by Scott McKay
“Yes, sir, Mr. Cross, sir,” the man obeyed. “It’s good to see you home, sir.”
“As opposed to what?” Cross snapped, which was uncharacteristic of him. He made it a practice to pour on the charm with everyone he met, as it never hurt to befriend people in every walk of life with whom favors could be traded.
The operator shot him a frightened look. “Oh, Mr. Cross, I didn’t mean nothin’ but that you’re a famous man we all like havin’ around, and…”
“All right, all right,” Cross held up his hand. “I’m sorry. It’s been a bear of a day and it isn’t over. Didn’t mean to bark at you.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said. “No offense taken at all, none whatever.”
After an awkward silence as the elevator neared the fifteenth floor, finally the ascent ended and the operator threw open the folding gate. “Fifteenth floor, sir, and might I say may the Lord bless and keep ye.”
“Much obliged,” he said, depositing a twenty-deciran note into the operator’s jacket pocket. “Take care of yourself.”
Cross’ secretary Theresa met him in the reception area, the office mostly deserted thanks to a fresh round of layoffs just the day before. Airbound once had 112 headquarters employees before the Justice explosion; now, they were down to twenty-eight. Theresa was likely one of the next round, as the company’s hemorrhaging finances indicated Cross and Gresham both probably wouldn’t have secretaries, and Theresa’s husband was a physician who earned a solid living, while Gresham’s secretary Mary was single, had come from Ackerton south of the port and was barely hanging on financially. A layoff would be a crippling blow to her, so she’d be taking on both partners as the company continued to shrink.
“I’ve got nothing but bad news,” Theresa warned him. “Bills, demand letters, warnings from the investors and now we’ve got some accounts receivable trouble.”
“People can smell blood,” he lamented as the two walked to Cross’ corner office. “And they smell it on us.”
“Charrington Coal sent a man this afternoon,” she said. “They can’t offer any further credit, and by Monday we are cut off from fuel. Do you want me to line up a conversation with Fanwood in the morning?” Fanwood was a competing coal supplier to Charrington, and their prices were considerably higher.
“Dammit,” he fumed. There was just no end to the troubles.
“And Stephen Bell was here from Hendle and Reese. He says we need a conference with the Justice claimants by the end of the week or else he won’t be able to settle the passenger damages before they file in Justice Court.”
Cross grunted, briefly considering the irony of the ill-fated airship’s name, considering where it was leading him.
“All right, fine,” he snapped. “Go on home, Theresa. We’ll start tackling these one at a time in the morning before I have to pilot the Ann Marie to Belgarden and back in the afternoon.”
The Ann Marie’s Belgarden shuttle had been a twice-daily line a month ago.
“Yes, sir,” she sighed. “Get some sleep tonight, will you? You look like death.”
I imagine I do, he thought.
Cross blew through the doors of his office and found his partner Gresham sitting with a pile of files in his lap on one of the visitor chairs in front of the desk. He circled around to his “throne,” as the office jokesters had termed it and memorialized the joke with a small gold plaque screwed atop its back. He sank down as he reached for the decanter of whisky and two glasses on the service table aside the desk.
“Hooch?” he asked Gresham.
“No,” came a disapproving response.
Cross gave Gresham an uncomfortable stare. “You went and got religion now?” he asked him.
“I don’t see a need to inebriate myself when we’re in crisis,” admonished his partner.
Cross shrugged, poured himself four fingers into a wide glass and guzzled down the golden lubricant.
“So I may have a way through,” he exhaled, as he let the whisky burn its way down his esophagus. “Had some interesting passengers on the run from Belgarden this evening.”
Gresham tossed the pile of files onto Cross’ desk. “We’re bust,” he said. “We’re out of business by the weekend. The only way through is you doing what you said you were going to do and go to your father. You’ve been lying about that for a month while we’ve bled out, and now it’s the end. Will you finally swallow your pride and do what you should have done from the start of this mess?”
Cross stared at Gresham, and Gresham stared back.
