By Heresies Distressed (35 page)

His and Baron Seamount's own experiments had quickly demonstrated that field artillery firing solid projectiles was most effective when the ground was hard enough to produce ricochets and the gunners had learned how to judge the strike of their shot in order to bounce it through an enemy formation. Grapeshot and canister could benefit from the same effect, although they couldn't hope to match the effective range of round shot.

In this instance, the ground was almost certainly too soft for good grazing fire, he reflected. Still, he would have liked to know whether or not the Chisholmians had reached the same conclusions. Sooner or later, they
were
going to wind up fighting each other when the ground was hard enough, and it would be nice to not have it come as a surprise if the Corisandians were prepared to bounce their shots into his men.

Let's see
, he thought.
I see lots of infantry out there in front of me. What I
don't
see is their cavalry. I wonder
. . . .

He gazed speculatively north, once again wishing that he had a decent mounted element of his own. If this Gahrvai was as good as he was supposed to be—and the fact that he'd produced this much fighting power in what had to seem like an ideal position on the basis of everything he knew about the Marines' weaponry certainly indicated that he was—then that cavalry had to be somewhere. And the most likely place for it to be was waiting where it ought to be able to cut off Clareyk's retreat back into that blasted wilderness.

“We need another message, Bryahn,” he said.

“All right, I don't like this,” Sir Charlz Doyal muttered.

The Charisian artillery, despite the fact that it had only a dozen pieces, was angling across the developing battlefield straight towards his own thirty-five guns. That indicated either terminal stupidity (which, given what Charis had recently done to the navies of its various opponents, didn't seem particularly likely) or else that the gunners on the other side knew something he didn't. Which seemed entirely
too
likely.

Maybe they're just counting on their greater range
, he thought.
We don't know how much greater it is, but if they stay more than five or six hundred yards out, we won't be able to reach them effectively even with round shot. Not on ground this soft. And I'll bet you
they've
got a range closer to a thousand or even fourteen hundred yards. This is going to be unpleasant
.

Still, ultimately the only function of the artillery on either side was to support the infantry. And the infantry battalions on both sides were continuing to march straight towards each other. Eventually, that was going to bring the Charisians into Doyal's range, whatever their own artillery might be up to. And if he and Sir Koryn's infantry could kill enough of
their
infantry, then their guns wouldn't be enough to stem the tide of disaster.

“Steady. Steady, lads,” Sergeant Wystahn murmured, even though all but two of the men of his platoon were well outside earshot. If he'd thought about it at all, he would have admitted it was really more of a supplication to whichever of the archangels might be listening than an admonition to his Marines.

The rest of the Third Brigade was advancing steadily behind him through what struck him as a profoundly unnatural quiet. The pipes began to skirl, but even that seemed distant and far away. He could still hear distant birdcalls and the hum and zing of insects buzzing about in the tall, almost ripe wheat in which he and his men lay concealed.

He raised his head cautiously, lifting just the crown of his hat above the wheat. At the moment, that hat looked far less martial than it did on the parade ground, which didn't bother Edvarhd Wystahn one little bit. The overwhelming majority of the scout-snipers were farm boys like Wystahn himself. Most of them had hunted—some, like the senior corporal of Wystahn's own platoon, had probably supported themselves as poachers, in fact—and they understood how concealment worked. The handful of city boys who made it through the rigorous scout-sniper training program had to learn that, and most of them thought it was funny as hell the first time they were ordered to attach random greenery to their hats. That amusement tended to disappear quickly, though, as soon as they discovered how simply breaking up the outline of a human head could make it disappear into background vegetation. Which just went to show that even city boys could learn if their sergeants were prepared to kick them in the arse hard enough.

He brushed that thought aside while he raised his eyes just high enough to see across the gently waving sea of wheat, then grunted in satisfaction. The Corisandian infantry formations were moving forward, as well, and he tried to tell himself he was glad to see it. He didn't quite manage to convince himself of that, though. Satisfied that the enemy was performing as hoped, yes; glad to see several thousand armed men moving straight towards him, no.

Oh, hold your water, Edvarhd!
he told himself sternly.
And while you're doing that, check your priming
.

Captain Ahntahn Illian was young enough that excitement and anticipation almost overwhelmed his anxiety.

Almost.

