Warworld: The Lidless Eye Page 6

  Collaborators, trying to work both sides, John thought with disgust. Typical of the kind of instability that had undermined Castell since the Imperial Governor had left. Still, he’d trusted Morris to keep his mouth shut. Of course, he might have caved, too, had he any hostages to fortune besides his sister and grandfather.

  “How long do we have?” the Baron asked.

  Whakley shrugged. “It’ll take him some time to pull his troops together; they’re still culling the opposition in the city. I’d say a standard month or two.”

  The Baron gripped Whakley’s hand so hard John saw the smaller man wince.

  “I don’t know what brought you here to warn us, but I thank you and I thank God that you did.”

  Whakley tried to look the Baron in the face, but only succeeded in looking at the floor. “It was the least I could do to repay your son for helping me keep a little of my self-respect. It’s I who owe your House, Baron.”

  “Nonsense,” the Baron proclaimed. John recognized the slightly pontifical tone his grandfather adopted when making major announcements. “It is we who are in your debt for this warning. Should you wish, I would like to offer you a place in our House. Later, when this plague from Castell has been dealt with, we shall find accommodations for you and your family.”

  “So be it.” Whakley knelt and held out his right hand. “You have my sworn oath, Baron, to follow your orders and protect Whitehall.”

  As the Baron grasped Whakley’s hand in both of his, a chill ran up and down John Hamilton’s spine. His grandfather had just turned the clock back fifteen hundred years. Or had he? Perhaps, history had just turned back all by itself and his grandfather was only the first man to realize that fact.

  John wasn’t sure he was going to like this new era that Haven was going through, which had just begun with Howard Whakley’s feudal oath of allegiance to House Hamilton. He was certain that his previous life of carefree indulgence had come to an end, whatever happened—and more than likely his grandfather had thought out the best way of ensuring there was a later life for the House and his family.

  II

  John Hamilton raised the visor on his sallet and looked over the ramparts out across the jutting hillocks to where a plume of smoke rose into the orange sky like a finger raised in warning. It was from one of the small farms that dotted this part of the central Shangri-La Valley. The burning farm was the first tangible sign of the enemy they’d been anticipating for three days. Judging from the distance, he figured the enemy would be approaching the defensive bulwarks within a few hours.

  John still wasn’t used to the added weight of the durasteel armor, but now—with King Steele’s army almost within sight—it felt a lot more comforting than confining. So did the massive Gauss gun on his shoulder, ready to fire a slug soundlessly more than a kilometer away from the walls.

  Brigadier Cummings had only been able to spare a dozen of the magneto-dynamic weapons, which Master-at-Arms Cromwell called “the ultimate sniper’s weapon.” Even with the computerized, laser-assisted scope, the guns needed a marksman to get the best use of them. John was proud that his scores on the rifle range, and not his birth, had gotten him the use of one of the Gausses.

  What seemed like an hour, but was only about five minutes later, the first enemy armored car topped the hill on Whitehall road. Five other armored vehicles were trailing, at intervals even Hamilton knew were too short. Following them was a positive circus of hovercars, wheeled ground cars and trucks, busses, a few heavy–load carriers and half a dozen alcohol tankers. The heaviest weapons appeared to be some light cannons atop three of the armored cars. The initial estimate, from the scouts, had been twelve hundred to fifteen hundred vehicles; he’d scoffed until now.

  Right now, Brigadier Cummings’ had said, it was a case of: “The more enemies, the bigger the target.”

  John braced himself against one of the battlements stone crenellations: the Baron had laid mines underneath the road and wanted to take out the enemy’s van with one blow. When it looked as if just about every vehicle left on Haven was over, down and on Whitehall Road, the Baron punched the electronic trigger.

  BLAM!

  Even with his hands over his ears, John was temporarily deafened. The old castle swayed for a moment, then stopped. Car parts and people parts were blown indiscriminately all over the roadside and beyond. A steel fender whipped over his head, reminding him to duck and other pieces of shrapnel rattled against the bulwarks.

