S. Stirling - The Given Sacrifice

“This is the loudest clandestine approach I’ve ever made, that it is,” Rudi observed.

“Yeah, it’s not every day you try to sneak up on someone with most of a battalion in close order, while blowing a trumpet,” Fred agreed.

Rudi breathed deeply; they were both being elaborately casual, not least to fool themselves into dismissing the possibility of dying in the next few minutes, which was a useful trick. Courage in combat was mostly training and sheer animal reflex. It was much harder to walk towards a fight than it was to fight it, because that required a continuous effort of the soul.

Be as you wish to seem, an ancient had said. It was good advice. Because acting brave and being so are very much the same thing.

Two long blocks wasn’t very far, though they’d mustered on West Myrtle so that they could do a right wheel onto South Capitol and not look as if they’d popped up from under the earth. . which of course they had done. It was working well so far. Who could imagine so many men appearing within walls so strong and closely guarded?

Unless someone detected the movement when we came over the river. . in which case we’d all be dead because they would have fired up the searchlights and catapults. So far, so good.

“Wellman is going to be very useful here,” the last of the Thurston sons said. “It’s a hell of a lot better than fighting our way up the escalade stairs of some random section of the riverwall, and we’ll lose a hell of a lot less men in the assault force if they can come through a gate. Not as much time under fire on the approach.”

“That’s if this works as smoothly as Wellman hopes, of course.”

“He has the password of the day, and the gate commander will recognize him.”

“Sure, and he’d recognize you , Fred,” Rudi observed.

“Oh, go ahead, joke about it.”

Fred wasn’t at the head essentially because of his appearance. Every second street corner still had ragged posters of his father Lawrence and elder brother Martin side by side in armor, both holding their helmets in the crook of an arm as they stared heroically into a space occupied by a shining, waving flag, with the elder’s hand on the younger’s shoulder as if to push him forward into that radiant future. The family resemblance was striking; they were all three handsome men, in a commanding sort of fashion different from Rudi’s own sharp-cut features.

Martin Thurston had started the poster campaign as soon as he took power, trading on his sire’s popularity in a way his father had never tolerated; the first time Rudi had been through Boise there had been plenty of posters, but they’d all been of personified abstractions-symbols of Work or Patriotism or whatever. And apart from Fred’s individual looks, his part-African coloring and cast of features were a little uncommon in Boise, enough to attract a fatal second glance even with the cheekpieces and overhanging brow-ridge of the Boisean helmet hiding most of his face.

In this city that shade of skin would scream exiled prince .

The inner gate didn’t have a drawbridge or portcullis; the original builders hadn’t been too worried about attack from within. It did have sheer massiveness, a rectangle of welded steel girders as wide as the street and three times a man’s height mounted on dozens of old railroad-car wheels built into its lower edge and running on a strip set into the pavement. It didn’t swing in or out, but slid instead into or out of the solid bulk of the flanking towers. The road to the bridges ran through the gate, through the thickness of the fort in a passageway like an arched tunnel, and into another slab of metal just as huge at the eastern wall; that did have a drawbridge just beyond it. The tunnel had murder-holes in the upper curve to give anyone who somehow got through the solid metal a very hot greeting-literally so, since they could pump streams of burning napalm down. The granite-faced concrete meant that nothing within could catch fire.

Except the flesh of an attacker, and blackened brass spouts above the portals showed where more flame could be pumped down onto the road outside the gate too. The gate was blazoned across its width with the stylized eagle that Boise used as its main symbol, and the raptor eye seemed to regard them with a ferocious watchfulness.

Peace between us, Eagle Spirit, Rudi thought. I come as Your friend, to aid Your people.

Even with good high-geared winches, moving the main gate wasn’t something you’d want to do more often than you must. A more human-scaled door stood to one side in the right-hand tower; it was small only by comparison to the gate, being wide enough for two men to pass abreast when it was open. Like the gate it slid sideways rather than swinging on hinges, locking snugly into a matching slot on the left side, which made it immensely strong; it would be easier to knock a hole through the concrete than beat it in.

Wellman’s voice barked an order and the century commanders and noncoms repeated it:

“Vexillia-”

“Century-”

The warning command rang out, combined with a two-note call from the trumpet.

“-halt!”

A crash and stamp as the troops slammed down their right heels and the steel-shot butts of the pilae. They were as still as so many statutes afterwards, to a degree that had always seemed a bit unnatural to Rudi-he approved of discipline, of course, but there was something a little inhuman when you took it to this level. He’d once seen a housefly walk over the eyeball of a Boisean soldier, on guard outside Fred’s tent, and the man had only blinked, slowly.

A slit window beside the postern door opened and someone looked out.

“Who goes there?” a sharp voice asked. “Advance and be recognized.”

“Vexillia of the Fourth, reporting to carry out relief,” Wellman’s voice said. “Cap. . Centurion Wellman, commanding.”

Lawrence Thurston had modeled much of Boise’s rebuilt military on that of Rome, but he’d kept the old American Army ranks. His parricide son had started replacing them before he died at Rudi’s hand in the Horse Heaven Hills, but intelligence said the change was still superficial. Fred, of course, had restored the old terms in his forces. As he said, he didn’t have a man-crush on Julius Caesar and the traditional system was just better than calling everyone a centurion.

The voices dropped as they exchanged the sign and countersign, then the man inside almost yelped:

“We didn’t get any orders about that!” the voice said, sounding a bit more natural in its startlement.

“Well, I did,” Wellman snarled. “Look, is Major. . Goddammit, Senior Centurion Betjeman there?”

“Yes, sir,” the voice said. “But he’s asleep. . ”

“Well, then, wake him up! Or open the God-damned postern so I can deliver this detachment and get back to work! Tell him Cap. . Centurion Wellman is here. Move it, straight-leg!”

There was a tense wait, and then the postern rumbled open, showing the serrated edge on one side that locked into saw-shaped holes when closed. An officer stood there, impeccably turned out except that the morning’s stubble was still on his cheeks, and Wellman saluted and handed over a packet of documents. They’d been modified from ones already in Wellman’s possession, by a Dúnedain who was an artist in such matters. They wouldn’t take close scrutiny, but then they probably wouldn’t have to.

“Wellman, what the hell’s going on? Where’s Gianelli? You’re not in the Fourth’s chain of command. Hell, you’re not even a Regular.”

“Sir, don’t I know it, and I haven’t the faintest. I just got the order by runner to show up at Fort Boise and march this detachment here-something about enemy movement on the west bank of the river.”