by Alma Boykin
Yes, and that is the law, but I am the emperor and the empire needs another heir. Godown has not seen fit to cause a cradle with a son in it to appear in the Homefold or chapel, so I need to have a son by the traditional method. He had not said that aloud.
She opened her mouth, closed it again, and leaned forward, looking intently at Pjtor. “You have soup all over your mustache.” He wiped his mustache with a clean piece of bread, causing her to roll her eyes. “I see where young Pjtor gets it from. Your son attempted to get out of the Homefold by climbing out the window.”
Since he’d done the same on several occasions, Pjtor just grinned.
“The window above the women’s steam-hut that leads to the changing area.”
He grinned wider.
She tipped her head to the side and gave him a tired look. “Before your son finds a way onto the roof of the baking shed and then falls into the dough trough, honored brother, may I suggest moving him to the men’s quarters? He is six years old, after all.”
“An excellent point, and I will see about having him relocated. It is time he started training with the soldiers and learning to read and write, after all.”
“Thank you.” She drank a little more of her beer. “A message came from Hornand.”
“Oh?”
“Alsice believes that she is with child. Normally I would not be pleased, but in this case . . .”
Pjtor bit his tongue to keep from shouting with joy. After all, pregnancy was what usually followed activity such as he had indulged in. “I’ll bring her back with me.”
“Do that. I will see about reordering the Homefold to accommodate her.”
The news that waited him in his work room brought far less joy. “How many?” he thought aloud after reading General Green’s initial report.
“Several thousand, imperial master,” the courier hissed. He’d strained his voice earlier. “It seemed as if every male Harrier rode against your army. We held the road and the wall, but that was all. General Green did not wait to hear from the fortress before sending me.”
Damn it to all hells, known and unknown. Now what do I do?
As he rode past the men of the army, Pjtor started to wonder—had any survived to come home? The soldiers marching past, worn, gaunt, seemed to come out of some of the paintings of the Great Fires, of the last of the Lander unbelievers walking to their doom. They still had their weapons and their pride, but little else. And the line stretched for kilometer after kilometer, or so it seemed to Pjtor. He rode on, reaching General Poliko after another hour by sun had passed. The man seemed as flat as the shadow stretching from his horse’s hoofs. Pjtor stopped. Poliko tried to speak, coughed, accepted a water flask from an aid, and then croaked, “Imperial Master” as he bowed in the saddle. The grey gelding tossed his head, sending foam everywhere, then hung it low once more, as weary as the humans.
Pjtor started to demand answers to his questions, but stopped and instead handed the man one of his own saddle flasks. Poliko stared at the water skin, blinked, and drained it. “Th—” he coughed. “Thank you, imperial master. The bastards fought hard.”
“Our bastards or the Harrier bastards?”
A faint smile appeared from under the road dust. “Ours, or rather yours, imperial master. We held. The fort is still ours, the road is still ours. They beat us but we held.”
Not exactly, but Green says the defeat never became a rout. That counts for something, but only Godown knows what. Pjtor would have to ask Anderson. In fact, Pjtor decided, he was overdue for talking to the man. He’d avoided him during the summer because of other concerns, but he needed to learn more of what Anderson could teach him. The army did not return victorious, but they returned. That was better than Grigory had done, and Pjtor wanted to celebrate that, but did he dare? There had to be a way.
Instead of asking for more, Pjtor turned the black horse’s head and rode beside Poliko. Their shadows soon stretched long beside them, as if black horses and riders paced atop the ripe wheat beside the road. The harvesters would begin work the next day. The first signs of winter danced in the late afternoon air, the ghost flies of autumn that swarmed just before the first hint of frost appeared at night. Some of the trees had shifted from green to gold and brown, with red turning the berry bushes into small bonfires that blazed in the yellow sunlight. They were a day’s hard ride from Muskava, in the rich farm lands surrounding one of the small rivers that flowed south and east to become the Dawn. The air smelled of dust and grain and the coming of winter. A golden haze rose from the road as the wind faded and died with the sun. Nothing existed but marching men and plodding horses and the last light of day.
