The Thousand Names

by Django Wexler

  “Captain?” he said. “I would value your input, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sir,” Marcus said again. He reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a folded slip of paper, which he placed in the center of the map.

  “Ah,” Janus said. “Is this from Captain Roston?”

  Marcus closed his eyes for a moment. “No, sir. From me.”

  It was the first time that Marcus could recall seeing Janus look surprised. The expression flickered across his face for a split second, only barely visible before iron control slammed back into place. Still, somehow, it was gratifying. At least he can be surprised. Marcus had half expected to find Janus waiting for him with a court-martial.

  The colonel, his expression once more a mask, reached for the note and flicked it open. It wasn’t long, just a few lines. A moment later he tossed it aside and looked back up at Marcus.

  “Would you care to explain, Captain?”

  “Sir. I don’t believe it requires—”

  “Captain.” Janus’ voice cracked like a whip.

  Marcus swallowed. “The charges against Adr—against Captain Roston. Your original order was relayed to him through me, and I was the officer in overall command. Therefore the failure is mine, as are the consequences. If you required Captain Roston’s arrest, I could not in good conscience refrain from submitting my resignation.”

  “I see.” Janus tapped his index finger on the desk. “I assume you’re aware that I can reject this?”

  “Yes, sir. And I can refuse to recognize your rejection.”

  “And since we are engaged in an active campaign, that qualifies as desertion,” Janus said. “I see.” The finger tapped again. “You agreed with me that Captain Roston was not the best man for the job.”

  “Yes, sir.” Marcus hesitated, but there was no going back now. “That doesn’t make it right to remove him like this.”

  Tap, tap, tap. Then, all at once, Janus’ face became animated again, as though someone had shone a spotlight on it. “Very well.” He pushed the letter back across the table. “You may keep this.”

  Marcus blinked. “Sir?”

  “Getting rid of Captain Roston is not worth losing you in the bargain. You win, Captain.” Another flicker, this time a smile. “As usual, it seems.”

  “Captain Roston—”

  “You will convey my displeasure to Captain Roston at the conduct of his men. But unofficially.” Janus fixed Marcus with a penetrating stare. “You understand that should the captain fail in his duty again, you will bear the responsibility for it?”

  “Yes, sir.” Marcus took what seemed like his first breath in hours. “Thank you, sir.”

  “No thanks are necessary,” Janus said. “Now sit. We have plans to go over.”

  “What—? Now, sir?”

  “Time is short,” Janus said. “We’ve wasted far too much on peripheral matters already.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Marcus’ mind felt like a clockwork engine thrown suddenly into reverse, gears screeching and stripping. He tried to focus on the map, but it seemed like nothing but a random set of painted splotches.

  He did his best not to show his confusion, but hiding his feelings from Janus was apparently beyond his ability. The colonel gave him a cool glance, then waved a hand vaguely.

  “A few minutes, on the other hand, will not greatly delay us. I suggest you go and change into your usual uniform. You seem—uncomfortable.”

  “Yes, sir.” Marcus hesitated. “Thank you, sir.”

  Janus was already bent over the map again, leafing through a stack of scouting reports. Marcus beat a hasty retreat.

  Stepping outside, he practically ran into Val. The other captain was approaching at a jog, his uniform sending up a gentle jingling sound like a fool with his cap and bells. He’d embellished it, over the years, with bronze and silver trinkets and embroidery in the Khandarai style. None of them had anticipated needing their dress blues for official Vordanai functions again.

  “Marcus,” Val said, breathing hard. “I’m sorry. I came as quickly as I could.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Have you given it to him already?”

  “Given it . . .” Marcus stopped as realization dawned. “You’ve come to resign?”

  “Of course!” Val said stoutly, then abruptly looked sheepish. “I admit that Mor nearly had me convinced last night. But this morning I thought—hell—” His blush deepened. “I couldn’t stand leaving you in the lurch, and that’s that. But it took me a while to get dressed and write the bloody thing out.” He fished in his pocket. “Please tell me it’ll still do some good.”

