"Their chant-singers tell of a small group, shaped not even like us or the Merki. Their weapons shot light that melted all who tried to stand against them. Thousands died killing the few, and when it was done the weapons were cast into the sea."
"Where?"
"Beyond Constan," Yuri said.
Andrew nodded and said nothing.
"Will they attack with their strength here?" he finally said.
Yuri smiled.
"You are asking me to guess. I was just a pet. I know not their plans, and it has been months since I escaped."
"You know how they think. You're the only man who has ridden with them for a circling and come back to tell us."
He looked over intently at Yuri. What he had started to consider for this man he had yet to discuss. The idea had started to vaguely form from the moment they had first met. He suspected why Yuri was here, the game within the game. He let the thought drop, focusing on the more immediate concern.
"What will they do?"
"What you don't expect."
"The flank, like General Schuder said?"
"If they can build that mole, the river will drop for miles. They might come straight across anyhow."
He pointed to the aerosteamer hovering above the front, like a malevolent hawk watching its prey. Its nose was pointed into the northerly breeze, the twin eyes and beak painted on the front giving it a cold, evil look.
"With that, they know exactly where your troops are."
Andrew nodded, saying nothing but cursing inwardly that their own efforts were going so slowly. Yuri had told him the first night how they had raided an ancient burial vault of their ancestors and uncovered the strange machines that now powered the enemy ships. The Yor, the burial vaults . . . what else was hidden on those endless steppes?
"Where will they hit? 'Mus kala bugth Merki, org du pukark calingarn Bugghaal.' "
"Enlighten me," Andrew said.
" 'Like the wind is the passing of the Merki, the goddess of death will roam where they have been.' "
"You're saying we will lose," Andrew said coldly.
"Keane, no matter how well you've planned, they have planned as well, I can assure you. It might be here, it might be far to your right, but they will come. Remember as well that the Tugars ride with them."
"Strange, isn't it?" Andrew replied.
"Muzta is in Hell. Humiliated, his umens dead, dragged like a beggar before Jubadi and offered a crumb from the feasting table. But he has told them all. They have learned from his mistakes, and are ready."
Andrew raised his glasses and looked back toward
the south bank, where another long line of fresh prisoners was being run up to the mole, the first of them already dropping from the smattering of rifle fire.
"You're a small comfort," Andrew replied sadly, watching the relentless slaughter on the opposite shore.
"I didn't come here to be a comfort. You didn't send for me to fill that task."
Andrew looked over at him, as he spoke again.
"You suspect you might lose, don't you?"
Andrew didn't reply.
"I came to tell you how to win even in your defeat."
Hans cursed silently, struggling to control his temper.
"You mean you suspected something last night and did nothing?"
Stanislav nodded weakly.
"And then today this word 'trap' came through."
"There was something afterwards, but it was clumsy, a slow fist: 'Nothing to report.' But I'm positive it wasn't our regular operator."
Hans looked over at Kindred, commander of 3rd Corps.
"Reports of skirmishers skirting the woods fifteen miles west of here," Tim said. "Our mounted pickets have been pulling back since yesterday."
Hans pulled on his rough beard, his eyes squinting shut.
"Maybe a skirmish party of Merki found the position," Tim said.
"It was well hidden," Hans objected.
He had learned long years ago, out on the prairie against the Comanche, to trust his gut instincts.
"Send a telegram down to Colonel Keane. Inform him that I suspect a move to my right."
The humming of an airship rose in pitch, but he ignored it while Kindred went over to the doorway to look out.
"It's flying a red pennant with a white stripe," Kindred said quietly. "That wasn't there before."
Hans raced to the doorway, shouldering past Tim and out into the enclosed parade ground of the bastion.
"Kindred, sound the alert!"
Climbing up to the bastion wall, Hans looked straight up to the aerosteamer riding high several thousand feet above the ground, the pennant fluttering down from the cab.
