Purgatory's Shore

by Taylor Anderson

  “We need to know what’s happening,” he told Anson.

  “Lieutenant Beeryman,” Anson called.

  “Cap’n?”

  “Take five men an’ find your way out of this. . . .” He frowned. “I bet Reverend Harkin would be amused to hear we’re surrounded by fire.” He looked back at Boogerbear. “The way we came in might still be open. Whatever you have to do, go see what’s happenin’ an’ report back.” He glanced at Lewis. “An’ send a man to tell Major Reed what we’ve done.”

  Lewis was nodding. “By all means.”

  Meder had been right. The camp burned furiously for another hour or so, but even before it was reduced entirely to blowing ash and smoldering tent poles and frames—even before Boogerbear could return (the way back in was blocked when the south side of the camp was consumed)—Leonor could see for herself through the lingering smoke and heat shimmer that the three murderous Dom regiments (somewhat swollen by refugees and no longer under artillery fire) remained almost exactly where they’d been. What’s more, though it seemed they’d reduced their numbers by half, at least, they’d stopped killing their own people. That prob’ly leaves ’em with eight or ten thousand fit to fight, she calculated glumly, an’ I bet we ain’t got half that many. But will they fight? Can they? She couldn’t imagine the ones so recently abused really would. But what the hell do I know in this crazy place?

  Boogerbear finally returned, coming in from the west and trailing a cloud of swirling gray ash. He and his men, joined by Captain Beck, were dusty gray as well, red eyes streaming over moistened bandannas. Beck jumped down from his horse and saluted Lewis with evident pleasure. “The enemy’s at a stand, sir. They don’t know what to do! They’ve requested another parley—marching straight out under artillery fire and waiting until we stopped! In any event, Major Reed and Alcaldesa Periz are waiting for you and Varaa—very keen to hear your views.”

  “Remember the last ‘parley.’ They prob’ly just want to kill you,” Leonor warned darkly, somewhat shocked at her own tone. She’d done her best to speak more pleasantly to Lewis—Why? she demanded of herself—but her voice sounded more like a croaking toad than the young woman she’d been trying to become.

  Lewis nodded at her. “I won’t forget.” He looked around. All the people with him were just as covered in ash. Perhaps it would blow off as they rode. “Very well,” he told Beck. “Consul Koaar, it seems about half your force has found its way here. The rest are probably nearby. Assemble them on the east side of the camp with Lieutenant Joffrion’s dragoons, Lieutenant Meder’s riflemen, and most of the Rangers under Lieutenant Hernandez. You’re in command.”

  “We’ll make the best show we can,” Koaar said slowly, “but I doubt we can stop them with . . .” He paused, considering. “We might gather twelve or thirteen hundreds.”

  “It won’t matter,” Lewis went on brusquely. “Captain Anson, Lieutenant Anson, Warmaster Varaa-Choon, and I will accompany Captain Beck, Lieutenant Beeryman, and his remaining Rangers. We’ll go to this parley and see what we see, but in the meantime you’ll make it appear as if you mean to hold your position. You might even do so for a very short time if the Doms advance on you, but in that case your essential mission will be to spike these big guns and smash their carriages before withdrawing to the south. Is that understood?”

  “Perfectly,” agreed Koaar.

  “Fine,” Lewis said, moving to retrieve Arete from where he’d tied her to one of the guns in question. The others he’d named did the same. Mounting his horse, Lewis raised his voice so most could hear. “I don’t know what’ll happen. It might even be that Leonor—Lieutenant Anson—is right and this is just another attempt at treachery and the battle will resume without warning.” He grinned. “It’s not generally considered wise for commanders to acknowledge uncertainty to their troops, but I really don’t know, and you must be ready for anything. I do know this: you’ve all fought magnificently and done all that was asked of you.” He waved eastward across the field. “Everyone has. If nothing else, this disparate force we assembled has become a real army today, and I can promise you that whatever happens, we’ve already won this battle because we didn’t lose it, and we’ve fatally crippled the Dom army that came against us. All we have to do now is survive. And build.”

