Over by the aerosteamer field a detachment of Merki had burst out of the woods, almost reaching the hangar that held Republic Republic before being gunned down. The fight in the woods was insane confusion. Small detachments of both side were lost, and sections of the woods were on fire. Most of Barry's men were assigned to closing the gap to the south of the breakthrough. before being gunned down. The fight in the woods was insane confusion. Small detachments of both side were lost, and sections of the woods were on fire. Most of Barry's men were assigned to closing the gap to the south of the breakthrough.

He turned and walked back into the factory.

The last scrap of powder had been packed this morning, still far short of what he had fantasized, but that was fantasy and now he was staring a harsh reality in the face.

He was tempted to use it all here, but knew it'd be a waste. All the months of sneaking and planning had been for something far different, and by God he was going to see that it happened that way.

The long building was almost silent, except for the loading crews, the rest standing by the now-empty lathes and presses; even the steam engine that had powered it all had gone still.

He walked through the factory and saw them watching him, five hundred men and women.

"Theodor."

"Here, sir."

"Go back into the back warehouse. We've got fifty Sharps carbines, a couple of dozen pistols, something like two hundred smoothbores, break them out."

Theodor looked at him and grinned, shouting for some workers to follow.

Chuck climbed up on top of a stamping machine.

"Many of you men got detached from your regiments in Barry's corps, which is now fighting to the south, so you know soldiering. I want you to take twenty, thirty people, form them into your companies. We've worked hard together, now we're going to fight together."

He hesitated.

"We've got something like two hundred and fifty guns, and there's five hundred of you, men and women. Two people to each gun. When one falls the other can still fight."

A defiant cheer went up. He had always wanted a field command, and now he finally had one.

"Magnificent, grim and magnificent," Vincent said, lowering his field glasses and looking over at Dimitri.

Taking off his hat, he raised it over his face to shade his eyes from the glare of the early-afternoon sun. In the plains below, the Merki army continued to deploy out into the open valley. Ten umens, he figured, two of them mounted. Artillery crews were pushing their weapons forward, already into extreme range, forming an arc of over two hundred guns, more still coming across the river, moving slowly, confined to the narrow width of the river that was beyond the range of the grand batteries positioned to the north and south of the arc.

A faint breeze stirred up from the valley, and he suppressed a gag.

"Must be a hundred degrees. Those dead bastards are starting to cook," Vincent said coldly.

"Imagine what it's like down there for them."

He put his hat back on, pulling the brim low, feeling slightly light-headed, his mouth dry. He was tempted to take a drink but decided not to. It was going to be a very long afternoon, the heat would hold, and water would soon be short, even with the cisterns set up behind the line.

He looked down his line. Again that sense of awe. The men were sitting on the ground, resting, dozing in the heat, the long lines of his three divisions occupying nearly two miles of front, a hundred yards to each regiment. The central grand battery of fifty guns was to his left. He looked over at it, remembering his arrival here only days before. The villa was gone, the limestone blocks now piled up to reinforce the battery position.

The battery commander stood atop the wall, field glasses trained forward, shouting orders to his gunners, the rifled pieces being aimed to hit the Merki artillery pieces, the Napoleons to be used for the infantry and cavalry when they finally came in.

The tension was palpable, as if a safety valve had been jammed shut and the pressure within was building and building.

A battery of horse-drawn Merki artillery started to weave up a narrow lane down in the valley, passing the ruins of a vineyard pressing mill.

Vincent looked back at the battery. He knew that every landmark within range had been paced out.

"Fifteen hundred yards!"

The battery commander leaped down from the bastion, and a second later the first three-inch rifle kicked back, the shell screaming downrange with a high-pitched whine. Vincent trained his glasses forward. The Merki battery, still limbered, continued forward. A puff of smoke detonated to the right of the road next to the mill, long seconds later the distant crack of the exploding shell rolling back over the hill.

The eleven other rifled guns fired in salvo. Seconds later, shells bracketed the Merki, horses going down, soundless at this range, a caisson igniting, smoke rising up. A cheer rose up from the battery, the men leaping to reload.

From the north a distant rumble echoed, the northern battery now starting to engage. Vincent slowly moved his field glasses across the field, watching. The infantry was still back, formations coming into line, waiting, their lines building. Guns moving forward, pressing in closer to the ridge. The battery under fire continued forward at the gallop, moving up the road, coming in closer.

