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"I stand by that description," Kar said with a dignity which was only slightly flawed by the twinkle in his eye. "But, simple old soldier or not, that—" he waved at the gaping wound which had once been a gate tu
"Not that kind of power," Pahner said. "Or, not directly, that is." The K'Vaernian regarded him with obvious confusion, and the Marine shrugged. "You know how some of the hammer mills in K'Vaern's Cove use wind power, and others use water power from your storage cisterns?"
"Yes," Kar said, his expressions suddenly thoughtful. "Are you saying those things—" he nodded at the quartet of armored Marines once more "—don't have enough rainwater stored in their cisterns?"
"In a way," Pahner agreed, trying to figure out how to explain "potential energy." "The suits run on very powerful energy storage devices. We don't have many of them, and we need those we have for later use. And the weapons themselves only have so many charges, so we can't afford to use them unless we really need them. And we are going to need both them and all the power we've got left soon enough; there's a real battle waiting for us down the road."
"I can see that you wouldn't consider this a battle," Bogess said, glancing at the carnage of the gate. "But that's because we pulled the main force away from the city, and because the Boman were considerate enough to assemble right in the middle of our kill zone, exactly as we'd hoped. Unfortunately, we've used up the rockets now, so we won't be able to blast them this way again. Although," he added thoughtfully, "I still don't know how useful the rocket wagons would be in a real mobile battle. We knew where the city was, so we could plan exact trajectories. And better yet," he chuckled grimly, "Sindi couldn't exactly dodge."
"That's true enough," Kar acknowledged, "and it's also the reason I agreed that we should use them all now—there's not any point in holding back weapons which might not work later if their use now helps to assure a victory we have to have."
"Agreed," Bogess nodded. "But it still looks like there were at least ten thousand warriors still in the city, and that's only a small fraction of what's out tramping around chasing Rastar and Honal. Sooner or later, we're going to have to face up to the rest of the horde, after all, and I suppose that would qualify as a battle in almost anyone's eyes."
"I wasn't talking about the rest of the Boman," Pahner said, pulling out a slice of bisti root. "We haven't been totally up-front with you guys. Oh, we haven't lied to you, or anything like that, but we've . . . neglected to mention a couple of things. Like the fact that the port we keep saying that we have to reach on the other side of the ocean happens to be held by our enemies."
"Your enemies?" Bistem Kar said carefully. "With similar weapons, I assume?"
"Yes."
"God of Water preserve us," Bogess said faintly.
"Anyway, there won't be many holdouts to find in there," the Marine observed. "As you said, Bogess, most of them were right where we wanted them, waiting for us on the walls. Most of the ones we missed there got themselves killed in the gate tu
"Well," Bogess said, "now I understand why you Marines don't look upon a battle with the Boman with dread. This isn't much of a battle to you, is it?"
"In a way," Pahner said, "but it's not just a matter of scale, you know. That—" he gestured with his chin at the huge pall of smoke and flame still billowing above the rocket strike "—is just as destructive, in its way, as any plasma ca
"Even something like this."
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Roger squatted by the side of the trail and tied his hair up in a knot. A crint called in the jungle, and he smiled.
"It's good to be back in action," he said.
"Maybe so," Cord replied repressively. "But I wish you would at least stay behind the scouts . . . as Captain Pahner instructed you to."
"I am behind the scouts," Roger said with a grin, and pointed to the south. "See? They're right over there."
The thrown-together force whose cavalry component had taken to calling itself—unofficially, at least—"The Basik's Own" had pounded up the muddy track from D'Sley as fast as the infantry's turom could go while the main army made the same trip by water. Now they were about a half-day short of the city itself, and a thin line of screening cavalry stretched south from them, bending back in an inverted "L" to cover the track from just west of Sindi back to the Bay while the labor gangs who couldn't be crammed into the available water craft completed the march from D'Sley behind it.
Roger had chosen an encampment along a shallow stream that cut the track. The waterway, no more than thigh deep to the turom, flowed out of the jungle to join with the Tam River just to the north. It would provide a landmark to place the force around and water for the civan and turom.
The prince himself had just climbed down from Patty when Turkol Bes, his infantry commander, rode up on his turom, dismounted, and clutched the inside of one thigh.
"God of the Water, none of the troops will be able to fight! They'll all be too busy rubbing their groins!" he groaned.
"You'll get used to it," Chim Pri laughed as he slid off his civan. "After a week or so, you'll get used to it."
"How are the turom?" Roger asked.
"They'll be okay," Bes said. Not long ago, the young battalion commander had been a simple wrangler working on the Carnan Canal in Diaspra, but only until the Carnan Labor Battalion had been drafted for the New Model Army at King Gratar's orders. Of all the workers in the battalion, Turkol Bes had repeatedly shown the greatest ability to think on his feet and make good decisions under pressure, and promotion had been rapid.
"It's not like they're carrying much weight," the former laborer continued. "But they're not used to going so fast."
"Too bad we couldn't put you on civan," Chim Pri said with another laugh. "You'd really love that."
"But they needed all the spare civan in the Cove for the main cavalry force," Roger pointed out. "Maybe after we get them back we can upgrade."
"Oh, no," Bes said. "I'll sit on a turom, if that's the cost for keeping up with the civan –boys. But I am not going to try to ride one of those vile and ill-tempered beasts."
"You do whatever it takes to complete the mission, Turkol," Roger pointed out. "Speaking of which, right now we don't have one. But we can expect to get used pretty soon, I think. Now that the labor force is in Sindi, the Captain's going to start spreading the cavalry screen back out to cover the troops still working on the road gangs, and he'll need us then. Maybe even sooner. So we need to start thinking about how that might work. This is ground we could be fighting over, so I want everyone to keep a close eye on it."