be destroyed.” Chack shook his head. “To kill them is not murder; it is war.” He cocked his head. “And it is a good war. I feel… a sense of righteous vengeance, a desire to punish them for what they’ve done-and for my troops they’ve killed today. Do you not feel it? To fight a war without that… sense.. . must be a terrible thing. Perhaps that is what makes a murderer?”
“I feel it,” replied the lieutenant, “but I do pity them.”
“As do I. As must anyone who desires to remain a person.” Chack paused. “Where is your captain?”
“Killed, sir. In the charge against the breastworks in the forest.”
“Then you must take his place,” Major Jindal said, rejoining the group. He turned to Chack. “The companies on the right have extended the line and made contact with Major Blair’s command at last. There is
… confusion there, but I believe all will be well. The enemy already seems to be reacting to our presence here, and a courier from the major indicated he may move more quickly than expected to take advantage.”
Chack had suddenly removed his battered old helmet to listen carefully for a moment, ears erect and alert. Jindal had no idea what he could possibly hear over the pounding guns and mortars nearby, but Blas-Ma-Ar was listening too.
“Assemble your companies,” Chack instructed the lieutenant, “if you think they have another charge in them.”
“They do, sir.”
“Very well. It would seem Major Jindal is correct. Blair is stirring! The division will soon advance!”
Blair unleashed his own mortars then, weapons no Dominion troops had faced until earlier that day. He’d been saving them sincehe arrived- unless he’d had no choice-until this very moment. White puff-balls appeared on the now-visible flanks of the mountains to the west, popping soundlessly, the smoke streaming back uphill toward Blair’s hidden force. The detonations became constant, creating a great, opaque cloud.
“The artillery will cease firing and prepare to advance with the infantry,” Chack bellowed, his order repeated down the line. “The mortars will continue to target the enemy position to cover our advance. When the signal to ‘cease firing mortars’ is given, their crews will advance with their weapons to the next line and commence firing on the enemy camp, or anywhere the enemy gathers!”
Jindal reached across, extending his hand to Chack. “God be with you, sir,” he said.
“May the Maker be with you!” Chack replied, grasping the offered hand. He looked at the lieutenant. “With you as well. Now see to your troops!”
The lieutenant saluted and galloped away, quickly followed by Jindal, who peeled off to the right.
“Now is an excellent time to dismount,” Blas said, grinning and hopping down from her horse. “Not only for the beast’s sake, but your own. Riding him in the open will make you both a target. Fear not,” she added. “They will be brought to us if we need them!”
Chack clumsily stepped down from the saddle, his legs feeling strange. “Good advice, Lieuten-aant… and may the Maker be with you as well!”
Most of the 2nd (largely Lemurian) and 5th Imperial Marine regiments-eight companies strong-crossed the wide fields of a grain Chack didn’t know amid a thunder of drums and behind a curtain of mortars. Some musket fire came from the enemy position, but it was ineffective across such a distance. There’d still been no more enemy artillery. Perhaps the guns were wrecked? The division advanced across a wide front with open files, four ranks deep. Furious firing erupted on the far right, where Jindal’s companies slashed unexpectedly into the enemy flank, just as Blair’s infantry struck the disorganized line head-on. The movement there was lost in the forest and beneath a growing fog of rising, swirling smoke. Ahead of Chack, there were still just the hasty breastworks.
They’d learned at the Dueling Grounds that the shield wall afforded some protection from Dom musketry, and they’d close files and use it here if need be. In the meantime, tightly massed troops only gave the enemy a better target. Three hundred yards separated the forces when Chack ordered the mortars to cease firing. The dirty white plumes were more impressive the closer they got, and by now they could even hear the screams amid the explosions. At two hundred yards, the barrage gradually lifted and for a time, all that was visible of the Dom position was a dark, hazy cloud drifting from left to right across their front. The sporadic musket fire gradually increased, forcing Chack to call his Lemurian Marines to the front rank to shield those behind. Balls struck their angled shields, ricocheting away with low, whirring moans. A man screamed and fell, just a few paces from Chack. Another fell without a sound other than that caused by a ball striking flesh. At one hundred yards, the Dom fire reached a fever pitch. They’d probably killed or wounded half the defenders, but there were more than enough left to take a terrible toll, and, despite the shields, men and ’Cats began falling with a wrenching regularity. Chack noticed the men around him literally leaning into the fire, as one would struggle against a gale, and he realized with surprise that he was doing it too.
