S.M. Stirling - Conqueror

Good. There it was. They still didn't suspect anything. He used one tail of his uniform jacket to shield his hand and picked up the pot of kave , pouring a cup into his messtin.

"Throw summat more wood on t'fire," he said. It might arouse suspicion if the sentinel fire went out during the night. He tossed aside the spiked Colonial helmet. " 'N git back ter yer dogs. We'ns'll see how many more of t' wogs is overconfident."

* * *

"Fwego!"

BAM. The single massive volley turned the supply convoy's night encampment into a mass of screaming men and howling dogs, with the oxen's frantic bawling as accompaniment. Major Peydro Belagez smiled, a cruel closed upturn of the lips. He could see the scene quite well, with the watchfires as background.

BAM. Men rose from their blankets and slapped backward instantly, punched down by the heavy Armory bullets. BAM. Maddened by pain and the smell of blood, an ox-team pulled over the wagon to which they'd been tethered and ran off into the night. The wagon's tilt fell across a fire and the dry canvas flared up brightly.

"Forward, compaydres ," he said.

The two companies of the 1st Rogor Slashers moved forward in line, with a crackle of platoon volleys. Less than thirty Colonial troops had guarded the convoy, and they were infantry-support troops, hardly fighting men at all. The few who lived ran into the night, or knelt and raised their hands in surrender.

As Belagez watched, the platoon commanders called the cease-fire. Two surviving Colonials bolted when they saw the Civil Government troops more clearly; their dark complexions and the shoulder-flashes made it clear they were Borderers, men whose feud with the Colony was old and bitter. A bet was called, and two troopers stepped forward and knelt, adjusting the sights of their rifles. The running Colonials jinked and swerved as they fled; the two Slashers fired carefully. On the third shot one of the Arabs flopped forward, shot through the base of the spine. His face plowed into the dirt, mercifully hiding the exit wound. The other went down and then rose again, hobbling and clutching his thigh as if to squeeze out the pain of his wounds.

"Hingada thes Ihorantes!" the first rifleman said. Death to the Infidel, the Slashers' unit motto. "You should do better than that, Huan!"

"Malash. The Spirit appoints our rising and our going down," the other man grunted. He breathed out and squeezed the trigger. Crack. Measurable fractions of a second later, dust spurted from the back of the Arab's djellaba. He went down and sprawled in the dirt.

Meanwhile the others had been rounded up. They sat, hands behind their heads, staring at their captors with the wide-eyed look of men who wanted very badly to wake from an evil dream and couldn't. The toppled wagon was burning fiercely now, with a thick flame that stank like overdone fish three days dead to begin with- advocati , no mistaking the stench. Sun-dried, they were oily enough to burn like naphtha.

Belagez pointed with his saber. "Get moving-push the other wagons over and tip them into the fire. Break open those crates, that'll be hardtack." The Colonial version came in thin sheets about the size of a man's hand; it would burn too, in a hot fire.

He switched to Arabic, accented but fluent enough. "You, you unbelieving sons of whores. Get to work."

The teamsters and surviving guards joined his men in heaving more of the supplies onto the growing blaze. Another wagon toppled onto it, and the smell of frying apricots joined the stink, enough to make his stomach knot a little. The blaze would be visible for kilometers, but there was nobody alive to witness it-not unless a survivor or two from the last convoy they'd hit had run very fast. The twenty-wagon parties had been spaced quite evenly at four-kilometer intervals along the road, commendable march-discipline and very convenient for the battalions the heneralissimo had landed on the west bank. He looked at his watch; it was bright as day now, and hot enough to make him step back.

0300. This would be their last, they'd have to ride hard to make the rendezvous with the river flotilla by dawn. He certainly didn't want to miss the end of this campaign. The fire grew swiftly; his men were in a hurry too, and the prisoners worked very hard.

Idly, he wondered if they knew they were building their own funeral pyres. Probably. Still, it was the Spirit's blessing that men were reluctant to abandon hope while they still breathed.

" Oh night that was my guide

Oh night more loving than the rising sun

Oh night that joined the lover

To the beloved one,

Transforming each of them into the other."

Raj opened his eyes, then started awake. Suzette laid aside her gittar and smiled at him, handing over a cup of kave .

"This yacht has all the conveniences, my love," she said.

"What-"

"Absolutely nothing has happened except what you said would. Belagez and the other landing parties made rendezvous. The Colonials have no idea what's going on-we're moving faster than the news. It's noon."

"Ah."

He took the cup and sipped. He felt less jangled than usual on waking, less of the sense that something catastrophic had happened and had to be turned around immediately. How long has it been since I slept without worry? he thought.

Five years, one month seven days. defining "worry" as your subtextual intent rendered the term.

Thank you very much, he thought. Aloud: "Thank you, my sweet. You must have fended them off like a mother sauroid on a rookery."

Suzette smiled; not her usual slight enigmatic curve of the lips, but widely as if at some private joke. She shook her head.

"You've had five years to train them, Raj; and they're good men. They wanted you to rest while you could. They can carry out your orders, but we all want-need-you to be at your best when you're needed. Besides" — she dimpled slightly- "you look so young and vulnerable when you're asleep."

Raj laughed softly. I'm committed, he realized. One turn of pitch and toss, winner take all. It would either work or it wouldn't, and if it didn't he wouldn't be around to worry about it. There was nothing behind them but Ali and his fifty thousand men, barring the road to the border.

"What was that song?" he asked, finishing the coffee. Suzette poured him another and handed him breakfast-toasted hardtack, but she'd found some preserves for it, somehow.

"Very old. My tutor taught it me when I was a girl; Sister Maria, that was."

"Doesn't sound religious," Raj said.

the song is derived from the devotional poetry of st. john of the cross,Center said. the musical arrangement was made approximately two thousand four hundred years ago on earth.

"Ahem." A voice from behind the door of the little stern cabin, out on deck. "I hate to interrupt this touching domestic scene, but. ."

"Coming, Gerrin," Raj said ruefully.

He stamped into his boots and fastened on his equipment, then scooped up the map he'd been working on late into the night. The sun outside was blinding, the shadow of the awning above hard-edged and utter black by comparison. Raj blinked out over the sparkling green waters of the Drangosh. For a kilometer either way, out of sight behind bends in the high banks, it was covered with rafts and barges and boats. With men and guns and ammunition. . nine thousand men. Nine thousand, to decide the fate of empires. Nine thousand men relying on me to pull it off. The thought was less crushing than usual. If there was any force this size on Earth-

bellevue.