His youthful self-image didn't like admitting that that qualifier applied, but given the sweatiness of his grip on his sword hilt and the queasiness stirring around in his belly, he couldn't very well deny it. Not that he intended to let any of his men see it. His battalion commander and his senior sergeant, at least, knew this was going to be his very first battle, and he rather hoped they'd kept that information to themselves. He'd been very careful not to tell anyone else that it
wasn't
, but he also hadn't gone out of his way to admit he'd never yet smelled powder smoke in actual combat, and he'd just as soon not have any of the members of his company figure it out at this particular moment. Somehow, he doubted the discovery would have contributed to their confidence in his leadership.

He looked up as the sound of the Charisian bagpipes rose against the morning quiet. It still seemed distant, faint, like a backdrop behind the closer-to-hand swishing sound of thousands of boots behind him, moving through the waist-high, dew-slick wheat. Behind the muted clatter, jingle, and scrape of weapons, the distant shouts of command from his fellow officers and leather-lunged sergeants, and his own breathing. Morning sunlight was warm on his face, although rain clouds were gathering in the west behind him. It wasn't going to be as hot as yesterday, and he found himself suddenly hoping desperately that he'd be around to see the rain when it finally began to fall.

He rested the flat of his drawn sword across his shoulder, as he'd seen his more experienced fellows doing, and concentrated on striding confidently. His breeches were already soaked from the morning's dew, and his lips quirked in sudden amusement.

At least this way no one's going to be able to tell it if I piss myself when the shooting starts!

They were starting to get closer to the enemy, and he glanced back over his shoulder to check the major's position. He wasn't worried about dressing his own company's ranks; his sergeants knew their business far better than he did, and they would have resented the very suggestion that they needed his oversight to do their jobs properly. At the moment,
his
job, like that of every other company commander in the leading battalions, was to look confident as he walked straight towards the enemy with unquestioning assurance that his perfectly formed up company was following on his heels.

It's a lot harder to do this when there are real people with real guns waiting for me
, he reflected.
And they do have a
lot
of muskets. In fact, I don't see a single pike over there
.

His eyes narrowed as he realized he truly didn't see a single pike. Corisande's new flintlock muskets had a much higher rate of fire than old-fashioned matchlocks, and he had no doubt the Charisians' weapons could fire at least as rapidly. Even so, it was unlikely musket fire alone would keep a determined enemy from closing, and if
that
happened, they were going to miss those pikes—badly. But the Charisians had to know that at least as well as he did, so why . . .?

He forced himself to set that question aside, although the back of his mind suggested that he'd just seen one of the reasons there were no pikemen on the other side of the field.

He glanced back at the major again, waiting for the signal. The distance between the opposing front lines had closed to little more than five hundred yards. According to their orders, they were supposed to advance to seventy-five or eighty yards before firing. If their firepower proved as effective as everyone expected—or hoped, at least—they would stay at that range and pound away until the Charisians broke. If it turned out that, for some reason, their fire
wasn't
as effective as expected, the pikemen would charge with the musketeers following in support. Since the Charisians were advancing towards them, as well, it was up to the major to indicate exactly where and when he wanted his battalion halted, which was why Illian was watching him. And, undoubtedly, why the major was watching the colonel, who had to decide where the entire regiment would halt.

Sergeant Wystahn's eyes narrowed as the Corisandians continued to wade through the tall wheat towards him. It was odd. He'd felt more than a little nervous when Colonel Zhanstyn had given him his orders and informed him that it was up to
him
—Sergeant Edvarhd Wystahn—to decide when to fire the very first shot of the battle. Now that the moment was almost upon him, that particular nervousness had vanished. He couldn't say he missed it, but he did wish it could have taken all of his other nervousnesses with it.

He had to admit the Corisandians were maintaining almost perfect formation as they advanced. That wasn't easy, especially when the troops had to trample their way through wheat this high, and it didn't do much for the wheat fields in question, either. The local farmers were going to be pissed off, he thought. The field behind the oncoming enemy had been trampled as flat as a pavement by thousands upon thousands of feet. One of the horse-drawn reapers couldn't have cut the unharvested wheat any shorter. Rabbits, hedge lizards, grass lizards, quail, and white-ringed field wyverns rustled and swarmed through the still-standing wheat, fleeing before those oncoming, trampling feet, and Wystahn felt a certain sympathy for them. He'd like to be fleeing, too, if he was going to be honest about it, and he wondered what would happen when the wildlife running away from the Corisandians ran into the wildlife running away from the Charisians?