“We’ll just have to succeed where they failed.”
“Are you going to get me killed?”
Olem stroked his beard and lowered himself back into his saddle. She wondered briefly how her life would be different if she had let him court her and had given up on her obsession to protect Jakob Eldaminse. Would she still be just Nila the laundress, another soldier’s lover, toiling with the rest of the camp followers? Or would she have been captured along with so many others when Budwiel fell, and now be either dead or enslaved?
“I’ll try not to,” Olem said. He began to roll a cigarette. “If – when – we catch these bastards, I want you to stay near the middle of the column, where it’s safest.” He paused to lick his rolling paper. “To be honest, nowhere is safest in a cavalry skirmish, but that’ll have to do. The magebreaker will have heard about the Battle of Ned’s Creek, but if we’re lucky, he won’t suspect that we have a Privileged with us.”
And he won’t see my glow in the Else because of my limited experience, Nila finished silently. “What if I can’t do sorcery?”
“Keep your head down.”
“Easy for you to say. You have a sword.”
“And a pistol and carbine,” Olem said.
“You’re very reassuring.”
“That’s what Tamas says, strangely enough.”
“Tamas? Are you on a first-name basis with the field marshal?”
Olem grunted. “That was inappropriate of me. Sorry. Nerves are a bit frayed. I’ve ridden with cavalry before, even been in a few skirmishes, but this is my first command.”
“Oh, now that is reassuring.”
Olem flinched, and Nila wished she could take it back. “You’ll do fine.”
“Thanks, mother,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’m leaving the heavy lifting to my officers. If I do one thing well, it’s pick good men. If I don’t do fine, at least they will.”
“You should give yourself more credit.”
“Should I?” Olem put the rolled cigarette to his lips, then checked the carbine holstered to his saddle.
“Yes.”
“You didn’t.”
Nila jerked back. What was that supposed to mean? “Now wait a moment.”
He held up a hand. “Ancient history,” he said. “Forget I said a word.”
She scowled at him while he called over one of his officers and gave the order to stake camp. When the man had ridden away, Olem ashed his cigarette.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Nila said.
“Oh?”
“I had my reasons,” she continued. Jakob had needed her protection. She hadn’t trusted Tamas at that time, and then she had been carried away by Lord Vetas and caught up in Bo’s battles. She wanted to tell him all of that, but she hardly knew where to begin. “I really did like you.”
“Well, that’s a nice consolation prize.”
“Don’t be such a dense ass.” Nila’s voice rose. “I wanted to be with you, but I said no because I knew I had to protect Jakob.” Her jaw snapped shut, and she blinked at him for several moments, not able to believe she had just said that.
“Oh,” Olem said, both eyebrows now raised, his head cocked back in surprise.
Nila brushed some dirt from her uniform. “It’s just… I’m sorry. Part of me wishes I had said yes, but as you said – ancient history.”
Olem remained silent for several minutes, watching his men dismount and set up a picket line for the horses, readying the area for a campsite. When the silence was approaching the point of madness for Nila, he finally crushed his cigarette on his saddle horn and flicked the butt into the long grass. “I’ll have one of the boys find you some good stones that we can warm in the fire. It’ll help the ass-ache.”
“Excuse me?”
“Hot stones, wrapped in the leather. You put them between your legs and all the fiddly bits downstairs won’t hurt as much in the morning.”
Nila decided she’d liked Olem more when he was being bashful back in Adopest. This seemed entirely too… forward. “Thank you.”
Olem merely nodded a reply. His eyes were on something on the horizon.
“What is it?” she asked.
Olem removed the looking glass from his saddlebag and held it to his eye. Nila squinted to the west and thought, beneath the glare of the half-set sun, that she could see a rider. She heard a sharp intake of breath, and Olem lowered his looking glass.
“Pack it up, boys!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Kez to the west!”
The speed of it all made Nila’s head swim. Within five minutes the whole regiment was back in the saddle, the thunder of their hooves ringing in Nila’s ears and the adrenaline of the chase drowning out the pain from a day’s worth of riding.
Olem ordered out dozens of scouts and formed his men with the bulk of the cuirassiers in the middle and the dragoons on the wings as they crested the hill in the waning light of dusk.
Nila could see the distant speck of the Kez rider galloping across the plains.
“Is there anything you can do?” Olem asked.
“What? I mean, no, what could I do? He’s too far for Privileged sorcery, even if I was confident I could hit him at all.”
He gave a stiff nod and ordered his men to advance, all while eyeing the scouts fanning out across the plains ahead of them. She could see the indecision in his eyes – was this an opportunity or a trap?
They proceeded on the trail of the Kez rider. Nila watched as the dragoons on their right flank swept up and over a hill to the north, out of sight, and their left flank proceeded along a matching arc a quarter of a mile out past a distant wheat field. She felt cold, apprehensive of the disappearance of those five hundred cavalry. What if it was a trap? Would they return in time?
The sun had nearly set by the time the cuirassiers crested a short hillock to look down suddenly into a steep valley cut into the hills. Less than a mile distant, Nila could see the flickering of campfires and groups of picketed horses.
“We’ve found the enemy camp!” a breathless scout told Olem.
“I can see that.” Olem gazed through his looking glass, a look of consternation on his face.
“Could it be a trap?” Nila asked.
“They’re scrambling like a kicked anthill down there,” Olem said. “It could be a trap… but we may have gotten lucky. Form up!” he bellowed. “Three lines, flanking formation!”
The cuirassiers split into three equal wedges. One of them took the north side of the valley while the second went straight down the middle. Nila’s wedge, with Olem at the head, rode along the southern lip. As they drew closer, Nila could see the Kez begin to ride out in waves from the camp – it was no desperate flight, but an organized withdrawal.
“Faster, damn it!” Olem yelled. He had his head cocked to the wind, and Nila could hear the distant call of bugles from the north and south. “We’re in the clear, we’ve got these bastards!”
Nila tried to swallow her terror as her mount kept up with the galloping horde. Down in the valley, she could see their center wedge sweep through the Kez camp.
The valley was not long. Less than a half mile later, it ended in a narrow, steep hill that brought the Kez cavalry back onto the plains. Nila thought the hill would slow them down, but was shocked to see the whole regiment fly up it without a stumble.
Olem’s cuirassiers were a quarter of a mile behind the Kez cavalry and it was clear even to Nila’s eyes that they were far too slow to catch them. The cuirassiers were weighed down by their armor and heavier weaponry, while it appeared the Kez cavalry had lighter weapons and no armor, and had been forced to leave behind bedrolls and supplies when they fled their camp.
Up ahead, Nila could see the plains begin to roll steadily, flat fields of wheat disappearing into a myriad of hills cast in darkness by the sun setting behind the mountains. The Kez would reach those hills soon, and something about those shadows made her shiver.
She could hear Olem swearing at the top of his lungs. He bent over his mount, urging him faster, and Nila wondered briefly how easy it would be for one of these horses to lose its footing and stumble, taking out the entire line behind it. Up ahead something caught her eye, and she couldn’t help the cheer that escaped her lips as Adran dragoons suddenly burst into view from the north.