by Robert Adams
He was to live to regret depriving his and Gumpner's party of the only qualified physician and surgeon.
The deadly-accurate fire of the picked sharpshooters lying or squatting on the high ledges served to keep the milling, noisy broil of Ganiks at a good, safe distance for more time than Corbett had originally figured. When those few of the cannibals brave enough or stupid enough to try to ride over the Broomtowners had all been spilled from their primitive saddles to flop onto the rocky ground with their life blood fast-flowing from the fearsome wounds inflicted by the explosive bullets, the others seemed wisely resolved to keep a goodly distance. But Corbett knew full well that it was only a matter of time before some leader arose to head up a full-scale charge against his flimsy defenses and/or flank his position.
To give at least a warning of any such flanking maneuver, Corbett sent two riflemen to climb to the top of the gap on either side and position themselves behind boulders at the verges. A single, booming pistol report from far up the defile brought all the men facing about for a moment, but when it was not followed by any others, all turned back to the work at hand—rolling and manhandling larger boulders up to both block the defile and form a breastwork from behind which the men might more safely fire whenever push came to shove.
A fortuitous find atop one side of the gap was a huge old tree. Recently uprooted, possibly by the earthquakes a few days past, it lay close enough to the verge that a squad was able, with ropes and cracking muscles, to topple it into the gorge below. But Corbett and the men had to leave it where it landed, just forward of the rude breastworks, for there simply were not enough men to manhandle it athwart the gap.
"But," thought the officer, eying the maze of cracked and shattered branches spreading from wall to wall and extending almost to the entrance of the defile, "any frontal assault is going to have to come in afoot, for no pony is going to allow itself to be ridden through that mess."
Then one of the sharpshooters called down from his high ledge. "Major Corbett, sir, some more of them just rode in from the north. Looks like fifty or sixty. Three or four are on real horses, and they and some others have helmets and breastplates and swords. Do I try to pick a few off, sir?"
"No, Pomroy," Corbett ordered, "wait until they're closer."
Slinging his rifle, the officer scrambled atop the huge mass of tree roots now resting upon and towering high over the breastwork boulders. Finding finally a precarious footing at the apex, he brought up and adjusted his big binoculars, fixing the field of the optics on the party of newcomers now splashing through the brook.
Aside from the few full-size horses, bits and pieces of steel armor and a scattering of swords, sabers and steel-shod pole arms, these Ganiks looked no whit different from the closer group. Their visible skin was just as grimy, their long hair and beards just as matted and their faces no less brutish; such cloth clothing as they wore was uniformly ragged and filthy; the animal skins and furs and cross-gartered rawhide boots were worn and shiny with grease.
But despite the nondescript appearance, the arrival of these reinforcements sent the mob of Ganiks milling just out of easy rifle range into a veritable frenzy of welcome. While uttering every sound of which human vocal apparatus is capable—along with some that, if asked earlier, Corbett would have said were impossible—they waved their primitive weapons with such wild exuberance as to knock a dozen or more of their fellows off their ponies, and Corbett noted that two or three of these remained where they fell.
"Christ," the officer thought, "Erica was right, these Ganiks must be lunatics; they're as dangerous to each other as they are to strangers."
After perhaps a quarter hour, when the Ganiks had quieted to some extent, one of the armored men on a real horse began to move his mouth and wave his long sword, but the distance and the slurred dialect made it impossible for Corbett to tell what he was saying. Shortly, however, two contingents—each of some thirty or forty Ganiks and each led by another of the armored horsemen—left the main body and set off to east and west.
"Flankers," the officer muttered to himself. "A three-pronged attack."
He unslung the padded case, slipped the binoculars into it and hung the case on one of the thicker root stubs, then climbed back down from his perch. On the ground he beckoned over Cash and the PFC who was assisting the acting sergeant. "Those men who just led the reinforcements in are obviously the Ganik commander and his captains, and he's a bit more intelligent or maybe just cagier than the bulk of them. He's sent a strong party, each under one of his officers, to either flank of our position. Now he seems to be pep-talking the rest of them into a frontal assault, and it's only a matter of time, the length of it dependent on how much we demoralized that first contingent earlier today, until they do hit us.
