Island in the Sea of Time

by S. M. Stirling

“Ohotolarix,” he said. “Rig horse litters for the ones too badly wounded to walk.”

  The war band grew busy. Isketerol got his horse under control and led it over.

  “That must have been shadowing me all the time I moved against the Eagle,” he said bitterly. “That’s how they knew my attack was coming. Why haven’t they used it to drop death from above before?”

  “At a guess, they only have the one. And probably they were saving it for a surprise,” Walker said tightly. He clicked the magazine out of the rifle and inserted a fresh one. “It’s too low and slow to be a great threat if there’s someone with a rifle waiting.”

  Which means I have to black out Walkerburg against air raids, and keep Cuddy and one of the Garands there. “Oh, but there’s payback time coming.”

  “There he is!”

  Swindapa reined in and stood in the stirrups. Beside her Marian lowered her binoculars and passed them across. The Fiernan focused them. Yes, the flying thing had landed, and Toffler lay unmoving in the harness. The air of a summer afternoon enfolded her, warm and sweet with the smells of horse and crushed grass, but she shivered a little.

  The party urged their horses into a trot and then a gallop. Even then she enjoyed that a bit; it was like being a bird, flying to the drumbeat of the hooves. The horses blew and stamped as they reined in, and the American physician ran across to the injured man.

  “Alive!” he said, and others crowded around to help him lower the man to a blanket. “Cracked rib, hole in his side-lost a lot of blood.”

  He looked up, hands busy and red. “Who’s Type O?” Several hands went up, and one of the volunteers dismounted and lay down beside the injured man, baring her arm. Swindapa looked over at Marian, remembering how they’d been joined that way on Eagle, after the battle with the Jaguar People. The black woman was frowning at the flying thing, leaning close to examine it.

  “Thirty ought six,” she said. “Or near enough. One of those Garands Walker had with him. Probably him, then. Smith, Valenz, you take six and stay with the medic and Toffler. Message to forward HQ, we need a wagon, a mechanic, spare parts, and reinforcements. The rest of you, follow me.”

  She drew the pistol at her side. Swindapa brought up the crossbow that hung at her knee, checking to make sure the quarrel was seated properly, and noticed the others doing the same. They spread out into a line across the fields and cantered slowly forward, examining the ground as they went, checking every hollow and patch of trees. In one small copse they found a body, a woman lying facedown in the litter of oak leaves and acorns, not far from a spring that bubbled slowly out of a moss-lined hollow.

  Swindapa dismounted. The body was cool but not stiffened, and there was a wound under the ribs, and blood turning black all down the side and flank. Despite the shade, flies were busy already, walking over drying eyeballs and swarming around the rent flesh. She would have been very thirsty, the Fiernan girl thought sadly, with a touch of anger like a bronze gong rung far away. So she was crawling to the water.

  She closed the staring eyes, then brought her head up sharply at a sound. A squeaking sort of sound���

  “Wait,” she said when Marian motioned impatiently. “Wait.”

  (Casting back and forth, she caught a smell familiar to anyone who’d grown up around infants. She followed it, and another squeaking sound. The baby was swaddled in a pair of wool shawls, hidden in the roots of a half-fallen oak. She opened the bundle, cleaned the infant and her hands with leaves and springwater-it was a girl, she saw-and rewrapped it.

  “The mother must have run this far with it,” she said to Marian. “It’s not hurt, just hungry.”

  Marian nodded grimly. “You’d better stay here with it, then.”

  “I will not!” Swindapa said hotly. Then, remembering she was supposed to keep the discipline: “Ma’am.”

  Marian snorted; the Fiernan could see her smile struggling to break free, and wondered again why she kept the lovely thing caged so often. It should fly like a bright bird.

  “All right then,” she said. “Let’s be on the alert, people.”

  They rode farther. The low smoldering told them the fire had had its way with the hamlet. Swindapa looked down in bewilderment at the dead sheep; somehow they seemed almost as bad as the people. Ravens rose in a protesting storm of black wings as the horses came near, except for a few too busy with their feasting.

  “Why��� why kill like this?” she said.

