Island in the Sea of Time

CHAPTER NINETEEN

June, Year 2 A.E.

Bill Cuddy listened to the panting messenger. His Iraiina was pretty good now, more than enough for this.

"Keyaltwar for certain," the messenger gasped. "Hundreds of them, maybe others of the northeast tribes-burning, killing, looting. They came from the coast."

Somebody had to have given them a lift. Not hard to do-there was plenty of deserted beach along the south shore. "The Guard got smart," he muttered to himself, looking around.

Everyone was looking at him. He thought of what the boss would say if he came back and found Walkerburg burned… and without Walker, there was no place at all for him in this world now.

Okay, he thought. Let's see what we can do. "How's the rahax's place holding out?"

"The stockade holds, but they ravage among the holdings outside. A strong band is coming this way-they must know where you are."

"We'll deal with them first, then," he said. "All right, get the ergastula filled. The rest of you, get your weapons and fall in."

There were twenty free men left here, half and half Iraiina and Americans. The slaves had learned their lesson, though, the ones left alive after the past year; they turned and shuffled toward the low-set building at the sound of the settlement bell rung three times and then three times again. Nervous hands shoved and prodded them down into the odorous darkness.

The women were running out of their houses, or from the workshops. "Fuck this," Cuddy muttered, then shouted: "All of you, back to your houses!"

Ekhnonpa appeared beside him. "I will deal with them, and see that a meal is prepared for the warriors, and the first aid equipment"-that was in English-"is made ready."

"Thank you, lady," he said in Iraiina. In his mother tongue: "Charlie, John, Sam, c'mon. We've got to get the Mule ready."

They slung their shotguns and dragged open the doors of the carpenter's shed where the catapult rested. The men he'd named ran to hitch the four-horse team. That reminded him.

"Shaurshix, Llankwir, you get your horses and scout down the track to Daurthunnicar's place." He pulled out a key and unlocked the door of a new storehouse, a small stoutly timbered one standing some distance off by itself. Inside were shelves with rows of small ten-pound kegs. He grabbed one under each arm and ran toward the Mule with them. "Get over to the smithy and get me some scrap iron. And I want some bigger barrels, about twice this size- doesn't matter what's in them as long as it's dry-dump it and bring them. Fast!"

Swindapa ran to deliver the message to her waiting countrymen, her feet jolting on the hard sheep-cropped grass. The forty pounds of jointed steel she was wearing did not hinder her much, not after nearly a year of practice almost every day. It was the sight of the Zarthani that squeezed at her chest, the leather kilts and long tomahawks and the yelling snarling faces so close on her left. Sweat poured down her face and flanks, and memories opened and bled. When she reached the waiting band of her people she could scarcely gasp out the command.

The wheeze was enough. Only conviction that strong magic was involved had kept them still. They trembled too, and sweat dripped from them, but it was eagerness. With a single long, savage scream they leaped up and swarmed past her, the bright metal of their weapons gleaming in the light of noon.

She followed, feeling her feet weighed down as if with heavy stones. The enemy had lapped around the right end of the Eagle People's line; the ones there were fighting back to back. Convinced that they each carried the mana of two, the Fiernans struck into the backs of the Zarthani and pushed them back, and now the Sun People were squeezed in turn. It all seemed curiously remote, something happening far away. All she could remember was the flexing, pounding feeling of fists hitting her, the world whirling away, herself strengthless as they threw her down.

Trotting past bodies writhing or still; Fiernan, Sun People, a few of the Eagle People as well. No lines now. A figure turning on her, a young Zarthani warrior snarling past a sparse brown beard clotted with blood from a light slash along his jaw. He had a shield painted with a bull's head, the sun between its horns, and a long one-handed ax with a bronze head that drooped like a falcon's beak. He nearly ran onto the point of her katana, bounced back, and came at her again. Her sword came up but the movement seemed dreamlike. Invisible hands twisted inside her stomach, shooting pain, and she tasted sour vomitus at the back of her throat. Parry, parry, wrists crossed on the long cord-bound hilt; the steel rang under the fast savage blows of the ax. Her heel caught on a clump of grass, and she staggered. The tomahawk rang off the curved surface of her breastplate, leaving a line of bright steel where it scored through the enamel. Again, again, three times in five seconds the armor saved her life. The shield slammed into her and she was over backward, down, hitting with a thump that knocked the wind out of her and drove the edges of the armor into her skin. The sword flew spinning.

Everything was still very slow, except the Zarthani warrior. He alone moved quickly, leaping forward to stamp a bare foot down and hold her in place while the ax went up for a looping chop at her neck. The muscles of his chest and arm knotted as the weapon went up; she could smell him, sweat and greased leather and smoke.

Don't let me down.

No. Her left arm came off the ground and slammed into the back of the Zarthani's knee. I won't leave you alone.

The man heaved backward with a yell. She surged half upright and hammered a gloved right fist up under his kilt. The yell turned to a high yelp of agony. Swindapa kicked her legs free and shoulder-rolled, sweeping the katana up from where it lay. The Zarthani was up too, gray-faced and sweating but still fast. She lunged forward, and the point jammed through wicker and into the warrior's arm. He croaked rage and swung the ax. Her hands pushed up and her wrists crossed, presenting the blade at a precise forty-five-degree angle, the point near her own shoulder blade. Tough ashwood, the shaft of the ax slid down the metal and the force of the blow turned the Zarthani half around. She planted her feet and lashed the sword back at him; a frantic leap and twist still left him with a gash leaking red along the outside of his right arm, a flap of skin and flesh dangling. She moved in, iodan no kame, sword up over her head.

