Blas tightened the straps on the stained and worn leather rhino-pig armor over her smock, sighed, and stepped closer to the division’s standard bearers. Popping briskly in the warm breeze was Sister Audry’s flag of the Vengadores, a busy white banner with a guy named Saint Benedict painted on it. He was holding a cross different from the one the Doms revered in one hand, and a book of some sort in the other. He was also surrounded by phrases painted in English, so the Impies could read them too. Blas had learned to read English herself, but rarely paid much attention to the fading letters on the flag anymore. Still, a couple of phrases caught her eye as she neared. The first was “May he protect us in the hour of our death.” She could certainly identify with that. She’d gotten over her “don’t care if I live or die” phase, whether anybody believed it or not. But another phrase said “Your hate shall be vanquished by our love,” and she grunted, sincerely doubting love was going to kill any Doms that day. At the same time, she figured the sentiment probably set the Vengadores apart from the Pegadores more than anything.
Still, the flag that drew her closest attention and the one she loved the best was the Stars and Stripes of the Amer-i-caan Navy Clan and her own Second Marines. It was shot torn and ragged and the colors had faded some, but the gold-embroidered letters on the red and white stripes recorded all the actions they’d been in and took her back a long way indeed.
“It won’t be long now,” came a soft voice beside her, and Blas turned to look into Sister Audry’s sad but shining eyes. The Dutch nun was dressed for battle, wearing a helmet, camouflage smock, even a sword and pistol belt—though they both knew she’d never use either weapon. She wore them only because Arano Garcia insisted. Her hair had grown out and swished around her young face in the breeze like a straw-colored mop. Blas nodded at her and looked back at the glaring, twenty-foot-high walls of El Corazon. There were a couple of gates in it, about two hundred yards apart, that once opened into a larger city sprawling as far as Blas now stood. That section of El Corazon had been even more thoroughly erased than when she and Blair noted it before, and she could hardly tell it was ever there. Both gates were large and heavily reinforced, but the one to the west looked bigger. Twenty-eight heavy guns—naval 24 pdrs by the look of them—poked through high embrasures on this southern wall alone, and they glimpsed uncountable infantry moving busily atop the parapet. Blinking angrily, Blas glared at the open ground again. Ground we haave to cross, she told herself. In broad daylight.
Looking to the sides at the seemingly endless ranks of Allied troops and remembering the enemy had basically ceded the heights to them, heights they’d quickly crowded with artillery of their own, made her feel a little better—but not much. “This is stupid,” she growled low so her XO, the Ocelomeh Captain Ixtli, wouldn’t hear. “You say ‘It won’t be long,’ but it’s already too late—or too early. We should staart the aassault under cover of daarkness.” She pointed at the plain in front of her. “Cross thaat when they caan’t see us so well.”
“Have faith,” Audry chided her. “High Admiral Jenks won’t fail us. I’m sure there’ll be suitable distractions soon.”
There already had been one. Even they could see that Admiral Hibbs’s battle line was coming in fast, screening the transports full of Impie Marines. The warship’s paddle wheels were churning hard, funnels streaming smoke within full sets of sails. Hibbs himself would be aboard the lead ship, HIMS Mars, closely followed by Centurion, Mithra, and Hermes—all veteran ships with veteran crews—and joined by the more recently arrived Diana, Ananke, Feronia, Poena, and Nesoi. They were attended by an equal number of Imperial steam frigates based on the Union Scott class. Far across the mouth of the pass, USS Destroyer and USS Sword, with six frigates of their own, protected more transports taking Impie Marines to occupy a small town at the base of the great volcano. Little resistance was expected there, and Destroyer and Sword probably weren’t needed. Powerful as they were, however, both ships were Dom prizes, slower than Hibbs’s main battle line. He’d feared they couldn’t keep up and might open gaps in his line the enemy could exploit.
Sailing out to meet the closer ships were ten Dom liners and as many frigates, all under their garish red flags. They were the last enemy warships believed to be on this side of the pass—the survivors at La Calma hadn’t joined and couldn’t now, before the tide turned in several hours. In any event, the shaping naval battle was bound to be drawing some of the defenders’ attention, and Blas’s sharp eyes saw a small cloud of dots racing in from the western horizon. More would be coming from the south, and the Army and Naval Air Corps would soon be making their presence felt as well.
