Everything was numb. Everything was black. Everything was distant.
Where . . .?
Necrem’s lungs screamed at him from trying to breathe.
What . . .?
A muffled groan rumbled up from his belly. He tried to move, but he didn’t know what exactly. An arm? A leg? His head? Or he simply tried to breathe? He couldn’t be certain. The only thing he was certain of was that he was sore, and that soreness was spreading throughout his body.
Where—!
A ragged, violent cough ripped through him. His spine convulsed, forcing him up over his weak limbs’ objections. He shot up on knees and elbows, coughing and spitting from his lungs’ desperate cry for air. When he finally cleared his throat, the cool taste of air was laced with a coppery aftertaste.
Blood filled his mouth.
His torment continued as the numb cloud lifted from his head and a stinging fire replaced it across his face. He yowled at the sudden slap of feeling it all at once. Not one scar could have been left unripped.
He clapped his hands on his face, his gauntlets pressing against the masks.
That did nothing to soothe his face. It did, however, give Necrem the strength to open his eyes.
A shin kicked into his side.
Necrem hardly felt it, his plate taking the blow that equaled to a pat on the back compared to the aches he already had.
Another kick made Necrem angle his head, squinting up. An Orsembian soldier jabbed a spear over him. His kicks were nothing more than his footwork as he lunged to bat away a pike lunging at him.
Necrem rolled his head the other way and found a Lazornian at the other end of the pike. The rest of the world around him was a mash of legs, men and horses alike, all jumbled together without any sense of order. They all danced back and forth with one another until, here and there, one of those pairs of legs slipped and another body came flopping down to join the many the dancing legs either stepped around or on.
Wounded men crawled in every which direction. They hunkered as low as they could, their armor weighing them down as they used their good limbs to claw away. Every now and then, the butt of a pike, or the head of a spear, or the tip of a sword rained down on one of them from above.
Not five feet from where he lay, a sword struck down into the back a wounded soldier’s neck. Sudden and quick, cutting the man’s struggle short.
I need to get up!
The Orsembian soldier above him kicked him in the side again. This time when Necrem looked up, the soldier looked back at him. The man’s eyebrows leaped, realizing he was still alive. His reaction of pulling his spear back was enough to spur whatever strength Necrem had left to raise up, hands outstretched to grab ahold of the spear shaft.
The wood slid through his gauntlets’ thick gloves. His fingers struggled, and his biceps burned after using them so soon. His right hand meeting the soldier’s saved him, allowing him to get a grip on the spear before the metal tip drove into his face.
Necrem focused on that sharp point, wavering inches from his face. They struggled, and that point grew closer. He pulled his head back. His legs wobbled. His hamstrings especially screamed in protest from being tightly stretched with him leaning back on his knees. But it was either that or allow a spear through his face.
Necrem leaned back, pulling the spear with him. He tried to push it up, but that resulted in bending the shaft, but the Orsembian soldier stepped forward, drawing the spear back for another thrust. Necrem’s grip slipped. He shook back and forth, sticking an arm out for balance.
The Orsembian soldier came again—
A pike caught him under his neck. The soldier’s head jerked. His jaw fell open as if he was holding the pike against his chin. Blood squirted and ran down from his neck along his breastplate.
Necrem watched his eyes roll back as he tipped to his side. His spear slipped from his grip, tumbling into Necrem’s. When the pike pulled free, the soldier’s body followed the direction he was leaning and joined the others at everyone’s feet.
Necrem gasped in a mixture of revulsion, exhaustion, and relief. He took up the man’s spear and used it as cane, planting it in the dirt and climbing hand over hand to get to his shaky feet. His chest ached, his lungs burned, and his head grew foggier the higher he climbed. None of it mattered. He knew he had to get up.
His head wobbled as soon as he stood. He kept both hands clutching the planted spear for support, not trusting his quivering legs an instant.
The scene that greeted him above was just as confusing as the one below.
Only a few feet in front of him was visible through clouds of dust and musket smoke. Men fought everywhere and everyone. There were no lines, no ranks, no squares of men. Men fought back-to-back, facing every direction, batting each other with spears and pikes, thrusting with swords, smashing with shields, stabbing with daggers, and some simply punched at one another.
