Island in the Sea of Time

by S. M. Stirling

  Nearer. Behind him the tribesmen were snarling, roaring into the hollows of their shields, shaking axes and spears and screaming out threats and the savage war cries of their clans. Now the driver shook out the reins, and the horses rocked into a gallop, the other chariots spreading out on either side of him like the wings of a bird-like the wings of a falcon, stooping on its prey! His heart lifted, but he crouched down slightly and brought his shield forward on the left, ready to protect himself and the driver as well. The javelin cocked back.

  The front rank of Fiernans were raising their bows, drawing to the ear��� but none were shooting! What is this? The enemy grew nearer, nearer, nearly close enough to cast. Behind him the charge of the chariots was a groaning thunder, the whoops and shrieks of their drivers the howling of a pack.

  Then someone shouted on the slope ahead. Arrows rose into the air-first those of the Earthers he could see, then more, impossibly many and all at once, swarming up from the hollow behind the ridge. All headed at him. A deep-toned thrumming rose and died, and over it a wailing, whistling sound.

  Arrows cracked into his shield, half a dozen of them, driving his crouch down into an almost-squat. Points jammed through sheet steel and leather and wood, glittering on the inside of the curve. Another whacked off the side of his helmet and skittered away. Three hit the driver, sulking feather-deep into his unarmored torso. Too many to count struck in the frame of the chariot, and as many more into the horses that drew it. Merenthraur was far too shocked to react consciously, but a lifetime’s training curled him for the impact as the war-car went over at speed. Still something wrenched with blinding pain in his leg as he landed, an explosion of stars in his head and the taste of blood and dust in his open mouth. He spat a tooth and dragged the shield over him as arrows sprouted in the ground all around him, driving into the turf with multiple shink sounds.

  He could see the iron-tipped rain falling on his men. The chariots were mostly down, or wheeling back. Behind them the footmen faltered and stopped, doing precisely the wrong thing-hesitating between courage and fear. Rage filled Merenthraur; what trick was this? Arrows came at you one at a time, as the archer drew and loosed! Not in a single blasting storm, so thick no man could dodge or shield himself.

  Above him a man’s voice bellowed. He didn’t know the Fiernan Bohulugi language. If he had, the words would still have sounded odd, in an accent like that of his sorcerer-lord. Three words, shouted over and over again: draw��� all together��� shoot!

  The footmen broke and ran, the few surviving chariots among them. Merenthraur pushed himself to his feet with his shield, shouting incoherently against the piteous squealing of wounded horses. The Fiernan spearmen were rushing out into the wreck of the chariots, points busy. He drew his sword and set himself as two attacked him, one a youth and one with a grown man’s beard; his blade chopped a shaft aside, but his knee betrayed him when he tried to follow through with a blow of the shield, and he toppled sideways.

  He had just enough time to realize the youth was a woman before the point of her spear grated through his face and into his brain. The sound of splintering bone was the last he ever heard.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Alston swore under her breath. “Rapczewicz, you’re in charge here until I get back. Shit!”

  She ran down the slope and flung herself into the saddle, barely conscious of how six months’ practice had made that possible-not easy, she realized as she groped for a stirrup and the animal squealed and surged sideways, but possible. Then she was galloping southward along the front of the line, ignoring the cheers, barely conscious of Swindapa’s form beside her with the banner in one hand and the butt braced on her stirrup iron.

  “Back!” she shouted. “Back, damn you all, back.”

  The milling chaos that had been the right wing of her line slowed and stopped. “They flee!” one man shouted, pointing back toward the easterners line. “They run in fear!”

  Alston stood in the stirrups, the flag beside her and her height on horseback drawing eyes. “Back! It’s a trick-” not now it isn’t, but it might be next time-“and you’ll fight when I tell you, not before. So you swore! Is your oath good?”

  Swindapa came in on her heels, in a torrent of Fiernan Bohulugi. Slowly, the general rush stopped and then turned back toward their positions. Just then there was a huge flat whunk sound, and a rising screech came at her, the horse rearing as something plowed up the turf not twenty feet away. Alston slugged the reins and forced it trembling back to all fours; it tried to turn in a circle and then subsided. A glance over her shoulder showed the plume of dirty-white gunpowder smoke rising from the enemy line.

  “Stay in your positions until you’re told!” she shouted, and repeated the message as they cantered back to the original position. “Stay! Hold them!”

  “That was a fucking fiasco,” Walker muttered, tracking with his binoculars. “Refusing the slope-Alston has me pegged as Napoleon, but I’m not that crazy yet.”

  She must have the archers standing on the opposite side of that rise, just out of sight. The old trick the British had used in the war against Napoleon’s marshals, keeping their infantry out of cannon fire until the last moment.

  He went on in Iraiina: “It’s not the first blow that settles a fight,” he said confidently, and moved over to the cannon. “They may-yes, they’re giving us a target. Lay her so.”

  Two men at the end of the first gun’s trail heaved, and the muzzle swiveled around. The gunner turned the elevating screw and stepped aside, poising the linstock and its glowing slow match. Walker raised his glasses again. The Fiernans were swarming forward to the attack.

