Warlord (76 page)

is it? 
 

Raj blinked in surprise, then turned to Suzette. "How's our mutual friend Berg?" he said, raising the glasses again.

The first transport was being towed between the ends of the breakwater; he could see the long blue swells creaming into surf on the rough line of interlocked stone that guarded the harbor. A substantial ship, bluff-bowed and three-masted; sailors were standing on the bare spars, at their ease—and away from the rowdy mass of Squadron warriors crowding the rails.
Getting ready for the knocking-shops if they're from the country, and home to the wife and kiddies if they're not,
he thought

"Nervous," Suzette said quietly. "He's . . . not a fighting man, after all."

"Well, I hope he doesn't bugger off for the bundu—the Admiral's out there somewhere," Raj said.

Two more ships were coming into the harbor mouth; there was a crowd of them dotted across kilometers of calm ocean, rising and falling with the long swells, bows to the wind under jibsails as they waited for their tows. Forty or more sail, and beyond them the long snaky shapes of war-galleys, their beaks flashing as the crews dipped the oars just enough to keep them head to the waves and holding station. They made a brave sight, familiar from the visions Center had sent him; from what he'd been told, they could be smelled a kilometer or better downwind. The Squadron navy used chained slaves and convicts as rowers, ten men to an oar and single-banked. The slave-barracks over on the military harbor had provided thousands of extremely enthusiastic volunteer laborers for the Civil Government forces, even though they were three-quarters empty with the decline of the Squadron's naval power.

"Feel that trembling in the ground?" Raj asked.

"What?" Suzette replied.

Raj gave a harsh laugh. "That's old 'Geyser' Ricks trying to burrow back from Starless Hell and strangle his descendants for ineptitude," he said.

Suzette sat beside him and took his hand; he squeezed back gratefully, feeling a little of the tension go out of his back. "What's going to happen?" she said softly.

"I don't know," he replied honestly. "As far
as I can tell, I've got everything covered . . . but this isn't like a normal battle where you can sit on a hill and
see
everything." Most battlefields were less than a kilometer on a side, and in open country. "Even the reserve is decentralized—and I've got to keep enough men on the walls, just in case. I've told the front-line people to use their initiative."

The first transport was nearly to the docks, and a dozen more were inching in as the tug crews bent to their oars. It would be the men first, the dogs second, and then the warships following through to the inner harbor; tradition, for the Squadron. Convenient for him . . .

"Spirit knows what'll happen when they do
that.
"

Hereditary Sector Commander Henrik Martyn leaped down the gangplank and fell full-length to kiss the grimy concrete of the dock.

"Home!" he howled, between smacks. "Eats! Booze! Pussy! No more hardtack, no more hairy hardcases!"

The men behind him on the ship yelled good-naturedly and poured down after him, slinging their weapons; servants and slaves would follow with their baggage.

"Fuckin' waste of a campaign," one of them said.

Martyn nodded, rising and dusting himself off; he was a tall young man, full-bearded and with shoulders like a bear. "Damn straight, Willi," he said. "Go to Sadler Island, sit in front of the city walls, scratch our butts, come back because somebody's seen a Civvie boogieman behind a peach tree."

"Too much peach brandy, maybe," one of his friends laughed. "Hey, come back to my place for dinner? Try out your lies on Marylou."

"Sure, can't head home until tomorrow anyway—then I'll kick some peon butt. Lazy bastards probably let my wheat rot in the fields."

They shrugged their slung flintlocks to their backs and strolled off away from the docks, peering around for the friends and family who should have been there to greet them. The broad paved area along the piers was deserted, except for the thousand or so men from the ships fresh in dock. No stevedores but the few handling the ground-lines, and those went about their work with heads down and mouths shut; no bustle around the anchored merchantmen, no trains of carts and slaves at the warehouses. It even
smelled
quiet, like a hot dusty day out in the country or in some little
puheblo,
not like Port Murchison. Granted it was siesta time, but this was ridiculous.

