Shadow of the giant

that what she was
showing was not iron self-control, but cold rage. To lose your husband in war,
that was one thing. But to lose him because he refused to take you with him....
    That was unfair. In the long run, she would have decided the
same way. There was one baby unfound. And even if that baby was dead or had
never existed—how did they know how many there were, except what Volescu told
them?—the five normal babies shouldn't have their lives so drastically
deformed. It would be like making a healthy twin spend his life in a hospital
bed just because his brother was in a coma.
    I would have chosen the same if I'd had time.
    There was no time. Bean's life was too fragile already. She
was losing him.
    And she had known right from the start that one way or
another, she would lose him. When he begged her not to marry him, when he
insisted he wanted no babies, it was to avoid having her feel as she felt now.
    Knowing it was her own fault, her own free choice, all for
the best—it didn't ease the pain one bit. If anything, it made it worse.
    So she was angry. At herself. At human nature. At the fact
that she was a human and therefore had to have that nature whether she wanted
it or not. The desire to have the babies of the best man she knew, the desire
to hold on to him forever.
    And the desire to go into battle and win, outwitting her
enemies, cutting them off, taking all their power away from them and standing
astride them in victory.
    It was a terrible thing to realize about herself—that she
loved the contest of war every bit as much as she missed her husband and
children, so that doing the one would take her mind off the loss of the others.
     
     
    When the gunfire began, Virlomi felt a thrill of excitement.
But also a sick sense of dread. As if she knew some terrible secret about this
campaign that she had not allowed herself to hear until the gunfire brought the
message to her consciousness.
    Almost at once, her driver tried to take her out of harm's
way. But she insisted on heading toward the thick of the fighting. She could
see where the enemy was gathered, in the hills on either side. She immediately
recognized the tactics that were being used.
    She started to issue orders. She ordered them to notify the
other two columns to withdraw up their valleys and reconnoiter. She sent her
elite troops, the ones that had fought with her for years, up the slopes to
hold the enemy off while she withdrew the rest of her troops.
    But the mass of untrained soldiers were too frightened to
understand their orders or execute them under fire. Many of them broke and
ran—straight up the valley, where they were exposed to fire. And Virlomi knew
that not far behind them would be the trailing force which they had carelessly
passed by.
    All because she didn't expect Han Tzu, preoccupied with the
Russians, to be able to send a force of any size here to the south.
    She kept reassuring her officers—this is only a small force,
we can't let them stop us. But the bodies were falling steadily. The firing
only seemed to increase. And she realized that what she was facing was not some
aging Home Guard unit thrown together to pester them as they marched. It was a
disciplined force that was systematically herding her troops—her hundreds of
thousands of soldiers—into a killing ground along the road and the riverbank.
    And yet the gods still protected her. She walked among the
cowering troops, standing upright, and not a bullet struck her. Soldiers fell
all around her, but she was untouched.
    She knew how the soldiers interpreted it: The gods protect
her.
    But she understood something completely different: The enemy
has given orders not to harm me. And these soldiers are so well trained and
disciplined that they are obeying the order.
    The force opposing them was not huge—the firepower wasn't
overwhelming. But most of her soldiers weren't shooting at all. How could they?
They couldn't see a target to shoot at. And the enemy would concentrate its fire
on any force that tried to leave the road and get up the hills to sweep over
the enemy lines.
    As far as she could see, if any of the enemy had died, it
was by accident.
    I am Varus, she thought. I have led my troops, as Varus led
the Roman Legions, into a trap, where we will all die. Die without even
damaging the enemy.
    What was I thinking? This terrain was made for ambush. Why
didn't I see that? Why was I so sure the enemy couldn't attack us here?
Whatever you're sure the enemy