Conqueror

CHAPTER TWELVE

Suzette was pale. Fatima looked up in alarm; neither of them was a stranger to field-hospitals after all these years, so it couldn't be that. With a shudder, the Arab girl remembered her first time here, the first battle, four years ago. Then there had been huge wooden tubs set up at the feet of the operating tables, to hold the amputated limbs. And they had been full, all that endless day. Bartin had lost his hand that day; she'd held his shoulders down while the surgeon worked.

This was mild, by comparison. Only a few dozen shattered limbs to come off, with plenty of time to dose the worst cases with opium. A few hundred others, and more than half would live. But Suzette did look ill as she walked among the cots set up in the main chamber of Sandoral's cathedron. The air smelled of old incense and wax, under the stink of disinfectant and blood.

She was still Messa Whitehall. She finished the conversation, turned on her heel, and walked without running to the door. Fatima followed, grabbing up a towel. Retching sounds came from the cubicle; it was a priest's vesting room, in normal times. Suzette knelt and vomited into a bucket. Fatima hurried up beside her and handed her the towel, then went back for water.

"I don't understand it," Suzette said, wiping her face and slumping back in the chair.

Fatima put a hand on her forehead. "You're not running a fever, Messa."

"No, I'm not. And I feel fine, most of the time; just these last couple of mornings I-" She stopped. "What date is it?"

"Second of Huillio. Why do you want to. . oh!"

Suzette's eyes went round. She turned her head slowly and met Fatima's gaze. The younger woman's mouth dropped open; she squeaked before managing to get out a coherent word:

"I thought. . I thought you couldn't, that is-" She stopped in embarrassment.

"No, there wasn't enough time," Suzette said dazedly. Then her face firmed. "This is not to go beyond these walls, understand?"

"Of course, Messa," Fatima said soothingly. "But wouldn't Messer Raj want to know?"

"Not while he's got so much to worry about," Suzette said.

* * *

The flat rooftop terrace of Sandoral's District Offices made an excellent observation post, being close to the river and higher than the tops of the maidan wall; it was also far enough in from the defenses that Colonial shells were unlikely to land in the vicinity. The noon sun pounded down, turning the blue tile of the floor pale, drawing knife edges of shadow around the topiaries and pergolas. City administrators had held their receptions here, amid the potted bougainvillea and sambuca jasmine that had already begun to wilt without care. The iron heel plates of the officers' boots sounded on the floors, harsh and metallic. A heliograph station occupied one corner, and a map table and working desk had been set up by the railing nearest the river.

"Well, he's not wasting any time," Raj said.

Through the tripod-mounted heavy binoculars the east bank showed plainly. Tewfik's seal-of-Solomon banner waved from the highest ground; around it several thousand men worked with pick and shovel.

Grammek Dinnalsyn was using a telescope, also mounted; he made a few precise adjustments to the screws and sketched on a pad.

"That's not intended for his whole force," he said. "About three, four hundred men, perhaps."

Raj nodded agreement and took another bite of his sandwich. Which reminds me. .

"Jorg," he said. "You've had your men on half-rations while we were away?"

"Si. Mostly hardtack and jerky, some fish and dried fruit."

"The whole command is back on full rations as of now," he said. "Bait the dogs properly, too. Muzzaf, get me a complete inventory of supplies. And fuel."

"Si," the little Komarite said. "Seyhor, I can tell you immediately-we have less than a week's supply at that rate of expenditure."

"Excellent," Raj said with a smile. The others looked at him oddly. "I presume Ali knows?"

"The outlines," Menyez said. "We've had a few deserters, mostly from the garrison units. Presumably they've 'taken the turban' and told him what they know."

Raj nodded thoughtfully. "Any the other way?"

"Three-two from their transport corps, claim to be Star Church believers conscripted for supplies. The other's a Zanj."

The Colony had conquered some of the outlying city-states there, but was fiercely resented. The Zanj were of different race than most of the Colonials, and followed a branch of Islam the conquerors thought heretical.

"They're probably spies, of course," Menyez concluded. "I've kept them in close confinement."

"I'll talk to them; I can usually get the truth out of a man," Raj said. He was conscious of sidelong glances; another part of the myth, that it was impossible to lie to Messer Raj. It is when Center's looking through my eyes, he thought. "In any case, it doesn't matter what Ali knows. Or even what Tewfik knows."

Barton Foley pointed. "They're bringing men across."

Everyone raised their glasses. An overloaded fishing skiff labored across the current, on a trajectory that would land it just south of Sandoral's walls on the western bank. Heads and V-marks of ripples showed where dogs on lead-halters swam in the boat's wake. On the riverbank it had left, men were building an earth ramp down to the water's edge and putting together a raft from bits and pieces, date-palm logs and thin boards that looked as if they'd come from some sheep fence.

