Refuge: Book 5: Angels & Demons Page 6

  The evening meal had been prepared by the battalion cooks, men who had ridden wagons all day. Beef stew with a thick mash of vegetables, filling and enough to replace the calories burned through the day. Conyastoya hunters brought in wild pig or deer, while the quartermasters bought the vegetables from local farmers. It still was not enough on its own, and supplies had to be shipped from the Refuge valley almost a thousand kilometers a day to the marching troops. That distance was growing by twenty kilometers a day.

  "I'm not all that hungry," said Humphrey, picking at the food in his mess kit. "I'm too damned tired. You know what I mean?"

  "I advise you to eat everything you can, troop," said Bubbuh, wiping his own kit clean with a piece of fresh baked bread. "We might not have full meals in the future, and then you'll regret all the calories you didn't take in."

  "You don't think they'll keep us supplied?" asked Humphrey, his brows furrowing. "That wouldn't be good, you know what..."

  "Don't fucking say it," growled Bubbuh, and Dieter laughed at the exchange between the two Americans.

  "And what the hell are you laughing at?"

  "Nothing, Bubbuh. Nothing."

  The night seemed to go by too quickly. It was a luxury to not have to be awoken during the night for a guard shift. Still, it felt like he had only been in his bag for an hour, but the state of the camp showed that it was morning, even though the sun had yet to rise. Fires were blazing so that the men getting out of their insulated bags would be able to absorb heat while they got dressed. The cook fires were going, and the odors of pig and potatoes for breakfast filled the air. After eating breakfast everyone loaded up their ration bags with some sausage and bread, their marching meal for the day.

  The sun was just cresting the hills to the East when they first set boots to the road. Horns were sounding to the front and rear, giving the commands while it was still twilight, and the flags were not useful. It was still chilly, and the troops were anxious to get moving so they could warm up.

  Two hours later the day was starting to heat up, and the soldiers were again starting to sweat.

  "How long till we stop for a break?" asked Humphrey, adjusting his spear so he could wipe his forehead with the back of his hand. "I really could use one, you know what I mean?"

  "Watch it, idiot," yelled the man behind Humphrey, pushing the spear point back up with his shield.

  "Sorry," said Humphrey in a low voice.

  Dieter looked over at his fellow NCO with a smile on his face. Humphrey was a screw-up in most respects. Maybe he had been a wiz with computers, but that was no longer a job for soldiers. One thing they knew was that the young man had yet to see combat, unless huddling helpless in the bunkers while dragons torched the Refuge valley counted. He had undergone the usual training for a legionnaire: how to stand in formation, the use of shield and stabbing sword, and how to throw a javelin with enough accuracy to hit somewhere within a mass of charging enemy. However, he had yet to stand his ground, trusting in the people to either side, as a screaming mass of Grogatha charged.

  They had a break shortly, able to get their fill of water from the wagons and also refill their canteens. Then it was back to the road, a couple of hundred meters behind the middle battalion, this day in the rearmost position of the brigade, which was also further back in the order of march. It seemed it would be another uneventful day, something that brought ambivalent feelings to the fore among the veterans. They wanted to meet the enemy out in the open, where their formations gave them the advantage. More likely, but unwanted, was the probability of having to push the foe out of fortified positions, forts, castles, or bridges.

  "Form a line," yelled an officer, the battalion XO, Major Standridge, spurring his horse from rear to front. "Form a line, "Facing right."

  "What the hell is going on?" asked Humphrey, looking around.

  "Just get your ass in line, newbie," yelled Bubbuh. He reached out and pulled the soldier to a position beside him.

  Dieter made sure that the eleven men in his squad were in line, right behind Bubbuh's, while the third squad of their platoon lined up behind his. To left and right were the other platoons of their company. Beyond them was nothing for almost fifty meters, the other companies also in their unit formations.

  "Watch out," yelled a voice from the end of the line, not telling them what they were supposed to watch out for.

  Arrows came hissing in, and men started yelling and screaming. Several in the company went down with shafts sticking out of soft spots in their bodies, arms, legs, in one occurrence through the top of the skull.

  "Get your helmets on," screamed Dieter, trying to balance his own shield and spear, leaning the weapon against his body to get the head covering in place.

  Bubbuh had his helmet on before Dieter, and he was glad to see that Humphrey had also gotten his on, and was now covering himself with his shield.

  "Get ready," yelled the major, still on his horse right behind the formations. Dieter wasn't sure why the man was still up there giving the enemy a good target.

  "Here they come," yelled another voice.

  Dieter was trying to a good look at they, but he couldn't see very well around the wall of shields to his front. He could feel the ground shake, and hear the neighing of horses that seemed to indicate that they were about to be hit by cavalry. But what kind? Heavy lancers or nomad horse archers? It would make a difference to their continued survival.

  Another wave of arrows came hissing in, almost all hitting the large oblong shields, some glancing off helmets. There were still a couple of strikes, and a few screams of pain or fear.

  Another mass of arrows flew overhead, this bunch outbound. Their own archers, mostly the wood elves known as Conyastoya, the best bowmen on the planet, were arranged and sending feathered death into the enemy.

