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"Of course they're telling the truth," Alantethol snarled when the sergeant doubted it. "Look at their arms-they've received the vaccination. And no new cases of smallpox, either. The tracks are plain, besides. You men, leave off with those women-what do you think this is, a harvest festival? Mount up!"
The party with him had covered the distance in a third the time the tribute patrol would have made, unencumbered with a wagon and eating jerky and biscuit in the saddle rather than stopping to hunt. By then Alantethol remembered a joke that the King had told him, one Isketerol had heard from the Islander who taught him to ride horseback while he was in Nantucket. It was in the title of a book by a cavalry commander, Forty Years in the Saddle, by Major Assburns. It didn't seem so fu
He stood in the stirrups to survey a stretch of tall grass that looked much like all the others they'd seen on their ride north from the Hidden Fort. The native trackers saw something else, though. They dismounted and cast about, then came trotting back to his stirrup.
"Wagon tracks, stop here," one said, pointing about with his spear. "Whole bunch, stop there-ride about-stop there." He pointed off to the westward, toward another section of the flat plain. "Then wagon go there-" He pointed northward. "Most horses, they there."
Alantethol considered himself a fair man of the chase; his father had helped feed his family by joining hunts for wild pig in the marshes in winter. He still couldn't make hide nor hoof of the signs the trackers showed him, except for the wheel marks of the wagon.
"Wagon go slow, slow," the tracker said. After a while he pursed his lips and spat. "Not so many ox-beasts after here. And heavy, much heavy."
The Tartessian knotted a fist on the pommel of his saddle and looked around, listening to the sough and hiss of wind in grass that was drying toward summer's yellow. One of the great vultures was circling not too far up, more huge than a beast had a right to be. In the Hidden Fort you could forget how far Homeland was, how few civilized men were in this land, the sheer size of it. That was all too painfully apparent, out here where his soldiers were less than an ant crawling along a plank. He shivered, and promised a horse to the Sun Lord; right then he didn't feel confident enough to call the Hungry One's attention to him. Victory came from Him, yes… but never forever.
The other tracker came over and held up something. Alantethol took it up, smelled it, rolled it between his fingers. A ragged circle of scorched felt about the size of this thumb, greasy with beeswax, still scented with burned gunpowder. It was one of the wads that lay at the base of every cartridge, to seal the breech against the hot gas.
"Many of these?" he asked the tracker.
"Many, many," the tame savage said. "There-" He pointed to the little slough that ran down to the river ahead of them. "There-" His hand swung westward. "Many, many, many."
The Tartessian commander snarled. There had obviously been a battle here… but there were no signs of it, no rotting bodies and squabbling buzzards and condors. Not a scrap of gear, either. "We'll follow the wagon," he said at last. Tarmendtal might have sent the wagon on ahead and taken mounted men on a sweep westward into little-known regions, for some reason. Or.. not.
"We'll go with the original plan," Peter Giernas said.
The four log canoes were gathered stern to stern so that the Islanders could confer. All of them were looking serious, except for Eddie, who was sharpening the blade of his tomahawk and whistling cheerfully. He tested the edge by shaving off one of the fringes on his hunting shirt, flipped the war-hatchet into the air in a blurring circle and caught it by the end of the two-foot handle, and slipped it onto the loop at the back of his belt.
"Sounded good to me the first time," he said. "They aren't expecting us-just go in and knock on the front door. You should let me go first, though-I'd be less of a loss to the expedition."
Giernas shook his head, slapped a mosquito and continued:
"It's not a sure thing, but it's the best chance we'll have, I think. They're not looking all that alert, from what I saw- just dull duty in a goddamn swamp. Question is, do the locals understand what we're trying to do?"
The Nantucketers exchanged looks. "I think they understand they're not supposed to fight until we tell them to," Sue said doubtfully. "Think that'll do?"
"It'll have to." Giernas sighed. "All right, let's go. If we push it a little, we should get there for what the locals tell us is their di
It was cooling in the branch where the canoes had lain up, as the sun set westward over an expanse like the sea. That was welcome; the swarms of mosquitoes that thickened as the sun went down were not. I hope to hell the Tartessians haven't exposed anyone with malaria to these bloodsuckers, Giernas thought, as his paddlers bent to their work. Birds flitted by overhead, half-visible streaks in the growing darkness, vanishing into the reeds and rank tree growth on either side. A lantern on a pole stood behind him, with the Rock-of-Gibraltar enemy flag flying beneath it. More insects bumped up against the thick pebbled glass that shielded a dim kerosene flame.
The crew of the Mother of Invention looked quite different now, dressed in the uniforms of the slain Tartessian soldiers, heads helmeted or wrapped in banda
The enemy would probably be deceived. The enemy just didn't have any reason to be wary. Not after six years of successful concealment. It was easy to hide things in the world of the Year 11. There was just so much space and communications were so slow.
They turned out into the main stream and southwest; he pushed on the tiller, keeping them close to the northeastern bank of the cha
"Should fool 'em long enough," he muttered under his breath. "People see what they expect to see…"
Out again, into the broad reach of the main cha
Silence, except for the grunting exhalation of breath and the drip of the paddles, the chuckle of water along the canoe and the beat of blood in his own ears. Christ, if I liked fighting, I'd have joined the Marines. I like to travel and hunt and see new places. The black length of the ship showing yellow through the ports as her own lanterns were lit, a faerie glow that turned her rigging into traceries of spidersilk in the gathering darkness. A voice called sharply in the clotted tongue of ancient Iberia, all "u" and "z" sounds.