Island in the Sea of Time

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

April – June, Year 2 A.E.

"Hard to remember," Swindapa said, looking over the rail, her hair lifting around her face under the baseball cap.

Eagle and her consorts were beating southeast, down the Irish Sea after rounding Anglesey and the bulge of Wales. No land was visible now, save perhaps a distant smudge to port.

"Remember what, 'dapa?" Alston said, brought out of her own thoughts.

If they spoke quietly by the fantail nobody was likely to overhear. The ship lay over at eight degrees, making ten knots with all sail set, its motion a slow smooth rocking-horse plunge. The waist was crowded, ex-cadets and militia volunteers straining for their first sight of the wild lands.

"The sea. Hard to remember that I've only sailed on it this last year. There is so much of it-and always something waiting beyond the edge of it. Always something new to see."

Alston smiled herself. That does sound good. And there was a whole world out there, once Walker and his bloodthirsty ambitions were seen to. Moas, she thought, If we get as far as New Zealand. Great flocks of them, fourteen feet high. Or the elephant bird of Madagascar, extinct a thousand years in the twentieth, the creature that had given rise to Sinbad's legend of the roc. Dodos, too. I'd like to see what San Francisco Bay looks like when it's not all mucked up. Babylon. I'd really like to see Babylon. Or Africa, despite what she'd told McAndrews. Egypt-with an escort big enough to impress the locals-and maybe the Serengeti…

"Someday, 'dapa," she said. Then she turned and took a few paces forward, looking into the radio shack. "Ms. Rapczewicz, signal to the Tubman; it's about time, I think."

The signal lantern clacked, and the schooner dipped her ensign in acknowledgment. Faint and far, the orders echoed across the water and the Tubman's prow turned west of south, heading to round Penzance on the point of Cornwall. Alston clasped her hands behind her back and looked east.

"It's begun," she said. Chess with lives for pieces, and not knowing how your opponent moves until too late. And she could not afford to lose. So I'll win.

"Arucuttag of the Sea!" Miskelefol of Tartessos blurted.

Isketerol ducked out and leveled his binoculars. The shape that loomed out of the morning mist was not quite like anything he'd seen before. A little like the Yare, except that there were no square topsails on the forward of the two masts. A gilded eagle flung back its wings below the long bowsprit, seeming to take to the air with every bound across the whitecaps that patterned the estuary. The hull cut the water like a knife slicing flesh, its prow throwing a sunlit burst of spray twenty feet in the air as she rounded and tacked in toward shore. The Tartessian's eyes went wide behind the lenses as he saw how close she cut to the wind that blew from the north, and did a quick estimate of her speed.

"Quiet!" he roared into the chaos of the camp. His thumb turned the focusing screw and his lips moved as he read the name on the bow, just forward of the diagonal red slash. "Harriet Tubman. Odd. Sounds like an Amurrukan name." It was unlucky to give a ship a person's name, splitting a soul in two.

He cased the binoculars and looked around. "Quiet, I said. Get to your posts!"

With his cousin's help he put down the disorder. Yare was anchored close offshore, and Sea Wolf drawn up on the beach; he'd built her to be capable of that, since it was so useful. How deep does that… schooner, that's what they're called… draw? he thought. Eagle People ships tended to have deep keels, but that was a lot smaller than the Eagle herself, if bigger than the Yare. Hmm. Eight feet or so, I'd say, perhaps a little less. That meant they could get to within three hundred yards of the shore without touching mud, with the tide full like this.

"I told you we should have sailed for home last week!" his cousin was saying.

"Quiet, and get your thrower ready," Isketerol said. His cousin departed at a run.

How many aboard her? He studied the Nantucket schooner carefully. Hard to say, but somewhere between twenty and forty, unless they had the belowdecks packed with men. "You!" he pointed to a crewman. "Run over to Daurthunnicar's huts and tell him we've enemy in sight. Diketeran!" One of his trustier men, steersman on the Foam Hunter in the old days. "Get your horse, ride to Walkerburg, and report. You, fetch my war harness. Now!"

Men scattered to their tasks as they recovered their wits. The Tartessian camp was a half-circle backing onto the sea behind an earth rampart and palisade. At each end where the rampart met the water was a platform of timber and earth; on it crouched a shape of beams and cords. The trebuchets creaked as the Tartessians heaved around the crank handles of the geared windlasses. Isketerol finished snapping the clasps on his Nantucket-made suit of armor, checked his pistol, and walked over to the left-hand stone thrower. The crew had had plenty of time to practice over the winter, especially after Sea Wolf was finished. More hands were dragging obstacles of logs studded with iron blades down to the water's edge, in case of a landing.

"Ready, Skipper," one of the trebuchet crew said to him, teeth flashing in his olive face.

Isketerol made his own estimate of time and distance. Moving target… "Up one on the stayrope," he said. "And… now."

The two-hundred-pound boulder whipped into the air as the machine crashed and creaked and thumped. It turned into a tumbling dot, seemed to pause at the height of its curve and then arching down. He used his binoculars again; a hundred yards behind the enemy ship the rock dropped nearly into its wake. Isketerol hid his surprise at how close they'd come. Just then his cousin's emplacement fired; they were loaded with a large barrel of tallow and pine pitch and turpentine. The barrel-even then Isketerol found himself thinking how sheerly useful barrels were, and wondering why nobody in this age had thought of them-landed farther from the schooner than his rock had. The deliberately weakened hoops burst as it hit the waves, scattering the contents. The patch of burning oil floating on the water was probably more intimidating than the splash of the boulder, though, and so was the trail of smoke through the air. Nobody on a wooden ship took fire lightly unless the Jester had eaten their wits.

Evidently the Eagle People commander wasn't mad. The schooner whipped around, heeling far over, and let the booms of her fore-and-aft sails swing far out, wheeling and running south along the shore away from the Tartessian camp. The spearmen, archers, and crossbowmen grouped behind the spiked log barricade cheered and waved derisively.

"Good shooting," Isketerol said to his cousin.

"Now shall we head home?" Miskelefol said. "We can sail with the evening tide-"

"And meet the Eagle out on the open sea?" Isketerol said, grinning.

"Maybe she's not here."

"But probably she is. I don't think I'm ready to go to the Hungry One just yet, son of my uncle."

"Shall we wait for Eagle here, then?"

"Why not? She can't come close to shore. This camp is strong and we can call warriors from inland if they try to send men ashore. If we run here the Amurrukan may well come for us in Tartessos. Walker is right; we have to teach them that it's too costly to interfere with us, or we'll never be safe anywhere near salt water. Besides, I gave him my oath."

The other Tartessian sighed. "As you will."

"Indeed," Isketerol said.

