Which was a fair question, if not one you addressed to your supreme commander.
“Get Captain Railes and BlackShield Jarl Lago,” I demanded. “And sound the alarm - Yoshana’s planning a surprise attack. And get me a chair.”
That well and truly kicked over the anthill. The sentry rushed off. Horns sounded, a few at first, then throughout the camp. Men tumbled out of bedrolls, dragging on armor and sword belts. The tumult was deafening. If I was wrong, it was going to be a long night, and I was going to be really unpopular in the morning.
The sentry came rushing back with a whole squad. I suspect he didn’t really recognize me and had realized there was at least one Select on the other side. I didn’t mind - someone had brought a folding camp chair, and I collapsed into it.
A Paladin came stomping up soon after, a company captain whose name I didn’t remember. He was a thickly built man, past middle age. He seemed to know me. At least, he saluted. “Judge Minos.”
“Captain. Sorry, I’m not able to stand.”
He looked me up and down. “What has happened, Judge Minos?”
“I’m pretty sure Yoshana’s going to hit us tonight. Oh, and someone shot me in the leg.”
“Where is the medic?” His tone was accusing.
“It’s already splinted up. I’m not sure there’s much else -”
“Where is the medic?” he roared at the squad of soldiers. Four of them bolted in different directions to find one.
“I apologize, Judge Minos. Perhaps the men forgot you no longer have the power of the Darkness at your command.” He stared into my eyes. “Perhaps you forgot as well. Do we have no scouts, that you must reconnoiter enemy positions yourself?”
That drew a wry smile from me. “We certainly have scouts. But there are some things I do have to do myself.”
“Ah.” The Paladin squatted next to me, still holding my eyes. He stuck out a thick-fingered hand, clenched in a fist. “In my hand I have a talisman that will make a general win any battle against any foe.”
I stretched out my palm, wondering what he held, and he opened his. It was empty.
“There’s nothing there.”
“Just so. Trust in God’s will, Judge Minos. The outcome is in his hands, not yours.”
“I’m trying to do that.”
“Good.” He brushed my cheek gently with rough fingers as he stood.
“Judge Minos!” BlackShield Jarl Lago thundered. “By God, where have you been? What have you done?”
Railes came puffing up behind the Monolith commander. He was half the BlackShield’s age, but Lago hadn’t been stabbed in the lung with a spear.
“Did you see Roshel, boss? Was she buying what you were selling?” he asked. I shrugged. I wished I knew.
Lago turned on my adjutant. “Roshel? He went to see that - that -” Words seemed to fail him. “And you let him?”
“He is our commanding officer. And in case you hadn’t noticed, he’s a little stubborn.”
“Judge Minos, this is not wise. This meeting with the enemy. Combined with the use of the Darkness, it could create doubts…”
“For the men, BlackShield, or for you?” I was more snappish than I should have been. “I understand the morale issues as well as the moral issues, but there’s only so much time I can spend managing people’s feelings. I’m trying to keep us alive.”
“At what cost, Judge Minos? At the cost of our souls?” Even by the torchlight I could tell his face was turning red.
“Leave the boy be, Black,” said the other Paladin. “He is tired and wounded.”
“He is no boy, Therac!”
“He is, Black.”
“He cannot afford to be! We cannot afford for him to be! We all depend on him.”
“Just so, Black. So he was explaining to me. And so he acts accordingly. I told him that it were better for him to depend on God. Must I explain the same to you? Ah, here is the medic.” And with that, the Paladin gathered up the troops with a wave of his hand and marched off.
Lago blew out air and looked at me sidelong. “I sometimes wonder if Third GrayShield Tabra Therac is a saint. To be honest, he is not the cleverest soldier I know. But sometimes…”
I smiled. “If he is a saint, you might ask him to pray for us. We’re getting to the point where that’s looking like our best option.”
The BlackShield nodded. “I will see to the deployment of the men. Captain Railes, will you inform the Shadowed Hand?”
