“Hurry,” Kelflen said. “A little farther. A little farther.”
* * *
Tyrol lost all sense of time and distance. The first time he stumbled, Kelflen somehow gave him water from a skin. “I took their satchels,” the boy said, and pressed a hardcake into Tyrol’s hand. “But come, a little farther.”
The stolen food revived him. As the afternoon waned the shadows lengthened and were easier to manipulate; after more hard-baked biscuit and some nuts, Tyrol wove cover for both of them. They marched on.
They were within sight of the Dvornian line when they crept past the final Varrikar sentry. The man exuded arrogance, and a wave of hatred washed over Tyrol. He stepped toward the soldier, sword ready within the shadows.
Kelflen touched his arm. “No, Tyrol.”
Tyrol stopped. He nodded. “Not yet,” he said.
He remembered what his father had told him, a year or so before he died. “Late or soon, son, late or soon, the fight will come to you. And when it comes, you must go to meet it.”
He had met the fight, and hoped his father would be proud. But he would follow his last order, and deliver the pouch to Captain Hallern if the captain still lived.
“Not this one,” Tyrol said. “Not this time.”
No doubt there would be other fights that came his way, and he would meet them—for as long as it took, for his countrymen and his mother and his brother—in his own way. Tyrol could be a plague of shadows on their enemy, but for now he had another duty.
And above all else, he did his duty.
Hoofsore and Weary
CAT RAMBO
THE NEW RECRUIT WOULDN’T ANSWER TO HER BATTLE NAME, SMITTY. She was the last of the new musketeers who had come on at the last minute to swell the unit’s ranks. Now here that unit was, battle-diminished and trapped in hostile territory, the last of Captain Laws’s fighting centaurs. Hoofsore and weary, as the song went, but somehow still mustering enough energy to snap at each other.
Sarge shouldered her way past the others to look at the new recruit and Jolanda, faced off, fists clenched and tails swishing irritably.
“What’s all this?” she said, swatting away yet another stinging fly.
The new recruit was skinny. Insect bites blotched her fair skin around the leather breast harness. She said, scorn in her voice, “I don’t have to answer to any name other than my own!”
Jolanda’s temper was as quick as her musket. “You’re in the army now, hinny. You’ll answer to anything your superiors call you!” She shied as though about to wheel around and kick. Male centaurs reared on their hindlegs to fight. Females cared less about appearances and more about the power of a back hoof.
Sarge stepped forward between the two of them. “Go check the guns, Londa.”
“Ain’t no use with no shot nor powder.”
“If we chance on some, I want them ready.”
Jolanda grumbled but stepped away.
“Recruit,” Sarge said.
The younger centaur snapped off a salute with folded paper precision. “Sir, yes sir!”
“At ease.” Sarge eyed her youngest soldier. They were down to a couple of fingers over a handful, and had she been able to pick who survived this far, it wouldn’t have been this raw newbie, who didn’t know how to survive off the land, didn’t know the little tricks that kept a soldier moving, and most importantly, didn’t know that sometimes you bent for the good of the unit.
“In battle, there’s no time for strings of syllables,” she said. “Whatever they call you, you answer. Mine’s even longer. So ‘Clytemnestra’ when you’re in conversation, but names won’t matter when we’re fighting. Got that?”
Sarge ran a hand back through her close-cropped hair as the younger centaur nodded reluctantly. The recruit’s attitude wasn’t endearing her to the veterans. The usual pranks had been going on. But no time for that now, in the middle of enemy territory. They’d come down through the mountains—and hadn’t that been a rabid bitch of a journey?—to hit at the capital, thinking their company would reinforce the siege there. Only to arrive in a broken landscape, devastation and fire all around. They’d missed the battle, and found only its aftermath.
They’d fought their way out of that, losing most of the company, including the captain, and struck south, somehow managing to avoid farmers. All but one of them were centaurs, and the territory was hard going, mucky ground that hid deep stones inside it.
