On the Oceans of Eternity

by S. M. Stirling

  "C'mon," she muttered, pulling at him.

  He climbed up her by the webbing, ignoring a small shriek as he jostled the limp arm. She dragged his arm across her shoulders with her good one, and they began to hobble forward. The way was muddy and dark, water rising around their calves, continually jostling his injured limb. Bullets went through the air around them with whickering cracks. His face was jammed next to Rueteklo's, her teeth showing in a huge grin of effort, tears running down through the burned cork on her face. At last the reeds stopped them, and they toppled. He blacked out again for an instant then, came to lying on his back with her fingers trying to get the carrying strap of the rocket launcher out from under the epaulet strap of his jacket.

  "No," he grunted. "Comes along. Air

  That as she turned on her back and wound her good hand in the back loop of his webbing harness, pushing them both along with her heels. Verger forced himself to push as well with his sound leg, hoping that they weren't going around in circles as the marsh grew more liquid under his back, and his heel started to slip on the slick mud-coated surface of the crushed reeds.

  "Your belt… buckle's cutting my ear," he rasped after a moment. Something went overhead with a flat whack sound.

  "Shut… unnnh… up," Rueteklo said, hitching him forward with her arm, digging in her heels and arching herself to push them further toward the river. "You've been… unnnh… trying to get… unnnh… between my legs… unnnh… since Camp Grant… unnnh… now you're there… unnnh… and you're still bitching."

  Verger felt a bubble of laughter grunt out through his throat. It wasn't quite a warrior's laughing scorn for death… but it was close enough to be satisfying, despite the nausea that was twisting at his gut. Then he sensed the presence of someone else and grabbed for the bayonet on his belt; there were three dark figures-

  "Calm down, Marine," a voice said-Ritter's voice. "Time for extraction."

  Hard hands gripped his harness and lifted; something pricked him in one buttock, and a flood of relief went over him as the pain receded like a wave of fire rolling back from a beach. The last of the flares was burning down, but he could see Ritter stooping, taking Rueteklo over her shoulders in a fireman's lift. The man carrying him turned, and he got a twisting panoramic view of the marsh, a few fires lit by backblast still smoking-red among the reeds. Then the fortress, flames licking upward from gunports and slit windows, with a crackle of small-arms fire from the parapet despite it all. Then lines of red stabbed out from the river-the Gatlings mounted on pivots above the paddle boxes of a gunboat, the thudump of the light cannon on its forward deck, a red spark soaring skyward from the mortar on its stern.

  Into the inflated boat again, his rocket launcher on one side, Rueteklo on the other; the rest of their squad pushing hard until they reached the few inches of water necessary to float it, then piling in and wielding their paddles.

  "Thanks… oath-sister," he said slowly, feeling himself floating away.

  "Semper Fi."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  December, 10 A.E. - West-central Anatolia

  November, 10 A.E. - Great River, southern Iberia

  December, 10 A.E. - West-central Anatolia

  e!" Kenneth Hollard shouted.

  The bugle screamed and Marines threw themselves forward through the snow, slipping and stumbling on the muddy rocks below, still somehow keeping their order. From a height a little behind him a Gatling crew got their weapon into operation, its muzzles a continuous red flicker through the snow. Seconds later the line halted for an instant and fired point-blank into the confused mass of enemy infantry milling around the base of the hill, throwing grenades and firing rocket launchers point-blank as well; there were hundreds of them…

  Maybe thousands, he thought.

  And hundreds of their dead piled around their feet already, before the relief force arrived. They wavered; he could see the collective shudder as they tried to turn and face the new threat, saw the gray exhaustion and fear on those nearest.

  "Pour it on!" he heard O'Rourke shout, and his subordinates echoing it. "Pour it on, and they'll break!"

  The Islanders pushed forward, advancing by squads, throwing themselves down and firing to support their comrades moving forward. Soon the forward units were close enough to throw grenades as well, and a cannon came forward at a run with a dozen men pushing at the trail. They let it fall with a thump and jumped out of the way as the gunner jerked the lanyard. The weapon bucked back, muzzle spitting out a huge blade-shaped lance of flame. Canister whined forward, hundreds of lead balls tearing into the enemy at point-blank range.