His glance went inland. What was it Walker was fond of saying? Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Swindapa leaped over the side of the longboat as its keel grated on the shingle and ran up the beach with the quiet water cold on her shins. Then she went to her knees and took a double handful of the dirt there, grass and weeds and soil tight between her fingers. Her chest felt tight too, and tears prickled at her eyes as the nettles did at her skin. They didn't drop free to land on her native earth, though. If she'd felt this way a year ago, they would have. But the Eagle People wept seldom; they kept their thoughts and their joys and their sorrows more within themselves. Part of them had entered into her, she knew, in the time she had spent among them, and in Marian's arms. She would not weep, nor dance her joy along the seashore. Instead she let the bittersweet happiness fill her, like something growing behind her breastbone. A rose, with beauty and with thorns.

I am not what I was, she thought, standing and looking around. That was both bad and good; more good, perhaps. The Earth Folk would have to become other than they had been, or they would cease to be at all. Moon Woman has turned time itself to give us this.

The land lay green and bright about her, beneath a hazed-blue sky empty of all but a few high clouds and swirls of wings as birds took flight from the reeds to the southwest. There was a hamlet not far away, several compounds, one quite large. She'd been here before; it was an important place, boats from the Summer Isle-Ireland-came here, and people from inland to trade. Long ago the blue-stones for the Great Wisdom had been brought this way, from far in the Dark Mountain Land-what the Eagle People called Wales. The soil was firm right down to the water's edge here, not like the tidal flats and marsh to either side; and not far north two rivers met, the long Hillwater and the shorter Glimmerfish. There were beaten tracks through this pasture, and between the square fields of the settlement. Young wheat and barley cast bluish-green waves over those; farther away were cattle with red-and-white hides and long horns, and youngsters watching over them. Between the grainfields came others hurrying toward the strangers-light blinked off metal, spearheads, and the bronze rivets of shields.

Marian came up beside her. "Hostile?" she said.

Swindapa shook her head, touching the other's arm briefly for reassurance. "No, making sure of us," she said.

They were talking the Fiernan Bohulugi tongue; Marian worked doggedly at it even though the sounds were hard for one of the Eagle People.

"There must be war in the land, or they wouldn't turn out in arms without sending a scout first." She looked around at the Eagle, lying at her anchors well out on the broad waters. The Douglass spread her white wings beyond it, cruising inland cautiously. "Or, well, the ship may have frightened them."

Crewfolk were forming up around them as they spoke; the Earth Folk party slowed and then halted as they saw so many spears. A cadet trotted up with a green branch, and the Eagle's emissaries moved forward, waving it in sign of peace. Light twinkled as the Fiernan spoke among themselves, waving arms and spears; then some of them trotted back to the huts. The sun beat down, warm enough to make you sweat under armor. More of her people came from the settlement, hesitated, then came closer once more, and halted in speaking distance. One of them bore a branch as well, and several young men carried a wicker chair padded with blankets, holding an aged woman in a long patterned cloak. The rest were men in their prime, some with the Spear Mark on bare chests, others in tunics and leggings; one with gray in his beard wore a sword and a belt with gold studs, and a necklace of bear teeth and gold and amber. They flinched back at the strangeness when Marian took off her helmet and showed her black face and alien features, then visibly nerved themselves to come on again. Sweat shone on their faces. Their eyes flickered over the foreigners, and then out over the water to the great ship and its smaller consort.

"Greetings, if you come in peace," the sword-bearing man said in the charioteers' tongue.

"A fortunate star rule our meeting," Swindapa replied in Fiernan. "Moon Woman send it so."

A gasp went up from the little group, and an excited babbling.

"You speak like one of ours!"

"Like one of those turn-up-the-nose snobs from the downland country," someone muttered toward the back of the group.

"I am Swindapa of the Star Blood line of Kurlelo," she said.

The old woman exclaimed, then hobbled close. Swindapa bent her ear to the other's whisper, and whispered in her turn, exchanging certain words.

"She is as she says," the Grandmother said to the men, probably her son and grandsons. "The Kurlelo line who dwell by the Great Wisdom."

"Don't you know my face, Pelanatorn?" Swindapa said. Not really fair, she'd been four years younger the last time they'd met, and that had been brief. Who paid attention to one youngster among many?

As far as the Grandmother was concerned the Words settled matters, since Swindapa was obviously not a captive. No line was wiser or older than the Kurlelo. Her son looked dubiously at the twoscore or so foreigners already ashore.

"Who are these?" he said to her. "Yes, I am Pelanatorn son of Kaddapal," he added, remembering his manners, and naming his mother to her in the same sentence.

"These are the Eagle People, from across the waters beyond the Summer Isle," she said. "They come friends. Last little planting season they rescued me from the Sun People-the Iraiina, the new tribe, caught me, they held me captive-and I have been a Moon Year in their land, guesting. This is their… Spear Chosen," she said, touching Marian on the shoulder. "Marian Alston. My lover," she added proudly.

More gasps and murmurs; she might as well have claimed to have spent the year among the stars and brought back Moon Woman's heart.

"They come friends?" the man said, looking at her with respect shaded with awe, taking half a step back. "That is well. We have need of friends."

"There is war?" she asked anxiously.

"When hasn't there been, since the Sun People came?" the man said bitterly. "But since last year, it's worse in all ways. They have a sorcerer to lead them now, a child of Barrow Woman's own suckling. Instead of fighting each other mostly, they beat us like threshers nailing out the grain. And their Tartessian friends raid along the coast in their ships."

Swindapa's eyes went wide in fear as she turned to translate.

The captain of the Eagle looked down at the picture again. It had been taken with a telephoto lens, from the deck of a moving ship, but it was clear enough.

"Will you look at that," she said, throwing it down on the folding table with a tightly controlled gesture of disgust.

It was growing dark, the sun a fading crimson in the west, but the sides of the tent were still rolled up and the lantern hanging from its peak made the inside bright enough. The officers gathered round and leaned over the glossy photograph, exclaiming. Alston scowled out through the open side of the tent as they pointed out the details.

With three hundred and fifty pair of hands working, the American camp was going up rapidly. She'd had it laid out in the shape of a pentagon; there had been a few smiles at that, but it wasn't really a joke. The five-sided figure gave you enfilading fire on the flanks from all the points where the lines met. A few locals-Do not think of them as "natives, " she reminded herself firmly-stood by and watched, gaping. They'd picked a stretch of firm meadow not far from the high-tide mark, and the ditch went in quickly, dirt flying up. It was six feet deep and twelve across, with the earth piled on the inner side to make the rampart; inside went laneways flanked by ditches, with tents in neat rows and a clear central space for a parade ground. Working parties carefully cut squares of turf and laid the grass on the soil of the embankment; without cover the whole thing might well erode into a mudpie at the first hint of rain.

