Straits of Hell (39 page)

“I only had the one!”

“Me too!” cried the other cannoneer breathlessly as they ran. The satchels were used only to bring a single fixed charge to the gun at a time, and there wouldn't have been any in them at all if they hadn't been firing so fast. The gunner reached into his own satchel that he'd hastily grabbed and pulled out a shot strapped to a wooden sabot atop a wool-like powder bag.

“Case shot,” he gasped, disappointed. Then he grinned, pierced the paper fuse at the one-second mark, and trotted over to shove the whole thing in the muzzle. “Raam it!” he ordered.

The female 'Cat with the rammer staff was limping badly, having
trouble keeping up. She glanced over her shoulder at the monster, closing. “What good dat do? Is too light! It not even go as deep as solid shot!” she trilled.

“Raam it!” the gunner roared. She did—and then spun to the ground as musket balls began striking around them. The Doms may not have wanted to get in the way of the charging monster, but they were still in the fight.

“Drop it! Drop it now! Staan clear!” the gunner cried, and Blas and the others let the trail slam down. The gunner only glanced at the lay of the gun; there wasn't time to aim, and it looked close enough. Instead, he pierced the charge, stuffed a primer in the vent himself, and, hopping away, pulled the lanyard.

The gun bellowed almost in the monster's face, sending smoke gushing up around it. The shot struck close to where the second one had, with no more apparent effect—until it detonated inside the beast. A cascade of dark flesh, bone fragments, loops of entrails, and a few hissing shards of iron joined the smoky fountain of blood that sprayed across Blas and her impromptu artillerists. The monster had been blown over onto its back, and its feet flailed at the sky.

“Let's go!” Blas shouted, reaching for the trail handle again. A great cheer erupted from the Guayakans, and strangely, few Doms fired at them before they finally reached the gate and dashed inside. By then the enemy had swarmed down into the lane between the walls and filled it with their thousands. For the moment, they had nowhere to go. The inner wall was sheer and couldn't be scaled without ladders—which the Doms hadn't expected to need. It wasn't until after the gate closed behind her and she was half-carried up to the top of the inner rampart to view the battle from above that Blas finally understood the genius—and cold-blooded ruthlessness—of General Shinya's battle plan. She glanced at her wall and saw the Blood Drinkers cresting it now, swarming down to join their comrades. She knew that if any of her people had survived to that point, in the gun embrasures, for example, the remorseless Blood Drinkers would quickly wipe them out. The fur on her face was thick and crackly with drying blood, but tears filled her eyes and she looked up at the sky. She was amazed to see that the sun stood nearly overhead. This time it felt like she'd been fighting for hours, but she couldn't account for them. She looked down and caught sight of Colonel Blair,
bailing off his horse and rushing up the ladder to one of the observation towers.

That's where Gener-aal Shinya must be,
she thought bitterly.
Baas-tard
.

With the lane between the walls now clear of all of Blair's retreating defenders, and the space quickly filling with more thousands of roaring, triumphant men in yellow uniforms, new embrasures opened halfway up the high palisade and vomited fire into the milling enemy from perhaps forty guns.

S
ister Audry's horse stumbled, nearly pitching her over its head. It was one of those lightly wounded earlier that day, and even under her minimal weight, the killing pace they'd set had finally worn it down. Colonel Garcia caught her and quickly, effortlessly, plucked her from the animal and placed her behind him on his own.

“Colonel!” she protested, but said nothing more.

“Your animal is finished, Santa Madre,” he said gently. “Mine also,” he admitted. He'd been pushing his harder than most, occasionally scouting ahead. “But we are near,” he added grimly. “Teniente Pacal!” he shouted. “A horse for the Santa Madre!”

“Stop calling me that!” Audry demanded fiercely. “I'm a simple servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, who does her best not to stretch too many of the blessed Saint Benedict's rules, nothing more. And you promised!”

“You are far more than that to your men,” Garcia corrected, then smiled. “And I only promised not to call you that in front of people.”

“You just did!”

“Teniente Pacal is one of
your
people.”

“That doesn't matter! And there are others here as well,” she sniffed, nodding farther back where Rebecca and Saan-Kakja shared a horse surrounded by Koratin and their remaining escort. Koratin was riding double with Selass. “And I do not need a horse to myself. Few enough remain to go around.” There was no doubt of that. They had a total of six “spares” left, and the animals had begun failing them at an ever-increasing rate, utterly spent.

Sister Audry rolled her eyes impatiently, but allowed herself to be placed on one of the captured Dom horses that one of Pacal's men brought. She watched with remorse as her previous mount stopped trotting and sagged with exhaustion. She hoped it would recover. They'd destroyed so many of the precious beasts, still not terribly numerous on this world, during the arduous trek. She glanced forward, toward the roiling cloud of gun smoke rising above the distant, still-hidden fort. The smoke glowed orange brown under the lowering sun.
But Colonel Garcia is right,
she realized.
We are almost there at last
.

