Straits of Hell

by Taylor Anderson

  Of course not, Nerino thought impiously. March to battle under threat of an agonizing death at the hands of the enemy, or run away and ensure an even worse end at the whim of Don Hernan. They won’t break. Not yet. But this is nothing. Don Hernan cannot know what it will be like when the real battle starts. Then? Who can say. He silently rubbed the burn scars on his hand. I cannot honestly answer that for myself anymore, he realized.

  “I am . . . eager to join my army, Your Holiness,” he said, and even as the words left his lips, he realized with some surprise that they were true. He’d had enough of battles, and his burns remained painful enough that the last thing he wanted was to risk more injuries, but something had . . . happened to him during his convalescence. He’d suffered terribly, just as so many of his soldiers had, and though he had no new illusions that his troops were his equal in some way, he’d learned much about what was important to them. They didn’t want to die or be hurt, but perhaps most important, they wanted to believe there was a reason other than punishment for what they risked. If their leaders were unwilling to risk themselves, how important could the reason be for them? Nerino knew his—Don Hernan’s—army would fight. It had no choice. But how much more likely was it to achieve its goal, was it—and he—to avoid punishment, if he was there to lead it himself?

  “Your chosen officers know what to do,” Don Hernan reminded. “And they know the price of failure. They will perform their duties, and you may join them soon enough. Your experience is of no use to me if you are slain during these opening moves.” Don Hernan, a wistful smile on his face, watched another pair of the blue and white flying machines swoop down on the column in the distance, fire bursting within it. “Fire is so beautiful,” he murmured, then frowned. “The heretic flying machines are a nuisance. I tried to cause the creation of our own, you know,” he added bitterly, “but progress is slow. So many of our first efforts were deliberately flawed.” He clenched his teeth in silent rage at Ensign Fred Reynolds. “We do make greater use of the small flying dragons than I ever imagined possible,” he suddenly enthused, his whipsaw mood clenching Nerino’s gut, as usual.

  “But few remain at our disposal,” Nerino pointed out delicately. “So many were sent to the fleet for their attack that we can no longer counter the enemy here, as we’d begun to do.”

  “Concern yourself not, my general. The enemy has only so many machines, and your spies are now certain that few of the ones with markings most associated with the great ship that carries them are present here. That means my broader plan to draw their fleet to its destruction must already be bearing fruit! If all goes well at sea, I assure you that you will see fewer and fewer flying machines above your battlefield.” He gestured grandly down at the great, fat serpent of men. “Your officers will absorb the pinpricks from the air and complete your initial investment of the fort throughout the night, and launch the army’s first assault with tomorrow’s dawn, as planned.”

  “It seems such a waste to attack with but a tithe of our army,” Nerino lamented, again hinting at his disagreement. Despite giving him “command” of the Army of God, Don Hernan had tinkered incessantly with his plans. This aggressive, daylight movement and the first attacks were Don Hernan’s additions, designed to test his dream that El Vómito might’ve left Fort Defiance fatally weakened after all. Nerino was convinced that even if it had, the first hurried assaults could not succeed.

  “It will make the heretics focus on a more concentrated defense,” Don Hernan argued patiently once more, “and prevent them from more forcefully opposing the advance of the rest of the army, which you may personally join.” Nerino bowed, knowing when further resistance was futile. Don Hernan stared hard into the west, the light of day just now falling past the mountains and onto the distant fort. He scowled, gazing at the thing as if it were a dreadful tumor erupting from his own arm. “You will deploy the rest of the army according to your own plans, my general. I will interfere no further. Use the night to good effect and attack with the dawn as I command. The battle will serve its purpose whether the fort falls or not. But I need not remind you that I have great expectations that the day after tomorrow will be decisive.”

  CHAPTER 22

  ////// Fort Defiance

  September 14, 1944

  Captain Blas-Ma-Ar sneezed thunderously, earning a bark of laughter from First Sergeant Spon-Ar-Aak, better known as “Spook” from his days as a gunner’s mate aboard USS Walker. The wind had shifted as the day progressed, and the dust stirred up by the Dom army surging down on their position had aggravated her sinuses. Just got used to all the smoke, she inwardly complained. There were always cookfires in the great fort, and the smoke lingered low to the ground all night long. Word was that the smoke might actually be beneficial when it came to controlling the fever that had stricken so many of the humans. Could be. Not so many skeeters lately, but I do miss the fresh, sea air!

