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"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 cha
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 ca
The singing of a thousand nightingales.
"I know dead men are blind and ca
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.