On the Oceans of Eternity (9 page)

O’Rourke unsnapped the case at his waist and leveled the binoculars westward; clouds piled high in the sky there, hiding a sun just past noon. There had been rain a few days ago, and might be more soon.

He heard a sergeant’s familiar rasp: “Nobody said
stop working
!”

The khaki-clad Marines went back to building the wall the company commander had laid out, using mud brick and stones from a livestock enclosure nearby, and sacks of grain and boxes of supplies. More manned the parapet, but the enemy were just beyond effective rifle range.

The mortar stayed silent; probably the crew had just noticed that it could only reach the Islanders at extreme range, which was wasteful. He watched the men who crewed it lifting it bodily, baseplate and all, into a chariot fitted with floor-clamps to receive it. These weren’t Walker’s uniformed troops; instead they wore plaid-check trousers and wraparound upper garments, their hair and mustaches long, and some of them were blond or red-thatched. Auxiliaries, then, that migrant horde from the Hungarian plains Walker had enlisted, the Ringapi they were called. He scanned back and forth. Five or six hundred of them. A few firearms, amid more spears and bows, axes and swords and gaudily painted shields. Flintlock shotguns, and some rifles. Impossible to be sure at this distance, but he thought that the rifles were muzzle-loaders, probably kept in store after the Achaeans learned to make better and then handed out to allies....

“We’ll risk it,” he said.

“Sir?” Cecilie Barnes said.

“Can’t let them set that mortar up just as they please, Captain,” he said.
Because never a piece of artillery have we here, yet.
“Let them get into range, position it in a nice piece of dead ground, and they’d hammer us to flinders with it. Sergeant! Saddle up the Gatling. And someone get my horse from the pen.”

“Ah, sir, I should—”

“Stay here and hold the fort, Captain.”

He swung easily into the saddle; Fancy sidled restlessly under him and tossed its head, still nervous from the explosions. The Gatling-gun crew were mounted as well, on the horses that drew it or the ammunition limber. As machine guns went the six-barreled weapon was big and heavy, but it had the supreme virtues of simplicity and ruggedness.

O’Rourke drew his revolver, and checked that the
katana
over his shoulder was loose in the scabbard. He was playing platoon commander, but he was young yet, not thirty years, and willfulness was a perogative of command.

He’d sent them here. He had to plug the exits from the coast inland toward the Hittite heartlands, and he didn’t have enough troops to do it—too many valleys led down to the coastal plain. What would happen if Troy fell and freed up most of Walker’s army, God only knew; they couldn’t plug every hole. He who defends everything, defends nothing, as old Fred said. It had been his decision to strip this valley nearly bare, and to visit at this precise hour, and now ...

“Let’s go!” he shouted, and gave the horse some leg. “Come on, Fancy.”

Bouncing and rattling on its field-gun carriage, the machine gun and its crew followed. The boiling knot of Ringapi tribesmen grew closer with frightening speed. A couple of them fired their shotguns at him; he could hear the flat
thump,
see the double spurt of smoke from firing pan and barrel, but they might as well have been firing at the moon that hung pale over the peaks to the east. A few knelt and took careful aim with long weapons ... yes, the distinctive
crack
of rifled arms, and the nasty whickering
ptwissssk!
of bullets overhead. Firing high—not estimating the range right or adjusting their sights, the idle bastards. There they went, biting open cartridges, priming the pans, pouring the rest down the barrel and ramming the bullet on top; muzzle-loaders for sure. Minié rifles, much like those of the American Civil War, except that they were flintlocks. That would make the extreme range about a thousand yards, which meant they were just getting into dangerous territory. There was a clump of olives at just the right distance.

“There!” he cried, pointing. Then: “Halt!”

His mount reared and thrashed the air with its forehooves. The Gatling crew reined to a stop as well, wheeling as they did to bring the business end of their weapon around to face the enemy, leaping down and unfastening the hitch that connected trail to draught-pole, catching hold and running the weapon forward to the edge of the olive grove. One private held the team; the sergeant stepped into the bicycle-style seat on the trail, bending to look through the sights.

