Soul of the World

by David Mealing

  “Thieves!” one of the watchmen shouted, bellowing loud enough to be heard above the screams. “Return the goods you’ve stolen or face the crown’s justice!”

  She checked her Faith tether by reflex, walking to the edge of the roof as though a few paces might make the difference in understanding what was going on. The city watch were ruthless at times, but she’d never seen them fire into a crowd of unarmed citizens. A glance toward the center revealed the man in the red coat hadn’t moved, as though he’d either expected this attack or wasn’t fazed by watchmen leveling pistols at the people he’d been trying to feed. Already men lay dying in the street, and women, and …

  The sight of a child frozen in place at the center of the southbound street almost started her forward off the edge of the roof. A small boy, with a slab of pork under one arm and a loaf of bread under the other. Most of the rest of the street had cleared, but the boy stood in place, directly in the watchmen’s path.

  Instinct told her to run, to use her Faith and every other gift at her disposal to leap down and disappear among the winding streets of the Maw. But that boy could have been her, years ago. With Body, and Zi’s red haze, she could reach him in time to spirit him away. No one else was moving toward him, only the inexorable tide of the city watch.

  She released Faith and made the tether for Body as she leapt from the roof’s overhang, trusting to her added strength to absorb the shock of landing. Better for staying hidden if she’d maintained the Faith tether, but the crowd couldn’t move aside to let her through if they didn’t know she was coming. And she had to be quick.

  “Zi, I need you!” she cried as she shoved against the current of the crowd. Her companion answered with the familiar rush of blood, a red haze coloring her vision as her muscles sang with energy.

  The crowd froze around her.

  One moment they’d been running away from the southbound street where the watch had unleashed their pistols. The next they were deathly quiet, every man and woman stopped, wearing blank looks as though they couldn’t remember why they’d been running for their lives.

  She shoved through the crowd anyway, breaking through the last of them in time to see the boy still trembling, standing in place. But the watchmen had frozen, too, all their bluster and shouting replaced by aimless stares set against the backdrop of their pistol smoke.

  Green, Zi thought to her.

  “Stop!” a man’s voice shouted from behind. “In the name of the Gods themselves, whoever you are, stop at once!”

  She reached the boy, turning his shoulders only to find the crowd’s puzzled stare mirrored on his face. If he’d been panicked before, he hid it now behind confusion and wonderment. What under the Gods was going on?

  She turned toward the square and saw the man who was shouting at her. The man in the red coat, barreling toward her through the fissure she’d cut through the crowd.

  Fear bloomed like ice poured down her spine.

  Faith came easily, white clouds tethered from the leylines beneath where the man in the red coat had given out his gifts, and she ran.

  8

  ERRIS

  1st Division Command Tent

  Sarresant Territory, Near Yves-sur-Raignon

  She stood at parade rest. Her arm ached, joints as stiff as they would have been after a hard day’s ride. Daylight had lit the camp when she’d arrived; lanterns and candles lit it now. Four hours, at least, spent waiting on the pleasure of his lordship, the Vicomte-General Carailles.

  Around her the camp swarmed with activity despite the late hour, a bustle of couriers and commanders. It fell to the cavalry to collect the scouting reports that drove the army’s movements, but it was the aides’ province to deliver them, issuing the orders that moved tens of thousands of soldiers on little more than her word and the best guesses of the army’s highest-ranking generals. A single cavalry brigade could do little more than the 14th had done to prepare for what lay ahead, and high command’s response had been swift, ordering all three corps to dig into the hills around Yves-sur-Raignon, a rich town responsible for much of the colonies’ textile production. The vast fields of cotton and flocks of sheep pastured in her rolling hills would prove tempting for the Gand armies on their northward march, and those same hills sheltered them now as the Sarresant army built stone walls on the heights and stockpiled ammunition for a protracted fight. It was a predictable defensive maneuver, the kind of tactic that had served them well during the autumn campaign.

