Ketin spun to his staff. “Now that we know exactly how far off they are, we need to pick up the pace. We still have two battalions of infantry too far back. Get the drivers to whip the horses continuously, if necessary. It’s going to be tight. If Zulfa can block the road and force them to try to bypass him, we’ll have them. Otherwise, we’ll need to force them to stop and fight, before they get off this flat land.”
“What about the Eywellese coming from the north?” asked a captain.
“Last word was they should reach the raiding party in the next hour,” said Ketin’s aide-de-camp.
Denes
“Get those people into the new wagons!” Denes shouted. “Don’t ask them to move or offer to help, carry or throw them, if you have to! The damned Narthani are only two miles behind us!”
Denes’s mind went over Yozef Kolsko’s summary of tactical points and leadership issues. The one element he focused on was the necessity for a leader to think calmly and rationally. They were in trouble. Maybe they could make it to Mulron Luwis’s position and the prepared defenses and maybe not.
He watched while the rest of the ex-slaves were moved to the larger wagons with bigger horse teams.
If I were Yozef, what would I be thinking? he wondered. I need to think of how to stop the Narthani from attacking our rear without slowing us down. Think. Think! What are our advantages?
A platoon of dragoons rode past where they stood.
Horses! We’re all mounted. The Narthani don’t have that many cavalry, so either we might outnumber them or they’re bringing up infantry, maybe in wagons. They must have artillery, but with both artillery and infantry, it takes time to deploy. If we can force them to stop and bring up artillery and infantry, then they have to slow down.
“Kildorn, Sixwith, here’s what we’ll do. Kildorn, take ten of the 6-pounders and set them up about a mile farther from here. As soon as the Narthani get within range, start with solid shot and then switch to grapeshot as they get closer. Put two companies of dragoons to each flank to keep the Narthani from getting around you easily. To force your position, they’ll have to deploy enough men and cannon to take you on. Before that happens, pull out. It’ll take them time to reassemble and come on after us.”
“That’ll give them the chance to get cavalry around us,” Sixwith warned.
Denes rubbed a hand over his shaven head. “So far, the scouts report cavalry, though not large formations. We’ll have to risk that we have enough mounted men to keep any Narthani cavalry at bay, while our artillery forces them to deploy their own cannon and infantry. Sixwith, move your battalion another mile farther than Kildorn and set up the same as Kildorn does. The two of you will take turns setting up new blocking positions, while the other slows the Narthani. We only have to do it a few times to get the wagons to the camp.”
Denes left the men to do their work and pulled Major Kildorn aside. “Kildorn, it’s going to be a close call. We’re still eight miles from the camp. If they catch us, at best it’ll be a bloody fight to the camp. At worst, we’ll have to leave the slaves and save as many of ourselves as possible.”
Kildorn’s face clouded over, his jaw clenched. “We can’t just leave them. We don’t know how many Narthani are following. If they catch us, we could still beat them off.”
“That’s not an option,” Denes stated firmly. “We don’t know exactly how many are chasing us. Neither do we know what other forces might try to cut us off, either from the north or landed from ships. We have specific orders not to engage in pitched battles. The purpose of the raid was to throw a scare into the Eywellese and Narthani. We’ve done that, but for everything to be successful, we have to get back relatively unscathed.”
“You’re right, I know,” said Kildorn, his face taking on a desperate set.
Kildorn looked around to see if anyone was within hearing distance. “Denes,” he said, switching to first names, “if it comes to that, I’ll take a company and delay the Narthani as long as possible. Hopefully, that will give you enough time to get the rest to safety.”
Denes’s throat clenched. He swallowed. “Raley, I hate to ask it, but I was going to, if you hadn’t offered.”
“That’s okay, Denes. I remember Kolsko’s summary, too. Better to save most than none. If it does come to that, I want you to know it’s been an honor to be on this ride, and I hope I served you well.”
“The honor is all mine, Raley. We may not get a chance to speak again, things may move so fast. I’ll leave it up to you to do what you think is necessary.”
Yozef
He stood on top of a higher butte, a hundred feet above the pass. He wore a pair of fox ears on his head. The leather, ear-shaped, foot-wide cups sat over his ears, connected by a strap that held the apparatus on his head. He’d had them made months ago and brought them along on a hunch. They were one of the sporadic ideas that had cropped into his head. He’d been inspired by the memory of seeing an enclosure of African fennec foxes at the San Diego zoo when he was nine years old. The little animal’s enormous ears, for its size, made the creature look cartoonish, but visitors to the zoo could put their heads between a fennec ears mock-up and experience dramatically improved hearing, to the delight of his nine-year-old self. It was as if his own ears had connected to an amplifier. The sign next to the fennec enclosure said the little fox could hear prey moving underground.
The first time he’d tried the ears in Caernford, he had garnered odd looks, until witnesses recognized him. Almost anything he did was accepted by now as probably something important, even if it looked as bizarre as a grown man wearing a pair of giant ears.
Standing on the edge of the butte, he held on the fennec ears being assailed by the wind. He could just make out what had to be musket fire. Most of the sounds came from due west, but he also thought occasionally from the northwest.
