Empire from the Ashes

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Case shot screamed down the street as the Malagoran chagors recoiled, and High-Captain Therah winced as it scythed through his men. Teams of heretic infantry had hauled the light guns forward, and if their shot was only half as heavy as the Guard's arlaks threw, the smaller, lighter chagors were also far more maneuverable. Worse, the heretics could fire with impossible speed—faster than a Guard musketeer!—and the deadly guns had cost Therah's men dearly.

He still didn't know what had happened, but the heretics' conviction that any treachery had been the Temple's lent them a furious, driving power Therah had never faced in seven long Pardalian years as a soldier. Half of them were screaming "Lord Sean and no quarter!" as they charged, and all of them were fighting like the very demons they worshiped. By his most optimistic estimate, the Guard had already lost six or seven thousand men, and there was no end in sight. But the heretics were paying, too, for their fury drove them into headlong, battering attacks.

Which didn't mean they weren't winning. His men knew the city better than they, yet somehow they spotted every major flanking move. Smaller parties seemed able to evade their attention and hit their flanks out of alleys and side streets, yet such piecemeal attacks could only slow them, and the hordes of terrified civilians choking the streets shackled his own movements.

But he was learning, too, he thought grimly. His musketeers were no match for heretic riflemen in the open, so every precious musket was dug into the taller buildings along the heretics' line of advance. Their slower-firing smoothbores were just as deadly at close range, and their firing positions at second- and third-story loopholes shielded them from return fire. Therah was positive the heretics' losses were far higher than his own, yet still they drove forward, flowing down every side street, spreading out at every intersection. They bored ever deeper into the Temple, like a holocaust, and as the conflict spread, it grew harder and harder to control it or even grasp what was going on.

The chagors fired another salvo, and then the heretic infantry charged with their terrible, baying war cry. Their accursed pipes shrilled like damned souls, and their bayonets cut through the staggered ranks of his surviving pikemen. The heretics howled in triumph—and then their howls were drowned by the roar of arlaks. The pikes had held just long enough for the artillerists behind them to complete their chest-high barricade of paving stones, and the guns spewed flame through gaps in the crude barrier. Grape shot splashed walls and pavement with blood, and not even demon-worshipers could stand that fire. They fell back, running for their own guns, and a bitter duel sprang up between their chagors and the Guard arlaks. Field pieces thundered at one another at a range of no more than eighty paces, straight down the broad avenue of the North Way, and Therah turned away from the window to glare down at his map.

The heretic point was halfway to the Place of Martyrs, but he could hold. He knew he could. Their casualties were even greater than his, and, aside from the North Way itself, he'd stopped their advance along most of the main avenues within three or four thousand paces of North Gate. Now his guns were dug in across the North Way, and if he didn't expect them to hold for long, successive positions were being built behind them. He could bleed the heretics to death as they battered their way through one strongpoint after another, but only if he had more men!

It was the side streets. His strength was being eaten up in scores of small blocking forces, racing to cut off each new penetration. Every man he committed to holding them there was one less to cover the main thoroughfares, but if he didn't block the side routes, the heretics filtered forward—taking their accursed chagors with them—and cut in behind his main positions. He needed more men, yet Lord Marshal Surak refused to release them. A full third of the available Guard was still hammering away at the heretics' leaders or covering routes they might use to join their fellows if they somehow broke out of the artillery depot. The men Therah did have were fighting like heroes, but something was going to break if he couldn't convince Surak to reinforce him.

"Signalman!" He didn't even look up as a signals officer materialized beside him. "Signal to Lord Marshal Surak: 'I must have more men. We hold the main approaches, but the demon-worshipers are breaking through the side streets. Losses are heavy. Unless reinforced, I cannot be responsible for the consequences.' " He paused, wondering if he'd been too direct, then shrugged. "Send it."

He looked back out the window just as a ball from a heretic chagor struck an arlak on the muzzle. The gun tube leapt into the air like a clumsy talmahk, then crashed back down to crush half a dozen men, and he swore. His gunners were killing the heretic artillerists, but despite their barricade, they were being ground away by the demon-worshipers' greater rate of fire.

"Message to Under-Captain Reskah! He's to move his battery up to Saint Halmath Street. Have him deploy to take the heretics in flank as they advance on the Street of Lamps position. Then get another messenger to Under-Captain Gartha. He's to bring his pikes—"

High-Captain Therah went on barking orders even as his staff began to gather up their maps in preparation to fall back yet again.

Sean crouched behind his own rock pile with Sandy as the latest assault fell back into the smoke. The depot wall had become little more than a tumbled heap of broken stone, but his men were dug in behind it, and dead and dying Guardsmen littered the approaches. The wooden warehouses to the east were a roaring mass of flames, but the ones on the west side were stone, and the Guard arlaks in them were still in action.