Calleroses were among them, too. Some in groups, hacking anyone around their mounts with swords. Here and there, a horse came galloping through the dust. There was a whoop, a slash, a cry, and off they sped, leaving some poor soul cut down without knowing what struck him.
It was Compuert Junction all over again.
I got to get out of—
He caught a glint of metal out of the corner of his eye in time to move his head. The pike head grated across the rim of his helmet and sent his head reeling.
“Hey!” he yelled back at the Lazornian who had just saved his life. “I’m on your shide!” The blood pooled in his mouth and slurred his speech as he yelled.
The wide-eyed Lazornian looked up at him, face pale-stricken with terror. He didn’t have a leather collar around his arm, so he wasn’t a former sioneros. He had to be a soldier from the next company over on the line.
“What?” the Lazornian yelled.
“I’m with”—Necrem beat on his chest, wincing at a dull pain, then pointed at the soldier— “you!”
“How do I know that?” The Lazornian waved his pike at him.
Necrem went slack-jawed under his mask, unable to remind the soldier of the Bravados or what had happened earlier. His mind went blank. “I . . . don’t—”
A calleros came pushing through the men behind the Lazornian, swinging and slashing his sword in curving arches down on every man he passed.
“Look out!” Necrem yelled, pointing behind the soldier.
The soldier saved himself by spinning with his pike. The spiked head thrust level with the horse’s, spooking the animal and making it jerk back. The calleros wavered in his saddle, clutching his reins to get control of his horse.
The soldiers surged in around the calleros, no longer able to hack at them.
Necrem stepped to join them, but before he took two steps or picked the spear up, the calleros was knocked from his horse by several pikes, including the Lazornian who he’d been yelling to.
The calleros flailed and swung his sword as he fell to the ground with thud of metal from his plate. A stabbing barrage of pikes followed where he landed, his wails covered up under all the furious shouting and cussing around him.
“Oso!”
Once again, Hezet had found him.
The veteran elbowed his way through the press, having lost his shield. The spike and axe head of his stolen halberd was covered in gore, bobbing above his head.
“Damn it, smith!” Hezet growled, stumbling up to him. He planted the butt of his halberd into the ground and leaned on it just as much as Necrem leaned on his stolen spear. He gasped, struggling for breath with sweat coating his face. “How are you not dead? You got ran over by a horse!”
Necrem’s gaze trailed down to his chest. There was a great dent in his breastplate, and the curve around his belly was pressed flat against him. He couldn’t be certain with the angle, but he wouldn’t have been surprised to find the impression of a horseshoe now in the center of his plate.
“That explains why my chest hurts.” He coughed, spitting more blood into his masks.
Hezet shook his head. “Where’s the banner?”
Necrem grunted. All around them was mobbish fighting, and when he looked, the banner he had worked so hard to get was nowhere to be seen. “Lost it.”
“You should have held on to that,” Hezet groaned.
“I think we should get out of—”
Eruptions roared all around them. Streaking, whizzing sounds filled the air. Calleroses cried, tumbling from their horses while soldiers on the ground dropped without a sound, Lazornians and Orsembians alike.
“Get down!” Hezet screamed. He took hold of Necrem’s pauldron, dragging him down with his weight as another round of eruptions roared.
Men around them collapsed; some clutching their sides or limbs, while others never moved again.
“What’s going on?” Necrem cried.
“The melee’s too thick,” Hezet replied, making Necrem shake his head, not understanding. “Keep low and crawl!” He slapped Necrem’s pauldron as he began to crawl on his hands and knees, dragging his halberd with him.
“Where?” Necrem yelled over another round of musket fire, following the veteran’s example.
“Anywhere but here!”
That was the simplest thing Necrem had ever heard, and he agreed wholeheartedly.
***
Recha held her eyeglass limply at her side.
I’m killing them. Her hand shook, tapping the eyeglass against her thigh. Her gaze fixed on the last black banner still waving, the other two having disappeared when the calleroses came crashing in. Yet, it, too, now wavered to remain upright in the center’s madness. They fought so gallantly, and I’m . . .
Another concentrated volley roared in the center. Swaths of men dropped in clumps, the frantic melee making it impossible to tell which were Orsembian and which were Lazornian.
