The Shadows of God (28 page)

Franklin added. “This world is the best of all possible worlds, and so what happened, naturally was for the best.”

That drew a bit of laughter, and even Voltaire grinned again. “I once bitterly remonstrated with that philosophy,” he said. “It is a philosophy well suited to men of wealth and privilege, yes, and ill suited to those who daily suffer in this life. And yet, at times, I understand it. If things could not have been better—if they cannot
be
better—then why waste the effort of remorse or of hoping for a better future day?”

“And now I see you are still a poet,” Philippe said.

Voltaire did not answer, but stared into the fire as if he saw any better day THE SHADOWS OF GOD

consumed in its flames.

“Well, gentlemen,” Oglethorpe told them all, “I will bid you good night. A little sleep, and then I have a march to make. I’ve asked King Philippe and Governor Nairne to give me the northern command, and they have been kind enough to flatter me with it. By tomorrow, I shall be carrying the standard of Mars to our enemy.”

“Good night, sir,” the king said, “and godspeed. You are our truest knight.”

Oglethorpe and his men reached the northernmost redoubt before first light.

He was struck by the incredible calm of the morning, in the face of what he knew must come. Since the invaders landed from the airships, there had been a few minor skirmishes—it seemed that the Indians from the West were as undisciplined and overeager for battle as his own—but for the most part there had been silence from them. That wouldn’t last much longer.

Their first target would have to be the towers —until they were down, the Russians could not use their airships to best advantage. The towers would be tough prizes, with their magical aegis shields—the perimeter of devices that made the air unfit to breath—and their devil guns.

Unfortunately, according to the Karevna woman, those same alchemical devices would attract the attention of the Russian sorcerers.

“Sir? May I ask a question?”

Oglethorpe turned to Parmenter. “What’s that?”

“Why haven’t we invested the redoubt, if our mission is to hold it?”

Oglethorpe smiled wryly. “I’m not much for being cornered like a badger, no matter how snug the hole. The tower is a fat bull’s-eye for the arrows of our enemy, and I don’t intend — ”

At that instant, coincidentally, a shell made his point for him. They heard its shrill whine and then an explosion that shook the air, even here, a quarter mile from its detonation. The tree —a five-hundred-year-old pine, if it was a day—

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teetered, charring black but not catching fire, due to its presence in the zone of bad air.

Another shell struck next to it, this one spattering a viscous burning fluid that immediately went out.

After that, so many shells fell that there was no space in the sound, only a noise like God humming. An avenue opened in the thick forest as the explosions worked their way directly toward the invisible redoubt.

“See? They’ve taught their shells to seek the aegis, just as Franklin feared. If we were in there, we wouldn’t dare come out.” He grinned. “As it is, we’re free to go find the bastards working those cannon and lay them down to sleep.”

“Amen, General,” Parmenter said.

“Get ”em on their horses. “Tis time to meet the devil.”

It was eerie to hear the shelling fade in the distance, and as it did, the sound of cannon fire come over like one symphony replacing another. It reminded him vividly of his first battle with Prince Eugene, of his younger self’s sheer unbelief at the range and accuracy of the new alchemical guns—that they could be placed so far away so not only couldn’t see them but also couldn’t even
hear
them. His first command had been to take a company and find the cannon chewing up their lines. He had done it then, and he would do it again.

Of course, it hadn’t been easy that first time, either.

As Oglethorpe and his men approached the slope of the hill the guns were sounding from, bullets began swarming from the trees like a hundred acres of bees. Something like a sledgehammer struck Oglethorpe in the chest, nearly unhorsing him, and he gave quick thanks for his adamantium breastplate as he raised his pistol and fired at the Indian springing from behind the nearest tree. The fellow howled like a catamount as the
kraftpistole
cut him in half.

The fighting got dirty. This time they didn’t face regulars, trying to keep neat columns—this enemy fought from amongst the trees, like his own people. The rangers unslung their carbines and dismounted, forming a rough line, firing THE SHADOWS OF GOD

and advancing, one tree to the next. The air was thick with the smell of powder and pine sap.