"Where the fuck is everyone?" he asked, as he and a half-dozen others ambled up one of the cobbled roads toward the central plaza. "There a bullfight or a baseball game on today?" He hitched uneasily at his swordbelt

"Naw—nothin' scheduled; it's Holy Week, remember? There aren't even any
natives
around. Earth Spirit—you don't think there's something to those latrine rumors about the Civvies invading, do you?"

"Those rabbit-hearted bastards? You've got to be—
hel
lo
, that's
better."

One of the dockside taverns seemed to be open, from the tinkling of a piano coming through the rippling glass-bead curtain that closed the entrance. A girl was standing in the doorway; Martyn angled over for a better look.
Rowf!
he thought: a high-breasted young one, with long shining blond hair and a complexion to match. She pouted at him as he approached, raising a wineglass to bee-stung lips and shooting out a hip. That made her slit skirt fall open, showing one long smooth leg right up to the hip; she turned and vanished into the door with a bump and grind as he came near.

"Hooo, darlin', wait for
me,
" he called. "C'mon, boys, a drink before dinner!" he added, over his shoulder.

He ducked through the bead curtain of the door, blinking in the dim light. Then his eyes focused on the girl; she was leaning her buttocks back against the rail of the bar and raising her skirt in both hands. A
natural
blonde. Martyn roared happily and reached for his belt-buckle as he stepped forward.

Darkness, and the floor rushing up to meet him.

"Is he dead, Antin?" Joni asked anxiously, dropping her skirt and hurrying forward.

Antin M'lewis chuckled as he slapped the chamois leather bag of lead shot into his palm, then bent to expertly slit the Squadron warrior's wallet loose from his belt. It was gratifyingly heavy; he tossed it to the girl.

"Joni," he said; then paused for a moment. Outside a single shout sounded, a few meaty smacks as of steel buttplates chunking into flesh, and the distinctive butcher's-cleaver sound of a bayonet driven into a belly. Scouts dragged bound or dead or feebly twitching bodies in through the door.

"Not th' first man led ter ruin by 'is prick—er the fifty-first, Joni," he went on. "Ye jist git yer pretty ass back t' th' door; keep on earnin' that there manumission an' dowry, flies to the honeypot. Hell, er a 'baccy shop fer yer very own!"

A calloused hand smacked down on her backside. She pouted uncertainly and resumed her pose in the door as a voice sounded softly from the second story.

"More comin!"

"Mounted party, Cap'n," said the man with the mirror on a stick poked up above the window. "'bout twenty a' em. Real important lookin' barbs, fer sure. Nice dogflesh."

"Wait for it, everyone," Barton Foley said. "Not until they get past the dogleg." His stump was itching; it always did, just before. It itched, and he saw the hand—what was left of the hand—just after something snatched at it, and he looked around from urging his men on toward the Colonists and it was
gone . . . .
He checked his weapons one more time; the cut-down double barreled shotgun in the holster across his back, the pistol, the saber—
and my hook.
Better than a hand in some ways.

Dog paws thudded in the street outside, and suddenly he felt fine. Fine and clear and light; that always happened too. Almost as good as reading the old poetry or making love, except that this was a feeling of being
more
in control, not out . . . .

"Now."

He turned and rose, as the men knelt up and leveled their rifles out the ground-floor window, and more from above and across the street. The pistol was in his hand as he stepped out into the sunlight. Twenty mounted Squadrones, right enough; one with a banner covered in stitching and brightwork: the comet-and-planet of the Admiral's family. Gaudy richness on the sleek, beautifully groomed dogs—and
that
must have taken some doing on shipboard; jewels on clothes and belts and weapons. The men were roaring in surprise, clawing for their weapons; mostly in their thirties, hard-looking even by Squadron standards.

One lifted his flintlock.
Crack,
and the top of his head spattered away from a bullet. A twin file of men double-timed out behind Foley and formed up with bayoneted rifles leveled; the Squadrones' heads swiveled, their faces liquid with shock. More rifles bore on them from rooftop and window. Nor could experienced men doubt the trembling intensity of spirit in the eyes of the young one-handed officer standing with his revolver making small prodding motions. The dogs wuffled uneasily, snuffling their masters' fear. Two extended curious noses toward the blood and brains leaking out on the worn paving stones, and the dead man's animal whined in distress.

