Page 117 of The Infernal Battalion

“Won’t they have everything locked up?” Abraham said.

Alex rolled her eyes. “Greatest thief in the world, remember?”

The two of them ran off. Winter turned back to the wall, watching the flashes of musketry, waiting for the inevitable.

“They’re coming over!” one of the Haeta shouted. Hands appeared above the edge of the log palisade, spindly, underfed figures lifting themselves over the barrier. The Murnskai troops converged with bayoneted muskets, driving them back, but soon more red-​eyes were reaching the top at another spot, and then another.

Come on, Dobraev, Winter thought. You have to see this isn’t going to work. Under normal circumstances, a soldier at the top of a wall had a considerable advantage over one at the bottom. But this wasn’t a stone fortress wall, or even a ditch and scarp as one might find on a modern fortress, just a set of lashed-up logs. It was an easy climb for anyone with a knife or a hatchet. The defenders were harder to hit than the Beast’s musketeers lined up below, but the attackers were indifferent to wounds or casualties, and outnumbered their opponents several times over.

Making matters worse, the circuit of the wall was too long for the relatively small numbers Dobraev could call on. He had no reserve, nothing to plug a breakthrough. The first penetration of the Murnskai lines would be the end of the battle.

Unless we do something about it. One of the attacks was being pushed back, but at another spot, to the left of the gate, the Beast had made a lodgment on the top of the wall. The musketeers outside were concentrating their fire there, bringing down the white-​coated soldiers who ran to drive the attackers back, and the few who made it found themselves struggling hand-to-hand with vicious red-​eyes. More of the Beast’s bodies dropped from the wall walk into the courtyard, their path into the fortress blocked by only a handful of soldiers.

“Vess!” Winter shouted.

She expected another argument, but Vess was smarter than that. The girl raised her spear and pointed, and the Haeta charged with a roar. Winter drew her saber and went with them, reaching the knot of red-​eyes just as the last of the Murnskai were cut down.

The enemy were armed as variously as they were uniformed, carrying everything from sharpened sticks and cudgels to muskets and swords. They turned, fluid as the singular creature they were, to face this new threat, but it did them little good. The front rank of Haeta girls hurled their spears in mid-​sprint, a volley that hit hard enough to punch men off their feet. The warriors had time just to grab another spear from their quivers before they met the red-​eyes, a solid line of spearpoints against which the Beast’s creatures hurled themselves as uselessly as the wolves had days before. Unlike the Murnskai, the Haeta had fought the red-​eyes and knew their strengths. Winter, trotting up behind the line, watched as the girls carefully finished each downed opponent, knowing that the Beast’s creatures could ignore wounds that would cripple a human.

There was the sharp crack of a musket. A girl stumbled, clapping a hand to her throat, then collapsed in a heap. The shooter was on the wall, where a dozen red-​eye musketeers were loading with inhuman speed. Another group was pushing down the stairs beside the gate, shoving the Murnskai soldiers back. The red-​eyes were willing to accept a bayonet thrust to the gut to get their hands on an opponent, disarming the enemy with their own bodies. The Murnskai wavered, and Winter saw Lieutenant Dobraev running to steady them.

“Byr!” The scream came from Sergeant Gorchov, engaged in his own desperate fight above the gate itself. He struggled to cut himself free, but red-​eyes swarmed over the wall on both sides.

Winter gestured with her sword, then charged, hoping Vess and the others would follow. She reached the stairs alongside Dobraev. The Murnskai soldier in front of her slumped to the ground, groaning, and a heavyset peasant woman with a long stick bulled right over him. Winter deflected her downward stroke with one arm and ran her through, then kicked her back into her fellows. A young man with sunken cheeks and carrying a boat hook came forward to take her place, and Winter hacked at him wildly, driving him off-​balance. Dobraev, fighting beside her, managed a strike to his throat, and the young man sank to his knees with a gurgle.

A half dozen Haeta arrived, and Winter grabbed Dobraev and spun out of the way as the spearwomen pressed the red-​eyes back up the stairs. The rest of them were attacking the musketeers on the wall walk with thrown spears, or climbing up the rickety shacks that backed against the wall to get a handhold and pull themselves up to the palisade. The first girl to make it got a bayonet in the eye and dropped back to the ground, where she lay twitching, but two of her companions grabbed the bearded red-​eye who’d stabbed her and pulled him forward, too. He hit the ground headfirst, but the Haeta below took no chances, descending on him with knives flashing.

Winter turned Dobraev to face her. The lieutenant looked dazed, blood spattered across his face, pupils tiny pinpricks in a sea of white. She took him by the collar and shook him roughly, and he gasped, a little color returning to his cheeks.

“Get your men off the fucking wall!” Winter shouted.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about—” the lieutenant began.

Winter snarled. “I am a goddamned division-​general, and I have been in more battles than you have ever fucking heard of. Now give the order before I bash you on the head and give it myself!”

Dobraev took a deep breath, pulled away from her, and shouted.

“Down from the wall! Kila, get the men down into the courtyard!”

Sergeant Gorchov answered with a roar, swinging his sword with such violence that he decapitated a red-​eye entirely in a spray of gore. Winter spoke urgently into Dobraev’s ear, and the lieutenant shouted more instructions. The Beast had concentrated its attacks around the gate, where the defenders were heavily engaged, but the men farther along the wall were free to move. They came down the stairs at a run and lined up in the courtyard, muskets ready. At the lieutenant’s signal, the Haeta and Gorchov’s few remaining soldiers pulled back, ceding the wall to the red-​eyes. As soon as they were clear, the Murnskai opened fire, pinning the red-​eyes to their newly won position with a withering volley of musketry.

Answering shots came from the top of the wall, the few survivors using piles of the dead and dying for cover. That was more than the defenders had down in the yard, and Winter waved them back, in among the shacks and lean-​tos. In the shadow of one of these insubstantial buildings, she caught her breath. The Murnskai found cover and returned fire, and musket balls thocked into earth and wood all around her.

A bloodied Gorchov staggered over to her and Dobraev and grabbed the lieutenant by the arm. Dobraev stared at him.

“Kila. Kila! Are you all right?” he said.

“I’m fine,” Gorchov snarled. “Most of the blood is Vasil’s, brave little fool. Who are these monsters? I saw a girl of twelve throw herself onto a soldier’s bayonet so an old man could dash his brains out with a footstool!”

“They’re mad,” Winter said. “I told you. They don’t value their lives, and they don’t feel pain.”

“Demons,” Gorchov muttered.

“There’s no such thing as demons, Kila,” Dobraev said. “They die the same as men.” He straightened up. “We can pull back to the keep.”

“No,” Winter said. “You’re not listening. We can’t hold them off. They’re not going to give up. They’ll keep coming until we run out of ammunition, if nothing else works. We have to get out of here.”

“The ships,” Gorchov said. “Kollowrath stripped the sails and oars.”