Gabe and Reyes still had their pistols, and they’d taken all the remaining ammunition into the tower with him. They hadn’t wanted to waste bullets on archers fifty meters away, but the men running toward him with ladders were making it easy for them. “Okay,” he said. “We’re up.”
Reyes nodded, leveling her gun on the firing holes in the watchtower. Gabe did the same on the opposite side. They opened fire.
Gunshots rang out, one after another. Ladder carriers began to fall in droves, and the ladders fell to the dirt. The men coming behind them fell as well, targeted by the riflemen. Only three ladders reached the fence, and the men climbing them were killed as soon as they poked their head above the fence. Unprepared for such a brutally effective counterattack, the rest of the attackers held back. For now, the assault had stalled. Cheers went up from within the fort.
“Nice shooting,” Gabe said.
Reyes smiled. “I’m a little rusty.”
“You did great. Let’s just hope they don’t try that again. We’re almost out of ammo.”
Then something strange happened. There was some discussion among the leaders of the assault, after which the men began to move back around the perimeter of the fort and down the path toward the river. The attackers were retreating.
“What the hell?” Reyes asked. “That can’t be it?”
Gabe frowned. “No,” he said. “They’re regrouping. What for, I couldn’t tell you.”
“What’s going on?” O’Brien asked. “Are they leaving?”
“Looks that way,” Gabe said. “Stay ready.”
But the attackers’ retreat didn’t appear to be a feint. The entire force retreated back down the trail toward the river. Soon Gabe glimpsed men congregating again on the bank. They did not appear to be boarding their ships.
Squinting into the distance, Gabe could just make out the forms of men on the riverbank. Gabe wished they’d had time to manufacture lenses for a telescope, but other tasks had taken priority. “I don’t think they’re leaving,” he said. “Looks like they’re unloading something from one of the boats.”
“What is it?” Reyes asked.
Gabe shook his head. “Hard to say. Several pieces, like wall sections. Looks like metal. Some kind of siege engine?” The men carrying the heavy objects disappeared behind the trees, and Andrea Luhman wouldn’t have line on sight to them for at least another hour. “Sigurd, can you send somebody down there? We need to know what they’re doing.”
“Copy that,” Sigurd said, in his thick Norse accent. They’d given him Slater’s comm, and he had taken the responsibility very seriously, including adopting the spacemen’s lingo. “I will send Njáll.” Njáll was notorious for being able to move through the woods quietly enough to sneak up on a rabbit.
“O’Brien, keep your riflemen in position,” Gabe said. “Sigurd, give the rest of your men five minutes to rest. Then put them to work collecting arrows. And send some men out to chop up those ladders.”
*****
By the time Njáll reported back, Andrea Luhman had come back around. Carpenter and Njáll’s reports agreed: Harald’s men were putting something together on the riverbank. It was roughly cube-shaped, about two meters on a side, and assembled from metal wall sections that had apparently been prefabricated for this purpose. Njáll also reported that men were chopping down trees along the path to the fort, presumably to make way for whatever they were building. Njáll and Carpenter were equally baffled by the apparent quality of the metal panels.
“The surfaces are smooth,” Njáll said, in his native tongue. “I couldn’t see any seams. The forge required to make such a thing must be gigantic.”
The spacemen exchanged worried glances. Gabe and Reyes had come down from the tower, leaving two of the riflemen in their place. Reyes filled Carpenter in on Njáll’s assessment. Carpenter concurred.
“I’m afraid I don’t have any other explanation,” Carpenter said.
The spacemen knew exactly what he meant: with the lander destroyed, there was only one way Harald could have gotten his hands on metal of that quality.
“There’s no way Harald’s men dredged the Cho-ta’an ship up,” Reyes said.
“Maybe a piece of debris that broke off when it hit the water?”
“I’m checking the video now,” Carpenter said. “Give me a few minutes.”
They waited anxiously for more information from Carpenter while the Norsemen collected arrows and tended to their wounded. Six men had been hit with arrows; another had fallen from a scaffold and broken his arm. So far there were no dead.
