The Crimson Campaign

by Brian McClellan

  He put one hand on either side of his nose and stared at himself in the eyes. It was now or never.

  He grasped his nose and straightened it.

  Adamat woke up on the floor of his kitchen to the sound of someone pounding on his front door. He slowly got to his feet and glanced in the mirror. Through all the blood and grime he could tell his nose was straight again. He wondered if it was worth the excruciating pain that even now made him want to collapse.

  It took him a full minute with shaking hands to reload his pistol. When it was primed, he went to the front door and peeked out the window.

  It was one of his neighbors. An older woman, stooped from age and wearing a day dress with a shawl hastily thrown over her head. He didn’t think he’d ever learned her name.

  Adamat cracked the door.

  The woman nearly screamed at the sight of him.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “Are you… are you all right?” she asked in a trembling voice. “I thought I heard a gunshot, and then not five minutes ago came the most terrible scream.”

  “Gunshot? No, no gunshot. I’m terribly sorry at my appearance. I fell and broke my nose. I was just setting it. Probably the scream you heard.”

  She stared at him like he was some kind of specter. “Are you sure you’re fine?”

  “Just a broken nose,” Adamat said, gesturing at his face. “An accident, I assure you.”

  “I’ll run and fetch the doctor.”

  “No, please,” Adamat said. “I’ll go myself soon. No need to do that.”

  “Now, now, I must insist.”

  “Madame!” Adamat made his voice as firm as he could. It made his nasal passage vibrate, and the pain nearly dropped him to the floor again. “If you mind, I will attend to myself. Do not, under any circumstance, summon a doctor.”

  “If you are certain…?”

  Damned busybodies. “Quite, thank you, madame.” Adamat closed the door and surveyed the mess in his hallway. Blood everywhere. The rug, the floor, the walls. All over the door behind him.

  It took Adamat several hours and quite a lot of Faye’s spare linens to clean up all the blood. He worked urgently – no telling if another of Vetas’s goons would arrive at any time. But he had to have the house cleaned out. There had to be no sign that he’d ever been here.

  When it was done, Adamat finally cleaned himself. A full bottle of wine, and the pain in his head was a dull hum instead of a constant hammering. Night had fallen. He wrapped Kale’s body in the soiled linens and dragged it out the back door, thinking how furious Faye would be once she found out what he’d used the linens for.

  In the corner of Adamat’s small garden was a toolshed, and under the toolshed an unused root cellar no larger than the inside of a small carriage. Adamat entered the root cellar and felt around in the dark for several minutes before he found what he was looking for: a rope on the cellar floor in a layer of loose dirt. He grabbed the rope and hauled, pulling free a stout wooden box.

  He took the strongbox into the garden and returned to drop the body inside the root cellar. He rearranged the tools so it looked like no one had been in there for some time and closed the door behind him.

  Inside the lockbox was every krana he’d saved since he first found out he owed Palagyi for the loan that had started Adamat and Friends Publishing. Adamat didn’t trust bankers anymore. Not since his loan had been sold to Palagyi.

  The sum came out to a little under twenty-five thousand. Not enough. Not nearly enough.

  Adamat spent another several hours cleaning the house of all traces of blood and then gathered a travel case full of children’s clothes, the strongbox, and his cane and pistol before he headed out into the street to look for a hackney cab.

  Taniel lay against the earthen battlements and glanced up at the overcast sky.

  Mountainous white clouds moved ponderously through the sky, rolling like foam on top of a wave as it crashed upon the beach. Bits of gray mixed into the clouds, here and there. Rain, maybe? He hoped not. The earthworks would turn to mud and the rain would foul powder on both sides.

  Taniel could hear the distant drumming of the Kez. It seemed far away, from where he lay against the cool, hard earth. The shouts of the Adran commanders – those were closer. He wanted to tell them to stuff it. Every man on the line knew they’d likely die today. Every man on the line knew that the Kez would succeed in their attack, taking the earthworks again like they did yesterday, and the day before that.

  Morale wasn’t just dead; it had been hanged, shot, then drawn and quartered and buried in a rocky grave.

  “Well?” Taniel said.

