The Price of Valor

by Django Wexler

  “Cyte!” she barked.

  “Sir?”

  “Tell Abby to send a company into those buildings and find me a spot where I can see over that thing.”

  Cyte saluted and hurried off.

  Let’s see what kind of trap they’re so eager we rush into.

  * * *

  A few minutes later, on the roof of what had been an animal feed shop, Winter stood with Cyte, Lieutenant Marsh, and a few women of his company. They’d found the building abandoned, and Winter had been escorted up the back stairs, through kicked-open doors and the messy hallways of a residence quickly abandoned. The proprietor and his family had lived above the shop, but had presumably sought safer quarters when the barricade went up.

  From this vantage point, three stories up, Winter could see the whole curving arc of barricade. It was lightly held, with only a few hundred men in total spread along its length. Enough that they’d take casualties storming it, but not enough to stop a determined charge.

  But, a few hundred yards back, a much larger body of men waited. There were a thousand or more of them, bunched in small groups at the north end of the square. Unlike the men at the barricade, they didn’t wear the sashes of the Patriot Guard; all Winter could see that resembled a uniform were blue armbands.

  “Some kind of militia?” Cyte guessed, looking down at the milling mass.

  “Seems like a safe assumption,” Winter said. “They’re certainly not holding any kind of formation.”

  “Not many muskets,” Marsh said, peering intently. “A few pikes.”

  “Nasty,” Cyte said. “Put just enough real troops on the barricade, taunt us into charging, then counterattack with that lot when we’re halfway over. If they time it right they could do a lot of damage.”

  Winter frowned. It was a devious way to use poor-quality troops, especially if you didn’t particularly care how many of them came back. I wonder if they realize that?

  “Bobby’s back,” Marsh said, looking over at the Girls’ Own. “And I think Archer is with her.”

  “Good,” Winter said. “Hold this position, and I’ll have Archer send one of his officers up as a spotter.”

  Marsh saluted, and Winter turned about and pounded down the stairs. Her heart felt as if it were full of ice, and the rage that Graff and all the others expressed so openly burned at the back of her mind like a banked flame. She wondered if Janus ever felt like this—he was always so outwardly calm, but he had to feel something.

  Archer greeted her with a salute, which she waved away. Two of his guns were pulling into positions, their teams dragging them in tight half circles to get the barrels pointed the right way and detaching them from their caissons. Cannoneers pushed the guns forward, clear of the ammunition-carrying wagons, and stood ready beside the pieces.

  “Can you knock that thing to pieces?” Winter said, nodding at the barricade.

  Archer looked at it and raised a contemptuous eyebrow. “With a popgun. Shall I get started?”

  “Please. Where’s the rest of your battery?”

  “Coming. It sounded like you were in a hurry, so we doubled the teams on these two.”

  “Thank you,” Winter said. “You’ve got howitzers, don’t you?”

  “A pair of nine-pounders. We won’t need them to blast through wagons, though.”

  “There’s a battalion or so waiting in cover.” Winter pointed to the building she’d just come from. “Put somebody up there to direct your fire. You should have a good view. Try not to damage the buildings more than you have to.”

  “Artillery isn’t always a precise science,” Archer said. “But I’ll do my best.”

  * * *

  The first shot through the barricade was carefully aimed, and the results were suitably spectacular. A big four-horse wagon that formed the base for a rickety tower of crates and barrels took the six-pound ball near the top of its frame and practically exploded with the impact, bringing the whole stack crashing down along with a pair of unfortunate Patriots. The next shot hit a barrel that must have been full of flour, because it blew apart in a puff of white. As the cannoneers found their rhythm, balls slammed out with the regularity of clockwork, blasting bits and pieces of wood into the air and drawing the occasional scream from the defenders.

  Here and there, a blast of musketry marked where some Patriot could no longer stand the tension. Winter’s troops were all well out of range, and she’d forbade any return fire. The Girls’ Own settled for shouts and jeers, and raucous cheering whenever some section of the makeshift barrier collapsed in a particularly impressive fashion.

