by David Drake
The men in the street moved past her. The hand released her hair, and she heard an odd wet thunk sound behind her. More soldiers pounded up the steps and through into the house. She turned, trembling. The one who’d been chasing her was lying on the steps, pinned to the stone by a long bayonet. His sword clattered down into the street, spinning. The soldier who had killed him twisted the rifle and pulled the blade out, long and red-wet in the moonlight, blood gushing from the wound and the twitching corpse’s mouth and nose. All the other houses on the street were barred and shuttered, and this neighborhood wasn’t quite affluent enough to afford gaslights. The girl began to tremble again as she noticed that the uniforms were not quite the same. These soldiers didn’t have the chainmail neck-flaps on their helmets, and they wore armbands with a large red letter G. They were short, dark, clean-shaven men, not tall and fair like the others. An officer with a drawn sword led them; he held a bullseye lantern in the other hand.
Lieutenant Pinya shouldered the girl aside and pushed into the room. The 1st Cruisers trooper inside had been standing behind an older woman he’d bent over a table, getting ready to mount her; as the guardia burst in he tried to pull up his pants and go for his sword simultaneously. One man buttstroked him in the gut; another chopped his rifle stock down on the man’s neck. He grunted and collapsed, while the woman scuttled away to a civilian lying groaning in a corner. Someone had been screaming rhythmically upstairs; the sound broke off in male shouts and heavy thumping.
A man came rumbling down the stairs, another 1st Cruisers trooper. Still alive and conscious, but from the way he moaned and flopped as he tried to crawl, not in very good shape.
Behind him two infantrymen carried a wounded civilian; young, with a deep cut in one leg. The men had twisted a pressure-bandage over it, but blood leaked through it already. Behind the wounded man came a girl, younger than the one who’d run out into the street. This one had a thrall collar on her neck and was buck-naked; in her mid-teens and not bad looking, probably the housemaid. More soldiers prodded another Cruiser ahead of them with their bayonets, and a corporal brought up the rear with a sack and a big ceramic jug, the type the local white lightning came in.
“Oh, shit,” the lieutenant said.
Garrison duty back in the Southern Territories hadn’t been that bad. A little boring, maybe. Now he’d be up all night explaining things to everyone, right up to Major Felaskez or even higher. Sober, the 1st Cruisers were pretty good soldiers and disciplined enough you could forget they were Squadrones barbarians. Three weeks on Guardia duty had taught him that with a few drinks under their belts they tended to revert to type; also that when drunk they couldn’t tell a sow from their sisters, and either would do as well.
The corporal waved the bottle and sack, which clinked like silverware. “Guess these fuckin’ barbs figured they’d get drunk and laid and get paid for it too, El-T,” he said cheerfully. A chance to beat up on cavalrymen was a rare treat in a footsoldier’s life. “Nobody else upstairs. Looks like they were just gettin’ started, but this might not be the first house.”
A voice called from the rear of the house. “Door to the alley’s broke in, sir.”
“Toryez, go get the medic, fast,” the officer said. “Sergeant, patch the civilians. Get these shits trussed.”
Soldiers pulled lengths of cord out of their belts and tied the prisoners’ hands before them, then immobilized them by shoving the scabbards of their swords through the crooks of their elbows behind their backs. One of the prisoners began mumbling in Namerique at increasing volume, but the sergeant silenced him with a swift kick between the legs.
“Outside,” Pinya said, jerking a thumb. “Roust out the neighbors, show ’em the dead barb and the prisoners so they’ll sound the alarm next time.”
Proclamations were one thing, but example was the best way of demonstrating that the Civil Government commanders really were ready to defend the locals against their own men.
He turned to the civilians. Both the men looked as if they would live, although it was touch-and-go for the younger man if the medic didn’t arrive soon. The middle-aged woman looked dazed, and the housemaid suddenly conscious of her nakedness; she snatched up a towel and tried to make it do far too much.
“Hablai usti Sponglishi?” Pinya said. Blank looks rewarded him. Then the girl stuck her head around the open front door and spoke:
“I do,” she said. “A little.”
Her accent was heavy, but the words were understandable. “What will happen to those men?” she asked.
“Crucifixion,” Pinya said bluntly. “We’ll need your statements. And I want you to translate for me to your neighbors.”
The girl looked at him with glowing eyes. He straightened and sheathed the sword. “Names?” he began.
“Heneralissimo Supremo, we yielded our great city to save it, not to see it destroyed!” the head of the Governor’s Council said.
He was standing. All the petitioners were, except for the Priest Paratier, who’d been given a chair at the foot of the table. Raj sat at its head, watching them over steepled fingers with his elbows propped on the arms of his armchair. Motionless troopers of the 5th Descott lined two walls of the long chamber; the fireplace on the inner wall was burning low, hissing less loudly than the mingled rain and sleet on the outer windows. Suzette sat at his right, with clerks taking down the conversation.
“You yielded,” Raj said softly, “because you knew what happened to the last city that tried to resist the army of the Sovereign Mighty Lord Barholm. The army also of the Spirit of Man.”
A cleric leaned forward; he was red-faced with anger, but throttled his voice back when Paratier laid a restraining finger on his sleeve.
“Heneralissimo, you implied that you would be moving on to fight the Brigade, not staying here and making us the focus of their counterattack.”
Raj smiled, a cold feral expression. “No, Reverend Arch-Sysup, your own wishes were father to that thought. I said nothing of the kind.”
“Peace, my son,” Paratier said. His voice had faded with age, but he adjusted his style to suit rather than trying to force it. The whisper was more compelling than a shout. “Yet would not the Spirit of Man grieve if the priceless treasures within these walls, the relics and records of ancient times, were destroyed by the fury of the heretic and the barbarian?”
Raj inclined his head. “Precisely why I don’t intend to allow the barbarians within the walls, Your Holiness,” he said briskly. “As you may have noticed, we’ve been making energetic preparations to receive them.”
“Throwing the city into chaos, you mean, Heneralissimo Whitehall,” a civilian magnate said. “Overthrowing good order and discipline and encouraging all sorts of riot and tumult.”
The cost of his rings and the diamond stickpin in his cravat would have kept a company of cavalry for a month, and the jewelled buckles of his shoes were the purchase-price of remounting them.
Raj smiled openly. “Messer Fedherikos, I think you’ll admit that my troops are quite disciplined. So I presume you mean we’ve been employing the common people of the city on necessary works of defense, and worse still paying them in cash and on time. They’ve shown great zeal in the cause of the Civil Government of Holy Federation.”
His eyes raked the petitioners. Few of them met his gaze; Paratier’s eyes did; they were as calm and innocent as a child’s—or a carnosauroid’s.
“Do you gentlemen suppose your own commons might react to attempted treachery the way those of Lion City did after their community returned to the Civil Government?”
The naked threat clanged to the ground between them like a roundshot.
Raj’s voice continued like a metronome. “Of course, there’s no possibility of treachery here. We’re all loyal sons of Holy Federation Church.” Well, one of the Sysups was a daughter of Holy Church, but no matter. “And since nobody is considering treachery, I’m showing my trust for the citizens of Old Residence by declaring a general mobilizatio
n of the populace. For labor service, or for the militia which I’m forming—to include all private armed forces in the city.”
There was a shocked intake of breath. That would leave the Church and the magnates helpless . . . helpless, among other things, against a popular uprising unless Raj’s troops guarded them. Also helpless to deliver the city to Ingreid the way they’d delivered it to Raj.
these persons will follow instructions until situation changes drastically, Center said. Outlines glowed around most of the petitioners—most importantly, around Paratier. Red highlights marked others, these individuals will resist necessary measures, probability 94% ±3.
Which of them are truly loyal? Raj enquired.
probability of any of indicated subjects remaining loyal to the civil government unless under threat or directly coerced is too low to be meaningfully calculated.
Exactly what I expected. The only difference is that some have enough guts to be actively treasonous and some don’t.
you learn quickly, raj whitehall.
