(Luis)
Lemmi was doing pretty well, but he didn't have his strength back yet. "Take it as easy as you can," rehab had told him. Tahmm could have airlifted us to somewhere near Dindigul by night. We could have holed up in a woods by the Dindigul Trail and waited for Jarvi's army. But an airlift as simple transportation was one thing. As part of a tactical operation, it would have broken External's intercessionary regulations, and ESS regs are more stringent than Bureau regs.
Besides, Paddy had somehow gotten Mary Youngblood's gelding for Lemmi, a beautiful animal, famous for its smooth-as-milk trotting gait. So Lemmi and I bedded down in a brother house hay shed, with the mosquitoes. Our muses would wake us.
At first dawn we were on a small ferry at North Landing, with me helping the night man scull across the river. Two hours later we were eating breakfast at the Last Stop Inn, at Big Ditch Junction, where the Causeway Road meets the Austin-Hasty Road.
The innkeeper fried our bacon, eggs, and mush himself, and after he'd served us, sat down with us. "You fellas belong to some religious order?" he asked. Our clerical collars didn't seem to belong with our uniforms.
"Yep," I said. In Sota I'd generally made a point of keeping my affiliation to myself, but the situation had changed, and my brevity had been rude, so I elaborated. "Higuchian," I went on. "We're headed south."
"South." He said the word as if pondering it. No one was going south these days. "River Road?"
"Austin Road."
He shook his head. "Everything's going to hell this summer. His Majesty in the dungeon, the Dkota in the marches . . . I've had folks through here who'd left the marches—abandoned their homes just in time. Then it was folks from Kato! Kato, for God's sake! They say the militia's got all sorts of barriers and ambushes set along the River Road, and of course the army's been sent down there, so I guess that's hopeful, but . . ."
He shrugged.
I knew what he meant by "but": but what if the Dkota bypassed the abatises? And that's what they'd done. According to his aura, this peaceful innkeeper harbored a warrior's muse. After enough lifetimes, warriors don't much care for fighting, but retain the muse, which is part of them.
"The last few days," he went on, "no one's come through from the north until you two, and not many from the south. I've had to lay off my cook and serving folk." He changed direction. "Them eggs done to suit you, brothers? Is that the word? Brothers? I'm not used to Higuchians."
"Usually brothers is the word," I told him, "but we're masters. We've been sent to help stop the Dkota."
That stopped him for a moment. "Can you do that?" he asked carefully. "Stop the Dkota? I hear there's thousands of them. And more thousands up north, coming by way of Cloud."
"We'll know in a few days," I said. "General Jarvi's down south with four companies of kingsmen, and a company of king's rifles should be coming through here today sometime, to help."
He looked more concerned than reassured. Four companies of royal ordinaries and one of rifles doesn't sound like much, compared to "thousands of Dkota." He got to his feet. "You fellas want a beer? On the house?"
"Not for me," I said. "You have sassafras?"
He nodded, and looked at Lemmi. "I'll have sassafras too," Lemmi said. "With honey."
The man brought it, then went back to his kitchen without sitting down again. We finished our breakfast and left. Interesting that our host hadn't railed against the Dkota. He was only one man, of course, and might be atypical, but come to think of it, I hadn't heard people in Hasty rail against them either.
Which was encouraging. That could help win the peace—if we won the war.
It was high noon, and the 2nd Rifles rode at a brisk trot—through their own dust, for they were headed south, and the wind was from due north. The riflemen had been picked for their personal reputations as armsmen, and culled for their marksmanship. Their rifles were the best in weapons, and they considered themselves a military elite. They expected to fight in a battle that day, and be pivotal in winning it, a good attitude to have, riding to battle.
The company commander, Captain Hsi Chung Fong, was a distant cousin of Jarvi's by marriage, well-trained and mentally quick. He had scouts out ahead, though he didn't expect to meet the enemy this morning. The general, Fong had been told, was to reach a place called Dindigul today, to take defensive positions at its stockade. Fong was to join him there, or maybe vice versa. The Dkota weren't expected to arrive till later.
Fong certainly hoped they didn't. He wouldn't want to meet a couple thousand Dkota in the open with his 120-man company.