What would the captain have done? Alyssum was scouting and still not back. Sarge fumbled for her pouch and extracted the map yet again, unfolding it.
She’d never been one for books. It was boys’ stuff, staying indoors with scrolls and chanting. But the captain had gotten them all to beat their heads against it, even on the field when all they had to read from was their army-issued copy of Rotterdam’s Rules and Regulations for Field Cavalry.
No use spending daylight on squabbles.
“Gear up,” she ordered.
* * *
Seven, counting herself and the newbie.
Jolanda, shrew-eyed and quick to argue, but the best shot among them. Not that it did them any good with their ammunition all expended fighting their way out of those blood-filled streets. Limping now.
Penny, looking cheerful as always, despite the burns weeping along the side of her face, glistening with the last of the field kit’s salve.
Alyssum, off scouting, who had drawn black around her face with the ashes of that last fire, till she looked like a tiger with her spiky orange hair. She’d lost her harness, but at least she was small-titted and lean enough to carry it off.
Unlike fat Karas, who was breathing in uncomfortable gasps. Her flesh hung loose on her from the mountain journey, and that was back when they’d had rations to carry.
Finally Janna, the only non-centaur among them, lean as a willow, the wicker panniers carrying her snakes sitting low on her hips. At least the snakes were well fed. The Jade Woman’s arms were bandaged from their last bivouac, where she’d let her blood into a battered tin cup for the two serpents to lap at. The rest of the company had crowded away, tails and ears flicking, as the snakes, eggshell white and black as jet, crawled over Janna’s green skin in a parody of moonlight and shadows before slithering back into their homes.
Now the Jade sat in a patch of sun, eyes half-closed. She had the knack of the soldier’s doze. She opened her eyes as though sensing the sergeant’s look and pointed her chin in question.
“Still waiting on Alyssum.” Sarge folded the map and put it away, resisting the urge to look at it one more time. She knew it by heart. A narrow strip of forest edged the settlement ahead, orchards planted to keep back the impassable, bog-ridden marshland. If they could find shelter for tonight, they could slip through that forest and into uninhabited territory, deep woods and thornland where they could make for the coast. Risky but better than the alternatives.
If the captain were here, she’d know what to do. Instead, Sarge was playing it by ear. She’d accompanied the captain on three campaigns now. Twice down south to the Windy Plains, where they’d fought in the sands against serpents and the Jades. Where their own Jade had enlisted, along with the rest of her tribe when they had inexplicably converted to the flag under which Sarge and her captain served.
The Jade had proved herself well enough in the following campaign, a season pursuing bandits along the coastline. Still, Sarge never felt sure of the green-skinned, red-haired woman who stayed silent whenever possible.
Alyssum slipped back through the whip-edged underbrush. Her forearms and ribs were slashed red with its marks. “Hunter’s shack up ahead. No one’s been in there recently. Spring nearby. No food, but we might scare up some.”
“You’re sure? How far past it did you scout?”
Alyssum bared her teeth. “Teach your granny to pick ticks . . . sir.” She drawled out the last scornfully. They had been together in that first campaign where Sarge had been promoted. Alyssum’s resentment at being passed over s
till lingered.
Sarge looked to see where the others were. Jade had slumped back. The new recruit sulked to one side. Karas and Penny were examining Jolanda’s hoof. From here, Sarge couldn’t tell if it was a lost shoe or sprain. Neither was good, when they had a hundred miles to go still. And no guarantee that the promised boat would be waiting there for them, but they would jump that fence when they got to it.
She stepped forward, shouldered into the smaller woman, using her greater mass to impose.
“I know a cat crawled up your ass about me being in charge, Ally,” she said. “But for the love of the triple Goddess, if you don’t lay off, it’s going to get us all killed.”
“If I don’t salute right, it’s going to see us all dead . . . sir?” This time, ten times the insolence filled the other’s tone.
“Strike off on your own if you want no one in charge but yourself,” Penny said, sidling up.
Alyssum wheeled with a convulsive sweep of her hair, ears back.