On a whim Pjtor had ordered a camp set up for the men just outside one of the villages. Now he gave thanks to whichever saint had encouraged the idea, because the men seemed to take heart from the smell of food and the presence of campfires and buckets of water. “Don’t starve your beasts and don’t starve your men,” he heard Anderson growling in his memory. Even if they’d failed him, the enemy had played a part, as had the hot, dry summer in the south. Pjtor rode around the large camping area as the soldiers got sorted out, found places and settled in for the night. He’d taken over a nice, solid farm house for his own use and found a hot meal waiting, along with beer and a serving wench. He shooed her off. That was what Alsice was for, after all, and he didn’t trust her hungry looks. The woman wanted something and he was in no mood to grant the kind of request he guessed she had in mind. Instead he ate, drank, made his plans for the next day and went to sleep.
He was up before dawn, riding out to meet General Green. Green brought up the tail end of the army, chasing the usual flotsam of camp followers and others ahead of him. “Eh, not so many as there once was, imperial majesty,” Anderson had observed the year before. “Between your cleaning out the dead wood, and what the Harriers do to females, who’d want to come along?” Now that the army actually fought, the wash-women, cooks, nurses, and whores tended to stay home. Pjtor suspected they’d found a welcome in the new forts along the wall, as well as some of the road forts and new settlements. Good riddance. If they settled down and raised crops and families, then fine. And fewer women meant less disease, at least that kind of disease. No one could prevent march fever, wound fever, and the galloping trots.
“Imperial majesty,” Green bowed in the saddle. The redhead also removed his hat as he bowed, spooking Pjtor’s aid’s horse. Luckily the beast took off away from the line of march, causing some laughter and muttered insults that Pjtor decided to ignore.
“General Green. Your report?”
“Your army stopped the Harriers, imperial majesty, but that was all. We lost a lot of men, and horses and oxen, but the fort is still yours, as is the road and the land around it.”
Pjtor wanted more. He wanted the Harriers’ city, he wanted triumph and victories. He wanted to yell at Green and demand a proper accounting, he wanted to flog the army with the five-tailed whip for failing him. Instead he nodded. “Good.”
“No, imperial majesty. Only Godown is good. We just dug in and fought as best we could, for the most part. There’s a few officers who are feeding the vulbati and fulchers for turning their backs to the Harriers.” He spat. “We found no more prisoners, but did capture two of the former Chosen Guard.”
“Ah.”
“They died.”
“Thank you.” Next time, if Alsice carries a boy and it lives through birth, I’ll come with you and kill them myself for their treason. He had before and he would again.
For reasons he never could say later, Pjtor turned in his saddle, looking behind. He saw dust. “Who follows?”
“No one, imperial majesty, unless it is farmers come to trade.” Green turned as well. “Fuck. That’s not farmers.”
“No.” Pjtor felt his blood starting to sing as trumpets called. The men in Pjtor’s personal guard and his private regiment rushed toward him, along with some of the soldiers from farther up the road. Green began to give or
ders and Pjtor rode along the line. They needed pikemen and didn’t have many. “You, go to the campground and tell Poliko that the Harriers have not finished the season yet.”
The courier raced off. Pjtor stopped long enough to remove the safety patches from his two pistols and to confirm the load in his saddle gonne. It was one of the new ones from over the sea, a top loader that used pre-measured powder. He wouldn’t draw his saber, not yet. He wanted to ride out and meet the Harriers, but that would be exactly what they wanted. He’d not grant them their wish. The lines formed, two ranks deep, three sides of a square with the wagons inside, those few that hadn’t already started racing north at the trot. “I hate parting gifts,” Green muttered beside Pjtor. “The big gonnes would be nice.”
“So would Godown’s holy fire, but I fear we do not merit such a gift.” If they did, Pjtor was not certain he wanted to know just what would be riding toward them. The entire Turklavi nation?
“An excellent point, imperial majesty.” The dust grew closer and Pjtor heard a few shots coming from the cloud.
