“And you think Kerite knows about it too?”
“As soon as I saw her camped on that floodplain down there, I knew exactly what she was up to.”
“It sounds like we would need twice her number just to root her out.”
“At least,” Demir admitted.
“So we have to play this defensively? We have no choice, right?”
Demir cast him a sidelong, unreadable glance. He did not answer.
“Then why,” Idrian continued on, feeling emboldened by the lack of rebuke, “did you tell Tadeas that we were going on the offensive?”
“Because we are.”
“When?”
“This very night.”
The word “bullshit” very nearly escaped Idrian’s lips. That definitely would have crossed a line, and he was glad he held it back. But what the piss was Demir up to? He’d already said that the soft ground Kerite was camped on was impervious to cavalry. So where did he send those thousand cuirassiers? None of it made sense, and Idrian found that it caused his own nerves to come unsettled.
The night wore on. An hour passed, then another. Idrian kept track of time by the movement of the moon and tried to force himself to enjoy the quiet night. Demir was not unpleasant company, and he talked a little about his time out in the provinces, telling stories of fleecing provincial bookies that Idrian did not necessarily believe, but found quite entertaining. Idrian returned the favor, telling Demir about the campaign in which he and Tadeas had become friends in far-off Marn.
He’d almost forgotten their purpose here – or rather, what little purpose Demir had revealed – when he spotted lights bobbing through the hills below them. He tapped Demir on the shoulder and brought them to his attention. Demir stared for several moments before speaking. “Dragoons, by their speed. Maybe fifty of them. Probably sent off to loot the guild-family hunting lodges. Gotta pay for the war, right?”
Idrian reached for his helmet. “Shall we intercept them? The two of us alone should be enough with the element of surprise.”
“Hmm.” Demir checked his pocket watch. “If they’d arrived a half hour ago, I would say yes. But I think we’ll be okay. The road they’re following comes up the tributary into the Kirkovik’s hunting grounds.”
Idrian watched the line of torches continue to move. His whole body itched at the sight of them. “We should warn Tadeas,” he finally said.
“No.”
“Sir!”
Demir smiled. “Tad has his own sentries down there. He’ll see them coming. But they won’t be a problem.”
Minutes continued to tick by. The dragoons grew perilously close to that sliver of lake that Idrian could see over the treetops. He could hear no alarm, see no movement of the Ironhorns among those trees. Fifty dragoons might not be much compared to a battalion of combat engineers, but the two groups stumbling on each other in the dark would cause casualties – and then the dragoons would return swiftly to Kerite and betray the Ironhorns’ position. Idrian got to his feet. “Sir, I can’t–”
“Wait!” Demir said, cutting him off but standing up next to him. Demir held his pocket watch, his attention fixated on the dragoons. “Wait,” he said again, drawing the word out. Even in the darkness his gaze was intense, and after a few more seconds he whispered, “Now!”
There was nothing. Idrian scowled at Demir, then down at the dragoons, then back at Demir. He opened his mouth, only to have the words snatched from his breath by a deep, reverberating thump that rattled through the rocky earth and up deep through his bones. The sound came from the direction of the Ironhorns. Down below them, the company of dragoons came to a stop, their torches flickering uncertainly in the night.
“What just happened?” Idrian whispered to Demir.
“Listen!”
Idrian turned his head, straining with all his senses. The whole world seemed to have gone completely still. He could hear nothing. Except … He shook his head. It was as if the sound of his own blood rushing through his ears was growing steadily louder. It made no sense. Idrian peered into the darkness, wishing his sightglass was even better, when the torches of that company of dragoons just … went out.
Not all at once. The lights disappeared one at a time, in rapid succession, and Idrian found himself staring in horrified fascination as the very earth seemed to swallow them up. He thought he heard a few screams, but they were difficult to make out over the rushing sound in his ears. A slow realization reached him, and he found himself fighting for the right words before finally turning to Demir.
“That man-made lake down there. You just blew up the dam, didn’t you?”
Demir didn’t answer for a long time. He stood frozen, holding his pocket watch up in front of him like a coach-service conductor noting the time on her arrivals. The seconds ticked by, and then the minutes, before the rushing sound in Idrian’s ears finally began to abate slightly.
“If,” Demir finally spoke up, “my calculations are correct, the water should arrive any moment.”
Idrian turned his attention back to Kerite’s camp. One by one in rapid succession, just like the torches of the dragoons, cook fires began to go dark. It was a silent, eerie process, as if a giant were pulling a blanket over the entire camp. Inky black spread along the floodplain, and the distant sound of shouts reached him. “Did you just destroy all of Grent?” Idrian asked, his whole body numb with the realization of what was happening.
“Of course not. I’m not a monster. Grent’s flood-control measures are far too good, and the lake Mika just emptied far too small. But those floodplains Kerite is camped on are specifically meant to be flooded.”
“And our cavalry?” Idrian asked. As if to answer his question, he suddenly heard the distant cracks of muskets, carbines, and pistols. He thought he saw muzzle flashes on the northwest end of the floodplains. No, he definitely saw muzzle flashes there. Battle of some kind had been joined.
“Kerite’s forces not swept away asleep in their tents will try to reach high ground on the Grent-Ossan Highway. Those two battalions are sweeping along it at this moment.”
“A cavalry attack? At night?”
“I … might have confiscated a very large, very valuable shipment of sightglass from a Magna warehouse earlier today, and distributed it to our cuirassiers.”
Idrian could do nothing but watch, dumbfounded, the chaos unfolding in front of him. It was difficult to make out in the darkness, even with his sightglass, but he could understand at least some of what was going on. It was devastating and brutal, and for some reason it made him feel sick. Demir could not hope to take Kerite on the battlefield, so he’d unleashed the very forces of nature upon her.
“You wanted me to see this, didn’t you?” Idrian asked breathlessly.
Demir was quiet for a moment, his eyes fixed on the distant events. Finally he said, “I know what everyone is saying about me, even among the Ironhorns. I know they think that I’ve broken, that I’m insane, that I can’t be trusted to keep them alive. I did want you to see this. Tadeas might be the head of the Ironhorns, but you’re the beating heart, and I want you to understand that all of those things might be true – but that there is still a little of the Lightning Prince left in me.”
Demir turned suddenly, putting his pocket watch away and heading back the way they’d come. He stopped after a few paces and continued, “More importantly, I wanted you to see that Kerite is not invincible. She can – she will – be beaten. Come, let’s get back to camp.”