The Guns of Empire

by Django Wexler

  Winter found it too quiet for her liking. The snow smothered sound, and it seemed as though the noises they made—the breath of the horses, the creak and jingle of tack, the steady crunch of hooves on snow—were the only disturbances in an endless, silent world. Trees rose all around them, trunks like black columns extending up out of the lantern’s reach. The Penitent’s trail was harder to find in the dark and over the uneven ground, but the wooden stakes continued to mark the path.

  They caught up to Farah just after midnight. She and her horse had taken shelter in the lee of a particularly massive pine, where the snow was thin. Farah, a skinny, dark-haired woman, offered a sloppy salute and a grin.

  “Was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” she said, with a broad Transpale accent. “Got this far before the sun set, an’ I don’t trust myself not to lose the trail in the dark. We can pick it up again once the sun comes up.”

  “Thank you, Ranker Igniz,” Winter said, then raised her voice. “Thank you all. You know I wouldn’t ask you to do this if it weren’t important. We couldn’t tell the army what had happened, but you deserve to know.”

  She related a simplified version of the day’s events, leaving out any reference to demons and magic. A Church assassin had poisoned Janus and had to be tracked down in order to recover the antidote. There were gasps and muttered curses.

  “Get some sleep,” Winter said when they quieted. “We get back on the trail at dawn.”

  —

  In some strange way, in spite of how unnatural it was, this version of Murnsk felt right. It was the Murnsk of stories and penny operas, a frozen wasteland of trees and snow, with no trace of civilization. Winter almost laughed when she realized she was looking around with a kind of satisfaction.

  The forest was dark, even during the day. Between the canopy overhead, where wilting leaves still clung, and the omnipresent gray clouds, the sun only managed to wash the land in a weak gray twilight. The snow seemed to glow in the semidarkness, startlingly white, with the tree trunks dark, shadowy shapes against it.

  Winter’s back and sides already ached. She’d managed a few hours of fitful sleep, curled inside coat and blanket against a tree. After a breakfast of dried meat, hardtack, and water, they were in the saddle again, following Farah and Margaret.

  Worse than the saddle pains, though, was her left hand. She’d gotten only a brief glimpse of it—red and steaming as it thawed, most of the skin torn away or hanging in strips—before Hanna had bound it up again. The cutter had said much of the damage was superficial, and she’d retain the use of it, though it would likely be seriously scarred. It hurt like the jaws of the Beast, though, a constant burning pain, and she had to fight the urge to scratch it through the dressing. She barely had enough flex in her bound fingers to hold the reins of her horse.

  She’d left Edgar behind, partly because his easygoing nature was poorly suited to this sort of chase, and partly out of sentimentality; they might have to abandon horses for lack of fodder if the chase went on long enough, and she wasn’t sure she could stand to leave Edgar alone in the snow. Instead, she had a young, excitable mare with a name she hadn’t learned, whose energy was a trial to manage after Edgar’s placidity. She had endurance, though, which was more important than comfort. Slogging through the snow was no easier on horses than on humans.

  If we’d had time, we could have built a sledge. Her thoughts were drifting. Carry more supplies that way. Maybe I could ride with the boxes. Winter blew out a long breath, watching the dragon’s spume of steam puff away. It was hard to focus—the white forest and the plod of the horses had an almost hypnotic effect. So little changed, they might have been riding in circles.

  We’ll catch her. The Penitent had only one mount and no extra fodder. She was wounded. She can’t get far.

  “Sir?”

  Winter tightened her left hand. The spike of pain woke her up a little; she blinked and found Farah riding beside her.

  “Ranker Igniz,” she said. “Has something changed?”

  “You’d better have a look at this.”

  —

  The dead horse lay sprawled in the snow, a red slurry surrounding its throat, long furrows dug by its final kicks.

  “This is the one the Penitent was riding?” Winter said.

  Farah nodded. She and Margaret were crouched by the corpse. The rest of the party was well to the rear, to avoid disturbing the snow.

