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* * *
"Back one step, and fire!" Fain barked. His throat was raw from the combination of gun smoke, ash, and shouting, but the company was maintaining a good fire, and at least half of their steadiness was because of their confidence in the voice behind them. He wasn't about to stop now. He did turn at the polite tap on a shoulder, though.
"Good morning, Captain Fain," Roger said. "I need to adjust your orders slightly, if you don't mind."
Fain looked at the prince, then shook his head. He could tell by now when Roger was being tricky.
"Of course, Your Highness. How can the Carnan Battalion—what's left of it—be of service?"
Roger winced at the qualification.
"Has it been bad?" he asked.
"Now that we have the Krath on a limited front, it's much better," Fain said, gesturing to the gate opening his men filled. "But the street fighting was quite bloody."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Roger said quietly. "I'm getting tired of losing friends." He gazed into the smoke and ash for a heartbeat or two, then drew a sharp breath.
"We need to break contact sharpish," he said more briskly. "Sergeant Major Kosutic has gotten everyone out of the way behind you, with the exception of one rank of Vashin. I need you to coordinate a high-firepower retreat to the rear of the gate area. It's imperative that the city half of the gate tu
Fain looked upward at the murderholes above him. He been half waiting for them to open up on his company at any moment, and he hadn't enjoyed the mental image of that eventuality which his imagination had conjured up. Now, however, the thought of descending slaughter was downright comforting.
"Understood, Your Highness," he replied, with a false-hand flick of grim amusement. "Will do."
* * *
Poertena waved in an ineffectual attempt to disperse the smoke drifting up through the hole as the Diasprans went to a higher rate of fire. That wall of lead couldn't be sustained for very long—individuals would quickly run out of ammunition, for one thing—but while it lasted, it permitted them to begin retreating, opening up the gap between them and the pressing Krath.
"I t'ink it's time to get to work," he said, as another volley of pistol shots sounded from the far room. He pulled out his wrench one last time and waited until the first Krath came into view through the hole.
"Say hello to my leetle priend!" he shouted, then swung over and down at the head of the barrel like a golfer.
* * *
Fain nodded as the first gush of fish oil fell through the holes. The Krath, who'd expected it to be hot or even boiling, were pleasantly surprised that it was neither. The slippery substance made it even harder for them to move forward over the bodies piling up in the tu
"That's right," he whispered. "Just a little further... ."
* * *
Poertena rolled the third, massive barrel aside as the last of the oil gushed from it, then nodded at Neteri and pulled out a grenade.
"One, two, t'ree—"
He thumbed the tab on the grenade and dropped it through the hole. Neteri dropped his own grenade simultaneously through the hole beside it, then both of them moved on to the next pair of holes and repeated the process.
"Time to get t'e pock out of here," Poertena said, headed for the door and accelerating steadily. "T'is t'e next best t'ing to teaching t'em bridge!"
* * *
The incendiary grenades were ancient technology—a small bursting charge, surrounded by layers of white phosphorus. Simple, but effective.
The burning metal engulfed the interior of the gate, and some of it spread as far as the front rank of the Diaspran infantry. Despite the weight of their rifle fire, they had been unable to keep the fanatic Krath from staying closer to them than Roger had hoped. Unfortunately, in the words of that most ancient of inter-species military aphorisms, "Shit happens," and so a few of the humans' allies learned the hard way that the most terrible thing about white phosphorus is that there is no way to extinguish it. You have to get it off, or simply let it burn out. Water doesn't quench it; it only makes it burn hotter.
Yet what happened to the Diasprans was only very bad; what happened to the Krath was indescribable. The blazing phosphorus raised the temperature in the gate tu
It came less swiftly for the forces gathered around the interior side of the gate as the ravening flames licked outward. Some of those at least fifteen or twenty meters back actually survived.
The flame gouted up through the murderholes, as well, narrowly missing the last Vashin cavalryman as he scrambled down the scaling rope on the outer wall. The inside of the gate tower was like a chimney, cha
In seconds, the entire gatehouse was fully involved.
* * *
"Cut it out, you stupid beast!"
Roger jerked on the reins of his civan as it stamped nervously. He understood why the flames and the smell of burning flesh made all of the cavalry mounts uneasy, but understanding didn't make his own mount any easier to control, and he felt a sudden longing for Patty.
For virtually the entire march across the far continent, his primary mount had been a flar-ta pack beast—an elephant-sized monstrosity that resembled nothing so much as an omnivorous triceratops. His particular mount had had more than a touch of the much more dangerous wild strain that the Marines had taken to calling "capetoads." Patty had been five tons of ravening, unstoppable mean in a fight, and at times like this, when it looked like a hard slog all the way to the mountains and possible battles with barbarian tribes beyond, he missed her badly.
But there'd been No Way to fit a flar-ta onto a schooner, so for the time being, he'd just have to put up with these damned two-legged idiots, instead.
Pahner walked over and glanced up at the prince as Roger attempted to soothe the nervous civan.
"I think your plan worked, Your Highness."
"Better than I'd hoped, actually," Roger admitted, listening to the steady roar of the flames consuming the gate tower's interior. "They'll have to wait for it to cool before they can pursue us on this side of the river. Either that, or climb down the walls."
"But they'll have sent out ru
"Then I suppose we should get headed out," Roger said, kneeing the beast around to face north, away from the inferno at the gate. He lowered his helmet visor and tightened his gauntlets.
"Time to show these religious gentlemen why you don't pock with House MacClintock."