He could sense a difference, a more methodical mind, calculating, not given to rash moves.
“I hate the fact we have to dig him out,” Andrew said, Hans nodding in agreement. “It’s as if the bastard is sitting there, just begging us to come in.”
“Could always count on them attacking up till now,” Hans replied, “but you’re right, he’s waiting for us to kick off the ball.”
Andrew grunted. Though Hans had taught him how to chew, he had never really mastered it and was embarrassed as he tried to spit and half choked instead.
Damn, the hordes could always be counted on to attack. The trick then was to find a narrow front, dig in, and tear them up. Jurak had reversed the tables. Capua was a damn fine defensive position, flanked by marshes and heavy forests to the north, more marshes and sharp jagged hills to the south. It was a front fifteen miles wide and fortified to the teeth.
Yet it seemed there was no other way. All indicators were that during the spring Jurak had invested a massive effort on building up his infrastructure, and his factories were churning out guns, ammunition, and supplies most likely at a faster pace than that of the Republic. If Andrew let this pace go on for another six months to a year, Jurak could swarm them under. He had to strike, like it or not.
The last of the swaying columns of infantry drifted past, blue uniforms already turning dirty gray-brown from the dust, men covering their faces with bandannas soaked in water. Jeff emerged out of the dust, cantering back down the line, followed by his guidon bearer. They reined in and saluted.
“I’ll see you up at the front, Jeff. Tell Pat not to get overanxious and start the show without me.”
“Yes sir. And sir, please do all of us a favor.”
“What’s that, Jeff?”
“Don’t push yourself too hard.”
Andrew smiled. How strange the role reversal of late. Prior to the wound he had been the father; now he was feeling like the aging parent whose children were increasingly solicitous about his well-being.
Offering a casual salute, Jeff spurred his mount, shouting for the column to increase its pace. Fifers squealed, picking up the “Battle Cry of Freedom,” the song rippling down the ranks, a strange mix as some sang the words in Latin, others in Rus. The column wound past, rank after endless rank, the strange rhythm of rattling canteens and tin cups, the squeaking of leather, the scrape of hobnailed shoes on the hard-packed ground all blending together. More dust swirled up as a battery of three-inch rifles clattered past, the air thick with the smell of horse sweat, leather, tar, and grease, the men riding the caissons waving cheerily.
The dust thickened, obscuring the view. Andrew reached up to wipe his eyes. But it wasn’t just the dust; to his surprise he was in tears. It was as if he was watching an ageless ritual for one last time, a sense that here was a final moment, the army going forth one last time, hopefully to victory. But the pageantry, the flags snapping in the rising breeze, the dark columns of infantry, rifles glinting, all of it was the passing of the armies into a dark and unknown land. It was an army of ghostly apparitions, and again he thought of the dream that had consumed him while he had lain in the twilight world that bordered on death, the tens of thousands who had gone ahead, sent there by his orders. How many of these boys were now marching to that destiny? When, dear God, would it ever end?
Jurak Qar Qarth of the Bantag Horde walked along the battlements lining the east bank of the river just above Capua. The midsummer twilight cast long shadows across the river, silhouetting the human fortifications on the opposite side of the river. He peered intently, raising his field glasses to scan the lines, oblivious to the warnings about snipers. An occasional shot fluttered overhead, a round smacking into the embankment above the firing slit, sending down a shower of powdery dirt.
An enemy flyer lazily circled above the lines, waiting in challenge for any of his own airships to come over, an offer he would not take since airships were far too precious to waste in foolish dueling that served no strategic purpose.
He slid back down from the firing slit and looked back at the gathering of umen Qarths, the commanders of his twenty-five divisions committed to this front.
In the hours after his killing of Ha’ark he had assumed that he, too, would die. But led by Zartak, the oldest of the clan Qarths, the council had declared him as the rightful successor, the one of legend sent to redeem the world, while Ha’ark had been a false usurper.
It was a position he had never desired, but the simple fact of the matter was that he either take it or die. He knew that if there had actually been a blood challenge, he would have been lost, but there was still enough of the superstitious fear of him and the others who had come through the Portal of Light, to ensure his acceptance as a demigod sent to save the hordes.
Being stuck on this world, fighting this war, none of it was what he desired, but saddled with the responsibility, he would see it through to its conclusion. Ha’ark had been far more the adventurer, the seeker of glory and power, while he had stayed in the background.
Even on the old world he had not sought the shock of battle. Drafted to serve in the War of the False Pretender, he had spent eight years in the ranks, never rising because such power was not what he wanted. Solitude, a good book, a conversation with some depth to it were far more to his liking, and the others of his unit, though they knew he was dependable in a fight, found little else in common with him.
Regarding the humans of this world he felt no real hatred; the visceral loathing and dread shared by all of the hordes for this hairless race since the start of the rebellion of the cattle was beyond him in any true emotional sense. On an intellectual level he fully understood the fundamental core of this war; it was a fight for racial survival. After all that had happened only one race could expect to survive, while the other would have to be destroyed. That is what he now fought for, survival. He was of the race of the hordes, they had made him their leader, and he had to ensure that this world would be safe for them.
He smiled, remembering, a refrain from a poem from his old world:
“Those I fight I do not hate, those I defend I do not love.”
His gaze scanned the umen chieftains. Barbarians, all of them barbarians, clad in black leather, human finger bones strung as necklaces, one of them casually drinking fermented horse milk from a gold-encrusted human skull. Yet they were now his, perhaps the most capable warriors he had ever seen, razor-sharp scimitars that could cut a human in two dangling from waist belts, more than one of them carrying revolving pistols, a few with carbine rifles casually slung over their shoulders.
All of them were scarred, most sporting old saber slashes across cheeks, brow, and forearms, reminders of a simpler and happier age when the enemy were the other hordes and war was the sport of warriors and not a question of survival or total annihilation. Many bore the ritual cuts on forearms or across foreheads, slashes that were self-inflicted at the start of a battle in order to lend a more fearsome appearance. Several were missing limbs, hands, arms blown off or amputated.
Zartak, the eldest, was legendary throughout the Horde, a rider of four circlings of the planet, eighty years or more of age. At Rocky Hill, it was said that his left leg had been blown off just below the knee and he had not even flinched. After,wrapping a tourniquet around his thigh he continued “to lead his umen on the last desperate charge to take the hill, and then, in spite of the injury that normally would have killed someone half his age, he actually survived.
The ancient warrior looked straight at him then, and nodded. Strange, Jurak thought, he had often heard of the ability some claimed to be able to sense and probe the thoughts of others. Ha’ark had claimed the skill, but lied. Zartak had it, though, and in the months since becoming Qar Qarth Jurak had felt an increasing bond with this ancient one who had seen the world from one end to the other four times over.