There was a stirring in the ranks behind her and Blas looked to see armed men moving up between the files of her own troops. “Whaat the hell?” she murmured, recognizing one of the officers of the Pegadores shouldering his way through. His eyes met hers with a satisfied smirk as he passed, his flag bearer supporting his division’s black banner edged in gold. His men, most wearing Allied combat smocks and cartridge boxes, but without any uniform head- or footwear, streamed through to the front of the line, in front of the 2nd Marines and Vengadores. There they stepped off another dozen paces or so and began the awkward process of forming close to four thousand poorly trained men into some semblance of order.
“What the hell!” Blas raged, shaking off Audry’s restraining hand and marching into the gap. Audry, Garcia, their Lemurian Sergeant Major Koratin, Captain Ixtli, and First Sergeant “Spook” followed. They were immediately met by a short column of Imperial Dragoons galloping up, led by General Shinya himself. He looked somewhat out of place atop a tall spotted horse, but General Blair, Colonel Dao Iverson of the 6th Imperial Marines, and Captain Faal-Pel with the 1st of the 8th Maa-ni-la were with him. The 8th Maa-ni-la was deployed to the left of the 2nd Marines, and Faal was perhaps better known as “Stumpy” after losing part of his tail in Walker long ago. The officers deliberately edged their horses between Blas and the Pegadores before the dragoons could do it for them.
“Whaat’s this about?” Blas demanded.
“What does it look like, Major?” Shinya asked in return. “The Pegadores have been given the honor of making the first assault on El Corazon and are deploying to do so.”
“You promised that honor to us,” Garcia stated, just as hot as Blas. “Have we not earned it? Has the blood we’ve shed not sufficiently proven our loyalty and worth?”
“Of course you have,” General Blair replied more softly, holding out his hands in a calming gesture.
Garcia waved at the Pegadores. “Then what’s the meaning of this?”
Shinya sighed and stepped down from his horse. Blair and Stumpy joined him. Stumpy looked a little upset too, and blinked rapidly. “I never said you’d make the first assault, Colonel Garcia,” Shinya explained, then glanced at Blas. “I only promised you’d be the first of all our troops to enter El Corazon.”
Blas was taken aback, but Audry leaned forward. “That doesn’t make sense, General. You know the order of battle isn’t nearly as important to me as the outcome, but honor and promises mean a great deal to the men”—she glanced at Blas—“and females of the Vengadores and Second Marines, not to mention the Ocelomeh Marines among the latter. Please make yourself clear.”
“Very well,” Shinya stated matter-of-factly. “I’m as opposed to the nature of this assault as anyone, but it wasn’t my decision.” He very pointedly didn’t remind them whose decision it had been, but they knew. “That said, I understand the logic behind it. All we can do is hope it’s sound.” He gestured behind him. “Regardless, there’s no escaping the fact that the first troops to cross that space will be slaughtered, and there’s nothing I can do about it.” His expression turned intent. “The Sister’s Own Division may well be the finest in this entire army. Do you suppose I’d waste it so indiscriminately here, with so much fighting left to do and the greatest prize—the Dom capital itself—still so far
away?” He shook his head. “I may be many things, but I don’t think I’m a fool. If circumstances allowed it and I hadn’t already made that unfortunate promise my honor demands I keep, I’d hold your division back from this fight entirely.” He sighed. “As it is, I’m quite certain you’ll still be the first troops in the city, if you’re not all killed in the attempt, but you’ll need protection to reach the walls.” He glanced at the Pegadores. “Thus . . .”
Blas was stunned, but Sister Audry was aghast. “You mean you placed those men in front of us as shields, to soak up enemy shot for us?” she stormed.
“Makes perfect sense to me,” Koratin said philosophically, and Audry glared at him. Koratin had been an Aryaalan lord and could sometimes be excessively pragmatic, particularly about his own failings. That’s why he wouldn’t accept a commission or any other official status that might feed higher ambition. His prime imperatives now were his passion for Christ, as Sister Audry’s very first Lemurian convert, and destroying anyone—Grik or Dom—who threatened the children and younglings of the world. His devotion to younglings had been the one redeeming constant, as he saw it, of his life. Senior NCO in the Vengadores—still as a Navy Clan Marine and Sister Audry’s chief protector—was sufficient rank for him.
