Warlord

swung field-guns and wagons aboard. Troopers were leading their riding dogs through side-doors in the hulls of specially fitted transports; most of them had thrown their jackets over the dogs' heads, for the comfort of darkness and familiar smell, but there was a constant whining and occasional outbreaks of thunder-deep barking from the big animals. The infantry stood in ordered clumps further inland by company columns. A hundred or so was the limit for a single ship, and it also served to discourage the press-ganged sailors from deserting.

Raj watched from the shadow of a crane as one unit made ready to embark:

'Company A, 17th Kelden Foot! Alo sinstra, waymanos! By the left, forward!' The soldiers marched bowed slightly under pack and rifle, a long centipede of maroon-clad legs and blue-jacketed bodies, faces stolid-set under their bowl-helmets as they followed the furled battalion standard. The hobnails clashed on the granite paving, and the men began a hoarse chanting:

'March! The mud is cakin' good about our trousies

Front! Eyes front, an' watch the color-casin's drip.

Front! the faces of the women in the houses

Ain't the kind of thing to take aboard the ship.'

Star Spirit be with them all, he thought. Raj was standing by a warship; they would cast off last, being all steam-powered. Black smoke poured from the tall twin funnels on each; they were low-slung snaky craft, with big boxlike wooden covers for the paddlewheels on each side of the midships deckhouse, an iron- clad ram at the bows and six light breech-loaders along each side. Those were nearly hidden by the ton-weight wicker baskets of coal standing on the decks, crowding right up to the masts fore and aft.

'There's something wrong with the coal?' Raj asked the man beside him.

'Messer Whitehall, there's not much right with it,' Muzzaf Kerpatik said. He sneered, the flash of white teeth brilliant against teak-dark skin and his pointed beard and mustache. 'Half of it is shale-and the rest is soft, not hard anthracite. Half the price of good steam coal. Not one half the heating power.'

'Tzetzas,' Raj said with weary resignation, straightening. The big crane above them chuffed as the handler eased the steam-powered winch into action and swung the heavy net of fuel onto the warship's deck.

Muzzaf was a Komarite, from one of the southern border cities along the Colonial frontier; one of the strange new class of monetary risk-takers, men who invested large sums in manufacture or trade yet were not really merchants or moneylenders or artisans. It still seemed a little unnatural to Raj, gaining wealth without inheriting or plundering it.

'Back in Komar I thought myself wicked because I entered a conspiracy with the Chancellor's men to bilk the Fisc of soldiers' pay,' he said. Neither of them needed to add that it was Raj Whitehall who had accepted his repentance, when that conspiracy left Muzzaf's native city defenseless. And Raj who had protected him from the Chancellor since. 'Tzetzas. . since coming to the capital, I have seen his hand in everything,' the Komarite confirmed. 'He has interests in the Coast Range mines.' He straightened, flicking at the black dust on his brown cotton coat and the cloak draped over his arm; normally he was something of a peacock, but today he had limited it to a few pieces of silver jewelry and a spray of colored sauroid feathers clipped to the brim of his fore-and-aft peaked cap. 'Messer, I'm surprised anyone ever makes a profit on anything in this city. Except the Chancellor and his cronies, of course.'

Raj nodded. 'I appreciate your work, Mezzaf. You've been invaluable. Try looking into the rest of the supply situation, would you?'

'As you wish, Messer,' Mezzaf replied; he bowed and touched brow and lips, already looking abstracted. Behind him the sound of the soldiers' singing faded as they boarded the ship:

'Cheer! An' we'll never march to victory.

Cheer! An' we'll never live to hear the cannon roar!

The Large Birds o' Prey

They will carry us away,

An' you'll never see your soldiers anymore!'

The general gave a hitch at his sword belt as he walked out to meet the commanders one last time. They were standing in anonymous clumps, the heavy military cloaks about their shoulders. His eyes seemed to be ridged with sand, and everything stood out with a slightly feverish clarity. Complete exhaustion: about what you would expect putting this all together on short notice.

