Battle Hymn (29 page)

"Off to the east of the town, Jack. It looks like hangars for airships!"

Jack tore his attention away from the rail line and looked where Feyodor was pointing. Six long, narrow buildings were arranged like spokes around a vast open field. Even as he watched, the nose of an airship emerged from one of the hangars.

"We're going to have company," Jack announced.

Now he looked back toward the ridge and finally saw it … an engine was cresting the cut, a string of half a dozen flatcars behind it, each one bearing a large boxlike structure covered with tarps.

"Should we come about?" Feyodor asked.

"I want a photograph of the train."

"Are we coming about, then?"

Feyodor was right. What they had already discovered would shake the hell out of Andrew and, better yet, out of Congress and the president as well. He continued to study the engine. It was bearing some sort of cargo in toward the port. It had to be something manufactured—otherwise, why the effort to cover it with canvas? He saw no evidence of factories or any facilities for making iron plate or engines or foundries for cannon or ammunition. If the bastards took the trouble to lay track, it had to lead to something important.

Judging from the plume of smoke from the locomotive the wind was backing around more to the west. Still a quartering headwind for the return.

"I want to see where this track leads," Jack announced.

Feyodor looked at him and shook his head. "Keep an eye on that ship coming out. By the time he gains altitude we'll be well ahead, but as we come about, he might be a problem."

Jack reached over to the speaking tube and blew through it so the whistle on the other end sounded.

"Stefan. There's a ship coming up. If they have one, there might be more. Keep a sharp watch now!"

"I hope we get into a fight, sir!"

Muttering a curse, Jack set the ship over onto a more easterly head, aiming for what he could now see must be a railroad cut through a ridgeline twenty miles away.

"There's the other train!"

Hans climbed halfway out of the cab to look forward and saw a smudge of smoke hovering on the track directly ahead, visible now in the early-morning light.

"Is he past the switchoff?"

"How the hell should I know?" Alexi shouted, the tension of the chase beginning to tell.

Hans saw that the other engine was slowly gaining and was now only a couple of miles behind them.

"If they've gone through the switch we're in for it!"

"I think I see the switch signal!" the fireman shouted, leaning out from the other side of the cab. "The other engine's yet to pass it."

Hans looked down at his rifle and fumbled nervously at the bandoleer of ammunition slung over his shoulder. Scrambling up to the back of the tender, he looked through the hole chopped into the boxcar.

"Get ready back there. Remember, one long blast means come out fighting. Pass the word back."

Someone waved from the inside. Hans shook his head. If only he had a company or two of his troops from the Rus army, or better yet from the old Thirty-fifth, he'd be tempted just to slam on the brakes and let the bastards chasing them come in for a fight. He would almost welcome one as a release from the tension. He knew he could at least count on the two hundred people in the cars to fight, but there would be no discipline, and he doubted if one in ten of them could hit a Bantag even if the muzzle of the gun were pressed into his stomach.

"The other tram's slowing!" Alexi announced, and he held the whistle down, giving repeated blasts.

"Can you signal him to clear the way?"

"That's what I'm doing."

Alexi stared at the crude steam gauge.

"They're still on the main line. They're throwing the switch!" the fireman shouted.

Alexi looked at Hans, who let go a string of oaths.

"I've got to ease off on the throttle," said Alexi. "They might not be clear at the other end of the switchoff."

Hans leaned out to see down the track. The engine was still closing. There was no way of telling how many warriors were behind him. At one point, a dozen miles back, the track had curved enough that he thought he saw at least four or five cars behind the engine by the light of the crescent moon. If so, there might be upwards of two hundred Bantag in pursuit. It would be a massacre.

"Just get us through the damn switch. Don't set off a signal unless there's warriors on that train. If it's just a freight we kill the crew, open the throttle, and send it back against the bastards behind us!"

Alexi nodded. Hans signaled Ketswana and Gregory. "Get ready!'

