Part 23 (1/2)

”I hope not. G.o.d willing, we'll just get a little wet.”

Feor nodded, but thankfully didn't press for details.

”If . . .” Winter coughed. ”If something goes wrong, and we're . . . captured, or something like that, you may end up on your own. If you stick with the army, you shouldn't have too much trouble.”

”I can wash clothes with the rest, if need be.” Feor fixed her with an oddly calm stare. ”But you will return.”

”Is that a prophecy?”

Another little smile. ”No. Just a guess. But hopefully an accurate one.”

Winter snorted and blew out the lamp.

a a a If she dreamed, she was too tired to remember any of it. When Bobby came to wake her, an hour before dawn, Winter got out of bed feeling almost refreshed. She dressed in darkness and slipped outside to find the Seventh Company waking up around her, men emerging from their tents grumbling and bleary-eyed. Watching them tighten their belts and take their weapons from where they'd stacked them the night before, Winter felt the first fluttering of the anxiety she'd fought all the previous day.

That anxiety was in full flood by the time the men had formed up and begun the short march to the river. Winter walked at the head of the column, looking over her shoulder every few moments to make certain they were still following. Why should they follow? Her stomach roiled. A week ago I was Ranker Winter Iherngla.s.s. Then sergeant. That wasn't so bad. I still just had to follow orders. But now? The captain had given her the a.s.signment, and there would be no one else to blame if it went wrong. Or if I get my people killed, like d'Vries did. The lieutenant had been a fool, but . . . I'm sure he didn't think of himself as an idiot. Who's to say I'm any better?

The sky was gray with predawn light by the time they reached the river. The Vordanai column had camped a few miles to the west of the Tsel, behind a ridge that would hide their bivouac from any lookouts across the water. They'd left the coast road the day before, behind a strong cavalry screen, and Winter's men trudged across sodden fields and goat tracks to cover the last stretch to the riverbank. The Tsel stretched out before them, looking more like a lake than a river. It was nearly a mile across, milky brown in color, and placid as a millpond.

”Whatever you do,” Winter pa.s.sed the word, ”don't drink the water.” The warning hardly seemed necessary. After cras.h.i.+ng down from the southern highlands and winding its way across the plains, the mighty Tsel was more like an oozing flow of liquid dirt than a proper river. Not to mention that half of Khandar uses it as a sewer.

The boats were waiting for them, drawn up on the bank with a guard of a half dozen cavalry troopers. They were a sorry-looking bunch of craft, mostly small fis.h.i.+ng skiffs that wouldn't hold more than four or five men, with a couple of shaky-looking rafts and a tub of a barge that looked to have been recently patched and pressed back into service.

”The Auxies aren't stupid,” Captain d'Ivoire had explained to her. ”They've pulled all the heavy transport over the east bank. But they didn't expect us so soon, so they didn't have time to be thorough. Give-Em-h.e.l.l is out there right now, rounding up whatever's left in the fis.h.i.+ng villages, and he tells me there's some bits and pieces. Not much, but it should be enough to get your company across, plus a few more men to work the oars. We're volunteering anyone who's ever worked on a boat before.”

He'd gone on to explain the strategic situation, pointing here and there on a leather map, but it had rolled over Winter like water off oilcloth. All she'd absorbed was the pertinent facts: you and your company are going across the river.

”Right!” she told her men, when they'd gathered around. ”Starting putting those boats in the water. Get in a man at a time until it looks like the next man will swamp the thing. Then get down and stay down. I'm not coming back to fish anybody out of the river!”

”But, Sarge, I can't swim!” someone said from the back, and there was a round of laughter. It sounded forced. They're nervous, too, Winter realized. Somehow that made her feel a little better.

”Graff,” she told the corporal, ”you take the barge; that's the biggest. Folsom, one of the rafts. Bobby, stay with me.”

The captain's estimate had been accurate, and what was left of the Seventh Company managed to cram aboard the little flotilla, along with the ”volunteers” from the rest of the regiment. These rowers were without gear, to keep the load as light as possible, and most of them had stripped their uniforms to the waist in antic.i.p.ation of a long, hard day's work.

When the last man was aboard, the boats shoved off. Oars flashed, disturbing the smooth brown flow of the river. As the captain had promised, the oarsmen had been chosen from those who knew what they were about, and their progress was steady. The big barge wallowed precipitously low in the water, but with the river so gla.s.sy still it hardly seemed a danger.

She'd told the men not to talk once they'd begun to cross. Sound could carry queerly over water, and she was determined not to alert the Auxiliaries until she could no longer avoid it. The morning seemed unnaturally quiet, and every cough or rustle of cloth was audible, even above the creaking of the boats and the steady splash of the oars.

Before long the west bank of the river had dwindled until it was a mere smudge, brown on brown. It was almost like being at sea, with nothing visible but water and a barely distinguishable sh.o.r.eline. But the sea was never so calm, even on the mildest day. Compared to the gentle rock of the waves, the Tsel felt like something decaying and dead. Even the smell of it was the rich, earthy scent of rot, drifting up from the acc.u.mulated silt of a hundred winding miles.

The east bank came into view, so gradually that Winter had to lean forward and squint to be certain. There was a fis.h.i.+ng village at this spot on the Auxiliaries' side of the river, a middling-sized place that boasted a long stone quay. Ordinarily it played host to the riverboats that carried grain and produce to satisfy the city's appet.i.te, but General Khtoba had designated it as one of a half dozen spots for his men to store the vessels they'd appropriated from the west bank villages and fisherfolk.

