Perdition

by Scott McKay

  “Dunnan’s Claim, yes,” Sebastian said, considering the request. “Trenory, probably not until tomorrow. What I’d rather do is drop them off close to the enemy’s location west of Battleford on the way to hitting the invasion force south of Trenory.”

  “That’s acceptable,” Bloodworth said. “We need four of these savages dropped at the Trenory line anyway; we’ll do two drops of two today and one drop of four tomorrow.”

  “Now that I think about it,” Sebastian said, “we’ll rearrange the missions. Battleford is more urgent than Trenory. We’ll drop off your packages and hit it today. Then tomorrow we’ll spend the whole day on Trenory.”

  “Even better, as far as I’m concerned,” Bloodworth said.

  “It’s settled then,” Sebastian said. “You need a written order from me. I’m not going to be back at the base until this afternoon. Running down to Fort Stuart right now to see about some construction on the front lines. We’re building an air base there.”

  “You’re going to build an air base with the Udar on the way?” Bloodworth asked.

  “That’s the plan, but very little of what we planned even a couple of days ago has held up so far,” Sebastian answered. “We might call the whole thing off and just stick with what we have in town. Though that is sorely inadequate.”

  “Understood,” said Bloodworth.

  “This is the job Dees gave you?” Sebastian asked. “Squiring savages around the Lord’s country?”

  “At the moment, yes,” came the response. “But I do lots of things that need doing.”

  “What’s the point of this mission, anyway? I get that we made a trade for the headman. What are we getting for these others?”

  “Dees told me you’d ask that,” Bloodworth said, “and he cleared you to know the answer. You’ve heard about the Blue Pox?”

  Cross nodded.

  “We’re sending Udar a few ringers, then?”

  “We’re going to seed the invading force with carriers of that disease. They will do our work for us from there without even knowing it.”

  “Now I understand,” Sebastian said. “Boy, this is some dirty business.”

  Then he paused, furling his brow. “Did you just tell me you have eight carriers of the Blue Pox sitting on my military base?” he asked with mounting horror.

  “I did,” Bloodworth responded. “They haven’t had their injections yet, though, so they won’t be contagious until tonight or tomorrow.”

  “All right, then,” a somewhat-relieved Sebastian said, walking over to his desk and writing out orders for Bloodworth to give to his airship captains.

  …

  TEN

  West of Strongstead, Tenthmonth Fourteenth, 1843rd Year Supernal

  Two weeks after the Udar began laying siege to Fort Harrow, Butch was thanking St. Edward of Agornia, the patron saint of the hopeless, that he was still alive. Considering what he’d seen, St. Ed had done him a favor.

  The force the enemy arrayed on the three sides of the fort stretched to the horizon, and Butch knew the original estimate of fifty thousand troops was woefully, comically inadequate. There were half a million of them out there, and that was just what he could see.

  They had just over five hundred men at Fort Harrow. They were almost certain to die here; it was just a question of whether the Udar would starve them out or storm the place with a human wave they could never hold back.

  So far, it seemed like the Udar opted for the former, though what was also clear was that the enemy commander had decided most of his force would bypass Fort Harrow rather than attack it. Butch had seen from where he was stationed, which was along the top of the fort’s west wall, that in the distance Udar troops were marching and riding off to the north without a care for the Ardenians manning this position.

  They had cannons and chain guns, and Captain Paul James, on a tour of the place after they’d arrived from Fort Walder, had shown them a truly impressive subterranean complex in the caves in the eastern side of the fort. The fort’s soldiers slept in dormitories built in those caves, the mess hall was in a central cavern from which everything emanated, a subterranean stream provided water…there was far more to Fort Harrow than anyone could see by just looking at its wood palisade façade.

  And Captain James had laid on provisions which would literally sustain them for a year.

  A different story, though, was how much ammunition they had. Accordingly, the Captain had instructed his gunners to hold their fire until the enemy was clearly about to attack, and they hadn’t yet. The Udar had backed their troops away from chain gun range; they were surrounding the fort on three sides with about a twenty five hundred-yard no-man’s-land between the two forces, and for all the time Butch was there, they were just waiting the defenders out while their comrades streamed past on their way to Fort Claire and Fort Bountiful, and beyond.

