The Infernal Battalion

by Django Wexler

  The first shot came from the enemy’s lines, a flower of gray smoke blooming from the gap between two houses. Marcus could see the cannonball in flight, seeming to hang motionless in midair at the apex of its trajectory for a moment before descending with shocking speed to hit the ground in a spray of earth. It bounced, landing again in another miniature explosion, and then again, the interval steadily decreasing like that of a rock skipping across a pond. The range was much too long, though, and the ball came to a halt well short of the approaching lines. Marcus imagined some lieutenant being scolded for opening fire too early, giving away the concealed gun’s position.

  If they have a lot of artillery in there, this is going to be a tough nut to crack. He’d managed to put it out of his head that it was his own people across the field, commanded by his old commander and, maybe, friend. They were just “the enemy,” as usual, once the cannon started to roar. We’re going to need those howitzers. He was still ahorse, near where the Girls’ Own reserve was waiting, watching the guns bump across the uneven ground.

  Archer deployed the first half battery at eight hundred yards, long range for twelve-​pounders. On the other hand, he didn’t have any target smaller than a house, so accuracy wasn’t really necessary. The teams were well trained, and before long the six guns were shrouded in smoke. Hollow booms echoed across the field, weirdly out of sync with the muzzle flashes. It took only a few tries before the cannoneers had their solid shot plowing into the buildings on the outskirts. Plaster billowed from every hit, and roofs caved in or sprayed fragments of slate tiles. Marcus devoutly hoped the civilians had heeded his warning.

  The second half battery went into action at five hundred yards, close enough to bowl shots into the buildings end-on rather than arcing them down at a high angle. In the town, someone’s patience cracked, and all at once the defending artillery opened fire. Marcus counted a dozen or more muzzle flashes, earth flying up all around Archer’s batteries to mix with the smoke. Archer’s men adjusted their aim in turn, shots probing the smoky rubble for the flashes of their opponents. An isolated cannon was a hard target to hit, though, and at this range the duel could go on all day.

  Marcus didn’t intend to wait that long. The Girls’ Own kept advancing, a thin, uneven line of blue. A few of Erdine’s horsemen, keeping an eye on the town, retired past the advancing skirmishers with waving caps, trotting back toward the rest of the cavalry. Marcus’ hands tightened on the reins as the women closed the range.

  At two hundred yards, the defending cannon gave up trying to hit Archer’s long-​range guns and switched to canister, spraying musket balls like giant shotguns. The skirmishers made for poor targets, but a few blue-​coated figures began to fall, punched backward off their feet or collapsing in place like broken puppets. Archer’s second battery, the six-​pounders, went into action, slamming canisters of their own back at the enemy positions. Marcus’ mind filled in the sounds of breaking glass and the pock, pock, pock of balls tearing into plaster.

  A hundred and fifty yards, and the defending musketeers opened fire. That was very long range, which meant the commander in the town either was incompetent or had no concerns about running out of ammunition. Marcus guessed the latter—​certainly if Janus had anticipated a defense of this position, he would have made certain it was well stocked. The Girls’ Own held their fire until half that distance, one of each pair of skirmishers bringing her weapon up to sight and fire, then ducking away to reload while her partner took her turn. From this vantage point, the enemy were invisible except for the smoke puffing out of the damaged buildings, but they had to be getting the best of the exchange. The fields offered only scattered rocks and hedges for cover, not loopholed buildings and stone walls.

  Archer’s first half battery, farthest out, had fallen silent, and Marcus could see the teams reattaching themselves to the guns, getting ready to close the range. Good man. After another few moments, Marcus turned his horse and rode over to the second battalion of the Girls’ Own, waiting in close order while their companions fought and died. Sevran’s Second Regiment was just behind them, and Sevran himself was on foot with Abby, watching the distant flashes of the fighting.

  “Sir,” Abby said, as Marcus approached. “My girls need support.”

  “So they do,” Marcus said. “Colonel Sevran?”

  The colonel came to attention. “Sir?”

  “Storm those houses, please. Close columns.”