Cut, and a section of the wicker shield spun away. Strike up from the follow-through, and her blade met the descending arm, already weakened by the first cut. This time the edge jarred solidly into meat, and she pivoted from the hips, a snapping twist that grated the blade into bone and past it. The follow-through sent a fan of red drops across the grass, and the sword seemed to fly of itself back into the high-stroke position for the killing blow.

"Quarter!" the Zarthani yelled, falling back and putting up a hand against it in a futile warding gesture. "I yield!"

For a long moment Swindapa stood, feeling fire torrenting through her blood.

"I won't let you down," she whispered, in her lover's tongue.

The Zarthani swarmed into the breach howling, striking at Americans still dazed on the ground, or still cumbered by their long spears. The bang and clatter and crash of hand-to-hand combat sounded all around them, like a load of scrap metal dropping on a concrete floor.

"Follow me," Alston said firmly, as Swindapa dashed off to bring the Fiernan reserve into action.

The standard-bearers fell back a little as the command party moved forward, and the dozen sword-and-shield guards closed up in a blunt wedge behind her.

"Rally!" she shouted. "Rally, there!"

The American line was starting to reform, yielding flexibly without breaking ranks, rallying about the flag. But too many of the barbarians were through; a knot of them hacked and trampled their way to the rear of the formation. Alston led her band directly at them, forcing them to turn and meet her. At their head was the chieftain with the chain-mail hauberk; he carried a small shield painted with paired thunderbolts and a long steel-shod spear whose head was surrounded by a collar of white heron feathers. Armored, he still moved lightly, a lithe fast knot of bone and gristle and tough muscle.

The spear punched at her. Worry fell away; you couldn't think, not in a fight. You reacted. He leaped backward frantically as her katana slammed down in a blurring arc, but the tip still burst links; without the armor it would have gashed his shoulder to the bone. Pale eyes went wide… and he'd gotten his first real look at her face.

"Night One!" he said in his own tongue.

Beside her one of his followers struck, and the ax boomed off an American shield. That trooper stepped in, stabbing and punching the shield forward. The whole wedge of guards was pushing forward, stepping into place and sealing the breach in the line.

Alston thrust two-handed at the chief's face, shrieking the kia. He yelled back and caught the blade on the face of his shield, short-gripping the spear and stabbing underarm. The point skittered off the lower part of her breastplate and the thigh guards. He backed again, but she followed closely, keeping herself too close for his longer weapon to be fully useful. The brass cap at the base of the katana's hilt punched up at his face, taking him at the angle of his jaw. Bone broke, but the Zarthani's shield edge whipped around and struck her across the head and shoulder. She tasted the iron and salt of blood in her mouth and went with the stroke, letting her right knee loose. Weight and momentum pushed her down on one knee, and the long curved blade took the warrior on the back of the leg, just above the knee. He fell backward with a scream, one that ended in a gurgle as the katana came down across his neck.

Alston spat blood and came to her feet. The fight was ending, knots and clumps of the Zarthani turning and running lest they be caught between the Fiernans swinging in from the right and the Nantucket line. Training pays off, she thought, dragging her mind back to the chessplayer's state a commander needed. True for the Romans, true for us.

"Shall we pursue?" Lieutenant Nyugen said.

"No," she replied.

No point; they couldn't possibly chase down unarmored men, not without cavalry, and those took years to train.

She shook her head. "Let the locals do it."

The Fiernans were hallooing off across the stretch of pasture, spearing running Zarthani in the back or wounded ones on the ground with the ruthless enthusiasm bred by old, old scores that they'd never had a chance to pay off before. That reminded her…

"See to the prisoners." Where the Fiernans had passed, there simply weren't any-which was a pity but also a load off her mind; there weren't any facilities for them. "We'll need a few for interrogation."

Stretcher-bearers were taking the wounded off to the circle of wagons where the doctors waited. There were already birds circling above, ravens and crows, waiting for the living humans to get out of the way. And…

Swindapa. For an instant she could be an single human being, not the head of a hundredfold body. Fear and love roiled under the shell of control. The Fiernan girl wasn't far away, cleaning her sword and standing over an enemy prisoner. As Alston came up she pushed back the cheek-pieces and removed her helmet, turning a wondering look on the American.

"I beat him. He gave up," she said. "I beat him, and he gave up."

Alston put an arm around her shoulders. The armor made it like embracing a statue, but she squeezed anyway. "Damn right," she said, grinning in relief and fierce pride. "I didn't waste all that teachin' time."

"I didn't let you down."

"Never."

The Zarthani warrior lay not far away, rough field dressings on a couple of bad wounds on his right arm. His look of sullen fear turned to amazement, doubled as Alston bared her head to the cooling breeze and his suspicious eyes studied her throat.

"Women?" he blurted, horror in his voice. "I surrendered to women?"

Alston and Swindapa looked at each other for a long moment. Then they began to laugh.

"Here they come," Ian said.

"Get down from there," Doreen said nervously, pulling at the back of his bush jacket as he stood above her on the floor of the wagon.

"I really don't like battles," she said.

