Fateful Lightning

by William R. Forstchen

  Masking his fears, he slowly pressed through the square, taking the greetings of his people, all of them gaunt, hollow-eyed, reduced to near starvation.

  The Merki would be back, and in his heart he knew there would be precious little he could do to stop them.

  “They’re coming in!”

  The trooper reined up beside Pat, horse lathered, the boy’s face flushed with excitement.

  Pat merely nodded. He did not need the messenger to tell him what was already so evident. From horizon to horizon he could see the swirls of dust, on distant hills the flash of shields and sabers. Overhead two aerosteamers hovered, one nearly a mile up, the other less than six hundred feet high, trailing a line of telegraph wire hooked into the roof of the command car, the key inside chattering out the latest count.

  Twenty-two umens confirmed so far in the first wave, he saw in the latest report.

  Forty miles out past Vazima, a hundred and thirty from Suzdal in three days, coming on damn fast. At least their artillery was bogging down, trapped on the roads, where movement was at times nearly at a crawl, thanks to the infernal machines, smashed bridges, and entanglements. It’d be seven or eight days before they’d have their guns up to Kev. He looked back up at the machine and saw Jack Petracci leaning far forward, telescope balanced on the front of the basket, scanning the terrain to the north.

  The machines were paying off, allowing a dawn-to- dusk watch, allowing as well the chance for harassing raids against the enemy advance without fear of envelopment by a fast-moving column. Unlike the last campaign, in which the Merki had complete control of the sky, this one at least had some semblance of balance. Though the Merki now had more aerosteamers, at last count sixteen to five, their near-limitless range was offset by the slightly greater speed and climbing ability of Jack’s fleet, the latest ship having a slightly more powerful engine than the first models. Never again could the Merki advance behind a total screen of security and surprise. There had been several aerosteamer skirmishes as well, but Jack and his four other crews, following strict orders from Andrew, combined with a desire not to crash before an advancing host, had avoided close contact and merely exchanged shots at long range.

  A troop of cavalry came over the next ridge, the homes in the village behind it crackling with fire, columns of smoke swirling heavenward. Raising his field glasses, he watched intently. The two four-pounders kicked back, the cavalry troop waiting beside the gun section, some of the men firing off a ragged volley. The gunners limbered their pieces up and lashed the teams into a gallop, coming down the hill.

  “Seven Merki aerosteamers coming up from the southwest again.”

  Pat nodded, sensing the nervousness of his staff. Late yesterday a steamer had swung down almost to ground level and dropped off two Merki, who tore up a section of track before they were hunted down, giving them a couple of tense moments while the line was repaired, a full umen swinging up from the south to try to cut them off.

  The two-gun section, retreating from the next slope forward, hit the short bridge at a hard gallop, the hooves of their mounts thundering on the planking, the cavalry troop following, several of the riders turning, reloading their carbines. From over the crest of the hill, which had been empty only seconds before, hundreds of Merki riders appeared, a shower of arrows arcing over their heads, falling short of the bridge.

  The troopers fired, one of the Merki going down in a tangled heap, and then turned to gallop across the bridge. One of them stopped, dismounted, and kicked a barrel onto the bridge, while another took a flaming brand from a fire which had been built by the side of the bridge and threw it at the barrel. The flame barely took, licking across the planks. Beside it the railroad bridge was already down, a smoldering ruin.

  The Merki, seeing the still-intact bridge, kicked their mounts into a charge, sweeping down the road. Pat stood quiet, watching intently, his staff talking nervously to each other, some of them unholstering their revolvers, the two companies of infantry on the train’s flatcars dismounting and starting to spread out. The deep guttural shouts of the enemy carried on the wind.

  The flames on the bridge flickered low, a thin curl of dark smoke swirling up. The first Merki hit the bridge, galloping hard across, flame scattering from the horse’s hooves, the rider struggling to keep his mount moving forward. Then another. A fast-moving column, over a score of riders, charged down the road, following a horsetail standard, hundreds more cutting down across the fields behind them. The column hit the bridge, ignoring the low smoldering fire, lashing their horses through it and on to the other side of the stream, their leader standing tall in his stirrups, scimitar flashing over his head. The leader reined in for a moment, motioning for several of his riders to dismount to fight the fire, and then with a wave of his scimitar pointed up the hill.

