“Over here. Were you able to patch into the line and keep…someone apprised of our situation? Anyone?”
“Yes, Prefect.” The man gestured behind where other members of his section were disassembling and boxing the field telephone and its heavy batteries. The trench had abruptly ended, out of Grik artillery range, and a heavily trodden path visibly continued on. A lot of equipment was scattered along it, including a number of light freight wagons, Soli noted with a little relief, though there were no horses or suikas to pull them.
“So? Report!” Sori demanded. “Where will we meet relief? There must be another rear guard.”
The signalman hesitated, matching her stride as the long, wavy line pressed on. “My report was acknowledged,” he temporized, “by a junior officer in General Taal’s cavalry, detailed to destroy the camp and all the equipment they couldn’t carry.” His eyes went wide. “The enemy in the west, perhaps a third of the army facing us, was routed. The Army of the Republic is abandoning its supply line to sweep north at once. General Kim hopes to bash directly through to our allies on the Zambezi!”
A bold stroke, Sori thought. Too bold? There’s no way to know. But what does that leave us? Have we been forgotten? She asked the signalman.
“The officer I spoke to said the last infantry legion passed his position shortly before…”
“Obviously not the last legion,” Hanno inserted dryly, eliciting a few dark, tired chuckles.
“No sir, but if we hurry, we can catch up.”
“You mean hurry faster than we are?” Sori asked. Her people were already tired and many were hurt. They couldn’t maintain their current pace for long under ordinary circumstances. And they’d have to stop entirely to face the Grik once the enemy caught up, and no one doubted that would happen.
“How long ago was that?” Sori asked.
“Just before they fired the camp. The cavalry officer was going to destroy the communications equipment himself. He did say he’d inform his superiors of our predicament. I got the impression he was surprised any of us were alive.”
“So, we’re alone and abandoned,” Hanno growled.
“Enough of that,” Sori scolded, and he sheepishly nodded. “Though essentially correct,” Sori added lower. She fixed the signalman with her gaze, large yellow eyes almost glowing in the dark. “Nothing else at all?”
The signalman hesitated. “The officer I spoke to said nothing about it, but the bulk of General Taal’s cavalry was supposed to sweep up the rear. It hasn’t passed or I would’ve seen it—heard it—myself, from here.”
“If he’s just as sure we’re lost, he probably came around further to the south,” Hanno said, maintaining the gloomy persona Soli was beginning to expect from him.
“Perhaps not,” she objected, thinking hard. “I don’t flatter myself he remembers me, but I’ve made Taal’s acquaintance. He struck me as a courageous and conscientious commander. He’d aid us if he was aware of our situation.” She paused, unsure whether to continue, but did so. “I also have it on greater authority than rumor that he’s…entranced by Legate Bekiaa-Sab-At. I suspect that if he knew she was in action and was told to support her he’d take the straightest route.”
“Bringing him close to us,” Senior Centurion Fannius concluded. “A weak hook to hang our hopes on. One of only two, I suppose.” Soli looked questioningly at the man, and he grinned. “Either love will bring the cavalry to our rescue—mortifying but survivable—or the Grik will lose us in the dark, and we’ll join the tail of our army before it leaves us entirely behind.”
Soli lowered her voice and whispered to her XO. “Neither sounds likely when you put it like that.”
“No, but we did survive being overrun, and brought out nearly a thousand troops counting those from the Nineteenth and Thirty-First. How likely was that?”
Before Soli could answer, a stutter of rifle fire crackled, and bright orange muzzle-flashes stabbed the night behind them. The Grik were here.
“I guess it’s up to love after all,” Fannius said disgustedly. Skirmishers were shooting almost continuously now, falling back slowly at first, then hurrying to rejoin the ranks. Hundreds of musket flashes flared and sparkled close on their heels, nearer than Soli would’ve hoped, followed by the staccato thumping of their reports and lead balls warbling past. A few struck flesh with a sound like a broom whacking a rug. Then there were the screams.
