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.
The Privileged whirled, watching his companion fall, right as a bullet tore through the base of his spine from the opposite direction. Another bullet killed the captain of the Privileged’s guard, while two more bullets downed nearby officers.
Vlora allowed herself a victorious smile, glancing across the valley to where Taniel hid on the hillside opposite her. Somewhere to his left were Davd and Norrine, but Vlora didn’t take the time to pinpoint them before turning her gaze back to the battle.
The Dynize faltered, the courage their bone-eye supplied suddenly gone. Some tried to flee back down the column, though there was no space for them to go, while others abandoned their horses and took cover in streambeds and ditches. Vlora found Olem standing with her rear guard, keeping them in check so that they held their ground. More than a few of them would want to press an attack, but Vlora had no interest in taking a single step back toward Yellow Creek.
The trap had drawn out the brigade’s Privileged and bone-eye, and Vlora pulled a mirror out of her pocket, flashing it toward Olem. He nodded toward her, giving an order to pull back. Let the Dynize stumble over their dead and wonder when the next ambush would come. In the meantime, the Riflejacks would march double time to catch up with the capstone and continue their sprint toward the coast.
Vlora was just about to climb down from her perch when her preternatural senses picked up something she did not expect—not up here. It was the sound of hooves on gravel, as well as the jingle of cavalry kit. It was, alarmingly, coming from behind her.
She swung her rifle around and over a branch, shifting her position so that she could face toward the crest of the ridge behind her. To her surprise, she saw well over a hundred Dynize cavalry in their shining breastplates mount the ridge and fall into line. She swore to herself angrily, wondering what damned goat track they had found to be able to flank the Riflejack position. The dragoons hadn’t just been buying time for their Privileged—they’d been buying time for their cuirassiers as well.
The charge was not an ideal one—through a screen of trees that hid the cuirassiers from the Riflejacks, across a tiny streambed, and then over a rocky field. Not ideal, but certainly possible, and with success it might be able to shatter her rear guard.
The cuirassiers finished falling into line, and their officer raised his sword.
“Piss and shit,” Vlora growled. She dropped her rifle to the ground, hoping it wasn’t damaged in the fall, and awkwardly pulled her pistol. Just as the officer lowered his sword, she pulled the trigger, floating a bullet fifty yards and, with an extra flare of powder, put a neat hole through his breastplate.
None of his cuirassiers seemed to notice him fall as they plunged over the lip of the ridge, charging through the screen of trees without a word, while the attention of the Riflejacks was split between shooting dragoon stragglers and preparing to pull back.
Vlora shouted for Olem across the valley, but the noise was lost among the screams of men and horses down on the road. She swore again, reaching out with her senses, and set off the powder carried by the six closest cuirassiers. The kickback of the sorcery almost knocked her off her branch, but the blast had the intended effect—causing the cuirassiers to falter, and Olem and the rear guard to look toward their left.
With her rifle dropped, Vlora could do nothing but watch as Olem shouted, waving his sword in the air as he kicked riflemen into a loose line and gave the order to fix bayonets. It came not a second too soon, as the Dynize cuirassiers slammed into the reeling Riflejacks. Vlora’s heart leapt as Olem went down beneath the swinging sword of a cuirassier, and the line was broken by the sheer power of the charge.
Taking her eyes off the fight, she glanced beneath her and leapt from her hiding spot, hitting the rocky ground hard and rolling into a crouch. Fetching her rifle and leaving her hat behind, she sprinted toward this new battle, fearing the worst.
She reached the road in time to see the last of the cuirassiers pulled from his horse and butchered by angry riflemen. The length of their entrenchment was a scene of chaos, with horses and soldiers dead and dying in a hundred-yard swath. She could see in an instant that the cuirassiers had simply brought too few men. With an extra hundred they might have completely dislodged the rear guard, and even without them their charge had been devastating. Her rear guard was still reeling from the hit, officers attempting to organize their men back into ranks in case the dragoons mounted another attack.
A dragoon charge did not come. Vlora found Olem lying in the mud, blinking at the sky, his brow caked in blood. She dropped to her knees beside him, overcome by relief when his eyes immediately focused on her. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“I … I think so. Caught a horse’s knee to the face. Does it look bad?”