CHAPTER 36
Teniente Ramon Lara was sitting on his horse at the head of his lancers in a draw on the south end of the washboard glade. The “draw” was only a depression when viewed from the east or west, and his lancers were actually somewhat elevated and probably visible to anyone directly to the north. He could see the retreating Doms a mile and a half away, for example, and they might’ve seen his three hundred blue-clad men if they looked his way. Maybe they did, but they seemed more concerned with the battle behind them—and the three regiments of Dom infantry that had finally stirred, marching out from their camp to meet them. But a runner had just come from Boogerbear, telling him of the Dom lancers, not yet in view, and warning him to make ready. Lara’s lancers, and indeed Boogerbear’s mostly Ocelomeh Rangers, had been ready and in position for quite a while. Now Lara turned to look at the men under his command, many more than he’d ever had. Aside from Alferez Rini and two others from the old world—both NCOs now—nearly all were Uxmalos, with a sprinkling from Pidra Blanca and Techon. Ocelomeh didn’t like being encumbered by the nine-foot weapons lancers had to carry and master. Lara was about to instruct Rini, sitting quietly beside him, to take his post when Boogerbear himself came tearing down from his vantage point atop the low ridge above the gully and pulled Dodger to a stop.
“Is it time?” Lara asked.
“Now or never.” Boogerbear nodded, long black beard wagging up and down. “I reckon there’s fifteen hundred o’ the devils, already in line, fixin’ to swoop down on Dukane an’ the First US. Near eight hundred o’ us, countin’ my Rangers an’ Joffrion’s dragoons, an’ we’ll hit their flank a bit from behind as they swing past—if we hurry. Roll ’em up like a ball o’ string,” he added with satisfaction, then shook his head. “Silly bastards. We never could’a done none o’ this if they had a half dozen decent scouts. Even bad scouts would’a told ’em that plain out yonder is a sack. Ain’t complainin’, mind”—he grinned—“an’ I reckon we’ll have educated a passel of ’em before the day’s through, so let’s make sure there ain’t many left!” He paused as if listening, then bolted back toward his Rangers. “Good luck, Tenny-entay!” he called behind him.
“And to you, Lieutenant Beeryman,” Lara answered lowly before raising his voice. “Primeros Lanceros de Yucatán! Adelante en el galope!” The 1st Yucatán swept forward in line abreast, closely followed by Boogerbear’s Rangers, then Lieutenant Hans Joffrion’s two companies of the 3rd Dragoons. Lara almost immediately saw what the big Ranger described and thought they might’ve cut it too late; the Doms were right there. But like Boogerbear said, coming in behind them, they’d have precious seconds before their presence was fully apprehended.
“Lanzas!” shouted Alferez Rini, and three hundred lances came down all together.
“Cargar!” whooped Lara, drawing his saber, kicking with his spurs. Exploding into a thundering sprint behind and on the right of their still-trotting prey, the 1st Yucatán smashed into the enemy before they even got up to speed, impaling men on bowing and splintering lances, throwing them from their mounts or sending horses tumbling and crashing into others. Lara hadn’t seen it, but the effect was much like what the 1st Uxmal and 1st US did to the Dom infantry earlier, only this was on a larger, more intimate and savage scale, the screams of wounded and broken horses so much louder and more terrible than those of men. And Lara’s lancers didn’t stop. They’d struck right flank to right flank so those still slashing in after the first impact had fresh targets in front of them, spearing men in the back from behind. The catastrophe only spread from there, causing a ripple in the whole Dom line that became a convulsion of rearing animals and roaring men, trying to wheel and face the bewildering horror of complete and brutal surprise. Horses went out of control, dashing riders to the ground, where they were trampled or crushed, or smashing their legs between them. Some simply ran amok, riders helpless to stop them. The few men who gained control were either pinned by more lances or hacked down by sabers. And then the Rangers were among them, launching huge arrows from mere feet away or swinging the heavy flint-bladed clubs Ocelomeh liked so much.
