Fateful Lightning

by William R. Forstchen

  A commanding spot here, he realized. A good place for a massed battery. They might outnumber us six to one, but they’ll have to come up this slope facing nearly four hundred guns. The emplacements, pits for thirty pieces, offered scant protection, barely thigh-deep, the soil piled up a foot higher around the position. No overhead protection; if the Merki closed to two hundred yards, even two hundred and fifty, their plunging bow fire would be deadly. This wasn’t good at all.

  He looked north, his gaze following the crestline. The entrenchments were laid out well enough, a sharp upcropping of bare rock surrounded by two batteries of the precious rifled three-inch cannons, already set in place, breastworks of logs built in front of them a mile to the north. Between that position and here it would be a splendid crossfire, a tailor-made killing ground.

  Dimitri, breaking off his conversation, came up to join him.

  “The sergeant’s right—back in Rus we’d have a triple line of trenches six feet deep here.”

  Vincent nodded in agreement. Around Hispania the soil was deeper, and entrenchments there were even covered with log head protection and roofing to protect from plunging arrow fire. But along this ridge it was bare rock or thinly covered.

  “I thought they'd have more lumber breastworks in place by now,” Dimitri said.

  “Wood for shelters, charcoal for powder, fuel for the trains—it’s not at our back door like in Suzdal, it’s twenty miles north. This is going to be a stand-up fight that I don’t care for.”

  An obviously nervous lieutenant came out of the villa, hurriedly buttoning his tunic. From inside Vincent heard a woman’s voice, which was quickly hushed.

  “Having fun, lieutenant?” Vincent asked coldly.

  The young Rus officer turned red, unable to reply.“What regiment?”

  “Third Vazima, sir.”

  “Is this your assigned position?”

  “No sir, we were just sent up here to work. Nobody’s got permanent line positions yet. The higher-ups…” He fumbled. “Excuse me, sir. the generals are waiting to see if they come in here, or try the flank again. At least that’s what I heard.”

  “So what the hell are you doing here?” Vincent looked back at the villa.

  “We’re supposed to dig gun emplacements and work on the trenches.”

  “Then Perm damn you, get out there, take your men with you, and do it.”

  The lieutenant saluted nervously, shouted a command, and was off at a run, several of the men piling out of the villa after him, joined by the group from the back of the building.

  Vincent shook his head angrily. “I should get his name and have him kicked back to private. Damn him.”

  Dimitri laughed softly. “Aren’t soldiers always the same?”

  Vincent looked over at the old man.

  “If it’s his hide that gets stuck here when the Merki charge, he’ll wish he’d been digging rather than fornicating.”

  Dimitri smiled. “Perhaps the memory might give him courage.”

  Vincent ignored the reply.

  A high whistle cut into his thoughts, and he looked back to the reverse slope. A train, moving slowly, was coming up from Roum, moving parallel to the road, the troops waving at the engineer, who tooted out the first bar of a Roum drinking song, the men cheering in reply.

  Vincent felt the stirring again. On the road south a column of shining muskets swayed rhythmically as the men marched. The train continued on, following the track which ran a hundred yards to the rear of the ridge, laid out parallel to the ridge as it curved its way through its bowlike curve, north then northwestward and then finally west into Hispania. Crews were still busy on the near side of the main track, laying in a second line alongside the first, which would help speed tactical movement when the battle was joined. Barely concealed behind a low fold of ground off to the southwest he could see a turntable and switchyard going up so that trains could be quickly shifted around at the end of the spur line.

  The song started to ripple down the line, the men barking it out, its cadence perfect for marching. Up ahead he could see the white tunics of Rus soldiers moving down toward the road, eager to greet the reinforcements. Such a show was good for morale, Vincent realized.

  He turned his mount away from the crest and started back to rejoin the column. His army was about to march before the veterans of Rus. Waving for his corps guidon, he broke into a gallop, moving to rejoin the head of the column. As he rode along the line of troops, the men, feeling in good spirits, gave him a friendly cheer, something they had not done since the early days of their training. They were feeling proud, still innocent and eager, something he had forgotten a long time ago.

