CHAPTER 32
////// II Corps
With the help of the new field telephones to coordinate the attack, General Queen Safir Maraan prepared to take what was left of her entire II Corps into the next Grik trench. Almost nothing was ready; everyone was growing short on ammunition, and they’d been waiting for the Nancys to come back and plaster the position with incendiaries one more time. Apparently Walker needed some rather badly just then as well. Of course, all the Nancys had been delayed by some monumental screwup having to do with where they should refuel and rearm . . . but that only made it more imperative that Safir move as quickly as she could. She couldn’t wait any longer, air or not. The Grik firebombs were cooking her out. She wasn’t sure exactly when they’d need it, but with Big Sal and the rest of the fleet coming in with the tide, she had to secure the airfield for the Fleashooters or they’d start setting down wherever they could—on the beach if they had to. She did finally have quite a few mortars up and running, and a number of guns had been turned, so the Grik weren’t having it all their way, but she could sense that the time had arrived when the momentum of battle was about to begin cascading—in one direction or another. In her experience, such moments rarely favored those who sat and waited for them. She saw her chance with the approach of one of the virtually opaque rainsqualls that had been marching about the area all day long.
A furious fusillade of mortars and cannon churned the enemy trench at a rate she couldn’t sustain, but nothing could resist it either, and nearly all fire from the Grik position came to a stop. Further substantiating her notion of “cascading momentum,” the rain struck.
“Up!” she cried. “Up and at them!” Prepared by the telephones, the whole corps was poised and waiting when hundreds of whistles shrilled damply under the downpour. Safir had promised General Grisa she wouldn’t charge the enemy with a bayonet, but Grisa was gone. Besides, she told herself as she drew her brightly polished sword, I shall keep my promise regardless. Bayonets are such awkward things. A terrible roar arose in thousands of wrathful, frustrated throats, reflecting all the misery II Corps had endured that day, and to some degree, an inherited consciousness of what all Lemurians had endured at the hands of the hated Grik since before time was ever measured.
Up they went, out of the suddenly rain-slick trench, like a swarm of furry demons. There were ’Cats from Baalkpan, Maa-ni-la, and Sular; Aryaal, B’mbaado, and all the various seagoing Homes that had contributed a few troops, here and there, throughout the Allied armies. There was even a sprinkling of early arrivals from the Great South Isle, and a few liaison officers off Amerika. All Lemurians in the Alliance were represented in that dark tide that rose against its ancient enemy on their—and his—most sacred soil. Some Grik obviously saw the move, even through the lashing rain, and tried to rise and meet it. They were scoured down from the lip of their own trench by pounding swaths of canister. Then, even as the infantry surged to the attack, some of the lighter artillery pieces were heaved forward as well: six-pounders mounted on the lighter, improved carriages that had become standard in the Alliance. These continued to send murderous cans full of musket balls at the enemy—and beyond, at the milling mass of Grik behind the front line—just as quickly as they could be slammed down hissing barrels.
“Forward! Don’t stop!” Safir cried, waving her sword. “Fire as you go—but make sure you’re loaded when you reach the trench!” The last was a tactic that Chack had developed in the East against the Doms. A last, withering volley down into the cowering, unprepared enemy had been shown to produce most satisfactory results. The Grik had spears, but their musketeers didn’t even have plug bayonets so they’d be helpless against the final fusillade, and the ingeniously offset socket bayonets that followed.
Crossbow bolts slammed into her troops in a hail of iron-tipped wood, but there was almost no firing from the Grik. The rain had seen to that by dampening their powder and wetting their match cords. Safir breathed heavily in the sodden air, and the visibility was virtually nil. The rain gave everything a dull, blurry aspect, and the gunsmoke clung to the ground like a heavy fog. Even more quickly than she expected, she reached the Grik trench and saw Grik heads rise up and stare back at her with open-mouthed astonishment. Flashes of booming Allin-Silva rifles rippled in the smoke, the jets of flame angled downward, as the first wave of attackers gained the position. With another mounting roar, the leading edge of 5th Division leaped down in the trench, and the terrible sound of weapons crashing together mixed with the screams caused by triangular bayonets and broad-bladed Grik spears piercing flesh.