Then he filled his glass again, and slugged back another four fingers of the good stuff.
“Unbelievable,” shrieked Gresham.
“Can I talk now?” said Cross.
“Please!” Gresham said, exasperated. “Anything out of your mouth would be an improvement after the last four weeks.”
“What do you think about the Army?” asked Cross.
…
THIRTEEN
Hilltop Farm – Night (First Day)
Night had fallen on Dunnan’s Claim, though purple streaks of the gloaming were still visible in the sky. Terrestial light, as one would expect from burning buildings, was reaching its dusk as well as the Terhune contingent approached the Stuart estate.
“All right, boys,” said Colonel Terhune. “B Company, reconnoiter Grayvern Farm to the west. C Company, you have Idlewild Farm to the east. We’re going to do this systematically and evacuate those we can. Use your bugles to raise alarm on any enemy activity you see.
“D Company, you’re south to Thistleton Farm, and E and F, you’re with them and then split off to Nairne and Easterland, respectively. Like we drew it up on the ferry. A Company, we start here.”
Latham expected he’d be helping to scout for one of the companies heading further into Dunnan’s Claim, but Terhune had changed that along with his mind on the way in from Barley Point. “You’re with me,” he’d said. “I’ll not have you killed in the middle of the night by some savage when I have better soldiers for that purpose.”
Instead, torches and lanterns in one hand and pistols in another, they combed the Stuart property for signs of life…or death. And shortly those were uncovered.
The body of George Stuart was found aside the road south of the property. His head was missing.
Judith and Tabitha Stuart’s corpses were found burned when one of Terhune’s men climbed a stone column to peer at the charred wooden balcony on the second floor of the house.
And twelve bodies of Udar warriors were found laid out in ceremonial style behind the house, hands on their Gazols and heads turned to face south toward Uris Udar.
“Looks like one hell of a fight took place here,” said Terhune. “Hell of a fight. Old George was a hero of the last war; he may have been the first hero of this one.”
Just then a rider approached from the west.
“All dead at Grayvern Farm, Colonel,” he announced. Two bodies in front of the house; looks like the farmer and his wife.”
“That’s the Forlings,” spat Terhune. “All their children are grown and gone. Did Old John take any of the bastards with him?”
“We saw one Udar body, sir.”
“All right. Continue west to the next farm, then work your way south. Send me dispatches of your progress.”
The Terhune contingent went that way systematically, spending as little time as possible at each property once they assessed whether anyone was alive and how many had fallen in that day’s attacks.
“I don’t want to keep this up too far past midnight,” Terhune confided to Latham. “There will be a battle coming against these sons of bitches, and I don’t know how many we’re up against. I want rested soldiers for what we face.”
But the grim work went on. By midnight the contingent had visited three dozen properties, each one hit by Udar raiders. They had rescued four survivors – three young boys and an old woman, all of whom had managed to stash themselves in cellars and other hiding places. The death toll had
mounted.
It was obvious that this was a more involved Udar operation than the army had usually encountered since Dunnan’s War had petered out twenty-five years earlier. The frontier with the enemy hadn’t been totally pacified, but most of the Udar raids had been one-offs with perhaps one war party of thirty or forty raiders hitting the odd property far out on the perimeter of Dunnan’s Claim or the farmland southwest of Trenory, close to The Throat. Most of those in Dunnan’s Claim were warriors on foot who had made an amphibious raid after slipping past the Navy’s gunboats in Watkins Gulf. To inflict this much carnage meant this had to be an entire Anur, or even more than one. Terhune knew his 260 men were probably outnumbered if they attacked the enemy’s camp at their estimated strength.
That wasn’t too much of a problem, Latham thought. After all, with rifles (most of them Thurmans, after a late surge of donations from the people of Barley Point before the departure across the Tweade) and pistols issued to every man here, and two chain guns they could set up in the event of a pitched battle, the Ardenians would have a sizable advantage in firepower they could leverage so long as they weren’t in a close-combat situation with the Udar. But in the event of that circumstance, the enemy would give as good as he got. Or worse.