  Dieter finally got a glimpse of the enemy, a mass of horsemen in lamellar armor, light lances couched, riding hell bent for the legionnaires. Where the hell are our pikes? he asked himself. With their long spears they could knock the lancers from their horses before those lances made contact. The spears that the legionnaires held didn't have that reach in their current configurations, and they hadn’t had time to screw on the extensions.

  A trio of fireballs flew out from the alliance lines, bursting into blasts on hitting the enemy, torching everything for ten meters in every direction. The enemy shamans returned fire, their own balls of hot flame flying into the infantry and bursting in circular walls of fire.

  Dieter closed his eyes as the flames washed over him, acting from reflex even though he knew what the result would be. Or thought he did. A feeling of gentle warmth swept through his body, and then it was gone. The entire company was still there, protected as they were by the deities of Earth. There was a scream coming from behind the formation, one of the wood elves who had been caught up in the flames without the protection of the Earth humans.

  "Rearward two ranks, shift spears," yelled out the company commander.

  Dieter placed his spear carefully on the ground, while the man behind him placed his beside the German sergeant’s. The men in the front rank couched their spears, getting as much of the two and a half meters out in front of them as they could. He knew what was coming, but because of discipline, he waited even as the enemy cavalry came closer. More arrows came in, some bouncing from shields, some penetrating and quivering in place, but none accomplishing any more through the shield wall. The Conyastoya archers in the rear continued their barrage, and horses and riders went down.

  "Javelins," yelled the CO, and almost a hundred hands reached back to grasp the first of the pair of javelins they carried.

  Dieter could see the faces of the charging enemies, skin as yellow as a dark lemon, squinting eyes looking on with murderous intent. His murder in those eyes. The difference in combat between this world and Earth. Here you were more likely to die with a weapon in your guts while your killer looked into your soul, not struck down by a piece of metal hurled from hundreds of met
ers away by a weapon held by a man who couldn’t see your face. In a lot of ways this manner of combat was more frightening.

  "Throw," yelled the commander. A hundred javelins arced through the air, covering the forty meters to the front of the charging enemy line. As soon as they were released the spears were picked up and the wall of points tripled.

  The heavy javelins came down on the horsemen, the sharp points penetrated even deeper than the arrows, and scores of horsemen and beasts went down, interfering with the charge. Others lost their shields as the soft metal shafts on the javelin heads bent, pulling their arms down, but not enough had been stopped.

  The charge hit, horses ramming their mass into shields and knocking men over, lances pushing through armor, spears penetrating the other way into nomads. Horses and men screamed, bodies fell, and the charge penetrated and moved through the company.

  Not everyone was knocked down. Two thirds of the company was still on their feet, and now they went on the attack, pushing spears into the enemy that was mixed in among them. As spears broke, or were jerked, away the swords came out. The blades would seem to be a disadvantage against the longer swords of the horsemen, but the infantry crouched behind their shields in small groups, back-to-back, jabbing and stabbing. They were giving as good as they got, and held their own. It seemed to go on forever, though it could only have been minutes. Horns sounded, and alliance cavalry swept onto the field and attacked the enemy from the rear. Moments later, the pikemen were coming in from the flanks.

  The nomad horsemen were suicidally courageous. Not many left the field, and those reluctantly. Dieter looked around him as the enemy cleared. Many of the faces he was used to seeing every day were missing, and there were a great number of bodies on the ground. He breathed a sigh of relief as Bubbuh limped over, a look of pain on his face. And Humphrey, still on his feet, covered in gore, blood dripping from the blade of his sword. The young man had survived his first bout of combat, and in fact had contributed to the victory if his appearance was to be believed.

  "Wow…that was pure hell! Do you know what I mean?"

  Bubbuh put an arm around the young trooper as both of the sergeants burst into laughing. Humphrey would still be an obnoxious prick who would drive them crazy, but they would put up with the idiosyncrasies of a veteran.

  * * *

  Prince Harrakihn kil Marizom, the Mo'orican commander of the Fourth Cavalry Brigade, Light Horse, reined his mount to a stop on top of the hill, pulling his telescope from its case on the saddle, and putting it to his eye.

  "It looks like they're ready for us, my Prince," said Nazara kil Khanas, his second in command, already looking at the bridge off in the distance.

  The prince lowered his telescope and looked over at his countryman, who had come from his father's kingdom with the original thousand horsemen. Nazara was a prime example of his people, with red hair over framing a face as black as that of a dark elf. Fine features and light-colored eyes showed that he was not of the same race as the Earth Africans.

  The four thousand horsemen of the brigade were still about one-third Mo'oricans, the rest were other native humans and elves, all skilled horsemen. The prince had found that the Earth humans on the whole were not very good on horseback, with the exception of some few of the Americans who had grown up in their rural areas, and even fewer of the Germans. The humans who were not so skilled. yet willing, had been shuttled into the heavy cavalry, the shock troops of the army. They possessed greater striking power, but the light cavalry, like the First Brigade, required more agility, and that meant greater horsemanship.