The former sioneroses’ sudden charge had given them the time they needed. They had stopped the center from collapsing. They had given General Ross time to move up, forming another battle line for the center to fall back to and reserve companies waiting to be deployed where needed. They had broken all the way into the enemy’s ranks.
Borbin’s banner fell!
Now she was forced to fire upon them.
General Ross had formed musketeers up in blocks, three ranks deep with one firing at a time, on all three sides of the bulge in the center. They couldn’t feed more men into the melee. It would become a meatgrinder and a battle of attrition they didn’t have the numbers to win. She didn’t need Baltazar to tell her that. The melee also prevented them from withdrawing her men in any semblance of order.
However, with so many Orsembians trapped in one spot, infantry as well as calleroses, they were in a similar position. They were bogged down just as much as Recha’s soldiers were. Trapped at a distance and ripe for the pickings.
It left Recha wanting to scream and curse, yet she saw two consolations in the deployment. After each volley, the Lazornians around the edges of the melee were able to break free, many dragging wounded comrades with them behind the ranks of musketeers.
Another volley, and she watched with a sneer as calleroses tumbled and jerked out of their saddles.
“Tell them to aim high, Ross,” she mumbled, callous to the calleroses’ plight of being unable to cut or ride through the melee. They made excellent targets perched high in their saddles. “Don’t let any of them ride out of there.”
“Hmm?” Baltazar hummed, raising an eyebrow from over his shoulder as he scribbled his signature on a random order. “You say something?”
“No,” Recha replied, folding her arms. She held her eyeglass up to rest her chin on it while she watched the battle continue across the field.
Baltazar shooed the dispatch away and took up his bowl of soup that a staff officer was holding for him while he signed the order. He stepped closer, following her gaze while slurping a spoonful of his meal—a mix of meat, potatoes, rice, and whatever else the cooks had decided to toss in the pot to fill the rotating soldiers’ stomachs.
“Has something changed?” he asked.
Recha sighed. “No.”
“Good.” Baltazar munched down another spoonful, this time finding something crunchy. “Two crises averted in just an hour, and we are still holding. After the next rotation, we can start our counterattacks.”
Recha frowned, tapping her chin against her eyeglass’s lens. “While we wait, send an order to General Ross. Tell him to shoot every enemy calleros in the center he can. Even if they surrender, I don’t care. Shoot them.”
“I’ll do no such thing,” Baltazar replied as he chewed.
Recha slid her gaze across to him, squinting at him from the corner of her eye. “What?”
Baltazar casually stirred his soup, unfazed by her glare. “You’re upset—”
“Obviously,” she hissed.
“But now’s not the time to make such rash orders.” Baltazar tapped the rim of his bowl with his spoon. “General Ross needs to keep focused on untangling that knot and holding formation across the center. If he focuses on cutting down as many calleroses as he can, he will leave his wings unattended. Hiraldo and Priet need him to keep focus across his line while they tend to the flanks. Another near break in center could be enough for them to collapse, as well.”
The fight on their flanks had lost their urgency with all the commotion in the center. Hiraldo’s counter oblique formation had blunted the Orsembians with both pulling back from the line, leaving bodies trailing behind them, and a mound where the press had been the thickest. Hiraldo had reformed a line, anchoring their left flank against the cliff face, rotating his tired troops out with reserves as men in squads took turns rushing out to gather up wounded from the mound and pulling them to safety.
There was still a fight on the right flank. The Orsembians weren’t in a hurry to send more men down the corridor General Priet had lain open for them. Nonetheless, they had their backs to that ridgeline now, and a little trickle of Orsembian troops were slipping into the southeastern passage. While calleroses of the Second Army waited there to harass them, those who made it formed squares to hold their positions. It would take a concentrated push to stop more Orsembians from making their way into the passage, an effort Priet lacked the position and resources to make presently.
“Those calleroses in the center can’t get away,” Recha said, stubbornly pressing her eyeglass’s lens into her chin. “They turned the center into a charnel house, and for what? This is the perfect chance to cut down as many as we can.”
Baltazar struck the rim of his bowl with his spoon loudly, the sharp, wooden clap loud enough to cut off officers talking over their own soup a few feet away. “Look to your armies, Recha,” he warned. “The men are starting to tire. The enemy, as well. It’s best we make use of this lull to recover as many as we can before the next engagement.”