  “Yup, can’t stand seeing someone run away��� Oh, good, it’s the black bitch herself. There’s your aiming point, men-that flag. Now.”

  The crew were practiced enough, but he’d only had enough powder for a few live firings. The massive whump sound set horses rearing and men starting in fear down the long ragged line of the Iraiina-led host. He watched the fall of shot and swore softly as the streaming Stars and Stripes came galloping out of the plume of dirt plowed up by the roundshot. Cheering ran along the enemy line as the two riders made their way back along it.

  “Reload with ball and hold fire,” he said to the cannon crew as they ran their weapon forward; recoil jumped it back every time, of course. Louder: “Sky Father fights for us! Hear His thunder!”

  That brought cheers for him, too. The crew went through their routine: stick the bundle of rags on the end of the rammer into the leather bucket, then down the barrel with a quick twist to quench any lingering sparks in a long hiss of steam. Then the cartridge, powder in a dusty linen bag, a wooden sabot, and the iron cannonball.

  “They’re obviously not going to come to us,” he muttered to himself. Well, he wouldn’t in Alston’s position, either. His army needed to get into the Fiernan Bohulugi lands and get at their supplies, or hunger would force them to disperse in a week or less. He had to attack, to break them, and do it soon.

  “Father and lord,” he said, stepping over to Daurthunnicar’s chariot. “Summon the chiefs.”

  “Aren’t they going to, ah, try and take us in the flank or something?” Ian asked.

  Alston chuckled without lifting her eyes from the big tripod-mounted binoculars. “They just did, Ian, and it didn’t work.”

  Her head came up. “They’re havin’ a staff conference, looks like��� You see,” she went on to the scholar, “that sort of thing is easier said than done-flank attacks, indirect approach, blitzkrieg, elegant ways of fightin’. Usually happens when one army is a lot better than the other-better organized, most often. Or the generals are. Or somebody gets dead lucky. But there’s not much room for that here; neither of these armies is what you’d call maneuverable. The Sun People are a bit fiercer, but the Fiernans are fightin’ for their homes. No real unit structure on either side, not much cavalry except those chariots, and they’re awkward. And I’m not a fool, and neither is Walker, damn h
im. Worst sort of battle, both sides pretty evenly matched.”

  “What decides who wins, then?”

  “Luck and endurance. There they are, and here we are, and both of us have a pretty good idea of where all the other side’s forces are. So we’ll probably just pound and pound and pound at each other, till somebody makes a really bad mistake, or breaks under the strain. We’ve got some advantage, since defending is easier than attacking.”

  “Oh,” Ian said, shivering slightly. Last man standing wins. It didn’t sound very pleasant.

  He switched his attention back to the enemy. They were stirring, a stream of chariots wheeling away from the central location to points along the line. Bright sunlight flickered and glimmered on the war-cars, gold and bronze and plumes on the horses. Chiefs, he realized. Probably called in to hear orders; more likely to listen to them that way than to a low-status messenger, from what he knew of Iraiina customs. Horns sounded, dunting and snarling.

  Then the enemy formation stretched at the ends, thinning out. The center of it seethed for a while, then began to move forward in a compact mass many ranks deep. The armored elite in the center was moving in a blunt wedge shield to shield, chanting as they came, a deep rolling male chorus, thousands of voices, Ha-ba-da, Ha-ba-da, Ha-ba-da, endlessly. After a moment they began to punctuate it by beating time on their shields with the shafts of their spears: BOOM-boom-boom, BOOM-boom-boom. It was shattering to hear, seemed to take control of his heart and make it thunder to escape from the cage of his ribs. In the middle of the swaying, chanting horde men trundled something on wheels, like a small wagon, covered in tarpaulin.

  “Well,” he heard Alston mutter, “either he’s given up on subtle, or he’s bein’ more subtle than I can grasp.”

  Then she rapped out an order. “Ready with the darters. Prepare to execute Phase B, part one. Execute.”

  Closer, and the enemy on the flanks was moving forward as well. He moistened his lips. Two slamming-door sounds, and the bronze cannon behind the enemy jumped back as they vomited plumes of smoke. A rising, whistling sound and a crash; plumes of earth shot up from the slope in front of the Fiernan position. Not ten yards in front of him it struck again, and several Fiernan were down, some of them screaming. The others closed in as the dead and injured were dragged backward into the shelter of the ridge.

  “Not too bad,” Alston said quietly. “Come on, boys and girls, hold them, hold, hold���

  “Now!” she said.

  Bugles and trumpets blew. The crews of the dart-throwing engines pushed them up over the crest of the hill and spun the wheels. Tunk. Tunk. Six-foot shafts leaped out toward the easterner phalanx in long arching curves, seeming to slow as they gained distance. Ian winced as he saw one strike, slamming through a shield and the man behind it and the man behind him, like lumps of meat on a shish kebab. The enemy formation was just close enough to begin to see faces now, still chanting and pounding, their pace picking up. The cannon firing in support were aiming at the dart-casters. A cannonball struck one twenty yards down the line with an enormous crash of splintering wood and metal. More screaming came from around it, and bodies were carried away.

