Prince of Outcasts

by S. M. Stirling

  He glared around, shield up under his vision-slit and head turning in the automatic side-to-side motion you used to compensate for the loss of your peripheral vision. Then he staggered, and staggered again as something grabbed at his ankle and tried to jerk his foot out from under him, probably failing only because they underestimated his weight.

  Evrouin tried to get a clear path for a stab at whoever it was and cursed foully as he couldn’t and then had to take on another attacker, glaive to blowgun-spear. John kicked reflexively as he swung the shield to balance himself and felt the rounded toe of his sabaton hit something, but not hard enough to break bones.

  He was blind downward, and flicked his visor open with the back of a gauntlet as he jerked the shield up to chop down with its lower point, the standard move against someone on the ground—a kite shield was heavy enough to make a very effective bludgeon. That gave him a view as an Iban came erect off the ground like something on springs, rising up between the shield and John’s body and dropping the wavy-bladed knife held in his teeth into one hand. The stab at John’s face was quick as a lizard’s tongue.

  Someone had learned the lesson of the last Iban’s attempt to fight a knight on his own terms, and learned it very quickly indeed. That someone went around in a fringed loincloth, but it didn’t mean they were stupid.

  A wasp had darted at John’s eyes once when he was a child. The memory flashed as he tossed his head back and to the side with frantic speed and the point flashed by his eyes close enough to part a lash.

  Too close!

  The motion made his visor click down, blinding him again. He pulled the Iban into a frantic bear hug, which was like embracing a large, very strong writhing anaconda, and smashed his head forward in a butt with the forehead of the low-crowned sallet helm again and again. Even with the padding between him and the steel that hurt his head and neck and lights starred in front of his eyes, but in his current state he ignored it. The Iban didn’t have that option as metal pounded into his face, though he stabbed twice and the knife screeched off the breastplate and the faulds over John’s thighs. Blood spattered over the front of the Montivallan’s helmet and visor, a hot, salty, metallic smell. The wild man made one last faltering try for the vision slit before he went limp.

  One of his teachers—it had been John Hordle of the Dúnedain, still bear-strong at sixty, scarred and jovial and immensely experienced—had told him that in a fight to the death technique was good but raw aggression, a living will to do harm and always going forward made up for a great deal. The hearts of the Sea-Dyak warriors were definitely in the right place by those standards. Against locals—or the Montivallans and Japanese and the Silver Surfer’s cosmopolitan gang of toughs, if he hadn’t been woken by that nightmare he couldn’t remember anymore—they might have broken through to the catapults.

  Something isn’t right, he thought as he let the one he’d clubbed into a daze with the head-butts drop.

  Evrouin finished his man in the same moment with a sweeping two-handed overhead slash that put seven feet of leverage behind his blow. Glaives were about as effective as a battle-axe that way; they were designed to give infantry a chance against mounted men-at-arms, and they could cut a knight’s armor if it was one of the thinner parts and they hit it just right. When it came down on the unprotected junction of neck and shoulder . . . well, bad things happened.

  John knocked up his visor again, and they stood side-by-side panting as rivulets of sweat poured down their faces and more oozed out of the padding of their helmets. Nobody seemed to be fighting at that instant; Ruan slung his bow and attended to the wounded, who seemed to be mercifully few.

  How were they planning to destroy the catapults in a few moments in the dark, even if they’d overrun them? Especially when they’ve probably never seen one before?

  His sister Órlaith had wiped out a battery of Korean field catapults back in south Westria, in the time it took her to walk between them and swing a two-handed cut for each . . . but she’d known exactly what to hit. And she’d used the Sword of the Lady, whose razor-sharp invulnerable blade really could be used over and over again on thumb-thick steel rods and springs. He looked around, with shield and sword in hand. There was a cracking, crunching sound as Evrouin thoughtfully smacked the steel cap on the other end of his glaive’s haft into the fallen Iban’s head a couple of times, much like someone pounding herbs in a mortar and pestle.

