Hells march, p.30
Hell's March, page 30
So, like it or not, Agon’s few lancers had to be scouts. Fortunately, those he’d retained were veterans who’d literally been down this road before and knew they had to adjust their tactics, attitudes, and traditions to survive, even to the point of—gasp—discarding their lances and dismounting to fight with musketoons! Agon’s final and most pressing problem was, as long and strung out as his column must be to snake its way up this eons-long neglected portion of the ancient Camino Militar, he simply didn’t have enough of them.
Enemy Rangers and dragoons, largely composed of Ocelomeh “Indios,” were led by men who’d fought Holcanos all their lives and knew every track and trail in the forest and fell on Agon’s scouts and pickets, his “burial details,” even his main, lumbering column almost at will. They’d strike like lightning out of the forest like the terrible monsters whose bloodcurdling cries they imitated so well, or erupt out of ambush and kill half a dozen before galloping back up the road or vanishing in the shadowy woods. Sometimes they even drove forest monsters to viciously crash into Agon’s ranks, tearing handfuls of men to pieces and generally causing havoc before (much-improved) musketry killed them or drove them off.
The whole advance had been like that, step by bloody step, all the way up until his reinforced scouts and a regiment of infantry pushed a small but tenacious group of skirmishers out of their path and across an eerily denuded plain—enemy engineers had been very busy—south of Nautla. A few long-range cannon shots kept Agon’s lancers back as he hurried to the front of the column with Capitan Arevalo and his personal staff and guards to emerge from the tree line and view the first objective of his new campaign at last.
Oddly, what initially struck him was that the ancient central pyramid of the city had been somewhat repaired and painted a brilliant white, glaring brightly in the late-morning sun. Equally jarring, high atop the small structure at its peak was a tall, plain, wooden cross, quite different from the jagged symbol of agonizing grace that God forced His son to endure as an example to His people. More concerning from a military perspective, the ancient city was hardly recognizable in less spiritual ways and barely resembled the ruin Agon remembered. First, it looked more like a “living,” if extremely utilitarian city, than any other closer than El Lago, its walls almost seething with human movement. And those once shattered walls had been repaired, reinforced, and surrounded by wide trenches that would be mud pits at least, and possibly flooded this close to the sea. Sharpened stakes bristled everywhere, along with split-rail fences and other entanglements that provided little cover but would channel and slow an attacker to a crawl. Perhaps worst of all, as he’d seen at once, the ground had been meticulously cleared for at least a thousand paces in every direction of everything except countless jagged stumps and a lush new carpet of blue-green grass. The sheer extent of the fortifications and malevolent imagination of the killing field stirred a growing, sick anxiety in General Agon’s gut, almost a portent of doom.
“Colonel Cayce isn’t here,” he said with blooming certainty, lowering his spyglass and resting it across his thighs.
Captain Arevalo looked at him, amazed. “My general . . . With all respect, how can you know that after a single glance? What makes you think that?”
“Simple,” Agon murmured darkly, pointing all around, then at the distant walls. The army was still coming out behind him, spreading to either side of the track by two-thousand-man regiments. (He’d decided the traditional three-thousand-man regiments were too big and unwieldy and might even make them smaller. Enemy regiments might be seven hundred to a thousand men and lacked the power of larger formations but were much easier to move.) Now, even as his grand new army emerged, he had a nagging impulse to pull it back. His artillerymen had improved considerably, but a thousand paces remained an outrageous distance for them. The enemy had already proven that wasn’t the case for theirs, and he suspected they’d only limited the expanse of the killing field for the precise purpose of having him deploy under fire. The enemy artillery was silent, at present, but he wondered if they were just waiting for the largest, densest target, or simply to lull him. That made no sense, of course. Nothing he saw could possibly “lull” anyone.
