Island in the Sea of Time

by S. M. Stirling

  Isketerol spotted it. “They’ve been beforehand with their harvest,” the Tartessian said. He looked up. “It’s been hot and dry for this sodden marsh of an island, but it’s still early for them to have it all in.”

  Walker lowered the binoculars and nodded thoughtfully. The grainfields were all reaped stubble, not even any sheaves of grain standing in the fields. Usually the locals left those in little three-sheaf tipis in the fields, so the crop would dry better. He looked through the field glasses again. Yup. Grain stacks inside the wall. Even so��� He did a quick mental calculation. Less than there should be, and the harvest had been good this year from all the scout’s reports. Maybe they’d rushed it because of the war.

  “Yeah, something funny there,” he said slowly.

  The creaking got a little louder. He looked around; his followers were grinning and sweating with single-minded eagerness. For them it was just another fight, and an easy one with sixty of them in full gear against one little farm hamlet. Plus there were cattle and sheep grazing around the Earth Folk settlement, and he’d found that the Iraiina and their relatives had a peculiar attitude about livestock. Sort of like a yuppie and his Lamborghini, or his car and his bank account put together. Their idea of status was to sit and watch endless herds of their very own cow-beasts driven by: Iraiina used the same word for big herd of cattle and wealth in general. Not entirely unlike the Bitterroot ranchers he’d been raised among.

  “All right,” he said quietly. “Let’s do this by the numbers.”

  Ohotolarix raised his aurochs-horn trumpet to his lips. It dunted huu-huuu-huuuu through the beeches and oaks, a harsh droning echo. With a crashing and ripping of branches and underbrush, two parties of a dozen men each spurred their horses out and around on either side, heading upslope to cut the Fiernans off from the north. The rest came out of hiding more carefully, forming into a line and trotting forward. Screams sounded from ahead; Fiernan herders tried to get their charges moving north, then saw they’d be cut off and abandoned the animals to run for the settlement. His followers whooped triumph as they rounded up the bawling, baaing livestock and edged it out of the way, back toward the woods.

  No horses, he thought. Not much of a surprise; the Earth Folk didn’t keep many of them. He swung down out of the saddle and the rest of the band followed, except for a few scouts; youths not ready for full warrior status came forward to hold reins. Make more sense to have the men do that, taking turns. Not possible, though. Honor forbids. He sneered a little. That attitude would have to go eventually, but for now it wasn’t worth the trouble of offending their superstitions.

  “Let’s go,” he said, drawing his sword. “No male prisoners.” Too much trouble to take back; they were a fair way from home. “Forward!”

  The men bayed answer: “Forward with Sky Father! Horned Man with us!”

  Hard dusty ground and ankle-length stubble caught at his feet. Shieldmen formed up before and on either side of him, and his bannerman by his side. His head swiveled as he checked. Front rank with shields up-the Fiernans had some pretty good archers, much better than the eastern tribes-and spears bristling. Crossbowmen behind them, with their shields slung over their backs. He frowned as he looked ahead. Those L-shaped entrances could be tricky; you couldn’t just hit the wall on either side and storm the gate. All right, we’ll hit the outer wall, cross the laneway, and then turn in. He gave orders, and the pace picked up to a trot, his plate armor clattering among the musical chink-chink of the others’ chain hauberks. Makes it easy to stay in shape, this does. No more steppercizer.

  An arrow wobbled out from the palisade and stood in the dirt. Men barked laughter, and the taut whung of crossbows sounded. They were well within range, and the heavy quarrels would probably go right through the rickety stakes that made up the chest-high defenses; those were as much to keep livestock in as enemies out. Screams of pain confirmed the thought.

  Walker paused a half-stride to pull the enemy arrow out of the ground. About thirty inches long, ashwood, fletched with gray goose feathers-fairly standard. The head was not-a narrow steel thing like a miniature cold chisel. His teeth skinned back from his lips. Nantucket-made, to an old pattern. Bodkin point, they’d been called in medieval England.

  Arrowheads like that had flown in deadly storms at Crecy and Agincourt.