Boogerbear was shooting his brace of revolvers as fast as he could cock them, and men screamed and slumped in their saddles or fell and rolled in the tall dusty grass. Some of his men had musketoons taken from the lancers destroyed at what would become the conference site, but they were all fired in the first moments of the fight. Boogerbear’s pistols were empty almost as quickly, and so was his double-barrel shotgun. Yanking a dragoon saber from its scabbard he’d recently clipped to Dodger’s saddle, he slashed at the enemy. He had no skill with a long blade—would’ve done as well with an axe—but what he lacked in practice and art was more than made up for in power and ferocity. A very few Doms managed to draw their own musketoons or sabers, but it did them little good. Some of their attackers were shot or cut, but the blows were invariably rewarded by a fusillade of long-bladed arrows.
And then came Joffrion’s dragoons, and the rout became a massacre as they added their sabers or rapid-fire Hall carbines to the fight. True to form and as expected, the Dom lancers never broke. Even their horses were unusually committed, but they were perhaps somewhat smarter. The shocking, overwhelming nature of the attack was sufficient to undermine the scruples of the most dedicated animal, and dozens, then hundreds were streaming away, some with riders, most without. In mere moments, it seemed, all that remained was to spear or shoot dismounted Doms still trying to win their bloody passage to heaven. Lara’s lancers, Joffrion’s dragoons, and Boogerbear’s Rangers were happy to send them on their way.
“Oh my God,” Joffrion murmured, aghast. He’d just joined Boogerbear and was wiping sweat from his face with a blood-flecked pocket handkerchief. Now he used it to cover his mouth.
“Stop that shit!” Boogerbear roared, pointing his saber at a cluster of Ocelomeh Rangers who’d jumped off their horses to take enemy heads. “Any man I find with a damn head when this is done is gonna eat it raw, you hear? Teeth, hair, eyes an’ all. Git back on your horses, we ain’t done!” Heads arced in the air as men raced back to their mounts.
Leaning carefully out to the side, Joffrion politely vomited. “I beg your pardon,” he murmured hoarsely, gently wiping his lips.
“What now, Lieutenant Beeryman?” Lara asked, breathing hard as he guided his horse around a cluster of corpses to join them. Lara was covered in blood, some likely his judging by the way his right arm hung slack, saber dangling by the knot around his wrist. His eyes were burning with an inner triumph, however, and Boogerbear suddenly remembered he’d been at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma as well—on the other side. This was his first taste of victory in a really big fight, doing what he’d trained for and taught others to do as well. I hope his glad outlasts the sad—an’ pain that’ll come, Boogerbear mused. He wasn’t hurt, but probably looked just as bad. Splashed myself up some, he supposed.
“Git somebody to patch you up, sling that arm at least, an’ I reckon your lancers an’ Joffrion’s dragoons oughta head over yonder.” He waved his bloody saber toward where the Dom counterattack had pushed the 1st Uxmal, 1st US, and part of the 3rd Pennsylvania almost back to where the gun’s caissons had stood shortly before.
“What about you and your Rangers?” Lara asked.
Boogerbear looked surprised. “Why, there’s still the Dom camp to account for, ain’t there?”
Private Hanny Cox had gotten his wish in a manner of speaking, exchanging the flag for a musket as “his” half of the 3rd Pennsylvania was battered relentlessly back. Still conscious of the honor of bearing the national colors in the firing line and feeling a little weak—but more like a fool as good men fell around him—he’d tied the flagstaff to the bullet-splintered spokes of a caisson and seized an M1816 Springfield musket and cartridge box from the body of a man with most of his face blown away. That occurred, and the splintered spokes too, because many of the enemy had taken things upon themselves as well, finally driving bayonets out of their barrels and firing independently as they surged against the thinning line. Firing was continuous, buffeting his ears, almost crushing his chest when one of Olayne’s 6pdrs went off right beside him, sweeping men down.
“More canister!” cried Sergeant McNabb, serving as gunner on Olayne’s Number One gun.
“Which there ain’t none!” replied a panicky voice.
“Take it straight from the caisson, ye clatty bastard! They’ve already overrun the damned limber,” McNabb bellowed back. The horses hitched to the limber had been shot down in their traces, and Number One’s crew had pulled the gun back past it.