Her armies did look tired.
That passionate zeal they’d had when they first charged appeared to have burned out. Now they moved as men going through practiced motions, following orders without much thought. Relieved companies made their way to the cook fires. They racked their weapons and descended on the pots, eating and drinking as quickly as they could before laying on the ground for short naps.
Meanwhile, musketeers switched out their bandolier, and men carrying wounded made their way to the army doctors. Fortunately, those grizzly sights were quartered on the far-right side of the camp, away from where she could casually glance in that direction.
“The melee is breaking up!” an observer shouted. “The enemy’s withdrawing!”
Baltazar turned to exchange his soup for his eyeglass that his waiting staff officer held. “Put that on the table and get yourself some food,” he told the officer.
“Yes, sir!” the officer replied. “Thank you, Field Marshal!”
Recha pursed her lips, watching the exchange. With a harrumph, she opened her own eyeglass and joined Baltazar in surveying the center.
General Ross’s musketeers were falling back behind their second line. The companies of pikemen stood ready, the front rows of pikes lowered in case another charge or breakthrough came from the untangling knot in the center.
Streams of men trickled out of the melee on both sides. In twos, in groups, in limping lines, they pulled themselves out of the fighting, making their way to the gaps between the companies on the second line and to safety.
The Orsembians, likewise, broke away from the melee, hurrying out of the press and into the haze below. Not just in the melee, but the Orsembians attacking down the rest of the center were withdrawing, too, in much better order than those running out of the knot.
The smoke would clear soon now that the musketeers had stopped. If there was a second line behind it, Recha was sure it would be visible soon.
“Calleroses are getting away,” she grumbled, biting the inside of her cheek at seeing the number of them riding free of the fighting.
“Let them,” Baltazar remarked. “They’re riding away bloodied. They’ll go back to camp, rest their horses, lick their wounds, and talk to the other calleroses about how their charge couldn’t break our lines. We need to take advantage of this lull.
“Dispatch!”
A rider dropped his food and came running.
“Send word to General Ross,” Baltazar ordered. “He is to use this moment to rotate the entire front line! Not company by company or one at a time. Every man who was in that fight is to be pulled back to rest!”
“The men on the front may not wait for those orders,” Recha commented.
Watching through her eyeglass, the melee had completely broken up. A few companies on the front line orderly fell back, making their way, step-by-labored-step, to the second line to rotate. Those lumbering out of the melee didn’t look to see if they were being replaced as they headed for the rear.
However, while most men lumbered back behind the second line, the last remaining black flag remained standing in the center. Those who didn’t rush to get behind the second line instead formed up around it. As they did, a second black banner reappeared, reclaimed from the battle, though with far less men around them than when they’d had charged in.
Recha peeked away from her eyeglass to spot the dispatcher still there, scribbling Baltazar’s order down as fast as he could. “Relay a message from me, as well,” she said. “After General Ross rotates the men out, he’s to deliver my personal compliments to those men in the center. They’re the saviors of the line, and they have my gratitude.”
The dispatcher wrote frantically to get it all down.
Baltazar shot glances to him, to her, then back to him. “That’s enough. Just relay the messages. General Ross is to rotate the entire center, and La Dama wishes him to convey her compliments to the survivors. Go on!” He waved the dispatcher off, sending him jogging to his horse. Then he turned and gave her an odd, crooked smirked. His mustache whiskers twitched.
“What?” she asked, shrugging.
“Deliver your personal compliments?” He arched an eyebrow.
Recha’s shoulders slumped. “I know,” she replied with a sigh. “After what they’ve been through, they may not care about any compliments or praise from me.” She straightened her shoulders. “But my recognition is all I can give them right now. I dare anyone on this field to say they haven’t earned it.”
Baltazar studied her for a moment. “You should get something to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Baltazar shook his head. “You will be and need to eat like everyone else. I’ll send—”
A sharp trumpet call pierced the air from across the field.
Recha’s eyeglass was up in an instant, along with Baltazar’s and every other observer’s.