Now under Audry’s searing stare himself, Koratin waved defensively at the Pegadores. “This is their laand. We daamn sure don’t waant it. If they’re going to make something of it and build a nation of people we don’t haave to kill to make them leave us alone, they haave to fight for it.”
“My sentiments exactly, Sergeant Major,” Shinya agreed.
“But it’s our country too,” Garcia reminded through clenched teeth.
“For which you’ve already fought and bled many times, Colonel,” Shinya reminded tersely, losing patience, “at greater cumulative cost than the Pegadores will likely endure today. It’s their turn,” he added simply.
Seemingly as an afterthought, Shinya stepped up to Blas and urgently whispered something in her ear. Her eyes went wide. “Do you understand?” he demanded. Blas hesitated a moment, then blinked dreadful acceptance. Turning abruptly, Shinya remounted and stood high in his stirrups, shading his eyes and staring northwest. The fleets were about to meet and the planes were getting close. “Signal the artillery to commence firing,” he called back to his dragoon escort. Nodding at Stumpy, he urged his mount forward and galloped to the right, Iverson and the dragoons, their standard bearer now waving a black-edged red swallowtail high overhead, close behind. Blair paused long enough to render a salute and call, “God bless.”
That left only Stumpy, who’d be returning to the left. He rolled his eyes at Blas. “Did he tell you?” he asked. Blas nodded. “Yeah,” Stumpy went on, “Gener-aal Shinyaa ain’t in a good mood. Ain’t haappy about this at all. But, like you, I remember when he waas just ‘thaat Jaap,’ an’ I never figured he haad so much . . . ruthless in him.” He looked thoughtful. “But he cares about the cause, an’ he cares about us—all us ‘oldies’ from the early days who took him as a friend even when he waas just ‘thaat Jaap.’” He shook his head, as if that was more than he cared to think about, then grinned and waved. “So long!”
“There may be something to that,” Audry murmured as they resumed their place in the line. “And perhaps he learned his ‘protect those who matter to him, first and foremost’ attitude from Mr. Silva.” She frowned. “Only General Shinya has been given a much broader brush and a deeper pail of blood with which to paint his canvas.”
Blas looked at her curiously. “I got my own reasons to be grateful to Sil-vaa, but do you still think he’s some kinda tool for the Maker?”
Audry actually chuckled. “Yes, indeed—unless he’s changed a great deal since I saw him last.” She hesitated, then asked, “What did General Shinya say?”
Blas immediately told her, and Audry’s eyes went wide. “The entire second wave?” she demanded. Blas nodded, and Audry sighed. “Given the tragedy already set in motion, it makes perfect sense—as Sergeant Major Koratin would say—in the most calculating, cold-blooded fashion.” She tilted her head in the direction Shinya went. “He does God’s work as well, I suppose,” she murmured with regret, “and not for his own sake. But he has changed, and his brush is much broader. Sometimes I fear more for his soul than Silva’s.”
A great, thunderous roar punctuated her comment as seven full batteries— forty-two guns—fired almost simultaneously from their positions partway up the flanks of the mountain to their right. Their primary targets were the great gates, and solid shot shrieked down to strike all around them, scattering splinters and shattered shards of masonry in great clouds. Isolated cheers rose up in approval of the long-range marksmanship of the cannoneers, but most remained silently thoughtful and the cheers died away. If their cannon could do so well at eleven or twelve hundred tails, what could the Doms’ do at seven—or closer?
The 12 pdrs on the mountainside would keep at it until the infantry got too close to continue; then they’d switch to case shot and fire longer. Ten more batteries opened fire on the heights to the left, and a full one hundred guns, firing by batteries, bellowed behind them, sending smoke-jetting case shot high overhead. Even before the first shell burst over the city, there was a deeper booming in the mouth of the pass as the two fleets came to grips, and four great Vs of six three-ship Vs of Nancys dropped their bombs on El Corazon. “I will pray for all our souls,” Audry shouted through streaming tears as bombs and shells exploded and the city was wreathed in smoke and flame. “And those of the enemy, who forced us to this.”
