The Thousand Names

Chapter Five

WINTER

The day was typical for spring in Khandar-that was to say, merely unbearably hot, rather than actually lethal as the summer heat might have been. The sun was a physical presence, a weight pressing down on the shoulders. It blasted any exposed skin and left uniforms soaked and heavy with sweat. Even after three years, it could catch Winter by surprise. The men in the ranks had it worse-for one thing, they didn’t have the luxury of officer’s caps-and some them were already swaying on their feet. Winter hoped d’Vries would call a halt before anyone actually collapsed.

She’d nearly collapsed on that first day’s march. The hundred miles or so from Ashe-Katarion to Fort Valor was the longest trek the Colonials had ever undertaken, and before that, Winter’s experience with marching had been limited to a few parades in honor of Prince Exopter.

On the retreat, they’d covered the distance in a fortnight, and they’d been accompanied by so many wagons the soldiers hadn’t even carried their own weapons. The return journey was apparently going to be much faster. None of the recruits had seemed surprised when they received orders for a fifteen-mile march, carrying not only muskets but full packs, but Winter had nearly groaned aloud. She’d made it, barely, but the pains in her legs and shoulders afterward had been an uncomfortable throwback to her days at Mrs. Wilmore’s. The old woman had firmly believed that backbreaking labor was a cure for immorality.

The second day’s march had been cut short by the fiasco of an alarm, and the poor performance of the troops had apparently made an impression on someone. The officers had announced that the third day’s march would be only five miles, and that they’d be in their new camp by noon. By this time Winter had rediscovered the muscles in her legs and found them not too badly decayed from the old days, and she was beginning to think she could handle this after all.

She should have known better. God only ever answered her prayers when He was plotting something worse. The word had come down that the remainder of the day would be reserved for drill. The recruits accepted this as a matter of course, but the Old Colonials swore and grumbled.

The announcement had brought the lieutenant back from his usual position at the head of the column. Apparently eating dust alongside his men didn’t fit his mental picture of an officer’s duties, but putting them through snappy evolutions on the drill field did. Winter had seen him only a couple of times over the past few days, and it was only now that she had the chance to make a detailed inspection.

Lieutenant Anton d’Vries wore a tailored blue uniform as regulation-perfect as any of those sported by his soldiers. He was a small, wiry man, with dark eyes and a pouting mouth under a luxuriant mustache. His hair was carefully combed and stiffened with powder in what was presumably the latest fashion from Vordan, though the effect was rather ruined by the regulation officer’s cap. He wore a sword, the leather of the scabbard still polished and shining, and carried a thin walking stick that whistled through the air when he pointed with it. Winter flinched every time he stood beside her, in fear of an accidental blow to the side of the head.

Drill, she had discovered, was worse than marching. When the column had been in motion, at least they’d had the feeling of accomplishing something, even if it was only sweeping another few miles underfoot. They’d been allowed to fill their canteens when they passed a stream, and to talk or even sing as they walked. Most of all, no one had been judging them. The only measure of success was whether you staggered into camp before nightfall.

Now the hundred and twenty men of the Seventh Company stood in a solid block, three men deep and forty across. Each was accoutered just so-cartridge box on the left hip, doubled straps across the chest with sheathed bayonet, musket held against the right side with fingers curled around the butt in a nerve-deadening position. They were required to wait, under d’Vries’ narrowed, sunken eyes, until he ordered them to move.

Winter stood in front of them, facing the center of the company, beside the lieutenant. Her task was to relay his orders to the troops, and make certain they were obeyed. Not an enviable position. Not only did she have d’Vries’ special attention, but she could feel the dull resentment of every man in the company. Sweat trickled down her face and soaked her hair, and every inch of skin seemed to be itching at once. They had been at it for two hours so far.

D’Vries tapped his stick against his leg and watched his men with a haughty distaste. He cleared his throat and looked back and forth along the triple line with an undisguised scowl.

“Right,” he said. “We will try that again. On the signal, right oblique, double pace!”

He spoke in a conversational tone. Winter had to repeat those orders loud enough to carry to the ends of the line. Her throat was already ragged, but she summoned up the energy. It came out as more of a croak, but d’Vries didn’t appear to notice.

The company drummers struck up the double pace, heartbeat-fast. The line shuffled into motion, and almost immediately it became obvious that little progress had been made.

Long ago, in what felt like a different lifetime, Winter had been a girl younger than any one of the rankers. All she’d known of the military life was the stories she’d read of great battles, in which unflinching men marched precisely through their evolutions while their ranks were torn by ball and shot. Since her unorthodox method of self-recruitment had prevented her from spending the weeks in depot where the men presumably learned such stoicism, she’d done her best to make up for it, acquiring a copy of the Manual of Arms and the Regulations and Drill of the Royal Army of Vordan and working hard to memorize both. The knowledge had turned out to be almost useless, of course, but some of it remained with her years later.

Consequently, she knew what was supposed to happen. At the first beat of the drum, each man would take a step with his right foot, placing it exactly one standard pace-thirty-six inches, according to some hallowed measuring stick in the bowels of the Ministry of War-in front of the other. The next step would be on the next drumbeat, and so on, so that the company moved forward in perfect order, each man remaining stationary with respect to his fellows.

This would be hard enough, but d’Vries had called for an oblique advance, which meant that with each pace forward every man was supposed to move a half pace sideways, producing a sort of diagonal sidle. From the faces of the soldiers, Winter was sure that many of them hadn’t understood this, or at any rate didn’t remember until it was too late.