  On another day, she might have trusted the enemy to be stupid enough to take the bait. But this new enemy general, whoever they were …

  Damn Sadrelle. Damn him into the arms of the Nameless. She needed to know what they faced. She knew the record of most of the Gand senior officers, and certainly every notable division and corps commander in their armies; she knew General Chamberlain’s preference for artillery, General Abrams’s tendency to ignore his flanks, General Cadwallader’s overreliance on scouting maneuvers. Whichever of them had the command would inform the best response to this surprise march, would tell her where to look to find weaknesses to exploit. And instead she was blind. Two days now since she’d returned to camp. It wasn’t beyond hope that Sadrelle had survived and might still be bringing her the information she needed, but every passing hour made it less likely.

  She gave an inward sigh. At least she’d made it two days before the inevitable dressing-down from the vicomte-general. It was not above her commanding officer to use every available means to send a message to her about where exactly she stood in the chain of command. Four hours was excessive, though, even for him.

  She wondered idly how much more effective the army would be if the “General” mattered more than the “Vicomte” in her commanding officer’s title. Try as she might, it was unlikely a lowborn like her would ever be promoted to the flag. Especially not if she kept up her habit of provoking meetings like this one.

  “Brigade-Colonel Erris d’Arrent?” a nasal voice piped up.

  Finally.

  “Here.” She saluted, fist to chest.

  “Yes. Right. The vicomte-general will see you at once.” He held the tent flap open for her.

  She entered.

  The inside of the tent was opulent by military standards. A carved oak desk dominated the space, and she felt a pang of empathy for the poor beasts that had to cart the thing between encampments. Sardian rugs crisscrossed the dirt and grass on the floor, and tapestries from Thellan hung from the tent’s cross frames, depicting various scenes from their history. A pair of carved chairs in the Sarresant-Valcours style sat in front of the desk, cushions sewn with patterns of blue and gold. Atop the desk neatly organized stacks of paper and maps gave the impression that hard work was being done here, never mind the other comforts.

  And seated in a thickly cushioned chaise behind the desk: the vicomte-general.

  Carailles was not thin, nor was he excessively fat. He had the look of a man who had once been a soldier but had long since graduated to command.

  “Brigade-Colonel Erris d’Arrent,” he said gruffly. “Commander, Fourteenth Light Cavalry.”

  “Sir, reporting as you requested, sir.”

  “Brigade-Colonel, do you think me a fool?”

  Yes. “Sir, no, sir.”

  “I ask because you seem to enjoy disobeying my orders.”

  She said nothing, waiting for him to continue his soliloquy.

  “Brigade-Colonel?” he went on. “You do recall me ordering you not to go off on any more scouting patrols as if you were a conscripted farmhand with something to prove, yes? I gave you this order directly, and you know damned well the directive came from Duc-General Cherrain himself. And what did you do? On your next Gods-damned patrol, you rode off, risking vital military assets without authorization. Well? Explain yourself, Brigade-Colonel.”

  “Sir, I judged the information we collected shadowing the enemy’s west flank to be insufficient for planning a defense against their northbound march. I ordered La
nce-Captain d’Guile to take command of the Fourteenth and deliver the westerly report while I took command of a smaller team for espionage against the enemy’s east flank.”

  “Gods damn you, d’Arrent!” She snapped back to attention. “You are a fullbinder; you are not to be risked for a Gods-damned scouting report.”

  “Sir, I command a cavalry brigade.” It was an insubordinate remark. She knew it as well as he did. His eyes widened in anger and he stood from his chair, gripping the edge of his desk.

  “You suggest I reassign you to the infantry? Have you tethering leylines to keep latrines clean and cookfires lit? Is that the extent of your worth, Brigade-Colonel?”

  “Sir, no, sir.”

  “You try my patience.”

  She said nothing, arms rigid at her side.

  “As it happens,” he said with a snarl, “you will not command a cavalry brigade for this battle.”

  Her jaw clenched. He looked at her with contempt, holding the silence.

