A Band of Brothers Page 2

  Without replying, Pat ran back toward his mount. The battle was sweeping up the next ridge. With the coming of dawn the storm was starting to abate, and it was possible now to catch a glimpse of the tree-clad ridge. For a brief instant a shaft of red sunlight bathed the trees. One of them exploded from a shell burst.

  “Couriers!” Pat roared.

  His staff surrounded him.

  “One of you up to the colonel of the 4th, another to the 5th. Tell them there might be ironclads on the reverse slope. If so, break off and let’s get the hell out. I’m going forward.”

  The two repeated the message and, spurring their mounts, galloped off. Weaving through the wreckage of the enemy camp, Pat passed what looked like the tent of a commander. A horsetail standard was planted in front of the pavilion.

  An umen standard, Pat realized. He motioned for one of his aides to take the horsetail standard as a trophy.

  God, we’ve struck an umen, a full umen out on our flank and ten miles into our rear. This isn’t a raiding party. He started to feel uneasy. The humans had surprise on their side, they’d killed hundreds in the first blow, but if there was an umen out here, it could turn any minute now.

  He motioned for two more aides. “Order the retreat. We’ve bloodied them—now let’s get out.”

  He could see the disappointment. They had a thirst for vengeance that had yet to be satisfied. On the forward slope he could see knots of Bantag still trying to flee, staggering through the snow, many of them armed only with sabers or lances. Troopers circled them, gunning them down. It was a rare moment, humans catching the hated horse warriors by surprise and on foot.

  And then he heard it; a high piercing whistle, picked up by others. Lead elements of the charge were just now gaining the ridge ahead. As they did so, several men dropped from their saddles. Others reined in and, turning, started back down the slope. A ragged volley erupted ahead.

  Pat spurred his mount forward, spotting a troop guidon, coming back down from the ridge, a captain riding beneath it.

  “What’s happening?” Pat cried.

  “Swarms of them! Mounted, with ironclads! You can see them on the flanks!”

  Even as he spoke, a dark snout protruded above the ridgeline, rising higher and higher, than slamming down hard, snow bursting out from under it like foaming surf.

  “Bugler, sound retreat!” Pat roared.

  Lashing his mount with the ends of his bridle, Pat turned, starting back down the slope. He heard the cry of the bugle picked up and echoed along the line. Troopers were turning, heading back. Mounted Bantag started to appear along the crest, their taunting cries carrying against the wind. Another squall line crossed the narrow valley, and visibility dropped. One of his staff dropped his reins, arms flung high as a spray of blood erupted from his chest. Pat looked over, saw that the boy was already dead, and pushed on:

  His mount surged up the slope, breathing heavily, flailing snow out from under him. For a brief instant he saw the pyramid of skulls, wanted to do something to it, but then left it behind. Reaching the guns, he reined in hard and jumped from his mount.

  “Get out the ironclad bolts!”

  “Where? I don’t see any ironclads!” the section commander cried.

  “Believe me, they’re coming! Get the bolts up!”

  The bugles continued to call the retreat. Streams of troopers were coming back up the slope, disappearing and reappearing through the squalls. Wounded who were still mounted were being led, while some were pulling along horses that had lost their riders. One poor beast, its rider gone and right foreleg broken, kicked forward, blindly following its comrades, stumbling, getting up, surging forward again as if as frightened of the Bantag as the men who rode with it.

  The snow lifted again and a line of riders was down in the middle of the valley. But these riders were taller, uniforms black, conical leather-and-fur helmets, horsetail-and- human skull standards … the Horde.

  Pat looked back at the two guns.

  “Left gun, canister, try and keep those bastards back. Right gun, load with bolt.”

  Seconds later the left gun kicked back, geysers of snow spraying up around the Horde riders, and half a dozen of them tumbled into a heap. Several slowed, raised their rifles, and fired, bullets slashing through the trees over Pat’s head.

  “There’s one!” somebody cried.

  Pat saw the dark form sliding down the slope, smoke pouring from its stack, and then four more, knots of Bantag on foot moving behind it.

