The Thousand Names Part 27

"Close up!" Folsom shouted, and the other corporals echoed him. Winter added her own voice, hoping no one could hear the trembling. "Close up! Close up!"

Movement at the edges of the line caught her eye. The Auxiliaries were in motion, and at first she couldn't understand why; then she saw blue-coated figures on horseback around both ends of the line, and she realized they were forming square. They did it with enviable precision, going through the evolutions as neatly as a parade, until two-thirds of the Khandarai line had transformed into diamond shapes bristling with bayonets. Even Give-Em-h.e.l.l knew better than to charge home against that with his handful of men, and the cavalry broke off well before contact. Even so, smoke puffed from one face of the square, and Winter saw a few hors.e.m.e.n tumble from their saddles.

A heavy roar, closer to her, returned her attention to more immediate matters. The Vordanai guns had finally unlimbered and turned about, and there were scattered cheers from the infantry as someone hit back at their tormentors. The deep-throated boom of friendly guns blended with the more distant rumble of the enemy pieces into a solid wall of noise, like a thunderstorm that never ended. The Preacher's artillerymen, firing uphill, had a harder shot than their Khandarai counterparts, but the Auxiliaries had presented them with a near-perfect target-the squares were combat ma.s.ses, outlined against the midmorning sky. Soon gaps began to appear in the brown-coated line as well, and to close just as quickly as Khandarai sergeants shoved their men sideways.

The drums changed their tempo again, and Winter recognized the intermittent beats of a command. It was reinforced a moment later by a messenger on horseback, shouting over the tumult. She caught only a piece of what he said, but that was enough.

"Halt!" she shouted. "Form line!"

This, at least, they had practiced on the drill field. The lead company halted in place, while those behind marched sideways, then forward, until they came up alongside their fellows to form a solid three-rank line. That was the theory, in any case. Doing it now, with roundshot whistling overhead and occasionally plowing through the ranks, while the drums were drowned out by the roaring of their own guns, was a bit more difficult. Winter had to leave her place in the ranks when her company came up beside the Fifth, to disentangle Bobby's end of the line where it had accidentally overlapped with the other.

The boy saluted as she hurried over, and between them they managed to get the men pushed sideways into their proper places. Winter was glad to see the corporal was unharmed, for the moment. His face was pale as milk, but his expression seemed determined. She wondered, briefly, about her own complexion. Her stomach churned with acid, and her heart beat faster than the drums.

Bobby opened his mouth to say something, but a blast from one of the Preacher's guns drowned the words. Winter shook her head and clapped the boy on the shoulder, then hurried back to the center of the line. She got there just in time. The drums thrilled again, then settled back into the quickstep, and the whole long formation lurched into motion. At the center of each battalion, the Vordanai colors were unfurled, the golden eagle of Vordan on a blue field and the king's diving falcon. They made for wonderful targets, and Winter sent up a silent prayer of thanks that her company was not expected to carry one.

Occasional rattles of musketry indicated that the Vordanai cavalry were still playing a deadly game of tag with the ends of the Khandarai line, spurring in close when they gave any sign of weakening their square formation and then turning away when the lines of bayonets firmed up. The Preacher's guns were all in action now, throwing their shot through the gaps in the advancing line of blue. The Auxiliaries seemed to be standing the fire at least as well as the Colonials.

As the Vordanai line drew closer, the rumbles of the guns died away. Winter could see the Khandarai gunners hastily swabbing out their pieces and ramming a new round home, but the next shot didn't come. It felt like a reprieve, until she realized why, and then her breath seemed to freeze in her throat.

Canister. The next round would be the last, unless the gunners planned to load their weapons under fire, and they meant to make it count. That last shot would be a canister load, more effective at close range, and so they were waiting.

It seemed to Winter that one of the guns was pointed directly at her. She could practically look down the barrel, a tiny black hole that seemed to expand until it filled her entire world. She felt as though she could see all the way down it to where the tin of shot waited, balanced atop its load of powder.

