“What’s Colonel Chack’s objective?” Sister Audrey asked.
“The toughest, of course. His brigade will drive directly for the most prominent enemy temple, while Second Corps secures his advance. We—the Sister’s Own—will do the same, while the rest of our forces spread out in the city.”
“Another reason I and my fellows are here,” Anson agreed with an engaging smile. “To represent the NUS when we seize that wretched temple.”
Bugles sounded and Anson frowned at his watch. “A little early, I think, or the spring in my timepiece is losing its temper.” The cannon fire ceased after a few final shots, their dense gunsmoke mingling with rubble dust. More bugles blared, then whistles and drums, even the usual, awful bagpipes.
“Shall we?” Shinya asked. “The army will follow this division.” Tears poured down Sister Audrey’s face as she quickly touched as many around her as she could, as if she never would again, then jerked a brittle nod at Blas. “This is why we came, why I’m here. God bless you all.”
“Sister’s Own!” Blas roared, echoed by Garcia, Ixtli, Bustos, and dozens of other officers and NCOs. “At the quickstep . . . maarch!” Thousands of closely spaced men and ’Cats stepped forward, moving like a relentless wave into the hazy breach.
Mayta
General Anselmo Mayta had no idea what happened to his frantically collected defense on the West Wall. The enemy cannonade was furious, certainly, even more focused and overwhelming than that morning, but its very focus made it less threatening to men spaced away from it, firing muskets at the gunners, or even those gathered in quickly assembled redoubts behind the gate. Yet Mayta sensed his numbers dwindling even before he saw men scamper from the walls and hastily constructed barricades. When he did, he could only stare in shock because they actually seemed purposeful, not panicked. He sent Colonel Hereda to discover the cause, even as his strength continued to flow away. The man returned, now bloodied and powdered with stone dust.
“Report!” Mayta demanded.
“The gate is down, My General! The whole wall around it has been smashed!”
Mayta expected that. “But what of the redoubt? That’s what it’s for!”
Hereda took a gulp from his water bottle and gasped, “Captain General Maduro sends them away! He says the enemy has broken through the east wall!”
Blinking to clear his eyes, Mayta looked toward Lago de Vida for the first time since reentering the city. He couldn’t see much, but white smoke was rising from shore batteries, and dark, fat plumes towered over the lake. “How . . .” he began, but shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. This wall will fall without the protection bleeding away. Stay here, Colonel. I’ll get to the bottom of this!” Striding away from his brave, loyal Colonel Hereda, he had no way of knowing he’d never see him again.
The devastation near the gate was complete and Mayta had to pick his way through the ruins of men and the broken wall, crouching when roundshot blasted him with whistling shards of stone. Through the haze and sleeting gravel, he saw Captain General Maduro berating a man on a horse that twitched and jerked with each booming report—until the cannon fire abruptly stopped. Knowing what that had to mean, Mayta stumbled forward as fast as he could. He reached Maduro as the horseman galloped away down the debris-strewn cobbles. Maduro turned to him, eyes wide and wild, clutching spastically at the never-used sword at his side.
“What have you done?” Mayta coughed.
“The heretics are landing on the docks!” Maduro gobbled, voice high and fast. “I’ve been sending men to guard the Temple. His Supreme Holiness must not be disturbed!”
Mayta couldn’t believe his ears, and gestured at the racing horseman vanishing in a rush of smoke. There was fire in the city now. “Why was I not informed of the threat from the lake? Disgraced in your eyes or not, I command, not you!” he roared. “And the only way to guard the Temple is to hold the walls, you fool!” Bugles, drums, and other indistinct instruments sounded beyond the gaping, pulverized gap, and hoarse voices rose in a surf-like roar as the enemy advanced. Most of Mayta’s remaining men, knowing they couldn’t live if they resisted, flung their weapons down and fled. Even some of Maduro’s Blood Drinkers joined the panic, and Mayta could hardly blame them. “You’ve destroyed us all,” he grated lowly, pulling the brass-barreled pistol from his sash, “and His Supreme Holiness as well.” Reaching to cock the pistol, he noted the steel still tilted forward from his previous shot and remembered the weapon was empty. “A dead horse just saved your miserable life, Captain General,” he snarled. Bullets were whizzing around them now, and men who were slow to leave before now stampeded from the redoubt. Maduro clearly wanted to flee as well, but was transfixed by Mayta’s gaze as the man calmly returned the pistol to his sash and said, “We’ll join the men at the Temple, if any actually went.” A bullet snatched a hunk of red fabric from Maduro’s coat and he recoiled violently. “It seems I won’t be executed after all,” Mayta told him, “and we’ll both have the pleasure of dying for His Supreme Holiness today.”