  Morale was low, as all the men knew they could do nothing to fulfill their primary mission down here, which was to stop the Udar from advancing into Ardenia. The Udar had been advancing into Ardenia for two solid weeks at that point, probably with hundreds of thousands of troops. And Fort Harrow, which didn’t have a teletext connection to the outside world, couldn’t even warn anyone about what was coming. Everybody thought it was useless to be there.

  Captain James had sent a couple of scouts to Fort Claire with news of the enemy’s arrival, but they’d had no way of knowing if the message had gotten through.

  One item Butch was grateful for was the mass of thick copper teletext wire they’d strung along the top of the palisade. That was a bit of genius, as it worked beautifully. The raptors had come, three times in the first week after they’d made it to Fort Harrow, and each time they’d banged against the wire trying to break through it and get into the fort. Each time that hadn’t worked; the wire mesh held, and the fort’s guns had turned them into corpses.

  Captain James had his men detach wires from their posts after those raptor attacks, allowing the dead predators to fall forty feet to the floor’s deck. From there, Fort Harrow’s cooks took over, plucking their huge feathers and leaving them in piles, then removing their talons, spines and heads before gutting them and hanging the remaining meat in a part of the cave they were using as a smokehouse. Butch had discovered that raptor, if you leave it to smoke for two or three days and then roast it over an open fire basting it throughout with red-pepper preserves they made on site, was absolutely delicious. They ate like kings at Fort Harrow.

  But at some point, this was all going to come to an end, and not a good one. So, a week ago when Butch and his three troop-mates among the refugees from Fort Walder, Milton, Ted and Bill, were called to Captain James’ command post, he knew something bad was about to happen.

  “You’re going to Strongstead,” James told them after they’d reported to him. “We haven’t had a rider from Strongstead in more than a month and I need to know if it’s still there.”

  “Surely Strongstead didn’t fall,” Milton said. “It’s the toughest fortress in the world.”

  “No rider in the last month,” Captain James said. “If Strongstead fell, I’m firing everything we’ve got to thin out the enemy, and I’m evacuating Fort Harrow.”

  The troopers looked at each other. Evacuating where?

  “You’re going over the mountains to Strongstead, and send us word back about what order it’s in. Grubbs will be your guide.”

  “You all ain’t gonna make it,” said the old man, “and I was agin’ sendin’ you all. But I’ll show you the way.”

  “Yes sir,” Milton said. The others saluted, and then geared up.

  Grubbs then led them through a narrow cave past a locked iron gate deep into the cliffside. That cave, as they hiked through it, essentially operated as a staircase to the side of a mountain opposite the cliff Fort Harrow resided against. They’d literally walked under a mountain, Butch thought, essentially climbing it from the inside. From there was a hike northeast along a ledge, with a three-thousand-foot dr
op into a canyon just feet away, until they came to a rickety rope bridge stretching east across that canyon. When they’d crossed the bridge at the end of that first day, Grubbs had them bed down on a hilltop.

  He wouldn’t allow a campfire. “We don’t know if the Udar are comin’ through here,” he said, “and if they are, I want to see them before they see us.”

  The second day for them involved an east-bound zigzag hike along a ridge-side. It was slow going and exhausting, as the terrain was immensely unforgiving. Their heavy packs didn’t aid the situation. But Grubbs wouldn’t tolerate any lapse in effort; he was a far sterner taskmaster than Butch’s father ever had dreamed of being.

  Day three was easier, as the hike was generally downhill. But day four was the opposite, as they had to pick their way up a two-thousand-foot rocky incline. By the end of day four, they were covered with bumps, bruises and cuts and Grubbs gave them the morning of the fifth day to rest. They managed to make camp at the end of that day in a copse of apple trees and happily ate their fill of perfectly ripened apples.

