The Crimson Campaign(The Powder Mage Trilogy)(39)

Taniel got up on the earthworks and fired his rifle, dropping a Kez major from the back of his horse.

Etan stepped up beside Taniel. "It's been a pleasure knowing you, my friend," he said, eyes on the charging Kez.

"We're not losing today." Taniel rammed a cotton-wrapped bullet down his rifle, then cracked open a powder charge with his thumb. He snorted the charge in one long drag and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. "Not today," he said. Then, louder, "We're not losing today."
 
 

 

Taniel felt a rising wave of anger. Why should they lose? Why should they turn and run? They were better than the Kez. The Adran army was feared all over the Nine.

He turned toward the grenadiers. "Are you Field Marshal Tamas's men? Are you?"

"The field marshal is dead," someone said.

Taniel felt the spittle fly out of his mouth. "Are you?"

"I'm the field marshal's man!" Etan lifted his sword. "Dead or alive, I'll always be!"

"Are you?" Taniel screamed at the grenadiers.

"Yes!" They answered with one voice, muskets raised.

"The Adran army  –  Tamas's army  –  doesn't lose. You can flee if you want"  –  Taniel pointed at the grenadiers  –  "when the trumpet sounds. Run back to those armchair generals, let the Kez shoot you in the back. But I'll be here until the Kez break."

"So will I," Etan said. He swung his saber.

"And I!" the grenadiers shouted in unison.

Taniel turned back to the Kez. "Send them to the pit!"

Taniel saw his father's face float before his vision like a tattered flag. He saw Vlora, and Sabon and Andriya, and all the rest of his fellow powder mages. He could see his friends in the Seventh and Ninth. Then they were gone, and the world was drenched in red as Taniel felt his legs carry him over the edge of the earthworks and straight into the teeth of the Kez infantry.

The crack of muskets and blasts of artillery were suddenly lost in the thunder of the charging infantry. Taniel gutted a Kez soldier with his bayonet, then locked the stock of his rifle with another. He shoved, sending the soldier reeling.

An officer's sword sliced neatly along his cheek, just beneath the eye. He felt the blade, but pain seemed a distant thing from within the powder trance, with so much adrenaline coursing through his body. He smacked the officer across the chin with his rifle then stabbed an infantryman.

The Kez were all around him and he felt a sudden panic. It didn't matter how quick or how powerful he was, he could be felled by sheer force of numbers, just like the Warden he and the grenadiers had hacked apart.

Taniel saw a bayonet aim at his heart. He dropped his shoulder and felt the point snag his jacket, ripping clean through, then slammed his fist into the soldier's face.

And suddenly Taniel was not alone. Adran grenadiers with their bearskin hats and crimson-cuffed jackets were beside him, muskets at the ready to push back the Kez assault.

"Shove!" Etan's voice rose above the din. "Step! Thrust! Shove! Step! Thrust!"

While the Kez infantry threw themselves forward with reckless abandon, the Twelfth Grenadiers moved in lockstep, every man chosen for his immense size and trained to meet the enemy unflinchingly. They'd come over the earthworks behind Taniel and now they pushed forward, bayonets working, chewing through the Kez infantry like so many farmers cutting hay.

Taniel forced himself into the line of grenadiers and joined their march. To his surprise, the Kez infantry seemed to melt before them. Taniel knew power. He knew speed. But the pure strength of these grenadiers working together shocked him. He felt the rhythm of their push deep down in his chest.

A Kez soldier threw himself over the line, crashing into Taniel and sending him back. The grenadiers closed up the empty spot, not missing a beat. Taniel wrestled with the soldier, throwing him to the ground and pressing his boot to the man's throat. A glance at the line, and then …

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a Warden tear through the grenadiers. The biggest and strongest that Adro had to offer were scattered like toys as the creature breached the line.

Another Warden crashed through. Colonel Etan staggered back, his brow bloodied. He recovered quickly, slashing with his heavy saber, taking the Warden's hand off at the wrist. The Warden threw himself forward and snatched Etan by the throat, picking up a man of fifteen stone and shaking him as a dog might a rat.

A trumpet sounded.

Retreat.

Fury tore through Taniel. No. He wouldn't fall back. He wasn't leaving this field without a victory.

Taniel snarled, the soldier beneath his boot forgotten. He could see Etan's eyes roll back as he went into shock. Taniel hefted his rifle, bayonet ready, and charged.

