The Savior - eARC

by David Drake

  A soldier?

  Finally Koolhaas could take it no more. “Who the cold hell are you?” he shouted.

  Then the dirt-covered, one-eyed man smiled a ragged, stiff-lipped smile, and Koolhaas knew that smile and knew the man’s name even before he could speak. “Colonel!” he yelled. “Colonel, it’s you!”

  “Blood and Bones, Koolhaas, didn’t you recognize me without the eye?”

  “No, sir, not at first. And you look a bit…underfed, sir.”

  “Aye, that I am,” Colonel Dashian said. “I could do with a couple of steaks.” He looked over at the dak he’d ridden in on. “Perhaps from that fellow, after the aches and pains he’s caused me.”

  Then he turned back to Koolhaas. “But we’ll worry about that later. Now, tell me where that pretend DMC and his so-called garrison commanders are hiding themselves, Corporal.”

  “We call them the Pretty Boys of Lindron, Colonel,” Koolhaas said. “They locked us in for the day and took off to town, the lot of them. Major Courtemanche, he’s in charge of the garrison at the moment. They busted him down to captain, though.”

  “Did they?” said the colonel. “We’ll see about that.” He clapped his hands together and a created a small cloud of dust. “Now, let me think. I’ll want Monday Company to fall out. They’re to accompany Prelate Zilkovsky here over to the temple. Full battledress, and flourishes, too. They’re to see he’s reinstalled properly and take care of any who might take exception to that process. I’ll want you to run over and let Romero know. Romero is still heading up Monday?”

  “Yes, sir. Though he’s been talking about retiring since you disappeared like a…I mean since you’ve been gone.”

  “To cold hell with that,” Colonel Dashian said. “We’ll send Zilkovsky off, and the rest of us are going to prepare a little welcome for the…what did you call them, Koolhaas?”

  “The Pretty Boys of Lindron.”

  “Yes, we’ll be ready with a surprise party when the Pretty Boys get back from whatever whorehouse or bones hall they took themselves off to. Sound like fun, Corporal?”

  “More than I’ve had in a long time, sir.”

  “It’s just beginning, Koolhaas. You up for a bigger fight?”

  “Always, sir, long as you’re doing the leading.”

  “Good, good,” the colonel said. “There’s a scrum down Ingres way, and I thought we’d take the boys down and give them some exercise. There’ll be Blaskoye and plenty of them.”

  The colonel caught him with his one good eye. “That doesn’t bother you, does it, Koolhaas?”

  “Only if you don’t let me shoot them, sir.”

  “I think I can promise you that opportunity, Corporal.” The colonel reached over and slapped Koolhaas, hard, on the shoulder. He then put a hand on Koolhaas’s other shoulder, and for a moment Koolhaas thought the colonel meant to hug him. But Dashian caught himself and instead gave Koolhaas a good, long shake, rattling the corporal’s teeth. “By the Lady, Koolhaas, it’s good to see you,” he said. “Now you go roust Romero and let’s get this corral full of sorry-ass, riven-hoof, bent-back dickless fillies in shape for the races.”

  “Yes, sir. When do we move out for Ingres, sir?”

  “Tomorrow, Corporal, first light.”

  3

  Ingres District

  Donner’s Landing

  Dawn

  The River flowed nearby. The only sound it made was a gentle lapping against its banks of pure brown mud. Insectoid buzz filled the air, along with the ragged cry of the occasional carnadon.

  The Blaskoye sentry slapped his neck at what he thought was an insectoid bite. His hand came away bloody. Suddenly he felt cold, as if night had fallen. He gazed down at his white robe. It was soaked in blood all down the front, and the stain was growing. He reached for the bite, felt it again, and cried out when one of his fingers went inside a wound. He pushed farther. His finger kept going inside. The cold grew intense. The world around the sentry dimmed.

  It’s getting dark. That’s not right, he thought.

  Then his knees buckled; his muscle tension slacked. The sentry collapsed dead on the ground.

