“Gaining ground is simple. Holding ground is difficult. And I do not care how Senator Clark and his American Republic fight their war. Their way is not the Equatorian way, which was made clear when our empress refused to marry the senator last year. Our empire pursues other options. That's the end of it.” Anhalt's tone made it clear that discussion was at an end. He would brook no further argument on the matter, so Mobius wisely let it drop.
Abruptly, the whitening sky darkened as vampires darted out of the cold and miserable mist. Shouts of alarm went down the ranks as soldiers raised weapons and prepared to answer the attack yet again.
Colonel Mobius shouted, “Man your guns! Look lively! Shrapnel shells!” Crews scrambled to the cannons, and his arm rose and fell with each resounding order of “Fire!”
Flak peppered the sky, concussion and shrapnel pushing back the vampires momentarily. Only those creatures that took a direct hit fell to the ground in pieces, while the rest continued their attack.
“Get some men on the shriekers.” Anhalt pointed to several two-foot brass boxes mounted nearby on rough wooden poles.
Mobius shook his head. “They're broken or frozen up. Haven't worked for days.”
The men outside the perimeter struggled back toward the lines with the wounded and dead. But the vampires were too many and too fast. They dropped out of the sky and fell hard onto the backs of those who had been brave enough to step out into No-Man's-Land. Soldiers died instantly in a shower of blood and bone. Those remaining ran harder. Those who carried the dead abandoned their fallen comrades and helped with the wounded, desperately trying for safety. As the terrified men closed the distance to the trench line, machine-gun nests added to the din of artillery. The spray of bullets ripped many vampires to pieces.
“Battery Four! Adjust azimuth twenty-one degrees!” Colonel Mobius shouted with field glasses pressed to his eyes. His voice boomed as loud as his artillery. For those beyond its reach, others repeated orders down the line. Gunners paused to wheel their barrels up, unable to see the new wave looming in the distance. The double-barrels of the eighteen-pounders rhythmically churned out shell after shell.
“They're still coming,” Mobius informed his superior, gesturing toward the city where shapes continued to swarm out from the Bastille fortress lost in the white fog of winter high on the rocky cliffs of the Chartreuse mountain range just behind Grenoble.
There was a moment of silence before General Anhalt ordered, “Use the combustion flak.”
Mobius's eyebrow rose and he swallowed hard. “The wind is light enough. I suppose it's either that or be overrun.”
“We will not be overrun.”
“Yes, sir.”
Word was passed down the line, and special bright brass shells were brought up. They were loaded in place of the normal shrapnel shells. Scrawled on the casings were pictures and slogans depicting the death and hatred of vampires. “Suck This!” “Back to the Grave!” “From Empress Adele, Greetings!”
Also brought up were fifteen long wooden poles that each held a slender warhead. The warheads were rocket-shaped and contained black powder for propulsion and a generous amount of combustible oil. They had a range of about two miles, were notoriously inaccurate, and the men handled them gingerly because they also tended to explode prematurely.
The Fourth Battery resumed its barrage, lobbing the new shells high to explode over the battlefield; but instead of vicious metal fragments, they spewed a yellow fog that hovered like a gaseous blanket. The wind was light, so the gas cloud remained relatively steady over many square miles between the Equatorian lines and Grenoble.
The vampires didn't seem to care as they darted in and out of it, unafraid, laughing almost.
Anhalt nodded and Mobius commanded, “Fire rockets!”
The artillerymen standing beside each of the slender poles applied fire to the ends and the rockets began to sputter. Tails wiggled for a couple of seconds, and then they darted along the length of the poles and up into the sky.
The first rocket flared too high and exploded in a dazzling display of red flame, but none of the sparks made it to the slowly drifting gas. Another rocket went wild and slammed back onto the bleak field tumbling this way and that, propelled forward along the ground in a frenzied dash toward an unknown target. Luckily, it didn't swing back toward the trenches. Finally a third rocket hit nearer the mark, just short of the cloud, but flame caught the edge of the yellow haze. The atmosphere ignited with a loud whoosh. The flames billowed out and over the vampires floating near the cloud. Anhalt watched as the shroud of fire roared above the field. Waves of heat washed over the soldiers, fanning cheeks and exposed skin, making them red and prickly.
