Seen from outside, the stockade was chaos. The Dkota were in mid-attack, braves climbing the walls, fighting and dying on the walkways, milling and dying at their base, striving in mortal combat inside the north gates, or crowding and clamoring to get in, all individual effort and focus now, uncoordinated, bloody, man to man. They had a toe-hold inside, and leaderless or not, they showed no sign of quitting.
Perhaps half of Mazeppa's men still waited in the circle, actually more box than circle, and now only seventy or eighty yards from the stockade. They'd moved inward during the attack for more effective archery, fragmenting as chiefs fell to rifle slugs, and as impatience sent braves yipping and yelling toward the wall to prove themselves.
The booming of rifles had less psychological effect on the Dkota than Frazier, Jarvi, and the Higuchians had hoped. The braves had connected the opening salvo with the decimation of their chiefs, but they hadn't panicked. Their focus was too strong, and it was on the scene in front of them—the stockade, the fighting, and the breaking and destruction of the obstinate dirt-eaters.
Then Donald's force charged, trotting at first, speeding to a gallop for the last hundred yards. The first rank was of armsmen, well-drilled and with no space between the riders, a solid, slightly angled chevron of fighting men, their knees meshed with the knees of the men on each side of them. At least that was the drill. Their execution was less than drill-perfect, but effective, firming their solidarity and nerves, locking their chevron into a solid, on-rushing wall.
As ordered, they charged without shouting or cheering. The approach of twenty-five hundred hooves at a fast trot might have warned the braves, but an attack from behind hadn't occurred to them, and there was that intensity of focus. Some in the rear, less rapt and eager, did become aware when the galloping began, and turning, reacted mostly with a moment of shocked paralysis, followed by a yelling attempt to scatter. But it was too late.
The impact of the charge was audible, a crash of horses, and the agreed-upon release of exultant shouts. Screaming horses, screaming braves fell, were overridden, and initially, in that solid chevron, most of the sabers found nothing to strike. The horses were the weapons, sweeping the circle away, trampling fallen bodies.
At forty-yard intervals behind the chevron came two much longer and less solid ranks, the militias, whose sabers were busier. They finished any overrun braves who somehow arose after the shock wave had struck, and their wings rolled up the flanks of the Dkota facing the east and west walls.
The chevron's compactness and regularity, and much of its momentum was broken by the impact, but it continued forward, scattering and decimating the braves milling at the south wall. Then, careening round the corners of the stockade, it flanked the attackers there, who only then realized what was happening. Some fled, some fought, but most who fought, fought singly.
Despite their pre-attack briefing, the natural tendency for the victors was to pursue fugitives, but Maltby's trumpeter trumpeted an order, and most continued as squads and platoons to clear the attackers around the stockade. On the south side, the Dkota were mostly down—wounded or dead—and most of the wounds were grievous, from sabers and trampling. On the other sides, many escaped, but others threw down their weapons, and raised their arms in surrender. Then, briefly, the main job of officers and noncoms was to prevent the killing of surrendering braves.
(Luis)
Many of the warriors who ran away fled homeward, either due west, or backtracking southward, then west. Still others gathered in impromptu bands in the vicinity of Dindigul, and sent spokesmen to negotiate surrender. Apparently none of them seriously considered continuing the war, though some who rode on to Many Geese committed depredations along the way.
All three tribes had lost their major chiefs. Both Mazeppa and Strong Wolf had been disabled, Strong Wolf when a slug intended for his horse had shattered his femur, costing him a lot of blood, and leaving him crippled. Mazeppa, from the crash with his horse, had ribs broken and a lung punctured, plus severe concussion, pelvic damage, and more. The arrow wound was minor.
We didn't know the details then, of course. All we knew was, the great chief was unconscious, and seemed at death's door, and that's what Lemmi and I radioed Tahmm. Who knew, of course, that we considered Mazeppa a key to future peace.
"Is he important enough for me to order a medical intervention?"
We told him yes; he'd have been disappointed if we hadn't. It was he who'd taught us that the mission came before careers and convenience, and that the spirit of the law was more important than some senior ESS bureaucrat's interpretation.
So that night Freddy and I lugged the unconscious—and heavy!—Mazeppa half a mile by stretcher, to rendezvous with a courier fitted as an ambulance. It would deliver him to the infirmary at the Sangre de Cristo headquarters. Along with Lemmi to be his guardian, and afterward his anchor point, so to speak. There, before ever regaining consciousness, he received emergency and reconstructive surgery, then was stashed in an isolated room for a week, undergoing deep regeneration. All under a medication that would leave his memories of the infirmary vague and dreamlike. He wouldn't know what to make of them.
They repaired the critical damage, but not all the—call it peripheral damage. They were stretching regulations as it was, and being partially crippled would give Mazeppa a different view of life.
Jaako Jarvi didn't get surgical intervention, but we were pretty sure he'd pull through with Higuchian therapy, and the medicines the courier delivered. What wasn't clear was how well he'd do afterward.
Freddy acted as his nurse and therapist, which would help a lot. Freddy had to stay at Dindigul anyway, along with most of Jarvi's armsmen and many of Donald's men, to deal with our 714 prisoners, many of them wounded. The stockade became a prison. Keith's men, along with some of Donald's, set off to hunt down and run off—or finish off—any tribesmen who might hang around to make trouble.
Strong Wolf was in custody at the stockade, and Mazeppa would be returned there. When Lemmi and Mazeppa got back, I'd come back too. Then Lemmi and I would engineer peace terms, and send the prisoners back to Many Geese. Or not, depending on how things developed. Fortunately we had the cattle the Dkota had captured, to feed them.
Meanwhile, with the invasion broken, I had to get back to Hasty. Carlos hadn't responded when I'd initiated my report after the battle. He had, I'd learn later, been handling 4th usher duties in the palace, and both hands had been full, but meanwhile I was worried. And at any rate Sota needed to be stabilized, and left with someone ethical in charge. From what Jarvi had told me—and they were kinsmen—Bonde wasn't the man. But neither was Jarvi, for now, not with his wound.
I'd leave at dawn, I decided, leaving Donald in charge at Dindigul, with Freddy as advisor. Tomorrow they'd set prisoners to work preparing for the cremation ceremonies. Some would dig the trenches, others would cut and drag up firewood, and still others would lay out the dead and wash their faces. Bossed by Pastor Morosov, and two Wolf "guides of the spirit."
To properly send off the souls of the dead would help heal the living, and the sins of the pre-Armageddon past.
Dawn had begun infiltrating night, and I was eating an army breakfast, when Carlos called, and I learned how dangerous the situation had become at Hasty. I ended up getting away two hours late—and not alone. Jarvi, sick and hurting though he was, signed a quickly written document placing Captain Fong and his 2nd Rifles under my command. The old warrior was too groggy from painkiller to ask how I knew what I knew, and he'd come to trust me. I hoped never to betray that trust.