  Before too long, Sevran sent word that the Royals were ready and waiting at the end of the causeway, and the rest of Captain Archer’s battery began to appear. First came two more six-pounders, which Winter dispatched to the ends of the line to spread out the destruction. Then four big twelve-pounders rolled up, which Archer deployed level with the front line of Girls’ Own. From that distance, two hundred yards or so, they could fire canister, spraying the barricade with buckets of hard-hitting musket balls. The sound of impacts on the wood of the barricade was like a burst of rainfall, just after the thunder of the main blast faded away, and the soldiers cheered at the clouds of dust and flying splinters these raised.

  Finally the two howitzers, looking like nothing so much as fat-bellied kettles on wheels, pulled into position. Unlike the other cannon, they were designed to fire black powder bombs in high, arcing trajectories, reaching out over the barricade and into the square beyond, where the militia were sheltering. One of Archer’s officers, from the rooftop vantage, waved semaphore flags down at his companions on the ground, and the two guns were soon belching fire. The spotter watched the fall of the shot and flagged corrections, and the gunners adjusted their aim.

  “Right on target,” Archer said, watching the flags waggle.

  Winter imagined the bombs bursting among the tight-packed militia, spraying them with ruptured metal. She bared her teeth in a vicious grin.

  “Abby!” she said. “Get ready.”

  “For what?” Bobby said.

  “They can’t just sit there and take it forever,” Winter said. “Sooner or later they’ll either break and run or come after us. My bet is on the latter.” Being under fire without an effective way to fight back was every soldier’s worst nightmare, and when it had happened to her, Winter remembered, she wanted nothing more than to get to grips with her tormentors.

  As though they’d been listening to her conversation, the men behind the crumbling barricade chose that moment to surge forward. Musket-armed Patriots came first, dashing across the shot-pocked earth of the square to shoulder their weapons and fire. Judging distances in the heat of battle was notoriously difficult, and for the most part this wild fire accomplished little. The Girls’ Own, spread across the square in loose ranks, let loose with a ragged volley, delivered at the very edge of their weapons’ range, and a few Patriots fell. One of Archer’s cannon belched and delivered a load of canister with considerably more effect, cutting a swath through the disorganized enemy.

  “Hold,” Winter said, seeing the Girls’ Own start to edge forward again, eager to close the range. “There’s more coming.” Abby repeated the command, echoed by officers up and down the line.

  Soon the militia started to appear, pushing through gaps in the devastated barricade and the clouds of drifting smoke from the ongoing firefight. They paused behind the loose line of Patriots, gathering in tight knots. Then, at some signal from their leaders, they charged with hoarse shouts, pikes and clubs waving.

  “Ready to fall back if they get too close,” Winter said to Abby. “We’ve got the Royals formed up behind us.”

  The tactic was the same one she’d employed at Jirdos, but she could already see it wasn’t going to be necessary here. Having to negotiate the barricade had broken up the mass of militia into a steady dribb
le of small groups, each of which fought without coordinating with the others. Each would break into a run, attracting more and more fire from the Girls’ Own as they came closer, and dribbling dead and wounded like bloody footprints in their wake. Before they got close enough to use their makeshift weapons, the cohesion of the group would break under the shattering fire of the skirmish line, and the survivors would run back to the shelter of the barricade.

  After three or four such sorties broke in bloody ruin without getting in fifty yards of her line, Winter nearly found herself feeling sorry for them. Each new group emerged from the smoke without knowing what had happened to the others, and each was shot down in turn. Wounded men and those whose courage had broken were trying to force their way back through the barricade now, clogging up the gaps and creating a mass of shoving, struggling men, those pushing their way forward trapped by those trying to get back. Archer, unprompted, directed his fire at these clots of humanity, bowling solid shot through the press and flailing the edges with canister. Soon bodies were heaped so thick at the choke points that even those militia who wanted to press forward found themselves trapped behind drifts of corpses.