  "Sound charge again!" Hollard called.

  The bugles cried, like the distant horns of Elfland through the blizzard. The Marines rose up like a wave out of the earth and flung themselves forward, and the enemy were running – not retreating, running, some of them throwing away their rifles to run faster; falling, too, shot in the back or spitted with the bayonet.

  Hollard ran forward with the rest. A clump of Achaean soldiers rose up in front of him, trying to buy some space for their comrades. Crack, and he felt the hot wind of the muzzle blast on his cheek. He fired the revolver six times and took down two men, dim figures spinning backward into the snow and rolling away down the steep ground. He had just time to slap the Python back into its holster before another was lunging at him. His katana slapped the weapon aside and then they were chest to chest. Hollard butted his helmet forward into the other's face, felt bone crumble, brought the sword down from its position over his left shoulder in a blurring slash, ran on over the twitching body.

  The Nantucketers swept on over the crest of the hill, shooting and stabbing.

  "Sound halt," Hollard gasped-the rest of the rocky passage ahead was a blinding whirl of snow. The guns began throwing shells into it. That and the Gatlings firing ahead ought to keep the enemy running. He couldn't send troops into that and keep any control at all.

  The Mitannian flag still flew, the staff forlorn and crooked at the summit of the hill. Kenneth Hollard walked in that direction, controlling the pumping heave of his chest. Stretcher-bearers were bringing back wounded and dead; out of the corner of his eye he saw one Marine with her hand wadded in a sodden ball of fabric walking beside a figure with its poncho spread over its face.

  "You great shambling Fiernan gowk," he heard her mumble, half grief and half anger. "You went and got yourself killed."

  Then he was at the summit, amid the ruins of foxholes and the craters of a rocket bombardment-they were almost close enough to step from one to the next. The surviving Mitannians were laying out their dead as well-that looked to be half of them at least. The survivors had the stunned, distant look of men who've gone to the limit of endurance and a little beyond. One of them he recognized, Tekhip-tilla, Raupasha's second-in-command. He was kneeling beside a pile of blankets. Kenneth Hollard swallowed and closed his eyes for an instant. Then he saw that the man was holding a mittened hand between his. Sabala lay plastered to the side of her body, whining and giving the warmth that was the only gift he could.

  "She lives?" Hollard said.

  Tekhip-tilla looked up at him, tears freezing on his cheeks. "She lives-if you can call it that, Great General," he spat. "But I do not think she will live for long. And would she wish to, like this?"

  Hollard looked down at the glistening mass of blood across the side of Raupasha's face, and swallowed again.

  "Corpsman!" he called sharply. "Corpsman here."

  The stretcher-bearers came at the run. Tekhip-tilla made as if to accompany them.

  "No," Hollard said, barring his way with the blade of his katana. "You can do nothing there."

  "I can be by my ruler's side!"

  "You can continue the work she was hurt to do," he said sharply. "Or will you leave your countrymen in wreck? Get your men together-help us see to the wounded-everything to your chariots and pull back to base."

  Tekhip-tilla nodded once, with the look of a man biting down
on an upalatable truth, then stalked away and began to shout orders, shaking stunned men by the shoulder and getting them moving.

  Kenneth Hollard slammed his gloved fist against his thigh. "Damn," he said. Then: "God damn it!"

  A long breath, and he called for his radio tech. The connection was bad, but he could make out his sister's voice through the popping and static.

  "Sir, the line's cracking like river ice in spring. I just put in the last of Tudhaliyas's men, and that's it. If they hadn't run out of rockets for their katyushas we'd be running like hell right now. The next major push is going to punch right through."

  "Right," Hollard said.

  He put the fingers of his right hand to his brow, squeezing the cold-numbed flesh as if he could drive answers through the bone by main force.

  "Right," he went on. "The right flank's secure, I think- they're not going to put anything through here without fresh troops and with extreme caution."

  "Thank God for that," Kathryn said. "We couldn't even disengage with that hanging over us. How's Raupasha?"