  At the head of thirty thousand men, Vincent Hawthorne, the Quaker from Vassalboro, Maine, suddenly felt a cold eager joy. They were ready for battle. He was now ready for the killing to begin.

  Chapter 8

  It was midnight, the Great Wheel of heaven straight overhead, Shagta drifting low in the western sky, Borgta chasing after it. The day had been hot, and tomorrow would be the same, perhaps worse. He licked his dried, cracked lips. Water was running scarce. Hundreds of horses were dropping. Though he and all those of the hordes loathed to do it, they had been consigned to the cooking pots.

  There would be no time this morning for the greeting of the sun. The ride would be straight out and hard, timed to arrive at the river at the hour before dawn.

  With luck the killing would be good.

  All around him through the darkness, he could sense his riders advancing, heads lowered, weary, an occasional mumbled song or chant drifting in the stillness, the warriors nervous to be riding at night when the steppe was ruled by the ancestor spirits.

  From his left came the jingling of a message rider. He looked over and saw the colored lantern bobbing, suspended over the rider’s head by a pole strapped to his back. He came straight up to Tamuka, guided by the three yellow lanterns carried by the message flag bearer who marked the position of the Qar Qarth.

  The rider came up out of the darkness and swung alongside Tamuka, breathing hard, the smell of horse sweat strong in the air.

  “My Qar Qarth, Gubta of the Vushka Hush reports.”

  “Go on.”

  “Forward scouts saw a column of cattle horse riders moving southward at sunset, on the far side of the next river. Four hundred, it is believed. A forward scout reported their continuing to move south after the first quarter of night had passed.”

  Tamuka smiled. It was a chance to trap a tidbit, to wipe out some of those who dared to ride the horse.

  “Tell Gubta to force the river by the hour before dawn,” Tamuka barked, his sharp teeth glinting in the lantern light. “Close the left wing of the horn upon them. I will be upon the right.”

  “I am to tell Gubta to cross in the hour before dawn, to close the left wing, you will be upon the right.”

  Tamuka nodded, and the courier turned and galloped back to the north, the bells of his harness ringing.

  A small prize, Tamuka thought, not even half of a thousand, but at least enough to feed two umens for a day, and a chance for a minor victory to change the mood of his warriors.

  A dull flicker of red light flared up on the far horizon, and he reined in. There was a moment of superstitious dread, it looked like the beginning of a heavenly fire, when sheets of red and green light, the Curtain of Bugglaah, filled the night sky. If it was so, there was no way the army would continue to move, for all would go to ground, hiding their eyes from the heavens until dawn drove the manifestation of the goddess of death back behind her curtain.

  He looked over at Sarg, dimly visible in the starlight. The shaman was watching the glow intently.

  “The animals,” Sarg hissed. ‘Cowardly scum.”

  Tamuka, understanding at last, snarled a curse and urged his mount forward at a gallop, shouting for the vast line of umens to move forward.

  It somehow reminded Jack Petracci of a painting he had once seen of the Apocalypse. From several mile
s south of the forest halfway down to the bridge over the Kennebec, the wall of fire moved relentlessly forward to the northeast, driven by the gentle early-morning breeze, the flames marching forward, the pall of smoke rising to the heavens, darkening the morning sky.

  Pulling back full on the elevator stick, he brought the nose of Yankee Clipper II, up to nearly a forty-five-degree angle as he strove to put himself higher. He knew that at several thousand feet the chance of an errant spark hitting the hydrogen-filled balloon was remote, but there was no sense in taking any chances.

  The flight out had been slow to conserve fuel, ground speed barely twenty miles an hour. Taking off at midnight had been pleasant, the stars to navigate by, the entire world spread out before him. As he crossed out and over the Sangros the campfires to the south had flickered down, the foundry at Hispania showing clear from the plumes of sparks. The ride had been smooth, the breeze steady, barely a ripple or bump, unlike afternoon flying, when more often than not the upsurges of hot air made him decidedly green.