Ian nodded, climbing down, his eyes still glued on the onrushing… barbarian horde. A real, live, very ugly barbarian horde.

He didn't like battles either. He remembered the one with the Olmecs all too vividly-in dreams, at times. Not that he'd seen much of it, from his post well to the rear, but he'd seen the aftermath close up… and smelled it. Right now all he could smell was his own sweat, the fairly powerful odor of the threescore Fiernans massed in the forward part of the ring of wagons, and the strong disinfectant the medics were getting ready.

The doctors and orderlies were pulling their steel-tube folding tables out of the supply wagons and setting up, lighting a fire to heat the pressure cookers that would sterilize their implements. The Arnsteins helped them; it felt rather odd, since the orderlies were in armor.

"Periods all jumbled up," Doreen said, holding the platform of a table while an orderly spun the wing nuts that secured it to the frame.

"Bronze Age, medieval, twentieth," Ian agreed.

"Excuse me, sir," a petty officer said. "Is that loaded?"

"What loaded?" Ian said.

"The gun, sir," the noncom said, her voice heavily patient. "The one you're wearing slung across your back."

"Oh, that gun," Ian said.

It was a 12-gauge double-barrel model, cut down. He clicked open the breech; empty.

"You should load it, sir. We're not supposed to need 'em here, but you never know."

The shells were double-ought buckshot, and had an unpleasant weight and solidity as he slid them into the breech; the snick and click as he closed the weapon had an evil finality to it. He could hear the crossbows firing now, and the shrieks and screams of the enemy were much closer. Stretcher-bearers came trotting in with the first of the wounded, an American with an arrow through the biceps and into the bone. He was cursing, a steady flat-toned stream of obscenity and scatology, until the painkiller took effect. As he went limp an orderly cut the shaft of the arrow off an inch above his skin with a pair of pruning shears. The surgeon pulled an instrument from a tray, one Ian recognized-an arrow-extractor spoon, an ancient model that probably hadn't been used in centuries… or wouldn't be invented for millennia, depending on how you looked at it.

He looked away, himself, as the doctor's intent face bent over the wounded man. As he did there was a long whirring shoooosshh sound from the east-facing side of the wagon fort, underscored by a flat twanging. Bows, he realized; he was hearing massed archery. Here and there a slinger stood in a circle of open space, flicking his leather thong around his head with a one… two… throw motion; he'd seen Swindapa do it, in practice. The lead eggs the Americans had provided their allies as ammunition blurred out almost too fast to see. From here he couldn't see the action, but he could still hear the steady metronomic whunnng sound of the crossbows volleying. Then he couldn't, and a few seconds later there was a long rasping slither, a deep shout, and then a frantic multiple clang and thump and snarling brabble of voices.

"And the din of onset sounded," he quoted to himself. He was coming to have a deeper appreciation of Homer than he'd ever imagined… or wanted.

The Fiernan archers standing on the wagon beds were still shooting, but carefully now-picking their targets, holding the shaft, and then loosing. Occasionally one would stop to yell a taunt, or pull up his tunic and slap his buttocks at the enemy.

What do I do now? The answer to that was "nothing"; he couldn't even shout for news, his Fiernan wasn't up to it and it wouldn't really be tactful to use the Sun People tongue right at this moment. Casualties trickled in, not all that many of them; more than half came from the Fiernans fighting along the forward edge of the wagons. Amazing how important armor is. The noise grew greater, and there were high-pitched screams, piteous and astonishingly loud. Wounded horses. Somehow they sounded even worse than the human beings; their pain was without comprehension or recourse.

"Look out!"

That was the petty officer who'd reminded him to load the shotgun. Ian whipped around. A couple of Zarthani were climbing through the wagons almost directly behind him, trampling Fiernan corpses.

The battle suddenly seemed very close indeed. The non-com and an orderly snatched up their big oval shields, and Doreen reached for her oak staff. One of the Zarthani made a flying leap and hit a shield feet-first. The sheet metal boomed under the impact of the callused heels and the collision sent them both down. Less burdened, the barbarian was back on his feet first; his spear slammed down, scoring the enameled eagle on the shield. The American had no chance of getting back on her feet, not with the armor on. Instead she curled up under the shield as she'd been trained, keeping it between her and the barbarian with the tip of the gladius ready around the edge if his unprotected legs came too close. Screaming frustration, the warrior danced around his prone opponent, his spear darting out like the flickering of a frog's tongue. The fallen noncom's companion was backing up himself, desperately trying to fend off two Zarthani who were edging out to take him in the rear, their axes moving continually in blurring, looping arcs. The edges glinted, razor-sharp. Even if they couldn't cut through steel, they could still break bones under mail.

"Oh, shit," Ian muttered, looking frantically around.

Nobody else here but the doctors and nurses, so frantically busy with the wounded that they didn't even look up. The rest of the stretcher-bearer-cum-orderlies were back along the line, bringing in more wounded. Nobody else in reach.

Doreen had come to the same conclusion a split second earlier. She swallowed, took a firmer grip on the bo, and stepped forward.

"Wait!" Ian croaked, hands fumbling on the shotgun.

Goddammit, this isn't my field!

The Zarthani didn't seem to consider any of that important. He caught the movement of Doreen's staff out of the corner of his eye and struck, turning almost as fast as the outflung head of his long tomahawk. The axhead sliced through the upper part of the bo, but the staff saved Doreen's life even as a third of its length went flipping end over end. Deflected, it was the flat of the ax rather than its edge that glanced off the side of her head. Blood welled up from a torn scalp, and she dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. The barbarian crowed triumph and swung the bronze ax up again.

