by David Drake
“Timon, get Landry over here.”
* * *
“I first heard about it from an old Scout,” Landry Hoster told Abel. “They found it out when they were making those nishterlaub lucifers they love to carry around with them in the Redlands.”
Abel’s hand strayed down to the pack of lucifers in his tunic pocket. Old Scout habits never died.
“Then, as you know, the damn thing nearly got me kicked out of the Academy.”
Abel remembered: the entire level of student quarters had been enveloped that day by thick smoke streaming from Cadet Hoster’s rooms.
“I was worried they were going to hang you for heresy,” Abel said.
“Nah, but the priests tried to expel me. Got called up to the Tabernacle review court, all that mess.”
“And yet you walked out of there a free man, and whistling that annoying Delta jig you like.”
“‘Veronica’s Barrel.’ Twice-damn right I was.” Landry stood a moment as if remembering the song, then spoke. “They found me innocent of incitement to immorality. Case closed.”
“You were guilty by every Thursday school lesson I’ve ever sat through.”
Landry nodded. “It was Goldfrank.”
“The Abbot?”
“The very same,” Landry replied, shaking his head in disbelief still.
This was something Abel had not known.
“The Chief Priest of Zentrum? He let you off?”
“He said no particular part of what I’d done involved nishterlaub. The fact that I’d made a stink and a spectacle wasn’t the matter at hand. He said it was up to him to decide if what my ingredients made when I put them together was nishterlaub. That was the only call the court could make.” Landry nodded. “And the guy let me off.”
“On a technicality.”
“Hey, I was glad to take what I could get.” Landry unconsciously fingered his unhung neck and shuffled to a more comfortable position in his saddle. “Anyway, I saved up my barter chits and made an even bigger one. Then you and I and Timon took it out to those wastelands you like to wander around in.”
“The Giants.”
“Hate that place. Creepy. But good for the purpose.”
It was a region north of Lindron of enormous stone blocks cut through with a crazed grid of gullies, and rock lying on rock.
The largest original settlement on Duisberg. A city of five hundred thousand people in its day, Center had told Abel. Transformed by the nano-plague of the Collapse into solid rock. The towers, no longer supported by concretized steel, toppled over, giving the area the appearance of an enormous battlefield filled with fallen warriors, each a colossus. This is likely where the name originated.
The perfect place to conduct a secret pyrotechnic experiment and not get caught.
“Timon said he was coming along to make sure we kept Edict, but I know he wanted to see something go boom.”
“Yes. He was disappointed it didn’t make more sound.”
“This one’s going to be bigger.” Landry’s grin became a smile of happiness. “This will be the biggest ever.”
* * *
The wagon floor was layered with percussion caps. Over this, Landry’s engineers sprinkled soda ash, a product otherwise brought along for gun cleaning. Then another layer of caps was laid down, each soldier in the brigade contributing half of the caps from his own cartridge box. This would, of course, cut in half the number of shots available for each soldier on the campaign. Couldn’t be helped.
Over this material, Lowry sprinkled several sacks of granulated Delta cane sugar. It was precious stuff, and the few nonengineer soldiers whom Landry ordered to help were agog at the seeming waste. Landry’s engineers, however, knew exactly what they were doing, and they poured the sugar with a cheerfully unconcerned attitude.
A final layer of soda about a thumb’s-length deep was poured over the second layer of caps. Then, from openings he’d carefully drilled in the bottom of the wagon, Landry ignited his “infernal device,” as he called it. He took sticks as small as kindling wood from a prepared fire and slowly worked them into the bottom of the wagon through his access points. He’d laid a layer of ground moss on the very bottom to elevate the lower layer of caps enough to have some—but not much—air flow under them. The kindling ignited the moss, which smoldered rather than burned. The kindling coals and smoldering moss slowly heated the caps, setting off a slow burn in the powder inside them. They expanded, crackled open, spewing their innards into the soda ash. The tiny, slow fires in each cap produced smoke that must travel upward and escape. As it did so, the vapors combined with the soda ash and grew many times thicker. The vapors finally emerged on the top of the layers as a dense gray smoke, and lots of it.
Potassium chloride, bicarbonate of soda, sucrose. The recipe for an effective smoke maker, Center said.
“Get on!” said Landry to the team of daks harnessed to the wagon. They leaned into their traces, snorted dak snot from their blowholes, and lumbered forward, pulling the smoking wagon north along the Ferry Road. He and his command staff sergeant rode the seatboard and, if all went well, would be the only ones fully exposed to enemy fire.
Abel gazed up at the fortifications of Tamarak on the peak behind Sentinel. He detected the glint of two large guns, brighter even than the gleam from the assembled musketry.
More cannons?
Yes.
This will be interesting.
The smoke from the wagon was pleasingly thick—thicker than any River fog Abel had ever seen. The contraption trundled along at the speed of the lumbering daks. The company sergeants ordered their troops up and, company by company, the Third made a quick march behind the smoke wagon.
The wind was light. The wagon’s smoke hung over the roadbed. There should be no way anyone above would be able to see through it to locate individual men or even bunched units.