At least a hundred vampires were caught in the firestorm. Their screams echoed in the howl of the flames. They writhed and dropped from the sky like charred bits of smoldering ash.
Soldiers cheered.
Abruptly the wind altered, bringing a rush of ice crystals down the side of the looming mountain to their right. The flaming gas cloud shifted and began to descend toward the Equatorian lines with a sickening lurch.
“Take cover! Take cover!” Anhalt shouted as he ran toward a bunker.
Gunners ran for covered trenches. Soldiers in open holes and ditches, far away from protective warrens, drew fire-retardant tarpaulins over their heads or simply pressed face-first into the frozen mud, praying that they'd survive without burning or suffocating.
Anhalt stopped at the door to the bunker, guiding soldier after soldier ahead of himself. The looming wall of heat sucked the very air away. Anhalt listed dizzily as he waved a stumbling straggler past. He ignored shouts, spying another band of soldiers running madly toward him. He knew they weren't going to make it, but still he urged them on. The sky grew red. He could smell his own hair burning. Just before the flames fell, he was yanked inside and the steel door slammed shut before him. A roar boomed and the door rattled with such force that screws and hinges shook loose. Vibrant heat filled the underground narrows.
The man gripping Anhalt's arm stumbled to one knee, so the commander pulled the man deeper into the damp tunnel.
“What do you think you were doing, man?” said Anhalt, leaning the cowled figure back against the dirt wall.
“I will ask you the same question,” was the unsteady reply from Greyfriar, who lifted a shaking hand to his mask to ensure it was still in place.
“The wind shifted. I had to get my men under cover.” Anhalt shook his head angrily. “I left some of them behind.”
Greyfriar straightened, feeling his strength flood back into his limbs as the heat abated. “You should have entered first. You are the war chief.”
“I am no more important than anyone else here.”
“Adele would disagree. She told me to look out for you.”
Anhalt gave a smile. “Funny. I've been charged with the same thing. With you.”
“Then we both have our work cut out for us.” Greyfriar glanced back toward the steel doors, which glowed red around the edges.
“Damn infernal weapon,” Anhalt muttered. “We caught them unaware, but we'll be lucky if they fall for it a second time.”
“They won't.”
Anhalt regarded Greyfriar again. “Were you injured?”
“You make it challenging, but no. I'm fine.”
Anhalt could almost see the toothy smile of the vampire behind the cowl. He would have never expected humor to be part of the creature's repertoire. He was finding that many things he thought about vampires were gross misconceptions. He wondered how many of his officers and men would feel the same way if they knew Greyfriar's secret. Few enough, he suspected.
Greyfriar said, “I'm lucky. I was coming in from the northern lines when the screams of those, what do you call them, rockets, gave me warning. Though they set my teeth on edge.”
“So long as it bothers you,” Anhalt whispered, “then we know it bothers them as well. Hopefully now they'll be wary enough to buy us a day or two
of peace.”
Colonel Mobius ran up, wide-eyed and exhilarated. “By God, that was a close shave!”
“Quite.” Anhalt patted out a glowing smolder on his coat, nonplussed. “As soon as it cools down out there, check the damage. Let's pray our miracle weapon hasn't cost as many on our side as theirs.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Find me when you've finished.”
“Yes, sir.” Mobius departed.
Anhalt started deeper into the underground bunker complex, with Greyfriar falling into step behind him. The dirt corridors were as crowded as a tenement in the worst neighborhoods of old Alexandria. He saw men huddled in every recess, breath misting, eating scarce rations from tins.
Greyfriar asked, “Still no word from Field Marshal Rotherford?”
“None.” Anhalt struggled to keep annoyance out of his tone.
Greyfriar was too polite to notice. “Perhaps the weather has proved difficult for him as well.”
Anhalt grunted. The war strategy that had been crafted for more than a year had to be hastily changed before operations even began. First, the American allies were no longer available due to the collapsed union between Empress Adele and Senator Clark. Second, intelligence from Greyfriar indicated that Cesare had brought the clans of Munich and Budapest together into an effective alliance. To draw off these powerful clans, the Equatorians split their army and sent five divisions to invade the Balkans, aimed at Budapest.