“The video is pretty blurry,” Carpenter said at last. “But it does look like something broke off shortly before the crash.”
“Before the crash?” Reyes said. “Like an escape pod?”
“Could be.”
“And you’re just noticing this now?”
“I never had any reason to look at the video recorded before the crash. I was trying to figure out where the ship was. Anyway, it’s almost impossible to see. At ninety frames per second, it only shows up in three frames. I’m going to try to figure out where it would have ended up based on its trajectory.”
“Be quick about it,” Reyes said. She turned off her mic and turned to Gabe. “What do you think?”
“I think that those panels are of Cho-ta’an construction,” Gabe said. “The real question, though, is what else survived that crash.”
“You mean the Cho-ta’an themselves,” O’Brien said.
“Cho-ta’an and Cho-ta’an weapons. If those guys have a railgun, we’re in trouble. Njáll, did you see any… strange-looking men? Very tall, probably wearing cloaks to disguise their appearance.”
Njáll shook his head. “I did not see,” he said in broken English. “I look at metal thing.”
There wasn’t much they could do but wait. A pre-emptive assault on the riverbank would be suicidal. They might be able to slow down the process of widening the path by having archers harass the men cutting down trees, but that would be at best a delaying tactic, and they couldn’t afford to leave their archers exposed. Whatever Harald’s men were building, they would find out soon enough.
Chapter Forty
The work on the cube continued until after dark. Njáll went out twice more to spy on the men’s progress, but was unable to get close enough to gather any additional information. Carpenter’s surveillance was similarly unhelpful, but he did discover another clue as to the object’s origin.
“If I draw a line following the trajectory of the object that left the Cho-ta’an ship, it intersects northern Denmark. There’s a gash in a field about forty meters long that could have been caused by some kind of craft, but whatever made the gash is gone.”
Gabe and Reyes exchanged glances.
“That’s all you’ve got?” Reyes asked, reading Gabe’s thoughts.
“You know,” Carpenter said, “you went from ‘Thank God you’re still here’ to ‘What have you done for me lately’ in record time.”
“Sorry, Carpenter,” Reyes said. “We’re getting a little antsy down here. We thought we were going to be fighting Vikings with spears and axes. Not space aliens with… whatever’s in that box.”
“Understood,” Carpenter replied. “I’ll let you know if I find out anything else.”
The night wore on, and still there was no sign of activity from the attackers. Clouds had come over the Moon, making surveillance difficult. Some time after midnight, Carpenter reported Harald’s men were on the move. They’d attached long wooden poles to the cube, allowing it to be carried by a dozen men. They advanced slowly up the path, proceeded by a score of men with bows and spears.
“Any idea what’s in that thing yet, Carpenter?” Gabe asked. He and Reyes continued to watch from the tower.
“Sorry,” Carpenter replied. “No radiation, no heat signature. It’s just a big fucking metal box. It could be filled with dead cats for all I know.”
“Jesus, Carpenter.”
Two
men emerged from the woods bearing torches and shields. Immediately behind them followed another score of men with spears, and then two more torch-bearers. These were followed by the dozen men bearing the metal box. They set it down about twenty meters from the dirt rampart as more men continued to pour out from the woods. All of the men carried shields and either spears or axes. About one in twenty also had a torch. None of them seemed to have bows. The men in front formed two rows, staggering their shields to create an impenetrable wall.
“I don’t like this,” O’Brien said. “Not at all.”
“Should we start shooting?” Reyes asked.
Gabe hesitated. “No. Arrows won’t get through that wall, and we don’t want to waste bullets until we know what we’re dealing with. O’Brien, get all your riflemen to this side. Be ready to fire on command. Sigurd, can you get me some light on that thing?”
