Empire of Man

by David Weber

  The riflemen to either side, Marine and Mardukan alike, had been hammering out fire in both directions. The rifles’ black powder filled the little clearing with gray-white smoke and a smell like the breath of Hell itself, and as the Boman jumped into the trenches or struck down with their two-handed battle axes, it seemed as if Lucifer had arrived in person.

  The majority of the defenders switched to their long bayonets, and Despreaux blocked the swing of an ax, buttstroked the axeman in the groin, and then ducked as Turkol Bes bayoneted someone over her shoulder. She sprang past him as Cord missed a block and was slammed into the wall of the trench. The bleeding shaman had been the last thing between Roger and an ax-swinging Boman easily as large as Bistem Kar, and the sergeant felt an instant of pure despair as she realized she could never reach him before he reached Roger.

  Patty had been sent back with the other pack animals, but Dogzard had evaded all efforts to corral her and send her back, as well. As the barbarian’s ax rose for the fatal stroke, ninety kilos of hissing lizard ripped into his leg from the side. The dog-lizard’s attack slowed the Boman just enough for Roger to twist sideways and get a shot in. The hypervelocity bead took the axeman almost dead center, but despite the slamming impact, the barbarian still managed one last swipe at Roger. The prince blocked the blow with the sword in his right hand, then stepped out of the way as the giant toppled at his feet.

  The axeman had been the last enemy alive in the trench, and Roger stepped back again as a pair of Diaspran infantrymen heaved the body out of the trench and added it to the parapet of corpses.

  “God damn these stupid, four-armed bastards,” Despreaux cursed wearily, wiping blood out of her eyes. “Don’t they know when they’re beat?”

  “Sure they do,” Bes grunted in laughter. “Almost as well as oversized basik.”

  Knitz De’n grabbed both his horns and shook them back and forth in anger. A scout had just brought back word that Sindi had actually fallen—that the city was being looted to the ground and that all of their women and children had fallen into shit-sitter hands—and this tiny group had repulsed five charges by the finest ax wielders in the Valley of the Tam. It wasn’t possible.

  “One more time,” the subchief hissed. “One more charge, and we can destroy them all.”

  “No, we can’t,” Sof Knu said flatly. “These new arquebuses of theirs are impossible, and they fight like demons. Let us go west; surely some warriors must have escaped the fall of the city. We can find them—join with them, and harass these K’Vaernians. Harass them, and pull them down like kef do a turom. It’s how we always face greater forces.”

  “No!” Knitz De’n shouted. “We’ll kill them here and now! This is our land, taken by our arms, and no one will take it away!”

  “Do as you wish,” Sof Knu said, “but I’m leaving, and taking my warriors with me. I’m not insane.”

  The ax entered between Knu’s shoulder and neck, almost severing his right true-arm. He fell, and Knitz De’n dragged the ax free with a wrench and waved it in the air.

  “Do any others dispute my right of command?” he snarled, looking around the group of sullen barbarians. “One more charge! Into the face of death I fly! With the heart of an atul and the strength of the pagathar! Wesnaaar!”

  “I don’t believe it,” Despreaux said, and Roger looked up from bandaging Cord.

  “This is a joke, right?” he said as he watched four Boman charge out of the brush. The unsupported quartet was about as much threat to the combat veterans dug in to await it as a similar number of children.

  “Either berserk, or doing it for honor,” Pri said. He gave the barbarians another look and grunted. “Berserk.”

  “Well? Is anyone going to shoot them, or are we just going to let them kill us all?” Despreaux asked tartly.

  Four bead pistol shots cracked out before a single rifle could speak, and the Boman flew backwards in explosions of gore.

  “What?” Roger said, holstering the pistol and returning to his asi’s bandage. “Like that?”

  “Yeah,” Despreaux said quietly into the sudden silence. “Like that.”

  “You know,” the prince said, never looking up from the bandage, “one of these days, I’m going to be in a fight where I don’t kill anything.”

  “That’ll be the day,” the sergeant replied sadly.

