7. Chapter 7

Oh well, no matter what happens, there's always death.

It was Astier who ultimately found Vidal.

Moments after the thunderous cheer of victory that came with Marshal Ney's successful charge against the breach in Italica's walls, Jacques and Astier began to comb through the dead and dying. Those of the wounded who could walk, or even crawl, had already exited the field, so those who remained were either dead, unconscious, or near death. Surgeons' assistants came and went in pairs, carrying out those they figured had a chance at survival. Others, like Jacques and Astier, looked in vain for comrades and friends.

Those who were not helping the wounded instead scavenged from the dead. The nearest French supply depot was quite literally a world away, and the Marshal had ordered nothing to be wasted. Ammunition, muskets, bayonets, canteens, spare flints, bits of uniform, and most importantly good boots. Anything salvageable was picked off dead men like vultures picking meat from a bone.

Amidst this, Jacques and Astier had gone to the spot where the corporal thought he'd seen Vidal go down. There were too many bodies. Dressed in blue and caked in red, Jacques could hardly tell the difference between them, but he set about his grim task regardless. By the time Astier cried out that he found Vidal, Jacques had been ready to give up.

But there Vidal was. A smooth faced boy who couldn't have been more than seventeen, always had a naive grin, and was far too cheery for someone who'd survived Russia. There was Corporal Mathieu Vidal, curled up like a baby, hands pressed around the crossbow bolt in his stomach.

His face was so pale that Jacques thought he must be dead, but Astier rolled him onto his back, and Vidal's eyelids fluttered with a groan escaping his lips. Vidal's hands slid limply to his side, exposing a gory patch where the bolt had struck him. Jacques retched.

"Damn," Astier said softly. "Poor kid." He looked up at Jacques then coughed. "We should call for a stretcher. The surgeons might be able to-"

"No." The resolve in Jacques's voice surprised himself. "Help me carry him. We'll take him to my tent."

"What?" Astier narrowed his eyes. "Sergeant-"

"I promised him," Jacques muttered mostly to himself. "No surgeons. We'll have to take care of him ourselves."

The corporal lowered his voice. "You know we can't save him. He's dead already. God almighty couldn't fix a gut wound like that."

Jacques watched Vidal carefully. His eyes were screwed shut and his chest gave only the slightest indication of breathing. If he could hear their conversation, he gave no indication of it.

"Then it doesn't matter if we take him to the surgeon or not, does it?" Jacques growled. "Do it, Corporal."

Astier bent down and picked Vidal up, gently like a newborn babe. Even so, blood seeped out of the wound and caused the wounded corporal to softly moan.

"Sergeant…" Astier hesitated.

Jacques bit his lip. "My tent. Now."

Astier set Vidal on the floor of Jacques's tent, carefully sorting out his limbs as if placing him into a coffin. Vidal was already a corpse, his face milky white, but regardless his eyelids flickered the moment his back touched the ground.

Astier stood perfectly still, as if the slightest movement would kill Vidal. He opened his mouth to speak then shut it without uttering a sound. He looked at Jacques for help. Jacques was the sergeant-major. The one who gave orders. The one who was supposed to know what to do.

Take care of me yourself, Vidal had said. Jacques steadied his breath. No surgeons. It had to be him.

"Onion broth," he found himself saying. "Get me onion broth from the cooks."

Astier blinked twice then shook himself. "Onion broth," he repeated and ducked out of the tent.

Jacques didn't know where he'd learned this bit of medicine, and he didn't particularly care at the moment. He rummaged through his kitbag and found a nice sharp knife, which he'd taken off a Cossack in Russia a lifetime ago because it seemed like a good souvenir.

He tried to lift Vidal out of his uniform coat, but the wool had fused with blood, and Vidal gave a sharp groan at the motion. Instead, Jacques took the Cossack's knife and began cutting off Vidal's uniform.

Astier returned a few minutes later with a jar of pungently smelling onion broth in hand. By then Jacques had managed to get the coat off but was struggling with Vidal's undershirt, glued to the boy's skin by sweat and dried blood. Astier glanced briefly at Jacques's handiwork, grimaced as Vidal groaned in agony, and handed over the jar.