“There ain’t none in our caisson, Sergeant! We shot it all up!”
“Bring case,” McNabb shouted louder. “I’ll cut the fuses for a muzzle burst. Then rob another caisson!”
Hanny wasn’t watching this, too absorbed with loading and firing his inherited musket while Doms shot back less than twenty yards away. Fumbling in the leather box at his side, he handled another cartridge, tore the paper with his teeth, and spat out bitter, salty black grains. Dashing a sprinkle of powder in the brass pan on the side of the lock, he slapped the steel down over it and let the musket slide until the butt hit his shoe. Pouring the rest of the powder down the barrel, he wadded the paper under the ball and pushed it all in the muzzle with his thumb. Drawing his rammer with a metallic shick, he inverted it and seated the ball. Whipping the rammer out, he returned it to its place, cocking the weapon all the way as he brought it to his shoulder. The front sight drifted for an instant until it found its own target in the press: a dark-haired kid about his age looking right at him and feverishly loading as well. Hanny squeezed the trigger. The cock leaped forward, flint striking steel. It managed to scrape only a single, meager reddish spark that missed the priming powder completely, however. Misfire! Hanny screamed at himself, lowering his weapon with a sense of horror and betrayal. Glancing up, he saw the kid he’d tried to shoot finish loading and aim deliberately at him.
A vent jet sprayed his left cheek, and he flinched away from the blast.
“Hateful little bastard,” Sergeant Visser declared and spit a stream of tobacco juice as the kid opposite Hanny folded and fell. “He was aiming for you in particular. What kind of scrub does that?” Visser had saved Hanny’s life.
“I was aiming at him,” Hanny confessed miserably, taking the little brass hammer on a small ring of tools Visser offered, striking a rounded knob off his flint before closing the steel and handing the tools back.
Visser had already reloaded and was raising his musket again. “Well,” he said, considering. “Then maybe he had cause. But you wouldn’t’ve killed him out of meanness, like he meant to do.” His voice clouded with anger. “I told all you bastards to hammer your goddamn flints!”
“It isn’t my musket, Sergeant.”
“Oh? Yeah. Where’s the flag?” he quickly demanded, and Hanny gestured behind them with his head.
“Just as well,” Visser grunted after he fired again, nodding down to the right where the other half of the 3rd Pennsylvania, under the regimental flag, was still pushing alongside the pike-armed Home Guards, dismounted dragoons, and rifles. . . . The enemy had practically collapsed in front of them. “That Uxmalo boy Apo got knocked on the head. He’ll be all right,” he quickly added, knowing Hanny and Apo were friends, “but another local took up the regimental flag before Wagley sent everybody to the right of it to join De Russy. Damn flag’s gone down twice more, that I’ve seen, and some other poor bastard always takes it up again and gets shot. Better to have a shot-up caisson hold it than a fighting man right now. We need all we have.” A ball snatched the right side of his collar off, showering him with fuzzy blue and white fibers. He didn’t seem to notice. “I think they’re about to push us again.”
The Number One gun fired with a double thunderclap, the case shot exploding just inches from the muzzle. Balls and shards of iron scythed through the enemy like canister, but not as effectively, and Doms pressed forward over their dead.
“Give ’em a cheer, boys, and charge bayonets!” cried Captain Wagley somewhere behind, voice loud but strained. Hanny and Sergeant Visser and what was left of their part of the 3rd—Hanny didn’t know where Preacher Mac McDonough was—lowered their tight-clenched muskets and swept forward with a rasping, breathless “Huzza!” There was a terrific crash as men and weapons slammed together with a final crackle of musketry, but then there was only the screaming, heaving, roaring noise of desperate hand-to-hand fighting. It sounded like a ranting sea hurling a ship on a rocky shore, the splintering timbers and wails of the dying heralding the triumph of the elemental force. The only element here was a surging, frantic terror suffused with the rage and hatred it caused. Hanny bashed a Dom’s musket aside and—for the very first time—speared a man with the wicked triangular bayonet affixed to the muzzle of his musket. The man’s scream was lost in the din, but Hanny distinctly felt his life quiver out through the wood and steel in his hands before wrenching the weapon back. It appalled him, but he had no time to dwell on it because he instantly had to do it again or die. Sergeant Visser was an inspiration, bare headed and bloody, plying his bayonet with mechanical skill far beyond that of his opponents.
