The first rank would be finishing loading by now. Bekiaa could only marvel at the firepower of the legion, and when it struck her that it was surrounded by two dozen more, it was easy to understand why the Republic had anticipated an advantage over the Grik. The enemy had narrowed that advantage more than anyone here, aside from Courtney Bradford, perhaps, had expected, and there was no longer any question in her mind that this force, at least, had observed their advance. If that was the case, they’d known they were outnumbered, and it would’ve taken time and thought to prepare this reception, in this place. No doubt they were terribly surprised by the lethality of Republic weapons, but they’d adapted and were moving quickly to limit their exposure before they could get in range of their own, and perhaps come to grips. Even so, they’d initiated the battle, and Bekiaa found it hard to believe they were just coming on, in the same old way without a reason. Between the sharp rifle volleys, the bark of 75 mm guns, and the clatter of Maxims, Bekiaa’s ears were in a state of shock. Somehow, though, she managed to perceive a different horn call from the distant woods. She stepped forward, closer to Lok-Fon’s overturned wagon of comforts. Off to the right, to her amazement, the firing was beginning to slacken off.
“They run away!” a ’Cat in the first rank cried triumphantly, followed by roars of satisfaction from his mates. Bekiaa had raised her glass. The trooper was partly right; the Grik had broken into a run, about three hundred tails to their front. But they weren’t running away. They were slanting forward, to Bekiaa’s left, trying to focus all their remaining forces against 3rd Army. That was when she knew exactly what the Grik commander planned. She spun. “Give ’em everything you’ve got!” she roared. They’d be harder targets for her riflemen, running from right to left, but they had little choice but to simply fire into the mass in any event. “Maa-sheen gunners! Hose ’em! We have to whittle ’em down. Optio Meek! Go to General Kim. I don’t know what’s happening in front of him or in front of Second Army, but every Grik we see is about to hit the Third. Kim must charge them before they can maass, or Third Army, at least, will be destroyed! Go!” she shouted at his stunned, blinking face.
“I—I can’t leave ye!” Meek protested. “Me duty’s here, with you!”
“Your duty’s where I say it is!”
“Charge them?” Courtney asked after Meek reluctantly trotted to the rear. His voice was milder than she would’ve expected.
“Yes, daamn it. Don’t you see what he’s done?” she demanded. By “he,” Courtney suspected she meant the Grik commander. She immediately confirmed it. “We deployed, thank the Maker, so he didn’t get to hit us on the march, or all scattered out—but by comin’ out across our whole front, he fixed us in place! We’re so spread out, Second Army can’t shift over to support the Third. Even if they got no fightin’, they’re a mile an’ a half away!” As usual, in times of stress, Bekiaa’s careful English was beginning to slip. The firing on the left was reaching a fever pitch, louder even than the fighting where they stood. And they hadn’t been forgotten by the enemy either. Close enough to Third Army to suit many charging Grik, and now only distinguishable from it or any other legion by the section of guns between, thousands of Grik were coming at them.
The tight, careful formations were gone, yielding to confusion at last, but the mass of the enemy was no less dense—and they were finally shooting back. Musket balls tore through overturned wagons and, often, bodies behind them. Splinters sprayed in all directions, blinding men and ’Cats. The troopers of the 23rd were through with volleys, though, and were firing as fast as they could. Maxims still chattered insistently, sweeping away great swathes, but each time one stopped to reload, more Grik surged closer, eyes wide with terror or anticipation, sharp teeth gnashing, shooting, reloading, roaring like the hellish fiends they were. The Derby guns slashed at them, muzzles depressed, blasting scores with every shot. They were using canister now, something they’d never expected to need, so there wasn’t much in their limber chests. Runners raced between the guns and caissons farther back, each with as many rounds as they could carry.
The wagons bulged inward with the press and many troops had to stop firing just to push back against the horde. One by one, however, the wagons tipped over, back on their wheels, crushing defenders underneath. Grik took advantage, leaping up and over, jumping down behind their thrusting bayonets. Most were quickly shot down, but they paved the way for more. Bekiaa was shooting now, firing her Springfield at gray-clad shapes in the smoke. She paused to insert another stripper clip and noticed Courtney standing beside her with his Krag, calmly killing Grik with unhurried shots. How he’d changed!