Everything seemed to move very slowly after that. He took two steps forward. The Zarthani turned toward him, lips peeled back from his teeth, the ax whirling. For an instant his ringer froze on the trigger. I'm not a killer. He never knew just what it was that released him; perhaps it was the crooked cross painted on the man's shield. The barbarian wasn't a Nazi, but he was near enough to an original-article Aryan as no matter.

Thudump. He'd fired at less than four feet distance, with the butt of the shotgun clamped between elbow and ribs. Recoil spun him around and wrenched at his arm, nearly tearing the weapon away. He turned back with desperate speed, bringing it up to his shoulder. His finger tightened even as he saw the chewed red ruin the deershot had made of the man's chest. Thudump. A bruising, hammering blow to his shoulder, and the muzzles twisted skyward. Momentum had put the barbarian's contorted face less than a yard from the business end of the shotgun. He flipped backward, his face splashing away from the shattered bones of his skull. Bits of it struck, spattering on Ian's face and chest, a lump of something gelatinous slapping into his open mouth. He dropped to his knees and vomited in uncontrollable reflex, shuddering and spitting to clear his mouth.

Even then he clutched the shotgun to his chest, and tried to open the breech to reload it. Fortunately, that wasn't necessary. The retreating American had stopped when the odds against him dropped to even. The other Zarthani faltered, shocked by the thunderous sound and the sudden death beside him. While he goggled the American sheathed his short sword in the man's belly, ripped it out, and bowled the dying barbarian over with a slamming blow from his shield. The petty officer levered herself back erect, and it was the last Zarthani's turn to retreat helplessly before numbers. He was far more vulnerable, though. A moment's clatter and boom, and he was down on his knees, coughing blood and clutching at his chest. A short hard chop put the edge of a gladius into the back of his neck with a tooth-grating wet chunk-crack sound, like an ax going into damp wood.

"God bless the Ginsu," the American wheezed, freeing his blade with a jerk. "Slices, dices, julienne-fries."

Ian wiped his mouth on his sleeve and dropped his weapon, fumbling at Doreen's head with trembling fingers. "Oh, God, she can't die," he mumbled, knowing that he lied.

The wound was bleeding freely, leaving his hands red to the wrist, but he couldn't find any crack in the bone. That didn't mean there wasn't internal damage, pressure on the brain. He peeled back one eyelid and then the other; the left pupil was larger, and didn't shrink as much.

"Oh, God."

He put an arm under her shoulders and another behind her knees and straightened up, not feeling the strain, and walked over to the aid station.

The doctor there had splashes of blood on his gown. "Head wound?" he said. Ian nodded, afraid to speak. The gloved fingers probed, washed, and probed again.

"Not too bad," the medic said. Ian felt an enormous shuddering sensation of relief, so strong that he had to grip the edge of the table as his knees loosened.

"I think," the medico added. "No fracture… concussion… probably be sick as a dog for a couple of days. This scalp wound is superficial, doesn't even need a stitch." He looked up to his assistant. "Bandage it. Next!"

He followed while Doreen was laid out on a blanket, with another over her. People bumped into him. At last an orderly spoke:

"Sir, you're in the f… goddam way. She's going to be out for hours. Couldn't you move?"

He did, getting a drink of water and trying to force his mind back into action. He found the captain standing with her helmet under one arm, talking with a knot of her officers and a worshipful-looking pair of Fiernan Spear Chosen.

"… five dead, and twenty seriously wounded," someone was saying.

"Damn," Alston said sadly. "Well, no worse than I expected-better, actually." She looked around. "We'll make camp over there. Ditch and obstacles, if you please; best we get into the habit. Let's get on with it. As I understand it, we have to wait for permission to approach the Great Wisdom anyway. Ah, Ian."

Her gaze sharpened on him, taking in the spatters and the blood on his hands; there was some drying across the front of her breastplate as well, and up her right armguard. "Not hurt, I hope?"

"No… Doreen was." He swallowed, "That is, she got a thump on the head. I had to, that is, use the shotgun. The doctor says she'll be fine."

"Glad you're both all right," she said. "Come take a look at this."

He forced down an irrational spurt of anger. She's got more than us to think about. At least the emotion served to break through the glassy, numb feeling he'd had since the ugly scrimmage among the wagons. They walked out into the ghastly remains. The dead were thickly scattered across three hundred yards of beaten ground, singly and in clumps. The ground was actually sticky with blood in places; the broad triple-edged heads of the heavy arrows cut gruesome channels through flesh and internal organs. Some of the barbarians were still moving, missed by the Fiernan pursuers. The ground smelled a little like an old-fashioned butcher's shop where blood and meat had gone slightly off in the sun, and more like an outdoor toilet.

Like a Marrakesh souk, only worse, Ian thought, gagging slightly. "One thing I can tell you," he said. "You probably won't have any trouble from this particular tribe anytime soon."

Alston looked at him, eyebrows raised. "They seemed remarkably stubborn to me," she said. "Zarthani is what this here bunch're called, by the way."

