Kingmakers, The (Vampire Empire Book 3) (2 page)

O
ILY SMOKE AND
thick fog the colors of blood and snow engulfed Grenoble. The city was situated on the confluence of two rivers, the lion and serpent, the Drac and the Isère. To the right of the lion, a huge human army huddled on the rolling countryside south of the city, now largely stripped of trees. The sprawling camp was hemmed in by the river on the west and by steep mountain cliffs on the other side.

In the frozen filthy trenches, numb fingers clutched steel weapons as the breath of men hung in the air, mixing with the smoke drifting over the machine-gun nests whose guns had just stilled. Eyes were raised overhead, scanning the grey sky for the slightest hint of shadows.

General Mehmet Anhalt emerged from his command bunker dug deep into the frozen earth. He was relatively short and stocky, but moved with vigor and agility. He was Gurkha, olive-skinned and clean-shaven, reserved and calm. He wore a heavy wool coat over a uniform, tattered but kept pressed as sharply as possible, with mud-caked boots and a peaked helmet whose khaki wrap was showing wear.

Anhalt made his way through the trench system, eight feet below the surface of the hard ground. Some stretches of the trenchworks were covered with metal sheeting or rough wood planks to help shield the
soldiers from the claws of the enemy, but most of the network was open to the sky. Even in the thin morning light, the muddy gashes were places of unhealthy shadow and stench.

Anhalt's helmet bore the scarab badge marking him as the holder of the revived title of
sirdar
, lord commander of the Imperial Equatorian Army, and commander in chief of the Grand Expeditionary Force in Europe. He strode past infantry troopers, some of whom stood and saluted, while others merely stared or nodded a greeting while continuing to smoke or preparing meager breakfasts while huddled around makeshift braziers trying to warm themselves. He hopped onto the fire step next to a young man, trembling either from the cold or nerves, with his head down on his arm. The boy looked up wearily and his eyes widened at the unexpected sight of the general standing next to him. Anhalt saw fear in the boy's face, and not just the reasonable fear of war. The trooper was drenched in terror.

No matter how strongly the command staff had attempted to indoctrinate the soldiers that the enemy was nothing more than a subspecies of humanity, bloody myths and spook stories crowded the Equatorian mind. Lectures in the sunbaked camps of Egypt were one thing; grey shadow creatures flitting unnaturally through the icy air of Europe were quite another.

Anhalt placed a hand on the trooper's shoulder, and through the khaki tunic more suited for desert service than the Alpine winter, he felt the roughness of chain mail. Many troopers wore mail, akin to the knights of old, because it afforded some protection from the claws of the vampires even though it hampered movement and agility. The general exchanged a brief smile with the young man, who stilled his trembling and stared with renewed resolve over the battlefield.

Through his field glasses, Anhalt saw that a light blanket of wet, heavy snow lay everywhere, partially shrouding bodies, both human and vampire. The eastern light was just appearing over the mountain peaks, illuminating the aftermath of another long, bloody night of fighting.

Anhalt dropped back into the trench and moved quickly toward the artillery command on the eastern flank of the sprawling Equatorian encampment. He eventually climbed out of the man-made canyons onto
level ground where lines of eighteen-pound cannons were placed, surrounded by sandbags and earthen bulwarks. He approached Colonel Eugene Mobius, who sat outside a tent, sipping a metal cup of steaming tea. Mobius rose and saluted sharply. He was a tall, thin man with close-cropped brown hair and a long jaw. He rotated a shoulder, which made his chain undershirt clank and grind. He was a capable soldier, and directed the artillery units with much discipline and rigor.

“We gave them a thrashing they won't soon forget,” Mobius proclaimed loudly, more for the morale of the men within earshot than for the sirdar. They both knew that they had barely held their line under the last vampire assault.

