Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

A group was forming on the other side of the square as well, and smaller units circled around the sides, like predators eyeing prey for a hint of weakness. Winter realized, belatedly, that she was outside the protective wall of bayonets. She looked around quickly to make sure she was the last one still standing beyond the line, then stepped sideways between two of the musket barrels that protruded like spears. The men shuffled aside to let her in, then closed behind her like a curtain.

Corporal Folsom stood in the center of the tiny clear area inside. The faces of the square were only ten men wide, so the interior was about twenty-five feet across, bisected by the creek bed and the muddy, trampled ground around it. The corporal saluted, as though nothing unusual had happened.

“Where’s Bobby and Graff?” Winter said. Folsom pointed to where the two of them stood side by side in the rear rank, and Winter pulled them out. Bobby looked white-faced and terrified, knuckles standing out bloodless as he clutched the barrel of his musket. Graff, grizzled and bearded, was harder to read, but Winter thought even he was looking a little gray. She did her best to appear unconcerned.

“Right,” she said. “We each take a face. Hold fire until twenty-five yards, and then only one rank. Second rank holds fire until point-blank. You understand?” She caught Bobby’s eye. Graff was a veteran, and Folsom seemed to know what he was about, but the boy looked rattled. “Senior Corporal Forester, do you understand?”

“Yessir,” Bobby said automatically. He blinked, and some life returned to his face. “Hold fire till twenty-five-”

“Right. And whatever you do, don’t let them step back an inch. No horse alive will charge a row of bayonets, but if they waver-”

The priest on the hill cut her off. He sang a single high note, close to a howl, breathtaking in its pitch and purity. It would have been almost beautiful if Winter hadn’t recognized it-the Redeemers in the city had given the same cry before they set light to the pyres of heretics. The riders answered with a roar, and there was a sudden thunder of hooves as they started forward. Winter couldn’t begin to estimate their numbers-hundreds at least-

“Go!” she told the corporals, and ran to the south face, directly opposite where the priest had gathered the largest band of the enemy. Her voice rose to a hoarse shout, scraping her throat raw. “Hold fire! First rank, kneel and ready to fire on my order . Second rank, hold fire. Hold!”

The horsemen started out slowly, picking their way down rough ground at the top of the hill, then gaining speed as the slope flattened out. The distance closed rapidly. Seventy yards, sixty, fifty-

A musket cracked to her right, followed quickly by a couple of others as trigger fingers tightened in sympathy.

“Hold your fucking fire!” Winter screamed, and heard the corporals echoing the call. Bobby’s voice was high and tremulous, while Folsom’s bass shouts carried over the thunder of hooves.

Answering cracks came from the advancing mob. More carbines, and the range was shorter. Most of the shots went wide, but just in front of Winter a man grunted as if in surprise and slumped forward. From behind her, she heard a shriek.

Thirty yards. The riders had to close in to match the narrow face of the square, until they were riding boot to boot and five-deep. Spears and sabers waved in the air, and gray-skinned faces twisted in fury. The red flame of the Redemption adorned every breast. Twenty-five yards.

“First rank, fire !” Winter screamed, echoed moments later by the three corporals.

For an instant all four sides of the square were fringed in fire, the yellow-pink glare of muzzle flashes, followed by a billow of smoke. With the enemy packed so tightly, they could scarcely miss, and every ball seemed to find either a horse or a rider. Men dropped from their saddles as though swatted by invisible giants, and horses screamed and collapsed, spilling their riders onto the unforgiving earth. Every horse that went down took two or three others with it, until they formed a pile of terrified, thrashing animals and screaming riders. Those behind broke to the left or right, avoiding the obstacle, or if they were particularly brave urged their mounts into a jump. Staggered and broken, the charge closed nonetheless.

“Second rank on my command!” Winter shouted, unsure whether anyone but the men right beside her could hear over the tumult. “First rank, hold steady !”

She heard Folsom’s bellow, and a snatch of Bobby’s voice excoriating his troops with words a lad his age ought not to have known. The riders were so close now that the whole world beyond the blue square seemed to be filled with horses and shouting men.

The front rank of Vordanai had knelt to allow the second rank a clear field of fire, and set the butts of their muskets against the dirt. Their bayonets presented an unbroken line of razor-edged steel points to the oncoming riders, and if the men were foolish enough to want to hit that obstacle at a gallop, the horses were not. They shied away, swinging to either side in order to avoid contact with the bayonets, only to collide with the attackers against the other faces of the square who were doing the same. Other riders reined up and managed to bring their animals to a halt just outside the line, but they, too, had to work quickly to avoid collision with those coming on behind them.

In an instant the wave of screaming riders had become a melee of shoving men and rearing horses. Those closest to the square slashed down at the points of the bayonets, trying to bat them aside. Somewhere a pistol cracked, and a man in the rear rank of Winter’s side of the square toppled backward, hands clawing at the red ruin of his face. His cry was inaudible amidst the tumult.

“Second rank, fire !”

She wasn’t sure if the men heard her or simply could wait no longer. Forty muskets cracked, the sound like a bludgeon against her ears, and lurid smoke wreathed the whole scene. The effect on the horsemen was fearful. At that range, the ball from a musket would pass through flesh and bone like wet tissue paper, with enough energy to come out the other side and kill again. Horses screamed and collapsed, all around the line, and men were shouting and cursing at one another. There were more cracks, either late firing or enemy weapons.

“First rank, hold steady! Second rank, load !”

If they had been able to press forward, the Redeemers might have broken the square. With the bayonets of the second rank withdrawn so they could hurry through the drill of stuffing powder and ball down their barrels, the first rank stood momentarily alone, a thin line of steel. But the volley had torn horrid gaps in the mob of attackers, and those that remained were having difficulty controlling their mounts, much less pressing forward over the still-thrashing bodies of those that had fallen. On the edges, a few were already shying away.

Half a minute- Too slow, Winter thought-and the second rank’s weapons swung back into line. More of the riders started to turn away.

“Second rank, fire !”

Another volley ripped out, more ragged than the first, but nearly as effective. Suddenly the horsemen were fleeing, riding away from the square with the same desperate speed with which they’d charged. A ragged, spontaneous cheer erupted from the Vordanai as their enemies fanned out and away. Winter’s voice cut through it like a knife.

“First rank, load . Second rank, steady !”

Through the shredded wisps of smoke, she could see the black-clad priest still waiting at the top of the ridge, with a considerable body of men around him. The first wave was rapidly dispersing in all directions, but some of them turned their horses about when they’d regained a safe distance. Others kept going, despite the shouts of their comrades. Outside the square, screams rose from the field of broken men and animals.