Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

She couldn’t see the cavalry from her position, but when the advance had begun she’d watched them ride off to either side, taking up positions on the outside flanks of the formation. Give-Em-Hell had been the subject of particularly extensive instructions from the colonel, and he’d gone off looking pleased, so presumably he had some important role to play. For the moment, Winter’s attention was occupied with searching the crest of the hill for the enemy, occasionally sparing a glance to either side to make sure her company’s ranks stayed even.

When guns started to flash ahead, it was a moment before she realized what she was seeing. The booms , like the grumble of distant thunder, arrived a moment later, followed by the hair-raising whistle of solid shot. The lines of recruits shivered, like wheat trembling in the breeze, as every man instinctively ducked and shied away.

“Stand up straight, you goddamn cowards!” Folsom roared, battle loosening his tongue. “You think leaning a little is going to get you out of the way of a cannonball?”

Similar admonitions were handed out by sergeants up and down the line. The advance paused only briefly. The drums picked up again, going from the ordinary pace to the quickstep, and the march continued.

The range was still long, even given the advantage of height. Most of the balls went overhead, passing with a whine or a weird warbling trill. Others fell short, raising small explosions of dust and soil where they bounced or plowed into a furrow. She watched one shot jump three or four times off the rocky ground, puffs rising at steadily decreasing intervals, like a stone expertly skipped across the surface of a pond.

Winter saw the first hit, on the Third Battalion. The ball hit the ground just beside the rearmost company, raising a cloud of dust and chips of rock, and skipped off at a low angle. It passed diagonally through the block of marching men as though they were nothing more than a thick mist, leaving nothing but wreckage in its wake. The first screams rose, along with the shouts of the sergeants to close up the ranks. The march went on, leaving the little patch of blue and red behind.

The Preacher’s guns were still limbered, pushing forward as fast as their teams could drive them. At least six guns were in action now just below the crest of the ridge, and Winter could see the Auxiliary infantry, too, a solid line of brown and tan waiting behind their artillery at the hill’s highest point. They looked solid and unshakable, a dense block of men waiting to receive the fragile Vordanai columns with fire and bayonets, and she felt a sudden thrill of fear. Flags flew above each of the Khandarai battalions, crude white things daubed with the rising-flames symbol of the Redemption.

The Khandarai gunners were firing as fast as they could load their pieces, and as the Colonials closed the range the shots became more accurate. Roundshot screamed overhead, cracked and shivered off the rocky ground, and plunged among the marching blue-coated columns. One shot caught three men from the company ahead of hers, snatching them suddenly out of line as though they’d been grabbed by an invisible giant. Winter fixed her eyes dead ahead as her company marched over the corpses, and tried not to think about what might be underfoot.

The lead companies were taking the brunt of the punishment, and it was some time before the Seventh was hit. Even that was an accident; a ball caromed off a buried rock and came down at a high angle, plunging in among her men before bouncing merrily out again. It was as sudden as a thunderbolt from on high. A blast of dust and splinters of rock, screams and curses, and a gap in the ranks.

“Close up!” Folsom shouted, and the other corporals echoed him. Winter added her own voice, hoping no one could hear the trembling. “Close up! Close up!”

Movement at the edges of the line caught her eye. The Auxiliaries were in motion, and at first she couldn’t understand why; then she saw blue-coated figures on horseback around both ends of the line, and she realized they were forming square. They did it with enviable precision, going through the evolutions as neatly as a parade, until two-thirds of the Khandarai line had transformed into diamond shapes bristling with bayonets. Even Give-Em-Hell knew better than to charge home against that with his handful of men, and the cavalry broke off well before contact. Even so, smoke puffed from one face of the square, and Winter saw a few horsemen tumble from their saddles.

A heavy roar, closer to her, returned her attention to more immediate matters. The Vordanai guns had finally unlimbered and turned about, and there were scattered cheers from the infantry as someone hit back at their tormentors. The deep-throated boom of friendly guns blended with the more distant rumble of the enemy pieces into a solid wall of noise, like a thunderstorm that never ended. The Preacher’s artillerymen, firing uphill, had a harder shot than their Khandarai counterparts, but the Auxiliaries had presented them with a near-perfect target-the squares were combat masses, outlined against the midmorning sky. Soon gaps began to appear in the brown-coated line as well, and to close just as quickly as Khandarai sergeants shoved their men sideways.

The drums changed their tempo again, and Winter recognized the intermittent beats of a command. It was reinforced a moment later by a messenger on horseback, shouting over the tumult. She caught only a piece of what he said, but that was enough.

“Halt!” she shouted. “Form line!”

This, at least, they had practiced on the drill field. The lead company halted in place, while those behind marched sideways, then forward, until they came up alongside their fellows to form a solid three-rank line. That was the theory, in any case. Doing it now, with roundshot whistling overhead and occasionally plowing through the ranks, while the drums were drowned out by the roaring of their own guns, was a bit more difficult. Winter had to leave her place in the ranks when her company came up beside the Fifth, to disentangle Bobby’s end of the line where it had accidentally overlapped with the other.

The boy saluted as she hurried over, and between them they managed to get the men pushed sideways into their proper places. Winter was glad to see the corporal was unharmed, for the moment. His face was pale as milk, but his expression seemed determined. She wondered, briefly, about her own complexion. Her stomach churned with acid, and her heart beat faster than the drums.

Bobby opened his mouth to say something, but a blast from one of the Preacher’s guns drowned the words. Winter shook her head and clapped the boy on the shoulder, then hurried back to the center of the line. She got there just in time. The drums thrilled again, then settled back into the quickstep, and the whole long formation lurched into motion. At the center of each battalion, the Vordanai colors were unfurled, the golden eagle of Vordan on a blue field and the king’s diving falcon. They made for wonderful targets, and Winter sent up a silent prayer of thanks that her company was not expected to carry one.

Occasional rattles of musketry indicated that the Vordanai cavalry were still playing a deadly game of tag with the ends of the Khandarai line, spurring in close when they gave any sign of weakening their square formation and then turning away when the lines of bayonets firmed up. The Preacher’s guns were all in action now, throwing their shot through the gaps in the advancing line of blue. The Auxiliaries seemed to be standing the fire at least as well as the Colonials.

As the Vordanai line drew closer, the rumbles of the guns died away. Winter could see the Khandarai gunners hastily swabbing out their pieces and ramming a new round home, but the next shot didn’t come. It felt like a reprieve, until she realized why, and then her breath seemed to freeze in her throat.