Battle for the Wastelands

by Matthew W Quinn

  Andrew and the others formed a square around the balloon-popper, the horses and wranglers behind them. The troopers raised their rifles, aiming for where the dirigible’s balloon would appear over the hill. The gunners pushed the regiment’s galloper guns up the hill, barrels reaching for the sky. Andrew hoped all this would actually work.

  The soldiers stood with rifles raised for what felt like an eternity. The temperature crept upward. A single bead of sweat trickled down Andrew’s side. His arms began to tremble. He grit his teeth. He couldn’t lower his rifle. If anybody lowered their weapons even an inch, they couldn’t hit the airship when it came over the hill.

  Other soldiers wavered. One was David.

  “Keep the damn rifle up, Court!” Zeke ordered.

  “Yes, sergeant!” His gun, which had drooped a couple inches, returned to its original position. His gaze and arms were locked. Sweat trickled down his face.

  Other sergeants shouted similar orders. The waverers returned to position. The soldiers continued to stand.

  At the word of a sergeant Andrew didn’t recognize, one soldier broke ranks and crawled atop the hill. Hopefully the airship wasn’t floating close enough to shred anyone who showed their face. The dirigible’s commander would be right clever to dial down his engines, make the Second Pendleton think he’d gone, and wait until they’d let their guard down.

  The soldier peeked over the top of the hill. The tearing-fabric sound of the dirigible’s guns didn’t come. Instead, there was only an awful silence. Andrew’s arms burned. Another bead of sweat dripped into his right eye. He tried to blink it away. That didn’t work. But he couldn’t wipe it without lowering his rifle…

  The soldier scrambled down and ran over to the major.

  “At ease!” the major called out. “We’re safe!”

  Thank the Good Lord. Andrew lowered his rifle.

  The major turned to his staff. Orders flowed once more. “All right,” Zeke said. “The airship’s damn near out of sight and still going south. We’re going to keep goddamn moving.”

  The scouts headed out again. The column rolled north on the other side of the hills, parallel to their original course. The combination of the breeze from the movement and the sweat from before was right refreshing. Andrew smiled despite himself.

  Ahead lay a gap. Could the column turn through and find its earlier course? The dirigible would have to be long gone by now…

  A group of Flesh-Eater horsemen nosed through right in front of the column. All bore the dark tattoos of fanatics under their eyes.

  Andrew’s hands clenched on the reins. His heartbeat raced. How’d the Merrill cavalry not find them first? Did the Flesh-Eaters get between them and the column?

  A darker thought flew unbidden across his mind. The Flesh-Eaters might’ve encountered the patrol first. Killed them. Killed Alyssa.

  His expression darkened. If they’d done that, they were dead.

  The column came to an abrupt halt. The Flesh-Eaters did the same. Several enemy horsemen fled through the gap. They had to be heading for Fort Deming.

  Andrew frowned. Fanatics retreating? If they were smart enough to retreat when they were in a bad spot, that made them even more dangerous.

  Gunfire broke out. The remaining fanatics charged the Merrill column. Flesh-Eater bullets snatched Merrill troopers from their horses. The harsh smell of spent gunpowder filled the air.

  Andrew freed his rifle. A carbine would have been better, but he was still a good shot even from horseback. If the enemy horsemen delayed the Merrill column long enough to alert Fort Deming, the coming attack would be a bloodbath.

  CRACK! The bullet punched through a Flesh-Eater horseman’s armpit. He fell from his horse, which dragged his body across the rocky ground.

  The sound of gunfire vanished. One Flesh-Eater bolted. The rest fed the brown earth with their blood.

  Andrew’s stomach lurched. He remembered the fall of Carroll Town, how one man’s escape caused the death of all he’d known and loved. All because he’d hesitated…

  He aimed for the fleeing rider. He would hit the man right in the center of his back and…

  CRACK!

  The Flesh-Eater tumbled from his saddle. Relief flooded Andrew’s chest. He laughed. That man at least wouldn’t be warning Fort Deming.

  “Good shot, Andrew!” David called out. Andrew grinned.

  The Second Pendleton’s officers and sergeants buzzed with orders once more. “Spur your damn horses!” Zeke ordered. “Now!”

