The Eternal Front: A Lines of Thunder Novel (Lines of Thunder Universe)

by Walter Blaire

  “So the general is supposed to walk up?” Sethlan asked. “First through the door, like in the old days?”

  “It’s the only right thing,” Panthan shrugged. “Oh, we know how it will turn out. Old Sticks is a respectable warfighter, and I have a knucklebone bet that he’ll leave right now rather than hide in this bunker. If he hid, that would only get him a grenade tossed in here to finish him off. Him and the rest of us.” Panthan raised an eyebrow at the general. “So won’t you take the sunlight one last time? For my sake, if not your son’s?”

  Gawarty glanced between Panthan and his father, who was chewing his lip and studying the far wall. The general’s delayed response permitted Gawarty to realize he had heard correctly. It was just the sort of death a professional Haphan soldier might dream of, if death could not be avoided: diving into a hail of bullets to prove a point, to save dignity, and to spare other Haphans. An intelligent Tachba had thought this scheme up.

  “This won’t serve,” Gawarty said quickly, before his father could respond. “An insurrection, right in the trench. A mutiny.”

  “Less an insurrection, less a mutiny,” Panthan said smoothly, “and more we want a dearth of orders ringing in our ears for a while. We don’t have much time, general, if we want to keep the offensive from being launched.”

  “What oath-breaker gave you these orders?” Tawarna said, his voice infinitely tired.

  “Colonel Goldros,” Panthan said. “I suppose we should call him General Goldros now, or Field Marshal. He’s volunteered to take command of the trench line. So let’s hop to it, Old Sticks. There’s a schedule, which is written down, and we know how Haphans like to keep on schedule.”

  Most chilling of all, to Gawarty, was how easily Panthan gave up Goldros’s name. It spoke volumes of how far the mutiny had already progressed, that its leader no longer felt the neede to hide.

  Sethlan turned to General Tawarna, a sudden movement that stopped the conversation. Panthan’s natural defensive wisdom took over, and he shifted focus to the haut captain, moving backwards to open the distance between them.

  Gawarty’s hopes flared for a moment, but Sethlan wasn’t taking action. He only studied the general. He looked—Gawarty didn’t expect it—bitter. Disappointed.

  “Well,” Sethlan said, “I see there will be no help from the Haphans.”

  “Semelon, you will stop—” the general began, but the stop-order had no effect on him.

  Sethlan stepped back and dropped into the hole, eliciting a scream from the messenger who was still at the bottom of the tunnel. Panthan was startled, and didn’t shift his sidearm because Sethlan didn’t even glance his way.

  Gawarty wanted to shoot Panthan, but he knew it would never happen. He wouldn’t even be able to clear his pistol from the holster before Panthan gunned him down. Then Father might think he had to do something. Then Diggery would have to pick a side…

  Instead, Gawarty followed Sethlan to the hole in the floor. He kept his eyes down and his hand away from his sidearm. Please let this pretense of civility hold a moment longer…

  Panthan tsked but didn’t stop him from sliding into the hole.

  “Do not go up to the trench, damn you—” Tawarna begged.

  Gawarty gave a last glance back. His father’s face was twisted with worry—the face of an old man at the edge of exhaustion and the end of ideas. Gawarty ducked down and crawled after Sethlan.

  In the tunnel, Sethlan was a blotch in the darkness. Gawarty shimmied up the narrow part, and regained his hands and knees on the sharp, uneven rock. Before long, he could walk upright, and at the last switchback, he saw Sethlan’s form blocking the light from above. The Sesseran moved too quickly for Gawarty to keep up.

  Sethlan finally straightened, framed by the border of the exit. There was a chorus of gunshots, all popping off at once. Sethlan’s coat seemed to dance on his shoulders. Then the bullets slapped the earth above Gawarty, and a rain of soil blocked his view.

  16

  Sethlan

  Sethlan staggered against the volley of bullets. Astounding Tachba reflexes helped the firing squad pull its aim when they saw his uniform—as he had sincerely hoped. He was barely touched, only scraped along the edges, like in the childhood shooting game. He had a half-dozen new holes in his kit and bloody tears in the skin of his shoulder and biceps. The most dangerous wound was a throughfer just below his ribs. A gout of blood wet his shirt and then the wound clotted.

