A Dubious Peace

by Olan Thorensen

  Everyone reloaded.

  “We can’t all fire at once the next time they try that,” said Yozef. “It was too close this time.”

  “But then more of the men on foot will reach cover,” said Reezo. He had run from his position with the Seaborn dragoons on Yozef’s right.

  The boy was right. Only one thing had saved them this time: the horsemen were restricted to riding single or double file in the passage and had to start from a dead stop. Otherwise, they might have covered the three hundred yards to the Caedelli position before the defenders could reload.

  “The fucker leading them is too damn smart and too damn ruthless,” said Synton. “Unless he runs out of men, he’ll keep doing this. Eventually, there’ll be enough men with cover to give effective supporting fire. Even with smoothbore muskets and their shitty range, enough of them will start giving us casualties. Then the horsemen can get to us.”

  “It may come down to how many men they have and how much they want you,” said Maera.

  “We need to divide all our people into two groups, so we don’t all fire at once,” said Yozef. “There’s just no good option. Otherwise, it gives them too good an opportunity to have dead space between our salvos. Reezo, have your Seaborners fire first, and we’ll hold ours.”

  “Reezo’s right,” said Synton, “we’d let more of them get into covered positions.”

  Yozef didn’t respond, just nodded in the direction of Reezo, who ran back to his men. Yozef was lost in his thoughts, searching for options. They probably had a few minutes while the Kolinkans prepared for the next wave. Yozef looked in front of their position and tried to ignore the moving fallen horses and the sounds coming from them.

  He projected what the ground would look like after two or three more such attempts. There was more than a hundred yards between the defenders and the nearest Kolinkans who had come on foot and survived to find cover. However, the downed horses would provide more cover for Kolinkans encroaching on the defense. He thought there were fifteen to twenty Kolinkans behind rock cover. He projected to when the number would get to three times that many, and at least some would be closer.

  As for the horsemen, although the bodies would slow them down, the Kolinkans on foot and horseback would get closer with each attack.

  He didn’t have to wait to have his fears confirmed.

  They could hear the Kolinkans yelling back and forth.

  “I wish we had someone who spoke their damn language,” said Synton. “They’re obviously planning their next move, figuring we can’t understand them.”

  “They figure right,” said Carnigan, “unless Maera can speak Kolinkan.”

  “I’ve never even heard it,” she said, “or if I heard it, I didn’t pay attention. Aro, Gympo, and Pononyma seemed the more important of the Iraquinik kahsaks we’re going to interact with. I only scanned a limited reference to their languages. Remind me to correct that back in Orosz City.”

  Her tight smile didn’t fool anyone.

  The horn sounded.

  “Well, shit,” mumbled Toowin.

  Suddenly, tendrils of smoke rose from within the passage. Within seconds, the smoke increased and eddied back and forth.

  “Grass and whatever dry material they can gather,” said Synton.

  “Can’t be too much of it,” said Yozef. “There’s no more where they are than here.”

  A minute passed. The Kolinka positions were still visible but less distinct from the eddying smoke.

  The horn sounded again. Most of the defenders assumed correctly that the horn preceded another attack. The Kolinkans with cover rose as one, fired their muskets, and ducked again.

  No musket ball found flesh, but many passed close enough to the defenders’ ears to be audible. The musket balls also hit rocks and created showers and fragments that a majority of the defenders instinctively ducked. They thereby missed seeing the first Kolinkans burst from the passage and disperse. Those defenders who had remained ready to fire hit several Kolinkans. Yozef hit one. He didn’t have a count, but if there had been twenty footmen like before, he estimated thirteen or fourteen reached cover. No horsemen followed this time.

  “Damn!” Yozef exclaimed. “Aren’t the fuckers gonna run out of men?”

  Carnigan snickered, and Yozef glanced sharply at his big friend.

  “Normally, I have some humorous and biting comment about such words from the Paramount,” said Synton. “Unfortunately, I agree with him. When are the fuckers gonna run out of men?”