“Copy,” Sigurd replied. He barked orders to several nearby archers, who ran to collect arrows from a chest near the watchtower. They climbed onto a scaffold against the east wall and nocked their arrows. Braggi moved from one archer to the next, lighting the wicks hanging off the arrows. The arrows streaked across the sky, their wicks tracing wide arcs that ended near the metal box. Most of them struck shields; some bounced off the top of the box; a few stuck in the ground. Then, one by one, the magnesium charges on the arrows caught fire, flooding the area with light. Harald’s men shifted nervously but didn’t panic. After a few seconds, the flares died out. The light showed them little that they didn’t already know, but it revealed one aspect of the box they’d missed.
“What’s that slot in the front?” Reyes asked.
“Gun,” Sigurd replied. He’d climbed onto the platform with the archers.
Gabe nodded grimly. “It looks like a casemate for some kind of weapon. An automatic rifle or a railgun, probably.”
“So what do we do?” O’Brien asked.
“Take it out,” Gabe said. “Sigurd, I need a pair of men with magnesium arrows. Hit that thing every five seconds. If we can’t see it, we can’t hit it. O’Brien, I want every rifleman on this side of the fort. Aim for that slit. Archers too. Fill that goddamn thing with arrows.”
The Norsemen were in position within a minute. The first magnesium arrow plinked off the top of the box, showering the area with light, and a deafening roar of gunshots rang out. This was followed by a cacophony of bullets and arrows striking metal. The fusillade had no noticeable effect. Gabe was almost certain one of the bullets from his pistol had gone through the slot, but it was impossible to know if it made any difference. “Keep shooting!” he yelled, as the men reloaded. He was going to feel very foolish if this was all an elaborate ruse to make them direct their fire at an empty box, but he couldn’t take the chance. Even if they spent all their ammunition on the box, they’d still have a fighting chance against a Viking assault. But if there was a railgun in that box, destroying it was their only hope. Guns blasted again, and another volley of bullets and arrows bounced harmlessly off the box.
As he watched, one of the magnesium arrows hit the ground a meter or so to the left of the cube, momentarily illuminating a group of men who stood nearby, their shields raised. The brilliant light glimmered on their steel helmets and shin greaves. For a second, one of the shields dropped enough for Gabe to see a ruddy face framed by thick locks of strawberry blond hair. Gabe glanced to Sigurd, but Sigurd showed no sign of having seen Harald. The arrow burned out.
The gunners were reloading for the third time when one of the archers screamed. Gabe glanced down in time to see the man’s left hand fall to the platform, severed cleanly from his wrist. The man dropped his bow, clutched the bloody stump that was left of his forearm, and fell backwards off the scaffold to the ground. Another man, who had turned to gawk at the fallen man, cried out—with good reason. In the lingering smoke from the gunfire, a narrow red beam could be seen, sizzling through the man’s lower back.
“It’s a laser!” Gabe shouted. “Get out of the way!”
The men on the scaffold stepped back, staring at the strange red beam that was barely visible in the smoke. It moved slowly downward, cutting one of the pine fence timbers neatly in half. Gabe watched as the beam sliced through the planks of the scaffold, barely able to believe his eyes. Breach-loaders and gunpowder bombs were one thing, but a laser! How the hell were they going to defend against a laser? If he’d had any idea Harald had a laser, he’d have built a mirror instead of working out the details of magnesium arrows. But it was too late for that now. The men were waiting for orders.
“Keep firing!” He shouted. “Aim for that slot!” Reyes stood next to him, silently watching. The laser continued to slice through the fence.
“Again!” Gabe yelled. The riflemen reloaded and the archers nocked their arrows. Gabe fired three more times with his pistol and then paused to glance down. The beam was just above ground level now, and had begun moving south, cutting crossways along the fence timbers. If they didn’t stop that laser soon, it was going to cut a hole in the fence big enough for Harald’s men to walk right through. With one man for every ten attackers, the defenders wouldn’t hold the fort long. Harald’s men would slaughter the occupants and drag the spacemen back to Norway.