  Marcus smiled. He felt, abruptly, like a weight had fallen from his shoulders, as though he could only now acknowledge the reality of what had happened.

  “I don’t think the colonel has any need of it,” he said. “But it’s certainly a great comfort to me.”

  “But . . .”

  Marcus clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on. I still need to change.”

  • • •

  Half an hour later, back in his regular sun-bleached uniform and fortified by a cup of coffee strongly flavored by a splash of Khandarai liquor, Marcus ducked into the colonel’s tent again and snapped another textbook salute. The colonel was in the same attitude as when he’d left, though most of the scouting reports had been converted into pencil notations on the maps.

  “Captain,” Janus said, “will you actually sit down this time?”

  “Gladly, sir.” He hesitated. “I must apologize for disturbing your planning earlier—”

  The colonel gave an affected sigh. “Think nothing of it. We have more important matters to discuss.”

  Marcus nodded and sat. The colonel turned the leather map so that it faced him, and tapped a finger on it. It took Marcus a moment to parse—the script was Khandarai, and the mapmaker had used unfamiliar symbols—but once he found the label for Ashe-Katarion, the landscape snapped into place. Janus’ finger marked the regiment’s current position, roughly thirty-five miles from the city.

  “We march tomorrow,” Janus said. “The question, of course, is where.”

  “To the city, presumably,” Marcus ventured.

  “Indeed. But getting there is going to be a problem. News of our victory has reached them by now, and General Khtoba appears to have bestirred himself at last.”

  “You think he’ll meet us on the road?”

  “Unfortunately, I doubt that he’ll be quite so bold. No doubt he’ll keep to the west bank of the Tsel, and therein lies the difficulty. You see?”

  Marcus frowned. He’d never claimed much of a gift for strategy, but the issue here was clear enough. Ashe-Katarion clustered around an inlet called the Old Harbor, repository of the trade that formed the city’s lifeblood. In ancient times, the river mouth had been there as well, but the channel had silted over and the mighty Tsel had dug a new path to the sea, some twenty miles to the west of the city. The kings of Khandar had cut a canal south from their city to a bend in the river rather than relocate their temples and palaces to the new outlet.

  The result was that the Tsel was squarely between the Colonials and the Khandarai capital. Upstream to the south, the great river wiggled like a snake as it crossed the wide, flat plain, but here at the coast it ran fairly straight. Slow-flowing it might be, but it was nearly a mile wide and presented a formidable obstacle.

  There was a bridge a few miles up from the sea, where a pair of rocky islands provided a decent footing. The Vordanai cartographers, in their unimaginative way, had dubbed the triple span Westbridge, and the town that had grown up on both banks Westbridge Town. It was through here that the coast road ran, over the river and down the last few miles into the city.

  Marcus had ridden through the town many times, most recently on the retreat from the Redeemers that had ended at Fort Valor. There were no purpose-built defenses, no fortress walls or emplaced artillery, but the place would be a nightmare to take nonetheless. The
bridges were narrow, barely wide enough for a pair of wagons to pass one another, and the islands commanded the approaches and provided excellent fields of fire. Troops attempting to cross would have to do so without cover, in the face of every gun the defender could muster, and even if they succeeded in storming the first island they would only have to accomplish the same task twice more. Then, on the far bank, they’d need to hold the bridgehead against whatever counterattack the enemy would have waiting.

  “Khtoba’s dug in around the bridge,” Marcus guessed.

  “Like a tick on a dog,” Janus said. “With only three battalions, though. He’s no fool, and he knows we won’t go that way unless we have to.” He tapped the map again, upstream of the city. “The other three are here. There’s a ford just north of this river bend, good enough to cross if we don’t mind getting wet.”

  A ford sounded hardly better than the bridge. Marcus tried to imagine slogging through a waist-deep river and assaulting the far bank, while the enemy flailed the water with musket and canister. It might be done, if the attackers were determined enough, but the losses would be ghastly.