Folmak crawled up beside him, keeping low as musket balls whined and skipped from the crude breastwork. The ex-miller's breastplate was dented, and his left arm hung in a bloody sling, but he carried a smoking pistol in his right hand. He flopped down beside Sean and passed the weapon back to his orderly to reload before he tugged a replacement from his sash.

"We're down to about nine hundred effectives, My Lord." The Malagoran coughed on the smoke. "I make it three hundred dead and six hundred wounded, and the surgeons are out of dressings." He turned his head to watch Sandy rip open an iron-strapped crate of musket ammunition with one bio-enhanced hand and managed a grim smile. "At least we've still got plenty of ammunition."

"Glad something's going right," Sean grunted, and rose cautiously to fire at a Guardsman. The man threw up his arms and sprawled forward, and Sean dropped back beside Folmak as answering fire cracked and whined about his ears.

He rolled on his back to reload the pistol, and his thoughts were grim. The Guard was coming at them only from the west now, but it was still coming. As Lee had proven at Cold Harbor and Petersburg, dug in riflemen could hold against many times their own numbers, but each assault crashed a little closer to success, like waves devouring a beach, and his line was a little thinner as each fell back. Another two or three hours, he thought.

He drew the hammer to the half-cocked safety position and primed the pistol while he stared up into the smoke-sick afternoon sky. He could hear the thunder of battle from the north in the rare intervals when the firing here slowed, and he was still tied into Brashan's arrays. The satellites could see less and less as smoke and the spreading fires blinded their passive sensors, but he was still in touch with Tibold and Harriet, as well. The ex-Guardsman had battered his way halfway to the Place of Martyrs, but at horrible cost. No one could be certain, and he knew people tended to assume the worst while the dying was still happening, but even allowing for that, Harriet estimated Tibold had lost over a sixth of his men. The Angels' Army was being ground away, and there was nothing he could do about it. Even if the army had tried, it was in too deep to disengage, and he knew Tibold would refuse to so much as make the attempt as long as he, Tamman, or Sandy were still alive.

Which they wouldn't be for too very much longer, he thought bitterly.

"Sean! Movement to the north!"

He rolled onto his side and rose on an elbow, peering to his right as Tamman's warning came over the com, but not even enhanced eyes could see anything from here.

"What kind of movement?" he asked, and there was a moment of silence before Tamman replied slowly.

"Dunno, Sean. Looks like... By God, it is! They're moving back!"

"Moving back?" Sean looked at Sandy. Her smoke-grimed face was drawn, but she shrugged her own puzzlement. "Are they shifting west, Tam?"

"No way. They're pulling straight back. Just a sec." There was another pause as Tamman crawled through the rubble to a better vantage point. "Okay. I can see 'em better now. Sean, the bastards are forming a route column! They're moving straight towards the Place of Martyrs!"

Sean was about to reply when a junior officer flung himself on his belly behind the rock pile. The young man was breathing hard and filthy from head to toe, but he slapped his breastplate in a sort of abbreviated salute.

"Lord Sean! They're moving back on the south side."

"How far back?"

"Their musketeers are still in the buildings, but their pikemen are falling clear back behind them, My Lord."

Sean stared at him and forced his cringing brain to work. The Guard had to know it was grinding the First away, so why fall back now? It couldn't be simply to reorganize, not if Tamman was right about the column marching north for the Place of Martyrs. But if not that, then—

"They're reinforcing against Tibold," he said softly. Folmak looked at him for a moment, then nodded.

"They must be," he agreed, and Sean looked at the under-captain.

"How many pikes did they pull off the south side?"

"I'm not certain, My Lord—" the Malagoran began, and Sean shook his head.

"Best guess. How many?"

"At least five thousand."

"Tam? How many from your side?"

"I make it what's left of seven or eight thousand pikes. They've left musketeers to keep us busy, but I'd guess there's no more than a thousand pikemen to support them."

Sean frowned, then switched to Tibold's com frequency.

"Tibold, they're pulling men away from us. We're guessing it at ten to twelve thousand pikes."

"Away from you?" The ex-Guardsman was hoarse and rasping from hours of bellowing orders, but there was nothing wrong with his brain. "Then they're sending them here."

"Agreed. What will that do to you?"

"It won't be good, Lord Sean," Tibold said grimly. "My lead brigades are down to battalion strength by now. We're still moving forward, but it's by finger spans. If they bring that many fresh men into action—" He broke off, and Sean could almost see his shrug.

"How long for them to get to you?"

"Under these conditions? At least an hour."

