Страница 166 из 186
The Indians pushed a screen of the townsfolk before them; more a matter of necessity than intent, but the effect was the same. Most of the Tartessians on the wall were civilian militiamen; the professionals among them mostly had family here as well. Reluctance to fire on their own, or to shut the gate in their faces, cost them crucial moments. By the time they tried, it was too late, and the gateway was full of a heaving mass of men who shot and stabbed, clubbed and slashed and throttled each other, trampling the dead and wounded beneath their feet. Those on the gate-towers couldn't shoot into the melee beneath; brave and foolish, most of them ran down to join it, where an alderwood club was as effective as a single-shot rifle.
Sue and her fellow ranger went in along the wall of the gate-tu
The report was deafening in the confined space, even over the snarling brabble of voices, screams of pain, clatter of metal and stone on each other and on wood. Sue dropped the damaged firearm and snatched out her blades, shouldering aside the falling body as she rose; stabbed another Iberian in the groin, and whipped the hammer end of her tomahawk down on a man's arm and felt the bones crack. The muzzle of Jaditwara’s rifle came past her cheek again, and she ducked in reflex.
The Tartessian soldiers still on their feet held the whole struggling mass of humanity in the gateway like a cork in a bottle. But they were too mixed with their enemies and friends to keep it plugged for long. Like a champagne cork when thumbs have weakened it just enough, this one popped out all of a sudden. It spilled out into the open space that ran just inside the walls-and the Tartessians were suddenly in even more trouble than they had been a minute before. There were four or five Indians for each Iberian, and in the open they could take advantage of it.
Good, Sue thought, as the tribesmen poured into the fort-town and spread howling through the streets.
The more trouble they've got, the less attention they'll pay to two Islanders in buckskin. She stooped, picked up a dead man's rifle, and knelt in a corner between two buildings to load it while Jaditwara covered her.
"Let's go," she said. "Market square."
They moved out, trotting along the streets pressed as close to one side as they could, where the roofs-hopefully-hid them from the sight of anyone on the walls or defensive towers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
December, 10 A.E.-Off Tartessos City, southern Iberia
April, 11 A.E.-Feather River Valley, California
December, 10 A.E.-Off Tartessos City, southern Iberia
April, 11 A.E.-Feather River Valley, California
December, 10 A.E.-Cadiz Base, southern Iberia
High tide in twenty minutes," Swindapa said quietly. "It's not going to get any deeper."
Marian nodded, looking out through the forward slit of the Eades's bridge. The view was strange, a lot closer to the water than she was used to, but with no masts or spars to limit vision; merely the smooth gray-green slope of the casement's front section and the equally featureless front deck, awash whenever the knife bows dug in a little. The foam surged right up to the foot of the casement about every tenth wave, green and white against the painted steel, looking incongruously cool and refreshing in the stifling heat of the ship's interior.
"All ahead slow," she said. "Helm, mark your head."
"Two-seven-five, ma'am," the helmsman said.
"Keep her so," Marian replied.
Light and air came through the hatchway above; they had a deck lookout working. She waited patiently as the low shoreline came in sight, tasting the sweat on her lips. Clear sky, steady good weather… it had better be. No more Tartessian balloons, the ultralights had taken them down…
"Ms. Kurlelo-Alston, aerial scout reports?"
"Galleys massing just inside the harbor mouth," Swindapa replied. "No attempt to loft more balloons… wait. Launch trails reported!"
The lookout above cried out in the next instant, and came tumbling down the hatchway. The thick hatch itself fell with a doomsday clung next and then a chunk as it was dogged shut. The slit ahead seemed bright in the sudden gloom, and then a rippling cloud of red fire raced along the low sandy shoreline ahead. Trails of smoke climbed skyward…
"Incoming! All hands prepare for impact!" she called in a clear carrying voice.
Others took it up and repeated it. She found herself calling off the seconds as she waited, one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand. She'd gotten to six when the shrieking overhead turned to a whistling moan. The bridge crew slammed the covers on the vision slits closed and the last sunlight vanished, leaving only a lamplit gloom. The steady chuffing of the engine was the only sound before…
The big ship shivered a little as the first rocket struck and burst, like a sharp blow with a hammer on a steel bucket. Then another hit, and another, building like a hailstorm on a tin roof, a roar of white noise that made her wince with its intensity. Hundreds more were landing in the water around, the dull heavy sounds of the explosions thudding against the ironclad's hull.
Let too many come too close, and they might stave the planking; let a couple come right down the fu
Silence fell, hard to realize for an instant while her ears still rang.
"Report by divisions!" she snapped, signaling the yeomen to open the vision slits. Fresh sea air came through like a hint of heaven to the damned.
"Three inches in the well-tight and dry, Commodore."
"Full steam, ma'am."
She hid a smile as cheers rang through the casement, and faintly up from the engine deck. Swindapa made a slight phew! face and mimed wiping her forehead, which made gravitas even harder.
"Silence fore and aft!" Marian called instead, and heard it echo down the chain of command.
The low shore was much closer now, the great drifting fog-bank left by the rockets' passage drifting away to the westward. An explosion pockmarked it as she watched-some of the missiles hanging fire and then going off together, propellant and bursting charges together.
I thought we'd be okay, she mused. The rockets carried simple gunpowder bombs, not shaped-charge warheads designed to punch a finger of superhot vapor through steel. They would have torn any wooden ship to burning splinters in seconds, but this lumbering knight-in-armor was relatively immune… On the other hand, I didn't know we'd be okay. Do Jesus, but I hate moments like that.
She focused her binoculars. The entrance to the bay of Tartessos was fairly narrow, divided into two cha
"Let's get down to it," she said.
Swindapa brought over the map and pi