Warlord (39 page)

Their commander came up; it was Jorg Menyez himself, grinning like an urchin under a covering of powdersmoke. The saber in his right hand had a line of red along the tip.

"Spiritdamned, that was well done, insubordination or no," Raj said, shaking his hand. "You should have delegated that."

"You're one to talk," Jorg replied, and then his smile faded. "It was expensive," he said. "But they needed to see the Messer would stand with them . . . and that they could do it." The 31st Kelden County Foot was mostly recruited from the area around the Menyez estates, Raj knew. "The other line battalions might not have been able to do it . . . but they're closer to being able to, for having seen it."

"
MAMMM! MAAAMMM
!"
the boy screamed, arching his back on the canvas-covered table. "
Mam, help me, mamaaa
."

"
Hold
him, crash your cores," the Renunciate barked.

The first casualties, after yesterday's construction accidents. The first wave of a rising tide. At the foot of the table Zenafir bore down on the leg with both hands, turning her head aside to vomit into the empty wooden tub.

Fatima felt the bones creak in her hand; she had gripped the young soldier's with hers, relying on the weight of her elbows to pin his arm. He was no older than she, and probably handsome when his face was not turned to a gorgon's mask by an agony greater than flesh was meant to bear. The cords in his neck stood out like cables as the priestess-doctor's scalpel probed and sliced.

"Iodine and clamp," she snapped; her acolyte moved up.

"More opium, reverence?" Fatima asked desperately.

"No, damn you, the first dose hasn't taken effect yet." The Arab girl suspected that it was taking effect, just a little, enough to prevent the boy from passing out with shock, but there was no time to waste. "Spirit
damn
all wars, there's nothing left of this knee but bloody splinters. It'll have to come off at the thigh. Clamp there, idiot.
Hold
him."

Across the great room with its dozens of tables there were other shrieks; one voice was babbling,
we held them, we held them, we held them
over and over, as if it was a talisman.

"Needles ready," the priestess said between clenched teeth; they were hooked things like instruments of torture, threaded with catgut. Fatima looked aside and swallowed as the doctor took up the saw; the boy began screaming once more, pulsing in time to the hideous grinding noise. She closed her eyes.
That is what the tub is for
,
she realized. And it was a large one.

"I thought you were going to assign that," Raj said, as they slipped back into the redoubt.

"I did," Menyez said. He grinned, and the long usually-solemn face looked boyish for a moment, streaked with sweat-channeled dirt. "I assigned it to me."

Raj cursed and looked back through the binoculars propped on the sandbagged vision slit. The Colonial advance-guard showed no signs of wanting to do more than wait on the crest of the ridge and lick their wounds; he could imagine the enemy commander up there, writing up his report and handing it to a courier to take back to Jamal. Not that he could tell much; unless
everybody
was disobeying his orders, most of the men were sitting on the firing steps with their heads below the parapet, and the guns were all run back.

"Now," he continued, "how many, Jorg?"

Menyez shrugged. "It's raghead-land out there. Carpets of marching wog as far as the eye could reach, Raj. Foot and cavalry and guns; Tewfik's banner is there, too, now. From what I saw before their advance guard hit us, their support elements are making camp about three, four kilometers back. Tewfik's force looks to be about half the size of Jamal's, but more cavalry and light artillery."

"Mmmmm. At a guess, he came straight up the west bank and then swung west as far as he could to cover Jamal's bridgehead. They'll probably put their gunline on the hillcrest for the direct-fire weapons or just behind it. We can't search the reverse slope, much . . . and they'll parlay first. Better bring up those Ministry of Barbarians delegates; pointless, but delay helps us more than them."

Menyez nodded. "Thank you for saluting my men," he added quietly.

"They earned it," he replied. After the other man had left, "And so will we all, before it's over."

"Sir." Captain Dinnalysn, the artillery chief. A middle-class East Residence vowel-stress: a hint of a breathed "h" in the
seyor
.

Why everyone who'd been in on the fiasco at El Djem wanted another try was beyond him, Raj decided, but useful.

"Yes?"

"Just confirming, sir; the militia gunners"—the part-timers handling the big cast-iron fortress guns—"said they've got those wogboys up on the ridge well within range."

