The Price of Valor

by Django Wexler

  Whatever its origins, handball had been played throughout the history of Vordan, in many forms and under many names. It had been called “grand melee,” “pushers,” and, confusingly, “football”—not because it involved the feet, but to differentiate it from other popular ball games played on horseback. It always involved two teams, a hard leather ball about the size of a man’s head, and two scoring areas some distance apart, but details like the number of players, the permissible ways of advancing the ball, the dimensions of the playing field, and the rules governing the use of weapons had gone through every imaginable permutation over the years.

  Winter had learned a version of the game growing up, not under any explicit set of rules but following a vague consensus of the participants. At Mrs. Wilmore’s, ball games were restricted to children under the age of eleven, at which point girls were expected to limit themselves to more ladylike pursuits such as gardening, shoveling animal dung, and preparation for childbearing. Watching the opposing squads square off gave her an unexpected feeling of nostalgia; it had been a long time since she looked back on Mrs. Wilmore’s with any good feeling, but a few buried memories of glorious rough-and-tumble merriment in golden summer afternoons wormed their way to the surface, like bubbles escaping from muck.

  According to the fairly simple rules of this variant, teams could be of any number of people, provided they were roughly equal. The ball could be thrown, carried, or indeed used as a bludgeon as the players saw fit. Pressing the ball to the ground within the opposing team’s scoring area was worth one point. Shoving, grappling, or tackling opposing players was of course permitted, although punching, kicking, biting, or jumping on them was frowned upon.

  Each team was made up of a section of Royals and a section from the Girls’ Own, for about forty players to a side, evenly split between men and women. Winter had chosen the sections that would play by lot, picking scraps of paper from a cauldron. On the first day, there had been quite a bit of grumbling from both sides. This was the third day, and the chosen sections had erupted in cheers when their number was called.

  A light rain was falling, just enough to mist the air and turn the dark earth of the fields into thick black mud. The stuff clung like molasses to every inch of clothing and skin, turning men and women alike into earthy golems as they ran, slipped, struggled, and floundered in the mess. One team wore blue bands wrapped around their foreheads, but they were becoming hard to see in the morass, making it hard to distinguish “blues” from “skins” as well as Royals from volunteers.

  Tactics were definitely evolving, though. The first game had been nothing more or less than a giant brawl in the center of the field, won one-to-nothing by the skins when a girl had managed to squirm out of the press with the ball while everyone else was still occupied trying to shove one another into the dirt. Most of the rest of the regiment had turned up to watch out of curiosity, and by the time Winter had called a halt and sent the next set of teams on, she could already hear strategies being plotted on the sidelines.

  Today, the blues were from Abby’s company in the Girls’ Own and Bracht’s in the Royals, and both had clearly put some thought into their game plan. Their opponents were doing their best, but they lacked a coherent strategy.

  A cheer erupted from the men and women gathered close around the field as a squad of blues, led by a huge woman Winter recognized from the old Leatherbacks, burst through a group of defenders. The largest of the Royals grappled and shoved to keep the gap open while more blues sprinted through, mostly women from Abby’s company. One of them, a long-legged recruit whose blond hair was now an unrecognizable tangle of mud, carried the ball under her arm and dodged the incoming defenders as deftly as the difficult terrain allowed.

  “She’ll never make it,” Cyte said, eyeing the play with a professional eye as the girl sidestepped a lunge from an older woman. “Can’t keep that up forever.”

  Winter did her best to remain stone-faced—as the responsible official, she had to appear impartial—but she fought back a smile. Abby had a gift for tactics, and her influence was clearly at work here.

  The blond recruit finally ran out of room, slipping in the mud in front of a bull-necked Royal who charged her with his arms spread wide. He grabbed her around the waist, hoisting her bodily off the ground and slamming her with a squelch into the muddy turf, but when he looked around for the ball it was no longer there. The recruit had tossed it straight up, and another woman had snatched it out of the air. Before the skins could react, the blue player skipped lightly into the scoring zone and pushed the ball deep into the mud.

