Casket of Souls

dispatching the enemy wounded and speeding on those of their own who were too badly hurt to survive. There was no time to grieve for the fallen.
    The field was lit with funeral pyres and rank with the stench of death and burning flesh. The battle had cost Klia nearly half her remaining force, and the Plenimarans far more, but they had the crucial ford.
    Klia’s tent stood just upstream near the burned farmhouse, so Beka set off on foot to make her own report. The waxing moon turned the rising mist to a gently roiling silver blanket spreading up from the river.
    She used the funeral fires to guide her over the churned ground. The bodies had been cleared in this area, but the smell of death still hung on the damp night air. She was between fires when she heard low voices nearby.
    “You see how the queen throws us into the dragon’s maw?” a man was saying. She couldn’t make out who the dark forms were, or recognize the voice. “Sending her own sister out with less than a full squadron!”
    “Half sister,” said another.
    “And for what?” a third voice scoffed. “Phoria could have rolled in here with her entire force and swept the whoreson bastards out like spiders out of a drain!”
    It was the usual soldiers’ talk, and nothing Beka hadn’t thought herself. She was about to walk on when another said,“What about the officers, Restus? Whose side would they take?”
    “Can’t say about Anri, but from what I’ve heard that redheaded one is Klia’s friend,” another man replied. “I expect she’d take her side of things.”
    Beka paused, frowning. Take Klia’s side in what?
    “It’d be different if Commander Klia was general, wouldn’t it?” a young-sounding rider asked. “Then maybe she could talk sense to the queen.”
    “Mind your tongue, Callin, and keep your damn voice down!”
    “And about time, though,” one of the others muttered.
    “To better days,” one of the others said, and she heard a murmur of agreement.
    This was not the first time Beka had heard the sentiment. There’d been growing discontent since Phoria had refused the Overlord’s offer of a truce. Most of the officers, Klia included, shared Phoria’s belief that they would finally see victory before the summer was over; the state of the enemy’s captured provisions was a good sign. But it was hard to convince the ranks of that, even after a day like this.
    Cursing the darkness, she listened for more, but the talk turned to the day’s fighting and no more was said of Klia or herself. After a few minutes they set off in her direction. Beka moved away, then trailed them to see who they were.
    There were five of them, and as they stepped into the glow of a nearby watch fire, she recognized Sergeant Werneus of Captain Anri’s Fourth Troop; he’d saved her life that morning. She owed him something.
    “Sergeant,” she called out.
    Startled, the man turned and squinted through the darkness, then saluted. “Evenin’, Captain. Good to see you’re still in one piece and breathing.”
    “And I have you to thank for it,” she replied, coming closer and lowering her voice. “Listen, I overheard you just now and I should report you to your captain.”
    Werneus’s men exchanged nervous glances, but the sergeant saluted and went down on one knee. “We meant no harm.”
    Beka held up her hand. “Given the good turn you did me, I’m not going to—this time. But don’t ever forget, we’re the
Queen’s
Horse Guard, the best and bravest regiment in the army. Leave the running of the war to the generals and the queen and keep your mouths shut. Is that clear?”
    “As springwater, Captain.”
    “Good. Blood and Steel, men.”
    “Blood and Steel, Captain!” the others replied, fists to hearts.

 
    U LIA squatted in the weeds above the breakwater, poking at the dead gull’s shiny gold eye with a twig. It was pretty, and she wished it were a bead she could wear on a string around her neck. But it also meant that the bird was freshly dead.
    The child’s bare arms and legs were like knobby twigs themselves, sticking out of the shapeless grey folds of her sister’s cast-off dress. She picked the bird up by one still-supple orange foot and carefully held it at arm’s length so the blood dripping from its gaping bone-colored beak wouldn’t get on her clothing or bare feet. The bird was nearly as big as she was. Even when she held her hand up high, the head dragged on the ground and the broad grey-backed wings flapped