The Crimson Campaign

by Brian McClellan

  Someone spoke. A man’s voice. He was saying…

  Lord Vetas slammed into the back wall of the dining room hard enough to rattle the remains of the house. Something shifted in the wreckage, and Nila heard someone scream. Lord Vetas, though, didn’t make a sound. The Adran Privileged stepped into view. He spoke quietly, his face angry. He grabbed Lord Vetas by the chin and forced him to look at the dead Privileged.

  The Adran Privileged stepped back suddenly. His voice was suddenly calm and collected. Nila heard him say, “I bet you were the type of child who tortured animals for fun. Tell me, did you ever pull the wings off of insects? Answer me!”

  Nila had some satisfaction in seeing Vetas pull back in fear. His mouth moved, the word too low to hear.

  “That’s what I thought. How does it feel?”

  Nila pulled away from the door. Vetas’s scream drowned out the calls of the wounded and dying in the rest of the house. She turned toward the kitchen, looking for another way to get through the wreckage. Panic set in. She had to find Jakob. She had to get away from the house. Even as she began to breathe harder, the adrenaline setting in, a wave of relief swept over her. Vetas was gone. If he wasn’t dead yet, he would be. That bastard had finally found someone stronger and crueler.

  She put him from her mind. He wasn’t worth another thought. Jakob, though…

  “Nila?”

  Nila’s gaze darted around the kitchen. A child’s voice. Where had it come from?

  “Nila, quick, hide in here.”

  She found Jakob in the bottom of the pantry, tucked behind a sack of flour. She glanced at the door to the dining room. “There’s no room for me in there,” she said, helping him out of the pantry.

  “What about Faye?” Jakob asked. “And Uncle Vetas.”

  A moan emanated from the dining room. Nila took Jakob by the shoulder and pushed him out through the broken wall the same way she’d come in.

  The crowd outside had retreated to what they deemed a safe distance from the house, seemingly content to wait for the police and fire brigades to arrive. Someone grabbed Nila by the arm as she pushed her way through the throng. She shoved them off without a comment, not bothering to look back, and kept her grip on Jakob’s shoulder.

  Her mind was already racing. She still had her buried silver outside the city. She had no money, no clothes but the ones on her back. They’d have to walk all the way to the city limits, find the silver, and then tomorrow they could come back into the city and find a place to sell it.

  A night or two spent sleeping in the street wouldn’t kill them.

  They were four blocks away, when Nila noticed that everyone she passed was staring at her. It was another block before Jakob pointed at her dress and she realized that the blood from her palm was everywhere. It looked like she’d been rolling in it. Two more streets down and they reached a string of shops.

  “Do you need help, ma’am?” a passing gentleman asked, pressing a handkerchief to his mouth. He looked queasy at the sight of her.

  She showed him her palm. “Just skinned it, is all,” she said, trying to keep her tone level. “Looks worse than it is.”

  The gentleman seemed relieved. “There’s a doctor right over there,” he said, pointing two shops down. “She accepts walk-ins.”

  “Thank you so much,” Nila said.

  She waited for a moment until the gentleman continued on his way. She had no way to pay for a doctor. She’d have to deal with the pain until…

  Nila remembered the silver necklace with the large pearl hanging about her neck. A “gift” from Vetas.

  The doctor was an older woman in a white dress and sharp eyeglasses perched on her nose. She was seeing a patient, but one look at Nila’s bloody dress and she rushed to see what was the matter.

  Nila did her best to make small talk as the doctor cleaned and then wrapped her wound. She had fallen, Nila told the doctor. A nasty fall, but nothing was sprained. Payment? “Oh, my. I seem to have left my pocketbook at home. Can you keep this necklace until I return to pay you?”

  The arrangement was struck, and Nila even borrowed a fifty-krana note against the necklace. She pulled Jakob out the door, relieved that he’d stayed quiet through the entire exchange.

  Nila had only gone another half a block before a thought struck her.

  The Privileged. The one who’d come out victorious and then torn Vetas’s arms off – he was a member of the Adran royal cabal.

