Conqueror (123 page)

"Ah."

He took the cup and sipped. He felt less jangled than usual on waking, less of the sense that something catastrophic had happened and had to be turned around immediately.
How long has it been since I slept without worry?
he thought.

Five years, one month seven days. defining "worry" as your subtextual intent rendered the term. 

Thank you very much,
he thought. Aloud: "Thank you, my sweet. You must have fended them off like a mother sauroid on a rookery."

Suzette smiled; not her usual slight enigmatic curve of the lips, but widely as if at some private joke. She shook her head.

"You've had five years to train them, Raj; and they're good men. They wanted you to rest while you could. They can carry out your orders, but we all want—need—you to be at your best when you're needed. Besides" —she dimpled slightly— "you look so young and vulnerable when you're asleep."

Raj laughed softly.
I'm committed,
he realized.
One turn of pitch and toss, winner take all.
It would either work or it wouldn't, and if it didn't he wouldn't be around to worry about it. There was nothing behind them but Ali and his fifty thousand men, barring the road to the border.

"What was that song?" he asked, finishing the coffee. Suzette poured him another and handed him breakfast—toasted hardtack, but she'd found some preserves for it, somehow.

"Very old. My tutor taught it me when I was a girl; Sister Maria, that was."

"Doesn't sound religious," Raj said.

the song is derived from the devotional poetry of st. john of the cross,
Center said.
the musical arrangement was made approximately two thousand four hundred years ago on earth.
 

"Ahem." A voice from behind the door of the little stern cabin, out on deck. "I hate to interrupt this touching domestic scene, but . . ."

"Coming, Gerrin," Raj said ruefully.

He stamped into his boots and fastened on his equipment, then scooped up the map he'd been working on late into the night. The sun outside was blinding, the shadow of the awning above hard-edged and utter black by comparison. Raj blinked out over the sparkling green waters of the Drangosh. For a kilometer either way, out of sight behind bends in the high banks, it was covered with rafts and barges and boats. With men and guns and ammunition . . .
nine thousand men.
Nine thousand, to decide the fate of empires.
Nine thousand men relying on
me
to pull it off.
The thought was less crushing than usual.
If there was any force this size on Earth—
 

bellevue. 

—Bellevue, then, you pedant, this was it. 

Raj smiled. Staenbridge and the other battalion commanders grinned back at him. Bartin Foley chuckled.

Raj raised his brows. "Your thoughts, Captain?"

He spread the rolled paper on the deck; the officers and Companions crowded around it, kneeling, staking down the corners with daggers.

"
Mi heneral,
I was just thinking how much less pleasant this morning must be for our esteemed friend Tewfik, when he finds out we've left the party and stiffed him with the drink tab."

A snarling ripple of laughter went around the map. "True enough." Raj rested one hand on his knee and spread the fingers of the other over the map. It was his drawing, with Center supplying a holographic overlay for him to work with. "Gentlemen, this is our latest intelligence on the enemy's bridgehead camp and the pontoon bridge over the Drangosh. You'll note—"

Bompf.
The little mortar chugged, and a grapnel soared up through a puff of smoke.

Why?
Tewfik thought. The fires had raged all through the night, as if the
kaphar
did not care that the city burned around their ears. No fire from the walls and towers, not all through the night and the bombardment. Now they were ignoring his herald under a flag of truce, for the whole hour since dawn.
Since I could finally free myself from my brother's whining and threats.
 

The sun was bright in the east, eye-hurting. He shaded his eye with one hand, the other hooked through the back of his sword belt. The breeze blew from the river and fluttered his djellaba; it snapped out the blue-and-silver Starburst of the Federation from the gate towers of Sandoral, as well. The air was heavy with the sickly scent of things that should not burn—one of the constants of war. He had smelled the same in Gurnyca, and in burnt-out cities down on the Zanj coast. Worse, once, when they had shelled a warehouse full of holdouts in Lamoru and the dried copra inside had caught fire.

"Lord Amir, a lucky sniper from the wall—"

"I do not think this is a plot to assassinate me, Hussein," Tewfik said.
Allah alone knows what it
is,
but not that, I think.
 

Men climbed up the cable the mortar had thrown. The first of them had a stick with a white rag attached to it thrust through the shoulder harness of his webbing gear; a flag of truce, by the one and only God. Let Whitehall respect it; he had a name for being scrupulous in such things.

The men climbed in through a narrow window high above the bridge that carried the railway over the moat and through the city wall. Tewfik waited with iron patience. A mirror flashed from the parapet.

Tower apparently empty,
he read. He clawed at his forked beard, nostrils flaring instinctively as if to smell out a trap. More silent waiting, until there came the muffled
thud
of an explosion behind walls, and very faintly, a scream.

The officers around him tensed. A half-minute later, the mirror blinked again.

Boobytrap, six casualties. Tower deserted. Walls deserted. No enemy in sight. 

A hubbub of oaths and excitement broke out around him; the word spread along the siege lines as the great gates swung open and revealed the dogleg passage beyond. A long slow roar like heavy surf welled up, as men climbed out of the entrenchments and onto the gabions, and others dashed from the tents and the cooking-fires behind.

"The city is ours!" someone shouted. "The
kaphar
have fled!"