"And you told them, Captain Dinnalsyn?"

"That the first one pulls a lanyard gets tied over the muzzle for the second shot, sir." A thin smile. "Got some of my lads there to do it, too."

"Ser." The nasal rasp of Descott; M'lewis. "Ser, Quartermaster requests confirmation of yer order."

For an instant Raj had to struggle to remember which
one
,
there had been so many, and then a hologram showed him a rifleman's hand scrabbling frantically in an empty bandolier. Normal procedure was for troops to be issued a hundred rounds before action, and for further requisitions to be delivered after signed authorization by an officer or noncom; it was the only way to prevent troops in garrison from selling ammunition for booze money.

"M'lewis, my respects to the Quartermaster and I want opened boxes one to a platoon for all units on the firing line, and I want it
now
."

"Mmmm, polite er forceful-loike, ser?" Another gold-toothed grin; give M'lewis a job and he got it done, but over-enthusiasm could be a problem, too.

"Polite, as long as he
does
it."

The thunder of the drums shook the earth. Raj looked up at the sky; not quite noon yet. The drummers must be just behind the crest of the rise, so tempting to order his heavy guns into action on it . . . but knowledge of his artillery's capacities and locations would be a gift like a visitation by Mohammed for Jamal and Tewfik. They were taking full psychological advantage of it, too; not just the drums, but as each unit came up the noise increased, and it marched over the rise and along it in column, down the entire five-kilometer length of open ground. Cavalry and foot and guns, all looking like they had done a hard day's march, but all looking as if they knew their business, too. Gerrin was taking a steady stream of notes as Foley dictated, leaning into the tripod-mounted telescope.

"I make that . . . one-hundred-six guns, so far," he said. "About half pompoms, a quarter 70's—" much like the Civil Government's 75mm rifles "—and the rest a mixture, fair number of howitzers. Anything heavier, they're not showing."

"I wish they'd stop that damned drumming," Gerrin cursed. "Bad for morale . . . that's a
lot
of artillery, Raj."

"Well. The game begins
 . . . 
Oh, Spirit, what're
they
doing?"

Raj stepped up onto the parapet again; the redoubt had two, one above for the guns, and this one for the men of the 5th, putting their rifles just at ground level. The Civil Government entrenchments faced up the opposite slope, which meant that any projectile they fired would remain at man-height all the way to the crest, and possibly do damage when it dropped over . . . but it also limited his view somewhat.

"Ser," one of the lookouts on the roof of the redoubt bunker called. "It's the Skinners!"

"What're they doing?"

"Dancin' and singin', ser! In time to them drums." Raj blinked, leaning half-out of the slit to see. The Skinner groups were on both sides of the redoubt; he wouldn't have been surprised to see them out sunning themselves on the sandbagged roofs of their trenches . . . but they
were
dancing, stamping and leaping in lines that wove in and out of each other, linking arms, whooping out a chorus to the simple thudding of the enemy drums:

"
En
roul'en, reyoulouran,
En
roul'en, reeeeboula—"

The song was punctuated by shots fired in the air, or to kick up dirt on the slope near the marching Colonials; every now and then a Skinner would turn his back on the enemy and bend over, flapping up the rear of his breechclout, wiggling and slapping their buttocks at the Muslim host.

Raj put the binoculars down, feeling blank for a second, then coughing to cover the bubble of laughter that forced its way up his throat. The men of the 5th were not trying; one by one they forced their way to a forward position to see, and collapsed hooting to the packed dirt floor of the redoubt. The laughter spread down the line and to the cavalry bunkers just behind it; he could imagine men crowded pleading around their officers for the loan of binoculars. The Colonist high command would be learning just what the Skinners thought of their martial display as well
. . .

"It's the first time in my life I've ever wanted to kiss a Skinner," Gerrin wheezed, leaning against the parapet. "So much for morale, for now."

"I'd be jealous if I didn't feel the same way," Foley laughed, wiping his eyes. "You know, that's the most organized thing I've ever seen them do? Oh, shit, wait—isn't that Juluk Peypan, their chief?"