Ian shook his head. "From what we saw of the Iraiina and what Swindapa's said, not many of these tribes are more than four, five thousand people," he said. "You… we… probably killed something like every third male of military age in the Zarthani tribe's entire population in less than an hour, plus a lot of their leaders. They can't have battles like this very often. Couldn't afford them."

"Good point," she said, musing. "I think they were plenty surprised, all right." A bleak smile: "Remember the night before the fight with the Indians, when I said what we lacked was experienced troops? We're quickly makin' that lack good."

Where the line of battle had stood, the Zarthani dead lay thicker, two deep where the hedge of spears had met them. The smell was riper; spearheads and swords had pierced the abdominal cavity more often than not. Ian tried to avoid looking at the faces. Alston bent and pulled the light frame of a chariot upright, tumbling a corpse off it.

"Notice anythin'?" she said.

Breathing through his mouth, Ian forced himself to look. After a moment he blinked.

"Iron tires!" he said, and bent closer, adjusting his glasses.

"Heat-shrunk on. Iron coulter pins, too, and those spokes were turned on a lathe." His gaze went forward to the dead horses. "Collar harnesses, too, by God. And horseshoes."

"Walker," Alston said, making the name a quiet curse. "That'll increase their military potential quite drastically."

"That's not the half of it, Mar-Captain. That yoke-and-strap harness these people were using chokes a horse when it pulls. With a collar, it's four, five times more efficient- perhaps more. It revolutionized agriculture in the Middle Ages. I suppose he's given them stirrups, too. Faster transportation. I wonder what else he's come up with?"

Working parties of Americans and Fiernans were stripping the bodies of anything useful and hauling them off, and cautiously taking the enemy wounded toward the aid station. A hundred or so were digging a long trench, six feet deep, spadefuls of the light chalky earth flying up. Ian winced a little again. Granted, it was necessary sanitation, but…

Alston pointed out another body. "This for starters."

He bent, ignoring the flies walking across the fixed, dry eyes. "Chain mail," he said, a little redundantly, and looked closer. "Machine-drawn wire, I'd say, but the rest looks like handwork."

He stood, eyes absent. "I wonder if he-Dr. Hong, actually, I suppose-has told them about antiseptic childbirth? That'd start a population explosion all by itself… He's already done enough to turn this society-this continent- upside down. God alone knows how it'll evolve now."

"God may know, but I hope we'll have some say in the matter," Alston said grimly. "Well, back to work. I don't think our absent friend is going to be wasting his time. I should look in on the wounded."

"Captain. Captain Alston."

She turned, a slightly different expression on her face. "Captain… can I ask you a question?"

"Sure, Ian," she said. There was nobody within overhearing distance, if they kept their voices down. Nobody alive, anyway.

"What…" He wet his lips, then nearly retched at the memory of what had flown into them. "What do you think about killing people?"

The thin eyebrows went up, and her face changed-out of the commander's mode, and into a friend's face for a moment. She squeezed his arm, then looked around at the aftermath of the fight. "It's disgusting," she said quietly. "Afterward, that is. At the time… at the time I'm concentrating too hard to feel much of anythin', mostly."

He nodded. "That's… do you find yourself, ah, thinking about it a lot?"

"Dreams, flashbacks, that sort of thing?" He nodded. She went on: "Not so far. Takes people different ways. My daddy, he was in Korea, it still hit him now and then; he'd take a bottle and go out and sit in the woods, but I don't think that's my way. Losing my own people, yes, that bothers me… but if these men wanted to stay safe, they shouldn't have attacked me. And if that says somethin' unfavorable about me as a human being, I don't give much of a damn."

After a moment she began to murmur. Somewhat to his astonishment, he realized she was reciting poetry:

"I am afraid to think about my death,

When it shall be, and whether in great pain

I shall rise up and fight the air for breath,

Or calmly wait the bursting of my brain.

"I am no coward who could seek in fear

A folklore solace or sweet Indian tales:

I know dead men are deaf and cannot hear

The singing of a thousand nightingales.

"I know dead men are blind and cannot see

The friend that shuts in horror their big eyes,

And they are witless-O, I'd rather be

A living mouse than dead as a man dies."

She looked around again. "Say what you like about killin', it sure beats the alternative."

Ian remembered Doreen falling under the ax. Two Fiernans were picking up a dead Zarthani, lifting by the legs and under the arms, grunting as they swung the limp weight into the grave trench.

"I see what you mean," he said slowly. And I actually feel better. Unsuspected depths, the captain has.

"Hooooly shit," one of the Americans said. "Quiet," Cuddy barked.

He'd seen local war parties often enough, over the past eight months-never from the receiving end, though. The main difference with this lot was that there weren't any chariots; probably too difficult to ship. He could identify the chiefs by their bronze helmets, grouped around a pole with an aurochs skull for a standard. The warriors milled about, a hundred or so of them, working themselves up for a rush, trampling the young grain. Even at two hundred yards or more he could sense their nervousness; this was the dwelling place of the sorcerer Hwalkarz and the Lady of Pain. On the other hand, they also held riches beyond the dreams of avarice, and what was even more important to the locals, a challenge and the prospect of glory.

"Well, come on, there's only eighteen of us," Cuddy yelled. "What're you waiting for, your mommies to tell you it's okay?"

It seemed like the sort of thing the boss would say in a situation like this. Some of the Iraiina at his back laughed, and one or two of the Americans. One of them spoke, licking his lips:

"Hey, ain't you going to see them off, Cuddy?"