  “Damn their teeth!” cried out the Master-at-Arms.

  Looking at the hundreds of ruined vehicles and milling survivors, John said, “That just might have broken most of them. If the survivors have any sense, they’ll tuck their tails in between their arses and run back to Castell.”

  Cromwell shook his head. “See, there are more of them coming over the rise. With Steele and his bully boys at their backs, this bunch is going to take some serious pounding.”

  “Look! More armored cars.” John had to admire the courage—or fear!—of anyone coming over the ridge who looked down upon the roadside destruction and kept on coming.

  As more and more vehicles drove down the hill, John wondered if they could really stop them. It’s like a flood. What’ll it take to make them retreat?

  Cummings’ last shipment had included fifty medium anti-tank missiles, able to use wire-guidance, beam-riding or first-and-forget modes equally well. With vehicles now covering the side of the hill, there no longer being a road, the Baron elected to use fire-and-forget.

  The first flight of missiles screamed over the walls, locked onto their targets and raced to meet them. In flames and thunderclaps, four armored cars, several busses and three of the alcohol carriers went up. So did what must have been a truckload of ammunition. It left a gaping hole in the side of the hill, as well as so much smoke John saw cars colliding in the low visibility. More cars bunched up or drove into obstacles, pits, deadfalls and caltrops with hundred-millimeter spikes distributed generously over the hill side. Many of them hidden by plants and shrubs. The road was completely torn up to within ten meters of the castle gates.

  The second flight of missiles had some trouble finding targets in the smoke, and John had more trouble seeing how much damage it did. He was sure that the remaining armored cars were gone, though, and the total confusion in the rest of the convoy suggested more damage. Still more smoke was rising from the hillside, as skirmishers left through the gates and started picking off immobilized vehicles and any crew stupid enough to bail out.

  By the time a messenger reported that the skirmishers were retiring, about half of the convoy was destroyed or immobilized. How many men that took out, John didn’t know, but anybody on foot was going to be meat for the skirmishers as they retired, and would be too late for the main party if they arrived at all. The hillside was covered with abandoned and burning vehicles and the dead and dying.

  John realized that he’d been clenching his teeth so hard his jaws ached, and forced himself to relax. They’d been luckier than anyone had dared hope, staring with knocking out all the armored cars in the opening engagement. Bunching them up like that had been just plain stupid tactics, the kind you prayed your enemy would use.

  Is Steele really that stupid? John wondered, or was he just short of competent officers—or officers he could trust, (which was probably more important to Steele than competence)? It would be useful—hell, it might even be vital!—to know which. From what he knew of the Haven Volunteers, he couldn’t see any of them joining up with King Steele. Still, there were always a few retired officers around. Answering that question would mean interrogating prisoners—a job Hamilton would be quite happy to leave to Warden Dun.

  Chapter Five

  I

  The next few hours, while they waited to see what the enemy was up to, were mind-numbing for John. The Baron took this opportunity to make sure the troops were fed a hot meal and more scouts were sent out to reconnoiter the enemy’s movements. The first reports indicated that the
enemy force was about four klicks away, outside the village of Quakertown, which had been sacked and partially burned. There were reports of shootings of what the scouts assumed were reluctant troops or deserters. Roughly a third of their vehicles, including all their armored cars, had been destroyed or abandoned in the initial attack. Now almost half their army was on foot, which greatly hampered their mobility.

  When the convoy started moving again, it moved slowly as if expecting another missile attack. When they realized it wasn’t coming, they sped up, but, except for a few all-terrain vehicles, they stayed on the two-lane road until they reached the top of the hill. From that point on they spread out, with prisoners—probably taken from the local villages—walking point as human mine detectors.

