The March North Read Online Free

it out behind tubeone, just like I can feel the colour party closing its eyes to not puke as half the viewpoint flings itself off the bluff and the other appears behind First Platoon without the sensation of motion.
    Tube one’s gunner doesn’t look happy, but, well, tough. Young Toby doesn’t look happy, either, being a bit new to the rank, but One Platoon has set up nicely. I slide my half of the view way up andback, so I’m looking down on the whole thing, but keep listening, so I hear, with the odd over-there effect one gets from the standard stuffing things in your ears, Toby’s long “Ready!” and the “short! short! black-black-black! black! black! black! slide! slide! four, four, toss at four! target in front, zero, zero, one left, one left, TOSS!” from the gunner. “Toss” is as gentle as it gets with artillery;you can see the streak headed pretty much straight for Toby’s nose. Which is just right; try to take out the commanders first if you have time and can tell who that is.
    The streak is an iron — could be anything; black just means it’s nothing magical, but it’s usually iron — bar half a metre long and ten centimetres across. The other two “blacks” in the shot code mean it has nothing directing itsflight nor any magical effects when it hits. Which makes it the lightest, least dangerous thing the tubes can throw.
    Toby misses it, waiting to see it before reacting, which was just plain dumb.
    Less than a metre from Toby’s nose the whole projectile turns into a cone of thick orange sparks like it hit the grindstone of the gods. Toby’s face is fine, eyes are fine; the edge of the grindstone wasabout the level of Toby’s chin, and the sparks spray down. Still ass-flat in the middle of a grass fire with a ripply cuirass dent that spells “optimist”, which is a nice touch from Rust. There’s half of two files in the grass fire with Toby, and there’s a moment when I think I’ll have to deal with it before Toby gets collected, finds some wits, grabs the platoon focus, stomps the fire, and standsup. Bruised ribs and scorched ears and folks are going to snicker at the state of Toby’s hair for awhile, but no real harm.
    “Point to the artillery.” The clerk writes this down, dutifully blank of face. The colour party are a lot less blank-faced, but they’re getting it.
    Before we marched out this morning, I pointed out that the right thing to do at this range is to pick the tubes up and beattheir crews to death with them. Blossom radiated horrified just long enough for my next sentence, utterly forbidding any such thing, to sink in. This is a game of catch, not an actual fight, and when it comes to an actual fight we’re going to want that artillery. From the set of Toby’s face, having a few minutes to remember that fact will do no harm.
    Halt walks with a cane, and seems content tolet Eustace wander today — wandering out of the river and ambling back toward Halt just now — but Halt’s back of tube two before anyone thinks to look. Two Platoon could hardly have missed the fire and the shouting, and Radish is a small guy, for a Creek, a small guy named Radish, which is not your usual Creek name. So a good bit meaner than Toby. Radish does the simple thing and rams the platoonfocus into the ground on the angle of a door wedge over twice the width of the platoon front. Tube two’s gunner gives the whole thing a nice long pause and then calls the shot with hand signals while saying “black-black-black” out loud, hoping that the focus, with no resistance, will have wavered.
    Wavering isn’t much like Radish; the shot howls off the focus, nearly straight up, and tumbling endover end.
    “Point to the company.” The clerk blots this one; the shot comes down long, over us, but hot enough you can see the glow with bare eyes. Blossom mutters something about fires and makes a swatting motion; there’s a vast
crack
sound overhead and the shot, even hotter, hits flowing