The result was about what Winter expected. Some men started with their left foot instead of their right, which meant they bumped into the man beside them. Others forgot to move obliquely, with similar results. Still others stepped too far, or not far enough, and then trying to maintain their place lost the beat of the drum and fell out of step. Two men in the rear rank somehow entangled the straps of their packs and collapsed in the dust when they tried to move in opposite directions, thrashing like a couple of inverted turtles.

Within twenty yards the neat three-rank block had dissolved into a blob of red-faced, shoving men. When Winter called for a halt and the drummer stopped playing, they stumbled a few more steps from sheer inertia, then scrambled to push their way back into the correct files. It was a full five minutes before some semblance of order had returned.

Thus it had gone every previous time as well, and d’Vries’ lips had tightened with each successive failure. Now his patience was apparently exhausted. He turned to Winter, cold with anger.

“Sergeant!” he snapped.

Winter saluted. “Yessir!”

“I’ve seen enough. I want you to keep these fellows at it”-he raised his voice-“until they get it right or they damn well drop dead on the field! Do you understand me?”

“Ah, yessir.”

The lieutenant’s lip quivered. “Right,” he managed, and stalked off, walking stick snapping out to flick impudent bits of gravel from his path. Winter watched him go, feeling the pounding of the sun on her shoulders, and tried to figure out what she was supposed to do next.

Her eyes found Bobby in the first rank. The boy was red-faced, from either embarrassment or the sun, and he was visibly trembling with fatigue. Winter had been in Khandar for two years, as d’Vries had not, and she knew that dropping dead in the field was far from simply a rhetorical possibility. Too much more of this and the heatstroke cases would overflow the infirmary.

She looked across the dusty scrap of land that was serving as the regimental drill field. It was scrub plain, like all the land they’d marched over. Occasional rocks or knots of tough, wiry grass broke the monotony of endless parched earth. The only color came from a tiny stream meandering through on its way to the sea, which winked and sparkled in the middle distance. A dozen companies were currently occupied in various exercises, being put through their separate paces according to the whims of their officers. Winter watched one lieutenant berating his men as though they were disobedient mules, and inspiration struck.

“Right,” she said, turning on her heel. Raising her already ragged voice, she managed, “Company, quarter-right!”

The men, who’d been watching her with some apprehension, gave a kind of collective sigh and straightened up again as best they could. They turned in place through ninety degrees, which converted a block of men forty long and three deep into a column three wide and forty long. Winter stalked over to what was now the front, drummers hurrying behind her.

“On my signal,” she said, “march pace, forward. Align on me. March!”

The drums started again, slower this time, and the column shuffled into motion. Without the distraction of trying to move sideways, and with only three men per rank to contend with, the march wasn’t terrible. Winter walked in front of the first rank, who adjusted slightly to stay behind her, letting her steer the long column like a snake.

She found what she wanted, a hundred yards away. Another company, in the usual three-rank line, was practicing the Manual of Arms while a sergeant barked orders. A lieutenant stood beside them, looking bored. Their backs were to her and her men.

Winter led the column in that direction, glancing over her shoulder occasionally to make sure her company was still in good order. There was a moment’s hesitation as they closed with the other company. She took the opportunity to step sideways, out of their path, and shout, “Forward! Charge pace!”

The drums thrilled faster. The men in the front ranks, when it became clear what they’d been ordered to do, went to it with surprising gusto. No one in the other company noticed until it was far too late. There were a couple of startled squawks, and then the long column collided with the rear of the line at a dead run. Winter’s men bowled through, knocking the others sprawling, until someone in the opposing company started fighting back. A punch was thrown, somewhere in the press, and a moment later the whole of the two companies was a mass of fistfights and roughhousing, going at it with all the sudden energy of discipline released.

Winter, standing at the edge of the melee with the horrified drummers behind her, looked over her handiwork with a satisfied expression. The lieutenant of the other company, a fat man with a scraggly beard, bore down on her while his sergeants tried in vain to restore order. Winter saluted and forced her face to assume a blank expression.

“What in all the hells do you think you’re doing?” the lieutenant said, vibrating with anger.

“Sorry, sir. Following orders, sir!”

“Whose orders?”

“Lieutenant d’Vries, sir! Said to keep the men at it. Didn’t mean to run into you, sir!”

The lieutenant eyed her, uncertain of what attitude to take. He settled on contempt. Winter struggled to maintain her facade of amiable idiocy.

“Well, you’d better sort this out,” he said. “If your damned men aren’t out of my company and off this drill field in five minutes, the captain will hear of it, do you understand?”

“Yes, sir!” Winter spun back toward the mess she’d created. “Corporal Forester!”

The boy had extracted himself after the initial rush, wriggling eel-like to the edge of the press, and was looking on nervously. At the sound of Winter’s voice, he whirled and snapped to attention.

“Let’s get these men off the drill field!” She gestured at the lieutenant behind her. “Right away, he says!”

She could tell he was having trouble suppressing a smile, too, as understanding dawned. “Yes, sir!”

• • •

The brief punch-up seemed to have dissipated all the exhaustion of the previous few hours, and the men streamed off the field in a raucous crowd, laughing and shouting to one another. The carnival atmosphere continued once they were back at the camp. Someone produced a handball from somewhere, and soon two impromptu teams were scrimmaging up and down the line of tents, while spectators laughed and cheered from the sidelines.

