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The aimer sat in a chair behind the sloping shield of the war-engine, peering through a telescopic sight and working traverse and elevation wheels with her hands. The aimer's chair and the throwing-groove and arms rose and turned smoothly, with a sound of oiled metal moving on metal.
"Range five hundred," she said crisply. "Ready-"
One of the crew lit a wad of tow on the end of a stick and touched it to the napalm bomb. Blue-and-yellow flames licked over the surface of the porous clay, and wisps of black smoke began to rise. The rest jumped down, and a hose team stood by.
"Ready!"
"Shoot!"
The aimer squeezed a trigger. The machine's throwing arms snapped forward with a hard, flat brack! sound and thudded into the rubber-padded stop plates. The clay globe snapped out, trailing more smoke as the wind of its passage fa
Crack!
The sound came sharp and clear despite the distance; a gout of flame enveloped the turtle-boat, the tulip-shaped orange blossom rising from its curved steel deck. A cheer went up from the crews on the railroad bridge. It died to a grumbling, cursing mutter as the war-boat slid forward through the smoke, the fire ru
Ken tried again to imagine what it had been like inside, in the dim hot sweat-and-oil stench of the interior, the slamming impact making the frame groan, the sudden roaring through the thin plates, the heat and the sharp acrid stink sucked in through the ventilators-and all the while having nothing to see but the back of the man ahead of you, knowing you could burn and drown at the same time at any instant.
Serves 'em right, he thought grimly. If they want to be safe, let them stay home.
Which wasn't quite fair-probably most of them had no say in the matter, unless they wanted to face the Lord Protector's men who wore black hoods, or provide the tiger-and-bear-feeding halftime spectacle at the next tournament.
On the other hand, I'm not feeling like being fair right now. Aloud: "Three, Five, Seven-rapid fire, and concentrate on the lead boat! Fry the fascist sons of bitches!"
As a student rebel in the sixties, he'd made Molotov cocktails.
"OK, now we get serious," Havel said, as the Protectorate's host began its advance.
Lessee. Spearmen on the far west wing, call it three hundred of 'em, opposite our A-listers, then crossbows, more spears, more crossbows, and so forth, until they end up with spearmen again on the far east end next the river. The heavy horse behind the center, but not far enough behind. They'll overlap us on the west unless we do something. So:
"Signal, artillery open fire, priority target enemy cavalry," Havel said. It was long range, but when you hit someone, you hit them where it hurt.
The trumpets called. Seconds later a ripple of tu
Havel tracked them with his field glasses. One ball struck short, bounced and slammed rolling into a file of spearmen. The first three went down in a whiplash tangle as the high-velocity iron snapped their legs out from beneath them; then it bounced high again and came down on an upraised shield. He couldn't hear the shield's frame and the arm beneath it crack, but he could imagine it. The screaming mouths were just open circles through the binoculars, but he could imagine that as well. Two more struck at waist height; a broken spear flipped fifteen feet into the air, pinwheeling and flashing sunlight as the edges twirled.
The big darts lofted entirely over the block of infantry-heads twisted to follow them as they flashed by about ten feet up. The cavalry formation behind them exploded outward as four of the heavy javelins came slanting in, punching through armor as if it were cloth, pi
"Good work, Sarducci!" Havel called, and waved at the man. At the enemy he muttered the names of the engines as they fired:
"Hi there, you bastards! Knock-knock, guess who! you sons of bitches! Eat this! motherfuckers! And Many Happy Returns, Alexi!" he said, pounding his right fist into the palm of his left hand with every greeting.
He got a thumbs up from Sarducci; seconds later the tu
Havel turned the field glasses back to the enemy lancers. They were trotting back out of range, some of them shaking their fists at him as they went. He laughed aloud, and Signe gave him a quizzical look.
"I can tell what they're saying," he said. "Something like no fair throwing things! And then why don't you fight like a gentleman, you peasant!"
His laughter grew louder, and her corn-colored eyebrows rose further over the sky blue eyes as the troops took it up and it spread down the line, a torrent of jeering mockery directed at the backs of the Protectorate's lancers. He shook his head and went on: "What's really fu
After a moment she chuckled as well. Then: "Oh-oh," she said. "Here comes their artillery."
Havel nodded. "Yup, right on schedule. That's heavy stuff for mobile field use-looks like light siege pieces, really. Six horse teams; six, eight, ten of them all up. Tsk-they should have more and it should be as easy to move as ours. They've certainly got the engineers and the materials. Arminger's a: what did the Society people call guys who had a hair up their ass about getting historical details just right instead of mixing and matching?"
"Period Nazi," Signe supplied.
"Yeah, his fixations are getting the better of him again. William the Conqueror of Normandy didn't use field artillery, so Norman the Magnifolent of Portland doesn't like doing it either. Signalercavalry engage enemy engines with firing circle."
Off to the west, he saw Eric Larsson nod and wave acknowledgment. Ahead the enemy formation parted to let the heavy throwing engines through, and then the infantry lay down in their formations; which was sensible of Stavarov, though not as sensible as pulling back out of catapult range and waiting for his engines to silence their opposite numbers.
Of course, that would take all day, Havel thought. And without infantry support: well, what a frustrating dilemma for Alexi Stavarov, you Slavo-Sicilian wa
The A-listers were moving, but their lances stayed in the rests, and their shields stayed slung. Instead, two hundred horn-and-sinew recurve bows were pulled from the saddle-scabbards by their left knees, and two hundred hands went over their shoulders for an arrow. The long column of horse-archers moved in a staggered two-deep row, rocking forward from a canter into a gallop. The thunder of hooves built, until it was a drumroll over the half-mile distance. Near as loud came the crashing bark: