by David Drake
The cavalry was at nearly point-blank range.
Those five hundred Progar men took aim. The sun flashed off their barrels.
The Guardian cavalry continued its charge. Some brought carbines and dragons to bear on the newly revealed enemy. But there wasn’t time.
A crackle of ragged fire down the line of Progar militia. Those in front, leading the charge, went down as if mown by an obsidian-bladed scythe. The line of men in the fortress—for it was a fortress, had to be—stepped back and began frantically reloading, while behind them another line stepped forward with rifles already at ready.
Now several of the mounted got off shots, and a few of the Progar men fell. But not many. Not enough.
The Progar line fired again. Far from perfectly together, but they didn’t have to be. They were firing into a mass of men and donts. Another swath of mounted troops crashed down, dont and man screaming, entangled, crushing one another, dying together.
“By the Bones and Blood,” von Hoff said softly. “It’s pure murder.”
A horn blew in a low, loud blast that reverberated off the mountain. A huge group of mounted separated from the mass of men on marshy Valley floor north of Abel’s position and tore up the mountain to reinforce.
“Blood and Bones! Kanagawa’s thrown his reserve in,” von Hoff said. “It may be enough to carry those trenches.”
Abel realized the trenches he was referring to must be where the men had been hiding before they’d risen up and blazed away with their muskets. They’d seemed to come from nowhere.
Wave after wave of mounted attacked, fell to the ground or were driven back. Yet they attacked again, struggling up the mountainside yet another time. The musketry from the trenches might not have been enough to stop the charge, but the rain of fire from the craggy stronghold above the trenches added to the cavalry’s misery, falling down on them from positions almost directly over their heads.
Then, from the north, another hue and cry. Men shouted. Horns blew. Donts screamed and honked. The crackle of gunfire, only a few pops at first, grew.
Von Hoff surveyed his men deployed into the marsh. “This won’t work,” he said. “We’ll be forever getting up to fight. We’ll have to take to the Road again.” He considered a moment. “Order them back to the Road, Major. In enemy range or not, we have no choice.”
“Yes, sir.”
Your colonel has made the correct decision, given the circumstances, said Center. The Road in this area is an artificially created raised causeway through these wetlands. The only higher ground is the mountain slope presently occupied by the enemy.
The colonel may be right, but your general has walked right into this one, Raj said darkly. What happens next won’t be pretty, either.
This time Abel didn’t need to send riders. He instructed Groelsh to set his specialist signalmen to their wigwag, directing the most northerly companies back onto the Road first, then the others, line by line.
Abel could imagine what the troopers were thinking:
First the thrice-damned Lieuts tell you to run. Then, when you’re winded, he orders you back to get slaughtered. If I were a grunt, I’d believe command had lost its mind, Abel thought.
But Guardian discipline showed, and fighting lines were quickly formed as men streamed back to the Road, most within range of the muskets above. Much of the musket fire was still directed at the charging mounted forces, however. Nevertheless, every few moments another catapulted rock fell on the Road and took out another few men.
Exposure couldn’t be helped or avoided. They must move forward. And they did, muskets at the ready, in four-deep, shuffle-stepping lines, exactly as they’d been drilled.
“May I suggest we split the lines into squads instead of companies, Major?” said Groelsh. “We’ll move faster and present less of a target. We must look like a line of insectoids from up there, just waiting to be crushed.”
Abel nodded. “Yes, Master Sergeant, do it the best way you can. Get the wigwag going.” Abel nodded down the Road. “I think the battle’s underway up there.”
“We’ll get them up double-quick, sir,” said Groelsh. “These are Goldies, after all.” He turned and barked at a signalman, and the directions went out in a flash of flags.
Abel rode up and down the line and watched his men form fighting ranks. He tidied up their edges here and there, but for the most part, they were in good order.
Amazing, considering they were withstanding barrage after barrage of musket fire, not to mention giant boulders raining from the sky. Although the musket men in the trench were engaged with the mounted attack, the guns on the crag above had now been turned on the Third. Most of the fire flew over their heads or impacted on the ground to the side of the road. But a few fusillades found their mark—some of it arriving in almost perfect sequences, perhaps eight or ten shots at a time.
Suddenly a portion of the ranks would find themselves hit and a group of men would go down at the same time, clutching shoulder wounds, neck wounds, legs shot out from under them. And some suffered the worse wound of all, a minié ball that tore into the side or gut, that hit the rib cage or pelvis and bounced through the organs in a ragged path of destruction. Their fellows lifted the lightly wounded, in some cases throwing them into shoulder carriers. The dead and seriously wounded were left behind for the time being.
Despite this, the ranks held.
Von Hoff, who had gone up front to get a better view of the situation, came charging back on his huge dont—Big Green.
He picked out Abel and rode up to him. “We’re going to be here a while. It’s chaos up there. Let’s have ranks return fire at that thrice-damned sentinel fortress while we wait.” He spun Big Green around, spotted Groelsh. “Think you can pirouette us without shooting ourselves, Master Sergeant?”
“Absolutely, Colonel, you just watch us!”