  “Come on, you bastard,” Pat hissed. “Come and get it.”

  The leader, spurring his mount, went into a charge, the score of riders behind him with bows raised following their leader and the horsetail standard.

  Hundreds of Merki converged on the bridge, struggling to get across, horses neighing as their riders forced them through the low flames and dark swirling smoke.

  The thirty-yard-long bridge was packed with Merki.

  Pat turned and nodded to a grinning Suzdalian engineer. The boy took the battery to a telegraph key and connected the leads.

  The bridge disappeared in a flash of fire from the fifty-pound charge, two thirty-gallon barrels of benzene strapped to the gunpowder igniting into an inferno that soared up with the explosion, splashing out in every direction in a brilliant red-and-yellow fireball.

  The triumphant shouts of the Merki were replaced in an instant by high piercing shrieks. Horses and riders, covered in flame, plunged into the river, which was awash with fire. The charging column, unable to slow, continued to push onto the burning bridge, Merki at the front of the column falling into the flames, horses plunging madly, foaming the flaming water.

  “Burn, you bastards, burn!” Pat roared, jumping up and down excitedly. The staff officers around him cheered, slapping each other on the back.

  The Suzdalian cavalry troop turned, the gunners swinging about, unlimbering their pieces, and within seconds sending a spray of canister into the packed column struggling to back up on the far side of the bridge. The troopers started back down the hill, steadying their mounts for a moment, firing into those trapped on the east side of the bridge. The lead column of Merki, a hundred yards up the slope, reined in and clustered around a standard, firing arrows at the troopers as they closed in. A trooper with drawn revolver started into a gallop, a bugler beside him sounding the charge. High human cries sounded and the cavalry swept back down the slope, crashing into the Merki, pistol shots reverberating.

  “Damn, they weren’t suppose to close. They’re getting carried away,” Pat snapped peevishly. The Merki were swarmed under, the standard dropping, and then coming back up again in the hands of a Suzdalian cavalryman. A volley of arrows snapped out from the far side of the stream, several of the cavalry falling under the blow. The remaining troopers, grabbing hold of the reins of the now riderless Merki horses, turned and started back up the slope, which was littered with the dead. The four-pounders continued to fire in support, unable to miss in the crush of Merki and horses jammed together on the far bank.

  Directly behind Pat, the two rear-mounted guns in the armored car snapped off, the twelve-pound case shot screaming into the valley, one of them detonating over the bridge, spraying the far side with shrapnel, the other round burying itself in the riverbank, igniting in a geyser of flame and mud. A narga sounded from the top of the opposite hill, and the Merki at the destroyed bridge started to pull back, dragging their wounded with them. The bank of the river, alight with the flames of the bridge, was dark with bodies.

  The cluster of men around Pat shouted their defiance.

  “Cutting the telegraph line!”

  Pat looked over at the operator leaning out of the co
mmand car and then up at the aerosteamer. The copper line was disconnected from the roof of the command car by a Rus boy and started to snake upward, reeled in by Feyodor aboard Yankee Clipper II, which turned back to the east, propeller humming, nose pointed up, struggling to gain altitude. The other airship, China Cloud, more than a mile up, kept its position, ready to swoop if one of the Merki ships coming up from the southwest should make a mistake or get into trouble.

  “Time to pack up,” Pat said.

  “Damn, we could hold the bastards here for the rest of the day,” a Roum officer, assigned as an observer, announced triumphantly in broken Rus, pointing at the still-burning bridge and the dozens of Merki corpses that littered the banks.

  “Bloody-nose ’em, that’s what Andrew wanted— then pull back and bloody ’em again. From now on, when they find a bridge they’ll tiptoe across it, assholes knotted tight.”

  “Last report was two umens have crossed the stream at a ford five miles north of here,” the telegrapher shouted, leaning out of the command car.

