"Just getting them into formation would take a couple of hours," Beckley put in. "By the way, I'm glad you two finally kissed and made up."
"Is that what we did?" Roger asked, regarding the corporal with a crooked eyebrow.
"According to the pool it is," Beckley replied with a complacent smile. "Won me almost five thousand credits, when I get home to collect it, too."
"I thought you looked revoltingly cheerful, you greedy bitch," Despreaux said with a grin.
"Me? Greedy?" Beckley shook her head mournfully. "You wrong me. I'm just delighted to see that, once again, the course of true love cannot be denied."
"Let's hope not, at any rate," Roger said, suddenly somber. "It would be nice if something about this trip stayed on course."
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
"Where in the hell did all this shit-sitter cavalry come from?" Sof Knu demanded, glaring at the ten- or fifteen-man cavalry picket from the undergrowth while rain drizzled down from an ebon sky.
"It must have been the 'marsh gas' we were chasing," Knitz De'n replied.
The last five days had been a period of utter frustration. De'n's tribe had arrived on the K'Vaern's Cove road to find absolutely no sign of any iron head cavalry, although there had been some tracks, washing away in the rain. They'd found a few of the damned wood runners and tortured them for information, but most had denied knowing anything, no matter how much they screamed. Finally, one had admitted to seeing some cavalry, but the place he claimed to have seen them was so close to Sindi that De'n had ordered his torturers to give him special attention to punish his lies. But the worthless creature had continued to shriek the same lie over and over again until he died, so the subchief had decided he had no choice but to check it out ... only to find these damned patrols between him and the city. The only good thing was that the shit-sitters hadn't spotted him in return. Yet.
"We can sweep them aside easily," Knu said. "Just give the word."
"The word is given," the subchief growled, pulling out a throwing ax. "As soon as the tribe is assembled, we'll run right over them. And anything else that stands in our way."
"What was that?" Roger looked up from his map and cocked his head.
"What was what?" Despreaux asked. "I can't hear a thing but the rain."
"Shots," the prince replied. "To the southwest." He stood up, trying to triangulate the source by turning his head from side to side, but the brief crackle of gunfire had already died.
"Somebody shooting a damnbeast?" Chim Pri suggested uncertainly.
"Maybe one of the cavalry pickets," Roger said. He looked out at the rain-soaked, night-dark woods and shivered despite the unending Mardukan warmth. "Chim, saddle up. I want you to head southwest and see what you find. Push skirmishers out front, but find the picket that was shooting if you can, and find out what it was shooting at."
"No more shots," Turkol Bes pointed out.
"I know," Roger said wiping the rain out of his face. "And I don't care. I still want to know what they were shooting at."
"I'm going," Pri said, looking into the water-filled, Stygian blackness. "But if it's trouble, you'd better be ready to follow us up sharpish."
"We will," Roger assured him, keying his helmet com. "Sergeant Jin?"
"We heard it, too, Sir," the gunnery sergeant said. The majority of the LURP teams had been left out to supplement the cavalry screen. "It was almost due west of us. All we could hear were the shots, but it sounded like one of the screen patrols ran into something heavy."
"Atul?" the prince asked, and over the radio, Jin could hear Mardukans bellowing what sounded like orders in the background. Clearly, the prince was on the ball.
"I don't think so, Sir," the NCO said. "I was just about to call it in to Captain Pahner when you called me."
"Right," Roger said, and Jin could almost hear the wheels turning. "I'm pushing my cavalry down there to see what they find. I'll go ahead and orient the Carnan that way, as well. Call the Captain and give him a situation report. MacClintock out."
The NCO smiled in the darkness. Whatever was going on in the deep woods seemed to have galvanized the prince, thank God. He truly sounded like himself for the first time since Matsugae's death ... and that was the first time the gunnery sergeant had ever heard Roger refer to himself unthinkingly as a MacClintock.
Patty burbled unhappily as the mahouts threw on her harness.
"I know, girl," Roger said, soothingly. He patted her behind her armored ruff. "I know it's dark. Deal with it."