  “It’s one of ours, anyway,” Farah said. “Can’t be Murnskai; they use different shoes. And it’s certainly not one of the white riders’.”

  “All right.” Winter stared at the dead animal. There was foam around its mouth. “She rode it hard, and when it couldn’t go any farther, she cut its throat.”

  “We think she spent the night here,” Margaret said. “The snow’s scooped out over by that tree, see?”

  Winter looked for the sun and couldn’t find it through the trees. It can’t be much past two or three in the afternoon, though. If the Penitent had spent the night here, they were only half a day behind.

  “Here’s the bad news.” Farah pointed past the corpse. The snow was churned up, as though by the passage of many feet. A few outlying tracks showed a strange crosshatched shape, instead of the U-shaped horseshoe Winter was familiar with. “Those are the white riders. Not deep enough to be anything heavier than their ponies.”

  “When?” Winter said.

  “Sometime today.”

  “Then we’re even closer. She waited here until they came for her.”

  Margaret frowned. “It’s hard to tell how many, but there were at least a dozen of them. Maybe more. Maybe a lot more, if they’re deliberately taking care with their trail.” She glanced back at their two dozen. “And if they split up, we won’t know which way the Penitent went.”

  “We’ll deal with that when it happens.” Winter turned back to the group. “Alex! A moment, please?”

  Alex, nearly as inexpert a rider as Winter herself, brought her mount over. Cavalry horses were trained not to shy at the sight of blood, but it still gave a few uncomfortable snorts.

  “Can you feel anything?” Winter said, keeping her voice low.

  “Apart from you?” Alex closed her eyes, turning her head slowly from side to side. “It’s hard to say. Maybe just a hint.”

  “If we can’t get close enough to sense her soon, she won’t need fresh snow to get away,” Winter said. “Keep trying, and tell me when you’ve got something for certain.”

  “Got it.” Alex glanced at the trail, then at the sky. “We’re west of the Pilgrim’s Road now. There’s inns along the way, but they’re staying clear of that. I bet they’re taking the direct route to Elysium.”

  “How far is that?”

  “At this pace?” Alex shrugged. “Five, maybe six days.”

  “We have to catch them before then.” Winter raised her voice. “Red! We’re moving out. Can we pick up the pace?”

  “Yes, sir,” the sergeant said. “It’ll be hard on the poor beasties, though.”

  “Do it. If we lose the assassin, this is all for nothing.”

  “Right.” The sergeant’s voice boomed through the frozen forest. “Move out!”

  —

  RAESINIA

  “Janus?” Raesinia said. “Can you hear me?”

  Janus bet Vhalnich, First Consul of the Kingdom of Vordan, lay shirtless on his camp bed under a thin blanket. A rag, packed with snow from outside, sat on his forehead, dripping melt-water into his hairline. The wound on his cheek was a scabbed red line, widened under Hanna’s exploratory scalpel.

  His eyes were open, but they didn’t seem to be looking at anything in the tent. They flicked from side to side, as though watching something move in the heavens beyond the canvas roof.

  “Hear . . .” he muttered. “Who? Who’s there?”

  “It’s me,”
Raesinia said. “Raesinia.”

  “Raesinia.” Janus’ brow creased. “Poor girl. Dead, dead, and doesn’t know it. Poor girl.”

  “Janus?” Raesinia said. “Can you understand me?”

  “Help her.” Janus blinked, heavy lidded. “How can I help her? Only one way to help the dead. Stuck in the dark. Mya . . . all of them . . . stuck in the dark.” He let out a long breath that sounded like a sob. “Stuck in the dark. I’m sorry. So sorry . . . I should have . . .”

  His eyes closed. Raesinia watched him breathe for a moment, slow and regular, and then felt his cheek. The skin was hot to the touch, and the melting snow mixed with beads of sweat.

  Who was Mya? The name meant nothing to her. Someone who died, obviously. Like me.

  She stood up, pulled her coat tighter, and left the tent. Hanna was waiting outside.

  “He’s asleep again.”

  “Was he talking?” the cutter said.

