The Company of Shadows (Wellington Undead Book 3) (23 page)

“I’ll see to it, sir.”

“I have no doubt of that, CSM.” Campbell slipped off the jacket and started working on his white linen shirt. “I don’t think that I’ll be gone for very long – certainly not for more than a few hours – but keep a sharp eye out, just in case it is a trap.”

“What are you up to, sir, if I may ask?” Nichols grinned. “Off for a little jaunt?”

“Precisely.” Campbell’s smile was almost feral. He lowered his voice. “I’ll take a tour of the area first. See if there’s anybody hiding anywhere within a good few miles. See if I can find that stand of trees the villager talked about, where Jamelia is supposed to be lurking.”

“If she’s there, sir, don’t take her on all by yourself. Please. Come back and get us, eh?”

“I shall, CSM. Have no fear. No heroics.”

“Very wise, sir, if I make so bold. Want me to take them clothes for you?” Nichols gestured at the rapidly growing pile of uniform articles at his Captain’s feet.

“Obliged to you, CSM.” Campbell stood with his hands on his hips, as naked as the day that he was born and totally unabashed. Even at rest, Nichols couldn’t help but notice that the Captain appeared every bit as lean as a great hunting cat, every muscle defined. It was almost as if he was carved out of wood. “Right, I’ll be off. I’ll leave things in your capable hands.”

“You can depend on me, sir.”

“Of course I can.”

And with that, Colin Campbell took off, striding purposefully into the still-falling night.

The naked man put a good half mile between himself and his soldiers before allowing the change to begin. Once he was completely satisfied that there were no prying eyes around to see him, Campbell closed his eyes, let go of his conscious mind, and simply let the change happen.

At first it was like falling backward into a pool of warm water. Then the pool steadily began to heat up, degree by uncomfortable degree, until it finally felt blisteringly hot. His nerve endings transmitted the pain impulses all too efficiently, letting him know beyond a shadow of a doubt that his body was undergoing a transformation for which it was ill-prepared.

And Lord, was it going to hurt.

He didn’t know how long it took – there was no real sense of time during the change – but when it was over, Campbell felt as if he had been reborn. The night came alive for him in a way that it never had, could never have, when he was walking upright on two legs.

Far off to his right, a bird soared on the thermals, no doubt scanning the ground in search of its supper. A little closer, maybe a hundred feet away, a pair of tiny rodents skittered from one patch of scrub to another, hoping perhaps to conceal themselves from the hungry eyes in the sky. Then there were the insects, who were normally little more than background noise during a night march; their chorus was now a cacophony to his enhanced feline hearing, and Campbell had to tune out the racket so that he could hear everything else. He did this in the manner of a man who, when he finds himself standing in the center of a boisterous party, is forced to focus his attention on the words of the person speaking directly to him, to the exclusion of everything else.

Then there were the smells. This is going to take a little getting used to, he thought, flashing what was, for a tiger at least, a truly sardonic grin. By far the strongest odor within range was the half company of Shadows, none of whom had truly washed their bodies in…well, quite some time. To one another, the stink of stale sweat, dirty skin, and matted hair was something they simply got used to during a long march, until after a few days they hardly noticed it at all.

To a were-tiger, on the other hand, the stench was nauseatingly pungent. Campbell flattened his ears back against his skull in irritation, and then began to walk. He kept the pace slow and careful, for with caution came concealment. The plain was far from the uniform, billiard table flatness that first met the eye; on the contrary, there were bushes, natural depressions, and even the odd stand of trees scattered everywhere. Campbell slunk from cover to cover, keeping his senses heightened to their maximum state of alertness. He was making his way in a huge anticlockwise circle, making a broad sweep around the village of Talwada.

The temptation to lope, to run, was almost irresistible. Yet he did resist it. The will of the army officer overcame the will of the animal. Every few paces, the great cat threw back his head and sniffed at the night air, while also stopping to listen. Short of the typical background sounds and smells, nothing else seemed to be stirring out there on the plain. Campbell was keeping a careful eye out for trouble, but he completed the loop without ever finding any. The animalistic part of him found that frustrating; it wanted to rip, rend, tear, and bite whatever might be unfortunate enough to cross its path.

Fortunately, the soldier knew better. Despite the transformation, Campbell had been pleasantly surprised to find out that he had still retained the iron clad self-discipline that was characteristic of the British Army officer.

For the most part...

It wasn’t long before he came to a densely packed stand of thick trees. The tiger paused to sniff the air carefully. Yes, there was spoor there…tigress spoor. He could smell it, and quite distinctly too.

But it wasn’t current. This was old. At least a day, maybe even two. Jamelia had been here, but she wasn’t here any longer. Campbell knew that she couldn’t have gotten all that far.

Just to make sure, he padded cautiously into the undergrowth. It was dark beneath the overhanging canopy of the trees, but that made no difference to Colin. He could see almost as well in the dark as most people could in the noonday sunlight. Searching the stand of tope quite thoroughly, Campbell knew that he would find nothing. Sure enough, he was right.

Picking up Jamelia’s trail wasn’t remotely difficult. It was as simple as following a rope from one end to the other.

It left the stand of tope on the west side, then cut around and angled toward Talwada. He followed it until he closed to within five hundred yards of the village. Then, satisfied, the tiger turned and slunk back to finish his reconnaissance patrol.

Campbell estimated that it had taken him the better part of an hour to complete the loop. Now that he was finally satisfied that there was no hidden battalion of enemy soldiers lurking out there in ambush, the real work of the evening could begin.

