The Sword

by S. M. Stirling

  By that time the wogs should be well and truly terrorized.

  * * *

  "Scramento!" Robbi M'Telgez swore.

  The carbine bullet pecked dirt from the adobe wall into his eyes. He crouched and duckwalked along it, rising slightly to peer through the branches of a flowering bush a few meters farther on. There wasn't much shooting elsewhere in the hamlet, but this was the best house; therefore the one most likely to be defended.

  "Ye, Smeet, Cunarlez, M'tennin," he said. "Cover us. Five rounds rapid. T'rest fix yer stickers. We'll tak Rosalie t'breakfast."

  "We'll a' git kilt," Smeet muttered. "Hunnert meters, dog-brothers. I gits t'winda on 't lef." He blew on the round he loaded into the chamber.

  M'Telgez drew the bayonet—nicknamed Rosalie from time immemorial—from the left side of his belt beneath the haversack and clipped it beneath the muzzle of his rifle. There was a multiple rattle and click as the other men of his squad followed suit.

  The house ahead was bigger than most in the sprawling settlement along the irrigation ditch; probably the local headman's. It was about a hundred meters upstream from the burning wreckage of the noria, the water-powered millwheel that filled the distributory network of irrigation ditches. A small square house of two stories, blank whitewashed adobe below, a few narrow windows above, and most of it was courtyard enclosed by a wall. It hadn't been constructed as a fortress; it had been a long time since Civil Government troops came this far, and none of the local villages even had a defensive perimeter. From what he knew of raghead custom, the wogs built this way to keep neighbors from seeing their women. But it functioned perfectly well as a minor strongpoint.

  "Hadelande!" he shouted, and vaulted the wall.

  The three men he'd designated cut loose, firing as rapidly as they could work the levers and reload. The heavy bullets knocked dust-spouting holes in the mud brick around the windows, or went through—most of them went through, it was only fifty meters and everyone in the 5th ought to be able to hit a running man in the head at that range—beating down the enemy fire. A light bullet still pecked at the dust between his feet. He suppressed his impulse to leap and yell, concentrating on running.

  The six Descotters flattened themselves by the doorway. No sense waiting there; it would just give someone upstairs time to think about dropping something unpleasant on them. He was suddenly conscious of his dry gummy mouth, the sweat trickling down from neck and armpits under his uniform jacket, the sound of a chicken clucking unconcerned out in the dusty yard. M'Telgez held out three fingers, two, one.

  He and the next trooper stepped out and fired at the lock. They were lucky; nothing hit them when the crude wooden mechanism splintered. The other four fired a round each through the datewood planks while he and his partner stuck their bayonets through the gaps between and lifted the bar out of its brackets. The door burst inward, and they were through.

  It was an open space of packed earth with a well in the center and rooms about it. An open staircase came down from the second story opposite him, and men were leaping down it. One pointed a long-barreled flintlock jezail.

  It boomed, throwing a plume of smoke. Someone behind him yelled—yelled rather than screamed, so that couldn't be too serious. Armory rifles banged, and the other man with a firearm toppled from the stairs; he had a repeating carbine, which showed that this squad had a proper sense of target priorities. Then a wog was rushing at him, swinging a long scimitar.

  Clang. M'Telgez caught the sword on his bayonet, and it skirled down the forearm-length of steel until it caught in the brass cross-guard. He let the inertia of the heavy sword push both weapons downward, and punched across with the butt of his rifle. It smacked into the Arab's bearded face with a crackle of breaking bone, a crunching he could feel through his hands. The Colonial pitched sideways, spinning and fouling the man behind who was trying to pull a double-barreled pistol out of the sash around his ample belly. His mouth opened in an "O" of surprise as M'Telgez spun his rifle around and lunged, driving his bayonet through the Arab's stomach and a handspan out his back.

  There was a soft, heavy resistance, a feeling of things crunching and popping inside. He twisted sharply and withdrew, a few shards of white fat clinging to nicks in the blade of the bayonet. Blood spattered out; the wounded man's eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed backward.