Time for refinements later, Alston thought, hands clasped behind her back. A palisade, of course, when they had time to cut the necessary timber; huts for stores… and a central platform for Leaton's pride, the centerpiece of the ROATS program.

"That's the Yare, isn't it?" Ian Arnstein said, peering at the photograph. "And that other one doesn't look at all like the Tartessian ships we saw this time last year."

The Coast Guard officers looked at him, silent. "Well, I'm not an expert," he said defensively.

"It's a bloody brigantine," Alston said. "Look at the thing, the way it's rigged. Oh, she'll have a lot of leeway sailing close and she's too beamy to be really fast, but that bastard Isketerol didn't waste his time on Nantucket, if he could build that from scratch."

She saw his incomprehension. "Remember what I said, about sailing across the Atlantic in the ships they had?"

He nodded. She stabbed a finger into the picture and went on: "With this, he could sail across the Pacific. He probably broke up a couple of those ships we saw last spring to make it. You could circumnavigate the world in this-Magellan did it, in somethin' less seaworthy-or carry a hundred men to Nantucket."

"This brig isn't just a copy, either," she continued. "It's a clever adaptation of our ideas for local use. That shallow draft…"

"You can beach it without damage," Sandy Rapczewicz- she'd kept her maiden name in her second marriage too- said mournfully. "That'd be handy, for inshore work."

"Or an invasion," Alston said, nodding. "Well, taking Isketerol with us-I made a bad mistake, there. We've got to put a stop to this now, if we can."

She looked up at Lieutenant Commander Hendriksson. The young Minnesotan drew herself a little more erect. "What did you make the water there, Ms. Hendriksson?"

"I had twelve feet, but that was quarter of a mile offshore," she said. "From the color and the look of the bottom on the lead line, it shelves quickly."

Alston picked up the photograph again and measured with her eye. A man was standing upright beside the beached hull of the Tartessian brig to give her some idea of the size. Somewhere between seventy-five and a hundred tons displacement, she decided. Slightly less than half the size of her two schooners, but much stubbier and tubbier than the Tubman or Douglass. Which meant…

"This thing may draw less than four feet," she said.

"And the brig's got oar ports," Hendriksson pointed out. "That could be useful, inshore, given a calm or a wind right in her teeth."

"Well, at least we know the range of those rock-throwers," Alston said. "What did you make of their camp?"

"Ma'am, that wall and ditch they've got… I wouldn't like to try and storm it."

"No, you're right on that," Alston said. "If I know Walker, he's had the Tartessians put underwater obstacles in, too."

She spread her fingers on the table and looked around at the others. "I hope I don't have to say keep a careful lookout," she said dryly.

There were somber nods. Together the Yare and this brig could carry almost as many fighters as the expeditionary force numbered, at least for a short coasting voyage.

"From what Ms. Swindapa's people were able to tell us, Walker has a strong position in the east-either he's in charge, or nearly so, with a real army under his control. Plus we're not nearly as completely in command of the sea as we'd hoped. We obviously need better intelligence, and we need help. This is the back crick of the beyond, by local standards. We'll have to send a party inland."

She smiled, a shark's expression. "And perhaps we'll give him a surprise or two, busy little bee that he's been."

"Ma'am? Lieutenant Commander Ortiz is back."

She ducked her head out of the tent for a second; the commander of the Frederick Douglass was coming up from the improvised dock. She returned his salute.

"I've got 'em," Ortiz said. "And ma'am, you're welcome to them."

Alston nodded, hands clasped behind her back, watching the livestock coming ashore from the schooner. All of it safely dead, at least; there was slaughter stock for sale a few hours' run up the channel. They'd put in a small wharf, enough for the ships' boats, and wheelbarrows and handcarts and strong young backs began trundling the carcasses up into the camp. Several dozen locals were among them, led by Pelanatorn's sons and nephews, daughters and nieces.

"No problems, Mr. Ortiz?"

"Well, the locals are damned light-fingered, ma'am," he said. "Anything metal particularly. And, ah, some of them are so friendly that it creates problems. Otherwise no; once we convinced them we weren't pirates, they were eager to trade."

"Good. Have a look at this, Mr. Ortiz-Ms. Hendriksson hasn't been idle."

He exclaimed over the picture of the Yare and the Tartessian brig. Alston stood deep in thought, rising and sinking slowly on the balls of her feet with her hands clasped behind her.

"Which brings me to a matter of standing orders," she said. "Now, you've all read the briefing sheet. These people here don't have anything like what we'd call a government. If we want to get them on our side-and we need them- we have to win them over small group by small group. Ms. Swindapa and the Arnsteins and I are working on the, ah, the Grandmothers-fairly soon we'll be taking a party off to consult with more of them inland. However, they've also got a series of local councils and another great council covering most of the southwestern part of England that meets near Stonehenge. It's a more of a religious institution, in charge of what they call the Sacred Truce, but it has a lot of influence. It's composed of men, but they're selected by the Grandmothers. On top of all this, there are the Spear Chosen, who are the closest thing the Fiernan have to military leaders. They're not elected or appointed at all; anyone who gets a good reputation as a leader and who throws a lot of parties gradually becomes accepted as one-sort of a potlatch thing. Land here is owned by lineages; trading or owning a lot of cows is the only way you can become really rich. Evidently among themselves the Fiernan Bohulugi don't really fight, they skirmish in a sort of ritual way with livestock as the prize."

"Jesus, what a marvel of organization," someone muttered. "Real Prussian stuff."

Alston frowned; Swindapa was scowling at the slight on her people. "So if we want to get the Spear Chosen on our side, the way is to lavish hospitality and plenty of gifts. Hence this series of barbecues. Clear?"

"Yes, ma'am," Ortiz said. "Ah, the locals, they evidently have a rather, ah, wild idea of a party."

Alston smiled thinly. "Well, that brings me to the next order of business. As you know, I've always insisted on enforcing the nonfraternization and public-displays-of-affection orders strictly on board ship. I intend to continue to do so."

Nods went around the table. Shipboard was enough of a pressure cooker as it was.

"However, onshore, that's a different matter. We have nearly four hundred healthy young people here, and they aren't going to live like Cistercians indefinitely. Never give an order you know will be ignored." Emphatic nods; doing that made the next one more likely to be ignored as well.

"I'd like to emphasize, however, ladies, gentlemen, and have you pass on to your commands, that any misuse of rank, in fact any fraternization up or down the chain of command, is going to be goddam painful for all involved. In short, I'll come down on it like a ton of wet cement, and so will each and every one of y'all. Ditto anythin' else that interferes with discipline or combat readiness. Every officer will take a personal interest in seein' that any such individual will suffer. Clear? Off-duty, however, we'll apply the consentin'-adults rule."

