Heirs of Empire fe-3

by David Weber

  “Best guess. How many?”

  “At least five thousand.”

  “Tam? How many from your side?”

  “I make it what’s left of seven or eight thousand pikes. They’ve left musketeers to keep us busy, but I’d guess there’s no more than a thousand pikemen to support them.”

  Sean frowned, then switched to Tibold’s com frequency.

  “Tibold, they’re pulling men away from us. We’re guessing it at ten to twelve thousand pikes.”

  “Away from you?” The ex-Guardsman was hoarse and rasping from hours of bellowing orders, but there was nothing wrong with his brain. “Then they’re sending them here.”

  “Agreed. What will that do to you?”

  “It won’t be good, Lord Sean,” Tibold said grimly. “My lead brigades are down to battalion strength by now. We’re still moving forward, but it’s by finger spans. If they bring that many fresh men into action—” He broke off, and Sean could almost see his shrug.

  “How long for them to get to you?”

  “Under these conditions? At least an hour.”

  “All right, Tibold. I’ll get back to you.”

  “Sean?” He looked up as Sandy said his name, and her eyes bored into his.

  “Give me a minute.” He turned to Folmak and pointed to the gaunt, fortress-like main arsenal building which sheltered their wounded.

  “How many men do you need to garrison the arsenal?”

  “Just the arsenal?” Sean nodded, and the Malagoran rubbed his filthy face with his good hand. “Three hundred to cover all four walls and give me some snipers upstairs.”

  “Only three hundred?” Sean pressed, and Folmak smiled grimly.

  “We’ve already prepared it for our last stand, Lord Sean, and we’ve got half a dozen of their arlaks on each wall at ground level. I’ve got a couple of hundred wounded who can still shoot, and a hundred more who can still load for men who aren’t hurt, and we’ve got plenty of rifles no one needs anymore. I can hold it with three hundred, My Lord. Not forever, but for a couple of hours, at least.”

  “Make it four hundred.”

  “Yes, My Lord.” Folmak nodded but never looked away from his commander. “Why, My Lord?” he asked bluntly.

  “Because I’m taking the rest of your people on a little trip, Folmak.” Sean bared his teeth at the Malagoran’s expression. “No, I’m not crazy. The Guard wants us, Folmak. They wouldn’t ease up on us if they had any choice, so if they’re pulling men from here to throw at Tibold, they’ve probably already pulled in everyone they can scrape up from anywhere else.”

  “And?” Folmak asked repressively.

  “And everyone they’ve got left is almost certainly between us and Tibold. If I can break out to the south while they’re all going north, I may just be able to pay a little visit to High Priest Vroxhan in person and, ah, convince him to call this whole thing off.”

  “You’re mad, My Lord. High-Captain Tibold would have my guts for tent ropes if I let you try something like that!”

  “We’ll all have to be alive for that to happen, and you and I won’t be unless I can at least distract them from reinforcing against Tibold. Think about it, Folmak. If I break out in their rear, headed away from them, they’re bound to turn at least some of their men around to nail me, and we can raise all kinds of hell before they catch up to us. While we’re doing that, Tibold may actually manage to break through.”

  “You’re mad,” Folmak repeated. He locked stares with Sean, but it was the ex-miller whose eyes finally fell. “You are mad,” he said sighing, “but you’re also in command. I’ll give you what’s left of the Second Regiment.”

  “Thank you.” Sean gripped the Malagoran’s shoulder hard for a moment. “In that case, you’d better go start getting things organized.”

  “Which way will you go?”

  “We’ll start out to the east. The fires have them disorganized on that side.”

  “Very well. I’ll see about getting some guns into position to lay down fire before you go. At least—” the First’s commander summoned a smile “—there’s no wall to block our fire any longer!”

  He turned to crawl away, shouting for his surviving messengers, and a small, dirty hand gripped Sean’s elbow.

  “He’s right, you’re out of your damned mind!” Sandy hissed. “You’ll never get past their perimeter, and even if you do, you don’t even know where to find Vroxhan in all this!” She waved her other hand blindly at the smoke, and the gesture was taut with anger.