It didn’t take the commanders at Fort Tamarak long to realize this. The only choice was indiscriminate fire. This they laid down in volley after volley. The smoke wagon continued down the road.
Now the cannons above—there appeared to be two—were levered downward, lined up with where the Road would usually be had it not been covered by smoke, and fired. Ball after ball smashed into the roadway. Some balls were hollowed out, filled with gunpowder, and had fuses set within them. When these exploded, they might take out dozens of men at a time if they landed in an unlucky spot.
Fortunately, every spot was lucky, for there were no men in the smoke. For the Third was marching into the miasma, and then, after the distance of a fieldmarch, they moved off the road and sat tight. Rank after rank marched in—and sat down.
Farther along the road, minié balls, cannons, and fused balls flew into the smoke like a swarm of biting insectoids. Explosion after explosion lit up the thick billows with flashes of fire. But the explosions did not disperse it.
And they did not reveal that the enemy was shooting at absolutely nothing.
Under the smoke, the road was empty.
Tamarak, of course, took potshots at the smoke wagon. One lucky shot passed over the smoke wagon and almost hit Landry’s staff sergeant, but the man happened to be bending down to recover a dropped rein at the time, and it flew past.
While Landry was preparing his device, Abel had sent his mounted scouts—about ten in all—up the flank of the ridge that connected Sentinel with Tamarak peak, and now they’d returned.
He and Rigga, his Scout commander, conferred on the road at the base of the ridge as the last of the Third disappeared into the smoke.
“You were right, Colonel,” said Rigga—he was another of the Cascade reserve Goldies serving in the Third. Rigga was gasping from the hard-riding dash up the hill and back again. His dont, too, was wheezing through its breathing hole. Abel stayed far enough back to avoid the mucus. Dont snot was acidic and could burn flesh—not badly, but enough to hurt. Rigga gathered his breath and continued.
“There’s a good path along the ridge to
p, all right. Wide enough for two wagons. It connects the two forts.”
“Good,” said Abel. “Anything else?”
“Well, the whole place is a graveyard.”
“Say again.”
“All along the ridge saddle, and up the two slopes it connects, pretty far up. Gravestones. Hundreds of them, all facing south, I guess toward Zentrum. Some high as a man. Maybe thousands of them, now that I consider it. Looks like the whole of Progar gets themselves buried there.”
“Interesting,” Abel said. He turned to Timon. “Major Athanaskew, get the men roused and moving up the ridge. And let them know they’re to take cover when they get to the top.”
“Take cover where, Colonel?” said Timon.
“You deliver the message and I’ll provide the cover,” Abel answered.
A sea of gravestones, some high as a man. Perfect.
5
Abel and the Third Brigade worked their way up to the saddle between Sentinel Mountain and Tamarak Peak. They were well shielded from Fort Sentinel in this position, but in view of anyone peering over the revetments of Tamarak. But it seemed the men there were too intent on blowing the cold hell out of the troops they supposed were within the smoke to keep a sharp lookout to their southeast.
It looked like they’d gotten over three thousand men onto the ridge top, although some were still arriving. And Rigga had been right about there being thousands of gravestones. There was easily a stone for every man to lay low behind.
He had position and he had cover for attack.
* * *
When he reached the ridgeline, Abel had planned to cut south and attack the fort on Sentinel. But now it became obvious that Tamarak should be dealt with first. It was closer, for one thing, no more than ten fieldmarches above them along the ridge. Abel could easily make out its walls from where he stood, and the gate set in them. The communication track between the forts went up the ridge meandering like a stream around clumps of graves. The ridge itself was sparsely populated by trees, and there were many stumps.
Likely the dwellers of the fort don’t like to go far for firewood, Raj said.
So the way to Tamarak was clear enough. But how to get over or through that wall? The only siege weapons he had were willow-wand grappling hooks, one carried per platoon. If they couldn’t scale the walls with those, they wouldn’t get over.
The slope upward to the Tamarak position was gentler than the climb in the opposite direction to Sentinel—although it was steep enough. The graves were not uniformly spread, but occurred in clumps, as if they’d grown that way.
Family and clan units, Center said.
The track wound through them. A charge, when it came, would have to be straighter, on the wagon track when possible, but off and through the graves when necessary. The mounts wouldn’t be of use at this incline, and Abel ordered all riders down.
It would be a charge by all.
They could begin from where they were. The men were already spread out by company. The leaders could easily form them up.
When?
No time like the present, man, growled Raj. Your captain’s smoke was a marvel, but somebody up there is going to notice you sooner or later.
Abel pointed up the mountain. “Timon, let’s get them up there and see what we find. In lines, by company.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Major,” said Abel. “Let’s be as quiet as we can. We don’t want to wake the dead.”
“Will do, sir.” Timon turned to his runners, and they headed out with the orders.
Within moments, rough lines were formed.
Abel pulled out his saber from its scabbard. It was useless against muskets and artillery. Not useless when leading a charge, however.
He raised the blade, held it aloft for a long moment, giving the men plenty of time to turn eyes to him.
With a downward slice, he lowered the sword, its tip pointing up the ridgeline.
Eerily, quietly, the Goldies began their uphill charge through the graves.
