The Heretic

by David Drake

  Joab pointed toward a tent that had been set up on the edge of the field. A fire burned in front of it and a kettle of water was boiling, no doubt for his father’s favored field drink, spiced tea.

  They assembled in the tent around a map table. Abel explained the order of battle he foresaw. For once, Courtemanche scribbled orders and made no sarcastic comment about the commander’s son. They were, Abel realized, depending on him now. Maybe they had come to trust him too much rather than not enough. Of course, not all of them shared in the general accord. Fleming Hornburg was heading the Militia, and was none too pleased when informed his men would be used as road bait.

  Abel left unsaid that serving such a purpose was the most effective duty they could hope for. Anything else invited disaster for themselves and their commanders.

  “But we’ll be running!” Hornburg fumed.

  “You’ll be leading them straight to the Regulars,” Abel patiently explained. “And then you will turn and fight like any other man.”

  “Unless I’m shot in the back in the process.”

  “No one will think the worse of such a death in this situation,” put in Joab. “The point of an army is to work together to achieve a goal, in this case victory over the Blaskoye, and not to achieve individual glory. Glory is for units. That is what makes us better than the Redlanders, and stronger.”

  “I won’t die a coward’s death,” Hornburg continued stubbornly.

  “Would you rather die a fool’s death, then?” Joab replied evenly. “Now take these orders and carry them out, Captain. Do you hear me?”

  After a moment of seething silence, Hornburg forced out a “Yes, sir.”

  Then the officers received their orders and departed, all except Courtemanche and Joab. It was time to speak.

  “Father, I have one other matter to discuss with you,” said Abel.

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “No, but this is going to require . . . diplomacy. The weapons I’ve been preparing—”

  “The new rifles from the gunsmith priests? And those powder tubes. Yes, how are those coming?”

  “They’re ready,” said Abel. “I’ll have four hundred Scouts armed with the rifles.”

  “That’s wonderful news.”

  “Father, they are very good weapons. Very, very good weapons. I would like have latitude to use them as I see fit. A standing order.”

  “Scouts are important, but serve a secondary purpose in battle, Abel,” said Joab. “You know that. That is part of my objection to your continuing as a Scout. You’ll be relegated to guarding the flanks in most situations.”

  “Father, after battle is joined, I would like permission to dismount my Scouts and lead an assault,” Abel said.

  “What? Give up your chief advantage?” He laughed. “And I can only wonder what the Scouts will think. They will hate you forever for the disgrace they’ll feel.”

  “No,” Abel said. “They’ll understand. It won’t be a disgrace if what we are trying to do succeeds.”

  “Maybe not,” Joab said. “But it is not traditional. Or, under most circumstances, wise.”

  “Also: the women, sir.”

  Joab frowned, stamped a foot. “I told you to give up that foolishness. I don’t appreciate this jest.”

  “It isn’t foolishness,” Abel said. “They have practiced with the powder tubes. I have shown their captain how to deploy the weapons. I think this is something the women can accomplish better than even the Regulars.”

  “Why?”

  “Speed, lightness, and less tendency to want to join in the fighting directly.”

  “And they’ll be led by the Jacobson woman, I suppose?”

  “She is their captain,” Abel said.

  “Captain my ass,” hissed Joab to himself, almost spitting out the word.

  “Leader, then,” replied Abel coolly. “She’s fully recovered.”

  “And useless otherwise, I hear. She’d get no whelps for Edgar Jacobson.”

  “True enough, Father.”

  “But the others in her merry band are not similarly blessed,” Joab replied. “And when they die, the children they might have had to replenish the Land die with them.”

  “They are going to march,” Abel said. “She’s mustered them in Lilleheim, and they’re already on the road.”

  “Already on the—” Joab’s face went red, and he looked like a clay pot about to split apart in an over-hot oven.

  “Let them serve, Father.”

