A kaleidoscope of images remained with her. A dwarf neatly side-stepped and cut upward with a broad-axe, shearing through the neck of an ulvgaed and into its rider's belly before their momentum tore the axe from his hands. He was struck down from behind a second later. A rider slowed and a woman threw her rucksack in the face of his mount. As the creature savaged the pack dwarves closed in pulling the rider and beast down. A farmer plunged his pitchfork into the chest of another ulvgaed. It latched onto his shoulder and shook him like a terrier with a rat. Without thinking Deandra leapt forward, slamming her gun’s butt-stock into the creature’s skull. Another woman swept its rider from the saddle with a bill-hook before the goblin could cut her down. Then the Baasgarta had passed, leaving a full third of their number broken upon the ground.
She looked up and down the shattered column in shock. For two hundred paces the ground was littered with the dead and dying. People were shouting for their loved ones, kneeling beside the victims and hacking at downed Baasgarta and ulvgaeds. She couldn't process it, it was too big. It was as if her mind was a moth bumping against an invisible wall of reality and recoiling, over and over. She reloaded the Big 14, hardly knowing what she was doing. When a wounded Baasgarta tried to raise himself to his knees she shot him in the back without even a passing thought.
Suddenly the wall between her and the world vanished and her mind snapped back into function. She began to move among the wounded, tending to them as she could. After a time the platoon of medics from the battalion were there as well. Weeping dwarves were gently separated from their dead. Walking staves became the poles of litters. The mortally wounded were given fatal injections of extract of poppy, except the Baasgarta. The medics simply slit their throats and moved on.
“Deandra!” she heard a voice call. She had just finished tending one of the last of the wounded. She felt soul-sick and exhausted. She waved tiredly to Engvyr and Taarven as they rode up. She and Engvyr embraced, then separated again more quickly than either would have liked. She wanted to cry, to babble, to tell him what she had seen and done but she had no words. She looked deep into his eyes and knew that they were not needed.
“Well,” Taarven said, “I don't think they'll try that again anytime soon. There must be nigh a hundred of them dead.”
She looked up and saw Ynghilda had ridden up next to Taarven. For all that the dwarves had made a good account of themselves they had lost several times that number. The Steadholder's face might have been hewn from ice as she stood over the remains of so many of her folk, staring after the goblins. Deandra’s heart went out to the older woman. Hundreds of Ynghilda's people, people that she had known, had loved all dead in minutes. She couldn't imagine what the older woman was feeling.
Following the direction of her gaze Deandra saw that the Baasgarta cavalry had pulled up about four hundred paces away, beyond the reach of the soldiers' smooth-bore weapons. Two companies of infantry had formed up between the cavalry and the column of refugees.
Ynghilda said, “Just out of range, they figure. Engvyr, shall we teach them different?”
“With pleasure,” he said as he stepped to his pony and unsheathed his long-rifle. He loaded the weapon and peered at the enemy, then carefully adjusted his sights and shouldered the gun.
“Ready,” he told Ynghilda, “See the banner-man? You take him; I'll take the fella on the left.”
Ynghilda raised the big 12-bore to her shoulder and aimed.
“Got him.”
“Shoot,” Engvyr said and their rifles spoke almost as one. The targeted pair were hammered from their saddles. There was confusion among the Baasgarta and they quickly moved off another few hundred paces.
“Well, that was pointless,” said Ynghilda, “But ever so satisfying.”
“It bought us a bit more breathing room at least,” Taarven said.
Horns sounded again up and down the line as the sergeants shouted, “Ten minutes, people! Moving out in ten minutes!”
“Well, no rest for the wicked,” Ynghilda said. She touched hands briefly with Taarven and moved off towards the end of the column. Engvyr kissed Deandra and mounted his pony.
“I guess we'd best be about our business as well. Stay safe, love,” he said, meeting and holding her gaze for a long moment.
“You too. Both of you.”