  That led to the sixth day, when as they walked along a ridgeline heading east, they noticed a column of Udar coming through a canyon to the south under their position, heading, it looked, straight into a cliff. As they ducked out of sight, Butch asked Grubbs where the enemy came from.

  “There’s caves all up through here,” Grubbs said. “I bet Udar has mapped it and he’s usin’ that network like a highway. He mighta made tunnels and the Saints know what else.”

  “We should go back and warn Fort Harrow,” Ted said.

  “Our orders are to get to Strongstead and report back,” Milton shot back. “We still have another day to go.”

  “We go on,” Grubbs said.

  By the end of the sixth day, they could see Leopold Bay on the horizon to the east, as they walked northeast along what Grubbs told them was the Bristol Ridge. And shortly after dawn on the seventh day, they could make out Strongstead along the shore.

  “Awww, sheeeeit,” said Grubbs, throwing his C-1 cavalry knife into the dirt atop the ridge.

  “What’s the problem?” Milton asked him.

  “It’s gone. Strongstead’s done.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “The tents,” Butch pointed out, as they surveyed the scene with field glasses from a mile away. “Those are Udar tents. And they’re on both sides of the fort.”

  “Touched by the damned Saints!” Bill said. “All this way, a week through the mountains, and the sonofabitch southmen have Strongstead!”

  “Shut up, Bill,” Milton said.

  “What now?” asked Ted.

  Grubbs looked at Milton, and Milton looked at Butch.

  “Maybe we should try to get a better look?” Butch suggested. “Try to find out how many of them there are, so we can pass that information along.”

  “You want to get closer?” Ted asked, incredulous. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “No, stupid,” Butch said. “I want to at least salvage somethin’ out of this trip. Maybe if we can tell somebody what they have…”

  “Quiet!” Grubbs hissed. “Somebody’s comin’.”

  They crouched down behind a pile of boulders along the ridge, and Butch saw Grubbs brandishing his C-1. As he peered carefully around the pile looking to the north, he spotted two Udar females two hundred yards away, walking along the ridge toward their position.

  The Udar didn’t appear to have seen the five scouts.

  “What do we do?” Milton whispered.

  “We’re gonna get pinned down here if they see us,” Grubbs said under his breath, his voice a raspy hiss. “Best thing is to kill ‘em quiet, stash the bodies somewhere they don’t get seen easily, and then get the hell out of here as fast as we can.”

  “To go where?” Butch asked him in a whisper. “Can we even make it back to Fort Harrow from here?”

  Grubbs gave him a blank look. It was clear the question made him more than a little uncomfortable.

  The two females kept coming toward their position, and as they got closer Butch could see they were both armed with spears and daggers. They didn’t look like scouts so much as foragers; both had bags slung over their shoulders. They had shaved heads and their breasts were bare, like all Udar women he’d heard about. Both wore pants and ankle-high boots made of some sort of leather.

  When they were directly upon their position, Grubbs jumped out from behind the rock, and the four of them followed.

  Butch saw that Grubbs hadn’t particularly had the element of surprise on his side, though. As he attacked the nearer Udar with his C-1, the other brought up her spear and stuck him in the side with it. He landed a deep cut on his intended target, slashing her across the belly. Both the scout and the Udar fell to the ground. Butch was the first of the others to the scene, and he put his C-1 at the throat of the spearholder. He grabbed her ear with his left hand; she wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Kill her, Butch,” Bill said.

  “Yanay, yanay,” said the woman, dropping her spear in a panic. “Anastoy rochat. Anastoy!”

  Milton had said he knew some Udar. “What’s she saying?” Butch asked him.

  “She says don’t kill her, she wants to surrender,” he said.

  “We can’t take a prisoner,” Bill said. “We gotta get outta here. Like immediately. She’s just gonna slow us down.”

  Ted was tending to Grubbs, who was turning white. He was bleeding profusely from the deep gash in his side. Grubbs was making a gurgling noise, and Ted listened closely.

  “He says tie that bitch up and leave the three of them,” Ted said. “He said he’s done for, and we need to haul ass.”