  Nearby another Blaskoye cried out in agony and clutched at his stomach. One man sitting on his dont groaned and slumped forward onto the neck of the beast. The startled dont charged forward a few paces, then abruptly stopped short when it came up against a stand of willows. The man fell off to its side, his body caught and held among bent willow saplings.

  Another and another, but by this time the remaining men had figured out that they were under attack, if not where the bullets were coming from. One ran to his dont and pushed it into a gallop up the trail that led directly away from the River.

  “Think you can take him at that distance?” a voice said in a clump of river reeds nearby.

  “Kenot ontil try ich,” was the gruff reply. A moment later a final shot rang out. Up the River bank on the trail, the fleeing man flung out his hands as if in praise to the path before him and then tumbled off the back of his dont. The animal kept running. The man did not get up from the dust.

  “Thet’s all ich seeun.” The possessor of the gruff voice, Kruso, rose from his hiding spot among the reeds. Beside him was Lausner, the captain of the Treville Scouts, and a third scout who’d accompanied them and paddled the reed dingy. The three ventured out, their boots sloshing in the sucking mud of the River bank. Nearby, a carnadon took notice, churned toward them. Kruso put a shot into the animal’s head and it, too, slumped to motionlessness.

  “Handy thing, isn’t it—six shots before reloading?” said Lausner.

  “Sartanly ef tham count ye maken,” Kruso replied. They walked over to where the dead men had so recently had their camp. When they arrived, both men wordlessly fanned out and began examining the ground. It was only when the captain nodded that they looked up and went to examine the bodies. They had been reading the sign to see if there were any other Blaskoye lurking about, but had seen only the tracks of those already slain.

  “Let’s signal the colonel to land,” said Lausner. “It’s still going to be a day in cold hell clearing away the carnadons.”

  * * *

  Ingres District

  The Wheatlands

  Southwest Front

  Morning

  Without the revolving rifles a mass landing on the eastern shore of the river in Ingres District would have been impossible. The carnadons were thick here, completely uncontrolled by settlement along the banks. The beasts ruled the shallows and the riverbanks. They simply would not have allowed an army to come ashore without a bloodbath. But now with each man having the firepower of six, it was possible to carve a path through the carnadon infestation before the others could close in and seal off a path away from the bank.

  Abel’s force of ten thousand only lost a few, and those were men who made stupid decisions such as baiting and taunting the carnadons. They may not have deserved what they got, but Abel was glad not to have such idiots fighting for him. The carnadons might save a few more lives than they took, after all was said and done.

  He had to have his forces move forward a half a league inland before he could stop and allow each trooper to find his unit. It was a moment of confusion and, if they had been attacked, a great deal of damage would’ve been done. But with the killing of the river sentries, he had a hope, however faint, that he had landed the Cascade Regiment with the enemy unaware.

  His officers reestablished what order they could. Abel gave the sign and the company resumed its march eastward toward what he hoped would be the flank of von Hoff’s forces. The landing had taken time, and it was late afternoon before Abel drew near to where he supposed the outlying enemy forces would be found. He’d sent out Scouts, both on foot and mounted, but it was the clamor that he heard over the next rise that alerted him to the fact that he had very likely reached his destination.

  He approached the top of the rise for a lookout with the Treville Scouts, his old band, on either side of him
. It was a low hill, and they crawled the last few paces until they reached two large upright rocks, likely set to mark a property boundary, and gazed down on the plains below where von Hoff’s army was dug in. Even from here, he could only see the edges of von Hoff’s trenches. He had to presume that they stretched to the western horizon.

  The general was a master of defense as well as offense.

  Abel felt a twinge of regret, not for the first time that day.

  Center would have given me deployment of the troops and an accurate estimate of their numbers. And if I’d wanted to hover over von Hoff’s army like a flitterdak looking for carrion, I could have had that, too.

  From the dust cloud hanging above the enemy forces he guessed that the front lines were engaged with Timon’s division. He asked Kruso for confirmation and, after a long look, the Scout nodded.