  “There must be thirty or more of them closer than the passage,” said Yozef. “If they keep this up, they’ll eventually have enough firepower to suppress ours. Muskets or not, enough of them could have the same effect as our number of rifles.”

  “It may not take that long,” said Reezo, who had returned to Yozef for the second time. “I had a bad thought.”

  “I’m not sure I want to hear it,” said Yozef, “but go ahead.”

  “If I was them, I’d consider having horses drag bundles of grass and branches set on fire and drive them toward us. Even if we shot the horses, some of them would get close enough to further obscure what we can see.”

  “I told you I wouldn’t want to hear it,” muttered Yozef.

  Synton moved over and pulled Yozef down from his standing crouch. He then knelt next to Yozef, speaking low.

  “We have to assume they have too many men for us to hold here indefinitely. It’s time to consider getting you and Maera out of here before that happens.”

  “I agree,” said Reezo, who had overheard. “Our Seaborn men can hold this position long enough for you to get so close to Grastor that they couldn’t catch you. There’s also the rider we sent ahead and maybe help on the way that you would meet.”

  “And forget about saying you couldn’t save yourself while leaving men here,” said Synton. “You’re the Paramount. Your duty is to all of Caedellium. How you feel about your personal honor is not as important as the consequences of your being killed or captured. Then there’s Maera to think about.”

  “Synton,” said Yozef slowly and with a hint of affection, “I wonder what the Synton Ethlore I first met would think of hearing you talk about honor and the good of all Caedellium?”

  Synton snarled and spit to one side. “Don’t you think I don’t recognize the irony? It’s all because I spent too much goddamn time around you. My father would be ashamed of me. But everything I said is still true.”

  The horn blew. The conversation was dropped as everyone returned to the ready position— rifles pointed toward the Kolinkans. Every person wondered what variation of attack was forthcoming.

  This time it was horses, but the riders were silent and hunched low in the saddle to provide smaller targets. As directed, only the Seaborners fired first. Seconds passed before Yozef realized there were only five horses, and the hunched “riders” were bundles of clothing fastened to the saddles. By then, it was too late to stop the firing. The horses fell, riddled with hits.

  Kolinkan footmen burst forth again from the passage, scattering as before. With fewer of the defenders’ rifles unfired, only eight targets fell.

  “They didn’t send mounted horsemen this time,” said Synton, “but they got too many more men to cover. Yozef, you see what’s happening as well as I do. You have to leave!”

  Before Yozef could answer, multiple musket firings echoed between the slopes. The impact on rocks and the buzzing of musket balls fired high were audible. But it wasn’t a salvo. Every few seconds more shots came.

  “They’ve got enough men forward now that they can keep firing to force us down,” said Yozef. “Accurate or not, they’re going to eventually hit some of us.”

  Eventually came sooner than Yozef expected when a Seaborn man thirty yards to Yozef’s left cried out. A musket ball had hit his rifle and ricocheted into his cheek. The man lay on his back, a hand pressed against the side of his head, blood flowing freely.

  Three Pewitt dragoons fired their rifles.


  “They’re trying to get closer,” one of the men yelled.

  At first, Yozef couldn’t see what the man was talking about. Then the end of a musket barrel poked above a two-foot-diameter rock on the right side of the open space.

  “Four of them ran like hell to rocks on the slope,” said another Pewitt man. “I don’t think we hit any of them—it happened so fast.”

  “Trying to edge closer,” said Toowin.

  Yozef motioned to Reezo and Synton. “Each of you pick a couple of men who are the best shots. Have them occasionally fire when there’s any kind of target, even if only an arm or a leg. Also, have them fire from different positions. They’re trying to make us keep our heads down, and we need to do the same to them.”

  Musket fire continued to pepper rocks around the defensive positions but never too close to where Synton had planted the Paramount flag.

  I guess they still want me alive, thought Yozef, with a sense of guilt.

  More voices shouted back and forth in Kolinkan. Musket fire ceased after shots fired no more than seconds apart.

  Yozef peeked over the top of his position, then ducked back down and looked at Synton, one eyebrow raised. “They’re about to do something again.”