The sixty-mile march from Puerto Viejo to Fort Defiance had turned into a grueling, bloody torture test. It started well enough, with the Redentores and 1st Maa-ni-la riding atop or behind every animal they could find, and they made good time in the misty dark. Dawn found their strung out, ragged column more than a third of the way to their destination, despite the delays, but suddenly faced by two thousand Dom lancers, apparently headed for the city they'd left behind. The Doms quickly and professionally deployed from column into line, lowered their terrifying lances, and charged.

Probably only the Maa-ni-los' breechloaders saved them from being slaughtered. The breechloaders—and Sergeant Koratin. Without even thinking about it, he essentially took command, roaring for the carts and animals in the lead to curl back down the road to the rear, while the back of the column raced ahead. He'd hoped to form an impromptu square. What resulted was more of a blob—but a
compact
blob that assembled just in time to receive the lancer's charge from behind the protection of its carts and animals. So what should've been a massacre of
the relief force in the open, rolling hills, became a slaughter of the cream of the Holy Dominion as a thousand breech-loading rifles and eight hundred muskets loaded with buck and ball stalled the charge at the last frantic instant with a stunning volley. The lancers were disciplined, hardened veterans of frontier clashes with bandits, rebels, and even monsters, and they fought hard; wheeling and stabbing at horses with their lances, or firing back with their carbines. They reaped a terrible toll among the animals and unprotected defenders, but while they did, they were swept from their saddles by a volume of fire they'd never endured before.

Time may occasionally be needed to shift mental gears, when one confidently expects a certain outcome, only to be confronted by something utterly unexpected, and that brief, precious moment was all it took in this situation to empty a great many Dom saddles. More were killed as they tried to regroup, still stunned by their first encounter with breechloaders and the impossible rate of fire they maintained, but then they shattered and fled, galloping off to the north, their glistening, well-ordered squadrons reduced to a chastened mob half its original size. But that left the aftermath.

Hundreds of Doms lay dead or wounded, and nearly a hundred Allied men and 'Cats had been killed or seriously hurt in the sharp, close fight. Too many animals had been killed or wounded as well. Quite a few riderless Dom horses were quickly rounded up, but many of those were injured. Then there was very nearly a fight between the 1st Maa-ni-la and the Redentores when Lemurians began killing Dom survivors. The 1st was an elite regiment despite its lack of combat experience, and it had been formed with the expectation that it would fight the Grik. The Grik gave no quarter, and the notion of mercy to the enemy had never been explored by Lemurians before, so they only did what came naturally. Doms didn't take prisoners either, except as slaves or to feed their dragons, and they rarely surrendered—but the Imperials did take prisoners, and the Redentores were the beneficiaries of that. A tense moment flared when these two conflicting philosophies clashed. Ultimately, Rebecca and Sister Audry prevailed on a confused Saan-Kakja to help them break up the confrontation, and the shouting, escalating altercation between furious men and baffled, angry 'Cats subsided without bloodshed. But the original plan was done.

“How many troops can we mount double on the horses that remain, including the ones we captured?” Rebecca had demanded, thinking fast. It was quickly discovered that they had about four hundred uninjured animals, and another hundred with light wounds. Three Lemurians could ride an animal that could carry two humans, so it was decided to push on with roughly half of each regiment, entirely mounted, while the rest stayed to guard the wounded and the carts with enough of the lightly hurt horses to either continue the march or return to the city as ordered. In the meantime, they'd stay where they were and the corps-'Cats would set up a field hospital.

So the relief force was cut in half, but it could move much faster. It would have to, to reach Fort Defiance before dark. The little battle and its aftermath had cost them two hours.

Now they were close. Their animals were finished, but the combined regiment, though tired, could still fight. The question was, where and how? Shinya knew they were coming. That had been sent before they left. And a couple of Nancys had seen them approaching as the day wore on, one dropping a message trailing a streamer that described the battle at Fort Defiance. The news was grim. The northeast wall had fallen, but untold thousands of Doms had been slaughtered between the walls before the Blood Drinkers turned guns that hadn't been spiked or brought up their own, using the captured wall as their own fortification. For most of the day, the battle had degenerated into a close-range slugging match between the two walls, like immobile, unsinkable ships, just blasting away at each other. Shinya still had one advantage; his north lunette, with the 1st of the 10th Imperial, still held, firing down the flank of the Doms. The east lunette had been taken with the help of one of the monstrous lizards the message described, but it was believed that all of those terrible beasts were now dead, or had simply gone away. There'd been no word after that.

“Colonel,” a scout cried from a distance, his lathered horse's tongue lolling, incapable of more than a brisk walk. “Santa Madre!” Audry took a sharp breath and glared at Colonel Garcia as the man drew closer. Rebecca, Saan-Kakja, Koratin, and Selass managed to coax their horses forward to hear the expected report.

“What did you see?” Garcia demanded.

“The battle looks much as described before,” the swarthy man
replied in Spanish, thickly accented with something else, and Garcia quickly interpreted. “It is difficult to see through the smoke,” he confessed. “The enemy attacks from everywhere now, but only in sufficient strength, I think, to prevent General Shinya from further weakening those points to thicken his defense on the eastern side. There is one exception. The enemy now makes a strong assault on the northern-gate bastion.”

