Hope Renewed (15 page)

A long file of Colonial dragoons rose from prayer and rolled up their issue rugs. Naiks and rissaldars screamed at them, and they returned to their work—hacking through the ties of the railway line. As each section of track came loose, they carried it at a run to one of the bonfires that blazed at intervals down the line and threw it on. The dry wood flared up like tinder, and in the heart of the furnace-heat he could see the thin strap iron turning cherry-red and then yellow, slumping and twisting into a mass of metallic spaghetti that would have to be carted to the forges and rolling-mills as scrap.

Raj nodded to himself, tight-lipped. No surprise; a railroad was the best military target there was. But it had taken generations to get the line from Sandoral to East Residence completed; until Barholm Clerett came to the throne and Raj reconquered the territories to the west, there always seemed to be a more urgent short-term priority.

The Colonials were doing a good professional job of the wrecking, and there were a lot of them.

Dust smoked up from the road. Sweat dripped off the twenty-hitch train of oxen as they strained at the trek-chain. The big tented wagon rolled forward, its axles groaning, man-high wheels turning at the steady, inexorable pace that would take it ten kilometers a day and neither more nor less. It was one of a line of two dozen, between them taking up several kilometers of road; all of them had the Crescent pyrographed on the wood of their sides, and the Peacock stenciled on their tilts.

The load was sacked grain, and bales of a repulsive-looking dried fish; even in the holographic vision he could imagine the mealy, oily smell of it.
Advocati
, the staple dog-fodder of the Drangosh valley, a sucker-mouthed parasitic bottom-feeder with no backbone. Dogs would eat it, just; even slaves would refuse it if they could. As he watched, the oxen halted as the drivers snapped their whips. Men with baskets of grain and dried alfalfa pellets went down the train, dumping loads by the draft cattle.

The escort sank down and unlimbered the goatskin water-bottles at their waists, stacking their light lever-action rifles. Infantry, with short curved falchions at their belts rather than the scimitars of the cavalry. Tewfik wouldn’t be wasting his best men on duty like this, but here was about a platoon of them. The drovers were civilians, slight men in ragged clothes.

A voice called, and drovers and soldiers alike knelt in the dust, performing the ritual washing and unrolling their mats. A call, and they knelt to distant Sinnar, the holy city where the first humans on Bellevue had landed, bringing a fragment of the ka’ba from ruined Mecca.

A Colonial officer with gold-rimmed spectacles and a green-dyed beard stood beside a hole. It was outside the walls of Sandoral—he could see the city in the middle distance—but outside ordinary artillery range. There were several hundred Colonials working in the hole, mostly stripped to their loincloths, but they had the look of soldiers. Probably engineers; the Colony had whole units of them, rather than expecting line units to be able to double up at need, the way the Civil Government did. He’d never seen men work harder, or with more skill.

Picks were flying; plank ramps went down into the hole, and wheelbarrows came up at a trot, full of earth. The dirt was piled neatly in heaps not far away; other men were filling sandbags from the heaps. Still more shaped timber, raw beams from orchards around the city, or seasoned timber salvaged from houses. A knocked-down floor of planks waited to be assembled.

A bunker, Raj decided. Cursed large one, too. Probably for Ali.

Raj blinked, conscious of the eyes on him. They were all used to his . . . spells of inattention . . . by now.

He cleared his throat. “Ali’s reached Sandoral and he’s digging in around the city. So far he hasn’t mounted an assault—bringing up his siege train, at a guess. He’s got the full fifty thousand men with him; it must be straining his supply of wagons and fodder to keep them fed. Tewfik’s banner isn’t with the main army.”

There was a stir at that. “What do we do,
mi heneral?
” Staenbridge asked.

“We dig, and we wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“For the wogs” —he nodded toward Ain el-Hilwa— “to take the bait. In which case, we—”

The officers waited in silence, a few taking notes. “Is all that clear?” Raj finished.

“No reserve?” Staenbridge asked.

“Not this time; it’s a calculated risk, but so’s this whole expedition.”