  The horn sounded. The thought flashed through Yozef’s mind about how he was coming to hate horns. Muskets fired, but not enough to be all the Kolinkan men who had rushed on foot and found cover. About a third of the Caedelli men reflexively ducked. Half of the rest fired at the new batch of Kolinkan men bursting from the passage. When the rest of the Caedelli men emerged to fire, they were met by Kolinkans firing.

  “More of them got closer,” said Toowin. “This time on the other side. I didn’t think there was enough cover at the bottom of the slopes, but somehow they’re finding it.”

  The next fifteen minutes, the Kolinkans kept up constant musket fire while slipping more men forward.

  “I think there’s at least fifty of them firing at us,” said Synton. “This is only getting worse. Yozef, you and Maera have to go.”

  Another voice from the Kolinkans’ direction. One voice only. Louder than before. Much louder.

  “Either somebody’s pissed, or he’s trying to call back for instructions,” said Synton.

  Horses poured from the passage. Six were out before the first one was hit by rifle fire. But it didn’t add to the obstacles of previously downed horses and men because, instead of coming straight at the defenders, the raiders fanned out as they emerged.

  At the same time, footmen rose from cover and charged. A few started within a hundred yards, having crept closer in the last half hour.

  The defenders fired at will.

  Boom! Carnigan’s cannon hit a horse at the top of its throat and took the head off. More horses fell or riders were hit and fell, some under the hooves of following horses. And still they poured out of the passage.

  A saving grace was that after the Kolinkans on foot fired their muskets, they did not reload. Instead, they inserted plug bayonets into the musket barrels as they ran. That allowed the defenders to reload while standing in the open without fear of return fire.

  “Prepare for bayonets!” Yozef screamed out. It was a tactic the dragoons had trained for but not extensively. The Caedelli dragoons used a socket bayonet, which fastened underneath the barrel and thus allowed reloading to continue, although slower. In theory, the dragoon would fire without the bayonet attached until the enemy got close enough for hand-to-hand engagement. Yozef’s command alerted the men to be aware such a time might come.

  More Kolinkan horses and riders fell. Yozef shot a horse a hundred yards away. As it collapsed forward, its rider kicked out of the stirrups, did a full forward roll, came onto his feet running, and waving his sword.

  “What! This guy’s a fucking stuntman for movies?”

  Yozef frantically reloaded. Too many targets!

  Kolinkans on foot screamed as they ran. Yozef wasn’t sure, but were there fewer of them than before? The rider whose horse he’d shot fell to the ground fifty yards from Yozef. He fired, this time at a man on foot. The man kept coming!

  Jesus Christ! Did I miss him?

  His question was answered seconds later when the man stumbled and fell fifteen yards from where he’d been hit by Yozef’s minie ball.

  “Yozef! Here!” yelled Maera, holding out a loaded rifle. She had retrieved it from a wounded Pewitter. “I’ll reload.”

  He reached out with both arms, one holding his fired rifle, the other grasping the one she held out.

  Suddenly, Maera was flung forward in the direction of the attackers. Her head smacked against a rock.

  “What—?” burbled from Yozef. He was too stunned to catch her before she slid volitionless to the ground, a widening spot of blood on her side.

  “Behind us!” someone yelled.

  Yozef whirled. Kolinkan riders were upon them from the rear!

  Shit! How did they get ahead of us!? his mind screamed.

  One of the riders came straight for him, throwing away a pistol and drawing a sword. The rock formation Yozef stood behind saved him. The Kolinkan had to pull his horse up and turn it to swing the sword.

  Yozef reversed the rifle as if it were a baseball bat. He hit the horse on its muzzle, causing it to rear and throwing off the rider’s sword sweep.

  The man didn’t get a second chance before his body was almost cut in half by Carnigan’s ax.

  Yozef glanced at Maera. She wasn’t moving. He couldn’t go to her. No other horsemen threatened him at the moment. Several attackers from the defenders’ rear were off their horses and lying on the ground, and the rest were engaged with dragoons. Yozef whirled back to the frontal attack. Half of the defenders had never become engaged by the rear attack and had not stopped firing forward. But the distraction was enough that men on foot and horseback were far too close.

