The Lost Daughters Read online

  Table of Contents

  Other Wildside Press Books by Leigh Grossman

  Copyright Information

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part II

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part III

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Part IV

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Part V

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Wildside Press Books by Leigh Grossman

  The Green Lion

  The Golden Thorns

  *

  Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (editor)

  Copyright Information

  Copyright 2018 by Leigh Ronald Grossman

  All rights reserved.

  *

  Special thanks to Seameus Bethel.

  *

  Published by Wildside Press, LLC.

  wildsidepress.com

  Dedication

  For Cara

  Prologue

  Sperrin

  The Siege of Davynen: Thirteen years before the Loss

  “This is going to be a god-sucking fiasco,” said Bhales. She wiped an oilcloth along the magical etchings that grooved her blade, but her heart wasn’t in it.

  “Can’t argue with that,” I said. “Think the general has any idea what he’s doing?”

  Nemias shook his head. “Not likely. You heard his orders?”

  “I heard.”

  Nemias glanced at the heavy cloth flap that kept outsiders from the tent which had become the unofficial captains’ mess and planning area. “Even if he did, it wouldn’t matter. Koros got orders from the governor-general. Break the defenses immediately or be relieved. I heard from a channeler friend. The Empress told the governor-general it was his head if Davynen didn’t fall by the end of mud season, so the city could be used to stage a spring invasion.”

  Bhales looked angry. She was one of the oldest captains in the Ananyan Army, but her company fought as hard as any. “The whole army is chewed up from two months of fighting in the mud. We barely have enough healthy channelers to keep the war-engines running at half speed. And he wants us to take the place by storm. It can’t be done.”

  I shook my head. “It can be done.”

  “You really think so?” Bhales looked doubtful, but I saw a sort of ferocious hopefulness in her eyes. Her company would do its part in the morning.

  Nemias cleared his throat. “So how do we fix this, Sperrin? You’re the strategist. Tell us what we need to do to make Koros’s plan work.”

  I looked down at the big map of Davynen’s outer defense works pinned to the floor of the tent in front of us. Casualties among the senior officers had elevated Overcaptain Koros into an acting captain-general’s role far beyond his talents. His well-intentioned floundering might yet kill us all. But maybe not. “Depends. Any word on whose company will be first through the breach? They’ll have to hold steady.”

  “I heard it will be Averell,” Nemias said. “He has one of the heavy companies of the Downmeadow Panthers. They’re steady enough.”

  “They are,” I answered. “He may need a little more help to keep going through the breach, though. I’m close to full strength, since I got some survivors from Jathra’s company after she and her subcaptains died. I can send a few to help reinforce Averell.”

  “I’ll try to find a few to help him in the Threecastle Tomcats,” said Nemias. “I can’t spare more than a few, but I’ll talk to the other line company captains and see what we can scrape up.”

  Bhales just shook her head. She barely had enough combat-ready troopers left to keep her company’s two bulky war-engines from being overrun by enemy skirmishers.

  I looked back at the map. “Here and here”—I pointed—“We will need to overrun their skirmishers and hold these points. Even better if we can get a channeler or two there as well to help hold off magical attacks. They don’t look bad on the map, and I doubt Koros is paying much attention to a few skirmishers, but if the light companies are taking losses from those points before they can reach the main jump-off point, they’ll bog down. And this advance needs to be fast to work.”

  “Scout companies?” Nemias looked dubious, even as he made the suggestion.

  “That should be enough. Koros never uses them in his assault orders, so they should be available. If we can scrape up a few channelers from the sick list that will help too.”

  Bhales shook her head again. “Some of those channelers aren’t going to make it through the campaign. Whatever they’ve got is getting in their lungs. Some sort of mud fever, but channelers get it a lot worse around here. Some of the ones still fighting can’t draw much power anymore. The fever hurts their link with the Empress.”

  “I don’t care if it kills them in a month, we need some of them fighting tomorrow. A lot of them.” That sounded harsh even to me. My wife would not have approved.

  “The enemy’s channelers seem to be doing just fine,” said Nemias.

  Bhales shrugged. “Their channelers grew up around here. Maybe they have a way to cure it. Or maybe they just don’t catch it. Seems like our channelers are just so damned fragile sometimes.” She caught herself. “Sorry, Sperrin.”

  I smiled. “Sefa’s not very fragile. But she’s not a combat channeler, either. I don’t think she’d do well in mud.”

  “Not much else but mud here,” Nemias said, laughing. “You’d better watch out, Bhales. The mud fever preys on the old and the weak and the channelers.”

  “Are you calling me weak?” Bhales’s hand went reflexively to her blade, although her eyes had an amused crinkle.

  “Nooooo,” said Nemias. “I don’t think anyone would call you weak.”

  “I’m not that old,” she said, and then we all laughed, not because it was funny but because we needed something to laugh at. Nemias had half a dozen ready jokes about Bhales’s age, and we laughed until Bhales started coughing so hard she couldn’t stop. Which would have led to another joke if so many of the army’s channelers weren’t already coughing in a sick tent as their lungs slowly filled with fluid.