And the two of them left me alone with the medic. He’d clearly been hoping to get some rest before casualties started coming in and was not pleased to be hauled out of bed to tend to my leg.
“Get up,” he ordered, and shoved my crutch into my hands. With no further words he guided me, limping, into a tent, and helped me crawl up onto a wooden table. I was pretty sure he could have been gentler if he’d been in a better mood. When I let loose a cry as he probed the wound, he gave me a leather strip.
“Bite that,” he said absently, then went back to poking at me. I wasn’t sure how much he could see by the lamplight in the tent, and that might have accounted for some of the pain… but I still suspected a lot of it was bad temper.
“You are lucky, sir.”
“Hmm?” I grunted around the gag.
“The kneecap is cracked, and there were some bone splinters stuck in the leg. I think I have removed them all. It could have been much worse.”
It certainly didn’t feel like it could have been much worse. But it sounded like I’d caught a break. “How long until it recovers?”
“Recovers? Do you mean fully? Oh, never. If you stay off it for two months or so, you will walk again. But you will be limping for the rest of your life.”
That didn’t sound like so much of a break after all. I felt a quick flash of regret that I hadn’t let Roshel heal me.
“Two months off my feet isn’t going to happen. There’s a war out there.”
I could see his sour expression clearly in the lamplight. “Yes, sir. I imagine we will be well supplied with wounded soon enough.”
“Can you splint it back up like it was before? So I can at least get around on a crutch?”
“Yes, sir. But -”
“What were you thinking?” Prophetess demanded, bursting into the tent. “Sneaking off in the night to see that - woman?”
That woman? As if I’d gone out on a date? “Still trying to stop a war,” I snapped. “It seemed like a better idea than waiting around for all of us to be massacred by a superior force.”
“And it worked so well. You’re wounded again, and the men are preparing for a fight.”
“I wasn’t going to be carving a great, glorious swath through the enemy with two good legs, and I found out there’s probably an attack coming. How is discovering that a bad thing?”
We glared at each other. The medic bound up my knee again and began working on a better splint while pretending to be deaf. Since he was a Monolith soldier, he no doubt thought Tess was right and I was an idiot at best, a heretic at worst. I glared at him too.
“Minos, you’ve got to trust -”
“Yes, that was just explained to me. I can trust as if everything depends on God, but I still have to act as if everything depends on me.”
“Don’t go quoting saints at me.”
“Said the prophet.”
We glared at each other some more.
“Minos, you’re going to get hurt.” Her voice broke. “You’re going to get killed. And I need you.”
It seemed that my heart stopped for a moment. “You’ve got other generals. Some of them are probably smarter than I am.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
The medic was trying even harder to pretend he was deaf. But whatever Prophetess might have added was interrupted by a soldier throwing wide the tent flap. I’d had more privacy out in the open.
“Judge Minos! Some kind of action in the enemy camp!”
My stomach did a slow somersault. I wasn’t en
joying being right. I looked at the medic. He wasn’t done with the splint. He shrugged and said, “I need several more minutes or your kneecap will split down the middle with the first step you take.”
That must have been an exaggeration given I’d already taken quite a few steps, but I wasn’t eager to press my luck. Or hobble on crutches to the top of the hill that would be the best vantage point. Maybe it really was time to sit back and let other people run around.
“I’m not going anywhere I can see the action any time soon,” I told the man who’d reported the enemy activity. “Make sure BlackShield Jarl Lago is informed, and set up some relays to get information to me. But the BlackShield has operational command.”
The soldier saluted. “Yes, sir.”
After he’d left, Prophetess said, “You do realize they will have gone to Lago already? These are Monolith troops. You said it yourself, there are plenty of competent officers. You don’t have to do everything.”
“Not everything. But some things. Are you done with that?” I asked the medic.
He nodded.
“Thank you. Then how about you hand me my crutch and help me get back into that chair outside, and let’s see what’s going on.”
Cat was outside with a half dozen of the Shadowed Hand.
“Where’s the rest of her guards?” I demanded.