  “Yes, sir.” Sevran gave a crisp salute. “We’ll have them for you in thirty minutes, sir.”

  He jogged off, and moments later the drummers of the Second Regiment started up. Abby looked up at Marcus.

  “I hope you haven’t forgotten your promise,” she said.

  “There’ll be plenty of action for everyone,” Marcus said grimly. “Once we get past the outskirts, it’ll be house to house. I want half of the Girls’ Own left fresh for that.”

  He knew the soldiers closest in the ranks could hear that, and it was rapidly passed by whispers down the line. Abby nodded, also hearing the whispers, and raised her voice. “We’ll sharpen our bayonets, then.”

  *

  There was, as Marcus had expected, a second defensive line ready behind the first.

  Sevran’s attack, delivered with considerable skill and courage, had driven a wedge into the enemy line. Despite the gaps blown in their ranks by the canister and musketry, the Second Regiment had kept its formation until the last moment, then charged in a mass with lowered bayonets up the streets and into the ruined houses that marked the border of Satinvol. Archer’s gunners, closer now, switched their fire to the edges of the spreading conflict, and more houses began to show the scars of cannonballs.

  When it became clear to the defenders that Sevran’s men could not be dislodged, they pulled back through the streets of Satinvol to a second set of positions. The Girls’ Own skirmishers followed them carefully, the rattle of musketry almost continuous as the contest of ambush and counterambush began. Marcus could see almost nothing now, just a few ruined buildings and the rising smoke, but he could imagine it—​small assaults, rushes of a dozen or two dozen men and women at a time, a building captured or lost, fierce battles for possession of a shed or a back garden.

  Girls who ought to still be under their mothers’ skirts lying bloody and broken in back alleys, or clutching shattered limbs, or screaming as their guts are ripped open by bayonets...

  He swallowed hard. They want to be there. They demanded it. It’s war. But it still felt like a monstrosity.

  True to his word, though, he’d ordered the second battalion of the Girls’ Own in when the attack bogged down. Abby went with them, walking ahead of her troops, waving them into position with her sword. Marcus moved closer himself, now that the enemy guns had pulled back, and brought the Third and Fourth Regiments with him. Fighting in towns was always devilish business. A formed unit, under its commander’s tight control, could deliver a charge with considerable impetus, but it wasn’t very long before it would get tied up in a hundred tiny battles. And getting a unit out again once the battle had started was nearly impossible. So skirmishes had a tendency to take on a life of their own, becoming a maelstrom that sucked in well-​ordered troops and spat out dazed fragments.

  A colonel from the artillery reserve arrived, leading a battery of a dozen howitzers. The squat, wide-​barreled guns looked more like cook pots than cannon. They were designed to lob powder-​filled bombs in a high trajectory, and were direct descendants of the catapults that had hurled stones over the walls of medieval castles. Howitzers were notoriously inaccurate, but in a situation like this, with the enemy pinned to his defenses, they were just the thing. Marcus quickly set them to firing at the inner perimeter of Satinvol, just in front of the bridge, where the enemy reserves and supplies had to be massed. Soon fires were burning in several places, columns of black smoke rising to mix with gray drifts rising off the battlefield.

  *

  Noon came and went. Marcus had
only the most tenuous grasp of the shape of the battle, relying on hurried reports from commanders who knew only what they could see on one particular street. Janus’ troops were falling back, but they hadn’t cracked yet. Whenever things seemed stuck, Marcus fed in a fresh battalion from his rapidly dwindling reserve to get the attack moving again. By four in the afternoon, he was feeling, if not sanguine, then at least reasonably confident. If Janus had a big reserve to throw into a counterattack, he’d have used it by now. The narrowing enemy front was rapidly contracting to the footing of the bridge itself, and a counterattack over the bridge would be suicidal.

  Not that Marcus expected to actually cross. Destroying bridges once you had no further use for them was standard practice, and he fully anticipated Janus would have left orders to demolish the span once his defenders had bought all the time they could. Only a quick rush could hope to take a bridge intact, and the drawn-​out struggle had left no chance of that here. That was inevitable, though. At least we’ll have cut his supply line as intended. The rest of the battle didn’t seem to be going according to plan, or indeed happening at all. There was no sound of artillery from behind him, no clouds of smoke rising from the southwest. If Janus was still in front of Alves, he hadn’t marched to keep Kurot out of his rear.

