by A. C. Cobble
“You cook, do you not?” asked Yates. “I was told that you do.”
“I can, sir.”
“Can you teach me how to make a meal, Adriance?” asked Yates. “I’ve always dined in the great hall here in the Church. There is… I have a dalliance, with a woman, and I’d like to do something for her. We’re given little coin for entertainment, but I thought if I could cook for her, she might… I thought she might show her appreciation.”
“I was raised in a kitchen before entering the creche, sir,” said Timothy. “I can teach you how to make a meal.”
Grinning, Yates nodded. “I’d be in your debt, Adriance. Perhaps I can speak to Priest Myles, and between us, we can recommend a few other books that are written in ancient Darklands. As you help me, I can help you.”
“I’d be grateful, sir.”
Yates spun his hand in a lazy circle. “It is the way of the Church, Adriance. We all spin on the wheel, all pushing together, all rolling along to get where we are going.”
“Are green eyes common in Enhover?” asked the newly named bishop.
Priest Adriance shrugged. “In some parts, sir.”
Satisfied with the non-answer, Bishop Gabriel Yates turned back to studying the approaching city. Southundon, the capitol of Enhover, the seat of Bishop Langdon, and a stop-off on their way to Westundon.
It’d been eight years since Timothy had seen Southundon, or anywhere in Enhover for that matter. He felt some mild trepidation at returning home. Eight years prior, when he’d been led onto the Church ship destined for Ivalla, he’d thought he’d seen the last of his parents, his brothers, and his sisters. It was rare one of the Church’s flock returned home. The Church didn’t like competing loyalties in the hearts of her children, but Bishop Yates had insisted Timothy join his retinue, and as a quiet denizen of the underground vaults in the library, no one else had any interest in what happened to the young priest. Few knew of Timothy’s interest in ancient Darklands mythology, or what he spent his hours doing in the library. That was for the best, Yates had declared, and Timothy had agreed.
Now, though, he was returning home. He hadn’t told his parents he would be back in Enhover. It’d been years, and he wasn’t even sure they still lived. Some of their brood must. His brothers and sisters, his old friends. Surely, some of them were still around. He hadn’t sent a message ahead, though, and he was not sure that he would now that he’d arrived.
After eight years in the Church’s care, most of it spent poring over forbidden knowledge hidden in the bowels of the library, he’d come to understand the world was a complicated place. A complicated, strange place. A darker place than he could have imagined eight years ago, but a brighter one, too. What his role was in that strange world, he still did not know, but he’d learned the possibilities. He’d learned one could walk far in this world, if one had the wherewithal to do it. One just had to decide which way to start walking.
As their ship sailed slowly into Southundon’s harbor, and a skiff was lowered over the side to transport the human cargo to shore, Bishop Yates stood upright and drew a deep breath. “Come on, Adriance, we have work to do.”
4
The General: a Short Story
In the distance, three vessels hung peacefully in the bright morning air. The wind carried the scent of fresh mown hay, and in the field below, bales of the stuff were piled in even intervals. The peasants continued their tireless work, regardless of the armies marching down on them. He supposed they didn’t much care who won or lost the war, and a war wasn’t sufficient reason to pause the harvest. Though, they’d care soon enough when the fighting rolled over their fields and their hovels.
As he studied the land below, he had to admit, if it wasn’t for the three airships that had floated over the horizon half an hour after dawn, it’d be a pleasant morning. Perfect for work outside, toiling at tasks that would be miserable in the dark of winter or the baking heat of summer. It was the type of morning that as a child he’d lived for.
He, his father, his brothers, and their dogs would leave the estate before the sun rose, hunting quail, wild pigs, deer, or whatever other game was foolish enough to traipse across their path. His brothers carried bows or the rudimentary blunderbusses that were available back when he was a child. On his shoulder, he’d prop a long, heavily guarded spear. He didn’t think he’d ever had the chance to use it, instead, he’d borrowed his older brother’s armaments when they’d tired of carrying them. It wasn’t the thrill of the hunt that he recalled, it was time spent with his family. Time enjoying them and the country that they grew up in.