She relaxed slightly. "However, that brings up another problem. Our expeditionary force is about two-thirds male, as you know. This can cause… awkwardness."

More nods; in fact, it had created fairly serious problems back on Nantucket. The cadets were numerous enough in the island's small young-adult population to throw the balance between the genders off, and there had been fights and tension over it,

"I anticipate that our position vis-a-vis the locals will, ah, lessen the problem."

"God, yes, ma'am," Ortiz said. "Like I said-very, very friendly around here."

And we'll probably end up with a fair number of war brides, Alston reflected. Nothing wrong with that; I could scarcely complain even if there was, all things considered.

She smiled secretly to herself behind an impassive face. Swindapa had also said, privately and emphatically, that if they were going to do this monogamy thing they could at least do, it frequently. Not much danger of Lesbian Bed Death there.

"Now, as soon as a fair number of locals come in," she went on, "we'll have to start outfittin' and trainin' them."

A crewman saluted. "Ma'am. The locals are at the gate."

"Very well," she said, returning the courtesy. "Ladies, gentlemen, we have guests." Alston drew on her gloves; dress uniform again, even if it meant nothing to the locals. Strange. Last time here it was for Daurthunnicar. And hadn't that been a total fuckup… she looked at the Fiernan girl. Well, not quite. Not at all, personally speakin'.

She ducked out of the tent, returning the sentries' salutes, and toward the gate; it was local courtesy to greet guests at the door.

"So Walker is a king already, as he wished," Swindapa said, while they walked toward the inland apex of the pentagonal fort.

"I'm sorry, 'dapa," Alston said quietly. "If we could have come again last year…"

"That wasn't the way the stars moved," Swindapa replied in a murmur. "It's Walker's fault, not yours."

"Besides"-Swindapa shrugged-"if things weren't bad, they might not listen to you. They might not anyway."

They'd certainly talked a good fight here, full of anger against the Sun People, but Alston didn't know how much of that was telling her what she wanted to hear. From what the Arnsteins and Martha had told her, most primitive people took hospitality very seriously-if you traveled at all, it had to be as a guest. No Ho Jo's here.

The locals were back-not the old woman in the intricately checked and embroidered cloak, but the middle-aged man and his sons, and this time some girls as well, dressed in string skirts and short-sleeved knitted shirts and colorful shawls. They looked around in awe, and there was well-hidden fear in the older man's eyes. Pelanatorn, she remembered. The younger Fiernans called greetings to the sentries on the walls, and seemed surprised and a little hurt at being ignored; even more surprised at the way the gate guard braced to attention and saluted as Alston came up.

"Better explain, 'dapa," she said.

"I have-I told them that it's prayer, to please the Eagle People spirits of war."

Alston's mouth quirked. That's actually not far from the truth. Most of the Fiernans were holding baskets, two had a gutted and dressed pig on a carrying pole thrust between its legs, and several children drove a pair of cattle and four sheep.

"And thank them for the gifts," she said, after calling for a detail to come and take them.

"Oh, no-that would be impolite, thanking them for being hospitable, as if they might not be," Swindapa said. "Just smile and nod."

Well, thank God for interpreters, Alston thought. They slowed things down so you could avoid putting your foot into it too badly. I feel like Captain goddam Cook.

"Stop there, outlander. Who are you?"

Two warriors stepped out from behind the smooth, mottled bark of a huge beech. Isketerol reined in his horse. I'm a man with a sore arse, he said to himself; he'd learned how to ride over the winter, but doing twenty miles in a day still told. His horse seemed to agree, lowering its head and blowing out its lips.

"Isketerol of Tartessos, oath-brother of Wehaxpothis Hwalkarz of the Iraiina," he said. "These are my handfast men," he added, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the others and the train of packhorses.

"Oath-brother to the sorcerer?" The bearded faces behind the spearheads-steel spearheads, he noticed-went pale. "Pass."

The weapons dipped in salute. The Tartessians booted their horses up out of the vale and onto the hillsides. The war camp of the Iraiina and their allies lay sprawled about them, a vast shapeless mass in clumps and clusters across the downs. There was no problem in finding his blood-brother. The Walkerburg men had pitched their tents in neat rows, northward and upstream of the others; some of them were still digging the latrines their lord insisted on, grumbling as shovelfuls of chalky subsoil flew. Sentries paced the outlines of the camp, full-armed; most of the rest lay around their cooking fires, throwing dice or talking, working on their gear or already rolled in their blankets and asleep. Servants carried grain and cut grass to the picketed horses, or tended the trek oxen near the wagons that made a wall around half the camp. Wind blew the scents of wildwood from the great forest to the north, overcoming the stench of massed humanity and animals. Meat roasted over the flames, and flat griddle cakes of wheat flour cooked.

Sentries cried him hail as he reined in, and men dashed over to care for his horse and his followers'. All the Walkerburg folk knew the friend of their chief, who guested with him so often. The Tartessian took the hot mead one offered and drank it gratefully, walking over to the wehaxpothis's pavilion. It wasn't a cold day, by the standards of spring in the White Isle, but the wind could still flog your blood to racing.

"Good to see you!" Walker said, in English. "Did you get the saltpeter? And the barrels from base?"

The Amurrukan were like that, abrupt; he meant no insult by it. "That I did," he said. "And I left the saltpeter at Walkerburg. What do you need it for? All it's good for is cooling the blood, as far as I know." Isketerol sat in one of the folding canvas chairs before Walker's tent.

Walker laughed and rubbed his hands. "My friend," he said, "I'll let you in on a little secret that may brighten your day." He shouted for food and drink.

"I could use that," Isketerol said frankly, as they ate; the usual Iraiina fare, roast and boiled meat and bread and a few vegetables, but better done than usual. I would pay gold for a handful of olives, or good tunny cooked with goat cheese, and a decent salad. "From what my scouts say I don't dare put to sea," he went on. "Not with Eagle and those two new ships about. So far, we know nothing of what Alston and the Eagle are doing, except stirring mischief."

A man screamed, not far away. "Odd that you should mention that," Walker said. "We took an enemy messenger, and he's been telling us some interesting things. Come take a look."

They rose and walked around the back of the pavilion. A series of leather panels between poles with a canvas awning overhead made an enclosure there, with two full-armed guards standing stock-still outside the entrance; Isketerol smelled fear on them, and saw it in the sweat that rolled down their faces under the helmet brims despite the cool evening air. Over the entrance hung a mask, the frontal bones of a skull mounted on a hemisphere of polished gold with a light burning within. The flames nickered through, red through the eye sockets and teeth, translucent through the thin-worked bone. Inside a hearth and living area were set up to one side, and a place of work to the other. Ingenious cabinets of folding wood and drawers stood open on the close-cropped sward; between them was a jointed table, now adjusted to a sloping surface. The man fastened to it screamed again as the figure in the green gown bent over him and made an adjustment to some metal tool that burrowed in under his rib cage.