  They cheered him as he left, cantering at the head of the small group accompanying him, and Leonor would’ve cheered him too if she weren’t so worried. How will we “build” if he doesn’t “survive”? she asked herself.

  CHAPTER 38

  It took a while to ride all around the battlefield, stopping for a report at Olayne’s grand battery, before rejoining Major Reed. He was already mounted and waiting with Alcaldesa Sira Periz. She looked very small but fiercely determined in her own gold scale armor similar to (and just as useless as) her dead husband’s, sitting atop his horse. Lewis and his party had lost a lot of the ash that coated them, but the battle itself had left them quite bedraggled compared to her, and their lathered horses had had quite enough of all this running around. Father Orno and Reverend Harkin were mounted as well, looking adamant and resolute. Samantha Wilde, Barca, and Colonel De Russy were there as well, though Lewis noted with relief that none of them looked as if they expected to go. Lewis, Anson, and Beck bowed to Sira in their saddles, and Lewis spoke first. “Alcaldesa, please accept my most sincere condolences. Your husband was a good man, a brave man. I considered him a friend and hope he felt the same.”

  “That’s neither here nor there at the moment,” Sira replied sharply, but then her voice softened. “You served him well, as you’ve served our people.” She looked at him intently. “Your people. He could be . . . confused at times, especially of late, and that was largely my fault,” she confessed bitterly. “But he wasn’t ‘confused’ at the end, nor am I now.” She waved out over the field, and Lewis followed the gesture with his eyes. About ten thousand Doms left, he confirmed, drawn up for battle—Though they look as hard used as we do. And some, probably survivors of their “execution,” don’t appear very firm. Of particular interest was the cluster of horses and riders about halfway between the respective forces, just sitting there, patiently waiting. “And look what you—we—have wrought together!” Sira continued. “The terrible Doms, humbled at last, and the remnant of their army at our mercy!”

  Leonor coughed. “Not exactly at our mercy, Alcaldesa,” she said dryly.

  Sira’s eyes flashed, but Lewis shook his head. “She’s right. They still outnumber us two to one, and even with the ammunition they carry—we’ve destroyed the rest—they could smash right through us with a determined, concentrated attack. We’re low on ammunition as well, and our artillery is nearly spent. They don’t know that, but they have to suspect. I’ll tell you what I told the Ocelomeh: the best way to win this battle and a breathing space to prepare for the next one is not to lose. We can still lose if we don’t handle this right.”

  “Hear him,” said Colonel De Russy, voice subdued. He glanced repentantly at Lewis, and particularly Varaa. “I apologize for my earlier . . . indisposition. I fear I was trying to make up for something. I’m quite recovered now and fully reminded of my limitations.”

  “No, I should apologize to you,” said Lewis with a sad smile. “We did have a deal, and I pushed you past your end of it. We’ll keep things more straightforward in the future.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Varaa stated, staring hard at Sira with her large, blue eyes. “Which is why De Russy should be on that horse at this moment and you should not, Alcaldesa. This is his ‘end’ of it, as it were.”

  Sira bristled. “Are you saying I can’t conduct the affairs of my city?”

  “Not at all. But this is a battle, not a city. And though De Russy may be more suited to a city than a battle as well, he’s been in both.”

  “Uxmal can’t risk another leader today,” De Russy agreed firmly. “I’m far more expendable than you, my dear.�
�� He looked down. “Proven conclusively once more.”

  Barca, standing by him, frowned deeply, and Samantha spoke up, “Really, Rube, don’t be absurd.” She looked at Reed, arching a brow. “And you can’t go either.”

  “Mistress . . .” Reed objected with surprise.

  “She’s right,” Lewis said, growing impatient. This was taking too long, and the Doms might interpret the delay as shyness. “I’m going, so you stay.” He bowed as respectfully as he could in the saddle to Sira Periz. “For the same reason you must. If they’re planning treachery, we can’t make them a gift of us all.” He glanced down at the clot of waiting Doms. There were six of them, and even at a distance, Lewis thought he recognized the squat, powerful form of General Agon in his yellow-and-black coat, dripping lace. “I’ll take Colonel De Russy, Varaa, and Captain Anson.”

