The Crimson Campaign (42 page)
No one moved at Tamas’s shouted order. The thick chaos of soldiers milling against the edge of the river did not change.
Tamas felt his heart begin to beat faster.
“Men of the Seventh! Take the line!”
Nothing. His hands shook. He’d overplayed himself. This false panic he’d meant to create had become real. He’d defeated himself before the battle even began.
“First Battalion!” a voice cut through the crowd. Someone shoved their way out of the press. It was old Colonel Arbor. He held his rifle in one hand, his teeth in the other. “To the line, First Battalion!”
Tamas swung around. The Kez cavalry continued to advance slowly. They were a half a mile out on the western front. The dragoons to the south began to move forward. Vlora and the rest of the powder mages continued to fire from across the river, whittling away at their numbers.
Adran infantry began to peel away from the mob by the river and get to their positions. Too few of them. Too slowly.
Then more. And more. Soldiers left the riverside and raced across the camp to the mound of dirt separating them from the Kez cavalry. They threw themselves to the safe side of the mound and readied their rifles, loading bullets and fixing bayonets. Tamas took a deep breath. He felt his heart soar. If he could have kissed every one of his men then and there, he would have.
He turned back to the Kez advance and his heart stopped.
The advance had ceased less than a quarter of a mile from Tamas’s position.
Fifteen thousand Kez cavalry wedged Tamas’s army completely against the river and the mountains.
He saw a man ride to the front of the cuirassiers. Had Beon figured out Tamas’s game? Did he sense a trap?
The man, Tamas recognized, was Beon je Ipille himself. Brave, to come out to the front of his heavy cavalry, when he knew a powder mage’s bullet might end him any second.
Beon seemed to cock his head at Tamas’s position. His lips moved briefly, then he kissed his sword and raised it.
A salute. Beon was saluting Tamas. The motion stunned him.
You stand and fight
, the salute seemed to say,
when you could have run
.
Beon’s sword fell and the earth trembled as fifteen thousand sets of hooves thundered toward Tamas.
“Hold!” Tamas yelled, gripping his rifle. He turned away from the cuirassiers. Their charge would be stopped by the sharpened stakes and crosses. They’d pull up hard and exchange fire with the Ninth, or advance slowly to try to navigate the defenses.
Between Tamas and the dragoons, however, there were no such apparent obstacles – only a thin layer of white fog over the ground and then the raised earthworks behind which his men crouched.
Three hundred yards. The dragoons leaned over their mounts, urging them faster. A bullet whistled over Tamas’s head and took a dragoon between the eyes. Tamas raised his rifle, lined up a shot, and fired. He lowered, reloaded, and repeated.
Two hundred yards. Dragoons raised their carbines and twisted their faces in wordless cries.
One hundred yards. Tamas’s lines opened fire. Hundreds of dragoons fell from the first volley alone. The rest charged on, heedless of their comrades’ fall.
Seventy yards. The dragoons opened fire with their carbines. Tamas’s soldiers crouched behind their earthen wall, reloading.
Fifty yards. Dragoons let their carbines drop and raised their pistols.
Thirty yards. The line of dragoons aimed pistols.
Twenty yards.
Ten yards.
The front line of dragoons disappeared.
Tamas closed his eyes for a brief moment as the screams reached him.
The momentum of the cavalry unit at full gallop had carried them headfirst into a concealed trench. Almost twenty feet wide and just as deep, it stretched the entire length of the “opening” Tamas had left in his defenses. The trench was topped with stakes covered in grass and other debris. A poor disguise in the light of the day, but the fog had covered them completely. They cracked under the weight of the warhorses.
Tamas had once seen a row of carriages go straight into the Adsea. The first carriage had plunged around a steep corner and off the end of a pier. The second had followed, the driver seeing the drop only at the last second, while the third driver’s attempts to slow his horses had failed.
This was much like that, but instead of three carriages, it was thousands and thousands of dragoons heading straight into his trench.