Alexi continued to ease back on the throttle, edging in the brakes. A Bantag and two humans stood by the switch, the Bantag obviously furious. The train turned onto the side, and as it did so Hans leaned out of the cab, aimed his rifle, and shot the Bantag before he even had time to react.

The two humans looked up at him in disbelief, and one of them lit out in blind panic onto the open steppe. The engine shifted back as it started to run parallel to the main line and two more shots rang out. Gregory and Ketswana had dropped the other Bantag in the cab. Hans held his breath as he scanned the boxcars, expecting at any second for them to burst open and a stream of warriors to pour out … but nothing happened. Alexi had guessed right—the train was too long to fit onto the siding. The ten cars stretched past the second switch leading back onto the main line.

Alexi edged the engine forward and then gave a final pull on the brake as the last of the cars cleared the switch.

"Let's go!" Hans roared. Leaping down from the cab, he motioned for Gregory to run down and throw the switch, while the switchman from the yard handled the one to turn them back onto the main line once the rest of the train was cleared.

Hans stepped up into the cab of the train and found the human operators gaping at him. "If you want to live, get the hell off this train!" he roared in Bantag. The two continued to look at him, then down at the dead warrior at their feet, then back at him.

Leaning out the cab again, he could see that the train pursuing them was slowing to a stop several hundred yards away, the troops pouring off either side. Seconds later, a bullet cracked past.

Gregory stood up from the switch and waved the all clear. Hans pushed the throttle forward, and the wheels beneath him started to spin.

He leapt down from the cab. The two operators were still standing aboard their train, staring at them. He raised his gun and pointed.

"Off! Now!"

The two looked at each other and then jumped from the opposite side.

The train started forward, wheels still spinning, then finally gripping so that the train shuddered and lurched.

As soon as the last of the cars cleared the switch, the switchman threw his weight into it and easing the track over. Bullets were now cracking past, a plume of dirt kicking up by Hans's feet. He leapt back up into the cab as the engine started forward and saw the telegrapher looking up at the pole. A young boy who had been sent up the pole to cut the line was now hanging over the crosstree, blood pouring out of his chest. He reached up feebly with his knife, cut the line, and then slumped over.

Hans looked away, watching as Gregory and Ketswana raced up beside the train and jumped back into the cab.

"Let's hope that wrecks the bastard!" Ketswana roared, hanging on to the side of the cab and leaning out to watch the show, in spite of the bullets zinging past.

"How far to the next stop?" Gregory shouted.

"Junction forty miles ahead and we're nearly halfway there," Alexi replied, not adding that the map showed a Bantag encampment, a bridge, and a rail yard. If there was a place that could stop them cold, it would be there.

"Back it up!" Ha'ark roared.

The human engineer looked at him disbelievingly.

"Let it come down to us, back up before it and match its speed."

The engineer pulled back on the throttle, throwing the engine into reverse. The train coming toward them was picking up speed and Ha'ark leaned out of the cab, watching intently. He found it perverse that part of him was actually enjoying this pursuit. It reminded him of a legendary chase back in the early age of steam, two hundred years ago during the Wars of Succession on his home world when Cagar'du, the True Heir, escaped from prison and was pursued by rail for five days until finally cornered and killed in single combat by his rival, the founder of the Lektha Dynasty.

The human engineer allowed the engine to draw closer, until with a barely perceptible bump the two engines touched while going backward down the track. Unable to contain himself, Ha'ark swung out of the cab, ignoring the shouts of protest from the company commander. Easing down the side of the engine, he hesitated for an instant and then leapt across to the other engine. He worked his way down to the cab and climbed aboard, snapped the throttle down and then pulled in the brake. Sparks showered out beneath him and his own train started to pull away. The train finally came to a stop and Ha'ark, grinning, leaned back in the cab, waiting for his warriors to run up to his side. He could see the looks of admiration in their eyes.

Good, let it add to the legend a bit.

"My Qarth. Look!"

Ha'ark leaned out of the cab and looked where one of his soldiers was pointing.

Skimming low over the ground, just clearing a low rise behind them, two flyers came into view.

