The Guns of Empire (24 page)

“Colonel Vahkerson is very pleased with my progress,” Viera said. Her Vordanai still had a strong Hamveltai accent. “I have not blown myself up for months now, which he said puts me at the top of the class.”

“Always a good trait in an artilleryman,” Marcus said. “Or artillerywoman, in this case. It's good to see you again, too.”

“Thank you, sir.” She looked at Fitz. “With your permission, sir, I'd like to ride herd on my teams. Over this ground, the hardest part is going to be getting the damn cannons to the battlefield.”

“Granted,” Fitz said. “In fact, sir, if you'll follow me, I think the best place for us is near the front of the column, in case any problems arise. I hope you don't mind that I've taken the liberty of getting things started.”

“Of course not,” Marcus said, grinning. Fitz's cool, soothing competence was something he'd missed since Khandar. “Lead the way.”

As Marcus would have expected, the march was exquisitely organized. More cavalrymen sat their horses at intervals, anywhere the path wasn't entirely clear, directing the infantry and wagons down the right trail. Other horsemen ranged ahead, reporting back with clockwork regularity that no enemy had been sighted. They passed Viera and her guns, a full battery each of six- and twelve-pounders, the bronze tubes of the cannon dwarfed by their own wide-rimmed wheels and the heavy wooden caissons that held their ammunition.

What Marcus hadn't expected were the occasional cheers that greeted him. Two of the First's four regiments were largely made up of Colonials, the three-thousand-odd men who'd survived Khandar and the battles since making up four battalions of the division's total of eight. New recruits had been added, of course, but only those who'd served in Khandar were entitled to wear the scorpion badge. Marcus didn't always wear his own emblem, but he had today, and at the sight of it the strung-out companies burst into spontaneous shouts of greeting. He waved at them, a little embarrassed.

“You'd think that our stay in Khandar was nothing but leave and parades,” he muttered, after the fourth or fifth time.

“Memory is a strange thing,” Fitz said, keen eared as always. “They already talk about ‘the good old days' when we were fighting the Redeemers.”

“I remember being scared enough to piss myself, half the time.”

“We did win,” Fitz said. “That counts for something.”

Fitz's two staff captains came and went throughout the day, offering reports with clipped efficiency that was obviously well practiced. Pushing west, the landscape became distinctly rougher, hills rising higher and boasting denser forests. They were forced to stick to the bottoms of the valleys, following the path marked by the cavalry to avoid the worst of the muck. There was no road, not even a poor one like they'd followed so far. This was truly wild country, the kind that had long ago vanished from most of the civilized south. It was easy to understand, rounding yet another bend to see yet another tree-lined height in front of them, why Murnsk had never been conquered.

“The problem with this country,” Marcus said, “is that there's too much
country
and not enough people.”

“Farus the Fourth once commented that Murnsk was what was left over when all the civilized countries had divided up the better parts of the world,” Fitz said. “Of course, since he'd lost much of his army the previous winter, his judgment might not have been at its most objective.”

Marcus chuckled. “I really have missed you, you know? It's a pity you're too good an officer to use as staff forever. How is command treating you?”

“As well as one might expect,” Fitz said. “I've had a great deal of work to do getting the regiments up to a reasonable standard.”

“Because your brother and I let the Colonials do what they liked, you mean?”

“Times have changed,” Fitz said, raising a single delicate eyebrow. “But we have two regiments of revolutionary volunteers, and the reorganization was hard on the Colonials. I'm afraid Janus raided them badly for experienced officers, which means training a lot of replacement sergeants and captains. Fortunately, the lull after the Velt campaign gave us a breathing space.”

“That sounds like it was a hell of a fight,” Marcus said.

“It was quite extraordinary.” Fitz glanced sidelong at Marcus. “If you're interested, I'll be happy to give you the details when we make camp.”

“I'd love to hear it,” Marcus said.

