Chapter Thirty-Two

  Captain Benton’s squadron lined up quickly across a wide front two rows deep and tightly packed. The ground here was good, a slight slope running down from the ravine towards the road where the enemy was just starting to advance slowly. The Vuruni cavalry was lightly armed, most wielded talwars, the great curved swords of the land which were similar in form to the sabres wielded by Vastrum. The enemy came at a trot at first. They were loosely arrayed, with no formation to speak of. Dryden had seen them fight before. They preferred to go wide and envelope their enemy. This worked to deadly effect when the enemy was undisciplined, causing fear and chaos. Many armies had fallen to this tactic, including Blackwater’s army. It would not work against the 13th, who had been done in only by the necromancy of the now-dead witch Aisa. Dryden took a place at the left end of the line. Benton took the centre. Lieutenant Dobbson, a solid veteran officer who looked just a bit too portly to be in the cavalry, took the right. Sergeant Krach took the regimental colours, the black raven of Marrowick, and rode with his Captain up the middle. Despite the enemy’s advance, the 13th was calm and took their time to assemble. Then, when all was ready, Adams gave the order to advance, the bugle sounded, and the whole squadron of a hundred cavalry surged forward together.

  Benton took the squadron at a canter at first. They rode straight for the centre of the enemy line, where the great banner of An-Kujala flapped in the wind. Dryden had his sword out, and he felt a kind of pull from it, a pull towards battle and blood and death, but it was not nearly so strong as he had felt in the presence of the demon at the Black City of Dau. Something in the blade hungered and not so much for the blood of men, but for the blood of gods and demons. Rosie ran hard over the hard-packed ground. He lifted his sword, pointed the tip like a lance as the dragoons and hussars of Vastrum were taught to do. The whole regiment did the same. The enemy came on hard, galloping now. The bugle again sounded, this time for the charge. He spurred Rosie, she heaved forward with the whole line. The enemy was close, swinging wide to go around and flank them. Something in the enemy wavered. A line of death flashed through the enemy and Dryden smelled the smoke of powder. Mar had done something and the enemy was suddenly in chaos. The Bloody 13th crashed forward into the wavering enemy line. Horses and men came together. The horrible screams and whinnying of the enemy sounded. Dryden’s sword was nearly ripped from his arm as he skewered a man. The larger horses and tightly packed formation of the 13th, and whatever spell Mar had done crushed the smaller lighter enemy. Dryden felt the impact of Rosie slamming into an enemy mount, but the horse went down and Rosie ran through as if it were only a slight obstacle. Some horses stumbled, a few riders fell, but far more of the enemy were crushed under hoof.

  The 13th wheeled around looking for more enemies to fight. Captain Benton was swinging his sword over his head laughing madly with a vicious grin and blood on his face, “Ride you bloody bastards!” The young captain shouted, “With me!” Something in the young man had transformed. Dryden saw a bit of himself in it. The same bloodlust was on him that had oft found Dryden in battle. The enemy, seeing the main body of their charge dismantled so easily, turned and began to flee, only a few men tried to fight, but were overcome quickly. Dryden went back to assess the casualties as Benton took control of what little fighting was left to do.

  They took no prisoners. There were few to take, nowhere to keep them, and none worth the trouble. The commander of the enemy had been dismounted and trampled to death in the brief skirmish. They took the An-Kujala banner as a trophy. Of their own, ten horses were wounded and had to be put down. Eight troopers were wounded. Two killed in action. One was a sergeant, a man named Yancy who had been cut nearly in two by a talwar. Mar was among the wounded. He had taken a cut on his arm, which he clutched close to himself. His face was pale.

  Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

  “I do not like the sight of my own blood, John,” He said as Dryden dismounted Rosie to tend to him. There were no surgeons with them. Few men had the training of a medic. The two veterans who had skill at it were already busy tending to men who were far worse off, “I cannot look, tell me, how bad is it?” Mar asked. He seemed to be growing faint.

  “Here, let me see,” Dryden replied. He could not see the wound yet, Mar held his arm so tightly. Dryden remembered the arm of Private Harper, the way it had flopped about hanging only by a little flesh, the bone itself cloven in twain. Harper had borne the pain easily and continued to fight well even after half his arm was amputated. Dryden wished Harper was still with him now. He would have promoted the man to an officer had Harper survived. Few troopers rode with that young man’s fury.

  Mar clutched his arm, nearly refusing to let Dryden see it, “Give me a minute, damn you!” Mar exclaimed.

  Dryden took Mar’s hand and gently lifted it away from the wound. The wizard’s black jacket was wet with blood, but not so much as he had feared. It was hard to see blood against the black, it was why the color was chosen, the enemy could not see what damage they had done. It made the Vastrum cavalry seem invincible. Dryden pulled the jacket from Mar’s shoulder and with the wizard keeping his one eye shut, he examined the arm. It was a cut to be sure, and nothing to scoff at, but neither did Dryden think it was so bad as to behave this way.

  “It’s not terrible as all that, Marten,” He said softly, “We’ll bandage it up and you’ll be fine. You never struck me as such a soft man as all this.”

  “It is only the sight of my own blood that does this to me,” Mar admitted.

  “You’ve seen far worse in battle, wrought it yourself. You mean to tell me that the sight of your own blood turns you womanly?” Dryden laughed aloud. Others looked to him strangely, “Sergeant, bring me a bandage.”

  Sergeant Krach sauntered over, knelt down, and started doing the work for the Major, “This ain’t officer’s work, sir, I’ll take it from here.”

  Dryden always found it strange that the structure of society was often imposed as much from the lower classes as from the upper. The man was right in any case. Dryden stood, saying, “You’re in good hands, Mar,” Then he turned away from the wounded man and went about the business of getting men back in shape to ride again. General Winslow’s camp was not far according to scouts and the few messages that had come through the northern pass before they went south.

  “Captain, we should ride shortly,” He noted as he walked back over to where the few junior officers stood around discussing what was next.

  “Yes, sir. We will be ready in a moment. We lost more mounts than men. What to do with the wounded, sir?”

  “Are there any that cannot be taken with us? I would leave none behind if it can be helped.”

  “None but the dead. We have only two reserve mounts with us. No more could be spared,” Benton explained.

  “Double up smaller men on stronger horses,” Dryden said.

  “Very good, sir,” Benton replied.

  They remounted and rode out shortly thereafter, towards General Winslow’s last location, hoping they would not run into more groups of enemy riders. They had come through relatively unscathed, but with Mar out of the action, it seemed likely that further skirmishes might not have the same outcome. Dryden could tell too as the day went on and turned to evening, that Rosie and the other horses were getting tired. It had been a very long and hard first day. They would not stop in the night, either. The sun set in a blood-red sky, smoke from the fires burning across Vurun turning dusk into a hellish reflection of the destruction that Vastrum had brought to this land. As night fell they rode hard for Golconda through the trail of death that had been left in the wake of Blackwater’s catastrophic passage.