  Grubbs was nodding. “Haul ass,” he hissed, then coughed up a mouthful of blood.

  “Shit!” Milton said.

  “Where are we gonna go?” Butch asked, his knife still at the woman’s throat.

  “First, let’s tie her up,” said Bill. “Use Grubbs’ climbing rope. He won’t need it.”

  “By the Saints, Bill,” Ted scolded him. “He’s still here, you know.”

  Grubbs reached up and grabbed Ted by the jacket. He eyed him intensely and nodded. Then he went limp.

  Bill had fetched Grubbs’ pack from behind the boulder and was emptying it of supplies. He grabbed the scout’s climbing rope and began binding the Udar woman’s wrists behind her back.

  That’s when Butch saw two more Udar walking along the ridge about a thousand yards away to their north.

  “We’re out of time,” he said. “We gotta go.”

  “You know what to do,” Milton said. “Finish her.”

  “Yanay,” she pleaded with him.

  “Milton,” Butch said, “I don’t know if…”

  “Do it!” Milton hissed. “Or we’re gonna die here!”

  ELEVEN

  Port William, Tenthmonth Fourteenth, 1843rd Year Supernal

  The Ardenian Army-Navy Office of Special Warfare had not been a long-standing entity within that nation’s military. In fact, it had been in existence for only five years, and its inception had not even come as a reaction to expressly military events.

  Rather, the government in Principia began noticing a frequency in disappearances of Ardenians whose work in fields made them strategically important: scientists, inventors, engineers and others who were at the cutting edge of technological advance. Thus was created a joint task force of the army and navy, a compromise between the rival branches who each clamored to capture the task, to investigate and prevent those disappearances and to insure the homeland was safe from whichever acts of asymmetrical warfare might be perpetrated against it.

  The initial head of the task force was a retired Navy admiral by the name of J. Allen Sayers, who had been the head of the naval armada sent into Watkins Gulf to battle the Udar pirates during Dunnan’s War twenty-five years before. Sayers was a national hero whose appointment lent heft to the new department, and as he had experience commanding forces against the perpetual enemy Udar
, whom everyone in the government blamed for the disappearances though specific evidence of their guilt had not been unearthed, he was seen as a perfect choice.

  But Sayers suffered a heart attack and died six months into the job, and his assistant, an Army general named Abraham Dees, was promoted to the head of the task force.

  Dees’ ascension to the head of what many in the government suspected would ultimately become a fourth branch of the military after the Army, Navy and Marines was a bit controversial. During Dunnan’s War as a young major, he had led a clandestine unit that landed well behind Udar lines and engaged in assassinations of enemy leaders. Dees’ snipers exacted a heavy toll on the Udar power structure and did much to paralyze them strategically, but their exploits had been a political hot potato back home. The clerics of the Faith Supernal came out against the use of such tactics, which they likened to murder more than combat--the former was clearly beyond the bounds of Scripture, while the latter was regarded as a necessary evil and part of the Blessed Path of resistance to unjust suffering.

  At war’s end, Dees had been summoned to the Societam, the capitol building in Principia’s governmental district where the nation’s parliament did its business, and had been subject to a formal inquiry into the tactics of “disruption” in which his snipers had engaged. But if his critics thought to make him a sacrifice they were sorely disappointed, as the young major summoned the experience of four generations of his family’s men as Army officers fighting the Udar to dominate the hearings, becoming a cultural hero and a military legend.

  Dees held nothing back, providing detailed descriptions of his unit’s tactics and strategies, outlining the fact that assassinations of Udar headmen were catastrophic to the cohesiveness of the enemy’s forces and highly beneficial to the war effort. Dees, who had studied Udar culture and history extensively and was an expert on the enemy despite his then-tender age of twenty-six, understood that the Udar were a collectivist society whose basic cultural unit was the Anur, or mobile village, rather than the nuclear family, and the power of the Var’asha, or headman, within each Anur was nearly absolute. Take out the headman and the Anur ceased to function until it could raise a new one.