Her being unpromised is only a bonus.”

“I sometimes forget your… habits… with women.”

Gavril squared his body to Tamas, unashamed of his nudity. “You also forgot about that string of seventeen-year-old noble daughters trying to bag the most eligible bachelor in the Nine the year after Erika died… before we went to Kez. How many of those did you bed?”

Tamas had forgotten all about bathing. He clutched his jacket in one hand, jaw clenched. “Watch your mouth, Jakola.”

At some point Olem had left the waterfall and gathered his shirt, jacket, and pistol from the ground. He began to slink downstream.

“We’re going to have a talk, Olem,” Tamas said.

Olem froze. Drops of water hung in his sandy beard.

Gavril’s thick finger prodded Tamas in the chest. “You’ve had your share of women, Tamas. Including my sister. That means I can say what I want.”

Tamas looked down at Gavril’s finger, seriously considering snapping it off. Who the pit did he think he was, speaking to Tamas like that? If they’d been in public, Tamas would have had no choice but to call him out. As it were, he wanted to punch him in the nose. In a fight, Gavril had the strength and weight. Tamas had the speed, and if he had powder, it was no contest. He could…

He stopped himself. Here he was, deep in Kez territory, pursued by an army four times the size of his, and all he wanted was to feel clean again before the next battle. What was he doing? Gavril wasn’t his enemy.

A glance over his shoulder told him Olem had gone.

“You’re too much of a hard-ass, Tamas,” Gavril said.

Tamas hung his uniform on the protruding root of a tree and stepped under the waterfall. The initial shock struck him to the core. The water was cold as ice, runoff from the mountain peaks towering over them to the east.

“Sweet Kresimir!” He felt his leg stiffen with the cold.

“I’ve taken colder baths at the Mountainwatch,” Gavril said.

Tamas looked downstream, the way Olem had gone. “Vlora was engaged to my Taniel. He could be dead now, for all I know. I’ll not have–”

“The engagement was broken off,” Gavril cut him off. “You told me so yourself. Let it go. How many times did you fool around behind Erika’s back?”

“None,” Tamas said. His voice came out colder than the stream.

Gavril made a face like he didn’t believe a word of it. He opened his mouth, but Tamas spoke first.

“Question my honor,” Tamas said. “Just try it.”

“Won’t say another word about it.”

“Good. Now give me your damned report.”

“The Kez have fallen back almost eight miles. Some of your roadblocks have worked, some haven’t. The cavalry can’t be more than two abreast on these roads, so their own column is miles long. They’ve got scouts ranging everywhere they can through the woods to try to find shortcuts. I have my rangers keeping an eye out for small companies that try to flank us, but so far our worst enemy is the lack of food.”

“How long until we reach the Fingers of Kresimir?” Tamas scrubbed his fingers through his mustache. He needed a shave, badly.

“Six days.”

“Good.”

“About that, I have bad news.”

Tamas sighed. “Just what I was hoping to hear.”

“The Kez have sent their cuirassiers around to the west to cut across the plains. That’s fifty-five hundred heavy cavalry. What they lose in going around Hune Dora they’ll gain by having flat ground. If my guess is right, they’ll reach the Fingers right about the time we do.

“Last time I went through the Fingers,” Gavril continued, “the forest ended about a mile from the first river. Open, flat plain all the way to the water, then a narrow wooden bridge.”

“A perfect place for the Kez to trap us.”

“Exactly.”

Tamas closed his eyes, trying to see the space in his mind. It had been thirteen years since he last passed through the area. “I need to break the Kez.”

“What?”

“Break them. I can’t have the cavalry dogging us all the way to Deliv. Even if we lose them for a time crossing the Fingers, they’ll be there waiting for us in the Northern Expanse, and on the open plateau we won’t stand a chance against three brigades of cavalry.”

“How are you going to break that many cavalry? You’ve only got eleven thousand men, Tamas. I’ve seen you work miracles before, but this is out of your league.”

Tamas stepped out from under the cold water and snatched his uniform from the roots. He pulled his pants on over his wet body.

“We’re going to march double-time. We can make it in four days. That’ll give us preparation time.”

“You can’t march double for four days on empty stomachs.”

Tamas ignored him. “Take twenty of your fastest riders. Take extra horses – some of those we captured from the Kez. Go ahead to the Fingers.”

“I thought we were going to slaughter the horses so the men could eat.”

“Slaughter them when you get there. I want you to destroy the bridge.”

Gavril stepped out of the water and shook his great head, spraying water everywhere. It reminded Tamas of watching a bear fishing in a river. “Are you mad?” Gavril asked.

“Do you trust me?”

Gavril hesitated a few seconds too long. “Yes?”

“Destroy the bridge, slaughter the horses, and start making rafts. Swear your men to silence about the bridge. Once we catch up to you, the story is that the bridge was washed out and you were sent on ahead to build rafts.”

“You better have a damned good reason for destroying that bridge before we cross it,” Gavril said. “Otherwise my men will string me up for trying to get our whole army killed.”

Tamas pulled his jacket on. “Do it. Only take men you trust.”

He began walking down the stream as Gavril began to dress. He paused when Gavril called out behind him.

“Tamas,” his brother-in-law said. “Try not to get us all slaughtered.”