CHAPTER 18
////// HIMS Mars
El Paso del Fuego
Admiral E. B. Hibbs was a pious man but not much given to praying. He figured the Lord had more important things to do than listen to his pitiful pleas. On the other hand, this was quickly getting very serious by anyone’s estimation, and prayer might be his only recourse. Another deafening forty-gun broadside of 20 and 30 pdrs roared out from Mars’s high, tumblehome sides, the armored paddleboxes amidships marking the only gap in the jetting flames and smoke. All his ships but Nesoi and Ananke, still bringing up the rear, were fully engaged now, pounding the Dom liners from less than three hundred yards. The frigates had formed their own battle lines farther out and were having at each other in similar fashion. Yet except for the damage they’d done to the enemy’s masts and rigging—their sails weren’t set—Hibbs couldn’t tell that his fire was doing much at all to the enemy’s hulls. The Doms, on the other hand, firing slightly fewer 24 pdrs than he’d expected, were tearing his ships apart.
“They’ve armored their entire hulls, stem to stern,” exclaimed an astonished Captain Resiah Karki, standing on the open quarterdeck by Hibbs. “I can see the rust streaks on the iron!” A large roundshot shrieked close enough between them that the air pressure of its passage nearly knocked them down. Feigning disregard, Karki collapsed his telescope. “Even our heaviest shot is deflecting!”
“Of course,” Hibbs snapped. “They sacrificed their lighter guns for armor, while we kept ours and only bolted light armor over our paddleboxes and engineering spaces!” He shook his head mournfully. “What a terrible age we’ve lived to see when noble ships like this, hardly five years old, are rendered obsolete overnight.”
Another broadside rippled down both sides of the ship, the starboard guns blasting great white clouds of stone and rubble from the northwest bastion of the city fort barely half a mile away. An instant later, the base of Mars’s foremast exploded in a streak of splinters, scything down men along the starboard fo’c’sle rail. The mast teetered and crashed down forward, taking the main topgallant with it and smashing off the bowsprit.
“All stop!” roared the captain, hoping to stall the spinning paddles before they got jammed or shattered by the ship’s own wreckage as she steamed over it. “Cut away!” he added, shouting forward through his speaking trumpet. “Chop those lines loose. F
end off that debris!” More enemy shot pounded the hull, from sea and shore.
“A foot in the well, an’ risin’!” cried the third lieutenant, bringing the report from the carpenter.
“Very well. Return to your guns, if you please.”
Hibbs glanced astern, fearing Centurion might run them down, but she was already veering toward the Doms. Mithra was following suit, but Hermes was entirely dismasted and burning aft. “Damn!” Hibbs exclaimed, pounding his hand with his fist. A few Nancys were stooping on the Doms and one of their ships was bracketed by bombs. Another was hit and staggered under a satisfactory explosion, but all were shooting swivel guns at the planes and little explosions crackled in the air. A plane tumbled down and pancaked on the sea on its back. There were dragons too, suddenly quite a lot of them, swarming among the masts and snatching at sailors trying to furl the sails or cut away entangling lines. Marines shot muskets at them—few shipboard Marines had the new rifles—and one slammed into the spar deck by the longboat. The bomb it was clutching exploded, throwing two men over the side and chopping others down. More dragons threw bombs at Mars. One went off close aboard and another detonated against the port paddlebox, leaving a large dent in the thin armor. The other ships were getting it too. A huge, ear-splitting crack sounded aft, and Hibbs turned again to see that Hermes had exploded. “My God,” he murmured. “Five hundred men . . .”
Suddenly, he stabbed a finger at Centurion. Almost alongside a Dom liner now, she was firing furiously and no dragons were near. Either they were avoiding their own ship or the dense gunsmoke was keeping them away. “I think her captain has the right idea,” he shouted at Captain Karki. “Signal all ships to engage the enemy more closely!”
“But, Admiral!” Karki objected. “What of the transports? We can’t abandon them.”
Hibbs regarded the ships full of Marines closing on the rocky shore. Large shot from the city bastion threw up cataracts of spray around them. “We’re all taking fire from the fort. They’re closer and pose a greater threat. Signal our planes to focus on the shore batteries, but the transports must try to dash in under the guns. We’ll do our best to keep the enemy fleet occupied.” He turned back to Karki. “To do that we must get close, and out from under these damnable dragons! Signal the transports to go straight in, ground their ships if they must, but get those Marines ashore!”
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