"It'll take him a while to get his men back to Ali," Gerrin Staenbridge said, examining his nails. The way the Civil Government forces had scavenged up every small boat and all available materials was handicapping their enemies badly. "You have something in mind, don't you, mi heneral?"

Raj grinned at him. "Possibly. Can you think what?"

Staenbridge shook his head. Raj nodded amiably.

"And that's an excellent thing too," he said. "Because you're an extremely perceptive officer, and you have all the information. If you can't figure it out, probably Tewfik can't either. Gentlemen, I want you to spend the rest of today and tomorrow reorganizing. Don't let your men settle in too tight-I want full readiness to move at a moment's notice. Those units that've been hit hard, do the necessary shifting around immediately. Weapons maintenance, ammunition issues, the lot-again, immediately, please. Understood?"

Nods. "Grammeck, this afternoon I want to go over some matters with you; bring the complete plans for the pontoon bridge, please. If there aren't any questions, Messers?"

There was obviously one burning one, but nobody was going to ask it. Jorg Menyez remained when the others had left the flat rooftop.

"Colonel?" Raj asked. It wasn't like Jorg to talk for reassurance sake. He was obviously a little embarrassed.

"Heneralissimo," he said. "Ah. . I thought you'd want to know about Osterville."

"Osterville?" Raj asked. It was an effort to remember the man; he hadn't thought of him since Ain el-Hilwa. And good riddance. "It's enough that he isn't here, making trouble."

"No, he won't be doing that," Menyez said. "It was unpleasant, but as you said, it was necessary."

Raj looked at him. Menyez flushed. "All right, mi heneral. I destroyed the letter and your seal, and he went into the Drangosh with a sixty-kilo roundshot tied to his ankles. . but I still don't like it."

Raj nodded. "Of course, Jorg." Only Suzette has my seal. "I understand."

He shivered slightly, despite the heat of the day.

* * *

A dot of red light arched over the wall, trailing fire through the darkness. Thud. It exploded among the vacant houses-hopefully vacant houses-and a column of fire rose into the night. Another spark. Thud.

"That makes six the past hour," Raj murmured to himself.

in the past fifty-five minutes thirty seconds, Center added. harassing fire.

"Ali's obviously decided to starve us out," Raj agreed.

An image drifted across his eyes: his own emaciated body, still living, naked and covered with weals and burns. Pairs of dogs were hitched to chains attached to each ankle and wrist. The drivers urged the dogs forward slowly, gradually taking up the slack. Ali ibn'Jamal sat watching, pounding his fist on the arm of his portable throne and laughing with pleasure, licking his full lips. Tewfik stood to one side, arms crossed and a look of faint disgust on his face, echoed by most of the noblemen and officers around him. Behind him a gallows stood skeletal against the sky, with the bodies of the Companions dangling from it-by meathooks through their ribs. Several of them were still writhing. .

Raj made a grimace of distaste. "Even by the standards of Mihwel the Terrible, Ali is a prime case."

a subjective judgment, but accurate. child-rearing practices among the colonial royal family are conducive to severely dysfunctional personalities.

A step sounded on the tiles behind him. There had been no challenge and response from the sentries on the stair below, so it could be only one person.

Suzette leaned on the railing beside him, looking out over the city and the glistening water. "Full circle, my love," she said. "Sandoral, and a battle to come."

"And men dying unexpectedly," he said.

She turned her face towards him, drawn and pale beneath the moons. "Osterville couldn't lead and wouldn't follow and wouldn't get out of the way and let you work, either. Can you imagine the sort of havoc he'd have created back here, with everything depending on Jorg keeping things running smoothly? We'd have ended up swimming across, while Osterville tried to make everyone do things his way."

"Jorg-"

"Jorg is good man and a good officer, but he doesn't have your talent for facing men down-especially not men higher on the chain of command. You know that." A little anger crept into her voice: "How many better men have been killed on this campaign so far?"

Raj smiled ruefully and shook his head. "You always could out-argue me," he said. A shrug. "I just don't like having a fellow officer killed like that. It's the sort of thing Tzetzas does."

Suzette sighed. "I don't like it either," she said quietly. "But it had to be done."

Raj nodded. They watched another Colonial shell come over the walls.

"It's cold," Suzette said in a small voice.

Raj extended his arm and the long military cloak he wore. Suzette came under it and laid her cheek against his chest.

"We can't afford any mistakes this time, can we?" she said after a moment.

