The Guns of Empire (32 page)

“Yes, sir,” Marcus said.

Janus blinked and looked back at him, his usual smile there and gone again. “Speak to the locals. Ask if anything like this has ever happened before, and how long it lasted. If there
is
a Penitent directing the weather, there must be a limit to his strength.”

“Yes, sir.” Marcus saluted and hurried away.

Truthfully, he was glad to go. Janus had always been a creature of odd habits, but since the destruction of the Murnskai army he'd been acting strange even by his own standards. More and more of the basic work of moving the army—the assignment of routes and objectives, camp placement, and thousands of other details—seemed to no longer be of any interest to Janus and therefore fell onto Marcus' shoulders. Without the help of Giforte and his staff, he would have been completely lost.

As it was the situation was serious—the supply convoys, mired in mud, couldn't replenish food as fast as the army ate it up, and with every bit of transport capacity devoted to rations, stocks of everything else were rapidly dwindling. Horses were dying, abandoned by the side of the road or irretrievably stuck in the mud, and the cutters' ominous warnings of flux and skin rot were quickly being proven accurate. Thus far the change to snow had been a blessing compared to the endless downpour, but Marcus was worried. Even at the height of the day, the sun was only a weak presence through the flat, gray clouds, and at night the sentries had to break a crust of ice on the water barrels.

Andy, limping only slightly now, fell in alongside Marcus as he walked back toward the camp. The halt for the day had only just been called, and the
marked-out grid was still mostly empty, regiments filing in off the road to set up their tents and start cooking their meager dinner.

“Did he tell you anything, sir?” Andy said.

Marcus shook his head. “He wants me to question the locals, find out if anyone remembers anything like this.”

“That could be tricky,” Andy said. “The scouts have been saying that every village they find is empty.”

“Go find Give-Em-Hell,” Marcus said. “Tell him we need to find some Murnskai to talk to, and ideally someone who can translate as well. I doubt they speak much Vordanai this far north.”

“On my way, sir.”

An hour later Marcus, Andy, and Give-Em-Hell were riding east, with a dozen troopers as escort. The cavalry commander had explained that the villages along their line of march were deserted, but people not in the direct path had often chosen to stay in their homes. He'd also produced a Lieutenant Govrosk, a severe-looking young man originally of Murnskai extraction who had enough of the language to make himself useful.

“You've never heard of snow in May?” Marcus asked the lieutenant.

“Wouldn't know, sir,” Govrosk said. “I was born and raised in Vordan, sir. It was only my gran who spoke the old language at home, sir, and she made me learn some of it.”

“Ah.”

They were near enough to the Kovria that the country had turned civilized again. The woods that covered the hillsides showed signs of logging, and long, snaking trails connected the isolated farmsteads. The snow was still coming down, deadening the sound of their horses' hooves. It melted on the ground, adding to the mud, but coated the trees and bushes in a light frosting of white.

“Should be a village another mile up this way,” Give-Em-Hell shouted, riding as usual at the very head of the column. “If this damn map is worth anything, anyway.”

Andy, riding beside him, leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Something feels wrong, sir.”

“Apart from the snow in May?”

“Yes, sir. Apart from that. I thought . . .” She peered into the swirls of snow. “I don't know. I may be imagining things.”

The soft, near-perfect silence felt sinister. Marcus looked around and realized just how little he could actually see.

“You have good eyes,” Marcus said. “Keep them open, and shout if you spot anything.” He was suddenly eager to be done with this whole expedition.
If the village isn't where it's supposed to be, I'm taking us back to the camp.

After a little less than a mile, though, a cluster of crude log buildings loomed out of the snow. There were perhaps a dozen homes, gathered around the inevitable Sworn Church. Judging by the tethered animals and smoke rising from chimneys, the place hadn't yet been abandoned. The small party of Vordanai rode onto the central green, where a carpet of grass was now almost completely covered in white.

“Come out!” Give-Em-Hell shouted. “We won't hurt anyone!” He elbowed Lieutenant Govrosk. “Tell 'em we're not here to hurt anyone, but we want to talk.”