Winter couldn’t see where they found the energy. The release of tension had left her feeling shaky and drained, and she wanted nothing so much as a few hours of oblivion. Under the exhaustion was a dull sense of dread. Her little ruse, which had seemed so clever in the moment she’d thought of it, now felt ridiculously transparent. D’Vries wouldn’t care if she’d had contradictory orders or not-he would only see that his demand had not been obeyed, and she’d bear the brunt of his anger. He’d bust her back down to ranker, send her back to Davis.

She pushed her way into the cooler semidarkness of her tent. On the little desk sat the papers-long marches had left her little time to work on settling the accounts, so an intimidating stack still remained. She knew she should address them, but at the moment the thought of picking up the pen made her feel ill.

Instead she slumped onto the bedroll, and stretched out, not even bothering to take off her boots. Surely I’m tired enough now. If I just close my eyes for a moment. .

• • •

Warm, soft lips on hers, fingers running along the small of her back, the heat of a body pressed against her. Jane’s hair, dark red and soft as sin, spilling down over Winter’s bare shoulder like a velvet curtain. A brief flash of her eyes, as green as emeralds.

Jane pulled away from the embrace, stepping back. She was naked, the most beautiful thing Winter had ever seen.

“You have to get away,” Jane said. “Not just away from the Prison. Away from all of it. Away from everyone who wants to tie you up and take you back. .”

Winter could say nothing. Her throat felt thick.

Jane raised one hand. A dagger glittered, flashing silver. “Take the knife,” she said, as though instructing a friend on how to carve a roast. “Put the point of it about here”-she raised her head and put the tip of the dagger on her throat, just under her chin-“and press in, upward, as hard as you can.”

“Jane!” Winter’s scream sounded distant in her own ears.

The knife slid in, smooth as silk. Jane’s emerald eyes were very wide. She opened her mouth, but no words emerged, only a tide of thick, sticky blood.

Winter jerked awake, pulse pounding in her temples, ears full of screams in the dark. They took a long time to fade. She lay perfectly still, feeling the ache in her limbs and staring at the blue fabric of the tent.

Can you be haunted by someone who isn’t dead?

There was a rap at the tent post. Winter sat up, pathetically eager for a distraction.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s me,” said Bobby from outside. Winter glanced guiltily at the stack of reports, but it was too late to do anything about them now.

“Come in.”

The boy ducked inside. He was rubbing one hand with the other, and Winter could see a bruise blossoming along his knuckles. She felt a brief pang of sympathy.

“Sorry about that,” Winter said.

“About what?” When she indicated his hand, he smiled broadly. “Oh, this? It’s nothing, sir. One of the men of Third Company was inconsiderate enough to obstruct my fist with his jaw. I’m fairly sure he got the worst of it.” Bobby looked suddenly uncomfortable. “That was all right, wasn’t it, sir? A corporal is not permitted to involve himself in brawling with the rankers, but under the circumstances-”

“It’s fine,” Winter said. “I take full responsibility. Was anyone badly hurt?”

“Two of the men had to carry Ranker Ibliss back from the field, sir.”

“Oh, dear. Will he be all right?”

“I think so.” Bobby coughed. “Apparently he suffered a blow to an unfortunate area.”

Winter looked quizzical.

“Kicked in the nadgers, sir. Probably not on purpose. You know how it is.”

“I see. I hope Third Company isn’t going to hold a grudge.”

“Better if they do, sir!” Bobby was smiling again. “The captain of my depot battalion used to encourage fighting between the companies. A good rivalry helps knit the unit together, he always said.”

“How long were you in depot?” Winter asked.

“A month. Should have been six weeks, but I was transferred out ahead of time for this expedition. Still, I count myself lucky.”

“Why?”

“I had a month,” Bobby said. “Some of the rankers got much less. A few had none at all, straight from the recruiting station to the ships.”

“No wonder they can barely march,” Winter muttered. “Does the lieutenant know this?”

“He should, sir. He has all the files.”

That didn’t mean he’d read them, or that he cared. Winter mulled that over.

“I meant to thank you, sir,” Bobby said.

“For that?” Winter said. “It was just a trick.”

“A clever trick, though. The men will be grateful.”

“Just wait until d’Vries screams his head off tomorrow. That gratitude may be short-lived.” Winter sighed. “Sorry. I’m not in the best of moods. Did you need to see me for some reason?”

“Just to say that, sir. And to ask if you wanted your dinner brought in.”

“I suppose.” Winter looked at the little tent, with the desk full of daily reports and the bed haunted by unpleasant memories. Bobby seemed to read her mind.

“You’re welcome to eat with us, sir.”

Winter made a face. “I wouldn’t want to put anybody off.”

“You wouldn’t-”

“Oh, come on. You must know how it is. You can’t have the same kind of talk when the sergeant is listening in.” That was how it had always been in Davis’ company, anyway, although Winter had rarely been a part of the conversation.

“Come and join us,” Bobby said. “I think you’ll feel better for a little talk, sir.”

Winter chuckled. “Only if you promise to stop calling me ‘sir,’ Bobby.”

“Yessir!” Bobby snapped to attention, eyes shining, and Winter couldn’t help but laugh.

• • •

Dinner was cooking when they emerged. In theory, the company was subdivided into six sections of twenty men, each led by a corporal. These units were more commonly called “pots,” since the main feature of each one was the iron cookpot in which the communal meals were brewed. In the Seventh, the boundaries between the pots were apparently pretty fluid, and all six vessels were gathered around a common fire. The men ate from whichever they liked and sat where they wanted, on the ground, on rocks, or on empty boxes of supplies. Mostly they gathered in circles, talking, laughing, and playing at dice or cards.

