Serpent Sword: A Steampunk Military Fantasy, page 16
“Thank you!” he called. “Much appreciated!”
The man didn’t respond. Andrew and Alyssa looked at each other. “One more time?” Alyssa asked. They hadn’t strayed far from the bed. There was no guarantee he’d survive the First Cavalry or she wouldn’t get potted on the way to Jacinto. Best snatch all the life one could. His hand drifted toward her. She was right there. He could just bend her over the bed rather than go to all the trouble of getting back on it …
He reluctantly shook his head. “When I get back.” When. He wouldn’t roast alive or fall to his death like those Flesh-Eaters had. He’d fight the man-eaters from an airship just like he’d fought them on foot and on a horse and then he’d return to keep his promise.
But fear chewed the back of his brain. A lot of people made promises they couldn’t keep.
The more he worried, the more likely he’d be late. The company was under the eye of the Merrill himself, and Andrew didn’t want to disappoint him.
Alyssa sighed dramatically. “All right.” When she looked at him again, there was laughter in her eyes. “Come back in one piece, corporal.”
“Yes ma’am.”
AFTER A WALK back to camp and a quick kiss goodnight, Alyssa disappeared into the dark. Andrew gathered that the cavalry would be staying with the regiment, with his platoon — most of whom had actually flown the dirigible that critical day — attached to the First Cavalry. A knot gathered in his stomach. What if this was the last time he saw her?
He drew a breath and straightened his spine. They’d see each other again in Jacinto.
A dirigible floated over the camp, not the one they’d liberated but another of the same type. Low fires reflected off its black envelope that now bore Merrill green. Rows of sandbags marked the landing zone, and seated atop one pile was Zeke, reading from an official-looking book by the flames’ low light. Andrew had just barely gotten a glimpse when the now-lieutenant looked up.
Zeke pulled out a silver watch from beneath his duster, the silver chain hissing across the fabric. “You’re early, corporal. I like that.”
“Thank you, serg … sir.”
A moment later, Owen appeared from the gloom. “I’m sorry, sir,” Owen said. “It’s — ”
“You’re still on time. But remember we’ll be part of the First Cavalry, at least for a spell, and they have a reputation to maintain. On time is late and five minutes early is on time. So, now you’re both here ... ” He picked up two lists off a sandbag. “I need you to make sure everybody’s back on time. The last head-count was ten minutes ago, and you two were the first to show up after. How many men are listed as absent, not counting you?”
Andrew scanned the list. There were several names he’d never seen before. The Merrill must’ve brought reinforcements. “Looks like about five, sir. I don’t know who a lot of these people are.”
“About?”
Andrew swallowed, then recounted. “Four, sir. But the names.”
“The Merrill came bearing gifts — replacements. Our squad didn’t need any, thank the Good Lord, but the platoon, company, and regiment sure did. Once we get back from the First Cavalry, they’re staying with us.” He turned his attention to Owen. “Corporal Gollmar?”
“Four absent, sir. All look to be originals.”
Zeke stood and stretched. “Good. One thing you’ll learn about leadership is that you’re the first to wake and the last to sleep. Wait here and lasso the remaining troopers as they arrive. Any come in after midnight, they’ll be cleaning up the camp for a week in Mossy Way.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sir, how long should we stay up?” Owen asked.
“One o’clock. Sergeant Harris turned in early and he’ll take over then.” With that, Zeke headed back into the campsite.
Once he’d gone, Andrew turned to Owen. “Did you see him leave earlier with the Merrill? What do you reckon’s going on?”
Owen didn’t speak for a moment. “It’s whatever they’re borrowing us for. It’s not just filling out a cavalry regiment.” He looked around them, as though he feared someone was listening. “It’s for something else. Something big.”
BACK AT THE RANCH
Grendel stood on the balcony, a teeming office of Obsidian Guard bureaucrats behind him and Long Branch spreading out below.
In the distance, beyond the ivory dome and tower he had sketched when he arrived, columns of black smoke rose against the blue sky. The smoke wasn’t rising from the city’s northern reaches where smelters processed ore brought in by train, but instead to the southeast where the rails rolled into the countryside that fed the city.