By the time the dragoons had managed to arrest their charge, the trench was nearly filled with screaming, thrashing horses and writhing men trying to escape the press. The line of Kez dragoons stared in horror at their fallen comrades.
Tamas shuddered at the thought of being at the bottom of that trench.
“Fire!” Tamas yelled.
The Seventh Brigade opened fire at the Kez dragoons. Their horses milled in panic at the edge of the trench, officers shouting and waving their swords, trying to get the horses at the rear of the column to back up so they could organize a withdrawal.
Tamas reloaded and fired again. The dragoons began to organize. If they were given a chance to disengage, they still had thousands left. They could reorganize and hound Tamas’s flank when he turned to deal with the cuirassiers.
“Bayonets!” Tamas ordered, lifting his rifle in the air.
Every forty paces of the trench, they’d left a ten-foot-wide path of solid ground. They were unmarked, and the way would be unsure in the fog, but Tamas had to counterattack.
Tamas headed across the closest of these paths, straight into the flank of the withdrawing Kez dragoons.
He reached out with his senses, taking in the closest powder charges and igniting them with his mind. The small explosions killed men and horse alike, rattling Tamas’s teeth from their proximity. His soldiers flooded around him, howling as they set upon the dragoons with their long-sword bayonets.
The melee erupted along the whole line as the five thousand men of the Seventh Brigade slammed into the Kez dragoons. Without the impact of their charge, and against the long reach of sword bayonets, the dragoons lost their advantage.
Tamas ran toward the closest dragoon. He thrust his bayonet up and into the man’s exposed side, then jerked his rifle savagely to tear open the wound. The man fell from his horse, and Tamas danced back out of the way as the animal panicked and bolted.
Something hit him hard from the side, knocking him off his feet. He landed on the ground, the breath knocked from him, and was immediately pushing himself back up.
“Sir!” Olem had lost his rifle and drawn his sword. He rammed it into the thigh of a dragoon and made a dash for Tamas.
Tamas got to his feet, only to have Olem hit him full on in the chest. They both went down as a straight cavalry sword whooshed through the air where Tamas’s head had been.
Olem rolled off of Tamas and helped him to his feet.
Tamas’s own rifle had disappeared in the melee. He drew his sword.
“Time to back off, sir,” Olem shouted over the din of gunfire.
“We’re not done here yet. Seventh!” Tamas slid his sword into its scabbard and pulled a rifle out of the mud. It still had its bayonet fixed. He pointed it at the closest dragoon and ran, hoping Olem was behind him.
He reached out, detonating more powder as he drew closer to the dragoons once more. On either side of him, his infantry pressed the attack.
Tamas felt a stinging breeze along the right side of his head, just above his ear. He felt suddenly dizzy, but charged on. Each step, however, the dragoons seemed to get farther away.
It took Olem yelling into his ear to bring him back to reality. “They’ve retreated, sir!”
Tamas stopped and looked about him, taking in the carnage. Thousands had died in that charge, and thousands more were stuck in that trench – broken men and horses dying a slow death. The screams rang in his ears. “Right. Back to the line.” He grabbed Olem’s arm to steady himself.
They took a safe path across the trench. The rest of the Seventh had turned away from the retreating dragoons and were making sure none of the rest would get out of the trench alive. Tamas saw one dragoon grab an Adran soldier’s foot and beg for mercy. The soldier put his bayonet through the dragoon’s eye.
Tamas felt Olem’s hand on his shoulder.
“You’ve taken a bullet along the side of your head, sir,” Olem said.
Tamas touched his head and his fingers came back crimson.
“A straight crease,” Olem said. “Bloody, but doesn’t look deep.”
Olem’s left arm hung at his side. His sleeve was in bloody tatters, nearly cut from him. He noted Tamas’s questioning gaze. “Just a flesh wound, sir.”
“Tamas, you bloody dog!” a voice bellowed. “The Ninth has crumbled! Our flank is lost!”
The words brought Tamas’s head up and around. Gavril rode by at full tilt, followed by the rest of his rangers heading to the west.