Southern Finavia was bucolic even now, after three hard years of war had ground the nation into an impoverished, nearly feral creature. What was left of the once proud nation crouched near its southern coast, lashing out at anything that drew near. The land in this region remained the same, still unscarred by the fighting, but the people were no longer the ones he’d grown up with. His father had succumbed to illness years ago, and his brothers to war, months ago. The staff that had managed their estate were either conscripted, fled, or dug into hiding. The buildings of the estate, just a couple of dozen leagues from his position now, housed bleeding remnants of companies that had lost their battles. The barns and silos were stuffed with shot and powder. The livestock that had once inhabited those structures were slaughtered and cured for field rations.
He grimaced, shaking his head and then rolling his shoulders. The estate, his home, was nothing like it once was. He didn’t think it would ever be the same again, but there was no use dwelling on it.
“General?” asked the commandant at his side.
He gripped the saber on his hip and requested, “Bring up my horse, Commandant.”
“General de Bussy, are you certain this is wise?” asked the man.
Pierre de Bussy offered the man a wan smile. It wasn’t the first time the question had been asked.
“Rouchan has fallen, General, but the Ivallans still hold Valerno,” proclaimed the sharply dressed commandant. “We can join them there, make a united effort to force back the Enhoverians. Together—”
“Commandant, we’ve been united with the Ivallans against Enhover for two years now,” chided the general. “Have you seen any evidence that together we can force those bloody bastards back? No, instead we’ve proven that we cannot. We’ve lost this war, Commandant, but we still may have an opportunity to set terms. We can show William Wellesley he has blood to pay for our soil, and we can show his men it’s not worth it. They’ve had us on the run, Commandant. If we try to hold, we’ll die. If we go to the negotiating table now, we’ll have to give them everything. Today, we strike back. If we hit them hard enough, maybe we can save something for our people.” He gestured at the terrain around them. “This need not be simply another colony of Enhover, Commandant.”
“Send your honor guard, sir,” begged the commandant. “You do not need to go yourself.”
General de Bussy shook his head. “I will not send my men where I fear to go. No, Commandant, I will ride down there. I will show my colors, and when William grows over eager and chases me back into these hills, we’ll have our chance.”
His aide offered a thin-lipped smile and turned to collect the general’s horse and honor guard.
General de Bussy turned and surveyed the hills around him.
Hills, much like those that covered the rest of southern Finavia, but where many of those were blanketed in the neat rows of grape vines, these were wild, topped with pine and cypress. Amongst those thickets, he’d hidden every bit of brass cannon he could scrape together. He’d hidden every able-bodied man he could find.
When William and his airships began to chase the general’s honor guard, those ships would come in low by the hills, searching for the flashing colors of Finavia’s finest. When they did, the cannon would unleash. With any luck, they’d have a chance to take down one of Enhover’s vaunted airships. The islanders had more of them, of course. He was no fool, he knew that if the trick wor
ked, it would only work once, but maybe that was enough. Maybe that was enough to earn a grudging measure of respect, and when he finally offered Finavia’s surrender, he could do so with head held high, and maintain some independence for his people.
Beneath him, the powerful animal’s muscles bunched and stretched in a turf pounding run. Behind him, one hundred of his best men, clad in their parade finest, charged after him on their own precious mounts. Finding one hundred horses healthy enough to make the run, not pressed into service as beasts of burden hauling ammunition to the front and the wounded and dying to the back, had been more difficult than finding one hundred men willing to ride with him.
Patriots, each and every one of them, they’d known the risk. They’d accepted it for one last chance to ride behind General Pierre de Bussy. He was leading them to their deaths.