The lieutenant nodded, closed his eyes for a moment to work it out, then shouted something in awkward-sounding Murnskai. Marcus thought he saw a flash of motion behind the shutters of one of the houses, but there was no other response.

“Tell 'em I don't want to start kicking in doors,” Give-Em-Hell said. “But I will if I have to.” He rubbed his hands together. “It's cold out here, damn it.”

Govrosk translated. Again, for a moment, there was no response. Then the door of the house beside the church opened, spilling lamplight onto the green. An old woman, heavily bundled in blankets, stood in the doorway. Someone inside shouted something at her, and she answered in rapid-fire Murnskai.

“What's she saying?” Marcus said.

The lieutenant coughed awkwardly. “The, uh, person in the house is telling her to come back, because everyone knows the Vordanai rape every woman they can catch. The old lady said . . . ah . . .” His face reddened a little. “Roughly, that if we want her privates, we're welcome to them, because that's more than anyone else has for decades.”

By the time this translation was finished, the old woman was marching across the green. Marcus saw a young man in the doorway, looking after her nervously, with a wide-eyed child huddling behind his knees. Getting off his horse, Marcus motioned for Andy and the translator to do likewise, and stepped past the ring of watching troopers to meet the old woman.

“Kdja svet Murnskedj?”
she barked, followed by a quick string of words Marcus couldn't separate.

“She wants to know if we speak Murnskai,” Govrosk said. “Because she can't be bothered to learn any of our heathen tongues.”

“Tell her I'm Column-General Marcus d'Ivoire, of the Grand Army,” Marcus said. “We're not going to hurt anyone from the village. We just wanted to ask her a few questions.”

Govrosk rendered this and waited for the response. A smile flitted across his face.

“She says that she herself is the Crown Prince of Murnsk, and that she's most honored to receive you, General. By rights she ought to spit on you, but she's willing to answer our questions if we agree to leave before one of the young men tries something stupid.”

Marcus chuckled and tried a smile on the old woman. She scowled at him.

“The snow,” Marcus said. “Ask her if it usually snows this late in spring.”

“You must be a southerner,” came the translated response. “All southerners think it's ice and snow up here year-round. What do they think we eat, one another?”

“Has it ever snowed like this that she can remember?” Marcus asked.

“Not here,” the old woman said through Govrosk. “But when I was a girl, I lived in the east, beyond Mohkba. My mother told me stories about the year winter never ended, when it snowed in June and rained all the way through August. The fields were frozen too solid to plant, and the livestock died in the pastures. Half the village starved.”

“Do you know why?” Marcus said. “What happened that year?”

The old woman paused for a moment, then barked something at Govrosk. “She says you wouldn't believe her.”

“Try me.”

The old woman's gaze went distant, staring back across the years. Slowly, she began to speak, and Govrosk frowned.

“She says . . . the count, the local lord, had a beautiful daughter. One day strangers in black masks arrived and ordered him to give her up. The count was clearly frightened, but he refused, and locked the girl away in his tower. The strangers promised that his people would be destroyed if he didn't cooperate, but he persisted. That year summer never came. Her mother said it was the Old Witch of the Ice Woods, that the black masks had brought her to destroy them all. Enough of the villagers believed her that they laid siege to the count's manor. He threw himself from the highest window, and the servants handed over his daughter.”

“And then summer came?” Marcus said.

The old woman shook her head. “No,” Govrosk translated. “The snow
lasted through summer and fall. Only the next year did it become warm, but there was hardly anyone left in the village to see it. Even the crows had frozen to death.”

All year.
It was hard to comprehend power on that scale. The Penitent Damned he'd fought in Vordan had been able to control flames, burning men alive with a glance and stopping musket balls in midair. But to bring snow at midsummer . . .
If it
does
last until winter, we're not the only ones who're going to starve.

The old woman added something more. Govrosk said, “She says it's our fault this time. The Old Witch is cruel, but she is the heart of Murnsk. She will not tolerate an army of foreigners.”

“Tell her she's been very helpful,” Marcus said. “And ask if there's anything we can do for her in return.”