And this was when the Doms’ earlier confusion, rigid tactics, and uninformed training combined with their current desperation to cost them most cruelly of all. Many who’d taken the previously unimaginable initiative to knock their bayonets back out and resume shooting—doing a lot of damage—had thoughtlessly flung the offending weapons away. Now they didn’t have them. They tried to fight anyway, of course, using their muskets as clubs. Effectively done, their numbers alone should’ve still been enough to overwhelm the exhausted, beleaguered Pennsylvanians, but they’d never really trained for that either. Hanny, Visser, and their desperate, dwindling comrades stabbed and battered the Doms to a standstill, just as the decimated 1st Uxmal (defending their very homes and loved ones, they’d stood the onslaught as well as any veteran regiment) fired a final deliberate volley from mere paces away and charged as well, followed immediately by the 1st US, the strongest remaining cohesive block of Allied troops.
Hanny and the Doms in front of him, swinging muskets or jabbing with bayonets, couldn’t know any of this. The point of contact was so intermingled, the noise so great, nothing mattered but the next gasping breath. And Hanny had nothing left. His hands were bashed and bloody claws, clinging to a battered musket slick with blood. Even Sergeant Visser was down, struck on the head and dazed. Hanny was sure he had only seconds to live before a Dom ball struck him, a musket butt smashed his face, or a bayonet pierced his body. But something was happening to the Doms even before more firing flared and crackled and the next crash came from his left. The enemy was bunching together, pushed from the right, and Hanny vaguely heard the rasping but familiar voice of Lieutenant Hudgens roar, “Make way lads! Stand back, damn you!” and was almost run down by the big left wheel of a smoke-blackened gun pushing past him. He staggered back, numbly wondering why Hudgens was here instead of Olayne. Blowing men, stripped to red shirtsleeves, dropped the trail of the gun with a clank and crouched away from the wheels.
“Fire!”
Canister screeched, and a score or more Doms tumbled into a shoal of mewling mush. A young Uxmalo with a pair of bulging gunner’s haversacks over his shoulders actually tossed a heavy tin cylinder full of balls strapped to a wood sabot and powder bag over the gun. The wildly cursing Number One man caught it with one hand, holding a rammer staff in the other. Screaming “Thumb that vent, Goddamn you!” at the Three man already inside the right wheel, he stuffed the round in the muzzle. Smoke gushed around it as he slammed it to the breech, eyes clenched shut, before jerking the rammer out with an expression of surprise that a lingering ember hadn’t lit the charge and blown his whole arm off. His happiness lasted only a second before a Dom musket ball exploded from his chest, dropping him like a sack over the axle.
“Fire!”
Poom-shhh!
More rapid firing came from the right, and suddenly there was Major Cayce himself, crashing through Doms on his big mare, slashing around with his saber. Captain Anson and Leonor were behind him, firing revolvers into faces, chests, backs . . . and there were more Rangers, even a few lancers, shooting carbines and pistols or savagely hacking through the recoiling press with their own heavy sabers.
“Have a care with that bayonet, young fellow!” boomed a big, rather fat man, clinging on the back of a horse behind a crouching Private Willis. Hanny was astonished to recognize Reverend Harkin. “Make way! See to that man on the ground, will you? His wits have gone astray.” Sliding to the ground, Harkin paced forward with a rifle in his hands, apparently oblivious to Dom musket balls snatching holes in his big black coat as he called loudly, “Lord God! Lend your strength to those who repel the onslaught at the gate!” More guns, two of Olayne’s under Sergeant McNabb this time, creaked and rumbled forward, shirtless men streaked with sweat and grime wheezing at the spokes.
