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

“Lost his leg,” another redcoat chimed in, “and lived to tell the tale, the lucky bastard.”

“So how does he know what happens before you die?” Pace scoffed. “The last time I saw Billy Flanagan, he was boarding a transport ship and on his way back to England. Not exactly at death’s door, you’ll have to admit.”

Every redcoat gathered around the fire had laughed, slapping Jimmy on the back and good-naturedly accusing him of talking bollocks. But after sunrise, when the weary and half-pissed soldiers made their way to their bedrolls to snatch some well-earned rest, Dave had found that the sleep he craved just would not come. Jimmy’s words kept echoing backward and forward through his restless brain. Could the superstitious old bastard be telling the truth, he wondered, laying awake as the sun climbed higher in the sky and the dusty air grew hot and close — was that really how it would play out in his last moments?

Ever since he had been a young boy growing up on the streets of Inverness, David Pace had been cursed with the double-edged sword of a highly active imagination. Although it had come in handy at times, such as when he needed to come up with a quick excuse to throw a senior NCO or an officer off the scent of some misdeed or dodge, the shoe sometimes ended up on the other foot: he craved sleep before the forced march that the coming nightfall would inevitably bring, and yet his fevered imagination kept conjuring up unwelcome images and sensations behind his closed eyelids.

What would a musket ball feel like when it entered his body, perhaps shattering a rib or a thigh bone into a thousand pieces as it went? Or how about the edge of a sword, or maybe the tip of a bayonet, slicing him open like a side of beef and spilling his guts out in a bloody mess for him to trip on? Every conceivable manner of death or injury trotted through his thoughts, fueled by that damnably fertile story-teller which lived in the back of his brain and haunted him whenever it felt like it. Pace imagined an enemy cannon-ball whizzing through the air, tearing off both of his legs from the knees down and shredding the remaining tissue into bloody rags. That was the kind of injury that a man sometimes survived, if one of his comrades could get a leather strap or belt tied firmly around the stumps before he bled to death, but the sheer agony of it was nothing short of terrifying.

As he had thought about it more over the following days, Pace had finally come to the conclusion that these fantasies were actually nothing more than his mind’s way of coping with the risks of an uncertain future and a likely violent demise. Somehow, anticipating the many and varied methods of his death beforehand and replaying them over and over again was helping to not only make the possibility bearable, but also seemed to be removing a little of the sting that came along with them too.

And so he had prepared himself mentally for the bullet, the ball, and the blade…yet somehow, getting his throat and innards torn out by the teeth of an undead mob hadn’t been something that even
his
imagination had seen coming. Returning to the here and now, Pace was amazed to find that he was no longer half-way to panic and despair; wherever this feeling of perfect calm had come from, he welcomed it with all of his soon-to-be-eaten heart. When your back was well and truly up against the wall (or in this case, he thought with a sardonic smirk, the river) and there was no longer any hope left, then
this
was the place that you traveled to — one of total calm and clarity. Time wasn’t slowing, not one whit — hadn’t he always known that Jimmy Anderson was full of shit? — but if this was to be his end, then he felt surprisingly content about it.

Down at his feet, Campbell moaned, his fingertips twitching weakly as they tried to clutch at the hilt of his sword. His face was a mask of blood, and bubbles came from his mouth every time his chest spasmed out a breath. Pace knew that there was nothing more that he could do for his Captain now, other than to stand his ground over his body until the very last and go forward with him into the next life.

“Come on then, you motherless sons of whores…let’s be having you!”

Planting his feet firmly on the riverbank and giving the musket a half-hearted swing in order to loosen up his shoulders, Sergeant Pace locked eyes with the nearest creature and prepared to sell his life dearly.

If Neptune himself had risen from the depths and had thrust himself into the skies of the world above, with trident in hand and vengeance in his heart, he could hardly have looked more spectacular than the vampire General did when he erupted from beneath the surface of the Kailna.

