March To The Sea

He wheeled to the messengers who always attended upon the paramount war leader. Picked runners all, carefully chosen from their own clans and tribes, they waited only for a nod from him to dash off with messages to any of the clan leaders, and he waved them closer.

'These new toys of the iron heads,' he said, careful to put only contempt into the word 'toys' and to conceal the shock he himself still felt at their effectiveness, 'will be far more dangerous if they're able to choose the time and place to use them against us. So you will go to the leaders of your clans, and you will summon them to the field. We will pursue the iron heads wherever they may go, and the other clans will join us, closing in and driving them like basik before the beaters. Even if still more of them wait out here somewhere, and even if all of them are gathered together in one place, we'll have the numbers and the strength to sweep them aside as if they were so many grains of sand. Let them flee where they will, even unto the ruins of Therdan and Sheffan themselves! There will be no escape, and we will overwhelm them even if they find some worthless fortification to hold against us!

'Go! Summon the clans, for we have enemies to kill!'

* * *

'Christ,' Pahner said. 'Thirty-two thousand? What did they leave?'

'Far less than that,' Bogess opined. The Diaspran had become Pahner's chief of staff, for all intents and purposes, as his own forces were integrated firmly into the K'Vaernian force structure, and he frowned thoughtfully as he considered the LURPs' report. 'Most of the warriors would have insisted on chasing the Northerners. The Boman and the Vasin are enemies of old, with so many scores to settle that no one on either side could possibly count them all up.'

'Jin says there are still some wandering around in the fields,' the Marine said, consulting his pad.

'Looting,' Bistem Kar said with a wave. 'They'll be gone by the time we land. And we'll be landing out of sight of them, anyway.'

'Something's going to go wrong,' Pahner said.

'Who now is taking council of his fears?' Bogess asked with a grunt of laughter.

'Not taking council, just worrying,' Pahner grumped. 'And where the hell did Roger get to?'

'Start to forget our real job there, Boss?' Julian asked with a grin, and glanced at the heads-up display on his helmet visor. 'Reports have him with the forward cavalry screen on the D'Sley-Sindi road. Track, rather.'

'Good,' Pahner said. 'He's staying back like I told him to.' The Marine paused and frowned. 'If the report is accurate, anyway.'

* * *

'Hey, Gunny! How ya doing?' Roger said quietly.

Jin suppressed his start and turned to look at the prince. The dying light of afternoon revealed Roger, lying on his stomach, covered in a gill blanket and with his face coated with camouflage paint while he grinned at the gunny's jump.

'Any news?' he asked.

'Jesus, Sir,' D'Estrees said. 'You scared the shit out of me. You ever heard of giving a poor Marine with a loaded rifle a little warning?'

'Gotta keep that old situational awareness, Corporal,' the unrepentant prince said. 'The night will soon be alive with little creepy-crawlies.' He turned back to Jin. 'So, what's happening?'

'Rastar says they're well into the chase,' Jin replied. 'The cavalry's about twelve klicks to the north, with the Boman from Sindi in hot pursuit. And it looks like this Camsan fellow's taken the bait, hook, line, and sinker.' The noncom patted the directional shotgun mike on the side of his helmet and grinned. 'Gave a hell of a little speech after the claymores turned about two hundred meters worth of scummies into sausage filling, Sir. Sounded to me like he figures he got his dick caught in a drill press and the only way to keep somebody from challenging his position is to go personally nail Rastar's horns up on a wall somewhere.'

'So he called in the other clans?'

'That he did, Your Highness, that he did. I just hope Rastar and Honal are half as good as they think they are, 'cause if those bastards ever do catch up with them, it's gonna be ugly.'

'Don't sweat it, Gunny,' Roger advised. 'As a matter of fact, Rastar is probably at least two thirds as good as he thinks he is. Besides, we only gave him enough claymores for one good ambush. Didn't want him getting too creative on us, after all! So any other little unpleasantries he wants to send the Boman are going to have to come out of his rifles and revolvers, which ought to encourage him not to let them get too close.' The prince shook his head. 'He'll play tag with them, just like we planned, until we're ready for them to head on home, and it looks like they'll be bringing all their friends with them when they come.'

'Hope so,' Jin said, and waved in the direction of Sindi's barely visible walls. 'Meanwhile, there's nothing stirring in Sindi Town.'

'Are you out here by yourself, Sir?' D'Estrees asked.

'I dropped most of the troops about four kilometers back and came forward with half a troop of cavalry. They're back about a half klick.'

'Who's in the group, Sir?' The gunnery sergeant asked. 'Just Mardukans?'

'Four hundred cavalry from Chindar, four hundred or so infantry from the pikes, and Beckley's team. Oh, and Cord and Matsugae.'

'You brought Kostas?' D'Estrees asked. 'Don't go getting our cook killed, Sir!'

'I told him he ought to stay home in the Cove, where it was safe,' Roger said with a grin, 'but he pointed out that since the army now had real cooks, he could go back to being my valet. 'Just because you're sleeping on the ground doesn't mean we can't keep up appearances.' '

'Ha, that's Kostas!' Jin said. 'How long you going to stay, Sir?'

'You mean potentially giving away your hide? Not long—I can take a hint. I'll head back to the troops in a minute. I just wanted to look at the city.'

'What're you going to call them?' the corporal asked.

'The Mardukans?' Roger gave a quiet chuckle. 'I don't know. Maybe 'Her Majesty's Own Mardukan Guards'? Whatever I call them, I need to be getting back before they come looking for me.'

'Take care, Your Highness,' Jin said. 'And for Vishnu's sake, keep your head down and out of the line of fire.'

'Will do, Gunny,' the prince said. 'See you in Sindi.'

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Mnb Trag looked out over the fields in the growing light. Somewhere to the north, he knew, were Camsan and the rest of the clans, perhaps closing in on the presumptuous iron heads even as Trag stood here on the walls of Sindi. It irked him immensely to be left behind, as if he were too old or lazy to go chase cavalry, yet he had to agree with Kny.

It was never wise to do what your enemy wanted you to do. Presumably that iron head cavalry had known the Boman would chase them, and presumably they'd also known that no heavy cavalry could outrun the Boman indefinitely. So there had to be a trap waiting for the host, and Camsan had been right to be wary.

Yet Trag knew that he had been correct, too. Trap or no trap, Camsan had no choice but to pursue the Northerners and destroy the challenge to his authority their mere presence represented. And whatever the iron heads had hoped to accomplish, they would fail in the end. No shit-sitter Southern army survived, aside from the relatively tiny force of the K'Vaernian Guard, and the Guard was far too weak to endanger any Boman force in the open field. So, in the end, the trappers must be trapped and destroyed. Judging by the dangerous deviousness of that first ambush, the K'Vaernians had obviously devised new weapons in a desperate attempt to make their League mercenaries more effective, and that undoubtedly meant casualties would be heavier than they ought to have been before the host managed to trap and destroy the iron heads, but their fate was ultimately sealed. And in their destruction, Camsan would add yet another triumph to the matchless string of victories he'd produced for the clans, and so further consolidate his grip upon the power he and Trag both knew lay almost within his grasp. 'Barbarian' the shit-sitters called the Boman, and there was truth to the sneer, Trag