"No," Raj replied. He looked up at the moons. They'd be rising late, tomorrow evening. Victory or death, he thought. All men die, but this has to be done. "Let's turn in."

* * *

"Precisely this bearing," Raj said.

He drew a line in the dust with the stick. Behind him the artillerymen staked down their frame-two sets of rigid beams at right angles, with a slanted piece across the arms. They aligned it with the mark in the dust; once it was firmly in place, they pushed the gun up the slanted fronting of the frame and tied off the wheels at a chalk mark on the wood.

"Range is exactly 3,525 meters," Raj said. "Load contact, two-second delay."

"Sir," the gunner said, giving him a glance.

How could you know? Raj read in his face. And a trace of awe; men knew he didn't make empty boasts.

Raj walked on to the next gun's position as the iron clang of the breechblock sounded behind him. All fifty-eight surviving field guns were lined up just inside the north wall of Sandoral, all up on the frames; all aligned along the precise vector he'd drawn in the dirt for them. Every single one, as far as Center could judge, was now aiming at the exact midpoint of earth above Ali's command bunker, behind the Colonial outworks-where he invariably retired after the sunset prayer. All the fortress guns in the fixed positions on the wall were aligned as well, those of them that would bear on the target.

Irregularities-wear on the rifling of guns, slight differentials in shell loading and drag, whatever-would spread the projectiles. It ought to be an unpleasant surprise, nonetheless.

Dinnalsyn looked back at the long row of guns. "Think we'll get him, mi heneral?"

"No," Raj said. "That's a very secure bunker. The last thing I want to do is put Tewfik in full command. But it'll certainly get his attention, and Ali's got a short temper. If I know my man, he'll do something stupid."

The limbers stood in a row five meters behind the guns, the dog teams in traces and lying down.

"Are the rafts ready?" Raj said.

"Ready and waiting, sir," Dinnalsyn said. "The planking and decking from the pontoon bridge was exactly as much as we needed. . I suppose that's no coincidence?"

"You might say that," Raj replied. He clapped him on the shoulder. "Stay ready for it."

The last of the cavalry battalions on special duty were sitting by the wall, finishing their evening meal: beans and pigmeat and onions, dished out from kettles over camp fires and scooped up with tortillas. It was the 5th Descott. They were professionals enough to concentrate on eating, but he could feel the tension crackling off them. He walked over and made a beckoning gesture. They crowded around him and crouched or sat at his hand signal; only about three hundred fifty left-and the battalion had been at double strength when he took it west to fight the Brigade.

"All right, dog-brothers," he said quietly. That forced them to listen carefully and lean closer; it also made each man feel as if he was talking to that one alone, as an individual. "You've guessed that something's up. Two hours after sundown-"

The sun was just touching the western horizon.

"— the guns are going to cut loose with a five-round stonk. The second the last gun fires-but not before-you give the wogs five rounds rapid. Then you come back down from the wall, ride your dogs to the docks, get on the rafts and off we go."

He paused a moment. "You're all fighting men and all Descotters," he went on. "My father and grandfather and great-grandfather fought the wogs, and so did yours."

Nods; Descotter rancheros held their land on military tenure, paying their tax in men rather than money. Fathers and sons and brothers followed each other into the same battalions time out of mind; comrades were neighbors at home, officers the squire's sons.

"There's a lot of Descotter blood and bone buried around here. Now we have a chance to end it." That caused a rustle, men coming forward in their crouch and leaning on their rifles. "If we win this one, we break them-not just push them back, but wreck them for all time. If we lose. ." He grinned. "Well, we haven't done much losing while we've been together, you and I, have we?"

A low snarl of agreement. "Everything depends on the wogs thinking we're still here, at least for a while. You'll move back to the docks quickly and you'll do it quietly, and with no foul-ups. Understood?"

Gerrin Staenbridge stepped forward. "You can count on us, mi heneral," he said solemnly. Another growl from the ranks.

* * *

"Keep it quiet, keep it quiet," Ensign Minatelli said.

There were only fifteen men left in his platoon, now-several of them lightly wounded-so it wasn't very different from running his squad. The star on the front of his helmet still felt like a weight of lead to his spirit, though. They formed up outside their bivouac, in the forecourt of what had been a nobleman's house. Minatelli walked down his platoon, giving everything a final check. The men's haversacks were full, three days' rations-smoked pork and hardtack, dried apricots and figs-and extra ammunition in their blanket rolls.

"Company G, fall in."

The men found their places by instinct, in column of twos back from the company pennant. It was dark outside: the city gaslights were out, of course-nobody left to shovel coal and tend the tank-farms-and all torches and fires had been forbidden.