“These war parties, they carry a supply train of sorts,” Terhune told Latham as he nodded, having seen this himself in his slightly younger years. “There’s a woman camp follower for every warrior in a tent-camp. They cook, they mend wounds, they guard the prisoners, and they tend the livestock. We hit that camp, we’ll get our people back and then we can fight these warriors on our terms.”
“Like at Stone Lip, back in ’42,” agreed Latham.
“The Throat,” Terhune said. “You remember.”
“Never will forget that. Keeps me up at night.”
“Well,” Terhune chuckled, “Your memories are going to be a good bit worse after I’m done with you.”
The contingent reassembled and camped around midnight on the far south end of the Barley Point road, nineteen miles south of the Tweade. Latham knew somewhere between here and the Watkins Gulf coast, probably a bit to the west, was the enemy camp. With so many captives and so much loot to carry, though, the Udar would be moving slowly in comparison to the pursuing cavalry. Further, as Terhune noted when outlining the battle plan in the headquarters tent, the Ardenian force would be stronger when the Barley Point contingent met up with the smaller ones from Dunnansport and Battleford.
“I want a maximum force when we hit them,” he’d said. “I don’t want to try cutting them off. Not when we don’t know what’s between them and the border.”
“Strongstead is between them and the border, sir,” said a young captain named Pelham. “Maybe if we drive them westward along the coast we’ll smash them against that wall.”
“Udar has a better plan than that,” replied Terhune. “There’s something here we don’t yet understand. How they got here, for example. They couldn’t have come through The Throat without raising an alarm. They couldn’t have come by sea; not at this kind of strength and not with horses they’ve obviously got. We control Watkins Gulf. And how could they get through Strongstead?”
“They haven’t, sir,” said Pelham. We’re still in communication with the garrison at the citadel over the teletext. They report all is well.”
That earned him a frown from Terhune, who cocked his head at the man. Pelham shrunk away a little.
“Something isn’t right,” agreed Latham. “It’s almost like this is a provocation. They want to suck us in.”
“We go carefully in the morning,” Terhune decided. “We go ready for action, and we’ll give these bastards hell when we find them. But no mistakes. If they aren’t trying to lay an ambush I’ll be a sonofabitch. Expect it. Prepare for it.”
…
FOURTEEN
South of Dunnansport – Early Morning (Second Day)
The Dunnansport expeditionary force commanded by David Stuart was made up of 98 militiamen and 12 Marines from Adelaide, and it was the product of a meeting in the early afternoon between himself, the young Commander Baker of the Navy ship and the Commodore in charge of the naval wharf in the new city, an elderly man named Barstow.
At that meeting it was decided that Adelaide would steam along the coast from the mouth of the Tweade south to Cotter’s Point, then west along the Watkins Gulf Coast in the strait between the mainland and Adams Island with a sharp eye out for the Udar force, which was seemingly on or near that coastline. Upon fixing their position, Adelaide would communicate with Baker’s Marines attached to the Dunnansport contingent by use of heliograph (signal mirrors and lanterns the Marines would carry with them), and hopefully link up with the other two expeditions to offer a battle with naval support. Adelaide’s twenty-two other Marines would be available to put ashore for additional manpower.
Additionally, Barstow had engaged Port William by teletext, securing the services of a sidewheeler – the ANV Yarmouth – for evacuating the captives by sea; Yarmouth had already provisioned with food, blankets and relief supplies and was underway. It would be a day behind Adelaide and hopefully close the distance in time to assist the operation. Two other frigates, Castamere and Louise, were due to make port in either Port William or Dunnansport within the next 24 hours; both would be dispatched to the Watkins Gulf coast at full speed.
David had invested a not-insignificant sum out of his personal fortune in order to keep the Dunnansport militia exceptionally well-provisioned. Each man, which also included Will and Robert as well as the Adelaide Marines, was equipped with a Thurman rifle and a Bearingdale pistol, the best on the market, with an extra supply of ammunition, and their horses were saddled with custom-made rigs. David took pride in the fact the Dunnansport contingent would be the best-armed force of the three meeting up somewhere in the south of Dunnan’s Claim. The lack of men with any combat experience, though, was a limiting factor in his expectation of how they might do if they faced a serious enemy out there.
