A triumphant roar built on the far right and spread across the front. A suddenly unmasked four-gun battery spewed double loads of canister, and the distinctive yellowish smoke drifted back across the shredded landing zone between the battle line and the shore. The roar of battle slowly dwindled, as did the flurry of bolts overhead. Another battery, closer to the center, unleashed its own swath of canister, lunging back until the double-pole trails buried in the loam. The cheering grew.
“Thank you, General,” Grisa said, “but that is not necessary! We have repelled them!”
“They will be back,” Rolak assured him. “The question is, will they strike the same place again, hoping they have weakened it, or somewhere else, hoping we have weakened it?”
“Surely you give them too much credit?” Grisa asked. “I was at Baalkpan, sir.”
“I give most of them too much credit,” Rolak agreed, “but the ‘stratait-gee’ at Baalkpan nearly succeeded. I will never be guilty of giving too little credit to their ones who design battles.”
A troop of six me-naaks loped near, out of the smoke. One of the yellow-and-black-uniformed riders noticed Rolak and steered the rest of his troop toward the old Lemurian. The me-naaks were clearly restless in this environment of smoke and noise, and though they’d been exposed to cannon fire as often as possible, they still flinched a little when the guns boomed again, bidding the fleeing Grik farewell. They were also drooling buckets, probably due to the smell of so much blood.
“Lieu-ten-aant Saachic, General,” announced the trooper, saluting. “Third Maa-ni-lo Caav-alry. I have the honor of informing you that Gener-aal Aal-den and the First Maa-reens will be at your service presently.”
Rolak returned the salute. “That is excellent news, Lieutenant. Now, if you might ride back to the general and give him a message for me, I would be most appreciative.”
“Of course.”
“Tell him if he can manage to arrive and position his troops within the next one, perhaps as much as two handspans of the sun, I believe I can promise him exactly the battle-the ‘test’-he seeks!”
The Grik did nothing for the next hour, but horns continued sounding in the jungle. All the vegetation except the larger, harder trees in front of the fighting position had been sheared away by the coming and going of the Grik horde, and the canister that had churned all the vines, small trees, and low-hanging branches to mulch. Equally mulched were the countless Grik dead heaped at the base of the breastworks and scattered on the ground as far as the eye could penetrate into the once dense foliage. Many had already been buried by the falling leaves. Visibility was good now, with the sun well up in the midmorning sky. Scattered cottony clouds had begun to form. Dowden continued a desultory barrage, a round or two every quarter hour, as if to goad the Grik into remembering and concentrating on this supposedly exposed flank.
Garrett reported that the “city” was secure at last and his cavalry was busy chasing those who had fled toward the mouths of the Irrawaddy. Behind them, Garrett dug in beyond the city with a Baalkpan regiment while the rest of his troops went to bolster his connection with the center line and reinforce Queen Maraan. A few squads still roamed the city, torching anything that would burn. Most important, Pete Alden finally arrived at Rolak’s position with eight hundred of the 1st Marines. He was breathing hard, but not exhausted after his slog through the calfhigh sand. He’d lost a few Marines to straggling and injuries along the way, but those who made it were ready to fight. Company commanders and NCOs were already deploying the Marines when Pete went to find Rolak.
Rolak saluted him when he appeared at the command post and Pete waved back.
“I could use a drink,” Pete said, grinning.
“Water?”
“Not unless it’s ship’s water, boiled-or maybe mixed with something stronger. The last thing I need right now is the screamers. I still have my canteen, so something stronger would be nice.”
“Orderly,” Rolak called, “bring chilled beer for the general.” He huffed apologetically. “I fear ‘chilled’ will be a relative term, General Alden.”
“Anything below eighty degrees will be plenty refreshing, Lord Rolak. Could you send a few water buckets to my Marines so they can drink and refill their bottles?”
“Of course. Colonel Grisa?”
Grisa called one of his own orderlies to delegate a detail.
Pete gulped the sweet Lemurian beer that was brought to him. “My God, but that hits the spot! War’s getting downright civilized around here.”
“It was not so ‘civilized’ a short while ago, I assure you. We held well enough, but it was costly.”
Pete nodded grimly. “Sorry about that. You did swell.” He shook his head. “Logistics was a goose-screw in a sack. We have to sort that out.”
“We must, or those who died here today will have done so for nothing.”
“Not nothing. We’ve already learned a lot. I hope we learn a lot more. Weird fight, though. Going by what Captain Garrett’s faced and what you’ve been facing here, it’s almost like we’ve got two entirely different Grik tribes.”
Rolak nodded. “Yes, I ‘got the word.’ The ones he faced were… less healthy, it seems.”
“Yeah. You had it tougher. Glad we got here during a lull. You think they’ll hit the same place?”
“I am as certain of it as one can be about such things,” Rolak replied. “Our scouts, and those attached to the Queen, say they are massing everything that faced us both into a single concerted effort against us here. The fighting was fiercest here, so they must believe us the weakest.” The grin that stretched across his teeth was feral. It faded. “I do wish Salissa ’s planes would arrive and confirm that, however.”
“Another hour or so, according to the report I heard from Queen Maraan’s command post.”
Rolak nodded. “We heard the same. We can hear the planes themselves report, but they cannot yet hear us.”
Pete pointed at the aerial. “Not enough antenna, I guess. Too many trees too. Too much interference. The ships can talk to ’em.”
“That will have to do.”
“Maybe it’ll get better when they’re closer. It’ll be tough coordinating everything through the ships.”
Grik horns brayed in the woods, interrupting their conversation. Many horns. More than before, Rolak thought.
Pete finished his beer and wiped his lips. “Here we go again,” he said, turning for the front.
“Do you mean to stand in the line?” Rolak asked accusingly.
“Yep. I have to, to see what happens.”
“Unfair!” Rolak protested. “You ordered me to stay back and I spent the entire last fight strolling about with nothing to do!”
“That’s your job. Normally, it’d be mine too, but I have to see this.”
“Then perhaps I ‘have to see’ it too!”
“Well… what if I get knocked off? You know the plan. You can still carry it out.”
“Everyone here knows the plan, General Aal-den. But if you are ‘knocked off,’ who else here has my experience in war? Who else would be better to observe the enemy reaction than I?”
Pete shook his head and shifted the sling of his Springfield. “Aww, hell. C’mon!”
The Lemurian “phalanx,” as Captain Reddy had helped create it, worked much like its historical predecessors on that other earth. No physical activity ever conceived could possibly be as exhausting as prolonged hand-to-hand combat over a shield wall. The tactic was therefore designed to allow periodic rotation of combatants from the front rank to the rear, where they might manage a little rest until they started forward in the rotation again. Ideally. The trouble was, Grik assaults were usually so relentless and chaotic, there was rarely a “good” time to rotate troops. In this war, the ’Cats had learned to do it by “feel” and fleeting opportunity more than any other way. The system worked after a fashion, but some fought, by necessity, until they were nearly dead from fatigue, and that often resulted in them being completely dead. The fighters in the front ranks relied on the spearmen behind them to give them the break they needed, and woe was he or she who did not learn spearwork well, because in this business, what went around came around… literally.