Island in the Sea of Time (91 page)

“Here’s where it gets hands-on,” Alston said grimly, swinging her leg over the horse’s neck and sliding to the ground with a clatter of armor.

“I’m glad I’m with you, Marian,” Swindapa said, dismounting and handing the banner to the color party.

Alston touched her shoulder for an instant. “Me too,’dapa.” Their eyes met.
But I’d rather we were both back home, lying in front of the fire and making love.
The thought passed without need for words.

She reached over her left shoulder and drew the
katana,
drawing a deep breath and then letting it out slowly, pushing worry and confusion with it, letting the first three-deep file of the reserve company trot past her.

“Runner,” she said calmly. “Message to Commander Rapczewicz. I need some archers here, and backup on my left; also a catapult. Lieutenant Commander Hendriksson, we’ll advance at marching pace from here. You have tactical command.”

The high ground swung away to her right. This time the enemy came in mass, two hundred of them at least. They all seemed to have iron weapons, though; quite a few had helmets, and there was a scattering of the chain-mail suits. The chiefs dismounted from their chariots, sending them to the rear—that was one of their standard tactics, and it meant they were planning on a serious fight. For a moment men milled around their lords, shaking their weapons and shouting. A couple of the iron-suited leaders drew their swords and threw the sheaths away; if that meant what she thought it did . . .

The cowhorn trumpets blatted, and the mass of kilted clansmen howled and began to trot forward, their yelps rising into a screaming chorus as they broke into a headlong rush.

“Company . . .
halt,
” Hendriksson barked. “Spears . . .
down.
” The points came into line, the crossbows spread out like wings on either side, pointing a little forward as if they were the mouth of a funnel.

“First rank . . .
fire.
”

“Reload! Second rank . . .
fire.
”

The steady sleet of bolts shook the easterners’ charge, but it couldn’t stop it. Alston could see the set contorted faces of the clansmen, a glare of exaltation like the homicidal equivalent of a Holy Roller’s trance. She spared a glance for the Nantucket troops; faces set and hard, teeth clenched between the covering cheekguards, tiny shifts as they braced themselves for the impact.

A sleet of flung spears and axes came in the last second. Americans went down, still or kicking, and their comrades closed ranks over them; metal rattled off metal with a discordant clatter. A long slithering rasp went on either side as the crossbowmen slung their weapons, swung their bucklers around, and drew the short swords at their right hips with a snapping flex of the wrist.
They feel sound,
she thought. Something down in the gut told her; some intangible border had been crossed, in the months of marching and skirmishing and drilling. These were veterans now.

So am I, I suppose,
she thought with mild surprise.
Which doesn’t mean we can’t get wiped out.

“Fair fights are for suckers,” she muttered. Circumstances seemed to have forced her into one. “This way!” she said aloud, moving off to the left where the barbarians might overlap the American line.

That put her and the dozen in the color guard party behind the left-flank crossbows—fighting at close quarters, now. She saw an American sink his
gladius
into a tribesman’s belly with the short upward gutting stroke he’d been taught, then stagger back as a tomahawk slammed into the side of his helmet. A relief from the second rank stepped forward into the hole, stooping and slamming the edge of her shield into the axman’s foot while he was off-balance and then into the side of his head as he bent in uncontrollable reflex.

“Give ’em the Ginsu!” she shouted, crouching and taking her place in line. The half-stunned American fell into the second rank shaking his head and wobbling a bit as he recovered from the blow.

“Here’s our part of the job,” Alston said as they came to the end of the line.

A man in a mail hauberk was leading a dozen warriors at the vulnerable end of the ranks, where two Americans were fighting back to back. He yelled frustration as the dozen swords of the color guard swung into place and blocked him.

Beside her Alston heard Swindapa gasp. “
Shaumsrix!
” she screamed.

“Remember me, Shaumsrix!” the Fiernan girl shrieked.

The Iraiina turned, rattlesnake-swift. His spear lanced out. Swindapa’s
katana
was in
jodan no kame,
up and to the right. It snapped downward, slashing through the tough ashwood just behind the iron wire that bound the shaft for a foot behind the head. The metal spun and tinkled away; his shield boomed under her second stroke.

