The messenger saluted. “Brigadier Abrax orders you to hold your fire.”
“Hold my–” The colonel’s face turned red. “Hold my fire? What the pit is that supposed to mean? Those cuirassiers will crush us!” She sent the messenger back to the front and fumed silently.
Nila tore her gaze away from the advancing cuirassiers. To the northwest, the Adran artillery batteries suddenly belched flame and smoke, their barrels pointed toward the Wings’ encampment. Nila squeezed her eyes shut, remembering the terrible whistling of cannon fire at the royalist barricades, and waited for the horrible sound.
It never came. When she opened her eyes again, she could see the distant figures of the Adran artillerymen busy reloading. “What are they aiming for?” she asked.
Adamat frowned. “I don’t know.”
Another salvo followed, and Nila strained to see where the cannonballs were landing. The artillery seemed pointed straight at her. She had no idea how far a cannon would fire, but why would they fire at all unless they were going to hit something?
“I don’t think they’re firing at anything,” the Wings’ colonel suddenly said. She sounded surprised by her own outburst. “There’s no chance they would overshoot us at that range and…” She fell silent as more of the Adran cannons opened fire.
Nila twisted her head. Was that the sound of muskets? To the south, a low cloud of black smoke hung over the battlefield, and she heard a sudden roar: a hundred thousand voices as the Kez lines charged.
The battle had begun.
It would end soon enough for her. The cuirassiers were still advancing at a trot, but they would charge momentarily. They couldn’t be more than a few hundred yards away. She looked down at her right hand and tried to will the fire to come. She had to go down fighting. She couldn’t let herself be killed like a commoner. Not now. Not after everything she’d been through.
Her hand began to feel warm, but nothing happened. She concentrated harder. Bo had said she was powerful. Surely she could do something. Anything!
A cry went up among the Wings’ infantry, and Nila looked up, her concentration broken, to see that the cuirassiers had suddenly changed direction. The whole group had turned west. The Wings’ colonel watched with mouth agape as the cuirassiers trotted parallel to the Wings’ line, just out of rifle range. The Wings’ colonel barked orders, shifting her men to protect that side of the camp.
The Adran cuirassiers continued on, swinging wide of the camp and then even wider of the Wings’ front lines.
Nila didn’t understand. Were they going to flank the Wings’ front line? Then what about the lancers that Adamat had seen? Where the pit were all these cavalry going?
She didn’t understand until she caught sight of the Adran artillery. Their crews had stopped firing over the Wings’ camp and had readjusted to face south, toward the Kez lines. General Hilanska’s Adran infantry swiveled along with the artillery, moving forward to take up positions not against the Kez front, but beside it.
A messenger on horseback arrived at full gallop and reined in beside the Wings’ colonel.
“Orders from Brigadier Abrax!” the messenger gasped. “Swing your men around and prepare to act as auxiliary to the front lines. The Adran attack was a ruse. General Hilanska is no longer in command of the Adran army and they will fight on our side!”
The colonel gave orders to a nearby captain and then grabbed the messenger’s horse by the bridle. “Who the pit is in charge, then?”
“Why, Field Marshal Tamas. He has returned.”
Nila swayed on her feet, feeling suddenly weak. Tamas was still alive? And he was in command? Maybe, just maybe, she would survive this day.
“Nila,” Adamat said kindly, “your arm is on fire.”
She looked down to find a blue nimbus of flame surrounding her right hand and engulfing her arm to the elbow. She waved her arm to put it out, and then, experimentally, she touched her thumb and forefinger together. The flame sprang back up around her fist.
To the south, an audible crash rose above the artillery and musket fire, and she looked to see that three battalions of Adran cuirassiers had just slammed into the Kez flank.
Chapter 15
Adamat couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Field Marshal Tamas wasn’t merely alive, he was here?
Tamas must have taken the command from Hilanska. That meant that the Adran forces, including the Wings of Adom, could now present a unified front against the Kez.
Adamat’s heart fell as he dwelt upon that thought. The Kez still outnumbered Adro by at least four to one, and now that they battled on the open plains, it would be an easy thing for the Kez to spread their superior numbers and engulf the smaller Adran army.
The bulk of the battle was now hidden in the low cover of black musket smoke, obscuring the southern horizon as if an entire city were afire. To the southwest, Adamat could see the Adran cuirassiers struggling to disengage themselves after a successful charge at the Kez flank. Kez auxiliaries were already advancing at a double march to cut off the cuirassiers’ escape.
To Adamat’s horror, the auxiliaries continued to fan out, stretching impossibly far beyond the edge of the Wings’ lines. The Kez must have been expecting Hilanska to take care of the Wings’ flank, and now that the ruse had been betrayed, they had commanded several brigades forward to take care of the job.
And they would do so easily. Even if all those auxiliaries were untrained and unequipped, they more than made up for it in bulk. They would collapse the Wings’ right by sheer manpower.
Beside Adamat, Nila had taken to snapping her fingers, igniting her arm and then putting it out again with Privileged sorcery. She had stopped watching the battle and seemed completely enthralled in her own experimentation. He noticed that the Wings’ colonel had taken a long step away from her, and he did the same. Nila – by her own admission – didn’t have any idea what she was doing, and Adamat didn’t care to find out how many charred corpses it took for most Privileged to figure it out.
The Adran cuirassiers finally pulled themselves away from the Kez flank and fled before the advancing auxiliaries. They had left an enormous dent in the side of the Kez infantry, but their own numbers had suffered, and they retreated to the northwest to lick their wounds.
The auxiliaries slowed when they realized they would not catch the cuirassiers and swung around to march against the Wings’ flank. Adamat, even with his unskilled eye, could see it would end in disaster. He hoped that Tamas was planning on sending more reinforcements to this side, because it couldn’t get much worse.
Adamat swore to himself under his breath. Why had he let that thought enter his head? Of course it could get worse.
It just had.
A brigade of Kez auxiliaries had just broken off from the main body and was marching straight for the camp. Another brigade soon followed, and Adamat realized that nothing but the Wings’ colonel and her one brigade of green troops stood between the camp and the Kez.
Even if they managed a strong defense, it would still be a slaughter. The Kez infantry wouldn’t turn away at the last moment. They would overrun the camp defenders, kill any followers, loot and burn the camp, and then turn to attack the Wings from behind.
The Wings’ colonel gave a rapid succession of orders. Messengers sprinted toward the front, and the companies wheeled from the north to face this new threat.
Adamat drew his cane sword and clutched it tightly in one hand. He immediately felt silly. What would a cane sword do against musketmen with bayonets fixed? He thought to ask the colonel if there was a spare rifle he could use, but she dashed away suddenly, shouting orders at a nearby captain.
That left Adamat alone with Nila. The girl Privileged was still flicking her fingers, sparking blue flames along her arm.