  As the smoke cleared and while he could still think clearly, he opened his jacket so they could see the claw patch of a haut captain.

  “Guns down, he’s one of us!” The corporal in charge shouted. “Sir, was not everything explained by Captain Elyseuran?”

  Sethlan wavered. The pain fired through his body, spreading through passageways that seemed to brighten with sensation. Sethlan thought he might even be glowing. He gulped air, coming alive.

  “It’s the hurt on him,” one of the boots warned. “Which he’s been blooded.”

  “Mutiny.” Sethlan pushed off the wall, bounded across the gutter, and body-checked the corporal into the back of the trench. With the corporal off-balance and falling over his heels, Sethlan dipped his knife into him, making a single deep puncture in the throat. The corporal clawed backward, spraying blood.

  “You animals.” Sethlan turned on the firing squad, which scattered to surround him, rifles up. “Go back to Colonel Goldros and tell him to stop circling. I don’t know what you were told, but you heard wrong. To threaten a Haphan general! Old Sticks is surprised and disappointed. Get out of here before he becomes cross with you.”

  He almost had them, he could tell. Tacchies, so willing to believe anything they were told by a higher-up, so long as it sounded plausible. A moment longer, and the unit would have melted away like a bad idea.

  But then came an importune scrabbling from the stairway. They saw Gawarty’s uniform in the tunnel.

  “We won’t get out of this one so easily,” the oldest boot muttered, and Sethlan knew what he meant.

  “I’ll get you out of this, scrag.” Sethlan lanced the boot with a glare. “We don’t need any more nonsense today. Do nothing which can’t be taken back. You must only do the right thing.”

  17

  Gawarty

  Gawarty entered the trench and surveyed the carnage. The corporal was down to feeble struggles, and Sethlan’s coat was soaked through with blood. He glanced at Sethlan, but the haut captain held his face unhelpfully blank, as if waiting. They were all waiting, watching him expectantly, with the muzzles of their weapons pointed his way. Gawarty clasped his hands behind his back and stepped forward. The soldiers straightened reflexively at the posture.

  “Gems of the empire,” Gawarty said. “You look exhausted—have you not had enough rest leave?”

  The gems didn’t answer, but they glanced at Sethlan.

  “I said, have you not been put on leave?” Gawarty stepped among them.

  “The prescribed distance—” one of the boots started.

  “Waived,” Gawarty snapped. “Talking about distance! For the last few weeks I’ve been addressed by every Sessie boot in the trench who had a thought enter his head. After this month there is no more distance. What a load of shit.”

  “Which distance is only proper, with the leash and service, and all.”

  Gawarty’s impatience turned to scorn. “How proper you are. Niceties of distance, from the firing squad. Old Sticks doesn’t need your help to die. He’s been three months on the front without relief—more than you scrags. Three months only drinking tea, and not a drop of liquor. He’s down to his last breaths by the look of him. He only hopes to be useful and to save all of Sessera from the southern monsters. Now tell me, what kind of thanks did you bring the general?”

  “Well, sir, we were going to shoot him,” bootie said, abashed. “We know that’s usually wrong.”

  “Shoot him quickly, which it please the Happie,” added another.

  Gawarty gave th
em a high frown.

  “It was on orders, lieutenant,” Sethlan put in. “These are good soldiers for following their orders. Orders I have now changed.”

  Sethlan ranked Gawarty but he left it as a hint floating in the air. It would have to come from a Haphan for it to have any weight with the firing squad.

  “Then proceed,” Gawarty said briskly. “Let them have extra rations too, and some rest leave. On the general’s word.”

  “Old Sticks’s word,” the boot echoed. “And a cheer for him, so agreeable about being killed and all.”

  “Dismissed,” Sethlan said wearily. “Boot, you’re bumped to corporal.”

  The soldiers lowered their guns. The new corporal whistled, and the rest of the squad dropped into the trench or emerged around the traverses. It had been a larger affair than Sethlan suspected.