He topped a rise, and a quarter mile on the other side saw two men on horseback. His scouts had undoubtedly questioned them. Meanwhile his dust had preceded him, and the two had drawn their horses well aside, to avoid the worst of it. One waved his hat, perhaps to flag him down, or maybe just glad to see soldiers coming. At closer range, they seemed to wear uniforms of some sort, so raising an arm, Fong halted his column, and the two trotted over to meet him.
"Who are you?" he asked, "and where are you going?"
"I am Master Luis, of the Order of Saint Higuchi, and this is Master Lemmi. We're headed for Dindigul to assist in its defense."
Fong had heard of the Order of course, and of His Majesty's hostility toward it, but Eldred's attitude seemed irrelevant now. Jaako's was more important, and he'd told stories, years earlier, of the Anti-Pope's War, including the Order's fighting and leadership qualities.
"Just the two of you?" Fong asked.
"There is a third already there."
That hardly changes matters, Fong thought. "You're welcome to ride with me if you'd like," he said.
The man grinned. "Thank you, but Master Lemmi has recent injuries, so we must travel more slowly than you. We'll see you again at the stockade."
When Luis had sent Donald Maltby off to Austin, the idea had been that after ousting Alfred Wiesendorf as duke, the young man would ride north to Tonna with the Austin armsmen and militias, there to gather whatever additional militias and armsmen he could, then ride west to Kato. Or if Kato had fallen, ride north through Fairbow to Hasty, to help defend the kingdom in any way he could.
During the week past, a stream of refugees had arrived at Austin, telling of "an uncountable host" of Dkota invaders in the marches. The villagers of Grove Falls had mostly taken refuge not in its stockade, but in flight to southward. It had been mostly the old and otherwise immobile who'd sheltered inside the stockade with the duke's armsmen and militia. When the Dkota arrived, they'd torched the town, and with fire arrows ignited roofs inside the stockade. And because most of its buildings had been built backed up against it, the fires had breached the walls. What had happened to the defenders and the others there could only be imagined.
Wiesendorf had been badly shaken by the stories, and visited by his conscience, had prayed at length with his Carlian confessor, for guidance. So when Donald handed him a letter of authority from General Jarvi, the duke nearly wept with relief. He'd convinced himself it was God's answer to those prayers.
Wiesendorf had handed the letter to his new commander at arms. New because when word had arrived of the events at Grove Falls, the old commander, Captain Bevins, had dissolved in anxiety, and deserted. Sergeant Major Banda had taken command, and a grateful Alfred Wiesendorf had made it official, skipping the rank of ensign and promoting him to lieutenant.
Banda had already contacted his connections within the local ex-militia. He'd expected to hear from Master Luis, and wanted to be ready. Now he told Wiesendorf to stay where he was. He, his armsmen and militia, were leaving with the younger Maltby to help drive out the Dkota. Saying nothing about the odds.
Glad to be told what to do, the duke accepted this. And prayer having worked so well the last time, he returned to it as soon as his visitors left.
While gathering the locals, Banda sent men out to alert militias from villages to the north, with instructions to meet him along the Austin-Hasty Highway. He sent the instructions in the name of Donald Maltby as commander. The name of Banda was potent among the militias in Austin, but outside the duchy he was nearly unknown. The Maltby name, on the other hand, was well-known throughout Sota, especially in the south, and carried a reputation for strength and fairness. And with Eldred's rule discredited, many would like the idea of a Maltby in command.
But stopping the Dkota was the main reason for the militia response. All they'd needed was a plausible leader. At Tonna, and again at Fairbow, Banda's long platoon—five squads—of uniformed and well-drilled dukesmen, helped inspire confidence. By Sotan standards they were a strong force, armed, ready, and matter-of-fact. It was they who converted and attached the Tonna and Fairbow baronial armsmen, and their conversion helped convince the militias, where the numbers were.
Meanwhile, at Tonna, Donald and Banda heard two new stories: one that the Dkota had taken Kato, burned it to the ground, and murdered everyone except young women and girls. The other, more recent story had it that the Kato stockade had been fought for, and the Dkota having failed to take it, had stormed off north on the River Road, toward Hasty.
So instead of turning west, Donald continued northward, hoping to get ahead of the Dkota before they reached the Misasip. Perhaps he could stop them on the Causeway Road, where marshes made crosscountry travel difficult or impossible.
Some of the Fairbow recruits were hung over, but Banda formed them up with a combination of humor, charisma, and a tongue that "could take the bark off an oak," as Donald would tell it. Then, when they were ready to ride out of town, Banda's loud voice asked Donald's leave to address the troops.
