The Thousand Names

Chapter Twenty-three

MARCUS

Marcus’ wrists chafed where he was bound. They’d used ordinary camp rope, thick and rough, and try as he might to hold still, the edges scraped painfully against his skin. At least he hadn’t been gagged.

Jen, as a woman, had been spared the indignity; Adrecht remained a gentleman. The same could not be said of the Second Company man Sergeant Davis had left to watch the prisoners, who spent entirely too long staring thoughtfully at the Concordat liaison.

They were in a large tent, empty except for a few makeshift writing desks. Marcus and Jen had a corner to themselves, while the corporal and rankers who’d been taken along with the colonel sat in a huddle on the other side.

Adrecht himself hadn’t had the stomach to face to the prisoners, which gave Marcus a little bit of hope to cling to. He knows he shouldn’t be doing this. If I could only talk to him, I could make him understand. Unfortunately, Adrecht seemed to have delegated his captives to Davis, and Marcus harbored no illusions about his rationality.

Fucking Davis. I should have had him strung up long ago. He’d known how awful the man was, even in Colonel Warus’ day, but back then it hadn’t been his problem. Besides, petty cruelty and thuggery were practically a sergeants’ tradition. But not mutiny.

The Second Company man was leering again. He was a squat, ugly ranker, with a thick black beard and angry red welts on his cheeks. He sat by the tent flap on a biscuit crate, musket by his side, and occupied his time with tuneless whistling and staring hungrily at Jen when he thought no one was looking.

“Marcus,” Jen hissed.

He looked across at her, and her eyes flicked to their jailer.

“If he tries anything,” Marcus said in a whisper, “I’ll-”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” she said. “Listen. If worse really comes to worst, just keep your head down.”

He snorted. “If you think I’m going to sit quietly while he drags you outside and has his way with you-”

“He won’t,” she said.

“You don’t know that.”

Her expression grew determined. “I mean, I won’t let him.”

“But-”

“Just trust me, would you?”

Marcus subsided. With his arms tied behind his back, he didn’t fancy his chances in a fight with the hefty ranker, but he didn’t see that he had any other options. No point in arguing, though. He looked up at a rustle from the tent flap, hoping for Adrecht but expecting Davis. The guard looked up, too, one hand going to his musket.

The pistol shot was shockingly loud at such close range. The Second Company man, eyes blank with surprise, rolled slowly backward with a hole drilled neatly through his forehead. Janus ducked inside the tent and tossed the still-smoking weapon aside.

“Good morning, Captain,” he said. “Miss Alhundt, Corporal. I thought we might repair to more congenial surroundings.”

He bent, pulled the knife from the dead man’s belt, flipped it around, and offered it to Jen. She set to work on the rope binding Marcus’ hands. Behind the colonel another man entered, and it took Marcus a moment to recognize young Lieutenant Ihernglass, who looked as though he’d been worked over by a team of men with truncheons. Blood smeared his face and trickled from his nose, his lips were thick and purple, and a bruise was swelling under one eye. He spared Marcus only a glance, then hurried toward where the corporal and the others lay.

“Don’t tell me,” Marcus said, as his hands came free. “You tricked Davis into slitting his own throat.”

“A surprisingly accurate guess,” Janus said, “but not quite. The senior sergeant was hardly my intellectual equal, but he proved remarkably resilient to persuasion. I must admit that we have the lieutenant to thank for our liberty.”

“Ihernglass? How did he find us?”

“You’ll have to get the complete story from him yourself. I understand he stumbled across Lieutenant Warus, and together they concocted a plan.”

“Fitz is all right, then?” That had been preying on Marcus’ mind.

“I believe so. The lieutenant says he left him with his company.”

“Right.” Marcus clambered to his feet, massaging his aching wrists. He spared a moment to smile at Jen, then turned back to Janus. “What about Davis? When I get my hands on him-”

“The senior sergeant has, I’m afraid, gone beyond the reach of your retribution.”

“He’s dead?”

Janus nodded at Ihernglass. “There was an altercation.”

Marcus remembered the sheer scarred bulk of Davis, his massive fists, and measured them against Ihernglass’ slim, boyish figure. He whistled softly, then shook his head. “Quicker than he deserved. What about Adrecht?”

“According to the lieutenant, Captain Roston is back at the main camp. Lieutenant Warus is endeavoring to keep him distracted.”

“Then this isn’t over,” Marcus said. “We’ve got to get over there-”

Janus held up a hand. “Indeed. All in good time. Before that, though, I wondered if I might have a word in private?”

Marcus blinked, then looked over his shoulder at Jen. She nodded encouragingly, and Janus gave another of his summer-lightning smiles. He led the way out of the tent and onto the wreckage-strewn plain beyond. The sky in the east was just beginning to lighten, and the air was still heavy with the scent of woodsmoke.

“Jen is. .,” Marcus began.

“You trust her,” Janus said mildly.

“I don’t know,” Marcus said. “She’s Concordat. But she doesn’t seem. .” He trailed off, not sure how to put it.