They touched their hat-brims in farewell and rode off. She sighed heavily as she recovered her soiled, bloody ruck-sack and joined the reforming column. Soldiers were piling up their dead to one side of the road and her eyes shied away from the grisly sight.
They marched away from the site of the slaughter in a much tighter order than before, screened by the infantry now marching on their flank. Deandra took her turns carrying the litters or carrying small children for the dwarves.
She looked back and saw a thick cloud of dense black smoke rising into the sky from the piled dead. She should not be able to see the flames from this distance but the smoke near the pile was shot through with yellow-white flames. Work of the battlemages she supposed. At any rate their dead would not fill goblin stomachs tonight.
Not long after that there was a cry that traveled up the long column, and she turned to see. People were pointing into the distance where a dark column of the main body of the Baasgarta army had come into sight across the valley. People stopped to stare as rank after rank emerged from behind a shallow hill. A murmur of alarm rippled up and down the column, then the sergeants started shouting to keep moving.
The ground rose faster now and the hills began to close in from the sides. They would reach the pass itself just ahead of the oncoming army, but what then? The infantry would be able to hold the superior Baasgarta force for some time, but eventually their sheer numbers would allow them to press forward. As the pass narrowed to a mere hundred feet it seemed strangely unfamiliar, the sides steeper and covered in more brush than she remembered. Silly, she chided herself, you've been this way but the once, and that many years ago.
She heard volleys from the massed guns of the infantry battalion behind them now. The hail of bullets must be murderous in the narrow pass but the Baasgarta pressed forward. The volleys degenerated into sporadic shots as the goblins closed in and the Dwarves were forced to engage with pikes and bayonets.
The pass narrowed further as they climbed and the exhausted refugees began to quicken their steps. The sound of battle grew louder, becoming a roar that filled the pass. Suddenly Deandra realized that they were over the top and starting to descend. The walls of the pass opened out rapidly as the ground fell away before her. A line of soldiers stood across the road and were steering the column of refugees to the side. That's odd, she thought, I didn't realize they had sent so many soldiers ahead...
Deandra saw Grael Makepeace engaged in conversation with an army officer. Other members of the militia were gathered a little further down the road. She left the refugee column and walked over to Grael, wondering what was happening.
“It's almost time,” the officer said to Grael as she approached, “If you could form your people up on either side of the pass the infantry can retreat between them if need be.”
Grael nodded, and began yelling instructions down the hill to the militia. Deandra’s heart fell as she realized the infantry were being pushed back though the pass. These soldiers and the militia were preparing a last stand, but once the Baasgarta got out onto open ground they would spread out and crush them with sheer numbers before turning on the refugees. We have lost after all, she thought. But neither the officer nor Grael acted like men preparing a suicidal last stand, and the soldiers seemed relaxed as they unslung their rifles.
Rifles?!
The soldiers were carrying long-rifles like the one Engvyr used. She looked at them sharply and realized these troops weren't part of the heavy infantry company from the valley. Examining them more closely she saw that they all had a stylized number three on their shoulders picked out in blood-red thread. They were from the elite 3rd Rifles- her husband's old regiment!
Grael spotted her and said, “Good, you’re armed, come with me.”
They joined the closest group of militia at the side of the road just as a company of heavy infantry trotted out of the pass and broke into two, setting up next to the militia. She looked for more of the 3rd regiment troopers, but saw only a small group of them on the other side of the road. These soldiers carried carbines slung over their backs and wore no breastplates. They were standing in a circle and didn't seem to be doing anything at all. Battlemages? She wondered.
Suddenly a new noise intruded over the increasingly near roar of battle, echoing through the pass. Wham. Wham. Wham. Every two seconds like a massive, beating heart. She realized it was the sound of rifles, thousands of them, being fired in volleys on the other side of the pass. The 3rd must be dug-in on the slopes above the road! She realized, that was why it had looked different than I remembered.