  “So, the battle tomorrow?” Nemias said, a little tentatively.

  We all turned back to the map, and I pointed out a few more places where Overcaptain Koros’s battle plan needed shoring up.

  “On paper this should work,” I said. “But it all depends on Averell.”

  On paper the whole campaign should have worked. The Empress had sent more than enough troops and channelers. We had taken the outer defenses and opened a breach in the city wall two months ago. On paper it looked like an easy victory with one final push. But with the mud and the sickness and some timely Alliance counterattacks, Overcaptain Koros and the whole campaign seemed to be foundering together in the mud fields that now surrounded Davynen.

  Nemias looked at the map again. “Anything else we need to watch for, Sperrin?”

  I shrugged. “If we hit those two points and keep everyone moving fast we may be all right. Their channelers are a
ccurate, but the crews on their war-engines are slow. If we move fast, no one will get hit too hard before we get to the breach. That’s where the real fighting will be, anyway.” I stood up, and adjusted my belt so my blade hung cleanly by my side. “I’m off to check the lines. I want to talk with the late watch officers before they start their rounds. Pass the word to the other captains. If the gods don’t meddle and Koros keeps his head, we should be fine.”

  “That’s a lot to hope for,” said Nemias. He clasped my shoulder in farewell. I returned his gesture, then passed through the tentcloth into the night.

  * * * *

  Even before the signal whistle blew to start the advance, the battle didn’t look good. That morning, Overcaptain Koros had summoned all the captains to join him for breakfast. Reluctantly, I turned over the final preparations to my subcaptain and sergeants and jogged over to the overcaptain’s pavilion. I could see a sergeant of engineers and some borrowed troopers helping prepare a battered harrowflame thrower; they’d strapped a wan-looking channeler into her chair, wrapped in a thick layer of blankets. Her skin looked unnaturally pale, even in the early morning light. But her eyes still had a deep blue intensity and she nodded solemnly as she met my gaze.

  * * * *

  Overcaptain Koros sat at the head of a long table, while the oversergeant who served as aide and bodyguard sliced pieces of yellowfruit into a bowl. Bowls of yogurt and goat-milk already sat on the table, along with two big trays of small loaves still steaming from the ovens.

  The overcaptain looked calm and confident, as he did before every morning’s fight. If he knew the stakes of today’s actions, Koros’s face betrayed nothing.

  Maybe he really doesn’t know, I thought, not for the first time. Everyone knew Koros was grand-nephew to the Empress, but the wife she’d selected for him was no great favorite. He had to know he had very little margin for failure. More margin than a field captain like me, but not by a lot. The Empress valued success more than she valued nephews.

  Koros sat with some odd companions. Ranvera, a ragged bandage over his wounded head and lost eye, sat with both his subcaptains at Koros’s right. Ranvera’s subcaptains looked angry, but the wounded captain looked happy.

  Happier than I would be. Ranvera fought hard, but his company did not. He had lost an eye leading his troopers into the fighting at the breach—but more to the point, he’d lost his company. They’d broken and fled the field in the chaos of the assault, leaving two unprotected channelers to be killed and a gaping hole in the middle of the army. Jathra and half of her company had died filling that hole, buying time for the army to reform its lines and fall back.

  Ranvera’s company had been reassembled—his losses had been light, considering—and they had been sent behind the lines to refit and retrain. Now, apparently, they had returned.

  “Captains”—Overcaptain Koros stood and gestured with both hands to silence the growing disgruntlement in the pavilion—“I have an announcement to make before this morning’s advance. You all know Captain Ranvera of the Willow Valley Sand Vipers. His company had an unfortunate time in the last attempt on the breach, so he has asked for a chance to finish today what his troopers couldn’t then. Therefore, I have given Captain Ranvera the honor of leading this morning’s advance. Captain Averall’s company will switch position with Captain Ranvera’s troopers and serve as principal reserve. Captain Ranvera, you have a few words for us?”

  Ranvera looked around the room. We all stared back, a little grimly. His two subcaptains looked at Ranvera bleakly; the request clearly hadn’t come from them. If they’re here, who’s helping prepare his company for the battle? I wondered.

  Ranvera stood, looking defiantly at all of us. “All I have to say is that my troopers will be in the breach by midmorning. I swear it in the name of all that the gods betrayed.”

  “Well spoken,” Koros said. “Captains, you have your assignments. See to your troops.”

  We all filed out, the breakfast untouched.

  “Do you believe that?” Nemias said to me quietly, when we’d passed out of hearing of the pavilion. “If they couldn’t make it in the last two months, how are they going to make it this morning?”

  I shrugged. We had our orders. Nemias was right, of course. But it wasn’t the sort of advice Overcaptain Koros would have appreciated.

  “So what do we do, Sperrin?” Nemias persisted.

  “What we always do. We fight. We watch each other’s flanks. We follow our orders. Who knows, maybe Ranvera can pull it off.”