Hanny looked around. The Doms were still fighting, and more were shooting again, but whatever pushed them on with such fury before had been beaten out of them by the trip-hammer blows of a reinvigorated 1st Uxmal, 1st US—and now Hanny saw Lara’s lancers and Joffrion’s dragoons charging down the gradual, convoluted slope from the southwest to meet the lighter but critical strike Major Cayce and some hastily gathered guns had made on the right. As he stood watching with other stunned and spent Pennsylvanians, the battle shifted away. Heavy smoke from furious firing was blowing in his face, but he saw individual Doms here and there finally, amazingly, start to turn and run. He dropped down by Sergeant Visser, sitting up now, holding his sleeve against his forehead. He was unspeakably relieved when a limping, bloody Preacher Mac and a dazed-looking Apo, each apparently supporting the other, collapsed in the grass beside them.
“My wits are fine, damn—blast him,” Sergeant Visser growled.
“Mine aren’t,” Hanny said.
“Cease firing!” croaked Captain Olayne as Lara and Joffrion’s charge went home and they entered the cone of fire in front of the battery he and Lieutenant Hudgens had combined to roll in the fight.
“Cease firing!” Hudgens repeated, then added, “Service your pieces, for God’s sake, but load and hold!”
“They’re running!” Leonor cried, voice filled with predatory glee as the lancers and dragoons almost literally peeled the enemy from in front of them. She started to spur her horse in pursuit.
“Hold up, Lieutenant,” Lewis snapped as he would at anyone else. “We need to take this in.”
Anson was using the unexpected pause to reload his revolvers and glanced up with approval. His face was almost as black as Barca’s except for the sweat streaks. So was Leonor’s and everyone else’s. Lewis knew why the perfect white gunsmoke left everything black—the powder was black to begin with and the charred remnant of its ingredients was even more so when it settled out of the smoke. Unless the air’s very dry, then it’s white, he mused vaguely, always struck by that irony.
“Hear him, girl,” Anson chimed in. “We can’t go chasin’ ever’ which way like dogs after rabbits—an’ these ain’t rabbits. Load your pistols.”
Lewis pointed. “Look.” From their mounted vantage they could see the Doms in front of De Russy’s Home Guards and half the 3rd Pennsylvania streaming after the regiments that retreated independently. De Russy or Varaa—whoever was really in charge—had actually pressed too far and could’ve been taken on the left flank in turn by the shattered regiments pulling back from here, but they’d had enough, giving De Russy’s pike and bayonet bristling ranks a wide berth as they aimed to rejoin the organized portion of their army. And that portion was still a major threat, advancing from its camp three regiments abreast, even as Captain Holland maintained a murderous fire from the sea. The few Dom guns still in the fight had split their attention between Tiger and Dukane’s diminished battery. Both were moving targets, however—hard to hit. Tiger was sailing back and forth, tacking and wearing, and Dukane kept shifting his guns as well, raining explosive case on the enemy as rapidly as he could.
“What do you think?” Anson asked.
Instead of answering directly, Lewis called, “Messengers!” A shabby, exhausted clot of horsemen gathered around him, as did Olayne, Hudgens, and suddenly even Major Reed. Lewis swept his eyes across them. “Where’s Captain Wagley?”
“Gravely wounded, I’m afraid,” Reed reported mournfully, gesturing back toward the line of riddled limbers and caissons. “Shot through the body even before he gave his last command. Dr. Newlin holds out little hope.”
Lewis caught a glimpse of the big, brutal, former sergeant Hahessy “helping” a lightly wounded 1st US comrade to the rear and wondered why the likes of him always seemed to be spared when promising young men like Wagley fell. He pursed his lips and jerked a nod before continuing. “First, we must get word to De Russy. Tell him to stop before he’s gobbled up—and I want as many of Burton’s dragoons and Meder’s riflemen back to their horses and here with me as possible. I hope De Russy won’t need them anymore, and I do,” he added cryptically. “What of Captain Manley?”
“Up there,” Reed said, pointing at the reedy, blond-haired officer, still mounted and waving his sword and trotting back and forth behind the battered but proud 1st Uxmal, plodding after the retreating enemy alongside the 1st US, Lara’s lancers, and Joffrion’s dragoons—now hanging on their left.