In midafternoon it began to rain, a thin, spiteful drizzle driven on the wind. The water wormed its way past collars and into packs. It was still coming down when the sun set, and the division pitched its tents across a wooded hillside with a general feeling of relief. Instead of the usual wagon train, a corps of draft horses and mules had all the heavy equipment strapped over their backs,
so the cannon and their caissons were the only wheeled vehicles they had to worry about.

Marcus had dinner with Fitz and his officers, accepting the salutes of a small throng of colonels and captains whose names he knew he was never going to remember. A few he recalled from his Khandarai days, once-tanned faces now having lost their color and looking out of place atop neat new uniforms. Fitz, as always, knew every important detail about everyone. Marcus had to restrain himself from falling too far back into his old relationship with his subordinate; treating Fitz like his personal staff would only damage Fitz's standing with these men, whom he would have to command after Marcus had returned to his post as column-general. He settled for saying as little as possible, listening to the stories of the Velt campaign and the fall of Antova with unfeigned attentiveness.

His own tent, the large model reserved for senior officers, felt much too big without his table, writing desk, or the rest of the usual trappings. There was only a bedroll, curled up in one corner, and what he carried in his saddlebags. Marcus sat down with a sigh and started unlacing his boots.

“Sir?” Andy said from the tent flap. “Can I come in?”

“Go ahead.” Marcus popped off one boot and wiggled his toes. His sock was slightly damp, and he stripped it off as well.

Andy came in and saluted. “Just wanted to see if you needed me for anything else tonight, sir.”

“Going to sleep already?” Marcus said. Her small tent was next to his.

“No, sir.” Andy grinned broadly. “Some of the officers have organized a game of cards. I figured I would take the chance to add to my nest egg, sir.”

Marcus rolled his eyes. “Don't take too much off any one person,” he said. “And remember we've got an early start tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

She bounced on her feet and slipped out. Marcus got the other boot off, spread out his bedroll, and lay back.

Things to discuss. What did Raesinia mean, things to discuss?
He rolled onto his side, frowning.
We've had plenty of time for discussions.

—

It took a day longer than Marcus would have liked to reach Bskor, but the rain made everything harder. It continued, off and on, through most of the march, turning the ground to a slick mud that spattered everything and made footing treacherous. A few horses were lost when they put a foot wrong and hurt themselves, and one
of Viera's six-pounders sank to the axle and refused to budge no matter how many men tried to shift it. Marcus ordered it abandoned, in spite of the artillery captain's offer to try to blast it free with powder charges.

As before, once they got within a few days' ride of the river, signs of civilization reappeared. The scouts reported Murnskai peasant families hastily fleeing from their path, rumor spreading through a valley that had thought the heretic invaders many miles upstream. That would tell the enemy army where they were, if they didn't already know, and Marcus ordered a faster pace. Even country roads and animal tracks were better than pushing through the muddy valleys and forests, and they made good time down toward the Syzria. After they spent a night camping in a pasture, with the unfortunate farmer's pigs providing a welcome respite from hardtack, the second day's march in clear country brought them within sight of Bskor.

Marcus was no engineer, but he could tell the fortress was well placed. He and Fitz sat on their horses on a low hill about two miles off, peering through spyglasses. A small town lay below them, straddling the riverside road. Just a bit beyond it, some trick of the earth had raised a promontory above the normally gentle banks of the river. The fortress atop it was a pentagon of stone and brick, with low, sloping walls to deflect cannon-fire and embrasures cut out to protect the defenders' guns. Its cannon would command the river and opposite bank, Marcus guessed, especially the clumsy but powerful naval defense guns in the water battery.

“What do you think?” Marcus said.

“Going to be tricky,” Fitz said. “It depends how many men they've got packed in there. If Janus is right and it's lightly defended, we could take it in a rush, but if not it's going to be a bloody business. On the other hand, that's an old design. Even our field-guns will be able to do some damage to it, given time.”

