by Anthony Ryan
“Conserving their strength,” Catheline concluded. “Intending to meet us in one great battle. How pleasingly dramatic.”
“Morradin said it would be a bloody day when our forces met theirs.”
Catheline moved closer, pressing a kiss to his scaled cheek, whispering, “The bloodier the better, dearest General. He hungers for it, you see. We now serve a vengeful god.”
* * *
• • •
Three days’ march brought them into sight of a stretch of black sand that extended from the shore-line to the fast-flowing river four miles to the west. Beyond the river the steep and equally black slopes of a mountain ensured there was no easy route around this barrier. Sirus was therefore unsurprised when the Reds flew over and discovered the enemy present in impressive strength on the southern fringe of the Sands.
“I once had a lover,” Catheline said as she and Sirus strolled along the edge of the Sands, “an artist, who contended that all nature was beautiful. If he had seen this place I suspect he might have formed a different opinion.”
Sirus crouched to scoop up a handful of black grains, finding it rich in the small gleaming stones that gave this place its name. Unlike Catheline he found the way the Sands contrasted so starkly with the landscape fascinating. “Mount Alkus,” he said, nodding at the peak to the west. “An occasionally active volcano. Every hundred years or so it coughs up a good deal of lava and ash, the Jet Sands are the result.” He rose, letting the sand fall from his hand as he surveyed the undulating ground ahead. The dunes were over ten feet tall in places, robbing an attacker of a forward view whilst providing a defender an easy target when they came to the top. Plus, the looseness of the footing ensured any infantry attack would be a highly sluggish affair.
“Whoever Miss Lethridge has commanding her forces clearly knows their business,” Sirus said. “They couldn’t have chosen better ground for a defensive engagement.”
“Another trap then?” Catheline asked.
“Very much so.” He shared the image of the enemy line the Reds had captured earlier. They had been forced to fly high due to the storm of fire from the repeating guns, one falling victim to the barrage before it could gain sufficient height. The image showed at most six battalions of infantry and several batteries of cannon at the eastern end of the Sands whilst more could be seen marching up from the south. The enemy line grew thicker the farther west it went, bristling with cannon and repeating guns.
“A decent-sized force,” Catheline commented. “But they’re not yet fully in position.”
“It’s a ruse,” Sirus said, shaking his head. “They want us to attack close to the shore. As soon as we do I expect their ships will suddenly appear on the horizon whilst their airships assail us from above.”
“Then avoid it. Attack elsewhere.”
“On this ground, any point we attack will result in considerable losses.”
“Really?” He felt a murmur of scorn from her, and detected a tinge of acid to her tone when she asked, “What would Morradin have done?”
“He was a commander who never shied from the butcher’s bill, to be sure. And I suspect he would have been of the opinion that once you spring a trap, it can’t be sprung again.”
“You’re suggesting we simply do what the enemy expects?” Catheline gave a derisive laugh. “Even one with my meagre military knowledge knows that to be a mistake.”
“I do indeed suggest we do just that,” Sirus replied, stepping forward to press his boot into the sand. It sank into the soft surface to a depth of three inches. Bad ground for a human, he concluded. But not a drake. “Then,” he went on, turning to her with a smile, “I suggest we do something else entirely. I believe it’s time our army had a cavalry arm.”
* * *
• • •
He waited for dusk before launching the assault, reasoning that the enemy would surely have suspected something if he had attacked in full daylight. The lead battalions advanced across the dunes in a slow steady march behind a screen of skirmishers, kept in step by their mental connection, which allowed for two continuous unbroken lines of nearly a half mile in length. There were over forty thousand Spoiled in the first wave, with more lined up behind in a densely packed, well-ordered mass. As the advance progressed Sirus sent his cannon forward, teams of Spoiled man-handling the guns over the dunes to form a large single battery on the right flank. In accordance with their orders they began to fire on the enemy line immediately, concentrating their shells on the supposedly thinly held section of the opposing line close to the shore. They were firing at the limit of the guns’ range and their accuracy was therefore poor, but Sirus hoped this would at least convince the enemy commander of his intent.
