Heirs of Empire

by David Weber

  No longer. Every altered joharn—and malagor—had returned rifled, and the angels had provided molds for a new bullet, as well. Not a ball, but a hollow-based cylinder that slid easily down the barrel. Tibold had doubted the rifling grooves could spin a bullet with that much windage, but Lord Sean had insisted the exploding powder would spread the base into them, and the results were phenomenal. Suddenly a rifle was as easy to load as a smoothbore—and able to fire far more rapidly than anyone had ever been able to shoot before! Tibold couldn't see why Lord Sean had been so surprised to find the weapons were . . . "bore-standardized," he called them (it only made sense to issue everyone the same size balls, didn't it?), but the Captain-General had been delighted by how easy that made it to produce the new bullets for them.

  Nor had he ignored the artillery. Mother Church restricted secular armies to the lighter chagon, and the Guard's arlaks threw shot twice as heavy, even if their shorter barrels didn't give them much more range. But Lord Sean's gunners were supplied with cloth bags of powder instead of clumsy loading-ladles of loose powder. And for close-range firing there were "fixed rounds"—thin-walled, powder-filled wooden tubes with grape or case shot wired to one end. A good crew could fire three of those in a minute.

  And when all those changes were added together, the Angels' Army could produce a weight of fire no experienced commander would have believed possible. Instead of once every five minutes, its artillerists fired three times in two minutes—even faster, using the "fixed rounds" at close range. Instead of thirty rounds an hour, its musketeers—no, its riflemen—could fire three or even four a minute and hit targets they could hardly even see! Tibold still wasn't certain fire alone could break a phalanx, but he wouldn't care to charge against such weapons.

  Perhaps even better, there were maps. Wonderful maps, with every feature to scale and none left out. It was kind of the angels to try to make them look like those he'd always used, and he lacked the heart to tell them they'd failed when they seemed so pleased by their efforts, but no mortal cartographer could have produced them. Some of his militiamen hadn't realized how valuable they were, but he'd worn his voice hoarse until they did. To know exactly how the ground looked, where the best march routes lay, and precisely where the enemy might be hidden—and where your own troops could be best deployed—was truly a gift worthy of angels.

  Best of all, the angels always knew what was happening elsewhere. The big map in the command tent showed every hostile army's exact position, and the angels updated it regularly. The sheer luxury of it was addictive. He was glad Lord Sean continued to emphasize scouting, but knowing where and how strong every major enemy force was made things so much simpler . . . especially when the enemy didn't know those things about you.

  Still, he reminded himself, the odds were formidable. None of Malagor had remained loyal to the Church, but the "heretics" had far too few weapons for their manpower, and garrisoning the Thirgan Gap fortresses had drawn off over half of their strength, while the Temple had over two hundred thousand Guardsmen in eastern North Hylar, not even counting any of the secular armies.

  Yet Tibold no longer doubted God was on their side, and while he knew too much of war to expect His direct intervention, Lord Sean and Lord Tamman were certainly the next best thing.

  Sean closed the spyglass and rolled onto his back to stare up into the sky. Lord God, he was tired! He hadn't expected it to be easy—indeed, he'd feared the Pardalians would resist his innovations, and the eagerness with which they'd accepted them instead was a tremendous relief—but even so, he'd underestimated the sheer, grinding labor of it all, and he'd expected to get more advantage from Israel's machine shops. To be sure, Sandy's stealthed flights to shuttle muskets back and forth for rifling had been an enormous help, but this was Sean's first personal contact with the reality of military logistics, and he'd been horrified by the voracious appetite of even a small, primitively-armed army. Brashan and his computer-driven minions had been able to modify existing weapons at a gratifying rate, but producing large numbers of even unsophisticated weapons would quickly have devoured Israel's resources.

  Not that Sean intended to complain. His troops were incomparably better armed (those who were armed at all!) than anything they were likely to face, and if he'd been disappointed in Israel's productivity, he'd been amazed by how quickly the Malagoran guilds had begun producing new weapons from the prototypes "the angels" had provided.