Safir stomped on a spear pointing at her, and vaulted over the Grik wielding it. She landed in the muck behind the creature and slashed back with her sword. Other Grik were packed close around, barely conscious of her, and she slew them with little effort. More rifles fired down around her, and she was somewhat amazed no one hit her by accident, but more Lemurians quickly joined her in the suddenly corpse-choked pit—she couldn’t distinguish regimental or division devices in the rush. They fanned out protectively around her, killing as they went.
She paused then, for a breath, and watched the fighting rage around her. There was little shooting now, only a desperate motion of bayonet-tipped rifles stabbing, thrusting, parrying, or battering with a maniacal level of spastic violence she’d rarely seen before. The squall was passing and the visibility began to improve, showing her an unbroken mass of Grik still behind the trench; she felt a rush of terror. If they came on now, they’d smother her entire corps under numbers alone . . . but they weren’t coming! With a moment to scrutinize them, she realized that the Grik behind the trench weren’t warriors, weren’t even armed, and instead of rushing to join the fight, they were running away! Most were, at any rate.
A few were advancing from the horde in a disciplined line that made her stare as they carried leveled spears and their customary small shields. She roared for the troops around her to prepare, and they barely did so in time. A big Grik with a young crest protruding from a gap in his helmet almost fell on top of her, slipping as it came. She thrust upward with her sword and felt a hot rush of blood course down her arm. The creature wailed but carried on, almost crushing her under its dying bulk. Claws groped at her, gouging her silver breastplate with a rasping scrape she could feel in her spine, and teeth gnawed at her helmet. Her breastplate protected her from the weight of the thing, but her face was jammed in the reeking muscle of its powerful forearm. She could barely breathe and tried to bite down, but couldn’t even move her jaw. With a chill she realized the thing was sinking her in the muck, and she would suffocate if it didn’t shift enough to shred her first!
“My queen!” came a voice as the flailing corpse was dragged off and hacked apart. Hands raised her up and steadied her solicitously as she took deep, gasping breaths. Renewed firing had erupted in the trench, and she was dizzy and a little disoriented. When she focused on the one who spoke, she realized it was her “personal” comm’Cat! The Heavens alone knew how he’d kept up with her in all of this. A different EM crouched beside him with a muddy spool of wire, and she suspected the other must have fallen in the advance.
“What are the Grik doing?” she demanded, appreciatively taking her sword from a sergeant who’d retrieved it.
“They flee!” the sergeant trilled with glee, pointing at the retreating mass. “They run away! Courtney Braad-furd’s ‘Grik Rout’ has finally taken them!”
She stared. The sergeant seemed to be right at a glance. Clearly many of the Grik were running in abject panic . . . but many may not have been. She groped for her glass but couldn’t find it. She’d lost it somewhere, either in the charge or here in the slurry of the trench. “They are moving back toward the palace, or temple—whatever that monstrous great structure might be!” she said.
“Ah, my queen,” the comm’Cat said with some hesitation, “I have received a signal that roughly detailed an attempt by a small party from Waa-kur to use the diversion of the various fightings to make an attempt against the palace! It seems the great Si-vaa and others mean to slay the High Chief of all the Grik herself!”
“And now all the Grik we just faced in their thousands are moving in that direction!” Safir breathed. She blinked sudden determination. “We must not give the enemy time to retreat within the palace! Not only might they thwart the courageous plan of our friends, but we surely have nothing that can batter down such a massive structure.” Her tone was granite when she continued. “This victory has been bought with too much blood for it to remain incomplete! Does your communication device—your ‘phone’—yet function?”
“Yes, my queen!”