  "Not good-bad wound," Hollard said, forcing his voice to flatness.

  "Oh, shit. All right, sir, what are we going to do?"

  "What else?" Kenneth said. "Pull back. Right to the Halys and over, if we can make it. Start right away and we'll be able to salvage something; I'll get there as fast as I can."

  * * *

  "I do not stay with a plan that is a failure," Isketerol of Tartessos snapped. "But first I must know. Fool, have I ever punished the bearer of bad news? Speak!"

  The officer gulped, drew himself straight, then threw off a salute of fist to chest. It would have looked more impressive if he hadn't been such a drowned, scorched rat himself. The winter dawn was bright but chill; Isketerol drew his cloak around him, glad of the new-style trousers that were so much less drafty than a tunic alone, and of the warmth of his horse.

  "Lord King, we lost two hundred and twenty dead-mostly in fighting the fires, and from the explosions. We do not know how many the enemy suffered, they took their wounded and dead with them."

  Isketerol nodded. Even a few years ago, he would have boasted of hundreds slain, he thought. And by the next seven-day, he would believe the tales himself. That had been a difficult thing to teach, first himself and then others, the absolute importance of accuracy, as it was called in English. It had been easier for him because he was a merchant, used to dealing in precise quantities, so-and-so many ingots of fixed weight, interest at such-and-such a rate per year. Even better that he'd been a merchant used to foreign adventuring, where a lapse in knowledge could mean death.

  He looked beyond the man who stood at his stirrup. The town of Kurutselcaryaduwara-biden lay in a haze of bitter smoke, tumbled blackened walls whose adobe had been half fired to baked brick, charred rafters still smoldering. Soldiers, civilians and slaves were already at work clearing rubble out of the streets, but it would be a work of months-years-to replace all that had been lost. I should have taken more precautions, he thought bitterly. There had been so much else to do, so many other things clamoring for attention… Now I must, though the ox is already through the broken gate and his grazing has laid waste the grain.

  Perhaps that was what the Amurrukan word staff really meant, someone to think of things the supreme commander had no time for. If that was so, it was knowledge bitter in its uselessness. There were too few who could understand the thought; he barely did himself. I have not the time, he thought angrily. A thousand lifetimes would not be enough.

  "Do you have numbers?"

  "Lord King, all the ammunition stores were lost. Over a million and a half rounds of small-arms cartridges, and-

  Isketerol forced himself not to wince as the totals were added up. Every soldier had a hundred rounds in his cartridge box and knapsack; that meant eight hundred thousand rounds with the army he had assembled, as many again with the forward bases and supply wagons-and they could shoot that off in a day or two of real fighting. Beyond that were the cannon rounds lost, and the rockets. He would have to restrict practice until more could be brought forward from the armories of Tartessos City, and that would hurt the effectiveness of the farmer-reservists he'd called up. Eventually even regulars lost skill if they could not take their rifles to the firing range. The better part of a year's output had been lost, and so he had no choice.

  The officer went on, listing flints and priming powder, metal parts warped into uselessness, grain, oil, biscuit, salt fish, dried or barreled meat, preserved vegetables, uniforms and shoes, cloth and hides, rope, fodder… Worst of all was the wrecked engines of the base machine shop, precious lathes and boring machines.

  No, even worse was the loss of trained men. At least they were not the tool and die makers-those are more than worth their weight in gold.

  "We can sift the ashes for metal," Isketerol said. "See to it-particularly the lead. We'll need storage for fresh supplies brought up from the city, or downriver. Get the less damaged buildings repaired…"

  The man hesitated again, closed his eyes for a second, then went on: "Lord King, there is also the matter of your youngest brother Prince Gergenzol…"

  Isketerol swallowed past a thick grief, his face a mask of cold determination. I knew he must have been struck down, or he would have been here to meet me. Just come to a man's full years, and the command of this town had been the first great task the King had entrusted to him.

  "Lord King, we have not found the body. The commander's fort was utterly destroyed; with blasting charges, I think, as well as fire. There were many bodies, but few could be identified and many were… fragments. No trace of his wife or son was found."