He turned and looked at the Arab city, surrounded by the smoldering wreck of its suburbs, crammed to the very wall with refugees.

“Either this will be easy, or it’ll be impossible,” he said.

probability of action proceeding according to current projections, 78%±7
, Center said helpfully.

“I’d put it at about three to one on easy,” he went on. “If not, we’ll just have to react fast.”

“When you go by the Camina Bellica
As thousands have traveled before
Remember the Luck of the Soldier
Who never saw home anymore!
Oh, dear was the lover who kissed him
And dear was the mother that bore;
But then they found his sword in the heather,
And he never saw home anymore!”

“Ser.” Antin M’lewis was Officer of the Day; he slipped into the circle around the fire. “Major Hwadeloupe t’see yer.”

Raj finished the mouthful of fig-bread and dusted his hands, leaning back on the cushions—someone had salvaged them from a nearby Colonial mansion, and they were all resting on them and the Al Kebir carpets from the same source. A roast sheep on rice had been demolished, and they were punishing the sweetmeats and pastries the Colonials were famous for. The wine was too sweet, even diluted, but nobody was drinking all that much of it anyway; they knew him better than that. The firelight played on the faces around it, bringing out scars on Kaltin Gruder’s as he leaned forward to light a twig and puff a cheroot alight.

“By all means, Antin, bring him along,” Raj said.

Hwadeloupe commanded the 44th Camarina Dragoons, one of Osterville’s battalions.

“An’ ser . . . he’s got ‘is men out there. Hunnerts of ’em, not too far.”

“Keep an eye on them, Captain.”

The strong male voices were roaring out the next verse, the one that had gotten the song officially banned centuries ago. It was a truth the Governors preferred that the Army not be too conscious of:

“When you go by the Camina Bellica
From the City to Sandoral,
Remember the Luck of the Soldier
Who rose to be master of all!
He carried the rifle and saber,
He stood his watch and rode tall,
Till the Army hailed him as Governor
And he rose to be master of all!”

“Glad you could join us,” Raj said as Hwadeloupe strode up. “No, no, no salutes in the mess, Major. Have some wine.”

The soldier-servant handed him a mug of half-and-half, watered wine. He gripped it distractedly, a middle-aged man with the marks of long service on the southern border on his leathery face.

“
Mi heneral
, if we could speak privately?”

“I have no secrets from my officers and Companions, Major.” Not
quite
true, but it was a polite way of telling Hwadeloupe that he couldn’t expect to hedge his bets.

“Ah . . . sir, I would like to transfer my battalion to your command—to this encampment, that is.”

The rest of the command group had fallen silent; Suzette kept strumming her
gittar
, but softly. Without the song, the minor noises of the camp came through: dogs growling, a challenge from the walls, the iron clatter of a field gun’s breechblock being opened for some reason.

“If I might ask why?” Raj went on implacably.

Hwadeloupe stood very straight. “Sir. Colonel Osterville thinks there’s no risk from the garrison of Ain el-Hilwa. But I know you don’t think so, and I see your men still have their boots on, and your guns are limbered up. Colonel Osterville may be right. On the whole, though, when he and you disagree, I’ll bet on you. With respect, sir.”

Raj shoulder-rolled and came erect. “I can always use good men,” he said. “And I don’t think you’ll regret that decision. Captain M’lewis will show your men to their bivouac area within the earthworks.”

“Ah, sir. There’s one other matter.” Hwadeloupe kept his eyes fixed over Raj’s shoulder. “We have, ah, a considerable quantity of booty with us. Just picked up, you understand. We’d like to turn it in now to the common fund, as per your standing orders.”

Raj raised an eyebrow; one of Gerrin’s expressions, and very useful in situations like this. “That’s odd, Major. We’ve had several smaller parties in from Colonel Osterville’s camp, and they’ve all had some late-arriving booty to turn in too.” He extended his hand. “No hard feelings. M’lewis will settle your people in.”