  He looked to his right and saw Flying Cloud II, half a dozen miles off, edging up toward the forest. To his left, China Star was nearly ten miles to the south.

  The Merki were expected to hit the river by midday, and it was time to count the bastards again.

  Yesterday he had flown up to the forest to drop a message for Showalter, ordering him to burn the steppe to the front and rear of the horde. With luck the bastards would be caught and fried.

  The first wisps of smoke drifted past them, carrying a smell that reminded him of autumn back home, and then he was into it, the world going in an instant to a choking dirty brown.

  Coughing, he pulled his bandanna up over his face, his eyes tearing beneath his goggles. The ship bucked and heaved, and behind him he heard Feyodor cursing. His stomach felt as if it were dropping away as the ship surged up on the roiling column of hot air and smoke. For long minutes he waited, coughing, gasping for breath, and then the world lightened, the dark blue of early dawn showing through the smoke, and he was out in the clear. Far ahead he could see the second line of fire, a distant smudge on the horizon, more than fifty miles off.

  He looked down at the ground, a mile or more below. The flames were directly beneath him, the line of fire stretching for miles, the steppe beyond it blackened. It was a scene of magnificent destruction. A long column of horsemen was nearly directly below, half a regiment at the least, a battalion, their yellow flag showing up in stark relief against the blackened steppe.

  To his right, Flying Cloud II emerged from the wall of smoke and at almost the same moment started to turn toward Jack, the long thin sausage shape shifting into a circle of white.

  What the hell is he breaking station for? Jack wondered.

  He looked back to the north, to the edge of the forest. He pulled up his field glasses and checked.

  “Going down now, and give me full throttle!” Jack shouted, slamming the elevator stick full forward, while at the same time grabbing hold of the cord that would open the top of the hot-air bag in the center of the ship, spilling out the additional lift from the engine exhaust.

  “Merki aerosteamers,” Feyodor shouted, tapping Jack on the shoulder and pointing off to the southwest. Jack looked up and saw five of them, moving low over the steppe six or seven miles away, coming on fast with the tail wind behind them.

  “We’ve got to get down first!” he shouted, and pointed the nose of his ship down toward the front of the column.

  Dennis Showalter stood up in his stirrups, his eyes stinging from the eddy of smoke that swirled about him. He knew dawn was approaching, but it was impossible to tell for sure. For miles southward the wall of smoke and fire moved relentlessly to the northeast.

  It was a good night’s work, a spectacular show. Petracci had dropped the message only yesterday morning for him to move half his regiment through the woods to get ahead of the Merki, then swing over to the east bank of the Kennebec and set the dry grass of the steppe afire. The other battalion was to move back to the west and set a second blaze far to the rear. It had taken a hard day along a forest trail to get ahead of the Merki and across the Kennebec. They had gone south till nearly midnight and then set the first blaze and turned back to the north, firing the steppe as they rode. A troop had been detached to continue riding south through the night to Kennebec Station, while he had turned back north, the battalion riding a steady pace back toward their forest sanctuary, the men setting the grass afire as they passed.

  He reined in for a moment and lifted his canteen. The muddy Kennebec water was cool, refreshing, washing the dry smoke from his throat. To his right the blaze was half a mile off. The steppe straight ahead was still clear, but before dawn was an hour past the wall of fire would go all the way to the forest.

  It’ll burn all the way to the Sangros, and the bastards’ horses will starve, he thought with a grin. South of the rail line, infantry was most likely setting more fires. He remembered reading how it was an old Indian trick. Well, it was a damn good one.

  Being a cavalryman was one of life’s finer joys, he thought with a grin, nodding cheerfully at the weary troopers who rode past, their faces blackened, eyes red-rimmed, tired from nearly twenty-four hours of straight riding but happy with the arson they’d just done.