  Shouts erupted from the crowd as Winter blew the hunting horn Cyte had cadged from some quartermaster. She raised her voice, though only those closest by could hear her over the din.

  “Game over! Three to one to the blues!”

  All through the regiment, Royals and volunteers screamed themselves horse or shouted curses, depending on which side they were on. Winter had actively encouraged gambling on these matches, to keep the spectators interested. There wasn’t much use for money out in the field, and the amount wagered had grown quickly. A small fortune had probably just changed hands, and the blues would be heroes to those who had taken their side. And the reverse, of course.

  “Time to break camp,” Cyte said.

  Winter nodded and waved for attention. When the roar had quieted somewhat, she shouted, “Players, go get yourselves cleaned off! Everybody else, break camp and be ready to march in one hour!” That would give the wagon train time to get well ahead of them. “Well played, everyone!”

  Another roar of approval. The mud-covered handballers trooped off in the direction of the stream, and a dozen sergeants began shouting at once to get everyone else in order. The crowd gradually dispersed in the direction of the newly integrated camp, slowly sorting itself out into its component companies and sections.

  “It seems to be working,” Cyte said once the volume level had fallen low enough for ordinary speech.

  “For the moment,” Winter said. She caught sight of Captain Sevran, on the other side of the playing field. He gave her a rueful smile and shook his head, then saluted smartly and turned to follow his men. “We’ll see what happens when we go back to drill.”

  “Still. They aren’t getting into brawls anymore.” Cyte cocked her head, reflecting for a moment. “Off the field, anyway.”

  * * *

  Another day’s march, another seven miles—hardly a stroll, by the standards of Khandarai campaign. The Deslandai army was pulling back toward the town of Gaafen, where a bridge spanned the river Kos. The Kos was tributary to the mighty Velt, running nearly east-west to where the Velt flowed roughly north-south past Desland on its east bank. North of the junction, there were several good fords the Army of the East could use to get across and invest the city, but south of it the big river widened into an uncrossable gulf nearly as wide as the Tsel in Khandar. Gaafen was therefore a good place for the Deslandai army to make a stand; if things went sour, they could always retreat north of the Kos and blow up the bridge, leaving Janus’ army a long detour to find an alternative crossing.

  Winter could tell that much by reading a map, so she had to assume that Janus had thought it through. As best she could tell, they had a hard road ahead. An assault on an army with its flanks securely anchored on the river would be a straightforward, bloody affair, with little opportunity for Janus’ now-famous strategic talent to express itself. Even if they won—which seemed likely, since the Army of the East was half again the size of the Deslandai force—the enemy’s secure line of retreat meant that all they were likely to get for it was a town full of corpses.

  Janus must have a plan. The Army of the East had thus far followed passively in the enemy’s wake, content to keep a safe distance between the opposing forces. He’s not the sort of commander who would bash his head against a wall if he had any other choice. He knows what he’s doing. Faith in
Janus had gotten her this far. There’s nothing to do but follow it through.

  Bobby was waiting beside Winter’s tent, which stood alone in the midst of the campground. The encampment would grow around it as each company filed in off the road. Winter dismounted and handed Edgar’s reins to a waiting soldier—one of the Royals, this time. Cyte was rotating the camp chores more equitably.

  “Sir!” Bobby said.

  “Come on in.” Winter ducked into her tent, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the dimness. Bobby followed. “What have you got for me?”

  “Reports.” Bobby flourished a stack of papers.

  “Anything major?”

  “Just the usual. Sick lists are holding steady, a couple of minor infractions.”

  “Drop them off with Cyte, then.” It had become apparent that Cyte had been born to be a staff lieutenant. Her appetite for paperwork and attention to detail was boundless, and she had a deft touch with the military bureaucracy that Winter herself had never been able to develop. It must come from spending time at the University. “What’s the butcher’s bill for this morning?”

