The Chosen

the other side. The guerillas numbered about sixty; Bianci hadn't offered to introduce anyone else, which was exactly as it should be.

'We got quite a few trains at first,' Bianci said. 'But then the tedeschi began making villagers from along the lines ride in carriages at front.'

'You can't allow that to stop you,' John said.

Bianci glanced his way, a shadowed gleam of eyeball in the faint moonlight, the smell of garlic and sweat.

'We didn't,' he said. 'But the villagers began to patrol the rail line themselves. . to protect their families, you understand. So now we pick locations far from any habitation. Like this.'

'Good ground, too,' John said.

One of the Marines came up the hill, trailing a spool of thin wire. Another squatted next to John, placing a box next to him. It had a plunger with an handbar coming out of the top, and a crank on the side. Bianci leaned close to watch as the Marine cut the wire and split it into two strands, stripping the insulation with his belt knife. The raw copper of the wire matched the hairs on the backs of his huge freckled hands, incongruously delicate as they handled the difficult task in near-darkness.

'Ahh, bellissimo,' the Imperial said. 'We've been using black powder with friction primers-and since they started putting a car in front of the locomotive, that doesn't work so well.'

'We can get detonator sets to you,' John said. 'But you'll have to come up with the wire-telegraph wire will do well enough.'

Bianci nodded again. 'That we can do.' He looked down at the track hungrily. 'Every slave in the rail yards tells us what goes on the cars. This one has military stores, arms and ammunition, medical supplies, and machine parts for a new repair depot north of Salini; the tedeschi have been talking of double- tracking the line from the Pada to the coast. . why, do you think?'

'They'll be reopening the trade with the Republic and the other countries on the Gut, soon,' John replied. 'And to be able to move supplies and troops faster. They have-'

Far away to the northwest, the mournful hoot of a locomotive's steam whistle echoed off the hills. Bianci laughed, an unpleasant sound. 'Right on time. The trains run on time, since the tedeschi came. . except when we arrange some delays.'

John burrowed a little deeper behind a scree of rock. I have to be here, dammit, he thought. The guerillas had to see that they were getting some support, however minimal. The problem was that the Santander government wasn't ready to really give that support, not yet. It was surprising what you could do with some contacts and a great deal of money, though.

Silence stretched. Bianci raised himself on an elbow. 'Odd,' he said. 'They should be on the flat before this stretch of hills by now.'

* * *

'Glad you stopped,' Heinrich said, shining his new electric torch up at the escort car.

'Yessir.' The vehicle was a standard armored car, fitted with outriggers so that it could ride the rails, and a belt-drive from the wheels to propel it. Doctrine said that fighting vehicles had to have a Chosen in command; in this case, a nervous young private, showing it by bracing to attention in the turret and staring straight ahead, rigid as the twin machine guns prodding the air ahead of him.

'At ease,' the Chosen brigadier said. 'Now, we want to do this quickly,' he added to Captain Neumann. 'Unload boxcars four through six.'

Greatly daring, the commander of the armored car spoke: 'Sir, those are-'

'Military supplies. I'm aware of that, Private.' The rigid brace became even tighter. He turned back to Neumann. 'Then get the I-beams rigged and we'll load the cars.'

Luck had been with him; there had been a stack of steel forms, the type used to frame the concrete of coast-artillery bunkers, in Campo Fiero. Used as ramps, they could get an armored car onto the train. . with ropes, pulleys, winches, and a lot of pushing. Getting down would be easier, he hoped.

Orders barked sotto voce had the hundred-odd troopers of Neumann's company slinging crates out of boxcars, the Chosen officers pitching in beside their subordinates. Others were unstrapping the steel planks from the armored cars waiting where the little dirt road crossed the rail line. Heinrich moved forward as the crew of sweating Protege infantry staggered; they were still panting from the five-mile forced march to intercept the train.

But nobody saw us get on, the Chosen officer thought a little smugly, catching the corner of the heavy metal shape. Muscle bulged in his arms and neck as he braced himself and heaved it around, teeth clenched around the stem of his pipe.

'Dominate that piece of equipment!' he barked as the Proteges took up the strain.

They obeyed, looking at him out of the corners of their eyes. A slightly awed look; he'd taken two strong men's load for half a minute. The steel clanged down on the side of the flatcar, and the armored vehicle's driver started to back and fill, aligning his wheels with the ramp.

Heinrich stepped back, dusting his palms. Somewhere south of here waited a pack of animals with delusions of grandeur. Somehow that reminded him of Jeffrey Farr, Johan's foster-brother. A good man: sound soldier, a bit soft, but sound. A great pity they'd probably have to kill him someday.

'And I was right,' he muttered to himself. 'There is going to be good sport here for years.'

* * *

'The sun sets, but it also rises,' Bianci whispered, putting his hand to the pushbar of the detonator set.

'Hmmm?' John said, startled out of reverie.

'An old saying, signore.'

The train whistle hooted again, louder. Always a melancholy sound, John thought, taking a swig from his canteen. Oto was nearly down, but Adele was up, brighter and slower as it rose over the horizon. An armored car running on the rails came first, buzzing along with the belt from its rear wheels slapping and snarling. The turret moved restlessly, probing the darkness. A light fixed above the machine guns swept across the slope. John tensed.

Nothing, he thought, breathing in the scent of the dew-damp thyme crushed beneath his body. Good fire discipline. Not one of the men on the slope had been detected, and not one moved.

'Now,' Arturo breathed, spinning the crank on the side of the detonator. Then he pushed down on the plunger.

WHUMP. WHUMP. WHUMP.

Three globes of magenta fire blossomed along the curving stretch of rail. One before the escort car; it braked desperately, throwing roostertails of sparks from its outrigger wheels. Not quite fast enough. The front wheels tumbled into the mass of churned earth and twisted iron that the dynamite had left, and the hull toppled slowly sideways, accelerating to fall on its side and skid down the gravel and earth of the embankment. The locomotive was a little more successful, braking in a squeal of steel on steel that sent fingers of pain into John's ears even half a thousand yards away. The front bogie dropped into the crater the explosive mine left, tipping the nose of the locomotive down. That jacknifed the coal car and first boxcar upward off the tracks, leaving them dangling by the couplings that held them to the engine. The rest of the boxcars jolted to a crashing halt. Most of them partially derailed, lunging to the right or left until brought up by the inertia of the car ahead, leaving the whole train of two dozen cars lying in a zigzag. But none were thrown on their sides. .

'Going too slow,' Arturo said, puzzled.

Realization crystallized, like a lump in John's gut. 'Trap!' he shouted. 'Get-'

Schoonk. A mortar threw a starshell high into the sky above them. Blue-white light washed over the stretch of hill and swamp, actinic and harsh to their dark-adapted eyes. Schoonk. Schoonk.

A rippling crackle of small-arms fire broke out across the hillside and from guerillas concealed in the swamp across the embankment; they'd learned that an ambush worked best with two sides. A captured machine gun was in place there, too, its brighter muzzle flashes contrasting with the duller, redder light of the ex-Imperial black- powder rifles most of the partisans carried.

'Pull back!' John shouted into Arturo's ear. 'Get out, leave a rearguard and get out