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"Bail?" Pol called hesitantly. The simpleminded private tried to look around the intervening squad members. "Bail?"
"Stand your ground, Erkum!" Fain shouted. The humans had a mechanism for sadness and grief. They "cried." The liquid of the God Himself flowed from their eyes in moments like this. Strange that people who did not worship the God should be given such a gift.
"Stand your ground and get it stuck in, Erkum Pol!"
* * *
But not everyone was a Krindi Fain, and not everyone could stand.
* * *
"Captain, we've got ourselves a situation here!" Kosutic called.
Pahner spotted the sergeant major's icon on his HUD and looked off to the left. Some of the brighter Boman had realized that their best chance was to go around the hedge of pikes, since they couldn't get through it. Most of their flanking efforts had been defeated by Bogess' regulars, wielding their assegais with deadly effect. Whether Crassus or Shaka would have approved more strongly of them was difficult to say, but any barbarian who had expected it to be "easy" to get past their shorter weapons quickly discovered that he'd been dead wrong.
Yet for all their skill, the regulars lacked the standoff reach of the conscripted pikemen. The Boman were paying at three or four to one for each spearman they managed to hack down, but here and there they managed to batter their way through, however extortionate the cost. An isolated squad of regulars suddenly found itself under overwhelming assault and went down under a blizzard of throwing axes and the thundering blows of battle-axes. Its fall opened a brief but deadly hole in the line, and dozens of howling barbarians lunged through it and flung themselves onto the flank of a pike regiment.
The pikemen, already dazed and bewildered, despite their training, by the howling holocaust of battle, were taken at a deadly disadvantage. It was impossible for them to swing their long, heavy weapons around to confront their attackers in time, and the sudden onslaught was too much for them.
They broke.
The sergeant major's radioed warning turned Pahner's attention to the regiment just as it shattered like crystal under a hammer. The ground was suddenly scattered with the pikemen's shields and weapons. And bodies. As was always the case before the advent of artillery, the majority of casualties were inflicted when one side finally turned its back and tried to run.
Bogess followed the direction of Pahner's gaze, and then looked at the captain.
"Cavalry?"
"Not yet." The laconic Marine shook his head. "Let the armor handle it." He keyed his communicator. "Sergeant Julian, left wing, please."
* * *
The four fully functional suits of armor were already moving when the command came in. As they swung past the bastion, it was clear that the Boman were well and truly into the rear areas, and Julian couldn't understand why Pahner was so calm about it.
The Marines to either side of the breach were down, although it looked like they were only wounded, not dead, and the pike regiments to either side of the breakthrough, stiffened by a reserve of Bogess' regulars, had re-formed to protect their own flanks. But all they could do was hold their ground and cling to their own positions, and the flood of barbarians pouring through the seventy-meter-wide hole swept past the formed units and threatened to fan out and take still other regiments from the rear. And if that happened . . .
Clearly, it was time to show the locals what "peace through superior firepower" meant.
The four armored Marines spaced themselves across the salient with the two plasma ca
The ten-millimeter bead ca
The fire wasn't widespread enough to stop all of the barbarians, but it ripped straight down the center of the breakthrough, and the hammer of it was a shock that sent the majority of those to either side—those who survived—into screaming, terrified flight. They turned and clawed and fought, not to advance, but to run from the Hell-spawned demons who had appeared in their very midst. The few warriors who'd been forward of the main damage, and out of the zone of effect of the plasma rounds, continued their charge, because there was nothing else they could do, only to find that iron was no match at all for ChromSten.
Julian casually backhanded a barbarian half again his own height who was obscuring his vision, crushing the unfortunate native's skull like an eggshell, and shifted the team's fire.
"Captain, we have the hole closed again, but we can't really keep it plugged. Can we get some cavalry over here to handle the leakers?"
"Will do," Pahner responded as he prepared to call Rastar on another cha
"Just another glorious day in the Corps," the squad leader replied stonily, tracking his flechettes back across the shrieking barbarians. "Every day's a holiday."
"Yes," said the captain sadly. "Welcome to the Widow's Party."
* * *
"Still a stalemate," Bogess said. "We hold, and they do not quit. We could be here day after day."
"Oh, I think not," Pahner said dryly. "Roger obviously doesn't have the patience today for us to squat here in a game of chicken." He glanced at his pad, nodded, and keyed his communicator once again.
"Okay, Despreaux. It's about time."
* * *
The team had crept past the lightly defended encampment and down the reverse slope of the ridge. If anyone had looked hard for them, they would have been obvious, but none of the Boman were watching their own rear. Why should they? All of their enemies were in front of them, and so the Marines were overlooked, just a few more odd bits of flotsam left by the passing horde.
Until, that was, they calmly stood up at Pahner's command, took off their camouflage, and opened fire into the backs of the entire Boman force.
At first, their efforts were almost u
* * *
"Yes," Pahner whispered as the rear of the enemy formation started to peel away.
"They're ru
"They aren't ru
"But they haven't broken," Bogess protested.
"No? Just watch them," Pahner said. " 'And then along comes the Regiment, and shoves the heathen out.' "
* * *
Fain heard the drum command with disbelief, but he passed it on verbally, as he had been trained to do, to ensure that the punch-drunk soldiers had the orders.
"Prepare to advance!" he bawled wearily.
His arms felt like stones from holding the pike for what seemed like all day, poking it into the screaming, twitching dummies—or so his mind told him. And now the command to advance. Madness. The enemy was as thick as a wall; there was nowhere to advance to.
The New Model Army's losses had been incredibly light. The front rank of his company had only lost a handful, the next rank less. Of his own squad, only Bail Crom had fallen, but to advance on the enemy, who'd stood their ground the entire day, was impossible.