* * *
Commanders and their officers charged upward, and their men followed. Abel waited until several companies had moved ahead of his position, then put himself and his staff into the mix.
The vanguard of the charge was at the wall of the fort before the enemy on Tamarak saw them coming. The leading wave let off a rattling volley before they were able to stop and aim, but, being Goldies, some of the balls found their marks even so, and two sentries topped from the breastworks. The remaining lookouts called out in alarm to the fort. Then they turned and fired down into the charging mass.
When Abel grew closer he saw something that left him dumbfounded. The wall that had looked so formidable from below was no more than a man’s height from base to top.
There was no need for grappling or climbing. Men could simply be given a leg up. In fact, some were practically launched and thrown over.
The fort was not designed to defend against an attack from the ridge. The ramparts were a joke.
In the end, the swarming Third could not be held back. They boiled over the gateway of the outer ramparts, taking down the sentries by sheer force of weight.
The gateway opened. It was wide enough to take a cart through, easily wide enough for five men shoulder-to-shoulder.
Once they were inside, things got harder.
Show me what I’m up against, thought Abel.
Interpolating. Observe:
A desperate resistance had formed among the enemy. Also a well-armed one. There was a standing firefight between pistols and muskets at no more than five paces. But there were a thousand men behind each Guardian who went down, and far fewer to replace the fallen Progarmen.
A rush with bayonets sent the enemy running, but it lost momentum for a moment as the Goldies in the front, stepping over bodies, slipped on the blood-swathed floor. Several fell. It might have been funny, had the blood not been partly that of their platoon mates.
Some were trampled from behind, but most picked themselves up or were yanked up, and the surge continued.
Then, rounding a corner, the Goldies came face-to-face with something they’d never experienced before, had not been allowed to experience.
A cannon had been wrenched around on its iron base and pointed down the corridor in which the charge was coming on.
Those in the lead faltered for a moment, more in bewilderment than dismay, then continued screaming toward the cannon. When they were mere paces away, the cannon fired. It was loaded with the scattering shot Abel had heard of from Center, and the men in front were shredded, torn apart, and spattered in all directions.
The cannonfire was ultimately a useless gesture, however. There was no time to go through the laborious motions of reloading. The cannon crew knew this, and immediately took to their heels running down the corridor behind them.
Guardians followed, now more careful.
One Progarman with a volley gun attempted a last stand. But he was shaking, and tipped the gun too far upward as he set off the intricate trigger-and-hammer system. The shots rattled off the ceiling, ricocheting down into the ranks, but only taking down one man, and him only injured.
The soldier with the volley gun seemed bewildered and did not run. The Goldies rushed him and bayonetted him like a pincushion in retribution for those killed by the cannon shot.
Interpolation complete.
Abel blinked back to his own reality with the screams of the Progarman echoing in his mind.
There were, at most, three hundred soldiers manning the fort. Now, with no defenses facing the right direction and a breakdown of command, they didn’t stand a chance against the weight of nearly five thousand.
Within what seemed like a handful of eyeblinks, Abel had the place, its former inhabitants captured or killed. The dead lay in contorted ruin against walls, slumped over powder kegs and provisions or piled in stacks three men deep to get them out of the way.
The fort smelled of spent powder and blood.
Then Abel had to contain the victory itself. He quickly had Groelsh send a squad of his hardest men to cut off a move to throw the enemy survivors over the sides.
“We need to interrogate them,” he said. This was the only excuse he thought the men might listen to.
He had captured Tamarak, and it was not yet noon.
6
Abel climbed up a flight of stairs to a signal-flag platform. From this high point, he made out Sentinel and its fort on the adjacent mountain. The task of taking it did not look easy.
The way up from the saddle was steeper and longer. Attacking straight up the ridge would be far more difficult. Tamarak’s summit was broad and flat. Sentinel rose to a point.
The walls of Fort Sentinel are higher and the gateway there will be stronger and better guarded.
Aye, that’s about right from the looks of this place.
How do you know from that?
The architecture of this fort marks it as a former storehouse and ammunition dump for the larger fort on Sentinel Mountain, Center said. Tamarak was never meant for defense. The works here have been hastily constructed, and, as you saw, there are points of fatal weakness in the design.
The ridge wall and gate.
Precisely. The Sentinel structure, however, is built for strength. It will have a smaller constricting ridge gateway that can be closed tightly, or opened and used as a grinder of the men sent through it. Furthermore, the walls appear to be too high to assault by grapples.
Then we’ll have to do it another way.
You have a plan in mind?
Yes. Landry Hoster.
* * *
“Hmm. We do have these two cannons,” Landry said.
Abel had found Landry on the parapet where the cannons were mounted, as he’d expected to.
“We saw them blown to pieces,” Abel said. “They’re not to be counted on.”
“Ah, yes,” Landry replied. “I have a couple of ideas about that. It’s the seams that split. That’s what I’ve been doing here—checking out the way they’ve rolled this metal together.”
The very statement of the process brought the feeling of revulsion, of contact with nishterlaub, into Abel’s mind. Even after all these years of knowing better, the Thursday school lessons of childhood still had an emotional grip on him down deep. But he ignored the feeling.