  Bobby shuffled the papers. “Three broken fingers, two sprained ankles, four pulled teeth. Nothing serious.”

  “That’s good.” The handball games kept the regimental cutters busy with minor injuries, but so far nothing more than that. Thankfully. I don’t need my soldiers crippling each other before we even get to a battle. “Anything else?”

  “Um . . . possibly, sir. But it’s a little bit . . . personal.”

  “Trouble with Marsh?” The idea of anyone coming to her for relationship advice made Winter want to laugh and cry, both at once. “I’m not sure—”

  “Not that kind of personal, sir. The other kind.”

  “Oh.” Winter looked around the tent, then moved to stand by the entrance, leaning against the pole, so she could keep an eye out for eavesdroppers. “What is it?”

  Bobby took a deep breath. “I’d better show you.”

  She shrugged out of her uniform jacket and started undoing the buttons of her shirt. It’s a good thing she gave up her disguise. She wouldn’t have been able to keep it up much longer anyway. Bobby had grown at least an inch taller in the six months or so since they met, and her figure had filled out considerably. Winter did her best to keep her examination clinical.

  Bobby’s skin had paled a bit since she left the fierce Khandarai sun, but there were still visible tan lines around her neck and at her wrists. Under her shirt, though, she bore other, stranger marks. A small circular patch low on her stomach was from where she’d caught a musket ball at the Battle of Turalin, and a long ragged line that started at her collarbone and ran between her breasts showed where she’d been slashed open by a Desoltai saber, saving Winter’s life in the process. These wounds had not scarred or scabbed over; instead the skin had regrown, perfect and smooth, but with the color of polished marble. It was a shiny gray, and flecked with sparking fragments that glittered as Bobby moved.

  “They’re getting bigger, aren’t they?” Winter said.

  Bobby nodded, and pointed to the circular patch on her stomach. “I measured this one when we left Khandar, and it was three inches across. It’s four and a half now. And this one”—she traced a finger down the long sword wound—“is getting wider.”

  “But you don’t feel any different?”

  “Not exactly.” Bobby poked the gray patch. “It still feels like skin.”

  Feor had started the transformation, back in Khandar, when Bobby lay dying in Winter’s tent. She’d used her naath to turn Bobby into what she called a Heavenly Guardian. Winter was still hazy on the theological details—Feor’s naath apparently gave her the ability to bestow power on others, but not use it herself. However it worked, Feor had made it clear that the transformation was permanent as long as Bobby lived, though she’d never been able to say what ultimate effects it might have. The head priestess of the cult Winter had rescued Feor from, the one they’d called “Mother,” had kept those details to herself.

  Winter’s own naath, the demon that devoured other demons, usually drew her attention at the presence of any other magic, like a sleepy predator raising its head at the scent of prey. Princess Raesinia—now Queen Raesinia, Winter supposed—had one, as had the doomed orator Danton Aurenne. But she didn’t feel anything from being near Bobby, possibly because it was Feor who actually bore the naath. Or demon. Or whatever you want to call it. Winter shook her head. She did her best not to think about the supernatural side of her adventure in Khandar, except when it intruded on her nightmares.

  “So it hasn’t changed much?” Winter said. “It just grows, slowly.”

  “I’m a little worried about what will happen when it gets to my face,” Bobby said. “I won’t be able to hide it.”

  “What about Marsh? I mean . . . he must know.”

  Bobby looked embarrassed, and Winter was able to follow the flush as it rose up her body and ended at her face. She gritted her teeth and kept her eyes firmly on the girl’s face.

  “He knows . . . a little bit,” Bobby said. “I told him I was wounded, and that a Khandarai priestess saved me with her herb-lore, which left me like this. So far he hasn’t pushed me about it.”

