The Company of Shadows (Wellington Undead Book 3) (27 page)

"Captain Colin Campbell." It was given grudgingly, she thought, but honestly.

"And I assume that you already know who I am? That you were sent here with the express intent of killing me?"

"You are Jamelia. Daughter of the Tipu Sultan, and now a General of the Maratha Confederacy." She noted that he let the second part of her question pass by unanswered. Which meant that it was true.

"Yes, I am. Well, Captain Campbell, consider this: You have but a handful of men left alive. Those who have fallen to my soldiers will soon rise again and take their place in the ranks of my army. This is a fact, completely unavoidable. All who die at the hands of a walking corpse suffer the same fate.

"But I have absolute control over them. All of them. Give me your word, Captain Campbell, and this can end now. With no further bloodshed, and without your survivors suffering the same fate."

"Why should I trust you?" Campbell asked, distrust dripping from every syllable.

Which means that you want to.

"Because much like yourself, Captain, I am a soldier by profession. I give you my word that, if you order your men to surrender now, they shall be taken captive and treated as prisoners of war."

"They will not be abused or molested in any way?"

"They will not."

Both great cats fell silent while the Englishman digested this. Although she could not actually read his mind per se, Jamelia felt confident that she could predict exactly what he was thinking. After all, were they not both commanders of men?

He is thinking that if he trusts me, and has his men lay down their arms, then my soldiers may turn on he and his men anyway. Which is an entirely reasonable suspicion...On the other hand, he knows that if he remains obstinate and fights on to the bitter end, then the best possible outcome is a few more of my soldiers removed from the field of battle, and his entire company wiped out. And he will die in the knowledge that each and every one of them will be resurrected to serve in my army…

He is caught in an inescapable trap, and he knows it.

"Are you a follower of the nailed God?"

Campbell seemed confused at her question.

"A Christian," she clarified.

"Aye," he answered cautiously, as though suspecting a trap. "I am."

"I have read your holy book, Captain. Most amusing." That earned her a low growl. Be careful. Watch your mouth. He wants to grasp at this last chance at...what do they call it...salvation. "Do you truly believe that your God will return on the Judgment Day, and that when the last trumpet is blown, the faithful dead shall rise from their graves and be resurrected once more."

"Aye. I do. What of it?"

"Simply this: What type of body do you wish to stand up in, once this day of judgment comes? The one you now wear; its human counterpart; or..." She gestured with her head toward the rotting, desiccated corpses that were even now tearing another of his Shadows limb from limb. "...one of those."

Checkmate.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Colin knew that he had no option. This mission had gone from adventure to nightmare in seemingly no time at all. His command was in ruins. He had failed his men utterly, and his General far worse.

He cared nothing for his own life, but if even a handful of the Shadows could be saved, spared a fate so much worse than death...

"I agree to your terms."

The surrender brought with it a torrent of both shame and relief, as though a great iron weight had been both lifted from his shoulders and dropped on him from a great height, simultaneously.

Jamelia closed her eyes. It would have been an ideal opportunity to pounce, but that was no longer an option either. He had given his word. Now all that remained was to see whether she would be true to hers.

Looking around the fringes of the fire-lit circle, Colin saw with no small amount of surprise that she appeared to be doing so. The undead creatures were actually retreating, backing off and stumbling away from the few redcoats who were still standing.

"Lay down your weapons," he commanded, his supernaturally enhanced voice carrying for a much greater distance than that of an ordinary man. "I have offered our surrender, and it has been accepted."

Dan Nichols' first reaction upon seeing the wall of flesh-hungry blasphemies start to back away from him was one of disbelief. It was followed straight away by a sudden surge of hope: Hope that perhaps the impossible had somehow been accomplished, and that whoever or whatever was controlling these creatures had been killed.

The truth, when he heard it, brought him right back to disbelief once more.

Like the tide going out at Plymouth, the horde disappeared slowly back into the darkness from where it had come. They did not turn their backs, which would have been quicker, but simply melted into the blackness with a series of backwards-shuffling steps.

He couldn't believe the Captain's order when he heard it. Surely this had to be some kind of mistake...or perhaps a ruse, a
ruse de guerre
as the Frogs liked to say.

The CSM looked across to the opposite side of the cooking fire, where the two great cats faced off against one another. The Captain looked a little the worse for wear, he noted, with burns and bleeding gashes all over his body, rendering his stripes more of a patchwork collage of trauma. But he was nothing compared to his opponent. Dan reasoned that it had to be Jamelia. If that was the case, she had to have died at the bottom of that river in the fight with the General. Even from twenty feet away, the tigress looked as if she had been trampled over by a squadron of heavy dragoons. Repeatedly.

He could see the glint of exposed bone in several places, and what had to be muscle and tendon flexing inside ragged holes in her coat.

By rights, she shouldn't even be alive, let alone upright and walking around.

Then he realized that perhaps she wasn't, in the same way that those creatures she seemed capable of controlling weren't.

The mighty tiger looked directly at him and beckoned with a nod of the head. Obediently, Nichols limped over to join his captain, skirting the perimeter of the cooking fire.

"You're still holding your musket, CSM. You must lay it down." When Dan hesitated, he added, "Now, if you please."

The Company Sergeant Major prided himself on having never disobeyed an order in his entire life. It was one of the reasons why he currently held the coveted rank that he did.

Nonetheless, he was seriously contemplating it now.

