Conqueror

Worshippers of the Spirit of Man of the Stars, and closely related to the population of the Civil Government proper. In theory, they-more importantly, the landowners, priests and merchants among them-would be on the invaders' side.

'One and a half million are Brigaderos. Unlike the late unlamented Squadron, the Brigade has a regular army, besides the private retainers of noblemen-some of whom have whole regiments, by the way. Fifty thousand of the General's troops are under arms at any one time; they have a system of compulsory service. Another two hundred thousand can be called out at need, not counting mercenaries-and all of them will have some military experience. The Brigade has strong enemy tribes on its northern frontiers, and most of their standing army has seen action.

'Furthermore,' he went on, 'also unlike the Squadron, the Brigade troops are not armed with flintlock smoothbores.' Raj nodded to the orderlies standing in the back of the room. The men laid half-a-dozen long muskets on the table among the kave-cups.

'An external percussion cap fits under the hammer,' he said, as the officers examined the enemy weapons. 'It's loaded with a paper cartridge and a hollow-base pointed bullet, from the muzzle. Two rounds a minute, but the extreme range is up to a thousand meters. Note the adjustable sights. At anything under six hundred meters, it's man-killing accurate against individual targets. The Brigaderos are landed men, mostly, even those who aren't full-time soldiers. They like to hunt, and most of them are crack shots.'

Which was more than could be said of the Civil Government force, especially the infantry, even after more than a year under Jorg Menyez' training.

Cabot Clerett stirred. Like his uncle, he was a square-faced, barrel-chested man. Unlike him he had the weathered look of an outdoorsman despite being in his twenties.

'The Armory rifle fires at better than six rounds a minute,' he said. 'Twelve, in an emergency.'

'I'm aware of that, Major Clerett,' Raj replied dryly. A flush spread under the natural olive brown of the younger man's skin. Suzette leaned close to whisper in his ear, and he relaxed again.

'However, it means we're not going to be able to stand in full sight and shoot them down outside the effective range of their weapons, the way we did with the Squadrones. Nor can we count on them simply rushing at us head-on, like a bull at a gate. They're barbarians and will fight like barbarians-'

They'd better, he added to himself, or Center or not we're fucking doomed.

'-but they won't be that stupid.'

observe, Center said.

* * *

Rat-tat-tat beat the drum. The line of blue-coated Civil Government infantry stretched across the fields, wading through the waist-high wheat and leaving trampled desolation behind them. The battalion colors waved proudly ahead of the serried double rank of bayonets; officers strode before their units, sabers sloped over their shoulders. Sun glinted on edged steel, hot and bright. Shells went by overhead with a tearing-canvas sound, to burst in puffs of dirty-white smoke and plumes of black earth at the edge of the treeline ahead. Apart from the shelling and the crunching, rustling sound of the riflemen's passage, the battlefield was silent.

Then malignant red fireflies winked in the shadow of the trees. Thousands of them, through the offwhite smoke of black powder rifles. Men staggered and fell down the Civil Government line, silent or screaming and twisting. The Armory rifles jerked up in unison in response to shouted orders and volley-fire crashed out; then the bayonets leveled and the men charged forward with the colors slanting down ahead of them. More muzzle flashes from the treeline and the snake-rail fence that edged it, again and again, winking through the growing cloud of powder smoke and tearing gaps in the advancing line. It wavered, hesitated-trapping itself in the killing zone, caught between courage and fear.

* * *

Raj blinked. The audience was still attentive; it had only been a few seconds, and men were used to Raj Whitehall's peculiar moments of introspection. Night had fallen, and glittering six-winged insects flew in through the opened windows to batter themselves against the coal-oil lanterns along the pilastered wall.

'— so we have two problems, tactical and operational.' I get the strategic worries.

'Tactically, we're going to have to make use of our strong points. Artillery, and we've twice the guns a force this size usually does. The Armory rifle's higher rate of fire and, even more important, the fact that it can be loaded lying down. Field entrenchments wherever possible; you'll note the number of shovels which have been issued. You'll also note that the cavalry have been ordered to hang their sabers from the saddle, not their belts. The cult of cold steel is strictly for the barbs, messers-I want nobody to forget that.

'Our true advantage is our discipline and maneuverability, and that applies to tactics and operations. I intend to move fast, keep the enemy off balance, and never fight except at a time and place of my own choosing. I need to know-must know that my orders will be obeyed with speed and precision and common sense, at all times. Against an enemy with respectable weapons and reasonable organization who outnumbers us eight or more to one, we cannot afford to lose a battle, we cannot afford to lose even a major skirmish. . and since we can't possibly win a war of attrition, we can't be excessively cautious, either. Is that clear?'

Nods, and a few uncomfortably thoughtful faces. 'Good.' Because it's all right if the men think I'm invincible, but the Spirit help us if you do.

With Center whispering in his mind's ear, he was unlikely to fall victim to that illusion himself. Occasional doubts about his own sanity were another matter. Night sweats when he thought about the Spirit having a direct link to his own grimy soul were part of it, too-although come to think of it, everyone had a Personal Computer, according to orthodox doctrine.

'Which brings us,' he went on, balancing the pointer with an end in each palm, 'to Stern Isle. I regard this as in the nature of a training exercise-assuming that the negotiations with the Brigade leaders fail and we have to conquer the mainland. Because, gentlemen, if we can't take this island from the Brigade with dispatch, then we'd cursed well better blow our own brains out and send the troops home before we do real damage to the Civil Government.

'According to the Ministry of Barbarians' files and Colonel Menyez' scouting reports'-collated and interpreted by Center-'there are about twelve thousand Brigaderos males of military age on the island. No more than three thousand are actual professional fighting men, including those in the service of individual nobles. We'll snap the rural nobles and their retainers up with mobile columns. I want you messers to pay particular attention to perfecting movement from battalion to company columns and from column into line-of-battle in any particular direction. The enemy are fairly slow at that, and we'll need any advantage we can get.

'We'll then move the main body of the army south'-he traced the route across the center of the island-'to the provincial capital at Wager Bay. The city itself shouldn't be much of a problem; the enemy doesn't have enough men to hold the walls.'

He flipped the map, revealing another of Wager Bay itself. Over it Center painted a holographic diagram, rotating it to show different angles. Raj blinked back to the flat paper his officers would see. The city was a C with the open end pointing south at the ocean, around a harbor that was three-quarters of a circle.

'Wager Bay; most of the island's trade goes through here. About forty thousand people, virtually none of them Brigaderos. So, no problem. . except for the fortress.'

His pointer tapped the irregular polygon which topped the hill closing the east flank of the harbor. Raj had memorized schematic drawings of all the major fortresses within the Civil Government, and quite a few without. Center amplified that knowledge with three-dimensional precision. Deep stone-lined moats all around and a steep drop to the shingled beaches on the water side where an arc of cliffs fronted the sea. Low-set modern walls of thick stone and earthwork behind the moats, built to withstand siege guns. They mounted scores of heavy built-up smoothbore guns, able to sweep the bay. Bastions and ravelins, outworks giving murderous crossfire all along the landward side, a smooth sloping approach with neither cover nor dead ground.

'We're certainly not going to take that with a rush. But take it we must, and soon.'

observe, Center said.

* * *