Groelsh shouted the movement order down the line, and his other sergeants took up the cry. When all was ready, he turned to Abel. “Major, would you like to give the signal now, please?”
“Yes, Sargeant.” Abel raised a hand, lowered it. The ranks, four thousand men in all, spread up and down the Road, turned on his command.
“Front line up!” screamed the master sergeant. The cry was passed down the line. While the line was aiming, another flight of bullets took down several of them. The ones that remained standing did not flinch.
“Fire!” shouted Groelsh.
An ear-rattling din of firing cap pop then musket boom as each gun went off and sent its missile flying toward the crags above.
“Line back, second up!” shouted Groelsh. “Fire!”
This time Abel watched where the shots were hitting. He could barely make out several of the puffs of rock dust in the stone just above the flat spot on the crag—the place he assumed the attackers occupied.
“Third up!”
“Bring it down three or four elbs, Master Sergeant,” Abel called out.
“Yes, sir,” answered Groelsh, and shouted the instruction.
This time the Goldie fusillade was rewarded with a man rising from behind what must have been a barrier atop the crag, grabbing his stomach, and pitching forward to fall twenty elbs onto the rocks below.
Got one, at least.
I imagine you’ve given the others something to think about, Raj said.
But what the cold hell weapon are they firing?
Analysis in process, but estimate to seventy percent plus or minus three is that they possess volley guns in the upper portion of the fortress.
Volley guns?
Multiple musket barrels probably secured to a wood base with removable breech pieces and a common charge. Crude but effective.
And nishterlaub, Abel thought. Absolute heresy to make something like that. How many do they have?
Enough to keep up a near continuous fire on a good portion of your line, even while the muskets are taking on the mounted charge, Raj said. Those fusillades have come in groups of eight, so these are most
likely eight-barreled weapons.
My estimate is that there are a total of one hundred and five guns with seven that have gone out of commission, judging by the decrease in the rate of fire. The operators are firing in three stages, so there are no more than forty volley guns brought to bear at a time. But volley guns have inherent limitations, most obviously the need to reload each barrel separately. That indicates at least two or three hundred men on that crag above the trenches.
I’m amazed it can hold them all.
They are most likely dug back into the mountainside, or perhaps they are making use of a cavern. This is a formidable redoubt they have constructed.
Almost impossible to take in a head-on charge, even with Guardians, said Raj. Look at those fields of fire it covers! It’s designed to make this Road a slaughterhouse.
So we don’t take it from below, Abel thought.
That’s right, man. What we need is to find the back door.
2
A courier charged up from the front of the marching line and reported to von Hoff.
“The First has fought their way onto some harder ground,” he reported. He had to speak loudly to be heard over the huffing and chuffing of his dont, which was breathing hard through its blowhole and expelling acidic snot. “General’s forming a line.”
“What the cold hell are we facing?” von Hoff shouted at the man, his agitation showing.
“Progar riffraff, sir,” replied the man. His shoulder sash marked him as a captain on the corps command staff. “But lots of them. Looks like the whole province has turned out to greet us.”
“Why in Law and the Land didn’t the cavalry make first contact and hold them off while we formed up?” von Hoff said. “That’s what they’re for.”
The courier captain shrugged and nodded toward the fighting on the mountain. “You saw it, sir. The general sent them up to take out that position.”
“Saxe sent them, by cold hell? I thought this was Kanagawa’s doing,” von Hoff said, shaking his head. “General Saxe sent up the entire mounted regiment—”
“Yes, sir, he did. And then the reinforcements Colonel Kanagawa had held back.”
Von Hoff shook his head, as if to clear it. He looked at the captain. “On with you, then, and back. Tell Colonel Muir and the Second that we’re moving out and to be ready to follow us.”
The Second Brigade was behind them in the order of march today. “Yes, sir,” said the courier captain. He yanked his dont around with the reins and charged away south, cutting down the extreme side of the road, since the middle of the road itself was filled with stalled men who wanted to fight but couldn’t get up to the front to do so.
Groelsh turned the regiment again to the north, and von Hoff ordered the march. The company commanders knew what to do from here on out. When they reached the fighting, they would deploy to either side, spreading out in four-abreast company lines, shoring up the men already engaged wherever they found themselves. After that was accomplished, and if he received orders, von Hoff would see about positioning them offensively.
As they grew near, there was far too much smoke in the air for Abel to do anything more than catch a glimpse of the enemy ahead. All he saw was the flash of teeth and the glint of gun here and there.
Center, I want to understand what’s happening.
Interpolating. Interpolation complete. Observe:
Abel was flying. He was standing on the impulse flyer he’d flown once before in his vision—the vision where he’d first met Center and Raj. Up and over the fighting he soared. A turn here, a twist there—he found he could change his position minutely—and the overview was perfect. Inertial dampers and force fields kept him steady, even though he was standing on what amounted to a small ledge many hundreds of feet in the air.
Of course none of it was happening. Or rather, all of it was happening within his mind. He understood that. But he didn’t feel it. He felt like he was flying. And it was great!
With a twist of his hips and a shift of his weight forward, Abel rolled the flyer to the side into a banking curve, the wind of his passage screaming in his ears.