  “No, I don’t,” Sean agreed quietly, “but I know where the Sanctum is.”

  “The—?” Sandy froze, staring into his eyes, and he nodded.

  “If Tam and I get into the Sanctum—and we might just pull it off while everybody’s fighting on the north side of town—we can take over the computer. And if we shut down the inner defense net, then Brash and Harry can get fighters in here and knock the guts out of the Guard.”

  “You’ll never make it,” she whispered, her face ashen under its grime, but her voice was already defeated by the knowledge that he had to try.

  “Maybe not, but we can sure as hell worry the bastards!” he said with a savage grin.

  “Then I’m coming with you,” she said flatly.

  “No! If we break out, most of them’ll come after us. There won’t be enough to take Folmak out, and I want you here where it’s safe!”

  “Fuck you, Sean MacIntyre!” she shouted in sudden fury. “Goddamn it to hell, do you think I want to be safe while you’re out there somewhere?” She jabbed a hand at the billowing smoke, and he watched in amazement as tears cut clean, white tracks down her filthy face. “Well, the hell with you, Your Highness! I’m an officer, too, not a goddamned ‘angel’! And I am coming with you! If something happens to you and Tam, maybe I can get to the computer!”

  “I—” Sean started to snap back, then closed his eyes and bent his head to stare down at his clenched fists. She was right, he thought drearily. He wanted—God, how he wanted!—to make her stay behind, but that was because he loved her, and it didn’t change the fact that she was right.

  “All right,” he whispered finally, and looked up, blinking on his own tears. He reached out to cup the side of her face and managed a wan smile. “All right, you insubordinate little bitch.” She caught his wrist, pressing her cheek tightly into his palm for just a moment, then released him and rolled to her knees.

  “You tell Harry and Tibold what we’re up to. I’ll go help Tam get things organized.”

  Chapter Forty

  The firing eased as most of the attacking infantry marched away from the shattered ordnance depot. Three thousand men still surrounded it, but their orders now were to hold the heretics, not crush them. Their musketeers were conserving ammunition, and their artillery caissons were almost empty. Fresh ammunition wagons were on their way, but for now the Guardsmen concentrated on simply keeping the Malagorans pinned down.

  Sean breathed a silent thanks for the lighter fire, but this was going to be tricky, and all of Folmak’s regimental commanders and four of his six battalion COs were casualties. Losses among junior officers had been equally heavy, and getting the men sorted out took time. If the bad guys guessed what was coming and threw in an attack at just the wrong moment…

  Folmak would retain what remained of his Third Regiment and half the First; the rest of the First would reinforce the Second for the breakout. The choice of units had been dictated by where the men were. The Third held what was left of the western wall, and they’d fall back to the main arsenal, covered by a hundred or so men already in the building, when Sean attacked to the east.

  It was taking too long, he thought, but his people were moving as fast as humanly possible and then some. He crouched behind another pile of stone—this one had once been a workshop—and watched men filter into position around him. What had been regiments were now battalions, and battalions had become companies, but, one by one, officers raised their arms to indicate th
eir readiness, and he drew a deep breath.

  A dozen arlaks, double-shotted and loaded with grape for good measure, had been dragged into position under cover of the smoke. One man crouched behind each gun, watching Sean with intent eyes, and he slashed his arm downward.

  A lethal blast screamed down the only eastbound street not blocked by flames as the gunners jerked their lanyards, then snatched up their own rifles. Shrieks of agony answered the unexpected salvo, and the torn, filthy survivors of B Company, Third Battalion, Second Regiment, First Brigade, lunged over the ruin of the depot wall with the high, shrill Malagoran yell.

  The rest of the Second Regiment foamed in their wake, and Sean yanked Sandy to her feet and vaulted over the wall with the second wave. Tamman was ahead of them, leading B Company down the narrow street between two infernos which had once been warehouses, and rifles and muskets cracked in the hellish glare. The Malagorans charged through a cinder-raining furnace to strike the defenders before they recovered from the unexpected bombardment, and bayonets and pikes flashed in the bloody light of the flames.