“Sound ‘Halt! Action to the rear!’” Soli called to the bugler. Sharp notes stopped the retreat and began turning the troops around. Soli cast her gaze at Fannius. “Take charge of the Nineteenth Legion. I’ll rely on Centurion Hanno as my second here.” Fannius nodded, and without a word, hefted his rifle and dashed off. A clutch of runners chased him. Soli turned to Hanno, his clouded expression revealed by the rippling fire. Then, to her surprise, he smiled and shrugged. “You’re right, of course. Crippled as I am, I’ll never get back where I belong before we’re fully involved.” He looked toward what had been the rear and was rapidly becoming the front again. The initial maneuver required only seconds, but it was taking longer to re-form what had become a very ragged line in the darkness. “Not that it much matters,” he added, his tone turning dark once more. Skirmishers were sprinting through now, gasping and taking their place to the rear, ready to become a reserve after they caught their breath—if there was time. The Grik were barely two hundred meters behind them, the progress of what looked like a shapeless mob marked and lit by diminishing musket fire. The leading edge of the swarm had largely emptied their weapons again and those behind couldn’t shoot. Still, though it was impossible to tell how many there were, it was obvious Soli’s mangled division was desperately outnumbered.
“It matters,” Soli snapped at the centurion, possibly realizing it herself for the very first time as her eyes cast about, judging how solid the long, double-rank line appeared. The troops weren’t standing shoulder to shoulder, not yet—though it might come to that—and the front rank maintained a roughly two-meter separation. The second rank filled the gaps behind them, prepared to commence an almost un-interrupted fire—as long as the ammunition held out. Only six machine gun crews remained, and Soli wondered if some had just kept going when they retreated. She looked back to the front and saw all the skirmishers were in. “It always matters,” she told Hanno, “even if it’s only how we die—and nobody ever knows but us.” Raising her voice, she cried to the bugler. “Sound ‘commence firing by volleys!’”
The first volley was always the best, and even in the current rush and confusion, five hundred rifles spoke almost as one down a kilometer-long line. Seconds later, five hundred more rifles slashed at the tightly-packed mob of Grik, each heavy 11mm bullet potentially smashing through the leaders and one or two Grik behind. Hundreds fell dead or shrieking in pain, and despite inevitable misses, more Grik were probably hit than there were bullets in the air. The machine guns opened on the flanks, sweeping tracers across the tumbling, faltering horde. And the volleys kept coming, heaping a ghastly wall of corpses and writhing wounded in the dark.
Regardless how well-trained these Grik might be, they’d lost the cohesion and relative discipline with which they initially attacked—on the heels of a terrifying artillery barrage—and the troops opposing them hadn’t broken. No doubt there were other large groups of Grik fanning out in pursuit, possibly shifting this way even now, but this one surged forward in the age-old way, its commander perhaps overconfident after the victory at the trench. For whatever reason, the result was quite different, and the charge was battered to a wailing, frustrated standstill.
Soli was feeling the first delicate touch of triumph caress her, light as a feather, when a markedly less gloomy Hanno reminded, “Ammunition,” and she blinked and flicked her tail in agreement. “Yes. We’ll start backing away again,” she told him. “The enemy fire is increasing. They use their dead as breastworks to load behind and smoothbores or not, their muskets are taking a toll.” The trickle of wounded moving to the wagons
was growing by the minute. Those who could walk would have to pull and push the wagons loaded with those who couldn’t. “We’ll retire by volleys once again, but this time each rank will move fifty paces to the rear before turning, ready to fire. That’ll pick up the pace and lengthen the interval between volleys, conserving ammunition. We’ll cease firing altogether at three hundred meters. Hopefully, we’ll have bloodied them enough that they’ll let us break contact.”
The Grik that had stuck their snouts in the 11th Division’s grinder probably would’ve been happy to oblige by themselves, but Soli suddenly became aware of rapid, independent fire on the far right flank to the east, southeast, and felt a sick, swirling sensation in her gut. A Lemurian trooper almost crashed into her, huffing from exertion, eyes wide, blinking fear. “More Grik, Prefect Soli! Thousands of them!” the trooper managed to gasp. “They almost got behind us, but Senior Centurion Fannius pulled the Nineteenth Legion back to refuse our flank.”