Tewfik felt a great hand reach into his chest and squeeze. Azazrael's wings brushed darkness over his eyes. Almost, he prayed that the dark angel would come for him now; surely this would count as dying for the Faith, in the Holy War. Hussein and one of his mamluks cried out in shock and rushed to support him; he brushed them aside and staggered forward to the edge of the main works.

Fled?
he thought. "Fled? Where? Northeast, to the valleys of the Borderers? To hide in their mud-built forts and make little raids, while we bottle them up with one-tenth of our strength and march to the gates of East Residence with the rest? Whitehall?"

"But . . ." The aide's face was fluid with shock. "If not north, then where?" He looked at his commander's face, and fear replaced the shock. "What is it, Lord
Amir
?"

"Kismet," Tewfik said. "Fate. If not north, then south . . ."

"But, Lord
Amir
, the message stations, the outposts along the road—we have heard nothing!"

"Exactly." He whirled. "Hussein. Twenty men, each with three led dogs. Kill the dogs with haste if they must, but make such speed as men may. To the commandant of the railhead camp; maintain maximum alertness, enemy in your vicinity."

Hussein gaped. Tewfik seized him by the shoulder-straps of his harness and shook him. "Fool born of fools, the entire raid across the Drangosh was a diversion—their bridge a disguise for boats and rafts to
float their force south.
"

"May the Lovingkind have mercy upon us!"

"Go!" He turned to the others. "Sound the alert. Mobilize the cavalry,
all
of it—"

"Lord
Amir
," one officer said urgently. "The Settler . . ."

The Settler, who will delay for hours before he grasps the necessities. And with him every one of the great noble houses, and the orders of the Maribbatein and ghazis, all of whom will jealously insist on being consulted before a major move is made. 

He raised his hands. "Allah! One day! That is all I ask of You,
one day.
"

Never had he prayed with such sincerity.

"Messers, the garrison is ten thousand men, not counting civilian laborers."

The Companions bent over the sand-map for the last briefing. Antin M'lewis hung back slightly, although his scouting this afternoon had provided the last-minute updates. Considerations of social rank aside, he didn't have a line command; his men would be split up and acting as trail guides for the actual units.

Raj went on, pointing with his sword. The wet sand allowed a surprising amount of detail; he'd spent about an hour getting it right, just possible with Center to overlay holograms and make each motion perfectly efficient. The long shadows of evening brought it out well.

"As you can see, it's a square earth fort; two-meter ditch, two-meter palisade and earth rampart, chevaux-de-frise in the ditch. Pentagonal bastions at each corner, gun lines along the fighting parapet, and four gates at each of the compass points. The railroad leads in from the east, and the pontoon bridge out from the west side. There are ten-meter watchtowers on either side of each gate; the gates are spiked timber barriers. Most of the artillery is concentrated in the bastions, which are as usual higher than the main berm; they bear along each wall."

"Ten thousand men," Jorg Menyez said thoughtfully. "
Heneralissimo,
that's a Starless Dark of a lot of firepower."

Raj nodded. "If we let them apply it, which we won't. They're line-of-communications troops, railroad labor battalions and engineers and supply specialists. Also they're not expecting us. We're not going to give them time to get ready, either; and there's one last little surprise to distract them.

"We're here." He moved his sword point north on the sand map, tapping a point on the east bank of the Drangosh. "Less than two klicks north of the objective as the pterosauroid flies. We'll move separately, by battalion columns, marching on foot, as follows."

He named the battalions, moving from left to right, east to west. "17th Kelden County Foot and the 24th Valencia on the extreme left—they'll have the farthest to go, but they're better foot-marchers. Cavalry battalions in the center, Sandoral infantry on the right, nearest the river. The 5th Descott and the 18th Komar will take the median and assault the camp's north gate. Colonel Menyez, you will have overall command of the left wing; Colonel Staenbridge, of the center; Major Gruder, of the right. I'll accompany the central command.

"Colonel Dinnalsyn, you'll split your guns into two Grand Batteries. One will accompany the 24th, one the Sandoral garrison battalions. Your objective will be to neutralize the enemy artillery in the corner bastions for the duration of the assault. One fast hard stonk, then shift fire to support, and when our banners are over the berm and palisade, cease fire and prepare to move up as directed. Understood?"

The artillery commander stroked his thin mustache with his thumb. "It can be done,
mi heneral.
But to be effective, I'll need time for ranging fire."

"I'll provide precise range data when we arrive," Raj said.

"That will be satisfactory, of course,
heneralissimo
," Dinnalsyn said carefully, the crisp East Residence vowels sounding a little strained. From the glances, everyone knew what it meant:
it's bloody eerie.
"You have an excellent eye for it."

Raj continued: "Messers, your approaches will be by the following paths." His sword sketched them out, through the maze of badland cliffs, naming the battalions. "I hope I don't need to emphasize the absolute necessity of caution as you approach the edge of the badland zone and the low country directly north of the enemy camp. There's a company of the Rogor Slashers in place, guided by members of the Scout Company. They'll take out the Colonial watchposts immediately before you debouche into the plain, and there'll be very little time after that—the attack, and the usual rocket, will be your signal. Come out of the hills in column, deploy as you move, and hit the wall running. By that time, the artillery will have the bastions under fire. Nothing fancy, gentlemen; we go in with the bayonet and one round up the spout, climb the wall and sweep" —his sword moved from north to south— "the wogs out of their camp. Then we stop for the night."