  Tamman crashed into the Guardsmen at B Company’s head. A pike lunged at him, and he smashed it aside with a bio-enhanced arm and snatched the luckless pikemen bodily off his feet. The Guardsman wailed in terror, and Tamman hurled him away. More pikemen flew as the improvised projectile bowled them over, and Company B closed for the kill, firing as they came. A quarter of them went down, but the others carried through, and the blocking Guard infantry disintegrated before their bayonets.

  “We’re through, Sean!” Tamman yelled over the com.

  “Don’t stop to celebrate! Keep moving!”

  The Second Regiment broke out of the fire-fringed street into the open on the heels of their foes. A reserve of two or three hundred Guardsmen looked up in astonishment as the ragged apparitions materialized, then took to its own heels in panic as the bayonets swept down upon it. Sean’s column burst through the perimeter around the depot and vanished into the burning city, and Folmak Folmakson, listening to the fading sound of combat to the east as the last of his own men dashed into the arsenal, whispered a prayer for its safety.

  * * *

  Harriet MacIntyre stood at the rear of the army’s encampment, white-faced and clinging to Stomald’s hand as she watched mountains of smoke rise from the Temple. Her com was tied to Sean’s, following her twin and her friends through the bedlam of the city’s streets, and she longed with all her heart to be with them. But she couldn’t be. She had to wait here, praying that they reached their objective. One hundred and ten kilometers further north, Brashan had abandoned his post aboard Israel and rode the cockpit of an Imperial fighter, poised just outside the computer’s kill zone with a second fighter slaved to his controls. If Sean and the others could shut down the computer, he and Harriet could end the fighting in minutes … if they could shut down the computer.

  * * *

  Tibold Rarikson swore vilely as fresh combat roared on his right. He didn’t fully understand what Lord Sean and the angels intended, and he was aghast at the risk his commander was running, but he was a soldier. He’d accepted his orders, yet he bitterly regretted the loss of intelligence from the Angel Harry. Her reports had become increasingly general as the confusion and smoke spread, but they’d given him a priceless edge. Now she could no longer provide them, and the Guard had finally gotten around his flank.

  His men gave ground stubbornly, fighting every span of the way, but the Guard pikes ground forward. He sent three relatively fresh regiments racing west from his reserve and hoped it would be enough.

  * * *

  “What—?”

  High Priest Vroxhan whirled towards the window as shots sounded right outside the Chancery, and his jaw dropped as bullets spun men around in the Place of Martyrs. A heretic attack here? It couldn’t be!

  But it was happening. Even as he watched, ragged, battle-stained men erupted into the open, fell into line, and poured a devastating, steadily mounting fire into the single understrength Guard company in the square. He stared at the carnage, unable to believe what he was seeing, then looked up as he sensed a presence at his side.

  “Lord Marshal!” he gasped. “Have they broken through Therah?”

  “Impossible!” Surak jerked a spyglass open and raised it to his eye, then swore and closed it with a snap. “They’re from the depot, Holiness. No one else could have gotten here, and there’s a man out there who’s so tall he has to be ‘Lord Sean.’ ”

  “What are they doing out here?”

  “Trying to escape … or to divert reinforcements from the North Gate. Either way, there’s not enough of them to be a threat.”

  “Can they escape?”

  “It’s possible, Holiness. Not likely, but possible, especially if they go south instead of trying to link up with Tibold.”

  “Stop them! Stop them!” Vroxhan shouted.

  “With what, Holiness? Aside from your personal guard, my headquarters troop, and the detachment at the Sanctum, every man I have is headed for North Gate.”

  Vroxhan started to speak once more, then closed his mouth and watched the heretics finish routing the hapless Guard company and reform into column. As Surak had predicted, they headed south, and the high priest clenched his fists in sullen hate. They were getting away. The leaders of this damnable heresy were escaping him, and as soon as they were safe, the rest of their army would break off its attack. Bile rose in his throat, and he raised his eyes from the vanishing demon-worshipers to the huge, white block of the Sanctum. Why? he demanded of God. Why are You letting this happen? Why—

  And then his thoughts froze in a sudden flash of terrified intuition. Escape? They weren’t trying to escape! As if God Himself had whispered it in his ear, Vroxhan knew where they were headed, and his blood ran chill.