Barton Foley stood scratching his chin carefully with the point of the hook where his left hand used to be, his right clasped in Gerrin Staenbridge's. Jorg Menyez was talking to Mekkle Thiddo, who was still inclined to look admiringly at his own Battalion Commander's stars now and then; he had been a gentleman-ranker once, and a Lieutenant until the Komar campaign. Kaltin Gruder was saying goodbye to an implausibly large collection of ladies, most of them crying too hard to quarrel with each other as he shooed them firmly away. M'lewis was off to one side, conferring with a few of his Scouts; several of them managed the minor miracle of looking more furtively unsavory than their commander.

. . and there were the strangers. Ehwardo Poplanich, Thom's cousin, for one. A little older, but with the same thin intellectual's face, a little uncertain in this company. Anhelino Dalhouse for another; and Mihwel Berg, the Administrative Service panjandrum, sulking as usual. He was supposed to set up the civil administration in the Southern Territories, once they took it back; talking to Suzette seemed to be animating him a little. Barholm had said he was a first-rate man who'd be a great deal of help. So far there was fuck-all sign of it, which was odd since the Governor was a judge of men, in his way.

Except he saddled me with Dalhouse, Raj thought sourly. That was fatigue speaking; he hadn't had a decent night's sleep in a week or more. . about par for the course, out on campaign. Dalhouse probably had too many connections for Barholm to ignore. Besides that, Raj had asked for all the units that campaigned with him in the east-slightly suspicious, from a Governor's point of view.

'Good morning, Messers,' he said.

One of the servants handed him his helmet, a plain bowl of black iron with a riveted neckguard of chain mail on leather at the back. The rank-badge over the brows was new, an eighteen-point star of gold and silver on a blue shield, orbited by seven more. He buckled it on, the familiar weight making the war seem real after the paperwork and quartermaster's nightmare of the last month. Dalhouse sneered slightly; his helmet was polished bronze with inlay in niello and silver, and the neckguard was torosauroid hide traded down from the northern steppes, the type that grew natural crystals of metal in the skin, brought to a high polish.

'Now, I'm going to give you some final instructions,' Raj continued, deliberately dropping his voice slightly. Men leaned forward, straining to hear. 'The fleet has been divided into ten sections, plus the naval escorts. While at sea, instructions from any naval officer commanding an escort are to be accepted as if they were mine. Is that understood?'

He waited until all the ten section officers nodded. 'Admiral Gharderini, your first priority will be to keep the fleet together. If any vessel becomes separated for any reason whatsoever, the fleet will halt until the escorts bring in the strays. If we're scattered by weather, everyone will head for the assigned rendezvous for that section of the journey-check your maps, Messers. Anyone who gets ahead of the fleet may pray to the Spirit of Man of the Stars for help, for he'll get none from me. And anyone'-he paused-'anyone whosoever who turns back without authorization will be shot, and every officer on his ship, and every tenth enlisted man taken at random. Master Sergeant da Cruz, you may inform the men of that.'

Slight chance anyone could use a little bad weather as an excuse after that; even if the threat was not altogether credible-many of the officers had family connections powerful enough to rescue them from anything short of heresy-but the men would believe it, and likely shoot anyone risking a decimation. There was a slight stir among the officers, and several of the Companions smiled. Several of the non-Companions looked again at the men who had campaigned with Raj Whitehall, noting the scars and missing limbs and limps; many of them looked a little green. There had been no great rush of commanders volunteering their units for this expedition. Dalhouse waited with elaborate patience, fingers tapping at the glossy leather of his Sam Browne belt.

'Final dispositions will be made at Sadler Island, according to what intelligence information we can pick up there'-because the Ministry of Barbarians has dick-all here-'and under no circumstances is anyone to attempt to enter Port Murchison without orders. We'll probably land well south of the city and work north by land.'

Dalhouse snorted. Raj looked at him mildly, raising his brows. 'Yes, Messer?' he said.