  The Patriot Guards, more disciplined, kept loading and firing, though one by one they were deciding the fleeing militia had the right idea and throwing down their weapons. Muzzle flashes from inside the bank of powder smoke that hung over the barricade were increasingly erratic, and it was as much from sympathy as anything else that Winter decided the time had come to finish it.

  “Abby!” She had to shout to be heard over the thunder of the guns. “Fix bayonets and charge! Take prisoner anyone who throws down their weapon.”

  “Sir!”

  Winter sent Bobby to make sure Archer ceased fire before the Girls’ Own surged forward. Their loose line lacked the shock impact of a formed body of troops, but by this point it was hardly necessary. At the first sign of their opponent’s approach, Patriots and militia alike began throwing away their weapons, either redoubling their efforts to flee or raising their hands in surrender.

  Ten minutes later, it was all over. The Girls’ Own had climbed the barricade, avoiding the corpse-choked gaps to clamber up and over the wagons. The ground on the other side was a charnel house, dirt churned to bloody mud by the work of Archer’s howitzers, which had wreaked havoc on the waiting militia. Those enemy who weren’t dead, wounded, or fleeing in panic were being corralled to the rear by the Royals, who’d marched in to help with the mopping up.

  * * *

  “Sir,” Winter said. “Third Regiment reports twelve dead and twenty-three injured.” That included Sergeant Bells and her rankers. The rest of the casualties had come from the erratic fire of the Patriot Guard; none of the militia had come close to the line.

  “Do you have an estimate of the enemy’s losses?” Janus said.

  He sat comfortably on his horse, surveying the carnage. Winter’s troops had opened a hole in the barricade by harnessing teams of horses to drag the broken wagons aside, and cleared a path through the drift of bodies. Otherwise the enemy lay where they had fallen, cut to pieces by musketry and cannon-fire. The regimental cutters, having dealt with the paltry friendly casualties, moved briskly over the field looking for wounded with a good chance to survive.

  “Hard to say, sir,” Winter said. “Probably five or six hundred all told? We have a few hundred prisoners, too. But I doubt the militia that got away will be coming back to bother us.”

  “Agreed,” Janus said. “You weren’t at the Battle of the Road in Khandar, I recall.”

  “No, sir,” Winter said. “If you remember I was . . . otherwise engaged.”

  The general nodded. “I commented to Captain d’Ivoire at the time that the first engagement for green troops is crucial. It sets the tone for everything that follows.” He smiled, briefly. “I believe you have administered a salutary lesson.”

  “The Patriots will fight, sir, even if the militia doesn’t.”

  “They have more to lose,” Janus agreed. “But even desperate men have a breaking point. We simply need to find it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now. Your regiment is fit for further action?”

  “Yes, sir. The Girls’ Own is resting now, but if I let the Royals lead we can press on.”

  “Excellent.” Janus glanced at the sun, which was approaching the midpoint of its low sweep through the autumn sky. “We must use what daylight remains to us. Colonel Warus is facing lighter opposition, but the tight terrain is slowing his progress. Colonel Stokes is just beginning his attack. For the moment, your advance appears to promise the quickest results.” He pointed, past the barricade toward the north end of the square. “Keep moving. Your objective is the near end of Grand Span. I will direct forces from the reserve to follow you, including several heavy batteries; once you have the foot of the bridge in hand, we’ll need artillery to suppress any guns the Patriots may have covering the Span before we can advance. I’ll instruct the commanders to follow your orders as to dispositions.”

  “Sir!” Winter saluted. Janus had just put her in command of perhaps a quarter of the Army of the East. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Be careful, Colonel,” Janus said. “The enemy have had weeks to prepare this ground. But make haste as best you can. If we are still engaged when darkness falls, the results could be . . . messy.”

  Winter pictured scared, confused men firing at one another in the gloom, and nodded emphatically. She straightened up and offered a formal salute. “We’ll get there, sir!”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  MARCUS

  “I should have known better,” Sothe said, flipping open a black-lacquered chest and unwrapping a bundle tied with black silken cord. “I should have known this would happen.”