Bobby led Winter to one such circle, where she recognized Corporal Folsom among seven or eight other men. They opened up obligingly to make a space on a makeshift bench of hardtack crates, and someone handed Winter a bowl full of the steaming broth that was the standard evening meal when time and supplies allowed. Chunks of mutton floated in it, and the surface was slick and shiny with grease. Winter accepted a cracker of hardtack from another man and let it absorb the juice until it was soft and sodden, then gobbled it down. She hadn’t realized she was so hungry.

At first Winter’s fears seemed to be justified. The men had been talking and laughing until she arrived, but under the eyes of their sergeant they ate in awkward silence. Bobby called for a round of introductions, which produced a half dozen names that Winter promptly forgot. Then another silence fell, more uncomfortable than the first.

It was Corporal Folsom, oddly, who provided the first crack in the wall. He broke his usual quiet to comment, apropos of nothing, “Didn’t realize there’d be so many streams here. They always told me Khandar was a desert.”

Bobby seized eagerly on this scrap of conversation. “I heard the same thing. When you read about it, it’s always sand dunes and camels. I haven’t even seen a camel yet.”

“This is the wet part,” Winter offered. “We’re only a dozen miles from the coast, so it gets a little rain now and then. And we’re coming up on the Tsel valley. If you walked twenty or thirty miles south, you’d be in the Lesser Desol, and there’d be no water for days in any direction.”

“What about camels?” said one of the soldiers, whose name was either George or Gerry.

“No camels,” Winter said. “Not here. Camels aren’t native to Khandar, actually. The Desoltai use them, but they live out in the Great Desol, to the east of the Tsel.”

“Are they the ones who wear steel masks all the time?” said another man.

Winter laughed. “Not all of them, just their leader. He calls himself Malik-dan-Belial, which means ‘Steel Ghost.’ Nobody knows what he really looks like.”

“Seems like a pretty cowardly way to go about to me,” another soldier said. “What about this city we’re marching toward, Ashe-Katarion? Is it as big as Vordan?”

“Not even close. Barely a town, really.”

“Any chance of getting a decent drink?” someone said, and there was a round of laughter.

Winter smiled. “There was the last time I was there, but that was before the Redeemers turned up. A bunch of crazy priests. Apparently they don’t like drinking, or good food, or anything that’s any fun.”

There was a snigger. “Sounds just like our lot, then.”

“Maybe in a Sworn Church,” someone else offered. “In depot the Free Chaplain could drink half a squad under the table.”

They went on in that vein, and bit by bit the tension melted away. Most of the men were taller than Winter, so as often as not she was looking up into their broad, well-scrubbed faces, but for all that she suddenly felt how much older she actually was. There wasn’t a man in the circle older than eighteen. They were all boys, barely off their farms or away from the Vordan City tenements, and underneath their smiles and bravado there was a nervous core that Winter recognized.

And she was the one they looked to for reassurance. She was the one who knew how things worked, here in Khandar and in the army. It was simultaneously touching and terrifying, bringing with it the full realization of what they expected of her. When they got to the subject of how she’d extracted them from drill that morning, none of them thanked her, as Bobby had. They seemed to consider it a matter of course, part of the duties of a sergeant, to stand between the rankers and the insanities of the higher echelons. There were quite a few japes at the expense of d’Vries. The first was offered hesitantly, but when Winter laughed as loud as the rest of them, that hurdle fell away as well.

“So what about this Colonel Vhalnich?” said the one Winter was almost certain now was George. He was a large young man with mousy hair and freckles. “The talk says he’s mad.”

“He must have done something horrible, to get this command,” said Nathan. He was short and bespectacled, and considered himself something of an expert on matters military.

“I heard he volunteered,” said one of the others, whose name Winter still hadn’t caught.

“Then he must be mad,” George said.

“What do you think, Sergeant?” Nathan said.

Winter shrugged uncomfortably. “I’ve never met the colonel, but Captain d’Ivoire is an Old Colonial. He won’t let this Vhalnich do anything too crazy.”

“So where the hell are we marching, then?” George said.

Opinions differed on that point. Nathan was certain that the Redeemers would flee for the hills as soon as it became clear that the Vordanai were in earnest. George continued to insist that Colonel Vhalnich was going to get them all killed, although he seemed curiously unconcerned by the prospect. Bobby said that they were merely providing an escort for the prince, who would negotiate with the rebels until they reached a settlement. But it was Folsom who provided the most thoughtful answer. When the big corporal cleared his throat, the circle fell silent.

“I figure,” he said, “Colonel Vhalnich’s got to show that he tried, doesn’t he? He can’t just take us all back home to Vordan. He’s got to fight at least once, or else the ministers will have a fit. That’s where we’re going.” He shrugged. “That’s what I figure, anyway.”

After that, they got back on the subject of Lieutenant d’Vries, and Winter took the opportunity to excuse herself. She tapped Bobby on the shoulder as she stood, and the boy looked up at her.

“Can I have a word?” Winter said.

They walked away from the little circle. The sun had gone down and the sky was darkening fast, already purple-gray. Winter stared upward pensively, where the stars were beginning to glitter. To someone raised in the smoky, torch-lit warrens of Vordan City, the nights of Khandar had been a revelation. Instead of the occasional twinkle, the stars marched across the sky in their uncounted thousands, and when the moon rose it seemed clear enough that she could reach out and touch it.

