Battle Hymn

by William R. Forstchen

"Go slow, give a couple of blasts now and then. But stop as close as possible to the gate if they don't open it."

  Alexi nodded and eased the throttle in. The train slowly started over the rise, and the fort came into view, a mile away. A heavy morning mist hung on the fields, the ground fog swirling as they passed.

  Everyone except the fireman had been sent out of the cab, back to the cars. Hans looked over at the dead Bantag whom they had hauled aboard at the last station. They had propped him up against the side of the cab on a stack of wood, his head lowered to conceal the fact that most of his face had been shot off.

  Alexi gave two short blasts of the whistle, followed a moment later by two more, and then started the bell tolling. He could see a guard stirring in the watchtower by the gate, leaning over the side as if to shout to somebody below.

  Alexi gave two more sets of two and Hans watched intently, silently praying. Several Bantag on the left bastion guarding the approach scrambled to the top of the earthen embankment to look down on the train. He could see the barrel of an artillery piece poking out of an embrasure, the gun aimed straight at the track.

  One shot into the train, that's all it would take. The gate was less than a hundred yards away.

  "Ease it off," Hans growled. "Keep ringing the bell."

  The train slowed to not much faster than a walk and inched onto a wooden drawbridge that crossed the dry moat. The defenses were laid out well, the moat sloping down to at least ten feet, and then a sheer climb up, the approaches into the moat covered with rows of sharpened stakes.

  One of the Bantag on the bastion shouted a question.

  Hans gestured at the dead warrior sitting inside the cab, then raised his hand and threw his head back in the universal gesture for drinking. The warrior on the bastion laughed.

  Suddenly, to his absolute amazement, the gate swung open.

  "Ease us in," Hans whispered.

  As they crossed the outer works, Hans carefully scanned the grounds. Several dozen yurts were lined up on either side of the track in the open area between the outer wall and the low brick wall of the inner town. Bantag were idling about. The sight of them standing in a fortress seemed a bizarre incongruity. As mounted warriors they were incomparable; he could almost sense their boredom and bewilderment as garrison troops.

  The train drifted through the middle of the parade ground, then turned sharply to come up close against the town wall, which he assumed marked the quarter occupied by Chin who had lived here before the Bantag had come to stay. A loading dock ran down the side of the track, with ramps leading off it. Chin laborers were already forming on the siding. If they got off at the dock, the laborers would undoubtedly panic and get in the way.

  "Stop the train."

  Alexi nodded and pulled the throttle back, venting steam.

  "Now!"

  Alexi let go with a long blast. Picking up his rifle, Hans leapt from the cab. The doors to the four boxcars were flung open. The people inside poured out, screaming their defiance. To Hans's amazement they actually held back, following Gregory's shouted orders to form a rough line. The Bantag out in the encampment area stood in shocked amazement, not sure at first what they were seeing. Some of them finally turned and started to run, others came forward, shouting, still not sure what was happening.

  There was the reassuring sound of rifles being raised and then lowered.

  "Fire!"

  A disjointed, ragged volley swept down the line. Half a dozen Bantag out in the field tumbled. Hans shook his head. Damn poor performance for rifles at this range, but it still amazed him that they could do it at all. A steady crackle of fire erupted up and down the line. Bantag scattered in every direction. Hans turned and saw the gang of Chin laborers beginning to scatter, many of them running back through the gate into their town. He sprinted toward them.

  "We're killing the Bantag!" Hans roared. "Help us and be free! We're from the Republic!"

  Most of the Chin continued to run, but he saw several of them slow down, stop, look at him.

  "Tell your friends. We're from the Republic. Kill the Bantag and we'll set you free."

  A bullet snapped past him, dropping a Chin who was running back through the gate. Hans turned, raised his rifle, and took careful aim at a Bantag standing on a bastion to his left. The Bantag crumpled and fell. As he ejected the shell, he saw the men he had been shouting at looking at him in open-mouthed astonishment. They turned and ran back into the town.

