Battle for the Wastelands Read online

  He sighed. “Everyone else died, but around a hundred got out. The horsemen stopped chasing us once we got out into the sand. That’s when sand snakes and rippers showed up.” He paused and closed his eyes a moment. “We’d chase them off, but we started running out of ammo. There were maybe fifty of us left when we found a Merrill patrol who took us to where Alonzo regrouped the army.”

  Owen’s words struck Andrew like a blow to the gut. That sounded a lot like what happened to him. Slowly, Andrew laid a hand on Owen’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  Owen shrugged the hand off. “Don’t apologize. It’s the damn Flesh-Eaters’ fault.” He smiled grimly. “Every time we season some turncoats, I come see if we’re using that bastard from Pendleton. Only it never is.”

  Andrew reckoned now would be a good time to change the subject. “I saw some officers taking enemy uniforms to the traders. What’s going on with that?”

  “I wondered about that too. Zeke enlightened me.” He grinned. “We foul them so the Flesh-Eaters have to waste time and money on mending. And since they buy them from the other Menceir, who buy them from us, that means they’re paying for our war.”

  Andrew laughed at the irony. “But couldn’t we put those uniforms to use? Spying and the like?”

  “I don’t think we sell them all back. I guess the Merrill uses them that way, but I’ve never seen it done.”

  Andrew nodded. If the Merrills had that kind of trump card, it’d make sense they’d keep it close to their vest. It was a gambit that’d work only once.

  Owen looked at Andrew. “You clean your rifle? It won’t be long until Zeke comes. He’s going to be right pissed if you’re not finished.”

  Andrew remembered he hadn’t finished cleaning his rifle before putting it back together. “Good idea.”

  Things (Start To) Fall Apart

  Grendel faced the line of dirty prisoners across the sandy expanse of the Obsidian Guard firing range below the citadel. “If you can get past the guardsmen, I will pardon you. There are forty of you, but only eleven of us.”

  The prisoners shifted uneasily. Sweat was beginning to glimmer on heads shaved to avoid the lice infesting the capital’s jails. It was not every day a man could be dragged from Norridge’s dungeons, given a saber, and told they could soon be free.

  If they could get past Grendel and his favored trainees. But the guardsmen had only a single ten-round magazine each, not the thirty-round battle magazines. They would have to shoot quickly and accurately or the prisoners could break through to the archway carved into the black stone wall enclosing the range.

  “How can we trust you?” asked a fatter man standing apart from the others. From his look and attitude, he had to be a political prisoner, not a cutpurse or other lowlife. He did not look like he was the only political there.

  “What do you have to lose? If you are quick, you can be free. If not, death is an improvement over being these gentlemen’s girl.” The heavier prisoner tensed. One criminal snickered. A guardsman laughed too. “Besides, my men can always shoot you where you stand.” His speech done, Grendel stepped back into the line.

  “Order arms!” the towering blond Sejer sergeant shouted. Grendel lowered his weapon to his side along with his men. These new recruits probably needed to learn how to kill. Grendel had no problem with killing but he was also old enough to be their father. In fact, noting how one wiry Jiao did not look like he had ever shaved, possibly their grandfather. They needed to be seasoned; he needed his speed and reflexes kept sharp.

  Some prisoners shifted forward. Grendel knew their kind — hard, ruthless men who would kill for what they wanted. They were his kin, but unlike them, he had self-control and wisdom. That was why he sat on a throne made from his defeated enemies’ most powerful weapon in the greatest city in the Northlands and they rotted in a dungeon.

  “Come on, you dogs!” Grendel shouted. “You want freedom? Come and get it!”

  With a shout, a quarter of the men surged forward. The others, more hesitant or intelligent, fell in behind them. Some did not move at all, obviously paralyzed by fear. One of those was the fat one.

  CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK! The first prisoners fell, blood and brains flying. Bodies threw sand in the air as they hit the ground. The ones who did not immediately die screamed. For a moment, Grendel remembered Jacinto, his last great battle. He took aim and squeezed the trigger. The political prisoner, who had only started to move, toppled forward with paired holes in his chest.