  “A little. But he wasn’t making much sense.”

  “Fever,” Hanna said. “Keep talking to him, if you get the chance. When a fever dream goes on for too long, people can get lost in it. Talking to them is supposed to help.”

  “I will.”

  The command tent, just across the way, was ringed by Colonial guards, just like the tent that had become Janus’ sickroom. Marcus was taking no chances on the possibility of a second attack. They bowed to Raesinia, and she pushed her way through the tent flap. A fire in one corner kept the temperature tolerable. The chairs around the map table were all pulled out, and Marcus stood at the top of the map, looking down with a pained expression.

  “How did it go?” Raesinia said.

  “They’re all worried,” Marcus said. He’d been meeting with the division-generals. “We’ve put out that there was an attack and Janus was wounded, but that he’ll recover. Everyone’s still a little shocked, but I’m not sure what will happen once that wears off.”

  “No word from Winter?”

  “Not yet.” He looked up at her. “How is he?”

  “Conscious, sometimes, but not really lucid. He doesn’t seem like he’s in pain, but he’s still burning up.”

  “Damn.” Marcus rubbed his eyes. Deep, bruise-colored bags sagged beneath them; he hadn’t been getting much sleep. “Well, the good news is the white riders seem to have stopped raiding our pickets.”

  “Why?”

  “I assume because they’ve figured out they can hurt us more elsewhere. That’s about the only good news. They’re hitting nearly every supply convoy out of Polkhaiz, even with cavalry escorts. At the rate we’re losing horses, we’re going to have to cut rations again soon. They’re losing plenty of men, too, but they don’t seem to care.” He looked back down at the map, and his fists tightened. “This damn snow. Balls of the fucking Beast.”

  “Marcus.” Raesinia straightened one of the chairs and sat down. “Listen to me for a minute.”

  He looked back at her, seeming to see her for the first time. “Sorry. It’s just . . .” He gestured helplessly at the map. “I don’t know what to do.”

  You do, Raesinia thought. You just don’t want to admit it.

  She wished that Dorsay or Whaler had been in touch. They were the enemy, of course, but an enemy she could come to an accommodation with, unlike the white riders or the implacable cold. Given the weather and the dangers on the roads, though, it was unlikely they’d risk trying to make contact. She wondered, for the hundredth time, whether she ought to tell Marcus about her meetings with Dorsay, and for the hundredth time decided not to. Not yet.

  “If we go down to half rations right away,” Marcus said, flipping through a few loose pages scattered on the table, “then that buys us a little leeway. Maybe a week. I’ll tell Give-Em-Hell to use every trooper he’s got and blast the Polkhaiz road open. Start by pushing as much fodder through as we can. The men can go hungry longer than the horses. After that—”

  “After that?” Raesinia said. “Suppose it all works. What happens then?”

  “We buy time,” Marcus said. “If Janus recovers, if Winter tracks down this Penitent, then he might be able to come up with something. Or maybe whoever is bringing us the snow runs out of power and the weather goes back to what it ought to be. Something.”

  “What if we don’t get any breaks?” Raesinia said.

  “There has to be something,” Marcus repeated. “Janus wouldn’t have brought us here if he didn’t have a plan.”

  “Janus is unconscious,” Raesinia said. “If he has a plan, he didn’t tell anyone.” She paused. “If we stretch things out as far as we can and things don’t go our way, how are we going to get back to Polkhaiz? That’s a week’s march over bad ground.”

  “I know.”

  “What’s the longest we can stay, if we want to keep enough of a reserve to get us back before we starve?”

  Raesinia knew the answer to this, because she’d gone to Giforte that morning and gotten him to work it out. She knew he’d provided the figures to Marcus, too, but it was important to make him say it.

  I could order him to march. With Janus hurt, he’d probably listen, but I might lose him afterward. The thought of that was painful, and she had to persuade herself that it wasn’t entirely for personal reasons. I need Marcus. There’s no one else the army trusts more.