  At last he spoke, his words dripping with venom. “Field-Major d’Ellain and Brigade-Colonel Savasse have taken ill with the spotted fever. You will have d’Ellain’s artillery and the Ninth Infantry, in addition to the Fourteenth Light Cavalry. The division’s left wing is yours. We march at dawn. See to your command and get out of my sight, Brigade-Colonel. Dismissed.”

  She saluted and wheeled about, the corners of her mouth fighting to turn up in a smile.

  Perhaps Carailles was not a complete fool.

  “Sir, Field-Captain Regalle for you, arriving within the quarter hour.”

  “Very good, Lieutenant. See him in at once when he arrives.” She saluted to dismiss the aide from her tent. Contrary to the vicomte-general’s example, her living space was sparsely decorated. A simple rug from her home province of l’Allcourt in the southern colonies, with a pair of small wooden tables covered by maps she’d requisitioned from the division stores. The maps had already been marked up with notes from the patrols she had sent to canvass the area around Yves-sur-Raignon. She’d had another report from the scouting parties before Carailles’s summons. The area around the town was a good defensive position. Too good. A wise enemy commander would disregard their fortifications and bypass Yves-sur-Raignon, taking the eastern route toward the coast. It was harder going without the benefit of the colonial trade roads, but it was what she would have done. Assaulting an entrenched enemy in these hills was suicide. Not that the Gand armies hadn’t made suicidal decisions in the past, but this new commander of theirs was a different breed.

  Settling in, she got to work on a battle plan for her fledgling command. Two and a half brigades. Almost a division command, in wartime. At full strength she would have had nearly seven thousand men, though they couldn’t number more than half that at present; she’d have the count from their reports soon enough. Vicomte-General Carailles’s 1st Division was to be at the left flank of the Sarresant army, as far east as their troops extended. And she had the left wing of the division. If the enemy general did in fact swing around them to the east, she would be the best positioned to harry of all the commanders in the army. Carailles’s battle plan called for extensive fortifications on hillsides near the colonial road, and she had already given the order to be sure her troops could execute a basic version of that plan.

  But she had a better one.

  After a time, her aide returned, folding aside the tent flap that served as a makeshift door.

  “Field-Captain Regalle, sir, if it please you.”

  “Very good, Lieutenant, send him in.”

  A moment later, Regalle entered her tent, saluting fist to chest.

  “So, Regalle,” she said, returning his salute, “it seems they gave you the battery.”

  “Yes, sir,” he replied. “They did indeed, so long as the spotted fever has the major vomiting his lunch into his bedpan.”

  She grinned. She didn’t make it a point to be on familiar terms with every artillery captain in the army, but she knew every fullbinder. Anchard Regalle could bind Death and Mind. Death was a necessary defense for any unit, giving him the ability to disrupt enemy bindings if any came too close to his battery. But it was Mind that made d’Ellain’s artillery among the most feared guns in the army. Its simplest use, to send out copies of its wielder, was useful enough in a mêlée, but the scholars had discovered another technique in recent years, letting Regalle and other Mind binders project their senses to a forward point on the battlefield. With Mind, Regalle could serve as his own forward spotter, adjusting the trajectory of his guns with near-perfect precision, firing blind over hills or through the smoke clouds of musket shot.

  “I’ll put your boys to good work, Captain. You acquitted yourselves well at Ansfield. Fine gunnery work as I recall it.”

  “Thank you, sir.” He held out a parchment, which she accepted, cracking the wax seal. “The field-major sends his compliments, and bids you accept his reports on our strength and disposition.”

  “Very good,” she said, scanning the report. “Thirty-seven guns and crews fit for combat. Good.” She nodded, then looked to the field-captain questioningly. “How much pull do you have with the quartermasters? Any owed favors? We need to increase stocks from sixty shots per gun up to eighty, at least, before we’re engaged.”

  His eyebrows raised. “I can call in a debt or two, sir.”

  “Very good.”

  Her tent flap opened again and her aide ducked his head inside.

  “Rider for you, sir,” the lieutenant said. “Arriving shortly.”