"You're welcome to, Lieutenant Banda," Maltby answered, just as loudly. As if they'd rehearsed it.
Banda turned to the mounted ranks and bellowed. "All right men, AT EASE!"
Conversations cut off. They could feel Banda's total, jut-jawed intention. "We're about to ride north," he boomed, "and in the next few days we'll meet the Dkota. They've never fought a force like this one, so they've got a surprise coming."
He paused, then tilted his head back and bellowed again, more loudly than before. "Battaliuuun! TENSHUT!" The order was passed down the column: "Company! Tenshut!" "Platooon! Tenshut!" Then "Road step! . . . Forwaaaard . . . MARCH!"
To Donald Maltby, the first hour and a half out of Fairbow had seemed perfect for riding—the countryside lovely and the sun warm, with a cooling breeze out of the north. Cool enough and strong enough, the flies were less active than usual. A good day, he thought, to help last night's drunks recover.
The countryside was mildly hilly and predominantly prairie, with occasional oak groves, and mixed woods on some moist sites. From time to time they'd pass two or three sets of farmsteads, typically along a creek, with small fields of corn, beans, squash, potatoes . . . Being far from the Sota River, Donald also saw loose herds of cattle and an occasional band of sheep, tended by figures on horseback.
They'd topped another rise, then ridden down its wooded north face to a brook at the bottom. There Donald called a halt, for his troops to drink, fill their water bags, and water their horses. Then one of his advance scouts came galloping south toward him. Donald nudged his horse forward to meet the man.
The scout pulled up in a puff of dust. "Sir!" he said excitedly, and waved an arm northward, "there's a very large body of horsemen ahead, sir. Horsemen or cattle, we couldn't be sure, but there's got to be hundreds and hundreds of them. The dust cloud's at least a mile long. From off west, but they're on the road ahead of us now.
Banda looked at Maltby. "What'd they want to come over here for?"
It seemed to Donald he knew. "Frazier had crews out for weeks," he said, "felling abatises along the river. They must have worked too well, and Mazeppa decided to go around."
Banda nodded. "That's it, sure's hell. So what's our orders?"
"As long as the wind doesn't shift, any time they look back, it's their own dust they'll see, not ours. And they have no reason to expect us. So after we give the horses a break, we'll follow, staying well back. And when they camp tonight, we'll run over them, kill as many as we can, and keep going north."
Banda laughed, turning heads. Some of his Austin platoon was near enough to hear, and he spoke loudly, making sure they did. "Sounds good to me, Captain. I've cheated the angel of death three four times already. Might's well do it again."
His reckless irreverence struck a chord among his men, to whom he was already an icon. And as the column moved on again, it was repeated back through the ranks, loudly and raucously, with laughter. Donald Maltby felt a sudden fellowship with these roughneck militias, and if not confidence, certainly hope.
The village of Dindigul, seat of Dindigul Barony, was located on a broad, open, near-flat expanse in the southern half of the Royal Domains. There the Dindigul Trail met the Hasty-Austin Road, forty miles east of the Sota River. Its stockade stood by the road a half mile south of the junction. Since last rebuilt, the stockade poles had rotted somewhat in the ground, but it wasn't close to falling down yet. And as the baron put it in his Hindi-flavored Merkan, "The poles are piss elm. They will not burn."
And now it was strongly defended, not just by the Baron's fourteen armsmen and four platoons of ex-militia. There was Frazier's platoon of Katoan armsmen—and four companies of kingsmen, mounted infantry under Jaako Jarvi, whose long fealty to Eldred was history. Jarvi, who spoke with the authority of the king, had taken command, telling the baron and his captain what to do. The locals were grateful to him.
The baron had set up an alarm the day before. Some two miles south, atop a rise with a long view, a pyre had been built, primed with grease and dry hay. And there had posted a lookout with a spyglass and phosphor matches, watching southward for a telltale dust cloud, or any other sign that might catch his eye.
Two companies of Jarvi's infantry were manning the parapet and blockhouses; the stockade measured only eighty yards on a side. The rest of his and Frazier's men were outside, lying on the grass, napping or thinking or talking. Their horses, saddled and waiting, grazed along a picket string.