The air was heated with the smell of sweat. It dripped down Sarge’s neck. A fly landed to sip from the sweat between her shoulder blades, and she hitched her shoulders, twitching her skin to shake it off. She had a chained set of lumps along one haunch that she suspected harbored parasites already. If they could get someplace where they could build a fire, she could burn them out. Better now than before they grew and swelled, egg-sized lumps. She’d seen plenty of those in her year of duty here.
Sweet Lady’s tit, she hated this country.
She let none of that show in her face.
Alyssum’s gaze tracked between the other two before she dropped her eyes and combed fingers through her hair, wincing at the knots. “Whatever.”
“Whatever what?”
Alyssum’s head snapped up, eyes narrowed. But she said, “Whatever . . . Sarge.”
* * *
Sarge had once asked the captain why she’d been promoted rather than Alyssum or any of the others.
“Why do you think?” the captain had replied. An irritating answer, but it was the captain’s way to teach.
“Jolanda’s a better shot,” she said. “And Alyssum’s tough as nails.”
“Why does that make them better choices?”
She struggled for words. She’d never been good at explaining things. “They come from solider families. Grew up training, thinking about it. They’re not . . .”
“Some hoity-toity, high-blooded flibbergibbet who ran off to join the army because she thought it’d be exotic?”
She flushed. She hadn’t thought the captain had caught the words Alyssum had flung the previous day.
“You can tell each’s strengths and why they’d make a better sarge,” the captain said. “You think about the squad overall and where you fit. That’s why I picked you.”
Those words still warmed her. Of the forty-eight they’d initially had, they were only a fraction now. But she’d see those few to the coast.
Or die trying, more probably.
They pushed forward. Dangerous territory. If one human glimpsed them, alarms would go up. People would come hunting them. If there was a way to avoid that, it should be taken.
The hut wasn’t big enough to shelter more than two of them, plus Janna. But there was overhang from its roof, and a fire circle near its front step. They scattered, looking for food. Sarge rummaged through the hut, but found only a short length of rope and a broken clay jar.
Outside nearby, the recruit was picking berries off of a bush, harvesting them into her helmet.
Sarge said, “You know the drill, soldier.”
“But Sarge! These look just like the ones back home!”
“Empty them out. You don’t know for sure.” Sarge stood over the newbie while the berries tumbled onto the ground. “Now mash them.”
“What?”
“Stamp. With your hoof.” She illustrated, placing a hoof on the ground and bearing down until it squelched. She lifted her foot to reveal the pulped remains. “That’s an order. Squash them.”
Step slow and reluctant, Clytemnestra obliged.
“I don’t fault the effort,” Sarge said. “But stick to what we know we can eat.”
They built the smallest of fires. Sarge had Jolanda take the steel needles from the field kit and heat them in boiling water before she lanced the itchy, pulsating lumps, extracting each occupant. They had beef tea still, and Alyssum caught a scarf full of frogs, while Penny dug cattail tubers up by the stream.
All in all, it was not the worst meal Sarge had ever eaten, despite the raw circles along her leg. Afterwards, Jolanda and Penny sang old battle ballads, quietly but sweetly.
“Hoofsore and weary, my darling,” Jolanda sang, “But you are gone and I continue.” One of the saddest of the soldier songs. Penny laid her fingers on the other’s hand in signal, glancing at Sarge, and they switched to something brighter, one of the funny songs they’d been singing at court a few years ago.
She looked around at the faces. They were managing to keep it together even though they knew as well as she did that chances were slim that they’d get out alive. Still, they put a brave face on things and pressed forward.
That was what one did. What one’s duty was.
* * *
In the middle of the night, Karas roused her. She came awake instantly, not sure where she was until Karas said, “I don’t like disturbing you, sir, but the new recruit’s suffering bad.”
Sarge squinted at her, running possibilities through her mind. “Give it to me straight.”
“Bellyache and the shits. Bad, both ways.”
“Will she be able to travel tomorrow?”
