“Camenir,” Gavril said quietly.
Tamas felt a sliver of ice creep down his spine despite the heat. A flash of memory, and once again he was standing beside a shallow grave, dug with bare hands in the cold of night beside the torrent of a raging river. The end of a daring – but ultimately failed – plan, and the most harrowing escape of Tamas’s long career.
Gavril tugged at the front of his sweat-soaked vest. “We’ll be going right by. I’m going to stop and pay my respects.”
“I don’t think I could find him,” Tamas said, though he knew it was a lie. The location of the grave was burned into his memory.
“I can,” Gavril said.
“It’s quite a ways off the road. If I remember right.”
“You’ll stop too.”
Tamas looked back at his column of soldiers again. They marched on, the dust rising above them carried into the sky by a light breeze.
“I have men on the march, Jakola,” he said. “I’m not stopping for anything.”
Gavril sniffed. “It’s ‘Gavril’ now, and yes, you will be stopping.” He went on, not giving Tamas the chance to object. “You can lose the Kez entirely at the Fingers. We just have to reach the first bridge before them.”
The Fingers of Kresimir were a series of deep, powerful snow-fed rivers off the Adran Mountains. They were impossible to ford, even on horseback. The Great Northern Road traversed them by a series of bridges built almost a hundred years ago.
“If we can reach the bridge before them,” Tamas said, thankful to leave the topic of that lonely grave behind. “Even if we do, the cavalry can go west and around and be waiting for us when we come down onto the plains.”
“You’ll think of something.”
Tamas ground his teeth together. He had eleven thousand infantry and two hundred cavalry, and just a four-day lead on a group of Kez cavalry that could very well equal his numbers. Dragoons and cuirassiers had more than just an edge on infantry in open battle.
“We need food,” Tamas said.
Gavril looked toward the west and the tantalizing wheat fields of the Amber Expanse. “If we slow down too much to forage, the cavalry will reach us before Hune Dora Forest. Once we reach the forest, there are few farms. Foragers might bag deer and rabbits, but not enough to go around.”
“And the city itself?”
Tamas remembered there was a settlement just south of Hune Dora Forest. Whether the forest took its name from the settlement, or the other way around, Tamas did not know.
“It’s generous calling it a ‘city.’ It has walls, sure, but there can’t be more than a few hundred people. We might be able to buy or steal enough food for a day or two.” Gavril paused. “I hope you’re not planning on stripping the countryside of everything. The people here have it hard enough. Ipille treats his serfs worse than Manhouch ever did.”
“An army needs food, Jak… Gavril.”
Tamas stared toward the mountains, barely noticing the white peaks. He had to balance this army perfectly. They needed food and safety. If they reached Hune Dora Forest without food, his men would begin to starve and desert. If they took too long to forage, the cavalry would reach them before the forest and have their way with the entire column.
Olem returned from his task, cantering up beside Tamas and Gavril.
“Olem,” Tamas said. “Signal the column to stop.” He paused to examine the countryside. To the left of the road an overgrown field sloped down toward a ravine a half mile off. “This here, it’ll do.”
“For what, sir?”
Tamas steeled himself. “It’s time I talk to the men. Assemble them in ranks.”
It took nearly an hour for the last of the columns to catch up. It was valuable time lost, but thus far Tamas had left the officers to tend to their men and keep them informed. If he was going to keep command of this lot – retain their discipline and loyalty over the next few weeks – he needed to speak to them himself.
He stood on the edge of the road and looked down the slope. The field had been trampled, the green replaced by Adran blue, standing at ease in ranks like so many blades of grass.
Tamas knew that many of these men would die without reaching their homes.
“’Tention!” Olem bellowed.
There was an audible shifting of legs and straightening of backs as eleven thousand soldiers snapped to attention.
The world was silent. A breeze picked up, blowing down from the mountains and pushing gently on Tamas’s back. To their credit, not a single soldier reached to steady his hat.
“Soldiers of the Seventh and Ninth,” he began, shouting to be heard by all. “You know what’s happened. You know that Budwiel has fallen and that the Kez push in to Adro, checked only by the Adran army.
“I grieve for Budwiel. I know that you grieve with me. Many of you question why we didn’t stay and fight.” Tamas paused. “We were outnumbered and outclassed. The fall of Budwiel’s walls made our initial strategy obsolete and we could not have won that battle. As you all know, I do not fight battles that I will not win.”
There was a murmur of agreement. The anger at abandoning Budwiel had dulled in the six days since. The men understood. There was no need to dwell on it further.
“Budwiel may have fallen, but Adro has not. I promise you – I swear to you – that Budwiel will be avenged. We will return to Adro and join our brothers and we will defend our country!”
A cheer went up among the men. To be honest, it was halfhearted, but at least it was something. He raised his arms for quiet.
“First,” he said when the noise had died down, “we have a perilous journey ahead of us. I won’t lie to you. We have little food, no baggage train or resupply. No reinforcements. Our ammunition will dwindle and our nights will be cold. We are utterly alone in a foreign land. Even now, the enemy has set their dogs on us.
“Kez cavalry are on our trail, my friends. Cuirassiers and dragoons, at least our number’s worth and maybe more. I’d wager my hat that they are led by Beon je Ipille, the king’s favorite son. Beon is a brave man and he will not be beaten easily.”
Tamas could see the fear in his men’s eyes. Tamas let it stew for a moment, watched the growing sense of panic. And then he reached out his hand and pointed to his men.
“You are the Seventh and the Ninth. You are Adro’s finest, and that makes you the greatest infantry the world has ever seen. It is my pleasure, and my honor, to command you on the field of battle, and if it comes to it, to die with you. But I say we will not die here – on Kez soil.
“Let the Kez come,” Tamas roared. “Let them send their greatest generals after us. Let them stack the odds against us. Let them come upon us with all their fury, because these hounds at our heels will soon know we are lions!”
Tamas finished, his throat raw from shouting, his fist held over his head.
His men stared back at him. No one made a sound. He could hear his heart beating in his ears, and then somewhere near the back of the assembled troops someone shouted, “Huzzah!”
Another voice joined it. Then another. It turned into a cheer, then a chant, and eleven thousand men raised their rifles over their heads and bellowed their defiance back at him, buckles and swords rattling in a sound that could have drowned out cannon fire.
These were his men. His soldiers. His sons and daughters. They would stare into the eyes of the pit itself for him. He stepped back away from the road so that they would not see his tears.
“Good speech, sir,” Olem said, sheltering a match from the wind as he lit the cigarette pinched between his lips.
Tamas cleared his throat. “Wipe that grin off your face, soldier.”
“Right away, sir.”
“Once this quiets down, get the head of the column moving. We need to make more headway before night comes.”
Olem went off about his duties, and Tamas took another few moments to gather himself. He stared to the southeast. Was that his imagination, or could he see movement in the distant foothills? No. The Kez weren’t that close. Not yet.