Panic rose inside of him. Faye. She was gone. Separated from him by the blast. The roof had caved in, and he’d avoided most of it… sweet Kresimir, was she beneath the rubble?
“Faye! Faye!”
“She’s right here,” a voice said.
Adamat turned to find the eunuch standing in the doorway. He was holding Faye up beneath one arm. It looked like she’d injured her ankle. They were both covered in plaster dust.
Adamat eyed the eunuch. They’d done it. Taken Vetas. Saved Faye. Would the eunuch turn on him now for blackmailing the Proprietor? Bo wasn’t here. Adamat didn’t even know if the Privileged was alive. Adamat didn’t know where Sergeant Oldrich was. No one would ask questions if the eunuch quietly killed them both and disappeared.
“She’s safe,” the eunuch said.
“Thank you.”
The eunuch was surprisingly gentle as he helped Faye into the room. Adamat stepped toward them, arms out.
The stiletto handle seemed to materialize in the side of the eunuch’s neck. When he opened his mouth, blood poured out, and he dropped to his knees. Faye, suddenly unsupported, toppled to the side, only to be caught by Lord Vetas.
Chapter 25
No one moved at Tamas’s shouted order. The thick chaos of soldiers milling against the edge of the river did not change.
Tamas felt his heart begin to beat faster.
“Men of the Seventh! Take the line!”
Nothing. His hands shook. He’d overplayed himself. This false panic he’d meant to create had become real. He’d defeated himself before the battle even began.
“First Battalion!” a voice cut through the crowd. Someone shoved their way out of the press. It was old Colonel Arbor. He held his rifle in one hand, his teeth in the other. “To the line, First Battalion!”
Tamas swung around. The Kez cavalry continued to advance slowly. They were a half a mile out on the western front. The dragoons to the south began to move forward. Vlora and the rest of the powder mages continued to fire from across the river, whittling away at their numbers.
Adran infantry began to peel away from the mob by the river and get to their positions. Too few of them. Too slowly.
Then more. And more. Soldiers left the riverside and raced across the camp to the mound of dirt separating them from the Kez cavalry. They threw themselves to the safe side of the mound and readied their rifles, loading bullets and fixing bayonets. Tamas took a deep breath. He felt his heart soar. If he could have kissed every one of his men then and there, he would have.
He turned back to the Kez advance and his heart stopped.
The advance had ceased less than a quarter of a mile from Tamas’s position.
Fifteen thousand Kez cavalry wedged Tamas’s army completely against the river and the mountains.
He saw a man ride to the front of the cuirassiers. Had Beon figured out Tamas’s game? Did he sense a trap?
The man, Tamas recognized, was Beon je Ipille himself. Brave, to come out to the front of his heavy cavalry, when he knew a powder mage’s bullet might end him any second.
Beon seemed to cock his head at Tamas’s position. His lips moved briefly, then he kissed his sword and raised it.
A salute. Beon was saluting Tamas. The motion stunned him. You stand and fight, the salute seemed to say, when you could have run.
Beon’s sword fell and the earth trembled as fifteen thousand sets of hooves thundered toward Tamas.
“Hold!” Tamas yelled, gripping his rifle. He turned away from the cuirassiers. Their charge would be stopped by the sharpened stakes and crosses. They’d pull up hard and exchange fire with the Ninth, or advance slowly to try to navigate the defenses.
Between Tamas and the dragoons, however, there were no such apparent obstacles – only a thin layer of white fog over the ground and then the raised earthworks behind which his men crouched.
Three hundred yards. The dragoons leaned over their mounts, urging them faster. A bullet whistled over Tamas’s head and took a dragoon between the eyes. Tamas raised his rifle, lined up a shot, and fired. He lowered, reloaded, and repeated.
Two hundred yards. Dragoons raised their carbines and twisted their faces in wordless cries.
One hundred yards. Tamas’s lines opened fire. Hundreds of dragoons fell from the first volley alone. The rest charged on, heedless of their comrades’ fall.
Seventy yards. The dragoons opened fire with their carbines. Tamas’s soldiers crouched behind their earthen wall, reloading.
Fifty yards. Dragoons let their carbines drop and raised their pistols.
Thirty yards. The line of dragoons aimed pistols.
Twenty yards.
Ten yards.
The front line of dragoons disappeared.
Tamas closed his eyes for a brief moment as the screams reached him.
The momentum of the cavalry unit at full gallop had carried them headfirst into a concealed trench. Almost twenty feet wide and just as deep, it stretched the entire length of the “opening” Tamas had left in his defenses. The trench was topped with stakes covered in grass and other debris. A poor disguise in the light of the day, but the fog had covered them completely. They cracked under the weight of the warhorses.
Tamas had once seen a row of carriages go straight into the Adsea. The first carriage had plunged around a steep corner and off the end of a pier. The second had followed, the driver seeing the drop only at the last second, while the third driver’s attempts to slow his horses had failed.
This was much like that, but instead of three carriages, it was thousands and thousands of dragoons heading straight into his trench.
By the time the dragoons had managed to arrest their charge, the trench was nearly filled with screaming, thrashing horses and writhing men trying to escape the press. The line of Kez dragoons stared in horror at their fallen comrades.
Tamas shuddered at the thought of being at the bottom of that trench.
“Fire!” Tamas yelled.
The Seventh Brigade opened fire at the Kez dragoons. Their horses milled in panic at the edge of the trench, officers shouting and waving their swords, trying to get the horses at the rear of the column to back up so they could organize a withdrawal.
Tamas reloaded and fired again. The dragoons began to organize. If they were given a chance to disengage, they still had thousands left. They could reorganize and hound Tamas’s flank when he turned to deal with the cuirassiers.
“Bayonets!” Tamas ordered, lifting his rifle in the air.
Every forty paces of the trench, they’d left a ten-foot-wide path of solid ground. They were unmarked, and the way would be unsure in the fog, but Tamas had to counterattack.
Tamas headed across the closest of these paths, straight into the flank of the withdrawing Kez dragoons.
He reached out with his senses, taking in the closest powder charges and igniting them with his mind. The small explosions killed men and horse alike, rattling Tamas’s teeth from their proximity. His soldiers flooded around him, howling as they set upon the dragoons with their long-sword bayonets.
The melee erupted along the whole line as the five thousand men of the Seventh Brigade slammed into the Kez dragoons. Without the impact of their charge, and against the long reach of sword bayonets, the dragoons lost their advantage.
Tamas ran toward the closest dragoon. He thrust his bayonet up and into the man’s exposed side, then jerked his rifle savagely to tear open the wound. The man fell from his horse, and Tamas danced back out of the way as the animal panicked and bolted.
Something hit him hard from the side, knocking him off his feet. He landed on the ground, the breath knocked from him, and was immediately pushing himself back up.