  “And me,” Leonor said dangerously. “My revolvers are reloaded.”

  Lewis sighed.

  “Will you leave us as well?” Harkin demanded. “Shouldn’t have even waited for him,” he said aside to Father Orno.

  “No. Come along if you like.”

  “But keep your mouths shut,” Anson warned. “Battles are no place to argue scripture either.”

  They had to tread carefully for the first part of the way out to meet the enemy, guiding their horses through the maze of bloody bodies still lying where they fell after the Allied stroke that finally broke the Doms’ furious but uncoordinated effort to smash through the 3rd Pennsylvania and 1st Uxmal. Even down here, Lewis saw the occasional American corpse. Their death was no more tragic than that of their indigenous allies, but Lewis felt especially responsible for them. They’d followed him into a war they had no stake in before he made it so and died in a land unimaginably distant from their homes. It made him very sad, but even more grimly angry as he approached the leaders of the invaders who killed them. The most extraordinary thing to him was that, absent the weird, surrealistic setting of the marquee full of gold and flags and Blood Priests—and then the debilitating smoke they’d conjured and sacrifices they’d prepared—the men before him were only men. All were soldiers, no Blood Priest was with them, and despite their grave, even hostile expressions, here beneath the late afternoon sun there was no palpable aura of menace about them.

  Both groups spread out as they neared, and Lewis finally stopped Arete about five yards in front of General Agon. The others in his party did the same. Agon appeared somewhat surprised as his gaze took them in, lingering longest on Varaa and Leonor.

  “It seems I met you all last night, in a manner of speaking—since we never actually spoke,” Agon said loudly, in excellent if accented English. He gestured aside at a companion. “And some of you already met my aide, Capitan Arevalo.” The officer he indicated, taller than the others, was staring intently, almost wonderingly, at Leonor, hand straying absently to his chest under his collarbone. Agon blinked and glanced around at the carnage, caused mostly by artillery down here. “Only last night,” he said lower, then cleared his throat and glared at Lewis. “But now I know you quite well, even without words.” He took a deep breath and let it out, glare shifting to a stiffly erect officer of lancers. “So. I believe we’re now fully acquainted with one another’s current dispositions. We can’t know what reinforcements might be rushing to join each other, but it’s clear what we have to fight with now.” A hint of a smile touched the sharp line of his lips. “Therefore, since Don Frutos embraced this stimulating tradition of meeting before battle . . .”

  “Perverted it into a treacherous attack!” Father Orno seethed loudly. Harkin put a hand on his arm, and Agon glanced at him before continuing.

  “. . . I found myself amazingly curious what you think we should do, Major Cayce.”

  “Interesting,” Lewis ground out. “I was wondering the same about you since we know you have no other forces closer than Nautla, possibly even Campeche or farther. I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with what you have—only what your men have in their cartridge boxes and haversacks.”

  “Which makes a strong argument for renewing the action at once and taking what I need,” Agon countered. “And you!” He stretched out his hands to encompass the long crescent of the Allied line. “Despite your laudable performance and impressive display, you’ve no intention of mounting a general assault. Why should you?” He waved at the grand battery, then out to sea, where HMS Tiger lay some distance out, hove to at the moment. She couldn’t linger like that off this lee shore for long, but Captain Holland had positioned her well for effect. “But if you mean to keep pounding me with your great guns, supposing I’ll just stand and take it, I must disappoint you. I will attack and destroy you if it costs every man in my army.”

  “Well, considering the recent demonstration of your devotion to your men, it’s clear what you intend, and you’re only wasting our time,” Lewis snapped, starting to pull Arete around.

  “Wait,” said De Russy, peering closely at Agon. “I can’t believe you invited this meeting for no more purpose than this. But what are we to think? You invaded this land to subjugate and murder its people in the name of an abominable faith that would continue the process until all submit or die. You tried to murder us in our first meeting like this”—his tone grew incredulous—“and did murder hundreds—perhaps thousands—of your own men when they honorably withdrew, in remarkably good order, from an assault they couldn’t complete. That, sir, is the most monstrous thing I’ve beheld in all the time I’ve been on this world full of monsters!”