  He'd been totally unprepared for the hordes of skilled artisans who'd popped up out of the ground, but he'd forgotten that Earth's own industrial revolution had begun with waterwheels. Pardal—and especially Malagor—had developed its own version of the assembly line, despite its limitation to wind, water, or muscle power, and that required a lot of craftsmen. Most had declared for "the angels"—as much, Sean suspected, from frustration at the Church's tech limitations as in response to any miracles "the angels" had wrought—but even with their tireless enthusiasm, there were never enough hours in the day.

  Nor did the long year Pardal's huge orbital radius produced ease things. On a planet where spring lasted for five standard months and summer for ten, the campaigning seasons of Terra's preindustrial armies were a useless meterstick. Sean was devoutly thankful the Temple had seen fit to postpone operations for over two months while it indoctrinated its troops, but a delay which would have meant having to hold the Temple off only until the weather closed in on Terra meant nothing of the sort here. He faced an immediate, decisive campaign, and the sheer size of Pardalian armies appalled him. There were over a hundred thousand men headed up the Keldark Valley, and by tomorrow—the day after at latest—a lot of people were going to die.

  Too many people, whichever side they're on, but there's not a damned thing I can do about that.

  He clapped Tibold on the shoulder, and, despite everything, his heart rose at the older man's confident grin as they headed for their branahlks.

  Stomald rose as the Angel Harry entered the command tent to update the "situation map." She smiled, and he knew she was chiding him for his display of respect, but he couldn't help it. And, he reminded himself, he had finally managed to stop addressing her and the Angel Sandy as "angels," even if he didn't understand why they were so adamant about that. But, then, there were a lot of things he didn't understand. He'd expected the angels to be angry when the army's mood began to shift, yet they were actually pleased to see the troops becoming Malagoran nationalists rather than religious heretics.

  He watched her work. She was a head taller than he, and even more beautiful (and younger) than he'd remembered, now that her face was alive with thought and humor, and he chided himself—again—as he thought of the body hidden by her raiment. She might not use his people with the authority which was her right, but she was an angel.

  She cocked her head to check her work with her remaining eye, and he bit his lip in familiar anguish. Her other terrible wounds had healed with angelic speed, but that black eye patch twisted his heart each time he saw it. Yet despite all Cragsend had done to her, there was no hate in the Angel Harry. Stomald didn't believe she could hate, not after the gentleness with which she always spoke to him, the man who'd almost burned her alive.

  She turned from the map, and amusement deepened her smile as he blushed under her regard. But it didn't embarrass him further. Instead, he felt himself smiling back.

  "Sandy will have a fresh update in a few hours," she said in the Holy Tongue. "We're keeping a closer eye on them now that they're approaching."

  "I'm no soldier—or," he corrected himself wryly, "I was no soldier—but that seems wise to me."

  "Don't belittle yourself. You're fortunate to have a captain like Tibold—and Sean and Tamman, of course—but you've got a good eye for these things yourself."

  He bent his head, basking in her praise, but before he could say anything more Lord Sean walked in, followed by Tibold.

  Lord Sean touched his breastplate in respectful salute, and the angel acknowledged it gravely, yet
Stomald noted the twinkle in her eye. For just an instant, he resented it, and then shame buried his pique. She was an angel, and Lord Sean was the Angel Sandy's chosen champion.

  "Is that the latest update?" Lord Sean's Pardalian had developed a distinct Malagoran accent in the past five days, and he smiled as the angel nodded. He moved closer to the map and leaned forward beside her to study it.

  Tibold grinned at Stomald behind their backs, and the priest smiled back despite another tiny stab of envy. It was easier for Tibold, for whatever else he was, Lord Sean was a born soldier. Tibold took paternal pride in him, and Lord Sean seemed to return his regard. He certainly listened attentively to anything Tibold had to say.

  Lord Sean was murmuring to the Angel Harry in that other odd-sounding language they often spoke. Stomald suspected they sometimes forgot no one else understood it (Lord Sean always fell back into Pardalian whenever he remembered others were present), and the young war captain's ability to speak it awed the heretic priest. To be so close to the angels he spoke their own tongue almost unthinkingly must be wondrous, indeed.