More of the tribesmen were firing, and more of the big lead slugs kicked up spurts of dirt around O’Rourke’s horse. His stomach tightened, breath coming a little quicker as cut twigs from the twisted olive trees fell on his helmet and the shoulders of his uniform. The odd drab-green olives joined the twigs, brought down a little unripe.

“Got it,” the sergeant in charge of the Gatling said. His hand worked the crank on its right side, back half a turn and then forward ...

Smoke poured from the muzzles as each rotated up to the six o‘clock position and fired, a dirty gray-white cloud pouring backward with the light afternoon breeze. Glittering brass dropped out of the slot at the bottom as each passed the extractor, like the metallic excrement of death. O’Rourke raised his binoculars again. Men were down, scythed off their feet by the heavy .40 caliber bullets, some screaming and writhing like broken-backed snakes.

Brave enough,
he thought: the Ringapi were clustering, coming together for the comfort of a comrade’s shoulder, clashing weapons on their shields and shouting defiance.
Doing exactly the wrong thing, poor fools.
Perfectly sensible with the muscle-powered weapons they’d grown up with, sure death now.

“Whatever modem training they’ve had is pretty sketchy, then,” he murmured to himself. One of their bullets went
ptank-whirrrr
off the gun-shield of the Gatling and wickered past him, a lethal Frisbee of flattened lead.

“On the mortar and the other chariot, the one with the ammunition,” he said aloud.

“Yessir,” the sergeant on the Gatling said tightly, his hands adjusting the elevating screw. “Here goes—”

Braaaaaappp.
This time horses went down, kicking and screaming, louder and more piteously than the wounded men. O’Rourke winced slightly; the beasts had no idea of the point of politics they’d been killed over.
Braaaaaaap.
Hits on the other chariot, the one with the ammunition. Sparks flew as rounds slammed off metal, the barrel and baseplate of the mortar, the iron bands around a box of finned bombs.

Some of the Ringapi knew enough to run, because any second now ...

BADDAMP.
A globe of red fire for an instant, dirt gouting up, with bits of men and horses and chariot mixed in, raining down for scores of yards around. O’Rourke whooped with glee as he controlled his mount’s plunging alarm.

“See ’em off!” he shouted, and the sergeant swung the muzzle of the Gatling back and forth, stopping only for his crew to slap another drum-shaped magazine onto the top of the weapon.

More Ringapi fell, the armored chiefs in their gaudy trappings and the bare-chested madmen sworn to the death-gods in the front row. The rest were farmers in drab wool, and took to their heels ... except for a few with rifles who settled behind rocks or trees, and sent unpleasant reminders cracking overhead. The Gatling-gun crew waited for the shots, then sent a burst at each puff of smoke. O’Rourke let them have their fun for a few moments, then waved a hand.

“Cease fire.”
We’re not that well supplied with ammunition,
he thought but did not add. “Back to base.”

The crew ran the Gatling back, clipped the trail to the harness of the four-horse team and mounted up. O’Rourke backed his horse a few paces and looked around. His breath went out in an
ooof,
as if he’d been punched in the gut. More of the Ringapi were swarming out from the stone walls and brush-tangles all about, running down the hillsides ... many of them east of him, between here and the fortlet. The westering sun flashed off their metal, and the hillsides echoed with their wolf howls.

“Too many!” he shouted, as the Gatling squad went for their rifles. “Get moving—go!”

They heeled their horses into a gallop. The Islander officer felt his lips skin back from his teeth; this was going to be too God-damned close for comfort. He went after them, keeping Fancy in hand and well below its best pace; horses in harness pulling loads could never equal a rider’s pace. Instead he turned a little aside at an easy trot. He felt an odd calmness, somehow hot rather than cool. His eyes darted about, methodical and quick.

“You first, boyo!” he snarled.

A man hurdled a stone wall, screeching. His body was naked except for the glittering ring of twisted gold about his neck, and he carried a big round-cornered shield painted with a black raven on red; a long leaf-shaped bronze sword swung in his other hand, blurring as he loped forward. His face was twisted into a gorgon mask of fury, a white rim of foam around his lips, penis erect and waggling as he leaped, lime-dyed hair standing out in waving spikes around his head.

