The Guns of Empire (11 page)

Half a minute to reload as Ibsly's shattered formations returned fire as best they could. Some kept trying to form a line, while others dissolved into rough blobs, men instinctively huddling together as the smoke of the Borelgai volley rolled over them. The second volley slammed out, visible mostly by the muzzle flashes through the murk, and then the third.

Nothing, in Winter's experience, broke down morale faster than being in a patently unequal fight. Ibsly's men outnumbered the Borels two to one, but having been caught with their formation in disarray, they were taking far worse than they delivered, and they knew it. Between the third volley and the fourth, a trickle of blue-uniformed soldiers appeared out of the smoke, heading determinedly for the rear, and after the fourth it became a flood. Winter could see Ibsly shouting and waving his sword, but there was no stopping the rout. The men of the Sixth Division poured back down the hill, past the bodies of their comrades, away from the killing fire at their backs.

“Saints and martyrs,” Winter swore. She turned to the runners, who were watching her with wide, frightened eyes. “Come on. We're going down there.”

—

“I will make another attack,” Division-General Ibsly said to Winter. He brought his hand to his face, to fiddle with his spectacles, but he'd lost them during the fighting. Instead he tugged at the fresh bandage wrapped around his head, where a musket ball had scored a glancing blow. “We have the numbers, and they won't catch us off guard again.”

“We have the numbers, assuming they haven't been reinforced,” Sevran said. “If they sent riders to Dorsay's main body, he could have more men on the way. We took our chance, and it didn't work.”

“My regiment hasn't fired a shot,” de Koste protested. “General, the Sixth can stay in reserve, and the Second Division can make the next assault.”

“We don't need to keep throwing good money after bad,” Blackstream said. “If we can't push them off the hill, we can maneuver them off. If we slide around their left . . .”

He looked to Erdine for support, and the cavalry colonel nodded. “My men report the road north of the hill is empty except for cavalry patrols. If we go around their position and come at them down the north–south road, we won't have so much open ground to cover.”

“Enough,” Winter said. “General Ibsly, please speak to your colonels and ask them if their regiments will be able to make a second attack. Gentlemen of the Second, get your men ready to march. Bobby, Cyte, with me for a moment.”

There was a round of salutes, and the knot of officers broke up. Ibsly was limping a little as well, Winter noted. The air was full of noise—frightened horses, and running soldiers, but the screams most of all. The regimental cutters had set up a battlefield-aid station and were plying their trade on those wounded who'd been fortunate enough to be able to walk to the rear. Winter had to stop and close her eyes for a moment as a woman's sobbing rose to a high, terrified shriek, which was abruptly stifled, as though someone had stuffed her mouth with rags.

“If you have any advice,” Winter said, taking deep breaths, “I'd like to hear it.”

“You know I'm no expert on tactics,” Bobby said, glancing up at the gun-crowned height. The Borelgai had retreated over the crest again, but the presence of those massed ranks lingered as a looming shadow. “But I sure as hell wouldn't want to go up that hill.”

“What about Blackstream's idea?” Cyte said. “Janus always avoids frontal attacks against strong positions if he can help it.”

“We don't have
time
.” Winter looked up at the sun, which was well past the meridian. “Marcus has started his attack, and Fitz's column will arrive soon. That means before too much longer the entire Borelgai army is going to be coming north over that bridge and up that road. If we can take this end and bottle them up on the bridge, that's one thing, but it'd take hours to go around. If we deploy in open country we're just asking Dorsay to roll over us with everything he's got. If we don't go in now, we're not going at all.”

“Then that's the choice,” Bobby said. “Go in now with what we have, or not at all.”

Winter nodded, looking up at the hill. “Four battalions. We have the numbers. Three or four to one.”

“But they have the guns,” Cyte said. “And the position. That was a hell of a trick, staying out of sight and getting to the ridge just at the right time. Someone over there knows what he's doing.”

Winter looked between them. Her chest felt tight.
This is what being a general means, isn't it?
Not just command of more soldiers.
Making decisions with nobody to look over your shoulder.
At that moment she would happily have traded it all for a musket and slunk back into the ranks.

