Iron Gray Sea

CHAPTER 4

Ghaarrichk’k Madurai

Provisional capital of Grik India after the loss of Ceylon

N’galsh, Vice Regent of India and Ceylon, was almost keening with woe in the Speaking Chamber of the ancient temple. He was one of the few beings who knew that the odd stone structure festooned with the curious weathered remnants of unknown creatures carved on nearly every exposed surface actually predated the Grik conquest, which had occurred perhaps five hundred years before, but he cared nothing about that now. General Halik had been intrigued by the structure when he first arrived, and General Niwa assumed a troubled expression. But Halik’s interest had quickly turned to the subject at hand, and now he glared at N’galsh with a loathing he could no longer conceal. He’d had just about enough of the officious, elitist, fear-crazed creature, and wondered that N’galsh had not already turned prey despite his Hij status. It had been a rough day for them all. Why could N’galsh not contain himself?

“They are coming, probably with the dawn!” N’galsh cried. “The world burns. It heaves! They will cross the Ceylon Tongue, and if you do not send more warriors, they will soon have all India as well! You must bring your warriors forward!”

“Silence!” General Halik finally snarled. “You lost any entitlement to make demands of me that your exalted station may once have afforded you, N’galsh, when you abandoned Colombo while the Battle of the Highlands was at its peak! It is you who cost us Ceylon, and you attend me now only at my sufferance!”

N’galsh’s mouth snapped shut with a stunned, toothy clack, but he was clearly preparing to open it again when General Orochi Niwa of the Jaaph Hunters, Halik’s implicit co-commander, stepped beside him.

“Consider before you speak, Lord Vice Regent N’galsh,” he warned. “This war was never meant to be decided in India. The enemy was supposed to extend his lines to the breaking point before we struck in earnest. Now, largely because of you, India increasingly becomes the focus of both sides-and our lines of supply are even more tenuous than those of our foes. Regardless of whether General Halik is right or not, the Celestial Mother herself appointed him to command here, and in martial matters even you must no longer interfere.” He shrugged slightly. “The only matters remaining in India now are military and within the province of the Great Hunt. Right now, he may feed you to his lowliest Uul, if he likes.”

N’galsh shrank back from the strange creature who so rarely spoke to or around him.

Niwa turned to Halik. “Anything more you send into that… grinder of meat will be wasted, General. Too many are already being wasted there, and our reserves are not what they were. I know you sent word that we could hold this land if General Esshk would send us the… more mature of his ‘Chosen Warrior’ hatchlings, and I even agree, but we must meet the enemy on ground of our choosing to gain the time for them to arrive.”

Despite himself, N’galsh hissed. Until recently, the chosen hatchlings Niwa referred to were selected by the Chooser, or members of his order, to be eaten at birth. The world as he knew it had gone insane.

“ If he sends them,” Halik growled, glancing darkly at N’galsh.

“If, indeed. Nonetheless, this can be our kind of fight.”

Halik nodded, still staring at N’galsh with contempt. “Yes, it can, and you are right. We will send no more warriors into the fight for the Tongue. The enemy will cross and he will be blooded by the Uul that survive there-those not already made prey.” He took a long breath. “Perhaps it might be different with the chosen warriors, as it is said. Perhaps they can defend. But they are not here now, and we will make this fight for India in the old way, even if just for one final time. But this time, we will strike when we choose.”

A mud-spattered First of One Hundred suddenly dashed into the chamber and sprawled on the stone floor amid a clatter of equipment. In Halik’s army, such creatures were not necessarily elevated to the exalted rank of Hij, but they were no longer just Uul either. Halik had been such a creature himself and understood the potential of older, experienced Uul. In a sense, they were Hij-in all but education-and they could think.

“Speak!” Halik commanded. Still groveling, the creature hissed without looking upon him.

“The prey comes!” it said.

“So soon,” Niwa mused. “I had expected a dawn attack, although that is not long now.”

“As had I,” Halik admitted. He considered how to get the most information out of the underofficer. “Do they come in force? Are there many of them on the Tongue?”

“Not the Tongue, Lord General!” the creature whined. “I runned here, long way. Others runned long way first! I told to repeat, ‘The prey is ashore in strength at Madras!”

Niwa straightened, and Halik stood from his lounging hassock. “Madras!” they chorused, and looked at each other, both their faces hardening in their own way.

“They have done it to us again!” Halik breathed bitterly.