  The men of the 5th waited an instant, taking cover behind the mudbrick columns that supported the second story of the house. M'Telgez reloaded his rifle and raised three fingers, then jerked them towards the stairs. Three men ran up them and through the open arched door at the top. A shadow moved at the corner of his eye. He whirled, just in time to see it was a veiled and robed woman with a big earthenware pot raised over her head in both hands. M'Telgez raised the muzzle of his rifle as his finger curled on the trigger, and the bullet smashed the vase into shards, leaving her standing with her hands spread and eyes wide.

  He pivoted the rifle and jabbed the butt into her stomach. Air whooped out of her and she collapsed to the ground. The Descotter put a boot in the small of her back and pinned her to the dusty earth.

  "Anythin' up thar?" he called sharply.

  "Nothin'," a voice answered him. "Jist sommat wog kids."

  "Bring 'em down," he called. "Rest a yer dog-brothers, search it. Look unner t'roof tiles, t'hearthstone, shove yer baynit inna any chink ye see. Nuthin' heavy, jist coin an' sich."

  Which was a pity; cloth and tools and livestock would all fetch a good price back in the Gubernio Civil if they had time to send them back, not to mention the wogs themselves. A good stout wog would bring six or seven silver FedCreds sold to the slavers who usually followed the armies, a quarter the price of a riding dog. He'd picked up some coin that way in the Southern Territories. M'Telgez banked half his pay and most of his plunder with the battalion savings account; he had an eye on a little place back in the County when he'd done his twenty-five years. There were two schools of thought on that—some held that you had about one chance in four of living that long in the Army, so it made more sense to spend it on booze and whores as it came.

  Robbi M'Telgez had noticed that troopers who thought that way tended to be careless, and to make up a large share of the discouraging statistics. Besides, his family could use the money too, if it came to that.

  The three men he'd sent up came down again, one holding a small wooden box. "Found 'er in t'rafters, loik," he said, grinning broadly. "Coin, by t'Spirit."

  Looking on the bright side, the wogs hadn't had time to really hide much.

  Another herded a group of children, the oldest leading or carrying the younger. They set up a wail at the sight of the bodies in the courtyard, then surged back again when one of the troopers scowled and flourished his bayonet. Thumping and crashing sounds came from the ground floor, as the rest of the squad searched.

  "Git t'kiddies out an' a-down by t'church, t'mosque, whatever." Orders were to spare noncombatants and the unresisting. "Yer!" He shouted through the ground-floor door. "Whin yer finished, set t'cookin' oil around."

  That would start the fire nicely. He took a deep breath and exhaled, letting the tight belly-clamping tension of action fade a little. A pissant little skirmish, but he'd been in the Army seven years now, since he turned eighteen, and he knew you could die just as dead that way as in a major battle.

  "And Smeet, plug that."

  Trooper Smeet had a tear in the side of his jacket, and it was sodden and dripping. " 'Tis nuttin'," he said. "We'll a' git kilt anyways—"

  "Did I asks yer?" M'Telgez said, scowling. "Did I?"

  "Co'pral half a year and already drunk wit' power," Smeet said, grinning with an expression that was half wince. He was coming down off the combat-high too; often you didn't really feel a minor wound until you had time to think about it. He leaned his rifle against a wall and shrugged out of his webbing gear and jacket. "I bin co'pral six, seven times—t' feelin' don't last nohows, dog-brother."

  There was an ugly flesh wou
nd along his ribs, only beginning to crust. One of his comrades washed it from his canteen, then applied the blessed powder and sealed, the priest-made bandage they all carried in a pouch on their belts. Smeet yelped and swore; the stuff stung badly, and many of the less pious men wouldn't use it on a cut unless you stood over them. M'Telgez wasn't much of a Church-going man, but Messer Raj insisted on following Church canons in such things, which was good enough for him.

  The attending trooper used his bayonet to cut off one of the tails of Smeet's jacket, ripping it in half and using it to bind the padding over his ribs.

  "An' git t'priest at it, soon as, or ye'll feel me boot up yer arse," M'Telgez warned. Smeet was a good enough fighting man, but he tended to be slack about kit and such.

  M'Telgez looked down at the woman and smiled.