  Janus was watching him with those deep gray eyes, and Marcus decided this was a test. He looked down at the map and searched his memory.

  “We might march down the east bank,” he said eventually. “There’s another bridge here, at Saal-Khaaten, and more fords upstream where the river’s narrower.”

  “Khtoba would follow,” the colonel said. “And he has the inside track.”

  “If we can threaten more than two crossings at once, he’ll have to spread himself thinner. He can’t cover them all.”

  Janus gave a slow nod. “It might serve. And then what, once we’ve crossed?”

  “A battle, presumably.”

  “A head-on fight, and he’ll choose the ground,” Janus said. “And Khtoba has us three to two.”

  “The last Redeemer army had us five to one,” Marcus said. “I didn’t think the odds concerned you.”

  The colonel waved a hand. “Those were rabble. The numbers didn’t concern me because I knew they would never stand up to disciplined fire. They might as well have left three-quarters of those men at home, for all the good they did. But the Auxiliaries are a horse of a different color.”

  That was true enough. The Auxiliaries comprised six battalions of Khandarai recruited by Prince Exopter and trained by his Vordanai allies. Marcus had taken his turn at the training a time or two, and they’d certainly looked disciplined enough, marching up and down in their brown uniforms. More important, they had Vordanai weapons, including a full complement of artillery. They were supposed to have been a bulwark against rebellion, but no one had counted on the fervor the new religion inspired. The Auxiliaries had gone over to the Redeemers almost to a man, along with their commander.

  “On even terms, in open ground, I wouldn’t hesitate,” Janus said. “But Khtoba is not likely to give us a chance at that. Judging from his actions thus far, I doubt he’d even give battle. More likely he’d fall back behind the canal, or into the city itself, and fight us in the streets. That we must avoid at all costs.”

  Marcus shook his head. “So what, then?”

  “The general has given us an opportunity here.” He tapped the bridge again, and then the ford. “Two detachments, widely separated, and not much between them but pickets. Where we need to be”—he moved his finger to a point between the two—“is here.”

  “We’d be surrounded, with no line of retreat,” Marcus objected. “Even if we could get there, which we can’t, since we can’t cross the river.”

  The colonel grinned like a cat.

  • • •

  It was nearly sundown. Rest—which at the start of the day had seemed like some distant and unreachable oasis—was practically within his reach, and Marcus therefore had a strong inclination not to answer when there was a knock on his tent pole. In theory, it might be important, although short of an impending Khandarai attack Marcus couldn’t think of anything that qualified. He compromised by responding with a sort of muffled grunt, in the hopes that the knocker either wouldn’t hear him or would give up and go away.

  Instead, the visitor spoke. “It’s Adrecht.”

  Damn. “Oh, all right.”

  Adrecht ducked through the flap. Even in the dim lantern light, there was no mistaking the huge bruise that purpled his cheek and nearly closed one eye. A shallow cut above his eyebrow was dark with scabbed blood.

  “Saints and martyrs,” Marcus swore. “What happened to you?”

  “Mor,” Adrecht said, with an exaggerated wince. “Do you mind if I sit?”

  Marcus nodded, and Adrecht folded his lanky form up beside the camp table. Marcus waved at his trunk.

  “Do you want a drink? I think I’ve got something . . .”

  “No,” Adrecht said. His expression was thoughtful. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “So what happened? Mor just jumped you?”

  “After a manner of speaking,” Adrecht said. “He came into my tent and told me that he’d had it with me, and that Marcus was a better friend than I deserved.” He smiled slightly. “With more swearing, of course. Then he picked me up and tossed me into a tent pole. Snapped it in half, as a matter of fact.”

  “Hell.” Marcus’ face clouded. “I’ll talk to him. I don’t care what he thinks, that was out of line—”

  “No,” Adrecht said. “Not really.”

  Marcus swore inwardly. He’d hoped to avoid this for a while. “Ah. He told you the whole story, then.”