Oglethorpe stayed mounted, barking orders and shooting at shadows. A trio of Indians broke from cover and ran at him, firing their muskets; then, when they saw they had missed, pulling tomahawks. He calmly shot one with his last charge, then drew his saber as his horse screamed and collapsed, rolling on its side, blood blowing from its neck like spume from a whale surfacing. He was on his feet but still untangling himself from the saddle when they reached him.

One pitched back from him at a distance of a yard, and he heard a ranger behind him shout in triumph. The other leapt, whirling an ax. Oglethorpe struck savagely with his saber, and the bright edge bit into the Indian’s arm. It didn’t slow him. They crashed together, Oglethorpe reaching with his free hand to catch the descending ax. He missed, and the weapon skinned down his arm, surprisingly painful, before spanging into his breastplate. With an involuntary roar, he struck his knuckle guard into the man’s face, and for an instant he was twenty-three again, in a low tavern in London, fury and alcohol mixed in his veins, experiencing the dirty exhilaration of feeling a nose collapse under his fist, the sheer animal pleasure of killing a man with his bare hands. He cursed the Indian for bringing that memory back, knotted his hand in the thick black hair, and pulped the face into a red nightmare. He kept hitting the corpse long after it was dead.

By the time he returned to his senses, four of his rangers were around him, firing at more attackers.

“No more bush fighting, by God!” he snarled. “Fetch me a mount and sound the charge!”

If they questioned his decision, no one said so. He did not care what was wisest

—he was a general, by God, not the brawling fool he had been more than two decades ago. He should
not
have to fight like that!

A moment later, shrieking like Indians themselves, they swarmed up the hill.

It happened in a blur, oddly slowly. Ambushers rose from every pile of brush and fell, and some rose again, missing parts of themselves. Some waited until the Colonials were past, then leapt up behind them. He turned once, just in THE SHADOWS OF GOD

time to see a red hole the size or a fist appear in Cory MacWilliams, just under the silver coin he.wore around his neck for good luck and see — God, yes, see —the bloody bullet that had done the work speed within an inch of his own nose.

By the time they reached the hilltop and the guns there, he had lost more than half his men. Predictably, the Yamacraw made it to the top first, Parmenter’s rangers on their heels. The gunners dropped the muzzles of their weapons and fired, cutting swaths that left bits of men everywhere. Through the haze of smoke-coughing weapons, he made out that the top of the hill had been cleared and a cavalry of sorts awaited them —fierce dark men who did not look like Indians, wearing splinted armor and carrying cutlasslike weapons.

Oglethorpe barely felt the impact of the charge. His pistols were long since spent, and his saber was already more a club than a sword.

In a moment of clarity, he knew they would never make it. The ambushers they had left behind them in their hurry were catching up, and they were now in a crossfire. He had killed all his men for nothing.

And then, miraculously, the guns went silent, and the Mongols — that’s what he guessed them to be, from what the tsar had said —began dropping from the rear. His men gave a great shout, almost as if in-one voice, and their enemies, confused and disheartened, went down like wheat before a scythe.

And from the smoke on the hill, another company emerged. Indians, but this time of a sort he recognized by their tattoos and paint.

Choctaws.

The miracle was they didn’t fire at each other. For a long moment, what remained of Oglethorpe’s men stood, panting and bleeding, wondering if this was a new force they would have to fight. But the Choctaw had killed the gunners and the Mongols, and so after a moment Oglethorpe made his decision and turned his remaining men to deal with enemy coming up the hill behind them.

Within half an hour the battle was over, the high ground theirs.

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“Sir,” a soldier said, limping up beside him. “Let the surgeon bind your wound.”

“Eh?” He glanced at his arm. The ax had peeled his skin back, but there wasn’t much bleeding—a sticky sort of crust had already formed over the lesion. “It can wait,” he said. “Where is Tomochichi?”

“He went chasing back down the hill.”

“Ah. What do you think of those fellows with the guns?”

“They seem like friends, sir.”

“I’m going to see.” Over the protests of the young man, he spurred his new mount up the hill, sheathing his saber as he did so.

A small party stepped from cover to greet him—a Choctaw man, perhaps thirty years old, and a body of soldiers in dirty blue uniforms. One of these was a tall, slim fellow with hair the color of copper.

