Warlord (51 page)

"Waste of time,
ferramente,
going all the way past Port Murchison and then walking back," he said, stroking one finger down a waxed black moustache. "We should sail straight into Port Murchison and
kill
the sons of whores, not flounce about in the bloody bundu. They outnumber us, so we should take them by surprise. Sir."

Gerrin Staenbridge laughed. "Advice from the depths of your many years of combat experience?" he said. Dalhouse let his right hand drop to the hilt of his saber and took a half-step forward.

"Messers," Raj said patiently.
Don't provoke him, Gerrin,
he thought.
I
know he's a fool and a fop, but the Palace wants him in.
"Messer Major Dalhouse," he continued, "last year we fought the wogs out east. They had an army every bit as good as ours, much bigger, and commanded by Prince Tewfik. So I used the only advantage we had, position, and dug in where they had to come to us.

"Now," he said genially, "we're fighting the Squadron, who are the people the phrase 'dumb barb' was invented to describe. Fighting them,
our
advantages are our weapons, our organization, our discipline. We know what they'll do; they'll rush in like a pack of sicklefeet around a cow.
Their
advantages are their numbers and ferocity." Suddenly he leaned forward, pushing his face into the junior officer's.

His voice went flat. "So I'm not too entranced by the idea of wallowing into a blindsided street fight at close range, Messer Major Dalhouse. I do not intend to imitate a mob of racing enthusiasts in an after-game brawl. I prefer an open-field battle of maneuver to start with, I really do."

Dalhouse looked around. Most of the other officers were staring at him with the shocked almost-consideration they would have given a man who had just been run over by a hansom cab. Young Barton Foley had slipped the leather sheath-cover off his hook and was stropping the razor edge of the interior against a ceramic honing stick. Dalhouse began a sneer. He stopped as he met the young Companion's eyes, flushed darkly under his native olive, and fell silent.

"Now," Raj went on, voice mild and slightly under-pitched once more. "Dinnalsyn?"

Major Dinnalsyn nodded. "
Seyhor,
" he said: Sir, with the flat East Residence accent of a City man. The artillery recruited many such, like the engineers and the navy. "Thirty standard fieldpieces, ready to go." Seventy-five-millimeter rifled breechloaders; the Squadron didn't use field guns at all, only fortress guns and muzzle-loaders on warships. It was something of an innovation to appoint an over-all artillery commander, but Grammek Dinnalsyn was a man he trusted. "We stripped out first-rate pieces from other units and dumped anything that looked chancy on them."

"Menyez?"

Jorg's long melancholy face sank deeper into gloom as he ran a hand through his thinning russet hair, damp from the almost-rain. He was from the northwestern provinces, Kelden County, and an infantry specialist by choice. Rare—cavalry was the prestige arm, and the Menyezes were very rich—but he was allergic to dogs.

"The foot regiments are all up to strength. Not too many of them are fresh meat, and they're fully equipped," he said. That was something; away from dangerous frontier posts some infantry commanders equipped their battalions with flintlocks originally made for trade in the trans-border
barbaricum.
His would all be furnished with standard Armory breechloaders. "Apart from that, they're about as usual, except for my 17th and the 24th Valentia."

Tzetzas had been
very
reluctant to let him take even those two infantry battalions from the force he'd had in the Army of the Upper Drangosh, out east. A matter of expense, since Civil Government infantry units were supposed to live off farms granted by the
fisc
, in the neighborhood of their garrisons; the enlisted men were paid only when on the move or in the field, between permanent postings. Cavalry and mercenaries received regular pay in hard cash, but they were the elite troops; infantry were press-ganged from the peons of the central counties, and usually fit only for second-line duties. Barholm had seen little difference between one infantry unit and the next. So would Raj have done, before he saw what Menyez could do with them.

"Making bricks without straw, that's the Army," Raj said resignedly. "Settling in all right with the Slashers, Mekkle?"

The young man grinned shyly. His family were what Descotters called bonnet-squires: possessors of an ancient name and half a dozen small farms, along with several hundred hectares of third-rate grazing; freeholders, but there were yeoman tenants who had more livestock and cash. Not many prospects, living on a Lieutenant's pay, although he had a fair education.
Raj doesn't care about your birth, only what you can do,
he thought. You worked harder under him than a mine-slave, but he'd bought back land his grandfather had lost, and married Maria. . . . 