“Very well. First, if you cannot contact COFO Tikker yourself, please ensure that enough people know to spread the word that his First Naval Air Wing is not to attack the second Grik trench when it finally arrives, as we are in it already. I do desire that he attack the concentration of Grik out in the open between here and the palace as vigorously as he can. In fact, an effort to divert the enemy’s retreat away from the palace would be ideal.” She waited for a moment while the comm’Cat spoke into his handset. When he blinked at her, indicating the task was complete, she took a long breath. At least the stench of the place had been deadened by the rain. “Now,” she said, “send to Col-nol Saachic to charge his cavaal-ry into the flank of that mob; drive it north and keep it in front of us! To all other commands: Second Corps shall pursue the enemy at once. Our foremost objective is to press him past the palace, and deny him an opportunity to escape within! If Adar can manage to land the rest of our forces in the harbor, he may be of great assistance to that task. Regardless,” she continued with complete resolve, “we shall kill every Grik in this city if it destroys this entire corps to do so!”
1st Allied Raider Brigade
To Lieutenant Colonel Chack-Sab-At’s anxious dismay, his exhausted brigade had been rushing to the sound of distant guns since before the dreary dawn. Clearly, the attack on Grik City had begun without him, and he had no way of communicating his presence, or even knowing the situation he was hurrying toward. His only consolation was, whatever was happening, the battle still raged and he hadn’t missed it entirely. He looked at Courtney Bradford, riding awkwardly on a borrowed Me-naak beside him in the damp forest gloom. He had no doubt they would have missed it if not for the strange humans they’d met. Courtney had proclaimed that they were obviously descendants of the third East India Company ship that had ventured west so long ago, when the other two had gone east to found the Empire of New Britain Isles. The Grik had preserved them here, like so many others, as examples of “other hunters,” or “worthy prey,” to help identify more they might yet meet—or simply for sport. It was impossible to say.
Jindal had been skeptical at first that they actually sprang from the same source as his own ancestors, but there really was no question. No matter how far they’d regressed, Courtney insensitively argued that they actually looked more closely related to the founders of the Empire than its current subjects—after generations of female additions from the Dominion. But Imperial histories maintained that none of the women in that ancient squadron had sailed with the westbound ship, whose ultimate goal had been a return to England, so either Will’s forebears found other women somewhere along the way or the histories were in error. Courtney leaned heavily on the latter explanation, further exasperating Jindal, but even Jindal finally had to admit it was possible. Chack still found it hard to believe their benefactors had survived at all, but their language was further evidence. They spoke strangely, to be sure, but they could be understood. They’d maintained a number of nautical traditions as well, including that of calling their leader “the captain.”
True to his word, the one named Will had secured permission from their “captain” to help them reach this place, and they’d largely replaced Chack’s skirmishers and scouts. Somehow, they kept the local denizens away with great skill and bravery, accompanied by superior, age-old knowledge of the monsters. As far as Chack had been able to learn, they’d managed it without losing a single man. That amazed him, and the service had been invaluable since it had allowed the brigade to travel much more swiftly. That morning, however, their escorts began to melt away, and the one called Will joined Chack on the march. “We’s leavin’ naw,” he’d said with some apparent embarrassment. “Thar’s few beasties ’tween here an’ the wall a’ trees. Garieks keep ’em killed back.” With a wistful glance at the marching brigade, back in column now, he’d continued. “I’d love ta gae an, but the Garieks hae maskits naw, an’ we’s daint.” Then he added hopefully, “I reckan ya’s dadn’t brang enaw ta spare?”
“If we had, I’d gladly share them,” Chack lied. He appreciated the help Will and his people gave, but wasn’t about to arm them with modern weapons. Not only did he prefer to learn more about them first—not least what their relationship might be with other intelligent “predators” the Grik preserved here, possibly even including members of his own race—but with so short a time to train them, he feared the weapons and ammunition would be wasted in the fight to come.