No, I’ve lived in East Residence, he thought sourly.
Raj noted those marked as most dangerous; best detain those immediately. One or two flinched as his eye stopped at their faces.
“My son, my son,” Paratier intoned. “I shall pray for you. Avoid the sin of rashly assuming that your program is debugged. The Spirit has given you great power; do not in your pride refuse to copy to your system the wisdom others have been granted by long experience.”
Raj stood, leaning forward on his palms. “Your holiness, messers, I am the Sword of the Spirit of Man. The Spirit has chosen me for Its military business, not as a priest. In spiritual matters, I will of course be advised by His Holiness. In military affairs, I expect you all to do the will of the Spirit—Who speaks through me.
“And now,” he went on, “if you’ll excuse me. General Ingreid is heading this way with the whole home-levy of the Brigade, and I’m preparing for his reception.”
CHAPTER SIX
The countryside outside Old Residence had a ghostly look. Colors were the gray-brown of deep winter, leafless trees and bare vines. Nothing moved but an occasional bird, or a scuttling rabbit-sized sauroid. Raj had ordered every scrap of food and every animal within two days’ hard riding brought in to Old Residence or destroyed, and every house and possible shelter torn down or burned. The broken snags of a village showed at the crossroads ahead, tumbled brick and charred timbers, looking even more forlorn than usual under the slash of the rain. The two battalions rode through silently, the hoods of their raw-wool cloaks over their heads. Bridles jingled occasionally as dogs shook their heads in a spray of cold water.
Raj reined in to one side with the two battalion-commanders. The two hundred Skinners with him were jauntily unconcerned with the weather; compared to their native steppes, this was balmy spring. Many of them were bare-chested, not even bothering with their quilt-lined winter jackets of waterproof sauroid hide. The regulars looked stolidly indifferent to the discomfort. Anxious for action, if anything; men who don’t like to fight rarely take up the profession of arms, and these troopers hadn’t lost a battle in a long time. He had Poplanich’s Own with him, and two batteries—eight guns. The other unit was the 2nd Cruisers. No artillery accompanied them, but each man had a train of three remounts, and the dogs carried pack-saddles with loads of ammunition and spare gear. The mounts were sleek and glossy-coated. Fed up to top condition with the offal from Old Residence’s slaughterhouses, where the meat from the confiscated livestock was being salted and smoked.
The trumpet sounded and Poplanich’s Own swung to a halt. The Skinners straggled to a stop, more or less, which was something of a concession with them. The 2nd Cruisers peeled off to the north, taking a road that straggled off into the hills.
Spirit, but I hate war, Raj thought, looking at the ruined village. It would be a generation or more before this area recovered. If somebody cut down the olive trees and vineyards for firewood, which they probably would, that would be three generations of patient labor gone in an afternoon. Rain dripped from the edge of his cloak’s hood. He pushed the wool back, and the drops beat on his helmet like the tears of gods.
Ehwardo was looking after the Cruisers. “Thought you had something in mind,” he said mildly. “Even if you didn’t say.”
Raj nodded. “Even the Brigaderos won’t neglect to have Old Residence full of spies,” he said. “No point in making things easy for them.”
“Tear up the railroad before they get here?” Ehwardo asked.
“By no means,” Raj chuckled. “Ludwig’s men will lie low and scout while the Brigade completes their initial movements. Railroads,” he went on, “are wonderful things, no matter how the provincial autonomists squeal about ’em. The whole Civil Government should go down on its knees and thank the Spirit that His Supremacy Governor Barholm has pushed the Central Rail through all the way to the Drangosh frontier—the fact that the Colony has river-transport there has been a ball and chain around our ankles in every war we’ve ever fought with them.”
Ehwardo raised his brows.
Raj went on: “You can do arithmetic, Ehwardo. One hundred thousand Brigaderos. Fifty thousand camp followers, at the least; a lot of them will be bringing their families along. Say, one and a quarter kilos of bread and half a kilo of meat or cheese or beans a day per man, not to mention cooking oil, fuel . . . and preserved vegetables or fruit, if you want to avoid scurvy. Plus feeding nearly a hundred thousand dogs, each of them eating the same type of food as the men but five to ten times as much. Plus twenty or thirty thousand oxen for the wagon trains from railhead to camp, all needing fodder. That’s over a thousand tons a day, absolute minimum.”
