Glass Town Wars Read online

  “Woah, boy.” He leant forward, patting the horse’s neck, speaking into his ear. “Steady now.”

  The horse’s name was Hector. How do I know that?

  The path took another turn, bringing him closer to the top of the ridge. Thin streamers of mist had detached from the low-hanging cloud, wrapping themselves around a line of dark, ragged pines. It was colder up here; steam puffed from Hector’s nostrils as he took the steepness of the slope. The terrain flattened near the top and the thin path broadened out into a wider track. Smooth stones shone, slick with rain. The way was marked with rounded boulders, crusted with moss and lichen and carved with strange patterns.

  Hector came to a halt, whinnying and whickering and taking dainty sideways steps, as a figure came out from under the dripping branches of the trees. A young officer, slenderly built, long hair tied back with a black silk ribbon, in highly polished boots splashed to the knee guards, buff breeches spattered with mud as though he had been riding hard. He wore a tight-fitting blue jacket, the thick epaulettes fringed and crusted with silver. A sabre hung down by his side. He was holding a long brass spyglass. As Tom rode closer, something about the slight build and the stance made him think that this handsome young chap was a girl.

  “You took yer time.” A girl’s voice with a bit of an accent, like he was in the North somewhere. It seemed that he was expected and he was late, or something. She sounded annoyed, impatience masking her anxiety. “How many men have you brought?”

  Her gaze went behind him.

  Tom turned in the saddle. He’d been riding at the head of a troop of men, as sodden and miserable as him. They were already dismounting, unsaddling their horses, getting ready to set up camp.

  Her hawk-sharp, clear grey eyes narrowed.

  “Who are you?” Her look was appraising, accusing. “Get down from the horse. Take off your headgear.”

  He dismounted and removed his sodden shako, tucking it under his arm. How do I know it’s called that?

  One of her men took his horse’s bridle. Two more stepped forward: one big, thickset with a thatch of wheat-coloured hair; the other nearly as tall but thinner, dark and wiry. Each held a long musket armed with a bayonet edged as thin as a razor blade. They thrust their bayonets towards his belly. He put up his hands in surrender, but to whom and for what, he didn’t know.

  “What’s yer name?” She stood back, arms folded. The point of a bayonet flicked a button from his jacket. “Did Parry or Ross send you? Are they back?”

  He shrugged at questions he could not answer.

  “You’re not one of mine.” Her eyes darkened with suspicion. “So you must be one of theirs. Can you not speak? What’s your name?” she asked again, sharp and imperious. “Answer me!”

  He shook his head. There was an empty space where a name should have been…

  The rain was still streaming down, wet hair falling into his eyes. The strands he pushed back were black. His hand encountered thick curls. They’d shaved his head, he knew that; the stubble growing back had itched his scalp. But his hair had been fair, not black.

  Brain damage—memory loss one of the symptoms—but that wasn’t the reason his real name was gone.

  As she stared, a name came to him.

  “Tom. My name is Tom. Who are you?”

  “Lady Augusta Geraldine Almeida,” she said with a certain pride and flourish, like he was supposed to be impressed. “I’m in command here. You are a captain?”

  “How do you know?”

  “By yer epaulette.”

  Tom peered sideways at his shoulder. “Oh, yes. I guess.”

  Augusta frowned. “You don’t know much, do you? You don’t know your name, your rank. Who are you?”

  Tom shrugged. He had no answer.

  “Are you one of theirs?” she questioned. “Come to deceive? Come to spy?”

  “Who are they?” he asked.

  Augusta stared at him a long moment, then her eyes changed colour, as if she’d made her mind up about something, turning from storm-cloud dark to a lighter grey.

  “Come wi’ me.”

  She led him into a small campaign tent pitched under the trees. It smelt of damp canvas and wet grass. A huge dog lay under a folding wooden table, his smooth fur yellow and brown. He lifted his massive head from his paws at their approach and came loping from under the table, his muzzle drawn back in a snickering snarl.

  “Keeper, down.”

  The dog subsided back on to the ground but kept an amber eye fixed on Tom and continued a low, rumbling growl.

