March To The Sea

admitted proudly. But 'barbarians' could build empires, too.

Yet for all his satisfaction, something still felt wrong. He couldn't quite lay hold of what it was that concerned him, but it was there.

And then, as the light gathered, it became clear what it was.

A small host emerged from the forest on the D'Sley Road—small, but obviously much larger than any force the shit-sitters should possibly have been able to assemble. Block after block of infantry marched forward, moving in regular lines more precise than even those K'Vaern's Cove Guard bastards. He was too old to see what sort of weapons they carried at this range, but there were at least two shit-sitters for every warrior he still had in Sindi, and he had no doubt that they carried scaling ladders in plenty.

'Where did they come from?' one of his warriors gasped.

'K'Vaern's Cove,' the chieftain answered. 'I guess they must have put a sword into the hand of every shit- sitter who could see lightning or hear thunder and just brought them out.' He grunted in laughter at the thought of the enemy's obligingness at bringing the soft, gutless—and untrained—city slugs into the sweep of his own ax. Still, it looked as if there were an awful lot of them.

'We should be able to pile them on the wall like bales of barleyrice,' he said, 'but it will be a fight to tell the grands about.'

More and more of his fellow tribesmen gathered on the parapet as the regular ranks of shit-sitters assembled just out of bombard range. The groups walked in step, their odd march broken only when they crossed the small bridge over the Stell, and formed in neat blocks on the city's side of the stream.

'I've never seen spears that long,' someone said. 'You don't suppose those gutless Wespar were telling the truth when they said . . .'

The voice trailed off, and Trag grunted a deeper, harsher laugh at the edge of nervousness which had sharpened the remark.

'I've never put much faith in the lies Wespar pussies who got their asses kicked by a bunch of shit-sitters tell to cover the way they must've fucked up,' the chieftain said. 'And even if they were telling the truth, how would the same spears have gotten clear to K'Vaern's Cove this quickly?'

'You're probably right,' one of his own tribesmen said, 'but those really are awfully long pagee –stickers out there, Mnb.'

'Maybe someone from the water boys told them how to scare the Wespar off,' Trag scoffed, 'but we aren't Wespar, are we? We're the Tranol'te! And even if we were Wespar, do you really think there's any way they could get something as long as those damned things up scaling ladders?' He laughed more loudly than ever.

'No, I don't,' the tribesman said.

'Of course you don't,' Trag said, and waved dismissively at the small army which had now taken up position in front of the gates on the northern side of the river, close enough that even Trag could see them clearly. 'And I don't see any battering rams over there,' he went on, 'so there isn't really much they can do to us as long as we're not stupid enough to go out and meet them head-on, now is there?'

'I don't know, Mnb,' the tribesman said. 'We don't have enough warriors to man the walls. Not the way we ought to, anyway.'

'Doesn't matter,' Trag said confidently. 'They don't have enough scaling ladders to swamp us, either. We've got more than enough to hold this part of the walls until the end of the world, and they don't have enough time for anything like a proper siege. Kny Camsan is out there behind them, and it won't take him long to realize why the iron heads wanted to lure us out of the city. When he does, he'll come right over them, and that will be the end of K'Vaern's Cove! All we have to do is keep them right where they are until he gets here. So get your warriors moving—we need them here on the walls!'

Messengers dashed off to summon the warriors of the clan to battle, and Trag leaned on the battlements, watching the shit-sitters. His confidence was genuine, but he was honest enough to admit that he didn't have a clue what the shit-sitters were up to as scores of them began pushing some sort of wagons up behind the blocks of infantry.

No doubt it was some new fancy trick the K'Vaernians had devised, but no trick was going to get them magically through the massive stone walls of Sindi.

* * *

'Move, move, move!'

Rus From and General Bogess were an eye of calm in a hurricane of effort as the specially trained companies manhandled the wagons into position. Those positions had been very carefully selected and surveyed by the Marine LURPs who'd kept Sindi under constant surveillance while the K'Vaernian army was equipped and trained. As well as both Diasprans had come to know their remarkable human allies, they'd been astonished by the routine, matter-of-fact way in which the Marines had roamed Sindi's environs under cover of night. Everyone knew the Boman barbarians could hear the whine of an insect's wings at seventy paces, yet the humans had penetrated effortlessly to the city's very walls, and their unobtrusively placed stakes had guided each wagon to its preselected position under the Diasprans' watchful eyes.

'Do we really think this is going to work?' Bogess asked the cleric under his breath, and From chuckled.

'Oh, I'm certain it will work,' he said. 'Once, at least, that is, given our gunpowder situation. Whether or not the Boman will cooperate by being where we want them to when it does work isn't my province, however, thank the God!'

'You're always so reassuring,' Bogess muttered.

'Of course I am, that's my job!' From said cheerfully, then frowned thoughtfully. 'It looks like we're just about ready,' he observed. 'Time for our last inspection.'

'Let's get started then,' Bogess replied, and the two of them separated and headed in opposite directions along the arc of wagons arranged before the northern walls of fallen Sindi.

* * *

'The bastards are up to something,' one of Mnb Trag's subchiefs muttered.

'Of course they are,' Trag shot back. 'What? You thought they'd marched all this way just to stand there and scratch their asses at us?'

'Of course I didn't,' the subchief retorted. 'But I don't hear you telling us what it is they are up to, either!'

'Because I don't know,' Trag conceded. 'On the other hand, what does it matter what they're up to as long as they're out there and we're in here?'

He stamped a foot on the massive, solid stone of the parapet, and the subchief joined him in grunting laughter.

* * *

'The carts are laid in, Armand,' Bogess said as he and From trotted up to Pahner and Bistem Kar. 'The LURPs' stakes were exactly where they were supposed to be, and we're ready whenever you give the word.'

'Good,' Pahner replied, but his tone was a bit absent. Kar stood beside him, studying the city's walls through Dell Mir's telescope, but the Marine had the magnification of his helmet visor cranked up to give him a far clearer view than any primitive telescope could hope to match.

'They're a bit more spread out than I could wish,' Kar said after a moment.

'Well, we can't expect the other side to do everything we want it to,' Pahner pointed out. 'And it probably doesn't matter all that much in the long run—these aren't exactly precision weapons, so there's going to be enough spread in the impact zone to cover a good bit of target dispersal. I'm more concerned about how many may still be under hard cover in the bombard and arquebus galleys. We're going to get good coverage, but we don't have anywhere near as much overhead penetration as I wish we did.'

'According to Jin's count, there can't be very many arquebusiers left in the city, Sir,' Julian pointed out over his powered armor's radio. 'And if they aren't blind, then they must've seen all our nice scaling ladders. Which means they have to have moved just about everybody they've got left up onto the battlements to repel boarders.'

'Nice and logical, Sergeant,' Pahner agreed with a sour grin. 'Unfortunately, logic is still a really good way to be wrong with confidence.'