  The Iberian monarch took a long deep breath, fist clenching on the pommel of his saddle. His aides and war-captains looked on anxiously; there were few ties stronger than that between uncle and nephew, for their people.

  "My brother Gergenzol fell in battle," Isketerol said harshly.

  "That is a fitting end for a man. And the Crone comes for us all, soon or late."

  He looked about. His cousin Miskelefol waited; a sound man, if not one whose wit flashed like a sword blade.

  "Lord Miskelefol," he said. "You will assume command here. We will withdraw the army to cover this area."

  "Lord King-" one of his war-captains said, a grizzled man who'd been helmsman on the Foam Treader before the Eagle People came. "That means opening the valley of the Tasweldan Errigu-abiden to raids at least, and perhaps to invasion."

  Isketerol nodded. "True enough, Derentersal," he said.

  And perhaps even the wild Highlanders will raise their heads again, he thought. To free the rich river country of the age-old terror of mountaineer raids had been the first and hardest of his works, and the means by which he had won the loyalty of the valley folk. Laying the mountains under law and tapping their treasures had been nigh as hard.

  "Better to lose ground than to lose the army; that would mean the loss of the kingdom," he said.

  Derentersal shook his head. "I don't see how they did it, lord," he said, looking at the ruins. "Oh, I can see how they did every bit of it. But to put them all together, at the right time, in a way so that they wouldn't be wrecked if anything went wrong…"

  "They can talk across the air," Isketerol said. But that isn't the whole story. To move everything as if it were the fingers of a man's hand, how?

  "Let us to our work," he said at last. "This will not be a quick war, or an easy one. But we will win it."

  Miskelefol spoke, his eyes on the ruins of the commander's residence: "The new things have brought us much grief."

  "And much power, and wealth," Isketerol said. "More than that, we have no choice. Now that the New Learning has come into the world, those who don't learn it will quickly become as helpless savages-then victims and slaves-to those who do. And now, we work."

  The war-captains nodded; they'd seen the truth of those words themselves, in the lands Tartessos had overrun, and in the fate of those conquered by G
reat Achaea. They also moved briskly to their tasks. The King had never punished a man for bringing bad news, or for arguing a point within reason. The fate he brought on cowards or the lazy, though…

  "But my Lord King… they flee! We have the victory; they run from the terror of our arms!"

  William Walker looked around the command tent; his face was flatly impassive, which the more experienced among them knew was a danger signal. Outside the wind was battering at the canvas with increasing force, making the kerosene lamp over the map table sway. The men here were brigade commanders, the heads of the allied forces, his own staff… and his son Harold, sitting quietly in a corner and taking it all in.

  First bad blizzard of the winter, he thought, as the fabric flapped. All right. He took control of himself with an enormous effort of will.

  "No, Lord Guouwaxeus," he said with a softness that grated. "They are not fleeing. If they were fleeing, if they were breaking up and scattering, I would pursue them with at least part of our force. But they are not. They are making a fighting retreat, with is a very different thing."

  The Achaean lord was a spare man with long black hair that was thinning on top. It brought out the starved wolfish look of his face.

  "Are we not to follow up our victory?" he said.

  Walker felt his will clench on his mind, like the flexing of a muscle that keeps hands clamped on a ladder over an abyss.

  "Lord Guouwaxeus, has it ever occurred to you that there is a difference between going forward and winning!"

  By his looks, it hadn't. About half the other men around the table looked similarly bewildered.

  "Guouwaxeus, how many rounds a man does your brigade have? How many days' rations here and at the forward base? How many days' fodder for the horses?"

  Guouwaxeus's lean face showed uncertainty for the first time; he looked around for the military clerk assigned to him. Walker looked instead to his chief of staff, Jack Morton. Morton had his problems-mostly trying to crawl into a brandy bottle if he wasn't watched, and a taste for humping veal-but before the Event he'd been a manager at Wal-Mart, something to do with inventory control, and a supply officer in the National Guard part-time. That made the weakness for little girls more than tolerable.