“Indeed?” Will asked, possibly guessing some of Chack’s concerns. He finally shook his head. “We’ll nae fight Gariek maskits an’ gannes, but yan thunder is prafe enaw that ye’s dae indeed hae anather armee pawncin’ an the buggers. I’ll wish ye’s gad fartune, an’ pray far yer success. My falk’ll be watchin’, an’ we’s halp ye’s haw we’s can—in ather ways, praps—an when the fight is wan.”
“You have my most sincere thanks, Will, as do your people. I hope we meet again.”
Will had nodded, and without another word, melted away into the dark forest.
Now, Chack’s Brigade, minus some three hundred casualties of the trek, was poised just inside the forest before a clearing at the foot of the wall of trees.
“Goodness gracious!” Courtney gasped. “It looks so much larger from this perspective than the sketches drawn by Tikker’s scouts implied.” He cocked his head and smiled. “Of course, ‘perspective’ is the thing. Even mighty Salissa looks quite small from high above. I really should fly about more, you know; air travel often stimulates me to philosophy.” He blinked. “As has this tiresome but fascinating trek just completed. Amazingly stimulating, particularly from a philosophical perspective!”
Chack looked at Courtney and controlled the almost reflexive blinks of amused affection the man’s interesting but often random thoughts inspired. He was glad Courtney was there, to contemplate things beyond the immediate necessity of getting over the massive obstacle they’d encountered.
There were many mighty trees, true Galla trees, no doubt, on Madagascar, but to see so many thousands stripped and incorporated into such a monstrous barricade simultaneously struck Chack as sacrilegious and ingenious. Galla trees were sacred, to various degrees, to all Lemurians, and to have countless numbers of them stacked side by side for as far as the eye could see in either direction revolted him. No doubt they leaned against an equal number on the city side of the wall, the pinnacle forming the jagged ridge of an artificial mountain range. How the Grik ever cut and moved such enormous trees, many as tall as a hundred tails, was a mystery, however, and the sheer scope of the construct was awesome to behold. Adding to the mountainous impression, Galla trees were virtually immune to wood-boring insects, and it might take them centuries to rot. This had enabled the wall to foster its very own thriving ecology, and though built on the skeletons of long-dead trees, the wall was alive.
“I don’t see any Grik,” Risa said, scanning the peak with her glass.
“No doubt their attention is elsewhere at present,” Courtney observed. “The battle beyond sounds quite vigorous!”
“Cap-i-taan Risa,” Chack said, “I’d be obliged if you personally led a mounted squad to the top of that . . . construct, to view the situation beyond. It appears the slope is not too extreme for our beasts. If all seems clear, do not send a runner, just signal us forward. We will be watching, and I will bring the entire brigade.”
“What if it’s not clear?”
“Then you may send a runner, with your recommendations.”
“Ay, ay, Col-nol!” Risa wheeled her somewhat reluctant mount and dashed off to recruit her scouts. Shortly, she and a dozen riders were loping toward the wall, and they quickly, if a little clumsily, managed to scrabble to the top. Chack was watching intently through his own glass, and when he saw his sister wave her arm, he spoke to an aide. “Pass the word—the brigade will advance to the summit yonder. No one will proceed farther, regardless of what they see, without further orders.”
It took nearly an hour to get the entire brigade started out of the woods, across the clearing, and up the treacherous flank of the great wooden wall. Impatient, Chack and Courtney Bradford reached the summit before most of the others, despite Courtney’s protests and little cries of fearful surprise as his me-naak lunged jerkily upward.
“That was quite invigorating,” he proclaimed, joining Chack, who’d already reached Risa and dismounted. “I don’t know what to compare it to; I’ve never frequented amusement parks. Perhaps climbing a mast in a storm? In any event, I must say that our . . . might I say somewhat obscure excursion, has set me up amazingly in a physical respect. Not to mention what it has done to restore my natural curiosity and enthusiasm for discovery!” He paused and looked around, seeing for the first time what had taken Chack’s attention. “Oh my,” he murmured.
