"I cannot remember but I am going to go over there and—"
BOOOOM!!!
"—give that splendid German fellow a mild lecture on punctuality," finished Donovan.
The explosion was impressive enough. But it detonated almost forty yards before the approaching force, doing very mild, if any, damage to the enemy.
"What the hell did that accomplish except convince them our targeting is lousy?" demanded Quinn.
"Scare them a bit," said North simply. He watched the lines continue forward. "Hastings! Reload."
"Reload what? We only laid one charge when we were out there," said Quinn.
"Timeo danaos et dona ferentis," North replied, keeping his eyes on the enemy.
"What?"
"Bloody ignorant Americans. Ask the Irishman. He is always glad to show off his education."
"'I am wary of Greeks, even bearing gifts,'" Donovan supplied the translation.
"I don't understand," said Quinn.
"So much is obvious." North took out a watch of his own.
"Why did you ask for my watch if you already had one?"
"Because this one... was already counting down," said North, carefully examining the display. "I certainly hope Alcom's timers are better than his timed fuses."
"It had better be," said Donovan. "We only had the one."
North looking up from his watch. "Now should do, Hastings."
"Fire!"
The second explosion was a bit more timely and substantial. It appeared that the enemy lieutenant who had received his superior's gift for safekeeping would be conversing with his superiors in the afterlife. Laced with scrap ball bearings, the explosion ripped a hole in the enemy formation, killing and wounding dozens in a very close approximation of a claymore mine. It showered detritus of various forms high into the air. A fairly sizeable chunk flew so far as to land a few paces away from North and his officers.
"Was that part of a horse?" Quinn asked in mild shock.
"Mother Mary, I hope not!" replied Donovan.
"Snipers engage! Musketeers! FOOOOOORM RANKS!" shouted North. "Prepare for volley fire! Riflemen, independent fire at will. Cavalry, mount up and prepare to engage. Sergeant Hastings, take command of the detachment. Stand ready, men! He's only a Prussian!"
It was all over within ten minutes.
* * *
To Steiner's credit, they kept coming, which was at the root of their destruction. The twin explosions had indeed been frightening but no soldier under his command would shy away from the fight. And while courage was hanging by a thread, it did remain. Courage might have impressed an opposing swordsman, pikeman or even arquebusier. But a .308 bullet fired from a distance was supremely indifferent to it. The Albernian troops with ten modern rifles picked off approaching troops one at a time. And while attrition was slow it was adding up. By the time the enemy line approached anywhere near effective firing range, they had also been within range of the opposing line of Albernian musket men. Then they came within range of the fifteen of them who were armed with up-time pump-action shotguns, loaded with slugs. The shotgun volleys ripped into the enemy like a scythe reaping wheat, with a rate of fire far beyond anything possible with seventeenth-century weaponry. Steiner's surviving mercenaries managed only two coherent volleys before retreating the field in a mad rush trying to escape.
At that point twenty horsemen under Hastings armed with up-time handguns charged after the enemy and harried the force for well over a mile. Those armed with edged weapons were easy enough to avoid and those with firearms hadn't the time to reload—while the Albernians had multiple rounds in their weapons, with reload a second's effort.
* * *
"Well..." said North, after most of the fighting was over. "That was fun."
"No, that was expensive," grumbled Donovan. "We have probably just expended almost a third of the entire company's supply of up-time compatible ammunition. We won't recover a lot of the brass on this battlefield to reload. And while we have scattered this force, we have probably not killed or wounded more than a fourth of them—with God knows how many more still out there."
"Liam, lighten up," said North. "You should think instead of the fine loot we'll obtain from Steiner's camp."
* * *
"Fucking Steiner!" exclaimed Donovan in outrage. "He used to be better than this."
"I doubt he had anything to do with it, Liam. You know how a routed army can be. Besides, this looks to have been the work of only one man, anyway." North cast a cold eye on a nearby corpse. The man's head was lying several feet away.
"Every mercenary with a horse fled the field when the outcome was apparent," said Hastings, looking at the same corpse. "The remaining foot soldiers scattered to the four winds. But not before this bastard..."
"Well, what can one expect?" said North. "This area is the provinces, for all intents and purposes, with knowledge of other regions slow to filter in. New discoveries are years old when arrived. Local potentates and princes of the church tell their people that Grantville and its denizens are servants of Satan and practitioners of the dark arts. Mercenaries are a normally phlegmatic group of men and not prone to hysteria. But they do have the occasional fanatic or maniac in their midst. And such a man, seeing the blows just delivered, would assume it was the devil's work."
Most of the camp followers were gone, taken away by Steiner's men as they retreated. Not all. Those that could not be taken away—or those whose man lay dead on the field—had been left behind. But one particularly pious mercenary had not been content to allow that. He'd apparently gone about ending women's lives so that they would not be tainted by the minions of Satan. North had found him severing a woman's head with a saber, screaming in one of the European languages he didn't speak. Not that he'd spent much time trying to translate, of course. North had removed the man's head a lot more efficiently than he'd been removing the woman's.
"Tom," Donovan interrupted. "We have a survivor, found in the woods. She, um... couldn't get far."