“Colonel Arbor!” Tamas cast about for the colonel, finding him near the edge of the trench, taking a pair of wounded Kez officers prisoner.
“Sir!”
“Hold this position.” Tamas waved his sword over his head. “Men of the Seventh, to me!”
Tamas began to sprint to the west, fueled by adrenaline and the powder of the battle. Already, he could see the damage. There were countless cuirassiers inside the line of defenses. Some of the Ninth had already begun to flee, running deeper into the camp or throwing themselves into the river.
The cuirassiers pressed hard on the southwestern corner. The defenses had all but collapsed, except for a small knot of men. Tamas recognized General Cethal on horseback. Even as he caught sight of the general, Cethal’s horse was pulled down.
Tamas came up short. He stamped the butt of his rifle on the ground and shouted to be heard.
“Line, form!”
Olem fell in beside him. To his left and right, soldiers of the Seventh stood shoulder to shoulder.
“Load!”
Rifles and muskets were quickly loaded.
“Aim!”
His men brought their weapons to their shoulders.
“Fire!”
The Seventh fired above the heads of the milling members of the Ninth. A slew of cuirassiers fell from their horses.
“Bayonets, forward!”
The “aim and fire” had given the rest of the Seventh time to fall in behind him. Tamas now had an infantry wall six lines deep, bayonets bristling. They marched forward, lockstep. Soldiers of the Ninth fell in or were pushed aside. He aimed his line directly toward where he’d seen General Cethal fall.
They encountered the heavy cavalry thirty paces later.
Cuirassiers locked in combat had lost their greatest weapon – the charge – but they had some advantages over dragoons. They were armored, providing protection against bayonets, and their heavy sabers were more effective against armed infantry.
“Hold the line!” Tamas ordered as his men began to bring down cuirassiers. They stabbed and slashed, putting the men and horses down before stepping past them and continuing the push.
Tamas spotted General Cethal through a break in the fighting. Cethal was on the ground, twenty paces away. His face and hands were bloody, his saber raised above him. A dismounted cuirassier knocked Cethal’s sword to one side and thrust with his own.
Tamas broke his formation, charging between two men on horseback. The cuirassier above Cethal drew his sword back and thrust again. Cethal’s body twitched.
The cuirassier didn’t even see Tamas.
Tamas’s bayonet entered the spot beneath his arm where the straps of his breastplate met. Tamas rammed the bayonet in deeper, pushing it until the barrel of his rifle was soaked in blood. He pushed a final time and let go of the rifle, throwing himself to his knees at Cethal’s side.
Cethal stared back up at him in horror, his hands crimson with his own blood.
Tamas heard the clash of swords and Olem’s challenging yell, but they all seemed distant to him.
Cethal had been stabbed at least four times through the chest and stomach. His hands were covered with countless cuts, and his face was a mess. He blinked at Tamas through the blood.
“My boys,” he gasped, “they broke.”
Tamas took Cethal’s hand in his and squeezed.
The ultimate betrayal. Your men breaking and running, fleeing around you.
“You didn’t,” Tamas said. “You stood.”
“I’m not a coward,” Cethal said. “Bloody Beon. Never seen cuirassiers so nimble. They danced between the trench and our… our fortifications.” Cethal rammed his empty hand into one of the wounds in a futile attempt to staunch the bleeding. “You stop the dragoons?”
“We did.”
Cethal drew in a sharp breath. “Don’t be hard on my boys. I wanted to… to run, myself. Damned cuirassiers.” He blinked again. “You find Beon and…” He coughed, and cleared his throat. “… give him my regards. That was a bloody fine bit of horsemanship.” He pulled his hand out of Tamas’s and used it to try and staunch another wound. “Go on. Men need you. I’ll be… fine.”
Tamas stripped off his coat and put it beneath Cethal’s head. He stood up. His line of infantry had passed him and pushed on. He wrenched his bayonet out of the cuirassier’s body and ran to catch up.