Just as well, he thought. It was frightening how few of them were left; the main Colonial attack had come right over their sector of the wall yesterday. Forty men in the company, barely a full platoon.

The battalion colors came by, and Major Felasquez carrying a shuttered bull's-eye light. His one eye gleamed a little as he turned, stopped for a brief murmur with Captain Pinya and stepped closer to the men.

"All right, lads," he said, a little louder.

Don't expect the wogs could hear even if we shouted, Minatelli thought. On the other hand, it gets everyone thinking quiet.

"We've had enough from the towel-heads; now we're going to give it back, the way the monkey gave it to the miller's wife, by surprise and from the rear. Mind your orders, do it right, and with the Spirit's help and Messer Raj's plan, we'll whip them." He stepped back. "24th Valencia Foot-Waymanos!"

The column moved forward jerkily; it was strange to the point of being dizzying not to step off to the beat of the drum, and the troops had been told not to march in step. The uniform clash of hobnails on stone pavement was like nothing else on earth, and it carried. Instead they walked, with an occasional quiet curse as somebody stepped on the heels of the man ahead. Guides stood at intersections, their lanterns the only light in the deserted city. Minatelli kept his hand on the hilt of his new sword and ignored the eerie quietness.

Through the river gate the darkness lifted a little; a one-quarter Miniluna and the stars reflected off the rippled surface of the water. Gravel crunched, then planks boomed a little under their boots. The column halted.

"24th Valencia?" someone asked ahead, a dim figure against the water. "This way."

They waited; the men ahead melted away company by company. "Company G, this way."

The men scrambled through the knee-high water and into the barge; it was one of the boxlike constructs he'd helped to cobble together out of wood salvaged from wrecked houses. A long steering-oar marked the notional stern, and there were men standing to the sweeps on either side, six to a flank. They had only a single shuttered lantern to work with, but despite the darkness and the crowding only an occasional thump and oath marked someone tripping as they clambered down from the planking to the hold of the crude vessel.

"You'll be pulling the outermost raft," Captain Pinya said.

"That one, sir?" Minatelli said, pointing.

"That's right, Ensign."

Ensign. Spirit. My folks will never believe it.

He shook himself back to the present. There were so many more ways to fuck up at a higher rank. Right now, that could get everyone killed.

He saluted and climbed down himself, a little awkward with no rifle on his shoulder and a sword and pistol at his belt. He turned around as soon as he was at the bow, making sure everyone's equipment was blacked as ordered. Right. Nothing showing but eyeballs.

"Cast off," he said quietly.

The ropes were undone and the barge began to drift. "That way," he said, pointing.

The rowers were from the Sandoral District garrison; they'd all had some experience moving these damned things around. They dug their clumsy oars into the water and heaved, grunting. One step forward, lower the oar, haul it one step back. Minatelli thumped the boards beside him softly to keep the beat, peering ahead to his target. It was almost invisible until they were on top of it, two sections of the pontoon bridge decking with some timbers in between.

"Halto," he said.

Hands and poles on the raft fended them off and turned the barge around. Ropes were made fast to both sides of the stern, and then the barge released to drift slowly downstream. It halted with a slight jerk, held by the cables that anchored the row of rafts. Minatelli looked back along them, back to the shore and the black silhouette of the city wall. The sun had been down at least an hour and a half. More and more of the pontoon barges and every other type of boat available on the Sandoral docks-the ones that hadn't had a chance to get upstream when the news of the invasion got here-put out into the darkening water, anchoring or sculling up to the rafts. The docks were a moving carpet of men, helmets and furled banners and the muzzles of slung rifles.

Not long now.

"Rest easy, boys," he said. "Rest a bit."

* * *

"Gently, gently," Suzette whispered.

The infantrymen assigned as stretcher bearers were well-meaning but clumsy. There were enough of them to manhandle the stretchers into the bottom of the barge and fit them into the crude racks the carpenters had made, turning them into improvised bunk beds. The wounded were dosed heavily with opium to dull the pain of movement, but now and then a man would moan in his delirium. The Renunciates and priest-doctors moved quickly among them, checking pulses.

"Spirit have mercy, this one's dead," a nun said.

"Leave him be," Suzette replied. Damn.

The final load came from the carriages and handcarts they'd pressed into service as ambulances.

She looked west, towards the ramparts.

* * *

"Drop it in, don't throw it!" Jorg Menyez hissed.

An officer relayed the order. Endless files of infantrymen passed sacks of hardtack and crates of dried meat and fruit from hand to hand, out from the wagons to the end of the pier. Once there, they knelt and let their burdens drop into the water. The current caught them, the hardtack floating for a few minutes before waterlogging dragged it down with a scatter of bubbles, the pierced casks and boxes sinking faster.