The first rifled piece fired again, this time dropping its shell near the rear of the advance, more horses going down. The front of the battery in column continued, crossing a dry creekbed and then swinging out into line, coming to a stop.

"Right down their throats!" the battery commander shouted. "A thousand yards!"

The rifles fired again. Shells detonated like blossoms around the guns, one of them losing a wheel, spinning around. The three surviving pieces unlim-bered, gunners working to load.

Another battery came up the road, swerving to avoid the wreckage of the still-burning caisson. Over in the next field to the south, two more batteries in line abreast came up out of a vineyard, moving forward to support. Guns were now moving up all along the line, spreading outward from the center.

The first battery to advance finally fired a shot. Seconds later the round slammed into the ground fifty yards short of the grand battery, a plume of earth rising up, the solid ball ricocheting up into the air, passing lower over the battery and on into the rear, the gunners laughing disdainfully even as they fired, dismounting another of the enemy guns.

The second Merki battery up finally delivered its first shots, rounds screaming in, a shell exploding with a thunderclap a hundred yards forward, the ground churning up from impacting shots falling short.

The exchange started to flare outward, more and yet more of the Merki guns coming up on line and unlimbering, the arc of fire spreading outward around the valley.

A shot finally screamed overhead, a shell exploding directly over the grand battery. Screaming wounded were dragged to the rear moments later, the gunners now angrily at their work, as if an insult had been offered.

"What the hell is that?"

Vincent turned as Dimitri pointed to three soldiers moving down the line, the uniforms of two of them dark green, the other one wearing a faded blue jacket of the Union Army. Slung over his shoulder was a long rifle, a brass tube glistening atop it.

The three stopped, pointing down the slope as if arguing, and then moved down to a rifle pit, the men occupying it looking up and moving over. Vincent strolled down to watch.

"The only other Whitworth we've got," Vincent said with awe.

"What the hell is that?"

"The same kind of gun that killed Jubadi."

He moved over to the rifle pit. The three soldiers looked up, coming to their feet, saluting, but betraying that at the moment they felt they had better things to do than deal with nosy officers.

"Patrick O'Quinn, isn't it?"

The sniper squinted up at Vincent and smiled.

"The same it is, and you now a general and me still a private with the old 35th."

Vincent shook his head. Dimitri was surprised that Vincent didn't explode at the tone of insolence from Patrick.

"If you'd laid off the bottle and the women you'd have made command."

Patrick laughed.

"Some is born to such things, others to being generals. Me, I'd rather be doing this. Old Keane finally found a job I was suited for. Always was the best shot in the regiment, and now I'm killing officers." He stared at Vincent and smiled. "I like my work."

Vincent shook his head and gestured for them to carry on. He squatted down behind the pit to watch.

An assistant set up a tripod. The gunner rested the muzzle upon it and lay down, bringing the gun to his shoulder squirming slightly.

"Roll up the blanket and get it under me armpit," Patrick said, and his assistant pulled a small blanket out of an oversized haversack and tucked it up under Patrick's right arm, the soldier shifting and settling down.

The other assistant sat on the ground, knees apart, elbows resting upon them, a telescope in his hands.

"The one to the right of the first gun on line-I think that's the bastard."

"Stand still, you son of a whore," Patrick whispered.

Vincent raised his glasses to watch and saw a Merki on foot, arm up, pointing, obviously shouting, an officer. The Merki turned and moved to the next gun, leaning over to look along its barrel, and then stood back up. A shell detonated behind him, and he ducked.

"Tell those bastards to stop shooting. They're ruining me aim," Patrick snapped.

The Merki battery commander moved down the line to the next gun, and the instant he stopped, the Whitworth cracked off.

Vincent sat transfixed, watching. The Merki crouched down slightly, stood back up, and started to turn his head. Then he doubled over, collapsing on the ground. The warriors beside him looked at him with astonishment.

"The fourth damn one today!" Patrick barked.

Vincent looked over at the man with admiration.

"A good kill," he said softly.

"Kill bloody officers, that's what Keane wanted, that's what I'm giving him. It's something I've always wanted to do."

Vincent said nothing. He came back up to his feet.

"Let's go get the next one," Patrick announced, rising up and passing the Whitworth over to his assistant. He looked at Vincent and smiled. "Hell, I might even turn out to be as good a killer as the famous Quaker."