  Still the uncertainty nagged at him. Was he doing the right thing? Was he about to get his ass handed to him?

  I’m in the realm that most humans inhabit, he realized with smile. The realm of second-guessing yourself at every turn and worrying your ass off.

  But his men were trained, and after carving their way through the river carnadons, each one had taken extra target practice on moving and very much living targets. He was as ready as he would ever be without Center and Raj.

  “Bring the cavalry along this rise north to south,” Abel said to his adjunct, Major Metzler, who was shadowing him as silently as Timon once had. “Give me a hundredpace distance between each squad.” A courier was about to ride away with Abel’s orders but was called back. “And remind Kanagawa that there are going to be troops storming in behind him. Those troops will depend on his screen to get them close enough to be effective with the new guns, so don’t get too far ahead.”

  The last thing I need is the cavalry charging off on some wild tangent and leaving my infantry exposed, Abel thought.

  “Bring up the forward companies and send word to the reserves to be ready at a moment’s notice. We’ll use the same order of battle as at the staff meeting yesterday. You got that, Metzler?”

  “Yes, General.”

  It took about a quarter watch for his orders to be related and for his troops to move into position. The sun sank lower. Abel looked up and down his line. They’d practiced it as well as they could, but this was the first time he, or anyone competent, had led troops into battle with a line one-man deep. He’d considered making them two-deep in order to give the men time to pop in Landry’s speedloaders while still being covered by riflemen in front. But he needed numbers to cover a long defensive line. He would have to trust that the hours he’d had them practicing with those speed loaders would pay off. Each man had been issued three, so in addition to the six cartridges loaded, there were eighteen more that should—theoretically—be quickly available for firing. In addition, all had a cartridge box full of bullets. The companies that would take the front line had put in extra practice. When not under fire, most of them could use the speedloader faster than they could have reloaded the barrel of a muzzle-loader.

  Each man effectively had the firepower of six to one. Theoretically.

  Theory was about to get its test. Abel turned to Metzler. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get them moving.” He pulled his sword from its scabbard and raised it high. Only a relative few of the men could see him, strung out as they were. But flags were flapping and the wigwag was flying down the line in either direction. The mounted units brought their donts up to a canter down the gentle slope of the rise. When the ground flattened, they picked up speed—a few pulled ahead, but most were mindful that there were foot soldiers on the move behind them.

  The line moved ahead in a ragged fashion, but move ahead it did. It wasn’t smooth, but that wasn’t necessary or even desirable. It was impossible not to feel the mass intake of breath, the jittery fingering of gunstock and cartridge box, the collective urge to move, that such a mass of men and animals generated. He wanted to go with them. He was trembling with the desire to attack. He’d mastered the urge before, and he would again. Yet when an orderly brought up his dont and Abel climbed up on her back, he almost gave in to the temptation.

  But there was so much to do, so much to see to—and that responsibility had its own tug of necessity. In a hundred small moments over the course of the next two or three watches, he would need to decide, simply because someone had to. And if nobody did, they’d already lost.

  What was most frustrating was that he couldn’t see. He would have to judge from reports, from riding behind the lines, from guesswork. So be it.

  The rise was maybe a quarter league from von Hoff’s left.

  If I’ve judged him rightly, at least part of my line is going to hit his flank.

  A rider came charging back from the line, leaving a trail of dust behind him. He came to a stuttering stop next to Abel and reined his dont in circles to calm the beast down.

  “Report,” Abel said levelly.

  The courier got the animal under control, then saluted Abel with a chest thump. “Sir, Captain Craven begs me to inform you that he’s found the enemy.”

  Craven was commander of the mounted troop on Abel’s far left. He’d instructed the captain to send him word the instant he made contact.

  The winded dont shuffled, and the man’s next words were lost in the chuff of hooves.

  “What’s that?” Abel asked.

  “The captain says to tell you we’ve run into the trenches. He says we can use his thrice-damned things as pathways to cut out the enemy’s heart.”

