by David Drake
“Fellow soldiers,” he said, pitching his voice to carry. Whatever he said would go back through the ranks. With appropriate distortion, so keep it simple.
“Messer Raj and our comrades need us,” he said. “If we get there in time, we win. Follow me.”
He turned, and his bannermen and signalers formed up behind him. Normally company-grade officers and above were mounted, but this time it was everyone on their own poor-man’s dogs. “Battalion columns, five abreast,” he said. “Double quickstep.”
The Brigadero emplacements on the bluff above were ruined and empty, but there would be somebody there. Somebody to report.
“Hadelande!” he snapped, and started toward the sound of the guns.
“Follow me!” Raj called.
He touched his heel to Horace’s flank. The trumpet sang four brassy notes, and the column broke into a jog-trot; he touched the reins lightly, keeping his dog down to the pace of the dismounted men behind him. The fog of black-powder smoke was thick, like running through heavy mist that smelled of burning sulfur. The wall to his right was almost hidden by it despite the bright sun, towers looming up like islands. The noise was a heavy surf, the continuous crackle of rifle-fire under the booming cannon. A louder crack sounded as a forty-kilo cannonball struck the ramparts, blasting loose chunks of stone and pieces of men.
Messengers and ambulances were moving in the cleared zone behind the walls. Now they saw men running, unwounded or nearly so. The fugitives shocked to a halt as they saw the Starburst banner and Raj beneath it; everyone recognized Horace, at least.
“You men had better rejoin your unit,” Raj said. They wavered, turned and began scrambling back up the earth mound on the inside of the wall.
Raj opened the case at his saddlebow, calming the restless dog with a word as a shell ripped by overhead to burst among the outermost row of houses behind. Through the binoculars he could see the rough pine-log ends of scaling ladders against the merlons of the wall, and infantrymen desperately trying to push them aside with the points of their bayonets. Any defender whose head was above the stonework for more than a second or two toppled backward; there must be forty or fifty blue-clad bodies lying on the earth ramp, most of them shot through the head or neck. The defenders were pulling the tabs of hand-bombs and pitching them over the side; more showered down from the towers a hundred meters to either side, thrown by hand or from pivot-mounted crossbows.
A dozen more scaling ladders went up, even as smoke and flashes of red light above the parapet showed where the bombs were landing among men packed in the mud of the moat, waiting their turn at the assault.
“Deploy,” Raj said. The trumpet sang, and the 5th faced right in a double line, one rank kneeling and the one behind standing. A ratcheting click sounded as they loaded their weapons. “And fix bayonets.” It would come to that, today.
“Captain, can those splatguns bear from here?”
“Just, sir,” the artilleryman said.
The multi-barreled weapons were fifty meters behind the firing line, itself that distance from the wall. The crews spun the elevating screws until the honeycombed muzzles rose to their limit.
Raj drew his sword and raised it. The bullets that had sent sparks and spalls flying all along the parapet under assault halted as Brigaderos helmets showed over the edge, masking their comrades’ supporting fire. The Civil Government soldiers rose themselves, firing straight down; but the first wave of Brigaderos were climbing with their pistols drawn. In a short-range firefight single-shot rifles were no match for revolvers. Smoke hid the combatants as dozens of five-shot cylinders were emptied. Seconds later the unmusical crash of steel on steel sounded as scores of the barbarians swarmed over the parapet, sword against bayonet.
“Wait for it.”
One moment the firing platform above was a mass of soldiers in blue uniforms and warriors in steel breastplates, stabbing and shooting point-blank and swinging clubbed rifles. The next it held only Brigaderos, the defenders pitching off the verge and into the soft earth of the ramp below, or retreating into the tower doors. A banner with the double lightning flash of the Brigade waved triumphantly.
“Fwego!” His sword chopped down.
BAM. Then BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM, crisp platoon volleys running down the line. A long braaaap four times repeated from the splatguns.
