The Lantern of God

by John Dalmas

  He was glad he'd been given the same stack as before. The nearest tents to it were a couple hundred feet away. It didn't help stealth any, though, that Maatio was carrying two tied leather sacks of cement mud slung over his shoulders. They made it harder to sneak. And they couldn't hide for long to avoid security patrols because the damn cement would start setting up, and they needed it liquid enough to pour.

  About halfway there they heard hooves again, and lay flat in a slight depression where the grass was longer. Be a hell of a thing if they rode tight into us, Vendunno thought, but they passed a hundred feet away, and he relaxed. Nothing more happened all the way to the haystack.

  Vendunno found the cannon muzzle again without burrowing in, just stood outside and groped, then removed an armful of hay and took one of the bags from Maatio. Its lashing had been untied. He poured the mud into the bore, then poked his hand in, pushed the mud deeper, and repeated with the other sack. They'd brought two in case something happened and they lost one of them, but it seemed to him he might as well use them both. When he was done, he stuffed both bags in his waistband, and they tidied up the haystack as best they could.

  They'd crawled back maybe a hundred yards when they heard shouts from east aways, then more shouts. Hooves drummed in that direction. "Let's move it!" Vendunno husked, and crouched, they started running through the darkness, back toward the canyon.

  * * *

  General Doziellos needed to know what the results had been. Thus he waited in the dark, in the mouth of Canyon Three—what the troops had nicknamed Headquarters Canyon. Each returned spiking team had been put on kaabors and brought to him when they checked in at a sentry point. At least six cannons had been spiked with concrete. Maybe more, depending on whether the two teams who hadn't gotten back had spiked theirs before they were discovered. Four other teams had sneaked back without reaching their targets; theirs had been close to Gorrbian tents, and with the uproar, it had seemed both futile and suicidal to go on with it.

  So there were between four and six cannons not spiked.

  He'd hoped they wouldn't have to use Plan Four, but he'd prepared for it; it meant more casualties than he liked to take. His lips thinned. Before this year was over, he told himself, he'd be calloused to casualties.

  So. Plan Four, and carry it out tonight. Odds were that the Gorballis didn't realize what the prowlers had been doing. But by daylight they'd almost surely notice that some of the haystacks had been disturbed—the stacks concealing the cannons. They'd discover what had happened, and set strong guards on the cannons that remained.

  And it was important to nullify all of them.

  He gave the order. Messengers climbed into their saddles and rode out of the canyon, trotting their kaabors to the cavalry troops waiting for this contingency. With as much neutrality as he could muster, he dropped a hint to Hrum that he'd like this to work. And that he'd prefer to have as many of his men as possible get back safely.

  Then, grim-faced, he rode up the canyon some three-quarters of a mile and took the trail that slanted up Ridge Four, the highest, the backbone of the isthmus, toward its first-line fort. He'd be able to see at least something from up there, although dark as it was, he might not know what he was seeing.

  * * *

  Doziellos stared into blackness. Surely, he thought, they should have struck by now. But he hadn't seen or heard a thing, except for night fires, tiny in the distance, a sign that the Gorballis had become more watchful. Stealth wouldn't buy much now; they'd been alarmed. The best he could hope for was to confuse them. Ride in, quietly until you'd been discovered, then charge hard, carry out your missions, and flee.

  He was too far away to hear the shouts or even see the fire arrows as they arced toward some of the haystacks. He hoped they hadn't fired stacks that hid cannons. The idea was to fire stacks that concealed nothing—draw attention to them and the men who'd fired them—while other kaabormen spiked the remaining unspiked cannons. But it was awfully damned dark out there; it would be easy to make mistakes.

  And now he could hear trumpets, distant and faint, and Gorrbian because he'd sent no trumpets out. A few minutes later there was a tremendous roar, a great flash of flame, and what seemed to be burning hay blew billowing. A minute or so later there was another explosion, and quickly a third. He clenched his jaw in chagrin; it seemed to him they'd lit some wrong haystacks. A fourth followed several minutes later.