  Yozef had the loaded rifle that Maera gave him. He needed it. A mounted Kolinkan with a lowered lance was only thirty yards away and coming on hard. Yozef realized the man intended to leap his horse over Yozef’s protecting rock. He had barely enough time to cock, prime, and fire.

  He hit the rider high in the chest and flung him backward off his horse. It failed to stop. Yozef’s body was pressed against the rock, and he felt a vibration from the horse’s impact. The animal dropped out of sight. Whether stunned or dead, Yozef didn’t know and didn’t care.

  Kolinkans on foot reached the defensive position. Yozef had quick impressions of bayonet-to-bayonet engagements, a Seaborn man screaming as a Kolinkan struggled to extract his bayonet from his victim’s chest, Toowin Kales rolling on the ground and stabbing the other man several times with the serrated knife he preferred, Thala Seaborn using a rifle to club a Kolinkan engaged with Reezo, and a Pewitter firing his rifle point-blank into a Kolinkan’s chest, only to be impaled from behind by a bayonet.

  There was too much to do simultaneously. Should he fire at Kolinkans still coming forward or help stop the breach in their defenses? He didn’t realize his body was automatically reloading the rifle while he decided what to do next. So focused was he that a Kolinkan from any direction could’ve skewered him.

  With the rifle reloaded and ready to fire, he looked at the front. There were no more Kolinkans running at them. Perhaps a dozen crawling or limping away. Two men were being helped by companions. Seven or eight horses either stood in place or bolted back and forth in the open area. Yozef turned back for the fight within the defensive position.

  It was almost over. Only two Kolinkans still stood. One fell from a rifle stock blow from behind while he was engaged with a Seaborn dragoon. The last Kolinkan tried running away, only to be shot in the back.

  Yozef turned again to the front, raising his rifle. A Kolinkan was fifty yards away and trying to return to cover while he dragged a bloody leg. Yozef aimed at the man’s back but hesitated. A rifle shot from the Seaborn positions rang out. The limping man collapsed in place.

  There were other Kolinkans within ra
nge of Yozef’s rifle, but he couldn’t bring himself to fire.

  Even in the absence of rifle fire, sounds were everywhere: defenders yelling defiantly or claiming the attack was thrown back; wounded men and horses crying out; a sudden rise in the wind that whistled between the slopes of the narrow track. A nearby moan jerked him back to what he had ignored during the fighting.

  He cast the rifle aside and knelt by Maera.

  “No, no, no,” he chanted and felt along her throat. His worst fear faded when he felt the pulse, fast but strong.

  She was wearing a thigh-length tunic over a shirt and ankle-length pantaloon trousers that Caedelli women wore when riding. The clothing was blood-soaked on her left side from halfway up her shirt to almost the left knee and across her stomach. His fingers trembled as he untied the sash holding up the pants and separated the pants and the shirt. Blood smeared her flesh. Near the hipbone was a hole oozing blood but not pulsing.

  No artery hit, he thought. But all that blood?

  Carnigan knelt beside Yozef. “How bad is it?”

  “I don’t know. Help me gently roll her so I can check whether there’s an exit wound.” Carnigan put a hand to her shoulder and thigh. He turned her body forty-five degrees while Yozef checked using his eyes and fingers.

  “I can’t find anything. The ball must still be inside her.”

  “She’s lost a lot of blood,” said Carnigan, easing Maera again onto her back.

  “Yes, but it’s not gushing. That’s good, but we don’t know what damage is inside.”

  Yozef now had his left hand pressing on the wound. “We need to keep pressure on this to at least slow the bleeding. Find some cloth we can make a compress from, and tie it firmly.”

  Part of Yozef’s mind observed him apparently talking calmly about what action to take. The second part of his mind was frantic that Maera might die. Part one was ascendant, suppressing part two with the knowledge that hope required clear thinking.