  At half a kilometer the Gauss-gun snipers opened up. At that range a depleted-uranium slug would go right through most unarmored vehicles. One car swerved into a bunch of infantrymen, a mass of flames. Several others rammed their neighbors. The entire convoy ground to a halt again. The Gauss gunners banged away industriously until somebody on the other side had the wits to rally the heavier trucks and use them as bulldozers to clear the road. That took care of another fifty-odd vehicles, as well as most of Hamilton’s armor-piercing rounds.

  Now the road ran straight toward the castle gates across level ground free of obstacles. The convoy spread out, some vehicles heading straight for the wall, others stopping to unload their men. Meanwhile, more foot soldiers were coming over the hill. From both vehicles and dismounted men came vigorous, though ragged, small-arms fire. The battlements of Whitehall began to be an unhealthy place—or would have been—for unarmored men.

  John took two hits, one to his breast plate, which stung, and another to his vambrace. He gave silent thanks to his grandfather’s wisdom and foresight, as well as to the cotton gambeson underneath his armor.

  The dismounted men seemed to be keeping their distance from the walls. A moment later he realized why, as one of the trucks rammed the gates. The explosion that followed rocked the walls to their foundation and hurled a couple of men-at-arms down to the courtyard to their deaths. John picked himself up from the wood platform and peered through the smoke and debris at the gates. They appeared a little warped, but they still held.

  John Hamilton thanked God and a number of other factors, starting with his grandfather’s foresight and a hundred millimeters of durasteel. Then he inserted a magazine of anti-personnel rounds in his rifle and searched the smoke-shrouded ground for lucrative targets. Other defenders got the same idea and rounds popped off like firecrackers.

  An hour went by in a series of enemy feints and charges. Some of the attackers had looted police or militia body armor. Nemourlon wouldn’t stop a Gauss-gun slug, though, and some of the men on the wall had hunted muskylopes or tamerlanes. They could hit a standing man in the head at a hundred meters.

  Most of the attackers appeared to know little more of soldiering than what end of their weapons to hold and which one to point at the enemy. John was hit again twice, both times by glancing bullets that only made his armor ring, jarring him. After that, he discovered that his own aim improved, with the knowledge that, if necessary, he could stay in the open and take his time aiming without getting hurt.

  Finally the enemy pulled back out of small-arms range, to the cover of the rough ground on either side of the road and the abandoned or wrecked vehicles there. One ragged company went to ground in the old Hamilton fig orchard; that meant no more brandy from those ancient trees. They’d never found out, either, if one of those trees really was the original one which Sergeant Mike Finnegan of Falkenberg’s 42nd had given the name of Finnegan’s Fig.

  Well, you had to be alive to drink brandy or take an interest in history, John decided. And this day is a long way from over. He slung his rifle and descended the stairs, looking for his grandfather.

  The Baron wore a suit of armor custom-made to accommodate his extra girth. He stood helmetless in the middle of a dozen men, all arguing vigorously.

  “We only get one strike,” he said, as John came up. “So we have to make it count. What do you think, John?”

  John was pleased to hear his grandfather ask his advice, but he didn’t know what he was asking about. “About what, Grandfather?”

  “Brigadier Cummings promised us one missile strike. I’ve held off on requesting it until the enemy’s morale was down.”

  “It’s down about as far as it will go, I think. They were shooting deserters at Quakertown. Not breaching the gate really shook them. We’re lucky they didn’t ram the wall. If we give them enough time, somebody will think of doing that.”

  “Then let’s not give them the time,” the Baron replied. He turned to the communications officer. “Get the coordinates of their main body and put it on the air to Fort Kursk.”

  The man disappeared at a run. Most of the other officers also left to organize the counterattack that would follow a successful missile strike. John didn’t want to think about the aftermath of an unsuccessful one, or if the coordinates were slightly off.

  The communications officer came back. “They’re firing two salvos, both time-on-target for extra effect.”

  “Gary Cummings always did like those little frills and flourishes,” muttered the Baron. But he was moving toward the gate as he muttered.