Silva
“Hold up, Chackie!” Silva snapped, snatching his Lemurian friend (and superior officer) back behind cover as a fusillade of musket balls vrooped through the place he’d been. It hadn’t taken long for Silva to find Chack, Lawrence—and Pam, of course, damn her—as well as Sir Sean Bates. They’d all been together, surrounded by Enrico Galay, Abel Cook, and Hamish Alexander—all top members of Chack’s Brigade—dispatching companies of various regiments of 2nd Div, II Corps in different directions. Only Pam hadn’t seemed glad to see him, muttering something like, “Can’t go anywhere without that asshole tagging along.”
Together they’d blasted their way half a mile into the city behind rifle fire and grenades against initially stiff resistance, primarily by the civilian populace. They’d been afraid of that, even though—unlike Shinya—they’d never had to deal with it before. And the civilians, whipped up by Blood Priests, resisted even more fanatically than the soldiers when they saw the invaders included Lemurians and Grik-like Khonashi—obviously demons, in their eyes. Chack’s Brigade was forced to shoot men and women fighting as maniacally as any Grik, who remorselessly slaughtered any who hesitated with everything from muskets and bayonets retrieved from Dom soldiers, to meat cleavers and hayforks. It had been a brutal, bloody, sickening grind.
Civilian opposition began to fold, however, after Allied troops started targeting the Blood Priests. Watching them get shredded under a hail of bullets tended to take the stuffing out of their flock, possibly instilling greater fear of the enemy than the Blood Priests for the very first time. Chack’s Brigade, dwindling due to casualties and the necessary establishment of numerous strong blocking forces, had it easy for a while as it closed the distance to its objective, but got stopped cold by a large number of Dom regulars and Blood Drinkers behind a barricade they’d erected in the plaza around the Holy Temple.
“Get on the horn!” Chack called back to a signal-’Cat packing one of the newer, but still very heavy field radios. “See if we caan get some air support! There’s a big concentration of Doms in the open at the base of the temple.” With only Leopardo presumably left on the water, Matt had ordered New Dublin’s SBD-2s to turn around and exchange their torpedoes for bombs. That would delay them, of course, but New Dublin’s Bull-Bats had flushed as soon as her flight deck was clear and they’d be here any time. As for Leopardo, if Walker couldn’t handle her, there was still Mahan. And USS Gray would soon arrive. With New Dublin protected by Repub BCs, Captain Miyata had started upriver the night before, without orders. ’Ol Miyata’ll prob’ly catch hell for that, Silva thought, then grinned. But hey!
“Bull-Baats’re ten minutes out,” the signal-’Cat replied, “but Mahaan says she’ll put fire on ’em for us!” Mahan had been doing a lot of that, hammering targets for elements of II Corps as they called them in and gave her corrections. The ’Cat paused. “No, she caan’t. We got friendl
ies on the west side o’ the temple. Some o’ Shinya’s troops’re in close contaact there.”
Silva peeked around the wall and saw Doms firing furiously in that direction. At the sight of him, others shot his way and he pulled back as plaster-covered brick exploded where his head had been.
Pam started to rush toward him but caught herself when she saw he was fine. “Idiot,” she hissed.
“Idiot!” Petey loudly agreed, shaking off powdered plaster before tearing at the bandage on his gliding membrane again. “Goddamn idiot!”
“Shut up, you,” Silva told the little reptile, thumping him on the head. “An’ quit pickin’ at your stitches! What now?” he asked Chack.
“I don’t ’ant to get shot again,” Lawrence said.