"Finish getting his undershirt off," Jacques commanded, holding up the Cossack's knife. "I'll be back with water."

The corporal took over without question, and Jacques was free from the tent. He breathed in cool air. It was approaching sunset now. The assault which began at first light had gone on till late in the day when Marshal Ney's charge achieved victory. French soldiers manned Italica's walls and occupied the city even as the wounded continued to be brought back to camp.

He found water in a brace of kettles being brought to the surgeons' tent and commandeered one for himself. It probably only took a few minutes to do but every second felt an eon. Jacques returned to his tent and was about to enter when he heard Astier yelp.

"Holy mother of fucking Christ!"

"What?" Jacques's stomach whirled. He entered in a flurry. "What is it?"

"Look!" Astier shouted. "Look at-"

At first, Jacques thought he meant the wound, which still had the crossbow bolt stuck in it because neither he nor Astier was confident enough to pull it out and potentially kill Vidal. Astier had done a good job at cutting away the undershirt, and he had just managed to peel off the chest-

"Oh…" Jacques whispered. He looked down at Vidal's face. The young, soft, feminine face, smooth and untainted by stubble. A hundred different oddities clicked into place at once.

"Christ on a…" Astier muttered. "He-"

"She," Jacques murmured.

"She," he repeated dumbly. "I can't even… How-"

"Later," Jacques found himself ordering. "Where's the onion broth?"

Astier found where Jacques had left the jar and handed it over numbly, still looking like he was the one who'd taken a bolt to the stomach. Jacques brought the jar up to Vidal's lips and gently made him- gently made her -drink the broth. The girl was still evidently just barely alive because her face grimaced as it went down.

"What now?" Astier asked, having apparently worked himself out of his stupor.

"We wait," Jacques said simply.

And so they did. Two agonizingly long minutes where every second was a millenia and every breath a grand endeavor. Neither soldier spoke. Jacques still wasn't sure where he'd heard this bit of medical advice, but he certainly wasn't going to abandon it. Onion broth then wait two minutes. Simple.

When two minutes had passed, and not a second later, Jacques took his commandeered kettle and dribbled water to clear blood from the wound. He leaned down and prayed he would not smell onions.

But he did.

The pungent smell of onion broth was clear through Vidal's wound, and in that moment, Jacques knew that the crossbow bolt had gone through her intestines. She was gutshot; a death sentence. Nothing could save her.

Jacques wanted to puke.

Astier saw the look on his face and let out a long sigh. "Fuck…"

They both stared futilely at Vidal's wound. The damned crossbow bolt was still in there even as Vidal's shallow breathing continued. It would take time for her to die. Gutshots were nasty, and they inflicted a long period of excruciating agony before killing their victims. At that moment, Jacques knew his duty as a sergeant.

"Out," he ordered. "Return to the company, corporal."

"But…" Astier gestured helplessly at the girl on the floor.

"I'll… stay with her as she goes. Someone has to."

Astier turned away, but Jacques caught a fleeting glimpse of relief in his face. He tried his best not to hold it against the man.

"I'll check back in," Astier muttered, retreating. "Later. You can come find me if he- I mean if she- When she…"

"I will." Jacques hurried him out the tent. When the flap was closed, he stared at it wearily for a moment then turned to sit with Vidal.

He tried to fight off tears, but that was a doomed endeavor.

Jacques was a veteran of Russia. He'd lost comrades at Borodino and the march from Moscow. He'd watched his brethren cut down by Cossacks or starved from lack of supplies. Jacques had only known the girl for a tiny amount of time, but for some reason this seemed more terrible than anything from Russia.

He stared at Vidal's dying body and thought of his old company. Sergeant Levett, Corporal Bonnot, Davy, Tomas, a hundred others who came and went as men died and soldiers were transferred. She was closer than any of them. The Ninth Company was his home.

"She's dying," a neutral voice stated in German.

Jacques's head shot around. The blue haired girl, Lelei if he recalled correctly, was sitting cross-legged on his bedroll tucked into the corner of the tent. Jacques had forgotten the girl existed.