“We can’t hold them, Legate!” the third cohort senior centurion named Tinaas-Kus told her desperately. Tinaas was the only female officer in the legion, aside from Lok-Fon.
“Where’s the prefect?” Bekiaa demanded, eyes searching for the tall black man.
Tinaas motioned at the thickest fighting with her head. “He led the reserve cohort forward. We must form square!”
A musket ball vrooped past so close that Bekiaa felt it cut fur on her cheek. A defensive square was a common formation in the legions, and in the open, with a single legion, it might be the right thing to do. Here they’d have to contract away from the 10th and 5th to pull it off, and they couldn’t shoot toward them either. She remembered when Greg Garrett formed a desperate square on a little beach on the coast of Saay-lon. It held barely long enough that there were still survivors when help finally came. Here, a square might save the 23rd, but would totally shatter the line. “Never!” she snapped. “Send runners to the artillery sections. The one on the left’ll stand by to wheel forward an’ to the left. The one on the right’ll wait to advance with the legion. Then bring up everyone you can find—cooks, horse holders, I don’t care! General Kim will charge, and so will we! Trumpeter!” she shouted. “To me.” She looked back at Tinaas. “Spread the word as fast as you can.” She pointed toward 5th Legion, where the fighting was less intense. “And tell them to charge with us—or be destroyed after we’re dead!” She paused perhaps two seconds, staring at Centurion Tinaas, who blinked back in incredulous terror. “Now, Centurion!” she roared. Tinaas raced off.
Courtney had opened the loading gate of his Krag. “You’ll forgive me, I hope, my dear,” he said, as if speaking to the cartridges he dropped in the magazine, “if I can’t tell if you hate all this or love it.”
Bekiaa looked at him. He knew how . . . tough her time had been in Saay-lon, then Indiaa. But had her time in Donaghey, away from the fight, been any better? She looked past him. Prefect Bele and his reserves had pushed the breakthrough back, but now her troops and the Grik were trading fire across the wagons almost muzzle to muzzle, and men, ’Cats, and Grik were blown down with every shot. That couldn’t go on. She was more certain than ever that the Republic hadn’t been ready for this war, but there was no doubting the courage of its people. “You’ll forgive me, Mr. Am-baas-ador, if I wonder how you stay so calm. I think I’m gonna shit myself.”
Courtney laughed. “I doubt that. As to the other, I suppose—if nothing else—Mr. Silva’s taught me how to behave in desperate situations. Whether the calm you think you see is courage or resignation to my fate, I can’t say. Part comes from my faith in you, however, because whether you hate it, love it”—he closed the loading gate and chambered a round, then gently touched her arm—“or fear it, you can still lead. And that’s what we need right now: a decision, action, right or wrong.”
She touched his hand and smiled. “Then my first decision is to order you to the rear. Get a horse an’ ride to Gener-aal Kim.” She pressed on even as Courtney’s face contorted and he blinked violent objection. “If he hasn’t already ordered a charge when you get there, you gotta persuade him. He’s listened to me on occasion, and he’ll listen to you coming from me—from here.” She blinked sadly. “I’ll be dead by then, if he hasn’t, and so will the Twenty-third Legion. But
he might still save Third Army.”
Stinging with a sense he was running away, but realizing Bekiaa was right and one more middle-aged riflemen could make little contribution to her desperate plan, Courtney hurried to borrow a horse from the Gentaa teamsters conscripted to hold the cavalry’s animals while their riders ran to join Bekiaa’s charge. He nodded at the enigmatic man/Lemurian who seemed so unconcerned by events, and awkwardly swung into the saddle. Higher now, he had a better view of the battle. Bekiaa had been right. Almost the entire Grik force had concentrated against 3rd Army, and the fighting there was frantic. Unfortunately, the 23rd and, to a lesser extent, the 5th Legions had fallen under that avalanche as well.
As he turned to kick the horse toward Kim’s distant pavilion, he recognized another terrible weakness of the Republic military organization, besides its outdated formations. Though the Republic had wireless technology and a respectable telegraph network between its cities—a line had even followed Kim’s HQ—they hadn’t deployed field telegraphy. Certainly nothing like the new field telephones their allies were using. Courtney supposed they’d considered it impractical, in view of the traditional, independent role of their provincially separated legions. They’d ordinarily have access to local telegraph stations in any event. But even though they weren’t separated now, they were still too spread out for instant communication.