  “Can we win if he does?”

  “Let’s find out.” I clasped Nemias’s shoulder as we parted ways to our separate companies’ lines.

  * * * *

  The Sand Vipers lined up passably well. I could see them from the front of my company; we would be third through the breastworks at the center of the line. I would have felt better if Koros—or anyone—had inspected them, maybe given them a speech to gauge their courage. Ranvera’s company hadn’t replaced its lost channelers yet, so they would be advancing in the face of magical fire, with nothing but courage to help them make it across the muddy field that separated our defenses from the breach in Davynen’s walls.

  I looked to either side and saw Ananyan scouts occupying the positions I’d marked on the map last night. So that part of the plan had worked; the Sand Vipers would still face fire from the walls of Davynen and the skirmishers in front of them, but at least their flanks would be protected.

  Ranvera stood in front of his company, holding a signal stick, his blade still sheathed at his side. His subcaptains stood at the left and right flanks of his company. Nodding once, Ranvera raised the signal stick high. The whistle for the advance screeled loudly. The crack of throwers releasing their payloads sounded as our channelers fired at Alliance positions to help cover the advance.

  With Ranvera at their head, the three companies of the Sand Vipers regiment stepped out from the entrenchments and began to dress their lines for the advance. Sky flashed as a bolt of harrowflame landed at the right edge of the formation. A subcaptain and three troopers dissolved into screams and charred flesh.

  “Advance!” Ranvera called out.

  The soldiers behind him lifted their weapons. Then one of them cracked the butt of his halberd against Ranvera’s skull.

  The captain pitched to the ground.

  A bolt of harrowflame splashed into the mud nearby, exploding just short of the front rank. As if that had been a signal, Ranvera’s company melted away, troopers dropping their weapons and turning their backs to run. The Sand Viper companies to either side faltered and then began to fall back as well, clogging the breastworks as they tried to retreat into the companies moving up behind them. The fire from the Central Alliance lines increased, as their channelers sensed easy targets.

  I saw our scouts falling back from the positions they’d taken forward of the flanks, choosing retreat rather than being left unsupported in front of a collapsing front line.

  A double whistle blew from the rear, from Overcaptain Koros’s command post: the command to return to defensive positions and hold. My troopers, still set for the attack, watched silently as Ranvera’s company fled around them. Other than the three companies of Sand Vipers at the very front of the line, the panic hadn’t spread. But that had been enough.

  The whole advance stalled before it had even begun.

  * * * *

  “Koros has been relieved.” As usual, Nemias heard the news before any of the rest of us.

  I hadn’t even seen the overcaptain in the twelve days since the aborted battle. A handful of couriers had come and gone from his pavilion, but the rest of us had settled into a sort of sodden truce. A deluge from the skies had soaked everyone and made the field between Davynen and the Ananyan Army completely impassable. Only in the last few days had hints of sun returned. Soon the province would enter the hot, dry season before which Davynen needed to be won if the river guarded by the city was to be a roadway for invasion.

&
nbsp; “The governor is on his way, but his lieutenant got here early and relieved Koros.”

  “So who’s in command?” I asked.

  “The lieutenant-governor, at a guess,” said Nemias. “At least until the governor gets here.”

  “Why is the lieutenant-governor even here?” Bhales asked. “This is the one with the beautiful wife, right? The way I heard it, he comes from a family of diplomats, but none of them talk to him anymore. He’s too ambitious even for them.”

  “From what I heard,” Nemias said, “he’s here because his wife is here. They needed a channeler powerful enough to perform an execution. He came along, and because he beat the governor here he gets to take command.”

  “So he’s here to play governor-general?” Bhales asked.

  “It looks that way,” said Nemias.

  “Let’s hope he’s better at it than Koros,” said Bhales. She coughed, deep and hacking. “I want to win this fight and get out of the mud before this cough gets any worse.”

  * * * *

  The soldier had to die, of course. Even Koros would have seen that, if he’d still been around. Camp rumor had it that Koros had been sent back to the Drowned City to answer to the Empress herself, but more likely the overcaptain had been rotated to some forgotten mountain fort as far away from the front lines and serious command responsibility as could be managed. That was how the army handled well-connected officers who fell out of political favor.

  When the order to assemble for the execution came, they lined us up by companies instead of regiments. With Koros gone, none of the four overcaptains originally assigned to the expedition remained, and Koros—himself an overcaptain serving in a brevet captain-general’s role—didn’t have the authority to promote anyone to regimental command. Not that the lieutenant-governor or his beautiful executioner-wife was here to promote anyone.

  I noticed her first on the platform: I think we all did. She looked as beautiful as advertised, wearing the same sort of city clothes as my wife Sefa. Beautiful and comfortable for wearing in theaters and palaces, but not especially practical in mud. A small brown-haired girl about my daughter’s age, dressed in the same sort of impractical clothing, clung to the executioner’s leg possessively. Why bring her here? I wondered. I missed my daughter fiercely, but I would never have brought her to a fever-infested wasteland like this one.