  Things quieted then, and after several more minutes of futile staring he rode grim-faced out of the fort and south along the ridge.

  His forward headquarters were south along the crest at the third fort. From there his signalman could see all the forts on all the ridges, and read their semaphores and signal torches. The isthmus was a lousy place to invade, but it was even worse to courier messages. Luckily it wasn't the season for fogs this far north.

  Arriving, he got off his kaabor. An orderly took the reins and led it to the stable to be rubbed down and fed. Doziellos found himself wondering again how many cannons they'd missed. Maybe the gunpowder that blew up was at cannons spiked earlier; maybe they had gotten them all.

  Go to bed, he told himself. Get some sleep. You've done what you could. They'll tell you what happened in the morning.

  Sixty-One

  Marshal Grimmuh Formaalu grimaced at the cannon. Its bore was clear, but its carriage charred and overturned, a wheel broken, by the explosion of a powder wagon. "So only two are usable! Shit!" Turning in his saddle, he scanned briefly the rugged ridges across the border, their forts reddened by the rising sun, and the narrow canyons which were also fortified. His thick right arm made a backhand slash of rejection. "It makes no difference," he said to no one in particular. "We'd take them if we had no cannon at all."

  He turned his scowl on a junior aide. "Have our best gunners assigned to the cannons that aren't ruined. And get this one onto a new carriage; it might as well be ruined too, the way it is now. Take one from a ruined cannon. Have a platoon of foot assigned to each of the two as protection, and see that the remaining powder and shells are protected too. Right away!"

  The aide's hand snapped a salute, fist to breast. "Yessir!"

  Then Formaalu touched spur to a flank of his ungelded white kaabor. Wheeling, it broke into a powerful canter in the direction of field headquarters.

  His executive officer, Colonel Arruh Mustorru, spurred to keep up, thinking that the old man rode the same way he did most other things: abruptly, plunging, with little finesse and lots of energy. Better to be his EO or his aide than his kaabor. Or one of his harem. Or his enemy.

  * * *

  Doziellos, after a few hours' sleep, was briefed on the morning's observations. Apparently the Gorballis had two functional cannons, not as bad as twelve, but bad enough. They were peculiar looking things: a massive iron tube on a heavy wooden carriage with wide solid wooden wheels. They'd be damned tough to drag through the hills.

  He had no doubt the Gorballis would attack soon; you didn't ordinarily bivouac an invasion army on a border and then wait around for very long. He'd see soon enough whether the foreigner's description of what cannons could do was an exaggeration or not.

  Meanwhile there wasn't much he could do at headquarters, so he ordered his kaabor brought and started riding along the ridge to the forward fort, his immediate staff following. They'd passed the second fort when he heard a distant boom. That must be a cannon shooting, he thought. Then, much nearer, seemingly from the forward fort, another boom! Puzzled, alarmed by the nearer explosion, he spurred his mount to a trot. A minute later another distant boom, and another from near the fort failed to clarify anything for him.

  He was less than a quarter mile from the fort when a third and fourth distant booms were followed by a loud one that sent rocks and shards erupting skyward from the fort's rear wall and one more distant from the next ridge west. Shocked, chagrined, he drew up and stared. The foreigner's description hadn't prepared him for this; what kind of iron balls would send rocks high into the ai
r?

  As another distant boom sounded, he touched spur to flank again, sending his kaabor forward at a trot. Seconds later there was a roar from within the fort, and screams, and he spurred to a canter. Short of the fort, he reined his kaabor back and dismounted.

  "Abrullo!" he shouted. "Vembroosi! Come with me. The rest stay here." Then he darted for the rear gate, others dismounting to hold the vacated kaabors. His orderly also stayed with the general, without being ordered to. It was standard that he do so.