Rioting.
It had not started as rioting. The occupation of Long Branch meant more food and other supplies brought daily into the city, especially since Grendel and his men wouldn’t be seizing newly-dead citizens from their grieving kin or raiding morgues for their rations. And the Flesh-Eaters were driving the miners at the foot of the Basin’s wall harder than ever to get the ores needed for rifles, horseshoes, cannon, and other implements of war.
All this in turn kept the railroad workers busier than usual, and they’d begun demanding overtime. The railroad bosses, mindful of wartime tax increases, did not concede a cent. The workers hadn’t yet struck — much easier to suppress — but were slowing things down.
The Flesh-Eaters sent in men to keep an eye on the workers, the workers objected, fights broke out, and things escalated. The Flesh-Eaters had to call in the Obsidian Guard at least once.
“Have the rioters substantially interfered with the rail lines, captain?” Grendel asked without turning from the view.
“Not yet, sir,” said the reedy Obsidian Guard officer who’d brought him the details. “The Flesh-Eaters have secured the stations and are running armored trains up and down the lines. The rioters don’t seem to be cutting tracks. But trains from the Pass have been delayed, as have trains leaving Long Branch for Jacinto.” He paused. “The matter of the trains from the south is concerning, since they bring in cattle for processing, along with corn and wheat. I’ve gotten reports of grain rotting at depots.”
Grendel frowned. His armies needed local production. Keeping his men supplied via the Pass was too slow and the longer their supply chain, the more likely it could be attacked along the way. The Merrills riders were masters of that.
There were factories, mines, and railroads in Sejera, but they were small. When masters and men all knew each other, it was easier to work out problems informally. It was not until he conquered the Basin he had to deal with strikes and unions firsthand. Fortunately Isaac taught him how to eat that particular pickle, and he would apply the same tactics here.
“Arrest the slowdown ringleaders. Even if you cannot find them, forcing them into hiding will limit their effectiveness. Should this escalate to strikes, shut down the soup kitchens and charities. Anybody who does not work does not eat.”
“Yes sir.”
“Anything else?”
“No sir.”
“Good. Unfuck this.” Once the rioting had been crushed and a decent interval passed, he would consider paying the overtime himself. Loyalty could not be bought, but it could be rented. Perhaps after a large enough victory. Generosity from a position of strength, not weakness. Weakness attracts wolves.
Once the captain left, Grendel stood alone on the balcony with his thoughts. His bodyguards kept a respectful distance.
James Merrill, this is all your fault.
He had made the Merrill a perfectly reasonable offer, his submission in exchange for Catalina’s marriage to Falki. But the man in his arrogance had refused. He had not been foolish enough to call Grendel a parvenu and Falki a mongrel, at least not openly, but his sentiments had been obvious. His son John proved too righteous for his own good, refusing the secret offer to remove his father and proceed with the alliance. He had, in fact, killed the man who had made the offer.
After that, no choice but war.
And so he sat in Long Branch as armies rolled down the Pass and flew over the Basin wall to reinforce Jacinto and other cities James’ second son Alonzo had not yet taken. Other forces shored up Flesh-Eater control of the territory they still held, including Falki’s men on the Armand River. It would not be long until everything was in place for the march down the Grand, to run down Alonzo and kill him. Then the only heir to the Merrill legacy would be Havarth, even if it would be some years before he could rule.
Once Alonzo is dead I will need to restore Flesh-Eater authority over this territory somehow. Even with Alonzo feeding the Jotun forever, a later Flesh-Eater collapse could vindicate him. Hardin would need to rule as Jasper’s successor, with potential rivals neutralized. The Obsidian Guard would police Jacinto and other vital cities, to hand them over to Havarth when the time came. The Flesh-Eaters would do the rest, with the Firebird Host providing assistance as needed. Until “assistance” becomes a knife in the back. Given how vengeful the Flesh-Eaters would be in victory, Havarth would be welcomed as a liberator.
