On the Oceans of Eternity

Raupasha winced inwardly. My poor bleeding country! It would take generations to recover from the Assyrian occupation, and if in the meantime they became the battleground of contending Great Powers…

Everyone nodded. "It's even money," O'Rourke said. "We've slowed them just a bit, we have."

"They're not sure where our separate forces are," Ke

"Ah!" Raupasha said, visualizing one of the Islander maps. "And if he advances eastward to pass us, so as to strike at the Great King of Haiti, we can descend on his sides… I mean his flanks."

And yes, that was a considering look of respect. She made herself sit up, leaning back on the rocky edge of the pool with her arms out to either side, as Kathryn had, acutely conscious of how it made her breasts stand.

"I wonder that Walker has not concentrated and struck at one of our separated forces," Kashtiliash said.

Just then an orderly came up with a basket. The tantalizing smell of fresh bread came from it. "They got the earth ovens going, sir," she said proudly. "Real risen leavened bread."

"Thanks! I get so damned sick of pita," Ke

The air was cold; Raupasha gratefully wrapped one of the lengths of plundered-foraged, she reminded herself-cloth they were using as towels around herself, knotting it by one armpit so that it covered her from collarbone to knee. The fire hissed and sputtered as a rack of beef ribs and her gift were spitted on green sticks and suspended over the coals. The basket held cheese, raisins, olives and dried figs besides the loaves. O'Rourke showed her how to cut off a slab of the bread and toast it and some cheese over the fire while the meat cooked.

"Yeah," Ke

O'Rourke nodded: "It's like fighting a big, strong fellah who's half-blind and half-deaf."

Kashtiliash shrugged: "His blows are still nothing to laugh at, when he finds a target."

"It's a matter of time," Ke

It had grown dark, only a pink glow left on the snow peaks to the north. The firelight played over the craggy planes of his face, the light dusting of golden hair over his body, the play of long smooth muscles on long limbs and the hard V-shape from broad shoulders to narrow waist. He didn't have the bulk of thew that gave Kashtiliash a Minotaur's presence, but he shone with youth and health, strength and a leopard's deadly speed. Scars only gave him the gravitas of experience.

Oh, Ishtar of the Lovers, but he is beautiful, Raupasha thought, trying to keep her thought from her face. And if some stranger were to come… even naked as we all are, and among so many proven fighting-men, still he would not have to ask who our leader is.

Marian Alston stifled a yawn with locked jaws and forced herself to listen alertly. The staff meeting was nearly finished; nobody had gotten much sleep last night, and they'd all been hard at work since before sunup. The steam ram had saved their bacon by smashing the Tartessian galleys into unthreatening splinters, but there was still plenty of damage to repair.

"Farraguts still afloat," Captain Trudeau said grimly, the ointment on his face glistening in the bright sunshine. Usually he was a humorous sort, but under the circumstances… "And that's all I can say."

The Republic's fleet lay in the shelter of… Cadiz, I suppose we can call it, Marian Alston-Kurlelo thought, with its masts and spars making a spiky leafless forest for the better part of a mile along the shore that sheltered it from the Atlantic swells. Most of them were several hundred yards offshore; they'd brought the steam ram closer in, so that it would have only a few feet to settle if it finally gave up the struggle for buoyancy.

The Farragut was looking a bit better than it had when they first arrived, mainly because the rails weren't quite so close to the water; none of the portholes were submerged anymore, either. A trickle of black smoke came from its fu

"I want to get the boilers cool as soon as I can, so we can do some real work on them," Trudeau went on. His hands were bandaged, and his naturally rather dark high-cheeked face had a reddish flushed look, with his blue eyes peering out like turquoise set in copper.

"The boiler's frame seams parted during the blow-the supporting timbers flexed under the stress-and water started dripping down into the furnaces. It was wetting the coal, keeping the temperature down so we lost steam. God knows what happened when we started using the ram in the battle yesterday. Plus she spewed out most of her oakum."

"What did you do about the boilers?" Swindapa asked, moving her mouth carefully. The left side of her face was a rainbow of colors from the bruising impact of the rifle butt, and a couple of teeth were still a little loose. "With the furnace, I mean."

"We had to wrap some people up in water-soaked rags and send them in to slap clay putty on the worst leaks," Trudeau said. "Nobody died, but a couple collapsed… that slowed us up, had to go in twice…"

"People went in while the furnaces were hot?" Victor Ortiz asked incredulously. "Inside the furnaces?"

Trudeau nodded. "Had to, Vic-tabernac, if we hadn't, we'd have lost power completely and been driven onto the cliffs. The masts had already gone by the board, and besides that her seams were working so badly we'd have sunk without power to the pumps, it was like trying to go to sea in a sieve. As it was we were down to six knots and barely made it here in time."

Alston spoke: "I think that was more a matter of leading the working party in than sending it, wasn't it, Commander Trudeau?"

Trudeau had been a cadet when Eagle was caught in the Event. He still looked much younger than the twenty-nine he was when he blushed and shrugged. "Someone had to do it," he said.

"But you did it," she said, nodding and marking it down for later reference. Ortiz was gri

"No, ma'am."

"Well, she did well enough yesterday, Gary. The account's in the black for a good long while."