“It is inevitable that, even among Duke Orlanko’s minions, there are good men and women loyal to the king. Since your acquaintance with the young lady is somewhat deeper than mine”-a flash of humor in Janus’ eye made Marcus certain he knew exactly how deep that “acquaintance” went-“I am willing to trust your judgment. However, you have mistaken my purpose. My intention was not to keep secrets from Miss Alhundt, but rather to address a matter that concerns only you and me.”

Marcus straightened, taken aback. “Sir?”

“To be blunt, Captain, I wish to apologize. I allowed an unfortunate personal habit to get the better of me, and the result was a danger to this entire command as well as an insult to you personally.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

Janus sighed. “It is a failing of mine that when I encounter an intellectual problem of any complexity, I have difficulty in preventing myself from throwing every ounce of my creative energy into its solution, leaving little or nothing over for other pursuits. This has been the case for the last several days, in spite of my best intentions, and the result has been the situation in which we find ourselves.”

“I’m not sure there’s anything you could have done, sir,” Marcus said.

“Nonsense. I should have foreseen Captain Roston’s behavior, both during the battle and afterward. And snapping at you on the ridge was inexcusable. If I had left proper instructions, or better yet exercised command in person, you would not have been put in the impossible situation of a choice between rescuing a friend and defending the camp.”

Marcus stared at the colonel, searching his impassive face for something to help him respond. He’d almost entirely forgotten his anger at Janus, consumed as he’d been by a much more immediate rage at Adrecht, Davis, and his own stupidity. The colonel’s casual rebuke on the hillside seemed a thousand years ago. And yet Janus obviously felt keenly about it, on some level, which made Marcus hesitate from casually dismissing the matter. He finally settled on defensive formality.

“I accept your apology, sir,” he said. “Although, of course, you were perfectly within your rights as commanding officer.”

Janus nodded. “Nevertheless, I have expressed the wish that you and I have a relationship that is more than simply commander and subordinate, and it is incumbent on me to behave accordingly.”

“Well. Thank you, then.” Marcus scratched his chin through his beard uncertainly. “What was the problem?”

“The nature of the Desoltai tactical advantage, of course. It has become clear to me, over the course of the march, that our enemies enjoy a considerable edge in terms of information, above and beyond what their natural mobility as a mounted force should provide. Coordinating simultaneous attacks over long distances is a feat beyond the ability of most organized armies with modern timekeeping devices, much less desert raiders reckoning from the sun.”

“The Steel Ghost is famous for it,” Marcus said, glad for the change of subject. “There’s all kinds of stories about him.” He broke off, then lowered his voice. “Is it true, do you think? Could he be something. . supernatural, like the creature we fought in Ashe-Katarion?”

A smile flicked across Janus’ face. “Anything is possible, Captain. But in this case I think not. Certainly the coordination of Desoltai attacks is susceptible to a more mundane explanation.”

“What is it, then?”

“I’ll go through it in a moment.” Janus turned away at the rustle of canvas. Lieutenant Ihernglass emerged from the tent, leaning heavily on the large form of Corporal Folsom, with a few rankers following hesitantly behind. They stopped short at the sight of the colonel.

“No need to salute a fellow captive,” Janus said, as Folsom searched for some way to prop up Ihernglass so he could come to attention. “Lieutenant, I wonder if I might ask you one question before letting you go to a well-deserved rest.”

“Yessir,” Ihernglass managed, through puffy lips.

“You told me that you returned to camp after a skirmish with a small group of Desoltai. Among them, was there one bearing an unusually large pack?”

The lieutenant nodded.

“Excellent. If you could indicate where the encounter occurred, Captain d’Ivoire will detail some men to retrieve it.”

“Don’t need to,” Ihernglass said. “I brought it back with me. We thought there might be food inside, but it was just some. .” He waved his free hand. “A lantern, or something.”

“Indeed.” Janus’ smile came and went in an instant. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to have a look.”

• • •

The sun was well up by the time they returned to the tents and retrieved the mysterious box, and the encampment was buzzing like an overturned hive. No one knew what was happening, but there was a gradual current of men toward the clear space between the camps of the four battalions, where something interesting was evidently going on. While Janus fiddled with his acquisition, Marcus scraped up two dozen men from the Old Colonials of the First Battalion, made sure they were armed, and brought them back to the colonel to serve as an escort. Whatever Adrecht tried, Marcus didn’t intend to be taken so easily again.

That done, their little party headed toward the focus of all the attention. A wide ring of soldiers, craning their necks and standing on their toes to try to get a glimpse, surrounded a small cleared space. Marcus’ men had to push their way through at first. Once the men caught sight of Marcus and the colonel, however, the path opened of its own accord, and the beehive roar of thousands of men whispering spread through the crowd like flames leaping across dry tinder.

At the center of the mob were two rings of soldiers, both wearing First Battalion markings. One group, huddled into a tight mass, belonged to Lieutenant Ihernglass’ Seventh Company. Around them, muskets at the ready with fixed bayonets, was a circle of men from Davis’ Second.