“
Halito
,” Oglethorpe said, one of the few words he knew in Choctaw.

“Good day,” the Indian answered in English.

“You seemed to have saved us a good bit of trouble. I’m much grateful to you. I am James Edward Oglethorpe, margrave of Azilia, commander of the English forces in New Paris.”

“We are happy to be of help. Your foe is our foe—we have been fighting these men since they crossed the Mississippi River.”

“We had heard the Choctaw were resisting.”

“I’m glad you recognized us.”

Oglethorpe smiled wearily. “It’s been my business for many years to know the Indians in these territories. Well, as I said, you’ve helped us out. What can I do for you?”

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“Most of my men will stay here and continue to fight. But we have a wounded Frenchwoman with us, and it is quite urgent that she — and I —reach New Paris as soon as possible.”

Oglethorpe chewed his lip. It could be a trick, couldn’t it? A sort of Trojan horse?

“How many of you?” he asked.

“Me, the lady, twelve of her company, and one Indian woman.”

Oglethorpe coughed —his lungs were still thick with the smoke of the guns —and nodded. “I will have you there by nightfall,” he said. “But tell me —how much respite do we have? Is there more of this advance force?”

“This was most of them, I think,” the Choctaw replied. “But there will be more very soon.”

“Can your men help us carry these guns down to our redoubt?”

“Of course, General.”

“Wonderful. I hate to ask more favors, but again it is much appreciated. I will make certain your men get a share of what gifts we have.”

“That is good.” He gave some orders in Choctaw.

“Where is this lady?”

“Back a bit. We will fetch her now, if you are ready to escort us.”

Oglethorpe hesitated only an instant. “I will arrange it. May I ask—who do you have business with in New Paris?”

“The philosopher Benjamin Franklin. The lady is also a philosopher, late of Russia. She has much to tell him. Crucial things.”

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Or you wish to assassinate our best hope,
Oglethorpe thought, suspicious again. He would send a message ahead, to prepare them.

“That might do it,” Franklin murmured, staring at the odd device he, Euler, and Vasilisa had just cobbled together. It was simple and delicate in appearance—a glass rod a fathom long and the thickness of a sword blade, rising to a point from a cubical iron case. The complexity came in the small additions to the glass, the chime of philosopher’s mercury in the casing, and the small tympanum on the side—a sort of “ear” that would help the device adjust to the precise harmonics it was exposed to.

“Might,” Euler said. “But how can we test it, when it is made to repel a substance that does not yet exist?”

“I don’t know.” Franklin mused, “I suppose, in this instance, we must have faith. I want five more of these made by tomorrow, and five more the next day.”

“You understand, it is a temporary solution,” Vasilisa said.

“Of course I do. But it gives us more time, yes?”

“How much time will we need, I wonder?” Euler said. “And— assuming we defeat the army cast at us, and hold the engines at bay-how much of the world will remain? After all, this will protect only a few miles, maybe not even that.”

“Which is why we must stop wasting time jabbering and build more. ”Tis a simple enough device to construct—the craftsmen should be able to get the hang of it easily enough.“

Vasilisa sighed and settled onto a chair. Several strands of her hair came down across one eye, making her look both very young and very tired. “I never imagined we would get even this much done. It’s all in God’s hands now.”

“Who helps best those who help themselves,” Franklin reminded her. “Once we have a few of these, I want to try another approach.”

“You will then reproach?” a voice asked from the doorway.

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“Hello, Robin. Any news?”

“Yep —all good. We’ve heard from Oglethorpe. He cleared out that first invasion—the northernmost redoubt is damaged, but still stands. The engineers are shoring it up now. And some visitors are on the way—a Choctaw and some others. I’m to ask
y
if you know a fellow named Red Shoes.”

“You know damned well I do. You also know what Tug and the tsar said about him. What are we to think? All of our old friends are coming home to roost, and we don’t know whether they’re doves or hawks or death angels. Who else is with him?”

“That’s a funny thing. Some Russians who are really Frenchmen. Some woman named Monche— ah, Monchevrey—”