  “There!” Pip shouted.

  She must have eyes like a cat. The end of her double-headed cane dripped blackly as she pointed, the serrated gold alloy hidden. Toa stood a little ahead of her, crouched with the great spear rotating smoothly in his ham-sized hands and a scatter of bodies—and parts of bodies—lying in front of him. There were feather-tufted darts sticking in the cloak that hung from his shoulder, and he seemed . . .

  A bit peeved, John thought as the Maori grimaced like a gargoyle and bellowed:

  “Tika tonu mai

  Tika tonu mai

  Ki ahau e noho nei

  Tika tonu mai I a hei ha!”

  If that isn’t some version of Step right up and lay right down! I’m a McClintock, John thought; it was heartening, to have someone like that on your side.

  Another band of Iban came running out of the darkness; Pip dropped the cane and whipped out her slingshot from its holster on her thigh, flicking the brace open against her forearm with the same movement. There were at least a score of them and they all seemed to be carrying something besides their personal weapons . . .

  Follow-up squad, went through his mind in an instant. The others were supposed to clear the way. It would have worked, if they’d surprised us, but they don’t know it didn’t work . . . or they’re going to try anyway. But even if it had worked perfectly, there’s no way they could have gotten out again, not most of them. It’s a forlorn hope, and a very forlorn one at that.

  According to Tuan Anak the Iban here fought for Carcosa as mercenaries sometimes and according to him and Deor and Thora all three, they were fierce warriors by nature and custom to boot, but this wasn’t the sort of plan you expected of men fighting for pay. Or that anyone with their wits about them would expect hired men to follow with this sort of headlong sacrificial valor. Not just because some master resting someplace safely distant told them to do it. He’d heard his father say more than once that physical courage was simply not that rare a quality, and you could often hire men to risk their lives. To pour out their lives like water they had to be fighting for something of transcendent value—though that might be an intangible, like honor or reputation or their given oath. Or their employer might have something their families needed for their lives, or held hostages they loved more than life.

  All that flashed through his mind in wordless instants. There was only one way this could be worth anything to the attackers, and that was—

  “Thermite charges!” he yelled; it was the only thing capable of destroying large steel machines quickly. “Stop them!”

  Pip stopped one; she drew and loosed with her slingshot. Pure accident smacked the ball-bearing into the nose of the pointed cylinder one of the Iban was carrying under his left arm, with his parang in his right hand. It was a warhead from a firebolt, something substantial made for a twenty-four-pounder catapult or bigger, and the half-inch steel ball hit the detonator pin to smash it back against the friction igniter and the magnesium booster within. Evidently the safety lock had been removed, or this model didn’t have one.

  The warhead flared into blue-white actinic brightness instantly, spewing stuff hot enough to melt steel in an eyeblink all over the upper half of his body in the most destructive chemical reaction the Changed world allowed. The man carrying it barely had time to begin a scream amid a stink of scorched meat and acrid burning bone. His skull cracked open along its seams as brains and blood boiled within the rigid cage.

  A few of the crossbowmen shot, but not enough to
blunt the second charge—there hadn’t been enough time to reload after they slung their crossbows and drew sword and buckler. Ishikawa loosed a shaft from his yumi, and after a moment Ruan rose and drew and loosed as well; both hit at least one man. The first dropped straight down and the point of the warhead clutched in his arms hit the ground hard enough to trigger it. It was trapped between the Iban’s midsection the ground when it ignited and the result was . . .

  I really wish I hadn’t seen that, John thought, feeling queasy even in the rush of battle and turning his head and blinking against the afterimages of intolerable light. I’m going to remember that and I don’t want to.

  “Eyes on!” Evrouin snapped, before adding: “Sire.”

  Not Eyes on, you idiot, at least, he thought.