  “Damn it,” said Joab. “Thrice-damn you and that woman and—the whole sorry situation! I will have the inquisitors in from Lindron for certain on this, and it might be that not even Zilkovsky can save my sorry ass. Do you know what they do with heretics? Do you?”

  “Burn them,” Abel said. “I’m well aware.”

  “It isn’t traditional! It isn’t Stasis!”

  Abel smiled. I’ve got him, he thought. He’s going to go along with it.

  “But it isn’t precisely against the Law, is it, Father?”

  Joab cut himself off in midsentence like a blanket on a drying line the wind has lofted and then abruptly allowed to settle back down to its previous hanging.

  “No,” he said with a growl. “I suppose not.” He looked hard at Abel. “They’re Militia. Hornburg’s in charge of them.”

  “He won’t fight them,” Abel said. “Make them temporary Regulars.”

  “I’ll issue direct orders that he shall.”

  “And you think he’ll obey?”

  “He’d better or he’ll find himself rotting in a stockade pit, son of First Family or son of Delta trash.”

  “Make them Regulars.”

  Joab stared incredulously at Abel. To any other, it might appear a white rage. But Abel knew that look.

  I’ve got him; he’s given in, thought Abel. And Law and the Land help Fleming Hornburg if he gets in Mahaut’s way.

  “Thrice-damn it, all right,” said Joab. “And now, since you’ve gotten what you want, might I bother you to take care of a little item for me?” said Joab.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The sluice headgates must be opened by priests. They have the turning keys and know the proper prayers of blessing. Zilkovsky is putting together a contingent, but they’ll need mounts and an escort guard. I want Scouts. Arrange it.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  2

  Three days and nights of patrol in the fields south of the Road and nothing.

  Abel was tired of the endless stretches of farmland, treeless, with few rocks or distinguishing features for leagues on end. Only unending rows of harvest fields, some lying fallow, some being made ready for the next planting—a planting that had occurred twice a year in this place for three thousand years.

  The only exception: the years of nomad slaughter.

  If Zentrum and the Blaskoye had their way, this would be one of those years.

  I am bored with the Land, Abel thought more than once. I miss the desert.

  This is the breadbasket of Treville, Raj told him. It may bore you, but to control it is to control the stomachs of the people.

  I know, but could there be just one outcropping, one winding stream, instead of all this dipping and rolling over one hill that looks the same as the others and the endless irrigation-channel hopping?

  You think you’ve got it bad? Imagine the poor Militia, laughed Raj. Joab has them marching back and forth on the Canal road, beating drums and shooting all the way to Talla bridge, then making an about-face and countermarching all the way back to Hestinga again. To a footman it must seem like the biggest bunch of lunacy he’s ever taken part in. And he may be right.

  On pre-dawn patrol of the third morning, he received his distraction. Kruso, on point, was the first to hear it to the southeast. He signaled, and Abel called a halt. It was difficult to miss the thunderous hoof fall of ten thousand donts on the move.

  The Blaskoye horde had exited Garangipore. Had they taken the bait?

  Kr
uso was already off his dont, his ear to the ground. Abel waited patiently for the old Scout to make his judgment. He stood up.

  Even in the wan light of the crescenting of the smallest moon, Levot, Kruso’s crooked smile told Abel all he need to know.

  “They’re turning north?”

  Kruso nodded. “Tham all, ut sunds like, too.”

  In the distance, they heard the bone horns blow.

  * * *

  The Blaskoye timed the Canal road ambush just before sunrise, and it came off as planned.

  Give that to them, thought Abel. They are a magnificent light cavalry.

  The Blaskoye adjusted their attack on the run as they swept up from the south toward the road. The Militia was strung out for about a quarter league, although the captains, forewarned, had done their best to keep the marching order compressed. It was in the nature of the beast of a marching line to straggle out no matter what, it seemed.

  They must have outriders reporting in on where the ends of this Militia worm are, Abel thought.

  Undoubtedly, Center said. And they are most impressive. Even though it is clearly an intuitive move, they’ve chosen almost the exact center to attack.

