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The coal-black face gave a slight nod. No, not a Medjay, Djehuty thought with an i
If the stranger was a renegade from the service of his own King, much was explained. He schooled his own face.
"Pharaoh commands; as it is written, so shall it be done," he replied. "This parley is over. Depart his soil, at once, or the battle will commence."
BAAAAAAAMMMM.
The twelve-pounder leaped back, up the sloping ramp of dirt the gu
These are men, Djehuty thought, slightly surprised. More than that, they are men worthy to be called iw'yt, real soldiers.
He wasn't sure about the warriors surging against his line, but whatever they were, they didn't discourage easily. He squinted through the thick smoke that stung his eyes, ignoring the dry-ness of his tongue-they were short of water, and he meant to make what he had last.
Here they came again, over ground covered with their dead. Swarms of them, sending a shower of javelins before them as they came closer.
BAAAAMMMM. BAAAAMMMM. The guns were firing more slowly now, conserving their ammunition. Grapeshot cut bloody swaths through the attackers, but they kept on. Dead men dropped improvised ladders of logs and sticks; others picked them up and came forward. Their cries grew into a deep bellowing; the first ranks dropped into the ditch around the redoubt, where the spiked barricades were covered with bodies. Others climbed up, standing on their shoulders to scramble up the sloping dirt or set up their scaling ladders. Only a few of them knew enough to cringe at the sound that came through shouts and ca
"Now!" Djehuty shouted, swinging his fan downward.
All along the parapet, hundreds of musketeers stood up from their crouch and leveled their pieces downward into the press of attackers.
"Fire!"
A fresh fogbank of smoke drifted away, showing the ruin below-the muskets had been loaded with what Mek-Andrus called buck and ball, a musket ball and several smaller projectiles. The ditch was filled with shapes that heaved and moaned and screamed, and the smell was like a desecrated tomb. Djehuty winced; he was a hardy man and bred to war, but this… this was something else. Not even the actions in the south had prepared him for it; the barbarians there were too undisciplined to keep charging into certain death as these men had.
"They run away, they run away, Father!" Se
Then, away in the gathering dusk, lights blinked like angry red eyes. Everyone in the little earth fort took cover. A long whistling screech came from overhead, and then the first explosion. The enemy ca
And they will shred my Brigade of Seth like meat beneath the cook's cleaver.
So Pharaoh had ordered… and it might be worth it, if it turned the course of the battle to come.
Earth shuddered under his belly and loins. He had a moment to think, and it froze him with his fingers crooked into the shifting clay. Why only ca
The barrage let up. He turned his head, and felt his liver freeze with fear. Se
"I don't like the smell of this," he muttered, and called for a ru
"Ahhhh, not bad," William Walker said. "Fundamentally, life is pretty good."
He looked up at the tender green of the branches moving overhead, little sun-gleams flickering through them. Spring was nice. For one thing, it meant shuttling back and forth across the Aegean would be easier, without the winter storms to worry about. For another, he could finally get his hands on the Nantucketer bastards and deal with them once and for all. His grin turned wry.
Of course, they'll be expecting to deal with me, won't they?
He pushed the thought away, and worried about Sicily. One thing at a time. We can take it back when we've made sure of the east. Time for one last hunt and picnic with the family, even though the long gray-clad columns were swinging up from the coast.
There was a quiet bustle around him; he sat up and ate another dried apricot, savoring the sweetness. The glade was half an acre or so, more than enough for the hunter's camp- a platoon of the Royal Guards, a tent and the horse lines, a few servants. Two of the soldiers went by with another boar slung on a pole between them, a slight whiff of rank scent amid the spring wildflowers and pine and thyme. He gri
He hadn't really expected to start enjoying it. The hunting was excellent in this part of northwest Anatolia; the locals called it Seha River Land, and it had been Green Bursa in his birth-century. There were plenty of oak trees on the hills here, and acorns made for big, prolific wild pigs.
"Nothing like a day's hunt to give you an appetite," he said.
His son Harold flashed a grin at him; he'd been sneaking looks at the butt of the servant-toy kneeling beside Alice's folding canvas chair.
Just starting to get interested, Walker thought indulgently. Have to get him a couple of experienced instructors in a while. No son of his was going to have to suffer the sort of adolescent-male hell he'd gone through.
Hong was in what Walker thought of as her Safari Dominatrix costume: glossy boots, flared jodhpurs, belted bush jacket carrying revolver and hunting knife, and broad-brimmed hat with a leopardskin band. She took a tall glass of lemonade and playfully tickled the nude servant with the tassel of her riding crop.