“We have to go in,” she said, so quietly Bobby and Cyte leaned forward. “Janus is counting on us to be at that bridge. I haven't disappointed him yet.”

“Right,” Cyte said after a long pause. “So we go in. Just the Second?”

“Everyone,” Winter said. “Like Bobby said, this is the only shot we have left.”

“But—” Cyte said.

“I know it's a risk,” Winter said. “But coming out here at all was a gamble, and we need to make sure it pays off.”

Cyte shook her head. “We need
some
kind of reserve, in case things go wrong.”

“Keep the Girls' Own here,” Bobby suggested. “They're worn out as it is.”

“Fair enough,” Winter said. “Bobby, find Abby and tell her to set up a line here. I'll be going forward with the attack.”

“Well
behind
the attack,” Cyte said. She lowered her voice. “You know better than anyone else here that Janus can't afford to lose you.”

“Fine.” Winter touched the sword at her belt, which she'd yet to unsheathe. It made
sense
, but . . . “Let's get moving. We're burning daylight.”

—

Seven regiments—fourteen battalions—went forward, leaving only the thin skirmish line behind them. The men of the Sixth Division, halted in their flight and assembled back into their units, were on the left, with the Second Division on the right. Flags snapped and fluttered, the silver caps of their poles gleaming in the yellowing light of late afternoon. Off to the left, where the hill hid the town of Gilphaite from view, the distant rumble of artillery had reached a new pitch of urgency. Things were approaching a crescendo there.
We have to finish this.

Winter sat astride Edgar, with Cyte on one side, Bobby on the other, and three messengers from the Girls' Own trailing behind. They were twenty or thirty yards behind the rear companies, which might keep them out of musket range but mattered little against the cannons. No cannoneer worth his salt would waste a ball on a tiny cluster of horsemen, Winter hoped, but at long range the guns were not noted for their accuracy anyway.

The first round of flashes rippled across the hill. To Winter's astonishment, she found she could
see
the ball in flight, a tiny black spot that seemed to hang in the air above the battlefield. Then, all at once, it crashed like a thunderbolt, lancing into the turf a good ten yards behind one of Sevran's battalions and springing into the air again with an explosion of dirt. The drums beat a steady pace, and the men once again advanced through the hail of solid shot, closing their ranks as balls swept them away in bunches.

This time Winter had ordered that they deploy at the bottom of the hill, outside of canister range. It would slow the advance, giving the guns more time to work, but it meant they wouldn't be taken unawares when the Borelgai emerged from hiding. Determined to show they knew what they were about, the men of Ibsly's division executed the maneuver as precisely as though they were on a parade ground, in spite of the cannonballs falling and bouncing around them. One of Blackstream's battalions was thrown into momentary confusion when a lucky shot landed just in the middle of its leading company, and its standard fluttered and fell. It was soon snatched up again, though, and sergeants shouted the men into line, now part of a continuous front more than a mile from end to end.

“You ride to Ibsly,” Winter said to one of the messengers, shouting to be heard over the boom and shriek of the guns. “Tell him to go up that hill and take those guns, and not to stop until he gets to the road! You”—she pointed to the next—“tell Sevran the same, and that he's to conform to Ibsly. Go!”

They galloped off. A few minutes later, as the cannonballs continued to thunder down, the drums trilled and then settled into a steady pace. The line moved forward with a cheer, one step for each drumbeat. Winter, glancing at Cyte, gave them a few minutes to get safely ahead of her before nudging Edgar into a slow walk.

As before, the gunners switched to canister as the Vordanai closed, though the sprays of musket balls were less deadly against the long, linear formation than they had been against the columns. Still, swaths of men were cut down, and each battalion shrank toward its center as officers closed the files. The ground over which Winter rode was littered with corpses, a few Borelgai skirmishers in muddy red uniforms with black trim, but mostly Vordanai blue, men from Ibsly's division and women from the Girls' Own. Here and there, wounded soldiers waved or shouted to her, their voices inaudible under the roar of battle.

