"Time to leave, people," the company commander said, pointing slightly to the south of the firing. "About there should be good."
* * *
"Right there!" Rastar shouted as the civan lurched to its feet. He spurred to the west, revolvers streaming smoke and flame. Half a dozen of his troopers rode with him, their massed fire tearing a hole in the Boman line, and then all of them dodged aside as the herd of stampeding civan thundered past them.
The loose civan, driven by Honal and a dozen more mounted troopers and maddened with fear from the firing and blood smell behind them, smashed into the already breached Boman line, throwing it even further into chaos. The regular volleys from the south, when most of the previous firing—light as it had been—had come from the southwest, had thrown the enemy totally off balance. Caught between two fires, the barbarians on the south side of the perimeter hadn't known which way to turn.
The barbarians on the other three sides had no such doubts. They charged forward when they saw the cavalry slipping out through the hole in the line, but only to run into regular, slamming volleys of aimed rifle fire. The three thousand cavalry in the pocket had been low on ammunition, and barely a tenth of them had been armed with rifles. The men of the five rifle battalions Bistem Kar had peeled off and assigned to Major Dnar Ni, who had replaced the recently deceased Colonel Rahln as CO of the Marton Regiment, suffered under no such handicap. There were two thousand of them, and they slammed volley after volley into the packed barbarians. The four-armed Mardukans could load, prime, and fire their weapons without even lowering them from the firing position, and their rate of fire was incredible by any human standard. The Boman were crowded so closely together a single bullet could kill or wound as many as three, or even four of them, and each rifleman was sending six aimed rounds per minute straight into them. Not even the famed Boman fighting frenzy could carry them forward into that vortex of destruction, and the warriors in front of the firing line were driven to ground.
The warriors to either side of the relief force riflemen spread wider, seeking to find and envelop their flanks, only to encounter assegai-armed spearmen and recoil afresh.
"Message to Colonel Des," Kar said. "He's to refuse his right flank and withdraw. Same message to Colonel Tarm, but he's to refuse his left."
The K'Vaernian general looked up with a nod as Rastar reached his command group and reined in.
"Prince Rastar."
"General Kar," the prince said with a matching nod. "Nice of you to show up."
"Had a few problems with a subcommander," the K'Vaernian admitted. "They're solved. How many are we looking at?"
"Not the entire host, thank the gods." The cavalry officer slid off his civan. "I think Camsan figured out where we were headed sooner than we'd planned. Whatever happened, he scattered his own troops and the first ones to reach him through the woods here in an effort to keep us from getting back to Sindi, and that's all we've got to worry about right this minute. The rest are still back there, coming down from the north to join up. Only a few of them actually found us, I think, but that, unfortunately, seems to include Camsan himself, so the coordination's been fair. And all the rest of them are undoubtedly coming on from behind him."
"As long as it's not the full hundred thousand already, we should be fine," Kar said. "We need to retreat smartly, though."
"Oh, yes," Honal agreed fervently, riding into the conference. "I don't want to spend another night like that last one."
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
"This is actually beginning to look halfway decent," Pahner said.
"I'm glad to hear it," Rus From said. The Diaspran who'd become the chief field engineer of the K'Vaernian army stretched wearily. "We managed to get almost all of the exposed stores aboard the boats and sent them off downriver," he reported. "There's still a lot to go, but it's all on the south side of the river now, behind the surprise."
"Good," Bogess said. "Now if we can just get the army back together here before Camsan turns up—and assuming, of course, that Bistem gets back here intact—things will definitely be looking up. And it looks like Roger has smashed the Boman to the south quite handily."
"Yep," Pahner agreed. "Gotta love competent subordinates. Of course, that begs the question of who's the subordinate in this case. Speaking of which." He keyed his communicator. "Prince Roger, Captain Pahner."
* * *
Roger groaned as the attention signal pinged.
"Roger," he said. "Take that however you prefer."
"I hate to break this to you, Your Highness, but I need you to bring your butt back to Sindi. I imagine we'll be entertaining the main host here sometime tomorrow morning, and I'd like you to be present for the party."
"Gotcha, Captain," the prince said with another groan, and surveyed the troopers lying all around the reclaimed original trench line in exhausted heaps. No doubt it was all dreadfully untidy, and not at all the way it was supposed to be according to The Book, but at least all the bodies were out of the trench, and all the wounded had been bandaged.
"We'll head out in a few minutes," Roger went on. "But be aware that we had to send all of our civan and turom back already, so we're on foot. That's going to slow us down."
"Understood," Pahner said. "I'll send some troops out to meet you with your mounts. Move out, Your Highness."
"Roger, out." The prince smiled as he got to his feet. "Take that however you prefer," he whispered, and then poked the sergeant who'd lain half-asleep beside him with a toe. "Despreaux! What the heck are you doing lying around snoring when your prince is in danger?"
* * *
Krindi Fain wasn't lost, he simply didn't know where his battalion—or his regiment—had gotten to. No one else seemed to know either, but, since seeing their company commander stumbling around in the middle of a retreat looking for their parent unit would be a bad thing for morale, he'd parked the company with the supply packbeast guards and gone a-hunting.
He also wasn't asleep, simply sort of numb. Which was how he came to be walking with his eyes sort of closed when he slammed into the obstacle.
"What are you doing here, soldier?" Bistem Kar's aide-de-camp demanded as the acting lieutenant bounced off of him, and Fain's eyes went wide at the sight of all the brass standing about.
"Krindi Fain, acting lieutenant, Delta Company, Rifle Battalion, Marton Regiment!" he said, snapping a salute. "I'm looking for the Battalion, Sir!"
"Fain?" Kar himself rumbled. "Weren't you an instructor sergeant not too long ago?"
"It's a long story, General," the braced acting lieutenant said. "I think I'll let Major Ni and Sergeant Julian explain it, if I may, General!"
"Delta Company?" one of the other officers said. "I thought that was Lieutenant Fonal. I was surprised he got picked to command those skirmishers on the southwest flank, but that was you, wasn't it?"
"Yes, Sir," Fain said. "We're just trying to find our way home now, Sir."
General Kar grunted in laughter.
"That's the best description of this madhouse I've heard yet," he said, and his command staff joined his laughter. Fain was pretty sure that his participation in their humor wouldn't be appreciated, but he was too tired to really care, and he raised all four hands, palms upward in a purely human gesture.
"I'm just trying to find our unit, Sir," he said tiredly. All these clean staff officers, who'd undoubtedly had to suffer through a hot breakfast and forego the pleasure of being covered in smoke stains and blood, were making his head ache.