  Gawarty gave Sethlan a searching look but crossed to Thache, who was a featureless bundle of limbs and cloth in the gutter a dozen feet down the trench. “Sleeping on the job, old man?”

  “I dropped something and now I’m looking for it.” Thache cracked a malevolent eye. “I wanted them snappies spanked, sir. Spanked, and then shot.”

  “What, and lose their faithful service?” Gawarty grinned.

  The prone man growled, and Gawarty flashed on a childhood memory. Him and Jephia, making fun of a not-much-younger looking Thache, who snarled when he was angry and growled when he laughed. “Hold on, Mister Thache,” Gawarty murmured, “we’ll get you fixed up.”

  Gawarty straightened and found Sethlan close beside him.

  “Sessera is not your enemy, Gawarty,” Sethlan said quietly. “There are people trying to change things, sure, but not all change is bad. Diggery and I must leave now. Can you help your father restore order?”

  “We’re leaving? Our place is at the front. Our orders are for the front.”

  “Well, we’re breaking those orders, you see,” Sethlan said. “You’re staying. You must convince your father that there won’t be an offensive today. If he issues a command to attack, it will not be followed.”

  “Call him the general, not my father,” Gawarty said. “A firing squad for a Haphan duke, for fuck’s sake! Then from you, I get some blather with an earnest face…and now you’re breaking orders. Tell me why I should let you walk free?”

  Sethlan shrugged. “As your commanding officer, I’m telling you what will happen. I’m ordering you to stay behind.”

  “But didn’t you hear? This is breaking-order day.”

  Sethlan grinned. “You’ll obey your orders, even from a Sesseran captain. Sesseran haut captain, if that helps. You believe in Sessera just as much as the general does, and you’ll trust me at least that far.”

  Before Gawarty could frame an answer, Sethlan glanced over his shoulder and added, “There is one more thing that must be done.”

  Gawarty turned.

  Captain Panthan Elyseuran emerged into the sunlight and glanced around. “You dismissed my squad, la? So I have to go back and kill the general myself?”

  The pretentious ass— Gawarty had finally had enough and reached for his pistol. Sethlan stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  Behind Panthan, Diggery crawled out next. The boy stood, slapped the dust off his coat. “Lots of noise up here.”

  “Diggery,” Sethlan said. He flicked his eyes to Panthan. “Bring me his tongue.”

  Panthan froze for a second, confused. Then he cursed and groped for his pistol. Diggery spun and launched his fist upward in a single fluid motion. The captain’s head snapped back, cracking against the granite edge of the entrance. He fell to the ground roughly, bouncing on the rocks. He gave an excruciated cry, which cut off when Diggery landed on him, straddling his chest and pinning his arms.

  “This is not done,” Panthan gasped. “I would never have…” He heaved with his legs, but couldn’t break free.

  Sethlan intoned, “Captain Elysuran, under the military conduct code, chapter five, verse two, I order your summary execution for infamous behavior, in the name of Sessera-Under-Arms and the eternal Haphan imperium.”

  Diggery pawed at his outer belt, grim eyes on Panthan’s face. There was trouble finding his holster.

  Panthan twisted his head, eyes rolling. “Gawarty! This can be settled over a beer. In an hour we’ll be laughing about it.”

  “Diggery, get on with it, for all love!” Sethlan hissed.

  Diggery finally extracted his pistol and brought it around.

  “I can catch bullets in my teeth, helpie. Just try me! Wait—please don’t.”

  The discharge inside Panthan’s mouth was soft. The man’s limbs fell to the ground.

  Diggery stood, slotting a new round into the pistol. He said, “I sure hope I don’t talk that much.”

  Gawarty stared at the body.

  “Some corpsmen for Thache,” Sethlan told him softly. “The corporal’s body thrown out of the trench. Some hot food for the general. Stick close to the daily routine.”

  Gawarty summoned his voice. “Yes, there’s much to do.”

  “Diggery,” Sethlan said, “put the captain’s body by the entrance. Set him up, will you?”

  They watched Diggery pull the captain upright. The head was a depleted, gory mess from the chin up, which made for strangely stiff movement in the neck. Diggery wrestled the body’s arm around behind the remains of the head, and then leaned on the elbow. Gawarty winced as the corpse’s shoulder joint broke.