  Colonel Etan stood a few feet back from the edge of the earthworks, waving his sword and lending his own reassurances to the meaningless chatter of the officers. He wore a bearskin hat with a purple plume, befitting an officer of the Twelfth Grenadiers. His eyes were fixed on the approaching Kez infantry, still well beyond the earthworks.

  “Coming,” Etan said.

  Taniel scanned the clouds. “Wake me when they get here.” He closed his eyes.

  Some of Etan’s grenadiers chuckled at that. Taniel opened his eyes to see who’d laughed, and flashed them a grin. He surprised himself at how easily he smiled. Just a few days ago the very act had seemed foreign. Now…

  He caught sight of Ka-poel back behind Etan. She sat on the earthworks, her knee raised up, chin in her hand. She was watching the Kez advance. Even the grenadiers – the strongest, bravest men in the Adran army – had a wild, nervous look in their eyes. They knew what it meant to be on the front. But Ka-poel’s eyes were thoughtful, piercing. Not a hint of fear. She looked as deadly as a Fatrastan wildcat.

  Taniel wondered what she saw that the others didn’t.

  “Getting close,” Etan said. His body was tense and he kept a white-knuckle grip on his sword.

  Taniel wondered where Kresimir was. Why hadn’t the god shown himself? Why hadn’t he killed them all, scattering them with sorcery, instead of letting his army chip away slowly at the Adran defenses day after day?

  “Here they come!”

  Taniel gripped his rifle in both hands. The timing for this had to be perfect. No hesitation. He had to —

  “Now!”

  There was just a hint of a shadow in the corner of Taniel’s eyes. Taniel thrust his rifle upward, ramming two and a half spans of steel straight up between the legs of a leaping Warden.

  Taniel felt the rifle stock twist in his hands. He gave a shout and pushed up harder, lifting the Warden like some kind of macabre trophy and then slamming him onto the earthwork floor.

  Even a Warden could be taken by surprise, it seemed. The creature lay still in utter shock for several moments, eyes wide, a look of panic on his face. Then it began to thrash, trying to pull off the bayonet that Taniel had rammed up its ass.

  A dozen grenadiers fell on the Warden with bayonets and swords. It only took a few moments before all that remained of the Warden was a bloody mess of meat. Taniel pulled his bayonet out of the dead creature just as the Adran line opened fire.

  “Get rid of it,” Etan said. He and a pair of his men grabbed the dead Warden and hefted it over the earthworks, letting it roll down to the field below.

  The advancing Kez wavered in the onslaught of musket fire. Hundreds dropped to the ground, but the Kez war machine marched right over them. They dropped their bayoneted muskets into a ready position and charged at a run.

  Taniel got up on the earthworks and fired his rifle, dropping a Kez major from the back of his horse.

  Etan stepped up beside Taniel. “It’s been a pleasure knowing you, my friend,” he said, eyes on the charging Kez.

  “We’re not losing today.” Taniel rammed a cotton-wrapped bullet down his rifle, then cracked open a powder charge with his thumb. He snorted the charge in one long drag and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “Not today,” he said. Then, louder, “We’re not losing today.”

  Taniel felt a rising wave of anger.
Why should they lose? Why should they turn and run? They were better than the Kez. The Adran army was feared all over the Nine.

  He turned toward the grenadiers. “Are you Field Marshal Tamas’s men? Are you?”

  “The field marshal is dead,” someone said.

  Taniel felt the spittle fly out of his mouth. “Are you?”

  “I’m the field marshal’s man!” Etan lifted his sword. “Dead or alive, I’ll always be!”

  “Are you?” Taniel screamed at the grenadiers.

  “Yes!” They answered with one voice, muskets raised.

  “The Adran army – Tamas’s army – doesn’t lose. You can flee if you want” – Taniel pointed at the grenadiers – “when the trumpet sounds. Run back to those armchair generals, let the Kez shoot you in the back. But I’ll be here until the Kez break.”

  “So will I,” Etan said. He swung his saber.

  “And I!” the grenadiers shouted in unison.

  Taniel turned back to the Kez. “Send them to the pit!”