  His Scouts had given fair warning. At the first sign of the Blaskoye move, they charged north toward the Militia with news of the coming storm.

  In addition, one rider was sent east and the other west to spread the alarm along the Road. Later in the day, wigwag and flashing glass could serve the purpose faster, but in the wan pre-dawn light, flags were impossible to see at any distance, and mirrors were useless, as well. Abel had ordered the Scouts to construct a series of watchfires along the road at thousand-pace intervals. Each had a two-man scout team manning it and would be lit later when it was certain where the Blaskoye were heading.

  The Militia still managed to be taken by surprise, at least some of the troops. But for the most part the line in the road, two abreast, formed into squares, as they’d been drilled to do for the past sixty-two days. The squares were ragged, especially where they sloped down from the road and into the flax fields, but they would do.

  All they need to do is get a couple of volleys in and retreat, Raj had said. If they were too effective, the Blaskoye might pull back, and the whole plan go to seed.

  Raj didn’t have to worry about the amateurish nature of the Militia squares. Three deep, not able to move at a quick pace in any direction, forward or backward. But deadly to dontback riders, all the same.

  Abel was through the line with his lead group of Scouts and galloping at breakneck pace toward the distant levees. Center provided him with a vision of what was happening behind his back, however.

  Observe the interpolated present:

  The Blaskoye moved toward the Canal road like an approaching wave. Some fanned out to right and left so that they would hit the lines obliquely. The Militia riflemen waited. And waited.

  The watchfires were lit, and Abel’s remaining Scouts scrambled back behind their line.

  The Blaskoye skirted the fires and kept coming.

  I would estimate a force of ten thousand two hundred on dontback, Center put in. It is a huge gathering of nomads that the Blaskoye have managed to summon into the Valley. Very impressive. And deadly. Our forces on the Road are under four thousand. Total forces are at five thousand three hundred fifty-two.

  But as soon as the donts passed the first of the watchfires, another signal was given among the Militia. Rifles were raised. Aimed.

  The cry of “Ready!” and a front row of muskets were taken from shoulders and aimed into the morning gloom. Behind these, another group lowered rifle butts to the ground and prepared for a volley as soon as the front troops had completed theirs and knelt down to reload.

  “Aim for the donts, thrice-damn you!”

  First the horns, the eerie bone horns of the Redlands.

  Then the thunder came, the thump of the hooves of donts on the stubble-filled fields. The dusty cloud rising now, an approaching whirlwind.

  And standing ready and afraid, yet ready—

  Abel, in the split vision of the approaching Blaskoye and his own headlong gallop, felt pride in these Valleymen.

  They will stand. We are not a decadent, useless people. The Redlanders truly are the enemy of civilization, of what is good in men, or at least that which elevates us above savagery, good or not, and makes us twice, no, ten times the savage as the savage himself. And yet also, twice as productive, able to see our creations to fruition.

  Perhaps even worthy of those ships from the stars when they come, as Center and Raj had promised they would. Worthy, at least in this moment when a terrifying horde of deadly warriors gallops toward them and they do not break, but stand and—

  One hundred paces away.

  Seventy-five.

  Fifty.

  “Fire!”

  Crackle of muskets. And the Blaskoye are in range, as well, with carbines, perhaps not as accurate, but deadly, deadly.

  Charging all in an uneven line bunched a half league long and ten, sometimes twenty, donts deep. Most are armed in some fashion—armed with powder and muskets that were the bloodgeld of Cascade and Progar—and make their shot. A bit too early for the carbines, perhaps. A bit too far away for the unrifled barrels. But many Blaskoye balls strike their targets.

  A square of men sags, three down. Those in line behind them step up, take their place.

  The Redlanders, still at a gallop, stow their rifles. These are the light cavalry of dreams. Even the Scouts cannot ride like this. Every Redlander had, since birth, spent more time on dontback than walking. They post instinctively with the beasts, reach effortlessly behind them and draw forth their bows. Notch an arrow while at full gallop.