Above them, the trio of Enhoverian airships fired flares and then turned, spotting the flashing red coats of Finavia’s men and sailing in pursuit. His heart sank at the sight of the flares. As they had worried, Enhover had men on the ground as well as on the decks. They’d come prepared to finish the fight, to mop up whatever scraps of Finavia’s army remained after a bombardment, but perhaps it meant an opportunity as well. With reserves on the ground, perhaps the sailors would be even more confident. General de Bussy was counting on it, for the Enhoverians to come close, too close, to where Finavia could punch back.
Thunder crashed, rolling over the sound of the running horses, and several hundred yards to his right, de Bussy heard the cracks and thumps of cannon shot crashing into the forest.
An inaccurate shot from the airships, nowhere near his men, but he suspected the airships were merely firing to force his fleeing company into a tighter bunch.
On the move, it’d be nearly impossible for the Enhoverians to strafe them consistently. The airships were faster, two or three times faster than a running horse, and they never tired, but they were slow to respond to changes in direction. If any of the shot landed within Finavia’s formation, de Bussy would order the men to turn, and buy them precious time while the sailing masters above corrected their headings.
No, it wasn’t with the blast of cannon that he truly feared, it was the airships corralling them into a tight bunch and then sailing directly overhead. Then, the airships would roll their horrific red saltpetre bombs, and the devastation would be thorough.
There was no defending against the explosive force of the munitions, and countless cities and villages had been laid waste by the unflinching bombardment. It was only out in the country, where the Enhoverians wouldn’t expect to face cannon placed high, that they had a chance.
But first, he had to draw the airships close. Close enough to him and his artillery emplacements that the cannoneers had a chance, but not so close he risked the bombs raining down.
“Sir!” shouted a captain, pointing off to their left with the blade of his saber.
General de Bussy looked and saw several dozen men wearing Enhover’s blue filing out of a stand of thin-trunked pine trees. They carried an assortment of steel-tipped pikes and gleaming brass blunderbusses. He glanced behind and saw the airships had fanned out, swooping closer on his right.
“They’re trying to force us underneath the airships!” he called, yelling over the pounding of hooves on turf. “Hells. They knew we were here. If they steer us through the open fields, we’re done.”
“Ride them down, sir?” questioned his captain. The young man’s eyes shined with the fervor of battle.
“Ride them down,” confirmed de Bussy. From his hip, he drew his own saber, the steel gleaming bright along the sharpened edge. The rest of the blade was dull from use and age. His family sword, dating back several generations. It had tasted blood in countless continental conflicts, but it’d never seen action like this. He raised the blade above his head and swept it down, pointing it at the scrambling pikemen and marines that were still hustling to get into position. “Charge!”
His men, already riding at full speed, formed into a wedge, General de Bussy taking the point.
Ahead of them, the pikemen set the butts of their weapons into the turf and lowered the polearms to meet the thundering Finavian cavalry. A small force, meant to scare him into turning, not enough to stop his men. Not all of them, at least. They would stop some.
Beside the pikemen, the marines raised their blunderbusses to their shoulders. When the Finavians were twenty horse-strides away, the marines pulled the triggers.
Two-dozen of the firearms barked, half of them discharging successfully. The Enhoverians had better engineered weapons than Finavia, and de Bussy was shocked so many of the clumsy things worked. It wasn’t enough to stop the charge of a hundred men, though.
Beside him, de Bussy heard snarled curses over the noise of the horses and turned to see his captain. The man’s helmet was missing and he had blood streaming down the side of his face. A dark crimson stained marred his bright red coat. To his credit, with gritted teeth and steely determination, the captain held his saber rigid in front of him. He spurred his horse, and the animal surged ahead, taking the lead of the flying wedge.
A breath later, three pikes thrust forward, two taking the captain’s charging horse in the chest, the third taking the man. The animal pulled up, rearing in pain as the steel heads of the polearms plunged deep into its flesh.
