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But the nomad had been in the saddle since boyhood, and knew how to take a fall. He lost his rifle, but hit rolling and came to his feet only a couple of meters from the boulder. At that point-blank range, P?ts fired-and missed. Before he could work the bolt again, the nomad pulled out a knife and jumped on him.
P?ts went over backwards. His gun flew out of his hands. He screamed as the nomad's knife grated along a rib; had the fellow stabbed two centimeters higher or lower, he would have been silent forevermore. He grabbed the Tartar's knife wrist with his left hand, tried to get his right on his opponent's throat. The nomad bit him, down to the bone. He screamed again.
He jerked up his knee. The Tatar twisted aside before it could slam into his crotch. In the tiny part of his rational mind that was still functioning, P?ts realized that, while Bektashi's men might be bandits rather than soldiers, even bandits were apt to know more of hand-to-hand combat than farmers. Rather more to the point, he realized he was probably going to get killed.
A rifle roared, so close to P?ts' ear that for an instant he thought it was the sound of his own death. But it was the nomad who jerked and convulsed, who splashed P?ts with blood and brains and bits of bone, whose bowels let go, adding the manure pile to the battlefield stenches of burnt cordite and burnt meat.
P?ts threw the corpse aside, scrambled up to his hands and knees-he remembered enough of where he was not to stand up. Sergei Izvekov was less cautious, or more foolish. Seeing as he'd just blown out the Tartar's brains, P?ts could hardly complain. He did shout, "Get down!" A startled expression crossed Izvekov's face, as if he suddenly realized what he'd just done. He threw himself flat. "Spasebo" P?ts added more quietly: "Thank you."
"Nichevo," Izvekov answered.
P?ts thumped him on the back, reclaimed his own rifle, and looked out to see what was happening in the bigger fight. A lot of horses were down, and a lot of men. A couple of nomads had managed to get around the farmers' right flank. That would have been a lot worse had anything much remained of the rest of the plainsmen's assault. But almost all the riders there were either dead or galloping north as fast as their horses and muskylopes could take them. Well-led soldiers will accept hideous losses for the sake of a decisive victory. Bandits, as a rule, will not.
As P?ts watched, one of the Tatars off to the right slid from his muskylope and crashed to the ground. His rifle bounced away. He made no move to go after it. He would never move again. That was all the other would-be enfilader needed to see. He wheeled his mount and dashed after his comrades. He reeled in the saddle before he got out of rifle range, but kept his seat and kept on riding.
Sergei Izvekov had been watching, too. "Bozhemoi," he said softly. "We won." He sounded astonished.
"So we did," P?ts said. He didn't sound anything but amazed himself. His ribs and his fingers started hurting again. He reminded himself to use an antitetanus ampoule for the bite. The nomad had had jaws like a cliff lion's. P?ts looked down at his late foe's ruined head. That Tatar wouldn't bite anybody else, nor would his clans mates. They'd broken teeth on something harder than they'd expected.
All along the farmers' firing line, men stood up and exchanged congratulations with their neighbors. No, not all along the line: four or five men were down. Some thrashed on the ground, some lay still. P?ts ground his teeth. Only in stories did the heroes win their victories without loss.
Now that the shooting was done, the cries of wounded animals and men dominated the little battlefield. Easily recognizable even from a couple of hundred meters away because of his blocky shape, Iosef Mladenov went out to a nomad who was clutching a shattered leg and shrieking. The Russian's rifle barked once. The nomad was quiet after that.
Mladenov headed for the next injured Tatar. "Wait, Iosef Trofimovich," P?ts called as he hurried out toward the Russian.
Mladenov's face clouded over. "Don't bleat to me of mercy, Anton Avgustovich," he growled. "I won't hear a word you say. These damned Tatars don't understand the meaning of the word, and they'd only take it for weakness. And after what they did to poor Nikita, I wouldn't give it to them if they did understand. A bullet's a better mercy than they ought to have."
P?ts did not answer, not with words. He raised his own rifle to his shoulder, aimed at the nomad writhing on the ground, shot him through the head. The plainsman jerked and twitched for a few more seconds, then lay still. Mladenov gaped at P?ts, his pale eyes wide and staring. "You shouldn't have to do it all yourself," P?ts said.
Taking turns, they finished four more of the attackers. When the nasty job was done, Mladenov said, "As well we did not come to blows ourselves, Estonian. I thought you and your people softer than you prove to be."
"As well we did not come to blows," P?ts said, and let it go at that. He knew the bulk of the firepower that had defeated Bektashi's clan had belonged to the Russians. As if he had every right to it, he picked up the automatic rifle that lay beside the last dead Tatar. The fellow carried several spare magazines, and cartridges for two or three more on his bandoliers. P?ts appropriated the ammunition, too. He felt Mladenov's eyes on him all the while, but the Russian kept his mouth shut.
Sergie Izvekov came up. The young man gulped a couple of times as he looked at the pool of blood under the dead nomad's shattered skull, but he'd caused the same kind of carnage not an hour before, to save P?ts' life. In any case, battlefield courage was not the kind he was looking for now. He gulped again, then said, "Anton Avgustovich, may I speak to you about your daughter Ana?"
P?ts peered down at the shorter Russian. When that long, measuring stare failed to send Izvekov fleeing, the Estonian let out a long sigh and said, "Speak, Sergei Dmitrovich. I should be poor-spirited indeed to deny you now. If Ana cares to have you, you will be part of my family, and a welcome part."
Mladenov boomed laughter and waggled a sausage-like finger under P?ts' nose. "You see, Anton Avgustovich, one way or another, we Russians shall end up with some of your land."
P?ts started to scowl. Then he looked round the battlefield. Estonians and Russians were embracing like brothers, strolling here and there together, gaping at the bodies of Tatars they had slain, trying to run down riderless horses and muskylopes. Had Bektashi's men not come, the only way the two sides in Talli
"If we ca
"Truth," Mladenov said soberly.
P?ts threw one arm around his shoulder, the other around Sergei Izvekov's. Together, the three of them started slowly back toward Talli
The slamming of the huge, heavy front door downstairs woke ten-year-old Kyle Eng from a sound sleep. The Eng family mansion was otherwise quiet, and a gentle breeze carried the salty Pacific air into his room from the lanai. The surf broke softly, rhythmically, against the shore of Kauai, one of the Hawaiian Islands.
Kyle tensed every muscle in his arms and legs, freezing himself into position. When his father slammed the front door in the middle of the night, it meant he had come home drunk and angry again. Sometimes he just staggered into his den or off to bed; other times, he raged the house, yelling at people or demons whom no one else could see. Other times, however, he stomped up the stairs after Kyle to yell and scream insults about his mother.