“She says that if we want to be helpful,” Govrosk translated, “we can go straight to—” There was a strange whispering noise. The lieutenant frowned, looked down. “To . . .”

Marcus followed his gaze. Something was jutting out of Govrosk's chest, a wooden stick about a foot long, tipped with feathers. Govrosk put his fingers on it, disbelieving, and sat down heavily in the snow.

Something
hissed
through the air, just in front of Marcus' face.

“Attack!” Andy screamed. “We're under attack!”

White figures appeared from between the houses, materializing like ghosts from the windblown snow. Marcus saw fur, and galloping hooves, and long, curved bows that gleamed like ivory. Another arrow
hissed
into one of the troopers, catching him in the neck. The man reeled in the saddle, blood spurting in long, shockingly crimson arcs, then slid to the ground as his horse reared.

Three of the troopers fired at once, the sound of their carbines shattering the awful silence. The ghostly warriors spurred away, turned, and came on again, snow rippling around them like a cloak. Two of them emerged from around the old woman's house, coming directly toward Marcus, who only then thought to claw his sword from its scabbard.

Andy stepped in front of him, pistol in hand, leveling it at the closer rider. The shot blasted Marcus to his senses. The rider tumbled, sprawling on the ground, and Marcus could see he was only a man after all, a small, pale-skinned figure wrapped around and around with furs. His horse, a shaggy, white-haired animal closer to a pony in size, reared and came to a halt, spoiling the aim of the second rider. His arrow flew wide, but he came on, directly at Andy. Marcus
grabbed her with his free hand and pulled her aside, reaching out at the same time with a wild slash of his sword. He missed the rider, but drew a long cut down the flank of his mount, and the horse's shrill, almost-human scream nearly drowned the sound of more shots.

“We have to get out of here!” Andy said. “There's too many!”

Marcus nodded. Give-Em-Hell had gathered the remaining troopers in a tight bunch, sabers waving, but the riders evaded their attempts to close. As Marcus watched, one trooper broke from the pack to try to ride down one of the white-furred men, only to find his quarry twisting aside at the last moment. As the trooper reined in, another rider came in behind him and put an arrow in his back from only a few feet away. The point burst from his stomach like a horrible growth, and he pitched forward over his horse's neck. Lieutenant Govrosk lay still, and the old woman was collapsed on top of him, the fletching of two arrows sticking up from her back.

Marcus' own horse was nowhere to be seen, but the rearing mount of one of the dead troopers was nearby. He ran to its side and grabbed the reins, struggling to calm the animal. Fortunately, battle-trained cavalry mounts were not prone to panic, and once he got in the saddle, the horse's conditioning reasserted itself. He guided it over to Andy, grabbed her hand, and swung her up behind him.

“Henry!” Marcus shouted. “We're leaving!”

“Retreat?” Give-Em-Hell said incredulously. He had his saber in one hand and a pistol in the other. “Why?”

“That's an order, damn it!” Marcus said. “Follow me,
now
!”

Without waiting for a reply, he turned his mount in a half circle, aiming for a gap in the houses around the green, and applied his spurs. Andy threw her arms around him as they gathered speed, arrows hissing through the air all around. A man in white rose in front of him, swinging an ax, and Marcus ducked the blow and gave the rider a wild slash with his saber. Then they were past the edge of the village, back on the snowy track they'd followed in. The sun was still above the horizon, but the gray clouds made it seem like twilight, and wind-borne snow closed in all around. It had gotten heavier—Marcus couldn't see more than a few dozen feet.

There were more shots, and something flared in the darkness. Flames grew behind Marcus as he rode, rising higher and higher, dancing like strange aurora through the drifting snow.

Give-Em-Hell caught up with them when Marcus reined his mount in a mile or so down the road. The cavalry general was breathing hard, one hand still clutching his saber. His other sleeve was damp with blood. Only two of the troopers were still with him.

“We left some of the men still fighting those bastards,” he roared. “We should turn around and give 'em hell! Who knows what the damn savages will do to them?”