Rising high above the battlefield, Wellesley’s preternatural senses were able to do for real that which Jimmy Andersen could only dream about: time itself slowed down as the vampire’s perceptions shifted into an altered state, one more refined and less coarse than that in which he normally lived. Time slowed, and while it still moved forward, it now seemed to do so at an almost glacial rate. Reaching the top of his arc, Wellesley looked all about him and took in the state of the battlefield, aided considerably by the vampire’s innate ability to see the world shrouded in the darkness as most creatures saw it under the light of the noon-day sun.

The overall formation of his army was fractured, broken up into knots and clusters of men ranging in size from a handful here and there to one or two company-sized pockets whose commanders had formed them into square and were efficiently pouring volley after volley into the ragged waves of undead attackers every time they lurched within musket range. The field of Assaye was literally
crawling
with the undead, for even those men who had bled to death from shattered or roughly-amputated legs were returning to a state of grotesque animation and pulling themselves slowly but surely in the direction of the closest living redcoats. A good number of those corpses wore red themselves, but it did not seem to deter them one jot from seeing their former comrades as a ready source of food.

Wellesley’s eye darted across the battlefield, taking in the overall disposition of his men — they were holding, barely — and no small satisfaction in the fact that the Maratha force had fled the field entirely, their last few stragglers making their way to what they hoped was freedom in the north.

If Scindia and Berar believe that they shall find sanctuary there, then they are bigger fools than I have given them credit for. But that is for another day. First things first…we must survive the dawn.

But where to start? That, at least, was a relatively simple question to answer. His vampiric hearing, sensitive beyond that of any other being, could hear thousands of heartbeats across the length and breadth of the battlefield. The undead monstrosities had none, of course, whereas those of his redcoats were pounding ten to the dozen. Contrary to the popular belief held by the ignorant masses at home in Britain, his fellow vampires
did
in fact possess a heartbeat, though they were fast, faint, and difficult to detect, even for another of their kind. To a vampire, a man’s heartbeat was as unique as his written signature…even when he was dying.

Campbell.

The Captain’s heartbeat was racing, fast and thready, and Arthur could tell that he had lost much blood. Although he knew little of medical matters, it was obvious even to him that the torn and bleeding young Scot would exsanguinate unless he could be gotten to Doctor Caldwell…and soon.

Wellesley landed hard, and intentionally so, slamming into the dirt between Sergeant Pace’s stricken charge and the creatures that were attacking them both. The hammer of impact would have broken the legs of a mortal man, so great was the force. Shockwaves rippled outward, sending Pace staggering backward until his heels hung out in the empty air over the Kailna’s fast-rushing bank. He flailed awkwardly, unwilling to let go of the musket. Quick as lightning, a hand shot out and grabbed the front of his jacket, jerking him forward onto firmer ground.

For his part, Wellesley hadn’t even looked back, simply snatching at the NCO on instinct without taking his eyes off the blood-crazed undead monsters before him. They too were badly off-balance, knocked backward five or six steps by the sheer force of his landing. The vampire General drew his blade in the flickering space between two heartbeats, the movement almost too fast for the mortal eye to see, and yet happening with a reassuring lassitude to Wellesley’s eye. He took two quick steps and pivoted to the left, turning toward the creature at his nine o’clock and decapitating it with a single, powerful stroke. The head flew high into the air, spinning end over end as it went. Although the thing’s mouth still worked, gnashing and snarling, it now did so soundlessly, for it had been separated from its vocal cords by the swift and violent cut.