"Sir..." He spoke diplomatically, in a small, quiet voice which he knew that Jamelia would be able to hear anyway, thanks to her enhanced sense of hearing. "We can't do this. Surrender to her...to that."

Campbell locked gazes with him. There was something dangerous in those eyes, Nichols realized, fighting the urge to recoil. Something feral. Those were the eyes of a man who had been pushed to the very brink, and then, perhaps, right over the edge into insanity.

Nevertheless, he's still your captain. Still your commanding officer.

But then General Wellesley's instructions came back to haunt him. One of the main reasons that Wellesley had wanted Dan to go along on the mission. Just in case the Captain's transformation had also rendered him a little...queer. Untrustworthy.

Unconsciously, Dan tightened his grip on the musket. His hands trembled ever so slightly, causing the bayonet to quiver. Campbell noticed, his eyes flicking to the blade and then back again to Nichols' own.

"I told you to put it down, CSM." There was steel in his tone now, his inflection colder and sharper than the bayonet's edge. "I will not give the order again."

Silence, other than the crackling of the cooking fire. The handful of Shadows that had survived the night's onslaught had obeyed their Captain, laying their Brown Besses down gently in the dirt at their feet.

Until only the CSM remained.

The silence now seemed like a living thing, awkward and tangible between them both. Dan looked at his captain. Campbell looked back. Both knew that it couldn't go on for much longer without being considered rank insubordination.

From the corner of his eye, Dan became aware of the blurry outline of his silver bayonet.

If you're going to do it, now would be the time.

Perhaps the only time. He may never get another opportunity to strike.

Silence.

Slowly, painfully, with a grimace caused by his battered knee, Dan lowered himself into a crouch and set the musket down carefully in the dirt. Then he stood up again, just as stiffly.

"Thank you, CSM."

"Sir."

Dan's tone was carefully neutral. Too neutral, in fact. Both men knew it, recognized it for what it really was. It was the special kind of bland obedience that soldiers offered a superior whom they either feared or no longer respected.

The bond which had grown between them over the past few days was now broken. Perhaps just for now. Perhaps for ever.

"He will never give up. Never."

Daulat Rao Scindia eyed the Raja of Berar with no small amount of annoyance. Berar's whining was made doubly annoying by the fact that he happened to be right: Wellesley never
would
give up. Giving the Maratha army a bloody nose at Assaye wasn't enough for the vampire general, plainly. He was bent upon conquest, and on their utter destruction.

The Maratha force had been on the march for days, retreating ever eastward and to the north. They were making for Gawilghur, the impregnable sky fortress that would finally break Wellesley and his army like waves upon a rocky shore. Scindia and Berar were traveling in comfort, borne on shaded palanquins as befit their status.

"We need a rearguard," Scindia said at last. "A force of men that is big enough to offer the British some resistance, but also small enough to be sacrificed without causing undue hardship."

"How many men?" Berar asked moodily. "Five thousand? Ten? We can ill afford to fritter more lives away."

"Twenty would be better. If Wellesley catches up to us and brings us to battle before we can reach Gawilghur, then we shall have thrown everything away. The officers are preparing Gawilghur even as we speak. The loss of a few thousand men is of little consequence in the long run, if it brings victory to our cause."

The Maratha army still had a few vampire officers left in its employ. None were British, for most had deserted their Indian employers when the British had invaded; none had wanted to risk the wrath of the vampire king, George. But the French, Dutch, Spanish, and Italian vampires had stayed, for the Confederacy paid handsomely and there was no love lost between them and the British.

Against Berar's objections, Scindia had dispatched all of the vampire officers ahead to the fastness.

"But that will leave us at a dangerous disadvantage!" the Raja had practically spluttered. "How are we supposed to protect ourselves against their vampires?"

"The British vampires are employed to command infantry battalions, not to attack directly," Scindia had reassured him. He had adopted a soothing voice that made him want to vomit, as indeed did most of his dealings with Berar these days. Still, so long as he had forces and fortress at his disposal, the man was a necessary evil...for now. "The British are creatures of tradition. They are bound by it. Everybody knows this."

"And what if they decide to break with tradition?" Berar demanded. "Even a handful could do great damage!"

"Even then, they would be overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers. Do not fret, my friend. Trust me on this. Besides, the British are forced to march by night and camp by day, so that their blood-drinkers can sleep in some measure of safety. With our own vampires gone, we are under no such restriction. We can march by day
and
by night. If we maintain that pace, they shall never catch us."

"If.
If
." Berar's tone was almost mocking, so much so that Scindia briefly considered drawing the blade from his hip and opening up his throat with it. He quickly suppressed the urge. As attractive and satisfying as it sounded, such an act would destroy their alliance. "The men are getting tired. They are already beginning to slow down."

"Nature is working to best effect."

"And what is
that
supposed to mean?"

"It is supposed to mean that the weakest will fall behind. Those who struggle shall be our rearguard. They are disposable. Such men are beneath contempt." Scindia waved a bejeweled hand dismissively. "We shall issue each man a lump sum, and promise them even greater riches once the engagement is over."

"But the treasury—"

"Is more than sufficient." Scindia took a long draught of arrack from an ornate cup. It was tepid, but still refreshing nonetheless. "They will be told that their mission is to offer a demonstration, nothing more. Give the British a bloody nose and then withdraw. Simply slow them down a little."

"It could work." Berar stroked his chin thoughtfully, gazing off into the far distance. "And that would give us a few thousand mouths less to feed. Or to pay."