March To The Sea

CHAPTER FORTY

Fain looked around. The remnants of his company were gathered by the side of another of the numerous streams found in the Sindi Valley. They'd managed to pull out of the developing pocket, but they'd left some bodies behind. Pol was here, though, with the reserve which had hammered the Boman trying to flank them from the south. The company had found it necessary to watch its footing on the way out to avoid tripping over the bodies of dead barbarians.

The brass, naturally, had failed to provide a map, so Fain had only the vaguest notion of where they were. He did know, however, that the Boman had pulled back for the moment. They were maintaining their perimeter around the trapped cavalry, and they appeared to think the skirmishers were the only threat. That was nice, since it presumably also meant that the barbs still didn't have a clue where the real threat was coming from, which was precisely what Fain had hoped he and his people would accomplish.

The only problem was that they weren't skirmishing anymore. He needed to keep the Boman aware of Delta Company's presence if he wanted to keep them from figuring out where the rest of the relief force was, and he knew it. But he also knew that, ultimately, raiding on the flanks like this didn't do any good, however much it confused the enemy, unless there was an immediate follow on assault, and an assault was exactly what had failed to materialize. It was obvious that if the company went back, the Boman would be on them like atul on a stray turom, but unless the rest of the regiment got its head out of its ass and actually moved when he headed back in, it would only get his people killed without even doing any good.

It wasn't supposed to work this way. There should have been an assault. The Major had said there would be an assault, not just his single company thrown out here in the middle of nowhere without support.

It wasn't supposed to be this way, and he hoped it was going better elsewhere.

* * *

'Captain Pahner, Roger here.'

The voice sounded in the captain's mastoid implant, and he keyed his helmet.

'Ah, Prince Roger! Still alive, according to the little chip in my brain which I suspect detonates if you die.'

'I see everyone is in a good mood,' the prince said. In the background, Pahner could hear continuous and heavy rifle fire. 'I'd like to revise that previous estimate of mine. Make that three thousand-plus Boman.'

'I really love this business,' Pahner said conversationally. 'I know that no plan survives contact with the enemy, but have any plans ever gone this awry?'

'I'm sure they must have,' Roger said in an encouraging sort of way. 'Somewhere. But I digress. I don't suppose you have anything resembling a reserve back there?'

'Actually, I did,' Pahner said. 'I'd detached half the laborers back to combat duties. But I just sent them north of the river to back up Bistem. It would take at least a couple of hours just to get them back to this bank, much less to your position. Why?'

'Just wondering,' Roger said, and Pahner heard the distinct sound of a bead pistol firing. 'We got a bit flanked here.'

'Roger,' Pahner said in a very calm voice, 'are you surrounded?'

'I prefer to call it a target-rich environment,' the prince replied. 'But the good news is that they seem bound and determined to wipe us out rather than bypass us and head for the city or the D'Sley road. So we're succeeding in our mission, aren't we?'

'But I'm not,' Pahner said calmly, very calmly. 'I'm pulling the rest of the infantry off of the stores.'

'Yeah, well, don't bother on our account,' Roger said. 'You couldn't get infantry here for hours, and this is gonna be over, one way or the other, in another thirty minutes.'

* * *

Roger ducked as Despreaux fired over his head. Particles of black powder stung the back of his neck, the muzzle flash singed his ponytail, and only his helmet kept him from being permanently deafened.

'Careful there, honey!' he said. 'I've always wondered what a toot looks like, but I don't want to look at my own.'

'Screw you, Your Highness,' the sergeant said as a rifle volley hammered the latest charge into offal. 'That one was too close.'

'Not so bad,' Bes said, sticking his head out of the slit trench they'd gouged out of the muddy earth behind their original positions. 'Would have been nice if we'd been able to hold the original line, but this one isn't bad, except on the flanks.'

'Speaking of which,' Despreaux said. 'Reneb, check in. Everybody still here?'

'Still here,' the team leader confirmed. 'No casualties in the team so far, and we're piling them up.'

'Same here,' Roger said, looking out of the slit trench.

There were only twelve humans in the entire force, but each of them had begun the day with thirty ten- round magazines for their new rifles. They were conserving that ammunition as much as they could, letting the Mardukans' single-shot rifles carry most of the fight at long range. But whenever the barbarians began another charge, the sheer volume of fire from those magazine-fed rifles and the cavalry's revolvers wreaked dreadful carnage.

The ground on both sides of the trench for as far as Roger could see into the jungles was littered with Boman bodies. The barbarians had learned that the only way to get into ax range was to charge forward blindly, seeking to break through the fire zone by sheer weight of numbers. A few times, it had gotten down to hand-to- hand, but even there the Carnan Battalion and the Basik's Own had managed to hold their own, and the assaults had been repulsed.

'Here they come again!' Bes shouted, closing his rifle breech and firing at the first of the charging Boman.

This time the barbarians had managed to coordinate their attacks, which made things tougher. They came from both sides, but not directly at the flanks, which probably would have rolled up Roger's entire embattled position. The prince looked to the nominal 'rear' and shook his head as the aiming reticle appeared in his vision. He tossed his magnum to Cord, who'd become quite a respectable rifle shot himself, drew his bead pistol once more, took up a two-handed stance, and began a timed fire sequence. One shot per second cracked out for each of the fourteen seconds it took the Boman line to reach the trench, and each shot took out a barbarian.

The riflemen to either side, Marine and Mardukan alike, had been hammering out fire in both directions. The rifles' black powder filled the little clearing with gray-white smoke and a smell like the breath of Hell itself, and as the Boman jumped into the trenches or struck down with their two-handed battle axes, it seemed as if Lucifer had arrived in person.

The majority of the defenders switched to their long bayonets, and Despreaux blocked the swing of an ax, buttstroked the axeman in the groin, and then ducked as Turkol Bes bayoneted someone over her shoulder. She sprang past him as Cord missed a block and was slammed into the wall of the trench. The bleeding shaman had been the last thing between Roger and an ax-swinging Boman easily as large as Bistem Kar, and the sergeant felt an instant of pure despair as she realized she could never reach him before he reached Roger.

Patty had been sent back with the other pack animals, but Dogzard had evaded all efforts to corral her and send her back, as well. As the barbarian's ax rose for the fatal stroke, ninety kilos of hissing lizard ripped into his leg from the side. The dog-lizard's attack slowed the Boman just enough for Roger to twist sideways and get a shot in. The hypervelocity bead took the axeman almost dead center, but despite the slamming impact, the barbarian still managed one last swipe at Roger. The prince blocked the blow with the sword in his right hand, then stepped out of the way as the giant toppled at his feet.

The axeman had been the last enemy alive in the trench, and Roger stepped back again as a pair of Diaspran infantrymen heaved the body out of the trench and added it to the parapet of corpses.

'God damn these stupid, four-armed bastards,' Despreaux cursed wearily, wiping blood out of her eyes. 'Don't they know when they're beat?'