After a minute she could hear volleys from slug-guns, much nearer, joining in. When the heavy infantry troops that had just left the pass formed up and marched right back in Grael gave out a whoop and clapped her on the shoulder in his excitement.
“They whipped, em', Boys!” he shouted. The militia on both sides of the road took up the cheer and filed after the infantry as she joined them, walking back the way they had come. Within two-hundred paces they came to the last position held by the rear-guard of the refugee column. Scores of wounded and dead infantry littered the sides of the pass. Medics tended to the living as they could while others laid out the dead.
They held them, she thought numbly, they stopped the Baasgarta cold, right here. But Lord and Lady, the cost...
She looked down the pass. It was an abattoir, literally carpeted with the bodies of dead Baasgarta, sometimes two deep. Deandra took a deep breath and with an almost physical effort shoved her shock and horror aside. Slinging the Big 14 she turned back to do what she might for the living.
Chapter Twenty-One
“The battle of Cougar Creek Pass was one of the most stunningly successful ambushes in history. Of the two regiments of Baasgarta that entered the pass barely twelve-hundred of them made it out alive
and then only because of the approach of two intact regiments. Rather than launching the expected assault the Baasgarta dug and seemed content to hold our forces while they consolidated their hold on the Makepeace Valley.
Or so we thought... “
From the diaries of
Engvyr Gunnarson
It was well after dark when Deandra made it to the refugee camp. The 3rd Rifles had left their tents in place, taking only their individual tarps for shelter in the earthworks they were constructing to guard the mouth of the pass. This camp was much like the ones that the 2nd Battalion had built near the palisade, only on a vastly larger scale. The terrain did not allow for the neat squares but the similarity was obvious. Row after row of five-man tents, communal mess tents and hospital tents covered most of the available space in the high, narrow valley south of the pass. The area had enough room to accommodate the survivors from the refugee column, especially after the cavalry attack.
A family of miners had a largish hame about a league from the summit with three sets of apartments off of the large common room. The residents had crowded into two of the apartments and generously offered up the common room and third apartment for Ynghilda to use as a command center. She had left word for Deandra to join her there.
As Deandra made her way through the encampment she could hear the quiet sounds of grief as the refugees mourned their dead. Occasionally an argument broke out around her as people debated who would occupy which tents. As she passed a mess tent she could see that the regiment had left their cooks as well, for they bustled about inside even at this hour. The smell of food and baking bread wafted out through the open side flaps. A growling stomach reminded her that she hadn't eaten since before dawn but she did not stop. She feared that if she did she would not be able to continue after.
At length she arrived at the hame. A stream of people were constantly coming and going through the doorway. She squeezed past them and found a quiet corner to set down her things. Ynghilda was busy speaking to people, issuing orders, settling disputes. She looks as tired as I feel, Deandra thought. The older woman glanced over and caught her eye, nodding in greeting. She waved back weakly.
Someone brought her a bowl of soup from the large cauldron warming at the hearth and she ate greedily. She was polishing the bowl with a piece of bread when Ynghilda approached.
“What news?” Ynghilda asked.
“Well, I can tell what I heard while I was tending the wounded,” Deandra said, “Apparently the 3rd Rifles and the 1st Mounted Infantry caught the Baasgarta between them. It was nearly a massacre.”
“The 1st Mounted Infantry? Where did they come from?” asked Ynghilda.
Deandra shrugged, and said, “They say that they came in from the east and cut the Baasgarta off once they were in the pass. I gather that the Baasgarta would have been wiped out if another two regiments of goblins hadn't come along. They had to let the trapped ones break out so that the 1st and 3rd could join-up to face the new force. They're digging in now with the enemy doing the same opposite them.”
“And 2nd Battalion?” the older woman asked, with concern that Deandra understood too well. Over the months that they had been stationed in the Makepeace Valley the soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the 4th Heavy Infantry had become 'their' soldiers.