He drank a little water and cleared his throat. “Fire by ranks, on my command,” he called. Green grunted his assent. Pjtor’s voice carried farther.
They could hear the yells. Were the Harriers trying a cavalry charge? Shit, it looked like it. “Pikes forward, join the front rank. Fix barrel knives.” Those too were new. A flurry of activity and the clink of metal on metal. “Ready!” The sergeants hurried a few stragglers into place. The pike-men crouched, half-grounding the long, heavy spears. The pikes stuck out like one of the prickle-pigs of the woods, ready to impale any rider who tried to charge the ranks, or so Pjtor hoped. The gunners should stop them first. He could start to see individual riders, all in yellow, the sign of the most determined of the Harriers. He swallowed as his mouth tried to go dry.
“Aim!” Please Godown may this not be a distraction. Where the fuck is Poliko?
“Selkow! Selkow and Her faithful!” The riders came closer and Pjtor heard more shots as a few of the Harriers fired from the saddle. A man ahead of him grunted and staggered, dropping his gonne. One of the sergeants grabbed the weapon and took his place in the line. The riders in yellow and brown and black came closer, and closer, and closer. Pjtor shook, impatient. The horse beneath him rose a little, dropped down, reared and danced in place on his hind feet before standing again.
“End rank fire!” Bang a staggered pair fired. “Second rank!” Bang the next pair while the first rushed to reload. “Rolling volley!”
Boom-m-m. The sound rolled a little as the men fired down the line. The pikes braced. Harriers fell, horses screamed, men screamed.
“End rank fire! Volley fire!”
Bam-m-m the lines fired a second time, reloading in sequence down the line. Fewer riders approached, but more men around Pjtor staggered, hit by Turklavi shots. Pjtor ground his teeth. he’d given the order with the Harriers too far! He had to wait, had to wait, had to—
“Fire!” It seemed as if the first riders could touch the pike tips before he called.
Bam-m-m. Powder smoke and dust filled the air, men and horses called and screamed. Horses and men fell and a horse ran into the line, dying on the pikes. A few men panicked and fired, or were those Harrier shots? Pjtor couldn’t tell. More riders appeared from the dust and powder smoke. Without a wind, the air grew thick with white and brown, hiding attacker and defender alike.
“Fire!”
“Damn it man hold the line,” someone called. Pjtor did not look.
“Fire!”
“Fire!”
The Harriers broke and turned, the sound of hoofs fading a little. Men and horses still cried out, screaming and cursing, and a commotion at the end of the line showed a small group of riders trying to break and turn the line. A horn sounded and a few men from the reserve turned, running that way to meet the threat.
“Orders to pursue?”
“No,” Pjtor and Green said together. “You know better, boy,” Green snapped.
“You want the fulchers to feast on your bones, you ride after them without an army at your back,” Pjtor boomed, not bothering to lower his voice. “Just wait.”
The dust to the south and west thickened again as the Harriers circled and regrouped. Or were they? Pjtor rose in the stirrups, peering into the fog. He sat quickly as something zipped past his head. The black horse snorted a comment about his rider’s folly. Pjtor slapped the sweat-darkened neck.
“Three dead, five wounded but none seriously, imperial master,” a lieutenant reported. “Trumpets and drums behind us.”
“Ours, I trust?” Green inquired before Pjtor could.
The messenger flushed a little under the coating of dirt. “Yes, sir.”
Pjtor took a drink of water and capped the skin, then hung it from his saddle hook. He slipped both pistols into his belt. Green shifted his horse to the side as the black trotted in place, then rose onto his hind legs and held the pose, Pjtor steady on his back. “Down boy,” Pjtor commanded, quietly this time. The horse dropped back onto all four feet and Pjtor slapped his neck again. “The bastards don’t want to learn, do they?”
“Our bastards or theirs,’ imperial majesty?”
Pjtor bared his teeth at the older man, who grinned back without humor.
The dust reformed and drew closer. “Ready,” Pjtor called.