Above the dunes the Reds patrolled in a dense swarm, Sirus deliberately holding them back as insurance against the appearance of the airships. Although few in number, the fire-power of these novel contraptions had been amply demonstrated at the Grand Cut. The Greens, having the most crucial role to play, he kept well to rear, awaiting the critical moment.
As expected, a line of Varestian ships appeared on the horizon as the Spoiled advance reached the halfway point to their objective. The enemy fleet approached in two divisions, steaming towards the coast at high speed then performing a sharp turn either north or south to present their broadsides to the shore. Sirus was surprised to see a number of Corvantine Imperial frigates amongst them, displaying an impressive accuracy and rapidity of fire as they unleashed their guns at the advancing Spoiled. Added to this was the fire of the enemy cannon arrayed along the southern side of the Sands. Wisely ignoring Sirus’s grand battery, they concentrated their fire on the infantry assault to devastating effect.
All along the ranks of Spoiled black sand blossomed in huge gouts as the shells struck home, Sirus feeling at least four of his soldiers die with every blast. But still the two lines advanced, shrinking in the process as the Spoiled reordered themselves to fill the gaps in their ranks. The enemy’s repeating guns began firing shortly after. Via the eyes of a Red, Sirus saw the human infantry casting aside earth-covered tarpaulins to spring up from previously unseen trenches, quickly manoeuvring the multibarrelled weapons into position. Their fire was rapid and accurate. The mass of bullets and cannon shells cut through the first rank of Spoiled like a huge invisible scythe. In response to Sirus’s mental command, the survivors, barely two thousand strong, commenced a charge towards the enemy line. They sprinted the remaining distance to their objective with all the speed their remade bodies would permit, falling by the dozen with every few yards covered. Only about a hundred reached the enemy trenches, all of whom were swiftly cut or shot down in the brief close-quarters fight that followed. Sirus ordered the second line to charge shortly after, with similar results, then noted with satisfaction that the light was fading fast.
He ordered another ten battalions forward, sending half of them around the battery in the centre of the dunes with orders to make for the extreme left of the enemy line. He hoped this would lead the enemy commander to assume he had learned his mistake and was attempting to probe for weaknesses elsewhere. As the second wave passed by the battery, suffering only marginally fewer casualties than the first from the enemy ships and cannon, he summoned the Greens forward. They had been kept a mile to the rear and well inland, beyond the sight of any reconnaissance. Sirus turned to watch them loping past his vantage point atop a hill a few hundred yards from the Sands. Every Green in the White’s thrall had been enlisted in this attack and they streamed past in a huge pack, every one carrying a Spoiled on its back.
Once the Greens were on the Sands Sirus ordered the Spoiled to the left of the battery into a dense formation ten ranks deep and sent them charging full pelt towards the enemy trenches. Rifle fire and repeating guns tore the first four ranks to pieces in short order, the Spoiled behind leaping their comrades’ bodies and keeping on, bayonet-tipped rifles gleaming in the two-moon ni
ght. The charge was doomed, of course, only the last rank of Spoiled reaching the trenches where they all fell in a brief but savage hand-to-hand struggle, a struggle that prevented the human defenders from noticing the huge pack of Spoiled-mounted Greens boiling across the dunes.
Some repeating guns managed to loose a hail of bullets into the onrushing mass of drakes, cutting down dozens in a matter of seconds, but the momentum of the charge proved unstoppable. The drakes tore through the trenches in a welter of fire, tooth and claw, the Spoiled on their backs leaping away as soon as they were clear of the Sands. They quickly formed into companies and launched an immediate attack on human defenders to their left. They had been ordered to concentrate on silencing the repeating guns and moved from trench to trench in relays, putting rifle and bayonet to murderously efficient use.