  The last of his people were out of the train and firing across the field. He leaned against the side of the engine and started to fire methodically, dropping three more Bantag in as many shots. The shots were picking up from the other side, and though uncoordinated, it was beginning to take its toll, the far more experienced riflemen of the other side unable to miss across the hundred yards of open field.

  Hans strode along behind the line, shouting instructions, pausing to help one of the diggers reload, peering through the smoke, and nervously looking about for Tamira.

  "Gregory! Ketswana!" he called.

  A blast erupted from one of the bastions, the canister round sweeping through the line to Hans's left. It knocked more than a dozen to the ground and shredded the side of the rail car.

  "Ketswana, bastion left of the gate. Gregory, to the right!" The two saluted.

  "Cease fire!" Hans roared. Another canister round, this one from their flank, swept down the line, most of it hitting the ground in front of them.

  "Charge!" Hans leapt forward, waving his rifle, and started for the left bastion. A ragged cheer erupted, and they all followed. The few Bantag still standing in the courtyard and around the yurts backed up, some of them turning and running. The sight of their hated tormentors running from them drove the charge forward with a mad enthusiasm. Hans reached the earthen ramp leading up to the bastion and then dove to one side. A second later, a round of canister, fired from a light field gun positioned at the top of the ramp, swept down, knocking over the first wave of the charge. Regaining his feet, he started up the slope, not bothering to look back to see if anyone was following. The gun crew was fumbling with the breech, swinging it open. Hans shot one of the loaders who was running up with another round. The four gunners gathered at the back of the gun saw him coming. One of them drew a revolver, leveled it, and then was knocked backward as the charge swarmed up the ramp. Within seconds the gun crew was finished. Hans quickly saw that there was still nothing out in the fields beyond the fort except for a few mounted Bantag, who were several hundred yards away and merely looking curiously in their direction. A wooden-plank walkway ran along the wall to the first bastion on the north side of the fort, and he saw half a dozen Bantag running about, one of them leveling a rifle and firing.

  "Gregory, keep moving!" Hans shouted.

  With a wild cry Gregory started along the bastion wall. Hans grabbed several of the diggers, and motioned them to help him with the gun. Swinging it around, he aimed it into the back of a bastion on the southern wall where more than a dozen Bantag were pouring fire into Ketswana's people as they stormed past them into the other bastion flanking the gate.

  Hans picked up the canister round from the fallen load and slammed it into the gun barrel. He ran back to the limber chest and pulled out one of the silken bags he saw sticking out of wood trays. He slammed the bag into the gun behind the round, closed the breech, and then tightened the elevation screw. Motioning for his newfound gunners to bring the gun to bear, he fumbled through a leather pouch on the body that he assumed was the gun captain and found a fresh friction primer. He hooked the lanyard into the primer, inserted it into a small hole on the top of the breech, and sighted down the barrel.

  His intended targets, noticing him at last, turned their fire his way, and a rifle bullet dropped one of his men.

  "Stand clear!"

  The two surviving crew members jumped back, and Hans jerked the lanyard. The gun recoiled, and through the smoke he could see the canister round tearing through the Bantag. Ketswana's
charge, which had already seized the southeast bastion, went forward down the length of the wall.

  The rifle fire started to die down. Breathing heavily, Hans leaned against the bastion, trying to collect his thoughts.

  He could hear screams still coming from the town. He grabbed his two gunners and headed across the parade ground. Bodies of the dead and wounded, Bantag and human, lay everywhere. He looked up at the walls where his two storming parties were wiping out the last of the defenders and saw that his numbers must have been cut by at least a third. Even with the additional hands taken in the fight at the depot, they were probably down to fewer than a hundred forty, maybe a hundred seventy at most. Again he felt a surge of relief at the sight of Tamira, who, along with half a dozen women and children, were helping to tend to the wounded. She forced a smile when she saw him.

  He slowed as he approached the open gate into the city. A mob of Chin were coming toward him, shouting unintelligibly, gesticulating, screaming, waving picks, shovels, hoes. He started to back up as they spilled out into the parade ground, ready to run for Tamira and drag her back to the bastion.