  A fifth shell roared against the front of the fort as Doziellos and the others ran in through the rear gate, the only gate. The explosion drove blocks of dry-laid stone from the wall, and others above them fell. These things Doziellos heard and saw in an instant, and they jarred his overloaded senses so that for a moment he wasn't aware of the screaming. Then he heard, cursed, and bellowing orders to the garrison, trotted out the gate, leaving them to remove their wounded. Outside he shouted orders to his signalman, who also dismounted. The signalman unfolded and braced the staff of his signal flag, and began to signal the next fort for stretcher men, and to let them know what the situation was.

  Meanwhile his orderly and the two aides followed Doziellos, skidding down the steep side slope a little way, then scrambled along it past the fort. It stood on a prominence just where the ridge began falling away toward the Gorrbian plain. Doziellos stopped a hundred and fifty feet past the fort. He had a clear broad view of the Gorrbian positions. For a moment he simply looked, scanning. Behind him, more shells struck the fort. He saw a puff of smoke, and with his telescope looked at it. The Gorballis had pulled their two usable cannons to about eight hundred yards from the fort behind him, and the fort on the next ridge west. They were bombarding both of them.

  And forming up in five broad columns of twelve was an infantry division, its front ranks about four hundred yards from the mouth of the canyon.

  The shelling continued. A round fell short of the fort, its explosion stunning Doziellos, showering him with dirt and fragments of rock. Then he heard trumpets and saw the five columns start forward. The flanking columns, he realized, were to take the ridgetop forts while the cannons held the garrisons down. The central three columns would attack up the canyon while the ridgetop bowmen were prevented from shooting down at them effectively.

  Doziellos got up and dashed for the rear of the fort again, to his signalman, gasping for breath from the uphill run. He pointed to the lead fort on the next ridge and the second fort on their own. "Signal them that an attack is beginning up Canyon Three and Ridges Three and Four." He turned to an aide. "Ride down the ridge into Canyon Three. Have them hold their positions as long as they possibly can, then fall back to the next. Got that?"

  The aide nodded and repeated. He hadn't dismounted; now he simply turned his kaabor and started slanting precariously down the ridgeside.

  Doziellos turned to the fort then. Its surviving garrison had gotten out and were crouching behind the rear wall. "Centurion!" he called.

  The commander trotted over, looking unsure, concerned. "Centurion, Gorrbian infantry are starting to attack up the ridge. Their cannons will have to stop when their infantry get near the top, and their men will be winded. When the cannons stop, have your people ready to counterattack with archery and grenades. Kill as many as you can." He paused for emphasis. "But don't be overrun. When you have to, go to the second fort. Their cannons aren't supposed to shoot that far." And the cannon balls—or whatever they were—weren't supposed to blow up like giant grenades, either, he told himself.

  He swung into his saddle then and headed for the ridge's second fort, his aides and orderly with him.

  * * *

  Waiting for the trumpet call, Ramuulo had been glad to be well back in the column. The Maklanni had a reputation as archers, and he felt somewhat protected by the mass of men ahead. Ordinarily he didn't like to wait, but he was in no hurry to maybe get killed.

  Meanwhile, waiting, he'd had time to look at the rugged hills in front of him. He distrusted hills. In the lower Hasannu River country, where he was from, you could look in any direction and see no hills at all. Suppose the Maklanni attacked from above. How could you fight with someone coming at you from uphill?

  Somewhere well off to his left he heard a thunder weapon speak with a boom, and he looked at the fort to see what would happen. Dirt and rock geysered a little distance in front of it. After a minute the thunder weapon boomed again; this rime he could hear the explosion on the ridge but couldn't see it.

  Once more the weapon boomed, and this time rock erupted at the base of the wall. The officers said the thunder weapons were a gift from Hrum, to beat down the fort, and it looked now as if there might be something to that, if so, he was all for it.

  The thunder weapon to his left was joined by another well off to his right. The first had the range now, and began to fire about twice a minute. He watched explosions against the face of the fort.