She knew, suddenly, that she was going to die. It wasn't fear-she'd gone beyond that, somehow, and come out the other side. Just a cold, icy certainty that one of the b.a.l.l.s in that cannon had her name carved on the side, that some invisible string of fate would draw it to her unerringly like iron to a magnet. Her legs moved automatically, one step and then another, matching the pace of the drum. If she tripped, she thought that she'd keep going through the motions, legs pumping stupidly in the dust like a windup toy. There was no room in her world for anything else, just the drums and the ground and the distant, deadly mouth of the cannon.

When the blast finally came, there wasn't even time to flinch. The guns erupted with a flash and a billow of thick gray smoke and a crump like a collapsing building. Instead of the whistle of solid shot there was a pitpitpit like soft rain, the zip of b.a.l.l.s pa.s.sing overhead, and the horrible thock when they found flesh.

Winter kept marching. She wanted to run, to hide, to scream. Most of all she wanted to search every inch of her body until she found where the ball had caught her. She hadn't felt it, but that didn't mean anything. She didn't dare look down, for fear of seeing her own guts hanging around her ankles, or one arm shot clean away.

Beside her, a ranker-George, she recalled, and wished she could remember his family name-groaned and collapsed into the dust. The man behind him stepped past without looking down, and the ranks of blue closed around him, like a pond closing over a dropped rock.

The Seventh had been spared the worst of the volley. Two companies down, the main force of one of the blasts had gone through all three ranks and punched a dozen men off their feet, with more limping or rolling away clutching their wounds. Up ahead, in the smoke, the gunners were falling back, leaving their pieces behind to retreat to the safety of the main Khandarai line. That line, visible now through the drifting gunsmoke, stood firm in spite of the Vordanai artillery still slamming away at long range. Bayonets bristled up and down the ranks as the brown-coated soldiers stood at attention. All at once, at an unheard command from their officers, they brought their muskets to their shoulders.

Looking left and right, Winter thought for a moment she could see the battle the way Colonel Vhalnich must see it. Only one battalion of Khandarai was still in line, all its muskets available to deliver a single deadly volley, and that was the one facing the First and Second. On the flanks, the threat of a cavalry charge had forced the Auxiliaries to take shelter in protective squares, and they'd wasted their initial volleys trying to drive Give-Em-h.e.l.l and his men away. The Third and Fourth Battalions would face much less fire than they could deliver, and if the Auxiliaries tried to re-form now, there was every chance the Vordanai could charge home in the confusion.

That was small comfort to her, though. The forest of muskets in front of her seemed to stretch on forever. The men of the first rank knelt, allowing the second rank's weapons to sight over their shoulders. It seemed impossible that anything would survive, let alone enough men to mount an effective attack, but the drums behind her beat on unconcerned, driving her forward like a clockwork automaton.

The volley exploded around them like a lightning strike, the flash of a thousand muskets going off at once almost immediately obscured by a billow of gunsmoke. b.a.l.l.s twittered and zinged past, and men screamed and cursed all around her. For an instant Winter expected to take her next step forward alone, every other soldier cut to ribbons by the deadly fire, but in fact only a dozen that she could see fell out of place in the front rank. They slumped over silently or with a shout, or fell backward, or dropped to their knees and crawled away. Around them, the march went on, driven by the relentless drums.

Somewhere in the cloud of smoke, the Khandarai were reloading. She wondered how long it would take them. She wondered what would happen when they had marched all the way, when they were so close the Auxiliaries could hardly miss.

"Close up!" Folsom was shouting, and Graff along with him. "Close up!"

Bobby. She couldn't hear him. Winter looked frantically in his direction, but the line was solid now, and she couldn't tell if the boy was still in place or not.

The drums trilled, stopped, and picked out a different rhythm. Winter stumbled onward a half step before she registered the change, and had to shuffle backward to rejoin the line. Her legs burned as though they'd been dipped in oil and set alight.