Outside the circle, another kind of standoff was in progress. Adrecht, backed up by a dozen Fourth Battalion soldiers, stood across from Fitz and a pair of corporals from the Seventh Company. Hovering to one side were Mor and Val, the former looking ready to explode and the latter huddled miserably with his arms crossed over his chest.

Everyone looked up as Marcus and Janus passed through the crowd of soldiers. Marcus kept his eyes on Adrecht. A spasm of doubt and fear crossed his face, but he mastered himself almost immediately. Val’s eyes lit up at the sight of them, and Marcus caught a knowing glance from Fitz. The lieutenant’s face was nearly as badly bruised as Ihernglass’ had been.

Janus stepped forward to face Adrecht and waited. Little by little, the susurrus of whispers and conversation died away, as every man in the vast crowd strained to hear. The Fourth Battalion men behind Adrecht shuffled uncertainly, but Adrecht himself stepped forward, came to attention, and saluted stiffly.

“Captain Roston,” Janus said.

“Colonel Vhalnich,” Adrecht said. “I did not expect to see you here.”

“No, I imagine not.” Janus looked around. “I must ask these men to stand down at once.”

Adrecht glanced over his shoulder. “Lieutenant Gibbons?”

One of the Fourth Battalion men saluted. “Sir!”

“Please place Colonel Vhalnich under arrest.”

Gibbons swallowed hard. “Yessir!”

Marcus stepped beside Janus, his own men coming up to stand beside him. Adrecht’s men spread out to face them, hands on their weapons. Marcus’ hands were clenched so tight that his nails dug painfully into his palms.

If it comes to a fight, this is going to be a riot. Adrecht’s people looked nervous, as did the Second Company men. If any one of them fires a shot. .

Janus held up a hand, his voice rising to ring out over the crowd. “Am I permitted to know the charges against me?”

“Being a goddamned lunatic,” Mor said. He caught Marcus’ eye, winced, and looked away.

“Captain Kaanos is broadly correct,” Adrecht said. “Your latest orders indicate your mental unfitness for command.”

“Which orders, specifically?”

Adrecht hesitated. Janus’ expression was as blank as always, but there was something in his voice. An edge of confidence, the voice of a cardplayer who knows that he holds the last trump.

“Last night, I received an order under your seal to prepare for a march to the northeast,” Adrecht said. He looked away from Janus, addressing the crowd. “Given the Desoltai raid and our lack of supplies, further pursuit of the enemy is clearly a serious danger to this regiment. If we don’t turn back now, none of us will make it out of the Desol.”

There was muttered assent from the assembled soldiers. Those close enough to catch sight of Janus didn’t dare voice their opinion openly, but those farther back were less reticent. The words were unintelligible, but their shouts and grumbles conveyed their meaning.

Adrecht seemed to take heart from this backing. “I conveyed my doubts to Captain d’Ivoire, who indicated that he had discussed them with you, to no result. With all other options exhausted, duty to the men under my command forces me reluctantly to take steps to ensure the best chance of our survival.”

“It’s not relevant, I suppose, that the success of the Desoltai raid was primarily your responsibility?”

Adrecht swayed slightly, as if he’d been slapped. His hand came up and clutched at the stump of his arm.

“No,” he said. “Whether true or not, I hardly see the bearing on the current situation.”

Janus was silent for a long moment. Bit by bit, the noise of the crowd rose, and shouts and jeers started to come from those safely in the rear. Marcus looked again at Mor and Val, but neither would meet his eyes.

“As you say,” Janus began, “our supply situation is critical. Under the circumstances, I thought we ought to make for the nearest source of water.”

“The nearest source of water is on the coast,” Adrecht snapped. “And we’ll be hard-pressed to make it even that far.”

“To the contrary. There is an oasis only a day’s march to the northeast.”

Janus spoke quietly, but the men in the front ranks who heard him repeated what he’d said to their neighbors. Shouts and jeers cut off abruptly as his words spread through the crowd, like a ripple across the surface of a pond. Absolute silence replaced them, the entire regiment holding its collective breath.

“You don’t know that,” Adrecht said. “How could you?”

“The Desoltai must draw their supplies from somewhere,” Janus said. “They can’t survive on sand any more than we can.”

“Everyone knows they have hidden bases,” Adrecht admitted. “But they are hidden. Marching into the desert in the hopes of finding one is still a death sentence.”

“Fortunately, I know the precise location of this particular base. The fact that it presents an opportunity to destroy the Desoltai force along the way is an additional incentive.”

“So you claim,” Adrecht said. He sounded rattled. “How could you possibly know for certain?”

Janus turned to one of the men beside him, who handed over the pack Lieutenant Ihernglass had taken from the Desoltai scout. He extracted a wooden box, about a foot to a side, with a small lever protruding from one corner. Adrecht watched, puzzled, and another tide of whispers rose from the crowd. It stopped at once when Janus began to speak.