"Now, the abattis that that tree has formed has changed my strategy, Cash, for we are no longer vulnerable to a cavalry charge—not only is no horse or pony going to penetrate that splintery mass of branches, but even a dismounted force is going to be slowed up by it.
"Therefore, I don't want anyone firing down here until the bulk of the Ganik force are into that abattis. Understood? Yes, our primary objective is to hold off pursuit of Gumpner's party as long as possible, but our secondary objective is to cost those damned cannibals so many casualties here that when they do finally get by us or over us they'll be so under-strength that Gumpner will have at least a fighting chance.
"So have the two highest snipers climb on up and join the men atop the sides of the gap. The lower ones can come down and join us; they'll be just too vulnerable where they are to darts or thrown axes.
"Put the rock details to gathering fist-size ones for throwing, now—no need to make the breastwork any higher than it already is. Get the mounts picketed back around that bend where they'll be safer; if some of us do live through this action, I don't want them to be trapped here for lack of mounts.
"Station a man up on those roots. I left the glasses up there. He's to let us know the minute they start to move on us.
"Oh, and you might as well have the men fix their bayonets. There might not be time, later."
Chapter Four
Erica slowly, haltingly regained consciousness. There was the sound of voices, ebbing and surging, first loud, then dim as if with distance. At first, she could feel nothing, then, like a clap of lightning, the pain began.
There was no one place where it commenced, rather it seemed to encompass every cubic millimeter of her body, throbbing, seemingly intent upon rending her every cell apart. Her instinctive impulse was to scream, to shriek out her agony to the ears of all the world, but she could not. Try as she would, she had seemingly been bereft of control over her body, any part of it—neither her lips nor her jaws nor even her eyes would open on command, and not even a groan could she force from her throat.
The voices surged louder again. She could understand them, for all that the language—what was that language? It seemed that she should know well its name, but now she could not recall it—was slurred and much debased from its origins. They were, she knew, discussing her.
"… tolt you it 'uz a Ahrmnee," attested Joe-Bob Lodge. "A mite skinny, he be, but betcha he'll cook up jest fine." He squatted and pressed his fingertips into the thickest section of Erica's thigh. "Be tender, too, betcha."
"He ain' daid, yet," Kevin Spottswood remarked. "He still a-breathin', may be, we kin mek 'im screech, back't' camp. Thet'll tender 'im up more, betcha."
The voices faded away, for Erica, as unconsciousness again claimed her and her breathing became shallower.
Kevin's horny, dirty palm held before the Ahrmehnee's nose failed to register respiration, so he knelt, leaned over and placed his ear against the chest, then sprang up with a start. "Thishere ain' no he, Joe-Bob, it be a she!
Joe-Bob began to fumble with the length of rope holding up his faded, ragged and filthy trousers, stuttering, "Le's… le's… le's fuck 'er now, afore the resta owuh bunch gits here. I… I… ain' nevuh been first on no t
ook-female."
But the older man, Kevin, shook his shaggy head emphatically. "Somebody, he done axed opuned your haid and stuffed it with turds, boy, bound to, way you tawk! Thishere Ahrmnee bitch, she near daid, enyhow, you and me come to pole 'er, she gon' be awl daid, and you know what Long Willy'll do to us, then! The bunch'll be a-chawin' awn owuh short ribs afore night, an' you betcha ass he won't kill us quick, neither."
Joe-Bob began to tremble all over and big tears squeezed from the corners of his mud-brown eyes, to become lost in the matted tangle of his dark-blond beard. "But it jest ain' fair, Kevin. Ol' Long Willy, he gits him eny one the wimniens eny time he wawnts to, too. My turn, it don' come up fer more'n a week… and I'm so all-fired horny. It jest ain' fair!"
"It the way it is, boy," shrugged Kevin, resignedly. "It the way it allus been in the bunches. Onlies' way you can mek it diffrunt, is you fight Long Willy and kill 'im, opun and fair; then you'll be top dawg till somebody kills you."
