The Forge

by S. M. Stirling

  "Their commander?"

  "He sits at meat with his fellows and their unveiled whores, lord; they speak with the learned Imam Faysal al-'Aziz, who comes to ransom captives. The platoon which guards him went to escort the Imam into their camp, and I think will ride to see that they leave by the agreed route as well."

  The Colonist commander grinned and spat. "Ahh, this is good. Gather about me, warriors of Islam." The others crowded close to hear the low voice. "Brothers, there is no God but God, and nothing is accomplished save by the will of God. If we slay the commander of the unbelievers, this will be a thing of great good; his is the better-ordered band among the invaders and without him perhaps they will be easy meat for the amir. The danger will be great. Who will come with me?"

  None of the men hesitated more than a second. The Colonist officer nodded, pride on his face. "Remember that he who falls in battle against the unbelievers is granted forgiveness of sins and attains Paradise." He pulled a notepad from his sash, and a graphite writing stick from the cloth winding about his spired helmet, sketching a map and writing quickly.

  "Here," he said, handing them to the scout. "To the commander of the forward column, and with a recommendation that it be shown immediately to the amir himself. Follow us only half the distance; if we kill the unbeliever, I will throw a flare bomb." He touched a wooden casing at his belt. "Report our failure or success, as God wills." The scout's face worked as he prepared a protest. "Those are your orders, Husni az-Zaim, and are so written in that message."

  —and time blurred, and they were surging up out of the shallow gully and into the camp, their swift agile dogs leaping tent-ropes and dodging into the dark before the soldiers could react to their passage. Carbines spat at pockets of resistance, and then the swords were out when there was no time to reload. Raj saw the marquee looming, a table overturning; a tall man in blue falling with one arm nearly severed at the shoulder…

  * * *

  "Sir, are you all right?

  "Better than I'd have been if that bullet'd gone a handspan to the left," Raj barked, as his surroundings faded back to normal; he wiped a sleeve over his face again, to remove the last of the brains. "Because in that case I'd be bloody dead, wouldn't I?"

  Thiddo made an incoherent apology; Raj waved it aside as he wiped and sheathed his sword and snapped out the cylinder of his revolver. Anguished embarrassment was making Thiddo's speech impediment worse; that was unjust, the fight had lasted about forty seconds before relief arrived, not bad time. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm as his fingers handled the tubes of brass and cardboard and lead.

  "And somebody shut up that damned dog!" he continued; the Basiji was still howling. Thiddo made a hand signal and several of his men faced left, firing a volley with their muzzles almost touching the animal's side. The nine hundred pounds of it fell with a thud that made the ground shake slightly under their feet; it whimpered, twitched, laid its pointed muzzle across its master's legs, and died. Relative silence fell; there were still shots from the baggage park, shouts, the sound of men and dogs moaning or whimpering in pain, but conversation became possible.

  "Sir. Report." Thiddo's voice had a strained sound, as if he were making it obey by an effort of will. "Perimeter is on alert. No further enemy forces within the perimeter. Contact established with First Company on vedette; nothing to report. My men are reestablishing order among the camp followers, sir. Orders, sir?"

  "Carry on, for the moment," he snapped aloud. Why now? Why didn't you show me that five minutes ago, curse you?

  You felt it was unnecessary to entrench, despite my warning. Raj felt himself shaking, the world narrowing to a pinpoint concentration of rage. I could have been bloody killed, and so much for unifying Bellevue!

  I have waited a thousand years, the voice said, in the same chill tones, it is necessary to educate you. If the process kills you as well, there will be another, if not in this cycle, then the next.

  * * *

  Suzette picked up the derringer she had thrown at her feet and walked to meet Raj; that turned into a sprint, and a quick fierce hug. He returned it, as the trigger guard of the carbine she was still holding in her right hand dug into his back. The place where Center's visions had shown his own death was not two meters from where he stood, and he stared at it for a moment over his wife's shoulder, dizzy with the memory of himself falling/might have fallen, arm hanging by a thread…

  "Shit!"