He had the butt of the Garand resting on one hip; he'd clicked a modified twenty-round magazine into it. He'd done a hitch in the Crotch, been in the Gulf, but they'd trained him on M-16s. For present purposes he preferred the old battle rifle. These.30-06 rounds had real authority.

With luck, he wouldn't have to use them. "Nah," he said. "Ammo's too expensive. Let's use what we can make."

He turned to the Mule. The catapult lay ready, throwing arm back and a barrel resting in it, double-strapped with thick bands and wire. Within that barrel was another, and between them were scrap iron, rocks, and pieces of hard pottery. A long cord hung from the side. Cuddy stepped over to it and pulled out his lighter.

"Flick of the Bic," he said, grinning at the weapon's crew.

They were looking a little nervous as he touched the flame to the fuse. It sputtered and refused to take for a moment. Then the red dot and trailing blue smoke raced ahead, hung fire again, raced ahead.

"Fire!" he yelled, skipping backward.

The Mule kicked, its rear wheels lifting clear of the mud as the throwing bar slammed into the padded top. The barrel traced an arc across the lowering gray sky, trailing faint smoke. The men around the spot where the barrel was headed simply opened their ranks to let it land, then stopped in puzzlement when it didn't break apart or burst into flame. One stepped forward curiously and prodded it with a spear. Others gathered around him, unwilling to be outdone in courage. Cuddy fought back a giggle as another rocked it with his foot. A stab of fear followed it. It was a damp day; not exactly rainy, but full of that particularly English raw misty chill. What if the fuse had gone KRRRAACK!

A red snap in the heart of the Kayaltwar, and bodies flung backward like jointed rag dolls, a spurting pillar of gray-black smoke and pulverized dirt and body parts. His giggle became a full-throated laugh. Probably fifty or sixty of the eastern tribesmen lay dead or writhing around the small crater where ten pounds of gunpowder had gone off. Most of the rest were running, screaming and throwing away their weapons, running or hobbling or limping and crawling.

Their Sky Father showed His wrath by throwing thunderbolts.

A few were running toward the Walkerburg men. As the boss liked to say, the locals often made up for their lack of know-how by sheer balls. Cuddy studied them through the telescopic sight, murmuring bang… bang… to himself as he tracked from one to the other. The men with Nantucket-style crossbows were taking careful aim too, and firing. None of the Kayaltwar got closer than fifty yards.

"Well, as the boss says, nobody said to stop working," Cuddy said, when the whoops and back-slapping had died down a little. Some of the Iraiina were looking a little shaky; they were Sky Father's children too. On the other hand, the Big Boss God had just shown his favor to their lord rather unmistakably. "Let's get shackles on the survivors," he finished. "And we'll have to scout down to Daurthunnicar's and get a message to the boss."

He thought Walker would be rather pleased.

Marian Alston woke to the sound of a bugle. It was followed by the familiar bellow: "Reveille, reveille; heave out, trice up, lash and stow, lash and stow!"

She blinked, drowsy with sleep and the warmth of Swindapa's back against her chest. No help for it. It was still dark outside the tent, turning to the peculiar gray-black of predawn, cool and raw under scudding cloud. C'mon, woman, set an example for the crew… the troops. It still felt damned odd, commanding a force ashore.

And today's the day. Crucial to the success or failure of her mission; on a personal note, she was going to meet Swindapa's kindred. The Fiernan's eyes danced as they exchanged a good-morning kiss.

"Water, ma'am."

A bucket outside the door, waiting when they came back from the latrines. She and Swindapa knelt beside it, scrubbing in the cold river water and then brushing their teeth; nudity taboos were going the way of computers and toilet paper, with a mixed force living in the field. She looked at her watch, a self-winding mechanical model, a minor privilege of rank: five in the morning exactly. The square marching camp stirred into a hive of orderly activity as she dressed in the working uniform they'd designed over the winter, tough olive-drab jacket and trousers. They weren't intolerably smelly yet, but the quilted padding for the armor was, rank as a ferret and difficult to wash out here. Swindapa wrinkled her nose, and they switched to the alternate sets; they were going to have to make a good impression today. When they left the tent a squad had it struck down within minutes, well before they reached the head of their mess line. Breakfast was stale bread, butter and cheese, and slices of cold roast pork, with purified water or milk brought to a rolling boil for ten minutes-the doctors had insisted on that, after one look at the way dairy cattle were kept here. It was also one of the reasons she'd kept everyone at the base camp where they'd landed for some days, time for digestions to adapt as much as they were going to.

Amazing how you get used to things, she thought, looking at the others breaking camp in the gradually increasing light. A year ago… A year ago, TV and takeout Chinese, flush toilets and daily showers and a spray for the pits, riding in cars, taking a 747 and vacationing in the Rockies. A world where smells were flushed away, and everything was so damned easy. No homicidal savages with spears…

"No, just homicidal savages with Tech-9s," Alston muttered to herself. One of the few merits of low technology was that it was difficult to do a drive-by with an ax.

She dusted crumbs off her gorget and then put on her helmet, clipping the cheekpieces together under her chin. Working parties had already packed the coils of barbed wire back on the wagons; others were shoveling the embankment down into the ditch. Little was left of the rest of the encampment, and less every second. Squads were filling their canteens at the water barrels-easier to purify in bulk-and falling in. Alston looked at her watch again and nodded in satisfaction. Quite an improvement since the first night on the march, much less what they'd done back on the island in practice. Cold raindrops began to tinkle on her helmet, not a steady drizzle but occasional bursts from the ragged clouds overhead. She ignored it, as the troops on foot did. The only people traveling dry would be the wounded under the canvas tilts on the wagons.