It had been a long time since she’d noticed the night sky like that. But it occurred to her that Bobby and the other recruits would only just have seen it for the first time. She wondered if any of them had spent a night staring up slack-jawed in wonder, as she had.

She wanted to thank the corporal for dragging her out of her tent, but she couldn’t think of a way to begin. When she glanced at Bobby’s face, shadowed as it was in the fading light, it was clear that the boy understood. Winter gave a grateful sigh.

“I had an idea,” she said, “while we were talking. It might get us into trouble, though.”

“Let’s hear it,” Bobby said cheerfully.

“The key is going to be timing.” Winter chewed her lip thoughtfully. “We’ll need to spread the word tonight, so we can get everyone rounded up quick once the march ends tomorrow. .”

• • •

“Load!”

Winter had dispensed with the drumbeat that the regulations prescribed. It was essential for drillbook perfection that every soldier perform the twenty-six numbered movements from the Manual of Arms in unison, synchronized to the beat of the drum, but in practice she found that it only confused the men. Instead she walked up and down in front of the triple line, letting her footsteps serve as cadence.

The rankers, already grimed with sweat, struggled with their weapons. Winter sympathized. Loading was a complicated process. First you took your paper cartridge, filled with premeasured powder and the lead musket ball, and tore it in half with your teeth, holding the ball end in your mouth and keeping the end with the powder in your hand. Then you opened the lock, tipped a little powder into the pan, and closed it again. The rest of the powder went down the barrel, which required you to ground the butt of the weapon and hold it against your boot. The cartridge scraps went in with it, for good luck. Finally, you spat the musket ball and the rest of the cartridge into the barrel, grabbed the iron ramrod from the rings that held it slung under the weapon, and jammed the whole mess home with two or three good strokes.

There wasn’t enough extra powder to practice loading, so the company was going through the steps in mime. Once the ramrods had rattled back into their rings, each man again brought his musket to the ready position, held at his side with the left hand curled around the butt. Some took longer than others. Winter, counting heartbeats, estimated it was half a minute or more before the whole company was ready. She clicked her tongue.

“Level!” she shouted, walking aside to clear the theoretical line of fire. Every man raised his musket to his shoulder and pulled back the hammer. Here and there she heard a quiet curse as someone fumbled the maneuver or a musket barrel whacked against the side of a neighbor’s head. Only the front two ranks readied their weapons, while the third waited. The barrels protruded like bristles on a porcupine, all along the company line.

Winter waited a few more heartbeats, then raised her voice again. “Fire!”

Eighty fingers tightened on triggers. On each weapon, the lock slid open and the flint snapped down, raising sparks where it scraped against the steel. Without powder, there was no sound but the rapid series of clicks. Winter strode back in front of them.

“Load!” And they began again.

They’d been at it for an hour already. The march had ended at noon, and with Winter’s encouragement the Seventh Company had hurried through the business of setting up tents and making camp and then rushed out to the drill field well before Lieutenant d’Vries had arrived. They’d been the first ones there. Winter had gone over what she expected of them, some basics from the Manual of Arms and a few things that weren’t in the drillbook at all. If they were going to have to drill, it might as well be useful drill.

Some of the men groaned when she’d explained her approach, but she saw relief on a great many faces. Bobby had said some of them hadn’t even made it to the depot before they’d been summoned up, and others had had only a few days or weeks of what was supposed to be a month and half of basic training. Even the grumblers had to admit it made a nice change from endless failures at esoteric skills like double-pace oblique marching.

Midway through the loading, while they were fumbling with their rammers, Winter turned to face them and shouted, “Square!”

This had been new to even those who had had their full time in depot, since the drillbook never mentioned company squares, but she’d coached them through it and they’d gotten the idea after a few repetitions. The whole company immediately broke off loading, and the edges of the line-ten files from either side-about-faced and stepped toward the rear. They filed in behind the first three ranks, so that the line had been halved in length and doubled in width.

Once they were in place, each man drew his bayonet from its leather sheath. These blades, ten inches of wickedly pointed steel, locked onto a lug beside the barrel of the musket with a twist, converting the weapon into something approximating a spear. This done, the first rank knelt, and the second rank leveled their muskets over the heads of the first at an angle. The three files on the edges of the line turned through ninety degrees to face outward instead of forward and back.

It was smartly done, at least this time. The result wasn’t a proper square-more of a rectangle, Winter noted pedantically-but it was easy to form, and the hedgehog of gleaming bayonets looked like a formidable obstacle. The third rank kept at their loading, awkwardly now as they tried to avoid cutting themselves on their own bayonets, and when they had finished they leveled their weapons. The hope was that the combination of fire and steel would prove an impregnable barrier to enemy cavalry.

Winter let them hold it for a few moments, then called, “Re-form!” The square melted back into a line, with considerably more confusion and disorder than it had shown going the other way. She made a mental note to work through that a few more times.

By now the drill field was filling up, and Winter’s men had gotten a few curious looks from other officers. She’d ignored them, reserving her attention for her men, but she’d positioned them so that she’d have a good view of the path back to camp. When she saw Lieutenant d’Vries approaching, with his powdered hair and his walking stick, she stopped and leaned close to Bobby.

“Take them up to the end of the field and back, would you?” Winter said. “I’ll have a word with the lieutenant.”

“Right,” the corporal said, practically glowing with the joy of responsibility. He stepped out of the ranks and gestured to the drummers, who had been squatting in the dirt, unneeded until now. “Company, guide center, ordinary pace, forward march!”

