David Drake - Conqueror

"Damn," Raj said aloud. "Runner, to battalion commanders. Get the fires going and pull back."

A shell burst twenty yards ahead. Raj stood in his stirrups and brought out his field glasses, sweeping along the walls. Chaos, but active chaos — groups in the crimson djellabas of Colonial regular troops, infantry from the looks of them, and the white-and-colored patchwork of city militia. More and more of the fortress guns were getting into operation, too.

He turned Horace to the rear. "Come on, let's get out before the fires spread."

He was conscious of a few odd looks. Technically, this was a defeat — they hadn't been able to rush the gates, despite the shambolic panic of the Colonial garrison's response. Raj grinned a little wider.

A reputation for having something up your sleeve could be quite helpful. Even when you did have something up your sleeve.

Suzette was flexing her arm, wincing only a little, as they turned and trotted back through the smoke and noise. Shells whirred by overhead; ash and bits of debris fell into the dirt streets about them.

I'm almost glad that happened, Raj thought. Something sounded an interrogative at the back of his mind. I was beginning to wonder whether I'd lost my capacity for strong emotion.

i am not contagious.

The hell you're not, Raj thought. For example, I wouldn't have dared to talk this way to an angel a few years ago. He looked down at the city. For another, I wouldn't do what I'm going to do to Osterville a few years ago. Even to Osterville.

ah. that is the effect known as "life," raj whitehall. and it is contagious; not only that, but fatal. for all of us.

* * *

"Should be ready in about three hours, mi heneral, " Dinnalsyn said.

The gunner and Raj stood together outside the earthworks, five kilometers from Ain el-Hilwa. Two thousand troopers and as many press-ganged Colonial refugees dug steadily, hauling the dirt from the growing ditch upslope in baskets, buckets, helmets, and cloth slings improvised from coats. The sun was high, and the men sweated as they worked; an hour on and an hour off, with the off spent standing guard or watering and feeding the dogs. The earthwork fort was two hundred meters on a side, a standard marching camp with a ditch as deep as a standing man, an earthwork rampart as high inside with a palisade on top, and bastions at the corners and gates with V-notches for the guns. The air was full of the smell of sweat and freshly turned earth.

He walked over to the edge. "Found that buried cask of beer yet, dog-brothers?" Raj called in Namerique.

The big fair men in the nearest section groaned laughter. "Don't worry, lord," one yelled back. "By the Spirit of Man of This Earth, we'll have a grave big enough for all the enemy we kill if it takes us all day."

Raj waved as he turned away. Not bad, he thought. Back home, these men scorned digging in the earth as fit for peons and women; real men fought, hunted, and drank. They'd learned something of soldiering, then — granted he'd had to kill about a third of the adult males in their nations to get their attention, but they were learning.

Within the enclosure medics were setting up, and tents being pitched in neat rows along the streets; everything necessary for a mobile military city of five thousand men. It could be made more elaborate the longer they stayed, but by midafternoon the camp would be ready to defend. It was said, not without truth, that watching a Civil Government army encamp was more discouraging for barbarians than fighting a battle with them. The Colonials wouldn't be intimidated, but they'd know exactly how hard it was to storm this sort of earthworks.

"Good, Grammeck," he said. "Keep pushing it. Gerrin, once we've got the wall up, let all these Colonials go — it won't hurt the troops to finish up by themselves. Kaltin, you've got overwatch—"

"Ser," his color-sergeant said.

Raj looked around. A party of Civil Government officers was riding up; not his own, Osterville's banner. Raj waited in silence.

"General," Osterville said.

"Colonel," Raj replied. Formally: "Colonel Osterville, I'm ordering you to bring your command within the walls of this encampment."

Osterville sneered, a rather theatrical expression. "I'll have to deprive you and Messa Whitehall of that pleasure. As Commandant of the Military District of Sandoral, our authority is concurrent. These commands remain separate, and I'm not afraid of that lot of wogs over there."

He pointed; his own four battalions were setting up camp on a hill no more than a kilometer from the walls. Beyond that was a dense pall of smoke, as the ruins of the suburbs beyond the wall smoldered. Not coincidentally, there was an orchard and pleasant little country villa on the hill.

"I warn you," Raj went on, stroking his chin, "that the Colonials may try to sally. Your position is more vulnerable than mine."

Osterville spat — toward the city, which made the gesture ambiguous. "They're scum, with incompetent officers. Obviously, or they'd be over the river with Ali, wouldn't they?" His voice took on a faint hectoring, lecturing note. "Look at the way they reacted when we attacked this morning. As I said, I'm not afraid of them, and neither are my men. We're staying where we are."

"By all means, Colonel Osterville," Raj said mildly. "Perhaps it's advisable, all things considered."

From the ranks of officers around Raj a loud whisper continued the thought: "Considering what our men would do to those garrison pussies who've been shorting the take."

Osterville's head whipped around, finding a wall of bland politeness. He saluted and pulled his dog around, with a violence that brought a protesting whimper as the cheek-levers of the bridle gouged.

"Ser." A messenger this time, from the heliograph detachment who'd been setting up a relay back to the bridgehead. "Message from Colonel Menyez."

The silence grew tense. Raj read. "Ali's arrived," he said. "And tried the usual. So far—"

observe, Center said.

* * *

"Noisy beggars," Major Ferdihando Felasquez said.

The Colonial army was parading past the walls of Sandoral, fifty thousand strong. Tabor after tabor of mounted men in crimson djellabas and pantaloons, in a perfect order that rippled with the rise and fall of the trotting dogs. Between the blocks of men came guns, light pompoms and 70mm field pieces, with heavier siege weapons behind. Beyond that, on a hillock just out of medium artillery range, an enormous tent-pavilion in brilliant stripes was already going up. From the tallest pole flew the green crescent banner and the peacock of the Settlers.

And over it all came an inhuman pulse of drums, like the beating heart of some great beast. Beneath that the clang of cymbals and the brazen scream of long curled trumpets.

Felasquez tapped his gauntlets against his thigh. "Should we send them a few love-notes?" he asked. "Some of the heavier pieces on the wall could reach that far."

"No," Jorg Menyez said, scanning down the line of units with the big tripod-mounted field glasses. "We're playing for time, so there's no sense in poking the sauroid through the bars. Ah, yes. Notice something?"

He stepped aside and Felasquez bent to the eyepieces. A forest of banners was going up before the Settler's pavilion. "Ali, Hussein the Wazir, the Grand Mufti of Sinnar, the Gederosian Dervishes. . wait a minute."

Menyez nodded. "No Seal of Solomon. Tewfik's not here."

"Unless they want us to think that."

"No, that's not the way Colonials think."

Felasquez nodded. "I'd still feel easier if you weren't splitting up so much of the 24th Valencia," he went on.

"The garrison infantry need stiffening; we haven't had enough time to work them into first-class shape."