  As if thinking the man’s name had summoned him, a mounted party came into view from the east, picking their way across the shot-​torn fields. Marcus had moved his command post to just outside the town, not far from where the cutters had set up their aid stations. Casualty parties were still fetching the wounded from the parts of Satinvol that had fallen under his control, and the usual horror of triage and treatment had begun. Marcus could see Hannah Courvier, the Girls’ Own’s regimental cutter, prowling the lines of blue-​coated bodies, bloody to the elbows like a monster from a children’s story.

  “General d’Ivoire,” Kurot said as he rode up. Fitz was with him, and several staff officers Marcus didn’t recognize. Kurot’s face was an icy mask, and his voice dripped impatience. “Report your progress.”

  “Sir.” Marcus saluted. “We’ve taken most of the town on this bank of the river, sir, and we’re approaching the bridge. The enemy was expecting us and was heavily dug in. We’ve captured four guns and prisoners from at least five regiments.”

  “You’re behind schedule,” Kurot snapped. “My calculations show that you should have had the bridge by noon if no enemy force came forward to confront you in the field.”

  “With respect, Column-​General, the enemy have been buying time, and doing it as well as I’d expect of Grand Army soldiers. But it won’t be long now.”

  “It had better not be,” Kurot said. “I suggest you move forward, General d’Ivoire, and discover what’s causing the delay. Apply the whips if necessary.”

  “Sir—” Marcus gritted his teeth. “Yes, sir. As you say.”

  Kurot rode off without a word, his staff trailing him like the tail of a kite. Only Fitz remained, dismounting and beckoning to Marcus. They walked a few steps away from the nearby soldiers, and Fitz spoke in a low voice.

  “He’s in a foul mood,” he said. “Janus hasn’t been playing along.”

  “I gathered that,” Marcus said. “What’s happened? Any word from Val?”

  “He’s engaged Janus’ pickets, but there’s been no serious fighting, so he’s still pushing forward. But scouting reports are confused. Some of them say that Alves has already fallen, betrayed from within or overtaken by demons.” Fitz waggled his eyebrows. “Others tell us the city is still holding out. Kurot doesn’t know what to think.”

  “If Alves has fallen and Janus has the bridge there, this sideshow isn’t worth any more lives,” Marcus said.

  “He doesn’t believe the city could fall so quickly,” Fitz said. “And if it did, he’s certain the defenders would at least have demolished the bridge.”

  “He may be right,” Marcus said. “They’re certainly fighting hard here.”

  Fitz nodded. “He’s got us moving south, to link up with Val tomorrow morning. I imagine you’ll bring up the rear once you’re finished here.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” Marcus said. He looked around for Kurot and saw the general inspecting the one battalion of Blackstream’s troops that remained in reserve. “I’d better go forward and see what’s happening before he decides to take command himself.”

  “Good luck,” Fitz said. “And be careful.”

  *

  Satinvol was like something out of a nightmare. Cannonballs had wreaked havoc on the outskirts, punching through walls and cracking beams, leaving the houses leaning drunkenly against one another or lying in shattered piles of rubble. Broken roof tiles were everywhere, littering the streets like gray hail. Smaller craters from musket balls pocked the plaster.

  Bodies lay all over, clustered behind temporary barricades or sprawled in the street. Almost all of them were dressed in blue, which to Marcus’ eyes made the field look like the site of a particularly one-​sided massacre. It was impossible to tell who had been on which side, except when the broken rag doll shapes were women. There was, as far as Marcus knew, no Girls’ Own on the other side. The sickening smell of torn guts and blood mixed nauseatingly with the gritty tang of powder smoke.