Ten riders trotted out of the drifting musket haze, led by Borbin’s banner and a white flag of parley. The stopped yards away from the dead left from the melee, and their bugler let out another call. Their formality made their intentions obvious.
“Borbin wants to talk some more,” Recha said, frowning.
After everything that’s happened? The hairs at the back of her neck stood up, and she bit the inside of her cheek. You’re up to something again, aren’t you, Borbin?
***
“Come on!” the pikeman yelled, waving his arm.
Necrem and Hezet scrambled, dodging and weaving to avoid the calleroses riding out of the carnage. The shooting had blessedly stopped, and the soldiers were all eager to get out of the maddening brawl, as if every man on foot had silently agreed they had had enough.
The calleroses, however, didn’t share the same view. Those still in their saddles broke free from the melee with fanfare, yelling and slicing at anyone in their path. A soldier waved his spear to fend them off or spook their horses and was ran down for his trouble. His armor and clothing marked him as an Orsembian.
“Hurry!” pikemen yelled.
Hezet had spotted the Lazornians rallying around a flag as the shooting stopped and the mad dash to get out of the mayhem began. They thought they could simply make their way to join the rally. It would be much safer than trying to walk out of the press and into whatever awaited them on the other side. That was if the Orsembians didn’t get their fight back.
Necrem huffed and sucked in air in fast, sharp hisses. His lungs screamed for more, but he could only pull so much through his mask. His legs burned from running, and the rest of his body was numb. He’d worked through nights of endless hammering and had never felt as tired as he did now.
The hoofbeats grew louder. The yowling yells grew closer.
“Run, Oso!” Hezet screamed. “Run for your life!”
They both sprinted. Necrem’s legs were longer, but his armor was heavier. He’d never been much of a runner. Hezet hefted his halberd on his shoulder and raced beside him.
Sweat pooled in Necrem’s eyes. His vision blurred. His lungs demanded more air. The hooves grew louder! The hairs on the back of his neck stood up! The horses were breathing down on him. He could barely see the pikemen or their outstretched pikes.
“Come on!” men yelled.
Necrem roared. He ignored his screaming body, his burning face, blurring eyes. He lost feeling in everything but his legs. He squeezed his eyes shut and ran!
Faster. Faster! Faster!
He slammed into two men, and they all went tumbling over each other.
Others flooded around them, one stepping on Necrem’s back. He felt a telltale tremor rumble through the ground before hearing a horse bay and the sound of hooves grind against the dirt. Seconds later, the hoofbeats resumed, trotting away.
“Get ’em up,” someone ordered.
The boot left Necrem’s back, and someone slapped his pauldrons.
“You all right?” someone asked.
Necrem pushed himself up onto his knees, groaning along with the men he had run over. Hands reached down all around him. A couple snatched up the other two on the ground, but Necrem fetched his stolen spear, used it as a crutch, and attempted to crawl back up it again. His wobbling knees threatened to topple him back over, and his gauntlets slipped on the spear shaft. He sucked in air and his pride, and then took a hand to get back to his feet.
Men backed around him, giving him space while also staring up at him.
“His face,” someone whispered.
Necrem shifted on his feet, looking about him but couldn’t find the man who had spoken. Most of their faces were drenched in sweat and dust. Specks of blood only reached a few without any around him having head wounds.
He reached up and touched his mask. His fingers found the metal holes. The gauntlet’s flexible plates tapped against the mask’s steel.
He snorted in relief that it was still there. His cloth mask underneath was sealed to his face, thanks to the blood drying to his cracked skin.
“What about it?” he asked lowly.
Men passed wary looks at one another. Most returned to watching out for any more calleroses riding by, ignoring him.
“You’re . . . bleeding,” one man said, pointing at him.
Necrem looked at his hand. Droplets of blood painted across his gauntlet’s fingertips. It must have seeped through his cloth mask and dripped onto the metal. Now some was leaking through the holes. Here on a battlefield, though, there was little he could do about it.
He shrugged and said, “Who ain’t?”
A round of snorts and grumbles broke out around him.
“Order!” someone demanded, cutting over the men. “The calleroses have passed! Withdraw in steady order!”
Drum taps started up from somewhere in the center of the pack. Men moved together. Their feet drawn in step with the beat. Its infectious tone reached Necrem, and he didn’t need to be told to follow. He glanced over his shoulder, making sure Hezet had made it. The veteran was following a few men behind.