  That was Stanson, prone on the ground as a priest-doctor probed at his buttock; the trouser had been cut away, exposing a bullet hole in the great muscle. Next to him Merta sat, having a long shallow saber cut on her back bandaged by another. The priest grunted, twisted the probe expertly and withdrew it, holding up the piece of flattened metal that glinted dully in the lantern light.

  "Got it," he announced. "Hmm, pretty small—even for a raghead carbine, more like a small caliber… hmmm, better see if there's more." The 2nd's commander, grey-faced and sweating, bit down on a cuff while the probe went back in. Shaking his head, the priest strapped an iodine-soaked dressing over the wound.

  "Minor wound, Messer. Couple of weeks and you'll be good as new."

  "Shit," Stanson muttered again. He craned his neck up and met Raj's eyes, managing a shaky smile. "I'll never live it down, Whitehall; one minute I'm pistoling them, the next I'm down, shot in the arse, by the Spirit. Didn't see any of them behind me, must have been a ricochet… " His gaze met Suzette's. "And then one of them was cutting at me, I think he pulled the first one because it hit Merta. And Lady Whitehall shot him out of the saddle before he could strike again. We owe you a debt, I think."

  Suzette smiled, one of her charming Court expressions. "No debts between friends, Helmt," she said coolly. "You must have gotten four or five of them before you were hit… and better the buttocks than the spine or kidney."

  Stanson shuddered. "Spirit of man, yes, only fifty millimeters difference."

  Muzzaf hobbled over, clutching his stomach. "Just winded," he wheezed. "Kicked." From the way he clutched his ribs one or two might be cracked, but you could move with an injury like that. His voice took on more strength. "Those men were in the uniform of regular cavalry," he said.

  Raj nodded grimly. "Here's where those irregulars earn their keep," he said. "Muzzaf, find Bani Crodor," the closest they had to a leader. "And get me da Cruz; at first light, we—"

  * * *

  "Lord," Crodor croaked, then hawked and took a quick swig from his canteen. "We found them."

  That was obvious; the irregulars had limped in with an escort from Raj's outlying vedettes, as the huge column of soldiers and plunder finally creaked into motion. There were dogs with empty saddles among them, and others missing altogether; one saddle had a black fletched arrow standing up like a quill, and several of the bordermen were clutching wounds, gunshot and sword. Their dogs had even found climbing the last small hillock where the officers of the 5th and 2nd waited a burden.

  Crodor continued. "Ten, perhaps eleven kilometers from here, lord, and coming fast. Their scout screen is Bedouin, with some of the local landowner's retainers perhaps, but we pushed through"—risking death at the hands of vastly superior forces, or capture which would be worse "—and we saw regular cavalry of the Settler, riding in columns of twos. No artillery or wagons that we could see, lord."

  Stanson cut in. "How many?" he said, shifting in the saddle. The doctors had packed the wound with sterile gauze at his insistence, and he was mobile enough. It was fiendishly painful, though, and obviously not improving his disposition.

  Crodor pulled at his beard. "I cannot say, Messer," he replied. "No less than five hundreds. But there was much dust further back; another five hundred again, it may be. Perhaps more."

  Retreat quickly, Center's voice advised: your mission is essentially completed, destroy the remaining baggage and pull back to komar.

  "Hmmm," Raj said aloud. "This collection of junk," he indicated the transport, "is going to slow us down. We
're not here to fight the Colonial army… if we dumped it… "

  "What?" Stanson asked. From their expressions, some of his officers would have liked to say more; one or two let their hands fall to their pistol butts. "That's our loot down there, man!" The 2nd had preferred to keep theirs all under their eyes, rather than taking the trouble to send it off as it came in. Three-quarters of the booty here was theirs.

  Raj glanced at his own Companions and officers; the reluctance on their faces matched his. Retreating was one thing, running away another. "Recommendations, gentlemen?"

  Gerrin Staenbridge nodded south. "They travel fast. Even with nothing but the artillery, we wouldn't be able to break contact unless they let us." The Colonists were lighter men on slender dogs. "But even if they can match our numbers, we can give them a bloody nose as long as they have to come to us." Colonial weapons had a better rate of fire than the ones used by the Civil Government's forces, but less stopping power and considerably less range.

