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"Disssaaaaa!" she shrieked.
What had been a man flopped at her feet, neck half-severed and a great diagonal slash opening the front of his body, letting the pink-purple intestines fall free in a sharp stink of acid stomach juices and half-digested food. The Tartessian behind saw her face clearly through some freak of sight, screamed, and threw away his weapon, turned and ran facefirst into the wall and then cowered, dazed, with his arms wrapped around his head.
Well, I guess there is some use to this "living legend" shit, then, she thought bleakly, vaulting over the prostrate form of the one she'd killed. Four more enemy soldiers tumbled backward through the entranceway of the tower and slammed the door behind them.
Marian and Swindapa plastered themselves to either side of the tower entrance for a brief second. Marian looked across the doorway into her partner's face; they were both panting with the exertion of close combat.
She gasped air back into her lungs, forced the quivering out of hands and arms and shoulders, then caught the eye of the Marine squad's noncom, jerked a thumb at the door to the stairwell, and raised three fingers for an instant.
Aloud, to Swindapa: "If I'm the supreme commander, why do I always end up drawing point duty in an assault commando?"
"Maybe you're punishing yourself," Swindapa replied, her teeth showing in a brief grin. "What's the word, guilt? Next time, remember you're punishing me, too, and I wasn't raised to do this guilt thing. It's even stupider than monogamy and a lot less fun!"
"One…"
"Two…"
"Three!" they shouted together.
Baaaamm. Six rifles blasted holes through the pine planks, knocking splintered holes. Two rounds came back through the boards… probably all the reloading the enemy had had time to do. The two women hit the door with their shoulders and burst into the room. Marian ducked and flicked her blade to the left as a rifle butt went by. It brushed across the inch-long wool on the back of her head; she pivoted and cut horizontally, uncoiling like a twisted spring. A spray of blood followed the steel as it ripped across the soldier's belly, swept upward into chodan, snapped down in the pear-splitter. There was a thump of steel in wood as the next man blocked the cut with the stock of his rifle. Marian snap-kicked him in the groin, rammed her knee up to meet his descending face, jerked the sword free, and lunged over his back in a two-handed thrust as he crawled away…
It was too dark, cramped, chaotic for the Marines behind them to fire. For the space of twenty seconds the room was full of the deadly whirling flicker of their swords, clash and clang and clatter of metal on metal and on wood, the shrieking of amp;/a-calls and the shocked screams of pain beyond what human flesh could imagine. Parry and strike by instinct and reflex with nothing clearly seen and wounded men writhing on the ground beneath…
Then the last Tartessians were backing up the stairs; Marian and Swindapa pressed them hard, lest they have time to reload or think up some other devilment. Bayonets stabbed down, swords licked out as the enemy climbed backward. Crash and clang… At last the stair came to a landing.
"Down!" someone shouted behind them.
They dropped forward, driving their opponents that last step back with thrusts at their feet. A wobbling cast-iron egg flew over their heads, rebounded off the outer wall, dropped behind the green-clad soldiers. Marian could distinctly hear the ckkkk-ching! as the spoon flew free of the grenade and clattered away. Badammpp, and a wash of heat in the damp still air of the stairwell. Up again, over the bodies-ignore them, the sight will come back too soon whether you want to remember or not, the way blood spattered in fans and arcs across the whitewashed earth-brick walls, the reflex quivering of a heel beating a tattoo on the floor-and through the door. The top of the tower was a suite, a bedroom below and an office above. The bedroom was empty, but they went up the stairs cautiously. The office above was still brightly lit by a kerosene lamp.
"Oh, hell," Marian said.
They'd killed the Tartessian commandant with their game-rifle barrage, all right; the massive bullet had taken the top right off his head and he lay with a sprinkle of glittering shattered glass dusted over the wetness. The woman draped over him didn't look much better; the exit wound in her back was big enough to hold paired fists.
Well, the gun was designed for elephant and buffalo, she thought with angry resignation, as automatic reflex drew a cloth out of her belt and ran the sword through it.
It wasn't that Marian Alston-Kurlelo objected to killing -» women, specifically. I scarcely could, being one myself. What she hated was noncombatants getting injured, and the Tartessian woman obviously was no warrior. Not least because of the baby lying on the floor by the desk, still swaddled in cloth as was the custom here, screaming angrily, its face and wrappings spattered with its parents' blood and bits of their lung and brain and bone.
Cost of doing business, she thought. Which is why I hate this business. Leave out the waste, filth, misery, wounds, pain, and death, and war would be a glorious thing.
Swindapa snapped her sword aside with a wrist movement that flicked off excess blood, cleaned and sheathed the steel over her shoulder in a single fluid motion, and went to one knee beside the child.
"A boy," she said after an instant, an infinite tenderness in her tone. "Not hurt, just needs changing."
That's a relief, Alston thought, her shoulders relaxing. Do Jesus, I've got enough on my conscience.
The Intelligence specialist had fallen on the desk and filing cabinets, eyes gleaming behind his spectacles; he looked like a rabbit on pure crystal meths, giving little mewing cries of astonishment as he worked. First he stuffed his satchel full, and then he dragged Marines over by their webbing harness, cramming more files into their knapsacks.
He was literally wringing his hands when they were full; this time he reminded her of a big dog she'd seen at a barbeque once, its stomach distended like a ball and a pile of bones under its front paws. It had looked at them mournfully, moaning, longing to eat and unable to find space for another bite…
She went to the window. The firing in the streets was picking up; a glance at her watch… Do Jesus, only fifteen minutes? But at some point the Tartessians were going to get organized, even with their commander dead.
"Ortiz!" she said into the handset, and looking down toward the dockside. There were buildings burning now, and the light grew by the minute. "Report."
"Ma'am, the barges're moored with a thick chain ru
Crack! A flash of red fire and a cheer she could hear clearly even hundreds of yards away.
"-but that's got it!" She could hear him turn his head, the voice fading a bit as he yelled: "Lay aloft there, get those sails sheeted home-Johnstone to the tiller!"
"Carry on." A switch of frequencies; Lord Jesus, but they were going to miss these things when they wore out! The post-Event equivalents were barely man-transportable, and ludicrously unreliable. "Major Stavrand."
"On schedule, ma'am! Target-rich environment here. I feel like a kid in Sweet Inspirations with a sack of gold!"
"Get it done, Mr. Stavrand," she said. "Soon."
The artillery officer liked blowing things up, which was why he doubled as a demolitions expert. He was also very good at it. And he grew up after the Event-otherwise he'd have said "a credit card." So the twentieth century vanished, bit by bit.
She began to turn, then staggered and threw up her hand as the tower quaked beneath her and adobe dust smoked out of the walls. One of the squat mud-brick warehouses vanished in a gout of flame and pillar of smoke, and wreckage came pattering out of the sky for a thousand yards in every direction. Much of it was burning, and no doubt it would set more fires despite the rain.