  Agon actually looked away. “I didn’t do those things,” he said softly, then met De Russy’s gaze again. “No, I did. Some of them. But I wouldn’t have taken advantage at the meeting or slaughtered my own men without orders.” He gestured around him. “These officers and I have been soldiers all our lives, loyal to the Holy Dominion. The faith it requires is demanding,” he conceded, “but we firmly believe our faith is the only engine that can secure this land and continent in a ‘world full of monsters,’ as you say.” He frowned. “But the . . . leadership of our faith has changed in recent years, growing more adamant and strident, some might even say fanatical, than in the past. And the rise of the Blood Priests . . .” He shook his head. “You see none of them here, since all are dead or have followed Don Frutos in the retreat he wouldn’t allow the soldiers I was ordered to destroy.” He paused a long moment, regaining control of a flaring fury. “Our faith, our very souls require us to follow the orders of God, passed through the mouth of His Supreme Holiness and Blood Cardinals such as Don Frutos.” He gestured behind at the mound of dead Doms his own soldiers made. “But since Don Frutos—ordered to command this campaign—has withdrawn, I can only take that to mean his army may do so as well—if it can,” he qualified, then snorted. “You may note I extended that presumption to what remained of those others who retreated as soon as our commander did so.”

  “Such rigidity!” De Russy exclaimed. “And such . . . imaginative maneuvering within it on your part.”

  Agon bowed. “He is our ‘leader,’ after all. Are we not bound to follow him?”

  Leonor started to say something, probably inflammatory, but Lewis beat her to it. “Am I to infer that you wish to be allowed to retreat, your army intact?” he asked doubtfully.

  “It’s hardly ‘intact.’ Nor is yours, I daresay. And I expect mine will be even less so by the time it straggles back to Nautla without supplies,” Agon added bitterly. “But it can certainly fight now, if you want, and we can destroy each other entirely.”

  “Then why not?” Lewis asked.

  Agon held up a finger. “Neither of us gains. Mutual annihilation might end our war for months, even years, but then it will all start again at the beginning.” He gazed at the Home Guards, Pennsylvanians, 1st US and 1st Uxmal, the grand battery. . . . “You have made a good beginning, and even in my . . . withdrawal, I will have done so as well because I’ve faced you, met you, and kn
ow better how to fight you when we meet again. We’re destined to be enemies, you and I,” he told Lewis, suddenly enthusiastic, “destined to contend as proper soldiers should: as instruments of our countries and faiths for possession of this continent!” He looked at his officers. “Not all believe as we do, but our foundational faith, even now under assault by the Blood Priests and perhaps checked by those like Don Frutos on the surface, is still quite fervent and compels us—as soldiers—to fight and strive and suffer for God as soldiers. How can we do that without war? And such a war! A battle against respected peers, not filthy rebels in huts”—he glanced at Varaa—“aligned with demons, no less!” Varaa wisely kept her mouth shut. “But that makes it even better!” Agon proclaimed, warming to his argument. “The stakes couldn’t be higher! What could please God more?”

  “Good heavens,” murmured Reverend Harkin. “My own argument thrown back at me.” He frowned. “Quite twisted, of course. My God would have us stop fighting and live together in peace.”

  “The same God,” Agon countered harshly. “Only your weak worship of Him makes Him seem different, and you misunderstand His requirements.”

  Harkin reddened, preparing a rebuttal, but Father Orno very earnestly shook his head at him.

  Lewis cleared his throat. “Let me get this straight. You want to just stop fighting and leave.”

  “With our arms and flags, of course. You may consider it a victory if you like, but I cannot withdraw in defeat. Even the perception of that would ensure my officers and I would be subject to the same example we were ordered to make of the men who retreated earlier.” He actually chuckled. “But since Don Frutos now leads us away, I’m duty-bound to follow him, am I not?”

  “You can’t take your cannon with you, not with all your animals scattered,” Anson snapped.