  “You know, this could turn out to be a nice day after all,” Krindi Fain said as regular volleys started hammering to the east.

  Despite the lack of support, the former sergeant had sent snipers forward to peck at the Boman line. The response had been violent, but uncoordinated, with nearly three hundred Boman chasing the snipers into the woods . . . where the survivors of his hundred-man company had finally ambushed them at the edge of a thicket. The company’s fire had piled up most of the barbarians for very little loss, which had been one of the first things to go right all day. But nice as that had been, the sudden, massive firing crashing out to the east now was the most blessed sound he’d ever heard.

  “Our job’s done,” he said. “Let’s go find the good guys. And for the God’s sake, keep an eye out! The Boman are going to be swarming around the flanks, and we don’t want to get shot by our own people, either!”

  “Can we loot the ones we killed, Lieutenant?” one of the troopers asked.

  “Not until after the battle,” he snapped. “Now let’s move out while the moving’s good.”

  “But we’re gonna retreat,” the trooper protested. “We won’t be able to get nothin’.”

  “You’re gonna get my foot up your ass if you don’t shut up,” Erkum Pol said. “You heard the Lieutenant. Move it!”

  “Time to leave, people,” the company commander said, pointing slightly to the south of the firing. “About there should be good.”

  “Right there!” Rastar shouted as the civan lurched to its feet. He spurred to the west, revolvers streaming smoke and flame. Half a dozen of his troopers rode with him, their massed fire tearing a hole in the Boman line, and then all of them dodged aside as the herd of stampeding civan thundered past them.

  The loose civan, driven by Honal and a dozen more mounted troopers and maddened with fear from the firing and blood smell behind them, smashed into the already breached Boman line, throwing it even further into chaos. The regular volleys from the south, when most of the previous firing—light as it had been—had come from the southwest, had thrown the enemy totally off balance. Caught between two fires, the barbarians on the south side of the perimeter hadn’t known which way to turn.

  The barbarians on the other three sides had no such doubts. They charged forward when they saw the cavalry slipping out through the hole in the line, but only to run into regular, slamming volleys of aimed rifle fire. The three thousand cavalry in the pocket had been low on ammunition, and barely a tenth of them had been armed with rifles. The men of the five rifle battalions Bistem Kar had peeled off and assigned to Major Dnar Ni, who had replaced the recently deceased Colonel Rahln as CO of the Marton Regiment, suffered under no such handicap. There were two thousand of them, and they slammed volley after volley into the packed barbarians. The four-armed Mardukans could load, prime, and fire their weapons without even lowering them from the firing position, and their rate of fire was incredible by any human standard. The Boman were crowded so closely together a single bullet could kill or wound as many as three, or even four of them, and each rifleman was sending six aimed rounds per minute straight into them. Not even the famed Boman fighting frenzy could carry them forward into that vortex of destruction, and the warriors in front of the firing line were driven to ground.

  The warriors to either side of the relief force riflemen spread wider, seeking to find and envelop their flanks, only to encounter assegai-armed spearmen and recoil afresh.

  “Message to Colonel Des,” Kar said. “He’s to refuse his right flank and withdraw. Same message to Colonel Tarm, but he’s to refuse his left.”

  The K’Vaernian general looked
up with a nod as Rastar reached his command group and reined in.

  “Prince Rastar.”

  “General Kar,” the prince said with a matching nod. “Nice of you to show up.”

  “Had a few problems with a subcommander,” the K’Vaernian admitted. “They’re solved. How many are we looking at?”

  “Not the entire host, thank the gods.” The cavalry officer slid off his civan. “I think Camsan figured out where we were headed sooner than we’d planned. Whatever happened, he scattered his own troops and the first ones to reach him through the woods here in an effort to keep us from getting back to Sindi, and that’s all we’ve got to worry about right this minute. The rest are still back there, coming down from the north to join up. Only a few of them actually found us, I think, but that, unfortunately, seems to include Camsan himself, so the coordination’s been fair. And all the rest of them are undoubtedly coming on from behind him.”

