Against the Tide of Years (73 page)

Kathryn nodded. “Perhaps you should stay here,” she said. “You could be close by if he awakens and still direct the operations—messengers will find you more easily than if you’re moving about.”

“ No, Kat’ryn, I must show myself to the troops. They are shaken—the arrows of the plague gods frighten them as the chariots and spearmen of Assyria did not.”

“ You’re concerned with their loyalty? ” she said, alarmed.

“Not the troops who fought under me in the north, no,” he said, shaking his head. “ The city militia, yes; and if this trouble lasts, perhaps some nobles and their followers. I am guarding my younger half brothers most carefully, lest one be spirited away to use as a rallying point for rebels. But the men I lead to Asshur’s walls are with me; and they will stand by you Nantukhtar too—they remember how many of their lives you saved, with your guns and with your
asu
Clemens’ arts. It is their fear I must put down, not rebellion.”

She nodded reluctantly. “And I’ll have to lead the first Kar-Duniash,” she said. “ They’re not trained for street fighting and they’re not used to operating as a unit, yet . . .” She hesitated. “ It doesn’t hurt you with your men, that you and I are . . . together? ”

He grinned wider. “ No, never. They say that Kashtiliash is the very Bull of Marduk; not only does he slay the lioness of the marshes with his spear of bronze, he brings the lioness who came from the sea to his bed with the spear of his manhood!”

Kathryn snorted.
That
is
the way the sexist bastards would look at it,
she thought.

“ Let’s get to work, then,” she said briskly.

“Yes,” he said. His voice turned gentle for a moment. “Good-bye, Father.”

 

“They come!” the royal officer said, clutching at his upper arm where an arrow had gone through just below the short sleeve of his scale-mail shirt. “We could not hold them—too many. People of the city and temple guardsmen.”

Even in the dark Hollard could see that there were fewer than the hundred-odd followers that the Babylonian should have had. Some were limping, some bleeding, and a number had their arms over the shoulders of comrades who bore their weight. Their wheezing breath was loud in the shuttered quiet of the street, but he could hear the snarling brabble of voices not far off and the thudding sound of feet.

“Fall in behind us, then,” he said. “Our healers will see to your wounded. Hold yourself ready if I have need of you.”

The Babylonian nodded, panting still, and staggered off for the rear.

This was one of the wider streets in this section of town—all of twenty feet across, with two- and three-story adobe buildings rearing up on either side. It stank, like a black open-topped sewer. There was no light but the crescent moon; he could hear a Fiernan-born Marine muttering an invocation.

“O’Rourke!” he said.

“Sir? ” the company commander said.

“ Take parties”—he tapped the first two fingers of each hand to either side—“evacuate those buildings, then blow them. Put the charges on interior walls so they’ll fall in.”

O’Rourke looked up thoughtfully. “I think I should put some snipers on the roofs further back as well, Colonel, sir,” he said. “If I was a hell-born rioter with sedition and mischief on my mind, I’d have people on these roofs on either side when I tried to storm a barricade, so I would.”

“Do it.”

O’Rourke nodded, snapping off a salute and grinning whitely in the shadows, then walked off shouting orders. Marines raced back to the supply wagon and came out of it carrying small, heavy barrels, with lengths of fuse cord over their shoulders. More hammered in the doors, and the householders poured into the street, cursing or crying or clutching children and some snatched-up treasured possession. Hollard winced slightly—these people were about to lose everything they owned—but needs must when the devil drove, as the commodore said.

O’Rourke came dashing out, laughing again. There was a multiple massive BUDUMPF from both sides of the street, and the buildings collapsed inward with a long rumble that shook the ground.

“ Put up those snipers . . . wait.” Hollard stopped, thought, looking over the gap the explosions had created. Too far to throw, but . . . “ We’ve got some of the new rifle grenades, don’t we? ”

“That we do,” O’Rourke said and grinned wider. “Splendid thought, Colonel, sir. Two squads? ”

“Do it. Let’s get moving here! Lieutenant Mleckzo, get us some light.”