The southern face of the vast palace was directly before them, perhaps half a mile away. A portion of that distance was open ground, broken only by occasional structures that, compared to the rest of the city in view, might have been virtual mansions or estates of some sort. Beyond them was a belt of what looked like barracks, for lack of a better term, before another open area interspersed with garish pavilions lapped against the palace itself. A stairway scaled the side of the palace, interrupted by two arched entrances at different levels, the upper one being more impressively situated in the center of a broad, stony platform overhung by a scarlet awning. Few Grik were in view between them and the palace, and most of those were racing about in a most confusing fashion. Impressive as the palace was, however, a number of other things immediately drew their most intent scrutiny.
Without another distracting word, Courtney dismounted and raised his own binoculars he’d “borrowed” long ago, and scanned the various points of interest along with Chack, Risa, and a number of other officers who’d hurried to join them. The harbor beyond the palace was a strangled mass of burning, smoking wreckage, and the dismal pall that stood above it disappeared into the gray clouds above. First Fleet South and USS Walker had clearly completed their objective of savaging the Grik fleet at anchor, but Courtney had never feared otherwise, as long as his friends achieved the surprise they desired. What Courtney hadn’t expected to see was the titanic, nearly linear struggle underway just east of the palace. Clearly, the notion of staging a heavy raid had been discarded in favor of something a bit more ambitious. Glancing at Chack, he realized that the commander of the 1st Raider Brigade was not particularly surprised.
“Drive them, my love,” Chack murmured quietly, obviously urging on II Corps in general, and Safir Maraan in particular.
“I take it that our dear orphan queen has decided upon a more aggressively ambitious course of action,” Courtney mused aloud.
“You truly believed she would not—could not—under the circumstances?” Chack asked him gently. Courtney shifted his weight under the blinking scrutiny.
“Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps not, indeed.”
“Col-nol!” Risa blurted, still looking through her glass. Like most Lemurians, she had exceptional vision, but the Imperial telescope was still welcome. “It seems that Second Corps is pushing the Grik back toward the palace and the harbor—but if you will note, a number of the enemy closest to the palace are falling!”
Chack raised his own glass once more. Even as he watched, small geysers of mud exploded among the fleeing Grik, checking their dash and sending them sprawling amid puffs of fuzz and sprays of blood. “Someone is shooting them! From the palace!” He redirected his gaze. A portion of the east part of the great structure could be seen, and it looked much like that nearest them except there was only a single entrance. A few Grik milled there, but none were shooting. They probably couldn’t shoot, given the recent rain that had drenched Chack’s Brigade, and probably passed across the battle below as well. “Those have to be modern weapons,” Risa insisted, “the shots are coming from the north side of the palace! Some of our people must have made it there!”
One of the company commanders, Lieutenant Galay, a former corporal in the Philippine Scouts who’d survived Mizuki Maru, stepped closer to Chack. “That’s a BAR, sir. Bet my life on it. The rate of fire is pretty distinctive.”
“You can hear it over all that?” Chack waved.
Galay snorted. “No, sir, but aside from the impacts—way too powerful for a Blitzer at that distance—what other automatic weapon could somebody have carried up there?”
“By the Heavens!” Risa groaned with a tone of worried certainty. “Dennis Si-vaa! What has that insane man done now?”
Chack took a breath, knowing Risa had to be right. Despite whatever . . . relationship Silva had, or once had, with his sister (he still could hardly bring himself to contemplate that), Silva was probably his very best friend. If he was in the palace, rapidly becoming surrounded by untold thousands of Grik, inside and out . . .
“My God!” Courtney exclaimed. “There’s Walker! Sometimes you might glimpse her through the smoke, several miles away beyond the harbor! It looks . . . Oh dear! I believe she’s aground, and has her own fight on her hands!” He paused. “It looks as though help might be on its way for her, at least. Some of our ships are venturing toward her. Oh! I hope they’re not too late!”