“Yes,” Niwa said, thoughtful, even with a touch of admiration, “but where they have landed changes nothing. True, we must deploy to react, even launch spoiling attacks to keep them off balance, but the bulk of our army must remain concentrated! We can still choose our ground!”

“Yes,” Halik replied, looking at the great map on the broad table. “But first we must see where they turn, how they face.” He stared hard at Madras on the map. “Not this time, my clever foe!” he softly swore. “We are learning, you see. This time, you have leaped upon the back of the radaachk’kar, and it will snatch you off. This time I will have you!”

Madras Crossroads

The sun was above the horizon now, and Colonel Billy Flynn’s Rangers remained crouched behind what cover they could find. The ground in front of their position heaved with mewling, wounded Grik, and feathery reptilian corpses lay sprawled before and among the bloody, exhausted troops. The Rangers and 1st of the 2nd Marines had reached their objective after floundering in the dense, almost junglelike forest for unanticipated hours before they finally cut the road that led them here. Only the most meager protective breastworks had been thrown up before the first sizable Grik force arrived and charged headlong in their singular, terrifying way to slaughter them. As usual, there’d been little organization to the attack, just a pell-mell, roaring sprint up the south fork of the road. But the blow fell with such sudden ferocity, Flynn nearly lost his tenuous grip on the strategic choke point. That initial attack was finally crushed only by concentrated volleys of loose-fitting “buck and ball” from the muzzle-loading Baalkpan Arsenal rifled muskets in the steady hands of Flynn’s veteran regiment, and the rapid fire of the Marines’ “Allin-Silva” conversions. In many places along the hasty line, the issue was settled with bayonets.

Sporadic flights of crossbow bolts still thrump ed out of the woods on the south side of the cut, and General Lord Rolak’s guards ringed and defended him with their bronze-faced shields as he paced along, congratulating the defenders. Things were firming up now, with the arrival of General Taa-leen’s 1st “Galla” Division-mostly regiments from Baalkpan and B’mbaado-and the weight of General Rin-Taaka-Ar’s 2nd Division was starting to be felt on the left flank. There were still plenty of Grik in those woods, however, and Rolak wished the comm ’Cats of the signal corps would hurry and catch them so he could get reports directly from the aircraft beginning to crisscross the sky above.

“General Lord Rolak!” cried a ’Cat in a Maa-ni-la accent. Rolak turned to see a meanie blowing through snot-slinging nostrils and clenched teeth. Several crossbow bolts festooned the ugly beast and blood leaked down its flanks, but the wounds were shallow and didn’t seem to have worsened the creature’s normally foul disposition. A Maa-ni-lo, still in Saan-Kakja’s black-and-yellow livery, sat atop the surly mount.

“Get down from there, you fool!” Rolak cried. The rider ignored the order, but saluted.

“General Rolak, my orders are to locate you and ask if you do not agree that a corps commander’s proper place in battle is a suitably removed position from which he can coordinate the movements of all the troops under his command, and not only the handful around him.”

A tired cheer arose from the nearby troops, but Rolak slumped a bit. “Please tell my dear Queen Protector that I am withdrawing, duly chastened, to such a suitable place as we speak,” he said a little ruefully. The cav ’Cat saluted again and lashed his animal with a heavy quirt. With another shower of snot, the meanie bolted back the way it had come, chased by another flurry of bolts-which provoked more musket fire.

“Colonel Flynn!” Rolak called, as the former infantryman/submariner-turned-infantryman-again rejoined him in a crouching rush. “I must retire. Thank you for your forbearance. General Taa-leen should join you shortly. Please express my compliments to the commanders of the Fifth and Seventh Baalkpan, and tell them I said they should advance behind a wall of fire and clear those archers from the woods! Your Rangers and Marines have done enough for now, and deserve a rest.” He paused. “But I suppose even division commanders should not expose themselves as I have.” He sighed heavily, and from another the gesture might have seemed overly theatrical, but with Rolak… that’s just how he was. He looked back at Flynn. “Sometimes the old way of things, for my people, at least, overcomes my senses.”

Flynn, with his white-streaked red hair poking from under his helmet, laughed. “Aye, sir, I know how you feel. That’s how I wound up back in the infantry!” Flynn had been a foot soldier in the Great War before joining the Navy and the submarine service. “I’ll pass the word,” he added. “Then, once those archers are cleared, we’ll get back to work on the breastworks. They’ll probably have at us again before long.”

“No doubt.” Rolak glanced around, taking in the bodies and the height of the sun once more. Then he gazed northeast, where a mighty column of smoke towered high enough that he could see it above the trees. Madras was burning. “The enemy certainly knows we are here now, Colonel. They will be back, and this position must hold.”