  Pat judged the range. Nearly three hundred yards, just barely close enough.

  “Open fire!”

  The right gun reared back. A high plume of snow erupted a dozen yards forward and half a dozen to the right of the lead ironclad.

  “Dammit, do better than that!” Pat shouted.

  The cannons on the five ironclads fired back, nearly in salvo. Canister whirled through the trees, bark peeled back from trunks, branches sheered off, cascades of snow tumbling down. One of the gunners went down screaming, clutching his stomach.

  A trooper came galloping along the crest and reined in by Pat’s side.

  “Colonel Sergius’s compliments, sir. Bantag ironclads are on the ridgeline, three hundred yards to your right, sir. He’s pulling back to the rendezvous.”

  Pat nodded, still watching as the sergeant laid his gun. The other piece kicked back, more canister going down- range. The sergeant stood, hands up high, then stepped aside.

  The gun recoiled. A flash of fire erupted on the front shielding of the ironclad. Some of the men started to cheer, and then cursing erupted. The round had ricocheted off, leaving a bright metallic scar on the forward- sloping armor.

  “Should have punched through!” the sergeant cried in disgust. “It was straight in!”

  Heavier armor, Pat realized. They’ve added more armor to their machines. Colonel Keane had warned him there were some reports of an improved ironclad coming up. Damn all!

  The gunners started to reload, and then from down the slope a wild piercing scream erupted. Bantag were coming down from the northern flank, sweeping up the side of the ridge, hundreds of them in a swarming mass. The crew of the fieldpiece loaded with canister hurriedly turned their gun and fired, knocking down nearly a dozen, but still the charge pressed forward.

  Pat looked at the guns and the deep snow and made his choice.

  “Set fuses in the caissons, cut the traces, and leave the guns.”

  Startled, the crew looked up at him.

  “We don’t have time to get out. Move it!”

  The men raced to the caissons, cut the traces to the teams, and swung up on the backs of the horses. One of the gunners fumbled with a length of slow fuse, sticking the end of it down into a bag of powder, then trailing the other end out of the caisson. Pat looked back and saw the sergeant still by his piece, working the elevation screw.

  “Sergeant!”

  “Just one more shot, sir!”

  The sergeant picked up the lanyard, pulled it taut, stepped back, and jerked. The gun recoiled, and then a second later he was on his back, a hole as big as a fist torn into his chest.

  The gunners started to run. Pat followed them, turning to look back. The first of the charging Bantag were already on the crest to the left flank and were pushing down the slope into the next valley.

  Pat spurred his mount forward. Seconds later the two caissons erupted, the several hundred pounds of powder in each blowing with a thunderclap roar.

  Weaving down the slope, he caught up with the gunners riding the caisson horses and urged them forward. Off to his left he saw where half a dozen more ironclads were attempting to close the flank. Another couple of minutes and they would have had the trap closed.

  Settling into the long ride, he passed a thin line of troopers who had reined about for a moment, fired a volley, and then pushed on. The tension in Pat started to ease a bit as he saw that discipline was taking hold after the near panic of minutes before. Fall back, turn, fire a few volleys
, push on. We weigh less than Horde riders, so they’ll move slower, he thought. If we don’t panic we’ll get out.

  They were past the ironclads; at least the things moved slowly. If we were on foot in this snow, it’d be a massacre.

  A trap, he realized. The damn thing had been a trap. Deploy some poor bastards forward, let us come in seeking vengeance, and then encircle us. So they wanted us to see what they did. The screams echoing in the night a call to avenge our blood. We killed hundreds, but still they’d almost gotten us, maybe a hundred, two hundred, more lost, besides the massacre of the 6th.

  He thought of the pyramid of skulls … of all the pyramids of skulls that marked the nearly five hundred miles of retreat from the Shenandoah River all the way back to the very outskirts of Roum. It was unrelenting, a nightmare, an unstoppable war that had pushed forward through the heart of winter, and soon there would be no place to retreat to. It would come down to a fight for the largest city of the Republic—the city of Roum.