It was dark-very dark. The double cloud layer had set in with a vengeance, and the moons weren't even up above it. Once they got away from the fires, most of the force would be nearly blind. The cavalry would be depending on their civan to find the way, and many of them would get lost. But the civan would eventually find their way back, at least. The same could not be said for the infantry.
He looked up to see Bes coming towards him in a way which demonstrated the point. The infantry leader had been reading a map in the tent, and now, in the shadows of the turom assigned to the mobile unit, he was walking with all four arms thrown forward, questing for anything which might loom unseen in his way.
"Over here, Turkol," Roger said. His own helmet systems, of course, made the area almost daylight-bright ... which gave him an idea.
"God of Water, Your Highness," the infantry commander said. "How are we going to find our way through this?"
"I was just thinking about that," Roger told him. "I think I'll have to break up my Marine squad and let each of them lead a section of the column. We'll move in line until we find out what's happening, and each of the troops will have to hold hands with the men in front of and behind him."
"Okay," Bes agreed, his eyes starting to adjust at least a little. "The good news is that the Boman don't like to move in the dark, either. And they do it slowly. I'll go get the troops lined up."
"And I'll get the Marines," Roger said.
"No!" Despreaux snapped. "We're your bodyguard, not seeing-eye Marines!"
"Sergeant Despreaux, that's an order," the prince said coldly, "and if I bring it to Captain Pahner's attention, which I should not have to do, he'll back me on it. We may very well have a hostile force of unknown size on our flank, and no forces on this side but us. I don't have time to debate with you."
"Who covers your back, Sir?" the squad leader demanded.
"Two Marines," Roger answered, "one of whom will not be you. And you won't be leading a group, either, nor will I. That leaves eight. Go get them ready, and have them report to Turkol. We need to have left already."
Despreaux threw up her hands.
"All right, all right. I get the picture. Yes, Sir, yes, Sir, three bags full. Just do me one favor, Your Highness."
"What?"
"Don't go riding into the middle of a thousand Boman screaming a war chant, okay?"
Roger snorted. "Okay. And do me one favor back."
"What?"
"Don't get yourself killed. I've got plans for you."
"Okay," the sergeant said. "I'll be going now."
Chim Pri reined in at a small stream and strained to hear. The jungle was always alive with sound, yet this time there was something extra. The rain had stopped, temporarily at least, but a wind was blowing through the treetops. It probably presaged yet another rainstorm, which would be irritating enough, but it was also blowing noisy spatters of water off of leaves and vines. It made hearing difficult, yet there was something else, another rustling half-lost in the background sound, but there.
He turned around and realized he could barely see two mounts behind him.
"First three troopers. Move forward and see what that is. And try not to get yourselves killed."
A trio of civan trotted obediently forward, and he heard one of the all-but-invisible troopers grunting in laughter.
"Yes, Sir. We'll try real hard not to get killed."
"You'd better," the cavalry commander said with a grunt of his own. "Anybody who gets killed tonight is going on report!"
It took only a few moments for the civan to thread their way between the trees. But their approach, quiet as it was, was detected, and the night rang with barbarian warcries from hundreds of lungs.
"Gods of Fire and Darkness!" Pri snapped. "What in the three hells did we run into?"
One of the troopers he'd sent forward let loose with all seven shots in one of the newly issued revolvers, and the brilliant lightning bolts of the muzzle flashes showed the cavalry commander dozens of barbarians ... and probably hundreds more behind them.
"Spread out!" he shouted. "I need some sort of accurate count!"
The commander spurred his civan to the south, searching for the tail of the barbarian column as the Boman charged straight into the swirling cavalry of the Basik's Own. Finally, as the shots rose to a crescendo, he decided he'd seen enough.
"Sound the recall!" he ordered the hornmen, who'd somehow kept up through the woods. "Sound a general retreat. Hopefully, they'll fall back to the infantry."
He picked the communicator off his breast as he turned to the northeast, wondering how to tell Roger that the entire force was apparently cut off. Behind him, the horns began to sound.
The enemy was upon them.