"What?" Raj looked around from the trenches to the ground before them. A lone Skinner was trotting his red-and-white hound out towards the Colonists. "Message to both Skinner groups, no attack!" he barked; the runner hesitated, gripped his amulet and dashed away. Raj raised his binoculars. Yes, no mistaking that zigzag scar on the man's bare chest; he had his feet out of the stirrups, and his monstrous two-meter rifle casually over one shoulder.

Halfway to the enemy, the Skinner broke into a gallop that made the big ears of his mount flop like wings. He rose, stood on one foot, dropped on one side of his dog and bounced to the other, stood on his hands . . . it was a dazzling display of dogsmanship, and it had certainly caught the attention of the marching Colonists, making their neat ranks falter for a second; Raj could imagine their officers' nine-thonged whips flashing. Juluk finished up by standing in the saddle and dropping backwards, then spinning on his back with his legs splayed wide. The long barrel reached out between them and vomited smoke and flame; on the hillcrest, a banner toppled as its bearer's head splashed away from the 15mm sauroid-killing bullet.

That
produced a reaction; a pompom swung around and began to spit, shells cracking into the ground around the barbarian chief. He reined in with insolent calm, lighting a pipe and puffing on it, before turning to trot back to the Civil Government lines. Halfway there, he turned in the saddle and extended a clenched fist at the Colonists, shot out the middle finger and pumped the forearm back and forth before clapping heels to his hound.

"The preliminaries are over," Raj said. "Now we'll parlay."

"Salaam aleyikum, amir," Raj said carefully, bowing to Tewfik and touching brow, lips, and chest.

"And upon you, peace, Messer Brigadier Whitehall," the Colonist prince-general replied in accented but fluent Sponglish, extending his hand. Both men ignored the elaborate formalities that were going on where Jamal met the Governor's negotiators; nothing would come of that.

They shook, looking at each other curiously. Odd, thought Raj. Center's shown him to me so many times, yet it's the first glimpse in the flesh.

"You are young for such a command," Tewfik was saying; his hand was hard and callused in the same manner as his opponent's. There were four men behind him, mostly younger than the Colonist's thirty-five; two who looked like well-born Arabs; one who towered and showed a spiked blond beard beneath cold grey eyes; and a black almost as tall and broader. Tewfik's closest retainers, trusted men with high commands, from the richness of their use-worn weapons and the hard set of their faces. They in turn appraised the men behind him; Jorg Menyez, da Cruz, Gerrin Staenbridge, Foley.

"But you were young in El Djem, as well, and you surprised me there." He hesitated. "It was well of you, not to fire on our wounded from the skirmish this morning."

"We're fighting men, there's no need to act like a jackal," Raj replied. "I was rather surprised myself, back in the Valley of Death. How
did
you get those men there so fast?"

"Is that what you call that battle? Appropriate enough. Well, if the truth be told, I was bringing my riders up for a raid on
you
,
using El Djem as a base," he said, with an engaging grin that lit the serious square face for a moment. Tewfik was running an experienced eye over the positions downslope as he spoke. "Not bad," he continued. "But not good enough, of course. It is unfortunate for you that your Governor can never trust an able man with an army large enough to do much good."

"I think you'll find this one amply large," Raj replied.

"There is no God but God; all things are disposed according to the will of God." From Tewfik it did not seem the automatic formula that it might from another man.

"And the Spirit of Man of the Stars shapes our destinies," Raj replied with equal sincerity. "It seems we have something in common."

Their eyes met, turned to the Settler and the envoys of Governor Barholm.

"Indeed," Tewfik said. "Indeed, young kaphar."

"You shouldn't have come," Raj whispered into Suzette's ear. It was an hour past midnight, and they sat on the edge of the redoubt wrapped in a single cloak. She huddled closer, running her hands into the too-large sleeves of her uniform jacket. There was nobody else on the flat stretch of sandbags over timbers, except Gerrin and Foley at the far corner, standing hand in hand. That was far enough for verbal privacy, at least.

"I wanted to," she said. "Spirit knows, there's little enough of doing what we want, in this life." Silence for a long moment. "Raj, I told Falhasker the five fougasses on the left were hooked up—"

"
What
!
The
right
,
I said tell him the
right—
"