  The mob slowed down and half a dozen of them approached Hans, dragging something behind them. The ones up front parted, and to his amazement he saw that they were dragging a Bantag warrior, the clothes half torn from his body, blood pouring out of dozens of wounds. They flung him down, and Hans saw that he was still alive, kicking feebly.

  The Bantag looked up at Hans. "Kill me," he groaned. In spite of his hatred Hans felt a surge of pity. No soldier should have to die this way, he thought, amazed that such a feeling could still be elicited after all that he had endured.

  The howling mob danced around the warrior, some of them raining blows upon him, and then they fell upon him. Hans turned away, wishing the Bantag would stop screaming.

  An old man came out of the crowd to Hans, his head bobbing, and spoke in a singsong voice.

  Hans shook his head, not understanding a word. "Do you speak Bantag?" Hans finally asked.

  "Curse speech," the old man replied, startled to hear the words coming from a human.

  "We now the Republic?" the old man asked.

  Hans saw the glimmer of hope in his eyes. So the legend had reached even here, in spite of all that the Bantag attempted to do to stop the spread of the word.

  Hans looked back at his depleted ranks.

  "How many live here?" he asked. "Men, women who can fight?"

  "Near a thousand in the town. Those that can fight? All but the old ones and children. Seven hundred."

  Hans nodded.

  "Why? Your army is coming now. We are free, aren't we?"

  Hans looked him straight in the eye. "You're going to free yourselves. You're the army now."

  Handing his field glasses back to one of his staff, Ha'ark stood silent. He could see them lining the walls, waiting for him. Troops were piling out of the trains behind him, forming into ranks; the artillery crews were pulling their guns off the flatcars and pushing them slowly up the slope.

  From out of X'ian he could see a large formation coming up at the double to reinforce the attack.

  Half a umen would be available for the attack by later that day. The flyer that had hovered over the city for nearly an hour had reported that the town had risen and the garrison was dead. What would they have—five hundred, maybe seven hundred at most? And they were slaves, more likely to kill themselves trying to load a cannon than actually capable of inflicting harm.

  "A Yankee flyer."

  Raising his glasses, he saw the airship coming down out of the scattering of cumulus clouds, and the sight of the airship decided him.

  "Let them see their comrades die," Ha'ark announced. "Start the attack."

  "My Qarth."

  It was Jamul. "My Qarth, we have no heavy artillery yet to breech the gate. Even five mortars well placed could make it a death trap in there, but we have none yet. Most of these warriors are little better than garrison troops and guards. Shouldn't we wait until the first regiment of the Chuktar Umen arrives?"

  "Every minute we give them is a chance for Schuder to show those cattle how to work the guns and prepare. Let's finish this now so we can go home. And let the Yankee flyer see the slaughter and report it. Start the attack."

  Hans nervously paced the wall. At last he had found a pair of field glasses in the yurt of the fortress commander, and now he trained them across the open ground.

  "If we had five companies of the old First Suzdal, we'd hold this place till Doomsday!’ Gregory proclaimed.

  Hans grunted a noncommittal reply. Five hours to train this rabble how to fight using modem weapons, he thought, shaking his head ruefully. The heavy muzzle-loading guns had each been prepared with double shots of canister; once they had been fired he wouldn't even bother to reload them. As for the lighter breechloaders, a crew had been detailed off in each of the bastions. Gregory and Ketswana would handle the guns in the bastions facing east. Alexi would take the one on the first bastion facing south. As for the other three bastions, he could only hope that the men from his digging crew had at least comprehended enough of the crash course to remember to swab the bore after each shot so they didn't blow themselves up.

  As for the Chin, to his surprise many of them understood the rifles issued to them from the stockpile seized in the fort and taken from the train. Many had surreptitiously watched the Bantag drilling with the weapons, and some even claimed to be able to handle the artillery, so most of the artillery crews serving on the bastions were Chin.

