Conqueror

It was a style of warfare that had ended in the eastern part of the Midworld basin two centuries ago, when breechloading firearms became common. The Brigaderos were about to learn why.

Of course, since there were nearly a thousand of the cuirassiers, the Civil Government troops might not survive the lesson either.

POUMPF.

The field gun recoiled away from the long plume of smoke. The first shell exploded at head-height a dozen yards from the front of the column; pure serendipity, since the fuses weren't sensitive enough to time that closely. It was canister, a thin-walled head full of lead balls with a small bursting charge at the rear. The charge stripped the casing of the shell off its load and spread the balls out, but the velocity of the shell itself made them lethal. The first three ranks of the lancers went down in kicking, howling confusion. The commander of the cuirassier regiment had been standing in his stirrups and raising the triangular three-bar visor of his helmet to see what had popped up to bar his command's way. Three of the half-ounce balls ripped his head off his torso and threw the body in a backwards somersault over the cantle of his saddle.

Behind him the balls went over the heads of the rear of the column, protected by the dip in the field in which they rode. The projectiles struck the upraised lances instead, the wood of the forward ranks and the foot-long steel heads of those further back and lower down. The sound was like an iron rod being dragged at speed along the largest picket fence in the universe. Lances were smashed out of hands or snapped off like tulips in a hothouse for a dozen ranks back. Men shouted in fear or pain, and dogs barked like muffled thunder.

The cuirassier regiment was divided into ten troops of eighty to ninety men each, commanded by a troop- captain and under-officers. None of them knew what was happening to the head of the column, but they were all Brigade noblemen and anxious to close with the foe. They responded according to their training, the whole mass of lancers halting and each troop turning to right or left to deploy into line. When the Civil Government or Colonial dragoons deployed for a charge under fire they did so at the gallop, but the Brigaderos were used to fighting men equipped with shotguns and throwing-axes. Used to having plenty of time to align their lines neatly.

M'Telgez watched his lieutenant's saber out of the corner of his eye. It swung to the right. He pivoted slightly, taking the general direction from the sword as his squad did from him; a group of lancers opening out around a swallow-tail pennant, borne next to a man whose armor was engraved with silver, wearing a shoulder- cape of lustrous hide from some sauroid that secreted iridescent metal into its scales. The corporal picked a target, a lancer next to the leader-no point in shooting the same man twice, and he knew someone wouldn't be able to resist the fancy armor. The rear notch settled behind the bladed foresight, and he lowered his aiming-point another few inches-six hundred meters, the bullet would be coming down from the top of its arch at quite an angle.

'— volley fire-'

He exhaled and let his forefinger curl slightly, taking up the trigger slack. The strap of the rifle was wound round his left hand twice, held taunt with the forestock resting on the knuckles. He might not know who'd fucked up in the tunnel, but at least he was going to get to kill somebody today.

'Fire!'

* * *

Bullets went overhead with an unpleasant wrack sound. Down the line from the command group a trooper slumped backward with his helmet spinning free to land in the mud and the top taken off of his head. He'd been holding two rounds in his lips like cigarettes, with the bases out ready to hand; they followed the helmet, a dull glint of brass through the rain.

Gerrin Staenbridge looked back and forth down the sunken lane. Stretcher-bearers-military servants-were hauling men back, crouching to carry them without exposing themselves over the higher northern lip of the laneway. Other bearers and soldiers were carrying forward ammunition boxes, ripping the loosened tops off and distributing handfuls to the troopers on the firing line. Ahead the Brigaderos were advancing again, one line running forward and taking cover while the second fired and stood to charge their clumsy muzzle-loading rifle muskets. He checked; yes, the company and platoon commanders were dividing their fire, keeping both segments under fire and not letting the men waste bullets on prone targets.

'Hot work,' Bartin Foley said beside him. He gave the-literal-lie to his words by shaking his head and casting a scatter of cold rain from his helmet and chainmail neck-flap.

'Bloody hell,' Staenbridge replied, raising his voice slightly. 'Fight in the desert, and you want rain. Fight in the rain and you want the sun. Some people are never satisfied.'

He lit two cigarettes and passed one to the young captain. A lot of the enemy rifle-muskets were misfiring; percussion caps were immune to rain, but paper cartridges were not. Another line of the Brigaderos rose to advance, and a crashing stutter of half-platoon volleys met them. At three hundred meters more shots hit than missed, but the remnants came on and stood to fire a return volley of their own. Wounded men screamed and cursed down the lines of the 5th and the Life Guards; but they were protected, all but their heads and shoulders. The enemy were naked. The Civil Government's rifle was a single shot breechloader; not the least of its blessings was that it could be loaded lying down.

Off to the east the firing line was thinner, where Company C had been detached; the 5th was still overstrength, but not so much so since Lion City. The splatgun there gave its braaaaak sound, thirty-five rifle barrels clamped together and fired by a crank. A Brigaderos column was caught six hundred meters out, as it began the ponderous countermarch they used to get from marching column into fighting line. Seconds later two field-gun shells arrived at the same target, contact-fused; they plowed up gouts of mud and toppled men with blast and heavy casing fragments. Staenbridge stepped off his crouching dog and walked down behind the line, the banner by his side. It had a few more bulletholes, but the bannerman kept it aloft in the gathering rain.

'Ser, would ye mind inspirin' ussn where ye won't draw fire?' a sergeant called back to him.

'Inspiration be damned, I'm checking that your leatherwork is polished,' Staenbridge said.

A harsh chuckle followed as he strolled back to the center. Spirit, the things one says under stress, he thought.

A runner squelched up, a Life Guardsman. 'Ser,' he said to Cabot Clerett. 'Barb movement in t'woods. Mounted loik.'

Staenbridge nodded at the Governor's nephew's glance. 'We're holding here,' he said. 'Take a company. . and the other two splatguns.'

'Whitehall's toys,' Clerett said.

'Useful toys. Take them, and use them.'

Clerett nodded and turned, calling out orders. He straddled his dog and the animal rose, dripping; the rain was coming down harder now, a steady drizzle. Water sizzled on the barrels of the splatguns, and the gunners left their breeches locked open as they hitched the trails to the limbers and wheeled. Men on the far right of the 2nd Life Guard's section of the line fired one more volley and fell in behind him, reloading as they jogged. There was a slapping sound, and the 2nds bannerman gave a deep grunt and slumped in the saddle. Cabot reached out and took the staff, resting the butt on his stirrup-iron as the other man toppled.

'See to him,' he said. 'You men, follow me.' He kept the dog to a steady quick walk as they moved in squelching unison behind him.

'Spread it out there,' Foley said sharply. The rightmost company of the 5th and the leftmost of the 2nd shifted to fill in the gap, ducking as they moved to keep under cover.

'He's got nerve,' Staenbridge murmured. 'Still, I'm happier seeing his back than his glowering face.'

'I could resent that remark,' Foley said, sotto voce. Aloud: 'Lieutenant, they're clumping to your left. Direct the fire, if you please.'

* * *

'Fire!'

M'Telgez straightened from his crouch and fired. The Armory rifle punished his shoulder, the barrel fouled from all the rounds he'd put through it this afternoon. This was the fifth charge, and looked to be the worst yet. A hundred yards to the front dogs went over and men died; they were close enough that he could hear the flat smacking of bullets hitting flesh and the sharper ptung of impacts on armor. He worked the lever and snatched a round he was holding between the fingers of his left hand, thumbing it home.

'Here they come!' he snarled.