The drums took up the funeral thump of the standard walking pace, and the Seventh Company set off in reasonably good order. Winter remained behind, waiting at attention for d’Vries. The young officer watched bemusedly as his soldiers marched away, then gave Winter his full attention.

“What,” he said, “is going on here?”

Winter saluted. “Remedial drill, sir!”

D’Vries’ lips moved silently as he worked that out. “Remedial drill?”

“Yessir.”

“I received a report from Lieutenant Anders,” d’Vries said. “He was most displeased-”

“Yessir!” Winter cut him off. “Disgraceful behavior, sir! I take full responsibility, sir!”

“You’d damn well better,” the lieutenant said, rallying a little. “And now-”

“The men were clearly in need of a little discipline, sir!”

“Yes,” d’Vries said suspiciously. “Discipline is important. But my drills-”

“They’re not worthy of your attention, sir!” Winter barked. “Bunch of shirkers, sir. But I’ll soon have them whipped into shape!”

“Whipped into shape,” d’Vries repeated. He obviously liked the sound of that. He glanced up the field, where Bobby had just reversed the line and started marching it back toward them. “They certainly deserve a little whipping.”

“As I said, sir, I take full responsibility. Discipline will be restored, sir!”

There was a moment of silence. D’Vries ran his hand along his mustache a few times and decided that, on the balance, he approved.

“Right,” he said, his voice regaining confidence. “Remedial drill. Well done, Sergeant. I expect to see good results.”

“You’ll get them, sir!”

“Keep them at it, keep them at it.” He knocked a dirt clod about with his walking stick. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

“Sir! You may rely on me, sir!”

“Indeed.”

D’Vries turned away, looking a little lost but not altogether unhappy. Bobby arrived beside Winter, signaling the drummers to halt, and Winter favored the corporal with a smile.

“You got rid of him?”

“For the moment,” Winter said. “Nothing confuses an officer like violently agreeing with him.”

She’d learned that from Davis, whose barked affirmations had brought more than one superior nearly to tears. The big sergeant had nearly always gotten his own way, orders or no orders. It pained Winter to think that she’d actually learned something useful from the man, but she supposed she was in no place to complain.

She sighed. “At some point we’re going to have to practice the damned oblique marching. D’Vries will want to see that we can do it properly. We’ve probably got a few days’ grace, though, and I’d rather spend the time on something worthwhile.”

Winter said this with more confidence than she actually felt. For all that she’d been with the Colonials for two years, she had never participated in an actual battle. Her combat experience was limited to marching, parading, and exchanging a few shots with bandits or raiders who invariably fled or surrendered rather than fight it out. For the most part, she was marching blind, but she didn’t dare let on to Bobby.

“Yessir,” the corporal said. Then, a bit diffidently, “I wasn’t aware that forming company square was a standard evolution, sir.”

“It’s not,” Winter said. Normally squares were formed by battalion, a thousand men at a time. “But the old colonel once told me that as long as you’ve got four men left, you ought to be able to form square. Given what happened the other day, I thought we would practice it a bit.”

“Fair enough, sir.” Bobby looked at the men behind her, who were taking advantage of the brief respite to drink from their canteens or fan themselves against the heat. “Shall we get them back to it, sir?”

Winter nodded.

• • •

That evening, Bobby and Graff taught Winter to play cards. It was a traditional soldier’s entertainment, but due to her self-enforced isolation Winter had never learned. When she’d mentioned this, the others had responded with disbelief, and then nothing would do but that they get together a game immediately.

Graff dragged the other two corporals and a couple of soldiers together, while dinner bubbled in the pots, and launched at once into an explanation so complicated that Winter didn’t understand more than one word in three. It didn’t help that Graff mixed his exposition of the rules with lengthy asides about strategy, or that the game he’d chosen apparently had more exceptions and special cases than army regulations did.

“Right, so say he shows a three,” Graff said, oblivious to his audience’s puzzlement. “Or two threes, or two fours, but not two fives, because then he might be working on a turtle. Now you’ve got to either challenge, double, play, or pass. You’re not going to want to challenge, because even if you win all you get is his buy, and with threes against nines you’ve got no better than sixty-forty. If you double, then you both draw another card, and he’s hoping for at least a king so he can threaten an axe, while you want to see more like a six or seven, but not a five, because of the turtle. So say you do. You both throw in another buy-”

He tossed a coin from his own pile into the pot, then took one from the small pile in front of Winter and did likewise. Winter caught Bobby’s eye across the circle. The boy shrugged and gave a wry smile.

“Oh, ho!” said a booming voice from over her shoulder. “Gambling, is it? The Holy Karis isn’t going to like that, Saint. He’s not going to like that at all! See, I let you out of my sight for half a minute and you’re already sliding down the dark path.”

Winter’s heart froze in her chest, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. The others around the circle were all looking at her, and she forced herself to turn and confront the shadow looming up behind her.

“Sergeant Davis,” Winter said stiffly.

The huge man laughed. “Good evening, Sergeant Ihernglass.”

He rounded the little circle, dark eyes never leaving her face. Buck and Peg stood behind him, trailing the big sergeant like dogs. When he was across from her, he pushed his way forward and sat down cross-legged. The soldiers on either side spread out hurriedly to make room.

“I just thought I’d come by,” he announced, “to see how our Saint is getting on. I’m sure he’s told you all about me. Good old Sergeant Davis, and all that. Taught him everything he knows.”

“Welcome to the Seventh, Sergeant Davis!” Bobby said eagerly.

Davis ignored him. “So how are you getting on, Saint?”

