Page 118 of The Infernal Battalion

“I sent Abraham and Alex to get help from the refugees,” Winter said.

“It’ll take too long,” Dobraev said. “Once they get the gate open, they’ll swamp us.”

“We fall back,” Winter said. “A fighting withdrawal.” She gestured at the cluttered yard. “One shack at a time.”

“There’s still too many,” Gorchov said. “We’re down to fifty men, plus your... warriors.” He eyed the Haeta.

“I may be able to help with that,” Abraham said. Winter turned, surprised, and saw him trotting over with at least two dozen men behind him, old Fyotyr in the lead. The newcomers were all refugees, dressed raggedly, and most had only clubs and knives for weapons, but they shouted their enthusiasm.

“What about the ships?” Winter said.

“We found some sailors. Alex is keeping watch,” Abraham said. “When they saw what was happening—”

“We want to fight,” Fyotyr said. “If I am to die today, better to die like a man than huddling like a sheep.”

“Some of the women wanted to fight, too,” Abraham said quietly. “The men wouldn’t let them.”

“There are spare muskets and ammunition in the keep’s armory,” Dobraev said. “They can help run it forward.”

“Tell them,” Winter said, and added in Vordanai, “And if any of them decide they want to use those muskets themselves, I’m certainly not going to stop them.”

*

It took thirty minutes before the ships were pronounced ready for the swollen, fast-​flowing river, thirty minutes purchased in blood, step-by-step. As Dobraev had predicted, the red-​eyes soon got the gate open, despite concentrated fire from the Murnskai musketeers that left dozens dead in the gateway. Once they did, a tide of them flowed in from outside the fortress, and the musketry got considerably less one-​sided. The Murnskai were forced back through the camp, giving ground as the red-​eyes assembled and charged, a line of powder smoke marking the front.

Without the refugees, the fight would have been hopeless. The civilians picked up the muskets that fell from dead soldiers, providing fresh bodies for Dobraev to throw into the line. Now that he had the right idea, he was skilled enough that Winter left him on his own, sticking close to the Haeta. She and Vess led them wherever the red-​eyes threatened to break through, blunting their attacks long enough for the line to pull back. The price they paid was terrible, the girls whom Winter had come to know falling one after another, cut down by musket-​fire or gutted with bayonets.

They were fighting around the base of the Keep when word finally came. The stone walls provided cover for musketeers who fired weapons reloaded by refugee women huddled in its lee. A refugee girl grabbed Winter’s arm to get her attention.

“Alex says the boats are ready!” she shouted, almost inaudible above the battle racket. “She says to come now; the sailors don’t want to wait!”

Winter locked eyes with Vess, who waited nearby with a dozen surviving, blood-​stained Haeta. “Go board,” she said. “Don’t let them leave without the rest of us.”

Vess grinned savagely and pointed with her spear, and they took off at a run. Winter found Dobraev and shouted the news in his ear. The defenders disengaged, gradually at first, a few men turning to fire to keep the red-​eyes at bay while the rest hurried ahead of them. When the Beast realized what was happening, its creatures surged forward, ignoring musketry and opposition, ignoring wounds, ignoring everything.

“Run!” Winter screamed. “Now!”

They ran, dodging through the camp, all organized resistance gone. A soldier tripped over a tent line and vanished, trampled by the horde of red-​eyes. There was scarcely any firing now, just a mad scramble to escape. Winter thought her heart would burst, her lungs sawing at the air, Dobraev leaping nimbly over a broken crate just ahead of her.

Then there were no more shacks, and the stone pier was in view. The two ships, packed from bow to stern with a dense mass of humanity, rode dangerously low in the water. They’d pulled away from the pier, held in place by only a few straining lines, with cargo nets dangling from their sides into the rushing water. The soldiers were throwing away their muskets and jumping, swimming out to get a hold on the nets and haul themselves up.

At the ship’s rails, a handful of muskets fired, bringing down a few red-​eyes out of the horde. Winter didn’t stop to look. She pounded down the pier and flung herself into the water. It was shockingly cold, momentarily driving the breath from her lungs, but she felt her boot touch the sandy bottom and push off again. A few floating steps, and she got hold of a net and pulled herself up with arms that suddenly felt as strong as wet paper. Someone grabbed her. She looked up to find Sergeant Gorchov grinning broadly, his beard crusted with blood.

On the deck, someone took an ax to the lines, and the ships sprang into the current. They ran out the oars, sweeping hard to keep themselves steady in the swift-​flowing river. Behind them, the red-​eyes hit the shore and started to swim, and for a horrible moment Winter thought it had all been useless. But even the Beast couldn’t drive flesh and blood beyond its ultimate limits, and the Bataria was in full flood. Most of the red-​eyes that went in the water were swept under and away, and the few that closed with the ships were summarily dispatched with musket shots.

We made it. Winter stared at the crowd of monsters remaining on the shore. Saints and fucking martyrs. We actually made it. She looked across the rope net and found Vess, soaked and huddled against the hull. Some of us.

*

They put in at a rocky beach on the north bank, fifty miles downstream from the fortress. Many of the soldiers made it only as far as the shallows before collapsing from exhaustion, unable to do more than lie in the water and struggle for breath. It fell to the refugees who’d stayed out of the fighting to drag them ashore and get fires built. The north bank of the Bataria seemed to have no trace of civilization, and thick woods came down almost to the river, so firewood, at least, was plentiful.

“We’re going to be pretty hungry by the time we get to Dimiotsk,” Alex said.

She and Abraham had helped Winter, whose arms had been cramping so badly she hadn’t been able to get herself loose from the net. Now, seated beside the blaze of the fire with a cup of warm soup cradled in her hands, she was starting to feel alive again.

“Most of the refugees brought something in their packs or their pockets, but we made them leave all the heavy baggage behind,” Alex went on. “It’ll be two or three days to the city, at least.”

“We’ll survive,” Abraham said firmly. “And some of the sailors said they might be able to fish.”