  An emaciated prisoner with stringy hair hanging to his waist shouted obscenities. His saber rose high, ready to take Grendel’s head.

  Grendel let him take two more steps before squeezing the trigger. The repeater kicked against his shoulder. The man went down. Grendel pivoted and shot another, then lowered his rifle. He could always kill more, but who would be left to blood the men?

  To Grendel’s left, one prisoner managed to close with a guardsman. Unfortunately for him, the guardsmen had fixed bayonets. The wet sound of a blade sinking into flesh told Grendel the prisoner’s fate. Some extra drill would be the guardsman’s.

  The firing range fell silent except for the moans and whimpering of the wounded. With the exception of the bayoneted prisoner, none came within ten feet of the guardsmen. The metallic stench of blood and the sharp smell of gunpowder hung thick in the air. The shadows of the range’s resident carrion-birds fell across the sand.

  One prisoner cowered at the wall. He had not even tried to rush the guards. “Please!” the man begged. “I’m due out tomorrow! I just forged a signature! Please!”

  CRACK! He slid down onto the sand, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

  “Finish them!” the sergeant shouted. The guardsmen stepped forward. The moans grew louder before the bayonets silenced them.

  Grendel loomed over one prisoner, an amber-skinned Jiao with only one eye. Blood trickled from a wound in his shoulder and his remaining eye was alive with pain. He grabbed onto Grendel’s boot as best he could with his good arm.

  “I was a guardsman,” he hissed. “I took more than my fair share of the loot, but I was there at Jacinto!”

  Jacinto, the Merrill capital. That had been a hard siege even with most of the Merrill army butchered at Fairmont weeks before. Grendel shook his head. The rules governing loot distribution existed for a reason. And the man would not have been in the capital’s prisons unless he had been drummed out of the Guard and then committed another crime.

  Still, the man had fought for him.

  CRACK!

  “Guardsmen, attention!” the sergeant shouted. The men stood straight. “Guardsman, dismissed!”

  The men began filing out. Now it was time to finish that painting of Catalina he had been working on. He might send it to Alonzo Merrill, to goad him into doing something stupid.

  The sergeant approached Grendel. “Sir, you have a visitor.” He pointed to a suited man with spectacles flanked by two guardsmen in the range entrance.

  “Bring him in,” Grendel ordered. The guardsmen escorted the newcomer onto the sand. Disgust bloomed on the bookish man’s face as he took in the heaps of bodies. “State your business.”

  “My lord, war has broken out between the Blood Alchemy Host and the Legio Mortis.”

  Though Grendel knew Mangle and Quantrill were at loggerheads, those words cut him to the core. Fear snaked unwelcomingly out of his intestines, rising into his chest like some monster from the deep ocean between Sejera and Everett. He breathed in and out, keeping his expression impassive. He would not show fear in public, especially before subordinates.

  The smell of blood and gunpowder on the air vanished from his perception. This was much worse than Alonzo Merrill. This was worse than the friction between the Leaden Host and the Flesh-Eating Legion he had papered over. The two rivals controlled prime coal mining territory only a day’s flight from Norridge itself. Norridge, whose factories were the key to his domination, depended on that coal. The great empire he had spent decades buildin
g could crumble in months if the fighting spread.

  Anger soon blew the rising fear to pieces like a well-aimed artillery shell. His jaw clenched. If those idiots wouldn’t keep the peace, he would cement the cracks in his realm with blood.

  The man winced. Despite his efforts, it seemed Grendel’s wrath showed on his broad face. “Give me that.” The official handed him the telegram with trembling hands. Grendel scanned it. Just as he had thought, it was that damned coalfield. His frown deepened. There went his planned afternoon of painting Catalina naked and fucking her.

  He folded the telegram and pocketed it. Had he been a religious man, he would have thanked Odin neither side had called in allies. Two subordinates fighting could be suppressed quickly.

  He turned to the messenger. “Fetch the Guard commanders in Norridge, Isaac Tompkins, and Falki Grendelsson.” The man, who looked like he was on the verge of spewing his guts, quickly nodded. “I want to see them in an hour and a half. Send orders to the Firebird Host and the Leaden Host. Describe the situation. They will know what to do.”

