Rating: 
Summary: Another War of Liberation
Review: Rally Cry is the first novel in The Lost Regiment series. The 35th Maine infantry regiment has had a glorious history, the first to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor as a unit for their stubborn resistance to Confederate forces at Gettysburg. Now, they and the 44th New York Light Artillery board the transport Ogunquit to participate in an amphibious assault, but sail a day behind the other ships of the flotilla. The Ogunquit is caught in a storm, flounders in high waves, is sucked into a funnel of blinding light, and is then dropped elsewhere. In our timeline, neither the ship nor any of those onboard are ever seen again.In this novel, Colonel Andrew Keane, commander of the regiment, awakes to find the ship aground, all masts down, and bodies and gear littering the deck. Sergeant Major Hans Schuder reports that two men have been killed and the other 600 are [heaving] their guts out. Miss Kathleen O'Reilly, a nurse from the Christian Sanitation Commission, avows that she will never set foot on a ship again, then goes below to assist Doctor Emil Weiss, the regimental physician, in treating the injured. One of the privates reports a horseman on the shore and Keane uses his field glasses to discover that the rider has a long beard, a conical iron helmet and a long spear; he is wearing a dirty white tunic that buttons up one side and has rags on his feet. When the horseman leaves, Keane gets his men and artillery ashore and dug in against a possible attack. However, the Captain of the Ogunquit, Tobias Cromwell, calls him back aboard and up the rigging to the shattered maintop, giving Keane a view of the land beyond the nearest hills. Thousands of men are swarming towards them, lead by a mounted contingent carrying square banners portraying various symbols. Some of the horsemen are wearing rough plate armor and are clustered around a portly, bearded man wearing gold-embossed armor. The infantry looks like true medieval levies, with an insane assortment of spears, swords, clubs and pitchforks. After the stranger arrive, they form up in a line, two priests walk down the line with censors smoking, and the strangers each cross themselves...backwards. An emissary comes forward to ask for their surrender, but Keane cannot understand the language, except for the term "boyar". When the strangers charge, some of the 35th fire a volley of blank charges and the two artillery pieces fire over the their heads. At that point, the strangers leave the field rapidly, but soon some return with their catapults and attack the ship. Keane has Major Pat O'Donald, commander of the 44th New York, target the catapults and the strangers leave the field in a wild stampede. Then the regiment sees two moons in the sky. Amidst all the excitement that this causes, another emissary approaches the camp carrying a torch and is taken to the colonel. Kalencka is a peasant, the bard of the boyar, and has been sent to gather information on the bluecoats. After a swig of Emil's gin, Kal is eager to participate in language lessons. After three days, he is sent back with a gift of spectacles for his boyar, Ivor of the Weak-Eyes, and a flask of whiskey for himself. Reporting back to his boyar, Kal urges his boyar to form an alliance with the bluecoats, realizing that he has job security as long as no one else can speak with them. He even convinces the boyar to let him, and him alone, live among the bluecoats as his permanent spy. Soon Keane, with his escort, are invited to a huge banquet involving numerous toasts. The next morning, they awake with terrific hangovers, but Kal has the perfect cure. Then they begin negotiations with Ivor, but are interrupted by an attack led by Mikhail, Ivor's half brother, who has been incited to rebel against the boyar by Rasnar, the local patriarch, but Mikhail has not reckoned on the firepower of Keane's escort and is driven away. Impressed by this power, Ivor provides Keane with a grant of land to build an encampment and a steady supply of food, in return for protection against Mikhail. The regiment is now essentially independent of the Suzdal Rus, the local people, but there are other Rus boyars. And then there are the Tugar horde, aliens who are the masters of all the Rus and who, although scheduled to arrive in four years, are coming earlier. This novel introduces an alternate world which has been ruled by an alien race who traverse fixed routes around the world, harvesting humans as cattle. The Tugar is only one of several hordes and the Rus is only one of many human groups who have come through the gates of light to leave descendents upon this world. The regiment is faced with a monumental task, but the 35th Maine has fought tougher enemies and survived. This novel is alternate world SF much like Turtledove's Misplaced Legion. The 35th Maine is a historical reality, credited for saving the Union forces at Gettysburg and lost at sea a few months later. The author is a historian and Civil War reenactor, so the historical details of the regiment are as accurate as they can be. The Rus are also true to their ancestry, medieval Russians, but their presence on the alternate world is not attributed to any historical event. Recommended for anyone who enjoys civil war history and alternate world wars.
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