The men on the edges held their pikes out as they walked in more of a large circle than a square. They waved in and picked up any stragglers they met, absorbing smaller groups of Lazornian soldiers as they went.
Any group of calleroses that came galloping by was greeted with rows of pikes and roars of curses, whether they chanced a charge or kept their distance. Orsembian soldiers hurriedly ran away, some frantic to keep their distance.
Again, Necrem had an advantage being head and shoulders taller than everyone. He spotted where they were going before those around him could. The Lazornians had made another line, squares of infantry waiting and letting their embattled comrades through gaps between them. Safety was yards away.
A sharp trumpet call split the air. The drums stopped, and Necrem joined every man around him in spinning to see where that call had come from.
“Calleroses!” a man yelled. “They’re charging again!”
Not again. Necrem groaned and felt the soreness of his chest, not wanting to test the strength of his plate like that ever again.
“Square!” an officer ordered. “Form ranks and lower pikes on all sides!”
Drums rapped urgently, and exhausted men struggled to move at the pace. Necrem was swept along, finding himself, thankfully, three men deep and nowhere near the front row.
They waited. Men breathed hard, and poles rattled against each other as arms shook, expecting to hear that rumble again.
Instead, another trumpet blast sounded, accompanied by a group of calleroses walking their horses through the haze of dust and musket smoke to stop in the middle of the field. Two flags waved above them—Borbin’s and a white one.
“They’re not charging!” someone yelled.
“They want to talk!” Another laughed. “Maybe they’ve had enough!”
“Steady men!” an officer ordered. “It could be a trick! Orderly withdrawal! Keep your ranks!”
“Keep your ranks, boys!” someone repeated as the drums began tapping. “Keep your ranks!”
Necrem felt awkward backing away one slow, measured step at a time. The bottom rim of his shin plate dug into the top of his boots, and he repeatedly backed into the man behind him.
The slow pace was maddening. He kept glancing over his shoulder at the safety behind the second line of Lazornian squares, and it felt farther and farther away with each glance.
Another trumpet sounded, this time behind them, followed by drums.
A line of Lazornian calleroses trotted by, their marquesa’s flag and a white flag waving in front of them as they headed toward their Orsembian counterparts. Three of those calleroses broke away, riding toward them.
“Companies, halt!” an officer shouted.
What now? Necrem took a deep breath, wanting desperately to plant his spear into the ground and lean on it.
He spotted Hezet watching him, frowning.
“Well fought, men!” the calleros in the center yelled, reining in his horse a few feet from them along with his compatriots. “Well fought! Where are your officers?”
“Here, sir!” someone shouted deeper into ranks, which was echoed by several more men calling out all around.
“Continue your withdrawal to the rear,” the calleros ordered. “Pick up any stragglers and walking wounded you can, then reform, rest, and wait for further orders!”
I don’t think we needed to be told that. Necrem held his tongue. Although, from the rolling eyes and frowning faces around him, he wasn’t the only one thinking it.
“Yes, sir!” an officer shouted. “Thank you, sir!”
The calleros nodded and waved at all of them. “La Dama Mandas’s compliments you all! She has declared each of you as saviors of the line! Rest well.” He wheeled his horse around. “We may still have need of you this day!” With that, the calleroses galloped off to join their fellows in the talks happening in the center of the field.
“Can’t we just get paid and sleep the rest of the day?” a soldier joked, drawing some chuckles.
“With a woman!” another added, followed by more laughs.
“Two women!”
The burst of laughs, smirks, and a dozen conversations of each man trying to top the other of what they wanted spun quickly out of control.
“All right, knock it off!” a stern voice shouted. It sounded like Hezet to Necrem, but he couldn’t be sure.
“Companies, to the rear!” an officer shouted. “March!”
The drums picked up again, this time a more measured pace. As they made their way off the battlefield, they passed between the second line of Lazornians, marching up to take over. There were waves and nods as the groups passed, but it was mostly done in silence.
Necrem shouldered the spear he was carrying, unsure of what to do with it, or even what to do with himself, for that matter.
