But an army could only move as quickly as its slowest piece, and in this case it was the capstone. Sixteen extra oxen and a whole company of soldiers and engineers stood by to push or pull the wagon through mud or up steep embankments, to repair broken wheels or switch out tired animals. They worked with efficiency found nowhere else in the world, and yet it still wasn’t enough.
“Where’s Colonel Olem?” Vlora asked one of her aides, eyeing a particularly steep part of the road up ahead. The capstone would be along soon, and the engineers would have to deal with that hill, slowing down the whole army even further.
“I think he’s coming up just behind us, ma’am,” the aide answered.
Vlora acknowledged her response with a nod and headed back down the column, where she found Olem conferring with several of their engineers, walking beside them as he led his horse. She caught his eye and he broke away, mounting up and coming over to join her.
“We just had word from our scouts,” he reported before she could speak. “The Dynize are coming up on us quickly – there’s a full brigade just a couple hours behind us.”
Vlora swore. “How the pit did they catch up so quickly? Didn’t they at least head to Yellow Creek?”
“They didn’t.” Olem unfolded a hand-drawn map of the region and held it where Vlora could see. “As far as we can tell, they changed directions at this road here, heading to cut us off. Either they had better scouts than we expected or their Privileged were able to sense the capstone moving east and they made some quick assumptions.”
Vlora tried to look on the bright side. “They’ve taken the bait.”
“That they have. By the time they catch us, Burt will have the rest of the godstone up in the Ironhook passes. No chance of the Dynize following them up there.”
It was, Vlora had to admit, a terribly satisfying thing to know that she’d outmaneuvered Ka-Sedial once more. It took an enormous amount of anxiety off her chest. However, she didn’t need to remind herself that the Dynize could still slaughter her and all of her men. Saving the world from a Dynize god had been her first priority. Now she needed to get her people back to Adro in one piece, and Olem had not said “if” they catch us, but rather implied “when.” “Do we have any chance of outrunning them?” she asked quietly.
Olem looked toward the engineers, his expression souring. “I think we can stay ahead of them if we keep moving, it’s just that …”
“Don’t lie to me,” Vlora told him.
Olem glanced away, grimacing. “Dragging this capstone with us, we have no chance of staying ahead of the Dynize. As long as we’re in the foothills, we can block the roads and keep them from flanking us, but as soon as we break out onto the plains, we’ll be surrounded by five brigades of infantry.”
Vlora tried to keep from spiraling into a well of despair. “I’ve gotten us all killed, haven’t I?”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Olem said confidently.
“That kind of pressure isn’t exactly helpful.”
“Hasn’t stopped you before.”
She wanted to slap that reassuring grin off his face. “If we live through this, my love, please make me retire.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Vlora turned to watch as the cart with the capstone was manuevered up the steep hill on the road ahead of them, and was pleasantly surprised when none of the ropes snapped or the oxen stumbled. It was up and over the hill in just a few minutes, leaving her in a slightly more optimistic mood. She wondered what Tamas would have done in this situation, and realized she’d been with him in a tangle not so dissimilar during the Adran-Kez War. Had the odds been better, or worse? She couldn’t quite remember.
“How hard will it be for the Dynize to get around us?”
“While we’re on these foothill roads?” Olem asked. “Fairly difficult.”
“Good. Tell the engineers I want them to keep that wagon going as quickly as possible, no matter what the rest of the army does.”
“You intend to stop and fight?” Olem asked with surprise.
“ ‘Stop’ is a poor word for what I plan. We’re going to bloody their noses a little, and see what kind of sorcerous support they have. Fetch me Taniel, Norrine, and Davd.”
Vlora listened to the screaming of horses as she lined up her next shot.
Finding a proper line of sight in these foothills was next to impossible. It took climbing a tree on the next ridge over just to be able to witness the ambush the Riflejack rear had arranged for the Dynize vanguard. The ambush itself was in full swing – six hundred of her riflemen firing staggered volleys into a column of dragoons. The column went back down the valley for as far as Vlora could see, and had clearly not expected to run into the Riflejacks so quickly. Once the firing had begun, they had milled for almost a minute, the front line pushed ahead by the advancing column behind them, before charging up the hill toward her Riflejacks.
The dragoons died by the score in that charge, but Vlora forced herself to ignore them and kept her eyes on the column behind the battle. Her senses ablaze with a powder trance, she watched as word of the ambush was passed back beyond the curve of the next hill. She kept her gaze there, watching, waiting for the logical Dynize response.
It came within about two minutes. A Dynize Privileged, white gloves already on, appeared from down the column, his bodyguard shoving their way through the dragoons as he attempted to make his way forward to deal with the ambush. A Privileged of reasonable power could do enough damage to her rear guard to allow his dragoons to advance. If he had a lot of power, he might be able to brush them aside single-handedly.
Vlora had no interest in finding out. She braced the barrel of her rifle on the branch in front of her as she focused on the Privileged. She opened her third eye, letting out a small gasp as the world turned into a black-and-white landscape with a few pastel brushes of sorcery dabbed across it. The Privileged glowed brightly in the Else, forcing Vlora to blink at the radiance. It took a few moments to notice that the Privileged had not come unprepared for this eventuality – that there was a half dome of hardened air just a few inches in front of him. It would be very difficult to punch through, and impossible to shoot around for all but the most skilled of powder mages.
The Dynize, it seemed, had learned from the battles they’d fought against powder mages.
Vlora shifted her attention to the woman sitting in the saddle just behind and to the right of the Privileged. She also glowed in the Else, and Vlora had seen enough bone-eyes by now to know them by their aura. The Privileged was focused on the battle ahead, no doubt trusting his shield of air, while the bone-eye seemed focused inward. Vlora had no doubt she was spurring on her soldiers, giving them the courage to charge uphill against her Riflejacks.
It was, so far, not working. Several hundred dragoons already littered the road, further slowing their compatriots. Vlora’s Riflejacks worked with mechanical precision, firing staggered volleys into whatever came next. It was utter suicide on the part of the dragoons – unless, of course, they were simply buying time for their Privileged to reach the front and lend them a hand.
Vlora readjusted her grip, took a long, steady breath, and breathed out as she squeezed the trigger. As the bullet flew from the barrel of her rifle, she burned powder charges in her kit, adding extra strength to the shot so that it would soar straight and true across nearly a thousand yards of open terrain. As it approached the enemy, she nudged the bullet down and to the right. The bullet skimmed the outer layer of the Privileged’s shield of hardened air and slammed into the bone-eye sitting next to him, snapping her head back and sending her tumbling from the saddle.