Anhalt merely nodded, his expression giving no indication as to his disposition. He climbed onto a berm thrown up in front of the cannons, and stared at the distant mist-shrouded roofs and steeples of Grenoble, which were beginning to glow orange in the rising sun. On the scarred plains between the glistening city and Anhalt's icy observation post, ghostly shades of trench-coated soldiers drifted across the field, searching for dying or dead companions.

Colonel Mobius joined him and said, a bit more quietly, “Our odds would improve, sir, if we could pound the bloody beasts to soften them up.”

“You've read the Order of Battle, Colonel. And we've discussed this at length. An artillery barrage will do little more than waste ammunition and kill the humans we are trying to liberate. Vampires can easily rise above your falling shells.”

Mobius scowled. “I'm more concerned with safeguarding the humans in Equatorian uniforms than those wandering Grenoble.”

Anhalt turned to his officer with eyes smoldering. He did not deign to reply because he knew that, despite his words, Mobius wasn't trying to imply that Anhalt didn't care about his troops; the artillery colonel was outspoken and not always with clear forethought. As long as Mobius kept it between the two of them, Anhalt could absorb a little potential insubordination under such harsh conditions.

Mobius spat onto the ground, undeterred by his commander's clear anger. “I can't conceive why we're so concerned for these near-men. They're nothing more than herds. It's a known fact.”

“The Northern Reports say otherwise. You read them.”

“I did. They were required for command staff. But can those reports be believed? The General Staff didn't place much stock in them.”

“Our empress wrote them. Therefore, we trust them completely. Is that understood?”

The colonel muttered, “The empress isn't out here, is she?”

“Damn it, Colonel!” Anhalt drew close to the startled officer. “When you have endured a quarter of the hardship and horror that Her Majesty has, I would welcome your opinion on it. Until then, you had best keep your snide comments related to the empress to yourself, certainly in my presence.”

The colonel stared at the ground. “I understand, Sirdar. It's simply an option. It's said that the Americans aren't so careful of what they blow up. It's said that Senator Clark is rapidly gaining ground against the vampires in the old United States.”

“Gaining ground is simple. Holding ground is difficult. And I do not care how Senator Clark and his American Republic fight their war. Their way is not the Equatorian way, which was made clear when our empress refused to marry the senator last year. Our empire pursues other options. That's the end of it.” Anhalt's tone made it clear that discussion was at an end. He would brook no further argument on the matter, so Mobius wisely let it drop.

Abruptly, the whitening sky darkened as vampires darted out of the cold and miserable mist. Shouts of alarm went down the ranks as soldiers raised weapons and prepared to answer the attack yet again.

Colonel Mobius shouted, “Man your guns! Look lively! Shrapnel shells!” Crews scrambled to the cannons, and his arm rose and fell with each resounding order of “Fire!”

Flak peppered the sky, concussion and shrapnel pushing back the vampires momentarily. Only those creatures that took a direct hit fell to the ground in pieces, while the rest continued their attack.

“Get some men on the shriekers.” Anhalt pointed to several two-foot brass boxes mounted nearby on rough wooden poles.

Mobius shook his head. “They're broken or frozen up. Haven't worked for days.”

The men outside the perimeter struggled back toward the lines with the wounded and dead. But the vampires were too many and too fast. They dropped out of the sky and fell hard onto the backs of those who had been brave enough to step out into No-Man's-Land. Soldiers died instantly in a shower of blood and bone. Those remaining ran harder. Those who carried the dead abandoned their fallen comrades and helped with the wounded, desperately trying for safety. As the terrified men closed the distance to the trench line, machine-gun nests added to the din of artillery. The spray of bullets ripped many vampires to pieces.

“Battery Four! Adjust azimuth twenty-one degrees!” Colonel Mobius shouted with field glasses pressed to his eyes. His voice boomed as loud as his artillery. For those beyond its reach, others repeated orders down the line. Gunners paused to wheel their barrels up, unable to see the new wave looming in the distance. The double-barrels of the eighteen-pounders rhythmically churned out shell after shell.

