Page 196 of The Infernal Battalion

Raesinia turned away, back to the oncoming red-​eyes. They were still coming, thousands of them. Those in the lead spread out and came on a dead sprint.

“They’re certainly bearing the cannon-​fire well,” de Koste muttered.

“We’ll see how they like musketry,” the captain said, voice full of confidence. “Fire at will!”

Sergeants passed the command up and down the trench. Moments later, muskets started to crack, the shots coming singly at first and then running together into a rolling, rattling crush of sound. Smoke billowed up around the trench, intermittently obscuring the view, but Raesinia could see red-​eyes falling by the dozen, spinning or pitching forward as the musket balls struck them, while their comrades pressed on over their corpses.

They’re not going to break. Marcus had told her once that a bayonet charge basically came down to a contest of nerves. If the defenders really believed the attackers would press the charge home, through the storm of shot, then they wouldn’t stand to receive it. But if it was the attackers who lost their courage first, the charge would founder and break in blood. But the red-​eyes don’t have any nerve to lose.

“You’re going to have to fight them hand-to-hand,” she told de Koste urgently. “Warn your men—”

Too late, and in any event she wasn’t sure he heard over the racket. The red-​eyes took a last volley of fire at a range of only a dozen yards, and it inflicted horrific damage. A whole line of them went down, corpses falling among the dead soldiers already piling up at the base of the slope. But the charge rolled on, unstoppable, men and women leaping over the bodies and scrambling past the earth-and-log barrier. In a few moments, they were into the trench, and the world went mad.

Men were fighting everywhere, soldiers in blue against erstwhile comrades, or Murnskai in mud-​stained white; or men, women, and children in civilian clothes. A Third Regiment soldier opened the throat of a Murnskai with his bayonet, nimbly sidestepping the dying man’s riposte. The next red-​eye was a young woman, ragged ​haired and dressed in rags, and he hesitated long enough for her to gut him with a skinning knife. Three children, in long formal dresses already torn and stained with blood, worked together to overwhelm another soldier, two grabbing his legs while the third pulled him to the floor of the trench and pressed her face close to his. A moment later he rose, a red glow in his eyes, and rammed his bayonet into the back of the man fighting beside him.

Raesinia saw the captain go down, shot at close range by a thick-​bearded fisherman who held a pistol in his left hand, his right having been carried away by a cannon-​shot. The stump drooled blood, but it didn’t seem to impair him. De Koste drew his sword as an old woman, gray hair wild and filthy, scrambled over the trench wall. He ran her neatly through the stomach, then gaped as her clawlike hands grabbed the hilt of his sword and pulled him close. A young boy in the remnants of a smart page’s uniform leapt from the breastwork and landed on de Koste’s back, stabbing over and over with a long dirk.

The ferocity of the assault was too much. Some soldiers fought and were overwhelmed, torn to pieces or taken by the Beast and turned against their comrades. The rest scrambled up the slope, toward the second trench, trying to stay ahead of the wave of madness and death. One of them, thinking of his duty even in the midst of panic, grabbed Raesinia by the arm and dragged her along, stumbling up the rocky ground between the trenches to where the volunteers waited. Musket-​fire was crackling again, balls zipping past despite the danger of hitting a friend.

“Charge!” someone was shouting. Raesinia caught a glimpse of a uniformed soldier standing beside a knot of volunteers who’d gathered around their makeshift flag, a Vordanai eagle sewn on a blue field by awkward, untrained hands. “We have to charge!”

No one was charging. The volunteers stood behind their breastwork, firing as fast as they could load, smoke billowing along the trench. Below, men were scrambling out of the way, but enough of the attackers wore blue uniforms that they were impossible to distinguish from those who’d taken flight. The terrified volunteers shot at anything that moved, cutting down Third Regiment men and red-​eyes alike. Raesinia tumbled over the breastwork and lay for a moment in the bottom of the trench, half-​stunned. She pulled herself to her feet just in time to see the next wave of red-​eyes break from the smoke and come up the hillside at a dead sprint. There were screams and shots, and then the volunteers were running, throwing down their weapons and scrambling up the hill to stay ahead of their pursuers.

We have to stop them. Raesinia gritted her teeth and ran for the flag just as the man who held it tossed it aside and took to his heels. The officer who’d been leading the volunteers was long gone, and only a few men remained, frozen in place by terror. Raesinia grabbed the flagpole and brought it back up, the blue and silver now smeared with mud.

“Here!” she screamed, scraping her throat raw. “Stand here!”

Shots zipped past in both directions. Almost alone in the trench, Raesinia watched the shadows of the red-​eyes approach through the smoke. Very brave of me. Her thoughts felt detached. Or it would be, if I could die. She wondered what would happen if the red-​eyes ripped her to pieces. Would I have to go find my arms and legs? Or would they grow back?

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.