was torture. His rear must be one big bruise. His legs ached from being splayed over the tubby animal’s back. What’s more, the skoat
He lurched forward as the skoat started downhill. The Crown’s Men were on a wide, paved road. It was almost ten feet across, the second-best highway in this part of the Continent. But they were well into the highlands south of the Picchiu River, and the road switched back and forth more miles than it went forward. Now their battle group was headed into a narrow valley. Almost two hundred feet below, he could see the stream that had—over millennia—gouged this channel through the limestone. As they descended, the sunlight filtered through progressively thicker layers of leaves until they rode through green twilight. It was cool and pleasant. The air moved slowly and was laden with the musty smell of hundreds of years of decomposing leaves. This scent was strange to Svir, who had never seen a deciduous tree before.
The tranquillity of the scene barely registered over his fatigue.
He crossed the stone bridge at the bottom of the valley, then twisted in his saddle and looked back. Where was everyone? Only one gun carriage behind him was visible, yet he
There was a louder clatter, and Svir saw a rider overtaking him. Cor. She urged her animal up the slope with baby talk and lots of enthusiasm. He couldn’t get over the fact that she was actually fond of the creatures—even thought she could talk to them. He put her superior riding ability to the fact that she had grown up on the Llerenitos, where skoats were popular.
“Hi, Cor,” he said. He leaned out to touch her shoulder. Kissing a girl on skoatback is virtually impossible.
Cor held his hand for a moment. Svir continued, “I thought you were supposed to stay in Marget’s wagon with Ancho.” Cor had been under strict orders to remain in the wagon, but he was happy she’d chosen to mutiny.
She retorted, “No, she tells me to stay with Ancho, period. And if you can’t see that’s what I’m doing, then perhaps I’ll take up some other male.” Svir looked more closely and saw that there was a bulge under her blouse where no bulge should be. A second later, brown eyes and a pair of pointed ears pushed out of that bulge.
“Besides,” said Cor, “we wanted to get some exercise, and be with you.”
“Um,” Svir felt a little jealous. No doubt she’d had some sleep this afternoon. The expedition from Crownesse had landed in Picchiu Province just after sunrise—nearly twenty-five hours ago. It had taken many hours to get equipment, troops, and skoats off the fastboats. They—Tatja and her generals—had decided to ride straight through the afternoon without sleep: in these longitudes there was no Seraph to twilight the night. The sun was still five hours above the horizon. Svir wondered whether he could hold out till dark. He was falling asleep in his saddle, a feat he would have sworn impossible just ten hours earlier. How the infantrymen kept going he couldn’t guess.
But the crown’s strategy was sound. Soon they would meet the Loyalists—and incidentally come under Rebel art’ry fire. How exciting.
Now they were moving up a gentle slope. The crest was about four hundred yards away. The tree cover was light, but there was still shade. To the east he saw the foothills of the Doomsday Range, green and gray. Beyond them, so far away and yet so clear against the sky, stood the great peaks of the range. On He’gate, the highest one, was the Doomsday observatory. The view brought him wide awake.
“Svir, look up front.” There were riders clumped together. Svir squinted. It was Tatja and the colonel in charge of point security. At least it was the colonel’s skoat. But what was that officer doing this far back? They were talking to someone on the ground. The dismounted fellow was suited in maroon, and wore a strangely plumed hat. A Loyalist.
The colonel wheeled and waved to the troops. The command was immediately translated by the sergeant driving the nearest team of art’ry skoats. “Hard hats!” the little sergeant shouted as she donned her own. Svir reluctantly reached for his own reinforced-web-plastic helmet, set it on his head, and fastened the chin strap. He had once thought the head armor looked rather dashing; well, everyone makes mistakes.
Around them, the column was changing into an extended rank, about fifty yards from the crest of the hill. This would take a while. He and Cor dismounted.
