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"Why don't they run?" Swindapa cried.
"They're warriors," the Captain said. "Their whole lives are bound up in their courage and sense of their own honor. They can't let danger or pain turn them aside."
A trickle of warriors won past the caltrops and ran forward, screaming defiance. Crossbow bolts slammed into them, but now they were a more scattered target, and some did not fall.
Closer, and Swindapa could see the contorted painted faces within the mask-helmets. One reached the line of spears, hacked down at a point, pushed forward. The second line stabbed at him.
"Harder! Kill him, goddammit!" the captain barked.
The Olmece swung his stone-edged club-sword with desperate force. His shield went up to stop a spearpoint, but the long steel head punched through the light wicker and the arm beneath. Another caught him in the side, pulling back with a jerk. More probed at him, until the feathers of his costume were dyed fresh scarlet. The warrior went to his knees with blood leaking from his mouth, but a comrade vaulted on his back and leaped, howling. The third-rank islander stumbled backward under the impact, and more Olmecs were coming up, loping for the gap in the line.
"Shit," the captain said. "Stay on my left, 'dapa."
She ran forward at her lover's side. The warrior saw them coming and turned, roaring. The rake came down, and the captain's katana came up to meet it. Stone swept along steel with a tooth-grating sound and the warrior half-turned with the impetus of the blow redirected. Flexing wrists snapped the blade up again, up and back, foot stamped forward, and the blade came down in a blurring curve, just as they'd practiced… only this time there was a man reeling away with an arm hanging by a thread, reeling and falling. The captain moved forward into the next, sword rising to chudan no kame.
Another beside him, spear arm back for the thrust. Swindapa pivoted to deal with that one. Keep your mind out of the way, ran through her. It was true. Her hands had learned; the sword came up and turned as she thrust, cutting edge up, right hand just behind the guard to guide and left on the pommel to give force, body moving behind it. Down, hands loose, now clench, elbows out… the impact, and she continued through the curve of the circular motion, whipping the sword through the diagonal and drawing the cut. Ruin flopped down to lie at her feet.
Swindapa staggered slightly as an obsidian spearpoint broke on her breastplate, knocking her back two steps. Her sword snapped up, cutting into the underside of the Indian's arms above the elbows, and he fell backward. That put him in the rear rank of spear-bearers, and a shield edge slammed down, twice.
Then there was no one else to fight here. More Olmecs were out beyond the line of spears, caught and slashing as the wielders slammed the points forward. The crossbows were down, and the islanders were unslinging the shields across their backs and drawing the short stabbing swords slung at their right hips. An Olmec rake came down on a metal-faced shield and the cadet staggered beneath it, going to one knee. The warrior stepped closer for another stroke, froze for a second's incredulity as he saw how the obsidian edge of his weapon exploded into fragments against the metal, and ran onto the long point of the upflung gladius. The cadet's comrades heaved her back as she knelt staring; others closed in, four against one, stabbing. One reeled back yelling and clutching at an arm bone-bruised through the armor that protected it. The others thrust and thrust again. The Olmec staggered, swung his blunted rake in a final circle, and collapsed. Blood ran out on the ashy ground from the broad wounds the leaf-shaped short swords had made.
And then the remaining foemen were ru
"Fire! Don't let them get away!" the captain shouted in an astonishing husky roar, enough to cut through the confusion. Crossbows twanged again, enough to bring down a man here, another there, a steady trickle until the last survivors were out of range.
Swindapa tried to swallow, felt her tongue dry as leather.
The hand she released from the hilt of the katana was sticky, coming free with a tack sound as she reached for the water bottle at her waist. The bodies were steaming under the hot sun, the smells of shit and iron-copper blood already underlain by a slight sickly scent as tissue began to go off. Insects swarmed, feeding.
"We won," she said huskily, staring.
It wasn't a pleasant sight. The captain was right about that, though she hadn't truly believed until now. It was certainly a lot better than losing, though.
A hand patted her armored shoulder briefly. She stood straighter, feeling the constriction around her chest easing.
"We surely did," the captain said.
"Thank God for morphine," the corpsman said.
Alston nodded. The aid station was busy; there were a dozen seriously wounded Americans, one with a raked-open face who might not live. We should modify these helmets-hinged cheek guards. There were a couple of other face wounds, or blades driven in under armpits, or in the back of the leg. The doctor sewed and bandaged, debrided and cleansed. Orderlies moved the treated back under the awnings and stood by to keep the insects off.
And all from a few seconds of hand-to-hand, she thought soberly. If it had come to a melee, or if the numbers hadn't been so grossly unequal by the time the last Olmecs came into arm's reach, she doubted the Islanders' armor and weapons would have been enough. We need a lot more practice, most of us. Or Uzis and M-16s, whichever they could manage to get first.
"Good work," she said to the last of the conscious wounded, touching him gently on the shoulder.
He managed a smile, eyes wandering as the combination of drug and shock blurred the edge of thought. "Kicked ca
"We surely did, son. Now you rest-you've done your bit."
She stood and moved forward. You could see where the Olmecs had hit the caltrops; there was a row of bodies there, some piled two or three deep. Must have gotten a third of them that way, held up while we shot them, she thought. Swindapa came up with a bucket of water and they cleaned themselves. Blood swirled into the silt-brown liquid. They drank again from their water bottles; everyone seemed to be thirsty. She could feel the sweat oozing through the padding under her armor, as saturated as if she'd gone for a swim. Looking down she saw a line of bright scratches and a dint across the lower part of her breastplate, and she didn't even recall the blow landing. Without the metal, that would have cut halfway through to her spine; those obsidian bladelets were sharp. And it had all taken barely half an hour…
"Ma'am." She returned the young man's salute; her hand went tick against the edge of her flared helmet. She seemed to be noticing details like that. And sensations stayed with her, the ugly slicing, jarring feeling of the sword going through muscle and bone… Enough. Think about that later.
"Ma'am, what shall we do with the enemy wounded? There are a lot of them."
"Bring them back to the aid station, but carefully. Mr. Ortiz! Stretcher bearers and guards for the enemy wounded. We'll do what we can for them."
"Mr. Toffler," she went on. "Report."
The noise of the ultralight's engine came through the handset. "Captain, they're still ru