  Pat looked back at the Roum officer, who nodded an agreement for the withdrawal order.

  The first of the cavalry troopers came up to the top of the hill, waving a Merki battle standard triumphantly. The standard was adorned with twelve horsetails dyed blue, and affixed to the top of it were a dozen human skulls.

  Pat looked up at it coldly.

  “Bloody bastards.”

  He looked back at the Merki lining the ridge on the other hill, their angry voices and what sounded like anguished cries carrying on the gentle afternoon breeze.

  A regimental flag—we’ve taken one of their flags and the bastards are upset, he thought. Let ’em howl.

  “Lash it to the armored car, but for God’s sake take them skulls off it first,” he snarled.

  The grinning trooper, blood flowing from a scalp wound, turned and went over to the train.

  Dennis Showalter, the brigadier general commanding the newly created 1st and 2nd Mounted Infantry of the Republics, came up to Pat’s side and saluted, a grin lighting his powder-blackened features.

  Pat motioned for him to dismount, and the lanky cavalryman tucked his Sharps carbine into its scabbard and slid down from his Clydesdale-size horse.

  “Good show down there,” Pat said quietly.

  “We got at least fifty of the bastards.”

  “Fine, fine,” Pat replied quietly. “That means we’ve only got something like three hundred and ninety-nine thousand and some odd figure left to go.”

  “We took one of their standards—that really set them off.”

  “And how many did you lose taking it?”

  “Four dead, three wounded, plus two more got cut off on the other side of the hill. I hope for their sakes they saved the last round for themselves,” Dennis said, his voice suddenly quiet.“Not a fair trade.”

  “The boys’ blood was up,” Dennis said defensively.

  “You mean your blood was up. I don’t need some Jeb Stewart or Ashby galloping around out there looking for glory,” Pat snarled. “It looks great in the Illustrated Weekly, but it kills men. You aren’t going to stop those bastards by yourself. You’re to hurt them, slow them down, make ’em nervous, and not lose any more men than you have to. You could have gunned those bastards down from a distance. Hell, your entire troop is carrying those precious new Sharps carbines. Learn how to use them. Fight with your goddam brain, not your guts. Do you understand me?”

  Dennis nodded dejectedly.

  “You’ve got boys who can only half ride, and you’ve got eight hundred precious horses, horses we can’t spare but have to. And a hundred of the new Sharps carbines, the only ones on this entire world. Use them carefully.”

  Pat looked at Dennis appraisingly. He had been a gunnery sergeant with the old 44th. A good man, who knew horses and used to moan about not having joined a light horse artillery unit. Now he was getting his chance. It was just that he needed to learn some caution. That was the problem with cavalrymen. They needed guts and daring, but they had to be careful or they’d get their asses in a crack, and out here, there wouldn’t be any infantry to pull them out the way both he and Andrew’s old 35th had come to Buford’s aid at Gettysburg.

  Mina had thrown a fit when Andrew insisted that a light cavalry brigade of two regiments was to be formed, a fit made worse when it came to light that before Ferguson had shut down the Sharps carbine project he had already secretly turned out a hundred of the weapons against John’s orders to focus production on infantry muzzle-loaders. Only the accidental discovery of them by one of John’s staff people had brought their production to light. Pat smiled at the memory of it, John coming to Andrew looking for Ferguson’s head and Andrew turning it around as the clinching argument for the cavalry unit. The weapons were .58 caliber, unlike Hans’s precious .52 caliber weapon, which had been used as a template, in order to standardize the ammunition with the Springfields.

