He will, she told herself. A twinge in her belly made her grimace a little. Fatima put a hand under her elbow.
"I'm fine," she said, conscious that she was still pale. The pain was much less, and the hemorrhaging had stopped. Almost stopped.
"You shouldn't have," Fatima whispered in her ear.
"I couldn't take the chance," Suzette said, as softly. "I couldn't be sure whose. . there will be time."
She straightened and nodded to her escort at the door. They were looking a little uneasy at the preparations. It was odd, even the bravest soldier didn't like looking at an aid station or the bone-saws being set out.
"Back to headquarters," she said.
* * *
"Kaltin, you and the 7th Descott are the only reserve on the whole west section of the walls," Raj said.
They stood around the map, watching his finger move and cradling their kave mugs. I'm trying to fill a dozen holes with six corks, he thought. Another shoestring operation. . He went on:
"Ludwig can watch the east with the bulk of the cavalry until it's time. Gerrin and I are up here in the north with the 5th and nine battalions of regular infantry, but you're it over there-you and the militia. They're not that steady, and even a fairly light attack will spook them. Keep them facing the right way."
"Count on it," the scar-faced man said, slapping fists.
"I am. Waya con Ispirito de Hom."
Raj straightened and sighed as Gruder left. "Well, at least we're getting good fighting weather," he said.
The windows showed the ghostly glimmer of false dawn, but the sky was still bright with stars. Yesterday's rain was gone, although the ground outside the walls would still be muddy. Nothing would limit visibility today, though.
"I hope you messers are all aware how narrow our margins are, here," Raj said. "The blocking force has to hold." He nodded at the infantry commanders. "And the rest of you, when the time comes, move."
"It seems simple enough," one said.
Raj nodded grimly. "But in war, the simplest things become extremely difficult. Dismissed."
The men filed out, leaving only him and Suzette in the big room. "You'd be more useful back at the aid station," he said. "Safer, too. This is too cursed close to the walls for comfort."
Suzette shook her head. "East Residence would be safe, my love. I'll be here," she said.
* * *
"Mamma, an' ye'll nivver see the loik of that comin' down t' road from Blayberry Fair," one of the Descotter troopers on the tower murmured.
The rolling northern horizon was black across an arc five kilometers wide. The Brigade was coming, deployed into fighting formation; the front ten ranks carried ladders and the blocks behind had their muskets on their shoulders and bayonets fixed. The sun was just up, and the light ran like a spark in grass from east to west across the formation as it hove into view, flashing on fifty thousand steel points. They chanted as they marched, a vast burred thunder, timed to the beating of a thousand drums. Between the huge blocks of men came guns, heavy siege models and lighter brass fieldpieces, hauled by oxen and dogs and yet more columns of Brigaderos warriors.
"Now, this isn't particularly clever," Raj said lightly.
To himself he added: But it just may work. Brute force often did, although it was also likely to have side-effects. Even if Ingreid won this one, he was going to lose every fifth fighting man in the Brigade's whole population doing it.
"Counter-battery?" Dinnalsyn asked.
"By all means," Raj said.
"Lancers to the fore," Gerrin Staenbridge noted.
The dull sheen of armor marked the forward ranks; they'd left the polearms behind, of course. Muskets were slung over their backs.
"Those lobster-shells will give them some protection," Raj said. "From fragments and glancing shots, at least."
The gunners' signal-lantern clattered. The chanting of the Brigaderos was much louder, rolling back from walls and hills:
"Upyarz! Upyarz!"
Raj swallowed the last of his kave and handed the cup to the orderly; he shook out his shoulders with a slight unconscious gesture, settling himself to the task.
"Since I'm handling the towers," Gerrin said. "I'd appreciate it if you could be ready to move the reserves sharpish, Whitehall," he went on dryly.
"I'll do my best," Raj replied with a slight bow.
They grinned at each other and slapped fists, back of the gauntlet and then wrist to wrist.
* * *
"Right, lads," Raj said, raising his voice slightly.
Pillars of smoke were rising into the cold bright dawn air from the towers, stretching right and left in a shallow curve to the edge of sight. Gunsmoke, from the fieldpieces emplaced on them-the infantry on the walls hadn't started shooting yet. The POUMPF. . POUMPF of the cannonade was continuous, a thudding rumble in the background. Behind it the sharper crack sound of the shells bursting was muffled by the walls. As he spoke a huge BRACK and burst of smoke came from one tower far to the west, where a heavy enemy shell had scored a lucky hit. Another came over the wall with a sound like a ship's sails ripping in a storm and gouted up a cone of black dirt from the cleared space inside the walls. The sulphur smell of powder smoke drifted to them, like a foretaste of hell to come.
"The whole Brigade's coming this way," Raj went on. "Most of our infantry went out upriver to take them in the flank. Pretty well all the cavalry's going to go out the west gate and take them in that flank.
"The problem is," he went on, rising slightly onto his toes and sinking back, "is that all that's left to hold them while that happens is us. . and the rest of the infantry on the walls, of course."
He raised one hand and pointed at the north gate towers, his left resting on the hilt of his saber. "Colonel Staenbridge and Captain Foley each hold a side of the gate, with a company of the 5th. The rest of you-and me-have to stop whatever gets over the walls. If we do, it's victory. If we don't. ."
He paused, hands clasped behind his back, and grinned at the semicircle of hard dark faces. Things were serious enough, but it was also almost like old times. . five years ago, when he'd commanded the 5th and nothing more.
"You boys ready to do a man's work today?"
The answer was a wordless growl.
"Hell or plunder, dog-brothers."
* * *
"Switch to antipersonnel," Bartin Foley said briskly.
The front line of the Brigaderos host was only three thousand meters away. The rolling ground had broken up their alignment a little, but the numbers were stunning; worse than facing the Squadron charge in the Southern Territories, because these barbs were coming on in most unbarbarian good order. The forward line gleamed and flickered; evidently they'd taken the time to polish their armor. It coiled over the low rises like a giant metallic snake. Fifty meters behind it came the dragoons, tramping with their bayoneted rifles sloped. He could make out individual faces and the markings on unit flags now, with the binoculars. Most of the heavy guns were far behind, smashed by the fieldpieces mounted on the towers or stranded when the shelling killed the draught-oxen pulling them. Also further back were columns of mounted men, maybe ten thousand of them-ready to move forward quickly and exploit a breach anywhere along the front of the Brigade attack.
Terrible as a host with banners, he thought-it was a fragment from the Fall Codices, a bit of Old Namerique rhetoric. The banners of the enemy flapped out before them in the breeze from the north. Hundreds of kettledrums beat among them, a thuttering roar like blood hammering in your ears.