“Remember me, Shaumsrix! Remember the Earther girl!
”

“Oh, hell, ’dapa—forward! Forward!”

Shaumsrix was staggering back on his heels as the
katana
blurred at him, backed by a cold, bitter rage. Alston moved by the girl’s side, let a knee relax as an ax flashed by to bury itself in the turf, took the wielder’s arm off just below the elbow, whipped the long sword up to knock aside a spear. The Iraiina chief had recovered his balance and unshipped his ax, a copy in steel of the old charioteer’s weapon. His sworn men closed in on either side, meeting the Americans of the color guard shield to shield.

Alston lunged one-handed, using the
katana
like a saber. The man on the end of the point hadn’t been expecting that, and he ran right into it. The blade sank in, then stuck in bone. The warrior folded around it, and someone stabbed at her from behind him. She ignored it, ducking her head, and the spearpoint slid from the helmet as she put a boot on the man’s body and
pushed.
The layer-forged steel sliced through a rib and came free; the sprattling corpse tripped the spearman behind.

She ignored him as well, as he struggled to regain his balance. Instead she let her right knee go slack and turned as she went down, striking hard and level and drawing the cut. It slashed through the tough leather binding around the Iraiina chieftain’s left calf.
Fair fights are for suckers,
especially
if you’re a woman,
she thought, and brought her sword up to guard position just in time to deflect another ax. The impact jarred through her wrists, but beside her Swindapa screamed again:

“Remember!” and lunged two-handed past the chieftain’s falling guard. The point jammed into the bone of his face. She ripped it free, and he fell to his hands and knees, helmet rolling free. The next stroke went across his neck.

Wailing, the fallen man’s followers cast themselves on the American points, and died, while Alston and her companion stood guarding each other. She saw sanity seep back into the Fiernan’s eyes.

Thack.
A spearman fell backward, his face a red mass. Alston’s head swiveled. Fiernans were running along the ridge to the east, nimble on the steep turf. One of the first was a slinger; he waved his leather thong over his head at her, and then reached into his pouch for another round. More archers and slingers came behind him, moving forward and shooting over the Americans’ heads, into the growing mass of easterner warriors jammed against their line. Alston could feel the pressure on that line waver as the shafts and lead bullets whistled into them. Spear-armed Fiernans were trotting up as well, fanning out on the open flank of the Nantucketer force.

Alston spat to clear her mouth of gummy saliva and reached for her canteen. The motion froze as she recognized the banner behind the enemy mass.
Walker
. Walker, and his special goon squad, marching in step and in line. And behind them, the cannon.

“Christ,” she whispered.
We can’t run. They’d be all over us like flies on cowshit
. And if they stood . . .

Even at a hundred yards’ distance, the muzzles of the cannon looked big enough to swallow her head as the crews unhitched them and wheeled them around.

 

William Walker laughed, despite the nagging ache in his shoulder. “Oh, how
surprised
you must be, Skipper,” he chuckled. “What a sad end to the day. How fucking
tragic
. Christ, this feels
even better
than I thought it would!”

He turned to his men, hand around the stock of the rifle, letting it fall across his shoulder. “We’ll move off to the right, away from the ridge,” he said. “When they break, we’ll move in and take a new place for the guns. And get those fools ahead of us out of the way!”

The gun crews were busy, grunting with effort as they rammed the grapeshot down the barrels of the bronze fieldpieces. His men were drawing off to one side with him, except for the ones he’d sent forward to get the tribal levy out of the way—it was tempting to just fire anyway, but that would be
really
bad politics. He chuckled again at the thought.

It was never easy to get the Sun People fighting men to give way, but they’d all acquired a healthy superstitious dread of gunpowder weapons. A minute, and they were backing away from the American line; then they turned and ran, to get out of crossbow range as fast as they could. The Nantucketers didn’t fire, although the growing mass of Fiernan archers and whatnot up on the slope to his left did. The retreating warriors halted behind the guns, panting and glaring. Walker called one of the chiefs over.

