Conflagration (8 page)

CORDELIA

Cordelia closed her eyes and concentrated, focusing to the near-exclusion of everything around her. Finally she opened them, shook her head, and replaced her blue sunglasses. “Nothing. No sign of anything. So far it’s a totally terrestrial battle.”

Jesamine looked around as though seeking something that wasn’t there. “I feel we ought to be doing more. So many are going to sacrifice so much and we’re just standing around.”

Over to Jesamine’s right, a column of mounted Ohio was wending its way up into the small segment of the western ridge that had been taken and held by Albany. They were following other cavalry units that had already made the ascent. While the infantry and fighting machines advanced down the valley, they were going to make one more attempt to dislodge the Mosul from the high ground. Cordelia shared Jesamine’s frustration. She had friends in that desperate bid to clear the heights, but venting didn’t help. She was about point that out when Argo did it for her.

“We’re doing what we have to do, and, right now, we have to wait until we’re needed. Ask any of the poor fucking grunts. Waiting is what war’s all about.”

Behind him, Raphael nodded in agreement. “It’ll be our turn soon enough. No need to rush.”

The Four had come to war and found that they had nothing to do, a situation that failed to improve their already shaky cohesion. The guns had stopped some fifteen minutes previously, and the fighting machines had finally ground down into the valley, lurching forward on their steel tracks and iron treads, while the exposed infantry, advancing with fixed bayonets, stayed as close as possible to their armored sides, taking advantage of all the cover offered by the rumbling juggernauts. Some regiments had even gone into the valley singing.

Oh, Annie gal, I must away

On and on and on and on

But I’ll fuck you come the break of day

On and on and on and on

Then the captain calls and I obey

Over the hills and far away.

The assault force had been advancing for maybe three minutes, when the Mosul guns on the ridge opened up, breaking the infantry formations with sudden spurting geysers of flame, dirt, and black smoke. With at least a mile to go to the Mosul’s forward trenches, the Albany boys would have to endure shelling from the ridge all of the way, unless the cavalry and the Ohio could take that western high ground and silence the enemy cannon. There would be no more singing. This first crash of the Mosul artillery had been like a clap of massed thunder, and thrown Cordelia into a sudden if momentary panic. She didn’t want to play any more. War was no place for her. She was born for soft pretty things, not the implacable ugliness of combat. She wanted to run away from the smoke and the flame and death-dealing explosions. She wanted to hide. She didn’t want to die. But then she found her strength and reestablished control, sternly reprimanding herself. “We all have to die sometime, darling.”

“What?”

She thought that no one had heard her over the guns, but Argo, Jesamine, and Raphael were all staring at her curiously. “Are you alright, Cordelia?”

She looked from face to face. They all seemed genuinely concerned, but Cordelia tried to laugh it off. They didn’t need to see her weakness. “I was finding encouragement in a well-worn platitude. We lived through the Potomac, and we’ll live through this.”

Right at that moment, the first Albany fighting machine was hit. A triple explosion shook the ground; the exploding shell, then the machine’s magazine detonating and boiler blowing in quick succession. Hot metal, dirt, and smoking debris rained from the sky. Cordelia ducked, as did everyone around her. A chunk of twisted steel buried itself in the ground just a few feet from her.

“Fuck!”

Crouching on one knee, she glanced in the direction of Dunbar, to see if he had reacted like everyone else. Apparently the Field Marshal was made of sterner stuff than his underlings. Virgil Dunbar stood straight and still while all around him sought cover. Either he believed that he would never be touched, or he didn’t care if he was. Whatever the source of his strength, he ignored the danger and stared unflinching down the length of the fateful valley where hundreds of his men were going to their deaths. Cordelia knew this was probably the only way to deal with war and command, and wondered if, one day, she would be able to do the same.

Cordelia straightened up, and looked round for the others. “Is everyone okay?”

Jesamine and Argo nodded, but Raphael was tentatively touching his forehead, where a trickle of blood ran down from just above his eyebrow. Argo was the first to notice. “Hey, man, you’re bleeding.”

Raphael tersely shook his head. “It’s nothing, just a scratch.”

“You want a medic to take a look at it?”

Raphael found a handkerchief and dabbed at the cut. His expression was scathing. “Be real. There are guys being blown to pieces just over there.”