  He heard a shout go up and turned to look toward the rear of the column. The men were pointing straight up, some still with that bit of superstitious fear, the others waving and laughing. Several of the horses, seeing the aerosteamer dropping down like some great primordial flier, complete to the eyes painted at the bow, started to buck in panic. One trooper was thrown off his mount, the horse running away.

  “Guidon!”

  Dennis turned and started to gallop off at a right angle to the column, hoping that the pilot would see him and follow. The ship turned, swinging out in a wide ponderous circle.

  Gaining a low rise several hundred yards to the west, Dennis reared in and dismounted, throwing his horse’s reins to the flag bearer, who drew back.

  The ship came in low, flattening out its dive, the wicker cabin barely skimming the ground. Behind the ship a plume of ashes rose up, occasional sparks fanning to life and swirling in the wash of the propeller. The thumping of the propeller dropped down to a low whooshing hum.

  The nose of the ship passed straight over Dennis’s head, and he looked up at the huge ship with awe. This was the closest he had ever been to an aerosteamer, and he felt a sudden flicker of envy. Being a cavalryman was grand work, but piloting an aerosteamer must be godlike. But at the same time he knew something was wrong. He had heard how the ship would go up in a fireball if it ever caught fire. Something had to be up for the pilot to come this low and risk a spark catching hold of the silk bag.

  The ship edged forward, nose straight into the wind. The pilot leaned out of the wicker basket hung amidships and wildly gestured for Dennis to come up. As he approached the ship, the pilot pushed his goggles up on his forehead

  “Petracci, you crazy bastard, how’s the fire look from up there?”

  “Merki are closing in,” Jack shouted.

  “Ah, the bastards must still be ten miles short of the river. We’ll be into the forest long before they get here.”

  “They’re already forded the Kennebec north of you and are swinging around to cut you off.”

  Dennis felt a cold chill knot into his stomach.

  “How about to the south?”

  “The same—across the river and nearly up to the fire, three, maybe four miles off!”

  Jack held up his hands and gestured like two horns closing in on each other.

  “Ride northeast, hug the fire, and try to lose them in the smoke, or find a hole and get through. Move it!”

  Jack leaned out of the cab and extended his hand.

  “Take care. I’ve got to get back up—Merki aerosteamers are moving in. I’ll stay above you. Follow my lead and I’ll try to guide you out!”

  Dennis reached up and shook Jack’s hand. />
  Petracci looked down at him, filled with a horrible guilt. There was nothing more he could do. He felt Dennis’s fingers slip out of his.

  “Full throttle, Feyodor,” Jack shouted and pulled back hard on the elevator. The nose of the aerosteamer started to lift, the propeller howling, and he started back up, the tail of the ship nearly hitting the ground, so that Dennis had to jump back to get out of the way. The ship turned, pointing its nose northward, the wind now striking it on its forward port side and causing it to fly in a northeasterly direction.

  Dennis ran back to his mount and leaped into the saddle.

  “Bugler! Sound forward at the gallop!”

  The weary boy, who was still looking up gap-mouthed at the aerosteamer, looked over in confusion at Dennis.

  “Do it!”

  The high clarion call rolled across the blackened steppe. Dennis leaned forward and went into a gallop, riding straight across the head of the column, waving his hat and pointing to the northeast. Spurring his mount, he started up the long slope, the guidon bearer and bugler falling in beside him. The front of the column turned to follow. He crested the low ridge and looked back. The column extended out, the front of it moving fast, the rear just beginning to move.

  Far off to the south, he suddenly saw them, a dark block moving up over a distant crest four or five miles away, riding almost to the edge of the fire.

  Showalter started down the long slope, reached the bottom of a broad valley, and then started back up again. Halfway up he looked back. The rear of his column was just coming over the top, some of the horses barely moving at a trot, the slower mounts falling back, all formation lost.

  He dug his spurs in, feeling almost guilty, knowing that his mount was doing all that it could. The slope started to shallow out, and at last he crested it. He reined in hard, waving the guidon bearer to continue forward.