  “As long as it’s not the full hundred thousand already, we should be fine,” Kar said. “We need to retreat smartly, though.”

  “Oh, yes,” Honal agreed fervently, riding into the conference. “I don’t want to spend another night like that last one.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  “This is actually beginning to look halfway decent,” Pahner said.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Rus From said. The Diaspran who’d become the chief field engineer of the K’Vaernian army stretched wearily. “We managed to get almost all of the exposed stores aboard the boats and sent them off downriver,” he reported. “There’s still a lot to go, but it’s all on the south side of the river now, behind the surprise.”

  “Good,” Bogess said. “Now if we can just get the army back together here before Camsan turns up—and assuming, of course, that Bistem gets back here intact—things will definitely be looking up. And it looks like Roger has smashed the Boman to the south quite handily.”

  “Yep,” Pahner agreed. “Gotta love competent subordinates. Of course, that begs the question of who’s the subordinate in this case. Speaking of which.” He keyed his communicator. “Prince Roger, Captain Pahner.”

  Roger groaned as the attention signal pinged.

  “Roger,” he said. “Take that however you prefer.”

  “I hate to break this to you, Your Highness, but I need you to bring your butt back to Sindi. I imagine we’ll be entertaining the main host here sometime tomorrow morning, and I’d like you to be present for the party.”

  “Gotcha, Captain,” the prince said with another groan, and surveyed the troopers lying all around the reclaimed original trench line in exhausted heaps. No doubt it was all dreadfully untidy, and not at all the way it was supposed to be according to The Book, but at least all the bodies were out of the trench, and all the wounded had been bandaged.

  “We’ll head out in a few minutes,” Roger went on. “But be aware that we had to send all of our civan and turom back already, so we’re on foot. That’s going to slow us down.”

  “Understood,” Pahner said. “I’ll send some troops out to meet you with your mounts. Move out, Your Highness.”

  “Roger, out.” The prince smiled as he got to his feet. “Take that however you prefer,” he whispered, and then poked the sergeant who’d lain half-asleep beside him with a toe. “Despreaux! What the heck are you doing lying around snoring when your prince is in danger?”

  Krindi Fain wasn’t lost, he simply didn’t know where his battalion—or his regiment—had gotten to. No one else seemed to know either, but, since seeing their company commander stumbling around in the middle of a retreat looking for their parent unit would be a bad thing for morale, he’d parked the company with the supply packbeast guards and gone a-hunting.

  He also wasn’t asleep, simply sort of numb. Which was how he came to be walking with his eyes sort of closed when he slammed into the obstacle.

  “What are you doing here, soldier?” Bistem Kar’s aide-de-camp demanded as the acting lieutenant bounced off of him, and Fain’s eyes went wide at the sight of all the brass standing about.

  “Krindi Fain, acting lieutenant, Delta Company, Rifle Battalion, Marton Regiment!” he said, snapping a salute. “I’m looking for the Battalion, Sir!”

  “Fain?” Kar himself rumbled. “Weren’t you an instructor sergeant not too long ago?”

  “It’s a long story, General,” the braced acting lieutenant said. “I think I’ll let Major Ni and Sergeant Julian explain it, if I may, General!”

  “Delta Company?” one of the other officers said. “I thought that was Lieutenant Fonal. I was surprised he got picked to command those skirmishers on the southwest flank, but that was you, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Fain said. “We’re just trying to find our way home now, Sir.”

  General Kar grunted in laughter.

  “That’s the best description of this madhouse I’ve heard yet,” he said, and his command staff joined his laughter. Fain was pretty sure that his participation in their humor wouldn’t be appreciated, but he was too tired to really care, and he raised all four hands, palms upward in a purely human gesture.

  “I’m just trying to find our unit, Sir,” he said tiredly. All these clean staff officers, who’d undoubtedly had to suffer through a hot breakfast and forego the pleasure of being covered in smoke stains and blood, were making his head ache.