  “Jakob,” Nila said, directing him over to a street side café, “can you wait here for a few minutes?”

  Jakob’s eyes grew wide. “Don’t leave me alone.”

  “Just for a few minutes. Here, let me buy you glass of milk. Sit right here, inside, and wait for me to come back.” She paused, thinking. “If I don’t come back, I want you to ask directions to the nearest barracks. Tell the commanding officer that you’re looking for Captain Olem. He’ll be away, fighting on the front, but the officer will help you find someplace to stay.”

  “You’re not coming back for me?”

  “I am,” Nila said, “but just in case I don’t, that’s what you’re to do.”

  The boy seemed to take stock of her confidence and straightened his back. “Yes, Nila.”

  She bought him a glass of milk and put him on a chair just inside the café, asking the waiter to keep an eye on him for half an hour. Ten krana bought her an old apron from the café, and she wrapped it around her middle. It concealed the blood on her dress nicely.

  Then Nila backtracked her way to Lord Vetas’s manor.

  The police had arrived, and the fire brigades were crawling all over the manor. A white sheet had been laid over the remains of Dourford, and the fire brigades pulled a twisted body from the wreckage. All of Lord Vetas’s men had disappeared, along with whomever they were fighting. The number of police kept her from wanting to get any closer to the building.

  She began to make a circuit of the area, checking each of the nearby streets. Surely there were lookouts, or… or… someone!

  Nila found nothing. Lord Vetas’s men, the Adran soldiers, the cabal Privileged; they’d scattered to the wind.

  She widened her search.

  It wasn’t until five streets over that she caught sight of a man with ruddy muttonchops and a pressed suit of clothes walking along the thoroughfare with a wide rug, rolled thick enough that it might have a body inside, over his shoulder. He wasn’t wearing any Privileged’s gloves, but Nila knew it was the same man – the cabal Privileged.

  She ran to catch up with him. He walked slowly under the weight of the rug and he was whistling loudly to himself. Surely this couldn’t be the same man?

  He turned a corner.

  Slowly, Nila crept up to the edge of the building. Maybe it wasn’t him. Privileged didn’t carry things themselves. They had servants for that.

  She rounded the corner and nearly screamed.

  About ten feet down the alley, the man was sitting on his rolled rug. He had his feet up on an old wine barrel as if he’d been there all day.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  Nila glanced into the street. Surely he wouldn’t harm her. Not on a busy street in broad daylight.

  “Sir,” she said. How to talk to a Privileged? She’d spent some time with Rozalia when she was with the royalists months ago, but that had made her just as uncomfortable. Privileged were not to be trusted. “My lord?”

  His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t correct her. This was the same man, all right. And he didn’t like someone noticing that he was a Privileged. She braced herself, ready to run.

  “Yes?” he asked, his voice amiable.

  “You’re a Privileged,” she said. “From the Adran Cabal.”

  The man raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think that?”

  “I saw you splatter Lord Dourford across the cobbles about an hour ago.”

  “That was his name?” the Privileged said. “I thought he looked familiar. That pompous prick was a member of the Kez Caba
l. Bah, I’m surprised they let him in. Less talent than a Knacked.” He looked her up and down. “Now what can I do for you? Make it good, because I’ll have to kill you after.”

  Kill her? Nila had no doubt he would, given the need. Members of the royal cabals were notoriously cruel. She cleared her throat and straightened her back. “Due to your duty as a member of the royal cabal, I will give into your protection Jakob Eldaminse, next in line for the crown of Adro.” She let out a sharp breath, only now realizing that she’d been holding it.

  The Privileged’s eyebrow remained cocked. Slowly, as if realizing that she was serious, the eyebrow lowered. He threw his head back and laughed.

  Nila felt a nervous smile dance upon her lips. Had she said something funny? “You’ll do it, then?”

  “What? Oh, pit no. You think I want some noble brat hanging on my hip? That kid is, what, four?”

  “Six.”