A good thing this is fresh water. There would be downdraggers in a feeding-frenzy if they tried this in a harbor. Doubtless the plesiosauroids out in the deeper water would be feeding full tonight, as it was.

"Colonel. Major Tormidero sends 'is compliments, and is 'e to load tha wine?"

"No," Menyez said, biting off the damned fool with an effort. "Tell him Ali's men may drown their sorrows as they wish, if they don't fear Allah's wrath."

But not a scrap of food will they find in Sandoral, he thought with hard glee. He sneezed into his handkerchief, not too badly; there weren't any dogs in the immediate neighborhood. It was pitch black. He looked anxiously over the river to the Colonial fortlet planted where the pontoon bridge had been. Evidently they hadn't seen anything unusual, either. It's a siege. They don't expect anything to happen.

"Spirit, but this is a madman's gamble," he whispered to himself, lips barely moving. The only chance at victory. . but what a chance.

"And what a story to tell the grandchildren, if we pull it off!"

If they didn't. .

* * *

Ali ibn'Jamal took another handful of rice and grilled lamb, belching politely. It was surprisingly good, considering what the cooks had to work with; the army was on preserved rations wagoned up from the bridgehead. His own cook had priority on what little the foragers were bringing in, of course. The bunker had been made quite homelike: silk tapestries and silk-and-gold thread Al Kebir carpets, embroidered cushions about low tables of chiseled brass, incense in crescent-shaped burners on tripods about the walls. The lamplight had been turned down to a civilized level, and zebec and zither played melodiously from behind a screen in one corner. Ali ate, and held out his hands for the slave to wash with rosewater and towel dry.

"Your appetite should be better, Tewfik my brother," he said, and belched again. "Think of how the kaphar pigs within Sandoral's walls would drool and slaver at the sight of such a feast!"

Tewfik turned from a low-voiced conversation with his officers. "Indeed, Settler of the House of Peace," he said. "They are very short of supplies. That is why I fear some new trick of this Shaitan's-seed Whitehall."

Ali scowled for a moment, then gestured expansively. "Whitehall is trapped," he said. "He cannot sortie-our men outnumber his and are strongly entrenched; our rear, even, is protected by great works, even though no relieving force of any numbers can approach. He cannot build his bridge of boats again, with your fort and its guns covering the opposite bank. What can he do but starve?"

"Commander of the Faithful, I do not know what he can do. And that is what-"

"My lord." One of the duty officers of the Settler's guard came up to Tewfik and bowed. "You commanded that we notify you: the infidel have launched a signal rocket from the walls. One blue starburst."

A gun boomed in the distance. They all ignored it; the Colonial artillery was lobbing a steady round every twenty minutes into Sandoral, to keep the infidels from sleeping easily.

Another boom, and another; and the explosion of a shell, far too close. Another junior officer dashed down the stairs into the bunker.

"From the walls!" he shouted. "Lords, all the kaphar guns are firing from-"

* * *

"Fwego!"

Grammeck Dinnalsyn swept his saber downward. POUMPH. The first of the field guns vomited a long tongue of red flame into the night, backlighting the cloud of smoke that swirled away from the muzzle. Like a ripple, the line of explosions swept down the row of guns, repeated fifty-eight times. The noise was deafening, shock-waves echoing back from the high flat surface of the city wall like pillows of hot air smacking into face and chest. Already the stairways were showing running men, the militia gunners; one per gun on the walls, each to pull the lanyard on a weapon pre-laid on its target.

The first field gun had already fired its second round by the time the last piece discharged at the other end of the line. The crews moved with smooth, metronomic precision. The guns couldn't recoil, up on the elevating frames-although he hated to see the trails overstressed like this; it was asking for trouble later. Each piece had a stack of five extra shells next to it, with preset fuses. Swing the lever and wrench the breech aside; the brass shell clanged out, with a puff of sulfur-reeking smoke. Loader shoved the next round in, breechman pushed the interrupted-screw block home and slapped the lever down, master gunner clipped his lanyard to the toggle, and fire.

Six rounds, and silence except for the ringing of abused ears. The master gunners of the two central pieces slashed the ties holding the wheels to the elevating frames with their swords, and the pieces ran down the sloped timbers. The crews snatched up the trails before the pieces could slow, running them back to the limbers and slapping the locking-rings down. The pins went home with an iron clank, men leaped into the saddle or swung onto the axletree seats, and the guns rumbled off down toward the docks at a round trot. An instant later the sound changed to a hard rattle as the metal rims of the wheels rose onto the cobblestones. The maneuver was repeated again and again, each gun out from the first two cutting loose and limbering up to follow.