Please settle down and remember the purpose of this projection, Abel.
All right, all right.
He righted himself, slowed.
He looked down.
The valley floor in front of the Guardians was filled with Progar militia. The Guardians were fighting only the front edge of this mass. The militia stretched far up the valley, thousand upon thousand of them.
And yet Abel couldn’t see much organization to them. In fact, it looked far more like a huge rabble or mob than an army.
Yet there were so many of them.
The fort on Sentinel Mountain is the first of three such installations on the western flanks of those two sister mountains to Sentinel’s east-northeast, the other two being Tamarak and Meyer.
On the western sides of the mountains lies the River Valley which is, in this region, a series of marshlands, as you have experienced. These wetlands continue for several leagues up the Road.
Great, thought Abel. More pushing through hip-deep mud if we get off the Road.
The high ground upon which General Saxe is taking on the Progar militia is not a large enough piece of land to accommodate the whole Corps. This was intentional. At most, your brigade will be able to deploy to join with the First. The Second Brigade, behind you today, must remain there in a logjam of too many men on too little ground.
So that gives us ten thousand troops. We should be able to deal with the Progar militia with that.
Yes, but at great cost. That is the idea. They don’t expect to win here. They want to bleed you. These other forts on the mountains possess not merely volley guns, but rock-throwing ballistas and, in all probability, crude cannons. The mountain forts will keep Saxe from maneuvering along the hillside to flank the Progar militia. The marshland will bog him down as he goes up the center of the Valley. And, of course, the River itself cuts him off to the west.
What a pretty little trap your general has marched right into, said Raj. He’s even done the Progarmen the favor of pulling back his mounted regiment and sending them up the mountain, so his men could stumble on the enemy entirely unaware and unprepared.
Well, what can we do, then? What can I do?
Fight it out, man. Fight it out. Seek an opening or some leverage. We’ll help.
Abel took another look at the forces massed below him.
What’s on the other side of those mountains? he asked.
A narrow valley lies between them and the eastern Rim, Center replied. It widens into the Manahatet Valley farther north past the Three Sisters. At the northern end, where the Manahatet and the River Valley converge, lies Orash, the capital city of Progar District.
So what if we turn around, take the ferry road east, and go up the other valley instead?
You observed the wagon track. It is too narrow to concentrate a Corps-sized force until you reach the plains below the city of Orash. Also, the Sentinel fort, and the forts on the two peaks to the north of Sentinel, are manned on the eastern sides of those mountains as well as the west. They command the valley from above.
Take me across the River, Abel said.
He turned the flyer and leaned forward to put on speed. Soon he reached the River’s edge and zoomed across. Below was a different landscape than on the eastern side. Here was rolling hills and plain, with some belts of trees, but mostly grasslands. Enormous herds of daks were scattered everywhere grazing.
Why not come up the western side? Abel asked.
Difficult. The River makes a great turn and constricts this plain up against the western Escarpment several leagues to the north. There lies the settlement of Tomes. It would be a near impossible pass to fight through, and could be bottled up.
Duisberg’s Thermopylae, said Raj.
It could be held with a small force almost indefinitely.
Then the east it is, I suppose, said Abel. It was time to leave the vi
sion, but he didn’t want to. Instead, he angled the impulse flyer upward and climbed higher, higher. A wispy cloud lay ahead, and he passed right through it. It left a cool condensation on his arms and face. He looked back down.
Very high now. The whole of Progar stretched out below him. The mighty Schnee Mountains to the extreme north. At the base of one of the tallest of the Schnee was a huge lake. This collected the snow from the melting glaciers of the Schnee and from that lake flowed the several streams that made up the headwaters of the River. The body of water was Lake Orash, and on its southern end lay the city it was named for.
Orash. Capital of Progar.
So many rocks, mountains, hills in this land. And wet. Water everywhere. So different from anywhere else he’d been.
We are coming here to destroy it. Wipe the population and their heresy away as if they never existed.
Take me back to the battle, Abel said.
Instantly the vision fled and he was in the real world of dust, guns, and blood.
3
The Third Brigade plunged into the melee with the Progar militia on the northern Road, and for a long while Abel was busy processing all the incoming reports from commanders for von Hoff, and sending off von Hoff’s orders and queries in the most efficient manner he could, whether that was by mounted courier, mirror signal, or flag wigwag.
Now that the field was smoky, the quicker methods became less effective, and after a while mounted or running courier was the only thing that would do.
The Guardians were hacking away at the Progar militia as if they were nasty vines overgrowing a garden, but for every man they cut down, another was there to take his place.
The Progarmen fought like madmen. Apparently everyone in the district realized what fate had in store for them if they didn’t stop the Guardian advance.
Abel visited the front lines only once, when von Hoff briskly ordered him forward to see about a reported enemy breakthrough. On the way, he grabbed a platoon from the rear, eager to get into the fray, and led them forward toward the hole in the lines. The platoon’s young lieutenant was visibly trembling, but trying to put on a brave face. Abel didn’t blame him. He’d felt the same way himself before.