“That is where we must strike,” Garcia said to the others.

Koratin was nodding. “If we can hit them from behind or on the flank, we might break that attack, and so enter the fort at least.”

Garcia nodded back. “At least,” he agreed. “Can we approach unseen?” he demanded of the scout.

“Perhaps. The terrain is still somewhat rolling, and there is a depression we might use, along the bed of the stream that passes through the fort.”

“There will be scouts,” Koratin warned.

“I expect their attention to be largely inward, toward the fight,” Garcia agreed, “but we will send skirmishers ahead.” He looked at the two leaders. “With your permission, I propose this as our strategy: The horses are useless to us now, so we should dismount and quick-march the rest of the way, using cover to get as close to the enemy as we can. Then we attack.” He spread his hands apologetically. “It is risky, and surprise is our only hope. If we are caught short, with fewer than a thousand troops, we may not be able to break through to the fort, so I must insist that you all”—his gaze swept across Audry, Rebecca, and Saan-Kakja—“remain safely back.”

Saan-Kakja barked a laugh. “Safely? We could not escape on these weary beasts if we wanted to, and we would no doubt be safer among our troops, even fighting.” Her tone turned to iron. “And speaking for myself and my sister, I can tell you that we did not come here to run away!”

“Indeed. Don't be ridiculous, Arano,” Sister Audry said. “As you say, the Redentores are
my
troops. My warriors of God. I know I am not fit to lead them properly, but I will certainly accompany them into battle!”

“It is decided, then,” Rebecca said firmly. “Sergeant Koratin, please pretend you have been the colonel in command of this combined force, if only for this day.”

Koratin blinked resentfully at her, but nodded. “Very well. For this day. Dismount and form the troops, Col-nol Gar-ciaa,” he said.

Garcia gave the order, then turned to Sister Audry. “Before we make our attack, might I beg a prayer from you? For all of us?”

Sister Audry's face grew soft. “Of course, Arano. Of course.”

Fort Defiance

Captain Blas-Ma-Ar and Colonel Blair had rounded up what remained of the 2nd of the 2nd Marines, the 8th Aryaal, and the 3rd Saint Francis into what amounted to a single understrength regiment. Most were bandaged and all were exhausted, but they'd assembled in the vicinity of the inner-wall gate to the north lunette, resting, tending wounds, and trying to push the morning's trauma to the back of their minds for a time. They also waited for the inevitable command to plug back in the line, somewhere, as the thunder of battle roared beyond the palisade. The Doms still held Blas's wall, and they were still pouring into the gap between it and the palisade, so it might've looked to General Nerino that they were making headway. But those who actually entered the fort were being torn apart by the guns in the palisade and the rifles and muskets on top. It was the only breakthrough the Doms had managed, and Nerino was obligingly dropping chunk after chunk of his army into the meat grinder that Fort Defiance had become, and that General Shinya had, apparently, envisioned it would be.

“You knew,” Blas said to Blair as they sat together on the rocky ground.

“Yes,” he confessed.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

Blair sighed. “I don't know. I should have, I suppose. General Shinya told me not to, but I should have.”

“Did he think I wouldn't have fought as hard?”

“I doubt it,” Blair replied, considering. “But he probably thought, rightly, that you would've prepared a more orderly withdrawal, more conscious of saving as many as you could.”

“So, in other words, he needed it to look like the disaster it was, to convince the Doms to pour everything they had in after us,” she suggested bitterly.

“I expect so,” Blair agreed softly.

“With help, we could've held them,” Blas insisted.

“Against the monsters?” Blair asked. He shook his head. “No one expected
them
, and I think they would've broken through
somewhere
, no matter what we did. Better that they did so where we were best prepared, and that they spent themselves in the effort.” He looked at her sternly. “And what if you had held? Good for you, but not perhaps for the battle. The biggest problem with any defense of the sort we've mounted here is getting the enemy to commit the bulk of his force exactly where we want him, where we could mass sufficient numbers to destroy him! Hate General Shinya if you like, but as your focus has been the well-being of your battalion”—he paused—“and my first concern has been my division while I have been his second in command, he seeks to win a war. He must bear the guilt for what he did to you—to me—today, and all the fine troops we lost. But his strategy seems to have worked, after all, and thank God he was willing to shoulder that burden for us, Captain Blas!” he ended firmly.

A new commotion was rising beyond the gate to the north lunette, and the big guns there, silent for some time, were roaring again.

“It seems not
all
the Doms are content to be funneled meekly to Shinya's slaughter,” Blas observed coldly.

A mounted 'Cat courier galloped up in a cloud of dust, saluting Colonel Blair as he stood. “Report!” Blair demanded.

“Gen'raal Shin-yaa's compliments, sur, but the Doms is hittin' the north lunette, tryin' to widen the gap. He figgers it's their last chance to break in here, an' they gotta know it too. Thowin' all they got lef' at it. He asks can you lead your division thoo the gate an' reinforce the lunette? You about all the reserve we got lef, not engaged.”