  The girl unrolled a map, smoothing it across rough wooden slats, and beckoned Tom forward.

  He bent his head to look closer, sweeping back his hair to stop it dripping on to the parchment. The map was beautifully hand-drawn and coloured to show seas, countries, rivers, mountains, plains and forests, towns and villages, each place marked in small, neat black lettering. He frowned down at a country he didn’t recognize, at names he’d never seen.

  “We are here, see?” She pointed at a ridge marked by little, spiky dark-green fir trees. Her thin finger moved to the plain below. “They are there.”

  She took the long brass telescope from the table and left the tent. He followed her up through tall, dripping pines, their trunks bare and rough. Shed needles, like a silver carpet, deadened their footsteps.

  When they neared the top of the ridge, she put out her hand.

  “Far enough. If we’re watching them, they’re watching us.”

  Augusta crept forward stealthily and put the spyglass to her eye, twisting the long brass barrel. She beckoned him to her.

  “Come on. Take a look.”

  Tom took the telescope, adjusted it to his own sight and trained it down on to the wide plain spread out before them. A vast army, as far as the eye can see. Smoke rising from innumerable campfires; little figures, miniaturized by distance to the size of toy soldiers, moved about, setting up camp. Teams of horses hauling cannon into position; men on horseback riding to and fro, bent on urgent business, delivering and taking messages to and from a command tent standing in the centre of the encampment: a grand pavilion panelled in red and blue, fluttering with flags and streaming with pennants.

  “Looks like you’re in trouble,” he said.

  Augusta looked at him, her eyes darkening again. Was he here to help? Or had he been sent to trick her? He’d brought men with him. Reinforcements she badly needed. To turn him away might be foolish, or worse. His men were in her camp now. The battle would be over before it had begun. She looked away, making her mind up. She would set him a test for his loyalty, his bravery, to see if he was her man or not.

  “See that big tent?” She pointed.

  Tom nodded.

  “See them standards outside it?”

  Tom nodded again, focusing on two tall military standards on an ornate golden pole, the quartered flags, flapping and snapping in the wind.

  “Get them. Bring them here to me and I’ll decide.”

  “Decide what?”

  “Whether you live or die.”

  “KEEPER. Sit.”

  The dog stayed with Augusta at the top of the ridge, settling down by her side to watch the mysterious Tom With No Name set off into the gloom of oncoming night. Who is he? She put that aside for the moment. Whoever he was, he’d brought soldiers with him. Riflemen, and she was in need of them. She’d see if he passed the test she’d set him. Her guards, Webster and Roberts, had gone with him, with strict orders to cut his throat if he showed the least sign of turning his coat. She watched them follow a snaking path down the hillside into the murk and misting rain and then moved the telescope to focus on the sprawling encampment below her.

  All she wanted was to be free. She hated the city in the South; the heat; the day-and-night din from the crowded streets and the great mills and factories. The very scale of the Great Glass Town was exhausting: the wide avenues, the vast squares, the blinding glitter of soaring towers. She had grown to hate the grand palace
s; the intrigues that went on within the marble walls, behind the great porticoed doors. She hated the gossip and the politics of the taverns and coffee houses. High life, low life—it didn’t interest her. All the time she was there, she longed for her own country: the oak, the ash and the bonny willow tree; to be under grey skies with cold wind on her face and rain in the air. In her own country, living her own life—but even there, they would not leave her be. They had pursued her. Declared war on her. Sent the might of the Twelve against her. To take her back to Glass Town in chains if needs be. She didn’t even have her commanders, Parry and Ross. They were far off in the Arctic Sea. Through them, she planned to escape for ever, but that dream was distant.

  All she had now was a boy soldier who didn’t seem to know his own name. He hadn’t come out of any toy box, though. At least, she didn’t think so… He’d better prove useful, because her forces were few while theirs were many and this was where she’d chosen to make her stand.