Marine Captain Bekiaa-Sab-At, Flynn’s exec, scrambled behind the protective shields, her hot musket in her hand. “The enemy fire is slacking,” she said, even as the replying musketry around them continued to taper off. A Grik horn boomed in the distance. It might have been calling for a while.

“That is a redeployment call,” Rolak said, “if Hij-Geerki described it properly.” He’d left his pet Grik aboard ship-for now. He actually trusted the pathetic creature, but no sense in tempting him, he figured. “They may have learned to use it for the same effect as a retreat call, to preserve their warriors from Braad-furd’s Grik Rout. I wonder…” He looked at Flynn. “Don’t rely on it, though. It is just a thought.” He blinked apologetically. “Now I must retreat, I fear.” He gestured back at the sun. “Your deeds have been noted this day, my friends! Farewell!” He turned and strode away, back up the road they’d so recently found, against the tide of marching troops coming to their relief.

“He is a good one,” Bekiaa said. “He reminds me a little of Captain Garrett. I think troops would follow anywhere he chose to lead them.”

“Sure,” Flynn agreed. “ We did. And he is a little like that Garrett kid-just older, with a tail, gray fur, pointy ears…”

Bekiaa chuckled. She was the only Marine still with the regiment; the others had been reassigned. She’d commanded USS Tolson ’s Marine contingent, and she and some sailors and Marines from Donaghey, Tolson, and Revenge had volunteered for Flynn’s outfit after Revenge was sunk by a fish, and Russ Chapelle’s Tolson and Garrett’s Donaghey went aground. Greg Garrett had inspired her by leading them through the terrible shore action that followed. Tolson had been destroyed, but Donaghey was ultimately salvaged. Bekiaa still meant to go back to sea when Chapelle got a new ship or Donaghey ’s refit was complete. As much as she liked and admired Russ Chapelle, however, for some reason, she really wanted to join Donaghey — and Captain Garrett. Maybe it was because Donaghey was the last of the first new-construction frigates and still relied entirely on sails, or maybe it was because she’d spent most of that nightmare fight at Greg Garrett’s side. In the meantime, she and Flynn’s “amalgamated” Rangers had fought across Ceylon, and now they were here. Donaghey ’s exec, and “Salig Maa-stir,” Lieutenant Commander Saraan-Gaani-whom Bekiaa had a mountainous crush on-had also been with the regiment for a time, but had been sent as an envoy to his native Great South Island in hopes of bringing that land into the war.

“You know what I mean,” Bekiaa said at last.

“Sure I do. Some folks have it, like Rolak, Garrett, the Skipper. I think General Alden and Queen Maraan have it… and so do you.”

“Me?!”

“Yep.”

There was an awkward almost silence punctuated by a few occasional shots as Rangers slew the least-wounded Grik they saw. No ammunition would be wasted on the rest. The Grik were gone for now, Flynn judged. The 5th and 7th could take a break. He’d get some pickets out, though. “All right,” Flynn said brusquely, loudly. “They ain’t payin’ us by the hour. Company commanders to me! Even-numbered companies will take the first shift on the breastworks detail. Let’s move the whole thing forward a little, and get a better alignment with the Tenth Baalkpan on our right!”

A PB-1B “Nancy” roared by overhead, its OC (observer/copilot) dropping a weighted note with a colorful streamer attached. A squad from the 1st Marines went for it and brought it to Flynn, who was acting division CO. “Okay,” Flynn drawled after he unwrapped the dispatch and read it. “This says there’s a bigger Grik force charging up the road through what’s left of the one we pushed around. Ought to be here inside an hour.”

“That is as we expected,” Bekiaa said.

Flynn’s face scrunched into a skeptical expression. He waved the note. “Sure, but the flyboys say there’s nothing behind that force at all. Not on the south road, anyway. Weird.”

“Then we should be grateful. Perhaps we did achieve surprise. It might take them days to react in force.”

“Maybe…” Flynn shook his head. “Never mind. Maybe I’m still spooked by how they hid tens of thousands of their warriors in those mountains east of Colombo-and I figure it would be a lot easier to stash them in a jungle!” He snorted. “Well, big-picture thinking’s not my job, thank God. There’s still a lot of Griks coming our way and we’ll be plenty busy before long. Better get at it on the breastworks-and tell the fellas to expect a million of those Grik buggers by morning, from any damn direction! I don’t care what the flyboys say.”