"Ready!"

She wasn't sure if she gave the shout or not, but it echoed up and down the line, and the men obeyed. Winter knelt in place with the rest of the first rank, though she had no musket to shoulder. A pair of barrels swung into place over her head.

"Level!" This time she was shouting with the rest, in time to the drums.

"Fire!"

The world flashed white, as though lightning had struck a foot from her face, and then boiling gray gunsmoke washed over her. The smell of it, dense and acrid, drilled through her nostrils and into the back of her skull.

"Fix bayonets!"

The drums must have beat that order, too, but she could no longer hear them. The cry pa.s.sed up and down the line, from one officer to another, and the long triangular blades came out of their sheaths and snapped into place.

Then, at last, the drums broke through, with a heavy fast beat that was the simplest order of all. Winter, throat sc.r.a.ped raw, couldn't hear her own voice.

"Charge!"

The order was drowned by a roar from the men, a growling cry that grew to a scream. They threw themselves into a run, bayonet-tipped muskets leveled at the waist like spears, churning the drifting smoke into boiling vortices as they pa.s.sed through. Winter ran with them, only belatedly remembering to draw the sword at her belt. They'd given her one from the stores-lieutenants had to carry a sword, after all-and the grip felt slick and uncertain in her hand. The blade still gleamed with factory polish.

d.a.m.n stupid thing, she had time to think, bringing a sword to a musket duel- Plunging out of the smoke of their own volley, the Colonials broke momentarily into the open. Ahead loomed the abandoned Khandarai guns, and behind them the vague, menacing shapes of the Auxiliary line, shrouded in a haze of their own. Muskets started to flash along that line, not as a volley but individually. Winter heard the zip and tw.a.n.g of b.a.l.l.s, and saw men fall, but the impetus of the charge was not so easily stopped. After the long, painful march, the Colonials had the enemy in their grasp, and they would not be denied.

She expected a collision-two lines slamming against each other, bayonets crossed in a vicious scrum-but it never happened. By the time the leading Vordanai were a dozen yards away, the Auxiliaries started to waver. First in ones and twos, then all at once, they turned and ran for the rear. The neat line of brown and tan dissolved into a chaos of running, shoving, shouting men, with here and there an officer trying to restore order.

The Colonials fell on those who were slow, or who'd gotten jammed up with their fellows. Winter stumbled to a halt, sword still raised, and the blue tide washed past her. She watched as brown-coated figures fell, run through from behind, stabbed while trying to crawl away, clubbed down with fists or musket b.u.t.ts. In seconds, there was no one still standing within sight. The rush of men had moved on, chasing the fleeing Khandarai, out the other side of the smoke and across the hill.

Someone grabbed Winter by the shoulder. She spun, sword still in hand, and Graff had to duck to avoid losing an ear.

"Sir!" he said, sounding distant and tinny. "It's me, sir!"

"Sorry," she mumbled. Her mouth felt clotted with grit, and she could taste the salty tang of powder. Mechanically, she tried to sheathe her sword, and managed it on the third attempt.

"Are you all right, sir?" When she only looked at him blankly, he raised his voice and said, "Sergeant! Are you all right?"

Some light was beginning to break through the clouds that had enveloped Winter's brain. She shook her head, trying to clear it, and then at Graff's look of alarm she raised a hand and said, "Fine. I'm fine."

Graff grinned and clapped her on the shoulder. "We did it!"

We did? She looked around, blinking. Brown-uniformed bodies carpeted the ground, broken here and there by a splotch of blue. Out in the smoke, the now-silent guns loomed like distant ruins.

"Grayskins look pretty enough, but they haven't got much of a taste for steel," Graff said, sounding satisfied.

"Bobby," Winter said, suddenly remembering. The Lord Above loves irony. "Have you seen Bobby?"

Graff shook his head. "I was at the other end of the line. He'll be up there with the rest, I'd wager. The young ones always get a little hot-blooded."