  * * *

  Pillars of black smoke stood out against the northern horizon. The smell drifted down with the wind, full of the unpleasant smells of things that should not burn. White-hot, the noon sun burned most color out of the land, turning the reaped grainfields to a pale yellow dust. Blocks of alfalfa and berseem-clover were almost eye-hurtingly vivid, and the odd patch of fruit trees or olives cast shade dense and black and sharp-edged. Where the 7th Descott Rangers waited beside their dogs, there was welcome shade from rows of eucalyptus on either side of the road, but the air was still and very hot. Insects shrilled in the dust, and a few tiny pterosauroids swooped after them, their long triangle-tipped tails flickering as they scooped cicadas into their needle-toothed little jaws.

  The men squatted patiently beside their mounts, the gun teams lying down in their traces, satisfied after their drink in the roadside canal. The beasts looked glossy-coated and strong despite the heat and hard work; the all-meat diet of plundered Colonial stock agreed with them, after the usual mash of grain and beans eked out with bones and offal. Kaltin Gruder stood, eating grapes from the bunches in the helmet he held reversed in his left hand, waiting with the same stolidity as his troopers.

  He ate more grapes and smiled. He'd soldiered against the Military Governments in the west without passion, and as much occasional mercy as advisable. He was a noble of the Civil Government, a Descotter, and a professional; war was his trade, the only trade unless he wanted the Church or to go home to the County and chase rustlers. The Colonials, though . . . his younger brother had died from a Colonial shellburst, in the El Djem campaign. He rubbed one thumb down the deep parallel scars that seamed the left side of his face.

  This was personal.

  The sound of paws came from the north, and the whistle of the pickets in their ambush positions passing them through. The scouts trotted up to him, sitting easily with their rifles across their thighs. The lieutenant who led them saluted.

  "Seyhor," he said. "Sir. About two thousand of them; many carriages and dogs, and a substantial number of armed men."

  "Regulars?"

  "Ferramenti, danad, seyhor," the young officer replied. "I'd swear, nothing, sir. Household guards, no twenty in the same livery."

  That was the advantage of counter-attacking. Most of the military nobles, the amirs, and their ghazis would be over on the west bank, with Ali—all the ones who had any desire to fight and die for Islam, at least. Ali had gotten overconfident.

  Still, it wouldn't do to emulate his mistake. Fighting for their homes and families could make even rabble desperate.

  "Company commanders," he said.

  Back along the road men shifted as the word passed down, fastening their webbing, here a man checking his rifle or tightening the girth on a dog. The mounts took their cues from their masters, keeping a well-drilled silence, but they bristled. The unit commanders gathered around Gruder's banner.

  "The objective," he said, crouching and drawing in the dirt with a twig, "is a column of refugees about half a klick north. They're coming at fair speed for civilians, but we've gotten ahead of them. We'll debouch, deploy-so—and put in an attack. Captain Morinez, bring your guns along at the trot, if you please.

  "The general order is to kill anyone who resists; let the rest run, as long as they do it on foot. We'll take provisions, spare dogs—I want to put the ammunition reserve in pack-saddles—and any high-value loot." He dumped the grapes out of his helmet and buckled it on. "Burn or smash whatever we don't take. Oh, and we're not taking any hundred-pound bundles of loot, either, so wooers be swift—or refrain."

  There was a harsh chuckle, and nods. This was a military picnic so far; it wouldn't stay that way, but there was no reason not to make the most of it while they could.

  "Hell or plunder, dog-brothers." He straddled his dog Fihdel and his feet found the stirrups as it rose. "Boots and saddles, gentlemen."

  * * *

  "Approximately one hundred seventy-seven thousand four hundred FedCreds. Gold," Muzzaf Kerpatik added. "That's allowing for the usual discounts on sales."

  Raj grunted noncommittally, leaning one hand against the tentpole. It was a captured tent, from the baggage train Kaltin had overrun; they'd leave it behind in the morning. He looked out across the camp—not much of one, just the picket lines of staked-out dogs, the men cooking around their campfires. Odd to be in a camp where you heard more Namerique than Sponglish, but the central group was mostly MilGov troopers. Fruits of conquest. That was the true spoil of war; peace in the lands he'd retaken, and their fighting men here defending the Civil Government.