He looked over his position. The infantry were deployed in front of him, shoulder to shoulder across the roadway in three rows. They were buckling back the flaps of their bandoliers, some licking a thumb and wetting the foresights of their rifles. Others under Mleckzo’s direction were hammering the handles of torches—bundles of oil-soaked reeds wrapped around sticks—into walls and setting them alight. A ruddy glow spread over the roadway, catching on the cold glitter of fixed bayonets and the yellow brass of cartridges.

“Colonel, sir, aren’t we supposed to get a Gatling?” O’Rourke said, coming up beside him and dusting off his tunic.

“ Yes, we were,” Hollard said.

“Good,” O’Rourke said. “ The more one-sided, the better.”

“I’m not looking forward to firing on these people,” Hollard said softly; there were things you didn’t say in front of the troops. “ We’re supposed to be here to help them, as well as the Republic.”

O’Rourke looked at him with surprise in his eyes. “Well, we
are
helping them, sir,” he said, his voice equally low. “ We finished off the Assyrians for them, we’re doing our best to stop this epidemic, and the fools would be fighting us.”

“ They’re scared, Paddy,” Hollard said. “Scared people don’t think very straight. Now the smallpox has hit them, and some of the priests told them we were to blame. Why shouldn’t they believe it? They’ve seen us fly and throw thunderbolts, why shouldn’t they believe we can cause a pestilence? ”

O’Rourke put a hand on his shoulder. “Sir . . . Ken . . . if you’re going to be in this line of work, it’s best not to think about some things too much. We can handle it here.”

“ Thanks, but if I can order it, I can watch it,” Hollard said quietly. “Carry on.”

Hooves rattled behind them. Hollard turned quickly, but it was the Gatling coming up, with an outrider in front of it. He let out a sigh of relief; it was extremely unlikely that any mob could storm this position, but the Gatling made it a lot less likely still.

The six-barreled weapon was mounted behind a sheet-steel shield, drawn by a two-horse team, with another drawing an ammunition limber behind it. Each team was guided by a Marine riding the left horse, and the mounted crews trotted behind. He recognized Sergeant Smith, transferred from mortars to the newly arrived weapons, and she grinned at him as she swung down from the saddle and saluted.

“Sorry we’re late, sir,” she said. “Had a little brush with some rioters who got through.”

“Very well,” he said. “Get set up—we left a gap in the middle of the line for you.”

“Sir, yessir.”

The noncom barked orders of her own, and the crews unhitched the teams, then ran the weapon forward, hands pushing on the wheels.

“ Feed me!” Smith snapped, when the iron-and-brass machine was level with the front line of prone infantry. She sat on the little bike-saddle mounted on the trail and traversed the weapon experimentally.

The crew lifted one of the drum-shaped magazines and fitted it into the loading slot on top of the Gatling’s breech. Smith swung the crank at the side back a half turn and then forward; there was a clunk-
clank!
sound, and the barrels turned two spaces.

“Ready, sir!”

Hollard nodded. The mob sound was much closer now; they’d stopped when they heard the blasting charges bring down the houses, but they were coming on again.
Run away, you idiots!
he pleaded within himself. Then his eyes panned across a slight figure helping run the limber forward. Oddly, there were no markings on the plain uniform, and the Marine was wearing a hat rather than a helmet. And . . . was that a
dog
with her?

“Can’t be!” he muttered and stepped closer. “Jesus Christ—Raupasha! What the
hell
are you doing here? ”

She looked up at him, pushing up the brim of the campaign hat.

“ I am starting payment on a debt, Lord Kenn’et,” she said, meeting his eyes without wavering. “And you cannot send me back to the palace, because that would be more dangerous than staying here!”

Hollard opened his mouth. A voice rang out: “Heads up! Here they come!”

“Did you have to bring the
dog
? ” he heard himself say, and a part of him marveled at the banal absurdity.

Raupasha smiled. “ I had to. He kept barking; someone would have heard.”

“Well, stay out of the bloody way, then,” Hollard snarled, turning back to his work, surprised at the furious heat of his own anger.

Figures were moving down the road, shadows in the darkness. He raised his eyes and brought up his binoculars.
Ayup.
Figures flitting from rooftop to rooftop as well; it was as if there were two sets of streets, one on the ground and one at roof level.

I wonder how they control burglary here,
he thought, and went on in a calm, carrying voice:

“Second and Third Platoons will fire and reload. Volley fire on the word of command only. Sergeant Smith, you will fire three three-second bursts at the command for volley fire. Understood? ”

“Sir, yessir!”