“This,” he said, “was taken from a Desoltai patrol. It’s really quite an ingenious creation.” He pressed down on the lever with two fingers, and a circular panel at the front of the box opened. Something gleamed bright inside. “The interior is a ring of mirrors, which collect all the light of a candle placed inside and direct it through the aperture. It’s similar to the lights used for theatrical productions, though less intense.” When he let go of the lever, the covering slid back.

“By manipulating this, one can create a very bright directional beam. In the clear air of the Desol, it can be seen at a great distance.” He looked out at the crowd. “I’ll hazard that some of you have seen them when you were on sentry duty.”

Mutters of assent from the crowd. Adrecht frowned. “A clever trick,” he said. “But-”

“Nothing particularly clever so far,” Janus said dismissively, handing the box back. “Similar devices are used on many occasions-aboard ships at night, for instance. Typically, they display a small range of precoded signals. One light for a request to approach, two for approval, four for bad weather sightings, and so on. Our Desoltai friends have gone considerably further than that. They have developed a true language of light, capable of expressing any information they require. Moreover, they have perfected a procedure for repeating these signals from one post to the next, so that this information can cross long distances at fast as light itself.”

Marcus nodded slowly. A simple signal might be good enough to start a coordinated attack, but in order to respond to changing conditions, something more was required. That explains a great deal.

“This is their secret weapon,” Janus went on, “and not surprisingly they are quite reliant on it. They believe that messages passed this way are impervious to interception, because their language of light is a secret they share with no one. They are incorrect. Given a sufficient number of intercepted messages, and with knowledge of the movements that resulted, a sufficiently clever man might be able to learn this language on his own.”

Adrecht had gone pale. “And you claim to have done this?”

Janus shrugged modestly. “I am a clever man.”

Silence fell by stages. One by one, the men in the crowd stopped talking to their fellows or shouting at one another and went quiet, waiting to see what came next. Janus watched Adrecht, imperturbable, and Adrecht stared back with the desperate eyes of a cornered animal.

Marcus watched the crowd. He doubted one in a hundred had understood Janus’ explanation, even among those close enough to hear the colonel’s words. But they could see Adrecht giving ground. Marcus could feel the balance wobbling around him.

“I don’t believe you,” Adrecht said. His voice rose to a screech. “You’re bluffing.”

“I can show you the records,” Janus said amiably. “Although I admit I did the final ciphering in my head, while I was confined. You did me a favor in that respect. Silence concentrates the mind wonderfully.”

“Shut up!” Adrecht barked. “You led us out here, and you’d rather let us die than take the blame for it!” He turned away from the colonel and faced the crowd. “Don’t you understand? He’ll kill us all just so he doesn’t have to admit he was wrong!”

Janus looked bemused. Mutters were starting again in the crowd, and the moment was slipping away. Marcus stepped forward.

“We won’t make it to the coast,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Not all of us. And for those of us who do, what then? Will the Desoltai just leave us be?”

“It’s the best chance we have,” Adrecht hissed. “The only chance.”

Marcus stared at his friend, his gut churning. At the top of his mind was a black rage that made him want to slam Adrecht’s face in, here and now. After everything I’ve done for him. After I nearly resigned for him. After I came to Khandar for him!

Under that, though, was a sick kind of sympathy. Marcus knew Adrecht, in a way he knew almost no one else in his life. He could follow along, step by step, through the decisions that had led the Fourth Battalion captain to this decision. Marcus forced himself not to look at Adrecht’s empty sleeve. Would I have done the same, in his position?

“Why, Marcus?” Adrecht whispered. “I’ve always been able to count on you.”

Marcus gritted his teeth. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

He stepped away and raised his voice to a shout. “If the colonel is willing to give us a shot at the Desoltai in the bargain, I for one am ready to take it!”

Adrecht glared at him in silence. Marcus looked over his shoulder, to where Mor and Val were standing. He sought their eyes, one at a time.

It was Mor who moved first, to Marcus’ surprise, stepping forward to stand beside Marcus.

“Hell,” he said. “I’d march for a week without water if you told me we’d get to string up this steel bastard at the end of it.”

Val was nodding, too. “It seems to me,” he said to Adrecht, “that whatever else the colonel is, he is not mad. He’s made a reasonable decision in the light of the available information. I think you have no basis for declaring him incompetent.”

“But-,” Adrecht began.

It was too late. The balance had tipped, and the men were cheering. Even the Second Company men had joined it, lowering their weapons and helping the Seventh Company soldiers to their feet. Whatever Adrecht had to say was lost under the sound, and eventually he fell silent, clutching the stump of his arm and glaring daggers at the colonel.

“Captain,” Janus said, nearly inaudible under the roar, “would you please escort Captain Roston to my tent?”

Marcus gave a grim smile. “Gladly, sir.”

• • •

Paperwork. Marcus would have thought that out in the desert, facing potential annihilation, he would at least be free of his own personal demon. Unfortunately, Janus wanted things done properly, and that meant papers for every man.

“Sir?”

Marcus looked up at Fitz and winced. “Have you seen a cutter about that eye?”

Fitz touched the purpling bruise that covered almost half his face. “It looks worse than it feels, sir. I’ll be all right. Captain Solwen is here, sir, and would like to speak with you.”