  “Not anymore,” Kar said. “Go back, get your people, and bring them up here, instead. I’ll be moving around, but I’m sure you can find the headquarters. I’m sorry there’s no sleep for any of us, but make sure they get a bite to eat . . . and then replace the command group security company. Colonel Ni is just going to have to figure out how to spare you, because I’d rather have combat-proven veterans watching my backside!”

  “Thank you, Sir,” the former NCO said.

  “No,” the general said firmly. “Thank you. When we hit the Boman, they didn’t know which way to turn, and that was due in large part to you. So thank your company for me. When we get back to Sindi, I’ll do it personally.”

  “Yes, Sir,” the acting lieutenant said. “I better go get the Company.”

  It took hours to retreat through the trees. The Boman seemed endless as the long Mardukan day wore on; for every one they killed, two more seemed to spring up out of the earth. The cavalry was essentially useless, since not only were its civan all but exhausted, but it lacked the clear space to work up to a charge even if they hadn’t been. The few mounted troopers with rifles had been sent to fill gaps in the line, but Rastar and Honal kept one troop in the saddle, ready to plug any sudden holes.

  The pikes weren’t much more use than cavalry in the close confinement of the jungle, but the assegai-wielding spearmen proved their value again and again during the chaos and confusion of the withdrawal. The Boman probed around the flanks, and even turned them a few times, only to be driven back and pounded into the ground. It seemed, as the choking pall of gun smoke rose like thick fog through the canopy, as if the withdrawal would never end. The nightmare struggle, crash of rifles, scream of bullets, and shriek of the wounded and dying were all part of some eternal, unending purgatory from which there could be no escape, and all anyone knew of it was the tiny part that he himself endured.

  But, in the end, the withdrawing regiments finally reached the edge of the trees, and the whole, dreadful engagement could be seen.

  Pahner saw it from the walls of Sindi, and shook his head as the units began to emerge. Bistem Kar had pulled out most of his dead, and all of his wounded, and he’d taken a fraction of the casualties he should have. Of course, he’d had an enormous advantage in terms of his troops’ weapons, but Pahner suspected that the K’Vaernian general would have succeeded in a battle against an equally armed force, as well. There was a name that hovered on the edge of his consciousness, something about a wall. That was what Kar reminded him of, a stone wall nothing could break, even as he moved his units like dancers in a thunderous ballet of battle.

  The pike battalions ca
me first as the K’Vaernian forces began to clear the edge of the jungle. It was clear to Pahner that Kar had been forced by the combat environment to reorganize his forces on the fly, and the rifles continued to fire further into the jungle as the pike units shook out into line and dressed ranks. From the looks of things, they hadn’t been heavily engaged in the previous fighting, and it was likely that the Boman had not yet discovered just how hard a target an unshaken wall of pikes was.

  As the pikes settled into place, other units began to emerge from the jungle. Rastar’s cavalry came first, much of it dismounted by now. The wounded and the dead came next, covered by walking wounded and spearmen. The riflemen came last of all, falling back with an iron discipline Pahner could feel all the way from the walls. It was a discipline he and his Marines had trained into them, but he knew only too well how that discipline could have vanished if the troops had feared for one moment that their commander was irresolute. Obviously, they had no such fear where Bistem Kar was concerned.

  The trickiest moment came when the pike blocks had to open ranks to let the riflemen pass through, but Kar managed the maneuver so adroitly that the Boman never even seemed to recognize the moment of opportunity.

  By the time the Boman realized what was happening, the retreating army had reformed itself into a huge, hollow square of pikes. In effect, there were no flanks for the barbarians to attack, any longer, and the entire formation marched slowly but steadily towards the gates of Sindi. Time and again, masses of Boman swept outward, hooking around in an effort to find an open flank to exploit, only to find themselves held well beyond hand-to-hand range by the pikeheads while aimed volleys tore them apart. Once or twice, enough barbarians managed to circle around the pike square to bring it almost to a halt, but each time, Kar concentrated his riflemen to bring a devastating fire to bear and literally blasted a path through them.