  “Most of it. I got the rest out of Val. If you want to keep something a secret, you ought to think twice before sharing it with those two. Think three times, maybe.” Adrecht shook his head. “Why didn’t you talk to me?”

  “I wanted to keep it quiet.”

  “Honestly, Marcus.”

  Watching his friend’s expression, Marcus could tell that excuse wouldn’t do. He sighed. “I didn’t want you to do anything . . . rash.”

  “Rash? Like turning myself in before you got a chance to resign?”

  “Like that, for example.”

  “Accepting dismissal,” Adrecht deadpanned, “rather than risking your being shot for desertion. That would be ‘rash.’”

  “I suppose so.” He frowned, searching for words. It was hard to explain to the others, but he’d never really felt endangered—he had no reason to be sure that Janus wouldn’t shoot him, or even bring him up on charges, but he felt the certainty nonetheless. “It wasn’t really about you. I tried to explain that to the colonel.”

  “Did he believe it?”

  “I’m not sure.” Marcus shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter.”

  “I suppose not.” Adrecht paused, then said, “Well, if it makes any difference, you were right. I would have been rash.”

  There was a long, awkward silence. Marcus searched for something to say, but drew a blank, and in the end it was Adrecht who spoke.

  “You don’t owe me anything, you know. It’s been—”

  “Eighteen years,” Marcus said. “I know.”

  Another silence. Adrecht sighed.

  “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “What do you mean?” Marcus said.

  “How can I just go back to my battalion now? I know the colonel would rather be rid of me. Mor seems to hate me. And you—” He shook his head. “It seems like I ought to resign, but after what you’ve been through that would be a bit of a waste, wouldn’t it?”

  “I don’t know.” Marcus hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Mor will come around eventually. But I think you need to prove the colonel wrong.”

  “Small chance that I’ll get the opportunity. He’ll have me guarding the latrines for the rest of the campaign.”

  “He won’t, as it happens.” Now it was Marcus’ turn to smile. “We’re going into action again tomorrow, and you’ve got a big part in it. Right beside me, in fact.”

  “Oh.” Adrecht didn’t sound surprised. “And how
did that happen?”

  “You volunteered.”

  “I suspected as much. I’m not going to like this, am I?”

  “Probably not,” Marcus admitted. “I didn’t.”

  Chapter Ten

  WINTER

  Winter sighed and rubbed her weary eyes. The lantern on her little table had guttered low while she’d been working. She blew it out, added another inch of oil, and wound out more wick, then struck a match and relit it. The sudden flare of light seemed bright as noon in the darkness of her tent.

  What I ought to do is sleep. But awake, she could feel the captain’s orders for tomorrow staring at her from where she’d tucked them in her coat, and every time she lay down to sleep she found herself faced with accusing green eyes.

  Her only solace lay in work, of which there was fortunately a sufficiency. In spite of Winter’s intermittent efforts, the company books were still badly out of date. Not only did the various infractions, minor penalties, and daily logs of the march still need to be recorded and approved, but the deaths of nearly a third of the men still needed to be processed. Each of the dead had left behind some pathetic bundle of possessions, all of which Bobby had carefully inventoried and assessed. These would be sold at the first opportunity, and the proceeds forwarded to the dead men’s kin along with the army’s standard benefits.

  The lists made for sad reading. Winter tapped her pen beside a line that read, “One locket or keepsake, brass, containing a miniature of a young woman. Of indifferent quality. 2f 6p.” She wondered whether the girl had been a wife, a lover, or merely some object of brotherly affection. Then, frustrated, she tossed the pen aside and leaned back on her elbows. Her eyes, itchy with fatigue and lantern smoke, filled with tears.

  “Are you unwell?”

  The voice was Feor’s—there was hardly anyone else likely to speak to her in Khandarai—but Winter started anyway. The girl was so quiet it was easy to forget that she was there. She lay on her stomach on the extra bedroll Graff had cadged from the quartermasters, reading by the flickering light of Winter’s lamp. Aside from the occasional rasp of a turning page, she might have been a queer-looking statue.