Hong straightened up and pulled down her cloth face-mask. "Hi, Will. Hello, Isketerol, glad you could make it," she said. Then to one of the early-adolescent girls standing behind her, also in green surgical garb, "The number-four extensor, Missora."

The girl giggled and stood on tiptoe to whisper something in Hong's ear. The Amurrukan woman laughed and swatted her assistant lightly on the bottom. "Not yet. Later, when he needs to be cheered up." Her sister giggled too, crouching over the little brazier where still other instruments were at white heat.

An Iraiina stood by the man's head; his fear was undisguised. "Ask him again, Velrarix," Hong said.

The tribesman bent over the prisoner and shouted in his ear; the language was the purling glug-glug-glug sound of the Earth Folk tongue. Isketerol caught most of it, although the translator had a vile accent.

The figure strapped to the table tried to shake his head against the clamps that held it. Drops of blood went spattering on the waxed leather covering of the wood, and slow fat tears ran down his cheeks. The glass jar dripping saline solution down a tube into one arm rattled in its holder.

"No?" Hong said. "Well, maybe we'll advance the schedule again. Scalpel and clamps, little one."

She selected an instrument from the offered tray and flashed a smile over at the two men. "This is fascinating, you know. Sort of like an operation in reverse. The human body is absolutely amazing, the way it clings to life. And the way you can shape it like wood or marble. I'm developing a true art form here."

To her assistants: "Kylefra, leave those cauteries and crank his head up a little. Velrarix, explain to him what happens next. After this he'll be a lot calmer. No bothersome hormones."

The other girl in the green surgical gown came and turned a screw that pushed up the victim's head. When the sharp metal tickled the base of his scrotum he began to scream again, and then shout words-numbers, places.

"Got all that?" Hong asked the interpreter, when the Fiernan began to repeat himself for the second time. He nodded, pasty-faced. "Kylefra. We don't need to hear him speak anymore."

The men walked back to Walker's tent. Demons spare us, Isketerol thought. Will is a braver man than I, to bed with that I'd rather put the Crone Herself on my staff. He picked up a glass bottle and poured a little of the lightning spirit into a cup, knocking it back with a jerk of his wrist. He'd seen men put to the question before, beaten or burned or flogged, but this… The meal sat heavy on his stomach; he drank again. "You learned what you needed?" he said.

Walker poured himself more mead. "Better watch that hard liquor," he warned. "It creeps up on you if you're not used to it… Yeah, I think I've got what we need. And I've got a plan for a coordinated action. Here's what we'll do."

Hong's laughter rang over the sounds from behind the tent. Isketerol shuddered. "I hope you can rule her," he said.

Walker chuckled. "She has sort of blossomed into her opportunities, hasn't she? Don't worry, I can keep her in line… and if she goes completely 'round the bend, there's always-" He made a cutting gesture across his throat. "Now, let's get down to business. Here's what sulfur and saltpeter and charcoal are good for…"

In the screened-off area, Hong was singing as she worked:

"I've bought myself a new knife

You'd be surprised at what my knife can do;

Guns can jam; bombs are complex;

Sometimes grenades fail to explode.

My knife is simple-this is true;

Part of it I hold… the other part of it's for you.

A girl needs a knife… oh, a girl needs a knife…

And I've got mine!"

"How do you like my country?" Swindapa said proudly.

"Beautiful," Alston said sincerely, touching a heel to her horse.

The long column of Americans stretched back along the trackway. They'd finally made their way out of the ancient oakwoods and up into rolling downs under a mild spring sun. It shone bright on polished steel, and on the gilt eagles that tipped their flagstaffs and the spread-winged version on every breastplate and shield. A drum beat, trip-trip-trip, and a hundred and fifty feet hit the earth as one; spearheads swayed rhythmically.

Not much like it was in the twentieth, she thought.

Not even the shape of the land. In the England she'd visited, these uplands were mostly bare moorland. In the White Isle they were still covered with a coating of loess, light fertile soil that had yet to erode away. Small square fields were laid out, green with wheat, barley, rye, oats, a few turning yellow with mustard, others shaggy with nettles or yarrow. Most of the fields were already calf-high, and they rippled and fluttered in the brisk south wind that streamed out the flags. Copses of wood covered hilltops or wound across the dales along the sides of streams, birch and beech and oak, leaves fresh and clear-cut, almost glistening in their newness. Flowers starred the grainfields and meadows, thick along the sides of the rutted dirt trace. Hawthorn hedges bloomed, filling the air with a faint elusive scent of wild rose when the wind dropped.

"Absolutely beautiful," she said, reining aside.

The horse snorted and obeyed, and Swindapa's followed it. Their Nantucketer expert had broken in enough for a few officers, mounted messengers, and scouts in the weeks since their landfall. They turned and cantered down the line; she exchanged salutes with the officers, fingers going tick against the brim of her helmet.

The ordered alignment of the Americans made a stark contrast to the great shambling clot of Fiernans who walked along with them, their own numbers again or more; adventurous youths and maidens, a few Spear Chosen with their followers, traders with a shrewd eye to the main chance and trains of donkeys loaded with packs, or livestock driven along to sell to the wealthy strangers. More ran to gawk from the settlements all around. Most of those were farmers, men in sleeveless tunics of coarse wool, women in string skirts, sometimes bare above the waist, sometimes with a shirt and poncho; children were often naked or nearly so, accompanied by lean whip-tailed dogs. The dwellings they abandoned were mostly huts, round or rectangular, often grouped together and sometimes surrounded by ditch or bank or thorn hedge; the livestock enclosures always were. The thatch was cut and sculpted in attractive abstract patterns, and the wattle walls whitewashed and painted over in geometric shapes; the effect was as much African as anything else, reminding her a little of pictures she'd seen of Ndebele villages. Somehow it looked right for the landscape.

"But…" Swindapa said, an edge of trouble in her voice.

"But?"

"It looks… it looks smaller than I remembered it, somehow," she said, swiveling her head. "And sort of… messy."

You can't go home again, Marian didn't say. That was one lesson everybody had to learn… or maybe not, here. Here things stayed the same, usually. They didn't build time-share condos and golf courses over the place you were born and the churchyard where your great-grandfather was buried.

A changed note ran through the burble of Fiernan Bohulugi conversation. Someone was coming running down the trail from the east, stumbling as he ran. A minute, and she could see there was blood on his face, and running down the arm he held cradled in the other; He stopped in shock at seeing the obvious foreigners, but some of the locals who were tagging along with the American column caught him as he started to buckle.

