The Scourge of God

The enemy catapults were already moving back, though-he could see their crews trotting beside the wheels of the field pieces. They'd hitched their teams, and were stopping only when the auxiliary pumps attached to the axles had cocked the mechanisms. Then they'd let the trail fall from the limber, slap a bolt or ball into the groove and fire and snatch it up again to make another bound backwards. A four-foot javelin from one of them went over his head with a malignant whirrrt, making him duck involuntarily. There was an appalling wet smack behind him; he turned and saw that the bolt had pi

Hooves thudded behind him. The messenger from his cavalry commander had a crudely splinted left arm, and her dark olive skin was muddy with pain and the exhaustion that grooved her face. She saluted smartly, though:

"Sir! Colonel Jacobson reports that he regretfully ca

Thurston nodded. "Get that arm seen to, Sergeant Gonzalez," he said. "No return message."

Then he looked up at the sun. It was three o'clock at least…

And I am not going to try to pursue in the dark, with the cavalry we probably have left.

Another pair of horsemen approached…

No, goddammit, it's Estrellita Peters and her spawn, come to waste time I don't have!

They were both in breastplates and helmets, at least, and there were a dozen of their slave-guardsmen around them. The boy was pale but determined, gulping at his first exposure to the atmosphere of a battlefield-a cross between a construction site, an open sewer, and a neglected butcher's shop on a really hot day, seasoned with men sobbing or shrieking or calling for their mommas as their ruins were dragged back to the aid stations. The Bossman's consort was as calm with edged steel whickering through the air as she'd been in her own parlor greeting her guests. At least she wasn't trying to play General

…

"We are forcing them back, Senor Presidente!" she said.

Thurston nodded curtly. And paying far too much of a butcher's bill for it, he thought; the loss of every man hurt, and from his own ever-loyal Sixth doubly.

"We'll hold the field," he said, his voice a grim bark. "And they'll leave your territory. Now, if you'll pardon me-"

The boy spoke, and there was a disturbing flash in his brown eyes: "The Prophet has foretold victory!"

Thurston nodded curtly again. And I could do the same, he thought; for a wonder Estrellita showed some tact, and pulled the boy aside.

Martin went on: "Courier! Get south and find out what's the hell's happening on our left flank! And tell the Corwinite commander"- damned if I'll be polite at this late date! -"that unless he can turn their flank soon, a general pursuit is out of the question."

Then to his signalers: "Sound the advance!"

The tubae brayed like mules in agony, a long sustained note that meant get ready and then three sharp blats. With a unison that shook the earth the battalions stepped off, moving forward at a steady jog-trot, shields up and pila cocked back to throw. Astonishingly they began to sing as well, a raucous marching chant timed to the pounding beat of the advance:

"Yanks to the charge! cried Thurston

The foe begins to yield!

Strike-for hearth and nation

Strike-for the Eagle shield!-"

"By God, with men like these, I'll whip the Earth!" Thurston said, and drew his own blade.

It would come to that for the commanders, before the sun set.

"Plant the swine feathers!" Chuck Barstow Mackenzie rasped.

His voice was hoarse with the dust, raw with shouting. The signal blatted out, and the mass of kilted archers stopped their jog-trot to the rear. Each of them turned, jammed the shovel end of the weapon into the ground, backheeled it to plant it, and then took a few steps backwards as they reached over their shoulders for arrows-they were down to the quivers on their backs now, no time for spares to be brought forward. Westward the dimly seen ridge they'd abandoned suddenly quivered and sparkled; the sun was behind the Clan's warriors now, and it broke off the edged metal of the blades there, and on arrowheads.

"Let the gray geese fly- shoot! "

The yew bows bent and spat; this was close range, barely fifty yards. You could only just see an arrow from a heavy bow as a flicker through the air that close, and it was only a half second later that the first struck. Men and horses went down; and this time they reined around and fled, back below the swell of ground that would put them out of sight. Only a few kept coming towards the Mackenzie line, a handful of them screaming out:

"Cut! Cut! Cut!"

They galloped along the Mackenzie front, lofting arrows towards their foes and dying as picked shots stepped out of the Clan's ranks to take careful aim.

Chuck dismissed them from his mind. The ones who'd sensibly dodged back behind the protection of the ridgeline were the ones he was worried about; there were a lot more of them:

"Dropping shafts!" he shouted, and the bows went up.

Arrows glittered as they arched up and over the rise, discouraging any of the enemy from lingering. Off to the southward men were fighting and dying too-the Warm Springs tribes and the Bearkiller A-listers against the Sword of the Prophet and the Cutter irregulars as they lapped around the flank like a rising tide creeping up a beach, a bit higher with each wave.

"Get ready to-" he began.

The impact was like a punch in the chest, or a blow from a hammer. He grunted and took a step backwards. Then the pain started, and he looked down to see the arrow standing in his chest; it had broken the rivets between two of the little metal plates inside his brigandine, just over the left branch of the Horns that cradled the Crescent Moon.

He grunted again, and this time there was a hot wetness in his mouth when he did; it leaked out between his teeth, and he could feel a gurgling as he sank to his knees and tried to take a breath. The pain got worse, pulsing out in waves from the cold center where the iron had pierced rib and lung. He blinked; Rowan was holding him, and Oak was there, bending over him with a look of astonished fury.

Why's the boy mad at me? he thought for an instant.

Then he forced the black wings back from the corners of his eyes for a second.

Important, he thought.

That was hard. His mind was like a movie in the old days, but one all put together from bits and pieces; Dad holding him up on his shoulders as he came home from his mail route, his mother, children, grandchildren, the look on Judy's face the first time he called the Goddess down to her, the overwhelming need to scream. A long slow breath was the hardest thing he'd ever done, ignoring the blood pouring into his ravaged lung for the sake of air in the good one. Things were begi

"Get-them-out!" he said distinctly, coughing blood across the faces of son and foster son. Then: "Judy-"

Oak Barstow stood, his face contorted like something carved from blood-spattered wood, and his arms went wide as he emptied his lungs in one long wailing shriek. Faces turned towards him, shocked and pale.

"Retreat!" he called. "In good order!"

The archers turned and trotted away, leaving the irregular rank of the swine feathers. The bicycles were near, now; the Clan's force threw their legs over the bars, set feet to pedals and turned northeast, following the dust of the ambulances and stores-wagons as they pumped away in a column three ranks across.

Rowan brought up his father's horse, blinking in astonishment at the face, willing the still form to rise and speak, to give an order, to say something.