Enemy lines

[Jedediah Knox]

Communication, communication, communication. They had hammered it into Jed's class's heads at the Academy. Friendly fire, manoeuvring through one another's lanes of attack, units marching into each other, fatal delays while your comrades are butchered just over the ridge; lethal blunders that could be avoided by solid communication, the holy grail of conventional warfare. But much of the Late Unpleasantness had not been conventional warfare. He had ridden at a slow trot at the front of his squadron amongst thousands-strong cavalry formations, sabre on his shoulder, shouting "STEADY!" every few seconds until it sounded ridiculous in his own ears, into the rattling teeth of the Yankee gatling guns; in comparison, behind enemy lines had a pleasantly brutal simplicity - just you and your men, no friends to worry about. As a raider (or "Independent Ranger", Clarkson's Battalion) this was taken to its ultimate extreme - deep in enemy territory for months on end, everything was an enemy to be destroyed, every soldier, every civilian, every negro, every building, and every field of crops. He had adhered throughout his career to a grim military joke of never using the word "surrounded"; the terminology was "in a target-rich environment". It was in such an environment that he had done his best and his worst work.

Standing in Elysium dressed for the frivolity of the masquerade ball, Jedediah felt faintly silly as his sentence was pronounced: to be hunted like a dangerous animal as a minor trophy for someone to claim a pat on the head from the Prince. Arcadius called for anyone who would stand with Caiaphas Redfern, and Jed considered raising his hand, but he had nothing to contribute that would interest. Certainly his limited understanding of Kindred society agreed with Caiaphas' argument that the foundations of the Camarilla were vitally important and that the Consul Maximus, a puppet of the self-proclaimed ruler of the entire country, was a transparent attempt to subsume Bath unwillingly into that conglomeration of subservience, a concept Knox had spent four long years fighting against. But that wasn't worth dying over; what it came down to was that he owed Caiaphas his life, that without him he would have died, beaten and stabbed to death by opportunistic thugs during the Nights of Fire, in that alley. Jed had tried to integrate into the weird society of his Sire, but now that mattered nothing; his life had ended that night and it cost him nothing to follow through his pledge of the extension of life his Sire had granted him.

He had tried to bury the past, had reinvented himself as a businessman and pillar of the community. He had hoped this unlife would provide an opportunity to atone for the sins of his past; despite the horrors that must be committed to survive, the power it provided could be used for good to try to counterbalance some of the much greater horrors he had committed for his country. But fate wasn't willing to allow things to go that way; despite almost twenty years of running from it, recent events kept on dredging up his old ways. And now, regardless of his reluctance to admit it to himself, his eyes were shining, senses alert, limbs tingling and poised for action, and he felt acutely alive. He left Elysium at a brisk walk, mounted his horse fluidly, and made straight for the Royal Crescent.

"Wakefield! Up an' at 'em, boah. Soon as the sun's up, Ah want as much jerked beef as you can... actually no, forget that. A load of twine. Two hatchets. Canvas tarpaulin. Oilstone. Small shovels, a couple of those too. As much .44-40 and .44 Smith & Wesson ammo as you can find. And have Flintlock saddled and ready for sundown. Have Miss Elizabeth come talk to me then too. Ah'm gonna be outta town for some tahme."

The light of burning oil glowed in the study window of the house on the Crescent and glittered off the freshly-honed edge of a cavalry sabre as it was run home into its scabbard. Jedediah licked his lips and grinned to himself. The convoluted web of intrigue that was his new unlife in Bath had overnight resolved itself into a situation that felt uncomfortably more like home than any amount of business dealings and social clubs could provoke: he found himself again in a target-rich environment.

[Caiaphas Redfern]

"To the Triarii".

Now there was an expression Mithras' child-devouring lackey would have understood. Before Marius had reformed the armies of republican Rome, legions had been organised into three ranks. The Hastati - the youngest and least experienced legionnaires - engaged the enemy first. The second rank were the Principes - older, more experienced and better equipped - who would engage shortly thereafter to break the pinned enemy lines.

If a fight was close fought, however, the third rank would engage, veterans of many battles and best equipped: the Triarii. Hence that ancient expression for committing all available resources to a struggle.

He had received an offer of sanctuary at the end of the ball, and had made the requisite polite noises of gratitude, but Caiaphas Redfern of the line of the Founder knew that he could not leave. Besides the mere base cowardice of the act - the betrayal of those faithful Kindred whom he had promised a better world - Aquae Sulis had always, always been his home; to flee into some, unfriendly alien land where he knew nothing and no-one would be damnation worse than death.

And never even mind that it would only be a temporary stay of execution for him and all the Camarilla loyalists, as Mithras' forces - the so-called Wolves and Old Legion that Arcadius' ghouls had tried fleeing to London to rally in their master's defence - would soon enough make the rest of Britain bend knee to their 'god-king' if Caiaphas and his allies did not hold the line. Even poor, unwitting Leverson wouldn't stand a chance.

So he knew that either he or Arcadius must burn in Hell by next nightfall. Locking eyes with Pettigrew, the Ventrue Primogen leapt - and in the gut-wrenching sensation of the act he felt exhilarated, sublime.

"To the Triarii", Pettigrew muttered under his breath and began a loping run. "God help you, my childe. God help us all."