On the other hand, raiding arsonists can also rearrange the landscape.

"Lieutenant Trudeau," she said. "Deploy from column of march into line, if you please. Nyugen, scouts out forward."

She and Swindapa spurred forward to the group around the wounded man. He stared from one to the other, wide-eyed. A torrent of Fiernan consonants followed, and Swindapa answered; both were too fast and complex for Alston to follow.

Swindapa's eyes went wide as well. "A big Sun People raiding party-many of them, a great host, more than a hundred men. Not far up the track-he ran for perhaps an hour. But there shouldn't be, not this far west and north!"

"Walker has changed things. Get some details, numbers, weapons."

That took some time. Alston used it to remove her helmet, get out her binoculars, and stand in the stirrups, scanning slowly from left to right ahead. There. A faint trace of smoke. Burning things seemed to be a Sun People fixation. Time to stop ambling along being a tourist. And very faintly came the huuuu-huuuu sound of an aurochs-horn war trumpet.

She looked back. The wagons were drawing up in a circle, frontier-style… or Boer style, which was irony, if you thought about it. The three-hundred-odd Americans were fanning out, running to take up position in a line perpendicular to the rutted, muddy track on which they had been marching, with their left wing resting on the wagons and their right… well, hanging in air. And the locals…

Alston spurred her horse out in front of them. Most of the farmers were running for their huts-probably to get their spears and bows. The noncombatants were streaking for the tall timber or local equivalent, or herding their stock and children toward the big palisaded roundhouses. And the Spear Mark men who'd come along were starting to run toward the smoke-smudge, all seventy or eighty of them.

"Well, you can't fault their guts," she said; the Fiernan might not be long on organization, but they had a terrier courage which made it more understandable how they'd held out against the invader tribes so long. She trotted out ahead of them.

"Stop!" she shouted. "Stop now!" That much Fiernan she could manage.

The leading Spear Chosen was a rangy young man with freckles and a fiery head of copper-colored locks trained in dozens of braids. "Why?" he said. "We come to fight the Sun People; they burn our houses, attack our kindred."

"Swindapa, tell him we'll show him how the Eagle People fight. Remind him that they usually lose fighting the charioteers, but tactfully."

Swindapa broke into voluble, arm-waving speech, a little odd to see from horseback; eventually they started listening to her. Alston put her helmet back on, swinging down the new hinged cheekpieces and clipping them together under her chin. The padding was rough against her skin, and the world took on a hard outlined shape from beneath the low brim. About half of the Fiernans stopped, sullen and restless, shifting their feet; the steel-headed spears the Americans had handed out danced in their hands. The others pelted by, heading for the invaders. Light-armed riders fanned out ahead of her, crossbows bouncing at their backs. They came back minutes later, galloping.

"Ma'am, they've taken a village about two and a half miles up thataway. Seven chariots, say a couple of hundred men. They've stopped to loot."

"Any sign of out-time equipment, weapons, armor?"

"Hard to say for sure, ma'am. Most of it was straight Bronze Age stuff, right out of the briefings."

"Carry on." Well, they won't stay stopped to loot when that gang of wild men that went haring off down the lane hits them, she thought. They'd beat the Fiernans like a drum; for starters, they outnumbered them eight to one. And then they'll chase them, all the way back here.

Other fires were puffing smoke into the sky, from hilltops around about or from the big round enclosures. "Alarms?" she said to Swindapa.

"Yes, to show that the Sacred Truce is invoked. Many Spear Chosen and their bands will come soon now. Well, in a while."

Alston nodded; about what she'd expected. From what she'd been able to gather, none of them had ever been able to take land back from the invaders, though. And there was only one end to a game where the rules went what's mine is mine, what's yours is negotiable.

Swindapa rode back to the injured man, now being treated by an American medic. She swung down out of the saddle, going to one knee beside him, then led her horse over to Alston again.

"Marian, it's odd. From what that man tells, those were Zarthani, from one of the eastern tribes of the Sun People, east of the Great Forest. Not Iraiina at all."

"Walker has made some friends," Alston nodded. She studied her position, then rode over to the Spear Chosen.

"Maltonr, put all your men with bows and slings in there, on the beds of the wagons." The canvas tilts had been rolled up until they offered only overhead protection. The Americans were linking the vehicles together with chains and spiked steel bars. "The spears, to the right of my line."

Maltonr scratched his red head. "Why?" he said. "First the shooting, then the fight hand-to-hand."

"They'll be more effective shooting all together. Trust me. And when the Sun People hit us, your archers can fight from behind the wagons, like a fort."

The Fiernan shrugged; the Eagle People were strange, but he'd go along. Lord have mercy if I don't win this fight, Alston thought, licking dry lips and fighting down an urge to drink from her water bottle. Stopping to pee in this armor was just too damned difficult, particularly for a woman.

Instead she rode down the American line. "No different from the cannibals, boys and girls," she said. More than half had been with her among the Olmecs, and the rest had been drilling with them for months, five days a week. "Hold steady, listen for the word, then shoot straight and hit hard. Remember, we fight as a unit. Anyone who gets carried away will have his or her ice cream ration reduced." Laughter, a little nervous, and some grins.

She called the unit commanders together, sketched plans, shifted a squad over to provide backup in the wagon circle, checked that the handset radios were all working, then dismissed them to their troops. Very faint, the sound of combat came from over the rise ahead. Lieutenants and petty officers checked equipment, and quietly blistered ears over loose straps or clasps unbuckled for marching and not done up again. Then the Americans stood at parade rest, spears vertical with the butts resting on the ground and both hands clasped on them at chest height, or loaded crossbows carried at the port. No time for fancy tricks with caltrops this time, and no heavy equipment along. A straight stand-up fight. Good ground, at least. It looked like the enemy thought they were just going to stomp straight over everything in their way.

Christ, I run away to sea and here I am, in the goddam Army.

A thousand yards, mostly level, straight ahead; steeper ground to the left and right. Open, except for a few hurdle fences, not even much planted ground. Then a dip down to the creek, and the enemy would have to forge uphill from the water to reach this plateau.

A spatter of Fiernans came past first, the fastest ones, many wounded, many weaponless. The others murmured, milled about, then slowly settled down again. One of her scouts came trotting up over the rise, galloped across the open ground, then drew rein and saluted.

"Here they come, ma'am, just like you said they would," he said, grinning from a painfully young face. "Three hundred and fifteen by my count, seven chariots, nothing fancy, just heading straight for us as fast as they can."

"Very good."

She glanced aside. Swindapa was watching the rise to the east, her face gone milk-pale under the light tan, hands quivering-tight on the reins. Christ, I forgot. These are the same sort of people who captured her. She brought her horse a little closer and rested a hand on the girl's armored shoulder.

