"And they're coming on like there was no tomorrow," Staenbridge said.
Raj knelt beside him and looked south. The Colonials were advancing at a round trot, deployed for action in two double-file lines with their guns and command group between.
"Message to Colonel Dinnalsyn," Staenbridge went on. A runner bent near. "My compliments, and the first stonk should be directed at the enemy artillery, before it has a chance to deploy."
Raj looked up and down the long curving line. "Guns?" he said.
"Splatguns forward, and the bulk of the field guns to either side." Staenbridge pointed downslope, to a clump of greenery around a small manor house. "Masked battery there."
Raj's breathing slowed. "Good work keeping everything calm when Kaltin's men came galloping in," he said.
"He had them well in hand, and Suzette and her helpers were there with bandages and water," Staenbridge said judiciously. "I doubt anyone in this army would dare panic while she was looking."
Raj nodded. Still good work, Gerrin. He leveled his binoculars and took another swig from the canteen, remembering to follow it with a salt tablet; the last thing he needed was heat prostration.
leading elements at 2300 meters, Center said helpfully. closing rapidly. A set of numbers appeared in the upper right corner of his vision, scrolling down as the enemy trotted nearer.
"Wait until their scouts stumble over us?" Staenbridge said.
"Agreed."
Damned if I'm needed here at all, he thought ruefully. I could go take a nap.
you are the source of overall direction, Center reproved. you have chosen and trained competent subordinates.
I'm not the only one, Raj thought.
"Keep the initial reception low-key," he added aloud.
A screen of scouts preceded the Colonial main body. A dozen of them came loping up the roadway toward the crest, eyes restless. Raj saw their officer half-check as he neared, looking to right and left. What spooked him-
it is too quiet. no birds or pterosauroids except the scavengers.
Raj looked up. Huge wings circled at the limit of vision, supporting long-beaked heads and patient, hungry eyes. Slightly lower were the true birds men had brought with them from lost Earth, crows and naked-necked vultures.
Damn. "I wonder what they do when there's no war?" he said.
Staenbridge looked up too for an instant. "When isn't there war?"
The Colonial scouts came closer. Their leader spurred over the crest of the rise not a hundred meters from Raj, and froze in horrified shock, his bearded mouth dropping open into an O of surprise.
Braaaap. A splatgun fired point-blank, and the scouts went down into a tangle of kicking, howling dogs and wounded men. Troopers swarmed over them in a flurry of shots and bayonet thrusts. Several broke for the rear. Picked marksmen were stationed along the crest; they fired with slow care. One Colonial went down, another. . and then the third, already crouched wounded over his saddle.
Raj turned his binoculars to the Colonial banner; it was his first glimpse of the enemy commander. A square middle-aged face beneath the spired helmet, dark and hawk-nosed, with a gray-shot forked beard. Not Tewfik, but a junior product of the same hard school. Come on, be a good wog, Raj thought urgently.
He'd done it by the book twice now, stopped and deployed when meeting a rearguard. Both times it had cost him time, time for the enemy force which had ravaged his country to escape with their plunder. And there were those dust plumes. If he did it again, the Civil Government troops might escape altogether. Overruning a small rearguard without putting in an attack on foot would force him to spend lives, but that was a cost of doing business.
Yes. The Colonial trumpets brayed and the enemy force rocked into a slow gallop, the front rank drawing scimitars and officers their pistols.
"He's going to try and roll right over us," Staenbridge said with a cruel smile. "But this pitcher will find himself catching, nonetheless."
Raj nodded tersely. He looked to the right. "You kept the. ."
"1/591st as strike reserve-they're at full strength, their dogs are fresh, and they're fond of the sword," Staenbridge said. He turned back to the front. "Not long now."
750 meters. 700 meters. 650 meters.
Raj nodded. Staenbridge jerked a hand at the signalman, who bent to touch his cigarette to the blue paper of the rocket. It arched skyward and went pop.
The banners of eleven battalions rose over the crest of the ridge in a single rippling jerk. Four thousand men rose and took six paces forward, the front rank dropping to one knee and the rear standing. Gunners heaved at the tall wheels of their weapons until the muzzles showed over the ridge. Splatgun crews pulled the concealing bushes away from their dug-in weapons.
The Colonial formations halted as if they had run into a brick wall. They were all veteran troops, and they realized instantly and gut-deep what the sight before their eyes meant; it meant they had all just been sentenced to death.
The battalions opened fire independently, but within a few seconds of each other. All the enemy were on the long gentle upslope, which meant that even if a bullet was over head-height when it reached the enemy formation-high trajectories were inescapable with black-powder weapons-there would probably be someone in front of it before it struck the earth. The platoon volleys rippled up and down the Civil Government line in an instant fogbank of dirty-gray gunsmoke, an endless BAMbambambambambam of sound. Brass sparkled in the bright sunlight as the troopers worked their levers and ejected the spent rounds. A steady, metronomic round every six seconds; forty thousand rounds in a minute. The four splatguns per battalion added half as many again.
The masked battery down on the flat opened fire simultaneously with the riflemen above, since they didn't have to manhandle their guns into position. The range was nearly point-blank; eight shells fired at minimum elevation whistled down the corridor between the first and second waves of the Colonial force. Two burst early, slashing shrapnel into the backs of the men and dogs of the first wave. One arched over and burrowed into the soft alluvial soil, sending up a nearly harmless plume of black dirt that collapsed and drifted on the wind. Five airburst within a hundred meters of the enemy command group amidst the limbered-up guns. Five black puffballs, each with a momentary snap of red fire at its heart. The green banner went down, and there was a circle of wounded dogs snapping at their hurts around the place where it lay in the dust.
Ten seconds later, the forty-eight guns of the massed artillery reserve fired from either end of the ridge. Their fire wasn't nearly as accurate as the masked battery; the range was longer, and the gunners had less time to estimate the range and adjust their pieces. The shells were contact fused. Many gouged the earth short, or fell long; both did damage enough. The score or so that fell on target hammered into the Colonial artillery train, still tied to limbers and teams. Dogs died or were wounded into howling agony-and a half-tonne of berserk carnivore was much more hindrance than a dead beast. Ammunition limbers exploded in globes of red fire, flipping wheels and barrels and bits of men dozens of meters into the air. Even then the crews of the surviving guns tried to unhitch them and swing the muzzles around to bear on the enemy who were slaughtering them.