There seemed to be a strange silence hanging in the air, and then from the north, like a distant storm, a rolling boom of thunder came drifting down.
Hans ran over to where his command train waited, its engine venting a slow plume of steam.
"Get me up to Bastion 110!" he shouted, his staff running behind him, climbing aboard as the engine started northward.
Andrew had to control his rage, his guilt. They were doomed anyhow, and perhaps this was the greater mercy. But it didn't help.
The Potomac was a spreading carpet of the dead. Dawn had revealed the mole nearly halfway across, despite the horrendous slaughter of Cartha prisoners. Even if every yard of advance was purchased by a hundred dead the mole still advanced, the Merki gorged in the process by the surfeit of food.
A steady patter of musket fire rippled along the line, dropping more and yet more. An increasing number were attempting to break away and run, but with the narrowing of the river in half the current was running far stronger. The few who made it into the river were dropped by their Merki tormentors.
Three had managed to escape during the night, two of them tragically killed as they were shot dead by nervous guards as they attempted to gain the ramparts. The lone survivor reported that the Merki had brought up tens of thousands of slaves, boasting that if need be they'd build the mole with their corpses.
"Message from General Schuder, sir."
Andrew took the paper, gazed at it for a moment, then crumpled it up and stuck it in his pocket.
"What is it?" Schneid asked.
"You know, Rick, we're going to have one hell of a fight here by dawn tomorrow," Andrew said coldly, nodding out to the mole. "I'm going to want our artillery reserve from your corps positioned here by sundown."
"What did Hans have to say?"
"We've been flanked," Andrew said quietly. "A full umen, perhaps. A rising dust cloud is reported to be coming in off the steppe from the west as well."
"And?"
Andrew looked over at his young corps commander.
"If I released you to move your divisions up to Hans, and it turned out to be a feint, we might be unmasked here. If it is the real attack up there, and this is the feint, and I don't move you now, we'll lose the entire flank by tomorrow morning and this line as well."
A Napoleon kicked back next to him, sending out a spray of canister that swept a dozen bodies off the mole. From the opposite bank a score of guns fired a volley, iron shot snarling overhead, plumes of dirt and rock kicking up from the side of the parapet in a deadly hail, showering Andrew in dust.
From overhead a Merki airship went into a dive, its engine humming louder and louder. Andrew looked up for a second. A battery of four-pounders mounted in swinging yokes was pointed up, the guns firing. The airship started to level out, a black dot breaking clear. The bomb winged down, smashing into the next battery position seconds later. It exploded with an earth-rocking report, a gun carriage tumbling into the air. A jeering yell went up from the Merki side of the river as the ship turned, running back to the south with the tail wind coming out of the north.
"The reserves are waiting to be moved," Rick said. "I've got twenty trains full of them back up the line."
Andrew nodded, fingering the crumpled telegram in his pocket. Sixty miles, up to Hans at B
astion 100. An hour to get the trains moving, two hours up, two hours to unload and deploy. It had been practiced a dozen times. He looked back across the river. On the far bank, just beyond artillery range, at least five umens were drawn up in battle order. Upstream thousands were gathered around the log booms, rafts, and rock-filled boats. If the northwest wing was not the real attack, he'd have to turn the entire corps around, load them up and run them back down here. Sixteen hours of travel, exhausting them for a defense here and a possible long day of fighting tomorrow.
His worst nightmare was already unfolding, and they'd been fighting for only two days. If he started running back and forth with each crisis, committing his precious reserves when the threat might only be a feint, he'd be finished.
"For right now you're staying put," Andrew said slowly, looking over at Rick.
"What about Hans?"
Andrew nodded, and looked over at an orderly.
"Is Pat back in Suzdal yet?"
"Message came in that he was at Reserve Corps Headquarters, waiting for orders."
"Good. Get this message to General O'Donald in Suzdal. Move one division of Roum troops out of Suzdal, and run them straight out to cover the flank of General Schuder's position along the Potomac line."
