The Forge

by S. M. Stirling

  The young man braced his hand against the wooden handle of the first switch. I hope nothing cut the lines, he thought. I really, really do.

  His palm slapped down, and a fat blue spark snapped.

  * * *

  The explosion from the Colonist gun line was loud enough to carry even over the noise of the battle; a pale sphere of fire rose behind the silent guns and flung things that might have been human into the air. That's an ammunition dump going off, Raj thought, with sudden wild relief. Kaltin. Running figures appeared among the guns, and others among them, on dogback, swords glittering as they cut.

  A pompom round from one of the armored cars slapped into the sandbags of the observation post, with enough force to toll against the iron core below. Raj felt something well up from his chest past his neck, white and cold; it cleared his grit-filled eyes, and made the world go sharply clear. He walked to the barred door at the rear of the pillbox and kicked it open.

  "Signaller, standard-bearer, follow me," he said, stepping out over the body of a dead Skinner. Live ones raised a whoop to see him, their fire raking the Colonist line. It had reached the edge of the Civil Government's left flank now, and the foremost men in jellabas were sticking the muzzles of their carbines up into the firing slits from the dead ground immediately below, working the levers and firing blind into the trenches. Bayonets probed back for them, and vanished again as the armored cars came forward to pound point-blank. The Colonial attack might yet succeed, simply because the first wave were too busy to notice what was happening.

  "Look back, you stupid wog bastards," Raj roared, as he strode to the edge of the blockhouse. Bullets went by with a continuous crack-crack, and the standard bearer fell to his knees with a coughing grunt. Another of the color-party snatched the pole before it could fall and followed. A woman's voice behind him, "Raj, no—"

  That didn't matter now. "Behind you, you raghead idiots! Behind you!" His sword chopped toward the Settler's banner on the hill to the south. "Look south, they're behind you."

  A few men actually looked up. It was the explosion of the first armored car that really caught their attention, however; it shattered noisily, spattering hot metal and burning fuel along a hundred meters of the trenchline to either side, catching the men it had been supporting. Raj looked north, and saw the second and third of the 75's galloping out from behind the mounds that sheltered the communications road, slowing and wheeling into firing positions level with the cavalry bunkers a few score meters behind the trenchline. One went over from a too-sharp turn, bouncing and flipping end-over-end as the crew flew off in screaming arcs and the dogs twisted in their harness under the inertia of a tonne of moving metal. But the others were firing, belching knives of orange flame over open sights as they came to bear on the Colonial armor. Another armored car blew up, and then another.

  A fougasse fired, far to the left. The bursting charge was not large, only ten kilos of powder, but it was enough to spray a huge fan of burning oil and naphtha across the hillside into the faces of the Colonist second wave. The sound was a loud diffuse fffumph, as men ran screaming and burning across the barren earth. Ffumph, as the next went, then fifteen more, spaced at intervals all across the left flank, two hundred meters out. Not many men were actually caught in the flames, but the sight of human torches running back towards them was the last unbearable thing for the follow-up waves; they turned and ran, screaming, shooting or hacking down the officers who tried to stop them. Even then, the Colonials who had made it beyond the line of flame-weapons hesitated. Another armored car went up in a crash, sending a pillar of smoke like nothing else on the battlefield into the sky; the rest began to pull back as.rapidly as they could, and the soldiers followed, throwing down their rifles and running.

  "Sound Cavalry, general advance!" Raj shouted. "Get my dog, somebody get my fucking dog! Runner, tell the armored cars to get out of their holes and attack, move it, now."

  * * *

  The carbine bullet cracked past Kaltin Gruder's ear. A second later his saber punched through the Colonial gunner's stomach with the weight of man and dog behind it; he wrenched it free with a twist, reining in suddenly enough to make the dog rear. Others were surrounding the pompom, tossing their lariats over the breech and snubbing them to their pommels to drag the weapon away.

  He wiped a forearm across his eyes, the left; his right was sodden to the elbow. Gunners were running west along the line, back to the intact and uncommitted Colonial right where it waited behind the ridge; units were forming up, wheeling to face what had been their own right wing moments before.

