"We'll have teams," Tamas said. "Nine and three. Nine on watch, killing Kez scouts, and three resting."
"We don't need rest," Andriya said. He grinned at Tamas. His crooked teeth were stained yellow. "We just need powder."
Tamas held his hand up toward Andriya. "You'll have your time to kill Kez," he said. "You all need some rest tonight."
It was perhaps six o'clock, and the hot sun burned red over the Amber Expanse to the west. Tamas wondered if the coming night would be his last in this world.
The Kez outnumbered him. He was growing old. Not as fast or as sharp as he'd once been. Beon might see through the trap and outmaneuver him, or circle at a distance, content to pick off Tamas's troops until Tamas made it across the river, then head west around the Fingers and wait for Tamas on the Northern Expanse.
Had it been a mistake to order Gavril to destroy the bridge?
"Sir?"
Tamas jolted out of his reverie. The powder mages were gone, all but Vlora. For a moment he imagined she was a little girl again – ten years old – seeking his approval. The sun had sunk in the western sky and the camp was completely pitched. The bonfires had burned low, all sign of the horse carcasses gone. Thousands of men worked on the floodplain while thousands more chopped trees on the edge of the Hune Dora Forest.
"Where are they?"
"Sir?"
"The powder mages."
Vlora had a hint of worry in her eyes. "You dismissed them over an hour ago. Told me to stay."
"And you've been waiting this whole time?"
"You seemed preoccupied."
Tamas took a shaky breath. He suddenly remembered dismissing Andriya and the rest of the mages, but it was like looking back in time through a thick fog.
Getting old indeed.
"Have you been eating, sir?"
Tamas's stomach growled. "I had some horsemeat earlier."
"I was watching you, sir. You didn't take anything when you went to check on the bonfires."
"I'm sure I did."
Vlora dug in her belt, then handed him a white tuber. "Found these truffles in the forest yesterday. You should eat. Take them, Tamas."
Tamas put out a hand reluctantly and she dropped them there.
He hesitated, staring at the truffles. Truffles grown in forests of the Adran Mountains were delicacies in most of the Nine. They were small and pale-cream colored. He'd never much liked truffles.
"Thank you," he said.
Vlora leaned on her rifle, staring over toward the forest. He gazed at the side of her face. He'd watched her grow from a fledgling powder mage into a capable soldier, one of his best. She was strong, with a beauty that the years would dim but never fully diminish. He felt a pang of loss, once again, that this girl would never bear him a grandson. He looked again at the truffles in his hand.
"What I said, Tamas – sir, I shouldn't have spoken to you that way. Not in front of the men."
"No, you shouldn't have."
Vlora stiffened. "I'll accept whatever reprimand you see fit."
Tamas didn't know his heart was capable of breaking. Not after all these years. He took a deep breath. "You're a grown woman. Olem is a good man. He'll make you happy."
She seemed surprised by this. But not in the way Tamas expected. "He's just another man," she said. "Someone to warm the nights." She closed her eyes. "We're soldiers. Tomorrow, one of us might be dead. Even if we both survive the battle, we'll move on and find others. It's the life we've chosen." Her eyes opened again and she looked across the camp. "All of us."
Ah. What every soldier knew so well. Lovers were brief, passion burning like a candle – hot at the center and easily doused. It was too hard to keep the flame kindled longer than a season or a campaign. "It can be a lonely life," Tamas agreed.
"You think we can win tomorrow?" Vlora asked.
Tamas looked toward the forest. At his soldiers going about their tasks. They were dragging trees across the floodplains now, toward the camp. The sound of billhooks hitting wood carried in the night. A rifle fired somewhere. Soldiers foraging, or powder mages scaring off Kez scouts?
"I think we can win every battle," Tamas said. "This … this will be difficult. The whole fulcrum of my plan could topple if the Kez catch too good a look at my preparations. We are low on powder and bullets, and the men are half-starved. We have to win tomorrow, or we'll die here."
He felt cold suddenly, despite the heat, and very old.
"I don't want to die here, sir," Vlora said. She hugged her rifle.
"Neither do I."
"Sir."
"Yes?"