  Winter had to laugh. Men who would swear to being rational and forward-thinking, and therefore dismissive of the supernatural, would also accept almost any claim as to the effectiveness of hidden wisdom or secret knowledge as long as it came from a sufficiently foreign source. She herself had fielded quite a few questions from otherwise modern young women in the Girls’ Own who wanted to know if it was true that the Khandarai had discovered a fruit that granted eternal youth, or drank cobra venom to ward off the pox.

  “Okay,” she said. “At that rate, it should be a while before it’s difficult to hide. When we get back to the city, we’ll talk to Feor and see if she’s been able to figure anything out.” After surmounting her crisis of faith, Feor had volunteered to help Janus decode the Thousand Names. They’d left her in Vordan City, partly for security reasons and partly because the massive steel plates on which the archive was engraved were difficult to transport in secrecy. “I know it must be a little odd, but—”

  “There’s something else.” Bobby cast about and found an old tin cup, dinged and battered from years of hard use. She held it in the palm of her right hand, let out a deep breath, and closed her eyes. Then, without any visible sign of effort, she closed her fist, and the cup gave a metallic shriek as it was crushed within.

  “Oh.” Winter stared. “Wow.”

  “Yeah.” Bobby opened her hand and passed the remain of the cup to Winter. The outlines of Bobby’s fingers were dimpled neatly into the metal, and it had bulged at the sides, as though she’d squeezed a handful of butter. “I have to concentrate to make it work, and I can’t always do it. But when I can, I feel like I could lift a horse.”

  “Let’s . . . not try that just yet,” Winter said. Bobby was clearly relieved to share her secret with someone, and was bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet, which Winter found a bit distracting. “Put your shirt back on, first of all. I don’t want to have to tackle the next person who tries to walk in here.”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  Bobby dressed, and Winter turned and stared out through the tiny gap between the hanging tent flaps. Troops of Royals and Girls’ Own soldiers were going past, carrying rolled-up tents, boxes of crackers, and other supplies. The steady tap-tap-tap of wooden mallets forcing pegs into the earth sounded like a rain of stones on a cobbled street.

  “Okay,” Winter said, turning back. “I’m going to need to think about this.” She turned the crushed cup over in her hands and shook her head. “In the meantime, don’t do anything rash.”

  Bobby nodded. “I’ll be careful.”

  “If Feor can’t help us, maybe Janus can,” Winter said. “After dumping this whole regiment
on my shoulders, he owes me. Between them we should be able to come up with some idea of what’s happening, and whether we need to stop it.”

  “Right.” Bobby finished buttoning her shirt and took an experimental breath. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to spring that on you out of the blue, but—”

  “It’s fine. I needed to know.” Winter set the remains of the cup down on her writing desk. “In the meantime, there are more mundane problems to deal with. Can you run over to Jane’s tent and tell her I need to see her?”

  Bobby frowned. “I can try. But you know—”

  “Just try.”

  The girl shrugged into her jacket and saluted. “Yes, sir! Just a moment.”

  She ducked out through the flap and hurried away. Winter, feeling a good bit wearier than she had felt only moments before, sat down on the cushion behind her desk and stretched her back, trying to make it pop.

  Since their confrontation over Winter’s reorganization of the camp, Jane had been, for lack of a better word, sulking. The thought of it made Winter’s jaw clench in frustration. She knows she’s wrong. She just can’t bear to admit it. She walked with her troops during the day, and stayed in her tent the rest of the time. If Winter managed to ambush her, she stood at stiff attention and responded in monosyllables. God. Was she this frustrating back at the Prison? Winter shook her head. I was a different person then, and so was she.

  It couldn’t go on forever, though. The Girls’ Own needed a captain, and if Jane kept refusing to do the job, eventually Winter would have to replace her. The thought made her feel ill. It won’t come to that. She’ll get over it before it actually comes to fighting. Temper or no, Winter couldn’t believe that Jane would let her girls go into battle anything less than well organized.