The Stealers' War (34 page)

Carter tried not to flinch from the strangeness of the injury. He picked up one of the pegs of kindling waiting to be tossed into the fire pit and held the wood out to Sariel. ‘Grip this between your teeth or you’ll bite your tongue off.’

Sariel shook his head. ‘Am I a stallion that needs a bit for his tack? Pain is in the mind and I am the master of mine. Seal my wound, Lord Carnehan, and be done with it.’

Carter took the sword. The hilt had been bound in leather to make its grip sure enough to swing from horseback, but he still felt the intense heat creeping down the blade. ‘You are certain . . . ?’

‘Be done.’

Carter lowered the sword and pressed the flat of the blade on the wound and there was a hiss of burning flesh. Sariel grimaced but didn’t groan, let alone scream. Oddly, no stench came from the flesh, as there should have been from a normal man’s wound. Carter drew the blade away. Below, a rise of angry, scarred flesh was left across Sariel’s skin, but no more bleeding.

‘That’s a damnable useful trick,’ said Carter.

‘It is no trick! The knack of fire healing was imparted to me by—’

‘Atamva!’ cried a voice behind them.

Carter wheeled around. A line of twenty Nijumeti warriors stood in a semicircle around the clearing, their chests bare and blue, a display of large muscles as hard as stone. Unnervingly, the savages had appeared as silently and unseen as a morning mist. Carter still held the sword in his hand, but his rifle lay on the ground where he had tossed it over to Fetterman. Those they faced had their bows raised towards Carter, each sinuous weapon curved like an ‘M’, left hand clutching the wood’s decorative leather covering, right hand holding a notched arrow steady.
I’ll be a pin-cushion if I even try to rush them
. Carter reluctantly lowered his blade towards the leaf-strewn soil.

‘What do we have here?’ said one Nijumet stepping forward. He was older than the other nomads and he carried no bow.
Their leader?
‘Thieves fallen out amongst themselves? One a corpse in the grave, one a pup and the last an ancient weirdling who bleeds butter-cream?’

‘I am no thief,’ said Carter.

‘No insult, here. You steal our air and pollute our land by your very presence,’ said the nomad. ‘At least have the spirit to raid our cattle as well.’

‘We need no more thralls,’ barked one of the bowmen standing behind the patrol leader. ‘Kill the boy and let me burn the weirdling to ashes. That will be an end to his sorcerous tricks.’

‘If you know enough to burn me,’ said Sariel, ‘you also know that you will be leaving an unquiet spirit for Annayla the Moon Goddess to dispatch to seek vengeance.’

There was a murmur of discontent among the nomads that a foreign invader should know of their clan’s ways.

‘He
is
a weirdling,’ said the leader. ‘You remember what Temmell had instructed for such as he.’

‘We have too many foreign devils inside our land now,’ said the bowman. Carter wasn’t sure if the warrior was agreeing with the leader or arguing with him. Everything these people said sounded like a boast or the start of a quarrel. ‘Too many that arrive unwanted from the sky. Too many who trespass by land. Too many thralls as slaves these days. Bad enough that we must suffer those filthy traders from Hellin.’

‘Temmell has spoken for the Krul of Kruls,’ barked the leader. ‘Which would you disobey first?’

‘Am I a fool? So be it, then.’

The nomad leader drew his knife and jabbed its razored point towards Carter and Sariel. ‘You are to meet your death. Both of you!’

‘What are you so happy about?’ demanded Duncan, ducking back as a shot cracked off the rock he sheltered behind.

‘Happy? This is bread and butter to me, lad,’ said Paetro.

Duncan risked a quick glance down the slope. It was hard to tell where the shot had originated from on the other side of the valley.
It looks like there are defenders in the village, inside the wind-harbour and among the rocks of valley walls.
‘I prefer to take my breakfast with a smaller helping of gunpowder.’

‘Well, maybe we wouldn’t be first to the table every time if Prince Gyal hadn’t taken against you,’ accused old Kenem Posda.

‘Watch your tongue,’ barked Paetro.

‘You don’t have to defend me,’ said Duncan. ‘Kenem’s right. This isn’t a coincidence. Every time there’s a fresh assault, we’re ordered to act as the tip of the spear. Prince Gyal’s trying to get me killed. It makes me wish he’d just do things the Vandian way and arrange for some assassins to stick a knife in my back inside the camp one dark night.’
I don’t even know why Gyal is jealous of me. I’ve been exiled to the end of the world. He’s the one who will be going back to Helrena, not me.

Kenem Posda spat against the rock; the kind of sound that made it clear that he could easily regard Duncan’s assassination as the best way out of serving on a permanent suicide squad, too.

