The Regiment-A Trilogy

by John Dalmas

  * * *

  When the artillery had stopped firing, Ko-Dan realized the Komarsi gunners had been overrun. And when, scarce minutes later, they began to roar again, he knew what that meant, too. Meanwhile he was taking casualties on all sides. His purpose in being here had been to trap the Iryalans; instead his own men were caught between forces, beset by what seemed to be three regiments, all of them dangerous. It was time to leave.

  His right flank was taking the least fire; that was the side to break out on, before the Iryalans could get more men there. He gave the order, and almost at once his men moved, striking hard. Briefly the firing intensified, but the Iryalans in position were mostly riflemen. Some were overrun and killed, while others fell back out of the way, to fire on the T'swa as they poured past.

  When the T'swa had gotten out, Romlar ordered his men not to pursue. They were outnumbered. If the T'swa became aware of that . . . After a minute's breather, he ordered his men up the hill. They had artillery training; it seemed likely that the Smoleni on top hadn't. He'd leave gunners there. Then, along with the ranger battalions, he and the rest of his troopers could move down the east side of the ridge and hit the Komarsi infantry he assumed were still in the woods there.

  * * *

  By midday, the Komarsi defenders, though considerably more numerous, had been routed. They'd been hit by their own artillery, by the light Smoleni howitzers on the north bank, and by the Smoleni infantry, the mercenaries, and the rangers. Nor were they allowed to reform and harass the loading of the sleigh column.

  The empty sleighs had crossed the river on the ice and been driven to the depot, Kelmer with them, camera busy. Men worked furiously loading them, while at the river, the brigade's engineers worked equally furiously rebuilding the broken bridge span. The horses could never pull the loaded sleighs up the river's considerable bank, not without at least triple-teaming them, which would slow things unacceptably.

  A handcar had been parked on a siding. Brigadier Carnfor had sent scouts with a radio, pumping it eastward. They were to warn him of any Komarsi reinforcements approaching.

  The brigade had approached the job of loading with priorities and a plan, but given the delay, their considerable casualties, and the obvious fact that the Komarsi had expected them, they'd loaded hastily. They took almost solely foodstuffs and munitions, but not as selectively as planned. When the handcar scouts radioed that another train was coming, the final sleighs were loaded almost at random. Then the sleigh column started for the river while artillery ranged on the tracks eastward, destroying them. The three ranger battalions and the mercenaries moved east on skis to meet and discourage the Komarsi reinforcements.

  Some of the munitions sleighs were too heavily loaded for the horses to pull easily, and men had to throw off cases of ammunition or shells as they went. The first to reach the river had to wait briefly while the engineers finished decking the new, temporary span with corduroy, manhandling the logs into place. They tied them down with Komarsi detonating cord.

  The sleighs began to cross, while engineers chopped holes at intervals into, but not through the river ice, and set charges of Komarsi explosives in them. In the distance eastward they heard gunfire, but it grew no nearer. When the last sleighs had crossed, the brigadier radioed the battalions under Romlar's command. The brigade artillery was remounted on its skis and pulled away, and its infantry regiments began to cross the bridge. The rangers and mercenaries would cross on the ice downstream of the destruction. When the entire brigade was across, an engineer lit the det cord, and with a vicious, cracking explosion, the decking fell to the ice below. After that they blew the ice.

  As the brigade moved north into the forest, a drizzle began to fall, thick and cold.

  65

  The column didn't make camp till after dark. The temperature was falling, and the drizzle, after wetting everyone and everything, had turned to snow that fell thick and silent onto the trees and the ground between.

  On the march, Artus Romlar's headquarters tent was simply a larger shelter tent, made with six panels instead of three, providing room for three men to function with map books and radio. They banked it with snow for insulation.

  Arms behind his head, Romlar lay awake, not anxious but depressed. Depression was foreign to him, but there it was: He'd been wasting his regiment.

  The thought was irrational. The regiment had been formed to make war. Its troopers had been born warriors, who'd volunteered and trained to make war. And the usual end point of making war, certainly for T'swa, was dying in one. Other people died of other causes: mercenaries customarily died in or from combat.