  Chapter Two

  The throbbing of the drums and the bone-shaking rumble of the nargas filled the early-morning air. The night of the moon feasts was nearly at an end, the first crimson light of dawn seeming to capture and reflect the blood of a hundred thousand cattle which had been spilt that night.

  Ha’ark the Redeemer watched dispassionately as his own personal cattle, a colonel taken the month before in the battle to cross the Ebro River, gasped out his last agonized breaths, the shaman listening carefully to each shuddering groan, quick to interpret the auguries.

  A ceremonial golden spoon was passed to Ha’ark, and, stepping forward, he took his turn, scooping deep into the open skull, grunts of approval greeting his efforts when the colonel sobbed, his legs beginning to buckle.

  “It is good, my Qar Qarth,” the shaman cried, “so they will fall beneath your strength.”

  Ha’ark said nothing. A lone narga sounded, the horn of the Qar Qarth, and the gold-embroidered flaps of the great yurt were pulled back so that the first light of dawn might stream in. A cold rush of air cascaded through the open flaps, wisps of fog swirling up as it clashed with the fetid air that had been trapped inside the yurt throughout the long night of the feast.

  Breathing deeply, glad to escape the stench of cattle blood, boiled flesh, and filth, he stepped out into the open. The vast encampment, laid out on the slopes overlooking the Great Sea near where he had first landed with his army four months ago, was alive with activity; twenty thousand warriors greeting the first light of dawn, and with it the first day of the new year, the year of the Golden Horse.

  The cries of the shamans counterpointed the nargas, the weird, spine-chilling singsong chant filling him with a strange superstitious fear. It was something from ancient history to him, yet it was real, and he, a former private in a losing war upon another world, was now their Qar Qarth, ruler of the Bantag Horde. Ha’ark the Redeemer, sent to restore a dying race to its pride.

  He heard a moan, and looking over his shoulder he saw the shaman pushing the cattle forward, guiding his steps like a puppeteer. The eyes of the cattle were vacant, a blind staring-off into eternity, its mouth gaping, drool running down its chin, the naked legs bright red and swollen from repeated dunkings in the boiling cauldron.

  For the briefest of instants he almost felt pity for the dumb beast. Something whispered in his heart that this was a soul as real, as capable, as his own; that on his own world such cruelty would never be practiced upon even an unwitting beast, let alone a warrior of an army which had all but fought his entire race to a standstill.

  The shaman uncorked a flask while watching the horizon and still wailing his chant. The sky was as red as an inferno, the brilliant light caught and reflected by the snow-covered fields and the sea beyond so that the world seemed engulfed in frozen fire.

  The rim of the sun broke the horizon. A cacophony of noise exploded, wild screams of the warriors, shamans calling their prayers, tens of thousands of rifles firing heavenward, and the whispered moans of the last of the cattle to die that night commingling with the shrieks of fear of those who would be suffered to live a little longer.

  “Keane.”

  He heard the words, a deep shuddering gasp.

  Startled, he turned. The shaman had already upended the flask of oil into the open skull and lit it. A tongue of blue flame licked up out of the cranial cavity of the colonel, cooking his brains while he was still alive. The sight was horrific, filling Ha’ark with dread; a burning man, dead yet somehow still alive, whispering again but a single word.

  “Keane.”

  All around him were silent, eyes fixed on the shaman, who seemed as frightened as the most ignorant of guards. The shaman shoved the cattle forward, as if to knock him over, yet he did not fall, rather he staggered and slowly collapsed to his knees, the stench of his cooking brains wafting up into Ha’ark’s face.

  “It is good,” the shaman suddenly cried. “Thus will Keane kneel before you by the coming of spring. Keane shall fall!”

  There was a moment of silence, then grunts of approval, as if the feasting party wanted to believe the augury and now struggled to cast aside their fears.

  The colonel seemed to dissolve, all muscles going slack as the last of his will, his spirit burned away.

  Ha’ark looked down at his feet where the Yankee colonel lay, a trickle of burning oil leaking out from the open skull. Those of his entourage hesitated until the shaman, with a wild cry of lust, drew out his dagger and cut away a long strip of boiled flesh. Then the others fell hungrily upon the body, struggling to taste the ceremonial offering. Ha’ark turned away, afraid that his followers might see him gag. Stepping down from the platform at the front of his yurt, he walked quickly away, wanting to escape the orgy of feeding.