  "Thank you, Senior Lieutenant," Raj said formally. "As long as we can avoid a meeting engagement or a melee, I don't think enemy forces of this size are much of a threat, yes. What we can do—if you concur, Captain Stanson—is to send on all the more mobile transport to El Djem; we burned the buildings, but the stockade's intact and there's water. We'll fall back more slowly, they won't dare try to send a substantial force around us under these circumstances. From El Djem we can either stand them off if they're so foolish as to attack the stockade, or simply repeat the process on a larger scale back to Komar. Agreed?"

  Stanson nodded, and his followers relaxed; some of them still looked a little contemptuous of Raj and the 5th, for even suggesting a retreat.

  "Why can't we take the offensive?" one asked.

  Because it would be stupid, Raj thought. The man was a lieutenant; Evrard Gruder answered him, as the equivalent in the 5th.

  "Because it would be… futile," he said. "We can't catch them unless they let us, and they could lead us off into the alkali desert and then harry us to death. It's happened to Civil Government forces down here before."

  "One company for escort?" Master Sergeant da Cruz said; the officers had approved a course of action, and it was time for implementation.

  "By all means. Thiddo?"

  The commander of Third Company nodded; his force had the most walking wounded, and they would get less strain and a little extra rest.

  "Then I suggest we move, gentlemen," Raj said, looking south. The dust cloud of troops on the march was just barely visible over the glaring white earth, standing against the faded blue of the sky.

  * * *

  "Range?" Raj asked.

  Barton Foley raised his binoculars. They were only five kilometers from El Djem, now; apart from the attack last night on the dug-in camp there had been only minor skirmishing.

  "Five-two-zero-zero, meters, sir," he said.

  Raj grunted, looking to left and right. The Civil Government force was retreating toward its base in extended order by Company column; nine widely spaced groups, with the four guns trotting along slightly behind the men. The terrain was nearly flat, long gentle swells, covered in coarse dark soil and fist-sized black rocks. At least we're off that damned alkali flat, he thought, licking cracked lips. But it was still hot enough that shimmers and mirage made estimating distance almost impossible, and some of the dogs were whimpering and limping as they put paw to earth. Tongues dangled, panting; some of the men were sacrificing their own water ration to rub the necks of their mounts occasionally, or laying their spare tunics over them as sun blankets. For the rest they rode slumped in the saddle, eyes staring dully ahead and great patches of sweat showing dark on the crystallized salt-deposits that marked their jackets.

  Those in the main body could at least be glad they were not on the wings, where clouds of dust showed continuous feint and skirmish. The flank guards were rotated every two hours or so, and it was still brutally draining.

  "You're right," Raj replied. Then: "I think they're getting closer again." He raised his own glasses. Brown dogs and red jellabas sprang out at him; the enemy had been coming on in column of march, since they were less apprehensive of a sudden attack. Tewfik's seal-of-Solomon banner in the lead. Raj felt his lips crack and bleed as he snarled at the sight; far too many of Center's scenarios had turned on Tewfik's skills. Was that burly figure under the banner him? It was a little too far to see faces with any clarity, especially with this heat haze, too far even to pick out an eyepatch; Tewfik's was said to have the Seal of Solomon picked out on it in diamonds, and his men believed it carried a curse to his enemies.

  The advancing columns seemed to split, multiplying. He blinked, wiped his red-rimmed eyes on a sleeve harsh with salt and dust, looked again. Deploying, he realized with a chill. Peeling off to either side without pausing, converting the march formation into a two-rank line suitable for…

  "Attack," he muttered. "They're going to try us before we get to El Djem."

  "Foley," he snapped. "Message: to Senior Lieutenant Dinnalsyn." The artillery commander. "My compliments, and I believe the enemy is going to attempt to press home an attack; they won't stop for a few shells, this time. He is to deploy into line on current position" —they were on the uprise of one of the swells, looking across a broad shallow valley at the Colonists—"and open fire for effect at three-point-five k meters, and I'd advise him to have the gunners prepare some point-blank fused shrapnel."