Winter stared into the smoke, in the direction they'd come. The slope they'd climbed was littered with human wreckage. Graff, following her gaze, s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably.

"Come on," he said. "We've got to re-form. This may not be over."

a a a But it was. The First and Second Battalions, as Winter had guessed, had had by far the hardest climb. On the flanks, the Khandarai had broken at the first volley, trapped as they were in ineffective squares. Give-Em-h.e.l.l's pursuing hors.e.m.e.n had reaped a rich harvest, and whole companies had thrown down their weapons and surrendered. The survivors-which, they'd learned from prisoners, included General Khtoba himself-showed no sign of halting anywhere short of the city gates. The colonel sent the cavalry to harry them as best they could, and set the rest of the troops to collecting the wounded and preparing the dead for burial.

The boasting and cheers of the men had died away as they clambered down the slope and began the b.l.o.o.d.y business. Those of the wounded who could still walk, or even crawl, had already made their way back toward the Vordanai camp, so those that remained were either unconscious, dead, or too badly hurt to move. Pairs of soldiers with stretchers came and went nonstop, carrying the badly wounded toward the growing hospital, while other details dragged or carried the dead to be laid neatly at the base of the hill. Still others collected salvageable detritus-muskets, ammunition, canteens, and spare flints. It was a long way to the nearest Vordanai depot, and the colonel had ordered that nothing was to be wasted.

Winter went straight to the spot where she thought Bobby had fallen, but there were so many bodies in blue. It was Folsom who found the boy in the end, curled up like a baby, hands pressed against his stomach. His face was so pale that Winter thought he must be dead, but when Folsom and Graff rolled him onto his back he gave a low groan and his eyelids fluttered. His hands fell limp to his sides, exposing a gory patch on his midriff, his b.l.o.o.d.y uniform now caked with sticky dirt.

"h.e.l.l," Graff said softly. "Poor kid." He looked up at Winter, then shook his head. "Better call for a stretcher. Get him to a cutter-"

"No." The firmness in Winter's voice surprised herself. "Folsom, help me carry him. We'll take him back to my tent."

"What?" Graff narrowed his eyes. "Sir-"

"I promised him," Winter said. "No cutters. You'll have to do what you can for him yourself."

The corporal lowered his voice. "He's dead, sir. Hit like that, in the bowels, it'll fester certain as sunrise, even if he doesn't bleed out."

Winter watched Bobby's face. His eyes were screwed tightly shut, and if he'd heard what Graff had said he gave no sign.

"Then it won't matter if we take him to the cutters or not, will it?" she said. "Do it, Corporal."

Folsom bent down and picked Bobby up, gentle as a mother handling a babe. Even so, a fresh welling of blood cut through the dirt and washed down the boy's stomach. Winter bit her lip.

"Sir . . . ," Graff said.

"My tent," she told Folsom. "Now."

Chapter Thirteen.

MARCUS.

It was the evening of the third day before the Auxiliaries turned up, and the Old Colonials made good use of the time. The houses closest to the waterfront had loopholes bashed in their walls, other houses were torn down and converted into barricades in the streets and alleys, and the big twelve-pounder cannon were carefully concealed behind screens of debris and thatch. By the third day, Marcus found that his nervousness had faded and been replaced by a kind of excitement. Let them walk into this. We're ready.

When they did come, they were in a hurry. From his vantage point on the hill, Marcus watched their leading battalion approach the ford in a straggly column of march. He'd held out some hope that they were so poorly informed that they would simply push straight across, but obviously some word had leaked out in spite of his precautions. But, with the sun already setting, either the Auxiliary commander was feeling hasty or else he'd underestimated the size of the force opposing him. Either way, no sooner had the enemy battalion arrived than it formed up into a battle column and splashed into the shallows.