“Selkow! Kill the unbelievers! Selkow and the true faith! Ai-ai-ai-eeeee!” One of the riders, wearing all yellow including the ribbons streaming from the spike on his helmet, charged on his own, saber twirling over his head, dusty brown horse racing head low. Pjtor wanted to meet the challenge. Instead he waited. He was the emperor, not a common cavalry soldier.
“Aim.”
“Fire.” Horse and rider dropped together. That seemed to be the signal because the rest of the Harriers charged in.
“Fire!”
The riders drew closer.
“Fire!”
Pjtor called the order three more times before something odd caught his eye. A few of the riders were trying to flank the formation, and he heard a voice yell, “For the true emperor! Down with the murderer, long live Isaac!”
“You’re in charge,” Pjtor told Green, hauling his horse’s head around.
“Imperial majesty!”
Pjtor ignored the shouted plea, instead spurring after the traitors. Oh, he knew it was a trap, but he refused to ignore the challenge. When he reached the end of the line he slowed, stopped, and pulled the saddle gonne out. He aimed and fired as he’d trained. The black held steady as he’d been trained. “Good boy.” Pjtor opened the top of the gonne, bit the top of the paper open, added the powder and ball, closed and latched the top, tapped the lever that pushed them into place, cocked the flint, sighted and fired again. His man fell, although Pjtor was not sure if he’d hit him or if the horse threw him. Either way he was on the ground.
He slid the gonne into the scabbard, drew a pistol and fired, and then rode into the melee. More cavalry had arrived and the fight turned into a clean-up. The Harriers did not charge a third time. Instead they faded into the distance, leaving their dead and wounded behind. The wounded soon became dead. Pjtor rode among the enemy, looking at them.
One man, shot in the leg and gut, spat. “The true emperor would never have deprived my family of our honors,” he managed.
Pjtor backed the horse, cued him to rise, and then dropped, crushing the traitor’s head beneath the iron-shod hoofs. He did not deign to speak, instead rejoining General Green and the rest of the soldiers. Rot in Godown’s hell, traitor, and may Godown have mercy on you because I never will.
The sun had not yet reached noon.
“. . . no more than sixty, imperial master, sirs, as best we can tell. They slipped up the river, around the wall. Arkmandii reported tracks but nothing else, and I suspect these were the same group.”
The Harriers had burned some crops as they left, but inflicted no major damage aside from that done to Pjtor’s pride. “Why
no signals? What about the mirror towers?”
Green tapped the map. “Because they found one of the gaps between mirror lines, imperial majesty. We do not have enough trained men or towers, or mirrors, yet and they came through here, once they cleared Arkmandii’s lands. A lot of empty space remains, imperial majesty.”
“And the bastards will find it, just one of those things about war.” Captain Anderson tapped the map with the tip of the long stick he’d picked up somewhere. “They’re used to disappearing into the grass and open country, and while the wall helps, farms and people will help more.”
Pjtor frowned at the map draped table. “What are the red marks beside those for towers?”
Poliko lifted the edge of the map and found the page with all the markings and their meanings. “Those burned down this summer, imperial master.”
“Grass fire?”
“Yes, imperial master, after one of the dry storms.” Pjtor recalled seeing one of those fires from a distance the previous summer. The entire horizon had turned red, and the land afterwards had smoked for several days, gusts of wind picking up the ash and ruining the water as well as the air. “Godown willing, they will be rebuilt by the first snow.”
Pjtor nodded. One of the first things the foreign military men had discovered was the enormous distances in NovRodi. The other end of the world positively teemed with people and villages compared to NovRodi, and moving supplies took much more time and effort. That was one reason Admiral Paulson sat in on so many army meetings—he was used to empty spaces and carrying supplies with him, something that the others still struggled with at times. Anderson too had grown used to NovRodi over the years, and served as a check on the ambitions of the others. They thought in days and weeks—NovRodi moved in weeks and months.
“More farms, imperial majesty,” Anderson observed. “More farms farther south will shorten the supply lines for us and drive them back.”