  Nervous chuckles fluttered down the line among her 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Marines. She straightened her tin pot “doughboy” helmet and glared at Spook, but let her eyes stray beyond him to the Marines manning the fortifications just to the right of center in the northwest line. The 2nd Marines had been one of the first military creations of the human destroyermen, raised at Baalkpan soon after their arrival and originally taught to fight with swords, spears, and shields. It had been decimated in fierce fighting time and again, and very few of its first members remained. The tally was even worse for the 1st of the 2nd. It had been with Colonel Flynn at North Hill beyond the Rocky Gap in Indiaa and had, for all intents and purposes, ceased to exist. Most who’d “come up” with the 2nd of the 2nd were senior non-coms and officers now, serving with or commanding other regiments, but all who remained—even the smattering of Guayakans who’d been allowed to join against stiff complaints from Imperial unit commanders who foresaw the eventual integration of their own commands—were seasoned veterans after the Battle of Guayak. She was particularly thankful now for the few salty “originals” who gave comfort to the newer recruits with their stoic silence and confident calm in the face of what was to come. Blas sneezed again, to cover her own laugh at the thought of their Imperial allies—and what they’d say when they learned she’d been lobbying Shinya to let Impie women, already serving as Marines on a few American Navy Clan ships, join the 2nd! The notion of women in combat—other than Lemurian females, of course—already gave the Impies fits, and the . . . changed allegiances of people of either sex who joined the, to them, somewhat amorphous “Amer-i-caan Navy Clan,” caused simmering resentment as well. They were all fighting on the same side, but some considered it nearly treason that Imperial subjects would swear allegiance to a constitution of a nation from another world—which all “Amer-i-caan” Marines and naval personnel must—and whose supreme representative on this one was Captain Matthew Reddy. They wouldn’t complain openly, since even Governor-Empress Rebecca Anne McDonald had specifically protected the practice of allowing her subjects, and particularly women, to join the American Navy Clan as a part of her Declaration of Manumission. How else, at the time, were their allies’ ships to replenish crews lost in defense of the Empire? And more sneakily, Blas thought, how would all Imperial women ever get the example they needed to strive for a place in the Imperial Navy?

  It was all rather amusing to Blas, if still somewhat confusing. Lemurians from sea-going Homes, at least, were free to move to others, or join with other clans to build and start their own when multiple “parent” Homes had the resources and excess population to help them. That was how it worked, even in the “Amer-i-caan Navy Clan” to an extent, except that people were sent where they were needed. The oath was more restrictive, but still voluntary. She tended to think if the Imperials wanted all their people to stick with Imperial forces, they’d sort out their own lingering institutional issues. She hoped it would get easier for everyone to understand once the new Union, based largely on that otherworldly constitution, was more firmly established.
But if there was anything in the world that didn’t confuse her at all, it was her duty to her Marines, Captain Reddy, and the cause he supported.

  “Dust,” she explained conversationally to Spook, who hadn’t been sneezing, but was constantly slapping gritty clouds from the white fur on his arms.

  “They’re doin’ it on purpose,” Spook griped. “Traampin’ up them big ol’ clouds an’ sendin’ ’em down on us. Downright rude. They marched up more polite last time.” Blas looked at him, catching his grin and humorous blinking.

  “Yes. Well, we ain’t greetin’ ’em as polite as last time either,” she observed. Constant Nancy sorties still hammered the forming army, causing great destruction. But the Doms had learned at least one lesson: they weren’t bunching up near as much. They were also deploying considerably farther away to avoid the mortars and exploding shells from the fort. Blas knew they were in range, for the bigger guns at least, but with their looser formations, the effect of the artillery would be diminished. Might as well remind ’em later after they do wad up. They’ll have to, eventually, to bring decisive numbers against any part of the line.

