The Crimson Campaign

“We don’t need rest,” Andriya said. He grinned at Tamas. His crooked teeth were stained yellow. “We just need powder.”

Tamas held his hand up toward Andriya. “You’ll have your time to kill Kez,” he said. “You all need some rest tonight.”

It was perhaps six o’clock, and the hot sun burned red over the Amber Expanse to the west. Tamas wondered if the coming night would be his last in this world.

The Kez outnumbered him. He was growing old. Not as fast or as sharp as he’d once been. Beon might see through the trap and outmaneuver him, or circle at a distance, content to pick off Tamas’s troops until Tamas made it across the river, then head west around the Fingers and wait for Tamas on the Northern Expanse.

Had it been a mistake to order Gavril to destroy the bridge?

“Sir?”

Tamas jolted out of his reverie. The powder mages were gone, all but Vlora. For a moment he imagined she was a little girl again — ten years old — seeking his approval. The sun had sunk in the western sky and the camp was completely pitched. The bonfires had burned low, all sign of the horse carcasses gone. Thousands of men worked on the floodplain while thousands more chopped trees on the edge of the Hune Dora Forest.

“Where are they?”

“Sir?”

“The powder mages.”

Vlora had a hint of worry in her eyes. “You dismissed them over an hour ago. Told me to stay.”

“And you’ve been waiting this whole time?”

“You seemed preoccupied.”

Tamas took a shaky breath. He suddenly remembered dismissing Andriya and the rest of the mages, but it was like looking back in time through a thick fog.

Getting old indeed.

“Have you been eating, sir?”

Tamas’s stomach growled. “I had some horsemeat earlier.”

“I was watching you, sir. You didn’t take anything when you went to check on the bonfires.”

“I’m sure I did.”

Vlora dug in her belt, then handed him a white tuber. “Found these truffles in the forest yesterday. You should eat. Take them, Tamas.”

Tamas put out a hand reluctantly and she dropped them there.

He hesitated, staring at the truffles. Truffles grown in forests of the Adran Mountains were delicacies in most of the Nine. They were small and pale-cream colored. He’d never much liked truffles.

“Thank you,” he said.

Vlora leaned on her rifle, staring over toward the forest. He gazed at the side of her face. He’d watched her grow from a fledgling powder mage into a capable soldier, one of his best. She was strong, with a beauty that the years would dim but never fully diminish. He felt a pang of loss, once again, that this girl would never bear him a grandson. He looked again at the truffles in his hand.

“What I said, Tamas — sir, I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way. Not in front of the men.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.”

Vlora stiffened. “I’ll accept whatever reprimand you see fit.”

Tamas didn’t know his heart was capable of breaking. Not after all these years. He took a deep breath. “You’re a grown woman. Olem is a good man. He’ll make you happy.”

She seemed surprised by this. But not in the way Tamas expected. “He’s just another man,” she said. “Someone to warm the nights.” She closed her eyes. “We’re soldiers. Tomorrow, one of us might be dead. Even if we both survive the battle, we’ll move on and find others. It’s the life we’ve chosen.” Her eyes opened again and she looked across the camp. “All of us.”

Ah. What every soldier knew so well. Lovers were brief, passion burning like a candle — hot at the center and easily doused. It was too hard to keep the flame kindled longer than a season or a campaign. “It can be a lonely life,” Tamas agreed.

“You think we can win tomorrow?” Vlora asked.

Tamas looked toward the forest. At his soldiers going about their tasks. They were dragging trees across the floodplains now, toward the camp. The sound of billhooks hitting wood carried in the night. A rifle fired somewhere. Soldiers foraging, or powder mages scaring off Kez scouts?

“I think we can win every battle,” Tamas said. “This… this will be difficult. The whole fulcrum of my plan could topple if the Kez catch too good a look at my preparations. We are low on powder and bullets, and the men are half-starved. We have to win tomorrow, or we’ll die here.”

He felt cold suddenly, despite the heat, and very old.

“I don’t want to die here, sir,” Vlora said. She hugged her rifle.

“Neither do I.”

“Sir.”

“Yes?”

“Gavril… he said you buried someone beside the Little Finger, long ago. Who was it?”

Tamas felt himself whisked away. Felt the spray of the raging river on his face, the mud and blood caked on his fingers from digging a grave by hand.

He forced himself to stand, trying not to favor his bad leg. It needed the exercise. “I’ve buried countless friends. More enemies. Kin, and those close enough they might as well be. I want to see Adro again. I want to know if my son survived his ordeals. But before then, there is a lot of work to do. That is all, Captain. Dismissed.”