“I’ll see to that myself, if it’s all the same to you,
mi heneral
,” Hwadeloupe said, taking the extended hand in his own. “And thank you, sir.”

Raj returned to his cushion beside Suzette. “That’s about two hundred in all,” he said.

“Separating the sheep from the goats,” Staenbridge replied. “Or those too stupid to live from the remainder.”

Foley frowned. “Some of them are staying over there to follow orders,” he pointed out.

“My dear,” Gerrin said, “what’s that saying—from the Old Namerique codexes—”

Foley was something of a scholar. “ ‘
Against Fate even the gods do not fight,
’ “ he quoted.

“Exactly.”

Raj nodded and leaned back, his head not quite in Suzette’s lap. Both moons were out and very bright, bright enough to interrupt the frosted arch of stars. Her fingers wandered over the strings.

“It’s twenty-five marches to Payso
It’s forty-five more to Ayaire
And the end may be death in the heather
Or life on the Governor’s Chair
But whether the Army obeys us,
Or we serve as some sauroid’s fare
I’d rather be Lola’s lover
Than sit on the Governor’s Chair!”

Cut-nose Marhtinez lay in the dark and breathed quietly. He was ten meters from the walls of Ain el-Hilwa, outside the north gate. An overturned two-wheel cart hid him; the bodies of the two dogs who’d been drawing it until they met a cannonball were fairly ripe after a day in the hot sun, and so was the driver: black, swollen, the skin split and dripping in places, like a windfallen plum. He’d had about seven FedCreds in assorted silver in his pouch, though.

The night was fairly dark, only one moon in the sky and that near the horizon. The starlight was enough for him to see men moving on the walls—and they were moving without torches. He could even hear some wog curse when he ran into something and barked his chin. A whistling and dull thudding followed, about the sound you’d expect one of those nine-barbed whips the wog officers used to make. The yelp of pain that followed was strangled, and the next slash brought no sound at all.

Quiet’s a whorehouse on payday,
he thought scornfully. It was a good thing there weren’t any Bedouin scouts with the Ain el-Hilwa garrison. Those sand-humpers were too good for comfort.

Cut-nose moved his head slightly. The star he was using was still a fingerbreadth above the horizon. An hour and a bit short of dawn, call it an hour and twenty minutes.

He moved backward out of the wrecked cart, keeping it between him and the wall. Nothing on his body clinked or reflected light, and his hands and face were blacked; Mother Marhtinez might not have known exactly who his father was, but she hadn’t raised any fools. Pause, move, pause, until he was behind a snag of ruined wall, still hot enough from the fire to feel on his skin. He picked up his rifle—nothing but a hindrance and a temptation in the blind where he’d spent the night—and eeled cautiously back to his dog.

Captain M’lewis was waiting there. Cut-nose grinned ingratiatingly. He didn’t have much use for officers, and still less for a promoted ranker who might be a kinsman. He did have the liveliest respect for Antin M’lewis’s wits, his wire garrote, and the skinning-knife he wore across the small of his back beneath the tails of his uniform jacket. All the Forty Thieves—the Scouts—had a standing invitation to go out behind the stables and settle things with knives if they felt they couldn’t obey someone who wasn’t Messer-born.

So far only one fool had taken M’lewis up on it; he was on the rolls as a deserter. Nobody had found the body.
Good riddance,
Cut-nose thought. The Scouts beat regular duty all to hell. Less boring, more plunder—a
lot
more in some cases—and no more dangerous. M’lewis wasn’t the charge-the-barricade type.

“They’re movin’, ser. Gittin’ ready, loike,” he said in a soft whisper, directed at the ground—nothing to carry far.

M’lewis nodded. “Messer Raj was expectin’ it, an’ t’scouts at t’other gate says th’ same,” he observed. “Here, git this t’him fast.”

“Sir.”

Kaltin Gruder’s voice. Raj rolled out of his blankets; Suzette was already reaching for her carbine. He fastened his weapons belt. His boots were already on; if the men had to sleep in them, so could he.