David Drake - Conqueror

For a moment the skin between his shoulders crawled, as he remembered the Squadron host advancing into volley-fire and massed artillery. The chanting, the waving banners, the sun bright on a hundred thousand swords. . and Raj Whitehall waiting, his men a thin blue line looking as fragile and ordered as a snowflake by comparison. Waiting, then raising his sword and chopping it downward. .

He shook it off, removed his helmet and let the air dry his sweat-damp hair. To their left the land rose in rocky hills, dry and shimmering with heat in the summer sun. To the right were gentle slopes, citrus orchards, and then open grain-fields with peons bending over their sickles as they reaped. The dusty yellow of the wheat was like flashes of gold through the glossy green leaves of the fruit trees. More to the point, between road and orchards passed a rock-lined irrigation channel, and a slow current of water. It was dry and intensely hot here in the southern foothills of the Oxheads — the land was sloping down toward the sand deserts of the borderlands — and the sight and sound of the water was intoxicating. He squinted at the sun, then remembered to take out his watch and click open the cover; in the Southern Territories, even wealthy nobles hadn't carried them. There was no point; nobody needed to know the time that precisely, and they were impossible to keep repaired, anyway.

Civilization. "Benter," he said to the younger brother who was his aide. "Twenty minutes. Water the dogs."

He turned and heeled his dog westwards down the line of march; behind him the cool brassy notes of the trumpet sounded, and the signalers of each company passed it back. When it reached the rear of the column the last unit halted first — you had to do it that way, or the whole mass would collide with each other, like a drunken centipede. His lips quirked at the memory of his father trying to halt a mass of Squadron warriors on the move, back when he was a boy. That had taken the better part of an hour, even with the paid, full-time fighters of the household guard.

The three Cruiser battalions of ex-Brigaderos were full strength. . except for their stragglers. Teodore Welf rode up, red in the face from the heat and from embarrassment.

"Major Bellamy," he said, saluting.

"Major Welf," Ludwig replied, glancing past him.

They spoke Sponglish, although the Squadron and Brigade dialects of Namerique were fairly close: regulations, and it was best to stay in the habit, since more than half the officers in their units were seconded Civil Government natives like M'Brust.

Men and dogs had collapsed in the road. Others were leading their animals from the wayside to the ditch, walking slowly with their legs straddled. A few had trotted over despite their saddle sores and lay with their heads and shoulders buried in the life-giving coolness. Ludwig frowned and jerked his head toward them.

Teodore cursed and drew his sword, spurring to the ditch. "Up and out of there, you slugs!" he shouted. The flat of the weapon whacked down on shoulders. "Purify it first, damn your arse! You can't fight with the runs!"

The soldiers stood, dripping. Officers rode up, as dust-caked as their men, and the troopers formed lines. Some led the dogs downstream; others scooped their canteens full and added the blessed purifying chlorine powder; it was a rite shared by the Spirit of Man of This Earth cult they followed and the Star Church of the Civil Government, but not all commanders were equally pious. Messer Raj insisted on the full canonical treatment — water for human drinking to be purified by powder or by ten minutes at a hard rolling boil, with no exceptions.

The Spirit favored him for it, too. It wasn't uncommon for armies in the field to lose five men to dysentery for every one killed in combat. That didn't happen to troops under Raj's command.

Welf trotted back. "Sorry, Ludwig," he said. "The Western Territories aren't this hot."

Ludwig nodded. The Western Territories were damned cold and rainy, to his way of thinking — his own ancestors had plowed through them on their way to the southern side of the Midworld Sea, and he was glad of it. Of course, even the Western Territories were warm and dry compared to the Base Area, which explained why the Brigade had stopped there; they'd been the first of the Military Governments to pull up stakes and move south.

"And your fine gentlemen aren't used to sweating this hard," he replied, smiling to take the sting out of it.

"True enough," Welf said. He flexed the arm that had been broken by a Civil Government bullet outside Old Residence, nearly two years ago. "I'd never have dared drive them this hard, back. . well, back then."

Ludwig nodded. Even the troopers had been nobles of a sort back home, with a few hundred hectares and peons to do the work. Of course, that had its compensations: plenty of leisure to practice and hunt. So they were fine riders, and mostly good shots. The Brigade had armed its men with muzzle loaders, but rifled percussion muskets, not the flintlock smoothbores that had been the best his people could make or maintain.

"How's my fair cousin?" Teodore went on.

"Marie? Still pregnant, according to the last letter," Ludwig said. "Thank the Spirit. Otherwise she'd be trying to outdo Messa Whitehall and riding with us."

Teodore shuddered elaborately. He turned to watch a dog-cart creak up, loaded with sunstruck Cruisers, their dogs on leading-ropes behind. "Throw some water on those!" he ordered.

Ludwig put his helmet back on. The leather-backed chainmail of the pentail thumped on his neck, and sweat from the sponge-and-cork lining ran into his hair and down his cheeks, greasy and stale.

"I'm beginning to wish we'd taken the train," he said.

"Getting there's half the fun," Teodore replied, blinking red-rimmed blue eyes.

* * *

A trainload of artillery began to pull out of the East Residence station, guns and men riding on flatcars, the draft dogs in boxcars farther back from the engine. As soon as it cleared the switchpoint, the remainder of the 5th Descott jogged forward, breaking into platoons as they swarmed into the last two trains.

"Alo sinstra, waymanos!" By the left, forward march. Ten minutes, and the final platoon was loaded into its boxcar.

Gerrin Staenbridge looked around. "The last?" he said.

Muzzaf Kerpatik looked just as exhausted as he did. "The very last, mi colonel ," he said.

Staenbridge ran a hand over his chin, the sword-calluses rasping against the blueblack stubble. "Hard to believe." Sleep. Razors. Food. He didn't believe in those anymore, either.

Some sort of Palace flunky-in-uniform was wading toward him over the tracks and the litter of the three-day emergency. They'd been operating in battle mode: throw anything that breaks or isn't needed out of the way and think about cleaning up later. That included a fair bit of broken-down rolling stock, as well as dead dogs, dead draft oxen, about fifty tons of coal that had spilled in odd spots and wasn't worth the time and effort of collecting, and spare gear. Central Rail stevedore-slaves, dockworkers, and press-ganged clerks lay about in various stages of collapse.

But no soldiers. Every man, dog, gun, and round of ammunition was on its way east. Spirit of man, I could sleep for a week.

If that flunky meant what he thought it did — another message from some hysterical fool in the Palace who wanted his hand held — he'd be talking for a week. The people up on the First Hill hadn't grown any less terrified of Ali over the last couple of days, and they were still given to brainstorms, most of which started and ended with keeping more troops around to protect their own precious personal fundaments. If he'd wanted to listen to bleating, he would have stayed at home on the family estate and herded sheep.