  In short order, Diggery had Panthan’s corpse knotted and posed. He stepped back to assess his work.

  “Leave his arms just so, Gawarty,” Sethlan said. “You won’t have any other vigilantes stopping here. It’s an old Tachba message. ‘The test was passed.’”

  18

  Sethlan

  Well, Voice?

  ~Still here. I’m just shitting myself, over and over.~

  Don’t you eat powerful spaceships for breakfast?

  ~Let me confide something. The spaceship thing makes me more of an accountant than a stone killer.~

  Sethlan thought for a moment. The idea of you shitting yourself in my head is very distracting. Do you think you could stop for a moment? We will need you for this next step.

  ~It actually helped when they shot you. Do you think you could do that part again? I’ve never felt so…present.~

  But we always do something shameful afterwards. That was Pretty Polly. I’m polluted that far, at least.

  ~But it doesn’t reach your mind, the Pollution,~ the voice said.

  As if I could ever know that for certain.

  Sethlan and Diggery strode rapidly to the staging area, then turned for the forward hospital. They found Drivvy fluttering uselessly around his steam cart, giving little wails as corpsmen packed it with dirty, dripping wounded.

  “Belay that!” Sethlan bellowed. “Empty this steam cart, do you hear? You wounded, jump off or get tossed. I am requisitioning this resource for the Kingdom of Free Sessera.” He hesitated, but finally had to say it. “By order of the Queen.”

  A moment of stunned silence, and then the wounded soldiers cheered. Corpsmen leapt back onto the bed, lifted them out, and dropped them brutally to the ground.

  “Finally some yoddamned sense,” Drivvy said. “And the queen wants you to wipe the cart down, too. Queenie wants it to sparkle.”

  A corporal appeared by their side. “So she’s stepping into the open, finally? The word will spread, you know.”

  “So spread the word,” Sethlan shrugged. “It won’t be a secret much longer, regardless. The Haphans are going to jump on us with both feet. There has been some business with Sesserans shooting Haphans.”

  The corporal was appalled.

  “Military law still stands,” Sethlan told him. “We still have a Haphan local empress. We just have a queen, now, as well. Spread the word.”

  “A queen and still an empress, yes, sir, so it is.”

  ~Your helpie looks ill.~

  Diggery staggered over to the steam ca
rt, grabbing it for support. “A queen. A living manleader in Sessera. Does everybody know about a queen but me?”

  “Apparently.” Sethlan was surprised by Diggery’s surprise. “I’ll explain it in the cart.”

  “Who is it? Do we know her?”

  “Why, Nana, of course,” Drivvy said, his eyes shining.

  “Nana.” Diggery repeated. “Nana. Nana? I swear, she’s doing all of this simply to drive me insane.”

  Drivvy opened the throttle wide. He rammed the steam cart through intersections with boyish importance, claiming right-of-way whenever he met one of the cattle-drawn supply trains. He blasted down the straightaways with the engine screaming like a banshee. They left the doors battened open, for the air, and Diggery spent half of the ride swinging into the wind screaming hulloo and Queeeeeen.

  Sethlan satisfied himself with resting his head on the doorjamb for the blast of fresh air. He unsuccessfully ignored the bullet wounds that pinched all over his body but successfully ignored the slate of unintelligible instructions the Voice muttered in his head.

  “Damn girl opens up, don’t she?” Diggery shouted. “La the wind! Flying-meh!”

  Drivvy cackled. “And all this time you wondered why I treat her so gentle. Doubtless kept you up at night, neh? Nobody knows what these cars can do, not even the Happies. It just takes something to get her spirit up.”

  “I have the impression we’re in a hurry,” Diggery said, finally landing in his seat. “Something important unfolding.”

  “The Haphans have this plan,” Sethlan said. “If today’s offensive fails—and it will—they will pull out of the sector. They will dangle Ville Emsa like a treat, and when the Southies enter the city to pillage it, they will blow it up.”

  Diggery’s brow furrowed. “I was talking about Nana turning queen, but this is good too. Will the Haphans blow up the city in a bad way?”

  “Yes in a bad way.”