He wiped the tears from his face and nodded. "Yes. She is."

She looked at Vidal in a way that reminded Jacques of a thief eyeing up a richman's purse. He felt anger build.

"You don't need to gape at her."

The girl's eyes didn't budge.

Jacques sighed. "I should cover her up. Someone might barge into here and then everyone will-"

"I can help her," she stated.

Jacques's breath hitched. Hope flooded through him even as his mind told him that there was nothing in the world that could help a gutshot. This world was not his own. This was a world of giant ogres and disappearing gateways. Maybe there was some kind of medicine, an herb, a special powder, something that could-

He swallowed his sudden enthusiasm and said, "You couldn't have said something earlier?"

She stared blankly at him and gave the most infuriating shrug he had ever had the displeasure of witnessing.

Jacques swallowed his anger too. "What can you do?"

Lelei looked back to Vidal and gestured vaguely with her hands. "I can use my…" She seemed to struggle at finding the right German word. "Arcani," she ultimately said in her native language.

"Arcani…" Jacques repeated, trying the word.

Lelei nodded with vigor. "It will heal her wound."

"Really?" Jacques spat, suddenly suspicious. "Just like that? No strings attached?" He narrowed his eyes. "If you're trying to play some sort of-"

"It will work!" Lelei burst, showing more emotion in those three words than Jacques had seen since he first spoke with her.

That quieted Jacques. She sounded like the gypsies his mother had warned him against as a child with their quick scams and so called magical powers. Despite that, this was… a chance. There was nothing to lose by trying.

"Do it," he relented. "Whatever it is you're going to do."

Lelei nodded. "What I am going to do will take time. Allow no one to interrupt, even if it is the emperor they must wait."

"Right," Jacques muttered. "If ole Bonaparte tries to come in, I'll be sure to stop him." The girl clearly had no understanding of what he was talking about.

"This will take much… potentia," she continued using another word from her native tongue. "I will likely sleep for a long time. It is only natural."

"Got it," Jacques affirmed. "Anything else?"

The girl gave another infuriating shrug.

Jacques rubbed his eyes, smearing some of Vidal's blood, and positioned himself next to the tent flap, ready to intercept the Emperor Napoleon should he try to intrude. This seemed to satisfy Lelei, who knelt beside Vidal's now almost motionless body. She cupped her hands around the bolt in Vidal's stomach, closed her eyes, and waited.

It took a long time before Jacques realized that her hands were glowing. The girl barely moved, and she appeared to be simply praying perhaps to a local god. But in the ever dimming light of sunset, a faint ember like glow emanated. Her hands radiated with a soft power that seemed to ripple the very air around them and defy reason.

The light grew brighter. Where before it was an ember, now the glow intensified its luminosity like a candle spreading to paper. The air vibrated from the girl's light, and Jacques felt the power that she used.

This was no gypsy fortune teller.

The light grew and grew, soon no longer a glow but rather a blaze. It illuminated the entire tent like a miniature sun focusing white light directly on top of Vidal's wound. There came a point that Jacques had to shield his eyes or be blinded, but just before that, he saw the arrow in Vidal's stomach float out as if carried by an invisible hand.

Then it ended.

Jacques did not know how long he had sat there while Lelei cast her magic, but when it was over the sun was gone and night had fallen. His eyes took time to readjust to the dimness of his tent. When he could see again, Vidal was still laying on the tent floor with Lelei knelt over her. For several minutes, no one moved.

Eventually, Jacques could no longer restrain himself.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" he exploded, his voice sounding foreign to his own ears. "Son of a flea bitten whore! Christ almighty in a goddamned fucking boat. Mother of…" he ran out of breath, and by the time he had it back, he'd also regained a bit of composure.

Jacques looked to Lelei who was still unmoving. "Well? Was that it? Did it work?"

No response.

He shuffled forward. "Lelei?"

She didn't move, so Jacques hesitantly prodded her shoulder. The girl toppled over bonelessly, falling in a heap on the ground like a discarded puppet.