“They're still coming,” Mobius informed his superior, gesturing toward the city where shapes continued to swarm out from the Bastille fortress lost in the white fog of winter high on the rocky cliffs of the Chartreuse mountain range just behind Grenoble.

There was a moment of silence before General Anhalt ordered, “Use the combustion flak.”

Mobius's eyebrow rose and he swallowed hard. “The wind is light enough. I suppose it's either that or be overrun.”

“We will not be overrun.”

“Yes, sir.”

Word was passed down the line, and special bright brass shells were brought up. They were loaded in place of the normal shrapnel shells. Scrawled on the casings were pictures and slogans depicting the death and hatred of vampires. “Suck This!” “Back to the Grave!” “From Empress Adele, Greetings!”

Also brought up were fifteen long wooden poles that each held a slender warhead. The warheads were rocket-shaped and contained black powder for propulsion and a generous amount of combustible oil. They had a range of about two miles, were notoriously inaccurate, and the men handled them gingerly because they also tended to explode prematurely.

The Fourth Battery resumed its barrage, lobbing the new shells high to explode over the battlefield; but instead of vicious metal fragments, they spewed a yellow fog that hovered like a gaseous blanket. The wind was light, so the gas cloud remained relatively steady over many square miles between the Equatorian lines and Grenoble.

The vampires didn't seem to care as they darted in and out of it, unafraid, laughing almost.

Anhalt nodded and Mobius commanded, “Fire rockets!”

The artillerymen standing beside each of the slender poles applied fire to the ends and the rockets began to sputter. Tails wiggled for a couple of seconds, and then they darted along the length of the poles and up into the sky.

The first rocket flared too high and exploded in a dazzling display of red flame, but none of the sparks made it to the slowly drifting gas. Another rocket went wild and slammed back onto the bleak field tumbling this way and that, propelled forward along the ground in a frenzied dash toward an unknown target. Luckily, it didn't swing back toward the trenches. Finally a third rocket hit nearer the mark, just short of the cloud, but flame caught the edge of the yellow haze. The atmosphere ignited with a loud whoosh. The flames billowed out and over the vampires floating near the cloud. Anhalt watched as the shroud of fire roared above the field. Waves of heat washed over the soldiers, fanning cheeks and exposed skin, making them red and prickly.

At least a hundred vampires were caught in the firestorm. Their screams echoed in the howl of the flames. They writhed and dropped from the sky like charred bits of smoldering ash.

Soldiers cheered.

Abruptly the wind altered, bringing a rush of ice crystals down the side of the looming mountain to their right. The flaming gas cloud shifted and began to descend toward the Equatorian lines with a sickening lurch.

“Take cover! Take cover!” Anhalt shouted as he ran toward a bunker.

Gunners ran for covered trenches. Soldiers in open holes and ditches, far away from protective warrens, drew fire-retardant tarpaulins over
their heads or simply pressed face-first into the frozen mud, praying that they'd survive without burning or suffocating.

Anhalt stopped at the door to the bunker, guiding soldier after soldier ahead of himself. The looming wall of heat sucked the very air away. Anhalt listed dizzily as he waved a stumbling straggler past. He ignored shouts, spying another band of soldiers running madly toward him. He knew they weren't going to make it, but still he urged them on. The sky grew red. He could smell his own hair burning. Just before the flames fell, he was yanked inside and the steel door slammed shut before him. A roar boomed and the door rattled with such force that screws and hinges shook loose. Vibrant heat filled the underground narrows.

The man gripping Anhalt's arm stumbled to one knee, so the commander pulled the man deeper into the damp tunnel.

“What do you think you were doing, man?” said Anhalt, leaning the cowled figure back against the dirt wall.

“I will ask you the same question,” was the unsteady reply from Greyfriar, who lifted a shaking hand to his mask to ensure it was still in place.

“The wind shifted. I had to get my men under cover.” Anhalt shook his head angrily. “I left some of them behind.”