The orderly scribbled down the message, which Andrew initialed. He ran off.
Andrew knew he was breaking the plan to keep O'Donald as the fallback reserve if disaster struck here.
"There simply aren't enough men," Andrew said quietly. "We're out on a limb."
He was starting to think that no matter where they held—here, on the Neiper—there would never be enough.
He looked up at the darkening sky, and as he did so the first chilled drop of rain struck his glasses.
"Jesus, here they come!"
Field glasses barely penetrating the gloom, Hans looked northward. It was like an inexorable wall of flesh and steel, coming forward at a run, the Merki's deep-throated growls thundering above the staccato roar of musketry and booming cannon.
Bastions number 110 and 109, the two positions on the flank of the line, had disappeared, swarmed under by the sudden and brutal assault. One moment the woods had been silent, and then within minutes the walls of the earth forts had been carpeted with dead and wounded Merki, the interior of the forts a shambles as the attack swarmed over them and kept on going. The line was starting to roll up, like a collapsing deck of cards.
The advancing wave was rolling into number 108, hitting it from the west, north, and east. The secondary line, a half mile back from the fort, was going under as well from the end-on attack.
He felt a moment of pity for the men in the fort— they would all be dead in another couple of minutes, but they were buying time, precious time.
Hans walked out of the bastion and nodded to Charlie Ingrao, artillery commander for the corps reserve guns of six batteries.
The pieces were lined up nearly hub to hub, facing north. To their right an entire brigade was formed up, nearly twenty-five hundred men across a front of four hundred yards, positioned in the clearing cut through the woods for the now flanked fortifications. It was all that he had—stripping out everything from Bastion 100 at the edge of the woods, back to number 80, piling them aboard several reserve trains and racing them up to form here, leaving but a skeleton of just half a brigade behind.
"One-oh-eight is going down," Ingrao said quietly, pointing to the fort. A half-mile away the regimental flag of the Novrodian Regiment in the bastion fluttered down from the pole. Tiny forms appeared on the south side of the bastion, sliding down the ramparts and then breaking into a run, towering forms appearing behind them, bodies tumbling over.
Across the broad, open front, covered with scattered clumps of trees, the Merki umen continued on, advancing at a steady pace.
Hans swung up on his mount, slinging his carbine into its scabbard, his staff mounting as well. The command guidon drifted up alongside of him. He looked over at the tow-headed Rus boy carrying it.
"Scared, son?"
The boy gulped and shook his head.
"Well, I sure the hell am," Hans whispered.
"Gregory!"
"Here, sir." The young staff officer edged his mount in alongside of Hans.
"Get down to the far right of the line, and keep it anchored on the far side of the clearing. Now move it!"
He reached over and slapped the rump of the boy's horse. Grinning as he saluted, Gregory galloped off.
Hans again focused his attention forward.
The Merki advance halted for a moment, and he scanned the enemy line. They were shaking their columns out, forming into an attack front several ranks deep.
Ingrao, walking amongst his batteries, turned to judge the range.
"Batteries, load case shot. Four-second fuses, range eight hundred yards!"
A distant chanting started, an eerie, minor-keyed cry. It rose and fell, sending a shiver down Hans' spine. The warriors swayed back and forth and the chant grew in volume, counterpointed by the rhythmic stamping of their feet, which rumbled across the field.
"Batteries, fire!"
Twenty-four guns kicked back, and seconds later a scattering of shell bursts blossomed above the enemy line, bodies dropping.
The chant rose ever higher in volume.
"Reload case shot, same fuses!"
Four horse-mounted warriors appeared before the enemy line and stood tall in their stirrups, the leader raising his scimitar, the blade flashing. The three riders behind him lifted red standards in the air, and then held them out parallel to the ground.
As if guided by a single hand, the Merki battle front started forward.
"Batteries, fire!"
More bodies went down.
"Reload case shot, three-second fuses!"
The thunder of the chant started to resolve into a single word.
"Vushka, Vushka!"