Kevin went on, "Now you go back up top an' fork your pony an' go fin' Strong Tom. Tell 'im wher I be an' whut we founded, heah? I'm gon' git 'er out'n the sun an' see kin I keep 'er livin' till yawl gits back."
Gumpner had kept the party moving at a gallop or a fast trot for as long as his experience told him the mounts could safely endure so frenetic a pace, then he halted them, and he and his hale men were engaged in transferring saddles and gear onto the spare animals when first the riderless troop horse, then the big mule bearing Harry Braun caught up to them.
"They got Dr. Arenstein?" asked the sergeant, with a soupcon of deference, despite the press of circumstances.
His face a mask of agony, Braun just nodded, then, after a moment, gasped out, "My girth was slipping. Poor Erica had dismounted to tighten it for me when three of the stinking savages seemed to appear from nowhere. One of them smashed Erica's head with a huge club, while the other two came at me. I shot one, but then my pistol jammed, so I struck the other with the barrel of it, then the mule bolted."
"And probably just as well for you, Doctor, that it did." Gumpner nodded soberly. "Give me your sidearm—maybe I can clear it."
Shortly, the old noncom's bootknife and knowledgeable fingers had extracted a ruptured cartridge case from the chamber of the big automatic. When he had recharged the pistol, he placed it back in Braun's belt holster, then saw to having the injured man and his horse harness transferred to another mule. After removing most of its heavy armor, the sergeant mounted the troop horse; then he led his party southward again, at a fast, distance-eating trot, trying not to hear the distant crackling of the rifles, the duller booming of the big pistols, or to reflect upon how dear was the price of survival of himself and the few accompanying him.
It was pure slaughter, butchery, not warfare, and Corbett willingly gave credit where credit was due. It was certainly due the Ganiks, for determination and raw courage in the face of near-certain death. They just kept coming, wave after screeching wave of them, even when they had perforce to crawl over bloody, squirming piles of their own dead and wounded even before they got to the hideous deathtrap of the abattis.
And now ammunition was running very low; some of the riflemen were in fact reduced to throwing rocks, or to casting back the Ganiks' own rude axes or iron-pointed darts.
Up atop the gap, however, the threatened flank attacks had failed to materialize, and Corbett now wondered if he might not have been wrong in his estimate of the Ganik leader's strategic sense. Those two contingents sent around the gap might very well have been sent in pursuit of Gumpner, and against even one of those groups, the sergeant and his small force would be all but helpless.
Of course, there was nothing he could do about that dire contingency, not now. But he could content himself to a degree on the account of this main body. Their casualties had been staggering—there must be easily five or six score dead and seriously wounded Ganik bodies within and before that thick maze of branches, with perhaps another dozen between it and the breastwork. Even if they had been reinforced again after the attack began, there were certain to be too few left to mount any sort of organized pursuit of the other party.
In the little valley just north of the defile, Long Willy Kilgore and his sole remaining lieutenant, One-ear Carson, were experiencing increasing difficulty in haranguing those Ganiks still alive and unhurt into further attacks on the stubborn defenders of the gap-mouth.
Not even the addition of the thirty-odd men of Strong Tom's as-yet-unblooded force had seemed to help, and Strong Tom himself had flatly refused to try to lead an assault, not wasting to leave the fine, rare prize his bunch had taken—a young, toothsome Ahrmehnee woman, unconscious from a clubbing and now bound belly-down across the rude saddle of a led pony.
But at last, having correctly pointed out that as only one or two of the fire sticks still were speaking—their magical fires apparently having burned out—Long Willy convinced some fifty men, most of Strong Tom's bunch, and all led by One-ear, to advance against the tiny band of warlocks. It was very bad timing, but Long Willy did not know that until far too late.
When the watcher atop the root ball informed Corbett of the return to the valley of what looked to be the entire eastern contingent of Ganiks, the officer had all three of the men atop the eastern verge climb back down and share out their full cartridge boxes with the men behind the breastwork. And before more than a third of that hundred and fifty rounds had been fired, One-ear Carson's grudging wave were all either dead, wounded or in full flight back to the safety of the vale.