Marcus frowned. That was unusually formal for Val. “Send him in, then.”

Fitz held the tent flap open, letting Val duck inside. Marcus got up from his writing table with relief, feeling muscles pop all down his legs and back. He’d been at it longer than he’d realized, but the stack didn’t seem any smaller.

“Val,” Marcus said, then stopped. His friend stood at attention, eyes forward. After weeks in the desert, his uniform was showing signs of wear, but his mustache was newly waxed and perfectly pointed.

“Senior Captain,” Val said in a tone as stiff as his posture.

“What’s going on?”

“I would like. . That is. .” He paused and his shoulders slumped a little. Then he straightened them again and managed, “I would like to consult you on a matter of some urgency.”

Marcus looked up for Fitz, but the lieutenant had already slipped outside. Clever lad. He waved vaguely at Val. “Of course. Sit down. Would you like a drink? Fitz rescued a couple of bottles.”

“No, sir.”

Marcus sighed. “Val, we’ve known each other for five years now. If you’re going to start ‘no, sir’-ing me, you can damn well keep your urgent matter to yourself.”

“Sorry, sir.” Val let his shoulders fall again. “Marcus. I just-I don’t know what to do.”

“Sit down, to start with.” Marcus seated himself beside the hated desk, where he could stretch his legs, and gestured Val to the other cushion. “And tell me what the problem is.”

“The problem-” Val let out a long breath, making his mustache quiver. Then, all in a rush, he said, “The problem is that I ought to resign.”

“Resign?” Marcus blinked. “Why?”

“For not seeing through Adrecht from the start,” Val said miserably. “He damn well kidnapped you, and the colonel, and I was ready to follow along and say, ‘Yes, sir!’ It’s a disgrace.”

“You didn’t know that at the time,” Marcus pointed out.

“I ought to have guessed,” Val said. “Besides, it was obvious that what he was up to was mutiny. It was my duty to stop him.”

Marcus shifted uncomfortably. “With me gone, Adrecht would have been senior captain. You’d have been perfectly within your duties to follow his orders.”

“You know what I mean, damn it.” Val twisted his mustache anxiously, then smoothed it out again. “I went along with it because I thought he might be right.”

“A lot of people went along with it,” Marcus said. Everyone, really, except Fitz and Lieutenant Ihernglass.

“But they weren’t in command of a battalion,” Val insisted. “They couldn’t have stopped it all.”

“What would you have done? Ordered the Second to fire on the Fourth?”

“If necessary,” Val said stiffly.

“That would have been worse than anything that actually happened,” Marcus said. “Believe me.”

“But-” Val hesitated. “After all that, how can the colonel have any confidence in me?”

That was the heart of the matter, Marcus thought. It was one thing to make a wrong decision, and quite another to believe your commander held a grudge against you because of it. He picked his words carefully.

“The colonel hasn’t given any indication to me that he’s lost confidence in any of the senior officers. If anything, he blames himself.” And isn’t that a wonder?

“You think so?”

Marcus shrugged. “He confides in me as much as he confides in anyone, and he hasn’t mentioned anything of the kind. Besides, do you think he would want you to resign now? We’re going to need every man in the next couple of days.”

“I could carry a musket, if necessary.”

The images of Val, with his neat uniform and his waxed mustache, walking in the ranks with the common soldiers was enough to make Marcus chuckle. After a moment, Val managed a weak smile as well.

“You understand what I mean, don’t you, Marcus? I just thought I ought to. . to make amends somehow.”

“I know. The best way to do it is to make sure the Second is ready. There’ll be action tomorrow.”

“You think so?”

“The colonel as good as told me so. And he never tells anyone anything.”

Val nodded. “Just as well. Water won’t last much longer. The lads are eager for a fair shot at the cowardly bastards, too.”

“I think we all are.” He gestured at the writing desk. “Anything but this.”

“What is all that, anyway?”

“Discharges. For the men of the Second Company who were involved in the mutiny, and a few others in the Fourth as well.”

Val frowned. “Discharges? Aren’t they being held for court-martial?”

“The colonel said we can’t spare the time or the men to keep prisoners. He’s going to give them as much food and water as they can carry and turn them loose. Let them make for the coast, if they can.”

“Across the Great Desol?” Val sucked in his cheeks. “That’s small mercy.”

“They’d all hang, if we ever get back to civilization,” Marcus said. “The Ministry takes a dim view of mutiny.”

“Still. .” Val looked up. “Is Adrecht going with them?”

Marcus nodded. Val shook his head.

“Poor Adrecht. He ought to have stayed in the city. Losing a limb can have a terrible effect on a man.”

“Maybe he’ll make it back there.”

“Maybe.”

They sat for a moment in silence. After a while Val said, “I think Mor feels the same way I do.”

“About Adrecht?”

“About resigning. He thinks he’s guilty.”

“He certainly didn’t look it this afternoon.”