Deandra’s face fell.
“Casualties were very heavy. The rest of the regiment is moving up to reinforce us, they say. The 2nd's remaining troops will probably be dispersed to other units.”
“And the Major?” Ynghilda asked.
“Injured, but they expect that he will live,” Deandra said.
“Well, that's something at least,” Ynghilda said, then looked at her with concern, “You're just about falling over where you sit, child. The bedroom on the right is empty. Get yourself some sleep. If Engvyr shows up I'll send him along.”
It took no persuading for Deandra to do as she was told, though she did remind the older woman that she needed sleep as well. Ynghilda acknowledged this but shooed her away and returned to work.
--**--
In the days that followed the Battle of Cougar Creek Pass Deandra found herself falling into the role of Ynghilda's assistant and second in command. No one ever officially designated her as such; she just took on the role because it needed to be done and everyone, Ynghilda included, accepted it.
Engvyr was running messages to and from Ghost Creek Station so she needed to fill her time and there was plenty to be done. At first she simply ran errands, fetching people to see Ynghilda or conveying instructions to them. But before long people were stopping her and asking her for advice or decisions on small matters and in no time at all her authority was accepted without question. When she returned to the make-shift command center she would report these decisions to Ynghilda, who simply included them in her own policies and planning.
Despite having the camp ready and waiting for them and the army's superb organization there were still a million details to attend to. Schedules needed to set up for the dining tents, keeping the rows between tents clear, getting supplies distributed to those in need. Honestly, she thought, how could it not occur to people to bring their own blankets?
Then there were the disputes to be settled. Dwarves were not naturally contentious but the stress of their circumstances made them querulous, and when they could not settle things among themselves someone had to arbitrate between them. Deandra comforted herself that any such thing she could settle lightened Ynghilda's work load.
As the days went by the residents slowly settled into their temporary life. The more settled and orderly it became the more the dwarfs were inclined to be reasonable and even charitable with one another, which made things easier for everyone.
--**--
Five days after the battle and the mountain still smells like death, Deandra thou
ght. They were standing on a ledge high up the mountain, looking down at the pass and the earthworks at the base. Two regiments of Baasgarta were settled in, blocking access to the valley.
Karrumph! The distant blast echoed off of the hills.
“That was blasting powder. Dammit,” said Ynghilda, “what the hell are they up to?”
“Nothing good,” said Engvyr, “They could be improving the trails to bring in more troops, or blasting down rock to make barracks or fortifications, damming a stream... there's just no way to tell.”
“Well, whatever they're doing they've been going at it for days,” Taarven said.
Deandra could see three farmhames from their perch and all appeared to be intact, at least from this distance.
“Odd,” she mused, “I had thought that they would burn the farmhames and the crops. Isn't that what armies do in a war?”
“Apparently not in this case,” said Ynghilda, “They sent a cavalry patrol through the first night, checking for survivors and perhaps looting. Might be they have plans for those structures.”
“Funny thing is, that's the only activity we've seen, aside from these boys,” Engvyr said, gesturing to the Baasgarta earthworks. “I expected they would reinforce them by now, or start building a real fortification. We're missing something here. These guys aren't acting like an invading army.”
Deandra was no expert on military matters, but something Engvyr said tickled at her brain.
“Maybe... maybe they aren't an invading army,” she said, “Not as such, anyway.”
The others turned to look at her. She took a moment to organize her thoughts then continued.
“We've been assuming that the Baasgarta want our lands, but what if they don't? What if they want something else?”
“You know,” said Engvyr, “She might be on to something there. We've been assuming that we just bumped up against a hostile nation bent on conquest. But maybe we're looking at this thing sideways.”
“It makes sense,” Taarven said thoughtfully, “If they're not acting like an invading army, then what are they acting like?”
Dwarven Rifleman Series: Diaries of a Dwarven Rifleman Page 16