  “All the same,” Spook said, taking a chew of yellowish tobacco leaves from a pouch. Like many of Walker’s alumni, he’d picked up the habit from his human friends, and it seemed to be spreading through the army. “I keep thinkin’ I been here before. They call it ‘dayjaa-voo,’ I think. Here we are, sittin’ an’ watchin’ them daamn Doms come marchin’ up ta’ hit us.” He gestured to the sides. “Even got the same folks around us—though I ain’t bitchin’. Finny, with the Second o’ the Eighth Maa-ni-laa’s on our right again, with the First past him to the middle o’ the lu-nette. . . .” He shook his head. “What’s ‘lu-nette’ mean, anyway? Never mind. Then there’s the First o’ the Fourth Impie Maa-reens on the other side. We got the Fourth Guayak on our left, which is new, but then there’s the First o’ the Tenth Impies with their squealin’ baag-poles just past ’em. Gaah, how can you stand that sound?” He knew Blas rather liked the bagpipes of the 10th. “Just boils down that if all our other people, the hu-maans, wasn’t such weenies, we could’a busted the Doms when we felt like it.” Shinya’s explanation had satisfied complaints over why they’d stopped their pursuit of the Doms after the Battle of Guayak, but that didn’t mean everyone was happy about it yet.

  “Yeah. But unlike in the West, Mi-Anakka make barely a third of this army,” Blas countered, tiring of Spook’s harping on the same old subject. “We’d have felt kinda lonesome chasin’ the Doms all by ourselves after most of the rest of the army croaked off. You ain’t even a good first sergeant. Quit buckin’ for gen-er-aal an’ let Gen-er-aal Shinya do the thinkin’.”

  “Fair enough,” Spook agreed and spat. “I’ll trust him with his job until he comes around tellin’ me mine. Deal?”

  Blas shook her head and swished her tail with mock agitation. “They should’ve left you on Waa-kur. At the very least, you’d be on the other side of the world from me right now.”

  “Hay! I didn’t eg-zaactly volunteer! They just took me up, handed me my B-Aay-Aar, an’ said ‘time to kill Doms, Spook.’ I said ‘Ay-ay,’ like a good destroyer-maan, an’ they run off an’ left me! Now I’m a Maa-reen!” He looked at her, blinking, suddenly serious. “All of us started different, maybe wanted different, outa’ this war an’ outa’ life too, but here we are. I’d sooner be with Waa-kur, fightin’ Griks on Mada-gaas-gar. That’s our real war. But here I am wit’ you, fightin’ Doms on the bottom o’ the world.” He hesitated. “It’s still kinda’ neat, y’know?” Then he blinked and lowered his voice. “An’ don’t ever think I ain’t mighty proud t’be your First Sergeant, Cap’n Blas.”

  Blas didn’t know what to say. Instead of saying anything, she looked to the front. Her ears perked up. “That’s weird.”

  “What?”

  “You ain’t gonna believe this. I don’t. But I think they’re gonna come right at us, soon as they finish extendin’ their line!”

  “What? Why?”

  She pointed. “’Cause those on the left are already comin’! Like a etchel-on attack!” She turned. “Runner!”

  It became increasingly clear that the Doms had no intention of extending their line after all, but were quickly gathering into a heavy V-shaped phalanx and accelerating directly into an attack. She estimated the force at brigade strength, but it was difficult to tell. The Doms carried so many banners, maybe even down to the company level, that it was nearly impossible to judge their numbers by them, or even identify different units. Blas had always thought they did it to intimidate with apparent numbers, but for the first time she saw how they might do it simply to confuse.

  “Aye, sir—ah . . .” the runner hesitated. He was one of the colonial frontiersmen from Saint Francis and was clearly unsure how to address a female of any sort on the battlefield. His unit of long-range marksmen with big-bore flintlock rifles built to deal with huge continental monsters had swelled to brigade level but was scattered around the perimeter by companies where they could do the most good since their weapons didn’t lend themselves well to hand-to-hand combat. Many, however, like this young man, were too small for the big guns that even Dennis Silva would’ve admired, and had been assigned to the comm division as runners and messengers.