  "Lieutenant Ynez," he barked. "Wheel some of those cannon around to bear, here. Fire at the wogs who're running, and pepper the guns too far to reach over west there. I want a three-company firing line, ready to back and volley."

  He stood in the stirrups and looked back; the last of the Colonial armored cars was burning halfway up the slope towards him; the Civil Government machines were lurching out of the front of the redoubt, and he could see men swarming out of the trenchline, mounting up before the cavalry bunkers behind it. Clots and masses of Colonial soldiers were streaming across the field, retreating in a diagonal towards the part of the ridge still held by their forces; masking their own guns, he saw with a hammering glee, as smoke belched all along the trenchline and raked the fleeing men. More than enough of them to come straight back and swamp the 7th, but the fight was out of them for this day at least.

  "I think—" and something sledgehammered him out of the saddle. But we won, his mind whispered. The ground struck him.

  * * *

  Barton Foley dashed back to the firing slit as the last of the fougasses fired; one hand went to the back of his neck under the chainmail flap, unconsciously kneading against the tension of suspense. The nearest Colonists were wavering, flinching away from the Skinner's fire as their armored cars reversed and left them.

  They're going to run, he decided. If they're pushed. It was calm and rather remote, as his right hand lifted the pistol from its holster. He thumbed back the hammer and braced his left on the sandbags ahead of him; remote, like a description of tactics in one of Gerrin's books.

  "Follow me," he said, and levered himself up. The troopers did, with a howl that burst out of the bunker like the cries of wolves.

  * * *

  "The Merciful, the Beneficent," Fatima whispered to herself, pausing as she came back down the stairs from the upper gallery of the Temple and paused. A bell was ringing, signal that more carriages and wagons had come through the city gates with wounded.

  She had washed her upper body and changed her blouse while she fed her son, but the skirt swung sodden and ill-smelling against her legs. The skin all over felt prickly, as if grains of cold sand had been shaken against it; her stomach heaved again, but she clenched her teeth against the taste. The square outside the windows was carpeted with pallets and stretchers and bodies; men were loading the dead onto wagons, rough in their haste because the still-living needed the room. Doctors ran through the outskirts, among the latest wave, making the quick judgments that sorted the incoming. For those too far gone to save, a massive dose of opium for the conscious, and they were taken to the side street of the hopeless cases; worst was when they knew what had happened, and stretched out imploring hands to the priest-physicians as they were carried away. The lightly wounded were left with their field-dressings in the square, to be dealt with as time allowed.

  Fatima swallowed, and walked down the last of the stairs toward the table to which she was assigned. The cleanly order of the dawn had vanished, leaving a fetid chaos that had only the minimum structure necessary to keep from completely seizing up. Men with stretchers shouted and cursed as they elbowed past the men and women dragging out the bodies of those who had died on the tables that crowded the great room, or tubs full of shattered pieces of those who lived. Physicians and volunteers called for medicines, water, bandages; wounded men shouted or moaned or wept. The floor was slippery-sticky on the soles of
her feet as she descended the last steps into a blast of stench and noise.

  Almost, she did not recognize the man on the table; Damans pushed past her for her rest period, staring with a blank stiff expression Fatima recognized from the feel of her own. The patient was chalk-pale with loss of blood, under a natural light brown; an officer, from the pistol holster and epaulets, and young…

  "Get away from me, you bitches, not my arm, bitches all of you get away get away—" The doctor's aide staggered back, almost dropping the glass full of liquid opium and rum she had been trying to feed to the struggling man.

  Fatima moved in and gripped the wounded limb below the elbow joint; the tourniquet was on the upper left forearm, and what had happened to hand and wrist was enough to make her look away even now. Especially as she knew that hand well …

  "Barton!" she said, leaning over so that he could see her face. The wildness left his eyes, a little. "Barton, you die unless let doctor help. Gerrin left all alone if you die; I left alone. You brave soldier, act like it!"

  The straining body slumped back, and the young man closed his eyes with a sigh. Fatima raised his head and gave him the sedative herself.