‘This
is
the Vandian way,’ said Charia Wyon, assembling her long-rifle inside the cover of the small cave they had found. It was a confined space. They hadn’t been left much room, not with forty legionaries and house troops taking shelter inside. ‘Someone slips a dagger in your spine, Princess Helrena will be asking why and who. If these mountain barbarians do the job for Gyal instead, there’s no questions asked. No starting a new reign together with a little seed of mistrust at the centre of the Diamond Court.’

Except maybe, why did I have to exile Duncan and get him killed
? But Duncan knew that he was flattering himself.
Once Helrena is sitting on the imperial throne, I’ll just be some forgotten far-called ex-lover of hers. Maybe me being dead would make things easier for her too. But then, who else is there to rescue Cassandra from the clans apart from faithful Duncan Landor?

‘Well, neither of those two has been crowned yet,’ grumbled Kenem.

‘Saying no to a woman is a dangerous thing at the best of times,’ said Charia. ‘Saying no to an imperial princess of the celestial caste, doubly so. What the hell would you have done, Kenem Posda?’

‘Chance would be a fine thing at my age.’

Paetro risked a peek over the rocks, another shot ricocheting off the granite. ‘At least Gyal is trying to get us killed the right way, now.’

‘This is the right way?’ said Duncan, disturbed.

‘Pushing up the Pilgrim’s Way with land forces, securing the route to Hadra-Hareer village by village, wind-harbour by wind-harbour, only leap-frogging on helos when Rodal’s cursed mountain storms aren’t raging. Concentrating superior forces against our backward enemy. Slow, steady, nothing flashy. It’s what we should have done from the start. If we had, we never would have lost
The Caller
. Wouldn’t have lost a quarter of our forces in the assault on Hadra-Hareer.’

‘We were promised a quick, easy war by Gyal,’ said Kenem.

‘Isn’t that the promise of every campaign?’ said Paetro. ‘How many easy wars have you experienced, old man? Use the fingers on your left hand and come back to me when you reach your thumb.’

Duncan said nothing, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t a coincidence their revised battle plan had arrived along with the cunning head of the Imperium’s secret police. It was heartening to see that Apolleon was good for something other than his obsession with hunting down Sariel Skel-bane.

‘Gyal’s idiot strategy saw my sister killed,’ said Charia. ‘I swear, I see him out on the battlefield and . . .’ She patted her long-barrelled sniper’s rifle meaningfully.

‘Stow the mutinous squawking,’ ordered Paetro. ‘A battlefield has ears to hear more than the squeal of a legionary’s dying.’

‘You never stood by while some careless glory-hound of an officer accidentally stepped in front of a barbarian’s spear?’ asked the female legionary. ‘Maybe even help them along a little? You’ve served in a different legion, then.’

‘Celestial caste prefer to be murdered by their own,’ warned Paetro. ‘They’re funny that way. Talking treason is going to see you disappeared by the hoodsmen long before a spear strikes you down.’

‘My oath is to Helrena’s house, not Gyal’s,’ said Charia, but she let the matter drop.

‘What’s this damn village called again?’ asked Kenem.

‘Ganyid Thang,’ said Duncan. ‘It means Happy Valley in Rodalian.’

‘Be happy when we’ve taken it,’ said Kenem. ‘Until then, I don’t think there’s a whole lot of joy coming anybody’s way.’

Paetro shook his head. ‘It’s not blowing a hurricane outside. We’ve got an honest fight. What more does it take to make you happy, old man?’

‘Twenty years and twenty pounds lighter. Then I might have some fun.’

One of the signal runners, a young soldier called Carbo, came sprinting into cover, his face flushed and bright in the cold air. Trained radiomen had been in short supply since the failed attack on the capital. They were sharing their radio pack with a dozen sticks, the radio officer off in another cave right now, leaving Duncan relying on runners and riders like Carbo.
Just the same as the benighted Weyland army.

‘Any news of our local allies? The king’s men?’ Paetro didn’t bother keeping the contempt out of his voice and Duncan couldn’t blame him.
Compared to the might of the legions, Weylanders are only shopkeepers playing soldier.

‘There’s a force stuck behind us three miles away, the Seventh Merlanda Volunteer Infantry Regiment, pinned down,’ said Carbo. ‘Ten companies of foot.’

Duncan bit his teeth.
Dickinson’s Drunks
, after their commander Colonel Dickinson, an ageing aristocrat who ran what was advertised as the largest brewery in the south. That was nearly a thousand men under arms. And they needed to be marching down the valley towards Ganyid Thang if Duncan and his friends were going to survive this. ‘I thought we had cleared the path of defenders?’