Marcus nodded, pursing his lips. Bskor lacked the earthen berms and carefully planned star shape that made a truly modern fortress impervious to everything but the heaviest siege guns.
But . . .
“We haven't
got
time. Janus was insistent about that.” He looked over his shoulder at the river road running east, toward Polkhaiz and the Murnskai army. “They must know we're here by now. We can't afford to get caught between the fortress and any reinforcements they send.”

“I've got scouts out in that direction,” Fitz said. “But you may be right. So what are your orders?”

Marcus screwed the glass a little tighter against his eye, as though that
would make details of the distant fortress leap closer. After a moment he took the instrument away.

“Which regiment is closest?” he said.

“The Third, sir. They have the lead today.”

Not the Colonials. Maybe that's for the best.
“Bring them up and attack. Nothing fancy, two columns and straight at the wall. Tell the colonel not to press it too hard. If they don't fall at the first push, at least we'll be able to see what we're up against.”

“Understood, sir.”

“In the meantime, bring up the other three regiments and the artillery. If we have to go in mob-handed, I want to do it with everything we've got.”

Fitz saluted and wheeled his horse about. Marcus stayed where he was, and a few minutes later the blue lines of the Third Regiment, now compacted into a pair of battalion columns, started past him and down through the town. Cavalry patrols scattered ahead of them, like shepherds escorting a flock.

The men in the fortress were clearly alert. They opened fire at extreme range, cannons roaring, puffs of smoke bursting from the walls like cloudy breath on a cold day. Solid shot screamed over the advancing men, doing little at first but damaging some houses in the town. But the Murnskai were not shy about wasting ammunition, and soon enough they found the range. Patches of blue dribbled from the rear of the two columns as they crawled up the slope at what seemed like a snail's pace.

When they were a hundred yards from the walls, musketry added itself to the cannon-fire, threads of white smoke drifting up and over the battlements. Marcus tried to keep his eye on the walls, estimating the number of defenders from the volume of muzzle flashes, but it was hard not to look down at the columns of blue. Men fell out of rank more and more and they closed with the walls and the volume of fire increased. The defending cannon had switched to canister, blowing swaths out of the leading companies.

From this distance it was impossible to tell if the men in the regiment broke and ran of their own accord or if the colonel decided they'd had enough and gave the order to retreat. The result was the same—the formation dissolved almost instantly into a mass of running figures, leaving behind a drift of dead and wounded at the point of their farthest advance. They weren't throwing their weapons away, Marcus was glad to see, but they pelted determinedly down the slope, back to where they'd begun and out of range of the terrible rain of lead.

Marcus lowered his spyglass and nudged his horse into motion, picking his way downhill and through the streets of the little town. A dozen cavalrymen rode escort, with Andy in the lead, but they were unnecessary. The townsfolk had either fled or were hiding in their basements, and only blue-uniformed Vordanai were moving about. Cannonballs had knocked holes in the timber walls of a few houses, but fortunately the recent rain had prevented any fires. A large stable on the edge of the settlement had already been taken over by the regimental cutters, and the first walking wounded from the failed assault were beginning to trickle in. Marcus rode past at a trot, trying not to shudder.
No soldier,
he thought,
ever really loses his fear of the cutters. Give me a nice clean death anytime.

Fitz had formed his cavalry into a straggler line, rallying the fleeing Third Regiment soldiers. Officers were working on sorting them back into their battalions and companies, but it would obviously be some time before they were ready for action again. In the meantime, the other three regiments had formed up into their assault columns, six battalions in deep, narrow formations for maximum speed. Cannons still barked from the fortress walls, but at this range the balls mostly fell short, with only the occasional ricochet bouncing overhead with a
whirr
.

Marcus found Fitz behind the First Regiment, where the artillery was waiting. Twenty-four guns, a dozen big twelve-pounders and as many smaller six-pounders, had been unhitched from their wagonlike caissons and attached, pointing backward, to their own teams of horses. Viera barked orders to her cannoneers, who rushed to and fro carrying sacks of powder and heavy chests of ammunition.