Dinnalsyn neck-reined his dog around. The guns were vanishing into the night, and small-arms fire crackled from the ramparts above. Alone but for his aides and messengers, he saluted the walls.

"Here's to you, heneralissimo," he said. "I don't know how the hell you manage it, but it's never dull. Waymanos!"

He clapped heels to his dog.

* * *

Corporal M'Telgez was acutely conscious of Messer Raj standing quietly behind him as the artillery bellowed. It was blacker than a meter up a sauroid's butt here on the wall's fighting platform; and it smelled of old death, rotting blood and bits of bodies. He willed himself to ignore the smell, and the feeling of confinement-he was a dog-and-saddle man, not a mole or a town-dweller-and the far more nerve-wracking presence of the heneralissimo. Not that he was one to interfere with a man doing his work, far from it. It was just a little disconcerting to have Messer Raj and the Colonel and the Captain all pick your spot to pause when the balloon went up. There was a gap in the gabions he'd picked earlier for his first aiming point. Invisible in the darkness now, but pretty soon-

"Fwego!"

The stubby mortars on the towers chugged. Starshells burst over the wog entrenchments, throwing a flickering blue-white magnesium light. He exhaled and squeezed the trigger. Crack. His rifle punched his shoulder. He worked the lever and reached for one of the rounds in the wooden holder beside his hand. Crack. A Colonial gun fired from the forward trenches. He adjusted his sights and aimed for it, with any luck a round might ricochet off the barrel and into one of the crew. Crack. Crack. Crack.

"Cease fire! Rearward, on the double!" he called out.

His squad was closest to the staircase. They double-timed down it, through the hot dark and the faint reflected light of the starshells, while the field guns blazed away to their right. Eyes and teeth glimmered from the dogs crouching in neat rows in the open space within the walls; they were too well trained to move when they'd been told to stay, but the noise made them eager and uneasy. They rose with a surge as their riders straddled them. M'Telgez's feet found the stirrups, and he slid his rifle into the scabbard, taking the reins in tightly with his left hand. More and more men poured down the stairways by the gates, until the whole battalion was mounted.

No trumpet calls, but the men fell in-every dog knew its place by smell, if nothing else. M'Telgez saw the shadowy length of the battalion standard go by, and an arm flash up. He tapped his heel to Pochita's flank, and the whole column broke into a fast walk that turned into a slow loping trot. They moved south of the last of the guns, under the arc of the last shells, then turned eastward toward the docks. The sky ripped above them. M'Telgez felt his shoulders hunch; his hindbrain knew what that meant, only too well.

CRUMP. A heavy shell sledged into the empty space behind him. Seconds later dirt pattered down out of the air. At least they weren't firing airburst; it must be too difficult with no observation of the fall of shot. CRUMP. CRUMP. CRUMP. The last one fell on a gun that was moving parallel to the column of the 5th Descott, and the limber went up too in a huge ball of red-orange flame. Men screamed and dogs wailed ahead of him. An officer rode out; his pistol cracked as the dogs were put down, and the men swung up behind comrades, no time for first aid now. CRUMP. CRUMP. CRUMP. More shells went by overhead and blasted into the upper stories of empty houses. Adobe brick and fragments of roof tiles and burning planks cataracted into the streets. He kept his head down and followed the man ahead of him, hoping that the officers knew where they were going. Shells were coming overhead in a continuous stream, but a whole city was a big target.

Mother, he thought. This was worse than a battle; then you could do something.

* * *

Horace knew he was being ridden toward another boat ride. He turned nose-to-tail and circled. Raj cursed, but he didn't bother yanking on the reins; you could pull until the levers gouged a hole right through his cheeks, and Horace wouldn't pay much attention. Instead he let the knotted reins fall on the pommel and leaned forward, thumping the hound's neck with the flat of his hand.

"Come on, you son of a bitch," he said firmly. "We've got places to go and things to do. Stop this nonsense."

Horace lowered his ears and head and turned, breaking into a shambling trot. Raj's banner snapped in the night air; the Colonial shells went by overhead with their mechanical wails, a continuous diminuendo punctuated by the crash of the bursting charges. He pressed with his heels as a barricade of brick and burning rubble closed the way. Horace took it in a single long leap, then checked a pace to let the others come through. Heat slapped at him as they passed over the flame; a dog yelped suddenly as it stepped on a hot ember.

Raj grinned into the darkness. Well, we certainly got their attention, he thought.

all colonial guns are firing at maximum speed, Center noted. even with ample ammunition reserves, this will degrade performance and shorten the life of the barrels.