The past week seemed to roll away. Davis, flanked by Buck and Peg with their nasty grins, filled the world. He had been a constant in her life for more than a year. Without him pushing down on her, the past few days, she’d felt safe enough to unfold a little. Now here he was again, to mash her flat.

“Fine,” she muttered. “Good.”

“You should have seen what he did yesterday!” Bobby burbled, oblivious to the tension. “Lieutenant d’Vries had told us-”

“Oh, we’ve got all kinds of funny stories about our Saint,” Davis said softly. “Remember that time we all went to the inn, and we all clubbed together to buy him a whore?”

“I remember,” Buck said. “God, that was a beautiful girl. Standing there wearing not a stitch when we opened the door to his room, and he looks at me, and I said, ‘Go on, friend, all for you!’”

“Then he sends her away,” Peg said. “What a damned waste. And Buck says, ‘Bloody martyrs, Saint, have you even got a cock?’”

Davis just smiled. Winter could well remember what had happened next. Buck, so drunk he could barely stand, had followed his words with a grab for her crotch, presumably to check. When she’d stepped out of the way, Peg had grabbed her from behind. In the ensuing scuffle, she’d kicked Buck in the face and bitten the back of Peg’s hand.

The sergeant had administered “justice.” He couldn’t sanction fighting amongst the company, he said, and ruled that Winter had to stand and receive two blows for the ones that she’d given. In the interest of fairness, he himself would deliver them. The first punch, to her face, had nearly broken her nose; the second, in the gut, had left her curled and retching on the floor. The rest of them had looked on, laughing.

Involuntarily, Winter’s hand went to her cheek, where the massive bruise had blossomed. Davis saw the movement, and his smile twitched wider.

“D’you think, Sergeant, that we could have a word in private?” Davis said. “Man to man. For old times’ sake?”

Winter, anxious to get away from the curious looks of her new company, nodded jerkily. The three Old Colonials rose. She led them back toward her tent, away from the pots and the fires, and into the narrow alley between two canvas walls.

“Sergeant,” Davis said. “You, a sergeant. Fucking martyrs, this army is really gone to shit, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t want it,” Winter said. “I told the captain-”

“I thought I was sending you out for a suicide mission,” Davis interrupted, “and the captain makes you a sergeant. How the hell did you pull that one off?”

“Prob’ly sucked his cock,” Peg said.

“Saint does have a pretty little mouth,” Buck mused. “Practically like a girl’s.”

“Was that it, Saint?” Davis said. “You engage in a little persuasion? Thought you could put one over on old Sergeant Davis? Hell, that’s not so bad, a little cock-sucking for a double promotion. Should have let him fuck your arse-then you might have made lieutenant, and I’d have to salute you. Wouldn’t that be a hell of a thing?”

“What do you want?” Winter managed.

“What do I want?” Davis echoed. “God, I’m not sure. I suppose I want an army where little pieces of shit like you aren’t promoted over the heads of better men, to where you can get people killed. But I’m not likely to get it, am I?” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “How about this? You go to the captain and tell him you’re done being a sergeant. It’s too much for you. You can’t handle it. Suck him off again if you have to. Then you can come on back to old Sergeant Davis. Won’t you like that?”

“He wouldn’t let me.” Winter felt her hands curl into fists. “I tried to tell him no, but he wouldn’t-”

“What, because you were too good to be a sergeant?” Davis leaned close to her, until she could smell the foul rotted-meat stink of his breath. “Fucking Saint. You’re just too good for this world, aren’t you?”

“Maybe we ought to, you know, help him along,” Buck prompted.

Davis smiled. Winter saw, suddenly, that he was going to hit her. She tensed, ready to dodge, but Buck and Peg were on either side of her, boxing her in.

“Sergeant?”

It was Bobby’s voice. Davis froze. Winter looked cautiously over her shoulder. The boy stood at the end of the little alley, framed by the firelight.

“We’re still talking,” Davis rumbled. “Piss off.”

“The thing is,” Bobby said, advancing, “we were in the middle of a game, and we can’t go on without the sergeant. So if you wouldn’t mind having your chat in the morning?”

Buck stepped in front of Bobby. The Old Colonial had at least a foot and fifty pounds on the boy. He loomed.

“Sarge said piss off,” he growled. “We’re busy.”

“But-”

Buck put one hand on each of Bobby’s shoulders, pressing hard. The boy’s legs buckled, and he fell involuntarily to his knees.

“Listen, kid,” Buck said. “Just crawl back out of here, and you won’t get hurt.”

Winter caught Bobby’s eye. Go! She tried to communicate the message, but apparently it didn’t get across. The boy smiled and flicked his eyes upward.

“’Scuse me,” said a deep voice, behind Davis. Corporal Folsom stepped forward and smiled at Winter.

Davis half turned, his face twisted in rage, and then paused as he reassessed the situation. He was a big man, used to commanding respect by physical presence alone, but Folsom was nearly as tall as he was. Moreover, Davis’ bulk was layered with fat, the product of years of soft living in Ashe-Katarion. The corporal had a laborer’s build, corded with muscle. There was something in his stance that spoke of a familiarity with violence-he stood on the balls of his feet, ready to move.

Peg turned to face him, too, and there was a moment of dangerous silence. Winter wanted to scream, or run, or do something. She wanted Corporal Folsom to push Davis’ fat face through the back of his skull, but at the same time the thought terrified her. Standing up to Davis led to pain: that lesson had sunk into her very bones. Better to avoid notice. But there was no avoiding notice now.