  Lord Sean stood back from the map at last, and his eyes were pensive. "Tibold, I think they'll hit our forward pickets this afternoon. Do you agree?"

  Tibold studied the map a moment and nodded.

  "Then it's time," Lord Sean sighed. "I'll speak to Tamman again, but you have a word with the under-captains. Make sure they keep their heads. We're fighting for survival, not honor, and we don't want any wasted lives."

  "I will, Lord Sean," Tibold promised, obviously pleased by the Captain-General's concern for his men, and Lord Sean turned to Stomald.

  "I expect to hold them, Father, but are we ready if we can't?"

  "We are, Lord Sean. I've sent the last of the women back to safety, and the nioharqs will be in the traces by dawn, ready to advance or retreat."

  Lord Sean nodded in satisfaction, then nodded again as the Angel Harry murmured something too soft for any other ears to hear.

  "Father, Captain Tibold and I will be unable to release the troops for services this evening with the enemy so near at hand, but if you'd care to send the chaplains forward—?"

  "Thank you," Stomald said. Lord Sean was always careful about such things, yet the priest wondered why neither he nor Lord Tamman nor even the angels attended the services. Of course, such as they had their own links to God, but it was almost as if they stood aside intentionally.

  "In that case, I think I'll go find lunch. Will you join me?"

  Stomald nodded, and noted the amusement in the Angel Harry's eye. She smiled on the captain, and a surprising thought flickered in Stomald's mind. Lord Sean was as homely as the Angel Harry was beautiful, and the angel, for all her height, seemed tiny beside him, yet there was something . . .

  It was the eyes, he thought. Why had he never noticed before? Lord Sean's strange, black eyes, darker than night, were exactly the same shade. And the hair, so black it was almost blue. That, too, was the same. Why, aside from Lord Sean's homeliness, they might have been brother and sister!

  Like everyone else, Stomald knew Lord Sean and Lord Tamman were more than human—one had only to watch their blinding reflexes or see them occasionally forget to hide their incredible strength to know that—but it hadn't occurred to him they might share the angels' blood!

  The thought was somehow chilling. Lord Sean and Lord Tamman were mortal. They both insisted on that, and Stomald believed them, and that meant they couldn't be related to angels. Besides, Holy Writ said all angels were female, and how could mortal blood mingle with divine? And yet . . . what if—?

  He thrust the idea aside. It was disrespectful at best, and, a hidden part of him knew guiltily, it sprang from an unforgivable yearning that would have appalled him had he faced it squarely.

  Tamman leaned against the thyru tree, watching the road to the east, then glanced back up at the man perched in the branches with his mirror. Pardalian armies had surprisingly sophisticated signal systems, but both mirrors and flags were "daylight-only," and the afternoon was passing.

  He wanted to pace, but that would never do for an angelically chosen war captain. Besides, he was out here instead of Sean expressly to win his men's confidence, which might be important tomorrow, so he contented himself with crushing dried thyru husks under his heel. The thyru resembled an enormous acorn, but its soft, inner tissues produced an oil which filled much the same niche as Terra's olive oil, and he wondered how the Pardalians dealt with its thick shell. Now there was a messy thought!

  He realized his mind was straying and tinkered with his adrenaline levels. He didn't really know why he was watching the road so hard. Unlike his scouts, he had a direct link to Israel's scanner arrays via Sandy's cutter. He knew where the enemy was, and glaring at an empty piece of road wasn't going to get them here a moment sooner.

  He gave himself a shake and moved along the line, patting shoulders and exchanging smiles. Pardalian armies knew about mounted firearms—indeed, most Pardalian cavalry were dragoons—but they'd never been a real threat. While handy for scouting and harassment, dragoons could wear only light armor, their shorter muskets had neither the range nor rate of fire to stand off pikemen, and you couldn't put pikes on branahlks. But these dragoons were something new, for their joharns were rifled. Not, he reminded himself, that this was the time to show the Holy Host all they could do. That would come tomorrow.