  The first wave of Walkerburg men hit the embankment and scrambled up, chopping the edges of their shields into the turf as they toiled to mount the breast-high earthwork; the others stood close behind and shot over their heads-his men didn’t just bull in regardless, he’d gotten that well drilled into them, that winning was more important than showing how brave you were. He hung back himself, watching the action. Walker had proved himself often enough to make that possible, and besides, he was a wizard-halfway to a god, in fact, which exempted him from the usual standards.

  “This is too easy,” he muttered.

  Sections of the palisade were down, ripped aside. His men stood exchanging spearthrusts through the gaps, then began to push through-and none of them were down, that he could see. The second rank were slinging their crossbows, drawing swords, and setting shields on their arms. He signed abruptly to the men around him, and they trotted toward the gate, holding their shields up to protect him. Few arrows flew as they ran, although there was a sharp crack and yelp as a slingstone struck a man on the thigh. He stumbled and limped, but kept walking, which made him lucky-those things could break bone easily enough.

  The gate was closed with wattle hurdles, woven stick barriers usually used to pen sheep, reinforced with a two-wheeled cart and some pieces of thorny bush. Walker’s eyes narrowed in interest as a thin column of black smoke rose from within the enclosure; that was probably a signal. He noticed something else as someone on the other side of the cart tried to hit him with a flail-a long stick with a short one fastened to it with a leather thong, usually used to beat grain out of the stalk.

  Shunngg. The thong parted against the razor-edged katana, and the shorter oak batten went pinwheeling off. His downstroke slashed the wielder across the upper arms as she goggled at him, and the Fiernan fell in a spray of blood that caught him across the face.

  Too many women, he thought, spitting out the warm salt-copper taste and wiping a hand across his mouth. Even Iraiina women would fight sometimes when their homes were attacked, and the Earth Folk were less hidebound about things like that. But there should still have been more men behind the barricade, a solid majority at least. Those that were there were too old, or too young, besides being too few.

  Conical iron helmets came up behind the Earth Folk, and red-dripping blades. Combat turned into flight and massacre.

  “Prisoners!” Walker shouted. “Get me some prisoners!”

  He stalked through the chaos, keeping an eye out to make sure nobody got enthusiastic with torches. The black smoke was coming from a small hot fire that had been half doused with damp straw and old woolen rags; he kicked it apart with a boot and stamped on the embers. Isketerol was already busy with a girl, his buttocks pumping like a fiddler’s elbow as she screamed and sobbed and writhed-the Tartessian wasn’t as bad as Rodriguez, but he did have a severe case of Spanish Toothache nonetheless-while most of the rest were looting by the numbers, the way he’d taught them. He knocked aside one spearshaft poised to run through a screeching five-year-old.

  “Nits make lice, lord,” the warrior growled.

  “The young ones train easier,” Walker replied mildly; the man lowered his eyes and shuffled feet. “Get to work.”

  Something’s wrong, he thought again, standing by the big stack of unthreshed grain.

  Ohotolarix and another of his Iraiina came up, pushing a woman ahead of them. “Here’s your prisoner, lord,” they said, grinning; one shoved her forward. She was naked, a big-breasted brunette staring around in near-hysteria. “We didn’t even mount her ourselves,” Ohotolarix added virtuously.

  “You,” Walker said, putting the tip of his reddened sword under he
r chin. She froze at the touch of the sharp wet steel, eyes going even bigger. “Where men? Where of-you men?

  She licked her lips and spoke, very carefully. He caught about one word in four; the Earth Folk language was just too damn difficult. The man with Ohotolarix frowned and translated:

  “Toward the big��� the Great Wisdom, she says, lord.” The warrior made a warding sign of the horns, with the index and little finger of his right hand. “The Moon-bitch’s place. Evil magic.”

  A gust of fury filled Walker, like a blinding light behind the eyes. Thoughts strung themselves together, dropping into place. He was suddenly conscious of the woman flopping and gurgling on the ground before him with her throat gashed open, and the two Iraiina staring at him goggle-eyed.

  “We don’t have much time,” he forced himself to say, running his sword through a rag and sheathing it. “Ohotolarix, see to the most portable loot, nothing else-no women, nothing bulky. We leave now. Nothing that can’t keep up with the horses. Go, go, go!”

