Union Forever

by William R. Forstchen

  Their advance out of the city had been covered by a hundred mounted warriors, who had pushed back the thin screen of archers sent out to meet them. So far Vincent felt it was going to plan, with his deployment concealed from the enemy. The only problem was that the next line of hills, a half mile forward, was acting as a screen for the Carthas as well. A long line of men occupied the crest, armed with spears and bows, but what they had hidden directly behind that low ridge was a mystery.

  The Carthas had done a clean job of it, he thought with grudging admiration. They had cut the town off, and not a single inhabitant had gotten back to the city to tell them what was actually going on.

  "This doesn't seem right," Marcus said coldly, still gazing through the field glasses.

  "Why?"

  "If this was a pirating raid, they'd be pulling out by now. They'd be fools not to know your regiment of Rus infantry and two batteries of artillery are here. With those weapons you can slaughter them like pigs and destroy their ships."

  Vincent grimaced with a sudden memory.

  "Maybe they have such weapons too," he said quietly.

  "What?" Marcus asked coldly.

  "Before the Tugars came, we traded some muskets, powder, and a field piece for copper, lead, and zinc."

  "Were you mad?" Marcus snapped.

  "No, just desperate."

  With a snort of disdain, Marcus looked at Vincent coldly.

  "We needed the metal if we were going to win. It's possible they figured out how to make more."

  Vincent beckoned for the glasses, which Marcus returned. For several long minutes he scanned the crest of the hill, but all he could see was pikemen with a thin line of archers deployed halfway down the slope.

  "Nothing, not a damn thing. They have every intention of staying, though—they're unloading troops as fast as those ships can beach."

  "We're hitting them now," Marcus growled angrily. "Hit them while only part of their force has landed."

  "Could it be that's exactly what they want us to do," Vincent replied, suddenly feeling very cautious.

  "The longer we wait, the stronger they'll be," Marcus snapped.

  "My plantations are down there. In another hour they'll spread down the coast and destroy the rest of my estates," Petronius, oldest of all the senators, shouted angrily. "I want action now."

  "Gentlemen, it's too easy," Vincent replied. "They're sitting there almost begging us to attack. Let's wait until that fog lifts a bit more and we can see what we're up against. In the meantime we can send forward a screen of skirmishers to probe their line and try to figure out what they really have."

  "I thought he was your ally," Petronius retorted. "I think he's just a boy afraid of a good fight."

  Vincent looked over coldly at Petronius. The old man sat astride a horse, his heavy belly resting on the mare's back. His skin had a pale sickly hue to it, pockmarked from the smallpox, giving his features a hard, almost expressionless appearance, as if he were wearing a mask made out of old wax. He looked back at Vincent as if he were nothing more than the lowest of servants.

  Vincent looked back at Marcus calmly.

  "I'll not argue with you," Vincent said. "I've seen a long hard campaign against the Tugars, and got my rank through battlefield promotions, rising up from a private."

  "A former slave, like the rest of his troops," Petronius said haughtily, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  "A free man, like my troops," Vincent snapped, looking back angrily at Petronius, regretting his statement, since it was diverting attention from what he wanted to say.

  "All the same nevertheless," Petronius sneered.

  Vincent looked back to Marcus.

  "Let the fog lift off the ocean, see what's out there, and then attack."

  Vincent could see a moment's hesitation on Marcus's part, and then he turned away.

  "We attack at once. The longer we wait the more damage they will do."

  Marcus looked back at Vincent.

  "And what do you plan to do, my noble ally?" he said, the challenge in his voice obvious.

  Vincent bristled at the cold disdainful looks of the patricians arrayed behind Marcus.

  "The alliance stands, Marcus. My men will advance with you," Vincent replied stiffly. "I only hope for all our sakes you are right."

  Trying to conceal his nervousness, Tobias Cromwell paced the deck of the Ogunquit, peering through the fog, which was brightening.

  A small cutter appeared out of the mist, shooting across the flat calm water as the dozen rowers strained at the oars.

