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"It could be better," Pahner replied. "I'd prefer more ranged weapons, but even if we had more arquebuses . . ." He waved a choppy gesture at the drizzling rain. The Hompag had passed, but "dry season" was a purely relative term on su
"We've got the javelins," Roger pointed out, frowning at Dogzard. She finished off Bogess' treat, licked her chops, and jumped back onto the flar-ta, which snorted its own disgust.
"Yes," Bogess said, absently wiping his fingers on his armor. "But only one or two per soldier. The Boman carry several axes each."
"It's not that big a deal," the prince insisted. "The pikes have their shields, and if they really do stand off like that, we can hammer them with plasma fire."
"Some of the companies could be steadier," Pahner commented pessimistically.
"Jesus, Armand," Roger laughed. "You'd bitch if they hanged you with a golden rope!"
"Only if it were tied wrong," the captain told him with a slight smile. "Seriously, Roger. We're outnumbered three-to-one, and don't think the Diasprans don't know that. It will affect them, and the Boman are bogey men to them. They're all . . . six meters tall. I was going to say three meters, except that that's about the height of a normal Mardukan. But that ingrained fear is something we have to be prepared for."
"Well," Roger said, waving as he prepared to ride down the line, "that, as you've told me, is what leadership is for."
* * *
"When they going to come, Corp?" Bail Crom asked.
Krindi Fain tried to keep his expression calm as he surreptitiously wiped one hand on his cuirass. It wouldn't do for the troops to see that his palms were sliming.
The pikes stood at rest on the battle line, awaiting the arrival of the Boman. They'd been there since just after dawn. They'd prepared the defenses well into the night and then gotten back up after only a brief rest for a sketchy breakfast. Now, between the up and down stresses and the physical labor of marching to the battle site and digging in, the entire New Model Army was adrift in a hazy, semi-hallucinatory condition, the mixture of physical fatigue and sleep deprivation that was the normal state of infantry.
"If I knew that, I'd be up in the castle, wouldn't I?" he snapped.
The drums from the Boman encampment just over the ridge had been beating since dawn. Now it was moving into late morning, and their enemies' refusal to appear was making the Diaspran noncom far more anxious than he cared to appear.
"I was just wondering," Crom said almost humbly. The normally confident private was a sorry sight to see in the morning light.
"Don't worry about it, Bail," Fain said more calmly. "They'll come when they come. And we'll be fine."
"There's supposed to be fifty thousand of them," Pol said. "And they're all five hastongs tall."
"That's just the usual bullshit, Erkum," Fain said firmly. "You can't listen to rumors; they're always wrong."
"How many are there?" Crom asked.
"Bail, you keep asking me these questions," Fain said with a grunt of laughter. "How in the Dry Hells am I supposed to know?"
"Well, I was just wondering," the private repeated . . . just as a burst of intense drumming echoed from the opposite ridge line.
"And I think you're about to find out," Fain told him.
* * *
"Quite an interesting formation," Pahner remarked as he dialed up the magnification on his visor.
The Boman force was at least fifteen thousand strong, yet it didn't stretch as wide as the smaller Diaspran army. Its narrowness would have invited a devastating flanking movement if he'd had the forces for it, but he didn't, and if it wasn't as wide as the Diaspran battle line, it was far deeper. It flowed and flowed across the ridge, a seemingly unending glacier of barbarians, and it was obvious that the New Model Army was badly outnumbered. The captain watched them come for several more moments, then keyed his communicator.
"Okay, Marines. Here's where we earn our pay. These scummies have to stand."
* * *
"There's a million of 'em!" Pol wailed, and started to back up.
"Pol!" the squad leader barked. "Attention!"
The days and weeks of merciless training took hold, and the private froze momentarily—just long enough for the squad leader to get control.
"There are not a million of them! And even if there were, it wouldn't matter. They all have to come past your pike, and my pike, and Bail's! Stand and prepare to receive! Stand your ground!"
The private in front of Bail Crom started to turn around—then froze as a chilly voice behind them echoed through the thunder of the drums.
"Sheel Tar, I will shoot you dead if you don't turn back around," Lance Corporal Briana Kane said with a deadly calm far more terrifying than any enraged shout. The private hesitated, and despite the drums and the approaching shouts of the Boman, despite the odd, visceral sound of thousands of feet pounding down a far slope, the sound of the Marine's bead rifle cycling was clear.
Sheel Tar turned back toward the onrushing enemy, but Fain could see him shuddering in fear. The mass of enemies advancing towards them was horrifying. It seemed impossible that anything could stop that living tide of steel and fury.
* * *
Pahner saw the occasional flicker of a face turned towards the bastion. It was a nervous reaction he was used to, yet this time was different. He was a Marine, accustomed to the lethal, high-tech combat of the Empire of Man and its enemies. Prior to his arrival on Marduk, he had not been accustomed to the ultimate in low-tech combat—the combat of edged steel, pikes, and brute muscle power. Yet for all of that, he knew precisely what he had to do now. An ancient general had once said that the only thing a general in a battle needed to do was to remain still and steady as stone. Another adage, less elegant, perhaps, but no less accurate, summed it up another way: "Never let them see you sweat." It all came down to the same thing; if he gave a single whiff of nervousness, it would be communicated to the regiments in an instant . . . and the Diaspran line would dissolve.
So he would show no anxiety, despite the Boman's unpleasant numerical superiority. Even with the arguably superior technique of the phalanx and shield wall, and the advantage of the stake hedge, the battle would be a close run thing indeed.
And like so many close run battles, in the end, it would come down to a single, all-important quality: nerve.
* * *
Roger sat on Patty, eleven-millimeter propped upright on one knee, his hand resting on the armored shield of the flar-ta, and watched the oncoming barbarians. He knew as well as the captain that he should be presenting a calm front for the soldiers of the regiment he was parked behind, but for the life of him, he couldn't. He was just too angry.
He was tired of this endless battle. He was tired of the stress and the horror. He was tired of facing one warrior band after another, each intent on preventing him from getting home. And more than anything else in the universe, he was tired of watching Marines who had become people to him die, one by one, even as he learned how very precious each of them was to him.
He wished he could pull the Boman aside and say, "Look, all we want to do is get back to Earth, so if you'll leave us the hell alone, we'll leave you alone!"
But he couldn't. All he and the Marines could do was kill them, and it was at times like this that the rage started to consume him. It had started at the first battle on the far side of this Hell-begotten planet, and just seemed to build and build. At the moment, it was a fury so great, so bottomless, that it seemed it must consume the world in fire.