"The 1st Rogor Slashers are ready for action, sir," he said. "Took some getting used to—they're not as, hmmm, unflappable as Descotters"—the Slashers were recruited from the southern border—"and they don't like to sweat much, out of the field, but they'll fight, Spirit knows."

"Good, keep at them. Southerners tend to have more dash than sense. All right, Messers. Dismissed."

He saluted; the Companions leaving for their units stayed a moment longer, and they all slapped fists together in a pyramid of arms.

"Hell or plunder, dog-brothers," da Cruz said, the old Descott County war cry, and the officers dispersed to their commands.

Ehwardo Poplanich lingered for a moment. "Hmmm," he said, clearing his throat. "Sir?"

"Yes, Major?" Raj asked.

"I'd . . . like to thank you, on behalf of the men," he said quickly. At Raj's raised eyebrow: "I heard rumors, convincing rumors, that Poplanich's Own was to be disbanded after the . . . problem last year. I'm happy for the men's sake; they're used to serving together."

Raj nodded. The special uniform, dark-green with gold piping, told that story. Poplanich's Own was recruited from the family's estates, from among the more prosperous tenants-in-chief and bailiffs and such, and the family coffers paid for their initial equipment, against a remittance of land-tax. It was not an uncommon arrangement, particularly a few generations back, and it had the advantage of helping build unit esprit. Of course it also had its political risks, with a family that had fallen from power and favor but not from some political popularity among the older nobility.

Especially after Des Poplanich was fool enough to let himself be put forward as a figurehead for a coup attempt,
Raj thought brutally. It was amazing that a man as smart as Thom had had a brother so politically naive. He remembered the screams when the flame-fougasse he improvised went off in the tower basement. The screams, and then the smell. "I did point out it would be a shame to waste a loyal unit," he said mildly. Ehwardo's personal fate had also hung in the balance, but Raj liked the fact that he thought first of his command.

"Yes. And"—in a rush—"I never believed those rumors about you having something to do with Thom's disappearance. He was your friend."

Raj nodded, his face implacable. "He was. However, Des was not. And I
did
kill him. With regret, but I did it."

The man who thought himself the last living Poplanich met his eyes. "I know. Messer Whitehall—" He stopped and looked both ways before lowering his voice. "I'll be honest with you; I don't approve of many of the Governor's policies, and I approve even less of some of his ministers. The Poplanich gens have a better claim to the Chair, too, although I wouldn't take that job if the Spirit of Man came down from the Stars and handed it to me. But Barholm isn't the sort of disaster that has to be deChaired at all costs; and the Civil Government can't afford an internal war. That above all."

He extended his hand, and Raj gripped it for a moment.
That'll look bad if anyone's watching,
he thought. And:
To the Starless Dark with that.
 

"Those noncoms you lent me did a world of good," Poplanich added.

Raj smiled grimly. "This isn't a border skirmish we're going off to," he said. Poplanich's Own had been a central-provinces garrison unit until the change of dynasties, and doing routine patrol work up north since then. Ehwardo was conscientious about his profession—not a universal characteristic among well-born officers with a patrimonial unit—but inexperienced, despite being a few years older than Raj.

"It's perked up the men in more ways than one," Poplanich said. "A little regional rivalry; your veterans thought my people raw, and were pretty plain about it. The troopers are eager to show you can be a fighting man without being a Descotter born in a thunderstorm, half-Doberman and half sauroid . . ."

Raj joined in the chuckle, until an infinitely cold voice spoke in the back of his mind:

observe
Center said.

—and a solid roaring wall of sound lifted from the crowded docks of East Residence, signal rockets lifting from the shining bulk of the Palace above as the bunting-decked ships edged toward the docks. Sailors and soldiers crowded the rails, waving bits of prize loot—

—and a single warship plodded wearily into the harbor, masts chopped off level with the deck for emergency fuel. A huge wail went up from the city, as the black flag at the masthead came into view—

"Ser."

Raj blinked open eyes that felt as if the lids were fastened
with birdlime.