  Wasting his regiment. In the fighting south of the Eel, he'd lost just thirty-seven killed, and eighteen unaccounted for. They'd also been able to bring out twelve wounded and unfit for action, who now rode on sleighs assigned as ambulances, atop plundered Komarsi supplies. Even for so brief an action, those were moderate figures, considering they'd fought T'swa.

  The T'swa! He had no doubt he'd see more of them on this campaign. They wouldn't miss the opportunity for a good fight on their own terms. They'd follow, and his troopers were the rear guard; he'd volunteered them. They'd hardly catch up this night, but in case they did, his troopers were sleeping fully clothed. And given the snow, the pickets he'd set out could see almost as well at night as the T'swa did.

  Wasting his regiment! At least he hadn't held back from committing his men to combat, and they'd done very well. He'd done very well; his aberration hadn't affected his muse. His predictions had very largely been accurate, seemingly more accurate than the T'swa commander's, and the Komarsi had ended up badly bloodied.

  Yet I'm lying here depressed. Kantros lay next to him, jackknifed in his half-zipped sleeping bag, his breathing soft and regular. Romlar sighed and sat up. The lotus posture was out of the question in a sleeping bag, so he knelt to meditate. It didn't last long; he fell asleep in just a few minutes.

  * * *

  When they broke camp at dawn, fifteen inches of new snow had buried the trail the sleighs had packed on the trip south. And still it snowed. It quit about midday, leaving a storm total of twenty-three inches atop the old. Units changed their order of march with every hourly break, so that the same men weren't breaking trail continually.

  By the time they made camp again, some time after dark, the temperature had fallen well below zero. Kelmer Faronya, who'd been taking cubeage of the column on the move, joined the battalion again, attaching himself to Jerym Alsnor and A Company, as before.

  * * *

  The brigade chief surgeon carried a standard Weather Office thermometer, and when they broke camp next morning, the temperature was –48 degrees. The horses walked through a cloud of their own freezing breath, whitening their bony sides with rime. Men wore ice on their week-old beards, and rime thick on their eyebrows and collars. Their eyelashes threaded delicate frost beads, and their noses and cheeks were waxy gray with frostbite.

  An hour after the column hit the road, the T'swa caught up with the rear guard, Romlar's White T'swa. The T'swa, on snowshoes, could fire with only a momentary stop. The Iryalans, on skis, had to turn and put their poles aside to fire; fighting on the move wasn't practical for them. So they stopped, and knelt behind such cover as the trees provided there, removing their skis and donning snowshoes. It was a drill they knew well.

  They were considerably outnumbered, and the T'swa, fighting on the move, seemed likely to flank and surround them, so when it seemed to Romlar that everyone but his couriers would be on snowshoes, he ordered a flank retreat westward. If the T'swa chose to pursue them, well and good. If they chose instead to continue pursuit of the Smoleni and their supply train, the Smoleni were well warned by the shooting. The rangers would already be moving to cover the rear, and his troopers could then attack the T'swa flank.

  Ko-Dan chose to pursue the White T'swa, who stayed ahead of him. There was not a lot of shooting, but the T'swa did most of it, for they didn't have to stop and turn to find ta
rgets. Their targets were always in front of them; they needed only to pause to fire. And gradually, despite their white uniforms, the troopers accrued casualties.

  It seemed to Romlar that his men had an advantage though. They'd undoubtedly gotten more rest, more sleep. The T'swa, on snowshoes, must have pressed hard well into the night to catch the column traveling on skis.

  They climbed a low ridge and made a brief stand there, taking advantage of the terrain cover while shooting downhill at the T'swa in brown Komarsi winter uniforms. But they stayed only briefly, enough to give the T'swa some casualties, then turned again and hurried on. For several minutes there was no firing, and Romlar wondered if the T'swa had, in fact, broken off. He'd wanted to draw them farther from the column if he could. Then he heard a shot, and another, and more, and knew that the T'swa were still coming.

  He knew where he was going, had chosen it on his map. He'd give them a bloody nose there, and escape.

  Toward noon they crossed another ridge, this one little more than a wrinkle in the earth, just big enough to show on his map book. Now the critical terrain was less than a mile farther. He sent orders to two machine gun platoons to move ahead.

