“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 By the third day, Marcus found that his nervousness had faded and been replaced by a kind of excitement.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 ashore 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.
• • •
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 cannonballs 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 splashing 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 assembled soldiers of either side had nothing to do but watch and cheer for their own team, as the gunners sweated and struggled with balls, 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 hitched 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 shielded 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 shore, 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, God 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 hell 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.”
“Yessir,” Archer said. “We’ll do our best, sir.”
• • •
There was a lull of a few hours, for which Marcus was duly grateful. It gave him the chance to evacuate the dead and wounded from the wrecked waterfront, and the men took the opportunity to dig in as best they could among the piles of rubble. This was what he’d brought the Old Colonials for. Fighting behind barricades and building field fortifications were not part of the skill set of the average Vordanai soldier, since on the continent wars were simply not fought that way. It was considered impolite to blast an enemy town with siege guns, for example. The Old Colonials, however, had spent years in Khandar—where the bandits and Desoltai raiders thought nothing of commandeering local dwellings as blockhouses—and thus had seen their share of desperate house-to-house fighting. The script was familiar to them.
This is the first time we’ve been on the receiving end, though. Normally it was the locals holed up in some little speck of a village and the Colonials rousting them out with cannon and bayonet.
He had Corporal Montagne, who reputedly had the sharpest eyes in the regiment, perched on the roof of the temple looking south. Four days, Janus had said, and this was the fourth day. Every time someone shouted, Marcus’ heart leapt in the hope that long blue-uniformed columns had been sighted wending their way north.
No such luck. A runner hurried out of the temple, skidded to a halt, and saluted hastily.
“Sir! Enemy movement, sir! Looks like heavy guns, sir!”
Here it comes. He stared north, across the river, where the brown uniforms were boiling into view like angry ants. It was only a few minutes before he caught the first flash of fire, followed by its distant thudding boom. He watched to see where the shot would land, and was startled to hear it pass overhead with a shriek like an angry cat as it cleared the roof of the temple to land beyond the village entirely.
“Saints and martyrs,” Marcus swore. “What the hell was that?” He gestured impatiently at the runner. “Go find Lieutenant Archer and ask him what the hell is going on.”
By the time the man returned, though, Marcus had figured it out for himself. Three more of the monstrous guns had opened fire, two overshooting the town and one shot landing well back from the waterfront, plowing through a whole row of houses before it finally came to rest. The runner’s breathless report confirmed his suspicions.
“Siege guns, sir,” the man said, still winded from running the length of the village twice. “Big ones, twenty-four pounders at least.”
“Thirty-six,” Marcus said. “Those are thirty-six-pound naval guns.”
“Are they?” The runner turned to look at the distant clouds of gunsmoke, impressed. “Well spotted, sir!”
Marcus’ lip twisted in a brief smile. “I’m afraid my eyes aren’t as good as that. But I used to walk past them at least once a week. The prince had them lined up along the wharf in Ashe-Katarion, remember?”
They’d been a gift from the King of Vordan to his royal friend and cousin. The prince had been very impressed with them, Marcus recalled. He’d been there the day the Colonials manhandled them off the boat, grunting and swearing, twenty men to each gun. If the little Gesthemels were older than Lieutenant Archer, those guns were older than any man in Khandar, relics of an earlier era. No one had told the prince that the enormous weapons he was so proud of were museum pieces, of course.
The runner gaped. “Those guns, sir? I always thought they were just for decoration!”
“Apparently General Khtoba has found a use for them.” Marcus spared a brief moment of thanks for the foresight Janus had shown in avoiding Westbridge. The thought of trying to charge across a bridge into the face of those monstrous pieces made him shiver. “Does Archer think he can silence them?”
“He said he’ll try, sir, but they’re well back from the river’s edge. Long range, sir.”
“Tell him to try. And get the ammunition relay running again.” Another shot from one of the monsters landed, closer to the waterfront. The huge projectile tore through the town as if through tissue paper, leaving a neat line of rising dust in its wake. The ranker swallowed hard, saluted again, and ran off.
Archer’s guns opened fire a few minutes later. As the lieutenant had predicted, his replies were less effective than before due to the longer range, but the man’s skill was evident. It was only a few shots before his pieces were regularly bowling their roundshot into the growing clouds of smoke that surrounded the big naval guns. One mercy was that the ancient pieces would be difficult and time-consuming to aim. If they got into a duel with Archer, it would take ages for them to zero in.
In the event, they didn’t even try. The naval guns kept slamming away at
the waterfront, blasting through the barriers of wood and clay as though they were made of matchsticks. Instead, a descending scream announced another set of unwelcome arrivals. Marcus watched the first shot fall short, churning up a stretch of riverbank. Howitzers.
The king had given those to the prince, too. Marcus wished his sovereign had been a little less generous over the years, even if he was only cleaning obsolete pieces out of his armories. These were midgets compared to the naval guns, stubby weapons that looked vaguely like a washing tub on wheels. They fired shells instead of shot, iron spheres packed with powder and an impact fuse. Like the huge naval guns, they were weapons of a previous age, when wars had been less polite and sieges were common. Unlike the huge thirty-six-pounders, which had been built to defend harbors from enemy ships, the howitzers had been designed for the express purpose of bombarding dug-in enemies and fortifications.
Archer kept trying. It took some time for the howitzers to find the range—they weren’t terribly accurate weapons at the best of times, firing as they did in high arcs rather than the shallow trajectories of ordinary cannon. Once they started landing shots close by, however, they made a mockery of all of the gunners’ careful preparation. The shells descended from on high, not straight ahead, and they were as likely to land behind the sheltering walls of rubble as in front of them. When they hit, they blew apart into iron fragments as deadly as any musket ball.
The artillerymen kept up the now patently unequal contest for a few minutes, gamely banging away into the cloud of gunsmoke while the shells rained down around them. It wasn’t long before they gave it up, however, and one by one the Colonial guns fell silent, leaving only the distant, shuddering booms from across the river.
Archer himself turned up not long after, bleeding from a long cut on one shoulder and even more smoke-blackened than before. He saluted, gingerly, and shook his head.
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