Conqueror

dead weight. The naik jerked a thumb, and they dumped their semi-conscious victim head-first down the well.

— bursting charges spouted plumes of smoke and rock and pulverized dirt across the massive sloping front of the dam. It stretched two hundred meters across a U-shaped valley amid dry rocky hills, a stone-paved road on its top and stone and iron gates at one side where the tumbling water of the flume was channeled into a canal. For long moments nothing seemed to happen, and then water sprouted from the surface where the explosives had been laid. It gouted like erupting geysers, turning to rainbow splendor at the edges under the bright noon light. The sappers whooped and danced as the rushing torrent eroded the earthwork of the dam like a lump of sugar under a spout of hot tea. Then the earth shuddered as the dam collapsed in earnest, and the lake headed downstream in a roaring wall of brown silt and tumbling rocks.

* * *

'Yes, yes,' Barholm said. The other advisors were silent as the two Descotters met each other's eyes.

'I think I can retrieve the situation,' Raj said calmly. 'Provided, of course, I have my Governor's full confidence. Do I have your confidence, my lord?'

Barholm's lips tightened. 'Yes, yes,' he said again. He snapped his fingers for a parchment, wrote, signed, extended his hand for the Gubernatorial seal. It thwacked into the purple wax with an angry sound.

He pushed it across the polished flamegrain wood of the table. Raj picked it up. It was a delegation of viceregal power, requiring all officers and officials of the Civil Government to tender him full cooperation-rare for a commander sent out into the barbaricum, unheard-of within the borders.

If I smash the Colonials, Raj thought-unlikely as that seemed right now- that'll be the last strong opponent the Civil Government faces. He'd reconquered the Southern and Western Territories; the Base Area was far away, and the Zanj states of the Southern Continent even farther. Once the Colony had been beaten back, Barholm Clerett's position would be safer than any Governor's in the past five hundred years. Safe enough that he would certainly no longer need a heneralissimo supremo.

'Yes,' Barholm repeated. 'Who could doubt that you have my full confidence?'

Raj stood, bowing and tucking the Gubernatorial Rescript into the sleeve-pocket of his uniform jacket.

'Then if you'll forgive me, Sovereign Mighty Lord, Messers.'

His face held an abstracted frown as he left the room, ignoring the murmur behind him. Landing five thousand men and thirty guns, with all their dogs and stores, wasn't easy at the best of times. Getting them straight off the ships and headed east fast without a monumental foul-up would be real work.

disembarkation would be most efficiently achieved as follows, Center began.

CHAPTER FOUR

Corporal Minatelli clattered down the steep wooden steps into the hold of the freighter, his hobnail boots biting into the pinewood. The ship was pitching less now that the sails were furled and the steam tug was bringing it into port.

Minatelli shook his head, still a little bewildered at the sight. He'd grown up in Old Residence, in the Western Territories, and he was familiar enough with fine building. But Old Residence had shrunk steadily since the Brigade conquered it, with forest and groves and nobles' country-seats spreading over the old suburbs. These days it was just a big city.

East Residence was a world. It sprawled over the seven hills on all sides of its deep U-shaped harbor: houses and factories, up to the heights where gardens and marble marked the patricians' quarter and the Gubernatorial palaces. A haze of coal-smoke hung over it, a forest of masts and smokestacks darkened the water; squadrons of low-slung steam rams with their paddles churning the water, big-bellied merchantmen with grain from the Diva country of the far north, or ornamental stone and wine from Kelden, whole fleets of barges down from the Hemmar River. And all over the hills, the tracery of gaslight like fairy lights, still bright in the predawn hours.

He hoped he'd have time to see the great Star Temple that Governor Barholm had built. It was supposed to make the one in Old Residence look like a hut-and now, that seemed possible.

Minatelli's feet and body took him through the crowded hold of the troopship without more than an occasional jostle; after the cleaner air on deck, the stink of it hit him again. His eight-man section was waiting by their gear.

'What's t'word, corp?'

'We're heading east,' Minatelli said.

His own Sponglish was fluent now, but it still carried the accent of the Spanjol more common in the Western Territories. He'd been recruited into the 24th Valencia when Messer Raj came to make war against the Brigade; before that his local priest in Old Residence had taught him his letters and numbers, which was one reason he'd made watch-stander and then corporal so fast. Most of the Civil Government's infantry were of peon stock, and almost all illiterate.

He made a quick check of the gear laid out on each of the straw pallets. Waterproof blanket, blanket, long sword-bayonet, cartridge pouches with seventy-five rounds, another fifty in a cardboard box, entrenching spade or short pick, mess tin, canteen, haversack, spare clothing if any, bandage packet, blessed chlorine powder for purifying water, three days' hardtack. .

The corporal picked up one of the Armory rifles and stuck his thumb into the loop of the lever before the handgrip. A push and the block went snick, snapping down at the front so the grooved ramp on top led to the chamber. He peered down the barrel, raising it to the light. No rust, not too much oil. He snapped the lever back: clack. A pull on the trigger brought a sharp click as the pin fell on the empty space where a cartridge would lie in combat.

'Not too bad, Saynchez,' Minatelli said. 'Awright, git the kit on.'

A chorus of grumbles. 'Yor all gone soft,' he said relentlessly. 'Be off yor backsides soon.'

He swung his own on. Webbing belt, pouches, shoulder-straps, haversack and bayonet went on like a coat; all you had to do was snap the buckle on the belt. Everything else went into the blanket roll; you rolled that up into a sausage, strapped the roll shut with leather thongs, then bent it into a U-shape and slung it over your left shoulder with the tied-together ends at your right hip. He grunted a little as it settled down, shrugging until it rode properly; you could wear blisters the size of a cup if you didn't adjust it just right.

An officer and bugler came down the main hatchway. The brassy notes of Full Kit and Ready to Move Out sounded, loud through the dim crowded spaces. The troops erupted in cursing, crowding movement, all but the most experienced veterans-they'd gotten ready beforehand. Minatelli grinned at his squad.

'Happy now?'

It was a lot easier to put your gear on when a couple of hundred others weren't trying to do the same, and that in a hold packed with temporary pinewood bunks.

Saynchez snorted. He was a grizzled man in his thirties, one of two in the squad who'd been out east with the 24th the last time. He'd also been up and down the ladder of rank to sergeant and back to private at least twice; it was drink, mostly.

'We goin' east fer garrison, er t'fight?' he asked.

'Messer Raj didn't tell me, t'last time he had me over fer afternoon kave n' cakes,' Minatelli said dryly.

He wouldn't be looking forward to garrison duty, himself. Some preferred it; in between active campaigns Civil Government infantry were assigned farms from the State's domains, with tenant families to work them. You had to find your own keep from the proceeds, minus stoppages for equipment. Provided your officers were honest- which Major Felasquez was, thank the Spirit-the total came to about the same as active-service cash pay. About what a laborer made, with more security and less work. But it sounded dull, especially to a city boy like him, and he hadn't joined up to be bored.

Mind you, some of the fighting in the Western Territories had been more interesting than he really liked. He remembered the long teeth of the Brigade curaissiers' dogs, the lanceheads rippling down, sweat stinging his eyes,