“So we wait for them to get here and then cut the railway,” Ehwardo said. “Still, there are countermeasures. Hmmm . . . I’d station say, twenty or thirty thousand of their cavalry along the line for patrol duty. Easier to feed them, easy to bring them up when needed, and fifty or sixty thousand men would invest the city just as well as a hundred thousand. A hundred thousand’s damned unwieldy as a field army anyway.”
Raj smiled unpleasantly. “Exactly what I’d do. Ingreid, however, is a Brigadero of the old school; he has to take his boots off to count past ten. And not one of his regimental commanders will want to be anywhere but at the fighting front. Furthermore, all the foundries capable of building new locomotives are in Old Residence, and so are the rolling mills capable of turning out new strap-iron to lay on the rails.”
The general turned to the younger commander. Ludwig Bellamy was a barbarian himself, technically—a noble of the Squadron. He looked the part, a finger taller than Raj, yellow-haired and blue-eyed. His father had surrendered to Raj for prudence sake, and because of a grudge against the reigning Admiral of the Squadron. Ludwig had his own reasons for following Raj Whitehall, and he’d managed to turn himself into a very creditable facsimile of a civilized officer.
“Ludwig, this is an important job I’m giving you. Any warrior can charge and die; this needs a soldier’s touch, and a damned good soldier at that. It’s tricky. Some of Ingreid’s subordinates are capable men, from the reports.” For which bless Abdullah, he thought. “Teodore Welf, for example, and Carstens.”
He laid a hand on Bellamy’s shoulder. “So don’t cut the line so badly that it’s obviously hopeless. Tease them. Let a trickle get through, enough to keep Ingreid hoping but not enough to feed his army. Step it up gradually, and don’t engage the enemy. Run like hell if you spot them anywhere near; they can’t be everywhere along eight hundred kilometers of rail-line. Keep the peasants on your side and you’ll know exactly where the enemy are and they’ll be blind.”
Ludwig Bellamy drew himself up. “You won’t be disappointed in me, Messer Raj,” he said proudly.
The three officers leaned towards each other in the saddle and smacked gauntleted fists in a pyramid. Ehwardo shook his head as Bellamy and his bannerman cantered off along the line of the 2nd Cruisers, still snaking
away north into the gray rain.
“I don’t think you’ll be disappointed in him either,” he murmured. “You have the ability to bring out abilities in men they didn’t seem to have, Whitehall. My great-uncle called it the ruler’s gift.”
“Only in soldiers,” Raj said. “I couldn’t get civilians to follow me anywhere but to a free-wine fiesta, except by fear—and fear alone is no basis for anything constructive.”
“You’re doing quite well in Old Residence,” Ehwardo pointed out.
“Under martial law. Which is to civil law as military music is to music. I’ve gotten obedience in Old Residence, with twenty thousand guns at my back, but I could no more rule it in the long-term than General Ingreid could understand logistics.” Raj smiled. “Believe me, I know that I’m really not suited to civil administration. I know it as if the Spirit Itself had told me.”
correct.
Ehwardo grunted skeptically, but changed the subject. “And now lets get on to that damned railway bridge,” he said. “I don’t feel easy with nobody there but those Stalwart mercenaries.”
Raj nodded. “Agreed, but there was nobody else to spare before the walls were in order,” he said.
The rail bridge crossed the White River ten kilometers upstream from Old Residence, the easternmost spot not impossibly deep for bridge pilings. Without it, the Brigade armies would have to go upstream to the fords to cross to the north bank—the south bank of the river held only unwalled suburbs—which would delay them a week or two and complicate their supply situation even further. A strong fort at the bridge could be supplied by river from Old Residence, and would give the Civil Government force a potential sally port to the besiegers’ rear.