Gauging the moment had come, Sirus set the remaining battalions in motion, over one hundred thousand Spoiled starting forward at the run. A few battalions were sent into the teeth of the ship guns and cannon directly to their front, Sirus being keen to ensure the enemy commander didn’t have the chance to shift any forces. The bulk of the army veered to the west, keeping close to the river as they charged for the gap the Green cavalry had torn in the enemy line.
Wonderful. Catheline’s exultation and triumph sang in his head along with a not-inconsiderable measure of lust. How could I ever have doubted you?
The images captured by the thousands of eyes in the army played through their conjoined minds with nightmarish clarity. A Varestian continuing to swing his sabre despite the six bayonets that pinned him to the earth. A woman stumbling across the sand with her intestines trailing from a gaping stomach wound. A knot of defenders clustered around a repeating cannon, continuing to fire until the Greens closed in and bathed them in fire.
It was hard to make sense of the situation amidst so much horror but Sirus soon divined that the enemy had been engaged all along the line and the stocks of ammunition and reserves to their rear were also under attack.
Send the Reds, Catheline commanded, her thoughts riven with so much eagerness for the slaughter Sirus winced in pain. And the reserves. Finish it!
Not yet, he insisted. Resistance is still fierce. The Reds must be preserved for the pursuit.
He felt her gathering her will to override his objection, fed by the White’s vast need for vengeance, but the argument was rendered irrelevant when a blinding white light blossomed in the sky.
It hung in the air trailing sparks, casting its glow across the dunes. Flare, Sirus realised, his Spoiled eyes piercing the haze of light to make out the shape of the parachute above the blazing pyrotechnic. Two more blazed into light a split-second later, bathing the entire battlefield in a glow bright enough to banish all shadows. Sirus shielded his eyes, squinting as he focused on the black space beyond the flares, and was soon rewarded with the sight of a large, curved shape descending from the gloom.
The enemy’s airships had finally arrived.
CHAPTER 44
Lizanne
“Our lot are running,” Morva shouted, hair whipping in the wind as she leaned out of the Typhoon’s side hatch, peering through her goggles at the battlefield below. “Greens are everywhere.”
“Reds?” Lizanne shouted back.
“Not that I can see.”
Lizanne moved forward, making her way to Tekela’s side and telling the gunners manning the Growlers in the side hatches to get ready. “Give me one minute then take us lower,” she said. “Below two thousand feet.”
“That’s well within the ceiling for a Red,” Tekela pointed out.
“I know. But we need to make sure we drop in the right place.”
Lizanne injected a burst of Blue and quickly tranced with the Blood-blessed in the Tempest and the newly constructed Hurricane and Whirlwind, ordering them to follow the Typhoon. Slipping out of the trance, she gripped a handhold as Tekela put the aerostat into a steep dive.
“Reds ahead!” she called from the pilot’s seat, her voice soon drowned out by the roar of the Growlers. Lizanne moved to a window to watch the tracer bullets streaming into the gloom, the arcing streams soon bisected by the larger shells from the Thumpers carried by the Hurricane and the Whirlwind. These featured a new modification from Jermayah, a fuse that would cause them to explode after a distance of four hundred yards. Consequently, the sky surrounding the aerostats soon began to resemble a firework display. Lizanne saw Reds illuminated by the exploding shells, brief, frozen glimpses of the beasts banking and coughing flame, none of which came close to the aerostats. She had the satisfaction of counting four caught in the act of being blasted out of the sky before Tekela hauled back on the control lever and called out, “Nineteen hundred feet!”
“Slow and level!” Lizanne called back, moving to the apparatus newly fitted to the floor of the gondola. It was an uncomplicated contraption consisting of a telescope positioned vertically within a frame to which a small lever had been attached. The lever was connected to a taut steel cable that descended through the base of the gondola to the release mechanism below. Lizanne injected a one-second burst of Green and pressed her eye to the telescope, placing one hand on the lever. She tried to blot out the continuing roar of the guns, punctuated by a rich stream of profane fear and exhilaration from the gunners. The view through the telescope was chaotic at first, drifting smoke shrouding a landscape of numerous fires and the ant-like forms of running people. However, thanks to the Green she was able to ascertain that they were about to fly over the southern fringe of the Jet Sands.