  "They're getting set to advance," a messenger shouted as the cutter swung in beneath the heavy battery of guns.

  "Damn this fog," Tobias hissed impatiently. And yet at the same time he found himself chuckling inside. Hamilcar had seized on the advantage at once, advising Tobias to lie out in the mist along with the rest of his gunboats and Jamie's ships until the battle was joined. The additional surprise it might offer could have a telling effect, and he had realized the possibility. It was just the waiting that was so unnerving.

  A low flat boom echoed across the water, and he instantly recognized the sound as a battery firing in volley.

  It was almost time, and a smile crossed his features. The captives had revealed that it was only one regiment facing him, the 5th Suzdal, under that young Hawthorne. Damn it all, it would have to be him, Tobias thought grimly. Out of all the lot he had developed something of an admiration for the boy.

  "Let's get some steam up," Tobias shouted. "We're moving in."

  "Shake out that line there," Vincent shouted. "You look like a bunch of amateurs!"

  The 2nd Novrod battery, a hundred yards away on his left, snapped off with another volley. Turning, Vincent watched as the shots hit into the Cartha ranks over on the next ridge. The enemy line wavered under the pounding.

  Damn them, why couldn't they just break and run? But it was all too obvious they had seen gunfire before. He could remember the first time O'Donald had fired a Napoleon over the heads of the Rus when they had first arrived on this planet. The entire horde of them had broken and run. These men were used to what guns could do.

  Vincent could feel the trembling inside. Is this how Andrew felt, standing thus before a regiment under fire, waiting to go in? But Andrew wasn't here now; this battle was going to be his and his alone. Success or failure was his responsibility, and the deaths, God help him, his as well.

  The regiment was drawn up in perfect order, a battle front two hundred yards wide, a double rank of seven companies forward with three companies in column as reserve, five hundred and twenty men. To either flank Marcus had deployed his forces, nearly ten thousand men of Roum. Vincent looked at them critically as well. There were no fabled legions of Caesar here such as he had read of in the Gallic Wars. That was hoping for far too much.

  Two thousand years of Tugar rule would never have tolerated such a thing. The Roum had become as servile as the Rus across that time.

  At best they were an armed mob, carrying pikes, shields, clubs. The only disciplined formation was the imperial guard of the first legion, and even they left something to be desired as the ten block formations fifty men across and ten deep came up over the crest of the hill and started into their advance.

  Vincent silently cursed as Marcus rode past him on the right, leading the advance, surrounded by his patricians. The best troops should have been kept in reserve—he should have sent the militia in first to probe the enemy and committed the best units for the kill.

  Better to lose untrained militia than the few professionals on this field, he thought grimly. Turning his mount about, he looked back at his regiment again. It was madness to commit them like this, but it was politics now, not sound military sense, that had to guide him. In this first action he had to show Marcus the alliance was committed, an action that would kill more than one of his men in the next couple of minutes.

  "We'd better get this moving!" Vincent shouted. He looked down at Dimitri, and
at Yurgenin, who directly commanded the 5th, and at Major Velnikov, who commanded the 2nd battery.

  "Velnikov, advance with my regiment and deploy at one hundred yards. Bugarin, your battery stays on the hill and will fire in support."

  Velnikov looked over at his cousin and smiled.

  "The glory goes to me, my friend," he laughed.

  "Goddammit, we're not after glory here," Vincent snapped.

  Velnikov fell silent.

  Vincent looked down the line. The legion was up over the crest now, the first line sweeping past the regiment to either side.

  "All right, men. These people are counting on us. Show them how free men from Rus can fight!"

  "Fix bayonets!"

  Steel rattled on steel as razor-sharp blades were locked into position.

  "Present bayonets!"

  With a deep-throated roar, muskets were dropped to the level, the sunlight gleaming on the burnished blades.

  Turning, he pointed his sword down the hill. The color-bearers and guards stepped in front of the line.

  "The 5th will advance!"