But in the meantime, he had to watch perfectly useful buildings burn and his guardsmen battle the Long Branch rabble. Workers who could lead perfectly useful and even happy lives if they would just do as they were told.
A hint of movement on the edge of his vision dragged Grendel from his brooding. Was someone watching? Any who dared set foot on the white gravel of the free-fire zone risked a bullet, but even that threat was not enough to keep prying eyes completely away.
Gunfire popped, and the mysterious figure disappeared. Perhaps the citadel guards had killed or frightened him off. No. He had not gotten to where he was by taking chance. “Corporal Ivarsson?”
One of his Sejer guards appeared beside him. “Yes sir?”
Grendel pointed toward where the interloper had been. “Someone was spying. The Flesh-Eaters might have gotten him, might not. I want more patrols of the city outside the free-fire zone. Bring me pen and paper.”
“Yes sir.”
Perhaps he had miscalculated in summoning Catalina. He had hoped Alonzo would jump on the gluestick, but if her presence caused unrest among the locals, that would make everything more difficult. So far Alonzo had not shown himself fool enough to turn his armies away from Jacinto nor split his efforts, but he had to have agents in the city.
A rescue attempt, possibly assisted by regular troops hidden among the refugees starting to arrive at the outskirts, would be more prudent than an open assault. Or, if Alonzo were more cold-blooded than Grendel was willing to credit, he might simply wait and hope his sister’s presence spurred enough rioting to make martyrs and hollow out the Flesh-Eater and Obsidian Guard garrison.
Or he just wants to strengthen his bargaining position. The Flesh-Eaters claimed the Merrill envoy would arrive soon, though Grendel suspected they were deliberately delaying him. He would have to stop that, even if it meant bringing him on an Obsidian Guard train or dirigible. The longer he was here, the more he was distracted from his planned expedition south of the desert.
Ivarsson returned with the pen, paper, and Grendel’s official seal with its saber-cat skull. Grendel began writing out a new set of orders. Patrols were to extend deeper into the city on all sides of the free-fire zone. Any who seemed even slightly suspicious were to be detained and interrogated by the Obsidian Guard. Furthermore, the city was to be placed on a nine o’clock curfew until further notice. Those doing essential war work were exempt, as were his soldiers of course, but the former would need special passes.
“My seal.”
Ivarsson handed it to him. Grendel marked the order with thick black wax, his saber-cat skull pressed into the center. “This is to begin immediately.”
“Yes sir.”
Shortly after Ivarsson left, another bodyguard — a Jiao, Private Xi Hiroto — took his place. “Sir, a messenger from the Legio Mortis claims he’s got something urgent, to be given to you directly.”
Grendel turned. It took steel in one’s spine to insist on delivering something straight to him. Either his likely-treacherous vassal Stephen Quantrill was tipping his hand too early, or this was something legitimately important. Either way, he had to know.
The messenger waited in the corridor outside the office. He was short and heavily built with red hair. He wore the Legio Mortis’s dark blue uniform with a light blue scarf despite the warmth. His brass buttons and black boots were shined bright. Quantrill must want his man to make an impression.
“My lord,” the man said. He handed Grendel a thick envelope held shut by a plain wax seal the color of his scarf.
“Dismissed.”
As the man vanished down the hall, Grendel nodded to Hiroto. The bodyguard discreetly followed the messenger at a discreet distance. Quantrill had covertly set a pterosaur on Falki mere weeks before. He played loyal for now, but who knew what troubles he could sow if he were not carefully watched? Grendel’s jaw set. He needed Quantrill’s soldiers to fight the Merrills, his dirigibles and infiltrators to spy out the southern lands for his invasion. Quantrill would conveniently die on campaign, but not yet.
But first he needed to see what this message was about.
WITH ONE LAST glance behind him to make sure the door to the office he had claimed was closed, Grendel sat at the great desk. Sparing a brief glance at the new reports and letters waiting for him, he slid a knife from beneath his pants leg. He would review the message from the Legio Mortis first. Although there were blue-clad troops heading down the Pass or taking dirigibles over the Basin wall, reconnoitering south was their primary focus. This is probably what this is all about. He slowly-slowly opened the envelope and slid the messages out.