Where are they? she thought as the landscape slid beneath, her concentration soon broken by a shout from Morva.
“The Tempest is on fire!”
Cursing, Lizanne removed her eye from the telescope, moving to the hatch where Morva crouched with her mini-Growler in hand. She fired just as Lizanne came to her side, sending a stream of bullets into the belly of a Red as it swooped by, flames jetting from its mouth. It let out a screech and tumbled in the air, plummeting towards the earth in a tangle of wings and tail.
Lizanne tore her gaze away and concentrated on the Tempest, seeing the fire licking at the rear of her envelope. The aerostat was still keeping pace with them but her course was becoming more wayward, the craft heaving up and down as the fire spread. Lizanne switched her gaze on the large, barrel-shaped object hanging beneath the craft’s gondola. Not yet, she implored. Just a little longer.
Her eyes jerked upwards at a burst of fire from the gunner in the cupola atop the Tempest’s envelope. The gunner had her mini-Growler raised high and unleashed a stream of bullets at a large Red streaking down towards the aerostat in a vertical dive. The beast’s head was shredded by the concentrated fire but its dive continued, the corpse slamming into the aerostat and causing it to lose height. Lizanne managed to catch sight of the barrel-shaped object detaching from the gondola before a dozen Reds swooped down to bathe the Tempest in fire. Her envelope exploded, leaving only a cloud of wreckage trailing flame as it streamed towards the ground.
“Hold on!” Lizanne ordered, moving back from the hatch and taking a firm hold on the central beam.
The explosion was everything Tinkerer promised and more. The gondola’s windows glowed orange as a massive gust of superheated air pushed the Typhoon up, tilting her at an acute angle as Tekela fought to keep control. The aerostat veered to the west, Tekela pushing the engines to their highest speed to take her clear of the turbulent air. When they levelled out Lizanne went to the rear window, finding that the Hurricane and the Whirlwind were now several hundred yards away, meaning the Typhoon would have to rely on her own guns for protection.
“Turn us around,” she ordered Tekela, moving to return her eye to the telescope. She found that the Typhoon had been pushed clear of the Jet Sands and was now over the river. The ground pivoted as Tekela killed power to the starboard engine before reversing its propeller, turning them around in a swi
ft pirouette. An unforeseen advantage of the Tempest’s demise and premature release of its device was that the skies around Typhoon were now clear of Reds. Consequently, they flew unmolested for several minutes as Lizanne watched the river pass by below and the ground transform into a frozen seascape of black dunes. She blinked in surprise as a dense formation of infantry trooped by directly below, thousands of Spoiled moving in a rapid march no doubt intending to turn the night’s defeat into a disastrous rout.
“Stop!” she shouted, keeping her eye pressed to the telescope. She placed her hand on the release lever, waiting until the vanguard of the White’s army had passed beneath the Typhoon. Not yet . . . not yet. She forced herself to count to ten then pressed the lever.
The Typhoon instantly began to rise as the huge weight of the device fell away, ascending at least three hundred feet in the time it took for the barrel-shaped silhouette to shrink into a speck, whereupon the view through the telescope instantly turned white. Lizanne let out a pained gasp at the brightness of it, snapping her head away, eye streaming. The shock wave hit them a heart-beat later, far more powerful than the first. Lizanne found herself careening around the gondola as the aerostat bucked and heaved in the artificial storm. When it finally settled Lizanne pressed her undazzled eye to the telescope, finding much of the western edge of the Jet Sands had been transformed into something that resembled a huge scratched mirror.
“Reds!” one of the gunners shouted, his Growler blasting out a hail of bullets a second later.
“Due south,” Lizanne told Tekela. She injected a burst of Red and moved to the blood-burner’s ignition tube, hitting the switch to flood the combustion chamber with product. All the Typhoon’s guns were firing by the time she lit the engine, the acceleration sending her onto her back as the aerostat sped away from the pursuing Reds.