Soli and Hanno whipped their heads to the left in response to a vicious escalation of cries and shots from that direction, and one of the machine guns fired a short burst before it went silent, probably out of ammunition. “Their ancient tactic,” Soli ground out. “Whether the Grik we’ve been fighting knew it or not, they served only to hold our attention while two other hordes—probably their equivalent of divisions, came at us from the sides!”
“They couldn’t have known where we were to plan it in advance!” Hanno protested.
“They didn’t have to!” Soli replied with disgust at herself. “All they had to do was come to the battle we illuminated for them and then revert to instinct!” She took a deep breath. “My fault. I waited too long. Just a slightly quicker,” she snorted, “less ‘orderly’ withdrawal might’ve gotten us past them. Now…?”
Hanno’s voice hardened, now scolding, not morose. “Then do something! It seems they’ve fooled us—and not only you—but to paraphrase what you said earlier, if we’re going to die, I won’t die like a fool!”
Soli nodded, suddenly wearier than she’d ever been. “Bugler,” she called, “sound ‘form square.” The tall man hesitated, then nodded, and the eleven clear notes rose above the growing roar of battle. Soli could imagine the chaos that ensued even if the details came to her only as bellowed commands, near panicky cries, and a kaleidoscopic blur of flashing motion. Moving from line into square was something every century and legion practiced. The defensive square had almost been the Republic’s default combat formation before the current war, not to mention the more lethal weapons that came with it. But doubling portions of two shaky legions from a kilometer-long front into a square a hundred and twenty five meters to a side, in the dark, under attack, resulted in a frenzied tumult unlike anything Soli ever saw—short of bailing out of the trench, at least, and the hellish bombardment before that…She was experiencing an awful lot for the very first, and likely last, time.
She forced herself not to watch, gazing intently at Hanno instead. The repositioning would succeed or not. They’d live to fight a while longer or they’d be dead in minutes. There was nothing she could do about that, so she focused on preparing to fight. “Centurion Hanno, have the skirmishers help move all the wagons and remaining ammunition to the center as the square forms—if it does—and take charge there. Use the skirmishers as a reaction force to fill gaps or bolster the lines as you see fit, but you and the wounded will be our final reserve as the square…contracts upon you.”
“Where will you be?
Two Gentaa were dragging a wounded man from the line where Grik musket balls vrooped and warbled, smashing flesh and shattering bones with an almost frantically growing intensity. Soli took the man’s rifle and ammunition belt off the shoulder of one of the Gentaa, then gestured around at the messengers, even the bugler. “We’ll form a reaction force of our own,” she said.
“But…you must command!” Hanno objected.
Soli laughed grimly. “Everyone in the division will soon be close enough to hear my orders, though I doubt they’ll need them by then.”
Still partially supported by a surprisingly stoic Lemurian whose blinking and tail posture revealed almost nothing about his thoughts, Centurion Hanno saluted Prefect Soli-Kraar—no one would see in the disorienting flashes, gunsmoke and darkness—and allowed himself to be helped back to where the wagons were gathering. Soli looked at the men and Lemurians around her, sighed, then opened the breech of her weapon to see if it was loaded. She was better with a rifle than the pistol and sword at her side. It was hard to tell, but the square actually seemed to be assembling, muzzle flashes now booming out in nearly every direction. Of course, the sparkier, more red-orange flares of Grik muskets were all around them now as well, and the clattering, screeching, thundering roar of battle redoubled to a frenzy when the Grik smashed into the desperately solidifying square and bayonets took over most of the killing.
“Maker protect you,” Soli cried to her comrades, raising her rifle and taking aim, but the crash and roar of battle was so loud by then, they probably didn’t hear.
