Heirs of Empire

equation?”

Sandy started to snap back, then stopped and bit her lip. She hugged herself and turned her back on Sean for a long, taut moment, then sighed.

“No,” she said finally, her voice low. “That’s exactly what he’ll do if he figures out what’s happening.”

“You got it,” Sean said, equally quietly, and kicked his toe into the mud beside the raised roadbed. “Any way you cut it, we’ve got to carry through with my marvelous plan.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

“All right, boys—you heard Lord Sean. Now let’s go kick the bastards’ asses!”

The officers of the First Brigade growled in agreement, and Folmak Folmakson grinned fiercely. He was a long, long way from Cragsend and anxious days waiting for the Church to condemn him for error just for searching for ways to make his mill a bit more efficient, and he was passionately grateful for it. Folmak loved God as much as the next man, but Malagor had been a captive province for twenty generations, and like many Malagorans, he’d harbored a festering resentment against the Inner Circle and their absentee bishops. Father Stomald, now. He was what a priest was supposed to be, and if the rest of the Temple had been like him…

But it wasn’t. Folmak settled into the saddle and checked all four pistols before he tucked them away in his boots and under his captured Guard cloak. The rain was falling harder, as Lord Sean had warned, and he’d ordered his sergeants to check each individual pan to be sure it was securely shut until it was needed. They were still going to have an appalling number of misfires, but he’d done all he could to minimize them.

He put away the last pistol and looked over his shoulder for the signal to advance. Lord Sean stood surrounded by aides, speaking quietly and urgently to Tibold, hands moving in quick, incisive gestures, and Folmak remembered his look of surprise when the men had cheered his orders.

Folmak hadn’t been surprised, but Lord Sean had actually apologized to them, as if it were his fault they couldn’t just stand around and wait till the rain stopped. That sort of concern made the army love Lord Sean, but it knew what it was about. Especially Folmak’s men. His was the First Brigade, already called “the Old Brigade,” composed of men who’d followed Father Stomald from the very beginning. They regarded themselves as the elite of Lord Sean’s army, though the Second and Third Brigades were every bit as old—and, Folmak admitted grudgingly, as good—and they understood what was forcing Lord Sean’s hand. Every man in the column knew they’d taken far longer than expected getting to Erastor, yet they also knew only Lord Sean and the Angel Sandy could have gotten them here at all. And the angels’ message—that men should be free to shape their own lives and their own understanding of God’s will—had ignited a furnace in the Malagorans’ stubborn hearts. If Lord Sean needed them now, they were proud to be here, and if he decided to fix bayonets and charge a hurricane, they’d follow with a cheer.

The regimental pipers formed in the intervals in the brigade’s column, and Lord Sean nodded to his aides. They spurred up and down the entire length of the corps, and Folmak waved to his unit commanders.

“Move out!” he barked, and the Angels’ Army slogged through blowing sheets of rain towards Erastor.

* * *

Sean watched his men move forward and tried to look confident. Every man in Folmak’s brigade had been issued a Guard cloak, and his vanguard looked as much like Terrahk’s relief force as he could make them, but the rest of his men wore Malagoran ponchos. One look at them would tell the dullest picket what they were. The rain wasn’t falling as hard as he’d feared—yet—but it was getting worse, and only First Brigade marched with slung weapons. The rest of his men carried their bayoneted rifles under their arms like hunters to shield the priming with their bodies and ponchos and keep rain from running down the muzzles. It was awkward and it looked like hell, but it was the best he could do to insure their ability to fire.

He and Tibold had reorganized the army into six-hundred-man regiments, three to the brigade, and despite the rain and the slaughter to which he’d led them, each regiment cheered as it passed him. He slapped his streaming breastplate in answering salute, and his emotions were a welter of confusion. Shame for the mistakes which sent them into battle under such a hideous handicap. Pride in how they’d responded. Dread of the butcher’s bill they were going to pay, a sense of awe that they were willing to pay it for him, and a strange, shivering eagerness. He’d seen battle and its aftermath now. He knew how horrible it was, how ugly and vile and brutal, yet part of him was actually eager to begin. Not glad, but … impatient. Anticipating.

He shook his head, angry with himself. He couldn’t think of the word, and he was ashamed of feeling whatever it was, but that didn’t change it. He spurred ahead to overtake Folmak’s brigade, and as he splashed along the road, he wished he could ride away from his own complex feelings as easily.

* * *

Under-Captain Mathan stood under the lean-to and gazed out into the rain. It was barely midafternoon, yet it looked like late evening as charcoal clouds billowed overhead. His dragoons were glad to be spared the lot of the men manning the half-flooded entrenchments facing the heretics, but that didn’t make their own duty pleasant. Like most of the Host, they’d lost all their baggage at Yortown, and they’d had to cobble up whatever they could to replace their Guard-issue tents. Mathan doubted the foraging parties had left an intact roof for miles around Erastor, but the valley’s frequent rains soaked them to the skin anyway, whatever they did, and he was heartily sick of it.

He spoke to himself sternly. He should be down on his knees thanking God for sparing him the slaughter the demon-worshipers had wreaked on the rest of the Host, not complaining because of a little rain! He’d certainly told his troopers that often enough!

He turned to pace briskly. He could only go a few strides in either direction and stay under the roof, but the rain had chilled the mountain air, and the activity warmed his blood.

Perhaps he’d feel happier if his present assignment had some point. With the heretics blocked west of the Erastor Spur, the pickets east of the main position were little more than an afterthought. They were out here getting soaked simply because the field manuals said all approaches, however unlikely, should be covered, and like most soldiers, they resented being made miserable just because some headquarters type wanted to be neat and tidy.

A branahlk splashed up to the shelter, and Sergeant Kithar saluted.

“We’ve sighted the head of the column, Sir. Should reach the pickets in about another twenty minutes.”

“Thank you, Sergeant. That’s good news.” Mathan returned Kithar’s salute, then pointed at the smoky fire crackling under another crude awning. “Warm yourself and dry off a bit before you head back.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

The sergeant hurried towards the fire, and Mathan folded his hands behind him with a sigh of relief. High- Captain Ortak had sworn the Temple would reinforce them, but after Yortown it had been hard for many of his men—including, Mathan admitted, himself—to believe it would happen in time. Now it had, and he breathed a silent prayer of thanks.

* * *

Captain Folmak trotted at the head of his brigade, and his belly was a hard, singing knot. He could see the first dragoons now, and they looked as miserable as Lord Sean had predicted. They were waving, and he heard a few cheers, but they also weren’t budging out from under the crude lean-tos they’d erected in a vain effort to stay dry.

“You know what to do, boys,” he told his grim-faced riflemen. “No shooting if you can help it, but be