  He let out a breath. “If we want to keep everyone on full rations, we ought to have left the day before yesterday,” he said at last. “Tomorrow if we go to half rations.”

  “Then I don’t think we have a choice anymore.”

  Marcus closed his eyes. “Janus—”

  “Janus isn’t in command right now,” Raesinia said. “You are.”

  “You don’t understand. If he wakes up and finds out I ordered a retreat . . .” Marcus shook his head. “You didn’t hear him talk about it. He’d never forgive me if he brought us this far and I ruined everything.”

  “Marcus,” Raesinia said gently. “You know where your responsibility is.”

  “To Vordan.” He looked up guiltily. “To you.”

  “More than that. The lives of everyone in this army are in your hands. You owe it to them to do whatever has the best chance of getting them home alive.” She put on a slightly more formal tone. “Column-General, in your professional military opinion, is it possible to maintain the army in its current position?”

  Marcus straightened automatically, lip curving in a very slight smile. “No, Your Majesty.”

  “Then please take steps to rectify the situation.”

  He inclined his head. “Yes, Your Majesty. I understand.”

  —

  “Orders have just gone out,” Sothe reported. “We cross the river in the morning.”

  “Thank God.” Raesinia let her head loll back. “Why do I feel like that Penitent Damned did us all a favor?”

  She wasn’t sure how to make sense of her emotions anymore. It felt like a dish of paint with everything swirled together, relief and worry and guilt, all at once. And a faint sense of cowardice, to boot. She’d never had to put her plans into action, to take Dorsay’s bargain. Could I really have done that, before the end?

  Sothe said nothing. The assassin had been brooding—brooding more than usual, anyway, Raesinia silently amended—since the Penitent’s escape.

  “Marcus is going to be more important than ever,” Raesinia said. “Whether Janus recovers or not, Marcus is going to be our hold on the army, which means we need a hold on him. Once we get back in touch with Vordan, I want you to start a search.”

  “A search?” Sothe looked up. “What for?”

  “His sister. Marcus has a little sister—did you know that? Apparently she disappeared in one of Orlanko’s plots, but he’s certain she’s still alive. Looking for her is part of what Janus promised him. I’d like us to find her first.”

  “His . . . sist
er.” Sothe had a distant look in her eyes.

  “Are you all right?” Raesinia said. “You’re certain that Penitent didn’t touch you? Even a speck of that poison could be deadly.”

  “I’m . . . fine.” Sothe shook her head. “Just thinking. I’ve been thinking too much lately.”

  “Do you know anything about Marcus’ sister?”

  “No,” Sothe said. “But I imagine I can find out.”

  INTERLUDE

  PONTIFEX OF THE BLACK

  The handler, a sniveling little weasel of a priest, cowered under the blank stare of the black-masked Pontifex.

  “It’s the snow,” he said. “Our scouts haven’t been able to make much headway. And the tribesmen aren’t much for writing reports.”

  “It’s not a complicated question,” the Black said. “Is Vhalnich’s army still camped by the Kovria?”

  “We think so,” the handler whined. “But I can’t say for certain. Not with the snow.”

  “But,” the Black said, “she is certain.”

  He turned to the demon-host, a girl in her middle teens. She wore a shapeless gray robe, her hair shaved to stubble, and she sat in her chair with a slack expression. Her demon didn’t have its own name, only a designation, Sensitive #74. She was, the handler assured him, the best they currently had.

  “She’s always been accurate in the past,” the handler said. “We’ve run tests.”

  “Ask her again.”

  The priest looked like he was going to argue, then thought better of it, sensing the pontifex’s mood in spite of the mask that concealed his expression. He knelt beside the girl and whispered in her ear, fragments of words that sounded like nothing but nonsense to the pontifex. The girl started to speak, equally unintelligibly.

  The Black gritted his teeth. Sensitives achieved their maximum potential when they were bonded to demons young, but the process interfered with their ordinary mental development. They required handlers to care for them and interpret their reports, and he was always suspicious that some inaccuracies were introduced during translation. Like so many other things, a double-edged sword, but one that was too useful to do without.