Conqueror (108 page)

Raj finished a pear and tossed the core aside, squinting ahead. Then he stiffened and flung up one hand.

"
Halto.
Silence in the ranks."

The bugles snarled, and the column came to a dead stop in less than three strides. Silence fell, broken only by the occasional jingle of harness as a dog shifted.

There.
A dull thudding sound, like a large door being slammed far away. It echoed, and was repeated. Again. Again.

"Artillery, by the Spirit," Staenbridge said softly.

Raj nodded, closing his eyes to concentrate.

civil government field guns,
Center said.
two batteries, approximately 8.7 kilometers south-southeast of your present position.
 

"Well, that's something serious," Bartin Foley observed flatly.

Ain el-Hilwa had been the only action hot enough to need artillery support so far. The officers around Raj exchanged glances, and so did the men in the long ranks zigzagging back up the hill. The military picnic was over.

"Kaltin," Raj said. That was where Kaltin Gruder's
kampfgruppe
was operating.

He called up the maps of the area. A low ridge on either side, running east-west, more flat ground to the south.

"Sound
Reverse Front
," he said. "Then
Trot.
"

The bugle screamed again, and the dogs turned in place. They waited the thirty seconds necessary to turn the gun-teams and broke into a rocking trot back up the slope.

"Messengers to the raiding parties, immediate concentration here," Raj began. "Colonel Staenbridge, establish your banner there" —he pointed to the notch where the road crossed the hill— "with a firing line on the reverse slope, ready to move up. Major Bellamy, that'll be your 1st and 2nd, and the 1/591st. Gerrin, anchor your left there" —he pointed to a reservoir— "and re-fuse your right with the raiding parties as they come in. Grammek, get your guns on the reverse crest too, but keep the teams close."

The artilleryman nodded. That was dangerous—risking immobilizing the weapons if the teams were injured—but gave essential seconds of extra time if you had to pull out fast.

"No fieldworks, but put up some quick sangars for the splatguns. Suzette, have those Church people ready to triage the wounded and move them back immediately; we won't be staying. Captains M'lewis, Foley, I'll be taking a company of the 5th and the Scouts forward with me. And one splatgun. Questions?"

Heads shook. "Good. To your positions, please. Gerrin." Staenbridge reined in. "I've got an unpleasant feeling we'll be coming back faster than we go. Be ready to stop them hard." Even veteran troops could turn unsteady if it looked like a rout.

Staenbridge nodded; they leaned toward each other and slapped fists, inside of the wrist and then back. "We'll be here,
mi heneral
."

Raj met Suzette's eyes for a moment. No words were necessary.

"Waymanos!" 

They trotted through a land silent and deserted, warming towards the crippling heat of a Drangosh Valley summer morning. Raj's little force rode in column, with a spray of pickets out ahead. The dogs kept up a steady canter-trot-walk-trot-canter, eating the kilometers. Their tongues lolled, but their ears were pricked forward, all but Horace's, which were a hound's floppy style. The guns sounded much closer now, thudding bangs. The terrain hereabouts was mixed, fingers of high
doab
running from the clay bluffs along the Drangosh into the lower, flatter country to the east that extended past the Ghor Canal to the foothills of the Gederosian Mountains. From the sound, the guns were firing on the next ridge south.

All the men had heard the sound before, and most of the dogs. The troopers rode with their rifles across their thighs.

Whistles came from up ahead. One of the Scouts came down the road at a quick lope.

"Courier comin', ser," he said.

The messenger's dog was panting. He pulled a sweat-dampened paper from a jacket marked with the shoulder-flashes of the 7th Descott Rangers. A smell of scorched hide came from the leather scabbard in front of his right knee, the smell a hard-used rifle made when it was slapped into the sheath still hot.

"Ser," he said, "Major Gruder reports we'ns ran inta a patrol. Thought't were a patrol, turned out t'be more wogs'n we could handle."

Raj read quickly; it was a request for reinforcements, with a quick sketch map of the action. He shook his head. Kaltin was a first-class tactician, but he had a tendency to over-narrow focus, to lock his teeth in a situation and try to beat it to death.

"My compliments to Major Gruder, and tell him I'll be there shortly. And to be ready to move position, quickly."

"Ser!"

"Barton, bring them up to a lope."

The messenger pulled his mount around and clapped heels into its flanks. The sound of the guns grew sharper as the ground rose. He could see powder-smoke rising above the higher terrain to the south. A trickle of wounded passed them, riding-wounded leading dogs with more badly injured men slung over them—it was all you could do, in a situation like this.

POUMPF. POUMPF. POUMPF.
The guns were firing steadily; he could see them now, spaced out amid spindly native whipstick trees on the ridge. They were firing from the top crest, the crews pushing them back every time they recoiled. Raj pulled off the roadway, leaning forward in the saddle as Horace took the ditch with a bound and swung up the hill.

Kaltin Gruder met him. "Ran into a patrol," he said. "Company strength—one
tabor
. I jumped them, more of them came up, I called in my raiding parties, then even
more
showed up. There's a battle group of two thousand down there now, and they're not stopping for shit. These aren't line-of-communications troops. Regular cavalry, and good ones."

Raj grunted in reply, sweeping his binoculars over the slope below. It was sparsely wooded with whipsticks, tall spindly trees with branches that drooped up and away from the main stem on all sides, dangling fronds of featherlike leaves.

POUMPF. POUMPF. 