  The MilGov soldiers, the ex-warriors of the Squadron and Brigade, were happy enough. An easy campaign so far, under leaders they trusted; they were warriors by birth and professional soldiers by the trade he'd given them, and indifferent to who they fought.

  The sun was setting in the west, over toward the Drangosh thirty kilometers distant. It was hazed with burning, crops and buildings and towns; the raiding force had smashed a path of devastation a hundred kilometers southward. He could smell the smoke, faint under the cooking and dog odors of a war-camp.

  "How much of that plunder is from Osterville's group?" Raj asked.

  "Ah, unfortunately Colonel Osterville's battalions have had poor luck. Less than two thousand from them."

  A chuckle ran around the table behind him. "I don't think," Raj said, "the men are going to find it amusing that Osterville's boys are holding out on them. Particularly given the recent service records, respectively."

  "Raj, darling," Suzette said. "Do come and sit down. Or pace like a caged dog, but make up your mind."

  He shrugged a little sheepishly and returned, sitting and taking up a drumstick. It was sauroid, but tasted pretty much like the chicken that was the alternative. As usual, Suzette had managed to find something better than you had any right to expect in the field; of course, the pickings were good. He stoked himself methodically.

  "You don't like this, do you, darling?" Suzette said.

  "No," Raj said. "I'm a thrifty man. The looting's good here because this area hasn't been fought over in a long time. It'll be generations recovering."

  "Which will weaken the Colony," Gerrin Staenbridge pointed out.

  He'd managed to shave and find a clean uniform, which was a minor miracle when they were all living out of saddlebags. Every man pays the price he will for what he values, Raj thought. Gerrin dressed for dinner the way he dressed line for a charge, with finicky care, as a mark of civilization.

  "That's assuming the stalemate continues out here," Raj said. "The Civil Government of Holy Federation is the legitimate ruler of all humankind. The Colonials included."

  Staenbridge raised an eyebrow: "Well, it hasn't had much luck enforcing that for millennia or so," he pointed out.

  During which time the Colonials had besieged East Residence twice and the Civil Government had reached as far as Al Kebir once.

  "I don't like it either," Bartin Foley said.

  They looked at him, and the younger man dropped his eyes to the cut-down shotgun on the table before him, his single hand slowly reassembling the clean, oil-gleaming parts. They went together with smoo
th clicks and snaps, and he slid it into the harness he usually wore over his back.

  "It's not real soldiers' work, harrying peasants like this," he went on doggedly.

  Gerrin and Raj nodded in chorus, and smiled at the coincidence. "Not good for morale, really," Raj said. "Not too much of it."

  "Gets the men thinking like bandits," Staenbridge agreed.

  Suzette shook her head. "Such perfect knights," she said with gentle mockery. Then: "Ah, Abdullah."

  The Druze entered with two suspicious troopers at his heel, their bayonets hovering not far from his kidneys, and Antin M'lewis to one side. He bowed: "Sayyid. Sayyida."

  Raj leaned back in the captured folding chair, some amir's hunting equipment. I'll be damned. I didn't expect to see him alive again, I really didn't. Suzette had an eye for picking reliable servants, though.

  "That's all, men," he said to the troopers. They hesitated, and his tone grew dry. "I can handle one Arab, thank you." They saluted, threw Abdullah a warning glance, and wheeled smartly out.

  Damn, this living legend shit can get wearing. The men wouldn't leave him alone for a moment, watching, listening, guarding. Damn their dear loyal souls. What was he, an invalid?

  You are their talisman, Center said. Without you they would feel themselves lost.

  I'm only one man, Raj thought/protested. And I've got competent officers.

  Belief is its own reality.

  Abdullah pulled documents from his ha'aik. He also accepted a goblet of watered wine; his particular brand of exceedingly eccentric shi'a Islam had some liberal notions.

  "Lord," he began. "Ain el-Hilwa is swollen to bursting with refugees. Perhaps a hundred and seventy, a hundred and eighty thousand in all. They crowd the city and the suburbs outside the wall."