Raj nodded. Wasteful. The hotter a gun got, the worse the wear on the lands of the rifling. After a while it had to be sent back to the foundry to have a new sleeve fitted into the barrel and rifled, and it was never quite as good after that. The third time it had to be scrapped.

* * *

"Want to do the honors, mi heneral?" Jorg Menyez said.

He waved to the lines of slowmatch that snaked away among the warehouses and boatyards of Sandoral's docks. The raw smell of kerosene and gunpowder was thick in the air.

"Dinnalsyn assures me that it will all go off at about the same time."

Raj looked around with grim satisfaction. When the warehouses and shipyards went up, it would also take all the remaining timber in Sandoral suitable for boats or rafts or bridging materials. Ali might get the city, but he was damned if there'd be anything immediately useful in it when he did. No food, no building materials.

"I wouldn't dream of denying you the pleasure, Jorg," Raj said.

Menyez ceremoniously puffed on his cigarillo and applied the end to the slowmatch. It lit with a sullen hiss and trail of blue smoke.

"And now we bid farewell to beauteous Sandoral: land of exotic giant cockroaches, intolerable sticky heat-rash, and picturesque, hairy wogs with razor-sharp gelding knives," the infantryman mock-quoted. East Residence had enough of a middle class to support a tourist trade, mostly steamboat excursions to the Bay Islands. Guidebooks were common, too. "Hadios, mi heneral."

It probably did the men good to see their commanders relaxed and confident. It does me good. Jorg's usually a worrier. Morale's probably as high as it should be. Possibly higher than it should be. . Now who's worrying?

"Hadios, Jorg. See you downriver."

He turned Horace. Raft after raft was heading downstream, casting off behind its towing-barge. Sweeps tossed up small chuckling ripples of green water, a faint sheen under the crescent of Miniluna. As each loosed its ties to the anchor cables, another cluster of dogs and guns would trundle out across the linked rafts to the outermost. War-dogs whined as chain staples fastened their bridles to pins in the decking; the wheels of guns and limbers were lashed down, and another raft and barge combination was under way. Beyond the rafts boats speckled the water, sloops and ferries, and score after score of the pontoon barges.

Messengers trotted up, reported, left. Damn. Amazing. Only one traffic jam. And that caused by rubble blocking a street and the battalion assigned to it swerving into another's route. Paws and feet and wheels filled the night with a low rumble of purposeful noise, none of it as loud as the whistle and crash of two hundred Colonial guns bombarding the city. More starshells lightened the sky to the west, Colonial this time, put up so their artillery had better visibility.

* * *

"Shall I order a cease-fire?"

"No, Hussein," Tewfik replied, also in a whisper.

The central roof of the bunker had caved in, but the beams had not given way completely. They sagged to the floor, their jagged breaks splintered, like bone-white teeth. Dry dirt poured down still, pooling and spreading; soldiers dug bodies out of the pile, some wounded and some dead, and carried them up the stairs. Ripped down and stamped in a pile, the tapestries still smoldered from the burning kerosene that falling lamps had sprayed across them-sprayed across men, as well.

Although not, unfortunately, across my brother, Tewfik thought. It would be a disaster if Ali died just now. It might be salvation if he were struck down by an incapacitating injury; the longer, the better. There is no God but God, and all things are accomplished according to the will of God. But sometimes it was difficult to understand His tactics. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of burning carpets. More waste. The cost of them was enough to pay a brigade of cavalry for a year, and now they would be replaced. Transport would be commandeered to replace them, while the guns ate a month's reserve of ammunition.

"Amir, we will lose guns soon if we keep up this rate of fire," the officer warned. "The barrels are so hot we'll have cook-offs during reloading."

"Reduce the rate, but not so much that he" — he nodded to the other chamber of the bunker; Ali's sputtering curses could still be heard there, and occasionally a woman's scream- "will notice. Better to shoot the lands out of the barrels than have more executions."

The officer stroked his beard and leaned close. "Amir, it is time to consider if the House of Peace can stand, with this man at the head of it."

Tewfik stared into the other man's face for a moment; the brown eyes met his single one unflinching. Good. I have no cowards on my staff.

"He has no sons," he said quietly. "Nor do I."

"The Prophet Muhammed had no sons; but many rulers sprang from his daughters."

"And many wars sprang from the claims of his daughters' descendants and the orthodox caliphs, beginning with Kharballa," Tewfik pointed out. That had started a split that echoed down millennia, not even ending with the Last Jihad. "There are also too many nobles with enough of the Settler's blood to make a fair claim. Ali is no fool, he's killed the only ones with indisputable claims or great ability, or both. If we have civil war now, the kaphar and the Zanj and the northern savages will race each other to pick our bones. We must continue."