A clatter of boots behind Bobby broke the pause. Corporal Graff turned the corner, puffing a little, and behind him came a half dozen brawny soldiers. Davis reached a decision. He straightened up, and his face twisted into a parody of a smile.

“My, you do take your games seriously,” he said, slapping Peg jovially on the shoulder. “Well, I suppose the sergeant and I had more or less finished our business.” He grinned down at Winter, eyes flashing murderous fire. “Now you take care, Saint. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, would we? Don’t go stepping on any scorpions.”

“Stepping on a scorpion” was the standard cover story for any intra-regimental violence. When some poor bastard was so bruised and bleeding he couldn’t make roll call, his fellows would report that he’d stepped on a scorpion.

Bobby gave a bright, guileless smile. “Don’t worry, Sergeant. We’ll take good care of him.”

“S’right,” Folsom said, from behind Davis. “Don’t worry.”

“Well, that certainly makes me feel better.” Davis clapped his hands, gruesomely cheerful. “Come on, lads. Let’s leave the Saint and his new company to their dinner.”

Buck seemed eager to go. Peg was more reluctant, glaring acidly at Folsom, but at a glance from Davis he turned away. The soldiers behind Graff parted to let the three Old Colonials through. After a moment, Winter heard Davis’ booming laughter.

“Sergeant?” Bobby said, closer at hand. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” Winter said automatically. Her breath still came fast, and her heart pounded. Her gut felt twisted into knots.

“You look like you need to lie down for a bit.” Bobby stepped beside her. “Let me help you-”

At the brush of the boy’s fingers, Winter pushed him away, too violently. It was a conditioned reflex, and she regretted it immediately. The expression on Bobby’s face was like she’d kicked a puppy. She swallowed hard and straightened, fighting for self-control.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m fine. I just need to rest a bit.” She looked around. “Go back to dinner, the rest of you.”

The soldiers behind Graff stood aside as she passed by them to slip into her tent. She sat on the camp bed, not bothering to light the lamp, and hugged her stomach. The muscles there were taut in memory of the impact of Davis’ meaty fist.

Someone knocked at the tent pole. “It’s Graff.”

Winter didn’t want to see him, or anyone else, but that would be a poor way to show gratitude. “Come in.”

The corporal entered, looking a little embarrassed. Winter looked up at him curiously.

He coughed. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry,” he said. “For interfering. I thought it prudent, but it was a liberty, and you’d be well within your rights to be angry.”

Winter shook her head dumbly.

“Jim was worried about you,” Graff explained. “He sees more than he lets on most of the time. There were three of them and just you, and we thought, well, that’s hardly fair. So I ran over and rounded up a few of the lads who looked like they’d been in a fight or two.”

“Thank you,” Winter managed.

Graff relaxed. “Thing is,” he said, “I’ve seen the type before. These backwoods sergeants are the worst-present company excluded, of course. They get a tiny bit of authority and they turn into little tin gods. Even worse when they’re big bastards like this Davis.” He shrugged. “Well, you don’t have to worry about him. That lot are all cowards at heart. Show them a strong front, and they’ll just scurry along.”

Winter shook her head. She knew Davis. He was a brute and a bully, and quite possibly he was a coward, but he also had overweening pride and a vicious cunning. Show him a strong front, and he’d find some way around it, some way to strike when you weren’t watching.

“I can’t do this,” Winter said quietly.

“Do what?”

“Any of this.” She waved a hand. “How am I supposed to be a sergeant? I don’t have the first idea what I’m doing, and now Davis. .” She shook her head, her throat thick. “I can’t do it.”

“You’re doing a first-rate job so far,” Graff said. “I’ve served under much worse, let me tell you.”

“But what am I supposed to do now?”

“Come back out and have dinner, for starters. You’ll feel better for a hot meal.”

Winter nodded slowly. Before she could rise, there was another rap at the tent pole, rapid and frantic.

“What?” Graff barked.

“It’s Bobby,” came the reply. “You’ve got to come out and see this!”

• • •

A squadron of cavalry had returned, walking down the aisle that separated the Seventh Company’s tents from those of the neighboring units. Winter recognized Give-Em-Hell at their head, looking as puffed up and proud as a rooster. A dozen of his men followed behind him in a loose square. In the center were four men on foot, and it was these that were the center of attention.

Most of the recruits had probably never seen a Khandarai, unless one had rowed the boat by which they’d come ashore. The natives were shorter than Vordanai, with dark hair and gray-brown skin. This last varied; they were called “grayskins,” and Winter had arrived expecting everyone to be the color of gunmetal, but in Ashe-Katarion she’d seen everything from the pale ash coloring of the nobility to the brown-black faces of the Desoltai, burned crisp by the desert sun.

These particular Khandarai were about average in that respect. They looked skinny and poorly fed, and they were dressed in fraying, baggy white cloth, painted all over with V shapes in red and yellow.

“Who are they?” Bobby asked, standing beside her.

“Not farmers, that’s for certain,” Graff said. “Look, they’ve got ammunition pouches.”

“Redeemers,” Winter said. She remembered that sigil all too clearly. “The triangles are supposed to look like flames.”

“What are they doing out here?” Bobby said. “I thought all the Redeemers were at the city.”

“Scouts,” Graff said grimly. Winter nodded.

Bobby looked from one to the other, confused. “What’s that mean?”

“It means that out there somewhere”-Graff pointed east-“there’s an army.”

“It means we’re going to have a fight before long,” Winter said. Staring at the sullen fanatics, she could almost forget about Davis after all.