Something slammed into him from the side. He flew, a few moments of uncontrolled tumble sending his heart lurching before he hit the ground, bouncing off an infantryman's body. The jolt sent Taniel's rifle sliding from his hands, and when he came to his feet, he was unarmed.

There wasn't time to react. This new Warden was too fast. A heavy fist pummeled his face, sending him spinning.

Taniel righted himself, bracing for another blow. Mentally, he touched a bit of powder. There was no reaction. This was a Black Warden.

The next blow failed to land as the Warden thrashed about, Ka-poel on his back. She hung on by one of her long needles, which was buried deep into the meat of the creature's shoulder. She'd missed his spine by inches, and the needle could do nothing but infuriate him.

Taniel drew his boot knife. He squared his shoulders, ready to leap, when the Warden suddenly stiffened. He lurched forward, dropping to his knees. Ka-poel calmly withdrew her needle and stepped away from the Warden. She wore a vicious smile and in one hand held a half-formed wax doll. Her fingers worked furiously to finish the doll.

The Warden came to its feet, still wobbling, still lurching. It staggered to one side and then suddenly flew forward, charging the Kez.

Perhaps half the grenadiers still stood, their line ragged and broken, with more of them dropping beneath Kez infantry every second. The Warden cleared them with a single leap, landing among the Kez.

Most of the infantry ignored him. They were used to the Wardens, of course. It wasn't until this one took a discarded saber in his hand and began slicing up the Kez ranks that horror began to spread.

The panic was palpable. Taniel watched as the Kez began to scream and back away from the Warden. Some tried to stand and fight. Some even attacked him. A bayonet speared the Warden through the neck and the creature snapped the steel bayonet off the end of the musket and kept fighting. The Kez began to waver.

Taniel had killed Wardens in hand-to-hand combat, the same creatures that terrorized the Adran army, and now Ka-poel had turned one on the Kez. A thrill worked its way up from his toes until it reached his fingertips, and Taniel wondered just what he'd become that allowed him to fight a ferocious monster like that.

"To me!" He lifted his rifle over his head. "To me!" he shouted above the sound of the trumpets, blaring louder and louder for the grenadiers to retreat. "Bugger the trumpets, we fight!"

The Kez began to crumple. None of their snare drums were calling a retreat, but they fled all the same. The few Wardens left on the field were finally overpowered and mercilessly slaughtered. Some of the Kez threw down their weapons and fell to their knees in surrender.

The Warden that Ka-poel controlled chased the Kez almost the whole way back to their camp. A dozen other Wardens had congregated to try to put it down.

Ka-poel's eyes were alight with glee, and the wax figurine in her hands twitched and spun. Her lips opened in a silent laugh.

The Warden fought on. Stabbed, shot, sliced: it would not fall.

And then Ka-poel lifted the doll and pushed the head off with one thumb.

The Warden collapsed.

Taniel stared, openmouthed, at Ka-poel. How could this girl, the same woman who had pressed herself against him so intimately, fall asleep in his arms like a child one minute and then take to the battlefield with the power of a vengeful goddess the next?
 
 

 

She turned, as if feeling his gaze, and flashed him a shy smile. In an instant she was once again the girl he'd rescued from a dirty hut in the swamps of Fatrasta.

Taniel wanted to rush to her, to carry her away from this madness, to make sure that she was all right. But she wasn't his to protect, not anymore. Not since Kresim Kurga. He had a feeling that who  –  or what  –  Ka-poel really was had just begun to show itself.

Ignoring his own wounds, Taniel began to cast about for Colonel Etan. He found the grenadier beneath a dead Warden. Taniel rolled the corpse away. Etan was still breathing, much to Taniel's relief, but there was a profound look of panic in his eyes.

"I can't move my legs," Etan said.

Taniel dropped to his knees beside Etan and felt that same panic begin to rise within him. "It's all right," Taniel said. "We'll get you a surgeon."

"I can't feel my legs!" Etan gripped Taniel's arm. He gasped, and Taniel could see the strain on his face as he tried to move. "I can't feel them!"

Taniel felt his heart crack. Etan was one of the strongest men he knew. To die in battle was one thing, but to be broken …

"Get me a surgeon!" Taniel yelled. "And tell them to stop with the bloody trumpets. We won already, damn it!"

Etan seemed to sag. "We won?"