Warlord

'Spiritdamned, that was well done, insubordination or no,' Raj said, shaking his hand. 'You should have delegated that.'

'You're one to talk,' Jorg replied, and then his smile faded. 'It was expensive,' he said. 'But they needed to see the Messer would stand with them. . and that they could do it.' The 31st Kelden County Foot was mostly recruited from the area around the Menyez estates, Raj knew. 'The other line battalions might not have been able to do it. . but they're closer to being able to, for having seen it.'

* * *

'MAMMM! MAAAMMM!' the boy screamed, arching his back on the canvas-covered table. 'Mam, help me, mamaaa.'

'Hold him, crash your cores,' the Renunciate barked.

The first casualties, after yesterday's construction accidents. The first wave of a rising tide. At the foot of the table Zenafir bore down on the leg with both hands, turning her head aside to vomit into the empty wooden tub.

Fatima felt the bones creak in her hand; she had gripped the young soldier's with hers, relying on the weight of her elbows to pin his arm. He was no older than she, and probably handsome when his face was not turned to a gorgon's mask by an agony greater than flesh was meant to bear. The cords in his neck stood out like cables as the priestess-doctor's scalpel probed and sliced.

'Iodine and clamp,' she snapped; her acolyte moved up.

'More opium, reverence?' Fatima asked desperately.

'No, damn you, the first dose hasn't taken effect yet.' The Arab girl suspected that it was taking effect, just a little, enough to prevent the boy from passing out with shock, but there was no time to waste. 'Spirit damn all wars, there's nothing left of this knee but bloody splinters. It'll have to come off at the thigh. Clamp there, idiot. Hold him.'

Across the great room with its dozens of tables there were other shrieks; one voice was babbling, we held them, we held them, we held them over and over, as if it was a talisman.

'Needles ready,' the priestess said between clenched teeth; they were hooked things like instruments of torture, threaded with catgut. Fatima looked aside and swallowed as the doctor took up the saw; the boy began screaming once more, pulsing in time to the hideous grinding noise. She closed her eyes. That is what the tub is for, she realized. And it was a large one.

* * *

'I thought you were going to assign that,' Raj said, as they slipped back into the redoubt.

'I did,' Menyez said. He grinned, and the long usually-solemn face looked boyish for a moment, streaked with sweat-channeled dirt. 'I assigned it to me.'

Raj cursed and looked back through the binoculars propped on the sandbagged vision slit. The Colonial advance-guard showed no signs of wanting to do more than wait on the crest of the ridge and lick their wounds; he could imagine the enemy commander up there, writing up his report and handing it to a courier to take back to Jamal. Not that he could tell much; unless everybody was disobeying his orders, most of the men were sitting on the firing steps with their heads below the parapet, and the guns were all run back.

'Now,' he continued, 'how many, Jorg?'

Menyez shrugged. 'It's raghead-land out there. Carpets of marching wog as far as the eye could reach, Raj. Foot and cavalry and guns; Tewfik's banner is there, too, now. From what I saw before their advance guard hit us, their support elements are making camp about three, four kilometers back. Tewfik's force looks to be about half the size of Jamal's, but more cavalry and light artillery.'

'Mmmmm. At a guess, he came straight up the west bank and then swung west as far as he could to cover Jamal's bridgehead. They'll probably put their gunline on the hillcrest for the direct-fire weapons or just behind it. We can't search the reverse slope, much. . and they'll parlay first. Better bring up those Ministry of Barbarians delegates; pointless, but delay helps us more than them.'

Menyez nodded. 'Thank you for saluting my men,' he added quietly.

'They earned it,' he replied. After the other man had left, 'And so will we all, before it's over.'

'Sir.' Captain Dinnalysn, the artillery chief. A middle-class East Residence vowel-stress: a hint of a breathed 'h' in the seyor.

Why everyone who'd been in on the fiasco at El Djem wanted another try was beyond him, Raj decided, but useful.

'Yes?'

'Just confirming, sir; the militia gunners'-the part-timers handling the big cast-iron fortress guns-'said they've got those wogboys up on the ridge well within range.'

'And you told them, Captain Dinnalsyn?'

'That the first one pulls a lanyard gets tied over the muzzle for the second shot, sir.' A thin smile. 'Got some of my lads there to do it, too.'

'Ser.' The nasal rasp of Descott; M'lewis. 'Ser, Quartermaster requests confirmation of yer order.'

For an instant Raj had to struggle to remember which one, there had been so many, and then a hologram showed him a rifleman's hand scrabbling frantically in an empty bandolier. Normal procedure was for troops to be issued a hundred rounds before action, and for further requisitions to be delivered after signed authorization by an officer or noncom; it was the only way to prevent troops in garrison from selling ammunition for booze money.

'M'lewis, my respects to the Quartermaster and I want opened boxes one to a platoon for all units on the firing line, and I want it now.'

'Mmmm, polite er forceful-loike, ser?' Another gold-toothed grin; give M'lewis a job and he got it done, but over-enthusiasm could be a problem, too.

'Polite, as long as he does it.'

* * *

The thunder of the drums shook the earth. Raj looked up at the sky; not quite noon yet. The drummers must be just behind the crest of the rise, so tempting to order his heavy guns into action on it. . but knowledge of his artillery's capacities and locations would be a gift like a visitation by Mohammed for Jamal and Tewfik. They were taking full psychological advantage of it, too; not just the drums, but as each unit came up the noise increased, and it marched over the rise and along it in column, down the entire five-kilometer length of open ground. Cavalry and foot and guns, all looking like they had done a hard day's march, but all looking as if they knew their business, too. Gerrin was taking a steady stream of notes as Foley dictated, leaning into the tripod-mounted telescope.

'I make that. . one-hundred-six guns, so far,' he said. 'About half pompoms, a quarter 70's-' much like the Civil Government's 75mm rifles '-and the rest a mixture, fair number of howitzers. Anything heavier, they're not showing.'

'I wish they'd stop that damned drumming,' Gerrin cursed. 'Bad for morale. . that's a lot of artillery, Raj.'

'Well. The game begins. . Oh, Spirit, what're they doing?'

Raj stepped up onto the parapet again; the redoubt had two, one above for the guns, and this one for the men of the 5th, putting their rifles just at ground level. The Civil Government entrenchments faced up the opposite slope, which meant that any projectile they fired would remain at man-height all the way to the crest, and possibly do damage when it dropped over. . but it also limited his view somewhat.

'Ser,' one of the lookouts on the roof of the redoubt bunker called. 'It's the Skinners!'

'What're they doing?'

'Dancin' and singin', ser! In time to them drums.' Raj blinked, leaning half-out of the slit to see. The Skinner groups were on both sides of the redoubt; he wouldn't have been surprised to see them out sunning themselves on the sandbagged roofs of their trenches. . but they were dancing, stamping and leaping in lines that wove in and out of each other, linking arms, whooping out a chorus to the simple thudding of the enemy drums:

'En roul'en, reyoulouran, En roul'en, reeeeboula-'

The song was punctuated by shots fired in the air, or to kick up dirt on the slope near the marching Colonials; every now and then a Skinner would turn his back on the enemy and bend over, flapping up the rear of his