The Crimson Skew by S. E. Grove Page B

the world through maps.

7
The Lesson
    â€”1892, August 4: 5-Hour 15—
    In fact, we know almost as little about the Territories themselves—the landscape and its elements—as we know about the inhabitants. Cartologers have neglected the Territories for decades, and recurring conflict makes an expansive survey project unlikely. The maps included here (see pages 57–62) are drawn from the observations of New Occident explorers (this author included) and the expertise of locals. Contrasting one source with the other, it is evident that local knowledge reaches far beyond what outsiders can observe.
    â€”From Shadrack Elli’s
History of New Occident
    M AJOR MERRET HAD been raised in a military family. Both he and his father had attended the military academy in Virginia. His grandfather had fought against the rebellion that had earned New Akan its statehood. And now Merret was battling New Akan himself, more than ninety years later and in far more dangerous circumstances: that state had allied with the vast Indian Territories, a polity of unpredictable strength and resources.
    Major Merret was inclined to think little of that strengthand those resources, because in general he thought little of people outside of New Occident. In fact, he thought little of people beyond southern Virginia, his home turf. But he was also a cautious man, and though he might privately think the Indian Territories a dusty wasteland and New Akan a damp one, each populated by ragtag bands of cowards, he would professionally treat them as formidable enemies. For this reason, it infuriated him that he had to face the enemy with his own band of what he knew were ragtag cowards: the “blocks”—former inmates of the prison system who hardly knew the proper handling of a weapon, and whose experience of fighting had been motivated by greed, or viciousness, or bumbling self-defense. Merret brooded over the speculation that he had done something—he could not fathom what—to displease his superiors, and it had landed him in charge of this collection of loafers and scoundrels.
    Major Merret’s contempt was no secret. In fact, it became more and more evident by the day, so that on the morning of August fourth, when his troops found themselves nearing the edge of New Occident and thereby on the very threshold of enemy lines, it fell upon them like burning walls that had smoldered slowly for hours.
    Despite his attempts to teach them discipline, Major Merret realized, the blocks had learned nothing. He said as much to them now, as they stood before him, awkward and disheveled in their uneven rows. Days of humid weather had tried what little discipline he had been able to instill in them. The heavy,yellow clouds that sat motionless overhead made the air rancid. Occasional rumbles brought no rain, only heavier humidity, and the troops were not coping with it well. Their clothes were rumpled. Hardly anyone had slept peacefully, and more than one fight had broken out the night before. Instead of orderly, obedient faces, Merret saw men that were unkempt, underslept, and on edge. The sight filled him with furious despair.
    His voice carried and he spoke with control. “I have wasted weeks attempting to pound into your imbecilic skulls that in a few days you may be fighting for your lives against people who actually
chose
to fight in this war. And because you are too rock-headed to understand this, you fight with each other instead of preparing to fight the battle that awaits you.” He looked at the two men who stood beside him, the culprits who had most recently provoked his outrage and who now faced the entire company. One of them, MacWilliams, looked bored. His massive hands rested at his sides, his knuckles red from where he had hit the other man. Trembling, his blackened eye trained on the ground, Collins could hardly stand up straight; he seemed on the verge of collapse. Merret considered them judiciously and