Time shocked to a halt for a second. There were hundreds of Brigaderos jammed onto the fighting platform of the wall, and most of them did not even know where the bullets that killed them came from. Many were looking the other way, waving on comrades below or hauling up the assault ladders to lower down from the wall. The whole line of them shook, dozens falling out and down to crash with bone-shattering force. Some of the Civil Government soldiers who’d jumped down were still moving, it was soft unpacked earth below on the ramp and a grazing impact, but doing it with thirty kilos of steel on you was another matter altogether.
Half the enemy were still up, even with the splatguns punching four-meter swaths through the packed ranks. A few had time to fire revolvers or begin the cumbersome drill of loading their rifle-muskets—both about as futile as spitting, but he admired the spirit—before the next rattle of volleys hit them. The splatguns traversed, snapping out their loads with mechanical precision.
“Cease fire,” Raj said. “Marksmen only.”
Silence fell as the trumpet snarled; the best shots in each squad stepped forward a pace and began a slow crackle of independent fire at anyone unwise enough to climb the ladders and show his head over the parapet. The Civil Government troops in the towers at each end of the breach were cheering as they fired and lobbed handbombs. That meant the enemy were giving back from the foot of the wall, although the slamming roar of noise continued elsewhere. And incredibly a few of the infantry who’d tumbled down from the fighting platform were up and forming a firing line at the base of the earth ramp. Raj heeled Horace forward; a young officer was limping down the improvised unit of walking wounded, hustling men with the slack faces of battle-shock into line, slapping them across the shoulders with the flat of his saber. Here was someone who also had the right instincts.
“Lieutenant,” Raj said.
He had to repeat the command twice before the young man heard; when he turned his eyes were wide and staring, the iris swallowed in the pupil.
“Cease fire, Lieutenant.”
“Ci, mi heneral.”
“Good work, son.” The younger man blinked. “Now get them back up there. Anyone who can shoot.”
“Back up, sir?” The lieutenant was shivering a little with reaction. He looked at the earth ramp above, littered with enemy bodies, two deep in places. A fair number of bodies in blue-and-maroon uniforms, too. One was crawling down the timber staircase that rose from the flat cleared zone to the ramparts, leaving a glistening trail behind him.
“Back up,” Raj said. He scribbled an order on his dispatch pad and ripped it off. “Get this to your Battalion-Commander.”
Telling him to thin his troops out to cover the bare patch; probably unnecessary, but it never hurt to be careful. There were already some riflemen from the towers up above fanning out onto the rampart, firing out at the enemy or pitching bodies down into the moat—the right place for them, let the Brigaderos get an eyeful.
“Hop to it, lad.”
A dispatch rider pulled up in a spurt of gravel. “Ser,” he said, extending a note from his gauntlet.
Estimate ten thousand mounted enemy reserves moving eastward with artillery, it said. Remaining ten thousand dismounting and preparing to advance southeast toward wall. Gerrin Staenbridge, Colonel.
“Well, that’s that,” Raj muttered. “Verbal acknowledgement, Corporal.”
Another messenger, this one on foot. “Sir, barbs on the wall, east four towers—Malga Foot’s sector. Major Fillipsyn says they’ll be over in a minute.”
“Lead on,” Raj replied.
“Messenger,” he went on, as the command group rode back toward the 5th’s waiting
ranks. “To Major Bellamy. Now.”
The enemy had ten thousand men in reserve to exploit a breakthrough. He had six hundred-odd to plug the holes.
* * *
“Battalions to form square,” Jorg Menyez said.
The trumpeters were panting, like all the rest of them—they’d come better than a kilometer at the double quickstep, all the way up from the riverbank, over the railway embankment, looping north and west until they were almost in sight of the eastern gate of Old Residence. They still managed the complex call, repeating it until all the other units had acknowledged. A final prolonged single note meant execute.
The 17th Kelden Foot were in the lead; they swung from battalion column to line like an opening fan. So did the 55th Santander Rifles at the rear. The units on either side slid like a pack of cards being stacked, the eight-deep column thinning to a much longer column of twos. Five minutes, and what had been a dense clumping of rectangles eight ranks broad and sixty or so long was an expanding box, shaking out until it covered a rectangle three hundred men long on each side. The fifth battalion stayed in the center as reserve.