It was a very long time before Jacques worked up the courage to check Vidal's wound. It was rather silly when he thought about it. Here he was, a sergeant-major in the Grande Armée who had just taken part in a bloody assault, afraid of a little blood.

The situation was more complicated than that of course. A regular wound would have been fine, but Vidal's wound…

Jacques was fairly certain that he had just been complacent with and even encouraged witchcraft. Any priest would have had him burned on the spot for what he'd just taken part in. It was demonic in some way, had to be. He was going straight to Hell for this.

He looked at Vidal, who was thankfully still breathing, and sighed. Eternal damnation isn't quite so bad I suppose.

The bolt that nearly killed her was missing. Jacques had watched the thing float out of her, but there didn't seem to be any trace of it in his tent. He knew he had to check. He had to see if whatever Lelei did had worked. That thought still terrified him, even without the implications of witchcraft. There was a certain horror in the uncertainty of it all that kept him from checking.

Coward, he told himself. Get it done with.

With a sigh, Jacques forced himself to shuffle toward Vidal. Her wound was still caked in dried blood, so it didn't seem anything had changed. He shuffled forward again and used a wet cloth to begin wiping away around the wound.

Only, something was wrong. With confusion and then increasing excitement, Jacques wiped the cloth directly over the wound had been and found nothing but smooth skin. He poured some water from the kettle and wiped off the remaining blood, then sat staring.

The injury was gone. In its place was a mass of scar tissue as if the wound was years old. The fatal gutshot was no more. Vidal would live.

Jacques suddenly felt the weight of the day's events press down on him and his body demanded sleep. He took one glance at Vidal's limp form and threw his uniform coat onto her. It would probably hide her from a casual glance. He put his blanket over her for good measure.

He checked Lelei to make sure she was still breathing, checked Vidal again for good measure, then slumped onto the ground. He was asleep in an instant and didn't dream the entire night, not even of Moscow.

At dawn, Marshal Ney was ready to speak with royalty.

He had spent the prior day organizing an occupation of Italica with whatever forces in his corps weren't exhausted from the fighting. That was a tiring task. He had plenty of men, true, but the real effort was preventing those men from devolving into rapists and looters. Orders had to be given out stating those who engaged in either activity would be hanged as criminals. Ney was certain that at least some of his men had ignored the orders, but there was nothing to be done about that. Soldiers were soldiers, and discipline was hard to maintain in a recently captured city.

Fortunately, that task was now done. Or at least, Ney's portion of that task was done; his generals could handle the rest. What he was more concerned with was negotiations with Princess Pina Co Lada, the red haired leader he'd fought and then captured in the assault. Having taken the city by storm, it was now time to discuss terms of surrender.

Ney glanced at himself in a mirror as General Courbet helped him prepare. He wore his campaign uniform, freshly laundered and pressed, because his parade uniform was abandoned somewhere in Russia. Still, it was cleaner now than it had been in months. Ney too was cleaner. The stubble he had accumulated during the campaign was shaved away, and for the first time since Moscow he had managed to get a proper barber trim his hair.

The man who stared back at him in the mirror was not the same one who had fought in Russia. That was for the better. He was ready to negotiate now.

Courbet handed Ney his bicorne and helped him buckle on his saber. Truth be told, these negotiations were not terms of surrender nor were they about Italica. Ney had seized the city by storm and nothing less than unconditional surrender would be appropriate in that regard. No, these talks would determine peace with the Empire.

Despite their victories, the French could not hope to remain dominant in the field forever. Trying to conquer the Empire was a futile plan; they could muster dozens of legions to face down Ney's ever dwindling corps. What the French needed were favorable terms with the Empire. Terms that would ensure Ney's corps had time to rest, recuperate, and find a way back to their own world.

That was the overall goal of course. A way back to France. It had to exist. He was banking everything on it.

Ney carefully positioned his bicorne onto his head. Now was the time to talk. It was always good to dictate terms from a position of strength, and having just conquered a major city, Ney considered his position very strong. Now or never.

"I'm ready," he said. "Let's talk peace with this princess."

Courbet looked Ney up and down. "Don't forget your baton."