Ha'ark watched them, admiring their lines, the sleek, rigid-frame bodies … and the wing-lifting surfaces that extended to a span of nearly a hundred feet.

To his eyes they were tragically primitive. It would be generations before there would be any hope of lifting the barbarians he ruled to piston aircraft, let alone jets, but it was a start. He saw the superstitious dread on the faces of many of his warriors as they gazed heavenward, some of them making the sign to ward off evil … and more than one of them looked sidelong at him in awe, for after all, had not the Redeemer created this wonder to cast down the evil spirits that possessed the cattle?

"Run this train back up to the siding, push as many cars as possible onto the siding, and disconnect them. This was sent by the ancestors to aid us."

The company commander looked at him, not understanding.

"You'll see."

"Jack, shouldn't we be turning back soon?"

Jack ignored Feyodor's plea, though he did check the fuel supply and then returned his attention to the ground below. By the way the shadows of the newly forming cumulus clouds were drifting across the steppe it appeared that the wind had backed around a bit more to southwest by west, perhaps even due southwest. If so, luck was on his side. It would mean a wind abeam to crab into, but at least they wouldn't be running into a straight headwind going back.

"Fifteen more minutes. We've seen nothing but some sidings, a few spur tracks running up into the hills southward, most likely for lumber or ore. But no factory."

"How's the pursuit astern?"

Feyodor got out of his seat and scurried the length of the cabin to see the view out the rear window.

"Way back there, a good fifteen miles or more. They just don't have the speed."

Jack chuckled. He could well imagine the consternation of the damn Bantag right now, a four-engine airship cruising their skies with impunity. It was the only source of comfort at the moment. They had covered at least a hundred fifty miles of track, and as he looked to the far horizon it seemed to go on forever. Just how the hell did the bastards do it in four years? A locomotive had been captured during the Cartha War and the Merki had a chance to study the steam engine on board the Ogunquit before it went down. But a train line? Did the Merki capture some railroad personnel with the old Third Corps and trade them off to the Bantag? And why build it at all, if not for the renewal of a war against the Republic?

There was all that the technology implied as well. It was obvious that a telegraph line was strung along the side of the track, which meant they had galvanic batteries and instant communication. They had at least rudimentary precision tooling, some form of industrialization to make the hundreds of miles of rail, steam engines for trains and ships. What was more troubling, though, was the realization that they had somehow adopted the thinking of industrialization. The Merki were able to mimic it to the extent needed to acquire artillery and muskets, but that was the limit of it. Somehow, something had come into the Bantag Horde and changed part of their thinking, at least as far as the concepts of a modern war were concerned. It was evident from what he had seen from the air that the human population below was enslaved, and according to what Andrew had told him, the Chin population was almost beyond counting, perhaps in the tens of millions or more. That meant almost limitless labor to turn out the tools of war for their Bantag masters.

On the horizon he saw a plume of smoke. Then he saw two more behind it. Three trains coming up the line at once. Perhaps there was something interesting on board.

"All right, Feyodor, let's use the camera to get these three trains together. Then we'll come about and head for home."

"We've got to stop for water and wood!" Alexi shouted. "If we don't, we'll be out of steam in another five miles, ten at most!"

Hans leaned out of the cab to check the rear. The engine behind them was gaming fast. For the first ten miles out from the last siding, the chase had not reappeared, and he had wondered if somehow the engine they had sent back indeed managed to wreck the pursuers. It was clear now what their strategy was: to keep running the train behind them, and he suspected that if they slowed down, the engine would just keep coming and ram them, while the second train, several miles further behind, would finish off what was left.

"We're going to have to seize the rail yard, switch the chase train off onto a siding, then put up a fight till we've loaded up on water and wood."

He could see the junction straight ahead less than a mile away. No troops were deployed out, so he knew that the telegraph line had yet to be repaired. What was curious, though, was that the flyers, which had both managed to surge ahead of him, had banked off southward about fifteen minutes ago and disappeared into the growing bank of cumulus clouds overhead. The strange shape of the airship, had been startling, but there was no time to worry about that now.