"Dapa, you're not alone now. We're going to kick their butts and send them off howling for their dead." She paused. "Don't let me down."

A start, and a flush, then a tight smile. "I won't, Marian."

"By the Dagadevos, who are you?" Dekarchar son of Wirronax, high chief of the Keyaltwar, asked. "You look like a Tartessian to me."

Lieutenant Commander Victor Ortiz, born in Havana, raised in Florida, commissioned by the United States, and currently serving in the Coast Guard of the Republic of Nantucket, smiled and spread his hands. They'd assigned him to slip around to the east coast of the island and raise some trouble in the enemy rear because he'd picked up the language faster than the other ship commanders.

"Some of my ancestors came from there," he said. "I'm of the… Eagle People."

The chieftain scowled and looked through the door at the end of his hall at the schooner rocking at its moorings in a channel that wound through the marshes. "You mean you're a friend of that turd of a wizard Hwalkarz and his Iraiina shit-eaters and Tartessian arse-lickers?" he rumbled menacingly.

The Keyaltwar chief had reddish-gold hair and the pale complexion that went with it, liberally starred with light brown freckles, and rather protuberant blue eyes in a narrow, beaky face. The way he clenched his hand on the handle of his ax was probably unconscious, rather than a direct threat to his guest. So was the red flush of rage that crept up his cheeks under beard and scars.

"Are all the children of Sky Father friends of the Iraiina?" Ortiz asked rhetorically, following the script the captain and the Arnsteins had mapped out for him.

"Well, no," the chief grumbled, sinking back in the chair.

"So not all the Eagle People are friends of Hwalkarz. He is an outcast among us; oathbreaker, murderer by stealth, thief. A wolfs head, we call such a man-that's why he uses it as his banner."

The Americans' visit had coincided with spring cleaning; women and slaves were raking out the old reeds from the dirt floor, and a winter's accumulated bones and garbage with them, and replacing them with fresh. The fires were out-rekindling them would be one of the year's most important ceremonies and the hall was rather fusty and disarranged.

Ortiz sank down on the stool before the chiefs seat and smiled, moving one hand in a spreading gesture. "You haven't bent the knee to Daurthunnicar yet, I take it."

"Never! Never!"

The chief did rise this time, waving his ax in the air. The other warriors hanging about his hall did likewise, stamping and screaming. Some of them dyed their hair with lime, which made it stand out in spikes. They looked like enraged daisies as they waved their weapons and shrieked; the noise grew so loud that other folk from the hamlet put their heads in to see what was going on, and they shouted too. Eventually even the animals got into it, loud enough to startle clouds of ducks and geese and storks out of the tidal marshes that stretched for mile after mile along the north bank of the Thames.

Ortiz waited out the spontaneous demonstration. So this is what they fake at political conventions, he thought.

"Our folk came here as conquerors!" the chief brayed.

Probably chased here by stronger tribes on the mainland, Ortiz thought, remembering his briefings. Like the Iraiina. Possibly by the Iraiina, generations ago. There seemed to be a billiard-ball effect to these migrations, with the end ball getting bumped out over the Channel. The original impetus might have started as far away as the Ukraine or even Central Asia.

"We live as free men! We sent Daurthunnicar's dogs back with a boot under their tails, and he and his wizard haven't done a thing but puff and stamp!"

Actually you're just too difficult to get to; too much swamp and bog forest in the way, Ortiz thought.

"Why don't you raid them, for such an insult?" he said. "Why don't the Keyaltwar show the wizard and his dog what they think of him?"

"Well, now," Dekachar said, sitting back. He signaled for more beer to be brought. "Well, now, we Keyaltwar are men of honor, but we aren't fools. Daurthunnicar has too many allies now, curse him, and the wizard has given his men fine weapons-armor of this iron stuff. And they're far away, many days' journey."

"Farther than that," Ortiz said. "The Iraiina and their allies are moving west, against the Earth Folk. Their steadings lie stripped of fighting men. Stuffed with cattle, bronze, gold, women, cloth, the new iron tools and weapons."

"What?" Dekarchar leaned forward eagerly. "You know this?"

"I know it. My… high chief fights them even now, in the west."

Dekarchar counted on his fingers, called for counsel from his advisers. "No, no," he said regretfully. "It would take too long for a raiding party to strike at the Iraiina lands and return-they'd catch us in the open with numbers we couldn't withstand. They move too fast these days, curse them, all this riding." He shivered slightly. "And the wizard… no, no."

"That's if you go by land," Ortiz said helpfully. "My ship could carry three, four hundred warriors for a short journey… say over to the south bank of the river, west of here. From there it's less than a day's march to the northernmost Iraiina steadings, or to tribes allied to them. Or we could carry you and your warriors to a point on the south coast near Daurthunnicar's own ruathaurikaz. Stuffed with the plunder of a dozen tribes…"

Dekarchar began to breathe heavily. "Tell me more of this," he said.

Here they come, black as hell and thick as grass, Marian Alston thought, with a slight ironic twist of her lips. That had been the cry of the British sentry at the battle of Rorke's Drift, during the Zulu War. The Sun People war band coming over the rise wasn't as numerous or as disciplined, but they had a good deal of the same ferocious impetus and will to combat. These buckra mean business. They fought to kill, and defined winning as being the only one left standing.

"So do I," she muttered to herself. She also remembered something else from the Zulu War, and urged her horse over to the Fiernans.

"Maltonr," she said, "have your men turn around, walk forty paces, and sit down with their backs to the enemy."

"What?" he said.

"Swindapa, interpret for me. Explain it's a magic. When I tell them to turn around and fight, they'll each have the strength of two." Because they won't charge in when their feelings overflow. "And lay their spears flat, to gain strength from the earth."

The Fiernan girl broke into enthusiastic speech. Interest dawned on the faces looking up at them, replacing sullen bewilderment. They turned and squatted on their heels, holding spear and shield before them, a buzz of excited conversation rising over their heads.

"Oh, and tell them if anyone looks behind him before they're told, it'll spoil the magic."

Maltonr gave her a doubtful look, then smiled ruefully and sat with his followers and the spear-armed peasants. "How are you going to do that?" Swindapa asked, as they cantered back to their position. "Make each of them strong as two, that is."

Alston shrugged. " 'Dapa, a properly timed flank attack does double the effect," she said. "Now let's get down to business."