Amazing how well they adapt to the fighting, too.

That was extremely different from things up in the twentieth. Here you got close enough to look into your opponent's eyes, close enough to smell him. Close enough to watch the expression as edged metal slammed home. Of course, it also had the advantage of being close enough to see what they intended for you.

The crowd of Fiernans outside the camp was larger, watching silently as the Americans formed up. Some of their Spear Chosen were turning thoughtfully, looking at the ordered ranks before them and then at the clots of followers squatting or sitting or leaning on their spears behind them. They don't know what we've got, but they want it, she thought.

The scouts were already fanning out ahead. Alston took her horse's reins, put her foot in the stirrup, and swung into the saddle with a slight grunt; the armor rattled, and she could swear she heard a slight ooof from the horse as well. It was a pony, really, barely thirteen hands high, but a sturdy, stocky little beast.

"Forward… march."

The officers relayed it. Drums beat and the lead company swung off by the left, spears bobbing in unison. More blocks of troops, then wagons-including the well-sprung ones with the wounded. Alston clucked to her horse and trotted down the line to the front, flags rippling and snapping behind her, and fell into position at the head of the line. The track wound off into the downs; not far from the camp it passed six graves on a hillside with a good view of the battlefield, with stout oak crosses marking them until they had time to do proper stone markers. Alston's right hand came up to the brim of her helmet with a tick. Behind her orders snapped:

"Eyes… right!"

The flags dipped, and the formations honored their dead. Even the Fiernans behind made gestures of respect, although they'd suffered far more cruelly than the armored Americans in the brief deadly fight.

"Soon," Swindapa said as they went through the shallow stream and back up onto the downlands. The burned village was already being rebuilt; the Sun People hadn't had enough time to completely wreck it. "A few miles to the southeast, and they'll send someone to meet us. News will have spread everywhere, to the Great Wisdom and as far north as the Goldstone Hills." Or the Cotswolds, to use a terminology three millennia out of phase.

She sounded eager, but not nervous anymore. Alston looked over at her; the Fiernan was riding with her helmet off and held before her on the saddlebow, looking in her armor like the cover of an adventure novel. The fight last week had changed something. For the better, as far as she could tell.

The landscape became flatter, the fields more open, larger, with more cattle and sheep and less cultivation as they rose. Long earthwork banks ran across it-field markers or symbols or something completely strange. Mounds rose above it, turf-green, sometimes with enigmatic shapes drawn across them in chalk. The crowds along the rutted trackway grew denser as the hours passed.

"Graves," Swindapa said, pointing to the mounds. "For great folk."

A scout came back up the trackway at a canter and saluted. "Party approaching on foot," she said.

Alston returned the gesture. "Carry on."

Swindapa fell silent, went pale, bit her lip, and blinked hard again and again. A party was approaching down the rutted, trampled dirt road. They wore woven straw cloaks against the rain, and broad hats. Two women with walking staffs, an older and a younger, and a couple of men with spears and bows. Alston threw her hand up, and the trumpet sounded halt and then stand easy. The Fiernans ahead flinched a little at the crashing unison as a hundred and fifty feet pounded to a stop, then came on again. Their eyes went wide again in astonishment as Alston removed her helmet and let them see her skin and features. The middle-aged Fiernan woman moistened her lips and began to speak:

"The Grandmothers of the Great Wisdom have sent me," she said slowly and ceremoniously. Alston found she could follow it, more or less. "To tell you that no strangers in arms may approach the holy place. Stop here, then, or we will call the Sacred Truce against you."

"Mother!" Swindapa squeaked, in her own language, throwing herself off the horse.

The woman's eyes went wide, really looking at the yellow-haired rider for the first time. "Swindapa!" she cried, spreading her arms.

The older woman was in her forties and looked a decade or so older, rangy and blond; the family resemblance was obvious. She wore a longer version of the string skirt that seemed to be standard women's dress here, made of interwoven strips of soft wool, each a subtly different color. Her belt had a gold buckle; the shirt above it was the natural gray of the fleece. Gold bands studded with amber were pushed up her bare arms, and the hands below were worn and capable-looking. Her eyes were the same deep blue as her daughter's; they kept going back to the young woman at Alston's side.

"Swindapa?" her mother asked. "I heard… I didn't believe…" Tears trickled down her cheeks.

Swindapa hugged the two women again and again, then the men. "Marian, my mother-Dhinwarn of the line of Kurlelo-my sister, Telartano, my uncles Grohuxj and Adaanfa."

Fiernan purled and bubbled between them, too swiftly for Alston to follow. The camp was going up faster than usual, with the early start and the troops fresh from a short march. Dhinwarn blinked a little at it, and more at the folding canvas chairs that appeared outside the commander's tent. She sat in one gingerly, as if expecting it to collapse under her. A bundle on the younger woman's back began to cry; she shifted it forward under her rain cloak, revealed a swaddled infant, and began to nurse it. At points in Swindapa's tale her mother and sister wept again, quite openly; the uncles growled curses as well as shedding tears. Later they glanced back and forth between Alston and their kinswoman with awe and wonder. At last the torrent of speech slowed down so that the American could follow some of it, or her ear grew accustomed to the machine-gun rapidity. It was her turn to blink.