  The drummers picked up the beat, and with parade-ground precision the regiment stepped off, flags snapping in the late-morning breeze. Spurring his mount, Vincent rode forward, Dimitri and Yurgenin riding by his side.

  Onward they marched, the drum cadence marking the step, trampling through the high grass, crossing over low stone walls, aligning to the center, the line a precision cut across the open fields.

  Forward the Carthas held their serried ranks along the crest of the hill, a wall of pikemen a quarter mile across, their leveled blades poised and waiting.

  The range closed to four hundred yards, and inwardly Vincent prayed that somehow they'd break. The thought of stopping at one hundred yards and pouring measured volleys into their defenseless ranks left him cold and filled with loathing.

  Yet as he looked over his shoulder he was swept up by the beautiful terrible power of men advancing with chilling precision, as if on parade.

  "As terrible as an army with banners," he whispered, awestruck that all of this was his, the men looking at him as if he were the center actor on the stage, sword held high, pointed forward.

  Through three hundred yards, and then two hundred, the measured tramp of the men thundered across the field, counterpointed by the shrieking of artillery rounds arcing overhead, plowing into the Cartha lines with deadly effect.

  To his left he heard a wild shout, and looking over, he saw Velnikov galloping down the slope, waving his hat, racing ahead of the line, his six limbered guns bouncing and careening.

  "Goddammit, Velnikov, stay with the formation!" Vincent roared, but he knew he wouldn't be heard. The damned artilleryman was after glory. The guns swung out not a hundred yards in front of the Carthas, the crews leaping off the limbers, untrailing the weapons, and swinging them around.

  And in that moment the center of the enemy formation suddenly melted away, the pikemen casting weapons aside, streaming to the rear in what appeared to be a mad panic before a single shot had even been fired.

  A wild shout went up from behind, and looking back, Vincent could see his ranks starting to break, ready to surge forward.

  With a roar of anger, he stood tall in the stirrups and held his sword straight out to one side, motioning for the men to hold, to keep formation.

  The discipline held; the outward surge eased back.

  Something was wrong now. It was too easy. Anxious, he looked down the line and saw the discipline break away as the legion broke into a ragged charge, Marcus and his patricians swept along by the weight of their own men pressing in from behind. Coming out of the low ground between the two ridges, the legion swarmed up the slope, cheering, waving their spears, disintegrating into the mad rush of a mob eager for blood, closing the last hundred yards to the crest.

  The top of the hill was empty for but a moment. As if rising out of the grass, teams of men pushing wheeled carts crested the hill flanked by a double rank of infantry armed with muskets.

  "Merciful God in heaven," Vincent whispered.

  He could still get out, pull back. But he couldn't leave Marcus's people out here to be slaughtered. There was only one thing to do.

  "Fifth Suzdal at the double!"

  The first puff of smoke appeared from the cannon farthest down on the right and in an instant ripped down the entire length of the Cartha line, as forty guns opened up on the advancing army.

  A slash of iron hail slammed into the 5th. Men dropped, tumbled into the grass, screaming in pain, as the canister cut bloody swaths through the ranks.

  Yurgenin spun his horse around, tumbled from the saddle, and was still. Vincent looked back for a second, but the men were still coming on.

  "We've got to get into range," Vincent roared. "Their gunners aren't that good."

  Velnikov's battery kicked off its first salvo, and he could see great slashes cut into the lines of musketmen and gunners poised on the hill.

  The range closed to one hundred and fifty yards, the regiment surging forward, battle flags forward, the men shouting hoarsely.

  "A hundred yards, almost there," Vincent roared, and then in a numbing flash that ripped down the entire Cartha line another volley slammed out.

  His mount surged upward, screaming in anguish, rolling over. Scrambling madly, Vincent jumped clear as the one-ton animal slammed into the ground, kicking and screaming.

  Shaken, he stood up and held his sword aloft.

  "Come on 5th, forward!"

  Dimitri, leaping from his mount, fell in by Vincent's side as their line closed in.