  “Six. Right.” The Privileged stood up. “The Adran nobility is dead. They’re not coming back.” He paused and looked around. “Where is the boy, anyway?”

  “Hiding.”

  “Smart.”

  “Sir,” Nila said. “My lord, you have to. He has no one else to protect him.”

  “He seems to have you.”

  “I’m just a laundress.”

  “You dress like a waiter.”

  “The apron? No, I’m a laundress.”

  “I’m pretty sure that you’re a waiter,” the Privileged said.

  It took her several moments to realize that she was being teased.

  “My lord!” she said in a voice that she hoped was commanding, “you have to protect Jakob Eldaminse.”

  “No, I don’t.” The Privileged sighed as if suddenly tired, and though he’d looked to be in his midtwenties just a moment ago, he suddenly seemed elderly. “I’m done with the Adran nobility.” He blinked and then seemed to look more closely at her. “Have we met before?”

  She shook her head.

  “Oh well. I should be off. This rug won’t keep all day.”

  Nila felt a rising panic inside her. It hadn’t worked. The Privileged wouldn’t protect Jakob. It wasn’t as if she were trying to hand the boy off, she told herself. It was that he needed better protectors than she. “You’re not going to…”

  “Kill you? No. You’re trying to hide one of the last living members of Manhouch’s extended family. You’re not going to tell anyone about me anytime soon.”

  “I will,” Nila said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I will tell them. Unless you swear to protect Jakob.”

  “You’re adorable.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I’m sure you are.” The Privileged bent and lifted one edge of the rug, tipping it upward against the wall and examining it for a moment as if figuring out the best way to get it back on his shoulders.

  Nila felt numb. What would she do now? Sure, she could get ahold of some money, but what then? “Your rug is bleeding.”

  “So it is,” the Privileged said, glancing at the dark stain soaking through the fabric. “I thought I cauterized those wounds.”

  A cold finger crept its way up Nila’s spine. “Who is that?” she asked.

  “Him? Some idiot named Vetal or something.”

  “Vetas?”

  “Yeah. Him.”

  Nila stormed over to the rug and kicked it. Then again, then again.

  The Privileged grabbed her by the arm, pulling her away. “He’s unconscious,” he said, “and I want him alive so that I can torture him some more. For information,” he added.

  Nila stumbled away from the rug and leaned up against the wall of the alley. She felt like she was going to be ill. Everything had been so clear in her mind as she’d escaped Vetas’s grasp. Now it was full of questions. Part of her wanted to cry. She quelled the feeling and stared at the wall, trying to come up with some kind of plan.

  She was surprised to find the Privileged still standing there a few moments later.

  “Don’t you have something to do with that?” she said, jerking her chin at the rug.

  The Privileged stepped closer. Nila refused to step back.

  “My name’s Bo,” he said.

  Nila sniffed.

  “Look, I won’t keep the boy,” Bo said. “I’m not in any position to protect him. I’m a hunted man myself. But I can give you two a few days of safety while you figure out what to do.”

  “Why?”

  Bo chuckled. “Because you’re brave enough to demand things of a Privileged on your own, and from what I gather, you know this fellow” – he tapped the rug with his toe – ”and because you’re rather attractive. A few days is all, though.” He pulled a pencil and paper from his breast pocket and scribbled something on it. “I have to go put my rug into storage. Gather the boy and meet me at this address. For Kresimir’s sake, make sure you’re not followed.”

  CHAPTER

  27

  “You have to hold still, sir.”

  Tamas resisted the urge to twitch away from Olem’s needle. Olem had shaved the side of Tamas’s head and cleaned the bullet gash with frigid mountain water and now he made tight stitches with catgut. The wound ran almost the entire length of the side of Tamas’s head. It was an eerie feeling, knowing that had the path of the bullet been an inch to one side, it would have turned Tamas’s head into a canoe.

  “Sorry,” Tamas muttered.

  The air reeked of death as the corpses of thousands of men and horses stank in the midmorning sun. His soldiers had labored the entire rest of the day after the battle and all this morning in an effort to dig all the bodies from the trench. The men had been laid out, their kits and supplies stripped from them, while the horses were prepared for eating.