  John forced himself to squint and blink watering eyes. That was enough to show the final despairing rush break on a serried rank—the Guard crossbowmen in their half-armor had come up with their swords and bucklers in hand to stand with the leaders, and the sailors held their flanks with knife and cutlass and naginata. It was hard to be sure in the darkness, but he thought the Iban were fewer than his band now, as well as more lightly armed. Each advantage magnified the other.

  He stabbed at one attacker, but the man jumped backward with frantic agility and the Montivallan pulled back into guard. Toa’s great spear flashed in a circle trailing blood, then struck out underarm in a stab like a frog’s tongue. That killed, but the broad head caught in bone and the rearward jerk didn’t clear it as the body flopped loosely and came back with the weapon. The moment of immobility was near-fatal; the big Maori went down as another Iban appeared out of nowhere and cracked the firebolt warhead he carried against the side of his head—fortunately not with the point, and he had to reach up to do it, which robbed the stroke of some of its force. Blades poised to finish the fallen man.

  “Tennō Heika banzai!”

  Ishikawa drew and cut horizontally with his katana in a single arc of movement, topping a man’s head like a boiled egg; even then John blinked at the sight, shocked that the steel hadn’t locked in bone, and the dead man dropped and knotted into a convulsion at the same time.

  Pip screamed as Toa went down, a sound composed of fear and sheer raw fury. She moved so quickly that suddenly she was just there standing over Toa’s body, a kukri in one hand and her cane in the other, and they were blurring even faster, chopping and blocking and smashing into the sides of heads or down onto collarbones or elbows. Blood flew, trails of black in the night, adding to the metallic stink. The last of the raiders went down under multiple attacks.

  Then she was standing still and poised, glaring around them as the light grew brighter; more armloads of brush were being thrown on the fires, some of them on the earth berm that surrounded the camp. She used the illumination to administer a series of whacks with her cane to the heads of half a dozen recumbent writhing figures, an unpleasant almost vegetable-sounding crunch-crunch-crunch as she swung it like a flail with her hand tucked right under the knob at the other end.

  “Do you have a flaaag, you creeping little poison-dart sods?” he heard her mutter between blows, under her panting breath. “No? Didn’t bloody think”—another full-armed swing and a last crunch—“so!”

  Another thing his father had told him once was that you should never just frighten a brave enemy if you could help it, because in a courageous mind fear tripped over into killing rage almost immediately.

  The fighting was over, as far as he could tell, but the noise all around was building instead of dying, shrieks and what seemed to be chants.

  “Deor, I’m going to need you to talk for me if Tuan Anak’s down—we have to find out what’s going on,” he said firmly. “Mr. Radavindraban—”

  He was still standing, thought bloodied by a cut on the forehead and holding an arm to it to keep the flow out of his eyes.

  Never show the doubt or the hesitation.

  “—you’re in charge here. Sergeant Fayard, maintain the perimeter around the catapults. It’s essential to the mission,” he added as the Guardsman looked rebellious.

  He was probably going to say: you are our mission, Your Highness, but John had a counter to that . . .

  “And if the mission fails, none of us are getting off this island alive. Myself included.”

  Deor nodded agreement, but the scop also looked for Ruan; the young healer was busy—he was threading a needle and telling Radavindraban to sit—and spared him only time enough for a smile and a wave.

  Pip bent over Toa, who winced as she felt at the injured spot on his head and groaned as he rose using the shaft of his spear as a lever, with the other hand on Pip’s shoulder. He winced again when he shook his head.

  “Getting too old for this,” he said with a groan. “Time for a rocking chair on the verandah and a bottomless bottle of beer.”

  “It’s not cracked,” she said with relief. “You need to remember that big doesn’t mean immortal!”

  Then she nodded to John. “Bloody right we have to know what’s going on,” she said.

  Her head went up, as if she was a gray-eyed tawny cat sniffing for a scent.

  “Something’s not right,” she said. “That doesn’t sound like people who just won a fight. It sounds like someone whose puppy got run over by the post-coach.”