Meanwhile, General Anhalt's army landed in Marseilles in early fall. His opening gambit was to split his elements of the Grand Expeditionary Force to form a pincer attack on the dangerous clan at Lyon at the outlet of the Rhone Valley. Field Marshal Rotherford's overpowered column, nearly a corps in strength at over thirty thousand men, had departed Marseilles for St. Etienne in early October of last year, while Anhalt took his lighter Second Division, close to fifteen thousand men, up the Gap toward Grenoble. According to Greyfriar's scouting, the road to St. Etienne was open, and the city lightly defended. It was expected that St. Etienne could be secured easily, and Rotherford would then detach part of his force eastward with haste to join Anhalt for an attempt to take the more dangerous Grenoble. The goal was to create an operational cordon sanitaire, militarize the Rhone Valley, assault Lyon, and then stage further operations into central France.
However, nothing went quite as planned. The weather turned savage sooner than expected. Resupply from the coast was haphazard. Anhalt's frozen camp below Grenoble was cut off from land and air communication in December, and lay trapped for nearly a month as the vampires drew a net tighter. The few airships he'd had on the advance north were grounded or destroyed now. His men were freezing, sick, and dying, desperately low on food and ammunition. No reinforcements had come from Rotherford to the west.
Anhalt could only speculate what had happened to his brother officer. It was certainly possible that Rotherford's divisions had met with heavier resistance at St. Etienne than expected. He could still be engaged seizing his objective, or perhaps had even been thrown back toward the coast.
Though he didn't wish to, the Gurkha couldn't help but consider another reason why a relief column had failed to show. General Rotherford had been loud in his displeasure about Anhalt leapfrogging over more superior officers, such as Rotherford himself, to take command of the Imperial Army. He had made no secret of his opinion that Anhalt was an officer of limited command experience, as well as the author of the so-called Ptolemy Disaster last year when Princess Adele had been captured by the British vampire clan. Yet, General Anhalt had been declared sirdar, that grand old Egyptian rank, and given the greatest army Equatoria had ever mustered, only because he was the pet of Empress Adele.
Anhalt put aside his speculations and turned his attention back to Greyfriar, who was studying the men in their tight confines. The vampire seemed continually fascinated by humans. It was the damnedest thing.
A familiar face appeared in the chaos. The stern ebony visage of General Luteta Ngongo from Katanga stopped and saluted. “Sirdar.” He offered a polite nod to Greyfriar.
Anhalt returned the salute and led him into an alcove reserved for officers that had a simple stove. “You don't seem happy, Luteta.” It couldn't be the extreme cold, despite the general's knee-length kilt and light shirt. Ngongo was used to operating his Mountaineer regiment in the sleet-driven wastes of the Rwenzori Mountains of central Africa.
“I fear I have nothing good to report. My Mountaineers returned from our latest scouting expedition yesterday.” He held up a chart of the local Alps. All the tactical maps were based on old nineteenth-century documents, and were of limited use. “We could find no safe route to the west. The few passes that looked promising were either blocked or swarming with vampires. They are not suitable for retreat.”
“Did you lose many men?”
“More than I'd like.” General Ngongo tossed the chart on a rickety table and bent over it with a scowl. “I'm sorry, Sirdar. I will re-form my men and go out again tomorrow. There is another possible candidate farther to the south.”
Greyfriar noted, “If the vampires keep attacking every day, which they will, you won't have enough ammunition or food to support a retreat.”
Anhalt strode to the makeshift stove whose coals were long unlit and cold and, therefore, so was the coffee. Fingers stiff with bitter chill brushed the tin pot aside in annoyance. He tipped his khaki helmet back. “We can't retreat. We can't wait. We have only one choice now. If we are going to die, let's take the fight to them.”
Greyfriar said, “It will be a bloodbath to storm the city as weak as we are.”
“An attack on Grenoble is a desperate gamble, but we are quite desperate.”
