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A voice hissed in his ear, in the Eagle People tongue: "You shouldn't have hurt my dog, motherfucker."
The arms scissored across. He heard a crackling sound like a green stick breaking, and then heard nothing, ever again.
Peter Giernas lowered the body to the ground, ignoring the death stink, and looked casually behind him as a bored sentry might. Eddie Vergeraxsson climbed over the wall, then pulled up the long rope and unhitched the lariat-loop from the point of the palisade log. He was also in Tartessian military garb, and made a marginally more convincing Iberian than Giernas. Peter had shaved off his bright orange-yellow beard, but he couldn't do anything about his height, or the color of his eyes, or the short straight nose and general Baltic cast of his features.
They both went to the doorway on the top of the gate-tower. The sentry on the other side of the gateway had noticed them; he shouted something and waved. Giernas shouted something back and waved himself; it was just a little too far to see a man's face clearly if you looked down a bit.
"By the Blood Hag, I hope this works," Eddie said. "We'd never get away with it if their real fighting-men weren't mostly away chasing moonbeams."
Peter picked up the cloth satchel his fellow ranger handed him, and reached inside until he felt the toggle of the friction-primer. "I just hope Sue and Jaddi are okay."
The green winter landscape of the Guadalquivir Valley rolled by at twenty-five miles an hour; north and ahead lay the forested slopes of the Sierra Morena, the Black Mountains-white with snow on the summits, looking like shaggy white fur where it rested on the trees. Down here in the rolling plains it was much like a spring day back on Nantucket. just cold enough to make their sweaters-military pullovers with leather patches at the shoulders and elbows-comfortable.
It had been nearly a year since Marian Alston-Kurlelo had ridden in a motor-driven vehicle; more than ten years since she'd done so very often. She'd remembered how convenient and fast they were. The scent of burned hydrocarbons wasn't too bad when you'd grown accustomed to bilgewater at sea and streets that smelled of horse piss and dung by land, no matter how often they were swept and cleaned.
What she found she'd subliminally forgotten was how loud internal combustion engines could be, in a way that even iron horseshoes on granite cobbles didn't quite match.
This one was louder than a car, of course. Most of it had started out as a gravel-hauling truck working for a Nantucket contractor. Leaton and his people had been working on it off and on as time allowed ever since; often as not adding wonderful gadgets and ingenious weapons that Marian then told them to strip off.
It had been like whacking puppies… but she'd yet to meet a Seahaven R amp;D type who really understood down in his gut why KISS, Keep It Simple, Stupid, was a governing principle.
Marian rode with her head and shoulders out of a hatch. The inch or so of camouflage-painted steel armor around the machine didn't make her feel invulnerable. It would stop rifle bullets or shrapnel. Ca
Swindapa's head came out of a nearby hatch, long hair blowing between the straps of a radio headset. "The ultralight reports-
The little craft buzzed overhead, a plywood teardrop below a Rogallo fabric wing, with a tricycle of wire-spoked wheels beneath and a pusher-prop behind. Stub wings on either side held six-tube pods for light rockets; they were empty, and had a scorched look. The pilot waved, sunlight glinting on his goggles and crash helmet, scarf fluttering in the wind.
"-that they took out four more heliograph towers. The line's definitely broken in half a dozen places between here and Crossing, and between there and Tartessos."
Marian nodded. The chain of wooden towers flashing Morse-code light signals were almost as fast as telegraphs. Luckily, they were about as easy to cut, too.
"My congratulations, and then orders to refuel and keep company," she said.
The pilot didn't need to come here to report; that was reflex of a life where the only way to talk to someone was to get within shouting distance. And it was a valuable reminder that giving someone a uniform and a haircut, or even a lot of training, didn't make them over into a twentieth-century American.
Not that I should need a reminder, seeing as I sleep with the evidence every night. God knows I love her, but even after all these years, she's still weird sometimes.
"Halt," she said aloud.
The armored car slowed and came to a stop by the side of the road, engine ticking. The popping whine of heavy tires on the crushed rock of the roadway died out and left a silence loud by comparison. The two smaller Jeep Cherokees that'd been ranging ahead rolled to a stop as well, each to an opposite side of the road; they had armor panels, and Gatlings mounted on pintles. The gu
The houses and village ahead had the dead quiet air of abandonment. Behind them, columns of smoke stained the sky, and scores of the huge black-winged Iberian vultures made circles that marked herds of slaughtered livestock. Swindapa winced slightly as her eyes followed Marian's.
Yeah, I know, sugar, the black woman thought. Doing scorched-earth hurts, especially in country as pretty as this. But Isketerol can stop it anytime he wants. We're not here to conquer his country. We couldn't if we wanted to. All we want is for him to get out of our way.
The crew of the car popped various hatches and came out, enjoying the fresh air and space; someone produced one of the foraged local hams and cut slabs of it to hand 'round. Marian took one and put it on a piece of dog biscuit, gnawing and taking an occasional swig from her canteen as she studied the map and waited. The earthy, salty taste of the acorn-fed and smoke-cured ham was so good that you forgot how vile hardtack was.
The rest of the Mechanized Battalion came up behind at last. The name was only partly ironic. After all, bicycles were mechanical transport… and about four times faster than foot infantry, on these fine roads the Tartessians had been kind enough to build. Watching seven hundred helmets bobbing along with rifles over their shoulders still brought a narrowing of the eyes that someone familiar with Marian knew for a smile. Another scatter of Cherokees and Hondas drew a brace of rifled siege ca
She fought down fierce envy for the two genuine Humvees she'd attached to Brigadier McClintock's HQ. Fair is fair. There were only three of those left in all the world.
"Major Stavrand," she said to the officer in charge.
"Commodore," he replied. "This is it, eh?"
He gri
"Right over that ridge, and I think we've outpaced the news of ouah arrival," Alston said. "Ride with me."
The troops put their bicycles on the kickstands and fa