The decapitated creature’s body veered drunkenly sideways, caroming into the next in line and taking it to the ground in a tangle of groping and flailing arms and legs. Wellesley ignored it, and had already turned his attention to a third creature. The thing had turned to face him, grasping hungrily with outstretched arms and fingers hooked into claws. The General felt a slight twinge of remorse, seeing that the monster wore the uniform of the 78th, yet it slowed his response not one whit; his left hand lashed out in a precisely-delivered strike, with the fingers curled above the palm and the arm itself acting like a ramrod. The heel of his hand struck the creature squarely on the tip of its already-squat nose, bursting it across its face like an overly-ripe tomato, and kept on going, driving backward into the soft, delicate brain tissue behind and slightly above it. Its brain now liquefied beyond all hope of repair, the thing dropped lifeless to the plain as though pole-axed.

“Sir, look out!”

Pace lunged with his bayonet, intercepting yet another of the creatures before it could reach his General. For his part, Wellesley appreciated the gesture (and fully approved of such displays of initiative from his NCOs) but knew that it was hardly necessary. Like a chess grand master, he was thinking seven or eight moves ahead. The thing would never have laid hands on him, not for the merest instant. But why spoil the man’s sense of accomplishment, Arthur reflected, the corner of his mouth quirking upward in a slight gesture of approval as the razor-sharp bayonet opened the beast’s throat from its chin to its Adam’s apple. The wound bled heavily, dumping out a deluge of thick black ichor, but the wound was far from decisive, for the thing kept on coming; if anything, it looked both angrier and hungrier than it had done before.

Wellesley settled the matter with a backhand swing that chopped the creature’s skull off just above the ears, taking most of the brain matter along with it. Watching agog, Pace was reminded of nothing so much as a weary soldier taking off his shako, and let out a barked laugh that sounded uncomfortably hysterical even to his own ears. Ever-courteous, the General simply affected not to notice, instead going on to make short work of the remaining monsters in a flurry of nimble footwork and sword-strokes that were much too fast for his eye to follow; they appeared as little more than a blur, punctuated by splashes of dark black blood and amputated body parts, until the plain around the three British soldiers looked something akin to the inside of an abattoir.

“Sweet Lord Jesus Christ,” Pace whispered, crossing himself in the manner of the lapsed Catholic that he was. “Will you look at that?”

“There is no time to lose, Sergeant,” Wellesley countered briskly, squatting beside the body of Captain Campbell. “He is fading rapidly.”

“He seems to have stopped bleeding, at least, sir.” The NCO sounded optimistic, but the vampire General shook his head.

“No, he has not. Oh, he may no longer be bleeding on the outside — look there, and see how pale he is beneath that mask of drying blood. His blood loss is
internal.
”

“Whatever you say, sir,” the NCO said dutifully, not wanting to gainsay his General but sounding somewhat less than convinced.

“I do say so, Sergeant, for I can
hear
him bleeding, deep inside. That is something that you and I cannot stop. Only Doctor Caldwell can do that.”

Pace was moving mechanically, entirely on instinct. The musket’s butt was resting in the dirt between his feet, while his hands went through the motions of reloading it, carefully avoiding the sharp edge of the triangular bayonet. “You go on ahead and take him, sir. I can fend for myself.”

Wellesley looked about them, covering the arc on either side of the three men that terminated with the River Kailna. The dawn was well and truly here, and the vampire could feel the sun’s hot kiss burning the nape of his neck like a particularly angry lover. Before long, that capricious lover would unman him just as Delilah had unmanned Samson, only far more violently and permanently.

Clusters and knots of redcoats stood together in close order, sometimes back to back, fighting hard to find off the undead assault. Wellesley inclined his head toward one of the nearer groups, where some twenty men had formed a rough square and were racking up quite the tally of the undead. Their bodies, some still twitching and spasming as though suffering a case of the fits, lay in a series of almost concentric rings around the square, testament to the disciplined volley fire of the soldiers within.

“Attach yourself to one of that formation, Sergeant.” Sliding his still-slick silver blade back into its scabbard, the vampire General scooped Campbell up gently into his arms, cradling the wounded man against his chest in the manner of a parent cradling a young child. It worried both of them that the wounded man did not so much as groan. “You may depend upon me to take care of your Captain, have no fear.”