The captain was catapulted over the neck of his mount, the pike that had speared him snapping, half its length stuck in his body, the other half of the wooden haft held in the hands of a scared looking pikeman.
Then de Bussy hit the line. His horse trampled over one man and he slashed down with his saber, the edge of the blade finding the flesh of one of the men who’d speared his captain’s horse, and then he was by. The pikemen holding that section of line had aimed for the captain when he’d taken the lead, and de Bussy passed through the formation cleanly, red streamers of blood trailing from his saber as he rode.
Around him, some of his men burst through the line, slashing with their swords or running over the men on foot with the heavy bodies of their horses.
Sixty, seventy of them had made it? If they turned, they could easily finish the remaining footmen. The pikes had been shattered on the initial charge, and it would be a minute before the marines could reload their firearms, but those footmen were not the quarry they hunted now. The airships were, and there were still enough of them riding that they’d entice the bigger game.
He glanced over his shoulder, seeing fallen and injured men in Finavian red struggling as they were surrounded by the surviving footmen. He raised his saber in salute of his fallen comrades, and then looked up to see the three airships still closing. They’d gotten close enough that he could see tiny figures on deck, watching his fleeing men, preparing their cannon and their bombs.
On foot, his black leather riding boot dug into soft soil and his ankle twisted. He grimaced but kept running. It was a small pain compared to the disorienting throb of his arm. The limb was broken. It had snapped after an incredible explosion startled his mount and the creature threw him off. He wanted to grip the arm, to hold it tight, but in his good hand he held his blood-stained saber. He’d used it twice more since they broke through the initial line, each time in a small skirmish with squads of Enhoverians who’d raced ahead of the bulk of the army to push his men into the hills.
He guessed William had positioned his army to surround those hills and was dispatching the smaller squads to force the Finavians to huddle together like frightened dogs. Packed tightly, the airships could rain death on them from above. General de Bussy smiled grimly. Frightened dogs indeed, but they still had life in them, and they still had teeth.
His company had fallen around him. There were only a dozen left in his command, but they would be enough. They had to be enough.
A flash of blue out of the corner of his eye drew his attention and he leapt behind a tree.
A sharp crack and the whistle of iron shot scattering through the trees.
“I’ve got him!” shouted one of the Finavians, then a startled grunt and scream of pain as he found more than he was looking for.
More flashes of blue, more barks from the blunderbusses. General de Bussy’s red-coated soldiers rushed to respond. Another Finavian went down, but several of them found opponents they could reach, and he heard the clash of steel and the screams of more wounded.
He looked up.
Two hundred yards. They had to draw the airships another two hundred yards into the hills if his cannon emplacements had a chance to bring one of the vessels down. They had to draw them closer. He could hear men aboard the ship, shouting orders, warning each other to watch for their own men.
With a mad grin, he shouted, “Protect the general! Keep them from de Bussy!”
His men, clustered around him, picked up his intent, and they all began calling his name, yelling for his protection. Then, those brave men turned and faced their attackers while he scrambled up the hill, farther into the forest, closer to where the rest of his contingent lay in wait.
Above, the men on the airship heard the commotion and he heard shouts for officers. If his colors had not been enough, hopefully word of his presence would be.
Breathing heavily, straining to keep moving, each step agony on his sore ankle and broken arm, he kept going, kept fighting. In front of him, a blue-clad marine stepped from behind a tree. A boy, really. He guessed no more than eighteen winters.
The boy raised his blunderbuss to his shoulder and winked.
Snarling, de Bussy charged.
The boy pulled the trigger and the weapon clicked and sparked. Nothing else happened.
General de Bussy’s saber slashed across the boy’s face, slicing between eyebrows that were bunched in confusion, carving his skin like the crispy exterior of a well-cooked Newday turkey. The general forced the image away, ignored that his own son wasn’t more than a year younger than the unfortunate Enhoverian royal marine, and he kept up the hill, shouts of his men driving him on.