* * *
It was immediately obvious why. The Spanish-looking girl, once the dirt was removed, would be quite a beauty. This possibly explained her current predicament. While far from her due date, the girl was obviously pregnant.
"And what the hell are we going to do with her!" said North abrasively, to which the girl visibly flinched. Likely she didn't understand English at all. But the tone could not have eased her disposition.
"We are miles away from any village, none of which are likely to take her in or treat her well. We must take her with us," said Donovan resolutely.
"Brilliant! You bastard of a Celt! They know we are coming! We are now in hostile territory, have yet to achieve our goal, and when and if we do get the Mughal back we are going to be chased all the way back to the CPE on the wrong side of astronomical odds. And you want to weigh us down with a pregnant whore? Who is just as likely to get shot or worse as reach Grantville safely?"
"Yes, I do."
"I've already done my good deed of the day," said North, with a nod toward a steadily cooling body.
"Winter is coming."
"Oh, sod off! You're not Sancho and I'm not from La Mancha. We're mercenaries, damn you! We work for money not glory and song, you... you..."
North sighed, shaking his head. "Fine. She's small, at least. We can fit her in the back of the wagon with the rest of the dynamite." He stalked away in the direction of Ariner. "And if the stuff is as unstable as I suspect it is, let it be on your head."
"Bless you," said Donovan, smiling.
5
Turning around and abandoning the contract was never even discussed, despite the change in situation. Leaving aside the huge expenses already incurred, North had given his word and that still had some value.
Within two days the company had reached its destination and met with another surprise.
"Salim," said North crossly. "Is that well-dressed Indiaman riding in the valley by any chance the one we have been slogging through
the mountains and fighting for in order to rescue from incarceration and almost certain death?"
"Yes," the Mughal replied.
"Perfect. Just perfect."
* * *
"ROOAAAR!"
"That's a big cat." North backpedaled away.
"Apologies, but Baram Khan does not travel anywhere without him," Salim explained. "Is a white Bengal. Very rare. Very tame, I assure you."
"Tame before or after he has lunch?" Quinn asked, making sure to keep his distance.
"Usually both," said Salim.
"Just tell me what has been going on during your absence," said North.
"My master wishes to speak to me alone."
"Tell him we have come a long way and I do not think it unreasonable to be part of this conversation."
"My master is... displeased with decision to bring you here. He wishes to speak to me alone," repeated Salim calmly.
"Displeased..." snarled North. "I lost five brave men coming here!" He sighed, reaching into his pocket for the watch. "One hour. I'll be waiting.
* * *
"Hastings scouted out the residence our Mughal was posted to," said Donovan, as he sat down next to North. "The townspeople tell us there used to be many more but there are about ten guards that we can see now. Their purpose seems more keeping the townspeople out than the Indiamen in. Hastings also managed to secure another sixty horses. You do not want to know how. But that will still not be enough to saddle every member of the Mughal expedition. Assuming we will be leaving with them at all. I left Salim and he was being bellowed at quite fiercely."
North puffed on his cigar. "Walkie-talkies are wonderful, are they not? Tell me, old friend, what is that word the Americans have for this sort of situation? I seem to have forgotten."
"Cluster-fuck," Donovan supplied.
* * *
Salim approached the two. Following behind him was Baram Khan, the man for whom all this was for. "Captain North?"
"Yes?"
"My master wishes to know if this is truth." Salim handed a book to the Englishman.
It was an up-time volume, something titled India Britannica by a certain Geoffrey Moorhouse. It was remarkably informative. A picture of the Indian Mutiny, with sepoys being fired out of canons for the insolence of demanding independence. Another of redcoated British lines, pristine, stalwart, crushing the motley native ones. One of a pasty-faced European couple being waited upon literally hand and foot by several dark-skinned natives. Pictures worth a hundred thousand words. The once great Indian Mughal Empire reduced to that.
"This does not have to be the truth," said North, directing his comments at Baram Khan. "It happened long ago and far way, in another universe. In this one, with proper planning, it never will."
North waited for the translation.
"You are of these people, yes?" Salim asked for his master.
"Who gave this book to you?" North replied, trying to avoid the question.
"You are of these people. Yes?"
"That book is not the whole truth," said North resolutely.
"It written by British learner at Oxford school."
"How could your master have read this book? Who provided the translation?"
"Grantville is city of Americans, yes, Americans vassals of British, yes? Heirs of men who did this." Salim took the book back with a sudden movement.
"Salim, I need you to translate for me, please do the best you can," said North, frigidly extinguishing his cigar. An act he only performed during moments of great concentration.
"It is true that in a possible future my people invaded and conquered your people. As it is true your own people did the same to the Hindus under Babur and Akbar and continue now under Shah Jahan. Such is the way of things in times past, and likely for a good long while yet. I make no excuses for my people, as I am sure you make none for your own.