Should I . . . just go back to camp? Despite fighting with the men around him, he wasn’t a part of any of their companies. He wasn’t entirely sure if the men around him were the same ones who had fought around him when he’d first charged into that mess.
He looked over his shoulder. Hezet nodded back at him.
He sighed. Maybe I should just follow them to the rear and see what I can do then.
As he contemplated further, with every step, the calleroses who went out to talk galloped back behind the lines. Those carrying banners joined a column of over two hundred, mounted and watching behind the squares of men, while three broke away and kept riding into camp.
***
Recha scooped spoonful after spoonful of soup, barely chewing the stray carrot or bite of pork before swallowing. The soup was a touch too salty and needed to boil more of the water out. However, her demanding stomach didn’t care. The moment she had stubbornly relented and taken her first gulp, she’d suddenly become ravenous and attacked her bowl without a care of how unladylike she appeared. She didn’t even rise from her seat when the calleroses came riding in with Borbin’s latest overture.
“Who did you receive this from?” she asked, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. “Did Marshal Fuert deliver this personally, or was it another officer?” She pushed her bowl away to take up the folded missive on the table in front of her. Then she sat back and unfolded the unsealed parchment.
“Neither, La Dama,” the foremost calleros replied, clicking his heels together. “The message was delivered by a baron, Baron Valen Irujo. The baron wished to relay that we have fifteen minutes to offer a response.”
Recha snickered and smirked. Still delivering Borbin’s letters, are you, Valen? I wonder if it’s because you fought to keep your position, or if you’re being punished . . .
Her smirk slipped as she read. The message lacked a seal, yet after days of reading other correspondences, she instantly recognized Borbin’s own handwriting. She pursed her lips and read the message again. Her hunger suddenly disappeared.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” she said, rising to her feet. The back of her legs pushed her chair back before Cornelos caught it and drew it back the rest of the way. “You may all return to your duties.”
Dozens of heels snapped together around her, and officers sharply nodded in salute. “Yes, La Dama,” they parroted before breaking away. The calleroses put their helmets back on and headed toward their horses, and staff officers returned to their duties.
Baltazar remained standing to her left, watching her.
Recha handed him the missive as she snatched up her eyeglass and walked around the table to overlook the battlefield again. She twisted the glass, extending it, and brought it to her eye as her ears twitched from Baltazar’s heavy bootsteps walking up beside her.
“He wants his son’s body retrieved,” Baltazar said lowly, a hint of understanding in his voice. “For that, he’s requesting an hour reprieve for us both to tend to our wounded. It sounds . . . reasonable.”
“You hesitated,” Recha noted.
She slowly passed her eyeglass over the field. The left flank and center stood unengaged. The First Army was clearing the last of the dead and wounded from the where they had stopped the Orsembian oblique from dislodging them, and squares of companies were forming up on the battle line they had preserved. General Ross was forming up his second line where the center had held, making sure there was barely any gap between his arm and the First and Second on his flanks.
“Borbin doesn’t say whether he’s going to withdraw from the right or not,” Baltazar said, followed by the clicks of his eyeglass extending.
The fighting on the right flank had devolved into light skirmishes. General Priet was more focused on rotating out his companies at the front of the line, especially those on the corner, keeping the corridor the Orsembians held around the ridge on the right as small as possible.
Instead of fighting across the line, the Orsembians had banded together in tight pack squares, three companies strong. They formed tight pockets with spaces between them, and anchored their backs to the ridgeline all the way down and around into the southeast passage.
“We can’t accept the reprieve and let those squares remain in those positions,” Baltazar commented. “If we do, it will give them time to regroup, reinforce, and possibly widen their position. It could risk the entire right flank. Priet should never have let up the pressure.”
“And if we ordered an attack on the right now, we can tear up that offer of reprieve for the rest of the line while we’re at it,” Recha said.
“Not just that.” Baltazar coughed and cleared his throat. “Ordering an assault on the right with the enemy in tight squares like that would require fighting against each individual square. It’ll be a fierce bloodbath for each one. If Priet is pushed by Orsembian reinforcements, we could just be throwing men away without dislodging them completely. We need to plan across the entire field . . .
“Recha! Across the field. The center!”