  “Get a message to Col-nol Blair. They’re headin’ right here, tryin’ t’ ‘catch us with our pants down’!” Yet another expression Blas had picked up from her American destroyermen friends as their two languages merged. No Lemurian ever wore pants. “No,” she revised, still watching the enemy mass about seven hundred yards away, “I think they gonna aim for the Guayakans on our left!”

  “Their spies have been busy,” Lieutenant Finny observed, joining her and breathing hard. “They prob’ly know where all the Guayak-aans are on the line, figure they’ll be softer.”

  Which they might well be, Blas thought. They’d been trained as well as possible, in the short time they’d had, but they were generally very new to this, and just as sick and understrength as any human unit. They were also the least well-armed, having been issued captured Dom muskets at first, then Impie flintlocks (much the same) as Allied cap locks went to the Impies. She glanced at the Maa-ni-laa Arsenal Allin-Silva conversion she carried herself, still new to her. A fine weapon, and shaped just like the muzzle-loading musket she was so accustomed to. The 2nd Marines had been among the first to get them in the West and almost half the army had them now, but the problem of supply on the line kept them from “mixing” the newer weapons with the old, which struck her as a sensible idea. But all they could do was try to support adjacent units with the older weapons. “Yeah,” she said, squinting. “That’s where they’re headed, all right. We’ll get some too, but they’ll hit the Fourth Guayak hard. Guess we’ll see what they’re made of.” She looked back at the runner. “Ask Col-nol Blair for aar-tillery support, and to have the reserve stand by in case the Guayak-aans break.”

  “Aye . . . sir,” the young man said, and bolted. Blas turned back to the front, trilling at her officers.

  “Load!” she commanded, opening the breech of her own weapon and inserting one of the fat, glistening, brass and lead.50-80 cartridges from the box hanging at her side. The Doms were coming awfully fast. They’d be exhausted by the time they got here. They might break the Guayak-aans, but what then? Their attack was unsupported. They didn’t even have artillery of their own up yet. She shook her head. She looked around to tell Finny to return to his company, but her friend was already gone. “Sights at five hundreds, take aim!” she shouted, watching the Dom ranks near the fluttering range markers. The phalanx was tightening now, bunching up, still tending to her left. Long, bright barrels lowered and wavered slightly over the breastworks, following targets. The Guayak-aans couldn’t hope to hit anything much past a hundred tails, so Blas meant to try to slow the charge a little first, as she assumed the Impie Marines beyond the local regiment would do. A pai
r of lighter field guns, twelve-pounders, snapped out from the line to her left, sending gouts of flame and a cloud of smoke roiling out of their embrasures. There were a lot of field guns dug in on the line, by sections of two, every fifty tails or so. Most were twelve-pounders or Imperial eights, but even a few sixes remained with the Eastern AEF. Almost immediately, other guns joined the first, sending case shot, fuses short, arcing into the oncoming mass. They exploded close to the ground, spraying hot fragments of iron, gouging at the Doms. Dozens fell, writhing and screaming, almost silent at this distance, but the rest came on as if they didn’t notice. “Fire!” she bellowed at the top of her lungs in that curious tone that carried so far and that only Lemurians were capable of. Her riflemen sprayed a stuttering volley that peeled away an entire layer of the enemy, like the skin of a yellow onion. Banners fell, limbs flailed, and men dropped to the ground. “Adjust your sights on the markers,” she trilled. “Commence independent fire!” They thought they’d amassed sufficient ammunition for the new breechloaders for several serious fights, but there was no point wasting rounds with measured volleys when troops were more concerned with firing when they were told than with actually hitting anything. Her veterans were good enough marksmen to make the most of their exotic ammunition. Very quickly, her Marines resumed their rapid, crackling fire, and the enemy’s ranks continued to fall away. She blinked frustration. What’s the point of this? she demanded silently, at the same time wondering why Colonel Blair hadn’t released the heavy guns in the lunettes to open fire. Blair himself, and several members of his staff, suddenly appeared beside her on his horse, gazing at the oncoming rush through his glass.