He laughed crudely, spit a stream of juice on the ground, and continued on down the line, Vincent watching him silently.

"Son of a bitch," Dimitri said softly.

"Never mind," Vincent replied. "The bastard's right."

He turned and looked back out at the growing battle.

"Magnificent," he said softly. "Magnificent."

Tamuka Qar Qarth rode along the line, squinting through the smoke. The bombardment was apparently one-sided, the cattle upon the hills having the advantage of height and obviously of skill. Forward he saw several batteries with half their guns smashed or out of action. The two days of bombardment had depleted nearly all the ammunition stocks; he couldn't maintain this rate of fire much longer. There was another report that was almost as disturbing. One after another, since yesterday, battery commanders were being shot from long distance. Most likely by a murder weapon like the one used by Yuri.

He kept his distance from the batteries.

He looked back to the west. From the opposite side of the river the last umen of the spotted black horse was advancing into the river on foot, the midafternoon sun behind it.

The battle was going too slow, far too slow. Two-thirds of the day wasted by this tedious advance on foot, waiting for guns to be moved, for paths for them to be cleared through the corpses, for infantry to move up, all of it taking far too much time.

And the heat. It was almost as bad as the burning sands beyond Constan. Only light breaths of air occasionally stirring, the sky cloudless, the color almost of polished brass.

Water now had become a serious problem. Fetching it from below the crossing was no longer possible because of the rotting corpses in the river. No water could be taken from the few muddy rivulets running in this valley; his warriors refused to drink water that smelled of death and corruption. Already it was reported that thousands in the ranks were sick, some even dying, vomiting or shitting uncontrollably, adding to the general stench of the area. As he rode down the line he could see his warriors, heads lowered in the heat, panting, commanders shouting orders not to drink.

It was almost time. It had to be now.

He crossed over a small creek, water no longer flowing, the bottom churned to mud, bodies pressed into it, bloated, swollen, and distended. His horse, trying to gain the opposite bank, stepped on a corpse, shying away nervously; a puff of air came up from the body.

Tamuka retched, ashamed at his display of a weak stomach, even though more than one on his staff had vomited from the cloying stench. He gained the opposite bank and started to retch again from the smell. Before him, what had once been a cattle house was now a burned-out ruin, charred corpses of his warriors piled around the building, a half-burned body hanging out of a broken flame-scorched window, its insides spilling out onto the ground like a bloody curtain. Upon a stake beside the house the decapitated head of one of his warriors had been set, mouth open, swollen blackened tongue protruding, eyes gouged out.

Drawn up beside the house was a line of warriors on horseback, and he approached them, angry that the sacrilege had not been taken down.

Tamuka snapped his fingers and pointed at the head. A silent one ran up to the head and removed it from the stake, setting it next to a corpse that it might belong to.

Muzta Qar Qarth watched the action with bemused interest. "Sorry, we forgot to clean up around here," he said with a grin.

Tamuka said nothing.

"Merki seem to smell the same as Tugars, maybe a bit worse. Another day of your fighting and you'll even have as many dead."

"There'll be more of you as well," Tamuka said coldly.

"I assumed that."

"You've ridden with the horde of Merki for more than a season now and have done precious little. Today your umen can start the assault," and as he spoke he pointed at the grand battery positioned in front of Hispania.

"And see my remaining people killed on a useless assault?" Muzta snapped. "This battle is all wrong- it's become a madness."

"Are the Tugars afraid to fight?"

"We do not believe in suicide."

"You seemed to do a good job of it once before."

"You do not know about these people at all," Muzta snapped. "You still see them as cattle, but by all my ancestors I've seen cattle fight with a ferocity unimagined," and as he spoke he pointed to the piles of dead that were heaped across the field. "Tamuka, our enemies have become like us, perhaps even better, in the making of war."

Tamuka continued to point at the grand battery.

390 William Forstchen William Forstchen "I don't mind dying when there's a purpose," Muzta snarled, "but to attack that cannon-covered hill is madness."

"We will attack all along the line, from north to south, the pressure striking everywhere at once."

"You are fighting on the field Keane chose. I heard he slaughtered fifty, maybe sixty thousand yesterday, and he'll do the same today."

"Damn your soul! Attack!" Tamuka snarled.