“Tell him to halt as well. All the infantry will stop their pursuit at once.” Lewis’s instinct would always be to press a beaten force, but this enemy wasn’t much more beaten than his—and still had a lot more men. He glanced around at the milling or collapsed remnant of half the 3rd Pennsylvania. “The First US is in good hands. Re-form these men yourself, Major Reed, then find a suitable officer to take them to rejoin the rest of their comrades with De Russy.”
Reed frowned doubtfully. “I don’t know how much fight’s left in them.” He wiped his brow. “How much any of us have. And our ammunition’s almost exhausted.”
“Nevertheless,” Lewis pressed relentlessly, “I want all our infantry in a continuous line, re-formed and reconsolidated and looking as sharp and ready as possible. Home Guards on the right, then the Third Pennsylvania. First US in the center, since they’ve suffered the least. To their left, I want the First Uxmal.” He looked at Olayne. “Gather every gun that will move, and you can pull and form a grand battery on that highest ground where Dukane just unlimbered. Lara’s and Joffrion’s lancers and dragoons will help you, then deploy on your left.”
“It’s starting to sound like you won’t be here,” Reed noted suspiciously.
“I won’t.”
Reed sighed, unsurprised.
The messengers and artillerymen galloped away, and Anson swiveled his head from side to side, looking toward the sea, then back up where Dukane had resumed firing his remaining howitzers, envisioning what Lewis had in mind. “A very long line, an’ a thin one.”
“A display,” Lewis said harshly, largely still talking to Reed. “All flags flying, and music too. We’ll finally show the Doms most of what we have. Not as many as them, of course—if they can reorganize what we already handled, they must still have ten or twelve thousand—but more than we first stopped them with and many more than they thought we had.” He paused to observe Reed’s reaction. “And just enough ‘fight’ and ‘ammunition’ for you to stop them again, I think—if they choose to renew the action here.” He looked around. “There you are, Private Willis! And Reverend Harkin, I’m pleased to see you well.” Harkin had walked up to hear, and Willis had gingerly dismounted, now holding his horse. It looked as unhappy as he did.
“Tolerably well,” Harkin said cheerfully, “though my coat has been badly abused.” He hefted his rifle. “A fine weapon. I’m sure I hit three of the devils, down with the guards, and another when I came here. Spreading the Word and smiting the enemies of the Lord!”
Lewis smiled. “I’m sure we all appreciate your efforts so far, your prayers in particular, but one more rifle won’t make a great difference. I’d be obliged if you’d coordinate with Dr. Newlin and his hospital corps.” He looked at Reed. “I do hope he made it there?” Reed nodded. “Good, then assemble more fatigue parties from whatever lightly wounded are capable of helping others to the surgeons. I’d also like you to make it your personal mission to see that water is brought to the men, if that’s not already in hand.”
“Very well, Major Cayce,” Harkin somberly replied. “Perhaps a more fitting task for me in any event—but I shall keep my rifle,” he added defiantly.
“Of course. Private Willis?”
Willis took a deep breath and looked up. “You’re gonna make me get back on this damned vicious nag, ain’t you, sir?”
“With Reverend Harkin again, at first. He can find another horse at the hospital tents. Then I want you to ensure our reserves of ammunition are getting where they’re needed. No hoarding, no malingering. Do that well and you’ll be Corporal Willis.”
Willis formed an aggrieved expression and shook his head. “Nobody’ll vote me to a corporal.”
“Battlefield promotions don’t require a vote. Go.”
Major Reed still looked troubled. “You said my First US has suffered the least, but where’s the First Ocelomeh?” He glanced at Anson. “And the rest of the Rangers? I know the Rangers helped smash the enemy lancers, but what of Consul Koaar’s troops? I haven’t seen them all day.” Reed’s tone actually held something like accusation.
The roar of battle, so dreadfully intense short moments before, had dwindled to nearly nothing; a few musket shots still chased the retreating Doms and cannon still rumbled regularly over the washboard glade, but except for the cries of wounded, it was almost surreally quiet. The infantry was already responding to Lewis’s orders, raggedly shaking themselves out, redressing their lines, and shifting where he’d sent them. Varaa was visible in the distance, back on her horse and galloping up from where the Home Guards had stopped at last, around the coalescing crescent of men. Lewis was glad she was alive and seemingly unhurt. She clearly meant to rejoin him for what she knew was coming. Smiling at Reed, he spoke. “The enemy hasn’t seen the First Ocelomeh either, but they will.”