“You know Mor,” Val said. “He’s either angry, or pretending to be angry. But underneath-”

“Will you talk to him? Or send him to me, if that’s easier.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Val said. “It may take a while to bring him around.”

Another silence.

“Well.” Val slapped his knees and levered himself to his feet. “I had better get some rest myself. Action tomorrow, you say?”

“Almost certainly.”

• • •

It was full dark, but sleep eluded him. He lay in the bedroll, thin blanket wadded beside him, and stared at the tent ceiling. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Adrecht. They hadn’t spoken a word to each other while the colonel had pronounced sentence, but Adrecht’s eyes hadn’t left Marcus for a moment.

How can he tell me I betrayed him? He’s the one who raised a goddamned mutiny. And yet. .

When he closed his eyes he saw Adrecht, not grim and one-armed but laughing and gambling like he had in their War College days. Sharing a drink, kissing a pretty blond girl with delicate skin and powder-darkened eyes. Offering a pistol in one outstretched hand, his eyes full of pain. “If you’re going to kill yourself, Marcus, at least be a man about it. .”

He never belonged here, for all his fancy clothes and Khandarai girls. This was my post. Marcus had taken the Khandar posting when Adrecht had been handed his exile, out of solidarity, but he’d fitted into it in a way his friend never had. It had been away, about as far away as it was possible to get from Vordan, from the burned wreckage of a house and a family.

The tent flap rustled. Marcus’ eyes flicked sideways and he saw a female silhouette against the faint glow of the camp. He relaxed.

Once the flap fell back, the tent was in darkness again. He heard a couple of footsteps, and then the soft cloth sounds of disrobing. A moment later Jen slid across the bedroll and pressed herself against him, bare skin warm against his. Marcus slipped an arm underneath her and turned his head to give her a kiss, but found his nose bumping into something cold and hard.

“Sorry,” she said. “Spectacles.” She pulled them off and set them carefully aside, then leaned back against him, brushing his lips with hers before settling her head on his shoulder.

A long moment passed quietly. He listened to her breathing, feeling it tickle the hair on his neck, the softness of her body pressed against his side.

“Are you all right?” she said.

“Mmm?”

“Adrecht. He was your friend.”

“He was.” Marcus let out a long breath. “No. I’m not all right. I just. . I don’t understand.”

“People do strange things when the pressure gets too high.”

“Is that a professional opinion?”

He meant it as a joke, but by the way she stiffened he realized it was the wrong thing to say. He squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. After a moment, he felt her relax.

“Sorry,” she said. “After today. .”

He was silent. Her hand lay lightly on his chest, fingers tightly curled.

“I was sure they were going to kill me,” she whispered. “They’d have to, wouldn’t they? If you’re staging a mutiny, you don’t keep the informer around to write a report. Adrecht might have been too much the gentleman, but not Davis. I kept waiting for them to come back and. .” She pressed against him a little tighter.

“I wouldn’t have let them,” Marcus said.

“Then they’d just kill you, too.”

“Is that why you told me I should let you handle it?”

He felt her nod. “You have to look at it logically,” she said, only the faintest quiver in her voice. “If I’m going to end up raped and dead anyway, there’s no sense in you getting killed as well if it won’t change anything.”

“Easy for you to say.” He thought about that for a moment, then said, “Well. Not easy. But if I had just sat by while something like that happened, I don’t think I could have lived with myself afterward.”

“At least you would have had the chance to try.”

Another pause. Marcus cleared his throat.

“It’s a good thing it didn’t come to that, then.”

“It’s a good thing,” Jen agreed.

There was a long silence. With Jen soft and warm beside him, Marcus’ eyes finally closed, and sleep beckoned.

“I can’t do this anymore.” Her voice was so quiet it might have been an incipient dream. “I can’t. If it really comes down to it. .”

Marcus intended to ask her what she meant, but he was asleep before he got the chance.

• • •

The sun seemed to have been nailed to the sky. It refused to move, in spite of Marcus’ repeated glances and entreaties, and hung a few degrees short of its zenith like the flame in some enormous oven.

If he’d had a watch, he’d have checked it, for the hundredth time. The only watch he knew of in all of Khandar sat in Janus’ breast pocket, and Marcus was unwilling to reveal his anxiety by asking the colonel the time.

Trying to conceal that sort of thing from the colonel was a lost cause, however. Janus glanced at him and said, encouragingly, “It’s not noon yet, Captain. A few minutes more.”

“Yessir,” Marcus said. “Besides, I doubt the Desoltai will be completely punctual.”

“On the contrary. I expect them to be where we want them at noon on the dot. In fact-” Janus shaded his eyes with one hand. “Yes. I believe that’s the vanguard.”

Marcus looked, and at first saw nothing. Gradually, though, a patch of the unmitigated brown-on-brown landscape resolved itself into brown-robed riders, on brown or sandy-colored horses, passing across brown rock and rills of windblown sand. With the sun high overhead, there weren’t even shadows to give them away. No wonder we never spot the bastards in time.