Hans felt his throat tighten. Cartha intelligence had spoken of the "Vushka Hush," the elite guard of the Merki Horde. Was that what he was facing now?
"Batteries, fire!"
The standard-bearers raised their pennants, waving them in a circle, and then held them back out at a forty-five-degree angle. The advancing line broke into a slow run.
"Reload! Case shot, two-second fuses!"
"Vushka, Vushka!"
Hans pulled out a plug of tobacco and bit off a chew. His jaw working furiously, he offered the plug to Charlie, who took a bite and tossed it back up to the sergeant major.
"Batteries, fire!"
Gaping rents opened in the enemy line, but were quickly filled as the enemy formation dressed to the right.
"Professionals," Charlie snapped, looking up at Hans. "They know what they're doing, as good as reb infantry. These ain't no Tugars."
The standard-bearers stood up tall in their saddles, holding the pennants aloft, swinging them in a circle and then lifting them vertically.
"Vushka Hush da gu Merki!"
The Merki line broke into a running charge yet held in a perfectly straight line, still moving in step, each stride taking up five yards. The thunder of their advance was like the roaring of the ocean breaking on a rock-bound shore.
"Batteries, load with canister!"
Hans nudged his horse, moving down the line.
"Steady, boys, hold steady!"
The batteries kicked off tin loads of canister, two thousand iron balls cycling down range, dirt flying up, bodies tumbling over, hoarse screams cutting the air.
"Batteries, independent fire at will with canister!"
"Get ready!"
Twenty-five hundred rifles were raised up to the poised position.
"Vushka, Vushka!"
Hans looked over at the guidon-bearer. The boy was staring straight at the advancing charge, eyes wide with terror, his lips moving in silent prayer.
Hans leaned over, shooting a spray of juice to the ground. He unslung his carbine, then cocked back the hammer.
"Set range at three h
undred yards!"
The long line of the infantry levered their rear sights up.
"Take aim!"
There was the reassuring sound of hands slapping barrels, the rattle of equipment, burnished steel barrels flickering in the drizzle as they raised up, and then lowered, bayonet-tipped weapons pointed straight down-range.
"First rank only!"
"Vushka!"
"Fire!"
A sheet of fire and smoke exploded out. The enemy line staggered, dozens falling, and without hesitation continued in at a run.
Ramrods snaked out and arms rose rhythmically, slamming cartridges home.
"Second rank, fire!"
Another volley ripped down the line, more bodies falling.
"Range, two hundred yards."
Hans watched in silence. The storm was advancing, and it seemed unstoppable. He could sense the growing fear, the tension coiling.
"First rank, fire!"
The Merki line staggered, as if it had hit a wall. The batteries to his left continued to thump out their deadly loads, canister tearing up swaths of dirt, smashing into bodies. The line slowed and then picked up, continuing on.
"Aim low, boys!" Hans shouted, unable to contain himself, the old instinct of the sergeant major coming back. He saw a boy in the line with sights still set at three hundred yards, and he wanted to unsaddle and go up and grab the gun away.
"I'm a general, goddammit," he mumbled to himself.
The charge pushed in.
"Vushka, Vushka!"
"Second rank, fire!"
This one, at one hundred yards, cut in with devastating effect, rippling the line, each body going down in a tangle with the warrior behind, alongside. Hundreds dropped.
"Independent fire at will!"
Miraculously, the Vushka commander and one of his pennant-bearers was still up, galloping down the line, waving his sword, the pennant dipping, pointing straight back at the Vushka line.
The charge stopped, and Hans watched in silence as thousands of bows were raised.
A steady patter of rifle fire increased to a crescendo, Merki dropping. Stirring, Hans drew a bead on the Vushka commander and squeezed the trigger of his carbine. The commander's horse reared up, nearly going over, and then collapsed.
"Eyes are getting bad," Hans growled, as he cocked open his Sharps and slid another round in.
Terrible Swift Sword Page 20