At Jarvi's order, the local garrison was busy with ladders, buckets, and the stockade's two well sweeps (the water table was at ten feet), wetting down the thatched roofs. When they'd finished, the rest of the armsmen would crowd inside with their horses.
Jarvi and Frazier had already discussed what there was to discuss. Now they stood on the south walkway, next to a blockhouse, speaking only occasionally. Jarvi had always preferred that someone else be at the top. For fifteen years the someone else had been Eldred; the king had told him what he wanted done, and Jarvi had taken care of it. Sometimes not happily, but always ably.
At Kato he'd deferred to Frazier as knowing the area, the situation, and the enemy better than he did. And he'd come to trust Frazier's patriotism as well as his ability. So although he outranked him, he'd suggested again that Frazier be the field commander. "I'm getting old, Keith," he'd confessed. "My mind's not as nimble as it was."
Now, while Jarvi's eyes sought southward, his mind was turning over and examining things that could go wrong. (Not worrying made him feel guilty.) The one misgiving he had about Frazier was the captain's confidence in his Higuchian aide, Master Freddy. Freddy insisted the 2nd Rifles were coming—down this road!—and would arrive before the Dkota. But there was no way the Higuchian could know that; he had to be guessing.
Besides, the subject of the 2nd Rifles was uncomfortable for Jarvi. It was he who'd sent them back to Hasty earlier, in what he now considered an ill-decided act of caution. And their showing up here would get him off the hook too easily.
Actually, because Frazier knew now the nature of Freddy's religious talisman, he considered him his unofficial intelligence section. What he didn't know about was the eye in the sky.
Two yards to Frazier's left, Freddy leaned in another archery notch, gazing southward, reevaluating. With the 2nd Rifles, it seemed likely they could hold off the Dkota. Certainly between the rifles, archery and cold steel, they could cause a lot of Dkota casualties, especially if the Dkota persisted. But if Mazeppa's warriors were repulsed a time or two, he might bypass this stockade; it would be the smart thing to do. And from there he could lead his warriors on north unimpeded. Even if five hundred tribesmen were killed or disabled, which was highly unlikely, that would leave something like fifteen hundred. Enough to burn Hasty and ravage the countryside: destroy hamlets and villages, decimate the population, carry off women and girls . . . with tragic consequences for generations.
So they needed to do more than damage Mazeppa's army. More even than frustrate its attack on Hasty. They needed to cause its quick collapse and departure. Here. It would have to be here. And Jarvi's army wasn't enough. As for Maltby's militias—defending abatises or a stockade, they might be nearly as good as armsmen. But in the field, maneuvering, mixing it up with the tribesmen? They might have the courage, even the self-possession, but not the coordination.
Tahmm had reported Maltby's force at some six hundred, trailing four miles behind Mazeppa's. If the breeze held from the north, the Dkota main force seemed unlikely to see Maltby's dust—unless the Dkota took a break. Actually they might not take alarm if they did notice, because according to Tahmm, Mazeppa had two large foraging parties out, one off east about a mile, the other off west, each driving a large number of cattle, and lagging somewhat. Militia dust might be read as a split-off group of foragers.
What did young Maltby have in mind? What could he have in mind? A night charge into Mazeppa's camp, aimed at allowing Frazier and Jarvi to storm out and do heavy damage? Were the militias up to that? It was a lot to hope for.
And even if they were up to it, a lot depended on how well Frazier ran his part of the fighting, and how well the two forces interacted. All without communication or consultation.
At least the Rifles would arrive in time.
Mazeppa rode his favorite horse, trotting it mildly. The country was dry again, and the seven thousand hooves of his main force thoroughly pulverized the road's dried mud, raising a great dust cloud. Even near the front, he chewed grit.
They were moving more slowly than they had before attacking Kato Town. But if they were to encircle Hasty and starve out its people, they needed to gather and take with them many spotted buffalo. The problem had been to control his foragers. Only his charisma, the dedicated support of his cane men, and the firmness of Strong Wolf prevented them from hunting the woodlands for hidden women. They would, he'd told them repeatedly, have time for that later.
Mazeppa's two scouts, well out in front, were more than a mile short of the pyre when they saw its first rising smoke. One urged his horse into a gallop then, racing forward to see what was there; the other turned and raced back to Mazeppa. But the pyre had been well laid, and before the scout arrived, Mazeppa had seen the smoke for himself. So could anyone else, for miles.