It was the side streets. His strength was being eaten up in scores of small blocking forces, racing to cut off each new penetration. Every man he committed to holding them there was one less to cover the main thoroughfares, but if he didn't block the side routes, the heretics filtered forward—taking their accursed chagors with them—and cut in behind his main positions. He needed more men, yet Lord Marshal Surak refused to release them. A full third of the available Guard was still hammering away at the heretics' leaders or covering routes they might use to join their fellows if they somehow broke out of the artillery depot. The men Therah did have were fighting like heroes, but something was going to break if he couldn't convince Surak to reinforce him.
"Signalman!" He didn't even look up as a signals officer materialized beside him. "Signal to Lord Marshal Surak: 'I must have more men. We hold the main approaches, but the demon-worshipers are breaking through the side streets. Losses are heavy. Unless reinforced, I cannot be responsible for the consequences.' " He paused, wondering if he'd been too direct, then shrugged. "Send it."
He looked back out the window just as a ball from a heretic chagor struck an arlak on the muzzle. The gun tube leapt into the air like a clumsy talmahk, then crashed back down to crush half a dozen men, and he swore. His gunners were killing the heretic artillerists, but despite their barricade, they were being ground away by the demon-worshipers' greater rate of fire.
"Message to Under-Captain Reskah! He's to move his battery up to Saint Halmath Street. Have him deploy to take the heretics in flank as they advance on the Street of Lamps position. Then get another messenger to Under-Captain Gartha. He's to bring his pikes—"
High-Captain Therah went on barking orders even as his staff began to gather up their maps in preparation to fall back yet again.
Sean crouched behind his own rock pile with Sandy as the latest assault fell back into the smoke. The depot wall had become little more than a tumbled heap of broken stone, but his men were dug in behind it, and dead and dying Guardsmen littered the approaches. The wooden warehouses to the east were a roaring mass of flames, but the ones on the west side were stone, and the Guard arlaks in them were still in action.
Folmak crawled up beside him, keeping low as musket balls whined and skipped from the crude breastwork. The ex-miller's breastplate was dented, and his left arm hung in a bloody sling, but he carried a smoking pistol in his right hand. He flopped down beside Sean and passed the weapon back to his orderly to reload before he tugged a replacement from his sash.
"We're down to about nine hundred effectives, My Lord." The Malagoran coughed on the smoke. "I make it three hundred dead and six hundred wounded, and the surgeons are out of dressings." He turned his head to watch Sandy rip open an iron-strapped crate of musket ammunition with one bio-enhanced hand and managed a grim smile. "At least we've still got plenty of ammunition."
"Glad something's going right," Sean grunted, and rose cautiously to fire at a Guardsman. The man threw up his arms and sprawled forward, and Sean dropped back beside Folmak as answering fire cracked and whined about his ears.
He rolled on his back to reload the pistol, and his thoughts were grim. The Guard was coming at them only from the west now, but it was still coming. As Lee had proven at Cold Harbor and Petersburg, dug in riflemen could hold against many times their own numbers, but each assault crashed a little closer to success, like waves devouring a beach, and his line was a little thinner as each fell back. Another two or three hours, he thought.
He drew the hammer to the half-cocked safety position and primed the pistol while he stared up into the smoke-sick afternoon sky. He could hear the thunder of battle from the north in the rare intervals when the firing here slowed, and he was still tied into Brashan's arrays. The satellites could see less and less as smoke and the spreading fires blinded their passive sensors, but he was still in touch with Tibold and Harriet, as well. The ex-Guardsman had battered his way halfway to the Place of Martyrs, but at horrible cost. No one could be certain, and he knew people tended to assume the worst while the dying was still happening, but even allowing for that, Harriet estimated Tibold had lost over a sixth of his men. The Angels' Army was being ground away, and there was nothing he could do about it. Even if the army had tried, it was in too deep to disengage, and he knew Tibold would refuse to so much as make the attempt as long as he, Tamman, or Sandy were still alive.
Which they wouldn't be for too very much longer, he thought bitterly.
"Sean! Movement to the north!"
He rolled onto his side and rose on an elbow, peering to his right as Tamman's warning came over the com, but not even enhanced eyes could see anything from here.
"What kind of movement?" he asked, and there was a moment of silence before Tamman replied slowly.
"Dunno, Sean. Looks like... By God, it is! They're moving back!"
"Moving back?" Sean looked at Sandy. Her smoke-grimed face was drawn, but she shrugged her own puzzlement. "Are they shifting west, Tam?"
"No way. They're pulling straight back. Just a sec." There was another pause as Tamman crawled through the rubble to a better vantage point. "Okay. I can see 'em better now. Sean, the bastards are forming a route column! They're moving straight towards the Place of Martyrs!"
Sean was about to reply when a junior officer flung himself on his belly behind the rock pile. The young man was breathing hard and filthy from head to toe, but he slapped his breastplate in a sort of abbreviated salute.
"Lord Sean! They're moving back on the south side."
"How far back?"
"Their musketeers are still in the buildings, but their pikemen are falling clear back behind them, My Lord."
Sean stared at him and forced his cringing brain to work. The Guard had to know it was grinding the First away, so why fall back now? It couldn't be simply to reorganize, not if Tamman was right about the column marching north for the Place of Martyrs. But if not that, then—
"They're reinforcing against Tibold," he said softly. Folmak looked at him for a moment, then nodded.
"They must be," he agreed, and Sean looked at the under-captain.
"How many pikes did they pull off the south side?"
"I'm not certain, My Lord—" the Malagoran began, and Sean shook his head.
"Best guess. How many?"
"At least five thousand."
"Tam? How many from your side?"
"I make it what's left of seven or eight thousand pikes. They've left musketeers to keep us busy, but I'd guess there's no more than a thousand pikemen to support them."
Sean frowned, then switched to Tibold's com frequency.
"Tibold, they're pulling men away from us. We're guessing it at ten to twelve thousand pikes."
"Away from you?" The ex-Guardsman was hoarse and rasping from hours of bellowing orders, but there was nothing wrong with his brain. "Then they're sending them here."
"Agreed. What will that do to you?"
"It won't be good, Lord Sean," Tibold said grimly. "My lead brigades are down to battalion strength by now. We're still moving forward, but it's by finger spans. If they bring that many fresh men into action—" He broke off, and Sean could almost see his shrug.
"How long for them to get to you?"
"Under these conditions? At least an hour."
"All right, Tibold. I'll get back to you."
"Sean?" He looked up as Sandy said his name, and her eyes bored into his.
"Give me a minute." He turned to Folmak and pointed to the gaunt, fortress-like main arsenal building which sheltered their wounded.