With some relief Winter identified the long, low shapes of the quay and the high-sided barges tied up all around it. It was always good to know that things in the field really were the way the officers had said they'd be, if only because this so rarely turned out to be the case. As they closed, she was further relieved to see no signs of life from the village or evidence of sentries at the riverside. The villagers, no doubt, had fled or been evacuated when the soldiers had arrived.

The quay was so crowded with boats there was no room for her little flotilla to dock. Instead they coasted up beside it, riding next to the enormous grain barges and sleeker fis.h.i.+ng skiffs. The sh.o.r.e was a murky mess of mud and cattails, strewn with the skeletons of wrecked boats left there to rot long ago. These obstacles meant they could approach only into the shallows, with the barge bringing up the rear.

Winter waved her hand, and the men piled over the sides, boots sinking in slimy mud and water lapping at their s.h.i.+ns. The little boats rocked at the s.h.i.+fting weight, and brown water slopped into the bottoms. Those in the lead waded ash.o.r.e, raising their knees high to shake off the muck like a troupe of high-kicking dancers. The rest followed. When Winter's turn came, she braced herself and stepped out into the river. Instead of the chill she'd been expecting, the water was as warm as a bath, and her boot sank through a few inches of mud before it met something solid. Something slimy and many-legged brushed against her thigh.

She gave no instructions-this part had all been prearranged. Graff led two dozen men on a broad sweep into the town, to search for and hopefully capture any Auxiliaries who might be on guard. Winter and Bobby gathered the rest of the company on the sh.o.r.e, a.s.sembling on a rough, stony path that ran along the riverbank. The oarsmen swarmed out down the quay, looking for the vessels most likely to suit their purpose.

Graff hadn't returned by the time their leader, a thin-faced corporal Winter didn't recognize, reported back. He kept his voice low, unwilling to break the sepulchral silence.

”We should be able to get a least a dozen of those big barges back for this leg,” he said. ”Those'll carry a company apiece, easy.”

”How many men will you need?” There were too few of the rowers to move the larger boats, so some of the Seventh would have to be drafted as extra hands.

”Call it three dozen.”

Winter chewed her lip. That would leave her barely fifty to hold the quay on this side until the boats returned. The captain had been quite specific-they'd need every one of the boats to get the entire regiment and its supply train across. Winter's task would be to make sure the Auxiliaries didn't catch wind of what was going on and wreck the remaining craft before enough men could cross to put them into service.

Things seemed quiet enough, though. She gave a decisive nod and directed the corporal to Bobby, who started telling off men for rowing duty.

The last of the newly crewed barges was just casting off when a pair of shots came from the direction of the village, shockingly loud in the morning quiet. The corporal, aboard the barge, looked back at Winter, but she waved him on and turned to Bobby.

”Corporal Folsom, guard the quay. Corporal Forester, with me.” She pointed out another dozen soldiers, and they fell in behind her. They set out into the village at a jog, spurred by another pair of shots that echoed like falling trip-hammers.

The village would barely have qualified as a hamlet in Vordan. It was just a cl.u.s.ter of clay-and-thatch houses, not more than twenty in all, arranged in a rough circle. The occupants were long gone, and the empty doorways gaped at Winter as she pa.s.sed. Up ahead, against the walls of the last couple of huts, were a dozen men in Vordanai blue. Graff trotted up to meet her, his face grim.

”One of 'em got away. Sorry, sir.”

Winter shoved down a sudden thrill of panic. ”How many were there?”

”Four. Out a good distance, away from the houses, so we couldn't get close without them seeing. We got as near as we could and tried to bring 'em down, but that was still a long shot.”

”Only one escaped?”

”Yessir. We got two, and one whose horse was. .h.i.t surrendered. They got one of ours, though.”

”Who?”

Graff pursed his lips in disapproval at the question, but said, ”Jameson. He's dead, sir.”

No time for regrets now. ”Take me to the man you captured.”

Graff nodded and conducted Winter forward. The men Graff had brought with him were still on guard, muskets loaded and at the ready, as though they expected the Khandarai to return any moment. The unfortunate Jameson lay on his face where he had fallen, a b.l.o.o.d.y hole the size of Winter's fist between his shoulder blades. Winter looked away.

Two Khandarai lay out in the field beyond the village, while a third sat cross-legged under the watchful eyes of a pair of Vordanai. He surveyed his captors with an arrogant air, and, guessing that none of them spoke Khandarai, amused himself by insulting them to their faces.

”You, on the left. If you were not born of the union of a b.i.t.c.h and a goat, then your mother must have been a woman of such surpa.s.sing ugliness I wonder that any man would stoop to lay with her.” On seeing Winter, he added, ”Ah, and here comes the commander, who is evidently a boy of twelve. Drop your pants, sir, and let us see if there is any hair on your c.o.c.k. Or perhaps you were born without one?”

”Shall I order them to strip you,” Winter snapped in Khandarai, ”so that we can have a comparison?”

The man sat up a little straighter, but said nothing. Winter shook her head.

”Should I bother asking questions?” she said. ”Or should I just tell my men to begin beating you?”

The Khandarai blinked. He was a young man, in the brown and tan uniform of the Auxiliaries. His dark hair was gathered at the back of the neck, in the Khandarai fas.h.i.+on, and his chin was covered with a bristly fuzz that he probably thought of as a beard. By his lack of insignia, he was a ranker-the Auxiliaries used the same ranks as the Royal Army-but he wore an armband of red silk, daubed with the ubiquitous open triangle of the Redemption in black ink.

All in all, aside from the uniform, Winter wouldn't have given him a second glance if she'd pa.s.sed him in the streets of Ashe-Katarion. She might even have shared a drink with him, if they'd met in a tavern. But now . . .