They halted by the standard-bearers. She looked down her own line as the chariot people milled on the lip of the rise a thousand yards to the east. The circle of wagons, with the Fiernan archers and slingers inside. More were trickling in every minute, to be shoved into the ring of the wagon-fort or called there by their friends. Others straggled over to join Maltonr and his crouching spearmen. Call it forty or so in the wagons, as many again or a little more with Maltonr, double that soon. Then her own force, a central block of fifty spears three deep and a double line of seventy-five crossbows on either side. She kicked her horse out again, a hundred yards in front, and looked over the line from the enemy's perspective. Good. The Fiernans weren't at all conspicuous; Maltonr's bunch were nearly invisible, what with a slight dip in the ground.

This is going to be ugly, she thought, returning to her station.

The Zarthani had paused for a moment to work out what was waiting for them; then they spread out in a line, blowing their ox-horn trumpets and snouting. Even at this distance she could see bronze and gold and bright felt trappings gleaming on the horses, the heron-feather plumes nodding as they snorted and tossed their heads.

"Nyugen, Trudeau," she said. The two senior lieutenants stood at her stirrup. "Remember, infantry usually breaks before a chariot charge here. When ours doesn't, the chariots may wheel off and try and shoot us up while their infantry close with us, or they may just ram in close as they can. In either case, concentrate fire on the chariots-go for the teams-and then switch to those following. Any questions?"

Both shook their heads. "Good luck."

The tribesmen had shaken themselves out, seven clumps behind the chariots of their chieftains. They started toward her at a walk, yelps and hoots and the odd high shriek coming as they worked themselves up. Wooden axles squealed like tortured pigs, wheels rumbled, hooves pounded the short dense turf, bare human feet slapped dirt. The chariots loomed larger and larger. Now she could see the men in them, the near-naked youths driving, and the leather-armored aristocrats standing behind, although one… she focused the binoculars. Chain mail, by God. Walker had been a busy little bee; and wouldn't one of these suits be a potent bribe here. The riders stood easily in the jouncing unsprung carts with their feet braced wide and knees bent, javelins and bows in their hands. Must train them from toddlers to do that, she thought. The horses trotted as the drivers slapped their backs with the reins, and behind them the hairy kilted warriors began to lope, keeping up effortlessly.

Four hundred yards. "Now," she said.

"Spears… down!" the officers barked. The Nantucket troops gave a single deep shout and raised their polearms high. Drums beat, and the cool English sunlight sparkled on the edges and points as the nine-foot shafts swung down into line.

"Prepare to receive cavalry!"

The first rank knelt, propping their oval shields on their shoulders and the ground ahead of them, slanting their spears out. The next two lines stood in staggered formation, points reaching out to make a bristling three-layered forest of knife-sharp heads poised to stab.

"Prepare to fire." The front rank of crossbows knelt. Three hundred and fifty yards. A bugle call. "Fire!"

Alston swung down off her horse, and Swindapa followed. The standard-bearers and their guards and the twelve sword-and-buckler troops formed up behind them. The easterners were at a full run now, horses galloping, pulling the chariots ahead of the footmen. The long shadows of the spears seemed to reach out toward them.

WHUNNNG. Seventy-five crossbow bolts nickered across the space between the two forces, moving in long shallow arcs blurred by their speed. Men fell; the short heavy arrows would punch right through the light hide-and-wicker shields, through the arm holding the shield and then the breastbone, and crunch into the spine. A chariot went over in a tumbling, splintering whirl as both its horses were struck by several bolts apiece and collapsed in mid-stride.

WHUNNNG. The second volley brought another two chariots down, and a dozen men; the range was closing fast. A slight ripple through the spearpoints as the troops braced themselves. WHUNNNG. WHUNNNG. The ratcheting click of the mechanisms as the crossbows' cocking levers were pumped. A chariot veering and going off on a wild tangent, a bolt standing in the rump of the off-lead horse and the animal plunging and bucking with its eyes bulged out, squealing piteously. WHUNNNG. More men down, but not as many as with the Olmecs-the easterners had a better formation than that, irregular but strung out so that men could support each other without crowding. So had their ancestors conquered, spreading out from the steppes of inner Asia, west to the Atlantic and east to the borderlands of China.

WHUNNNG. More chariots out of action, the man in chain mail dismounting and running forward, screaming hatred at those who'd wounded his precious horses. The remaining war-cars edged away from the sleeting death of the crossbows, heading toward the massed spearpoints at the bottom of the American formation. Then still farther to the right, as the Fiernan archers and slingers in the circled wagons opened up, ragged but enthusiastic. Arrows whistled, and slingstones cracked on shields, whunked into flesh. WHUNNNG. Very close now, a hundred yards, and the bowmen among the Zarthani were shooting as they ran. Shafts arched up into the sky, slammed down. Bronze and flint sparked and bent and shattered on steel armor and pattered on metal-faced shields. Here and there one slipped through to find vulnerable flesh, and a few Americans were dragged backward by the stretcher-bearers; their comrades closed the ranks.

Half the Zarthani were left on their feet, many of them wounded. One chariot came on, its horses streaming blood and foam, bolting, but bolting in the direction their driver wanted them to go. Alston could see snarling grins, shouting faces, axes whirling overhead in blurring circles.

"Bows down!" barked the officers. Trumpets reinforced the orders. A last spatter of bolts, and the crossbows went over their users' shoulders. The round bucklers slung across their backs went forward, and hands slapped down to the hilts at their right hips. "Draw!"

Long months of practice made the motion a single flicker of light as the leaf-shaped stabbing swords came free of their wood-and-leather sheaths.

"Give 'em the Ginsu!" someone shouted. Alston's teeth showed in a not-quite-smile. Ian Arnstein had wanted the short sword called a gladius, after the Roman blades it was modeled on. Public opinion had proved stronger. Ginsu it was.

Alston reached over her shoulder and drew her own sword, head moving back and forth as she kept the whole action in sight through the intervening ranks. A long rattle of thrown spears came from the Zarthani, in the moment before impact. An American not far ahead dropped on his back kicking; a spear had bounced off the rim of his shield and up into the unprotected underside of his jaw. The driver of the last chariot was leaning back, hauling on the reins to try to skim along the line while his warrior shot arrows. He almost made the quick turn, but the horses were too far gone in hysteria to respond as they'd been trained. Their too-tight curve put their legs into the thicket of spear-points, and they collapsed. The chariot cartwheeled sideways; its crew were thrown out straight onto the waiting points, but the wood-and-wickerwork vehicle followed right behind.

"Oh, shit," Alston said.

It was the worst possible thing that could have happened; the line of spears disintegrated just where it formed a junction with the right-wing crossbows as the chariot's flying body bowled into them. You couldn't have gotten any horses ever foaled to do that voluntarily, or most men, but the accident had sent a kamikaze into her formation.

" 'Dapa, tell Maltonr to face about and bring his spearmen, now. The rest of you, follow me!"

She ran for the spot where the war-car had crashed into the American line just as the howling clansmen leaped to follow the chariot into the gap it had made.