  “Because they were interrupted, at a guess,” Marian said, her face like something carved from basalt. “That made them angry. Stevenson, Hamid, Cortelone, scout the enclosure. Everyone else, keep your eyes moving.”

  They did, but nothing moved. Nothing but the wind drifting scraps of bitter smoke across the sun-faded fields, and the grass, and birds and insects. One of the Americans raised his crossbow and shot a raven perched on a body and trying for an eyeball; it died in a spatter of blood and long glossy feathers, and that made her feel worse. The baby fretted.

  “Nobody,” the Eagle People soldier called Stevenson said, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “Not even the children. They��� put them all in a hut before they���”

  Marian nodded. “Let’s get going,” she said tonelessly. “It’s time to put an end to this.”

  Swindapa let her eyes fall to the wiggling bundle in the crook of her arm. She could scarcely feel the movements, through the armor. Time and past time, she thought, as unshed tears burned her eyes. Then: I’ll have to find a nanny goat.

  The baby cried, lonely and hurt and alive.

  “Another raid, while we wait here,” Maltonr raged. “How many struck that place?” Alston asked patiently, looking down over the assembled warriors from her hillside perch. More than I expected. A good four thousand.

  “Sixty, from the tracks! It was a slaughter!”

  “And��� ‘dapa?”

  The Fiernan hesitated, looked at them both, and then went on reluctantly: “Five warriors are here, from that place.”

  “Would five warriors have made a difference against sixty armored fighters of Walker’s own band?��� Well? I asked you a question, Maltonr son of Sinsewid.”

  “No,” he said after a long moment, looking aside. “No, they would not.”

  “They would have died, Maltonr, died with the rest to no purpose. But this-” She jerked her head toward the assembly. “This can accomplish our purpose and put an end to such things forever. Is that truth?”

  “It is truth,” he ground out.

  “Then let’s get on with this.”

  “Congratulations, Captain,” Ian said from her other side. “You’ve managed to introduce conscription and taxation to the Earth Folk at one fell swoop.”

  “More like one swell foop,” Alston muttered, looking out over the plain. More and more bands of Earth Folk fighters-and would-be fighters-were trickling in. The provisions were coming in, too. “Not really conscription. They’re all volunteers.”

  “Volunteers after you made it plain that the ones who’d joined you would all raid the herds of the ones who hadn’t,” Ian pointed out. “Thus bankrupting them. All the ones who don’t want to go back to farming have to join up.”

  “Volunteers. And somebody has to feed them. The Grandmothers have always collected this tithe thing.”

  “For building and maintaining their monuments,” he said. “You’re handing around the collection plate for the Pentagon. Sorry,” he added as she turned to look at him.

  The broad-featured black face showed white teeth in a smile. “No offense,” she said. Her helmeted head jerked toward the east. “When Walker brings the Sun People at us, they’re goin’ to come with levies of near every fit man in their tribes. If we don’t get some organization into this shambolic crowd, these here’ll get ground into hamburger.”

  “Don’t you like my people?” Swindapa said, frowning.

  Alston started slightly and turned. ” ‘Dapa, I like your people very much. They
just need to learn some new things, is all.” She’s been saying things like that too often lately.

  Swindapa sighed and looked down from the slight rise. Her expression grew glum. “That is true.”

  Alston turned again, blinking slightly at the sun that was almost in her eyes. That meant everyone could see her clearly, though. The speech ran through her mind, cobbled together in all-night bull sessions with the Arnsteins, Swindapa, a clutch of Fiernan bards and poets who’d provided local symbolism and would spread it far and wide.

  “Warriors of the Spear Mark,” she began, raising the microphone to her lips. She waited for the gasps to die down as the amplified sound boomed out. “Friends, allies, Earth Folk-this is your earth. Eastward lies the enemy, those who burn and destroy, those who come to take all the White Isle from you-this sacred isle, this almost-heaven, this village set about with the palisade of the sea against misfortune and the storms of war���”

  Half an hour later she licked sweat from her lips, lifting her arms until the rolling cheers died down somewhat, and continued:

  “Forward, children of Moon Woman! You fight for your hearths and your families, for the ashes of your ancestors”-luckily the Earth Folk did cremate their dead, which meant she didn’t have to find a better metaphor than the author of The Persians-“and the Wisdoms of your faith. Forward! To the fighting! Winner takes all!”