Varaa arrived, horse blowing, both their tails high and swishing. Only at times like this, it seemed, did Lewis remember how truly strange she was. Especially when he saw how rapidly she was blinking. He’d picked up enough over time to recognize parts of what that blinking telegraphed in lieu of complex facial expressions—beyond a grin or frown—but sometimes it was too fast, or combined into meanings beyond his understanding. Like now.
“De Russy?” Leonor asked. Of them all, she probably grasped the blinking best of all.
“Alive,” Varaa said, “but I was forced to relieve him.” She held up a hand. “It wasn’t like at the beach,” she quickly assured. “Quite the opposite, in fact. He wouldn’t be stopped and tried to keep pushing even after you ordered a halt. Said he outranked you and would do as he pleased. The enemy was on the run and he’d win the battle.” She flicked her tail. “It was obvious, of course, how exposed we’d become, and . . .” She blinked. “He was seized by a kind of madness, the perfect reverse of what took him before. Young Mr. Barca tried to reason with him, and I believe hurtful things were said, but I ordered him relieved and—regrettably—restrained for a time. An unhappy business. Barca is still with him.”
“Who’s in command, with you over here?”
Varaa waved that away as if it was of no importance. “Oh, Alcalde Periz, of course. The Home Guards are Uxmalos, you know.”
“He’s alive? Here?” Leonor blurted.
Varaa blinked. “Ah. A sad misunderstanding, and I misspoke. A runner was sent to inform you, but perhaps he was killed. I’m sorry to tell you Alcalde Ikan Periz died within an hour of reaching the city. Sira Periz is the alcaldesa now. She immediately set all but a token force of Home Guards on the march to join us”—she glanced at the sun, now a little in the west—“though they’ll never get here before dark. She raced ahead in her mate’s bloodstained carriage with Father Orno, the Home Guard commander, and Mistress Samantha Wilde.”
“Samantha’s here too?” Anson demanded hotly. “What the hell does she think she’s doing? A woman . . .” He stopped, looking blankly at his daughter, then Varaa. “Shit.”
“She’s perfectly safe, I assure you,” Varaa said with a grin. “She and Barca are comforting Colonel De Russy.” She looked back at Lewis. “And as to who I really left in command, why, the guard captain, of course. He’s quite competent and rather good with a pike.” She nodded back the way she’d come, and they saw a mixed force of about a hundred mounted men already pounding up behind the redeploying troops in their direction, briefly held up by a gun being pulled by a depleted team of two horses. “I would’ve left Lieutenants Burton and Meder—able young fellows—but you called them here.”
Lewis watched for a moment while his battered army struggled to complete the great crescent of troops he’d envisioned, but it wasn’t as great as he’d hoped. They’d lost a lot of men. Still, it would look intimidating to an enemy it already half defeated, particularly when every flag was set streaming over troops who appeared readier to renew the engagement than they were. And this was reinforced by music, each regiment attempting to play various airs together. The same rising wind forcing Tiger to stand off and on farther out, diminishing the effect of her fire, also badly confused the fifes and they became a sad jumble. The drummers redoubled their efforts, however, now dueling to play the loudest. The result was as good as Lewis could’ve hoped: an impression of light-heartedness and men cheerfully anxious to fight again.
The riflemen and dragoons arrived quickly, horses still fresh, and Lewis leaned over in his saddle to shake Reed’s hand. “I must leave you, Andrew. Our infantry’s suffered enough today, more than I’d hoped or planned for,” he confessed. “It’s my expectation they’ve fired their last shots, but”—he squeezed Reed’s hand—“if you must fight again, you’ll have plenty of time to prepare. And maybe the rest of the Home Guards will arrive before then. I know you’ll do well.”