“Tent.” Cat jerked her chin over her shoulder. Of course Tess would have stormed off as soon as she’d heard about my escapade, leaving confusion in her wake. Now her bodyguards were divided, and she was exposed.
“Get her back there. If this starts to go wrong, the whole Shadowed Hand makes a break for Our Lady with her. That includes the Hidden Moon Clan and Furat and his dog. Keep the dog as close to her as you can.”
“Minos -” Tess protested.
“Shut up and for once in your life do what I say. The rest of us are expendable. You’re not. Our Lady can hold, with you in it.”
Tess swallowed hard. In the torchlight she looked young and vulnerable and not much like a powerful religious icon. She looked like I felt - like someone too young who’d bitten off more than they could chew.
“Is it going to go wrong?” she asked quietly.
I took a deep breath and held it a while before I answered. “If they hit us, it’s not going to go well. They’ve got us outnumbered and outgunned. They’ll hit us with the Darkness. Lago’s troops are tough and they’ve got some experience dealing with this kind of thing…” Courtesy of me, when we’d been on opposite sides.
“There’s a lot that can happen in a battle,” I continued. “But yeah. If they’re really coming, it’s probably going to go wrong. So how about you go somewhere relatively safe and get ready to run.”
Tess opened her mouth but didn’t see anything.
Cat gently took her elbow and, to my amazement, Tess actually allowed herself to be led away. I let out a long sigh of relief and collapsed into my folding chair. She was as well defended as I could make her. It really was in God’s hands now.
The bulk of the hill loomed dark in front of me and the reports dribbled in. It was agonizing to know that despite the line of couriers the troops set up between me and the hilltop, the news was a minute behind the action. And any questions I asked had a two minute turnaround time before they could be answered. Every few minutes, I considered struggling to my feet and limping to the top of that hill. Every time, pain convinced me otherwise. Instead I gritted my teeth and listened as bits of news and fragments of panicked speculation dribbled down from above. I had to hope not too much was distorted in the relay. More than that, I had to hope BlackShield Jarl Lago was directing the troops more effectively than I could.
I never even learned the name of the soldier at the end of the courier chain who reported to me, and in the dark I couldn’t see his face. I wouldn’t have recognized him in daylight. He was just a disembodied voice that brought the fragmentary news of our coming doom, and sometimes sent back my ineffectual questions.
“More fires alight in the enemy center.”
“Movement. It looks like they are forming up.”
“Yes, on the wings too. Not as fast as the center, though.”
“Some confusion on the wings.” I allowed myself to hope. Had Roshel refused to join the battle?
“No, now they are forming as well.”
So I’d failed. The whole of the Darkness Radiant was massing. I sent orders to Railes, telling him to escape with Prophetess at the first sign our lines were buckling. I toyed with the idea of dispatching Furat and Sam to the right wing and the survivors of the Hidden Moon Clan to the left. They couldn’t stop us from being flanked by the Darkness, but those forces would have the best chances of detecting and countering it. But in the end I decided against it. I needed them with Tess. Instead we would have to make do with the Monolith rangers. I gave commands that almost certainly duplicated Lago’s and probably reinforced the view that I was a waste of flesh.
“Yes sir, we are dug in all along the line.”
“Yes sir, the torches are set.”
“Sir! Something strange in the enemy center. Fire, sir. Well, yes, sir, they have always had torches and bonfires, sir. I am not sure, sir. I will find out, sir.”
“Almost like an explosion. That is what he said, sir.”
“The wings! The wings are moving! They are coming!” I considered sending the retreat order to the Shadowed Hand immediately. We weren’t likely to withstand the full force of the Darkness Radiant for long. But pulling Prophetess out would shatter morale and doom four thousand men. If we held against their first thrust, there was a small chance they wouldn’t have the stomach for a full-scale battle in the dark. I held back.
“No incoming fire yet, sir. No, sir, no outgoing either. It cannot be long, sir.” Even in the dark, I could see the courier’s eyes wide with fear. These men had faced me and the Shadowed Hand at the Battle of the Cleansing, but Yoshana was something else altogether. I considered asking how our troops were holding up, but just asking the question would make things worse. I bit my tongue and waited.
