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The result was a slaughter. The Mardukans, faced by a radically new approach to fighting and unable to find a way through the shield wall, found themselves slipping in the spilled intestines of their own front line instead. Kosutic watched the entire battle dispassionately. She'd become expert at gauging Mardukan morale over the last few weeks, and she saw the point of balance when the barbarians began to waver.
She glanced at Captain Pahner, who nodded. Time to finish this.
"Bravo Company will advance!" she called. She looked to the woods to her right, where there was a flash of metal. "Prepare to advance on cadence. In step! HUT!"
The company moved forward, calling the time, short swords and spears stabbing with every step, and the Mardukan tribesmen found themselves driven back. The alternative to retreat was to spit themselves on those dreadful knives the humans wielded.
The plasma ca
It came down to attrition and morale ... but that was easy enough to change. Kosutic looked over at the captain once more, and Pahner nodded in response and keyed his radio.
"Now would be good, Rastar," the communicator clipped to the Mardukan's harness said, and the Therdan prince carefully depressed the talking switch.
"Right-oh," he responded in Standard English. Roger had started using the expression around him a good bit, and Rastar knew it was some sort of joke, but he liked it anyway. He looked over at Honal and wrinkled the skin over one eye in another human expression. "Shall we, cousin?"
The guard commander grunted in laughter and gave a tooth-showing human-style grin.
"Yes, cousin. Let's." He looked at his force and drew his saber. "Sheffan!" he cried, slapping the flank of his civan with the flat of his blade. Time to show these barbarian bastards what it meant to get in the way of the riders of the North.
The one worry the travelers had had, that the city might not open its gates to them, turned out to be moot. The square beyond those gates was lined with cheering townsfolk, and the guardsmen ma
In fact, the humans found themselves forced to form a perimeter around their packbeasts to hold back the cheering crowds. After a few moments' struggle, the Northern cavalry pushed through to join them, using their occasionally snapping civan to open up a space around the human contingent and their animals. It was as well that they had, for the shouts and high-pitched whistles of the ecstatic Mardukans bounced back and forth between the stone curtain wall and the city's structures. The enclosure trapped the bedlam, turning it into a hot, close maelstrom in which all sanity seemed to have been lost as the city guards slammed the gates behind the new arrivals.
The boom of the closing gates could barely be heard over the thunder of the locals, but it still startled Patty, and the overwrought flar-ta let out a low rumble and slapped her feet up and down on the cobbles, waving her horns back and forth at the pressing crowd.
"Ho, girl!" Roger yelled over the frenzied uproar, scratching her under her armored shield and patting her on the shoulder. "Steady!"
The huge beast uttered a half-furious, half-querulous bugle, but it was obvious that she hovered on the brink of a berserk response. In another moment she would charge the crowd like a six-ton bull in a china shop, and Pahner shook his head and keyed his helmet.
"Roger, try to keep her under control!" he said quickly, and patted his pockets until he came up with a flash grenade, set the timer for a three-second delay, and threw it straight up in the air.
The tremendous flash and crack of the human weapon had become normal to the packbeasts, who paid no attention to it. But the intense report, magnified by the echoing walls, shocked the crowd into momentary silence broken only by the low rumble of Patty's prebattle fury.
In the hush that followed, a group of guards clad in chain mail and plate pushed their way through the crowd, escorting a pair of elderly Mardukans. At their appearance, the crowd began to fall reluctantly back from the caravan. A few still cheered, but were quickly hushed into silence by their fellows.
Roger waited for several moments, until he was confident that Patty had calmed down at least some, then waved for the head mahout to relieve him on her back and slid to the ground. He walked across to where Pahner stood awaiting the delegation and smiled at the Marine.
"I think they're happy to see us."
"Too happy," the captain replied sourly. "Nobody is that pleased to see the Corps unless their ass is caught in a crack."
"Which means ours is, as well," Roger said. "Right?"
"What else is pocking new?" Poertena muttered, then looked up at his glowering CO and swallowed hastily. "Sir?"
The captain glowered at the armorer for another long moment, but finally relented.
"Nothing, Poertena," he said, shaking his head. "Nothing new in that at all. In fact ..."
" ... it's getting really old," Roger finished.
"Yep," the company commander said as the delegation finally made it through the cordon of shield-wielding Marines. "Real old," he added, holding out his hand palm up in Mardukan greeting.
The delegation looked terribly pleased to see them.
Terribly.