“This position is a nightmare for us, and those defenses seem quite impossible. We’d shatter our army against them even if we brought our big siege guns again. Look through your glass; you’ll note that two of those very monstrous weapons we so considerately ‘gifted’ the enemy when we left them behind now gape at us from that closest wall.” He shook his head. “There are a number of other guns as well, more than we lost to them. I wonder if all are real?” He shook his head. “Enough of them are.”
“What are you saying, my general? That we’ve lost before we even try?”
“Of course not,” Agon snapped. “But we’ll have to give this some thought.”
“But what makes you think Cayce isn’t here? And why should that trouble you so?”
Agon pointed at the defenses again. “Simply because this looks so impossible. I’m not saying it is,” he added hastily, “and . . . it may in fact be less formidable than it seems at a glance. We’ll know when we test the army against it—which we must. But if Cayce built a defense he was sure would be impossible to overcome, he’d make it look easy to draw us into a massacre as he did before. He would invite the battle we both crave,” he added with assurance. “This . . .” He waved. “This is a deterrent. Therefore, I don’t believe he’s here.”
“And that troubles you because . . ?” Arevalo probed.
Agon sighed. “Lewis Cayce is a simple creature at heart, at least in the affairs of empire. I’m sure he must deal with many of the same problems we do when it comes to support and supply, even meddling from above. But he needn’t fear he’ll be replaced—or knifed in the back by a Blood Priest assassin.” He paused, considering. “Well, he should probably worry about that as much as I do. Nevertheless, his is the mind that guides the army of our enemy—as I’ve been given leave to do for this one, for now, but he’s earned a freer hand and many more options. As loose as my leash is at present, I’m still constrained to do the expected. I could only march up the Camino Militar to face that”—he pointed once more—“and Cayce knew it. Simple creature in some ways or not, he’s a bold and aggressive soldier, with a mind free to focus on battle while others he trusts prepare and send him the tools”—he frowned—“or protect his back from the knife. He’s made an army that’s an extension of his mind, that he can do with as he will. I can’t believe he’d just pile it up and sit on it like this. What . . . troubles me, deeply concerns me in fact, is that if Lewis Cayce isn’t here, he’s very probably somewhere else, doing something . . . our way of war doesn’t equip us to predict. Or stop.”
Arevalo’s brows came together as he rubbed the pointed whiskers on his chin. “So . . . what should we do, my general?”
“Coronel Uza,” Agon called loudly aside, and his lancer commander moved closer.
“My general?” replied the tall, wiry lancer.
“Find me a way around that,” he said, pointing at the city again. “A trail in the forest to the east. “I’m sure it won’t be easy—or close—but it must exist. We can’t cut the enemy off from supplies; they have a port, after all. But if we can get between them and their principal cities—at least threaten to do so, since then we’d have no supplies!—it might force them to come after us on ground of our choosing.”
“Do you think that’ll work, my general?” Arevalo asked.
Agon shook his head but said nothing.
“What will we do in the meantime?” asked General Tun. One of Agon’s oldest friends, he’d been at the Washboard and met Lewis Cayce himself. Now he commanded the 1st Brigada, issuing from the trees.
“Continue to deploy, for now,” Agon said simply. “If the enemy commences a dangerous fire, you’ll merely melt straight back into the trees. Pass the word to the following brigadas to begin cutting and clearing space for our camps to the rear, but leave a wall of trees between them and the field to prevent observation. Erect our own fortifications with the timber they cut,” he added dismally, then straightened in the saddle. “In the meantime, I’ll attempt yet another parley with Lewis Cayce—or whoever commands over there. Perhaps I can learn something.”
“That’s much too dangerous, my general!” Tun and Arevalo both chorused.
Agon sighed. “I think not. It seems the enemy still recognizes the code of honor among soldiers that the more militant founders of our faith once observed. That . . . aspect of our faith has been deplorably subverted, but I’ve been careful to ensure the senior commanders of this army still believe ‘grace’ for a soldier can only be won in battle. The enemy can’t be aware of that, or possibly even sure they’re dealing with me—with the same philosophy—again, but it might be best if they were.”