  He reached the end of the line and strolled back to his tree, then rechecked his uplink. Well, how about that? Looks like I spent just about exactly the right time with the troops.

  "Rethvan?" He glanced up at the signaler once more.

  "Yes, Captain?"

  "I expect their point to round the bend in about five minutes. Get ready to pass the signal."

  "At once, Lord Tamman." Rethvan couldn't see around that bend, but he sounded so confident Tamman grinned. Now all we have to do is never ever make a mistake—'cause if we do, that confidence could turn around and bite us right on the ass.

  The westering sunlight turned steadily redder, and a corner of his mind looked down through the scanner arrays. Just . . . about . . . now.

  The first mounted scout rounded the bend exactly on cue.

  "Send it, Rethvan." He was pleased by how calm he sounded.

  "Yes, Captain."

  The flashing mirror alerted the outposts to the west, and Tamman heard branahlks whistle behind his hill as their holders got them ready, but it was only a distant background. His attention was on the advancing company of Temple Guard cavalry, and his eyes slipped into telescopic mode.

  They looked tired, and little wonder. Lord Marshal Rokas had moved fast once he started. The logistic capabilities of Pardalian armies amazed Tamman; he'd expected something like Earth's pike-and-musket era, but Pardal had nioharqs. The huge, tusked critters—they reminded him of elephant-sized hogs—could eat almost anything, which made forage far less of a problem than it had been for horse-powered armies, and their sustained speed was astonishing. True, their low top speed made them useless as cavalry, but they let Pardalians move artillery, rations, tents, portable forges, and mobile kitchens at a rate which would have turned Gustavus Adolphus green with envy.

  Even so, Rokas's troops had to be feeling the pace. Sean had sealed the borders, and the Temple didn't know diddly about their deployment—their remotes couldn't penetrate the Temple itself, but they'd eavesdropped on enough of Rokas's field conferences to prove that. Yet the lord marshal had made a pretty fair estimate of their maximum possible strength, and he wasn't worrying about subtle maneuvers. He was going to throw enough bodies at them to plow them under and bull right through . . . he thought.

  Tamman's smile was evil as he watched the scouts advance. They might be tired, but they seemed alert. Unfortunately for them, however, they were watching for threats inside the range they "knew" Pardalian weapons had.

  "Let's get ready, boys," he said quietly as the first branahlk passed the four-hundred-meter range stakes. A soft choru
s of responses came back, and his hundred dragoons settled down in their paired-off positions. He watched them sighting across fallen trees and logs as Rokas' scouts closed to just over two hundred meters. That was still far beyond aimed smoothbore range, but some of them were beginning to look more speculatively his way than he liked.

  "Fire!" he barked, and fifty rifled joharns cracked as one.

  The muzzle flashes were bright in the shadows of the grove, and powder smoke stung his nose, but his attention was on the scouts. Thirty or more went down—many, he was sure, dismounted rather than hit; branahlks were bigger targets than men—and the others gaped at the smoke cloud rising from the trees. Tamman grinned at their stunned reaction, counting under his breath while the first firers reloaded. The second half of each team waited until his partner was half-reloaded, then fired, and more riders went down. The survivors wheeled and spurred frantically back towards the bend, dismounted men racing after them on foot, but individual shots barked at their heels, and most of them were picked off before they could get out of range.

  "Okay, boys, saddle up," Tamman said, and grinning dragoons filtered back towards their mounts. Their commander waited a moment longer, and his own grin faded as he watched the road. A handful of wounded crawled along it, their agony plain to his enhanced eyes, while others writhed where they'd fallen, and even unenhanced ears could have heard their screams and sobs.

  He shivered and turned away, hating himself just a little because not even his horror made him feel one bit less satisfied.

  Lord Marshal Rokas glowered at the map in the lamplight, but his glare couldn't change it, and the reports were just as disturbing now as they'd been when they were fresh.

  He scowled. The first ambush had cost him seventy-one men, and that at a range Under-Captain Turalk swore was two hundred paces if it was a span. The second and third had been worse. The Host's total losses were over four hundred, and they were concentrated in his cavalry—which he wasn't over-supplied with in the first place.