Ney laughed, because he had almost done just that. He picked up the thing from his personal trunk and whirled it in his hand.

Terror belli, decus pacis. Terror in war, ornament in peace. He grinned to himself. Perhaps it will get to be an ornament in peace after all.

"Let's go."

Ney rode from the French camp at the head of a company of grenadiers, imposing men who towered over the local population. General Courbet and General Rousseau, the generals who had been with Ney when he seized Italica's walls, rode behind him in resplendent blue and gold uniforms.

It was a show of force, plain and simple, proof that Italica was conquered.

The Saderans cowered from Ney's retinue. The French marched through Italica's streets uncontested and made it very clear to every onlooker that a new empire ruled the city. As Ney rode, some men knelt to the ground and bowed their heads before him; they thought he was Emperor of the French.

Ney raised his Marshal's baton and swept it over those before him. They hurriedly cleared a path, and his retinue continued on to the city's palace.

A modest guard of Imperial legionaries stood guard at the palace gates. They laid down their weapons when Ney approached.

Grenadiers soon flooded Italica's palace. They took up positions in the hallways and searched through every nook and cranny for would be assassins and conspirators before a burly captain came to tell Ney he could enter safely. Ney dismounted his horse, straightened his uniform, and went to treat with a princess.

Princess Pina Co Lada sat on a tall throne. Sitting with her was a young girl, the Countess Formal if Ney remembered correctly what King Duran had told him. She was theoretically the ruler of Italica, but an Imperial Princess's authority took precedence in this matter.

When Ney approached, Princess Pina sat in her seat and waited. He suspected she was waiting for him to kneel, but Ney wanted to make his position clear and so remained standing.

He instead nodded to Courbet who, in his best aristocratic French, declared, "Here stands Michel Ney, First Duke of Elchingen, Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, Commander of the Order of the Iron Crown, the Red-Faced, Marshal of the Empire."

The Saderans didn't understand a thing that had been said, of course. This was another show of power; anything to gain an advantage in negotiations.

Then, before Pina could have her own aide state her titles, Ney breached every royal protocol there was by marching directly in front of the princess and offering his hand for a handshake.

The Countess Formal gasped. Pina's aide was red in the face, indignation clearly painted across it. Pina herself seemed conflicted on whether she should be angry or terrified by Ney's actions. Ney kept his hand extended, and for a dozen heartbeats was certain Pina would slap it away.

He had piled insult after insult against her. The grenadiers, Rousseau's presence, his march through Italica, Courbet's declaration. He intended to make it very clear who held power.

Pina, to her credit, swallowed her imperial pride. She stood from her throne, looked Ney in the eye, and shook his hand. With that action, she accepted Ney's dominance.

"Come," Ney offered with a smile. "Let us discuss peace."

Ney's terms were very straightforward, at least in his opinion. The French would temporarily occupy Italica, using it as their provisional capital, and gain authority over the surrounding countryside. A ceasefire between the French Empire and the Saderan Empire would take effect immediately. The French would exchange all eight thousand of their prisoners, including King Duran, for a sum of gold equalling fifty million gold Francs, which was calculated as two hundred fifty thousand of the local gold Suwani. Finally, an embassy would be established in the Imperial capital to finalize peace and establish diplomatic relations.

The terms had seemed straightforward to Ney. Princess Pina has a differing opinion.

"Two hundred fifty thousand Suwani?!"

Ney nodded.

"That is…" Pina's face turned red. "That is-"

"A king's ransom," Ney interrupted. Then he smiled. "A king's and a princess's."

Pina blinked as if just realizing that she herself was a prisoner. "And if these terms are refused?"

"Then we shall continue to sort out our differences on the battlefield," Ney stated coldly. "Though I have doubts about your Empire's survivability in that scenario."

It was a bluff, Ney's corps had little chance of defeating the Empire alone, but Pina believed it and that was all that mattered. "The terms are… acceptable. I will have them sent to my father to be ratified and encourage him to accept them as well."

Ney gave her a generous smile. "You have made the right choice."