“They came to the first parley we offered, and Don Frutos betrayed them,” Arevalo reminded.
“But they came to the next one as well,” Agon countered.
“Maybe they’re stupid,” Arevalo said bitterly.
“We both know they’re not,” Agon soothed. “But they were desperate then. As desperate as we were, and they learned the difference between Don Frutos and I. The cease-fire we arranged saved both of our armies.”
“And here we are again,” said General Tun.
“Yes.” Agon nodded. “And they’ll be as curious about us as we are them.” He looked at Coronel Uza. “I want those scouts probing the right immediately, but you’ll also send a squad of lancers to advance halfway across the field at a walk.”
“What shall they do when they get there?” Uza asked nervously.
“Stop and wait for a signal from the enemy. We’ll know what it is when we see it, I’m sure.” Agon hesitated. “Assure them they may return here at once if they’re fired upon.”
* * *
—
THE STRANGE LITTLE dance that ultimately resulted in the parley between 3rd Division’s Colonel Itzam and General Agon had numerous awkward steps, all actually foreseen by Lewis Cayce and prescribed by him for this occasion. After much apparent confusion on the walls, the six lancers were eventually met in the center of the killing field by an equal number of Ocelomeh dragoons, as resplendent as their enemy in dark blue jackets and sky-blue trousers, yellow herringbone trim, bright brass buttons and beltplates, and startlingly white leather belts and carbine slings. They weren’t as garish as their counterparts, but looked just as fine. Speaking largely the same language, the dragoons communicated to the lancers that one of each of them would retire, pair by pair, until only a single trooper remained from either side. Only then would their principals emerge and meet, accompanied by a single attendant. Without such instructions, the Doms were at a loss for how to deal with this, and it was agreed among them there that a single pair would first retire to “consult,” before returning simultaneously to confirm the arrangements. This, of course, so no one would ever be outnumbered.
Even after agreement was reached, the dance remained a stately affair, with each pair of troopers slowly retiring to their respective lines—at the plodding pace set by the dragoons—before the next pair turned to do the same. Finally, with only one dragoon and one lancer still sitting on their horses about ten yards apart, sullenly staring and saying nothing at all, Colonel Itzam and his young aide, an Itzincabo named Raul Uo, finally mounted their horses and trotted out through the massive, reinforced south gate of Nautla. There they waited until General Agon and Capitan Arevalo were seen to emerge from the ranks of troops still spreading out from the cut in the distant forest.
“Sir, may I ask what all is about?” Lieutenant Uo asked as they rode out into the killing ground, his tone slightly flustered.
Colonel Itzam chuckled. “It’s been expected all along that the enemy commander—likely General Agon, Colonel Cayce believed—would want another meeting. As twisted as his cause might be, he imagines himself a proper soldier even as the Americans reckon such things and yearns to ‘do things right.’ Obviously, there’s a big difference between ‘doing things right’ and ‘doing the right thing,’ ” Itzam said more somberly, “but Agon and his . . . subsect of ‘holy warriors,’ as they perceive themselves, seem taken with the correct forms and ceremonies of war. Unfortunately for them, having never dealt with a military equal, they don’t know exactly what those forms entail.”
“So we could just make them up as we go and they’d be none the wiser.”
Itzam chuckled again. “To a degree, we are. Not that it matters. Niceties between soldiers on the battlefield don’t extend to Dom behavior toward conquered peoples,” he continued more darkly. “And the . . . hobby manners of semisecret societies of Dom soldiers don’t matter at all to Blood Cardinals or Blood Priests. But Colonel Cayce believes that starting a tradition of meetings before battle might be very useful. I don’t know about that,” he hedged, “but he hoped for this ‘run around,’ as Colonel De Russy described it to me, and now that we’ve got it, I’ll put some of his ideas to the test. The form we followed is designed to accomplish several things; first, safety for ourselves. The Doms already betrayed one parley, after all. Second, I’m to drag the meeting out a while, get to know Agon and let him think he knows me, without spilling any truly important information. Not being a ‘proper’ soldier until recently myself, that’s the part that worries me the most.”