  Catalina lay naked on her belly in Grendel’s bed, hair damp and clinging to her neck and shoulders. Grendel stood on the balcony mere yards away, wearing his absurd armor and reviewing the lines of Obsidian Guard marching through Norridge. He was engrossed in the array of armed might rolling through the streets below.

  They were ten stories off the ground. He’d go out the window if she gave him a good shove and fall, faster and faster. The so-called first lord of the Northlands would end up as nothing more than a shattered mess on the pavement. She’d gaze down on his mangled carcass for a moment and glory in killing the one who’d butchered her family and oppressed her people, the man who’d used her as a goddamn toy. She was a Merrill in enemy territory. She’d succeed where her father’s and brothers’ armies had failed.

  Then she’d grab her robe for modesty’s sake, fetch Hayes, and run for the doors. She frowned. Right into the guardsmen. Then the men who saw Grendel’s fall would arrive. She’d be lucky to get a bullet in the head. If she were kept alive for interrogation, they’d make her beg for death before they finished. And they’d kill her son in front of her. Falki had every reason to order that, to dispose of a future rival. Arne might plead for the life of his little shadow, but he would be on thin ice enough as a half-brother regardless of how close he and Falki seemed now. Her fists clenched around the soft sheets, her nails digging into her palms through the thin fabric.

  But the time the old bastard would get his comeuppance was drawing near. Without new enemies his thugs were turning on each other. Jessamine had mentioned how Grendel headed off a war between the vile hillbilly Flesh-Eaters — her stomach twisted at how they tyrannized her people — and the merciless Leaden Host. This time he hadn’t stopped the war and some new fire could ignite while he put out this one. Should any army enter Norridge, he’d find he had an enemy inside his walls.

  Catalina found she’d crept to the edge of the bed. She looked at Grendel. He was still there, still looking out the window…

  “Yes?” Grendel didn’t move a muscle. His deep voice froze her in place. Catalina’s stomach lurched into her throat. He must’ve heard even her most subtle movement.

  Grendel turned away from the window abruptly. His gaze fell on Catalina like a lightning bolt. She tensed, instinctively squeezing her legs together. He was dressed for battle, but that wouldn’t stop him from making her please him with her mouth. He locked his gray eyes with her hazel ones.

  “For someone who has lived in my house the last four years, you do not know how things work. I can fuck you any time I want, but I do not have that flexibility with politics.” He scowled. “Or war.”

  Catalina exhaled and relaxed a little. He’d been gone for over a day and when he’d returned, he was angry. She’d nearly hit her head twice on the headboard. The relief she wouldn’t have to please him again overwhelmed her anger.

  “You will also like this. Between Mangle and Quantrill, I know who is cunning enough to not have started this. It is the Blood Alchemy Host that will get the worst of it.”

  How well the old bastard knew her. She'd been in Jacinto when the first reports of the invasion came. A horde of deformed soldiers spilled out of the Pass into the northwest. Thousands of civilians taken prisoner. Those who escaped reported mutilation and experimentation. Amid the carnage strode a man they called Mangle, garbed in black. One of his hands was made of metal and could crush concrete. The other was black and clawed, the hand of a monster and not a man. The superstitious thought him some unholy amalgamation of a Thirsty Ghost from the desert and the machines from Norridge.

  Her father had husbanded his armies to protect Jacinto and defeat the Flesh-Eaters coming out of their hill country before dealing with Grendel’s main assault. But there was no way he could leave the people of the northwest to the mercy of something out of a nightmare, even if that meant playing into his enemy’s hands and dividing his forces.

  He'd sent her oldest brother John north with soldiers who were supposed to crush the Flesh-Eaters. Old pain lanced through her as she remembered learning his army had been cut to pieces, with John killed by the monster himself. Without the additional armies barring their way, the Flesh-Eaters poured south. Now John and all the people who’d been killed or mutilated by this “Mangle” would be avenged at last.

