Except. Winter had told her what had happened when the Beast had taken Elysium. The Penitent Damned, who’d had demons of their own, had been absorbed just like any of its other bodies. It had banished their demons, taken their minds.
For the first time since that awful night beneath the palace half a decade ago, Raesinia realized, she was in real danger. Not from a musket ball or a sword stroke, but from the horrible, annihilating light of those red eyes. If they caught her, she would end, cease to be once and for all. Or else be stuck in some horrible half-?life, like Janus.
Her knees suddenly refused to hold her weight, and her bowels churned. She sat down heavily, barely keeping the flag upright.
What’s wrong with me? It took a moment to figure it out. Oh. I’m terrified.
Is this how ordinary people feel all the time?
The first red-?eye—a lanky man with a fur cap and a hunter’s look, a long knife in one hand—leapt into the trench. Raesinia screamed and swung the flagpole, the staff cracking him on the head and sending him stumbling sideways. She surged back to her feet, fighting the desperate urge to throw the stupid thing down and flee. It’s just a flag. Just cloth and thread. What the hell is it good for?
“Stand here!” Her voice cracked. “Stand here!”
More red-?eyes were crossing the breastwork, soldiers and civilians, some who’d been fighting for the other side minutes before. A Third Regiment soldier, eyes aglow, jumped down in front of Raesinia with bayonet raised, while the hunter came at her from the left. She managed to block the bayonet thrust with the flagpole, but the hunter grabbed her by the arm and collar, lifting her easily off the ground. She kicked him in the groin, hard, but he barely flinched, and pulled her close to his face.
“The queen!” someone was shouting in the distance. All of Raesinia’s attention was on the hunter’s eyes, the dark pupils replaced with a rising red glow, growing brighter and brighter until it filled the world.
“Rally to the queen!”
A bayonet entered the side of the hunter’s head with such force that it embedded itself to the hilt in his skull. The red glow died, and the grip on Raesinia’s collar slackened. The flagstaff fell from her numb fingers, but she saw it taken up again before it hit the ground, muddy banner waving.
“Your Highness!” A woman’s voice. Raesinia looked at her. Abby. Her freckled face was splashed with gore. “Are you all right?”
All around her, women in blue uniforms were pouring into the trench. The volunteers were with them, too, rallied or shamed into courage. The fighting was desperate, hand-to-hand, but the numbers of red-?eyes were finally thinning out. From the flanks, musket-?fire cracked.
Did I just save the day? Raesinia thought. Or nearly get myself killed for no reason? At the moment she couldn’t have said. She blinked at Abby and took a deep breath.
Sometimes it would be really nice to be able to faint.
MARCUS
Just hold out until the reserve gets back. Marcus sighed. Why did I ever think things would be that simple?
“General Warus reports that he’s heavily engaged!” the young rider said. His mount, drooping and exhausted, barely flicked an ear at the intermittent crash of cannon. “He’s holding, but estimates at least four divisions to his front.”
Which means he doesn’t have anything to spare to send this way. Janus shouldn’t have four divisions to use on the right without stripping the left bare. But Marcus had learned long ago not to question his former commander’s ability to pull miracles out of his pocket.
“Tell him we’re hard-?pressed here,” Marcus said, fighting to keep his tone professional. “As soon as he feels the pressure come off, we need anything he can send us. Especially cavalry.”
“Understood, sir!” The boy kicked his mount in motion.
To the east, the drawn-?out grumbling of guns continued, indicating that the enemy attack on the point of the V hadn’t slackened. He can’t be strong everywhere, damn it. But here on the left, where Sevran’s hastily assembled Third Division struggled to hold out, there had been no letup in the assaults. Three regiments stood in a long line, three ranks deep, while behind them the fourth waited to push forward to plug gaps. In front of them were the divisional guns, mostly small four-and six-?pound pieces, silent for now to conserve their limited ammunition.
A heavy pall of smoke already hung over this part of the field, and the ground in front of the division was strewn with corpses, both human and equine. Janus’ cavalry—?mostly Murnskai dragoons and cuirassiers—?was on the field in force, and the Third had already repelled two charges. At least one division of Murnskai infantry was out there, too, and one of Vordanai, re-forming for yet another assault. And, of course, the guns, which appeared to have a never-?ending supply of solid shot. Muzzle flashes winked through the smoke, and while most of the balls over-or undershot the thin line, the occasional hit would sweep away all three men in a file together. In this brief lull in the fighting, casualty teams scurried back and forth, bearing screaming or limp figures to the rear.
Sevran was shouting to his runners, his brand-?new general’s uniform already spattered with mud and gore. Marcus walked over to him and waited until he finished dictating an order, then cleared his throat.
“Word from Fitz?” Sevran said, without looking around. His eyes were fixed on the flashes from the enemy guns.
“He says he’s got at least four divisions in front of him,” Marcus said. “Either Janus has got two divisions we didn’t know about, or he’s pulled something out of his hat.”
“Maybe he’s split them,” Sevran said. “Or he’s marching them from one sector to another—”
“It scarcely matters,” Marcus said. “Fitz can’t send help. We have to hold here.”
“How long?” Sevran said.
“Until dark,” Marcus said. “Or until these stupid bastards give up.”
He looked overhead, but the sun was invisible through the smoke. Maybe that’s the soldiers’ hell, he thought. Died in battle without knowing it and now trapped waiting for a respite that never comes. It certainly had the ring of the kind of ironic punishment that filled the Wisdoms.
“We’re not going to make it that long,” Sevran said. “These are good lads, but they can’t keep this up all day. We need to retreat.”
“We can’t,” Marcus said. “If we fall back, the left side of the hill is open, and the whole line comes to pieces.”
“That’s going to happen anyway if they break this division,” Sevran said, frustrated. “And then there won’t be anything left to form a new line. We’re going to have to pull off the hill and fall back to the south.”
“We won’t get another chance at this,” Marcus said. Winter’s already gone to fight the Beast. If we fold now, she’ll lose her distraction. But he couldn’t tell Sevran that. “There’s no ground on the road south better than this. If we don’t stop them here, we’ll be fighting in the streets of Vordan.”