  All of John’s arguments were undoubtedly right, especially when it came to the simple fact that less than twenty percent of the field batteries had full complements of horses and remounts, but Andrew had insisted, and the eight hundred horses were transferred and the regiments formed from volunteers. A fair number of mounted men at arms from the old days of the boyars and from the Roum legion were still around to act as instructors, officers, and noncoms, and were overjoyed to be back in the saddle again. As always there were more than enough impetuous Rus and Roum boys ready to sign, eager for glory and the chance to save themselves from footsore marching. Most of them had managed to find hardee hats, which, following Dennis’s romantic lead, were adorned with what passed for plumes and crossed sabers of brass on the front. From Roum some precious blue cloth had even been found and many of the men were now wearing navy-blue jackets trimmed with gold and reinforced sky-blue trousers. Pat looked at the troopers as they trotted up the hill, moving behind their swallow-tailed flag, and felt a lump in his throat. Except for the plowhorse mounts, they seemed straight out of the glory days of the Army of the Potomac. The unit was working on another level as well, not formed as regiments from one community but rather combined out of all the Rus and Roum, the first combined command, like the regular army units from back home. It was a good unifying point, even including a handful of Cartha who had decided to stay on even though Hamilcar had pulled out of the war.

  Though less than a month old, the two regiments were already bonded by a strong esprit, the men full of swagger, touting their precious Sharps carbines, revolvers, or sawed-off muskets converted into shotguns, hats pushed back from sweat-streaked faces, the men joking after the heart-thumping withdrawal into the trap at the bridge.

  Though Pat wouldn’t admit it to Dennis now, the skirmish had been masterful, the Merki lured straight into the trap with the fake attempt to burn the bridge and the beautiful bait of a command train. If the roles had been reversed, he’d have charged for their damn standard as well.

  Goddammit, I’ve changed, Pat realized, tempted to offer Dennis a drink, tempted to near insanity to take one as well. But not now, not while there was fighting, especially this type of operation, dodging back before the Merki advance, slowing them down ever so slightly, even if only by a day. It was practice for what was coming.

  “We captured twenty-two mounts,” Dennis said, his voice a bit hopeful as if looking for approval.

  Pat finally smiled, slapped him on the shoulder.

  “Get six of your boys to move them to the rear. It’ll make Mina happy to get a few horses back. I’ll take the wounded”—he hesitated for a second—“and your dead as well on the train. We don’t leave our dead for those animals. Get them aboard.”

  Pat looked back at the host on the far slope, which was gaining strength at each passing second. Riders were already moving toward the distant flanks, probing down toward the river. A flurry of shots echoed, and a mile or more away he could see a squadron of troopers pulling back from the ford to the south, several hundred Merki swarming down to th
e stream. In the distance the Merki aerostreamers were now clearly in view, moving up to try to cut him off once again.

  “It’s like trying to spit against a hurricane. Prick ’em like you set up here, then get the hell out. Do you understand me? Now be careful.”

  Dennis grinned and with a bit of a dramatic flourish he saluted while his horse reared up. Spurring his mount, he set off, his troopers falling in behind him. Pat watched, feeling a wave of jealousy for the young general, commander of the first human cavalry on this planet. It was a hell of a good day for some mischief, and he wished he could ride along for the fun.

  With a wave of his hand he motioned the staff to get aboard the train. The engineer, leaning out of the cab, waved the clear signal, and with a spinning of wheels the engine started forward, pushing an armored car in front of it, pulling the staff car, a couple of flatcars loaded with infantry and emergency repair equipment, and another armored car hooked behind.

  Pat climbed aboard, noticing the still-warm bodies of the four dead troopers spread out on the flatcar, blankets covering their features. There used to be an old joke that no one had ever seen a dead cavalryman. This war would certainly prove that one wrong, he thought darkly as he went into his car, wishing more than ever for a solid drink.

  “Cattle scum,” Tamuka hissed, looking down at Garg, former second in command of the umen of the blue horse, now first in command, his superior dead on the other side of the stream.

  Garg, features contorted with rage, said nothing, fingers knotted around the hilt of his scimitar so tightly that the veins on the back of his hand stood out.

  A puff of smoke shot upward from the distance, and the high shriek of the train whistle rolled across the countryside as if shouting out a defiant taunt.

  Two umen commanders dead in the first three days, one of them a clan chief bitten by a viper inside what he had thought was a bucket filled with water, which in fact had a false bottom, the snake falling on him when he lifted it up for a drink. And now the cattle were fighting from horseback.