Страница 154 из 163
Above him a man's voice bellowed. He didn't know the Fiernan Bohulugi language. If he had, the words would still have sounded odd, in an accent like that of his sorcerer-lord. Three words, shouted over and over again: draw… all together… shoot!
The footmen broke and ran, the few surviving chariots among them. Merenthraur pushed himself to his feet with his shield, shouting incoherently against the piteous squealing of wounded horses. The Fiernan spearmen were rushing out into the wreck of the chariots, points busy. He drew his sword and set himself as two attacked him, one a youth and one with a grown man's beard; his blade chopped a shaft aside, but his knee betrayed him when he tried to follow through with a blow of the shield, and he toppled sideways.
He had just enough time to realize the youth was a woman before the point of her spear grated through his face and into his brain. The sound of splintering bone was the last he ever heard.
"Shit, shit, shit," Alston swore under her breath. "Rapczewicz, you're in charge here until I get back. Shit!"
She ran down the slope and flung herself into the saddle, barely conscious of how six months' practice had made that possible-not easy, she realized as she groped for a stirrup and the animal squealed and surged sideways, but possible. Then she was galloping southward along the front of the line, ignoring the cheers, barely conscious of Swindapa's form beside her with the ba
"Back!" she shouted. "Back, damn you all, back."
The milling chaos that had been the right wing of her line slowed and stopped. "They flee!" one man shouted, pointing back toward the easterners line. "They run in fear!"
Alston stood in the stirrups, the flag beside her and her height on horseback drawing eyes. "Back! It's a trick-" not now it isn't, but it might be next time-"and you'll fight when I tell you, not before. So you swore! Is your oath good?"
Swindapa came in on her heels, in a torrent of Fiernan Bohulugi. Slowly, the general rush stopped and then turned back toward their positions. Just then there was a huge flat whunk sound, and a rising screech came at her, the horse rearing as something plowed up the turf not twenty feet away. Alston slugged the reins and forced it trembling back to all fours; it tried to turn in a circle and then subsided. A glance over her shoulder showed the plume of dirty-white gunpowder smoke rising from the enemy line.
"Stay in your positions until you're told!" she shouted, and repeated the message as they cantered back to the original position. "Stay! Hold them!"
"That was a fucking fiasco," Walker muttered, tracking with his binoculars. "Refusing the slope-Alston has me pegged as Napoleon, but I'm not that crazy yet."
She must have the archers standing on the opposite side of that rise, just out of sight. The old trick the British had used in the war against Napoleon's marshals, keeping their infantry out of ca
He went on in Iraiina: "It's not the first blow that settles a fight," he said confidently, and moved over to the ca
Two men at the end of the first gun's trail heaved, and the muzzle swiveled around. The gu
"Yup, can't stand seeing someone run away… Oh, good, it's the black bitch herself. There's your aiming point, men-that flag. Now."
The crew were practiced enough, but he'd only had enough powder for a few live firings. The massive whump sound set horses rearing and men starting in fear down the long ragged line of the Iraiina-led host. He watched the fall of shot and swore softly as the streaming Stars and Stripes came galloping out of the plume of dirt plowed up by the roundshot. Cheering ran along the enemy line as the two riders made their way back along it.
"Reload with ball and hold fire," he said to the ca
That brought cheers for him, too. The crew went through their routine: stick the bundle of rags on the end of the rammer into the leather bucket, then down the barrel with a quick twist to quench any lingering sparks in a long hiss of steam. Then the cartridge, powder in a dusty linen bag, a wooden sabot, and the iron ca
"They're obviously not going to come to us," he muttered to himself. Well, he wouldn't in Alston's position, either. His army needed to get into the Fiernan Bohulugi lands and get at their supplies, or hunger would force them to disperse in a week or less. He had to attack, to break them, and do it soon.
"Father and lord," he said, stepping over to Daurthu
"Aren't they going to, ah, try and take us in the flank or something?" Ian asked.
Alston chuckled without lifting her eyes from the big tripod-mounted binoculars. "They just did, Ian, and it didn't work."
Her head came up. "They're havin' a staff conference, looks like… You see," she went on to the scholar, "that sort of thing is easier said than done-flank attacks, indirect approach, blitzkrieg, elegant ways of fightin'. Usually happens when one army is a lot better than the other-better organized, most often. Or the generals are. Or somebody gets dead lucky. But there's not much room for that here; neither of these armies is what you'd call maneuverable. The Sun People are a bit fiercer, but the Fiernans are fightin' for their homes. No real unit structure on either side, not much cavalry except those chariots, and they're awkward. And I'm not a fool, and neither is Walker, damn him. Worst sort of battle, both sides pretty evenly matched."
"What decides who wins, then?"
"Luck and endurance. There they are, and here we are, and both of us have a pretty good idea of where all the other side's forces are. So we'll probably just pound and pound and pound at each other, till somebody makes a really bad mistake, or breaks under the strain. We've got some advantage, since defending is easier than attacking."
"Oh," Ian said, shivering slightly. Last man standing wins. It didn't sound very pleasant.
He switched his attention back to the enemy. They were stirring, a stream of chariots wheeling away from the central location to points along the line. Bright sunlight flickered and glimmered on the war-cars, gold and bronze and plumes on the horses. Chiefs, he realized. Probably called in to hear orders; more likely to listen to them that way than to a low-status messenger, from what he knew of Iraiina customs. Horns sounded, dunting and snarling.
Then the enemy formation stretched at the ends, thi
"Well," he heard Alston mutter, "either he's given up on subtle, or he's bein' more subtle than I can grasp."
Then she rapped out an order. "Ready with the darters. Prepare to execute Phase B, part one. Execute."