  They went, running; it was a big perk of having people think you were supernatural. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell them to turn the cattle loose too, but there were things even Hwalkarz the Wizard had to think twice about.

  “What’s the matter, blood-brother?” Isketerol said, coming up smiling and adjusting his clothing.

  “Look at that,” Walker grated in English, pulling a sheaf of wheat from the stack.

  “It’s just���” The Tartessian’s eyes flicked from Walker’s face to the grain. “The straw is too long. Why would anyone bend that low to cut grain?”

  “No one did,” Walker said, remembering the smooth low cut in the fields outside the settlement. “A machine did it. So the fighting men here didn’t need to. And if they’re gone even from this pissant little place close to the frontier-”

  Isketerol’s eyes bulged. “The Fiernans could be mobilizing all their fighting men-right now, while we thought they were still working on the harvest!”

  Walker turned and walked up to the top of the embankment, facing north, unshipping his binoculars, and looking carefully from horizon in the east to horizon in the west until he caught the blink��� blink��� from the hilltop two miles away.

  “What is that?” the Iberian asked,

  “Heliograph. Signals by flashing lights off a mirror in code. With good binoculars, it’s almost as fast as radio-and harder to detect.” He had a continuous radio watch kept on the equipment Yare had brought over; a bicycle rig for charging batteries had been part of the cargo. “And we, my friend, have been suckered. Let’s torch this shitheap and get going. Time to get the army together.”

  Isketerol nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps��� we should take some, ah, what’s the word, precautions!”

  Walker nodded. “Just in case.”

  Andy Toffler swore softly under his breath as he stooped, pushing the goggles up on his forehead. Bad one, he thought. The buildings and grain were all burning, and the raw harsh scent made him cough as he flew through it. Lower, and he could see bodies lying between the burning huts, and more scattered outside the enclosure. Some of them were moving.

  “GHU here. Hamlet has definitely been destroyed,” he said. “Doesn’t look like much is left. Over.”

  “Central here. Any sign of wheel tracks?”

  “That’s negative, Central. Ground’s too hard anyway. I’m going in.”

  “Negative on that. Return to base. Over.”

  “Sorry, transmission breaking up. Over.”

  He eased the ultralight down, into the stubble field next to the hamlet. The soft balloon wheels touched as he flared the nose up a little, killing speed, and the machine ran itself to a stop in scarcely twelve feet. There was a shotgun in a scabbard on the frame next to his seat. He racked the slide and made his way cautiously toward the fires.

  “Damn,” he said softly. “Gawd damn.”

  The first thing he ran into was sheep, savagely hacked and stabbed, as if by someone in a very bad mood. Then people, together as if they’d been herded into a bunch. Women mostly, and some children. A lot of the women lying on their backs naked, with their throats cut, or curled around a spear wound. Toffler swallowed a mouthful of spit and made himself look at the ground. In the stretch about the hamlet’s embankment there was sign of horses-dung, and the imprint of a shod hoof where one of them had stepped in it. More bodies just within the wall, these looking as if some of them had gone down fighting. Many of them had Nantucket-style crossbow bolts in them, or the broken stubs, or gaping holes where they’d been cut out for reuse.

  “Walker,” Toffler said, as if the word made his mouth feel dirty.

  The heat within the enclosure was savage, as the wooden frames of the buildings went up. Walls collapsed, and he could hear voices��� and there was nothing he could do.

  “God damn me if there isn’t,” he muttered, and turned on his heel.

  The track of the cattle was obvious even on this hard ground, pointing southeast toward the lower wooded ground and the river valley. He ran back toward the ultralight and flung himself into the seat, ignoring the faint squawking from the headphones of the radio. The run was downhill and into the wind; the little fabric-and-struts aircraft hurled itself aloft as if angels were pulling on strings from the cloudless sky. Toffler took it recklessly low, the tricycle undercarriage virtually brushing the tops of the big oaks and beeches. He remembered things from his boyhood in the knob country of Kentucky. Driving cattle like that, you’d have to��� yes!