“Take some of your men and put them right behind the guns,” he said. “Men not afraid to hear a loud noise and see their enemies slain. My crews will need help pushing them forward after each few lightning bolts. I and my sworn men will go there”—he pointed to the right—“to attack when the foe runs. When we do, your men will push the guns forward quickly.”

That way they could move down the ridge in bounds, and it wouldn’t take too many forward leaps before the whole Nantucketer-Fiernan army disintegrated; they were still at it hammer-and-tongs with the Sun People force attacking their front.

He walked over to where Ohotolarix waited. That put him nearly three hundred feet away from the guns, and to their side—a perfect vantage point. He laughed again as the Americans ahead went flat, and the linstock came down on the first cannon’s touchhole.

BAMMMMMM.
A long plume of off-white smoke, and the gun leaped back.

Screams up ahead, as shot tore into the backs of the prone Americans—fewer hit than if they’d been standing up, but enough, enough. The crew leaped to reload, the second gun waiting until they were halfway through.

“Lord,” Ohotolarix said, tugging at his arm—the sound one, fortunately. “Lord, isn’t that the fire-dropper?”

Walker’s head came up.
The ultralight.
He snarled and unslung the flintlock, thumbing back the hammer, then cursed as his left arm wobbled a little. “You,” he said to one of his men. “I’m going to brace this on your shoulder.
Don’t
move, or I’ll turn you over to Hong.”

He smiled a little, to show that it was a joke . . . but the man went pale anyway.
Control your breathing,
he told himself.
This thing’s got good sights, and he probably can’t hit anything with those bombs anyway—no real bombsight, he’ll have to go by fast or I’ll get him. God
damn
, I wish I had the Garand. Breathe in. Breathe out.

He waited. The arrow shape grew, coming in straight and level.
Fool.
He adjusted the Mauser-style sights and led it off, the way he would a flying duck.
Squeeze gently . . .

Crack
. The ultralight wobbled, nearly heeled over into the ridge.

Walker threw his hands into the task, reloading, pushing with his thumb until the wad went forward, slapping down the slide, cocking the hammer, and priming the pan. When he looked up he almost lost the target, because the aircraft
hadn’t
pulled up into the shallow arc he’d anticipated.

“What’s the crazy bastard—no, you idiot, pull up, pull up—”

Crack
. He thought he’d hit this time too, but it didn’t matter, the kamikaze fool was going to—
What did I do to deserve this? Why’s an American ready to do
this
to me, for Christ’s sake?
he thought, helpless resentment paralyzing him for an instant. Then:

“Oh, Jesus, the ammo in the limbers with the cannon, there’s better than a hundred rounds. Down, down, everybody
down.
”

He threw himself to the earth. It said much for the discipline he’d imposed that more than half obeyed without even pausing to think. Walker felt the earth rise and smash him in the face like an enemy’s fist. When he rose, there was nothing left but a crater, and his dulled ears heard the screams of the survivors running or crawling away from its fringes.

“Lord, lord, what shall we do?” someone was asking.

William Walker drew himself up, climbing to his knees and then his feet, spitting blood and ignoring the ringing in his ears. A quick glance showed him the Americans and Fiernans were almost as stunned, but that wouldn’t last. And Bastard . . . for a wonder, Bastard wasn’t far away. He fumbled his canteen free and croaked:

“Get me the horse.” He groped inside for the handset, and clicked it on.

“Walkerburg, come in. Come in, Walkerburg.”

“Here, boss.”

“Operation Bugout, Cuddy,” Walker said into the microphone.

“Ah . . . roger, boss.”

Walker grinned mirthlessly at the note he caught. “And remember, Cuddy—I’m the one who knows the rendezvous point.”

“Sure, boss. See you on the road. Out.”

Walker turned to his native followers: “I mean to leave this land and cross the water, seeking a new kingdom. Who among you comes with me?” he said harshly, his voice hoarse and throat sore.