They’d come far enough like this, hthere weded, unable to return fire. They’d pounded the Doms with their artillery and mortars, and now they were taking their turn. Much closer, and even the smoothbores of the enemy would be just as effective as the battered Krag Chack always carried. He unslung the weapon and affixed the long Springfield bayonet.
“Division!” he trilled in his best long-distance tone, only to hear the word race down the line, repeated half a dozen times. “Prepare to charge bayonets!” He was answered by an animalistic roar, and sixteen hundred glittering steel, two-foot spikes came down and leveled at the enemy.
“Remember to reserve your fire until you’re right on them!” an officer shouted from some distance away. “It seems to rattle the sods!”
“Charge!” screamed Chack.
He’d faced more Grik charges than he could remember, and no matter how often he endured and survived the primal force of the Ancient Enemy-its wicked swords, short, thrusting spears, claws and ravening jaws-he still felt a shadow of the visceral horror that struck him the very first time. Implacable and remorseless as the Grik were, however, they attacked as a mob, a “swarm” as even they described it. General Alden had long told Chack that, daunting as their charges were, nothing could be more terrifying-to people-than a disciplined bayonet charge, executed by thinking, committed, determined beings. Chack had faced Dom bayonets, but not yet in a charge. He’d seen the effect his charge had at the Dueling Grounds… and he saw it again now. As usual in such matters, General Alden knew what he was talking about. Of course, Chack had added his own little twist that seemed to shake the Doms as badly as anything else: the point-blank volley before the clash that the Doms, with their plug bayonets, never expected-yet-and couldn’t answer. The rippling blast was devastating, and delivered so close that even after their short sprint, the unsteady hands of gasping men and Lemurians simply couldn’t miss. Then, with another roar that all but shattered the remaining defenders, the bayonets went to work.
Despite Lieutenant Blas-Ma-Ar’s best attempts to stop him, Chack went in with the rest of them. He never fired the old Krag; the ammunition in its magazine was the “real stuff,” not the hard-cast black powder reloads. It was precious for its long-range accuracy and utter reliability, despite its age. He went in with the bayonet just like his Marines and fought with a savagery that frankly unnerved a few Imperials, and an economical proficiency and precision that came only with the hard experience he’d gained. Through it all, his diminutive female lieutenant and apparently self-appointed “protector” fought alongside him with similar competence and equal vigor. That would later unnerve some of Chack’s Imperials even more, when they had time to reflect on various things, such as their own attitude toward women-and the kind of combat that had taught Chack and Blas, and all the Lemurians, their skill. But more than that, if there’d been present any Imperial Marines who, despite the reputation Chack had gained at the Dueling Grounds, still clung to any concern or discontented notion that they were commanded by an “ape” or “wog,” it vanished in the swirling smoke and bloody ground north of Waterford, New Ireland, that day.
The sky was purple, with long bloody streaks, when Major Blair found Chack in a large Dominion tent that was spared the firestorm that engulfed most of the enemy encampment when the mortars turned their wrath there. As always, Lieutenant Blas-Ma-Ar stood beside the brindled Lemurian while he sat on a bench, his furry tso bare, stoically enduring the stitches “Doc-Selass-Fris-Ar” applied to the dark, shaved skin over his left shoulder blade. Other wounded were in the tent, being tended by more “corps-’Cats” as even they’d begun calling themselves, and Chack seemed annoyed that Selass was bothering with him when others needed her attention more. In the middle distance, at the south edge of town, mortars still burst with their distinctive crackling thuds, and all the artillery of two divisions now thundered continuously, pulverizing the final works of the enemy along the shore of Lake Shannon.
“I’m heartily glad to find you in one piece, my friend,” Blair said with a touch of reproach. “Or at least fit to be sewn back into one,” he added.
