This is the thirty-fourth chapter of Wealthgiver, an alternate history serial romance about nationalism and cave-Thracians. For the back-of-the-book description and an index of chapters, click here. For the beginning, click here. For the previous chapter, click here.
The ambush waited under Tsepina.
The ancient, broken fortress brooded on its hill, pillar of rock above the river, the valley wall, and the line of men grim-faced between them.
Andrei pulled up and raised his hand raised to signal Kori and Cenk to halt.
"Dismount," he said, not looking around. "Slowly. Don't look like you'll attack. Don't look like you'll run. Kori," but what could he tell her? Don't say anything? Don't sing? Don't fill the darkness with smoke or let flow the wine and blood. Don't "let war bloom" because you've given up on fixing your people and just want to make them all kill each other?
"Wait," he said.
He couldn't alert these men to his plan. Nor could he alert Kori, who was still Their Mistress. In a bizarre, but dangerously real way, she still wanted what the Hadeans wanted: a war.
Kori's madness was not, exactly, a lie. That was Andrei's most current diagnosis. She had not so much lost control of her mind as shifted it from one of hand to the other. The hand she held behind her back.
Andrei had seen captains work like that in the army, especially the ones who commanded irregular troops. "Go forage," they would say, pointing in a direction where many Turkish civilians might be found. Andrei himself had told leering, scraggly villains to fetch him more sewing needles and scissors, then told himself that he didn't care if such things were torn from the arms of screaming housewives.
In Philippopolis after Suleyman Pasha's retreat, Andrei had seen the wreckage left by those sorts of orders. On whose conscience did such orders rest? No Ottoman pasha had exactly said 'burn the women and children alive in the church where they try to take shelter,' just as no Russian count exactly ordered anyone to drive other women and children out of their homes to die in the snow. They told themselves that what they did was right, or that they didn't care whether it was wrong.
So he couldn't order Cenk to attack. Nor could he surrender, nor turn and run into the men emerging from the bushes and reeds. There were at least three dozen soldiers here.
How large a platoon looked from this side. The last one Andrei had seen, he'd stood behind, thinking that if the enemy decided to ignore the red cross flag a single fusillade would turn three dozen men into mince.
"Surrender," called the man in front in Bulgarian. "Surrender, or we'll kill your drunken lover."
Andrei smiled, or at least bared his teeth. "My wife never drinks." He dropped to the ground.
"I wasn't talking to you, Drunkard."
"You are now."
"My Master," said Cenk from behind him, in French. "I await your orders."
"I appreciate your loyalty, General Cenk," Andrei raised his voice. "And I ask you gentlemen to remember yours."
"Your farce is over, Fool," shouted the red-hatted man in the middle of the line. "We owe you nothing!"
"I was talking about your loyalty to her." Andrei stepped away from his horse, exposing Kori to the full view of her next victims.
"The history of this disaster is already written," she said.
The men in front of him flinched. So did Andrei. He had heard concussed soldiers scream with less pain and fury than he heard in those words.
If Andrei did surrender, these men would kill him and Cenk. They would treat Kori well, however, bundle her back to the Sacred Depths. Never stop worshiping her as she gave herself completely to madness and revenge.
If only Andrei could talk to Kori. He would tell her—what? Don't worry? It'll be alright? Have hope? Might as well sprinkle water on a bonfire. No, he needed to make it all right. He needed to make it impossible for Kori to speak her curse. To change the meaning of their situation so completely that nothing but hope was possible.
Sweat trickled out from under the brim of Andrei's hat. The sun was terribly bright.
How many of these scowling men had woken up like Andrei this morning? Still tired, stiff and cold, worried for their wives, wishing they had tea to drink? How many had fought in the late war? How many had run and run again, only to find themselves pulled back into blood and fire?
Those weren't scowls of anger. Those were masks over the same panic that gripped Kori. The world was too heavy and they just wanted to throw it down and smash it. Andrei had seen the emotions enough in young officers and he knew how the old officers dealt with it.
The only question was which language… ah, to hell with it.
"Attention!" Andrei bellowed in Russian.
The line of men did, in fact, jerk straight, probably more out of shock than military discipline, but the best lie was the truth.
Andre wished he could climb back onto his horse. Instead, he grasped his wrists behind his back and strode, stiff-kneed back and forth in front of the line. "Is this what you call an honor guard?"
At least some of these men would have volunteered in the late war. And there was all that spy-training. They should understand enough Russian to be bamboozled. "Where are your uniforms? Where are your rifles? You scoundrels, have you sold your brass buttons already?"
The men looked at each other. Andrei snuck a glance at Kori, who gave a shudder, blinked, and swallowed.
Andrei cleared his throat. This sergeant voice was worse than tobacco for the throat. "Well? Don't you have anything to say for yourselves? Will you escort us to Peshtera or won't you?"
Looks of confusion, fear, and sullen guilt focused on the bearded fellow in a red cap who had demanded their surrender.
"We are no soldiers," the leader said in Bulgarian.
Andrei lowered his hands and lifted his chin to give Red Cap a good look up his nostrils. "And what is it you are, then?" He remembered the Bulgarian word: "Slaves?"
He'd gotten the word right. Red Cap's face flushed. "You know who we are!"
"Oh yes! A bunch of cave-dwelling, death-worshiping assassins and spies." Andrei showed his teeth. "Me éma Béssatsa."
The men twitched at that, Cenk included. They looked around as if some outsider might hear their secrets, here in this isolated valley. "Some assassins you are," he said, "to fail to kill me back in Tatar Pazardjik." Now, another jab. "Some spies, to stand around in broad daylight where any Buísta can see you. Some worshipers, to think you can defy the will of the Stopánass and Stopeáta of Íratsa Dópa! Some Bessians!"
"Don't use those words!" shouted the leader.
Andrei took a deliberate step toward him. "Instead of inviting me to share a meal and slipping something into my food, you gathered up all the able-bodied men, armed them, and lined them up across the road." Another step. "Just like the bunch I sent down around the eastern flank of Kugáta Bría." Another. Now he stood as close to the platoon as any captain giving orders. "If we march now, we should get to Peshtera just in time to reinforce them."
Red Cap glared at Andrei, but it was the glare of someone who was afraid of doing anything else with his face. He was no soldier. He wasn't even watching Andrei's hands.
Andrei drew his pistol. "So, here is your choice, Captain of the Western Division. You turn around and march me, Sérmēs, and the Xēthópaniâ to our lodgings, or I shoot you in the face." Andrei imagined the expression on the golden mask and felt his face twist to fit it. "One way or another, I will be your Host."
Continue on Patreon, where $10 patrons are up to chapter 40.