  She had the advantage of higher ground but her men were spread thin, even with the reinforcements brought by this Captain Tom, wearing the green of a Rifle Company. Except she had no Rifle Company—neither did Ross and neither did Parry—so who was he? He seemed real enough but he’d come from nowhere. Not hers. Not theirs, either. She would bet on it. They were clever but not that clever. They couldn’t conjure from nothing. He was brave, this soldier boy. He’d not flinched from the bayonets. And resourceful. He’d taken up her challenge without a word. He’d studied the camp and made careful preparations. He could be useful, and beggars cannot choose. She watched on, intrigued, wondering what he would do.

  He’d swapped his uniform for homespun. He pulled the dark cloak round him, hood up against the weather. His mule, laden with panniers, delicately picked its way down the stony, slippery path. The two guards walked behind, similarly cloaked and hooded. Beneath their cloaks, they all carried bayonets honed to razor sharpness.

  They entered from the far side of the camp, distant from the tents and campfires of the centre, an area of baggage trains and storage. They made their way past piles of sacks and barrels. There were few about, the men too intent on finding a fire, hot food, rum, a place to shelter from the penetrating rain. They plodded on past the tethered mules and horses, Webster cutting the lines as they went. They followed the mud-churned roadway, making for the heart of the camp, ignoring the growing muddle that followed them as horses and mules began to break free. Just as quickly, just as efficiently, Webster and Roberts slashed the guys that held the tents, causing the heavy canvas to collapse, trapping the men inside with outbursts of swearing and startled, muffled cries.

  The bayonets disappeared back inside their cloaks as they neared the command tent. Here they split up. Tom signalled to Roberts to go left, Webster to go right, tipping braziers over as they passed. The glowing hot coals tumbled on to the oiled-silk panels, burning through to the dry canvas beneath. Flames shot up the sides of the tent; smoke began to billow. Tom held his mule steady as a big man came out, looking bewildered. He was very stout with a little pointy head. He moved stiffly, as if he was wearing some kind of corset; Tom could almost hear the creak. He was in his shirtsleeves, braces down—he must have been caught at his toilette. Equerries followed, throwing his shaving water over the fire.

  While all this was happening, Tom was steadily backing his mule into the flagpoles. First one then the other toppled over into the mud. Tom took out his bayonet and severed both flags. He flung them over the back of the mule and then threw his cloak over them to disguise the red and gold. He plodded off through the shouting and spreading confusion, Roberts and Webster falling in beside him as they took the track to the other side of the camp. From there, they would work their way back to the ridge.

  “Here.” Tom spread the flags before her like a carpet, like a challenge.

  “That’s the easy part,” Augusta said. Nevertheless, she was impressed. She smiled, remembering the Duke running out, braces dangling. “Lions rampant, gules with cross argent and five roundels; cross argent on sable, quartered with scallops.” She walked over the flags. “The arms of my enemies, the ancient family of Wellesley. Now we have to defeat them in battle.”

  She was looking at him now like she was pleased he’d passed her test. More than that—as if she was expecting something from him.

  He stepped back from the standards with their lions, spots and shells embroidered in silver and gold, and knew that he would help her. She needed him, and that gave him a sense of purpose. He felt the strange, lost feeling receding. Maybe it was what he was here to do.

  “Let’s have a look at the map,” he said.

  She was right. Getting those flags was the easy bit. He frowned down at the blocks of colour. Red marked the enemy on the plain; her troops, along the ridge, were shown in blue. That told him very little, except how small her force was compared with theirs. He picked up the telescope and went out.

  Tom inspected the lines and found a few cannon, infantry armed with muskets, plus the men he’d brought with him, but no cavalry that he could see. Then he went to the ridge to look at the army below. The weaponry, the uniforms, looked Napoleonic. From somewhere in his scrambled-up memory, a game came back to him: a multiplayer, turn-based strategy game set in those times, so he knew a little bit about munitions capabilities and battlefield tactics.

  “What do you think?” she asked when he returned to the tent.

  He snapped the telescope shut and handed it back to her.

  The dog growled softly as if it still didn’t trust him.

  You’ve got no chance, he wanted to say. What we need is some decent field artillery and some heavy machine guns. A tank or two would be nice—why not? And maybe some attack helicopters. Let’s chuck in the lot. For a minute, he could see it. That would throw a scare into the opposition. But that wasn’t going to happen. He looked down at the map instead.