He turned to the two runners, chosen from the hardiest of the young recruits. They saluted and hurried off at his gesture, having memorized in advance the message they were to repeat to Val and Mor if all went according to plan. Marcus satisfied himself that they were scampering down the rear of the hill, then turned back to Janus.

He and the colonel occupied a fissure in a massive boulder, around which sand and smaller rocks had built up until it was nearly covered. The shelf was deep enough for a half dozen men and provided a lip of rock that would screen anyone waiting there from casual observation. It was an excellent vantage point.

“He’s getting sloppy,” Janus murmured.

“Who is?”

“Our friend the Steel Ghost. Look-they’re in a single column. No outriders, no scouts.”

Marcus frowned. That didn’t sound like the Desoltai. “Do you think they’re onto us? This could be a trap.”

“Unlikely,” Janus said. “I suspect they’ve simply become a little overreliant on their secret advantage. Remember, the Ghost already knows where the raschem army is headed.”

They’d been up half the night making sure of that. At Janus’ direction, pickets had marked down the locations and patterns of the lights flashing in the darkness around the camp. A detachment of picked men had surrounded one of them, neat and quiet, and dispatched the three-man Desoltai patrol without anyone being the wiser. The messages that followed had been composed by the colonel, an apparently meaningless sequence of flashes and pauses that Janus assured Marcus the Ghost would understand. In the meantime, Give-Em-Hell’s cavalry had been noisily unleashed, driving back the other Desoltai observers and guaranteeing there would be no contradictory testimony.

It had all been carried out very smoothly, Marcus had to admit, especially for a regiment that had been on the brink of mutiny the day before. But that was only natural. Every soldier’s nightmare was being stuck fighting a foe he couldn’t hit back. Offered the chance to strike a blow, the Colonials had jumped at it, and morale had surged. Even the Fourth Battalion troops had shown some spirit.

“They’re coming this way,” Janus said. “Now it’s down to discipline.”

Marcus gave a grim nod. He bent his thoughts toward Val and Mor, and every man in their commands, as though he could calm them by mental effort alone. Hold fire. . hold fire. . wait for it. .

There were a lot of Desoltai. Janus had been right about that, as about so much else. They rode five or six abreast, a rough column snaking along the twisting course between two sandy rills. It went on for what looked like miles. Marcus did a rough mental estimate and came up with two to three thousand horsemen. That has to be close to everything they have. He wondered if Janus was right and the Steel Ghost was down there in person. There was no gleam of a metal mask amidst the riders, but those brown robes could hide anything.

“Almost there,” Janus said, as calm as if he were watching a tennis match. “Captain Vahkerson has kept his nerve, in any case.”

“He always does,” Marcus said. The Preacher had a hold over his cannoneers that bordered on the fanatic.

His eyes were glued to the tall blue-and-gray rock that they’d fixed as the starting post, standing out from the dusty landscape like a menhir. It was a few hundred yards from the little hill. The leading horsemen were approaching it, so close that they could have reached out and touched it, when one of them reined up. Behind them, the column shuffled to a halt, spreading out across the flat ground and up the sides of the rills.

“Not quite far enough,” Janus said. “We’ll have to signal from here.”

“Now?” Marcus queried.

“Now.”

Marcus grabbed the musket that leaned against the lip of rock, aimed it in the general direction of the Desoltai, and pulled the trigger. The familiar mule kick of the gun shocked his shoulder into numbness, and the crack of the shot carried out across the desert and echoed off the walls of the valley.

The chance of the ball hitting anything at this distance was nil, but the flash and the sound would be obvious for a long way. Val and Mor would be watching. The single shot from the hill was the signal to open the attack.

For a lingering moment, nothing happened. The Desoltai milled, shouting and pointing. Marcus had a brief fantasy that something had gone horribly wrong, that he and Janus were alone out here with two thousand desert warriors and the Steel Ghost.

Then the flashing tips of bayonets emerged from behind the rills on either side of the long column. Neat rows of dusty blue uniforms double-timed over the crests, far enough to get all three ranks into view, then halted and leveled weapons with practically parade-ground timing. Some of the Desoltai caught sight of them, but they had barely enough time to turn their horses around before sergeants up and down the line yelled the order to fire.

The massed chorus of musketry, at this distance, was a rolling crash like nearby thunder. Neat puffs of off-white smoke rose from every lock and barrel. They were too far away to hear the horrible zip of balls and the smack of impact in man and horseflesh, but Marcus had heard it often enough that his mind filled it in. Among the Desoltai, all was suddenly pandemonium. Men fell, horses stumbled, lost their footing, rolled over their riders or collapsed in a broken-legged heap. Every one of the riders was suddenly fighting for control of his mount, as even animals trained for battle panicked at the unexpected attack.

Marcus counted heartbeats under his breath. Here and there along the line, flashes and puffs of smoke from the riders’ carbines showed they were firing back, but there was no coordinated return volley. A few small groups struggled free of the wreckage of dying horses and tried a charge, fighting to build speed on the rocky slopes. Marcus had reached thirty-five when the men on his left, Mor’s Third Battalion, let loose another volley, more ragged than the first but just as effective. The Desoltai closest to the line went down in a single body, as though a giant’s hand had swept across them, and the carnage in the valley multiplied. A few heartbeats later Val’s troops fired as well, completing the chaos.