With no skirmishers out front, the cannoneers waited until the last minute to abandon their pieces, firing a load of double canister at fifty yards with fearful results. One half battery cut things a little too fine, and one of Ibsly's battalions fired a volley that dropped a dozen of the artillerymen as they scrambled backward. With a cheer, the two divisions kept on, driving the enemy skirmishers in front of them.

Winter kept her eyes on the crest of the hill, waiting for the enemy infantry to appear. She felt like she could predict the precise moment they'd show themselves, leaving just enough time to get onto the forward slope before coming into
range. Sure enough, just as she thought,
now
, red flags poked over the hill, followed quickly by a glittering hedge of muskets with bayonets fixed.

Too many flags.
One, two, four, six, a full dozen. The Borelgai line was nearly as long as their own.
We were supposed to have the numbers here.
They came down the hill as if driven by clockwork, ten paces past the crest, then halted to raise their muskets.
Where the hell did they all come from?

“Winter!” Cyte was shouting something, but Winter couldn't tear her eyes away from the enemy.

This time, Ibsly was determined to get his shot in. His division halted, drums relaying commands, and the men raised their weapons. “Ready,” the sergeants would shout, echoing up and down the line. “Level! Fire!” The crackle of musketry ran up and down each battalion, like a spark racing along a fuse, off-white powder smoke spewing from the barrel and lock of every weapon. The crash of it set Winter's ears ringing. Up the slope, Borelgai were falling, bodies pitching forward and rolling down the hill or dropping in their tracks.

“Winter!” Cyte grabbed her arm. Winter blinked and turned to her.

“What?” Her voice sounded distant in her own abused ears.

“There's too many!” Cyte said. “They must have reinforced!”

Winter nodded dumbly.

“We have to pull back!” Cyte shouted.

The Borelgai fired, a simultaneous volley from a dozen battalions. Men in blue uniforms were punched off their feet, or stumbled and clutched at a wound, or collapsed into the man next to them. Screams were faintly audible for a moment, and then were obliterated by the return volley, a wall of noise and smoke.

She's right.
There was no way they'd win this fight, uphill against a fresh enemy in triple the strength they'd expected. Winter turned, mouth feeling like it was full of dry cotton, and looked for a messenger.

“Tell Ibsly to fall back!” she shouted. “Fall back to where we started! Go!”

The girl spurred her horse, riding toward the fight and the mounted general. She was nearly there when the third Borelgai volley slammed out, almost as neat as the first. The lines were difficult to make out in the rising haze of smoke, but Winter saw the messenger girl twist in the saddle, then slide off her horse, one foot still caught in the stirrup as her body hit the ground.

Fuck.
“Bobby!” Winter shouted desperately.
Saints and martyrs.
“Go to Ibsly
now
!”
It's going to be a massacre—

The Borelgai charged with a roar, bayonets fixed, emerging from the cloud their own volleys had created trailing little wisps of powder smoke. Fire stabbed
back at them from the Vordanai line, dropping men up and down the front rank, but it wasn't enough. Ibsly's men broke first, their line dissolving into a rearward flood before the wave of bayonets reached them. Panic was contagious. Each man, however brave he might be alone, saw his neighbor turn away and decided he should do the same, lest he be standing by himself when the hammer fell. Soon it had spread to the Second Division as well, Blackstream's men and de Koste's and even Sevran's veterans. The entire line became a mass of running, shouting men. Anyone who tripped or hesitated was swallowed up by the onrushing wave of red.

What do I do?
Winter's hand went to her sword.
What would Janus do?
“I should rally them. We can form—”

“Much too late for that,” Cyte said. She looked at Bobby, who nodded grimly and grabbed Edgar's reins. Bobby yanked the gelding around and kicked her own horse into a gallop, pulling the stunned Winter along with her.

—

It was the Girls' Own who stopped the Borelgai counterattack.

It had nearly run out of momentum in any case, units becoming disordered and mixed together as they charged off the hill and across the flats. Abby, seeing the wave coming, set her skirmishers in a fighting withdrawal, forcing the Borelgai to halt and return fire. The Girls' Own pulled back to the woods, losing soldiers at every step until they'd reached the comparative safety of the tree line. From there, they prepared to resist another advance, but the Borelgai commander apparently considered his work well done, and his units withdrew across the field to their starting positions.