He rode as fast as his inexperienced horsemanship allowed, seeing there was indeed very little fighting in front of the rest of 1st Army, and many of its troops were cheering what they thought had been an easy victory. His chest clenched with dread as he heard the trumpets behind him signaling the charge and knew the 23rd, at least, was launching itself into a meat grinder the rest of the legions weren’t even aware of. Or maybe not . . . Directly in front of him, a couple hundred yards away, a large cavalry force was thundering his way, surrounded by clouds of colorful flower petals thrown up by galloping hooves. A constant trumpet was sounding, calling all cavalry cohorts within earshot. The cohort of the legion he was passing—he thought it was the 9th—was already forming up to join the coming formation as it passed. He finally recognized the leaders riding out front. One was General Taal-Gaak, his short cape flowing behind him. Most surprising was the sight of Inquisitor Kon-Choon riding awkwardly beside him in his usual stylish civilian kilt, waistcoat, and frock. He reminded Courtney of a small, extremely furry Scottish gentleman—with a tail. The intensity of his pale blue eyes and the carbine slung over his shoulder erased any humor Courtney might’ve found in the image. Abruptly, he turned his own horse to join the charge.
“Bekiaa?” Choon cried as Courtney was swept along.
“Charging, even now, to save Third Army,” Courtney gasped back.
“I knew she would not wait,” General Taal snapped, annoyed—and admiring. “Trumpeter!” he called. “General Kim’s preparatory notes, if you please, on his orders. Then sound the charge! A general charge, to follow us!” As commander of all the armies, Kim’s personal audible prefix would oblige everyone who heard it to obey the signals that followed. Taal glanced at Courtney and Choon. “I only hope we’re not too late!” They wheeled around the 9th Legion into the void left by the 5th—which must’ve followed the 23rd after all—and dashed into the heaving, thunderous maelstrom of smoke and flashing rifles, muskets, and blood-darkened bayonets ahead.
The battle on the Plain of Gaughala, on the edge of the Teetgak Forest, dissolved largely into chaos. There was no help for it, really, and if the Grik had possessed significant reserves it could’ve gone far worse. Only 2nd Army, at Kim’s specific orders, refrained from joining the melee that ensued, and it deployed into a block formation to move to support the 3rd and 1st. All but the leftmost legions of 3rd Army and Kim’s own 1st Legion poured into the attack behind General Taal, but by the time most of them got there, there was little left to do; the damage was already done. Very few Grik survived, aside from isolated companies and battalions that were probably late to their jump-off points. Those melted back into the forest to fight another day. Some of the guns disappeared as well, farther down the roads than the cavalry was willing to pursue, but probably more than half were captured. It was interesting and ominous that most of the guns had been spiked or otherwise rendered unserviceable by their crews—who fled in good order as well. It would later be calculated that of the roughly fifty thousand Grik that formed at the edge of the forest, possibly fifteen thousand died during their initial advance. Fewer bodies littered the ground after they shifted into their stunning, oblique charge, and that left more than thirty thousand to slam into the roughly eighteen thousand men and Lemurians of primarily the 7th, 8th, 10th, 14th, and 15th Legions.
The Republic troops fought very well. It was their first real battle and they gave as good as they got. Unfortunately, that ratio couldn’t be sustained and they simply hadn’t been prepared for the savagery of their enemy. At close quarters, the Republic’s superior weapons gave them little advantage, and all five of the Grik’s “target” legions, as well as the 23rd and 5th (of the 1st Army) and the 16th and 21st (of the 3rd), were gutted in the vicious hand-to-hand fighting that ensued. Even Bekiaa and Courtney couldn’t have prepared them for the discipline they’d faced, combined with the determination to, even outnumbered, inflict the greatest possible damage they possibly could. They’d seen the latter before, to a degree, but never the former to such an extent. That had been frighteningly new to them all. Now all that remained was to count the cost and decide what to do next.
