Horace answering to the rein. The raw intoxication of it struck him for a moment; this was true power. Not the ability to compel, but thousands of armed men willing to follow where he led-because he could
remember, you are human, Center's voice whispered. They would follow; and many would die. Duty was heavier than mountains.
'You know what's demanded of you now,' he went on.
'For those of you who haven't been in the field with me before, only this: obey your orders, stand by your comrades and your salt. Treat the peasants kindly; we're fighting to give them right governance, not to oppress them. Treat captive foes according to the terms of their surrender, for my honor and yours and the sake of good faith between fighting men.
'And never, never be afraid to engage anyone who stands before you. Because nowhere in this world will you meet troops who are your equal. The Spirit of Man marches with us!'
The shouting started with the former
'Hail! Hail! Hail!'
Their deep-chested bellows crashed into the moment of silence after Raj finished speaking. The 5th Descott and the 7th, the Slashers-one by one they rose to their feet, helmets on the muzzles of their rifles.
'RAJ! RAJ! RAJ!'
* * *
'By the Spirit, these are good troops,' Gerrin Staenbridge said, watching the troopers lead their mounts onto a transport. The big animals walked cautiously onto the gangplanks, testing the footing with each step.
'About the best fighting army the Civil Government's ever fielded,' Raj said.
using reasonable equalizing assumptions, that statement is accurate to within 7 %, Center observed.
Staenbridge rapped his knuckles on the helmet he carried in the crook of his arm. 'My oath, with sixty thousand like them we could sweep the earth.'
bellevue, Center corrected in Raj's mind, so restated, and speaking of the main continental mass, probability of victory for such a force over all civilized opponents would be 76 % ±3, under your leadership, Center said.
'Unfortunately, Gerrin,' Raj said, settling his own helmet and buckling the chinstrap.
A groom brought up Horace; was towed up by Horace, rather, when the hound scented its master. He put a hand on the smooth warm curve of the black dog's neck.
'Unfortunately, the question isn't whether we can conquer the world with sixty thousand-it's whether we can conquer two hundred thousand Brigaderos warriors with less than twenty thousand.'
probability of successful outcome 50 % ±10, with an exceptionally large number of overdetermined individually contingent factors, Center admitted, in colloquial terms, too close to call.
Raj took Horace's reins in his hand below the angle of his jaw. Suzette was coaxing her palfrey Harbie towards the gangplank as well; the mounts knew they would be separated from their riders for the voyage, and were whimpering their displeasure. That was why it was best for the owner to settle the dog, if their primary bond was to the rider and not the grooms.
He took a deep breath. 'Let's go find out.'
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sixty or so dogs waded out on the beach in a group; they shook themselves in a salt-water thunderstorm and fell to greeting each other after the voyage in an orgy of tail-wagging, behind-sniffing, muzzle-licking, growling and stiff-legged hackle-showing.
'Just like a bunch of East Residence society matrons at a ball,' Suzette observed in passing, shouldering her Colonial-made carbine.
The command group gave a harsh collective chuckle and turned back to the map pinned to the stunted pricklebark tree.
'Landing's going well,' Jorg Menyez observed.
'Ought to, the practice we've had,' Raj said.
The Civil Government fleet lay off a low coastline of sand, scree, heather and reddish native groundrunner; inland it rose to clumps of dark oakwood separated by meadows where the grass was thigh-high and straw yellow. Sandspits a kilometer offshore broke the force of the surf, and a gently shelving sandy bottom made it easier to beach the smaller vessels. Those had been run in at high tide a few hours ago, and a steam ram was already towing an empty one off stern-first to make room for the others. Piles of bales and crates and square-sided, rope- handled ammunition boxes were going up above the high-water mark; there were even a few determined camp- followers, soldiers' women and servants-cavalry troopers were allowed one per eight-man squad-wading ashore already as well.
A 5th master-sergeant and two other troopers came up to the dogs; they each bridled the dominant animal in a platoon-pack and led it off after a few warning nose-thumps with the handles of their dogwhips convinced the beasts that it was time to go back to work.
'Follow t'heel, ye bitches' brood!' the noncom shouted, and set off at a trot upslope to the perimeter the first-in units had established. Cavalry might fight mostly on foot, but they felt extremely uncomfortable without their mounts to hand. The rest of the giant carnivores followed along after, heads up and sniffing the wind blowing from inland. More dogs were swimming for the shore; from the way a few pursuing longboats darted about out by the skerries, the usual scattering of animals determined to try swimming back to their last port of call were being rounded up.
The larger ships, four hundred to eight hundred tons, were anchored offshore. Cargo nets swung stores and equipment down to boats; or a field-gun down to a stout raft of barrels and timbers Dinnalsyn's men had knocked together. Rowboats towed it toward the shore, the brass fittings of its breech glittering in the morning sun, as bright as the droplets of spray cast up by the oars. Company after company of infantry scrambled down nets from the grounded ships, fell in to the shouts and whistles of their officers, and marched upslope. The metal-leather- sweat-dogshit smell of an Army encampment was already overlaying the clean odors of sea and heath.
Twenty thousand humans and ten thousand dogs were coming ashore, and Raj intended to have the whole process completed by nightfall.
'Jorg,' he went on. The infantry colonel sneezed and nodded. 'I want your infantry to-'
'Make the standard fortified camp, I know,' he said. 'We also serve who only dig ditches.' The ground was fairly flat, so the men would scarcely need the artillery to drive stakes for layout; they could make a standard camp in their sleep, and sometimes did after a forced march. He looked around; there were no large Brigade settlements within a day's march, by the map.
'Since we're only staying a few nights, is that entirely necessary? There's a great deal else for the men to do.'
Raj grinned like a carnosauroid. 'That's what I thought at Ksar Bourgie,' he said. 'And nearly got converted to a hareem attendant by Tewfik. Dig in, if you please. The men can set up their tents or not, the weather looks to stay fine, but I want the firing parapet, the pit-latrines and the water supply laid on as if we were going to be here a month.'
'Ci, mi heneral.'
'The armored cars are coming ashore,' Dinnalsyn noted. 'Do you want them assembled?'
The artilleryman sounded slightly ambivalent. Raj knew how he felt. The vehicles were boiler-plate boxes on wheels, propelled by the only gas engines in the Civil Government, expensively hand-made. They were temperamental and delicate, required constant maintenance, and had to be hauled by oxen if they moved any distance overland. They were a hell of noise and fumes and heat for the crews in operation. Still, with riflemen or light cannon firing from behind bulletproof cover, they could be decisive at a critical point-and that made up for the endless bother of hauling them around.