  He’d done it. He’d flanked von Hoff. More than that—if his left was in von Hoff’s trenches, then that meant the rest of his line was charging in…

  I’m behind his lines, Abel thought. By the Lady, we’ve done it.

  He smiled grimly. “Feel like a ride back up to the front?” he asked.

  The man nodded. “I was hoping you’d let me go,” he said.

  “Trade donts with Cornell,” said Abel, gesturing toward one of his staffers. “Tell Craven to move down those trenches, tear up the works, root out the enemy, and send him east.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell him good work.” Abel looked up at the afternoon sky. “And tell him to hurry it up, too, before we lose the light.”

  The officer thumped another salute to Abel. He and Cornell quickly changed mounts. Cornell’s dont was skittish and gave them a bit of trouble, but the courier’s own was too tired to do anything but stand still, obviously content to be at rest. With a flip of the reins, the man tore away back to the east on the fresh dont.

  Another messenger charged up. “Sir, Captain Ogilvy begs to report that he has encountered a regimental-sized horde of Blaskoye reinforcements. He held off two charges. Then, sir, the Blaskoye veered away and headed north. The captain is not sure of the reason for this. He speculates that something else got their attention, perhaps something big.”

  * * *

  Within another half watch, Abel didn’t need reports from the front. He saw then heard explosions. Large clouds of black smoke rose in the distance.

  “We’ve gotten into the ammunition train,” a rider told him. “The men are having a bit of fun blowing it to cold hell.”

  Abel shook his head. “That’s got to stop. This is not a thrice-damned raid. This is the whole fight. This is where we win or lose it all. You tell Cornell to get that band of killers in order and stab those fuckers in their backs. If we cut them off and kill them, then it won’t matter about the ammunition.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Better yet, I’ll tell him myself.” Abel motioned to Landry, who had found Abel after his engineers were done sapping the trenches. “It’s high time we moved our asses forward, wouldn’t you say, Captain?”

  “I would indeed, sir.”

  * * *

  Ingres District

  The Wheatlands

  Northeastern Front

  Morning

  He’d been drilling his men to fight
cavalry in squares for well-nigh forty years. He hoped that some of it had sunk in.

  Joab’s Treville Regulars attacked in company-sized units. The men formed three ranks of about thirty-five across and kept very close to the company in front—a few dozen paces distant at maximum. This would allow them to come together quickly in the event of attack in two possible formations. The first was to create a front of bayonets and rifles facing in any given direction from which dontback attack might arise.

  This might easily be enough against an uncoordinated attack by unsupported cavalry. If the fight looked to be getting hot, the line of men at the frontline, along with supporting mounted forces hitting from a flank, were there to provide a bristling thornwork shield while those behind reloaded.

  His company captains had long practiced deploying in a checkered pattern to avoid being in one another’s line of fire as much as possible. The whole idea of the square was that it could fire in any direction, and so was difficult to outflank by cavalry storming around it. You couldn’t get to the rear of your enemy if he had no rear. Only a broken square was vulnerable. If a dont rider got inside, he might create havoc, and any fire to bring him down also became threatening friendly fire against the side of the square opposite you. Yet even a broken square could be quickly mended once the interior was secure.

  The tricky part—and it was a matter that required some skill—was to shoot the mounted at about thirty paces distance. Too close and the bodies and donts started to pile up and obstruct further lines of fire. Too far and you were liable to miss your mark entirely.

  The technique had produced mixed success with Joab’s commanders during the Battle of the Canal. The Scouts could not adopt it at all in the prickly, shrubby Redland desert. Even in the wheat fields, during the heat of a mounted charge of thundering donts, it proved difficult to estimate distances when an infantry officer was quaking with excitement (and for his life).

  And there were just so damned many Blaskoye. His men cut them down, inched forward in their squares, cut down another swatch.

  But some got through, some squares broke. And then they did, the Blaskoye riders swept into the attack from the flank and even the rear.