“Not a bad rate of fire,” Janus mused, “with bayonets fixed. Still, that second shot could have used more discipline. Perhaps a bit of drill is in order.”

Marcus didn’t bother to reply to that. The Colonials were quickly disappearing inside the smoke from their own discharges, but the Desoltai were still visible. The second volley had convinced them that staying where they were was inadvisable, and the majority seemed to think that safety lay back the way they had come. A few more, either maddened or fanatic, charged the blue lines on either side. The third volley scythed them down, and the handful that made it to the top faced a wall of bayonets. Marcus watched one Desoltai plunge into the bank of smoke, only to have his terrified horse stumble out again dragging its unfortunate rider from the stirrups.

The great mass of the raiders was falling back, hurried along by further fire from the hills, though the shots lost effect as the Desoltai opened the distance. They funneled along the floor of the valley like water in a streambed, keeping to where the going was good. Before long their course curved to the left, taking the head of the panicking horde out of sight.

Marcus gritted his teeth. He understood the necessity, but he couldn’t help feeling nervous at this part. If they press the charge home, it’s my boys they’ll be riding over. The First Battalion had double-timed out from cover to draw a line across the riders’ route of escape, but unlike the Second and Third they were in the flat, where the Desoltai could easily get up enough speed to attack. But they aren’t alone.

A deep, hollow boom floated over the low hills, then another and another. The crackle of musketry was almost inaudible under the thunder of the guns, first bowling their solid shots through the long, tightly packed mob of riders, then switching to canister as the desperate Desoltai closed. Even the thought of it was fearful, and Marcus was suddenly glad their vantage didn’t provide a view.

“A lesson to remember,” Janus said. “Use your advantages, but never feel too secure in them. You never know when they’re going to be taken away.”

Marcus wasn’t sure if that was intended for his benefit. He saluted anyway.

“Yes, sir!”

• • •

“A couple of hundred got away, all told,” said Give-Em-Hell. His diminutive form was practically vibrating with excitement. “Sorry about that, sir.”

“Not your fault, Captain,” Janus said. “You didn’t have enough cavalry to mount a proper pursuit. Did they show any sign of regrouping?”

“No, sir. Pardon the language, sir, but they were running as though all hell was behind ’em, sir.”

“Very good. Convey my appreciation to your men, and tell them to get some rest. We’ll need you scouting our path in the morning.”

“Yes, sir!” Give-Em-Hell saluted and ducked out of the tent, spurs jingling.

“A pity we didn’t have a regiment of hussars handy,” Janus said. “We’d have rounded up the lot. Still, one does what one can.”

“Yes, sir.” Marcus waved a scrap of paper. “Captains Solwen and Kaanos have reported in. We have less than a dozen casualties, and only three killed.”

“Any prisoners? I’d be interested to see what they had to say.”

“Not many, sir, and all of those badly injured. I’ve had several reports of men running for it when they might have easily surrendered, or turning to fight hand to hand and forcing us to shoot them.”

“I see.” Janus didn’t sound surprised. “I have a notion-”

An excited knocking at the tent pole interrupted him. The colonel looked up. “Yes?”

“Sir,” came Fitz’s voice. “You’ll want to see this.”

“Come in, then.”

The lieutenant entered and gave a crisp salute. His normally pristine uniform was a little dust-stained, and the bruise on his face was still hideous, but he gave no sign of pain in his bearing. When Marcus caught his eye, he flashed a quick smile. He’d been in command of the First where they’d blocked the valley exit, and according to his initial report none of the enemy had gotten within fifty yards.

“What have you got for us, Lieutenant?” Janus said.

“Take a look at this, sir.”

Fitz pulled a heavy object from his pouch and laid it on the colonel’s writing desk. It was a blank mask, featureless but for two holes at the eyes. A mangled leather strap dangled from one side, and near the top it was bent, as though someone had struck it a terrific blow. Marcus leaned over and hefted the thing. It had the weight of solid steel.

“Interesting,” the colonel said. “Was this taken from a body?”

“No, sir. We found it lying on the ground, amidst the dead, but not on any particular body.” He touched the strap. “It’s broken, see? Could be it fell off.”

“You think he’s dead?” Marcus said.

Fitz shrugged. “Only one man in ten got away. If he isn’t dead, he’s got the saints’ own luck.”

“Dead,” Janus said. “Have you told anyone about this, Lieutenant?”

“No, sir. It’s just me and the sergeant who found it, and I trust him to keep his mouth shut.”

“Good. Keep it quiet a little while longer.” At Marcus’ questioning glance, Janus shrugged. “I’d rather not get the men’s hopes up. Rumors of the Ghost’s supernatural powers have gone quite far enough already.”

“You think we’ll see him again?”

The colonel gave another summer-lightning smile. “I’m certain of it, Captain. Tomorrow, we attack the oasis.”