  “Another courier from Carailles? Very well, have them wait with you after they clear sentries. The field-captain and I will conclude shortly.”

  “Yes, sir.” He saluted and she dismissed him, walking back over to her tables.

  “Now,” she said, turning to the maps of the hills to the south of Yves-sur-Raignon, “let me show you our primary plan, if the enemy approaches from the south.”

  “Our primary plan, sir?”

  She gave him a wry look. “You didn’t think I’d have only one, did you?”

  He smiled, and she continued. “Your first battery will be deployed here, on the heights.” She pointed, tracing the line of their position.

  “No cavalry at the base to screen for us, sir?”

  “No. I want your men to be given the order to look disorderly, as if they’d just arrived in their position. Maintain that façade without pause; do not assume their scouts aren’t watching.”

  He nodded, looking at the map intently.

  “I’ll have d’Guile’s company positioned here”—she traced it—“behind the hill, out of sight. Have runners standing by to signal him when the enemy approaches. When the enemy is committed to the charge—and charge they will, seeing unprotected artillery—you give the signal and raise arms. D’Guile will ride around and break them with a charge of our own, if they don’t break from your barrages while they scale the heights.”

  “Very good, sir. Do we have a fallback if the enemy advances with more numbers than we can hold?”

  “Yes, here, along this switchback trail, to the northeast.”

  Her tent flap opened again, and her aide once more ducked his head inside. “Rider for you, sir,” he said.

  “I told you to have them attend outside the tent, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, sir, but—” the aide started.

  “—he thinks you’ll want to receive this rider immediately,” a voice said as the tent flap pulled farther aside, admitting the newcomer.

  Lieutenant Sadrelle.

  “You tried to kill their commander, didn’t you?” she snapped as soon as they were alone.

  Sadrelle seemed taken aback by the question, feigning a moment of protest before he took a seat beside her table, relaxing into a wide grin.

  “Bloody fool,” she said.

  “Sir, in my defense you’d have done the same. They hadn’t even posted a guard at—”

  “Did I not stress enough the importance of completing you
r mission? Did I not specifically say ‘no assassinations’?”

  He fell quiet, perhaps sensing the severity of her mood. “Sir, yes, sir.”

  She sighed.

  “Too much to hope you succeeded?”

  He shook his head, remaining silent.

  “Well, out with it then. Details. What under the Nameless happened back there?”

  “Alrich of Haddingston,” he said. “That’s their new commander. I had his name from one of their quartermasters.”

  She frowned, searching her memory. That was a commoner’s name. Haddingston was a milling town far to the south, in the high country of the Gand colonies. So, a native of the New World, not an import from their homeland across the sea. Yet it wasn’t a name she recognized from any of the prominent army postings or division commands.

  “I’ve never heard of him,” she admitted finally.

  “No one had heard of him, sir. But they speak his name like a priest paying homage to the Exarch. They say his eyes glow gold and he can talk to the Gods.”

  She snorted a laugh.

  “Sir …” He gave her a pained look.

  “You can’t be serious?”

  “I thought it nonsense, too, of course, sir. But I saw his eyes glowing gold, sure as I see you now. He saw straight through to where I’d hidden myself in his sleeping chambers while he was away. Was all I could do to dive through a window and get myself back to the camp.”

  She studied him, waiting for sign of a joke, inappropriate as it would have been. But no. Sadrelle was not the sort to spin fables for attention.

  “Some new use for a Body binding, perhaps? Or Shelter? An illusion conjured up as a pretense to justify promoting an unknown?”

  “Perhaps, sir.”

  She drew in a deep breath, glancing back down at the maps of the coast in front of her. Alrich of Haddingston. And a new binding, one the scholars of Sarresant had not yet divined for their army’s use. The very thing the nobles and politicians had feared, and the reason for Sarresant’s preemptive invasion of Gand: a new binding, a result of Gand’s expansion, while Sarresant had only just secured Entropy for itself. No telling what the binding might be, or how decisive it would be in the field.