What they most lacked was intelligence about the enemy, and perhaps most pressing, the origin of this Udar force. It should have been detected before reaching Dunnan’s Claim–either at one of the forts along The Throat, at Strongstead or by ship somewhere along the coast if it were an amphibious expedition. Baker said he saw no sign of the enemy when he put in at Strongstead a few weeks earlier, and the citadel there was in good order at the time. It was hard to believe Strongstead might have fallen, though that was the most plausible explanation for a raiding party large enough to do such damage to have appeared behind the front lines.
But the garrison was communicating with the Army base at Barley Point via teletext and reporting no Udar activity. The pieces simply weren’t coming together.
Solving that mystery was of crucial importance, because the enemy had clearly exploited a weakness in the Ardenian defenses. And hundreds, perhaps thousands, of their countrymen were now dead as a result. It was a military disaster on a grand scale, and they were reeling.
No point in denying it, but at least there was an initial plan to respond.
Robert had joined Will and four other riders in a small company working the far eastern farms along the Tweade south of Dunnansport. None were hit by the raiders, and the farmers had seen no evidence of attacks. The riders offered assistance, but the farmers turned it down. “Stay in your homes, then,” advised Will. “Protect your property. But be smart – if they come, and you can get away, then get out across that river.”
The ferry was still running. Uncle David and Commander Baker had discussed evacuating the area. Ultimately that idea had been suspended–for now. In case of a hot battle, the evacuation would commence with all possible speed.
When the riders got just south of the riverside farms, the horrors surfaced.
At a log cabin on a farm named Sunnyside five miles south of the river, a man, a woman and three children had been staked out on the ground and their skin stripped off. Two miles south of that, at H
owarding Farm, they found three headless corpses. Three miles west, at Gilvary Farm, they found a survivor – of sorts. The relatively young man lay bleeding, an Izwei buried in his stomach. Before dying, he told his horrific tale.
“It was forty of the bastards,” he wheezed. “They come before sunup and broke down the door. My Mary and me wasn’t even awake. I ran for my rifle, but one of ‘em got me with this dagger. I can’t pull it out, see…the barbs on the side’ll rip out my guts.”
“Mary, they took her. And the two young’uns in their cribs…” he cried, unable to finish. Robert stepped through the ruins of the cabin and saw what the man was referring to: a pair of toddlers, dismembered and hacked beyond recognition. He’d vomited up his dinner, thinking of his own family.
When he returned to the victim, the man was dead.
“We can’t help him, Rob,” said Will. “Let’s go.”
In all, Will and Robert and their platoon had looked in on nine farms. Each one was a similar story. But some of them – many, in fact – weren’t just the resting places of Ardenian settlers. The invaders had taken casualties as well. Turtlehead Farm was the scene of a fierce battle at which five Ardenians – four men and a woman – had perished and been skinned, but had taken no less than 10 Udar with them. The dead raiders were laid out in a ceremonial style holding their Gazols, their heads turned toward Uris Udar.
“Good on you all,” said Robert. “Send the bastards to hell. Resistance is the blessed path.”
“Damn right,” Will mumbled.
Perhaps the worst of that awful experience, though, came at Landsdowne Farm, the furthest east of the estates the scouts surveyed. This was the home of the Blaine family, who were dear friends of Robert’s aunt and uncle; their daughter Hester had been childhood friends with his cousin Josey.
Hester was gone, but the rest of the Blaines were not. Richard Blaine, the father, had been impaled to the front door by a spear through the side of his head and Mary Blaine, the mother, lay in the front yard with her skin stripped off. The charred corpses of Hester’s three younger brothers hung from the flagpole in the side yard, and the Blaine’s Ardenian flag had been taken down and was covered in manure.