  Jurak, one of the survivors of his squad who had fallen through the tunnel of light with him, came up to Ha’ark’s side.

  “Damn animals.”

  “Who, the cattle or our own warriors?”

  “Both,” Jurak snarled.

  “Give them twenty years. Look what we’ve accomplished in less than five. We’ve transformed this world as surely as Keane’s Yankees.” He took a deep breath, the nausea passing, control reestablished.

  “We still imitate, and the labor is provided by millions of Chin slaves. Even they, however, are not numberless. Ha’ark, you’re using them up.”

  Ha’ark nodded. That was a problem. More than a million had died this year, laboring on the vast rail lines, pouring the iron for guns, carrying the supplies of the army, or simply used as a walking supply of food.

  “This winter campaign is destroying us. This is not a modern army, Ha’ark. You can’t expect it to campaign right through to spring.”

  “They did it before we came. You heard the stories of the wars between the Tugars and Merki. One of their epic battles was fought in the dead of winter.”

  “Nomadic horse warriors. What logistical support did they need? Their horses were food, and they recovered their arrows after a fight. I’ve looked at the reports, and even those, I might add, are written by Chin scribes using the letters of the Rus. Last month’s battle to forge the Ebro River consumed twenty thousand rounds of artillery and nearly two million rounds of rifle ammunition. That’s a month’s production used up in a single day’s fight.”

  “But we crossed the river, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, and I have no idea what this taking of Capua will cost. And then Roum is still there to be taken. Ha’ark, we’ve used more than double the ammunition we had planned for. All the stockpiles are just about gone. There’s enough here and moved up to sustain us for a couple of weeks of hard fighting, then we’ll be down to waiting for the next shipment from Xi’an with no reserves in place.

  “Ammunition, weapons—they don’t spring out of the ground, Ha’ark. Everything has to be made two hundred miles beyond Xi’an, moved by rail to the harbor, loaded on boats, shipped to here, then moved all the way by rail up to the front.”

&
nbsp; Jurak sighed and shook his head. “We’re using our army up, stretching it beyond its limits while they fall back on their base of supplies. Everything is tied to that one damned rail line, which is falling apart. And the locomotives, Ha’ark, they’re ready for the junk pile after three or four runs up to the front and back.”

  “That is why we have the Chin,” and Ha’ark nodded toward the vast holding pens where tens of thousands of laborers were already up, moving in long lines down to the docks, where they would spend the day breaking ice so that the channel out to the open sea could be kept open.

  Jurak wrinkled his nose with disgust as an errant breeze swept up from the prison camps, carrying with it the stench of the cattle. Ha’ark had worked out a fine calculation based upon the harsh realities of the world he had come to. A pound of coarse bread and some green leaves or roots a day would equal so much labor for so many months until the cattle slave finally collapsed and was thrown into the slaughter pits. There were, of course, exceptions who would be given two to three pounds and a handful of rice a day for several months prior to a moon feast. Such calculations had enabled them to wring the last bit of labor from millions and still meet the ceremonial needs of the Horde.

  “We can’t relent on the pressure,” Ha’ark announced. “Don’t you think they are feeling it as well? They’re about to crack, I can sense it Their army was never designed for this sustained level of war. Against the Merki it was one intense three-day battle. Against the Tugars it was a siege, but then the numbers were smaller. This is a level of war they can barely comprehend.”

  A chilled damp wind blew down from the west, swirling around Ha’ark.

  “Snowing up at the front,” Jurak said. “Should be here later today. Any news on the flanking attack?”

  “It appears to be successful. But my concern now is to keep these scum moving. There are three ships locked up in the ice out there, and I need that ammunition. It is moving too slow back here, Jurak. That is why we returned from the front—to sort this out. The bridge over the Ebro is still a choke point. It needs to be finished if our attack on Roum is to be sustained. And as for the track, half of it already needs to be replaced.”