Cordelia didn’t want to look, but Raphael was right. The infantry and the fighting machines were advancing into a hell of shot, shell, and deafening cacophony. Within just minutes, they had been almost totally obscured by dark billowing smoke, curling in sudden eddies, and punctuated by flashes of red-orange flame. Starshells burst overhead, leaving blossoms of white cloud, and a dirigible rode the wind currents, but safely to the east, out of the reach of even the most optimistic Mosul fire. The terrible beauty of it all left Cordelia scarcely able to speak. The battlefield was a place of brutal fascination, to which all must succumb, no matter how many engagements they had seen. The aides and officers around her had all been at the Battle of the Potomac, but they still stared in awe as the main Albany assault ground deeper and deeper into the valley that so far didn’t even have a name.

Dunbar observed what was happening and cleared his throat. “Yes, gentlemen. Take a good look, and tremble. You have one minute to stare in horror at what we have wrought, and then, goddamn it, get yourselves back to the task at hand.”

The officers around the map table visibly pulled themselves together. Dunbar took out a pocket watch, read the time, and then snapped it closed. He turned briskly to his artillery coordinator. “Musgrave…”

The stocky, red-haired colonel stiffened. “Sir?”

“Move the guns into the valley. Fast as you can.”

“Yes, sir.”

Cordelia had once been friends with Musgrave’s daughter Hyacinth but, when Hyacinth had enlisted in the Royal Nursing Volunteers, Cordelia had lost track of her. Musgrave picked up a field telephone, briskly cranked the handle, but nothing happened. He cursed all modern contraptions of wires and batteries, then quickly turned and signaled for a galloper. A young lieutenant stepped forward—little more than a boy who had yet to start shaving. He was given quick instructions, and then ran for his horse. The spell of first combat was broken, now the officers were all in motion, casting worried glances from the battle itself to the maps in front of them. The near end of the valley was now so swathed in smoke that to see whether the advance was still moving proved hard. Bursts of small-arms fire seemed to indicate that the infantry was engaging the Mosul on the ridge. One group of staff officers was peering at the high ground through field glasses. “Field Marshal, I see explosions in among the trees, near the summit line.”

“Cavalry making contact?”

“That’s how it looks.”

“Let’s hope so.” Dunbar searched for Musgrave. “Where are those damned guns?”

“They’re moving now, sir.”

Cheers broke out from across the knoll as galloping teams of horses, a mounted rider on the leader, charged through the camp with all the show and bravado of the mobile artillery, and then plunged on, each dragging a light howitzer. Down the trail and into the valley, they maintained a reckless speed across ground already torn up by armor and infantry. The gun-carriages were making for the base of the eastern ridge, before the enemy could draw a bead on them, to set up forward firing positions from which they could rain down all hell on the Mosul in the opposite trees.

As the last caisson rattled past, Cordelia could not resist clasping her hands together in wonder and delight. The gunners had charged out so breakneck, and splendidly headlong, Albany suddenly seemed to have a chance. They were taking the fight to the Mosul at such a dashing fury, how could they not prevail?

“Oh, magnificent.”

She had exclaimed louder than she had intended, and some of Dunbar’s immediate staff turned and looked at her. Dunbar himself glanced up and arched an eyebrow. “You approve of my gunners, do you, Lady Blakeney?”

RAPHAEL

“Are we connected to the airship yet?”

When Dunbar moved, his aides moved with him like chicks following an angry mother hen, except the Field Marshal was no mother hen, and right at that moment, a Colonel Ailes, the engineer responsible for communications, was the target of his ire. Raphael didn’t envy the man who was shaking his head and looking decidedly unhappy.

“No, sir. We’re having trouble picking up the signal.”

“Damn it, Ailes, when?”

Raphael knew that the airship constituted Dunbar’s eye in the sky. He turned and looked at the pall of smoke and fire in the valley. Even with field glasses it was hard to tell what was really going on and how much progress the assault troops were making. He could see the howitzers firing from their new position at the base of the eastern ridge, but little else.

“Just five to ten minutes, Field Marshal.”

“You told me that five minutes ago, damn it.”

“It’s a brand new system, sir. It’s never been used in the field before.”

“You know my feeling about excuses.”

