Swarez smiled, gazing out into the rainy darkness as he heard it. It was unlikely Mahkneel would be able to keep his mouth shut, although he supposed it was remotely possible. The Writ promised miracles still happened, after all.
An’ if the miserable prick insists on bein’ a pain in the arse, the other lads’ll sort his arse out with a little “counselin’ session” next time there’re no officers around. Prob’ly shouldn’t be thinkin’ that’s a good thing, an’ I hope they don’t get too carried away, but the—
The sergeant’s thoughts broke off, and his eyes narrowed. He cocked his head, trying to decide if he really had heard anything besides the splashing energy of the rain. It seemed unlikely, but he turned in the direction from which the possible sound had come, straining his eyes, and something tingled unpleasantly up and down his spine.
“What is it, Sarge?” one of the other members of the picket asked.
“Don’t know,” Swarez said tersely, but his hand groped for the signal flare, copied from a captured heretic signal rocket. “Thought I heard—”
* * *
“Now!” Sergeant Ahrnahld Taisyn hissed, and two squads of 2nd Platoon, 1st Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Scout Sniper Regiment, came to their feet in the muddy, rain-soaked scrub. “And remember,” he added, totally superfluously, because it was his job to, “no shooting, damn it!”
The scout snipers were understrength, like every other unit in the Army of Thesmar, but 2nd Platoon was down only nine of its nominal fifty-seven men, and Lieutenant Abernethy had picked the squads for Taisyn’s present mission with care. Not even a scout sniper could move through close, overgrown terrain in total darkness—and rain—without sounding like a draft dragon in a cornfield. But at least Abernethy and Taisyn could count on 3rd and 4th Squad to sound like small dragons.
The Charisians came out of the dark with bayoneted rifles at the ready and every safety set, sweeping through the gap they’d created by picking off Captain Tyrnyr’s layered shell of sentries. Sergeant Swarez was a highly experienced veteran with well-honed combat instincts. That was why he had time to realize he truly had heard something, to find the signal flare with his right hand and reach for the primer tape with his left. His fingers actually found the tape and started to pull it … just as a fourteen-inch tempered steel bayonet rammed home at the base of his throat.
The unlit flare fell back into the mud as his hands pawed uselessly at the blood-spouting wound. He went down, gurgling for breath, trying to shout, and a muck-covered combat boot slammed down on his breastplate as the Charisian recovered his bayonet.
* * *
“All right.” Captain Zackery Wylsynn had to raise his voice over the rain and the sullen wind tossing the leafless branches around him. “Our forward squads have informed us they’re at least theoretically where they’re supposed to be. And Sergeant Major Bohzmhyn here—” Wylsynn twitched his head in the direction of the tallish, square-shouldered noncom at his elbow “—assures me the Temple Boys don’t have a clue we’re coming. I want you all to remember he gave us his word about that.”
“Not exactly what I said, Sir.” Unlike Wylsynn, who was an Old Charisian and an ex-Marine, Bohzmhyn was a Chisholmian who’d spent the better part of twenty years in the Royal Chisholmian Army before it became the Imperial Charisian Army. As such, he had a Langhorne-given responsibility to be the voice of reason for his Charisian CO. “What I said was that none of our lads fired a single shot and none of the pickets warned anyone we’re coming. Doesn’t mean somebody hasn’t figured it out on his own.”
“Ah, I see. I stand corrected.” Wylsynn grinned at his company sergeant major. Then his expression sobered as he returned his attention to the youthful lieutenants standing around him while the rain battered their shoulders and bounced off their helmets.
“The point is that our people are in position, the engineers are out doing their jobs, and Colonel Maiyrs’ lead elements should be closing up on our point teams right about now. In another—” he pulled his watch out of his tunic and tilted it to catch the narrow beam of light from the bull’s-eye lantern Bohzmhyn cracked open “—eighty minutes or so, things’re going to get lively. So,” he closed the watch’s case with a snap, “let’s just get back and make sure no balls get dropped, shall we?”
* * *
“Got an Alyksberg officer here lookin’ for the Lieutenant, Sarge,” Corporal Clyffyrd said.
Sergeant Taisyn looked up from the bayonet he’d been honing, then stood and saluted the sodden Siddarmarkian captain who stood dripping at the corporal’s heels.
“Clyffyrd, yer an idiot,” he growled, holding out the hand that wasn’t full of bayonet to the officer. “Good to see you, Sir,” he continued, still scowling at his corporal. “Sorry ’bout that ‘Alyksberg officer’ crap. Seems Clyffyrd here don’t see too good in the dark.”
“Not a problem, Sergeant.” Captain Haarahld Hytchkahk chuckled as he clasped the noncom’s forearm.
He and Lieutenant Ehlys Abernethy’s platoon had worked together several times over the last few months, and they got along well. Which might, he reflected, have something to do with why Major Mahklymorh had chosen 2nd Platoon for this assignment.
“Hard to recognize anybody in weather like this. Or even see them in the first place … thank Chihiro!” he continued.
“Got that right, Sir,” Taisyn agreed, and craned his neck, looking into the darkness beyond the captain. “Got your people up to the initial point, do you?”
“Just getting the last of them into position now,” Hytchkahk confirmed.
“Damned good work, Sir.” Taisyn’s broad smile showed an elite soldier’s approval of good field craft. “Never heard a frigging thing—begging the Captain’s pardon.”
“Coming from you, the boys’ll take that as a compliment, Sergeant.”
“And damned well should, Sir. Not the easiest thing t’ move that many bodies in the dark ’thout somebody fallin’ over a tree root—or his own two feet—an’ lettin’ the entire world know he’s out there.”
The sergeant slid the bayonet back into the sheath strapped to the outside of his right thigh, then turned back to Clyyfyrd.
“Go find the Lieutenant and tell him Captain Hytchkahk’s here an’ his men’re assemblin’ on the IP. An’ fer Kau-yung’s sake, try not t’ get lost doing it.”
“On it, Sarge.” If Clyffyrd felt crushed by his platoon sergeant’s lack of faith in him, it didn’t show. “Captain,” the corporal nodded to Hytchkahk and faded away into the rain.
* * *
Sergeant Hairahm Klymynty slogged along the muddy trail, ankle-deep in rainwater runoff, with his head bent against the wind while his oilskin poncho flapped around his knees. He hated weather like this. He always had, and it was worse now that his knees had started to age along with the rest of him. The cold and wet weren’t doing any favors for the shoulder which had stopped a Charisian bullet the year before, either. But he was pretty sure the men he’d detailed to stand watch out here were no happier about it than he was, and he wasn’t going to lie around in a nice warm bedroll roll out of the rain—if such a thing actually existed anywhere in the world, a possibility he was coming to doubt—while he had men out here getting rained on.