“Good God!” cried Coryon Burton, standing in his stirrups to see more clearly even before his horse came to a stop. His outburst drew their attention back to the center of the field, where the three reserve enemy regiments had been advancing very slowly in spite of the galling barrages still coming from land and sea. The retreating forces, chivvied and wrangled into something like the formations they’d begun the day with, had seemed almost hesitant, marching slower as they approached their countrymen. The sight subconsciously stirred an odd sense of foreboding in Lewis, as well as a dreadful memory from his childhood: A scraggly stray dog started hanging around the house, and his father only fed it once that Lewis knew of (he’d done it after that), but the old man named it and it became utterly devoted to him. Unfortunately, rough play or mere instinct caused it to injure one of the old man’s beloved guinea fowl, and he savagely beat the animal with a limb. When the yelping, terrified dog retreated, he called it back. To Lewis’s dismay, it returned, head down, tail between its legs, uncertain and afraid but still devoted. His father proceeded to beat it to death.
He’d never admired his father—he’d had his share of senselessly brutal beatings too—but the sickness and horror of that particular act stuck with him more than almost anything else from his childhood. The hideous abuse of trust perhaps most of all. Now he saw it again on an unimaginable scale, out on the battlefield before him. What nobody expected, even Varaa, was that Don Frutos and the Holy Dominion wouldn’t tolerate any degree of defeat. With less than thirty yards between them—Lewis had assumed the newcomers would let the ravaged troops pass through to the rear—there came the sound of bitter horns. Coryon Burton had reacted to the sight of Dom muskets coming down, leveling, and firing a seething volley into their own people.
It happened more than half a mile away, and they saw the smoke and fire long before they heard the stuttering rumble of the volley and wailing screams of pain. And no one else around them said a word, too shocked to believe what they’d seen. Then there was another volley, and another, as rank after rank was commanded to fire on troops whose only crime was that a percentage—only a percentage—had endured too much for a while. Most would’ve been ready and willing to go at it again after a rest and some reorganization.
“My God,” murmured Major Reed, then he exclaimed, “they’re not even shooting back! They’re just taking it!”
A fourth volley came, and Lewis had no doubt there’d be a fifth, sixth, however many it took. Even soldiers who’d desperately fought these victims of mindless barbarity were starting to shout horrified protests, some even yelling they should “save” them.
“They’re executing them, aren’t they?” Lewis demanded of Varaa. “Don Frutos is executing them! Did you know this would happen?”
Eyes wide, Varaa shook her head. Usually so urbane, she seemed as affected as the rest. “I expected them to make examples—they crucify one in ten in a company for the least infraction by a single soldier—but this! I’ve never heard of anything like it!”
“Maybe they never had a commander like Don Frutos,” Leonor growled. “Think about it. He tried to trick us to death last night, then had to run for his miserable life. Now, not only did we stop the Doms cold on their own chosen ground; we surprised ’em an’ made ’em retreat.” She narrowed her eyes at the one-sided “battle,” perhaps most bewildering because it had nothing to do with the greater issue at all. “After all his boastin’ about puttin’ us all on sticks, we humiliated him. He’s takin’ it out on those poor fellas.”
Lewis thought she might be right.
“We could attack, distract them from their murderous—” Major Reed began, but Anson interrupted. “Are you insane? We should die defendin’ men who were tryin’ to wipe us out half an hour ago? Men who’d probably turn an’ fight us while the rest keep shootin’ ’em? They’re winnin’ the battle for us right now, cuttin’ their own damn throats!”
“Not quite,” Lewis ground out. “Even if they kill them all, which it looks like they mean to do—my God—there’ll still be more than we can attack in the shape we’re in. Even if we ‘won,’ if that word could even apply, where would we be? Half our army gone and starting from scratch. . . .” He fumed as the atrocity continued. “No,” he finally said, “we are going to win the day—would’ve done it without . . . what they’re doing.” He looked around at their surprised expressions. “Most important, they’re going to know it. Stand fast, Major Reed, whatever occurs. Captain Olayne? Finish assembling your grand battery and continue firing as long as you have ammunition and targets present themselves. The rest of you”—he swept his gaze past Anson, Varaa, Meder, and Burton, as well as the tired but willing troopers they’d brought, then rested it on Leonor—“come with me.”