  The two platoons came to the miles-long stretch of open fen, a mortal danger but also a near-perfect opportunity. The difference lay in sacrifice—their sacrifice. Their shrill whistled signals, passed on, told Romlar they'd arrived. In the fen, knee-high sedge-like graminoids and clumps of dwarf shrubs had prevented the snow from settling normally. Snowshoeing into it, they sank knee-deep, which slowed them markedly. Forty yards out they stopped, turned, and dug themselves into the snow, where they waited, catching their breath.

  At the whistled signals, the rest of the battalion had speeded up to disengage. It took the T'swa a minute to realize what was happening, and to speed up themselves. The troopers bypassed the machine gunners, galloping past them as fast as they could. The men in the lead, breaking trail, had heavy going in the deep fluffy snow. When they fagged out, they slowed, and others moved ahead to take their place.

  When the T'swa reached the fen, they'd have clear shots at the fleeing troopers, all the way to the other side. It was nearly five hundred yards across to the forest, and the first troopers made it in about two minutes, sweating heavily at the violent exertion, despite the arctic cold. They stopped within the screen of trees, and formed a firing line.

  By that time the rest of the battalion was halfway across; all but the machine gunners, who'd already begun to fire at the T'swa arriving at the fen's edge. Their fire allowed much of the battalion to get across before the T'swa could direct appreciable fire at them, and at such long range, in their white uniforms, not many were hit. The T'swa, who'd also been running, were breathing hard; thus their aim wasn't up to standard, and at any rate much of their fire was aimed at the machine gunners.

  It took the T'swa about half a minute to silence the machine guns. By that time, for them to start across the fen would have been suicidal, and suicide would serve no function for them there. They stayed back within the forest's edge.

  Meanwhile, on the far side, the battalion donned skis again, and all but a small rear guard moved on. A few minutes later, when the T'swa showed no sign of following farther, the rear guard left too. But as far as the T'swa could tell, they might still be waiting in their white uniforms.

  * * *

  At their next break, the platoon leaders checked their men to see who was still with them, then informed their company commanders. Jerym Alsnor, now Captain Alsnor, looked around, tight-mouthed. "None of you see Faronya then?" he asked.

  No one had since before they'd crossed the fen.

  "Shit!" Kelmer wasn't a combatant, though T'swa riflemen could hardly know that, certainly not at a distance. And it was inappropriate that non-combatants die in combat. On Terfreya they'd lost Kelmer's journalist sister, Tain. Now here they'd lost Kelmer. Hopefully he was still alive.

  He carried the word to Romlar himself. Not that there was anything to be done about it.

  * * *

  The fallen T'swi still had an aura, but it was shrunken and faint. The man could not live long. "Can you hear me?" Ibang asked. His pistol was in his hand.

  "Yes." The answer was faint, little more than a hiss. The eyes had not opened.

  "Do you wish to let death find its own time? Or shall I bring it to you?" Ibang had bent near the man's lips, that he might get the answer.

  "I will wait, and contemplate."

  That was the customary response. Today it seemed invariant among both T'swa and Iryalans; he hadn't heard one pistol shot. Mortally wounded T'swa normally preferred to have the complete experience of death, pain and all, rather than have it truncated. But when time and circumstance allowed, it was customary to offer the death stroke. And on a mission of this sort, any wound that disabled a man from traveling on his own feet was a mortal wound.

  Ibang straightened. "Captain," someone called, and he turned to see a corporal looking at him. "Here is an Iryalan who does not seem badly hurt. His aura is not a warrior's aura. You may wish to deal with this one."

  Ibang went over to them. The Iryalan wore skis, and lay sprawled sideways, legs twisted. His helmet was specialized for some purpose not immediately apparent. It was not protective, and had a hole in the back, near the top. A spent round, Ibang told himself, probably a ricochet. Otherwise he'd be dead, or near it. He removed the visored helmet and the thick woolen liner to examine the wound. The Iryalan groaned, stirred, and tried to raise himself. The soft snow made it impossible without more effort than he was ready to make. The bullet had scored the man's scalp, and his hair on one side was clotted with blood. It seemed evident to Ibang now that the helmet was a camera of some sort. The man wore a pistol with its holster snapped shut, but there was no rifle by him. Clearly then a noncombatant, a journalist of some sort. Given his stunned condition and the deep snow, the man would have serious difficulty getting up, with skis and pack on and his legs twisted as they were. Ibang unclipped the man's pack from his harness, unbuckled the ski bindings, then put a hand on the man's shoulder and shook it gently.