  "M'lewis," he continued, "same warning to Captain Stanson, would he please inform his subordinates that under no circumstances are any units to leave position without orders."

  "Trumpeter," he went on, as the two kicked their dogs into a fast lope. "Sound—

  "Attention to orders."

  The battalions continued their steady advance, but there was a ripple like grass under wind—for a moment the sweet scent of the high-plateau rangelands of Descott filled his memory—as they sat in the saddle, and the dogs lifted their heads and raised drooping ears.

  "Prepare to countermarch, by Companies—"

  Foley's mount had already pulled up by the guns, and Raj could see the tiny stick figure salute and give the message. The field pieces stopped where they were, crews leaping down from teams and caissons; the dogs were unhitched and trotted to the rear, ready to snatch the 75's out of danger but also out of the way. Ammunition limbers were unhitched from the pole trails of the guns; the muzzles jerked up as the trails hit the ground, and the limbers were opened. A Y-shaped rangefinder went up in the center of the battery; breeches swung open, men worked the elevating screws, shells were fused and slammed home.

  "Countermarch!"

  The Company columns were four men wide; now every one split, like a reed pushed against a knifeblade, a column of twos curling back in reverse direction to left and right from each. The rear men continued in the same direction as before, until they came to the turning point and wheeled. Less than a minute, and the whole force was moving back on its own tracks; he looked over to the right, to the 2nd Gendarmerie, and found they had done the maneuver more smoothly even than the 5th, if that was possible. Parade-ground soldiers, he thought.

  "Halt—dismount—"

  They braked to a stop and pulled the rifles out of the scabbards, another long ripple, like reeds in a swamp this time as the muzzles showed slanted across the dogs, the men swinging down.

  "Prepare to Receive Cavalry!"

  The dogs crouched, laying their bellies to the ground but ready to spring, presenting the least possible target. The men rushed forward the regulation ten paces, front rank going prone, rear kneeling; the bayonets rattled onto their catches, levers worked, the flaps of cartridge cases were clipped back. Raj raised his binoculars again as he clapped heels to Horace's flanks, down to the firing line; thirty-six hundred meters, he estimated, and they had halted in line abreast. Four deep but more widely spaced than Civil Government troops would be; battalion strength, right enough. A quiver, and their scimitars came out, sloped back and r
esting on their shoulders.

  Raj rode out in front of his men, alone but for the standard-bearer and the trumpeter, watching their faces as he cantered down to the middle of the line. Tight-gripped tension, perhaps even a little too much eagerness, after the boredom and anxiety-filled discomfort of the three-day retreat. Looking at the long glitter of enemy steel on the ridge behind his back… and thinking of the officer who was the squire back home, of men on either side who would witness and report their honor or their shame. He rose in the stirrups and drew his sword: best keep it short and sweet, but the men expected something to be said. He pitched his voice to carry, knowing that the ends of the line would be getting it by word-of-mouth relay.

  "Well, lads," he shouted. "Here we are—we've burned their crops, looted their towns, had their women—and now they want to fight!" He waited four heartbeats. "Just like the ragheads to put it all arse-end first, isn't it?"

  A roar of laughter, cut short by a downward motion of his saber. "That's Devil Tewfik himself coming, Descotters; a bad one and a mad one. Thinks he's going to nail our heads and our balls to his barn door, he does." Another cry, a jeer this time. "Just remember your drill, lads, and wait for the order, and we'll send them home screaming for their mothers. Show them who you are, what you're made of, and where you come from. Up the 5th! Descott forever!"

  They started another cheer as he rode back to his position at the right end of the line:

  "Raj!"

  "Raj!"

  "Well, gentlemen," he said to the officers gathered there, and nodded to the enemy on the ridgeline opposite. "I don't think they'll wait much longer." For that matter, they had waited too long as it was, giving the Civil Government force time to get settled. "Commence volley fire at 750 meters, if you please." He brought out his amulet, kissed it. "Spirit with you."