Two hours later, they were back in the saddle. The expedition’s fifteen thousand troopers were assembled. For two miles in either direction the irregular line of skoats, guns, and men stood waiting to plunge into the field of enemy observation.
A whistle sounded. The army surged over the crest. Ahead of them the road descended gently, then rose toward a second ridge two or three miles away. Miles beyond the second, he could see another. But the peaceful scenery extended just four hundred yards to their front. Beyond that, the green was broken by craters and patches of blackened earth. On the far hill, a stretch of burnt trees stood like monstrous black mold. The usually pleasant smell of charred wood came strongly across the valley. Svir looked at his wife. She was gently talking her skoat forward. Ancho had disappeared inside her blouse.
The army descended rapidly, and Svir found himself praying they could escape enemy observation and gain the blackened hillside. Soon they would be out of sight to anyone beyond the next hill.
Then the sky exploded. Two hundred yards to the front, a line of orange-red fireballs hung forty feet in the air. A second later Svir’s head was snapped back and his helmet clanged. He reached up and felt a quarter-inch shrapnel fragment imbedded in his helmet. He watched glassy-eyed as the fireballs become innocent black puffs of smoke and blew away. What would it be like when the enemy got the range and timing?
The army broke into squares, one battle group forward, the next back, so as to avoid complete catastrophe if the curtain of fire ever came on target.
The corrected fire was thirty seconds coming. The nearest burst was high explosive, and it made the shrapnel sound like a popped paper bag. He felt the blow through his whole body. His skoat staggered to its knees. Svir was tossed backwards, out of the saddle. He grabbed air, his mind filled with visions of landing on the ground and being trampled. Then his mount surged to its feet and he found himself on its rear, behind the saddle. He scrambled forward as the animal broke into a gallop.
Cor! He looked wildly around and saw her riding out of the smoke. Her lower face was covered with blood. She came abreast of him and shouted, “You hurt bad?”
“That’s what I was going to ask you,” he shouted back. His jaw was bloody, too. They both had nosebleeds. “Come on.” They were falling behind their battle group. They swerved around a brushfire and regained their positions. The formation finally reached the bottom of the valley, where they would be hidden from enemy observation. The air cleared, and Svir no longer choked on dust and smoke. At their far right flank an impact-fused H.E. shell went off next to an art’ry piece. Svir watched in amazement as the gun tube rose high in the air.
They learned later that casualties had been light, that the whole affair lasted less than fifteen minutes.
His ears buzzed from the punishment they had received, and all sound came muffled. The land was black except for flickering halos of flame around tree skeletons. There was blue sky somewhere above the haze. They were now eighty yards from the crest. Shells still burst, but the enemy’s aim, at least for Svir’s battle group, was wildly inaccurate. Of the other battle groups, he could not be so sure. The ridgeline was cut by numerous defiles that made it hard to see cross-slope. The group’s forward motion ceased. Supply vehicles moved to the guns they were to feed. The air was filled with the sounds of whining skoats, creaking wagons, shouting men. These last were not confused sounds, but the efficient direction of officers who knew exactly what they wanted and were working with well-trained troops.
The group was preparing for art’ry battle. A gun carriage pulled up near Svir and Cor. The driver leaped down and raced to the front of her skoats. She unfastened their harnesses and led them away from the piece. The gunmen on top of the carriage moved just as efficiently. They were performing a much-practiced task, and there was no talk or wasted motion. Two of them unlashed the weapon as the other two passed a six-inch shell up from the supply wagon. Infantrymen ran past, their crossbows at port arms. Svir couldn’t imagine how they could run after the long day’s march, but the troopers were really moving. In seconds, they were gone in the smoke. Evidently that smoke was not due to enemy action—Svir could hear grenades popping. He looked back at the gunmen. The piece was loaded and the heavy plastic breach closed. A courier from the FAOs called out fire control directions. The greenish barrel was cranked up. Through the haze, Svir could see other gun carriages, and hear their breeches