  Another volley from the squares.

  Murder in the front of the Blaskoye line. Screaming, falling men and donts.

  Now a cloud of arrows launched at the Militia, much more coordinated than the musket fire. And it flies toward the squares, the ten squares caught now at the brunt of the attack, just as the first volleyers have reloaded, raised their weapons.

  “Fire!” The command from lieutenants down the line. It, too, crackles sporadically, as each platoon comes up a little faster, or a little slow.

  The arrow cloud strikes. Those who came up faster get their shots off. Many do not, or, if they do, are hit before the trigger pull and sent reeling. Some fire into their own forces. And some, reloading from behind, almost ready, now raising their weapons, are startled. They pull the triggers and more than one man in the front line of a square goes down with a minié ball in his back, his neck, or the flesh of a calf, shot by his brother in arms.

  Now it’s slaughter on both sides.

  Ahead, the two levees: the one nearest the road, and, across a basin of rice paddies, the other levee that ran along the Canal.

  Abel bent his head down and galloped all the harder.

  Observe:

  The Militia lines are breaking. Even if the call had not come, which it does in places up and down the road—“fall back!”—there would be no choice.

  And some march, but others run, north into the post-harvest flax and barley stubble.

  “Halt!” Some, not all, but most, do so. They turn around and begin to pack and prime their muskets, even as the Blaskoye charge down upon them.

  These men who had been farming not days before, who had been tending carpentry shops, potteries, charcoal pits, or droving daks, wrighting wheels, driving wagons with goods for trade, milling barley, retting linen from flax, were nervously, competently, tipping their powder into the muskets while a line behind protected them with arrow fire.

  Such unreasonable pride I feel, Abel thought. I had, somehow, expected them to be too soft, to lose cohesion, to break and run. At least that was my greatest fear.

  And with the donts almost upon them, many, most, get those rifles up, take aim—

  “Fire!”

  And the charging wave breaks upon the spray of lead. The Blaskoye veer awa
y, suddenly riderless donts charging back into the mass behind them, spreading confusion and chaos.

  The Redlanders will recover, said Raj. But that was enough. This should give the Militia time enough to make the first levee before they’re ridden down. All they need do now is—

  “Fall back!”

  Then Abel’s vision became whole, and he was charging up the first slope of the outer levee, the road levee, he and the Scouts who accompanied him. Up and onto the top.

  “Slow now!” Abel called out and enforced the order with a hand signal. But his Scouts knew what they were about. If they were to go charging over the levee’s top and down the other side, they would risk running their donts directly into a wall of chevaux-de-frise.

  These lined the levee along its length. Mostly willow-wood cut from the beautiful trees that had once lined the Canal, but now were no more. A generation or more would have to wait until the Canal was lined with such beautiful shade again.

  At least there will be generations to greet the return of those old willows, said Raj. If we are successful here today, that is.

  Beyond the chevaux-de-frise, the gathered forces of the Regulars waited. They were invisible from the fields to the south.

  Abel and the Scouts veered down the line of pointed stakes, searching for and finding the few gates that had been left open for them, and for the approaching Militia.

  Then they were through and among the Regulars. A triple line of riflemen. At least half of them had bayonets, something wholly lacking among the Militia. Then, several paces behind the riflemen, the archers, standing ready with archer’s stakes set in the ground beside them. Each bowman had cut his own stake, each a sapling’s thickness, and a few had seemingly competed for length. Some had festooned the ends with a gaudy banner, a black and tan flag, but most were notched and tapered to wicked points, set at a height calculated to pierce donts’ breasts most effectively and fatally. It would make a most effective secondary curtain of menace to retreat behind. All archers were well within range of the top of the levee, as were, of course, the rifle troops.

  A position prepared for slaughter if I ever saw one, Raj said with a savage growl. Your father has a very good idea of what it takes to kill a great many men at one time.