  "Are we retreating?" she asked, distracting him as he drank and the doctor picked up a probe.

  "No," he said wearily. "We won. This is victory."

  * * *

  "Most Sacred Avatars," Raj whispered hoarsely. "It's only an hour past noon."

  The others with him sat equally stunned, watching as the Colonials removed their dead and wounded from the slope; Tewfik's envoy had pleaded for it, and the pause was as much to the Civil Government army's advantage.

  "How many, do you think?" Dinnalsyn said, passing a canteen.

  "Five thousand dead, maybe six," Gerrin Staenbridge said quietly, taking a swig.

  "And ours?" Raj said, beginning a motion to wipe the spout on his sleeve; he stopped it as the wet heaviness of the cloth dragged the arm, and took three quick swallows himself. The water was cut one-third with rum, and the burning put a little strength back into his stomach.

  The Colonists lay in a long swath down from their starting point, curving away to the left like a wave that shears away from a subsurface breakwater. They were thicker just in front of the trench line, like a frozen surf of death; the miasma rose into the hot afternoon sun, along with the lingering stink of powder and the continuous low moaning of the injured as they waited to be carried back up the hill they had charged over so confidently.

  "Eighteen hundred, two thousand, mostly in the counter-attack," Gerrin said.

  "Damn Tewfik," Raj nodded. It had almost been a rout, but the Colonist left had not run; they had wheeled about, presenting a front that the Civil Government troops were too few to break; a single push had shown that. He looked out at the still-burning armored cars, a dozen of the Colony's and four of his. "He knew we still couldn't win a battle of maneuver…"

  "What do you think he'll do?" Menyez asked. Of all of them he looked the least worn. "His own force wasn't committed for long; they're still fresh."

  "So's our right, and they saw Jamal's men run today," Raj said. He looked up; another nine hours of light, but then it would be dark-black for most of the night.

  "Dinnalsyn," he continued. "How many enemy guns did we bring back?"

  "Twenty, pompoms," the artilleryman said. "Destroyed about the same, but our gun line's going to be weaker tomorrow, too."

  "That doesn't matter, if it's strong where it counts," Raj said. "Menyez, pull… six… no, four battalions out of the right flank, it'd be suspicious if there were more, march them over to the left and have them help with the cleaning up. Then," he continued, "after dark, trickle them back, and every second battalion from the left, too; the least-hurt ones. Dinnalsyn, leave those guns on the left and make like you're digging them in. Then bring them all back to the right, and all the mobile guns originally on the left as well."

  They all looked at him; Raj let his hands fall between his knees, watching the smoke of his cigarette trickle up. "We can't be strong everywhere," he said. "They've still got more men, and more weight of metal; and the left was our stronger flank. We'll just have to bet that they won't lead off with the same formations again."

  Even for an army as large as the one the Settler had brought up the Drangosh, the losses had been gruesome. Still, those were brave men, well-disciplined; they had proven it today.

  "What if Tewfik shifts front, too?" da Cruz asked. Even the veteran noncom was looking a little shaken; nobody in the Civil Government's forces had seen carnage like today's, not in twenty years. The Colonists' had, of course, in the Zanj wars …

  "He might, I don't think Jamal will," Raj said. "And this is two armies we're facing; I'm betting with the confusion back there, it'll be too much trouble to redirect everything. Jamal will do the straightforward thing, hit us with the other hammer on the other side of the head."

  "And if you're wrong?" Menyez said, looking at him curiously.

  "We all die," Raj said. The only consolation being I won't see it, he thought.

  "… will fall and wind will blow—

  Lost men die in the mountain snow

  Souls break their wings on Heaven's wall

  Dark night must come, come to us all—"

  Spirit-damned cheerful folksongs the Stalwarts have, Raj thought, leaning his head back against Suzette's knees. The plangent silver strings of her gittar tinkled as she played, singing the ancient songs a nurse from the western tribes had taught her as a child. The troopers seemed to like it; a hundred or so had come from their own fires to listen, here behind the redoubt. Nobody wanted to sleep in the redoubt, if it could be avoided. For that matter, nobody seemed to want to sleep, much… He had been able to get them a hot meal, sent out from Sandoral on wagons, at least. More than the enemy had, from what the prisoners said; evidently they had come north with nothing but hardtack and jerky, enough to see them through into the fertile lands north of the city, but no more. And it would be a cold camp over there, not enough firewood left around here to roast an avocat.