What followed must have been a nightmare for the Khandarai. Marcus had briefed his unit commanders for exactly this situation. No shots were fired until the leading enemy company had come ash.o.r.e on the near bank. Then the screen of debris was dragged aside to reveal the gleaming muzzles of the scripture-inscribed twelve-pounders. The guns belched smoke and canister shot, sweeping away whole swaths of the lead Auxiliary company and turning the river white with froth halfway out into the ford. At the same time, the hidden Vordanai began a steady rain of musketry on the survivors.

The result was everything Marcus had hoped for. The head of the column dissolved in panic, wounded men trying to get to safety while their unhit comrades scrambled for a way out of the killing ground. There was no cover to be had except directly ahead, where the slope of the embankment offered some shelter against the thunder of the guns, and dozens of the enemy chose to throw themselves under that rocky verge. The rest recoiled out into the river, scrambling out of range of the muskets. The boom of the guns followed them, flailing the water with canister.

Only when they'd nearly gotten out of canister range did Marcus send a messenger to the other half of the battery, three more guns concealed behind a house on the riverbank. These were quickly dragged into position while the guns in the town switched to roundshot, and soon all six pieces were firing in long arcs over the river and into the milling men pulling themselves out of the water on the other side. Leading elements of the second Khandarai battalion had arrived in the meantime, only adding to the confusion. At that range the artillery fire was more galling than devastating, but the gunners bent to their work with gusto and kept it up until both enemy units finally pulled together enough to retreat out of range.

In the interim, Marcus sent three companies down to the riverbank. The Auxiliaries who'd taken shelter there were in no state to fight, many having abandoned their weapons or gotten their powder wet in the river crossing. They surrendered after a desultory skirmish, and Marcus had another half company of prisoners to add to the hundred or so that were already in his bag. The enemy had lost twice that many killed and wounded, he judged, and he doubted if his own losses numbered a dozen.

"They're not so tough," Adrecht said, reflecting the general mood in the camp. Night had fallen, and campfires were sprouting throughout the village and outside the tents beyond the hill. "If they keep this up, we won't have to trouble the colonel after all."

"If they keep this up, they're not as clever as we've given them credit for," Marcus said. They were still at his vantage point at the front of the temple, from which he could see the whole triangular village, the ford, and a good bit of the country beyond. "They tried to brush past us and got their hand slapped. I doubt they'll try it again."

"What else can they do, though?" Adrecht said. "The ford's not wide enough to send two battalions at once, and if they come one by one they'll just get chewed up the same way."

Marcus shook his head. He was watching more campfires spring to life, like ground stars, on the opposite bank of the river. There were an awful lot of them.

"We'll find out," he said.

a a a They found out the next morning.

The Auxiliary gunners didn't even wait for dawn. As soon as enough gray light had filtered into the sky to outline their targets, the north bank of the river blazed into horrible life, muzzle flashes cutting through the semidarkness. They were followed a moment later by the low, flat booms of the reports echoing across the water, and the drone and crash of incoming roundshot.

The ford was a particularly wide spot in the river, which meant the range had to be at least six or seven hundred yards. Too far to pick out individual men, even if the guns had been capable of such accuracy. The enemy gunners didn't even try. Instead, they went to work on the houses closest to the riverbank, bowling their cannonb.a.l.l.s in long arcs that descended screaming into the Colonials' carefully prepared positions. The first few shots were off, either flying wide into the town or splas.h.i.+ng in the shallows, but the Khandarai gunners quickly found the range. The clay walls of the village shacks provided no protection at all-worse than nothing, in fact, since the clay had a tendency to splinter and fill the interior of a hut with razor-sharp shards when a cannonball punched through.

Within half an hour, all the houses along the waterfront were piles of broken rubble, and fires had started in a dozen places. That didn't concern Marcus overmuch-there wasn't enough wind to drive a real blaze-but he watched the eastern horizon impatiently. The sun seemed to rise with interminable slowness, the world gradually lightening until it was possible to see the enemy positions. Rising clouds of powder smoke marked each gun. There were four of them directly opposite the ford, arrayed in a neat line right out of the artillery textbook.

