By Heresies Distressed (59 page)

Colonel Zhanstyn waited with them. His battalion formed the long side of the square closest to the enemy, and he'd dismounted to stand beside the battalion standard, sword in hand, his eyes on the enemy.

There wouldn't be time to reload before the first wave was upon them, whatever happened, and he had no intention of wasting the shock value of a massed volley by firing too soon. It wasn't just a matter of range or accuracy; it was also a matter of
timing
, of hitting those cavalrymen not simply with the physical impact of his Marines' bullets, but with their
morale
effect, as well—and doing it at precisely the right moment.

The Corisandian cavalry thundered downhill, opened up into proper double-lines. Now the leading troopers tightened in the saddle, bracing for impact as they hurtled straight at the Charisian formation. The hedge of unwavering bayonet points glittered wickedly in the early-afternoon sunlight, but at least they weren't
pikes
. In another few seconds—

The universe came apart in a sudden, thunderous roll of rifle fire.

There were roughly eight hundred men in the Charisian square, with four platoons—roughly eighty men—in each of its short sides, covering either flank. Another hundred men formed its rear face, facing downhill, covering the backs of the two hundred and twenty men in its front face, and a forty-man reserve stood ready in the middle of the formation, prepared to reinforce any weak spot. Its long face was roughly a hundred yards from side to side, barely a third of the oncoming cavalry's frontage, and it looked impossibly frail in the face of such a threat.

If the Charisians in that square realized that, they gave no sign of it.

As Windshare's cavalry charge poured down the hillside like a river of horseflesh and steel, the hundred and fifty rifles in the square's second and third ranks flamed as one.

The impact of that deadly volley was staggering, and in more than one way. Every man in Windshare's charge had seen those bayonets, and because they'd never heard of “ring bayonets,” which mounted
around
a rifle's muzzle instead of being shoved down into the weapon's bore, they'd
known
that the musketeers behind them couldn't possibly fire. The surprise when they went right ahead and fired anyway was total. Even if those bullets had inflicted no casualties at all, the sheer shock of experiencing yet another surprise at Charisian hands would have dealt the cavalry's confidence and determination a deadly blow.

And, unfortunately for Corisande, the Charisian bullets
did
inflict casualties, as well.

Horses were big targets; men were relatively small ones. No more than twenty or thirty of Windshare's troopers were actually hit by the Charisian fire. Those who
were
hit went down hard as the massive bullets smashed through breastplates and the fragile bodies beneath them, yet they represented only a handful of that onrushing wave's total numbers.

But the horses were another matter. Holes appeared abruptly in the center of the Corisandian line as screaming horses smashed to earth. Riders were flung out of their saddles, only to find themselves in the path of the second line of troopers behind them. Ordinarily, a horse will do almost anything to avoid colliding with a human, but there was no way
these
horses could. They were moving too fast, with too much momentum, with too many
other
horses right behind them, and they trampled the dismounted cavalrymen into bloody mud.

The bodies of the fallen horses were a more serious obstacle, and the face of the charging formation splintered as the horses still on their feet tried frantically to avoid the tangled wreckage of their dead and wounded fellows. Many of them failed, plowing into the barrier, shrieking as legs broke, riders went flying, and fresh, thrashing bodies were added to the heap.

Zhanstyn had timed his volley almost perfectly. There was time enough to break the cavalry's momentum, distance enough for the leading edge of the charge to spread out around the sudden obstacle and lose cohesion, but too little time for it to begin to recover. And, just as horses will instinctively seek to avoid trampling a downed human, they have a pronounced aversion to charging straight into the solid barrier of a glittering wall of sharpened steel. With their momentum broken, their ranks staggered, their riders unnerved, they refused the challenge. Instead, they split around the square, flowing down its short sides, and fresh rifle volleys ripped out as their momentum carried them across the flank platoons' field of fire.

Then they were past the square . . . and its
rear
wall fired a deadly volley into their backs.

There wasn't time for Windshare to even begin to analyze what had happened to his first wave before his
second
wave came thundering in, ten seconds later.

Those ten seconds hadn't been quite long enough for the firing ranks to reload, but the kneeling
front
rank hadn't fired against the first wave. Now, the second rank advanced its bayonets at the thrust, reaching well forward over the heads of the front rank, while that front rank raised its rifles and fired its own vicious volley at point-blank range.