  Taniel saw his father’s face float before his vision like a tattered flag. He saw Vlora, and Sabon and Andriya, and all the rest of his fellow powder mages. He could see his friends in the Seventh and Ninth. Then they were gone, and the world was drenched in red as Taniel felt his legs carry him over the edge of the earthworks and straight into the teeth of the Kez infantry.

  The crack of muskets and blasts of artillery were suddenly lost in the thunder of the charging infantry. Taniel gutted a Kez soldier with his bayonet, then locked the stock of his rifle with another. He shoved, sending the soldier reeling.

  An officer’s sword sliced neatly along his cheek, just beneath the eye. He felt the blade, but pain seemed a distant thing from within the powder trance, with so much adrenaline coursing through his body. He smacked the officer across the chin with his rifle then stabbed an infantryman.

  The Kez were all around him and he felt a sudden panic. It didn’t matter how quick or how powerful he was, he could be felled by sheer force of numbers, just like the Warden he and the grenadiers had hacked apart.

  Taniel saw a bayonet aim at his heart. He dropped his shoulder and felt the point snag his jacket, ripping clean through, then slammed his fist into the soldier’s face.

  And suddenly Taniel was not alone. Adran grenadiers with their bearskin hats and crimson-cuffed jackets were beside him, muskets at the ready to push back the Kez assault.

  “Shove!” Etan’s voice rose above the din. “Step! Thrust! Shove! Step! Thrust!”

  While the Kez infantry threw themselves forward with reckless abandon, the Twelfth Grenadiers moved in lockstep, every man chosen for his immense size and trained to meet the enemy unflinchingly. They’d come over the earthworks behind Taniel and now they pushed forward, bayonets working, chewing through the Kez infantry like so many farmers cutting hay.

  Taniel forced himself into the line of grenadiers and joined their march. To his surprise, the Kez infantry seemed to melt before them. Taniel knew power. He knew speed. But the pure strength of these grenadiers working together shocked him. He felt the rhythm of their push deep down in his chest.

  A Kez soldier threw himself over the line, crashing into Taniel and sending him back. The grenadiers closed up the empty spot, not missing a beat. Taniel wrestled with the soldier, throwing him to the ground and pressing his boot to the man’s throat. A glance at the line, and then…

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw a Warden tear through the grenadiers. The biggest and strongest that Adro had to offer were scattered like toys as the creature breached the line.

  Another Warden crashed through. Colonel Etan staggered back, his brow bloodied. He recovered quickly, slashing with his heavy saber, taking the Warden’s hand off at the wrist. The Warden threw himself forward and snatched Etan by the throat, picking up a man of fifteen stone and shaking him as a dog might a rat.

  A trumpet sounded.

  Retreat.

  Fury tore through Taniel. No. He wouldn’t fall back. He wasn’t leaving this field without a victory.

  Taniel snarled, the soldier beneath his boot forgotten. He could see Etan’s eyes roll back as he went into shock. Taniel hefted his rifle, bayonet ready, and charged.

  Something slammed into him from the side. He flew, a few moments of uncontrolled tumble sending his heart lurching before he hit the ground, bouncing off an infantryman’s body. The jolt sent Taniel’s rifle sliding from his hands, and when he came to his feet, he was unarmed.

  There wasn’t time to react. This new Warden was too fast. A heavy fist pummeled his face, sending him spinning.

  Taniel righted himself, bracing for another blow. Mentally, he touched a bit of powder. There was no reaction. This was a Black Warden.

  The next blow failed to land as the Warden thrashed about, Ka-poel on his back. She hung on by one of her long needles, which was buried deep into the meat of the creature’s shoulder. She’d missed his spine by inches, and the needle could do nothing but infuriate him.

  Taniel drew his boot knife. He squared his shoulders, ready to leap, when the Warden suddenly stiffened. He lurched forward, dropping to his knees. Ka-poel calmly withdrew her needle and stepped away from the Warden. She wore a vicious smile and in one hand held a half-formed wax doll. Her fingers worked furiously to finish the doll.

  The Warden came to its feet, still wobbling, still lurching. It staggered to one side and then suddenly flew forward, charging the Kez.

  Perhaps half the grenadiers still stood, their line ragged and broken, with more of them dropping beneath Kez infantry every second. The Warden cleared them with a single leap, landing among the Kez.