  A faint track, more like a deer trail than a road-just barely visible through the lush late-summer leaves. They couldn’t have gone far, even by the plodding standards of this abortion of an aircraft-oh, God, for his Phantom and a mixed load of snake and nape! Nothing like white phosphorus and napalm for chastising the evildoers. He did have a helmet with a holder for a pair of binoculars. He used it, and blurred closeness appeared.

  There. Cattle, and men on horseback, glimpsed in flickering instants through the leaves and branches. He throttled back the engine and pushed up the glasses with a snick, ghosting down through the air as quietly as he could. His left hand held the yoke while his right was busy with the racked glass bombs by his seat, unlatching the safety fastener and making ready. They’d put in some improvements since he flew against the Olmecs, including a friction primer and fins to guide the fall. Plus he’d practiced.

  Ahead, the enemy were coming out into a small almost-clearing, littered with the trunks of dead trees and briers, grass, brush-second growth. The herd of small hairy cattle bawled and churned with panic at being driven so fast from their accustomed range, and even expert herdsmen were having their hands full. His eyes flicked back and forth; forty, fifty men, perhaps a few more. No chariots. They were all on horseback, riding with regular saddles and stirrups, leading packhorses as well. All in metal armor��� Jesus, maybe that’s Walker himself down there!

  Ease back on the throttle, engine noise sinking to a low buzzing drone. The ultralight was almost like flying a parachute; when you headed into the wind the stall speed was near zero. Careful. If the wind dies down you could drop like a rock.

  Closer, closer, coming down as if he were falling along an inclined plane. A few of the men had time to look up at the last moment.

  Snap. The first bomb soared away in an arc, trailing smoke. It shattered a dozen feet up on the trunk of a sapling and fire sprayed in all directions. Horses went berserk, and men tumbled on the ground screaming as clinging flame ran under their armor.

  Toffler rammed the throttle home and hauled the nose of the little arrowhead-shaped craft skyward, banking. Sorry about the horses, he thought. This time he came in fast and level, adjusting by eye. Long way from computerized radar bombsights, aren’t we.

  “Eyee-yeeeeee-fazaaa!” he screamed, a yell his Rebel great-grandfather might have used when he charged behind Nathan Bedford Forrest. “Take that, you motherfuckers!”

  Snap. Snap. Snap. M
ore of the bombs tumbled away and slashed knives of flame across the clearing. Cattle scattered into the woods, and horses. Men died, and the brush itself was catching alight. This late in summer it might well turn into a full-fledged forest fire. Then something winked bright at him from the ground.

  Pttank!

  A hole appeared in the aluminum framing not far from him, with a fleck of sparks that licked his own neck in stinging fire. Hands and feet hit yoke and pedals with automatic skill, and the ultralight jinked from side to side with the agility of a hummingbird. Crack. Crack. Pttank! Another hit, and gasoline was leaking from the tank behind him.

  “Uh-oh,” he muttered, pushing the throttle forward to the stops. I know what uh-oh means, he thought. Uh-oh means “I fucked up.”

  Walker fired a last round on the off chance, then lowered the rifle and looked around. A scream died off into a gurgle and then silence as a comrade’s knife gave a man burned over half his body the mercy stroke. “How many?” he called. “Let each man answer his name.” They did, as horses were caught and brought under control. Three dead, five badly wounded, another half-dozen burned to some degree. And the woods around them were going up��� while the men looked at him. The smell of singed hair and burned flesh was heavy, and heat prickled sweat across his skin under the armor.

  “That flying thing can kill you, but no deader than a spear,” he said quietly. “I warned you that we would be making war against wizards��� but my magic drove it off.”

  “It flew, lord. A great bird, with a man in its talons.”

  “The man ruled it. I’ve flown so myself, in the past.”

  Murmurs of awe. He went on: “Are you men and warriors? Do you fear death because it wears a new face?”

  Of course you do, he knew. But they couldn’t possibly admit or show it, and that put new strength into them. They might have fled screaming a few minutes before if he hadn’t fought back, but now they would be all the fiercer for that moment of weakness.