General Courbet approached Pina's aide and handed her the Saderan copy of the treaty. They had three made. One in French, the second in Saderan, and the third in German or what the Saderans called 'the language of Elbe'. Pina's aide looked over the treaty and nodded to the princess. She then rolled the paper and placed it-

The door to the throne room burst open. "Sir!" Colonel Feraud strode forward with two hussars behind him dragging a blonde woman in plate armor. "Enemy scouts, sir! Captured her and three others out a dozen miles east. Thought you'd want to know immediately."

The enemy scout glared at Ney before her eyes settled on Princess Pina. She shouted something in Saderan and Pina replied in kind. They began a terse conversation. Naturally, Ney had no clue what was being said.

He turned to Feraud. "Scouts you said?"

The hussar nodded. "Ahead of the main army. I got these from her saddle bag," he said, handing over a collection of papers. They were written in Saderan, but it was clear they were reports of some sort.

"Anything else of note?"

Feraud shook his head.

"Double up our patrols east. I want the main army to be found and shadowed. Get me regular reports on its movements once that has been done. Oh, and find me someone who can translate these papers."

"We're going to fight then, sir?"

Ney sharply inhaled, glanced momentarily at the treaty still in Pina's aide's hands, and nodded. "So long as they have an army coming to attack us, they will not concede to terms of peace. We'll deal them one final defeat then have peace at last."

Feraud grinned a toothy grin. "Yes, sir!"

The hussar exited, leaving Ney to deal with the blonde woman and the princess. He turned, straightened his uniform, and reapproached Princess Pina. "What is the meaning of this?"

The princess hesitated then gave it all up, "My father has organized a new army to face you in battle. He withdrew border legions and appropriated my personal order of knights…" Pina seemed to realize something at that moment.

"I gather you had no prior knowledge of this?"

Pina shook her head. "My order was supposed to reinforce me here. If my father called them away…"

Ney saw an opportunity. "Betrayal is never an easy thing to stomach. Especially by one's own father."

The princess' gaze dropped. She appeared to want to say something but closed her mouth at the last moment and kept silent.

"There can still be peace," Ney offered.

Pina's head shot up. "Really?"

Ney placed a hand on her shoulder and nodded. "I just need you to tell me a few things."

Forty thousand men led by an Imperial prince. Eight different legions, all drawn from the Empire's border provinces. According to the blonde woman, Bozes Co Palesti, Emperor Molt had ordered the force assembled before even hearing of King Duran's defeat. No auxiliaries, though. Apparently assembling other worldly creatures took a long time, so Ney wouldn't be facing ogres or wyverns or any of the other bedtime stories that seemed to exist in this world. Very few cavalry either. The Saderans seemed to rely primarily on infantry armies, and Molt had decided against depriving the border provinces of their small cavalry contingents.

Still, it was forty thousand against Ney's roughly twelve thousand. They were marching as one as well, so Ney couldn't defeat them in detail like he'd done before.

Typically now would have been the time to withdraw. Retreating from odds like these had no shame in it. The only problem was that Ney had nowhere to retreat to, and if he hunkered down for a siege at Italica, they'd eventually just starve him out. He only had one option then; victory in the field.

He looked at his Marshal's baton. Terror belli, decus pacis. Now was the time to be a terror in war.

He knocked on one of the many doors in Italica's palace and waited. Two fusiliers were stationed outside the door, and they did their best to hide their curiosity. Moments later, King Duran appeared at the doorway.

The king raised an eyebrow. "Need more information? Or have you simply come to have a nice conversation?"

Ney exhaled. "The former, unfortunately."

"Figures," Duran snorted. "You never visit just for the company."

"Perhaps one day, friend. Until then, I need you to tell me everything you know about Prince Zorzal El Caesar."

I have returned, briefly at least. The last few months have been very busy for me, so I apologize for not being able to put out new chapters. Rest assured, I have not abandoned this project and do not intend to do so. Not much else to say other than to thank all of you for reading and that I hope you enjoyed. As always, I appreciate any feedback people give, but I would like to stress again I am an amateur writer so do keep that in mind when reviewing. Again, things have been busy in my life, so I don't know when I will have the next chapter ready.