"Drop the weapons and out of the saddle by three or you're all
dead,
" Foley shouted. "One! Two!" The hook rose.

The Squadron noble next to the banner swung down to the ground and unbuckled his swordbelt; the others followed suit, moving like men drugged or newly wakened. Troopers in bluejackets and round helmets with chainmail neckguards darted forward to lead off the dogs and drag away the corpse.

A gaping Squadron warrior blinked in disbelief. "Earth Spirit! It's the
cunnarte gisuh sharums,
" he blurted in Namerique: the phrase translated into Sponglish as
chickenhearted little darkies.
 

The man screamed and fell to his knees as a Descotter rammed his rifle butt home over the kidneys. Foley took him under the chin with his hook, very gently.

"Times," he said to the wide-eyed face, "have
changed.
"

The senior Squadron warrior shook off his bewilderment as troopers grabbed his elbows and began to lash them together behind his back.

"Take your hands off me, you peasant dogs!" he roared. "
I am Curtis Auburn!
"

"Oh-
ho
!" Foley said. Auburn stared at his smile and fell silent. After a few seconds he began to shake.

"They captured
who?
" Raj asked incredulously; the runner grinned back at him and saluted with a snap. The General shook his head. "Get him back here by all means—immediately. And my congratulations to Captain Foley. By all means, congratulations." He was still shaking his head as he turned back to the harbor, standing close to the parapet and using a tripod-mounted telescope. The wharves were black with men, now; all the transports had docked. The war galleys were spider-walking in toward the inner harbor, a dozen or so still outside waiting. More shots crackling across the city; a half-dozen here or there, then the unmistakable slamming of a platoon volley. He focused on the docks; men were milling around in circles, twisting their heads to look up into the city, shouting questions at each other. Weapons were flourished overhead; a banner went up, and an ox-horn gave its dunting snarl. Warriors formed behind that, shouldering their way through the press toward the main road up from the harbor.

"It's time," he said, looking up to the man at the heliograph. "
Now.
"

"Now!" the commander of the mortar battery said, swinging his saber down.

Two men dropped the heavy cylindrical shell into the muzzle of the mortar.
SCHUUMP,
and a tongue of flame and heavy smoke shot into the air; the bomb was almost visible, a blur arching up over the rooftop and down toward the harbor.

"Overshot seventy-five," the observer lying on the tiles of the roof shouted.

"Up three," the officer snapped. Men spun the main screw-wheel beneath the muzzle, and the fat barrel swung a fraction higher. "Fire!"

SCHUUMP. 
 

Smoke was beginning to haze the street, drifting away slowly west. The loading crew had stripped to the waist, only their Star amulets swinging against their hairless brown chests as they waited with hands poised over the next shell.

"On target, right in the middle of 'em!" the spotter shouted exultantly.

"Fire for effect—all tubes—five rounds!"

"Now!" the infantry officer barked.

His men put their shoulders to the sides of the wagons and pushed; the ironshod wheels rumbled as they ran the vehicles out of the laneway and across the broader avenue. Boots thundered behind them, and they heaved in unison to tip the four-wheeled farm carts over. Scores of strong hands dragged them together, and the footsoldiers crowded up behind them as their sergeants cursed and pushed them into order.

"Aim!"

The bayonets winked as the long rifles leveled, a line three deep. Four hundred yards down the road, a black mass of Squadron warriors halted their tentative advance. There was just time for them to let out a scream of rage and begin to dash forward.

"By platoons—volley fire—
fwego!
"

"Now, lads!" Gerrin Staenbridge said.

Four hundred rifles spoke in a stuttering crash; from behind the barricade of furniture and boxes across the road, and from rooftops and windows along it. The head of the charging column disappeared; a two-wheeled cart they had been pushing ahead of them shattered in a shower of splinters and fell sideways. A wheel broke free and rolled away backward toward the harbor, overtaking some of the fleeing men who ran or limped or tried to drag wounded comrades back with them.

"Ser!" a man called from the back of the room.

Staenbridge turned just in time to hear the shot and see him stagger back with his face pulped by a shotgun blast.