Here’s where we see if they can do it, Menyez thought, his lips compressed in a tight line.
This sort of thing was supposed to be the cavalry’s work. Infantry were for holding bases and lines of communication. He’d said often enough that that was wrongheaded; now he had a chance to prove it . . . or die. Worse, the whole Expeditionary Force would die.
He swept his binoculars across the front of the enemy formation, counting banners. The air was very clear, crisp and cool in his lungs, smelling only of damp earth. The city was a pillar of gunsmoke, rising and drifting south. Sparkling, moving steel was much closer, rippling as the enemy rode over the rolling fields, bending as they swung to avoid an olive grove.
“About ten thousand of them, wouldn’t you say?” he said to his second in command.
“Eight to twelve,” the man replied. “Three regiments of lancers, the rest dragoons and thirteen . . . no, sixteen guns.”
“Runner,” Menyez said. “To all Battalion-Commanders. Fire by platoons at any enemy fieldpiece preparing to engage at one thousand meters or less.”
That was maximum range for the three-kilo bronze smoothbores the enemy used, and well within range for massed fire from Armory rifles. No artillery here to support him, curse it. A few rounds of shrapnel were just the thing to take the impetus out of a Brigade lancer’s charge.
“For the rest, standard drill as per receive cavalry.”
“Los h’esti adala cwik,” his second said as the messenger trotted off: they’re in a hurry. The Brigaderos were coming on at a round trot, and it looked as if the dragoons intended to get quite close before dismounting.
“Ask me for anything but time, as Messer Raj says,” Menyez said, clearing his throat.
That was one good thing about an infantry battle. He drew a deep breath, free of wheezes for once. At least there weren’t any dogs around, not close enough to affect him.
“They’ll probably come at a corner first,” he went on. That was the most vulnerable part of an infantry square, where the smallest number of rifles could be brought to bear. “They do seem to be in a bit of a rush.”
Private Minatelli wasn’t aware of hearing the trumpet. Nevertheless, his feet were ready for the order when it was relayed down to his platoon; prone and kneeling.
The men ahead of him flopped down, angling their bodies like a herringbone comb. He went down on his left knee, conscious of the cold damp earth soaking through the wool fabric of his uniform trousers. This had been a vineyard until someone grubbed up the vines for firewood, and shattered stumps of root still poked out of the stony loam amid the weeds. Now that they were halted he could hear the battle along the city walls, the boom and rattle of it muffled by distance and underlain by a surf-roar of voices.
His own personal Brigaderos were much closer. Hidden by a fold in the ground, but he could see the lancepoints. There looked to be an almighty lot of them. . . .
Omniscient Spirit of Man, he thought as they came over the crest of the rise like a tidal wave. There were thousands of them, big men in armor on huge Newfoundlands and St. Bernards. Pounding along in perfect alignment with lances raised, three ranks deep, heading straight for the front right corner of the square. Right at him. Fifteen hundred meters away and still far too close, and getting closer every second. His arms seemed to raise his rifle of their own volition, and it took an effort that left his hands shaking to snap it back down to rest on the ground.
“Set sights for four hundred meters.”
The order went down the ranks. Minatelli snapped the stepped ramp forward under the rear sight with his thumb, lifting the leaf notch to the second-to-last position; for more than that, it had to be raised vertically and used as a ladder-sight. Four hundred meters still seemed awfully close.
“Fire on the command.”
Feet tramped behind him. He looked back for a moment; two companies of the reserve battalion were lining up across the V-angle of the square’s corner. Minatelli hoped none of them would fire too low—even standing, the muzzles would be only a half-meter over his head. When he turned his head back the Brigaderos were close enough to turn his mouth even drier. Picking up speed; they were going to start their gallop at extreme rifle range, get through the killing zone as quickly as they could. He could hear the drumbeat sound of the massed paws, feel it vibrating through the ground. The armor was polished blazing-bright, hurting his eyes under the early morning sunlight. Banners and helmet-plumes streamed with the wind of the riders’ speed; the long lanceheads glittered as they swung down into position.