She can't be saying what I think she's saying, can she?

"Ah… 'dapa, what are you telling them now, exactly?"

A brilliant, proud smile: "I'm telling them what a wonderful lover you are!"

I thought so, Alston thought with a slight wince. Telling them in extensive detail, from the sound of it; she'd learned Pieman anatomical vocabulary quite thoroughly. Talk about your culture clashes. " 'Dapa, no need for blow-by-blow, okay?"

She leaned back, resting her elbows on the arms of the chair and steepling her fingers, marshaling her scanty command of this language. Silence fell, and Swindapa's mother took up her carved staff.

"We come… friends," Alston said at last.

The Fiernans rose, came forward, and placed their hands on Alston's shoulder for a moment. "Thank you," Dhinwarn said solemnly. "You have returned my daughter to life." The others repeated it. "My sister."

"My sister's daughter who I put on my knee."

Alston cleared her throat, touched; like the Navajo, the Earth Folk spoke thanks only for the very greatest of gifts, taking everyday things for granted.

"Swindapa, speak for me," she said, when they were back in their chairs. "Tell them we'd like-I would, and a few others of us-would like to travel to the Great Wisdom and talk to the Grandmothers."

Dhinwara frowned, unhappy. "Why would you want to do that?" she said. "You are… Spear Chosen of the Eagle People."

Swindapa stopped translating for a moment and began to explain, or tried to. Dhinwarn smiled and shook her head.

"Swindapa says you are much more than that," she went on. "But a young woman in love often thinks more with her warm heart than her star-cool mind."

The Fiernan metaphor came through accurately enough, but from what she grasped of the original the phrasing was much more… earthy. Alston suppressed a giggle.

"We also have knowledge of the moon and stars," she said, and glanced up. The sky was clearing and sunset was only an hour off. "If the clouds allow, we'll show you." The Arnsteins and the telescope would, rather. "Also some other things you'd find useful. For instance, you memorize all the knowledge you keep, don't you?"

Swindapa's mother frowned in puzzlement. "Of course we remember it."

"No, that's not what I meant. You use… things, your circles of standing stones, knotted cords, tally sticks, songs, to help you remember something, don't you?"

A method with severe limitations. From what Swindapa had told her and what Martha and the Arnsteins had figured out, the Fiernan Bohulugi savants had run into a dead end some time ago. There was only so much information you could store orally; eventually it took so much time that new generations couldn't add any more without dropping something. Swindapa had mentioned how fewer and fewer of the younger generations were willing to go through the arduous apprenticeship, particularly with the Sun People pressing on them. This Bronze Age world looked static and unchanging to eyes brought up in the twentieth, but it was a time of upheaval by local standards. The faith of Moon Woman couldn't adapt fast enough; it was rooted in the Neolithic.

Dhinwarn nodded. "We have a way," Alston said, "of… marking down in symbols… both words and numbers, exactly, so that those who know it may take the record even generations later and understand it, as if the first person were speaking in their ear."

The older woman leaned forward, keenly interested. "How can this be?" she said. "A tally, you can't tell what it's numbers of, unless someone remembers what the notches are for. And the relations between numbers, the Wisdom of their ordering, how can this be put in concrete things? Even the Great Wisdom-" they all made a sign with their hands, like drawing a set of geometric shapes-"has meaning only to those brought up to it, learning the Songs."

Alston sighed and settled down to explaining. The sun faded and a trooper hung a lamp from the tentpole. Dhinwarn took longer than Swindapa had to understand what she was driving at, but her eyes lit like blowtorches when she did. Her voice trembled:

"My daughter… she says that among your people, there are great Wisdoms where these books are kept, and that any who learn the art may journey among the words of the Grandmothers-before?"

"Yes," Alston said, impressed at how rapidly she'd grasped the concept. "We call them libraries. And the skill of reading the words is not hard to learn. Swindapa mastered it very quickly. So we can store knowledge like, ah, like grain in a big jar, and draw it out when we need it. Of course, you need to know enough to know what questions to ask."

The others began volleying questions as well; once when Swindapa mentioned that she had seen constellations farther south unknown here her mother and sister rose and did a slow, stately dance around the fire, singing a minor-key chant. Their astronomy had long predicted it, and exact knowledge of stellar movements was the central element of their religion-it was how you read the intentions of Moon Woman. Alston spread a star map of the southern hemisphere and began explaining. Troopers brought their plates of beans and pork and bread; the Fiernans ate with their eyes glued to the paper.

At last Alston sat back, exhausted. "But I'm not what we'd call an expert," she said. "I sail ships and I fight, when I have to. Here's a learned person-Doreen, bring that telescope out-and she can tell you more."

Damned oddest way to negotiate a military alliance I've ever heard of, she thought, watching the astronomer and listening to Dhinwarn's trilling cry of joy when she realized what the telescope could do. Still, it could be worse.

If it had been the Middle Ages, they might have been burned as heretics-or found the locals dead-set on enlisting their help in liberating the Holy Sepulcher from the Saracens. In her opinion, defending Stonehenge from a bunch of blond Apaches was very much to be preferred.

I wonder how things are going back on the island? And how exactly am I going to explain about Walker?