Across the way, the enemy army did not move. Tadeas swore. “She’s not taking the bait. Dangling some uncertain troops in front of her isn’t going to work. She’s not going to bother attacking until we’ve all broken.”
“She’s not going to wait much longer,” Demir answered. “Kerite might be the best, but she’s also vain. She loves to be seen to be clever. She loves the glory. Chasing down a fleeing enemy will get her neither of those things. She’s going to either take the bait or sense the trap and withdraw. I hope,” he added under his breath. “Come on, Kerite. This is your chance to clobber the Foreign Legion and the Lightning Prince.”
Demir felt all his senses straining, days’ worth of plans balanced on a knife’s edge. His heart began to fall. She wasn’t going to take the bait. She’d sensed the trap, somehow outthought him.
“Sir!” someone shouted. “We have a cavalry charge coming from the south!”
“Perfect,” he breathed, and across the way a hundred trumpets suddenly blared. Kerite’s thick columns of infantry ground into motion, their heavy tramp stirring the air. Demir was once again struck by the uniform precision of it all; the tidal wave rolled forward. Could he break it?
“Did you know,” he said sidelong to Tadeas, “that slingers of old could send a piece of lead shot over twelve hundred feet?”
Tadeas shook his head.
“Mika only got me eight hundred feet. Too much weight in the grenades. Too much wobble from the powder. But eight hundred will do.” He snapped his fingers once more at a messenger. “Signal our left flank to restore cohesion.” The signal was sent, and within thirty seconds the disorganized rabble of fleeing grenadiers firmed back into a soldier line, returning to their position. Demir half expected another trumpet call; for Kerite to withdraw her troops. It never came. She was committed now.
“Are you going to do anything about those cavalry?” Tadeas asked. “It wasn’t in the notes you gave me for Plan C.”
“Yes.” Demir tilted his head to listen, and it wasn’t long until the sudden roar of cannons split the morning. “I’m going to shoot them in the face with grapeshot from Halfwing’s cannons hidden behind those trees.” As if to accentuate his point, the screams of men and horses soon followed, a far more unsettling sound than the artillery fire that preceded it. Directly in front of them, Kerite’s lines suddenly opened up and dozens of breachers raced forward, charging faster than horses, their swords raised.
“Slingers!” Demir shouted. His entire army, two whole brigades of infantry, knelt as one. The only people who remained standing were a few hundred engineers, whirling slings over their heads. “Loose!” he bellowed. Small grenades, looking tiny and fragile and insignificant, soared in a high arc up across the field. He followed them as black specks until they started to land. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the explosions started, turning much of Kerite’s line of breachers into a tangled mess of flesh and godglass.
“Ossa-ha!” someone shouted, their tenor voice carrying clear and steady in the echoing wake of the explosions. The infantry remained on their knees as the engineers spent the rest of their grenades, targeting lone breachers. “Ossa-ha!” the rest answered. “Ossa-ha! Ossa-ha! Ossa-ha!”
Demir turned to his uncle. “Now,” he said, “we have a battle.”
Kerite’s infantry charged.
57
It was the second day of their search when Idrian’s team got their first whiff of the flying glassdancer. Colonel Jorfax, riding just a little out front of the group, suddenly reined in her horse and raised a fist to the air. Idrian pulled up, his eyes immediately shooting to the sky, searching the low cloud cover for any sign of their quarry. All around him, pistols and carbines were produced, eyes raised, thirteen riders all tensed and watching, trying to pretend that they weren’t watching. They were a lousy bunch of actors, and he hoped that the flying glassdancer didn’t notice.
“Is he here?” Mika hissed.
Jorfax didn’t move. She didn’t even seem to breathe for several moments before she gave the tiniest shake of her head. “This way. Fifty yards.” She turned and began to ride quickly, forcing the rest of them to catch up. The countryside here was mostly rolling farms butting up against coastal scrubland. Windbreaks – rows of hundred-year-old trees along country lanes – were frequent, and the landscape was dotted with small farmhouses. Jorfax followed one such windbreak, crossing a ditch and heading up a short drive to a country villa.
Idrian ground his teeth and gripped the pommel of his sword. Despite the cool winter air and the chilly weather, he was sweating continuously under the massive cloak that hid his armor. His sword and shield hung from his saddle, wrapped in loose canvas in an attempt to disguise their nature. breacher armor was not designed for horseback riding and every damn part of him chafed.
Bluffing, Tadeas had told him just before they left yesterday morning, requires patience and perseverance. Never break character until after the other person has called. You have to stay in their head to the last moment. Idrian wondered if his was the best advice to follow, considering how much he cheated at cards. But Idrian kept riding, and he kept his damn cloak on.
Even before they reached the decorative brick wall that surrounded the villa, Idrian could hear flies. The stench hit him next, and he had a pretty good idea what to expect by the time they came up to the little iron gate. Idrian glanced sidelong at Braileer, noting the stricken look in his eyes, then pointed to him and four of the soldiers accompanying them. “You five, form a perimeter. Eyes on the sky. Squeaks, search the house.”
“Yes, sir.”
He dismounted and followed Jorfax and Mika through the gate. The sight that greeted them was much as he expected – another damned massacre. Eleven soldiers, a scout guide, and one of Jorfax’s glassdancers lay where they had fallen like a bomb had exploded in the middle of the group. They were shredded to pieces, their sticky blood covering practically every surface. At least two civilians had also been caught by the attack. They lay in the doorway, one of them still clutching the basket full of dates he was bringing the resting scouting party.
“Shit,” Mika said.
“Do you recognize them?” Idrian asked Jorfax. “Is this one of the three other groups Demir left in his scouting rotation?”
“It is,” Jorfax responded. She knelt over the lone glassdancer, studying the body intently. “His name was Lorstel. We called him Lucky because he’s survived so many close calls. Not this one, it seems.” She traced paths through the air with her fingers in several directions. Idrian walked over to kneel across from her, studying her face as she worked. He thought he could see a crack in that steely visage. Concern? Fear? She finally spoke again. “This winged glassdancer is damned good. He exploded Lucky’s glassdancer egg in his pocket. Looks like the initial blast killed…” She stood, walking around the perimeter of the massacre, her lips moving as she traced more paths. “He killed Lucky and these four with that first attack, then cut up the rest. They all would have died within ten or fifteen seconds.”