The eight guns on the ridgeline kept up their steady shelling, the pressure-wave of the discharges slapping at faces and chests. At least twenty Colonial artillery were firing in reply from the lower ground to the front, half pom-poms and half 70mms. They weren't attempting a counter-battery shoot, just searching the edge of the treeline to try and beat down the fire of the Civil Government riflemen. All across the open ground Colonial dragoons were moving forward on foot, line after line of them in extended skirmish order.

Gruder went on: "I've got the 7th in the center, with Poplanich's Own and the 1st Rogor to the right and left and the Maximilliano over there."

He pointed to the east, where smoke and the steady crackle of small arms indicated action. "Whoever the wog commander is, he knows his hand from a hacksaw—started trying to work around my flanks as soon as he got a feel for the depth of my firing line here. I moved the Maximilliano out to extend the line, but it thinned me here badly."

Raj nodded curtly. Gruder's three battalions—a thousand men or so, all under strength—were keeping up a steady crackle of independent fire. Down below figures in red djellabas were scattered on the ground or hobbling, limping, and crawling back toward the guns and the banners grouped around them. Advancing against veteran riflemen cost heavily. A splatgun gave its ripping
braaap
and a file of Colonials nearly a thousand meters away went down as the spread of rifle bullets hit them. Several of the enemy guns shifted aim; Raj could see the splatgun team trundling their light weapon to a new position just ahead of the pompom and field gun shells.

But more and more of the Colonials were making it to their own firing line close to the woods. Their repeaters were just as deadly as the heavier Civil Government weapons at ranges under a hundred meters, and they fired much faster. A haze of off-white powder smoke was drifting away from the thickening Colonial position. Even as he watched, several platoons rose and dashed forward for the woods. Many fell, but others went to ground in the scrub along the edge of the savannah. Once in among the trees, their repeaters would slaughter men equipped with single-shot rifles.

"We can crush them like a tangerine if you swing in with the main force,
mi heneral
," Gruder said.

Kaltin
does
tend to get too focused,
Raj thought. His own mind was moving in cool precise arcs and tangents, like something scribed on a drawing-board by an engineer's compasses and protractors. Like a mental analogue of the way you felt when fencing; perhaps a little like the way Center felt all the time, if Center had subjective experience.

He felt more alive than anywhere else. It was a pity he could only feel this on the battlefield, that his art could only be practiced as men died. There were times when he lay awake at night, wondering what that said about him. But not now. Not now.

"No, Major, a full-scale meeting engagement isn't what I have in mind. If there's one Colonial battle group around, there's going to be others."

He considered for a few seconds. "This will have to be quick. We'll withdraw by leapfrogging battalions. Move Poplanich's Own back half a klick to that rise, and the guns. You'll take the 7th and the others back to join the main force. I'll hold the rearguard." Gruder didn't like retreating. "M'lewis, detach two men to each of the battalion commanders to guide them to the main-force position. Follow with the rest."

Gruder nodded briskly; he didn't like it, but that would make no difference to his obedience. Antin M'lewis turned and barked orders. Pairs of men galloped off.

"Trumpeter!" Raj went on. "Relay. Half-kilometer withdrawal. On the signal."

The complex call went out, was echoed. A single long note followed.

The battery on the rise fired one last
stonk
and let the guns roll downhill to their limbers. The teams snatched up the trails and slapped them on; retaining pins went home with an iron clank, the six dogs of each team rose, and the guns set off down the open slope at a trot. Three men rode the offhand dogs of the team; there were two seats on the gun axles and two on the limber, and the remainder had dogs of their own. Up from the savannah came the splatguns, hauled by four-dog teams; lighter, they overtook the field pieces despite the smaller draft.

The crackle of small-arms fire intensified. "Barton. We'll give the wogs a going-away present. Standing saddle-volley, use the crestline. Place the splatgun."

Company A of the 5th was nearest to full strength, eighty men, only forty down from regulation. They fanned out behind Raj, heeling their dogs a meter and a half downslope. The dogs turned and faced the crest, then crouched. The men crouched with them, squatting. It was an inelegant and uncomfortable posture—you couldn't let your full weight rest on the dog—but the men moved into a flawless double line with the ease of a housewife slapping dough for tortillas. Three-meter spacing between each, and the rows staggered so that the rear row matched the intervals in the front. He looked at their faces: stolid, immobile under the film of sweat, a few chewing tobacco and spitting. Every one of them knew what was about to happen.

Below, the Colonials hesitated a crucial handful of seconds when the fire from the Civil Government troops ceased. Just long enough to let them dash back to their waiting dogs. Center unreeled numbers as the depleted battalions trotted up the slope, rallied, and cantered northward. He winced slightly. Those units had been under strength before. A lot of them were still down there in the burning grass and shattered whipstick trees, and would never leave. Long curled trumpets sounded, shriller than his own. Half the Colonials turned and started to jog back towards their dogs. The others opened fire on the retreating raiders; not many went down, but some men and dogs fell out of line.

"Reacting fast," Raj murmured.

The Colonial commander was sending his mounted reserve forward, galloping up the hill. Two
tabor
, a little under three hundred men, with a pair of pom-poms galloping behind. Galloping guns was risky, especially on uneven ground like this. A few men, wounded or just extremely brave, had stayed behind among the dead. One rose to a knee and shot the off-lead dog of a pom-pom team. It collapsed, biting at its wounded leg. The gun slewed around, then tipped over and spun. The massive torque spun through the trail and the harness, turning the team into a thrashing pile of twisted metal and shredded meat that bounced downslope and scattered the dismounted Colonials who followed.