  John followed his grandfather toward the hundred and fifty armored men now assembled by the gate. Most were already mounted on their big horses. One unsuspected virtue of armor, he discovered, was that it discouraged his knees from knocking together. There had to be more than three thousand armed men out there; even if the missiles took out half of them that meant the short end of ten-to-one odds…

  One of the sergeants came up to him and pointed at his Gauss gun.

  “Better leave that behind, Marshal. No damned good in a close-range firefight. They’ll be all over ya faster’n shit before you can aim.”

  He handed John an Ekaterinagrad Arsenal 7mm assault rifle, or at least a clone of one, with a fifty-round magazine.”

  “I thought bayonets were strictly for ceremony,” John said.

  “They’re good for riot work, too. That’s what we’re going to be facin’ out there, ‘long as those friggin’ rockets land on their heads, not on ours. Don’t be afraid to use your sword, either.”

  John raised his rifle and shook his head. I should have thought of that myself. It was only now sinking in that this was a real battle with real people killing and dying, not some solido show he could turn off when he got bored.

  It had better damn well sink in fast, he told himself, or I’ll be lucky to survive this battle, never mind the next. And there would be a next one.

  Light brighter than any sunlight Haven ever saw flooded the courtyard. John closed his eyes and opened his mouth, but the blast wave still made his ears ache. He opened his eyes to see dust and small pebbles flying over the battlements. The banner on top of the tower stood out stiff from its pole, until the pole itself snapped off. The ground quivered like a drumhead, and Hamilton needed the sergeant’s grip on his upper arm to stay on his feet.

  Before the first blast had died away, the whole sequence came again, shaking the ground. This time part of the wood firesteps on the east wall collapsed. Nobody was on them, though, and only one man was close enough to be hit by flying lumber.

  II

  King David Steele, who was seated in the last surviving armored car, on the top of the ridge facing Whitehall, cursed loudly as the second blast’s roar died down. “That conniving bastard Cummings! What does he think he’s doing, crossing me like this?”

  Newly-minted General Keene shrugged. He’d been under Steele’s thumb long enough to know there was no arguing with the King. As for rational explanations, if they didn’t fit Steele’s worldview, they were dismissed out of hand. Frankly, to his mind the black cloud of smoke that covered the battlefield was a grisly reminder of just how bad things had become. And so quickly!

  “Well, Cummings just ma
de a grave error by supporting the losing side,” Steele continued in full rant.

  Keene only nodded. From what he could see of their positions, through the broiling smoke and debris, the battle appeared to be just about over. Just don’t send me down there to rally the troops, he prayed. While it was true that he’d had military training as a major in the Imperial Marines, it was also true that he’d been stuck with garrison duty on some forgotten planet and never seen any real action. Today he’d already seen more first-hand killing than he’d ever wanted to. And, as far as he could tell, other than the three scouts they had captured and tortured, they hadn’t killed any of Hamilton’s regulars.

  I wouldn’t be surprised if half of the Haven Royal Army soldiers are on the casualty list. Another hit, and even Steele’s bodyguards, the Iron Curtain as he calls them, won’t be able to stop the rest of the army from running off the field of battle.

  General Keene knew he didn’t dare disobey orders or leave; his wife and children were hostages back in Castell City.

  Steele was still on his rant about Brigadier Cummings’ illegitimate and non-human progenitors. “Is it true that Cummings has a secret nuclear stockpile?” the King asked.

  The General shrugged. “All nuclear ordnance was to be removed by Imperial Law when the Seventy-seventh Imperial Marines evacuated Haven. However, the Brigadier was given almost blanket authorization from the Imperial High Command, so it’s possible he may have squirreled away some bombs which then conveniently never showed up on the final Ordnance Lists. I don’t know. I do know that if he does have them, we’ll never get them away from him.

  Steele pointed to the stone fortress that faced them across the divide. “If we can crush this stone outhouse, we can deal with Cummings at our leisure.”