  Trumpets interrupted his watching, pealing out the "ready" call; he took the target shield from his shoulder, slipped his left forearm under one strap and took hold of the grip. Again the trumpets called. The whole division began to mark time, then the lead ranks began marching briskly toward the canyon in front of them, opening intervals between ranks. Ramuulo marked time until the rank ahead of his had taken its first three steps, then his own rank began to walk, with him as one of its parts.

  Although he'd been in the army for five years, with all the unit drills, weapons drills, and war practice that that entailed, Ramuulo had never been in combat heavier than drinking brawls, and now, suddenly, he discovered he was nervous. Extremely nervous. His gut felt knotted. Shit, he told himself, just think of those poor shittin Maklanni. They're the ones that's gotta be scared. We got the numbers, we got the balls, and we got the thunder weapons.

  Their brisk step brought them quickly to the toes of the long ridges, and they marched into the canyon, more than a hundred yards wide there. Ridges quickly rose to wall it; they made Ramuulo twitchy. In a place like this, numbers didn't mean as much. Rocks made the footing bad, especially in the shallow creek where they were wet. The canyon quickly narrowed. Boulders forced them to break ranks, men slipped and fell. The lines got ragged.

  From ahead came shouts, and through the shouts a trumpet signalled first to draw swords, then to double time. They began to jog. Ramuulo heard screams, howls, roars of pain and rage. He stumbled on a rock, nearly fell, cursed.

  Then, over the shouts and screaming, there were explosions as of little cannons, one, half a dozen, twenty! The column began to pack up, as if the foremost ranks had slowed to a walk again. The explosions ahead continued. Now Ramuulo could see a stone wall across the canyon, perhaps fifteen feet high, its parapet lined with bowmen. Arrows began to slice the air around him. He became totally alert, peering past his raised shield, walking onward, felt an arrow strike its thick, bullhide-covered disk, was surprised at the force of it, saw men fall wounded or dead.

  He marched on past bodies with arrows protruding, bodies red with blood, bodies trying to crawl out of the way. And worse, there were beginning to be bodies torn open, bodies shredded. He stepped over them, hurrying. The explosions continued, some louder than others. One ripped a man open and cast him down, just ahead of Ramuulo; ugly warbling sounds passed his ears. Something hot and acid rose in his esophagus, and he swallowed it back. Dead men were everywhere, and he almost stopped. When the fuck are they going to blow retreat? he thought angrily.

  The stone wall was just ahead now. He could hardly believe the bodies piled before it. The outer files were javelin men; these would stop, cast their spears at the bowmen, then sword still scabbarded, drop their shields to scrabble on all fours, slipping and swearing, up the ridge slope, trying to flank the wall. Arrows zipped and struck, men fell back sliding, sprawling, dying. And the explosions continued; Ramuulo had no idea what caused them. In the confusion at the foot of the wall, a sergeant had men throwing corpses to form a ramp against it. The sergea
nt exploded before his eyes, but the men continued their frenzied work.

  In the midst of the noise, blood, and confusion, Ramuulo stopped, slung his shield over a shoulder, sheathed his sword. Then he clambered up the gruesome, yielding, slippery ramp, at the wall boosted a man up, heard him bellow and fall back. Then Ramuulo tried to climb it, fingers between dry-laid rocks, and saw what looked like a large, serrated iron egg bounce past him. It did nothing. Someone grasped one of his feet and boosted; Ramuulo got hold of the top of the parapet, swung a leg up. A sword hacked, got more rock than leg, and the swordsman fell backward with a javelin through him. And Ramuulo was somehow atop the wall with sword in hand, striking about him at the bowmen, felt his blade bite flesh, once, twice. Then a sword thrust him through. He felt someone pick him up and hurl him bodily back over the parapet past men who still came on.

  Another iron egg arced over the parapet and fell toward him. He watched it and recognized death. It slowed, slowed, slowed, then inevitably struck the ground beside him . . ..