  He consulted the rough sketch he had made of the fort and the town, trying to mentally calculate what would unfold. The west wall was part of the old town, and from the commanding bluffs it looked straight down on the river below. The Bantag had banked earth up over the brick wall and mounted two heavy muzzle-loading guns, positioned to fire on any ship attempting to come up the river. For the moment he doubted that an attack would swing in from that direction, since the plunging fire from above would be murderous and the only way to gain the wall was by scaling it with ladders.

  The bluff that the town rested on curved back to the east, running most of the length of the north wall.

  Four more guns were pointed in that direction, trained on the river and the approaches to the city. An attack from that direction would either spill off the bluff or be funneled up against the eastern bastion. A protected bastion at the point where the new fort had been added on in front of the town jutted out, offering an enfilading fire the length of the moat. It would be a killing ground if the enemy tried to gain access.

  It was the south and east walls that he knew were the weak points. The ground on the south wall sloped gently for most of two hundred yards, except for the last fifty yards, which dropped steeply away to the river flats below. As on the west and north walls of the town, the brick wall had been banked over with earth, the sides covered with entanglements of sharpened stakes, but it was nevertheless an open front. Through his field glasses he could see Bantag gunners manhandling their pieces up along the next ridgeline, which was slightly higher than the position of his forces. The bastards would be able to rain fire down on them.

  The eastern approach was much the same, though the ground was rougher, intersected by several gullies and streambeds that would slow an attack. The railroad embankment coming up toward the gate was a natural avenue of attack, but wide open to fire along its entire length. He had thought about smashing the drawbridge but decided instead to pull it up rather than create wreckage that could be used by the attacking force as cover.

  He could see them deploying out along the ridge, forming into assault lines, their battle standards held aloft. The sight gave him a cold chill. The standards were blood-red and from a distance reminded him of Reb battle flags. He felt almost nostalgic. At least against the Rebs, the fight was an honorable one and if overwhelmed, surrender was still a possibility. He looked down the line at his "army." He could see the fear on their faces, especially the Chin, whom he
suspected would never have joined in if they had known the truth. But they were committed now, knowing what would happen if the Bantag should ever break through.

  But he also sensed that in spite of their fear they would die gamely.

  A plume of smoke erupted from the ridge, followed within seconds by a dozen more. The first shots screamed overhead, one detonating in midair over the parade ground, another striking the northeast bastion, where a geyser of dirt spurted up. He could see more than one of his troops waver and look around fearfully, but none backed away.

  The bombardment continued for several minutes. Hans silently counted the intervals, wondering what Pat would say about artillery that could fire three times a minute and hit targets over a mile away.

  Several rounds detonated in the parade ground, and another exploded at the parapet on the number one bastion of the north wall. He paced back and forth deliberately, making a studied effort to ignore the bombardment, pausing to slap one man on the shoulder or share an off-color joke with another, knowing that his men were watching him, gauging his reaction, and, he hoped, drawing strength from it.

  "Here they come!"

  A line of skirmishers deployed out from the ridge facing the eastern wall. He raised his glasses to study them. This was no Merki attack of massed lines, as he had faced back on the Potomac. They were at good intervals, spaced six yards or so apart, moving deliberately. After fifty yards a second line started out, and after another fifty the third line moved forward.

  They know what they're doing, he realized grimly. No massed targets, close to range, then start laying down fire. Against trained infantry, he would not have given it a second thought. His men would have hunkered down, laughed, and started picking off targets. The lines continued forward, well spaced, until finally they were ten deep, spread back for more than five hundred yards.

  Hans strode to the southeast bastion. "Gregory."

  "Sir?"

  "I want deliberately aimed fire with that light gun. Go to it."

  Grinning with delight, Gregory turned to his crew, shouting and pantomiming orders. Hans moved over to the northeast bastion, ducking a well-aimed round that skimmed overhead. At Ketswana's gun, he sighted down the barrel, stepped back, and handed the lanyard to his friend, who grabbed hold and, with a resounding battle cry, fired.