  "Just a bit more! Come on, men, come on!"

  The left flank passed Velnikov's battery as the six guns leaped backward. A Cartha field piece flipped into the air, tumbling over, and the 5th shouted with triumphant rage.

  Sprinting hard, Vincent dashed ahead of the line, sword held high, as another hail of canister swept past, cutting down the regimental flag-bearer into a bloody heap. Instantly a color guard swept up the cherished emblem and pushed on.

  Turning, Vincent looked back, and holding his sword aloft, he pointed it straight out to the side.

  "Regiment, halt! Halt, dammit!"

  Panting, the men drew up, the line holding firm, and he felt his heart swelling with a dark consuming pride. He had drilled them, taught them before the Tugars, and had trained them even for this, the day when they might have to face weapons like their own.

  "Regiment, take aim!"

  "Aim low, boys—remember, aim low!" Dimitri roared.

  Vincent and Dimitri stepped back behind the ranks.

  "Fire!"

  A sharp volley ripped down the line, and through the smoke he could see dozens of the enemy go down.

  "Independent fire at will!"

  A blast of canister cut through the rank next to him, dropping half a dozen men. A young Suzdalian boy staggered out of the line, shrieking hysterically, holding his hands to his face as blood spurted out, running down his arms like a river.

  Unflinching, Vincent turned away from him.

  "Faster! Load faster!"

  The first musket was shouldered and fired, followed within seconds by hundreds more.

  "Pour it into them! Break them up, break them up!"

  Stepping behind the ranks, Vincent walked down the line, shouting encouragement, pointing forward, peering through the smoke to see the effect. The enemy were still firing, the canister cutting out, slashing holes through his lines, his precious ranks of men. The flat hum of canister and musket rounds snapped through the air, counterpointed by the deadly return fire of the Suzdalian rifled muskets.

  A deep throaty roar echoed from the left, and in the smoky gloom he could see Velnikov's guns engaged in their deadly work, pounding in solid shot topped with canister against the enemy artillery. But the damage was coming back out as well, for even as he watched, one of the guns spun around on its mount, a wheel careening into the air, sliced clean away from the barrel. In the mil
ling confusion to either flank he could not see if the Roum were advancing or retreating; the mob was simply surging about.

  Looking back, he saw the three reserve companies holding formation fifty yards back, the men standing ready.

  "Dimitri!"

  "Here, sir," and the old man came up by his side.

  "When I give the word, I want the three reserve companies to go in at the double, moving them up directly behind the volley line. We'll volley-fire, and when the flags start forward, push them through."

  With a salute, Dimitri ran down the hill, waving for the reserves to come forward. Vincent stalked back down the line to the center, positioning himself next to the flags.

  "Hold for volley fire!" Vincent roared, and the order raced down the line. The men loaded and brought their red-hot weapons up to signal they were ready. The smoke lifted briefly, and he could see that the enemy had been staggered; gunners were down, the fire was ragged, holes were punched into the ranks of musketmen between the cannons.

  "Companies A through G will fire and reload!"

  "Volley fire present!"

  "Fire!"

  A snapping thunder leaped out

  "Reload! Now, Dimitri, charge 'em!"

  With a wild shout the three reserve companies shouldered their way through the line at the run, bayonets leveled, Dimitri at the fore, sweeping up the regimental flag-bearer and pushing him forward with the tide.

  "Charge, charge!" The cry roared down the line at the sight of their comrades rushing in.

  Vincent stepped forward, waiting the last precious seconds, making sure the men were reloaded. If there were any more surprises beyond that hill, he wanted them ready.

  Turning, he held his sword on high.

  "Charge!"

  Even as he screamed the command he heard the tearing roar of a heavy musket volley slashing out from just beyond the ridge. Forward, through the smoke, he could see the regimental flag go down. Like an ocean his command surged forward, caught now in the wild fervor of battle. He felt himself out of control, swept along by a tide he could not stop. There was nothing he could do now but run. The last yards seemed like an eternity.