Recha took her eyeglass down to reposition and brought it back up again, focusing across the field at the Orsembian center. The haze of musket smoke and dust kicked up by withdrawing calleroses had wafted away, revealing what amassed beyond.
A new Orsembian formation came into view. In the center massed three calleros columns, five horses across and stretching down the slope. Their lances were held high, along with a multitude of banners from barons and high-ranking calleroses. In the center column, ten horses back, waved Borbin’s largest banner on the field, three times the size of the others, and sat in a commanding, protected space among the calleroses.
Lines of infantry flanked the calleroses, at least six lines deep, amounting to at least forty thousand strong. A couple of lines were positioned on each wing of the massed formation, but the bulk of that army was pointed like a broad sword at the center of her line.
“He still intends to destroy our center,” Recha said, interpreting the obviousness of the formation.
“Yes,” Baltazar agreed. “Either now or an hour from now.” He hummed to himself.
Recha lowered her eyeglass, finding him standing with his arms folded and eyeglass under his arm. Unlike before when the center had appeared to be breaking, Baltazar’s dark eyes scanned the field back and forth repeatedly. His face was carved from unmoving rock, unshaken at the prospect of the Orsembians doing the same thing again, only in most likely overwhelming numbers this time.
“I don’t think we’re going to get that reprieve, are we?” she said.
“I don’t think so, either,” Baltazar agreed. “I think General Ross needs to prepare to hold, and then orderly withdrawal. Hiraldo and Priet, on the other hand . . .” He raised his eyeglass again. He twisted and turned the lens, grimacing. He growled after a moment and pulled it away. “Your eyes are better than mine. Can you look for something for me?”
Recha suppressed a small smile. “Sure, great Field Marshal.” She brought her eyeglass up. “What are we looking for?”
“White Sword,” he growled. “I don’t see his banner anywhere!”
Recha sniffed sharply, her bemusement instantly snuffed out as she tightened her eyeglass’s focus on all the banners waving in the Orsembian center. It was nearly impossible to distinguish individual banners from how they hung around each other, the lack of a breeze prevented them from unfurling so she could see them all clearly. However, there was only one Orsembian banner that was black and white.
It was nowhere to be seen.
“It’s not there!” she exclaimed, dropping her eyeglass. “The White Sword’s not on the field!”
Baltazar crumpled Borbin’s message in his hands, tossing it back on the table as he spun. “Dispatchers!” he roared. “I need dispatchers! General Galvez needs to—”
A piercing, echoing trumpet call came from Recha’s left. She looked back to the field, yet Hiraldo and the First Army stood unopposed and unmoved from the last time she had looked. There was no attack. There was . . .
She spun on her heels.
Squads of soldiers that they had left stationed near the narrow passage on the left were darting away from it. A few riders galloped out it, their arms flailing in the air and bouncing in the saddle without any sign of fear of slipping off or breaking their horses’ legs. Or perhaps they feared something else.
“Beat to arms!” Baltazar shouted. “Get the men eating and resting up! They’re coming—”
Another sharp trumpet blast, followed by the shouting, yelling, and thundering hooves echoed out of the tight passage and into the plain. They grew louder and louder over the hurried drumbeats breaking out across the camp.
Recha kept her eyes on the passage, waiting for what she knew was coming.
Men scrambled, kicking cookpots over to fetch their racked pikes and muskets.
Another trumpet blast echoed!
The hooves grew louder!
Suddenly, calleroses by the dozen spilled from the narrow passage in a fast, endless stream. They came on, waving their swords and lowering their lances, eager for the slaughter. They broke into multiple lines, some flowing toward the rear of the First Army, others around the cliff face at the rear of the camp, and the main force, waving the White Sword’s banner . . . came straight at her tent.
Orders were shouted on top of orders. Men raced back and forth, grabbing every weapon they could find. In an instant, Cornelos and her guard surrounded her and Baltazar, swords drawn.
“We should withdrawal, Recha,” Cornelos urged.
“No,” she replied.
“What—” Cornelos grunted and pulled back at seeing her.
She grinned broadly from ear to ear. Her heart raced with the pounding of the hooves coming to take her life. She couldn’t hold it any longer.
“Now, Sevesco!” she screamed. “Now!”
Boom!
Both sides of the narrow passage exploded!