“You were Alcalde Periz’s Home Guard captain. You may be better equipped for this sort of thing than Colonel Cayce.”
“Could be. I’m sure I’m better at telling different city officials the very same thing—and having them all swear I didn’t,” he agreed wryly. “And I couldn’t care less what they say about me.” He brightened. “So I may be even better at Colonel Cayce’s third instruction as well—the main reason he wanted me to meet with General Agon, if given the chance. I thought it was a good idea at the time. We’ll see.”
“What was it?”
“To ‘rub his nose’ in his previous defeat. To politely antagonize and provoke him. I’m told I can be very insulting.”
They stopped beside the dragoon private, just as General Agon and Capitan Arevalo reined in next to the last lancer. There was an awkward moment while they all just sat there as if waiting for salutes, but none were forthcoming. Finally, General Agon broke the silence.
“I remember you. From the great battle west of Uxmal. You are Capitan Itzam of the Uxmal Home Guards Regiment. You helped arrange our . . . final dispositions there, after the fighting.”
Itzam bowed. “It’s Colonel Itzam now. Of the Third Division. My aide, Lieutenant Uo.” He looked at Arevalo. “I remember you as well.”
It was Arevalo’s turn to bow. “I’m honored.”
“I’d hoped to renew my acquaintance with Colonel Cayce,” Agon said, “not that I mean any offense to you,” he quickly added. “But I am, after all, the commander of the entire great host that will soon invest your works. It seems appropriate that I should be met by your overall commander. If he is present,” he probed.
Itzam shrugged. “Oh, rest assured, Colonel Cayce’s here. He’s merely somewhat . . . indisposed this morning. I was available.”
“Indisposed?” Agon exclaimed in mock alarm. “I do hope he isn’t ill. I’d hate to test myself against him if he isn’t at his best. I pray he’s not afflicted with el vomito rojo!”
Itzam casually waved that away. “No, he isn’t sick, and our healers have medicine for that in any case. Don’t yours?” Itzam knew perfectly well the Doms had no defense against mosquito-borne disease. “Forgive me if I gave you that impression,” he continued, then paused. “Let’s just say he’s ‘indisposed’ to spending valuable time speaking with you again. Time better used contemplating shattering your ‘great host’ as he’s done before. He said you’d both made your positions quite clear the last time you met: you’d return to renew the battle to subjugate the Yucatán, and he’d destroy you if you did.” Itzam smiled. “You’re back, and he’s getting ready to wreck you. Colonel Cayce always means what he says and does what he says.” Itzam lowered his voice as if revealing a secret. “I have it on authority that he actually respects you as a soldier, and may even vaguely regret destroying you. He can’t respect your cause, however, and detests those you stoop to serve. False courtesy would make him feel hypocritical, so there’s nothing more for him to say to you.”
Lieutenant Uo had struck a light to a long-stemmed clay pipe while Itzam spoke and had it drawing nicely. Now he handed it to the colonel, who took a satisfied puff and said, “I, on the other hand, am something of a . . . public soldier, in a sense. At least I was. As the Home Guard commander of Uxmal, I learned to spew false courtesies to all manner of self-important officials and mercantile luminaries.” He gestured behind at the fortified city. “As you can surely see, there’s little more I can do to prepare for your visit.” He grinned engagingly. “That leaves me perfectly free to visit all day, if you like.”
Arevalo’s face was generally paler than Agon’s, but now it flushed with fury. Agon raised a calming hand before his aide could speak. “I should feel complimented, then, that Coronel Cayce still imagines there’s more he might do to receive me.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.” Itzam nodded genially in a cloud of pipe smoke.
“Yes. Well.” Agon straightened in his saddle. “Since Coronel Cayce is unavailable, perhaps we should stop wasting each other’s time.”