  "How far in front of the Brigade is A-troop?" he asked his assistant, who had the job of keeping track of such things. While the prince had mindspeak, like all of the royal family, the commoner Khanas had much greater ability, the reason he had risen so high in rank in the aristocratic nation.

  "They're within a kilometer of the outer works of the bridge, my Prince. Their commander is reporting that he believes they have not been seen."

  "Then send him my order that it is to remain so. I don't want the Ellala knowing we are so close. They might already know, but if they don't, I want it to remain that way. I want the other troops of that squadron to fan out to the side, but not to extend their positions to the river."

  His exec nodded and closed his eyes, connecting to the people in question and sending out the orders.

  The prince put his telescope back to his eye. He had been offered some of the Earth made field glasses, but had turned them down, preferring to use an instrument that he was comfortable with. The view of the telescope was actually more powerful than the binoculars he had seen, and the image of the bridge fort leapt into view. The tower on this end looked as strong as any fort he had ever examined, with high walls and thick towers. Inside was another fort, a castle keep, and the road that carried over the bridge went through that keep, which meant it had to be taken. Just putting the castle to siege would accomplish nothing. The walls appeared to be sparsely manned, but they only needed a watch to make sure no assault parties got close before they could reinforce. He was sure there were more than enough soldiers within that fort to hold it against any quick assault.

  Harrakihn then swept the focus to the fort on the far side of the bridge. It was an almost exact duplicate of the one on his side, and he was sure that it would be just as well defended. Taking one fort wouldn't accomplish anything if the other was still held. The river had to be more than a kilometer wide at this point, probably closer to two, and it would be one holy bitch to get the army across by boat and supply it on the other side. All the while leaving forts full of troops behind who would have the capability of cutting the supply line of either side of the river.

  No, he thought, pulling the telescope down. It will have to be taken before we can move on. If anyone could figure out how to do it, it was the siege-master of the army, Colonel Cliff Jackson. Harrakihn came from a warrior people, one who had been building and taking fortifications for over a thousand years. The depth of knowledge of the Earth borne human, who had been a mere senior sergeant on his world, was almost unbelievable.

  "Send our findings back to General Delgado," he told his exec.

  "Do you wish to have your pavilion erected near here?" asked another trooper, his aide.

  "No, Maroosh. We aren't here to relax in luxury, not even the brigade commander. I will sleep with the soldiers tonight."

  The aide gave him a disapproving look, one he was quick to hide.

  Many of the people in his command had not grown up in aristocratic societies, and did not didn't see others as their betters. Because of that, they didn't see why they should sleep on the ground while their commander slept in a fancy pavilion. Even the field commander of the army didn't have what a prince of Mo'orica would consider a luxurious habitation. It was large, but that was because his staff was there with him, and the general's quarters were actually quite small.

  Night came quickly, and the brigade camped without fires to give them away. Some of the magic users were able to heat without flames, and everyone had a hot meal that night, but it could not be considered a feast by anyone. The night passed without event, and the horsemen of the heavy cavalry preceding the infantry came riding up by midmorning. By evening, General Delgado was there, and he repaired immediately to the headquarters of his scout force commander.

  "Well, Prince Harrakihn. What do you have?" asked Delgado, walking to the top of the hill where the observation post had been established.

  "Welcome, General," said the prince in greeting, lowering his telescope. "No change in the enemy status, so far. We can see wagons moving into the fort at the far end of the bridge, but the gate of the near fortress remains tightly shut. I don't think they are going to give us an easy entrance into that place."

  "I agree, Prince Harrakihn," said Colonel Clifford Jackson, following his commanding officer. "They aren't stupid, they have a good position, and they are going to make us pay to take it."

  The
colonel, an old sergeant major according the humans, whatever that was, had dark skin that was not the equal of the jet-black of native humans and dark elves. It still seemed to give him enough protection from the sun, and after a time it started to look as normal as the light tan skin of the majority of the Earth humans. His features were broader than most of the humans, indicating that he was from another genetic group. That was as much as the prince could guess.

  "I'm afraid you're right," said Delgado, running a hand through his hair. "What are our chances of tunneling in?"

  "Not great," said the siege-master, putting his binoculars to his eyes. "I'll have the dwarves and our geologist look the area over as well as they can from out of eyesight. But if its soft earth, we're going to have the water table working against us. And if it's rock, it's going to be one holy bitch to tunnel through. And I know that neither method is going to mesh with your time scale."

  "I want to take it quickly," agreed the general, nodding, then raising his own binoculars to his eyes. "But I don't want to gut the army taking one bridge."

  Harrakihn liked that about the newcomers. They weren't afraid to shed blood to get what they wanted, but they also didn't believe in wasting lives. In their societies, the individual was important, no matter their birth status. In fact, in the nation of the ones known as Americans, as these two men were, birth meant little. A rich man could be found guilty of a crime as easily as a poor man. Within limits, he was sure. The Germans still had aristocratic birth, but even they had removed many of the privileges afforded by nobility.

  "Then I suggest we dig in and show them what they are facing," said Jackson. "Then bring up the artillery and start battering the gate. Not that I think we're going to make much of a dent in that thick portal. But it will attract their attention while we try for another way in."