"Right," he said to his artillerists, who had been standing by with similar impatience. "Go to it."

The Colonial guns took up the challenge with a roar. During the night Marcus had split them into three divisions, spread out along the riverbank; one directly opposite the ford, for canister work if the Auxiliaries tried a rush, while the other two provided enfilading fire from farther up the bank. Now all six twelve-pounders went to work, probing through the smoke for the enemy cannon.

It was a little like watching a handball match, Marcus reflected. The a.s.sembled soldiers of either side had nothing to do but watch and cheer for their own team, as the gunners sweated and struggled with b.a.l.l.s, powder bags, and rammers. There was a cheer, audible even on the temple hill, whenever one of their own guns placed a shot near enough to fountain dirt and smoke over the enemy gunners.

Marcus had ordered that the caissons-the big carts that the guns. .h.i.tched to when marching, which carried the ammunition reserves-be kept well back from the actual firing sites. This meant an inconveniently long haul whenever stores of powder and shot ran low, but he organized details from the infantry to run the supplies up to the front in relays. The men went to it with a will. He suspected that doing anything to contribute, however little, felt better than crouching behind broken walls and flinching at the sound of every cannonball.

Under the fire of the Colonials, the Auxiliaries' guns adjusted their aim and tried to reply, but it was an unequal contest. Not only did the Colonials have more pieces, but they were dug in behind barricades of dirt and rubble that s.h.i.+elded the gunners from any but direct hits, while the Auxiliaries were out in the open. The smoke made it impossible to see what effect the duel was having, but it seemed to Marcus that the replies from the enemy pieces were starting to slacken.

That the enemy had not matched his precaution with their caissons became obvious when a fountain of fire blossomed through the fog bank on the opposite sh.o.r.e, lifting and spreading like a great orange flower. A moment later an enormous boom, like a single monstrous footstep, drowned out even the sound of the cannon. When the flames faded away, leaving behind a huge mushroom-shaped cloud, the Auxiliaries' guns had stopped firing. The Colonials kept shooting for a few more minutes, then came to a ragged halt. Cheers rose from the waterfront and around the temple.

Lieutenant Archer, the Preacher's second-in-command, arrived at Marcus' impromptu headquarters along with the first of the wounded. With the bombardment halted, details were finally able to get through to the waterfront and start pulling away the rubble. Team after team hurried by with stretchers or improvised travois made from doors, boards, or whatever else was at hand. Other teams, moving more slowly, carried the dead.

Archer himself was unharmed, though the powder blackening his face showed that the young lieutenant had been intimately involved in the artillery duel. He saluted smartly.

"Any losses?" Marcus said. His eyes were still fixed on the other bank, where the smoke was gradually drifting away.

"Two men," Archer said. "One dead, G.o.d rest him. The other may live, but he'll lose the arm. One gun's limber damaged. Otherwise, nothing serious. By the grace of the Lord," he added piously. Archer was the Preacher's right-hand man, and shared his spiritual zeal.

"Good," Marcus said. "If that's the best they've got, they're not crossing anytime soon."

"Beg pardon, sir, but that can't be the best they've got. Those were Gesthemel eight-pounders. They've got to be older than I am."

"That's what the Auxies have to work with. For the most part we gave them Royal Army castoffs." Marcus hesitated. "I'm surprised you got such a good look at them."

"I didn't, sir. But you can tell by the report, if you know what you're listening for."

"I'll take your word for it," Marcus said dryly.

"Yessir. But if they were planning on defending the crossing at Westbridge, they must have had more than a few light guns to do it with. My guess is they're still bringing up the heavier pieces."

"Someone over there is in a h.e.l.l of a hurry," Marcus said. He hoped that was a good thing. If they wanted to cross so badly, stopping them should be worth something, shouldn't it? He grimaced as another stretcher team went past. "If you can't keep them suppressed, we're going to have an awful time on the riverbank."