“Slight change of plans,” he said. “The Kez won’t advance. They think they can hide behind their artillery and blast away all day and that we’ll sit on our thumbs and take it. Well, if they won’t come to us then we’ll go to them.” Sergeant Mapel made a sound in the back of his throat. Taniel squeezed his shoulder, silently willing him to keep his peace. He continued, “Colonel Styke’s Mad Lancers are heading straight down the center. Major Bertreau will lead the garrison in after him. We’re going to take the canoes downriver and hit them from the flank as planned, but we’re going to have to row a little harder.”
It occurred to Taniel that Bertreau had been given the deadliest job. Styke might be able to ride through and escape if he found an opening, and the Ghost Irregulars could withdraw from the flanks at any time – but there was no escaping for Bertreau. His hackles raised as he realized that he’d probably seen her for the last time, and in his excitement to follow Styke he’d urged her on to her own death.
“Keep it simple, boys,” Taniel finished, hearing his voice crack. “And we’ll get out of this alive.” He got down from crate and said to Mapel in a low voice, “We hug the far bank of the river. We do what we can to draw off a few companies, but if things go south, we disappear into the swamp. Make sure everyone is carrying their full kits.”
“What about Bertreau?” Mapel asked.
Taniel considered telling Mapel the truth, but paused, hating himself for it. “She wanted it this way. Final orders.” If Bertreau lived through the engagement, Taniel would deal with the lie then. But for now, he didn’t need anyone distracted. He felt sick to his stomach.
Mapel nodded and began directing everyone toward their canoes. Taniel joined Ka-poel in the lead canoe and they soon set off, paddling to the opposite riverbank and then holding steady while the rest of the tiny flotilla caught up, then slowly working their way downstream.
Once they were outside the city, visibility improved significantly. A gentle breeze carried powder smoke away from the Kez artillery, allowing Taniel to see the enemy spread out across a slight incline. It gave him a startlingly good view of the battle that caused a brief spike of satisfaction – followed by the realization he’d have a front-row seat to witness Bertreau, the garrison, and the Mad Lancers all die.
Taniel sniffed a pinch of black powder to improve his sight and was quickly able to tell that the Kez had, indeed, already seen him and his Ghost Irregulars. There was waving and shouting, but their attention was quickly drawn away to Planth as the garrison took up position on the outskirts of the city.
The garrison was a motley group, only about half wearing the yellow jackets of the Fatrastan army, but they were well-armed and holding firm. Taniel could see Bertreau leading from the front, shouting orders and curses as she got them all into line. They looked so outnumbered that Taniel almost ordered the Ghost Irregulars to withdraw immediately.
“I don’t want to watch this,” he muttered.
Ka-poel turned around in her seat and studied his face. She touched two fingers to her eyes and pointed at Planth.
“Yes,” Taniel said. “I can see it fine.”
She repeated the gesture.
“I’m going to watch, even if I don’t want to,” he said, his voice rising in anger.
Ka-poel shook her head emphatically and repeated the gesture a third time. Taniel finally decided to ignore her, fixing his eyes on the battlefield while she steered them through the reeds. As he did, he saw the garrison’s formation suddenly flex, and then split. What happened next took his breath away.
The Mad Lancers rode through the new gap, four abreast, their steel plate armor glinting in the sun. Their lances were up, streaming yellow banners, and their hooves thundered so loudly across the fields that Taniel could hear them from a distance. They stayed in formation, shoulder-to-shoulder, nose-to-tail with the precision of a crack Adran cavalry unit. Each rider looked like a miniature fortress moving across the battlefield and the whole unit together was simply stunning. He’d never seen anything like this and knew he never would again in a thousand years, wondering briefly how anyone had managed to hold the line against a charge like that in the old days.
But the Kez were a modern military, not medieval yokels with spears. Their artillery crews scrambled to reload, captains no doubt demanding canister shot.
The Mad Lancers took to the field between the Kez and Planth. Their progress seemed impossibly slow as they spread out into a V formation with Styke and his immense warhorse comprising the tip of the spear. Behind them, the garrison fell into step, advancing in their wake at double time.
Taniel barely remembered to lift his rifle to pick off a Kez gunner, reloading it himself as he watched the Mad Lancers. It was a brave charge, a glorious charge. A doomed charge.
They closed within three hundred yards and the Kez cannons belched flame and canister shot like enormous blunderbusses. Taniel turned his eyes on Styke, ready to watch the Mad Lancers fall like wheat before a scythe.
The enchanted armor shrugged off the canister shot like it was nothing more than rain. Taniel heard himself let out a loud cheer as the Mad Lancers charged through the cloud, not a single horse tripping or man falling from his saddle. The Kez gunners panicked, reloading, as their infantry tried to move forward in time to protect them.
It wasn’t quick enough. Lances lowered, and the gunners were mowed down, disappearing beneath the armored chests of the horses. A cloud of smoke went up from the front line of infantry as they opened fire. Taniel thought he saw a single rider go down, and then a wall of bayonets presented itself to the Mad Lancers. The armored warhorses smashed through it like it was a garden hedge.
Taniel found his mouth hanging open, and turned to find a smug smile on Ka-poel’s face. “How did you know?” he asked.
She tapped one eye, then traced her breast and thumped the middle of her chest – a breastplate. She’d taken a long, hard look at the Mad Lancers’ armor, it seemed, and found it more robust than Taniel had guessed. The damned girl hadn’t even bothered to tell him.
The Lancers were now entirely encircled, the Kez lines desperately attempting to bring their bayonets to bear. Enchanted armor or no, they were all mortal men and horses. Taniel saw one lancer fall, and then another, and another. Their advance slowed from the weight of the Kez infantry and they soon disappeared in a swirl of bodies and powder smoke.
Certain that no one would emerge from that melee alive, Taniel picked off a Kez major, stopping to reload with two bullets, killing a sergeant and a captain with the next shot, and then watched as the garrison approached the hole Styke had made in the Kez middle.
The garrison stopped, opened fire once, and then charged with bayonets fixed. Their charge was less stylish than Styke’s and far less powerful. They slammed into the Kez lines like demons from the pit but were held up almost immediately as Kez officers organized their forces to face them.
The Kez middle bowed, then pulled back as a company broke and ran before the fury of the Planth garrison. The rout caught on in the flanking companies, but went no further as the Kez shored up their defenses and sought to encircle the garrison. Taniel’s heart fell. This wasn’t going to go well. Not at all.
He watched them fight and watched them fall, firing and reloading as quickly as he could. The barrel of his rifle was hot to the touch, the smell of powder stinging his nostrils, when suddenly his canoe was past the Kez lines. It was the moment he’d been dreading. Would he order the Ghost Irregulars to withdraw or would they commit and hit the Kez from behind?
It hardly seemed like any decision at all after witnessing a charge like that. “Cross the river,” he barked, setting down his rifle to help Ka-poel row.