Two electricians, a corporal and a private, came in laying electrical cable as they went, and temporarily removing Ailes from the hook. Two more pushed their way through the officers carrying a ticker tape machine, and began stripping wires and connecting them to shiny copper terminals. Dunbar stood over them, watching with interest. “Is this going to work for me, Corporal?”

“We’ll soon find out, sir.”

The corporal screwed down the final terminal and the machine commenced to clatter. A length of paper tape unspooled and was typed on by the automatic keys. When the process stopped, Dunbar ripped the tape from the machine and examined it. “This is gibberish.”

The corporal was unconcerned. “Just a test, sir. But it shows that everything’s working, if you know what I mean.”

Dunbar indicated he knew what the corporal meant. The ticker clattered again. This time the corporal tore off the tape and handed it to Dunbar. “Your first report from the airship, Field Marshal.”

Dunbar gestured to an aide, who produced a flask and handed it to the corporal, indicating that he should drink and pass it on to the three privates. Raphael reflected how, if Dunbar came out of this day the victor, the corporal would have a story to tell his grandchildren, about how he shared a drink with the great man. Dunbar was already a part of Albany folklore. He was the hero of the bloodless revolution that had brought the present King to power and deposed his autocratic and unpopular father. In the winter of ’93, the poor had marched in the streets, and only the cool resolve of then-Colonel Virgil Dunbar had prevented bloodshed on Regent Square. Subsequently arrested, but then freed by popular outcry, Dunbar had later been one of those at the legendary Midnight Meeting, the historic encounter between the King, the leaders of the Commons, and the Army that had resulted in Carlyle I’s abdication in favor of his son Carlyle II, while the troops of Hassan IX were already coming ashore at Savannah.

Dunbar noticed Raphael studying the ticker tape machine, and laughed. “One of the marvels of advanced technology, my boy. Strange to think that it exists in the same modern world as you and your friends.”

Raphael nodded, uncomfortable that the commander had noticed him. “Strange indeed, sir.”

Dunbar looked amused. He was probably accustomed to junior officers becoming tongue-tied in his presence. “I understand you Four have had very little to do as yet.”

“That’s right, Field Marshal. As yet.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, my boy. I have a feeling you’ll all see action soon enough.”

Dunbar was one of the few senior officers in Albany who harbored no doubts about The Four. Many of those immediately under him simply wished they would go away, but the supreme commander accepted their powers as mysterious but infinitely useful. His backing had helped them on a number of occasions, the most notable being in the matter of them making contact with the aborigines. The visit by The Four to the land of the Ohio had almost never happened. Although the winter excursion had been organized by Slide and T’saya, the original suggestion had been made by the Reverend “Bearclaw” Manson. The small man, with his buckskins and unkempt hair, was credited with knowing more about the uncharted interior of the continent than any other individual in Albany, and also of being in closer touch with the aboriginal world of the invisible than perhaps any living American. It had been Manson’s idea that The Four should spend time with the shamans, wisewomen, and windwalkers of the Ohio. Despite all his unique insights, Manson was not a religious leader, and the title “Reverend” was little more than a nickname. At the same time, though, he frequently understood more, and his thoughts were more practical and precise than most, if not all, of those who held offices in the organized worship of God or Goddess. “When you find yourself dealing with the unknown, I figure it’s a real good idea to know all that you can know, before you set to messing with it.”

At first, a majority of the Albany war cabinet had completely disagreed with him. They had objected strenuously to such a meeting, considering the capabilities of The Four a state secret that should be preserved at all cost, and, under no circumstances compromised, especially at the suggestion of a character like Manson, in their estimation a possible madman who spent far too much of his time communing with who-knew-what imagined devils in the deep and primal forests of the interior. They reasoned that it was bad enough that the existence of The Four had been inadvertently revealed at the King’s investiture. To allow the Ohio a close look at them should be unthinkable. Those who supported Manson, primarily Dunbar and Slide, countered that what Jesamine, Argo, Cordelia, and Raphael might learn from consulting with the aborigines, and letting the tribe’s advanced adepts meet with them, would totally outweigh what they might be giving away. The final decision had been taken by Prime Minister Jack Kennedy, when he sided with Dunbar, concluding that Manson was right, and gave his approval that The Four, along with Slide, T’saya, Manson, and a full military escort, should head out through the snow-blown forest, where the tall pines swayed, bending to the same Arctic north-winds that kept the Mosul shivering in the ruins of Richmond.