"For the present."

"For the present," Tewfik agreed. Until Ali alive becomes more a menace to the House of Islam than Ali dead, went unspoken between them. "Now go, and have the gunners reduce their rate of fire by one-third. On my authority."

I control the Host of Peace, but I cannot rule, he knew bitterly. Not in his own name. If only there were a male heir, a regency might be possible-but there was not. The mullahs would not issue the Friday prayer for one-eyed Tewfik; men would not obey, not without a soldier standing behind them. He would shatter what he most wished to preserve, if he tried that.

"Insh'allah."

The acrid gloom of the bunker was stifling. Left hand on the hilt of his yataghan, he strode up the stairs, past the protective curves and the intermediate guardroom. The blue-white sputtering light of starshells made him slit his eyes at the dark motionless bulk of Sandoral's low-slung walls. They mocked him from behind the moat, tantalized him. Men and dogs labored to bring the ammunition forward to the siege guns from the bombproofs set behind the main line, along pathways sunk into the ground with protective berms on either side. The gunners toiled, stripped to the waist, their faces and torsos black with powder smoke. Many had balls of cotton wool stuffed in their ears, but they courted deafness as well as death with every shot. It did not stop the smooth choreographed sequence of laying, swabbing, loading, ramming, firing.

A heavy shell bit a section out of the firing parapet in a clap of orange flame and rumble of sound. Water spurted up where the stone fell into the moat, leaving a ragged gap in the concrete core. No fire replied from the city.

"Was that your plan, Whitehall, to weaken our artillery? Did you know how my brother would respond to your taunt?"

The stonk on the command bunker had been wickedly well-placed. Whitehall was well served, good officers, brave and well-trained troops, well equipped. Does he know us well enough to predict that my brother would waste ammunition and guns like this? He nodded. Certainly.

"Yet it cannot affect the outcome of the war," he mused.

Could it be cover for another raid? Unlikely. With a pontoon bridge for rapid withdrawal and a secure fortified base, Whitehall had still been unable to do more than divert him temporarily. Now the land across the river was unfit to support moving troops. What could the infidel accomplish with the smaller number of men they could smuggle across the river now?

That was the problem. He did not know.

"Lord Amir. The Settler requires your presence."

Tewfik ground his teeth. He has beaten enough women to feel brave again, he thought. Now he must play at commander. And waste my time!

With an enemy like Whitehall, time was one thing you never had a surplus of. From all reports, Barholm Clerett was almost as difficult a master to serve as Ali ibn'Jamal-but at least he was far away.

* * *

The little galley Raj was using as his HQ had been some rich merchant's toy before war came to Sandoral, or perhaps belonged to a landowner with estates on the riverbank who wanted to be able to commute to his townhouse in the district capital. For a moment Raj wondered where he was, that little provincial oligarch. On the road west, grumbling in his carriage with a nagging wife and the nurse fussing with the children and a train of baggage carts behind? Perhaps already in East Residence, imposing on some distant relative or dickering with a lodging-keeper not at all impressed by anything from beyond the walls of the city. Or caught on his country property by Colonial raiders, and now tumbled bones in a ditch.

We must be making ten klicks per hour, he thought.

a range of 9.7 to 10.1, averaging 9.9 overall, Center said.

Tonight and tomorrow to reach their destination, traveling with the current. The men in the barges and boats were sculling, but more to keep station and direction than for propulsion. There were enough in each vessel to change off at frequent intervals, too.

"Over to Major Bellamy," Raj said, pointing.

The galley came about sharply, bringing a protesting whine from Horace and Harbie on the foredeck. The crew were all ex-boatmen and used to the shattering labor at the oars; one side dug theirs in hard, the other feathered, and the man at the tiller pushed it over. The slender boat turned in almost its own length and stroked eastward. Beside a raft crowded with troops and dogs it halted; Raj leaned over the side, one hand on the rail.

"There's your destination, Major," he said, pointing southward, downstream. "Remember the timing's crucial."

Bellamy waved back wordlessly, his bowl-cut blond hair bright in the darkness. His rowers bent to their work, and several of the other barges followed. Raj's galley curved back toward the main body of the straggling armada, like a sheepdog with its flock.

More like a pack of carnosauroids, Raj thought, watching the dull glint of moonlight on the barrels of the field pieces on a raft.

Suzette came up beside him, a cigarette glowing in its holder of carved sauroid ivory. "The waiting's the hardest part," she said.

"No, just the longest," Raj said. "Having to send others out, that's hardest."

She put an arm around his waist and leaned her head on his shoulder.