‘Looks like the barbarians we fought to get through here were a decoy,’ said the runner. ‘Their real force was hiding deeper back in the mountains. They let us pass then ambushed the Weylanders in our van.’

‘They didn’t want to tackle the heavy armour we brought up with us,’ said Kenem.

‘No, they’re still playing hit and run, just like back in Weyland,’ said Duncan. ‘And they’re striking us where we’re weakest.’ Duncan didn’t need a gask’s talents to see Jacob Carnehan’s hand was behind this plan. Even without the Imperium’s armoured vehicles and mobile bombards, a single electric rifle in the hands of a legionary could lay down the fire of a dozen Rodalians. Of course, the Rodalians had let the superior Vandian force pass through before cutting them off and ambushing Weyland’s royalist army.

‘The mountain barbarians are learning,’ growled Paetro. ‘They’ve lost half the villages, towns and harbours along the Pilgrim’s Way, but they’re learning how to give us a fight worthy of the name on the ground, too.’

‘We learn to fight like them, they learn to fight like us,’ said Duncan.

‘And victory goes to the side who learns fastest,’ noted Kenem Posda.

‘It’s not a victory that Prince Gyal wants here,’ said Charia, ‘it’s a spectacular throne-grabbing triumph.’

Paetro patted Carbo on the shoulder. ‘So what’s the orders, lad? Do we turn back to help dig the king’s men out of their mud, or . . . ?’

‘Baron Machus has ordered us to press our claim, sir. The Weylanders will have to look after their own.’

Kenem scowled at Duncan and muttered something he couldn’t quite hear.
I’m sure it wasn’t complimentary
.

‘And will the good baron be gracing us with his presence during the assault?’ asked Paetro.

‘The armoured legion will hold to the south until the valley floor has been swept for mines.’

‘Of course,’ said Paetro. ‘We wouldn’t want buried powder barrels taking the shine off one of the baron’s precious tanks.’

And without the armours’ cannons in support, I’m far likelier to be put under the dirt here
. Machus was so much Prince Gyal’s lapdog, it was a wonder the baron didn’t bark when he saw the emperor-in-waiting approaching. Duncan briefly wondered if the baron knew that he and Adella had been planning to elope back in Weyland. Maybe it wasn’t only a jealous prince that Duncan had to contend with on the Rodalian front. Not that the brute Machus should even care. He had carried half his house’s harem with him to Weyland, not wishing to be deprived of female company during the campaign.
And from what I’ve heard, the baron’s been adding to it from the locals every week we’ve been fighting, as well.

‘We should remain free of the barbarian’s corn-smokers, though,’ said Carbo. ‘Radioman reports a squadron of enemy kites flying in to strafe the regiment has just been engaged in the air.’

‘Good. At least we won’t be seeing them here today.’

‘Armour in reserve, boots to the front and clear skies. Puts me in mind of the siege of Uschen with Captain Aivas,’ said Kenem.

Paetro nodded. ‘Let’s make sure we get through this day with as few casualties.’

Cassandra’s father.
‘Aivas was a good officer?’ asked Duncan.

‘Aye, that he was. A little too good for the slippery times we live in, as it proved.’ Paetro moved out from under cover and whistled loudly. A couple of minutes later a legionary called Balbus came scrambling down the slopes of the valley behind them, chased by a flurry of shots from the Rodalian sharpshooters in the village. Balbus was short and whippet-thin. He had signed up from some distant mountainous protectorate of the Imperium, and like the rest of his people, was a few twists of the spiral removed from his comrades – as distinguished by his seven-fingered hands. To give him his due, the man scurried up Rodal’s heights with all the agility of a mountain goat.

‘I was wondering where you’d got to, Fingers,’ said Charia.

‘Balbus counting guns,’ said the legionary in a thick accent, tapping a folding brass telescope on a sling. The soldier always seemed curiously shy and reticent to Duncan, even more so in the presence of female legionaries such as Charia. Balbus knelt down in the cave and sketched in the soil what he had observed. He drew their valley as a ‘U’ shape. Duncan and the others had their shelter on the lefthand slope of the dale’s left-hand arm, the baron and the rest of the Vandian force hanging back in the bend’s right-hand stretch. Then he sketched the village of Ganyid Thang as a series of squares and the cavernous mouth of the wind-harbour carved out of the valley wall behind the settlement. ‘Guns concentrated here and here,’ he said, drawing a circle on either side of Ganyid Thang and its wind-harbour. ‘Not villagers. Mountain army. Fine shots. This is what Balbus sees.’