  The Merrill horsemen began moving, faster than before. The remounts and their wranglers rushed to catch up.

  The column had only gone a couple of miles when the cavalry drew near. Much to Andrew’s relief, Alyssa was among them.

  The major stopped the column and conferred with the horsemen. Andrew couldn’t hear the words, but from their lips and gestures, he reckoned they’d killed fleeing Flesh-Eaters.

  He grinned. The fort wouldn’t know they were coming.

  The riders’ report filtered through the column. Zeke laughed. “We’ll catch them with their goddamn pants down.”

  Mission Creep

  The disguised Merrill ranks approached Fort Cochrane’s open gates. A grin split Alonzo’s narrow face as he watched through his field glasses. Not only had the column of false Flesh-Eaters kicked up enough dust to mask the mounted men following them, but the enemy clearly had no idea what was coming. Even if the Flesh-Eaters realized their “fellows” were frauds, they couldn’t possibly close the gates in time.

  Had he known it would work out this well, he’d have tried it all along the Southern Wall. That’d double the territory under his control at a stroke and have a strong bulwark against Flesh-Eater counterattack or any move from Grendel. The realm Pa ruled would live once more…

  He shook his head. He’d plan for the future once he’d gotten that food.

  A Flesh-Eater officer stepped into the open gate. Alonzo’s grin vanished. With telegraph lines spreading like snakes across his land, pulling this gambit was damn tricky. He’d had soldiers tap the lines and send the fort messages supposedly from elsewhere on the Southern Wall, but the yellow armbands the disguised soldiers wore to minimize friendly fire would raise the suspicions of any officer worth a damn. If the timing wasn’t perfect, there’d be a bloodbath.

  There were few men atop the wooden walls, so it looked like he’d hoodwinked the enemy commander.

  Hutton, mounted on his horse beside Alonzo, cleared his throat. “We can’t wait much longer.”

  Alonzo nodded. The Merrill troopers were already at a disadvantage – they couldn’t simply reduce the fort to rubble with the artillery they’d brought with them without hitting their own men. And though the horsemen were well behind the disguised infantry, there was the risk the Flesh-Eaters atop the walls would see them.

  The infantry halted before the Flesh-Eater officer. The breath caught in Alonzo’s throat. Each passing second increased the risk the plan would unravel. More Flesh-Eaters appeared on the walls. The officer looked the disguised infantry up and down, eyes narrow.

  Well shit. “NOW!” Alonzo shouted. Beside him, the bugler blew the note signaling the first ranks of the horsemen to charge. Before the Flesh-Eaters on the walls could react, the disguised infantry rushed the gate.

  The repeaters carried by the first mounted ranks — including most of Alonzo’s personal guard — chattered as they raked the Flesh-Eaters atop the walls. Enemy bullets cast men from their saddles. The charge continued. They had to get close, give the enemy enough of a chance to hit them they couldn’t focus on the footsloggers actually taking the fort.

  Alonzo unslung his own repeater. Hutton leaned forward in his saddle. “Sir, there’s no need —”

  Alonzo squeezed his legs. The horse surged forward, leaving the rest of the sentence behind him. Men followed, joining those already circling the fort. Gun smoke lapped at the bottom of the walls, while more clung to the top.

  As Alonzo drew nea
r, he spotted a Flesh-Eater atop the wall. The man had fired on the horsemen but now turned inward.

  CRACK! An Old World bullet that had been buried in some hill for centuries now went to its final repose in some cannibal’s back. Alonzo fired on another Flesh-Eater, this one carrying a repeater. He missed. The Flesh-Eater’s weapon chattered. Bullets snapped by Alonzo’s head. Someone shouted and tumbled off their horse behind him.

  Alonzo squeezed the trigger again, but the man fell to another bullet before his repeater bucked in his hands. The gunfire aimed at the riders vanished as the enemy found they had more immediate problems. Now all the Merrill horsemen had to do was kill every man with his head above the parapets.

  Something whistled overhead. Alonzo’s throat clenched. The Flesh-Eaters wouldn’t use their mortars against the disguised Merrills inside the walls for fear of hitting their own, but the horsemen outside...