But the bullets and arrows continued to have no effect. By this time, dozens of shots must have penetrated the slit, but it made no difference. There had to be another protective layer inside the box’s outer shell. As the laser’s path continued its sideways path, Gabe realized they had lost. There was no way to keep Harald’s men from taking the fort. The cut was already a good two meters wide. The defenders would be overrun within minutes.
“Gabe,” Reyes said, “we need to get out of here.”
Gabe pounded his fist on the railing, not wanting to accept it. But there was no way around it: they had lost. “Everybody down!” he shouted. “Retreat!”
As Reyes started down the ladder, the Norsemen stared up at Gabe, uncomprehending. They understood the words, but retreating wasn’t in their nature, and they’d never considered the possibility that they might lose a fight, particularly with the spacemen on their side. Several of them continued to reload their guns or pull arrows from their quivers.
“No!” Gabe shouted, climbing down the ladder after Reyes. “It’s pointless! We’re not getting through that armor. We need to run! Now!”
Still the men didn’t move. Many ignored him and continued firing. Sigurd, who had just fired his last arrow at the cube, leaped down from the scaffold and began to scour the ground for more. Gabe and Reyes ran toward him, past men and women who were frantically gathering their possessions.
“Birgir, tell those men no chests,” Reyes shouted. “Grab what they can carry and get down that tunnel. And keep people away from that beam!” The laser was cutting a path across the fort, slicing into the stones of the forge, which lay in its path. Gabe turned back toward the wall to see that O’Brien was the only rifleman who had moved.
Gabe approached Sigurd. “We need to get everybody out of here and into the tunnels.”
“We cannot run, Gabe,” Sigurd said. “This is our home. Everything we have—”
“Everything you have is going to be Harald’s,” Reyes said. “And you’re going to be dead or tied up in the hold of a boat. You’re not going to get your vengeance today.”
Sigurd stared at her for a moment. “You saw him,” he said at last. He looked at Gabe. “Both of you.”
“Sigurd,” Gabe said, “we don’t have time for this. We’ve lost this battle. No good can come from staying here.”
Sigurd turned to the watch the beam cutting horizontally across the fence timbers. On the scaffold above them, men continued to fire at the metal box. Around them, some men stood around in confusion while others ran into the lodge for their belongings. “I let him go once, because you begged me,” Sigurd said. “And this is how you repay me? You knew he was here and you said nothing. My son deserves vengeance!” Sigurd drew his sword.
&nbs
p; “Yngvi deserves vengeance,” Reyes said, “but now is not the time.”
“It will never be the time,” Sigurd said bitterly. “I am not a fool. I hear you talk. You believe you see the future. You think my quest for vengeance is doomed to fail.”
“I don’t know anything for certain,” Reyes said, “but if you stay here, you will die.”
“Then I will die,” Sigurd said. “Some must stay behind to fight, or you will not get away in time. Go. You have your quest. I have mine.” He turned away from them and strode toward the section of fence that was being cut away.
“He’s right, I’m afraid,” Gabe said. “They’ll be inside the fence before these people can get through the tunnel. Some of us are going to have to stay to buy you time.” He turned toward the men on the scaffold. “Agnar, if you’re going to stay up there, tell your men to save their ammo for the men coming through the gap!”
“Copy that,” Agnar shouted.
Behind them, O’Brien and Birgir were doing their best to round people up and get them down the tunnel. Several men had joined Sigurd, weapons ready, watching the red beam cut through the palisade. They were willing to fight, even at ten to one odds. And they were going to die, every last one of them.
“What are you saying, Gabe?”
“You and O’Brien get out,” Gabe said. “We’ll slow them down.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Gabe,” Reyes said. “You’re coming. That’s an order.”
“Damn it, Reyes, we won’t make it. You can stand here arguing with me or you can take this chance to escape.”
“No,” Reyes said. “We stick together, no matter what.”
“Then we die together.”
Reyes shook her head. “I don’t accept that. There’s got to be another way. A way to slow them down. All this technology, everything we’ve accomplished—”
The Dream of the Iron Dragon: An Alternate History Viking Epic (Saga of the Iron Dragon Book 1) Page 39