It suddenly became perfectly clear to Chack what had happened. He’d been with Silva in such situations often enough to know exactly what sort of scheme had occurred to the maniacal human. “He’s gone for the Celestial Mother—their High Chief!” he stated with certainty. A quartet of Nancys suddenly swooped low over the retreating Grik, and bombs tumbled from beneath their wings. Greasy orange flames roiled into the sky, and black smoke corkscrewed in the wake of the climbing planes. Grik squalled and raced everywhere in panic, many toward the harbor. What could only be a more disciplined formation of several thousand still churned relentlessly toward the palace.
“Uh-oh,” Galay murmured. “More Grik, streaming from the west. Didn’t that Jap say that big cross between a coliseum and an anthill next to the palace was some kind of gladiator arena, or something? There’re a few hundred Grik running across that causeway thing, straight toward what must be another entrance on that side!”
Chack slammed his telescope shut and turned to Galay. “My compliments to Major Jindal, and would he please take the Twenty-first, and two battalions of the Seventh down there, at the double, and interpose his force between the enemy and the palace? He may have all the artillery and mortars.”
Galay whistled. “What are you going to do, sir?”
“I,” Chack said, “and Cap-i-taan Risa, will take the First Battalion of the Eleventh Imperial Marines and storm the southern entrances. We cannot hope to take more than five hundred men through those arches without getting hopelessly jammed up—and they seem the least well defended in any case. We will maintain communications via the field telephones as long as possible, but must assume we’ll lose the line at some point. If Major Jindal finds himself sorely pressed, he—the entire remainder of the brigade—will fall back to the north entrance that, hopefully, will remain in the hands of our friends now defending it.”
“We will have only a battalion of Impies?” Risa asked doubtfully, and Chack looked at her. “They will do fine,” he said. “We trained them ourselves, after all. We and the Impies will enter the palace and engage the enemy ‘glaad-i-ators,’ and whatever guards there may be. Hopefully we will buy sufficient time for Chief Silva to accomplish whatever it is he is trying to do.”
“Aye, ay, sir!” Galay acknowledged, and trotted away, his slung Allin-Silva slapping his side.
“What about me?” Courtney demanded.
“Personally, I would prefer you stay here, under guard,” Chack said, then shrugged. “That said, you have a rifle, and may go where you wish.”
Courtney Bradford considered this, fingering the sling strap of the Krag he carried. “I’ve never pretended to be a fighting man, and have yet to fire a shot in this entire war. I’ve often protested that this modern weapon is wasted in my hands—but of the choices presented to me, tagging along with you does promise to be the most . . . interesting. I believe that’s what I shall do, if you’ve no objection.”
“Just so long as you make the most of the ‘modern’ weapon you’ve so generously been entrusted with,” Chack agreed, shifting his own faithful Krag, slung muzzle down, as always, “and you don’t require others to protect you.”
“Never fear, my dear Colonel Chack!” Courtney beamed. “I require no protection! I may not have much combat experience, but I am proficient in the use of arms.” He blinked. “Though perhaps I remain more proficient with a Lee-Enfield than with the charmingly complex peculiarities of loading this one! Such a quaint arrangement!” he added, referring to the loading gate on the side of the Krag’s receiver. Lee-Enfields used “stripper clips” just like a ’03 Springfield, and had a detachable magazine as well.
“You can reload it?” Chack questioned, a little offended by the implied slight against his own cherished weapon.
“Oh, quite well. It’s second nature to me now,” Courtney affirmed.
Chack blinked discomfort, but turned back to Risa after a glance at the sky. “The drums will likely get wet if we uncover them, and they and the whistles will only draw attention. We have half a mile to cover and cannot possibly do so unobserved, but I would prefer to exploit whatever surprise we may. Pass the word for the brigade to advance—the First of the Eleventh on us!”