A knot gripped the pit of his stomach as he saw the crowd milling, thickening as more and more pushed up, the sound of their voices growing. He could hear men shouting, probably haranguing the others and whipping them up to attack.

“Christ, I hate this,” he muttered, then laughed harshly. O’Rourke made an interrogative sound, and Hollard went on, “ I was just thinking how much I hate shooting people who can’t shoot back—but when we finally get at Walker, I’m going to hate it even more, because his goons
will
be able to shoot back.”

A long, baying snarl, and the mob was running at him, filling the street. There was a slight quiver along the line of bayonets ahead of him—picking targets. O’Rourke looked at him, and Hollard nodded.

The company commander filled his lungs.
“ Fire!”

The rifles fired a lacing of red needles into the gloom.
Run away,
Hollard pled silently.
Please, run away. Don’t make us do this.

The Gatling opened up, the operator turning the crank three times;
braaaaaaapppp,
like a giant tearing canvas between his hands, and a stream of brass cartridges poured out of the bottom of the weapon.
Braaaaaaapppp. Braaaaaaapppp.

Then there was a long
whhhtt
from one of the buildings ahead, and an arrow went by him, more sensed than seen in the flickering light of the torches. A Marine stumbled back from the firing line, fumbling at the shaft stuck in his hip, moaning. More arrows flitted past, a few hitting the timber of door frames and quivering like angry bees.

“Corpsman! Corpsman!”

Stretcher bearers trotted forward. As they did, the squads stationed on the rooftops opened up. A distinctive muffled
badaff
marked the rifle grenades, and then vicious red cracking sounds as they burst on the rooftops. Something caught fire from one, and then muzzle flashes stabbed out at the figures outlined against the flames, slow, deliberate, aimed fire.

Not all of them were dead; something arched down from a rooftop, trailing red sparks, and burst in a puddle of flames on the roadway. The fire was slow and red-sullen, not the quick rush of kerosene—sesame oil. It still burned, and a Marine’s uniform started to burn, until comrades rolled him and beat out the flames. Another call for corpsmen went up, and Kenneth Hollard ground his teeth in rage.

“Smith! Rake that side of the street!” Hollard snapped. “O’Rourke, keep an eye on the mob.”

The crowd had stopped as the torrent of lead plowed into it; scores were down, dead or screaming or moaning and twitching. The rest wavered and eddied. The Gatling crew ran their weapon back out of the infantry formation and wheeled it around to the left, the noncom in charge spinning the elevation wheel. Then the harsh tearing sound of the machine gun began again, long bursts this time as she worked the crank. The stream of bullets worked down the length of the rooftops on that side of the street, tearing through the soft adobe bricks and sending spatters of it back down into the roadway. More than a few bodies followed, tumbling down to thump into the packed clay.

And at last they
were
running, back the way they had come—except for the piled dead and wounded.

“Captain O’Rourke, we’ll move forward now,” he said. “Let’s get them pinned back in the quarantine area.”

Where they’ll all die unless they come out and accept inoculation,
he thought, then pushed the knowledge away.

“ I think we should have parties moving forward on the roofs to either side, sir,” O’Rourke said.

“See to it, Paddy. Have a couple of working parties bring out some ladders, too.”

Babylonians kept those for accessing their roofs, taking them down at night when they weren’t sleeping on their roofs to escape the heat.

“ Yes, sir. Good idea.”

The Marines moved forward in a line of bayonets, the Gatling crew dragging the bodies aside so their weapon could pass.

Hollard picked his way through the bodies.
I should get some of Kash’s people here to pick up the wounded rioters. . . . How long to get the situation here under control? Couple of weeks, if Kashtiliash does the right things. Then—

A rifle fired not ten feet behind him. He spun, to see a Babylonian falling back onto the pile of dead where he’d lain concealed. Two more were up and charging, bronze knives in their hands, faces contorted and screaming. And they were
close
. Hollard clawed at his holster, the Python coming free with glacial slowness. An attacker’s head exploded, close enough to spatter across his arm and torso. He shot the third at point-blank range, the muzzle blast of three quick shots burning the wool of the man’s tunic, his body jerking under the impacts.