General Marcus Kim and his staff rode carefully, grimly, through the abattoir where perhaps a quarter of his 3rd Army had died. Its commander, another human named General Modius, stood wearily to meet them as they approached the growing lake of wounded being carried from where the worst fighting had been. Modius’s pale face was anxious, his hands clasped before him. “I—I don’t know what . . .”
Kim held up his hand. “It wasn’t your fault, General. Continue your work here, caring for our wounded.” Modius bowed his head, and Kim and his staff moved on. Around the toppled barricade of wagons, the bodies were so thick on the ground that they were forced to dismount. Most of the dead were Grik, lying in bloody, disemboweled heaps, and the stench was overwhelming. Details were removing the Republic dead and wounded, and had been for some time. The Grik wounded were bayonetted or shot and then dragged into great mounds of ragged, oozing flesh. Kim had ordered that some be taken prisoner, if practicable, but apparently enough men and ’Cats had died or been wounded in the attempt that it was universally deemed impracticable to continue. Kim wouldn’t push it. None among them spoke Grik, and the behavior and equipment of the enemy probably told them as much as they’d learn by questioning them. His eyes lit on a group of officers near the breastworks where they’d gathered, exhausted and covered with blood, in a space cleared of bodies. Healers moved among them or brought mugs of something to refresh their parched throats. He was amazed to find several people he’d never expected to see alive again.
“That’s enough, you carrion-clawing buggers!” cried Courtney Bradford. Inquisitor Choon, bloody and coatless, was helping Optio Meek, his left arm in a red-splashed sling, hold Courtney, facedown, on a blanket. General Taal, also steeped in blood, appeared to be supervising. Kim was particularly surprised to see Meek. The young optio had delivered his message and bolted directly back to the fight so quickly that he’d forgotten the rifle he’d brought to the pavilion. Courtney heaved and cursed again, fighting their efforts to restrain him while a healer and his assistant worked on the Australian’s right upper calf. Bekiaa-Sab-At, her once-white armor now a dark black-red, stood a little apart, leaning on an equally red-stained rifle, its bayonet encrusted, lumpy and dark. Beside her, dwarfing her, was a tall, black prefect. Both were watching the operation, but occasionally glanced over a shattered wagon at the distant trees.
“It’s just a damned, bloody scratch!” Courtney ranted, his face buried in the blanket. “I’m sure
there are others who need your torment more than I!”
“‘Bloody scraatch’ is right,” the gruff Lemurian healer growled. “And you could bleed to death for all I care, but Gen’raal Kim might be annoyed if the am-baas-ador from our allies died of obstin-aacy. Now quit squirming so I can finish—and get to those who do need me more!”
Chastened, Courtney fell silent, but turned his head and saw Kim approach. “General!” he said.
Choon and Taal both moved to rise, but Kim motioned them to continue what they were doing. “No! Don’t let him up. The healers may not catch him again.” He glared at Courtney. “You had no business in the middle of the fight, Ambassador Bradford,” he scolded lightly.
“Well, I wasn’t really in the middle. A damned Grik shot a musket ball through my leg and killed the horse I was riding, poor creature. A musket ball,” he repeated, lowering his voice to an indignant murmur before he continued. “The horse laid down on me and kept me quite immobilized through the fiercest fighting. I did almost nothing and was hardly noticed by the enemy. It was rather frightening, however, I must say. Lying there as helpless as a babe, with Grik running to and fro!”
“He wasn’t as helpless as he claims, General,” Choon stated. “He kept a grip on his rifle and killed many Grik, even while trapped. I saw it myself.”
“Several might’ve done for me if not for that big bloke with Legate Bekiaa,” Courtney added. Kim shifted his gaze back to Bekiaa and Bele. It was then he noticed how . . . protectively the prefect hovered near the Allied Marine. Bekiaa herself seemed utterly void of expression. Her face was slack with exhaustion, with good reason, but her eyes betrayed nothing and she didn’t even blink a greeting. “I sent the charge as quickly as I could,” Kim told her, but looked away. “Still my fault, the whole disastrous mess. You warned me to reorganize our legions—and I did, but not well enough. I tried to compromise and it only made things worse. It was all my fault,” he repeated. Bekiaa seemed to break out of her trance and regarded him skeptically. “What will you do now?”
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