O‘Rourke waited until he could see the mad blue eyes, white showing all around them, before he brought the pistol down.
Kerack,
and a jolt at his wrist. A puff of smell and the stink of rotten eggs that came with burned sulfur. The Ringapi had enough experience of firearms to bring the shield up as O’Rourke aimed at him. The barbarian was close enough for the Islander to see a tiny dark fleck appear on the red leather of the shield and the man went down, screaming what might be curses or possibly incoherent bellows of rage as he clutched at a broken thighbone; even a berserker couldn’t move with a major bone gone to flinders. Blood jetted from around the clutching fingers.

Something went through the air far too close to O’Rourke’s head with an upleasant
swissssh.
He turned in the saddle, fired three times, saw another Ringapi double over and fall as the egg-shaped basalt stone in his sling flew wild.
Damn.
A good slinger had almost as much range as a pistol, and more accuracy when the pistoleer was on a horse’s moving back. Two more shots sent another ducking behind a wall.

“Faster!” he shouted to the Gatling crew.

Unfortunately, if they went
much
faster the weapon or the ammunition cart was likely to overturn. He had a sudden, vivid memory of a childhood nightmare in which he’d been menaced by monsters and yet couldn’t run, moving in slow motion like someone trapped in honey. Another sling-bullet went through the air close behind his horse’s rump, striking a stone near its left rear. The animal bounded forward and then went crabwise, trying to crane its head around to see what had stung it.

“Watch where you’re goin’, Fancy,” he warned it, with a taut grin.

The leap had put him close behind the Gatling; some of the crew had their personal weapons out, but you might as well spit at someone as try to hit him with a rifle from a jouncing gun carriage. He took a moment to let the reins fall on his saddlebow, opening his pistol and letting the spent brass spill. Two crescent-shaped speedloaders and the cylinder snapped back in.

“Keep going, Sergeant,” he called to the head of the Gatling crew. What he had to do was quite clear. Quite insane as well, but that was war for you. He turned his horse back toward the enemy and clapped heels to its flanks with a yell.

Not
really
suicidal,
he thought. There wouldn’t be more than a dozen or so scattered foemen he’d have to knock back on their heels—given a good horse, momentum, a revolver, and luck it was just possible.

Brave and obedient, Fancy bounded forward with jackrabbit acceleration. The clump of Ringapi pelting up right behind the Islanders gaped for a second; they’d been focused on pursuing someone who ran. Their war howls turned to yells of surprise as he bore down on them, their heads swelling from dots to the faces of men with rushing speed. Chariots didn’t teach you how nimble a single horseman could be, with a well-trained mount—and he’d spent some time teaching Fancy a few gymkhana tricks.

The first two warriors pivoted on their left heels, shields swinging out to balance the javelins they threw with their right. O‘Rourke judged the trajectory, then ducked and brought his face against Fancy’s mane. The sweet musky smell of horse filled his nostrils, and the whetted bronze heads of the spears whipped through the space he’d occupied a second before. As he’d guessed—to these men horses were a mighty prize, one of the things war was fought
for,
and it would never have occurred to them to aim at his mount. Then they sprang aside with yells of fear as the horse thrust between them, knocking one arse-over-teakettle with its shoulder. O’Rourke leaned far over, and for an instant the muzzle of his Python was inches from a face screaming hatred.

Kerack.
The Ringapi’s head snapped back as if he’d been kicked in the face by a horse. A round blue hole appeared over the bridge of his nose, and the back of his head flew off in a spatter of bone fragments and pink-gray brain. The horse staggered beneath O‘Rourke. Something had landed on its rump, and an arm went around his throat, jerking him back upright in the saddle. He could sense the laurel-leaf dagger rising. His right hand moved, pointing the heavy pistol back under his own left armpit, jamming the muzzle into the other man’s torso before he jerked the trigger twice. The hot flare scorched him through the linsey-woolsey of his uniform jacket, and the weight fell away behind. Something had hurt Fancy as well, and the stallion bugled out his own battle cry, rearing and milling with his forehooves. They came down on the face and shoulder of a Ringapi who was trying to aim a bow, and he fell with an ugly crunching sound. Fancy danced over him, stamping, then lashed out at another with his hind hooves. They hit a shield; O’Rourke could hear the wooden frame break, and probably the arm behind it.