He jerked the ears off his head and raced to a chute that led to the loose gravel of the butte’s lower slope. There, he jumped out, landed on the loose rock, and let himself slide several yards before he slowed. Then he jumped again. It took nineteen seconds to descend the hundred feet, and he arrived, miraculously, in one piece with nothing broken.
“Mulron!” he yelled, running to the command tent. “I can hear them. Firing. Muskets. Can’t be more than three miles away.”
“That close?” questioned Luwis. “We should have heard it from here.”
“It’s these hills and broken terrain. The sound probably passes over.”
Luwis looked west. He couldn’t hear anything, but if Yozef were right . . .
“I can’t risk taking too many men from this position, but the 12-pounders aren’t best used here because the hills restrict the firing lanes. A mile, mile and a half west is a boulder field where the flat land begins. The 12-pounders would have clear firing lanes and might outgun anything the Narthani cavalry brought with them. I can take the 12-pounders and one company. If we hurry, I can set up in time to support Denes, if he gets that far. It’s the best I can see to help.”
Oh, shit, thought Yozef. Why does this always seem to happen to me at these times?
“You can’t go, Mulron. You’re in command here, and we can’t afford any command confusion. It’ll have to be me who takes the cannon forward. Anyway, I’m most familiar with them, so I’m the logical person.”
Ketin
Musket fire came in clusters. A dozen, a score, a hundred shots were heard in rapid succession. They trailed off to nothing for minutes, before beginning again. Ketin couldn’t see the action, but it wasn’t more than a half a mile away.
A captain galloped from the direction of the firing and reined in his horse near Ketin’s mount, which jumped aside.
“Major Torvik’s compliments, Colonel. He says they haven’t been able to close with the islanders. It’s the same as they’ve been doing the past few hours. They deploy their 6-pounders if we get too close and pull them out before our own cannon can get forward. We tried again to send a cavalry company around th
em, but their horsemen outnumber us. We’re out of the sand and clay terrain and into broken gravel and rocks. The horses have a harder time trying to flank the islanders before they pull out again. Major Torvik says unless the footing gets better or we can get our cannon deployed faster, the only way he sees overtaking them is a straight-out charge and absorbing the resulting casualties.”
Ketin used the time to settle his horse to consider the captain’s news. The prospects weren’t good. “No, Captain, we can’t go trading one-for-one with the islanders. They outnumber us, and we’d run out of men before they would. Tell Major Torvik to do the best he can to break through their rear guard. Also, tell him that the Eywellese are supposed to have already hit the islanders’ flank. If it’s going to happen, it must be soon. That might provide enough of a distraction and diversion of their men that you can break through.”
“Yes, Colonel. The major was wondering if we’d heard any news about Brigadier Zulfa?”
“Nothing yet. They should arrive any moment.” Ketin didn’t mention he’d been expecting Zulfa and his men to have blocked the islanders at “any moment” for the last two hours.
Zulfa
“I don’t think you’re going to make it, Aivacs,” said Kalcan, watching the first two troop ships lowering longboats to row infantry ashore. The road lay only two miles from the beach. Pickets reported musket and cannon fire to the northwest.
“You’re probably right, but we need to try. I wish we could also get the cannon to shore faster.”
“The only way would be to beach the transport carrying the cannon, hack a hole in the side, and pull the cannon out onto the beach. We can patch the ship later and tow it off the beach. I’m willing to give the order, if you think you’d have a good chance to trap the islanders.”
Zulfa’s head swiveled to look at Kalcan. “Beach one of your ships? I thought all you naval types were in love with the things, even lumbering ones like troop ships?”
The admiral’s eyes twinkled. “I didn’t say I was giving one up, only temporarily stationing it on shore. I have enough carpenters on the other ships that we can get the hole plugged in hours. I checked our charts and tide records. The beaching would be before low tide, so when the hole is repaired enough, we’d pull her off at high tide.”
Zulfa considered the idea for only a few seconds. “Let’s do it, Morfred. There’s no worry about getting the cannon back aboard. We’ll let Ketin take them when he gets to us.”
Denes
Sixwith reined in next to Denes and Kildorn. “My company to the north continues to skirmish with the riders coming south. Lots of them, hundreds. I’ll send another company of dragoons to slow them more. They don’t seem all that eager to attack, so I think we can hold them off long enough to get to the camp.”
Denes cursed. “Must be Eywellese. As far as we know, there’s no Narthani stationed this far south in Eywell, and I doubt they could have come from Preddi. How far off?”
“They’re coming overland—no roads,” said Sixwith. “There are enough gullies and rock fields that I think we can slow them down for thirty or forty minutes, no matter how many there are.”
“How fortunate for us, then,” said Denes. “We’ll be at the support camp before they get here.”
“How can you be sure about that?”
“Because we have to,” replied Denes.
“So far, Kildorn and I have been able to slow them enough,” said Sixwith, “but it’s getting dicier. Either from practice or by changing procedures, they’re getting their artillery into play faster each time.”