  Casualty teams hurried back and forth, searching the bodies for those with a spark of life. In the Girls’ Own, this duty was carried out by women too young or too small to hold a musket in the line, and Marcus kept running into children in blue uniforms carrying stretchers. They ignored him, rolling bodies off a pile to get to the source of the groans coming from underneath, heedless of the sticky, thickening blood coating their hands. Marcus’ throat was tight.

  As he approached the bridge, the sound of musketry got louder. Not eager to wander into the line of fire, he got directions from a passing soldier, and followed a back alley to reach Abby’s command post. She was crouched behind a barricade made from a wagon pulled sideways across the alley entrance, a couple of Girls’ Own soldiers with her. Beyond was a street liberally scattered with bodies, facing a tall, square building standing on its own. Past that was the footing of the bridge, a gently sloped stone span that crossed the wide river in three low arches.

  “General,” Abby said. “Keep your head down, please.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I gather that’s the rivermaster’s office,” Abby said. “Three stories tall and mostly stone. They’ve turned it into a blockhouse, and it’s a real bastard. Got to be a couple hundred men left in there.”

  “You’ve got men—​soldiers—​around the sides?” Marcus said. He could see puffs of smoke rising from the buildings there.

  “Working on it,” Abby said. “We’re in range of the bridge now. Nobody is getting out of there alive unless we let them.”

  “You’ve asked them to surrender?”

  “Twice. Dog-​fuckers won’t even acknowledge a truce flag. They just keep firing.”

  Marcus frowned. That didn’t sound like Janus.

  “What are you doing here?” Abby said, while he looked the situation over.

  “Kurot sent me to hurry things along,” Marcus said with a grimace. “His words, not mine.”

  “I’ve lost at least a hundred soldiers trying to charge that thing. If he thinks I’m throwing any more lives away, he can get fucked.” Abby shook her head. “Archer’s bringing up a couple of twelve-​pounders. Once he’s ready, we can blast the bastards right out of there.”

  “Don’t change the plan on my account. How long until he gets here?”

  “Shouldn’t be long. I’ll go find him. Stay here, and by all the saints, keep your head down. The bastards have been taking potshots, and they’re pretty damn good at it.”

  Abby turned and ran back down the alley in a crouch, with a lieutenant in tow. A sergeant and two rankers remained with Marcus, pressed against the barricade. Musketry cracked and rattled all around.

  The sergeant was a big woman, around Marcus’ age, broad-​should
ered and heavily muscled. She looked at him with undisguised curiosity, while the two young rankers kept their eyes averted. Marcus shifted awkwardly under her attention, not sure if he should speak.

  “Hell of a day,” she said eventually.

  “It is,” Marcus answered lamely.

  “Hope this bridge is worth it.”

  Marcus could only nod. General Kurot thinks it is. That was the only answer he had, and what kind of an answer was that?

  He was saved the trouble of further conversation by the boom of a cannon, close by. An explosion of masonry and stone splinters cascaded from the side of the rivermaster’s office, quickly obscured by a cloud of dust. A second shot clipped a corner off the roof, spraying broken tiles.

  Abby must have found her guns. Now she would offer surrender again—​no matter how dedicated they were, no soldiers would want to die in a collapsing building, unable to fight back. They’ll have to give in—

  Three sets of big doors along the base of the building opened at once, and a crowd burst out at a dead run. For a moment Marcus thought the place was already falling in on itself and they were scrambling to get clear. But every one of them had a musket in hand, with bayonet fixed, and they weren’t shouting for quarter.

  The half second of shock let them get out into the street. Then Abby’s voice, shrill with alarm, rose over the field. “Fire! Fire!”

  Muskets roared, an impromptu volley that fringed the street with fire and smoke, Second Division soldiers shooting from every window and alley facing the blockhouse. The oncoming men, caught in the open, were scythed down by the dozens. The shock would have broken any charge Marcus had ever seen, but this one seemed impervious, the attackers stepping over the broken bodies of their comrades as though they weren’t there. They were coming in a furious mass straight across the street, right toward—

  Right toward me. Marcus backed away from the wagon. His three companions had all fired and were frantically reloading their muskets. Marcus tore his pistol from its holster, checked his sword, and waited.