Harry Turtledove - Opening Atlantis

Boom! Roland Kersauzon was on the wall when the ground shuddered under his feet. A lot of gunpowder had gone off all at once…somewhere. But where? He looked back at his town. No great cloud of smoke rising there. His men hadn't done their best to blow themselves up, then.

The English? Not anywhere Roland could see. The bulk of Nouveau Redon hid some of their line from him, but he would have thought any explosion big enough to make things jump like that would have produced a sizable cloud of smoke. Maybe he was crazy. Maybe being up on the wall made the explosion seem bigger than it really was. A crew of cannoneers were also looking around, wondering what had happened. When their eyes met his, they shrugged, almost in unison. Laughing, he returned the gesture.

Half an hour or so later, people started shouting his name. "Here I am!" he called. "What is it?"

"The spring!" somebody called from the narrow, winding streets. "The spring's gone dry!"

"What?" Roland yelped. "That's impossible!"

"It may be impossible," the man down there replied. "But it's true."

"Merde!" Roland said. "Nom d'un nom d'un nom!" He hurried down off the wall. Going down stairs shouldn't have made his heart pound like that. In fact, going down stairs didn't make his heart pound like that. Fear did.

Sure enough, no water gurgled from the mouth of the gargoyle who capped the spring. "It just-stopped," a still-plump cook said. "A few minutes after the ground shook, it…stopped."

Roland cursed again, this time even more vilely than before. The cook gaped at him. Roland hardly noticed. He was seeing men far belowground, men working with spades and adzes and picks. He'd never dreamt they could penetrate to the living heart of his mountain. Underestimating what the English could do did not pay.

"What now, Monsieur?" the cook asked. "Nouveau Redon has no cisterns. Who would have imagined we needed them?"

"Who indeed?" Roland said dully. He looked up to the sky. A few white clouds lazily drifted across the blue. He wanted gray sweeping away the sun. He wanted rain, downpour, deluge. No matter what he wanted, God wasn't going to give it to him.

Men could live on half-rations for months, maybe even years. They could go with no food at all for a month. Take away their water and they were helpless inside a week.

Not all the water inside Nouveau Redon had vanished, of course. But if no more came in, if the weather stayed fair, the way it looked like doing…What could the defenders do then?

He saw only one answer. It wasn't a good answer, but it wasn't an impossible answer, either. Drawing himself very straight, he said, "We fight, by God!"

Having decided to do that, he wasted no time. He sent runners hot-footing it all over Nouveau Redon. The sooner his men went out and assailed the English, the less they would suffer from thirst in the meantime. Rain might buy him a few more days, but-another glance toward the sunny heavens-no, no rain in sight.

As his men gathered near the northern gate, he rose till he stood in the saddle and told them what they needed to know: "I am sorry to say it, my ducks, but the English have pulled the rug out from under our feet. They have murdered our spring-we have no more water coming into the town. But we are not without hope. Plenty of water flows down there, right below our feet. All we have to do is go take it. We've fought Englishmen before-and we've beaten them before, too. One more win, and the war is over. We can do it!"

A great cheer rose. The French settlers certainly thought they could do it. Believing a thing possible went a long way toward making it so. Roland had a pistol on his belt, a pistol in each boot, and a slashing sword loose in the scabbard.

"You will follow me," he said. "You will not turn back till I give the order. And I will never give that order!"

Another cheer rang out. "Forward!" a sergeant shouted in a great voice. In an instant, the whole army was crying out the word: "Forward! Forward! FORWARD!"

The gates opened. The men streamed out of them and formed a line of battle. Enemy rifles began firing as soon as the French settlers came into sight. Here and there, a man fell. The settlers were veterans by now, and acted as stolid about losses as regulars could have.

Roland pointed down toward the river. "Let's go!" he cried. Cheering, the army went.

Cannons roared. Fire licked at the French settlers from the trenches ahead. Neither English Atlanteans nor redcoats emerged to fight on open ground. The enemy fired from his earthworks. If he could shoot down the whole garrison from Nouveau Redon without exposing himself to much danger, he would do it without a qualm of conscience.

A coward's way to fight, or else a tradesman's: so Roland saw it. Which didn't make it ineffective. Oh, no. More soldiers came running through the spiderweb of trenches to take their places in front of the French settlers. Roland realized his men would have to break through before the English got enough fighters in place to stop them. Well, they were close to the first trench line now.

A musket ball caught his horse in the neck. Blood fountained, impossibly red in the sunshine. The horse let out a bubbling shriek and staggered. Roland sprang clear before it went down. He brandished one of his pistols-the sword would have been more dramatic, but he could do more with the pistol-and shouted, "I'm still fine! Let's go on and give them what they deserve!"

His good sense proved itself a moment later. A redcoat swung a musket toward him. But Roland fired first. He missed, but he made the Englishman duck. The enemy's shot went wild. Roland threw the pistol at the next closest redcoat, then drew his sword and jumped down into the trench.

The sword got blood on it in short order. Roland got blood on himself, too, but it wasn't his. An English regular almost spitted him with a bayonet, but got shot in the side before he could thrust again. The redcoat sank with a groan. Roland's blade flickered like a viper's tongue. It was quicker than any bayoneted musket, but the bayonets had more reach.

French settlers swarmed over the English defenders. The French outnumbered them here, and also had desperation on their side. As soon as Roland was sure they'd killed or driven back enough enemies, he scrambled up onto the northern edge of the trench and ran on toward the next line. "Follow me!" he yelled again.

Some of his men did. Others went through the trenches connecting the inner ring of works to that outside it. Had the English settlers and regulars had their wits about them, they could have plugged those connecting trenches with a few men. But the attack's mad fury unnerved them, and the French settlers rushed into the next ring.

How many of these battles will we have to win? Roland wondered, unchivalrously stabbing a greencoat in the kidney from behind. The man shrieked and dropped his musket, whereupon the French settler he was facing gutted him with his bayonet. But more and more greencoats and redcoats rushed to the fray. The English settlers and regulars might be too unnerved to fight with proper tactics, but they weren't too unnerved to fight.

Not all the Frenchmen who got into the second ring of trenches came out of it. And still more English soldiers poured into the brawl from the works all around Nouveau Redon. The longer clearing the trench took, the harder it got. "We have to move on, down toward the river!" Roland called. But what they had to do and what they could do might be two different things.

Roland fired both his remaining pistols. He hit a redcoat with one ball; he wasn't sure about the other. In the mad melee all around him, he wasn't sure of much. He hung on to one pistol, carrying it reversed in his left hand. Some swordsmen used a left-hand dagger to beat aside their foes' weapons and to do damage when they could. The pistol worked about as well. Roland clouted a settler over the head with it when the man got too close for him to use his blade.