Chack opened the loading gate of the “new” Krag rifle he’d been given, to replace the one destroyed in the Battle of Sofesshk, to ensure the magazine was full. Then he looked at the “command group” around him, noting how seriously it had been whittled down. Sir Sean had a bloody bandage around his head, but the sword in his single hand was steady. He looked eager. So did Abel Cook and his squad of Grik-like Khonashi. Lawrence didn’t, but his rifle was ready and his large eyes gleamed with determination. The same was largely true of the thirty-odd ’Cats and Impies still with them. But the force ahead numbered in the hundreds. “I wish we haad some Repubs an’ their breechloading caannon,” he lamented. “Even some caannon of our own. I wonder whaat Shinya and the Nussies brought?”
The answer came quicker than the signal-’Cat could try to find out, and it was entirely unexpected. A chorus of low-frequency, gurgling roars thundered down the avenue and Silva peeked around the corner of the building again. “You believe this shit?” he growled. “Goddamn super lizards! An’ me without my Doom Stomper!”
Nearly everyone crowded forward to see, since the Doms were suddenly quite distracted. Three of the huge beasts, mottled tan, black, and brown, and perhaps sixty feet from nose to tail, had stalked out of the labyrinth of buildings southwest of the temple and into the clear. Basically giant, walking mouths, the things had huge jaws, powerful hindquarters, but no forelegs or “arms” at all. Thick, whiplike tails stood straight out behind them, balancing their massive heads and torsos. Powerful as Silva’s Doom Stomper had been, it wouldn’t have been much use, since these monsters were twice as large as any he’d ever seen, or shot at. That didn’t matter to the Doms, who were suddenly pouring musket fire at the closer, more horrifying threat.
Regardless of the futility, Silva was taking a bead with his BAR as well, when Chack—amber eyes glowing—told him to hold his fire.
“What for?”
“Where do you think those things came from?” Chack asked, excitement rising in his voice. “Shinya reported the Doms used ’em like taanks to break his defense at Fort Defiaance laast year, an’ the same thing happened to Cox at El Paalo! They’re trained to attaack people shootin’ at ’em, becaause they get to eat ’em!”
“Eat?” Petey asked hopefully, if a little doubtfully. He’d learned that food was rarely available at times like this.
Chack ignored him. “Scuttlebutt waas they came to the enemy as ‘gifts’ from their daamn pope, from here, where he keeps ’em like pets! Prob’ly feeds ’em folks he doesn’t like.”
“Priority message on all frequencies!” the signal-’Cat blurted. “Gener-aal Shinya says do not fire on the super lizaards! His forces overraan their pens an’ turned ’em loose when Col-nol Gaarcia squeezed a local into spillin’ thaat the temple’s the only place they ever get to go in the city. To feed ’em slaves an’ such on special occasions, an’ ‘aamuse’ the civvies! Soon as they were loose, they just headed this way! Oh! He also saays to waatch out for the armaabueys they use to herd ’em around. They aaccidentally got loose too, but they’re only daangerous if they smush you.”
“I’m so relieved,” Pam murmured, looking at the alleyways around, as if expecting to see giant, armadillo-like creatures already thundering toward them.
“Ha! See?” Chack practically chortled.
The Doms around the temple apparently hadn’t had time to gather any artillery, and that was all that might’ve saved them. Musket balls only reinforced the conditioned behavior of the gigantic predators and they quickened their pace toward the hasty breastworks around the Holy Temple. There was a stiff flurry of fire but the super lizards only shrugged it off and charged with hungry, anticipatory moans, crashing through the meager obstacles and scooping struggling, screaming men into their jaws. The defense quivered like an over-hard sword that takes a heavy blow—just before it snaps. The super lizards waded among the Doms, snatching them up at their leisure, methodically tilting great jaws up and simply gulping them down. Distant, frantic commands could be heard, but most of the panicked enemy broke and ran. The pursuit instinct kicked in immediately, and with a titanic roar, all three monsters swerved north around the temple with ground-eating strides, chasing the majority of the men who fled in that direction.
A cluster of Dom regulars and Blood Drinkers, a couple hundred, had heeded their officers’ cries and clustered around an arched entrance with garish symbols engraved in stone. They started falling as rifle fire slammed into them, then a great gulp of smoke from what Silva knew must be a mountain howitzer by the sound spewed a double dose of canister among them. Men fell squalling on the blood-soaked pavement, and with more than the simple reluctance of defeat, it seemed, some of the Doms finally ducked inside the temple.