  “I’m sorry,” Marcus said again. “I tried—”

  “I don’t blame you,” Sothe said. “I am well acquainted with the princess’—that is, the queen’s—habit of running foolish risks. She should never have been there in the first place.”

  “I shouldn’t have taken her.”

  “I sincerely doubt she gave you a choice.”

  Sothe picked up a long, thin blade, tested the edge with a finger, then slipped it into a sheath. She was wearing close-fitting blacks, leather and rough silk, evidently made specifically for her purposes. They included a slightly preposterous number of sheaths, pockets, and loops for a variety of weapons, which Sothe produced one by one from the black chest and slotted into place. Marcus was surprised she could still stand under the weight of them all.

  “You’re the one who planned this,” Marcus said. “You can’t back out of it now.”

  “Plans change,” Sothe said. “Rescuing Raesinia is more important.”

  “More important than keeping the Docks from burning down and thousands of soldiers from burning alive?”

  “Yes,” Sothe said. “If she’s taken to Elysium—”

  “You know what she would want you to do.”

  Sothe slammed her final dagger into place and stood up. Her expression was nearly as calm as always, but not quite, and Marcus got the faintest hint of strong emotion in her voice.

  “What she wants is not the issue,” Sothe said. “Protecting Raesinia from herself has always been among my primary duties.”

  “When you rescue her, what are you going to say?”

  Sothe met his gaze, hesitated for a moment, then looked away. Marcus frowned and shook his head.

  “Look,” he said. “It’s obvious you’re not . . . comfortable with me. I’m not going to ask why. Just don’t let the fact that it’s me asking make you do something you’re going to regret.”

  “I have done quite a few things I regret,” Sothe said very quietly. She closed her eyes and was silent for a long moment. “But I suspect you are right. It will take time to organize transport for Raesinia with the city in chaos. She would wa
nt me to help you.”

  “If we pull this off, Janus will have a clear shot at the Island, and we’ll be able to link up with him. That ought to make getting Raesinia back a lot easier.”

  Sothe nodded. “I will do my best. I must tell you, though, that I am not confident of the outcome if I must face another Penitent. My last encounter with one of their kind was . . . difficult.”

  “You think she’ll see you coming?” Marcus said.

  “When it comes to these Penitent Damned, there is a great deal we don’t understand. You said the last time you faced this woman, she was able to deflect pistol balls?”

  “More like melt them, but yes.”

  “That would be impossible if it required her conscious intervention. Perhaps the demon acts for her. Perhaps she can see the shots before they happen. The man I fought could read my intentions before I acted.”

  “It’s a possibility,” Marcus admitted. “But we have to try. That’s why we have backup plans.”

  “Make sure they are ready.” Sothe picked up Lieutenant Uhlan’s rifle and began inspecting it minutely. “I will be waiting.”

  Marcus left her on the balcony of Mrs. Felda’s church and descended to the main floor. The place felt cavernous and empty after so many nights of crowded floors and crowds. The refugees had mostly departed for the new hideouts in Oldtown, out of the direct path of the fighting and protected, hopefully, by Smiling Jack’s cutthroats. Marcus had sent Mrs. Felda and her family with them, along with Cora. The girl had been oddly undisturbed by the news of Raesinia’s capture, accepting Marcus’ assurance that her friend would be all right with blithe optimism. It’s almost as if she knows the truth. I wonder if she’s worked it out?

  Left behind were those who’d agreed to fight. Andy, Walnut, George the Gut, and a motley group of perhaps a hundred gathered from the Docks and the refugees. As usual, men of fighting age were notable by their absence—there were girls who’d helped out the old Leatherbacks, solid older men with gnarled, tanned skin the color of hardwood, boys on the cusp of manhood and Docks women in multicolored skirts. All they had in common was their willingness to defend their homes and an almost total lack of preparation for the rigors of combat.