Hope Renewed by David Drake, S.M. Stirling

point, between road and orchards passed a rock-lined irrigation channel, and a slow current of water. It was dry and intensely hot here in the southern foothills of the Oxheads—the land was sloping down toward the sand deserts of the borderlands—and the sight and sound of the water was intoxicating. He squinted at the sun, then remembered to take out his watch and click open the cover; in the Southern Territories, even wealthy nobles hadn’t carried them. There was no point; nobody needed to know the time that precisely, and they were impossible to keep repaired, anyway.
    Civilization. “Benter,” he said to the younger brother who was his aide. “Twenty minutes. Water the dogs.”
    He turned and heeled his dog westwards down the line of march; behind him the cool brassy notes of the trumpet sounded, and the signalers of each company passed it back. When it reached the rear of the column the last unit halted first—you had to do it that way, or the whole mass would collide with each other, like a drunken centipede. His lips quirked at the memory of his father trying to halt a mass of Squadron warriors on the move, back when he was a boy. That had taken the better part of an hour, even with the paid, full-time fighters of the household guard.
    The three Cruiser battalions of ex-Brigaderos were full strength . . . except for their stragglers. Teodore Welf rode up, red in the face from the heat and from embarrassment.
    “Major Bellamy,” he said, saluting.
    “Major Welf,” Ludwig replied, glancing past him.
    They spoke Sponglish, although the Squadron and Brigade dialects of Namerique were fairly close: regulations, and it was best to stay in the habit, since more than half the officers in their units were seconded Civil Government natives like M’Brust.
    Men and dogs had collapsed in the road. Others were leading their animals from the wayside to the ditch, walking slowly with their legs straddled. A few had trotted over despite their saddle sores and lay with their heads and shoulders buried in the life-giving coolness. Ludwig frowned and jerked his head toward them.
    Teodore cursed and drew his sword, spurring to the ditch. “Up and out of there, you slugs!” he shouted. The flat of the weapon whacked down on shoulders. “Purify it first, damn your arse! You can’t fight with the runs!”
    The soldiers stood, dripping. Officers rode up, as dust-caked as their men, and the troopers formed lines. Some led the dogs downstream; others scooped their canteens full and added the blessed purifying chlorine powder; it was a rite shared by the Spirit of Man of This Earth cult they followed and the Star Church of the Civil Government, but not all commanders were equally pious. Messer Raj insisted on the full canonical treatment—water for human drinking to be purified by powder or by ten minutes at a hard rolling boil, with no exceptions.
    The Spirit favored him for it, too. It wasn’t uncommon for armies in the field to lose five men to dysentery for every one killed in combat. That didn’t happen to troops under Raj’s command.
    Welf trotted back. “Sorry, Ludwig,” he said. “The Western Territories aren’t this hot.”
    Ludwig nodded. The Western Territories were damned cold and rainy, to his way of thinking—his own ancestors had plowed through them on their way to the southern side of the Midworld Sea, and he was glad of it. Of course, even the Western Territories were warm and dry compared to the Base Area, which explained why the Brigade had stopped there; they’d been the first of the Military Governments to pull up stakes and move south.
    “And your fine gentlemen aren’t used to sweating this hard,” he replied, smiling to take the sting out of it.
    “True enough,” Welf said. He flexed the arm that had been broken by a Civil Government bullet outside Old Residence, nearly two years ago. “I’d never have dared drive them this hard, back . . . well, back then.”
    Ludwig nodded. Even the