"Ser!"
That would take a minute, the dogs were in covered shelters to the rear, with chain leads to staples in the floors of their bunkers. The infantry had rallied just below the crest; he could see officers walking backward with saber and arm outstretched to either side, setting the lines. Their standard-bearers drove the poles of the staffs into the ground and the men dropped, first rank prone and second kneeling. A perfect leapfrog maneuver, the new base of fire remaining motionless while the men who had been rearguard ran over the top of the hill and down the slope to rally in their turn two hundred meters behind the first. The Colonist cavalry came over the rise at a gallop less than fifty meters behind them, already swinging out of the saddle, expecting to pour fire into the backs of fleeing men. Instead they met three hundred rifles, flashing up in rhythmic unison.
BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM. Hideous perfection, point-blank fire, slender-limbed brown dogs and men in spired helms and red jellabas falling in windrows. And the officers and noncoms would be paying the price of the aggressive courage that lead from the front.
"Oh, lovely timing, lovely," Raj whispered. Who did Menyez send? he wondered. The faces under the helmets looked pale, northwesterners.
BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM. The Colonist line was too disorganized to return the volley, but individual fire crackled and spat, at ranges where the light carbines were as effective as the Armory rifles. Men dropped, but the firing lines rose only on order and dashed back in rank; Raj focused his glasses and saw one burly peasant-in-uniform lumbering with an officer thrown over one shoulder and his company standard tucked under the other arm. Another rank of Colonists charged over the hill; these had sabers out and plunged forward, hoping to overrun the retreating line before it could get behind the cover of its comrades.
Raj tensed. The retreating men were masking their comrades' rifles, the waiting companies could not fire without hitting their own men. And they would know it, know they were losing the stand-off power of their weapons; they would be able to see the flashing steel and snarling teeth above the infantry's heads. If they ran. . There was a movement; the prone rank came to one knee, and the kneeling rear rank stood.
"Prepare for fire support mission, left-flank field guns only," Raj said. A runner sped off.
This time the timing was much closer; the dogs were within five strides when the last of the retreating infantrymen dashed through the ranks of the support companies. The front-rank volley smashed out close enough that the blasts singed the hair on the dogs' muzzles; the line of charging Colonists seemed to stagger in mid-leap. Braced bayonets met them, and the rear rank fired over their comrades' heads. Melee for a moment, pistol and saber against rifle and bayonet, and then the men who had been running a moment before were turning, walking back towards the fight as they loaded. A trumpet called from the ridgeline, high and brassy-sweet, and the Colonists reined in their dogs and retreated. Just in time, as the first field guns fired from the flanks of the V formation, airbursting over the retreating cavalry.
"Well done, well done, oh, well done," Raj shouted, hammering his fist into the sandbags beside him, as cheering erupted all down the five-kilometer line of trenches. The Skinners on either side of the redoubt were firing their massive rifles, into the air or at the backs of the retreating Colonists; nearly two kilometers, but they made some hits. Men on dogback were scooping up the wounded, loping to the rear.
"Color-party-" Raj began, then looked down at his right hand, which had squeezed a lump of bread and rice into a ball. "Color party, follow me." He rolled out of the firing slit and trotted to meet the oncoming infantry battalion, with his honor guard and the colors of the 5th Descott behind him.
"Salute!" he barked, drawing his sword with a flourish. The 5th's colors dipped, and the infantry actually formed up to pass in column as they headed back for their section of the line.
Their commander came up; it was Jorg Menyez himself, grinning like an urchin under a covering of powdersmoke. The saber in his right hand had a line of red along the tip.
"Spiritdamned, that was well done, insubordination or no," Raj said, shaking his hand. "You should have delegated that."
"You're one to talk," Jorg replied, and then his smile faded. "It was expensive," he said. "But they needed to see the Messer would stand with them. . and that they could do it." The 31st Kelden County Foot was mostly recruited from the area around the Menyez estates, Raj knew. "The other line battalions might not have been able to do it. . but they're closer to being able to, for having seen it."
* * *
"MAMMM! MAAAMMM!" the boy screamed, arching his back on the canvas-covered table. "Mam, help me, mamaaa."
"Hold him, crash your cores," the Renunciate barked.
The first casualties, after yesterday's construction accidents. The first wave of a rising tide. At the foot of the table Zenafir bore down on the leg with both hands, turning her head aside to vomit into the empty wooden tub.
Fatima felt the bones creak in her hand; she had gripped the young soldier's with hers, relying on the weight of her elbows to pin his arm. He was no older than she, and probably handsome when his face was not turned to a gorgon's mask by an agony greater than flesh was meant to bear. The cords in his neck stood out like cables as the priestess-doctor's scalpel probed and sliced.
"Iodine and clamp," she snapped; her acolyte moved up.
"More opium, reverence?" Fatima asked desperately.
"No, damn you, the first dose hasn't taken effect yet." The Arab girl suspected that it was taking effect, just a little, enough to prevent the boy from passing out with shock, but there was no time to waste. "Spirit damn all wars, there's nothing left of this knee but bloody splinters. It'll have to come off at the thigh. Clamp there, idiot. Hold him."
Across the great room with its dozens of tables there were other shrieks; one voice was babbling, we held them, we held them, we held them over and over, as if it was a talisman.
"Needles ready," the priestess said between clenched teeth; they were hooked things like instruments of torture, threaded with catgut. Fatima looked aside and swallowed as the doctor took up the saw; the boy began screaming once more, pulsing in time to the hideous grinding noise. She closed her eyes. That is what the tub is for, she realized. And it was a large one.
* * *
"I thought you were going to assign that," Raj said, as they slipped back into the redoubt.
"I did," Menyez said. He grinned, and the long usually-solemn face looked boyish for a moment, streaked with sweat-channeled dirt. "I assigned it to me."
Raj cursed and looked back through the binoculars propped on the sandbagged vision slit. The Colonial advance-guard showed no signs of wanting to do more than wait on the crest of the ridge and lick their wounds; he could imagine the enemy commander up there, writing up his report and handing it to a courier to take back to Jamal. Not that he could tell much; unless everybody was disobeying his orders, most of the men were sitting on the firing steps with their heads below the parapet, and the guns were all run back.
"Now," he continued, "how many, Jorg?"
Menyez shrugged. "It's raghead-land out there. Carpets of marching wog as far as the eye could reach, Raj. Foot and cavalry and guns; Tewfik's banner is there, too, now. From what I saw before their advance guard hit us, their support elements are making camp about three, four kilometers back. Tewfik's force looks to be about half the size of Jamal's, but more cavalry and light artillery."