"Ser." It was da Cruz, looking worried. "Trouble, ser."

The general sat up on his cot and swung his feet down; he had gone to sleep mostly dressed. Too much work to do, three days out of East Residence. Sailing south along the Coast Range and stopping every night to let the troops sleep under canvas. Easier on the men to start with—mass seasickness on a troopship was no joke, not to mention dogs going berserk with fear—and easier on the supplies: this way they could buy from civilians without dipping into the jerky and hardtack that would have to last them, later. Too much paperwork, and nobody who really knew their administrative jobs. Last year at Sandoral had been easy by comparison; the army had just collected in and around the city and sat there for months before the Colonists moved north.

Spirit damn it to darkness, we should have some sort of permanent contingency command and staff for things like this, he thought, not for the first time. We're too defense-minded. 

The Master of Soldiers, East Residence, controlled pay and overall logistics, but that was for routine operations in garrison. Field armies' administration had to be improvised out of the handbooks for a particular campaign . . . and he didn't know how anyone before him had coped, without Center to prompt and to remember things.

 . . . 
then again, the you can see why the Governor would be antsy about a permanent mobile force.
More than one Governor had been overthrown by a victorious general; a few had even been shot off the Chair by defeated ones.

He stamped his feet into his boots; a valet came in with hot towels and hot water and soap and began to shave him.
Some compensations to general rank, at least,
he thought ironically. Another was laying out his jacket and a clean shirt and bringing in kave.

Damn
Berg for keeping him up. No
way
he could afford to snub the man by refusing to eat dinner with him, and every one turned into a bloody banquet with potted delicacies from East Residence. Did he think this was a bloody
picnic
?
And a man with a full day's job of work ahead simply couldn't sit up drinking all night.

Suzette had seen him off with a joke about worker bees and an ironic toast from Berg and his cronies and some dashing young rips in uniform like Dalhouse . . . Her cot was still neatly made up. Lamplight made the big tent an oasis of light in the darkness of predawn; only a sliver of Miniluna was up, and a frosty sheeting of stars. It was not quiet, not with nearly twenty thousand human beings about, but the noise was a murmur of voices and deep resentful
wuffs
from cavalry dogs sensing they were about to be led back on board the detested ships.

"Report," Raj growled through the suds. The barber was an artist, and the blade slid through thick blue-black stubble effortlessly. Raj would have preferred a soldier-orderly, but a general had to keep a certain minimum of staff to maintain respect. More of Suzette's work. "What the Starless Realm is going on?"

"Devil's work right enough, ser," da Cruz said; he pulled at the orange-black-red neckerchief all the 5th Descott wore, souvenir of a looted warehouse in El Djem. The lamplight danced across the heavy keloid scars on one cheek, drawing the corner of his mouth up into a parody of a smile. "Killin' over a dice game."

Raj swore; that was
not
his job, and the Top Soldier ought to have known it. "That's their bloody Battalion Commander's—"

"Skinners, ser; 'twas Skinners did it. A civilian. Probably usin' crooked dice, but they cut 'im cold without warnin'. Local man; then they broke bones when the
guardia
came for 'em. One lad looks like to die."

"
Scramento,
" Raj said: shit.

The Skinners. Mercenaries, and barbarous ones even by comparison to the Brigade, or even the
Squadrones
he was sailing out to fight. They lived on dogback, up in the northern steppes, hunting the big grazing sauroids and anything else that moved with their huge two-meter 15mm rifles. Endless trouble in camp: not so much their viciousness—although the Star Spirit knew that was bad enough—as their habit of doing exactly as they pleased whenever they pleased. He sometimes wondered whether the flop-eared hounds they rode had trained their masters in that, or vice versa.

And afraid of nothing, nothing at all. But the ill-temper fell away from him like a cloak; there was work to be done. He took the towel from the servant and wiped his face, ran fingers through the curly black mass of his hair and fastened his helmet. Shrugging into his uniform jacket and buckling his swordbelt made him feel halfway normal despite three hours of sleep; his hands drew the revolver and snapped it open, spinning the cylinder and clicking it home again. Scalding-hot kave heaped with sugar, and a cornmeal bannock gulped while he thought, helped even more.