Men and ’Cats were charging from the west-southwest, and Silva was amazed to see the Stars and Stripes, and Sister Audrey’s weird flag, flowing over the surge of attackers.
“Let’s go!” Chack roared, and his little force, barely a company, rounded the corner, rifles firing, and joined the assault.
Blas
“Waatch your fire to the east!” Blas roared. “That’s Chack . . . an’ Silvaa over there!”
“Indeed it is!” Sister Audrey gasped, running beside her. “I never expected to see either again, especially not Mr. Silva. My word!” ’Cats and men were falling around them, Dom muskets growing more effective as they closed. And the sad, simple fact had always been that ’Cats in particular always grew more reckless when their objective was in sight. Not that they were alone in that today. The Vengadores were just as heedless of their losses as they sprinted toward the hated temple. Chack and Silva’s little force actually reached the distracted enemy first, slamming into them with a stutter of shots and ringing steel. Blas thus caught them distracted as well, and waded into the desperate free-for-all with her bayonet. Even as she fought, however, she was aware of the singular, stunningly lethal machine of death that Chack, Silva, and Lawrence became as soon as they smashed their way to the center of the Doms.
Each had his own technique; Silva was raw power, complimented by the unerring aim of his BAR that blasted men down with two rounds apiece. Empty, it became a brutal club, smashing men’s skulls or hands on their weapons, leaving them helpless against another quick stroke or for someone else to finish. Chack wielded his Krag with art and finesse, shooting men or bayonetting them almost casually, with profound economy of motion. Blas doubted even Pete Alden—the master of the bayonet on this world—could stand against Chack anymore. Then there was Lawrence, fighting much like Chack with his Allin-Silva rifle and bayonet, but he seemed most concerned with guarding Silva’s blind side so the big man could wreak his havoc. They’d obviously fought Grik—individually deadlier opponents—like this many times, and Blas wondered if they were even aware of how cooperative, even interdependent, their style had become.
The fight was as brief as it was bitter, and not without cost. Glory and triumph walk hand in hand with tragedy and less than half who charged the temple entrance lived. Most who did were wounded to some degree. In addition to many ’Cats and men, virtually all the Khonashi died, their terrifying appearance drawing disproportionate fire.
Abel Cook, leading from the front, went down with a musket ball in his thigh and his two surviving Khonashi covered the wounded youngster with their bodies. First Sergeant Spook and Lieutenant Anaar were shot dead in the melee, as was Captain Ixtli, dying in the very entrance to the temple. General Tomatsu Shinya fought with berserk abandon, cleaving heads with the katana Bernie Sandison made him from a 1917 cutlass so long ago. He’d just joined Blas, who’d almost linked up with Chack, when he took a vicious bayonet thrust in his lower back. The wound was avenged by Arano Garcia, but Shinya was gushing blood. He finally collapsed when the last Dom defenders died or ran. Pam, Sister Audrey, and Captain Anson, as well as Captain Bustos and two of Anson’s surviving men, frantically worked to staunch Shinya’s bleeding while the signal-’Cat, running up with his heavy burden, called desperately for assistance.
A single, solitary Dom remained, only because he’d ostentatiously held his empty pistol up by the muzzle throughout the fight—and Colonel Blas-Ma-Ar recognized him. “You want me to blast him?” a blood-spattered Silva shouted, pointing his reloaded BAR at the man’s face while Lawrence roughly held him. Silva’s hearing was still blown by the shooting.
“Not yet,” said Blas, stepping to face General Anselmo Mayta.
The man actually smiled. “We meet again, Major Blas. I always knew you were extraordinary.”
“Col-nol Blas,” she corrected bitterly.
“A well-deserved promotion, I’m sure. You have my congratulations.” He cocked his head, listening to the fighting raging through the city. Now that the shooting here had stopped, the intensity of the battle around them was breathtaking. “For that, and your achievement here.” He hesitated before adding, “You haven’t won, of course, and never will as long as his Supreme Holiness represents God . . . to these people . . . on this world.”
“We can fix that quick enough,” Silva sneered.
“Fix!” Petey cawed emphatically, earning an astonished look from Mayta.
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