  The ground shook. The shockwave threw Alonzo sideways. Only his feet firmly hooked in the stirrups had kept him mounted. Lines of pain skipped across his sides. He righted himself. A quick look showed thin lines of blood on his clothing. He glanced right.

  The mortar shell had torn a huge gap in the second rank of horsemen. Gutted animals screamed and thrashed on the ground. So did mangled men. In the cacophony of pain, men and animals sounded the same. Ralston, his lower half gone and his intestines streaming behind him, still dragged himself toward the fort. Alonzo closed his eyes. Ralston was dead and didn’t know it, but he was still loyal to his commander, still trying to fight the Flesh-Eaters.

  Fort Cochrane would be named Fort Ralston when it was over. He owed it to the man who’d died for him.

  The gunfire inside dragged Alonzo’s attention back to the battle. Alonzo checked his desire to order the horsemen into the open gates. It would be hard to tell the true Flesh-Eaters from the false until the fort was taken.

  The gunfire inside the walls faded. Alonzo aimed his repeater at the gates. If anyone in Flesh-Eater uniform spilled out, the horsemen would only have a split second to look for yellow armbands.

  A man in a red and black uniform appeared amid the smoke atop the wall. Men raised their weapons, only to be shouted down by their sergeants.

  The man raised his fist, revealing a yellow armband. Scattered whoops broke out among the horsemen. Everybody cheered when another soldier appeared beside him and unfurled the Merrill banner.

  Alonzo still smiled as the soldiers carried supplies from the fort’s open gates to those tasked with rushing the loot back to the mule trains. Crates of desiccated vegetables, hardtack, beef jerky, potatoes, cornmeal…

  And that was just food. The troopers also carried boxes of ammunition, Flesh-Eater uniforms, and shoes, wonderful shoes. Alonzo’s boots had held together for years, but he’d seen bloody footprints and knew not that every Merrill trooper was so lucky.

  An actual supply depot deeper in enemy territory would be even richer. He reached into a bag hanging from his saddle and pulled out a fistful of grain his horse eagerly consumed. Alonzo understood the principle of not muzzling the ox that treaded out the grain.

  Behind the supplies came a dozen captives. Some were men. Whip-scars marked them as conscripted laborers, helping put the finishing touches on the fort. But most were women with Flesh-Eater jackets draped around them to conceal what the immodest clothes the bastards made them wear didn’t. Their staring eyes and in some cases pained gait made it clear what they’d experienced. One was pregnant.

  Alonzo’s stomach lurched. Catalina suffered a similar fate at the hands of Grendel. He grit his teeth. His hands clenched. He’d kill the old Sejer bastard, kill him and the monster he’d spawned on his little sister…

  He closed his eyes. He forced himself to think about the supplies. The haul didn’t seem as good as it was the last time the Merrills hit the Southern Wall. They’d taken a supply convoy then, tons of food and ammunition. If it had been awhile since the fort had been resupplied, the lack of vittles and ammo made sense. But the farmers and cowboys under the Flesh-Eaters’ rough thumb had seen a train come by on the tracks behind the fort three days prior.

  Two dark-haired soldiers approached from Alonzo’s left “Sir,” one soldier said. “The telegraph office is secure. We’ve found something.”

  Alonzo sat in the wooden chair in the telegraph office. Before him lay documents spattered with the blood of the Flesh-Eater who’d been trying to burn them when the Merrills stormed in.

  Old World weapons. An Old World hoard. Just sitting out here.

  Most of the ruins from before the Fall that hadn’t been picked clean lay deep in the Iron Desert. The countryside northwest of Fort Cochrane didn’t have sand pushed by the wind, so it shouldn’t have been easily buried.

  He frowned. Pa had spent so much time keeping the peace between the factory owners and the workers he didn’t bother searching for Old World weapons. If House Merrill found this, it could have won the war the first fucking time.

  He continued reading. Crates of repeaters and ammunition had been recovered. Half were sent to Jacinto, while an eighth went to Norridge. The rest were still on-site.

  And there was more. Four-barreled antiaircraft guns, the kind that could rip a dirigible in half. And missiles. Those could only be fired line of sight, if they could be fired at all, but something that big flying that fast could rout even the most disciplined.