Never a man to flog a dead pony, Long Willy Kilgore made up his mind quickly. "A'right, thet there bunch, they's jest too strowng fer us. We loses us enymore mens, we gone be easy meat fer eny damn Kuhmbuhluhn paddyroll comes alowng. So le's us jest git awn back to camp. We got us thet Ahrmnee gel, and one of them firesticks, them and a whole passel of stuff fer to 'vide up 'mong them as is lef'. Le's git!"
"How 'bout ol' Johnny Skinhead and his bunch, Long Willy?" asked Strong Tom. "Rackon we ought'n send an' let him know we going back?" Long Willy just shrugged. "He ketches them othuhs, he ketches 'em; ef he don't, he don't; eithuh way, he'll come back to camp, sometime 'r't'othuh."
Corbett didn't, couldn't, believe it at first. He could not bring himself to believe that the mob of Ganiks, who in one or two more frontal assaults could certainly have overrun his position, had simply ridden back north, out of the small valley, leaving all their dead, most of their wounded and a vast herd of riderless mountain ponies. So he kept his men standing to arms for nearly two more hours, crouched behind their stone bulwark, while wounded Ganiks whimpered and groaned and moaned and shrieked, while a veritable squadron of black buzzards swooped lower and ever lower above the stricken field, and noisy ravens crowded the ledges above the carnage.
At length, he led a half-dozen riflemen through the rough abattis which had served them so well, over the windrows of dead and dying Ganiks, he and his men giving mercy thrusts of their bayonets to those that happened to be in their path, and then down into the valley. They experienced but little difficulty in securing ponies from the herd the Ganiks had left behind, and the officer led them on a cautious patrol, scouting the former attackers' line of withdrawal. Not until he was fully satisfied that there was no subterfuge involved, that the smelly, savage adversaries had truly, astoundingly, simply broken off the engagement and returned whence they had come, did he lead his tired but exuberant patrol back to the valley.
Back at the gap, he took six fresh men and six more ponies, then followed the track of the eastern group of Ganiks, seeking a way to reach the floor of the defile from the mountains on that side, but there was none that a horse or pony could negotiate, although there were many places where agile men might go up or down.
Full dark had fallen before he once more returned to the valley to find Corporal Cash and the remainder of the force encamped a bit upstream of the ford. Inside a ring of rifle pits hacked into the stony soil with the rude weapons of dead Ganiks, the played-out
troopers were feasting on chunks of spit-broiled pony steak.
"Did you remember the animals we left up the defile, Cash?" were Corbett's first words, upon dismounting slowly, with a cracking of joints.
"Yes, sir," the young man replied. "I had them led up as far as the breastwork, then had the men bring them armloads of mown grass and enough water to slake them. There's just no way we could get them through those tree branches, sir."
"Very good, Cash," Corbett nodded, "but you'd best detail a guard on them for tonight. Every predator and scavenger from twenty kilometers around is going to be converging on that pile of corpses before sunup."
While the noncom went about choosing men for the horse and pony guard, Corbett stalked on stiff, aching legs over to the butchered pony carcass and employed his bootknife to hack off as much meat as he thought he could eat, then set about the cooking of the stringy stuff. Once his belly was full of half-burned, half-raw meat, the officer took a final turn about the encampment, then rolled himself in a horseblanket and fell promptly asleep.
Erica wavered in and out of consciousness for nearly a week. When, finally, she again became aware of her surroundings, she found herself in a dim, smoky and incredibly filthy, stinking hutlike cabin of unpeeled logs, chinked with clay and roofed with moldy thatch. Conifer tips stuffed the ill-cured and rotten-smelling hide on which she lay, and another of the rotting hides had been thrown over her naked body.
With the onset of full consciousness, however, came cold, crawling terror. Not only did she not know where she lay or how she had gotten there, but she could recall no event of her life, from birth to the present. She did not even know her own name! She whimpered without conscious thought.
But then she did begin to think. Closing her eyes, she earnestly sought memories, any memories. She could dimly see a figure mounted on a horse. No, a mule, it was, and the one so mounted was a man. She knew that she knew him, knew him of old, knew him well and should know his name, but she did not.