  One more time, he had told the men, doing the rounds of the fires. One more time, and they'll break. Nobody could take what we dished out today more than once more. The question was, could his men take it once more?

  A burst of firing out of the night brought men rolling to their feet.

  "Stand easy," Raj called, hearing it being echoed through the long jewel-chain string of campfires behind the trench line. Not enough firing to be an attack, and he had Skinner and Descotter scouts in plenty on the slope. Suzette followed him as he climbed to the roof of the redoubt and watched the spiteful fire-tongues flickering through the dark, frowning.

  "Fucking Tewfik!" Raj said with sudden anger. "Fucking Tewfik!" Shaking his head in admiration.

  "What?" Suzette said.

  "The fougasses, he's not leaving anything he can to chance either," Raj said. "They're really not as dangerous as a round of cannister, but they've got lots of mental impact. On our men as well as his, seeing them go off would be a big plus. At a guess… yes, from where they are… he's going for the fougasse detonator lines. Messenger!" A trooper ran up. "Off to the scouts, and tell them to concentrate on the fougasses, don't let the enemy damage them."

  "Can you replace the lines?" Suzette asked, standing closer and hugging his arm.

  "No," he said, returning the embrace. "But I've got a trick or two like that myself." He looked down into her face, and thought of trying to persuade her to leave again. No, he thought. Useless. Besides, there were limits to a man's unselfishness.

  "Meanwhile, I don't much feel like sleeping," he said.

  "And we have a whole bunker, all to ourselves…"

  * * *

  "We're not going to stop them," Menyez said flatly.

  Raj looked out the slit of the observation pillbox. It was like one of those horrible recurring dreams, where you die over and over again, never able to vary your actions. The same hammering cannonade bac
k and forth, the same stinking clouds of smoke …

  Of course, there were differences. The gun lines on both sides had thickened up from yesterday; dawn had shown him most of the remaining tubes on the ridge above shifted over to positions facing the Civil Government's right. Fucking Tewfik, Raj thought with weary irony. That's becoming my motto. Although I'm the one who's getting screwed. The attack had been different, too, faster and a little looser. These were Tewfik's own men, the Colonial Army of the South, and they had been with the prince-general during the Zanj wars in the lands beyond the Colonial Gulf. They had come with the same leapfrog tactics, but sprinting rather than trotting, and their rifle-fire was damnably accurate.

  "We wouldn't have held them this long if we hadn't stripped the left flank," Raj said.

  "Which won't hold either, not if they come down," Menyez said. The ridge to the left was quiet, but the reformed battalions of the Settler's Army of the North had marched a little past it, and their ranks had held under the light shelling of the muzzle loaders in the Civil Government gun line opposite. The lanky Kelden County man sighed; the battle on the right wing was turning into a short-range firefight, the front lines of Tewfik's riflemen only two hundred and fifty yards from the trenches.

  "You can probably get most of the cavalry back to Sandoral," Menyez said, turning to go. He stopped when Raj touched his shoulder.

  "Suzette," Raj said, "what was that toast the Brigade ambassador gave, last year?"

  She stood beside him. "He fears his fate too much, and his reward is small—"

  He finished the words: "—who will not put it to the touch, to win or lose it all," he continued. "Battles are won or lost in the minds of men… signaller, the rocket."

  A single trail of smoke rose from the redoubt, above the wreathing smoke of ten thousand rifles and two hundred guns. Behind the trenchline cavalrymen jumped up and ran to the captured pompoms, jerked the lanyards. They did not attempt to aim, nor could they have even if the front was not blanketed with heavy smoke. The Colonist weapons had a single clip each… and only one target; each had been boresighted on a fougasse that morning, before Dinnalsyn's gunners were called to serve their own weapons. The pompoms hammered…