"Gavril … he said you buried someone beside the Little Finger, long ago. Who was it?"
Tamas felt himself whisked away. Felt the spray of the raging river on his face, the mud and blood caked on his fingers from digging a grave by hand.
He forced himself to stand, trying not to favor his bad leg. It needed the exercise. "I've buried countless friends. More enemies. Kin, and those close enough they might as well be. I want to see Adro again. I want to know if my son survived his ordeals. But before then, there is a lot of work to do. That is all, Captain. Dismissed."
Taniel sat brooding in his quarters, watching out the window as a line of wagons carried wounded soldiers away from the front. He thought about opening the window and asking how the battle was going. But he already had a guess: badly. This lot had probably taken a mortar round – their wounds were bloody and varied, and by their uniforms they were all from the same company.
General Ket had sent him to an inn about five miles behind the line, under guard twenty-four hours a day. It seemed like weeks since Ket had given Taniel her ultimatum. He knew it had been a single night.
The provosts had demanded to know where Ka-poel was. Taniel had shrugged and told them to stuff it, but inside he'd worried about what they'd do when they caught her. Had they been given orders to give her a beating like the one they'd given Taniel? Or worse? Without dolls of them, would Ka-poel be able to fend off the provosts?
General Ket had come by his quarters early this morning to tell him that every day he refused to apologize to Major Doravir was another day that men died on the line.
Taniel would be up there now if it weren't for General Ket. He wouldn't let her convince him it was his fault that the line was being pushed back again.
Outside his window, Taniel caught sight of a young man. It was a boy, really. Couldn't have been more than fifteen. His leg had been taken off at the knee. Whether by a cannonball or a surgeon, Taniel didn't know, but he was struck by the calm on the boy's face. While men three times his age wailed over any number of flesh wounds, the boy sat stoically in the back of a wagon, his stump hanging off the edge, watching serenely while a fresh group of conscripts were sent to the front.
Taniel lifted his sketchbook and began to outline the boy's face.
A knock sounded at the door. Taniel ignored it, wanting to give the boy's portrait some shape so that he could finish it later.
He'd almost forgotten there even had been a knock, when it sounded again. The wagon outside was moving on, and the wounded boy with it. Taniel dropped his sketchbook on the table and went to the door.
He was surprised to find Mihali there. The big chef held a silver platter aloft in one hand, a towel over the opposite arm. His apron was dirty with flour and what looked like smudges of chocolate.
"Sorry to bother you," Mihali said, sweeping past Taniel. Two provosts followed the chef inside. One held a folding table, the other a bottle of wine. "Right there," Mihali told them. "Next to the window. Now some privacy, please."
The provosts grumbled, setting up the table and then retreating into the hallway.
"Sit," Mihali instructed, pointing at the only chair in the room. He deposited himself on the edge of the bed.
"What's this?" Taniel asked.
"Dinner." Mihali swept the lid off the silver tray. "Braised side of beef with quail's egg quiche and sweet goat cheese, and served with a red wine. Nothing fancy, I'm afraid, but the wine is a lovely 'forty-seven and has been chilled."
Nothing fancy? The smell rising from the platter made Taniel shudder with pleasure. His mouth watered immediately, and he found himself at the table unable to remember sitting down, with a piece of beef already on his fork. He paused. "May I?"
"Please, please," Mihali encouraged. He popped the wine cork and poured two glasses.
It was a little unnerving that Mihali watched him while he ate, but Taniel quickly learned to ignore the chef's presence and was soon reaching for seconds.
"What," Taniel asked, eyeing Mihali, who was on his third glass of wine, "is the occasion?"
Mihali poured Taniel another glass. "Occasion? Does there need to be an occasion to eat well?"
"I thought so."
Mihali shook his head. "I heard they'd relegated you to quarters and were feeding you soldier's rations. That qualifies as a war crime in my book."
"Ah." Taniel smiled, but couldn't be sure that Mihali was actually joking. He leaned forward, taking his wineglass, and noted that the wine bottle was still full after, what, five glasses between the two of them? Perhaps Mihali had a second bottle hidden somewhere.
"I have a letter for you," Mihali said, removing an envelope from his apron.