It was only half as heavy as the volley which had broken the first charge, but it was enough to stagger the second, especially with the writhing drift of dead and wounded horses and bodies from the first double-line's wreckage to help disorder the Corisandian formation, and the surviving horses of the second wave were no more eager than their fellows had been to thrust themselves against those waiting bayonets. They fought their riders, and even as they did, the square's third rank finished reloading, leveled its rifles, and fired at a range of less than thirty feet.

The carnage was incredible, yet even in the midst of the blood, the smoke, and the screams, some of Windshare's troopers actually managed to close with the Marines. Lances crossed with bayoneted muskets, swords flashed, and blood splashed across the grassy hillside, and then the
third
wave plowed into the melee.

In most places, the square held. Unshaken infantry in tight formation and under firm tactical control stood an excellent chance against cavalry. It was
broken
infantry, or an unsteady formation, which formed cavalry's legitimate prey, and the Charisians refused to be broken. Yet the Corisandians were just as determined, and Charisians began to die, as well.

A hole opened in the square's front as Windshare's third line slammed home. One of the reserve platoons moved quickly to seal the gap, but half a dozen Corisandian horsemen burst through it before they could. Brigadier Clareyk's command group were the only mounted troops under his command, and he slapped home his heels, spurring to meet the breakthrough with his staff officers.

One rider had started moving an instant before the hole actually opened, however. He wore the black and gold kraken on the blue checkerboard shield of the Charisian Imperial Guard, and his katana flashed in his hand. He went into the oncoming Corisandians like a battering ram, and a head flew. Before that first head hit the ground, Merlin's blade had claimed a second.

He passed through them like the archangel of death, then drove his horse directly into the gap and flung himself from the saddle to wield his sword two-handed while Clareyk and his staffers dealt with the two Corisandians he hadn't killed on his way through. In the handful of seconds it took for the reserve platoon to reach him, he killed another nine men.

The Earl of Windshare found himself unhorsed once more, and this time with no dislocated shoulder. The bayonet wound in his right thigh bled badly, and he sat up, squeezing the leg with both hands, trying to staunch the flow of blood. Horses stamped and reared and screamed all about him, steel beat on steel with the dull, hideous blacksmith sound of a battlefield's death mill in full production, but he could feel the battle's tempo. When the hole had opened, he'd hoped they might still at least break this square. Now he knew they wouldn't. The shock of the Charisians' preposterously rapid response—the fact that they'd been able to fire after all, and the
effectiveness
of their fire—had broken his men's resolve, and he could already hear additional rifles, and artillery, firing from farther down the slope, where two more Charisian battalions had deployed into a standard firing line to cover the square's flanks with their preposterously long-range fire. He could also make out the sound of his own bugles, still blowing the charge, sending more of his men forward into the maelstrom, and something inside him cringed at the thought. Even if his men kept trying, all they could accomplish would be to die in even greater numbers, and—

Some instinct warned him, and he looked up just as one of those shrieking horses reared high and then came toppling down straight at him. There was nothing he could do, but then a human-shaped hand closed on the back of his weapons harness, and his eyes went wide as it effortlessly yanked him out of the falling horse's path.

He found himself being supported with one hand by a tall, broad-shouldered Charisian in the black-and-gold of the House of Ahrmahk. He had no idea what an Imperial Guardsman was doing in the midst of this insane carnage, but however the man had gotten there, he'd just saved Windshare's life. And, as the earl watched, the sword in the Charisian's
other
hand cut off one man's arm and took another's head.

Don't be silly
, a corner of his brain told him.
No one can do that one-handed! You're wounded. Blood loss can make a man imagine all kinds of things
.

Then, charging out of the confusion, a platoon of Charisian Marines appeared to seal the opening in the square's front, and Windshare felt himself being dragged back from the fighting.

“I apologize for the rough treatment, My Lord,” the man hauling him to safety said, “but I think General Gahrvai would prefer you alive.”

“Well, I'd say we have our work cut out for us, Your Majesty,” Rayjhis Yowance said quietly as he stood beside Empress Sharleyan and watched the ballroom fill.