“When them walkers gome thinkah ye, Capun?” asked Kruso. “Donned them tha flats.”
“Sounds like we’re ready,” Abel answered. He turned to Anderson, his wigwag officer. “Send a signal in all directions, Lieutenant. Forward half speed. Attack.”
“Yes, sir.” While still on dontback, Anderson began waving his flags.
Abel glanced over to Kruso. “You ready?”
Kruso smiled his gap-toothed, ragged smile. “Aye, Capun,” he said. “Bet makem can tha.”
“Sure, what do you want to wager?”
“Thet four to yorn drei get mah.”
“I’ll take that,” Abel said. “I know exactly how this breechloader works, you know.”
“Aye, sir,” said Kruso. “But Ah hov practis.” He showed his right hand. Three paper cartridges were gripped between his fingers. So he’d learned Golitsin’s trick-or maybe been the one who taught it to the priest.
Abel joined the crooked but unbroken line that had formed along the top of the levee. Took a breath. Let it out.
He raised his hand, put it down. They began to trot down the levee’s slope into the basin, firing their rifles as they came.
He fired. Pulled back the dog, flipped up the trapdoor breech on its hinge, flicked the percussion cap, the only piece remaining in the barrel, out. Loaded another cartridge. Closed the trap. Pushed the cartridge forward. Clicked the gun to full cock. Another shot. Then another.
And again.
And with each bit of practice, he was only getting faster at loading.
The boards kept his feet from submerging in the paddy muck.
He took another step. Fired.
There was no reason to go quickly. The Redlanders were now truly not going anywhere. The Blaskoye leaders gave up the struggle to push their donts forward and dismounted. The others followed suit. Instead of attacking, they now hunkered down and used the donts for cover.
Clever, Abel thought. A bullet whizzed past him. He gauged where the shot had come from, aimed, shot. Reload. Shoot. Reload again.
To not have to worry about the endless task of feeding powder into the muzzle under fire was priceless. No stamping the ball in with the rod. No hundred eyeblink delay with a hail of lead about your head. Just this simple motion of reloading a papyrus cartridge. The flicking away of the cap and trace of burned residue.
Some of the guns were jamming. That was no good, but it was happening in spots up and down the line. He took a quick look and saw this. But it did not look to be a problem most were having.
It was not a problem he was having.
He took aim at a big Blaskoye who was only partially concealed behind his dont. He must stand up to reload. There was no choice with his musket.
The Redlander shoved in the cartridge and paper. He loaded the ball. Abel took aim. The Blaskoye lifted the ramrod. Abel fired.
The tall Blaskoye dropped the ramrod and clutched his side.
He fell over the dont, which must be dead, for it did not move. The rifle fell from his hands. He writhed in the mud in front of the dead dont, dying by kicks and spurts beside the dead beast that had borne him.
Abel turned his sights elsewhere.
Reload.
Fire.
The Scouts continued down the hill. And like rice at reaping time, the Blaskoye fell one after another, as if struck down by a scythe. There were only pockets here and there of Redlanders. Several had managed to get their donts in a circle and formed a dontflesh barricade of sorts. These diehard few would be tough to root out. More importantly, it would take time.
And there was the threat, still lingering in Abel’s mind, of a flank attack to the East. Should the remains of the Blaskoye who had taken the arsenal decide to take to the Canal levee-victory could become annihilation, at least for the breechload companies of the Scouts.
“Kruso, get your squad together and come with me. In fact, I’ll take all of Maday’s. Run get him, will you. Meet me on the levee.”
“Aye, Capun.” Kruso saluted with his right hand, its pinkie finger missing from some Redland scrape of Scout and nomad, now lost in time.
While Kruso went off to gather his men, Abel turned and made his way back up the hill, considering the gun. The Scout rate of fire was more than three times that of the Redlanders, especially in this situation. The Redlanders were terrified, trapped, probably running low on cartridges. Unable to comprehend what was happening to them.
A breechloader versus a musket was murder for the musketeer.
When he reached the levee top, he turned to see Maday’s troop, including Kruso’s squad, charging up after him. The donts were being handled by a group of younger Scouts serving as orderlies. All of them gripped rifles in one hand, a bouquet of dont reins in the others, and obviously wished desperately to take part in the action below.
Abel separated out the reins of his own dont-he was back on the big stag Spet-from the clump in the trembling keeper’s hand.
“You’ll get your chance,” Abel said to him. “Lots of them.”
The boy, no more than twelve, looked up and smiled, both terror and longing in his eyes.
Abel gave him a warm slap on the shoulder, then mounted his dont.
The others soon arrived, and they mounted up as well. Then they were charging down the levee to the east, charging past the priests who were leaning against their wheels and watching like spectators at a carnadon feeding, and leaving behind them the frequent, steady gunshot pops and the screams of dying Redlanders. To Abel’s ears, the screams sounded more like amazement and outrage than pain.
4
They covered the two leagues to Garangipore at a fast trot, keeping the donts’ front paws on the ground. They’d pushed the animals to their limits this day, and they’d responded magnificently. But there were limits to even Scout dont endurance.
They passed outlying farmhouses, abandoned for the duration, or at least showing no signs of life, until they reached an odd structure in the midst of a flax field. There was a single road that led to it-only a wagon track, but well trampled-and no road leading farther way. The building had the curious appearance of a tavern or inn from the village transported here into the middle of the country. Smoke rose from a chimney.
Abel paused to gaze at the place for a moment, and his lieutenants rode up beside him. “What the hell is that?” he mused.
Maday let out a short, sharp laugh. “That?” he said. “Why, that is an establishment known to most of the men of Garangipore, and several of the women as well, I’ll wager. It goes by several names, but most people know it as Truman’s Farm.”
“And who is Truman?”
“I think he is the late husband of the proprietress,” Maday said. “She’s called Eloise now, but I’m not at all certain if that is the name given to her by whatever parents spawned her.”
“You’ve visited Truman’s?”
“I have a cousin in Garangipore. We were practically raised together-he’s like a brother to me-so I come out and see him pretty often. And sometimes this is where we meet,” Maday said. “It’s a bar and whorehouse, sir. Mostly it’s a place for the town dandies to come out, get some tail, roll some bones, and pretend to be hunting-because that’s what they tell their wives. It’s true enough. Eloise keeps some flitterdaks grain-fed out in that field. She has a pair of pistols she’ll loan out to the boys to go shooting. The girls she keeps grain-fed and in the backrooms there. They aren’t local girls. She goes twice a year and picks up a new load down in the Delta. That’s the best time to come, if you know about it.” Maday nodded, lost in memory. “Yes, when Mama Eloise arrives with the new girls, it’s a hell of a time out here. Of course, everything’s double-priced that night, since every rich boy in town will be out bidding for a limited supply of unbroken females, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes,” Abel said. He nodded toward the building. “Look at the donts in the corral. How many do you make out?”