  “That does please me, my lord.” She nearly gagged on the last two words, but they were what Grendel wanted to hear. And she didn’t really need to pretend. If only he’d kill every single commander who ravaged her homeland. That might provoke a revolt and bring down his whole evil empire.

  He threw her robe onto the bed. “Get dressed. Tell the others I should return within a week.”

  She pulled on the robe, not slowly-slowly to preen for him like the others but not too quickly. He’d laugh or, worse, change his mind about making her take him in her mouth…

  Back to her rooms, her hideaway he let her decorate with books and other items from her desecrated home. She’d retrieve Hayes from Astrid and tell him again about how he wasn’t just the son of Grendel. He was the grandson of James Merrill and through him the descendant of Charles Merrill, who’d survived the burning of the Old World. Lessons that’d hopefully stick no matter what Grendel or his tutors taught him. Maybe if he were a Merrill in his heart, her kin would forgive her.

  She’d barely gotten her robe tied before he tramped past, heading off to war. Part of her hoped he wouldn’t return, but another part feared what would happen to Hayes if he didn’t.

  She locked her eyes on his retreating back. His time would come, sooner or later.

  The Nicor led the convoy of twenty black Obsidian Guard airships straight north along the rail line. Grendel stood behind the reedy Sejer captain on the airship’s bridge, looking out over the wide lands below. Alrekr perched on his shoulder.

  “When should we get to Stilesboro?”

  “Three hours, sir,” the man replied from his post at the dirigible’s wheel. “Six for the trains from Trickum and Martinsburg.”

  “Excellent.”

  Grendel would lead the first wave of the Obsidian Guard into Stilesboro, where the rail line emerged from the Basin. He did not expect trouble, but if trouble came, it would be there, where the rail lines in the north crossed. Whoever commanded that juncture would be able to invade both Blood Alchemy and Legio Mortis lands while keeping both armies from moving freely.

  Three hours should be plenty of time for the three thousand guardsmen in the army’s airborne vanguard to occupy the town and prepare for the main army’s first wave.

  His gaze followed the railroad back into the city itself. The trains should begin flowing out of the city soon. Falki’s company would be among that second wave. If any treachery awaited Grendel, Falki should be far enough away to escape it. And he would be close enough to avenge it once the Guard’s Jiao and Sejer generals proclaimed him first lord.

  Grendel frowned. He had not had to worr
y about this nonsense when he was not the sole power in the Northlands. He had strong opponents to keep his sworn men fighting or preparing to fight. There were no such enemies in the Northlands now, only the Merrill dregs far to the south and occasional uprisings. No more loot or land to distribute, no new wars to keep the bloody-minded busy. Grendel missed the battlefield, but administration provided its own set of challenges. Not all of his followers appeared able to make the transition.

  His frown deepened. He had survived the butchery of his family. He had lived by the gun since he was fifteen. He had forced his enemies into subservience — those he had not he had simply killed — and shattered empires to make lordships for his friends. The realm he created would ensure his family would not only survive but rule for generations to come. He was damned if he would let everything he had built fall apart because his subordinates were bored.

  Enemies. We need enemies who are not each other.

  Nobody knew just where the trading city of Everett lay and in any event, he could not successfully challenge them at sea. The Flesh-Eating Legion could be made such a foe, but Clark was too smart to provoke him. Attacking Clark without provocation risked a general rising of the less loyal. He would be fighting on multiple fronts, against the Legio Mortis in the northeast, whatever remnants of the Camrose Confederation had not been fully digested by the Firebird Host in the east, and opportunists the length and breadth of his empire. And the once-broken Merrills might emerge from the desert rocks they had crawled under to avenge the death of their chief and the captivity of his daughter.

  The desert.

  Though the Fall, the fiery end of the Old World, had shattered the trade routes that, according to legend, once spanned the world, commerce with the lands beyond the Iron Desert never truly stopped. A trickle of goods came to the western ports on Everetti ships. The farthest-ranging of the trading clans plying the southern edge of the Iron Desert also brought goods not of Northlands manufacture. Expensive as they were, they showed the desert could be crossed and there was something worth conquering on the other side.