  War may need decorum, but his army needed food and supplies.

  The moans and cries of the wounded reached him. Both Kez and Adran were being treated to field surgery in an impromptu hospital. Neither army had a proper team of doctors beyond the rudimentary skills of soldiers who’d seen countless wounds.

  Tamas watched as Gavril picked his way through the camp toward him.

  All signs of the chaos and disorganization they’d used to lure in the Kez cavalry were gone. A team of engineers was hard at work making a proper bridge over the Big Finger. Cook fires everywhere smoked with horsemeat. Quartermasters took stock of supplies they’d stripped from both Kez and Adran dead. There were piles of boots, kits, blankets, and tents, along with rifles, ammunition, even powder horns and charges.

  Gavril reached Tamas and sat down on the ground beside him. “General Cethal is dead.”

  Tamas bowed his head for a moment of silence, further frustrating Olem’s attempts at stitching.

  “I’m surprised he lasted this long,” Tamas said. “Tough old dog. What reports?”

  “Based on the bodies so far, we’re guessing about two thousand dead on our side. Another three thousand wounded. About a quarter of those will join the dead within a week. Half our wounded are incapacitated.”

  Thirty-five hundred casualties to this battle. Over a fourth of Tamas’s fighting force. It was a heavy blow.

  “And the Kez?”

  “Based on bodies alone, we can guess that only twenty-five hundred of them got away. The rest are either dead or captured.”

  Tamas let out a long breath. A decisive victory in anyone’s book. Most of the enemy, including all of their high officers, either killed or captured.

  “Give our boys a rest,” Tamas said. “Any Kez who can stand, put him to work burying the bodies.”

  “What are we going to do with all these captives?” Gavril asked. “We can’t take them with us. Pit, we can’t even carry our own wounded – don’t forget that Beon’s brother is still coming on hard with thirty thousand infantry.”

  “When will he reach us?”

  “Our prisoners are being sketchy about time frames, but piecing things together, I’d guess they are about a week behind us.”

&n
bsp; Close enough that if Tamas allowed himself to be slowed by wounded and prisoners, the Kez infantry would catch him before he could get to Deliv.

  “How is Beon?”

  “Asked to see you,” Gavril said.

  “Right. Olem?”

  Olem wiped the needle off on his jacket. “All done, sir. Doesn’t look pretty, but the stitches are tight. Try not to do any strenuous thinking in the near future.”

  Tamas held up a field mirror. “I look like a bloody invalid. Bring me my hat.”

  “It’ll rub against the stitches.”

  “Wrap it in a handkerchief. I’m not going to parley with the enemy looking like this.”

  Olem wrapped Tamas’s head, and Tamas gingerly sat his bicorne hat on top of it.

  “How does it feel, sir?”

  “Hurts like the bloody pit. Let’s go see Beon.”

  Tamas let Gavril and Olem walk out in front of him as they crossed the camp. Gavril had come through the battle with little more than a black eye, while Olem had a tendency to ignore his own wounds. His left hand was wrapped tightly, and fresh blood soaked through his white shirt at the shoulder. “Olem, see to yourself,” Tamas said as they neared the prisoners.

  “I’m all right, sir,” Olem said.

  “That’s an order.”

  Olem relented and limped back to camp. Tamas was sorry to see him go, but Olem needed rest and medical attention.

  The prisoners had been put in a makeshift stockade overnight. They were bound hand and foot and watched over by the Seventh Brigade. The Ninth couldn’t be trusted with prisoners right now – they’d taken the worst of it in the cuirassier charge, and most of them still wanted blood.

  “Field Marshal to see General Beon,” Gavril said to one of the guards. The man headed into the stockade. He emerged a few minutes later with Beon in tow.

  The Kez general didn’t look so well. His left arm was in a sling. Stitches on his forehead and the back of his right hand looked crooked and painful. He walked with a pronounced limp.

  “General,” Tamas said.