  He shook his head. All that’d be moot if the Flesh-Eaters weren’t convinced by the messages he’d sent out after taking the fort. “Any word back?” he asked the soldier who’d brought him the reports.

  “Fort Hurd’s commander is offering to send a dirigible and cavalry to ‘pursue the fleeing Merrill dogs.’ Fort Marshall’s bossman wishes he could, but Merrill horsemen have been spotted near Forts Stirling and Deming and a dirigible’s hit Fort Hartford.”

  Alonzo grinned. His divisionary attacks were working. “Tell Fort Hurd we’ve sent out our own cavalry and they should sit tight.” He’d rather suggest they reinforce Fort Deming, but that’d need approval from an enemy bigwig who might see through it.

  The two soldiers from before returned, carrying a Flesh-Eater wearing colonel’s eagles. One arm was crudely splinted and bandaged, but the blackened eyes and bloody nose looked fresh. This had to be the fort’s commander.

  “Sir,” one said. “We were questioning this lowlife here about where we could find more supplies and learned something you should know.”

  “Yes?”

  One of the soldiers put his knife to the captive officer’s throat. “Tell him,” he ordered.

  The man said nothing. Alonzo shook his head. “Such defiance. Such loyalty to the ones who would kill you for deploying your patrols so poorly that most of my army could approach your position undetected, for allowing two companies to approach your gates without a shot being fired, and for not holding more than ten goddamn minutes. Disobeying me won’t gain you anything, but if you help me, you might survive.”

  Alonzo nodded to the soldiers. One struck the Flesh-Eater in the middle with his rifle butt. The blow would have doubled him over if the blade to his throat hadn’t given him a powerful incentive to keep his back straight.

  “Now you understand the stakes, let’s get started.” He held up the telegrams. “Where are these weapons going?”

  The colonel didn’t answer. The soldier dug the knife into the skin beside his windpipe. Blood trickled down the blade. “All right,” the colonel grated. “The weapons’re going to Jacinto.”

  “I know that. Anything else?”

  “Clark’ll decide who gets them once they’re there. The troopers on the Southern Wall and the airship infantry have first priority.”

  Alonzo’s throat tightened. If those repeaters got there, the wall’d become right impenetrable. Any enemy raid would cost him ten times as many. And his cause would be doomed.

  “You’ve done a service to House Merrill.” Alonzo looked to the soldiers. “Truss him up.” The man seemed to know a fai
r bit about the enemy’s inner workings. He might have more beans to spill. Not only that, but a colonel might make a right good hostage. “Then get me General Hutton.”

  The men disappeared with their captive. A few minutes later, the general, dirtier than before but unhurt, arrived.

  “Change of plans,” Alonzo said. “There’s an Old World excavation site northwest of here. Antiaircraft guns and repeaters that’re being distributed along the Southern Wall. We’re going to hit that.”

  Hutton frowned. “Bad idea, changing the mission in the middle.” His frown deepened. “But it doesn’t look like we’ve got a choice.”

  A grim smile crossed Alonzo’s face. “Great minds think alike.”

  Successful So Far…

  The column drew near the hills before the Flesh-Eater fort when the scouts appeared in its path. The column came to a dead stop. It wasn’t long before the sergeants moved their squads to various points at the bottom of the hill. Then Zeke delivered the bad news.

  “The fort’s alert. That means they’re calling in help. We won’t be able to wait for the artillery to smash them before we go in.” He paused. “Our company’ll blast the hell out of those towers. Next, the other company will ride around the fort and set fires while we suppress the men on the walls. Then we advance down the hill while they lay down suppressing fire.”

  “How the hell did they know?” Will snarled. “Hank, does eating people give you clairvoyance?”

  Before Hank could open his mouth, Zeke silenced him with a raised hand. The sergeant’s gaze leaped from man to man. “Simmons, you’re manning the mortar. Gollmar, you’re spotting. The rest, up the hill. Stay out of sight, and wait for the signal.”

  Andrew crept forward, bent down lest some observant Flesh-Eater see him. The enemy knew they were coming. Once the attack began, they’d unleash the mortars. He wouldn’t be able to shelter behind the hill then. No, he’d have to stay atop the hill, come hell, high water, or fiery death from the sky.