  “Exactly,” John said, as the remark crystalized his unease.

  The five of them set out—Evrouin wasn’t going out of glaive-distance from John, and Thora came along rubbing a swatch of fringed cloth from an Iban’s clout along the blade of her bloody sword.

  “This has the feel of a decapitation strike,” she said, and at their puzzlement: “Term of art in the A-List. Trying to weaken an opponent by cutting off their leadership or their specialists. Like a jab to daze and a kick to finish.”

  John nodded as he unclipped his helmet and bevor and handed them to Evrouin, cutting off his protest with a gesture.

  “I don’t want to talk to the locals looking like a man with half a head, or . . . what were those clockwork mechanical men the ancients had called . . .”

  “Robots, Your Highness,” the older man said. “Or Terminators, in some of the stories.”

  John nodded; he wasn’t sure how many of the stories were true, anyway, but you used metaphor on instinct. A faceless moving thing of metal was intimidating, especially if you weren’t used to seeing the like.

  Thora tossed him the cloth, and he carefully cleaned the blade of his longsword as they walked; blood was essentially salt water, and that didn’t go well with steel. Walking up to excited foreigners in flame-shot darkness with a red-running sword in your hand wasn’t the smartest thing to do, either. As he slid it home with a cling sound when the guard hit the metal plates of the scabbard’s mouth he noticed the stickiness on his right arm and side as the blood ran under the armor and into the cloth beneath. It met the sweat that soaked the doublet and fused into a thick gelid mass that stung in places where his skin was grazed; he hadn’t noticed that happening, but if something hit the armor hard at a joint you got rasped as the friction was transmitted through the metal sheets and coarse cloth below.

  He grimaced in disgust, and then hid it as he turned to look at Pip. She was casting little glances at Toa, and relaxing a bit as his stride grew more confident.

  I’m starting to like her even more, he thought.

  The big man was obviously a sort of unofficial uncle and had raised her as much as her parents had. He wiped at the black glinting mass on the side of his head with a folded bandage she handed him from a pouch on her belt, wincing as the alcohol-based disinfectant it was soaked with cut through the clotted blood and met the raw flesh beneath.

  “Just stunned a bit,” he said to her. “Nothing cracked, not dizzy or seeing lights or feeling like a chunder.”

  “Technicolor yawn,” he added to John’s puzzlement. “Puke, like?
”

  John blinked at the colorful vocabulary, but nodded. Those were the symptoms of a concussion, which was no joke. It didn’t matter how big or strong you were, either, if you got hit in the right—wrong—place. A human head and brain were just jelly in a pottery case, regardless of the size of the body attached, and Toa’s wouldn’t be much more resistant to a whack with a heavy steel weight than his, or Pip’s for that matter.

  The problem at Tuan Anak’s headquarters was obvious when they got there, and visible enough because there were lanterns on poles and fires built up enough to mostly dispel the darkness. The tent the High Priest and Priestess had used—it was the howdah from their elephant set on the ground, basically—was down, and parts of it still smoldering where it had fallen into the nearby fire. There were bodies lying about, Baru Denpasarans and attackers. A few of them were Ibans. The rest of them were Carcosans, wearing vests made of mail and small plates but with the same build and coloring as their enemies, save for two. Those had looked a good deal more like John or Pip—or probably had, since between darkness and the way they’d been hacked about long after they fell it was difficult to be sure.

  The two bodies that really mattered had been covered with matting and blood pooled beneath them. John knew immediately from the stunned grief or wails from the others that it was the local clerics. Tuan Anak was standing with his parang almost dropping from his nerveless hand; there was blood on it and on his arm and chest, the more visible because he’d started up in nothing but his loincloth and had apparently fought that way too. A few thin wounds marked his torso, adding to a truly impressive collection of healed scars, but the loss of his holy Pedanda was probably what was causing the stunned look on his face. As John watched he swallowed and gave his parang a considering look and began to turn it in his hand.