* * *
General Taal-Gaak had grown increasingly frustrated as the dreadful day, then night, wore on. He’d learned via the wireless cart accompanying his cavalry that General Kim had smashed the Grik army in front of Legate Bekiaa-Sab-At and broken out to the west, but also that Bekiaa was wounded. Cherishing a more than professional interest in the extraordinary officer from the United Homes, Taal was anxious to join her—and the rest of the army, of course—but it took longer to assemble his far-flung scouts in the east than he’d hoped. Making matters worse, all communication with the divisions blocking the Grik in the north had been lost, likely severed by the unprecedented bombardment lavished upon them. Rumor had it the troops in the trenches had been overrun and scattered, so Taal waited to consolidate his entire force before attempting to bash through what might be hordes of marauding Grik. Moving at last, his caution seemed vindicated when his cavalry started running into exhausted, terrified survivors of those broken divisions in the dark. Most were alone, or sometimes in pairs. A few squads had managed to stay together. All agreed the line had shattered, and the Grik were loose all around them. That appeared to be true. Taal’s cavalry encountered clumps of Grik numbering from a few score to a few hundred as it hastened on, but they were just as disorganized and confused as the Republic fugitives they seemed fixated on hunting. All were easily swept aside or slaughtered by brisk, mounted assaults. Grik had nothing like cavalry and had always hated and feared it, particularly that of the Republic’s Union allies who rode swift, vicious monsters called ‘me-naaks,’ but Taal’s horse cavalry was just as effective at routing disoriented and unsupported packs of Grik in the dark.
“A damnable mess and a tragic waste,” General Taal remarked bitterly, tail swishing rapidly behind him. “Perhaps if we’d come quicker…” Clouds were moving to block the setting moon, but there was sufficient light to see innumerable dark mounds of Grik and Republic corpses all around. Occasional shots in the distance alerted screening squads of riders to another desperate straggler, or possibly a few isolated enemies stumbling upon each other in the gloom, and they clattered off to rescue a comrade or butcher more wandering Grik.
The human Prefect Kirham, commanding the 4th Cohort and riding alongside Taal, blinked denial in the Lemurian way. “We came as fast as we could,” he said. “And costly as it appears to have been, the blocking force accomplished its task. Victorious here or not, these Grik have spent themselves as an immediate threat to General Kim’s rear.”
“So it would seem. But almost all of them are gone. Where did they go?”
Kirham shrugged. “Who knows? If they outran their orders, they may still be racing south toward nothing but desolation and thirst.”
A pair of riders galloped in from the front. Spotting Taal’s flag, its limp shape vaguely discernable, they whirled around in a cloud of dust and trotted up alongside. “General Taal! Beg to report. Decurion Snis-Ala and her squadron are
observing what looks like a few centuries of our infantry, in square, under assault by a sizable enemy force. The square is rapidly shrinking, however, and she doubts it can endure for long.”
Taal and Kirham exchanged quick glances, realizing the mystery of where many of the Grik had gone was solved. “Where? How far?” Taal demanded, even as Kirham asked, “How many Grik?”
The trooper pointed west, northwest. “Beyond that low ridge, six kilometers. As to numbers, the decurion estimated two or three thousands. It’s impossible to say, and whoever is fighting them has killed a great many more.”
Though Kim was now advancing through plenty of hills and gullies to the west, the ridge—actually a long, flat-topped peak—was the only feature here that might’ve hidden a fight that close. Taal now thought he heard firing as well, though it was badly muffled and almost obscured by the clattering noise of his column. He glanced behind at the eastern sky, detecting the slightest hint of gray.
“It will be dawn before we reach them, even at a gallop, and the horses will be blown,” Kirham cautioned.
“Regardless,” Taal barked, brooking no argument. “Runner!” he shouted aside. “Inform Prefect Diola of the Fifteenth that he’s in charge of the column. He’ll press forward quickly, but without tiring his mounts! Bugler! Sound ‘advance the Third and the Ninth at the canter.” He looked at Kirham as the high notes blared. “That infantry must’ve been at it all night, and anyone still fighting after this fiasco deserves saving at almost any cost.”
The horses were lathered and huffing hard by the time the 3rd and 9th Cohorts galloped around the rocky, southern foot of the hill with the rising sun behind them, yet they seamlessly deployed from column into line less than three hundred meters from what looked more like the top of a writhing anthill than a battle. Taal found it difficult to believe anyone might still be resisting down in the middle of that. Yet they certainly had been. A glance at the plain around the final melee made it clear there were far more dead Grik than live ones left for his cavalry to face. And they didn’t really have to “face” them. Except for those in closest combat, possibly sensing victory after the long bloody night, Grik began peeling away and fleeing from the cavalry even before it finished shaking out.
Trouble in the Wind Page 32