The plump centaur shrugged. “Somewhat. Not as fast as usual. Giving her the last of the ginger from the kit.”
“And you woke me because?”
“You’re CO. Figure you’d want to know.”
Sighing, Sarge followed her back to where Clytemnestra lay on her side. Centaurs rarely lie down, and the sight of the girl’s still face, the hair clinging to her skin in sweat-dampened ringlets, made Sarge’s belly twist in uneasy sympathy.
“Ate some berries after all, didn’t you?” Sarge stood beside the girl and folded her arms.
The girl moaned something incoherent upward. “Take my braid . . .” she said. She still wore her hair uncut in the noble’s fashion, wound around her head, though it was twig-strewn and matted now.
“Not time to think of that now.”
“You don’t understand. It’s the custom among the high families. You’ll give it to the one that loved me.”
“I know what you’re talking about,” Sarge snapped. “Think you’re the first highborn I’ve ever dealt with?”
If the other newbies had been alive, Sarge would’ve made an example of her. Would have toughened her up while teaching the others.
The captain had been good at that sort of thing. But she was dead and so were the other newbies. No point in anything till they were all out alive.
“We have to stay today, give her a chance to get her legs back underneath her,” Karas reported in the morning.
“We don’t have time!”
“If she can keep up, we’ll be able to move faster. And if your plan depends on slipping through too quick to be spotted, we’re going to have to choose between leaving her here or just making up our minds to get caught.”
Sarge chewed her lip, tasting blood where it had cracked.
“Penny says there are more tubers, and with that rope we can put up snares and catch a few rabbits.”
Saliva flooded her mouth at the thought.
“All right. But just one day.”
* * *
The dawn was clear and bright. Sarge told them all to keep low and watch the skies for spy birds. Still, they managed to bring water in the canvas bucket and wash each other’s hair. The recruit was still ailing, curled up quietly. The others groomed each other and mended tack.
Jolanda methodically cleaned all the guns, as though they might cha
nce upon an ammo trove any moment. There was enough to eat that afternoon, and that night, at least by recent standards.
But at dusk, Alyssum, who had been standing lookout, crept in to confer in an urgent whisper, “Think we been made, Sarge. Was a fellow skulking about in that stand of birches near the spring. He saw me, too. He was off quick when he realized I’d made him.”
Sarge swore under her breath. “Send Jade to me.”
She fingered the paper pouch holding her map. The settlement, once warned, would be waiting for them. The slim hope of the woods had been removed.
Now there was only an impossibility, one the captain herself had warned Sarge away from.
The Jade woman came quickly.
“I need a foretelling,” Sarge told her.
Janna nodded. She crouched beside the slumped recruit. Sarge shook her head. “It’s for a choice.”
Janna quirked an eyebrow.
“Which way to go.” In the face of the Jade’s silence, Sarge added, “It’s that or nothing.”
“Then you don’t need a foretelling. One choice is no choice.”
“There are always others,” Sarge said irritably. “We could tie ourselves hands and ankles and hope they’ll be kind when they come to take us. I prefer something more active.”
Janna’s hand hovered on a basket’s lid. “What is the question?” she asked.
“If we go the way I’m thinking of, will we die?”
Janna nodded. She reached into the basket, and took out the white snake. It came slowly, winding its head around her arm and then questing outward, tongue flickering, flickering.
Sarge held herself still to avoid flinching back. Janna came closer, snake winding around her shoulders. As she approached it swayed outward, bringing its face close to Sarge’s. Its tongue flickered out, so close to her face that she thought it might lick her nose. She tried not to breathe.
The snake hung in the air, then, in a single motion, curved back to face its handler. It hovered in front of her face, gone slack-jawed and distant-eyed. With unsettling quickness, the snake shot forward, its head striking at the hollow of the Jade’s neck, which bore a multitude of small scars. Her eyelids fluttered as the venom struck. Her eyes sank back in their sockets, and her cheeks hollowed.
Shattered Shields Page 15