  "My friend," he said, speaking Standard, "you must get up if you can. Otherwise you will freeze here."

  There was no visible response for several seconds, then the head turned, producing a wince. The blue eyes were open, the expression confused. Ibang took the man's hand. "I will help you stand," he said.

  The Iryalan groaned, turned his body, and made the effort; Ibang raised him to his feet. It was obvious from the grimace that his head had hurt when he'd gotten up. Meanwhile he was up to his buttocks in snow. Whether from the pain or an awareness of something missing, his hands went to his head and found dried blood instead of his camera helmet. Ibang shook snow from the torn and blood-caked woolen liner, and handed it to him.

  "Put this on," he said, "or your ears will freeze."

  Kelmer stared at it blankly for a moment, then comprehension dawned. He took the liner and put it on. Ibang turned to the corporal and handed the T'swi the camera helmet. "Keep this and stay with him. I will bring Ko-Dan."

  Ibang left. When he'd found his colonel, they went together to the Iryalan, who was alert enough now to look worried. Ko-Dan removed the liner and examined the wound. "Corporal," he said, speaking Standard, "he carries an aid kit. Use it to bandage his wound." While the corporal bandaged, Ko-Dan questioned Kelmer. His answers verified what observation indicated.

  "Can I have my helmet back?" Kelmer asked when they were done.

  "Certainly," Ko-Dan said, and Ibang handed it to Kelmer, who wiped the visor and lenses, then adjusted the helmet's suspension to allow for the bandage. Clearly he was able to think. When he'd put it on, he activated it by voice, and found it still functional. He looked around, recording.

  "I suggest you put your snowshoes on, instead of skis," Ko-Dan said. "Your injury may affect your balance for a time, and snowshoes will be easier to use."

  Kelmer squatted and awkwardly strapped the snowsho
es on, then stood on them. The pain in standing had been slight this time, and he had not dizzied. Ko-Dan had watched him. "You are not one of Romlar's White T'swa," he said. "They were chosen as warriors, and your aura is not a warrior's aura. Yet you are able to keep up with them physically. How is that?"

  Aura? Kelmer didn't know the term. "I did the basic year of training with the Sixth Iryalan Mercenaries. Then the government sent me here with the First, to record the war."

  "Ah! Then you have come to know some T'swa intimately, in their role as training cadre. That explains your ease with us. So. You are indeed a noncombatant. I am going to let you go, to follow your people. Assuming you feel able to travel alone. Do you?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Good." Ko-Dan took off his own pack and removed two rations from it. "I suspect you can make good use of these. In cold such as this, it is well to have all you need to eat." He watched Kelmer tuck the rations in the inside pocket of his coat. By feel, keeping his lens focused on the colonel. "In turn," the T'swi continued, "I will ask a favor of you. I am Colonel Ko-Dan. Please tell Colonel Romlar for me and my men that he has a very fine regiment, and his leadership has been outstanding. It has been a pleasure to contest with them. I also suspect he has had more than a little to do with preparing the Smoleni troops we fought on the ridge. They are truly exceptional for troops which, unlike his and mine, lack the T'sel."

  He stripped off a mitten then, and extended a large black hand. Kelmer shook it, and Ko-Dan grinned. "Yes," the colonel said, "you are T'swa-trained; you have the calluses and strength."

  He began to turn away.

  "Colonel?" said Kelmer.

  "Yes?"

  "May I record your troopers before I leave?"

  "Certainly. We shall not do anything very interesting though. We shall eat, and return the way we came."

  The T'swa commander turned away then, ignoring Kelmer utterly, as did the others. Kelmer knew that odd T'swa trait, from the training cadre at Blue Forest, and was neither offended nor puzzled. He recorded them eating and talking—laughing despite the dead around them—and wished he understood Tyspi. Then they got up, slung their packs, and snowshoed off southeastward.