“Maybe it’s that time,” said Kildorn, referring to his offer to take a company and delay the Narthani as long as possible.
“Thanks, Raley, but I think we’re going to make it without going to that extreme.”
Yozef
They set up the four 12-pounders thirty yards off the road, two cannon north and two south of the road. From their position, they had a small elevation advantage of the road west. Yozef dealt with the cannon, while the company commander deployed most of his men frantically digging and piling rocks, to provide minimal protection. They rolled some, because they were too heavy to lift. Ten men kept the horses in a draw out of shot exposure, and five men were sent as pickets north and south to warn of flanking attempts.
Sounds of sporadic musket and 6-pounder firings came closer by the minute. Eighty men were still digging when the first of Denes’s dragoons—two companies, Yozef estimated—came racing down the road. They passed without slowing, waving in relief and greeted with cheers by the men Yozef had brought forward.
Following the last dragoons were wagons careening down the road, first visible five hundred yards away, each wagon filled with people hanging on. Harried drivers so intently urged their horses on that they didn’t notice the makeshift entrenchments until almost on top of the cannon and the company.
The driver of the first wagon started to rein in, in panic, until he recognized clansmen, then he lashed the horses. The wagon’s occupants only stared, as they flashed past Yozef, their fear palpable, though he didn’t know whether it was from the Narthani or the wagon ride. Yozef shook his head. Denes was the man on the spot, and slowing down to rescue these people had been a risk. Yozef was glad he hadn’t been the one making the decision.
The last two wagons carried wounded clansmen. Yozef estimated no more than twelve.
I hope that means not many dead. I don’t believe Denes would have left wounded behind.
More mounted clansmen rode past—two companies, by Yozef’s estimate. He stood on a mound and saw the first signs of fighting, smoke from muskets and 6-pounders. Then horses, he thought, and maybe men, but he couldn’t make out what they were doing.
Damn, I left my telescope back at the support camp.
Finally, he saw a cluster of men galloping in his direction. One rider carried the green Caedellium flag he’d designed. Another carried a banner. Denes’s command flag! Relief washed over Yozef. Denes was okay, and they would reach safety.
When Denes made it to their position, Yozef and the company commander stood off the road, waiting. Denes pulled up, took one look at Yozef, and started to say something, then closed his mouth and jumped off his horse.
I bet he was about to say, “What the fuck are you doing here!”
Denes didn’t waste time. “I’ll set up two companies and half of my 6-pounders on the next rise.” He pointed to the small hill that the road disappeared over, about three hundred yards away. “They won’t be able to see if we’ve got another position farther from here, until they get to the top after we withdraw. As soon as we’re ready, you pull out and get back to the camp.”
Yozef noted that Denes hadn’t ordered him back to the support camp.
Orders about me staying out of action or not, Denes deals with the moment, and at this moment I’m manning the 12-pounders.
The company commander ran off, yelling orders to his men and sending runners to pull in the pickets and several men to those holding the horses.
“I see many of your men are riding double,” said Yozef.
“We didn’t have any standup fights, but it’s been long-distance sniping and occasional probes by their lead units at our blocking positions. We lose a few horses every time we withdraw the blocking companies. Horses are too big of targets not to hit a few. Fortunately, not many men have been hit. The 6-pounders kept the Narthani cautious. Only once did they manage to bring up their cannon before we pulled back, which was fortunate, since their cannon seemed to outrange our 6-pounders. I couldn’t see details, but by telescope I got the impression they were somewhere between our 6- and 12-pounders. That one time we lost a cannon, several limbers, and five dead before we got out of range.”
Damn. The Narthani didn’t have anything like that at Moreland City. We’re casting our own, and certainly they know the craft better than we do, so it’s hardly a surprise if they’re putting out new cannon. We can’t assume we’ll always outgun them if they
make something bigger, especially for fixed defenses. Damn.
“I’ll finish seeing the next position set up,” said Denes, “then I’ll be back here to see this position withdraw, and you will get your ass back to the base camp.”
I guess he didn’t forget his orders after all.
Yozef didn’t argue, being relieved and chagrined at the same time.
Forty minutes later, Denes joined the last men to withdraw into the support camp’s position between buttes. Mulron Luwis had already sent the wagons with rescued slaves and the wounded on to Keelan, accompanied by four companies of worn-out dragoons.
“There’s not enough room here for all the men to be useful,” Luwis said to Denes. “I think we can start another three or four companies back, but I wanted to check with you first.”
Denes perused the position. The 12-pounders Yozef had moved forward were being wheeled back into their original dug-in positions. Digging had gone on since the support force arrived, and by now an impressive layout of trenches would allow every musketman to stand upright to reload, then use a step in the trench to fire. They had positioned Denes’s 6-pounders fifty yards to the rear and on higher ground.
Yozef noticed the object of Denes’s gaze. “The 6-pounders are a backup, in the unlikely case the Narthani attack our position and break through. They can also be seen from where the Narthani would come at us, which should help discourage them.”
Heavier Than a Mountain (Destiny's Crucible Book 3) Page 53