"I am not a servant of my king; I am a servant of myself. I work for money, that is all you are to me. Politics and ideology have nothing to do with it. I came here to secure your release. Now you must ask yourself, why? Why am I necessary? Why were you kept against your will? Why were you given this book? The translation? Is that translation valid? Why, after reading this book, were you released and allowed the run of the grounds? People act out of their own self interests. In whose interest is your manufactured animosity toward Grantville? And is that hatred in your own best interests, and in that of your emperor's? From what I understand he sent you across half the known world to discover the truth. He ordered you to learn from that truth, and to bring back that truth to him. I suggest you do so, Subadar Baram Khan. My officers and I will await your answer here."
Baram Khan and Salim departed, along with the servants. North patted his chest and was supremely irritated to discover that his last cigar had been disposed of in order to hold a solemn conversation.
"All right, change of plans," said North jerkily, missing his habit. "We only promised to retrieve Baram Khan and return him to Grantville. We said nothing about what condition he is in when he arrives. So. Here's my new plan: we shoot the Mughal, feed him to the cat, bring the cat back to Grantville and have him stuffed for display in the office as a reminder to us never to take on any more rescue missions." North finished with a questioning look and outstretched hands. "How is this a bad plan?"
"Well..." Donovan contemplated for a moment. "We could develop the reputation of feeding our clients to tigers."
North rubbed his chin. "A cogent point. But that's a long-term issue, Liam. We are thinking about the immediate problems right now. Do you remember—"
North was interrupted by Hastings' galloping approach.
"Must you arrive so audaciously every time, John?" asked North in a snit. "Would it be so much to ask for you to calmly ride in and give good news instead of shouting that the world is about to end?"
"Yes, boss. Cavalry from the south!" shouted Hastings.
"Steiner?"
"His flag, along with another I do not recognize."
"How many, and how soon?" North started walking toward his own horse.
"Some hundreds. An hour, no more."
"Get over to where the Indiamen are being billeted. Roust out every man. Tell them to leave everything behind but their lives."
"They have ten guards."
"Take twenty men."
"Yes, boss."
* * *
"Enough!" shouted North, losing his temper. "Do you hear that sound, Baram Khan? That distant rumble is the sound of a thousand angry men coming here because of you. My company cannot remain here any longer. You must do what you must. Which would you rather have? A journey to Grantville following your emperor's orders, or to continue your long stay here, living on another man's whim?"
"We will come," Salim said for his master, after a hurried consultation.
"God be praised. Or Allah, if you prefer. Hastings! Get them moving!"
* * *
"We have hundreds of miles to safety. They'll chase us down," said Quinn.
"We need a choke point, something to delay them," added Donovan.
North was studying the map. "There is a bridge here on the Inn, with no other bridge for many miles upstream or down. We'll lead the pursuit there, and then blow the bridge. They will have to spend hours backtracking, and by that time we will be well into the mountains. We bloody their nose at every pass, valley, ford, rock and boulder. The plan is not as elegant as I would like, but it will do."
"Our supply of ammunition is a finite one," pointed out Donovan.
"It will last long enough for us to get within range of one of the CPE's military detachments. You have the radio frequencies, I assume?"
"Yes," Quinn replied, studying the map himself. "But these local maps aren't always accurate. What if the bridge isn't there? Or there's another one nearby?"
"What did you say?" North asked with a smile.
"Suppose the bridge isn't there, Captain Courageous?"
"No! Do not get him starte
d on that," Donovan pleaded.
"Oh... oh, why you have to hit me with them negative waves so early in the morning?" demanded North, in a fairly good impersonation of a New Jersey accent.
"It's mid-afternoon," Quinn replied, confused.
"Always with them negative waves, Moriarty! Always with them negative waves! Why can't you say something hopeful and righteous for a change? Huh? Why can't you dig how beautiful it is outside? Think positive thoughts. Think that bridge will be there and it'll be there. It's a muda butafull bridge, and it's gonna be there."
"Someone please explain to me what's going on," said Quinn nervously.
"Video rentals," explained Donovan. "May they burn in hell forever."
"Woof woof woof!" North barked playfully.
* * *
"With a Sherman tank?" said Quinn.
"And country music," added Donovan. "He now always quotes from his films when he is nervous. But this one is particularly bad. He has a cousin named Sutherland and is convinced the man is one of his distant relatives."
* * *
It was a sad thing, but North was fighting in one of the most beautiful areas he had ever seen. England claimed a few "mountains" but they were nothing like the Alps about him. It seemed grossly unfair that very shortly mortal men would stain God's perfect green earth with their blood.
The company had reached the bridge in time, benefits of a head start and a total disregard for farmers' lands. Johan Brecht, the German explosives expert, had gone ahead and laid the charge. Alas, he'd used up all their explosives in doing so. Meanwhile, securing the Mughals' release had been remarkably easy. The men stationed at the makeshift "prison" had not been not ready for a heavily armed and determined force of mercenaries to come bursting through the doors. The Mughal expedition had been given horses where possible, baggage was left behind where practical. But that still left a number on foot—and an army's march was determined by its slowest members.
"There is something odd about this scene," said North, as he looked at the column. "John Ford would have had a fit, if only because he couldn't film in Monument Valley. A wagon train of Indian Indians, heading north, led by a North, to a boomtown of central German Americans."