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Four bead pistol shots cracked out before a single rifle could speak, and the Boman flew backwards in explosions of gore.
"What?" Roger said, holstering the pistol and returning to his asi's bandage. "Like that?"
"Yeah," Despreaux said quietly into the sudden silence. "Like that."
"You know," the prince said, never looking up from the bandage, "one of these days, I'm going to be in a fight where I don't kill anything."
"That'll be the day," the sergeant replied sadly.
"You know, this could turn out to be a nice day after all," Krindi Fain said as regular volleys started hammering to the east.
Despite the lack of support, the former sergeant had sent snipers forward to peck at the Boman line. The response had been violent, but uncoordinated, with nearly three hundred Boman chasing the snipers into the woods ... where the survivors of his hundred-man company had finally ambushed them at the edge of a thicket. The company's fire had piled up most of the barbarians for very little loss, which had been one of the first things to go right all day. But nice as that had been, the sudden, massive firing crashing out to the east now was the most blessed sound he'd ever heard.
"Our job's done," he said. "Let's go find the good guys. And for the God's sake, keep an eye out! The Boman are going to be swarming around the flanks, and we don't want to get shot by our own people, either!"
"Can we loot the ones we killed, Lieutenant?" one of the troopers asked.
"Not until after the battle," he snapped. "Now let's move out while the moving's good."
"But we're go
"You're go
"Time to leave, people," the company commander said, pointing slightly to the south of the firing. "About there should be good."
"Right there!" Rastar shouted as the civan lurched to its feet. He spurred to the west, revolvers streaming smoke and flame. Half a dozen of his troopers rode with him, their massed fire tearing a hole in the Boman line, and then all of them dodged aside as the herd of stampeding civan thundered past them.
The loose civan, driven by Honal and a dozen more mounted troopers and maddened with fear from the firing and blood smell behind them, smashed into the already breached Boman line, throwing it even further into chaos. The regular volleys from the south, when most of the previous firing-light as it had been-had come from the southwest, had thrown the enemy totally off balance. Caught between two fires, the barbarians on the south side of the perimeter hadn't known which way to turn.
The barbarians on the other three sides had no such doubts. They charged forward when they saw the cavalry slipping out through the hole in the line, but only to run into regular, slamming volleys of aimed rifle fire. The three thousand cavalry in the pocket had been low on ammunition, and barely a tenth of them had been armed with rifles. The men of the five rifle battalions Bistem Kar had peeled off and assigned to Major Dnar Ni, who had replaced the recently deceased Colonel Rahln as CO of the Marton Regiment, suffered under no such handicap. There were two thousand of them, and they slammed volley after volley into the packed barbarians. The four-armed Mardukans could load, prime, and fire their weapons without even lowering them from the firing position, and their rate of fire was incredible by any human standard. The Boman were crowded so closely together a single bullet could kill or wound as many as three, or even four of them, and each rifleman was sending six aimed rounds per minute straight into them. Not even the famed Boman fighting frenzy could carry them forward into that vortex of destruction, and the warriors in front of the firing line were driven to ground.
The warriors to either side of the relief force riflemen spread wider, seeking to find and envelop their flanks, only to encounter assegai-armed spearmen and recoil afresh.
"Message to Colonel Des," Kar said. "He's to refuse his right flank and withdraw. Same message to Colonel Tarm, but he's to refuse his left."
The K'Vaernian general looked up with a nod as Rastar reached his command group and reined in.
"Prince Rastar."
"General Kar," the prince said with a matching nod. "Nice of you to show up."
"Had a few problems with a subcommander," the K'Vaernian admitted. "They're solved. How many are we looking at?"
"Not the entire host, thank the gods." The cavalry officer slid off his civan. "I think Camsan figured out where we were headed sooner than we'd pla
"As long as it's not the full hundred thousand already, we should be fine," Kar said. "We need to retreat smartly, though."
"Oh, yes," Honal agreed fervently, riding into the conference. "I don't want to spend another night like that last one."