Quantrill’s men, it seemed, had been busy. Airships had ranged south for hundreds of miles from the Leaden Host’s southern bulwark at Hamari and the remaining cities under his control in the Flesh-Eater territory. Each vessel carried cartographers and photographers. As the traders’ maps depicted, the land bulged outward into the Western Ocean. Other than the occasional oasis shantytown and a couple Everetti colonies doing business with the farthest-ranging Menceir clans, little on two legs lived below the high plains where the ground turned dry and rocky.
But eventually the desert ran out. Scrubland gradually thickened into forest. Here and there, Old World ruins emerged from the canopy, flashes of ancient stone and metal. Perhaps whatever had caused the Fall had made the Iron Desert, and now, bit by bit, nature was reclaiming it. Small villages dotted the coasts, linked by narrow roads passing through the trees. A respectable city rose as the bulge widened. More woods.
Then Grendel got his first look at what his armies would face. A walled fortress commanded one of the forest roads. Star-shaped to withstand artillery, like most bastions in his own realm. A tower in each point of the star presumably bore heavy weapons. That dirigible crew must have great big balls sitting there long enough to get this picture.
What lay inside the fort seized Grendel’s attention. Two rows of five war machines, each consisting of two long flattened ovals with an iron box in between. Turrets in the center bore machine guns, heavy cannon, or elongated balloon poppers. Their iron flesh was painted mottled green and brown.
“Tanks,” Grendel whispered. A word from the Old World. A terrible word.
He had seen tanks before. The Battle of the Iron Horse, the climax of what skalds and scholars already called the Third Camrose War. There’d been a deep whining rumble within the Camrose Confederation’s hard-pressed lines before the enemy’s motley ranks parted and it emerged. A great metal pentagon carrying one of the largest guns he had ever seen, atop an even bigger rectangle. Wheels rolling within metal serpents carried its bulk along.
Massed repeater fire could not even scratch it, and the man riding in its turret could strike men down like the gods of old with two machine guns. The foeman had ducked inside when the mortar shells dropped, but the Iron Horse bulled on, blasting holes in Obsidian Guard formations when they didn’t run fast enough. One Sejer guardsman had earned his place in Valhalla by climbing aboard like a berserker of old but had gotten caught in the turret and ripped in half.
Grendel touched the long scar on the right side of his face. He had rallied the reserve in person as the Guard’s center began collapsing, ordering every regiment’s attached batteries to fire on that thing. Even as shells churned up the green grass around it, even as dents appeared in its armor, the Iron Horse had kept coming. And the Camrose men rallied behind it, pouring through shellfire into the gap the monster had torn and overrunning the guardsmen left behind.
Even as its metallic “treads” deformed under the shellfire, even as the machine guns atop it were sheared away, the Iron Horse advanced. Those standing their ground were pulped beneath it, and the raven-starvers who ran were cut down by Camrose infantry. The men Grendel had brought forward had begun to stem the rout and the Iron Horse’s treads peeled away beneath the artillery’s pounding, but then the turret had rumbled right, its enormous gun looking right at him.
His own men threw him to the ground as the monster fired one last time. The world shattered.
Alexander had told him the Iron Horse had disintegrated after that final shot and the Camrose penetration had been encircled and butchered. But just that one tank had devastated even the Obsidian Guard, and its last shot had nearly killed him.
To face ten such things, and probably more …
Grendel caught himself breathing hard, sweat gathering beneath his dark hair. His gaze jumped to the door. Still closed. Nobody had seen him show fear, show weakness. Good.
And the Iron Horse had been a freak, a relic excavated from some gods-forsaken hill and just functional enough to nearly decapitate his growing empire. These tanks looked standardized, mass-produced rather than rebuilt from Old World wreckage. After the destruction of the Iron Horse, Grendel had ordered his subordinates to produce tanks themselves. But making an engine small enough to be useful had proven difficult even with diagrams from surviving Old World libraries. The project had ended up on the back burner, even during the Merrill War.