He turned his attention back to the village once more, working his way in closer from the eastern side, simply because the terrain there afforded him more opportunities for natural cover – and because it put him upwind, which ought to make it harder for Jamelia to sniff out his approach. The fires were still burning, but there were no pots of food cooking over them. Several villagers were still gathered around them, just as they had before, warming their outstretched hands.

Now isn’t that strange…none of them are talking.

Rather than chatting easily over the remnants of their evening meal, the villagers simply sat there, gazing silently into the flames. At first, Campbell thought that they might be dead; but then he saw it for the ridiculous notion that it truly was, for each one breathed and made small movements, occasionally shifting weight from one side of the body to the other.

Just what on Earth is going on here?

Slowly, the great cat eased himself forward, keeping his body as low to the ground as possible. The firelight glinted from the sclera of his slitted yellow eyes. He could smell the villagers, smell the reek of their sweat and…something else.

Fear.

Total and utter abject fear.

The smell of tigress was getting stronger with every passing yard of ground. They were afraid of Jamelia, he realized. She must be hiding in the village somewhere, lurking just out of sight…

But something just wasn’t adding up. Campbell lay there in the dark, his great striped form blending into the darkest shadows. Just what exactly is going on here? An ambush consisting of just one single tigress, perhaps? It was not inconceivable, granted; in her feline form,Jamelia had the strength, speed, and most importantly the sheer physical power to cut a bloody swath through a hundred men, if she had a mind to do so. He knew that for a fact, not only because he had seen her fight on the battlefield, but also because he had those same abilities too.

Where are the rest of the villagers? I can’t smell them, which means they have gone somewhere…but where? He pondered the situation for a moment. If Jamelia had simply killed them all, he ought to be able to smell them…the guts, the viscera…something. And now that he paid close attention to it, there was a hint of blood in the air; not a great deal, but enough to give him pause. Could it be from the villagers themselves, he wondered, or from an animal that had been butchered for food? And where were all the bodies?

Experimentally, he sniffed the air once more. There was little more than the expected smells of everyday village life; old food, stale sweat, burning wood, domesticated animals, and a thousand other tiny olfactory cues.

This makes no sense. An entire village cannot simply disappear, all bar a few, at any rate…

Something was wrong here. He didn’t know precisely what, but he felt it, deep down in his gut on a primal level. The cat’s spoor trail terminated here, or somewhere hereabouts, to be more precise. The few villagers that he could see seemed catatonic, unaware of their surroundings. It was, for want of a better word, damnably unnatural.

Well, old boy, there’s no sense in going it alone. Not when you have a half company of His Majesty’s most elite troops sitting idle just a few hundred yards away.

Moving with painstaking care, Campbell retracted his steps, slinking back into the night as silently as a ghost. Within twenty minutes, he was back with the men. He was still in his tiger form, for what was the point in reverting to walking upright on two legs when he was about to lead the troops into action?

Approaching the British position, the captain found himself staring down the barrel of a musket.

“Halt,” said a soft, calm voice. “Who goes there?”

“It is I, Campbell, Sergeant Pace,” he responded. The human words still felt a little odd coming from his feline throat. He was slowly getting used to it, but it was a strange sensation nonetheless.

Ever since his secondment to the Shadows Company in the aftermath of Assaye, David Pace had discovered a number of things that would take a bit of getting used to…such as the NCOs standing watch alongside the private soldiers. From his current position, crouching behind a medium-sized boulder, Pace had spent the last God knew how long squinting into the inky blackness. Now he saw the silhouette of the tiger coming toward him out of the night. Satisfied that there couldn’t be
that
many male tigers on the prowl who could not only speak, but speak
English,
and
happened to know the name of his commanding officer, Pace put his musket up smartly.

“Pass, friend. Sir.”

Campbell made his way into the center of the makeshift position, tracking down Nichols purely by scent.

“Glad to see you’re back in one piece, sir,” Nichols said, sounding greatly relieved.

“Nothing in the village but that handful of people. And the scent of a tigress.”

“Jamelia.” It was phrased as a statement, not as a question. The tiger nodded.

“Jamelia. I wasn’t able to pinpoint her location, but it’s somewhere close to the center of the village. If I had gotten any nearer, I would have run the risk of her catching wind of my scent.”

“Sounds like the right move to me, sir. So, now we go in and get her, right?”

“Right. You’ll lead half the men in from the west, CSM. I’ll take the remainder in from the north. Best be careful…I can’t quite put my finger on it—” never mind the fact that you currently have no fingers “—but something smells rotten about this whole affair.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

Campbell explained about the mysterious disappearance of the bulk of the villagers, even down to their scents.

“That is odd, sir. Bloody peculiar, in fact. Do you think she killed them all?”

“It’s possible, but why leave a few alive?”

“Bait,” the CSM said darkly. “Makes some kind of sense. Kill the majority and then use the rest to lure us in. That villager could easily have been stringing the general along.”

“Well, we’re not going to find out sitting on our arses, CSM.” Campbell headed off to round up his portion of the men. “We’ll just have to be careful, that’s all.”

“Aye, sir,” Nichols agreed quietly. “Bloody careful.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Shadows were accomplished skirmishers, each and every one. They were trained to fight in pairs, one aiming and firing, covering his partner while he reloaded. The Brown Besses weren't particularly accurate at longer ranges, but with the amount of time they spent on target practice, each member of the Shadow Company became used to wringing the maximum amount of possible precision from the firearm.

Whereas all British soldiers were used to fighting in the dark (as befit an army that was led by vampire generals) the Shadows positively reveled in it, wearing the night like a protective cloak. The two-pronged attacked moved forward into the village with all of the precision and efficiency of a well-oiled machine, flowing from one patch of cover to the next without a single word being uttered; none were needed, for they had done this countless times before, both in training exercises and real-world engagements.