Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(69)
Still, combined, Blas’s and Sister Audry’s force numbered barely six thousand against the possibly forty thousand Don Hernan still had. They’d made a brave front, impersonating Shinya’s entire army in pursuit, nipping at the enemy’s heels hard enough to make him stop and deploy from time to time. On each occasion, he’d taken bloody losses, inflicted by the Ocelomeh and local Vengadores who infiltrated through the forest and savaged the flanks of his ragged, dispersed battle line. But Blas couldn’t make a frontal attack. She just didn’t have the strength. So eventually, Don Hernan pressed on. Blas desperately wished she had better aerial recon, but most of COFO Reddy’s planes were leapfrogging to new airstrips and lakes in preparation for supporting Shinya when he got to Popayan. And TF Skuggik Chase was a long way from the last Nancys at Puerto Viejo, beyond high mountains, and few planes could risk such missions. It isn’t all baad, she reflected, looking around, finally able to discern vague shapes in the gloom. We got plenty to eat, even if it’s pretty weird. Their native allies constantly brought wild game, strange roots, and unusual vegetables. She frowned. They also carried in baskets of bugs, little lizards, snakes, and some very unappetizing-looking fish they trapped in streams. She wasn’t keen on any of those, but they were food.
On the other hand, all her scouts told her that Don Hernan’s army was starving. That made it weak—and desperate. The problem was, the scouts also told her it had apparently grown desperate enough to do what she’d most feared: launch a major attack on her. They’d seen all the preparations, and reported troops massing in front of her. Don Hernan probably hoped to completely wreck her army so he could quicken his pace. Worse, he didn’t have to make it all the way to Popayan before he did that either. Blas now knew there was a tiny village about fifty miles south of it, with a road of sorts leading north. And it was only thirty miles ahead. Once the enemy no longer had to hack its way through heavy timber, it could race away.
Blas sent a pair of her precious dragoons to Kotopaxi with the news, to warn Shinya to pick up his pace and ask for any support he could give—a few planes, anything. She had no other means of communication. But it would take time for the dragoons to make the trip. Even if they survived the predators, which only numbers seemed to deter, they’d be lucky if their news arrived quickly enough to help Shinya. There was even less chance it would do her task force any good. Whatever happened today would be over long before Shinya heard of it.
Oddly, Blas wasn’t particularly afraid. She knew it would be tough, and she’d probably die. She’d once endured a terrible violation that destroyed the youngling she’d been, and since then she’d seen more action than most. As a result, her mind and soul had hardened in a way she suspected few could understand. She didn’t understand—or like it—herself. She wanted to live, and, in spite of everything, she loved life. But she’d become a different, damaged person, who’d come to literally love killing the enemies who tried to hurt those she cared about—particularly her 2nd of the 2nd Marines. That both excited and sickened her. She suspected it was normal to be proud and satisfied when she fought well, but to actually crave the killing, the primal release only the violence of combat gave her . . . She preferred not to dwell on it, but couldn’t imagine a better way to die: in the midst of all that, doing what she loved.
So now they waited behind hastily erected breastworks across the track the Dom army made, as prepared as they could be for the attack they knew would come. Blas looked at the Marines materializing to her left as the black night began to gray, and in spite of the situation, managed a pang of amusement. She was aware they called her Blossom, and loaded the name with irony since they knew what a fighter she was. What they didn’t know was that she liked the name the dead super bosun, Fitzhugh Gray, bestowed on her.
“What aa-muses you so?” Sergeant Koratin asked in his gravelly voice, sliding up beside her. He’d been an Aryaalan lord, but despite being fully capable of leading this entire force himself, he had no desire to advance beyond sergeant. He had real power once, he often said, and wasted it. He didn’t want it anymore. Blas looked at him. “Nothing,” she replied. “Just thinking. Where’s the Col-nol?”
“Which one? Col-nol Gaar-cia is with his troops, on the right. Where he belongs. Sister Audry will be near him, no doubt, where she should not be.”
“You still think she should stay back from the fighting?”
“Of course. She is all that holds the Vengaa-dores together.”
“I hope you’re wrong about that,” Blas said darkly. “If their cause can die with one person, it’s too fragile to rely on.”
Koratin sighed. “Perhaps I am wrong. I hope so.” He shook his head and blinked. “I believe I think so. I do tend toward a measure of cynicism from time to time. But given the faact she will not fight, even to defend herself, she has no place in the firing line.” He shrugged. “So I caan’t fight as I would wish, since it’s my sworn duty to protect her.” He grinned. “She is armed, with a pistol and cut-laass, at mine and Col-nol Gaar-cia’s insistence, but I’ve never seen her draw either weapon. She caan’t have any idea how to use them.”
“Why would she need to, with you there?”
“But if I die? Today, that is not unlikely.”
“Then someone else’ll waatch her. You worry too much.”