  Most of the infantry ignored him. They were used to the Wardens, of course. It wasn’t until this one took a discarded saber in his hand and began slicing up the Kez ranks that horror began to spread.

  The panic was palpable. Taniel watched as the Kez began to scream and back away from the Warden. Some tried to stand and fight. Some even attacked him. A bayonet speared the Warden through the neck and the creature snapped the steel bayonet off the end of the musket and kept fighting. The Kez began to waver.

  Taniel had killed Wardens in hand-to-hand combat, the same creatures that terrorized the Adran army, and now Ka-poel had turned one on the Kez. A thrill worked its way up from his toes until it reached his fingertips, and Taniel wondered just what he’d become that allowed him to fight a ferocious monster like that.

  “To me!” He lifted his rifle over his head. “To me!” he shouted above the sound of the trumpets, blaring louder and louder for the grenadiers to retreat. “Bugger the trumpets, we fight!”

  The Kez began to crumple. None of their snare drums were calling a retreat, but they fled all the same. The few Wardens left on the field were finally overpowered and mercilessly slaughtered. Some of the Kez threw down their weapons and fell to their knees in surrender.

  The Warden that Ka-poel controlled chased the Kez almost the whole way back to their camp. A dozen other Wardens had congregated to try to put it down.

  Ka-poel’s eyes were alight with glee, and the wax figurine in her hands twitched and spun. Her lips opened in a silent laugh.

  The Warden fought on. Stabbed, shot, sliced: it would not fall.

  And then Ka-poel lifted the doll and pushed the head off with one thumb.

  The Warden collapsed.

  Taniel stared, openmouthed, at Ka-poel. How could this girl, the same woman who had pressed herself against him so intimately, fall asleep in his arms like a child one minute and then take to the battlefield with the power of a vengeful goddess the next?

  She turned, as if feeling his gaze, and flashed him a shy smile. In an instant she was once again the girl he’d rescued from a dirty hut in the swamps of Fatrasta.

  Taniel wanted to rush to her, to carry her away from this madness, to make sure that she was all right. But she wasn’t his to protect, not anymore. Not since Kresim Kurga. He had a feeling that who – or what – Ka-poel really was
had just begun to show itself.

  Ignoring his own wounds, Taniel began to cast about for Colonel Etan. He found the grenadier beneath a dead Warden. Taniel rolled the corpse away. Etan was still breathing, much to Taniel’s relief, but there was a profound look of panic in his eyes.

  “I can’t move my legs,” Etan said.

  Taniel dropped to his knees beside Etan and felt that same panic begin to rise within him. “It’s all right,” Taniel said. “We’ll get you a surgeon.”

  “I can’t feel my legs!” Etan gripped Taniel’s arm. He gasped, and Taniel could see the strain on his face as he tried to move. “I can’t feel them!”

  Taniel felt his heart crack. Etan was one of the strongest men he knew. To die in battle was one thing, but to be broken…

  “Get me a surgeon!” Taniel yelled. “And tell them to stop with the bloody trumpets. We won already, damn it!”

  Etan seemed to sag. “We won?”

  “We won.” Taniel looked around the field. He could see soldiers running from the Adran side, coming to provide backup. If there wasn’t a surgeon among them, he’d strangle someone.

  “You held it,” Etan said. “You held the line.”

  “No. You did. You and your grenadiers.”

  “Couldn’t have done it without you.” Etan was blinking rapidly now. Taniel searched him for a wound, trying to find something. Etan’s fingers grasped the sleeve of Taniel’s jacket, his knuckles bone white, his face drawn in pain. “I saw the way my boys looked at you. They would have followed you all the way to the pit just now. Just like Tamas. Just like your father.”

  “Don’t say horrid shit like that,” Taniel said. He felt hot tears on his cheeks. “I’m nothing like that old bastard.”

  “Taniel. Promise me you’ll win this thing. Promise me you’ll finish this. That this won’t be the last victory Adro has.”

  “No need for promises,” Taniel said. “You’re not dying.”

  Etan pulled Taniel close. “I can’t feel my bloody legs. I know what that means, you ass. I won’t see a battlefield again. So you promise me now that you’ll win this thing.”