  “The Sanctum!” he gasped. The lord marshal looked at him blankly, and Vroxhan grabbed him and shook him. “They’re headed for the Sanctum itself!”

  “The— Why should they be, Holiness?”

  “Because they’re demon-worshipers!” Vroxhan half-screamed. “My God, man! They serve the powers of Hell—what if their masters have given them some means to destroy the Voice? If we lose its protection, how will we stop the next wave of demons from the stars?”

  “But—”

  “There’s no time, Lord Marshal! Signal the Sanctum detachment now! Tell them they must keep the heretics from entering, then send every man you can find after them!”

  “But there’s only your own guard, Holiness, and—”

  “Send them! Send them!” Vroxhan shook the lord marshal again. “No! I’ll take them myself !” he cried wildly, and whirled away from Surak.

  * * *

  Tamman led the way. His men didn’t like it, and they kept trying to get past him, to put themselves between him and any possible enemies, but he waved them sharply back whenever they did. He wasn’t being heroic; he needed to be up front to scout their path with his implants.

  The chaos in the streets was even worse than he’d feared. There were few Guardsmen about, but thousands of civilians had fled the fighting, and most of them seemed to be headed for the Sanctum to pray for deliverance. In fairness, they had the sense to scatter the instant they saw armed men coming up behind them, but even with panic to spur them on, they took time to get out of his way. Worse, with so many civilians moving around, it was hard to spot any Guard formations he might encounter.

  The column moved quickly, when it could move at all, but its progress was a series of breathless dashes separated by slow, wading progress through the noncombatants, and Tamman was sorely tempted to order his men to open fire to chase the crowds off faster. He couldn’t, but he was tempted.

  He crossed a small square and looked up. The huge block of the Sanctum loomed ahead of him. Fifteen more minutes, he thought; possibly twenty.

  * * *

  “Faster! Faster!” Vroxhan shouted.

  “Holiness, we can go no faster!” Captain Farnah,
his personal guard’s commander protested, waving at the civilians who clogged their path. “The people—”

  “What do the people matter when demon-worshipers go to profane the very Sanctum of God?!” Vroxhan snapped, and his eyes were mad. He’d lost sight of the heretics while his guards mustered; they were up ahead somewhere, headed for the Sanctum. That was all he knew … and all he needed to know. “Clear the path, Captain! You have pikes; now clear the path!”

  Farnah stared at him, as if unable to believe his orders, but Vroxhan snarled at him, and the Guardsman turned away. He shouted orders of his own, and within seconds Vroxhan heard the screams as the leading pikemen lowered their weapons, faces set like iron, and swept ahead. Men, women, even children were smashed aside or died, and the seven hundred men of Vroxhan’s personal guard marched over their bodies.

  * * *

  The fighting on Tibold’s right rose to a crescendo as the Guard threw his flank back eight hundred paces in a driving, brutal attack. But then the charging pikemen ran into pointblank, massed chagor fire, and the regiments Tibold had sent from the reserve crashed into them. It was the Guard’s turn to reel back, yet they retreated only half the distance they’d come, then held sullenly, and now more Guard reinforcements were hammering his left.

  He swore again, more vilely than ever. He was losing his momentum. He could feel the army’s advance grinding to a halt amid the blazing ruins.

  * * *

  “Watch the wall! Men on the wall!” Tamman shouted as fifty musketeers suddenly rose over the parapet of the ornamental wall about the Sanctum. The square outside it was packed with civilians who screamed in terror as the Guardsmen leveled their muskets to pour fire into B Company’s skirmish line, but Tamman’s warning had come before they were in position. A withering blast of rifle fire met them, and, more horribly, the civilians between the two forces soaked up much of their own fire. Despite the cover of the waist-high parapet, they took heavier losses than the skirmishers, and then the rest of B Company came up with C Company in support, and their fire swept the wall clear.