  The long slow roar of their voices washed over her like surf. She threw her arms up again in the Fiernan gesture of prayer; and between them was framed the rising moon, just as they’d planned. A growl came from behind the hill, and then Andy Toffler soared over in the repaired ultralight. He’d insisted on flying, and the wound was healing. This time the craft’s wings were painted to mimic those of the sacred Owl, messenger and avatar of Moon Woman.

  The roar turned to a shuddering mass gasp. “Victory!” she shouted.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  September ��� October, Year 2 A.E.

  “Well this is it,” Alston said.

  Christ on a crutch, that’s inane, she thought. Her mouth was dry, despite a swig from the canteen, and the morning’s bread and meat had settled under her breastbone in a sour lump. Too much. Too fuckin’ much depends on this.

  The command group was placed on a slight rise behind the long ridge. All along the reverse slope stood-and squatted and sat and lay-the Fiernans and Americans. Five thousand four hundred thirty-three as of this morning. There might be a hundred more or less by now; the locals still had a tendency to come and go as they pleased. About a thousand of the Fiernans in Nantucket-made armor, and the rest in their native linen tunics; at least now everyone had a short sword and knife, the spears all had steel heads, and the archers had steel arrowheads and the slingers lead shot.

  Scattered clouds went by above, pushed by a freshening wind out of the west cool enough to make sweat feel a bit chilly. Patches of shade went with it, throwing the host into shadow. When they passed, sunlight glinted on edged metal, on unit banners, on the crouching shapes of catapults and flamethrowers. Her eyes flicked back and forth to make sure; reserves, solid blocks of archers and spearmen, heliographs and mounted messengers ready���

  Up. Her gaze came up, and fixed on the host of the easterners, bending slightly to look through the eyepieces of the big tripod-mounted binoculars. About our numbers-probably a little less. That confirmed what Toffler and the scouts and spies had estimated.

  Turning the traversing wheel put blurring jumps between moments of clear vision. Ordinary herdsmen-warriors in leather kilt and tunic, their hair twisted into braids��� but most of the spearheads and axes flashed with the cold brightness of steel, not the ruddy warmth of bronze. Here a grizzled patriarch came trotting, ax over his shoulder and six sons around him, from a solid bearded family man down to a fresh-faced youth barely old enough to raise a fuzz. There an iron-armored chief in a chariot bright with paint and bronze and gold, throwing up his spear and kissing it, laughing as his stocky ponies pranced in their bedizened harness. Here, there,-thousands upon thousands of them, coming to battle as eagerly as to their bridal nights. A haze of dust marked their coming, stretching from south to north nearly a mile; and all along it light sparkled and broke and glittered on point and edge, rippling like a field of stars as they marched.

  Where��� ah. There in the center of the enemy, four or five hundred men marching in a solid block, every one of them armored in chain mail, with conical helmets and metal-faced shields. Most of the shields bore the same emblem, a fanged wolfs head in red on a black background. One or two figures in Nantucket-made plate suits, beneath the banner with its wolf’s-head flag and aurochs horns. A huge man in a chariot following behind; that must be Daurthunnicar himself, accompanying his son-in-law. Spies and prisoner-of-war interrogations had given them a pretty fair assessment of the enemy command structure.

  And behind him, two metal shapes on wheeled carts, each pulled by six horses. The cannon, dammit.

  “Ian, Doreen,” she said. “You’d better get back to the aid station. This isn’t goin to be so��� neat and tidy for long. Not with these armies.”

  The Arnsteins grinned at her; a little stiffly, but they did it. “No, I think we’ll hang around for a while,” Doreen said.

  Ian nodded. “Priceless opportunity for a historian,” he said. “Besides, we’ve got these shotguns, if worse comes to worst.”

  Alston nodded, and took a cup from Swindapa’s offered hand. “A toast then. Ladies, gentlemen-let’s kick their butts back to the Channel!”

  She knocked back the whiskey. The Americans in the command staff cheered; so did the Fiernans, as the translators gave them the words. The glasses tinkled and crashed on a rock as they all emptied theirs and threw, and then she motioned to the signaler:

  “Phase one, execute.”