“If I may, Sirdar,” Ngongo offered without waiting for permission, “I agree with you. I'd prefer to move forward. I'm frankly tired of wading through the hip-deep snow. Better to be killed with a loaded gun in your hand than crawling on the frozen ground.”
Anhalt regarded his colleague before turning to Greyfriar. “You spend a great deal of time among the enlisted men. What would you say is their general feeling? Wait for relief or fight?” The general waited with his back rigid for the answer he knew was coming.
“They would choose to fight. I sense there is little they won't do for Adele, but the conditions are draining their enthusiasm for the war.”
“Well, that's surprising,” the sirdar grunted. “Very well. Our path is clear. Victory or death.”
SIRDAR GENERAL ANHALT convened a meeting of his General Staff in a freezing dirt-walled room. Present were the commanding officers of the various units of the Second Division of the Imperial Expeditionary Force: Colonel Mobius of the artillery brigade; Generals Khalifa and Dikkha, both recently elevated to the command of the two regiments of foot; General Ngongo of the Katanga Volunteer Regiment; Greyfriar; and General Anhalt himself. They were a somber group, but resolved. All knew they were likely facing the issuance of copious death certificates.
The sirdar surveyed his officers. “Gentlemen, we know the situation. We are out of time and will not survive long languishing here. Therefore, we must take Grenoble now. General Dikkha, General Khalifa, feed the men as well as possible. Then form your regiments in their entirety for the assault. All weapons and ammunition are to be served out.” He looked at Colonel Mobius. “Shortly before dawn tomorrow, your artillery will bombard the perimeter of the city and demolish the old walls, taking care to avoid as much of the core of the city as possible. Our eighteen-pounders are not optimal for taking down fortifications, but I trust you will do your best. Once complete, all infantry forces will go over the top and move into Grenoble to engage the enemy. I have unit orders to pass out later.”
Anhalt paced in front of the several mediocre maps of the area. He pointed at the Bastille high above Grenoble. “General Ngongo, your Mountaineers will depart today and move into position above the fort. Take the Dyula mercenaries with you for skirmishers. We have a small store of shoulder rockets, which are y
ours. When operations commence in the valley, you will storm the Bastille, where the clan lords tend to reside.”
The Katangan officer nodded in grim agreement.
“Gentlemen, we have reached the point where there are no options. We have no air cover. We are laboring to get some shriekers into operation. The combustion flak is far too dangerous to our own men. There is little gain to be had from devising clever tactics. We cannot succeed through stealth or misdirection; the creatures are over us, spying at all times. Our only advantage is brute strength. Sheer firepower. We must bring firearms to bear at a distance. And, if that fails, steel at close quarters. We must simply come to grips with the enemy in a set battle, and kill more of them than they do of us. That is the end of it, gentlemen. It is us or them.”
The officers sat mute. They all understood.
General Ngongo regarded Greyfriar, who leaned in the frigid corner, long legs stretched out in front of him. “And you, my friend, what of you? You are the mysterious ranger. Battles and armies are not your usual place. What mysterious role will you be playing in this maneuver?”
Greyfriar chuckled. “I'll find something to keep me busy. If your Mountaineers manage to reach the king of Grenoble, you will find me there waiting for you.”
A commotion outside made them pause in their strategizing. The door opened and a red-faced lieutenant ran in, saluting quickly, and then blurted out, “We are under attack, sir. The Highlanders of the Fifth report they are hard-pressed from the south.” General Khalifa, commander of Constantine's Fifth Regiment of Foot, stood in alarm.
Anhalt frowned bitterly at the news. “Damn them. I had hoped that the combustible flak would have deterred them for a few hours at least. Send word to Second Luxor to move up and reinforce. Have units of the Mombasa Askaris stand by to rotate in.” The lieutenant acknowledged and departed.
“General Khalifa, you'll want to get to your units. Gentlemen, we'll reconvene at a future time. Carry on.” Anhalt rose to his feet and his officers followed suit, trailing him out and departing for well-worn duties with their commands. Greyfriar fell into step beside Anhalt.
Kingmakers, The (Vampire Empire Book 3) Page 2
