Страница 153 из 186
Ke
A long breath, and he called for his radio tech. The co
"Sir, the line's cracking like river ice in spring. I just put in the last of Tudhaliyas's men, and that's it. If they hadn't run out of rockets for their katyushas we'd be ru
"Right," Hollard said.
He put the fingers of his right hand to his brow, squeezing the cold-numbed flesh as if he could drive answers through the bone by main force.
"Right," he went on. "The right flank's secure, I think- they're not going to put anything through here without fresh troops and with extreme caution."
"Thank God for that," Kathryn said. "We couldn't even disengage with that hanging over us. How's Raupasha?"
"Not good-bad wound," Hollard said, forcing his voice to flatness.
"Oh, shit. All right, sir, what are we going to do?"
"What else?" Ke
"I do not stay with a plan that is a failure," Isketerol of Tartessos snapped. "But first I must know. Fool, have I ever punished the bearer of bad news? Speak!"
The officer gulped, drew himself straight, then threw off a salute of fist to chest. It would have looked more impressive if he hadn't been such a drowned, scorched rat himself. The winter dawn was bright but chill; Isketerol drew his cloak around him, glad of the new-style trousers that were so much less drafty than a tunic alone, and of the warmth of his horse.
"Lord King, we lost two hundred and twenty dead-mostly in fighting the fires, and from the explosions. We do not know how many the enemy suffered, they took their wounded and dead with them."
Isketerol nodded. Even a few years ago, he would have boasted of hundreds slain, he thought. And by the next seven-day, he would believe the tales himself. That had been a difficult thing to teach, first himself and then others, the absolute importance of accuracy, as it was called in English. It had been easier for him because he was a merchant, used to dealing in precise quantities, so-and-so many ingots of fixed weight, interest at such-and-such a rate per year. Even better that he'd been a merchant used to foreign adventuring, where a lapse in knowledge could mean death.
He looked beyond the man who stood at his stirrup. The town of Kurutselcaryaduwara-biden lay in a haze of bitter smoke, tumbled blackened walls whose adobe had been half fired to baked brick, charred rafters still smoldering. Soldiers, civilians and slaves were already at work clearing rubble out of the streets, but it would be a work of months-years-to replace all that had been lost. I should have taken more precautions, he thought bitterly. There had been so much else to do, so many other things clamoring for attention… Now I must, though the ox is already through the broken gate and his grazing has laid waste the grain.
Perhaps that was what the Amurrukan word staff really meant, someone to think of things the supreme commander had no time for. If that was so, it was knowledge bitter in its uselessness. There were too few who could understand the thought; he barely did himself. I have not the time, he thought angrily. A thousand lifetimes would not be enough.
"Do you have numbers?"
"Lord King, all the ammunition stores were lost. Over a million and a half rounds of small-arms cartridges, and-
Isketerol forced himself not to wince as the totals were added up. Every soldier had a hundred rounds in his cartridge box and knapsack; that meant eight hundred thousand rounds with the army he had assembled, as many again with the forward bases and supply wagons-and they could shoot that off in a day or two of real fighting. Beyond that were the ca
The officer went on, listing flints and priming powder, metal parts warped into uselessness, grain, oil, biscuit, salt fish, dried or barreled meat, preserved vegetables, uniforms and shoes, cloth and hides, rope, fodder… Worst of all was the wrecked engines of the base machine shop, precious lathes and boring machines.
No, even worse was the loss of trained men. At least they were not the tool and die makers-those are more than worth their weight in gold.
"We can sift the ashes for metal," Isketerol said. "See to it-particularly the lead. We'll need storage for fresh supplies brought up from the city, or downriver. Get the less damaged buildings repaired…"
The man hesitated again, closed his eyes for a second, then went on: "Lord King, there is also the matter of your youngest brother Prince Gergenzol…"
Isketerol swallowed past a thick grief, his face a mask of cold determination. I knew he must have been struck down, or he would have been here to meet me. Just come to a man's full years, and the command of this town had been the first great task the King had entrusted to him.
"Lord King, we have not found the body. The commander's fort was utterly destroyed; with blasting charges, I think, as well as fire. There were many bodies, but few could be identified and many were… fragments. No trace of his wife or son was found."
The Iberian monarch took a long deep breath, fist clenching on the pommel of his saddle. His aides and war-captains looked on anxiously; there were few ties stronger than that between uncle and nephew, for their people.
"My brother Gergenzol fell in battle," Isketerol said harshly.
"That is a fitting end for a man. And the Crone comes for us all, soon or late."
He looked about. His cousin Miskelefol waited; a sound man, if not one whose wit flashed like a sword blade.
"Lord Miskelefol," he said. "You will assume command here. We will withdraw the army to cover this area."
"Lord King-" one of his war-captains said, a grizzled man who'd been helmsman on the Foam Treader before the Eagle People came. "That means opening the valley of the Tasweldan Errigu-abiden to raids at least, and perhaps to invasion."
Isketerol nodded. "True enough, Derentersal," he said.
And perhaps even the wild Highlanders will raise their heads again, he thought. To free the rich river country of the age-old terror of mountaineer raids had been the first and hardest of his works, and the means by which he had won the loyalty of the valley folk. Laying the mountains under law and tapping their treasures had been nigh as hard.
"Better to lose ground than to lose the army; that would mean the loss of the kingdom," he said.
Derentersal shook his head. "I don't see how they did it, lord," he said, looking at the ruins. "Oh, I can see how they did every bit of it. But to put them all together, at the right time, in a way so that they wouldn't be wrecked if anything went wrong…"
"They can talk across the air," Isketerol said. But that isn't the whole story. To move everything as if it were the fingers of a man's hand, how?
"Let us to our work," he said at last. "This will not be a quick war, or an easy one. But we will win it."