  “We deploy the artillery, here, here and here.” He pointed to spots along the ridge. “Muskets here, rifles there. We have the advantage of higher ground but they have the numbers. We re-enforce our flanks, set men to dig ditches, cut and sharpen stakes to foil their cavalry and we hit them when they least expect it, so we attack at first light. Meanwhile, Webster and Roberts can go down in advance with a couple of other men, use darkness as cover, do their best to sabotage things a little bit.”

  She seemed impressed by his decisiveness. He was a little impressed himself.

  “Sabotage?” she asked, shaking her head as though the word was unfamiliar.

  “You know, mess things up. Set the horses free, make sure their gunpowder’s wet, that kind of thing, and nick—steal—whatever they can. Webster, Roberts—with me.”

  These two would be his own special forces. On their little trip to steal the standards, he’d kind of bonded with them. They were big guys, strong and capable; they moved quietly and thought quickly.

  “We know what to do, Cap’n.” Webster grinned. “Me and Robbo’ll tak a couple of donkeys down there, crack on. We’ve been told to move gear up the lines and help ourselves to what we can carry. We’ll open the black powder barrels.” He turned his face up to the fine rain. “Should be good and wet by morning. We’ll cut the horse lines while we’re at it.”

  Tom wandered the ridge, thinking about tactics. It was boggy down there, marshy, and this constant rain had made it more so. There was standing water between the reeds and rushes at the base of the scarp. Tricky going for men and horses alike. He’d seen it in some war game, the name of which he couldn’t recall. Not set in this era—there had been knights on horseback and archers—but, just like here, a small force had faced a larger, and the terrain had meant the difference between victory and defeat. Funny how things like that came back to him, when he’d temporarily misplaced his own name. Augusta must have thought he was really stupid.

  Tom’s memory was coming and going like a dodgy signal. He shook his head, as if that would rattle everything back into place. What am I even d
oing here, thinking about tactics and stuff? If this is a game, whose is it? Whatever the game, he was in it now. He had to play it. He didn’t appear to have any choice.

  He prowled, restless. The camp was quiet. Some men tried to sleep, but sleep comes hard before a battle. Someone played softly on a penny whistle; others spoke in quiet whispers or kept their own counsel, thinking on what the next day would bring, as they busied themselves at little tasks: repairing kit by the light of the campfires, cleaning their weapons, honing blades with the patient sweep of a whetstone. Tom wasn’t above a few butterflies himself.

  The light was creeping up into the eastern sky, too soon for some; for others it was a relief, as though they had thought morning would never come.

  He made his way up on the ridge.

  Augusta hadn’t been able to sleep, either. She joined him under the pine trees.

  The rain had stopped; a thin mist was rising. The camp below them was still in darkness, little stirring.

  There had been no retaliatory raid to repossess the colours, or punish their taking, although she knew that they would feel it as cruel insult and humiliation. That did not fill her with confidence. Why would they bother? They would take them back soon enough and pay any insult with interest.

  Tom and Augusta gazed down, taken up with their own thoughts, both of them wondering what the day would bring and who the other might be.

  THE GUNS WERE LOUD. They filled the air and shook the ground, the thudding carriage recoil sending shock waves up through Tom’s body. Smoke billowed in drifting clouds of white and grey, catching in the throat and bringing stinging tears. The gunners’ faces were already black with it, just their eyes showing white. The air reeked of gunpowder; he could taste it, along with the metal tang of adrenaline. No game had ever been as exciting as this.

  Cannonballs flew, hitting the camp below, smashing tents, catching men as they ran out into the open. Screams and yells, thinned by distance, came on the wind. The sudden bombardment was causing just the kind of chaos that they wanted. His riflemen and musketeers were ranged across the hillside, one line behind the other. Their guns were cumbersome, loading slow, neither rifle nor musket accurate over any distance, but with one line loading while the other fired, they were keeping up a steady rate of fire. His orders were to make every shot count. Men below them were falling under the fusillade. He had the best shots next to him, aiming at the officers as they tried to organize and rally the men. The object was to harry and confuse, not to allow their enemy to form up and mount any kind of attack.