“UPYARZ!”
“Wait for it.”
The officer sounded inhumanly calm; Minatelli took a long breath and let it out slowly. If he missed, that was one more sauroid-sticker coming at him. Another breath.
“Aim.”
The rifle came up and the butt snuggled into his shoulder. Let the weight of the bayonet drop it a little, aim at the dog’s knees. Ignore the open snarling mouths.
“Fire!”
BAM. A hammer thudding into his shoulder. And crack as hundreds of bullets went over his head. Reload. The deadly beauty of the lancers’ charges was shredding, dogs falling and men flying in bone-shattering arcs. BAM and more of them were down. Adjust the sights. BAM. Charge coming forward in blocks and chunks, piling up where galloping dogs didn’t have enough time to avoid the dead and wounded—heavy dogs with an armored man on their backs weren’t all that nimble. BAM and the Brigade standard was down, and a lancer dropped his weapon and bent far over to snatch it off the ground. BAM and his body smashed back over the cantle of his saddle; a couple dozen infantrymens’ eyes must have been caught by the movement.
Thank the Spirit for a stiff breeze to carry off the powder-smoke, otherwise he’d be firing blind into a fogbank by now.
BAM. The metal of the chamber was hot against the callus on his thumb as he pushed home another round. The kick was worse, the rifle hit you harder when the barrel began to foul. Dogs snarling, a sound like all the fear in the world, fangs as long as daggers coming closer to his face. Lancepoints very close . . .
BAM. BAM. BAM.
“Back and wait for it!” the company commander barked.
Spirit damn it, where are Jorg and Ludwig? Raj thought.
Up the street, the Brigaderos paused as they saw the improvised barricade of overturned wagons and tables. They were a mixed group, dismounted lancers and dragoons . . . Then an officer shouted and they came pounding down the pavement with their rifle-muskets leveled. Probably planning to reserve fire until the last minute. Not a good decision, but there weren’t any in their situation.
Nor in his, now that the enemy were over the walls.
“Pick your targets, make it count,” the Captain said. Rifles bristled over the barricade. “Now!”
The volley slammed out, the noise echoing back from the shuttered buildings on either side.
At less than a hundred meters, with the Brigaderos crammed into a street only wide enough for two wagons to pass, nearly every bullet hit home. Men fell, punched off their feet by the heavy bullets. The survivors paused to return fire, hiding the chaos at the head of their column with a mantle of powder-smoke. Into it fired the splatguns in the buildings on either side of the barricade, taking the whole length of the street back to the cleared circuit inside the walls in a murderous X of enfilade fire. The braaaap sounded again and again.
Damned if I like those things, Raj thought as the smoke lifted a little. The head of the roadway was covered in bodies, many still moving. The splat-guns were certainly effective, but they made the whole business too mechanical for his taste.
you need not worry. Center’s voice held a cold irony. if you fail here, men will hunt each other with chipped flint before the next upward cycle begins.
Did I say I wouldn’t use them? he thought.
“That’s that for the moment,” he went on aloud. “They’ll be back soon.”
He ducked into the commandeered house they were using as forward HQ. His spurs rang on the oak boards as he climbed the stairs to the second story.
“Still not spreadin’ out, ser,” the Master Sergeant there said, pointing without lowering his binoculars.
Raj levelled his own glasses through the window. The Brigaderos were over the wall in three places, and the numbers were enough to make his belly clench. The defenders in the towers were still holding out, keeping up their fire on the enemy-held sections of the wall. Despite that more and more of the barbarians were coming over, and they’d dropped knotted ropes and ladders down to the earth ramp backing the wall. The only good news was that they didn’t seem to know what to do once they got down. Most of them were milling around, returning fire at the towers. A thousand or so were pushing directly in at the houses where the 5th had taken refuge, standing and exchanging fire with the riflemen hidden in door and window and garden wall.