And then, “They have pulled back, sir!”
What? Did we dare hope - a reprieve? Even - a victory?
“Yes, sir. Their wings have withdrawn. They have broken contact with us. Reformed a quarter of a mile back. They are not attacking, sir. They are not attacking!”
There was a kind of collective gasp of relief throughout the camp. The bulk of Yoshana’s forces had pulled back, leaving only the center element facing us - two thousand of her eight thousand troops. They were Knights of Resurrection, her most fanatical corps, but only half our number, with the hill between them and us. They’d have to come over it, split to go around it, or expose their flank if they picked one side or the other. With Grigg and Roshel’s men sitting out the battle, Yoshana didn’t have the strength to face us.
Railes came running up fifteen minutes later, wheezing like an old tea kettle. “By God, you did it, Minos! Your idiot plan actually worked.”
I had to smile. “Looks like it. Send Furat and the Hidden Moon Clan to help keep an eye on their wings, though. It would be just like Yoshana to let us think that and then swing around behind. Make sure they aren’t sneaking forces off into the trees, and make sure the sentries stay alert.”
The captain grinned. “Go teach your grandmother to suck eggs. Sir. But BlackShield Lago has released the bulk of the troops to rest.”
There was a question in that last phrase, though it wasn’t framed as one. I nodded. “Yes. Let the men get some sleep. We’ll see what tomorrow brings… tomorrow.”
Amazing! It seemed Roshel had listened, and not just that, but convinced Grigg as well. My body slumped, weak with relief. In some ways, we had achieved nothing beyond what Yoshana had first offered a year ago. Neutrality for Our Lady while she contended with the Hellguard and the Darkness. But on our terms now, the bulk of her troops refusing to meet us in the field. After she defeated her enemies to the east - if she defeated them -
the Overlord wouldn’t find it so easy to turn on us. Or so I hoped. So I needed to believe, if the deaths of Seven and Midnight Owl and dozens of others weren’t to have been for nothing.
I fell asleep in my chair in the warm night, and wasn’t troubled by dreams.
Someone was shaking me. There were trumpets and drums, and shouts, and gunshots. I blinked my eyes over and over in the gray light that came just before dawn. I wasn’t sure where I was, or why I might be there.
“Judge Minos! Judge Minos!” A soldier had my shoulder, shaking it none too gently. I was still sitting in my chair. A low lying mist clung to the camp, blurring anything more than a hundred feet away into a haze. Awareness flooded in. The calm of the night before was shattered. We were in battle.
“Oh God, Judge Minos, they have unleashed hell itself! A demon serves them, a monster that cannot be killed, it is in our ranks, they have attacked, we cannot hold them!”
I struggled upright in the chair, trying to keep up with the flood of the man’s babble. A demon? Were some of the Hellguard supporting Yoshana? Had Grigg and Roshel turned on us after all? The man’s panic was in danger of infecting me. I could feel my pulse pounding in my temples. My knee and the wound on my face throbbed in sympathy.
“Pull yourself together and report properly,” I snapped. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Wilm, sir.”
“Wilm. All right, Wilm, are we engaged by the whole enemy army or just their center corps?”
“Just the center, sir, but we cannot stop them, the monster -”
“Hold up, Wilm. This monster. How big? What’s it look like?”
“It is huge, sir. Arms longer than a man’s body, and it cannot be stopped nor killed -”
“It’s Pious,” Railes said. I hadn’t seen or heard him come up, even though he was gasping again. “He’s got the Darkness in him. Must have. He’s five times as strong as he was, and bullets don’t stop him.”
“God damn it.” I grabbed my crutch and levered myself to my feet, then regretted both the phrase and the action. I stopped and sucked in a deep breath. “Yoshana had all the Darkness she took from Seven. She must have put it in Pious.”
Passing Through Darkness- The Complete Cycle Page 71