"All right, Tibold. I'll get back to you."

"Sean?" He looked up as Sandy said his name, and her eyes bored into his.

"Give me a minute." He turned to Folmak and pointed to the gaunt, fortress-like main arsenal building which sheltered their wounded.

"How many men do you need to garrison the arsenal?"

"Just the arsenal?" Sean nodded, and the Malagoran rubbed his filthy face with his good hand. "Three hundred to cover all four walls and give me some snipers upstairs."

"Only three hundred?" Sean pressed, and Folmak smiled grimly.

"We've already prepared it for our last stand, Lord Sean, and we've got half a dozen of their arlaks on each wall at ground level. I've got a couple of hundred wounded who can still shoot, and a hundred more who can still load for men who aren't hurt, and we've got plenty of rifles no one needs anymore. I can hold it with three hundred, My Lord. Not forever, but for a couple of hours, at least."

"Make it four hundred."

"Yes, My Lord." Folmak nodded but never looked away from his commander. "Why, My Lord?" he asked bluntly.

"Because I'm taking the rest of your people on a little trip, Folmak." Sean bared his teeth at the Malagoran's expression. "No, I'm not crazy. The Guard wants us, Folmak. They wouldn't ease up on us if they had any choice, so if they're pulling men from here to throw at Tibold, they've probably already pulled in everyone they can scrape up from anywhere else."

"And?" Folmak asked repressively.

"And everyone they've got left is almost certainly between us and Tibold. If I can break out to the south while they're all going north, I may just be able to pay a little visit to High Priest Vroxhan in person and, ah, convince him to call this whole thing off."

"You're mad, My Lord. High-Captain Tibold would have my guts for tent ropes if I let you try something like that!"

"We'll all have to be alive for that to happen, and you and I won't be unless I can at least distract them from reinforcing against Tibold. Think about it, Folmak. If I break out in their rear, headed away from them, they're bound to turn at least some of their men around to nail me, and we can raise all kinds of hell before they catch up to us. While we're doing that, Tibold may actually manage to break through."

"You're mad," Folmak repeated. He locked stares with Sean, but it was the ex-miller whose eyes finally fell. "You are mad," he said sighing, "but you're also in command. I'll give you what's left of the Second Regiment."

"Thank you." Sean gripped the Malagoran's shoulder hard for a moment. "In that case, you'd better go start getting things organized."

"Which way will you go?"

"We'll start out to the east. The fires have them disorganized on that side."

"Very well. I'll see about getting some guns into position to lay down fire before you go. At least—" the First's commander summoned a smile "—there's no wall to block our fire any longer!"

He turned to crawl away, shouting for his surviving messengers, and a small, dirty hand gripped Sean's elbow.

"He's right, you're out of your damned mind!" Sandy hissed. "You'll never get past their perimeter, and even if you do, you don't even know where to find Vroxhan in all this!" She waved her other hand blindly at the smoke, and the gesture was taut with anger.

"No, I don't," Sean agreed quietly, "but I know where the Sanctum is."

"The—?" Sandy froze, staring into his eyes, and he nodded.

"If Tam and I get into the Sanctum—and we might just pull it off while everybody's fighting on the north side of town—we can take over the computer. And if we shut down the inner defense net, then Brash and Harry can get fighters in here and knock the guts out of the Guard."

"You'll never make it," she whispered, her face ashen under its grime, but her voice was already defeated by the knowledge that he had to try.

"Maybe not, but we can sure as hell worry the bastards!" he said with a savage grin.

"Then I'm coming with you," she said flatly.

"No! If we break out, most of them'll come after us. There won't be enough to take Folmak out, and I want you here where it's safe!"

"Fuck you, Sean MacIntyre!" she shouted in sudden fury. "Goddamn it to hell, do you think I want to be safe while you're out there somewhere?" She jabbed a hand at the billowing smoke, and he watched in amazement as tears cut clean, white tracks down her filthy face. "Well, the hell with you, Your Highness! I'm an officer, too, not a goddamned 'angel'! And I am coming with you! If something happens to you and Tam, maybe I can get to the computer!"

"I—" Sean started to snap back, then closed his eyes and bent his head to stare down at his clenched fists. She was right, he thought drearily. He wanted—God, how he wanted!—to make her stay behind, but that was because he loved her, and it didn't change the fact that she was right.

"All right," he whispered finally, and looked up, blinking on his own tears. He reached out to cup the side of her face and managed a wan smile. "All right, you insubordinate little bitch." She caught his wrist, pressing her cheek tightly into his palm for just a moment, then released him and rolled to her knees.

"You tell Harry and Tibold what we're up to. I'll go help Tam get things organized."