  Flags went up all along the line-Old Glory in the center, flanked by the crescent Moon the Fiernans had chosen when they grasped the concept of a national banner. It was silver on green, the same as the traditional flag of Islam; even then she spared a brief instant’s cold inner laughter at how the Muslims would have hated that. Slave-trading, woman-hating bastards. And better still, odds are you’ll never even exist here.

  There was a massive rumbling sound, thousands of feet pounding the dry short grass. The front ranks of the allied force crested the hill and went a few steps beyond it; she could see the easterners halting in ragged clumps as they saw the ridgeline before them sprout armed men. Meanwhile all along the allied front warriors were at work, pounding short stakes with iron points at either end into the ground; swine feathers, they’d called them in Europe back in the old days. Planted at a forty-five-degree angle, they were just the right height to catch a horse in the chest. The blocks of archers started planting shafts in the dirt at their feet, ready to hand, and moving their quivers from their backs around to their waists. Alston turned and checked; cartloads of bundled shafts were moving up in the low ground behind the line, ready to replenish as needed.

  “What are they doing?” Swindapa asked, nodding toward the enemy. Her voice was a little husky, but calm.

  “Maneuvering,” Alston said. “Their center’s hanging back, flanks are moving.”

  Head and horns formation, she thought. Evidently she wasn’t the only one who’d studied the Zulu Wars. Damn, and here I get to play the British. Life’s little ironies.

  “Messenger. Unit commanders are to repeat the standing orders; when the cannon points at you, fall flat. Keep lookin’ at it, and when the flash is over, get up again.”

  That wouldn’t work if the other side had more guns��� hell, it might not work now with only two.

  The thunder of feet from the enemy host grew, and the squealing of ungreased wooden wheels. The sound drew her eyes over to the right, where the barbarians were moving in.

  “Here we go.” Here’s where I find out if they were really listening to what I said.

  Merenthraur felt his heart swell wi
th pride. Fifty chariots! Fifty chariots followed him. He looked upslope toward the Earther host. Many, many��� but the sons of long-speared Sky Father were many, too, and the gods fought for them. Not much of a slope. Smooth grass, not enough hill to really slow a team.

  A swift-footed youth ran up, panting. “The rahax commands-take your men, smash those of the foe on the end of their line, there,” he said, pointing to the southward. “If you prevail, the host follows, and great will be your reward.”

  “I hear the word of the rahax.”

  Word of Hwalkarz, in truth, but that is as good. Better. Daurthunnicar was a good rahax for the tribe in the old way, but Hwalkarz would make the Iraiina lords of all the earth.

  If we win this fight, he reminded himself, looking back. The chariots were ready-Iraiina, and allies. The footmen waited behind. He waved his spear, then blew three blasts on the cowhorn war trumpet.

  His knees flexed automatically to take the jerk of the chariot starting forward, moving from a walk to a trot. Earth hammered at his feet. “Keep it slow,” he commanded. “No more than a trot to just outside bowshot range, then fast as they’ll go.”

  He pushed back his helmet by the nasal; the new headgear gave more protection than his old bone-strapped leather cap, but you couldn’t see as well. The Earthers were standing oddly-in a line, the way Hwalkarz taught. In two lines, one just over the crest of the hill, another behind it on the highest ground. More strangeness; on the edge of their line was a clump all with spears, then a larger one only with bows. Foolishness-a man with a spear had some chance of stopping a chariot at close quarters. They were counting on those little spears driven into the earth, but he had a cure for that.

  “When we get to flung-spear distance, turn right,” he barked to the nephew who drove his chariot. “Take their line at a slant, so.”

  He pointed with a javelin, and blew the cowhorn again. That way the breasts of the horses would take the sides of the poles, not the points-and now their breasts were protected by armor too. We’ll lose some to the arrows, he knew. Perhaps he’d be killed himself. Well, he had sons and nephews enough to carry on his blood, and Sky Father would greet him in the halls of the sun, perhaps grant him rebirth. That was the way for a man to die, at another warrior’s hands, not in his sleeping-straw like a woman. He lifted the javelin, ready to cast. And the sun will be in their eyes, anyway.