  Oh, God, make it stop, he thought.

  To either side and ahead the massed archers were putting shafts to their bows; only the first two rows could see the approaching enemy, but the others behind were taking their alignment from them. A cannonball struck two of the forward rank as he watched, and they splashed backward onto their comrades. He could see staring eyes and clenched teeth, but the ranks stayed firm, raising their yew bows skyward. Marian drew her sword and held it over her head, marking the time for the central blocks. Officers turned their eyes to it, raising their own hands or blades to repeat the signal.

  “What a fuckin’ waste of courage,” she said quietly, looking at the approaching host. “Now!” The blade slashed downward.

  A thousand bows released within a second of each other. The arrows streaked upward, the points winking at the top of their arches as the sunlight caught the whetted metal, then poised for a second and fell. Before they struck, two more volleys were in the air, whistling.

  A hundred yards away, the pounding chant of the enemy gave way to a long, guttural howling roar that made the small hairs along his spine struggle to rise under the constricting cloth. Their measured advance broke into a crashing trot, and the rear ranks swept their shields up over their heads. The arrows came down on them like iron hail. Most stuck quivering in the shields, or bounced aside from the tough wood and leather, or glanced from helmets and mail coats. Many went through, and the marching ranks rippled and eddied around bodies still or writhing on the ground.

  Again and again, a volley falling every six seconds, but the warriors of the Sun People kept coming.

  “Forward the spears,” Alston said. Drums and trumpets signaled.

  Columns trotted forward, up and over the rise, spreading out with a deep-chested shout mixed here and there with the hawk-shrieks of female voices. These were the Fiernans who’d received Nantucket plate-armor suits and a modicum of training in the last few months. A cannon round struck one six-deep file as it breasted the rise, and a whole row went down in wreck. The remainder closed up and followed, fanning out to meet the Sun People in a bristling array of spearpoints.

  God, I can smell it, he thought-like the aid station after the last battle, but here it was in the open air, shit and blood. Like any slaughterhouse, God, I may become a vegetarian after this.

  “Open fire, catapults,” Alston ordered, her hand clenching on the hilt of her sword.

  The second set of machines went into action, throwing arms lobbing globes that trailed smoke. There were four of them; one fell short, trailing fire between the forces. Another overshot, and a splash of orange-red streaked the slope behind the attackers, where arrow-wounded men screamed and tried to crawl out of the path of the sticky jellied gasoline. Two more came down squarely on target, shattering on the upraised shields of the attackers. Men dropped to the ground writhing, or ran tearing and beating at their flesh. The whole phalanx wavered, and then steadied as chiefs shouted and waved their standards.

  “Forward!” he could hear them screaming. “Forward with Sky Father! Death-shame for all cowards! Will you turn your backs on women? Your ancestors will piss on your spirits!”

  The Fiernan spears were ready, but their ranks were thinner-had to be, when so many were archers. The shafts kept falling out of the sky, but soon the foremost enemy would be at handgrips, too close to risk blind fire.

  Everything seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then the rhythmic shouting gave way to a long roar, and under it the flat unmusical clang and crash and rattle of metal on metal and wood and leather. The Fiernan ranks swayed back a step under the impact, then another��� and held. Men gasped and struck, and here and there one would sink down; the front ranks were dropping their spears and drawing shorter weapons, while their comrades thrust over their shoulders. Knives were out, and men were rolling under the feet of others locked shield to shield, stabbing upward. He saw one such take a heel in the face, try to crawl back, and then go down under a half-dozen boots as the line swayed over him and men stamped desperately for footing. Flung spears from the rear ranks of the attackers answered the rain of arrows, and dead men stayed upright in the close press.

  Alston was standing like an onyxine statue as she tried to keep the whole long thrashing line of battle in sight, through dust and smoke and confusion. Then something wobbled up out of the enemy ranks, slow enough to be clearly seen-a barrel.

  “Down!” she shouted, diving for the earth.

  Something jerked Ian’s feet out from under him; he went down awkwardly, the air battered out of him through his armor. Something went bwammp ‘behind him, and something else went whrit-whrit-whrit over his head, hitting something with a sound like a buzz saw going into wet wood. Blood splashed his face. Then there was a larger, softer whump from behind him, and he felt heat wash over the back of his ne
ck.

  Doreen’s hands were fumbling at him. “I’m all right,” he gasped, kicking in revulsion at the mangled something that lay across his legs. “I’m all right.” Which was physically true, he realized, but otherwise a lie. “What happened!”

  “Gunpowder, barrel full of gunpowder-it landed right on top of the flamethrower and its fuel. Why didn’t you get down, you idiot? I had to pull on your feet-you could have been killed. Meshuggah!” Her voice had a touch of shrillness.

  “Oh,” he grunted, coming half upright. “Thanks.”

  He looked back that way and then averted his eyes, wishing he could squeeze out the memory as people braver than he felt tried to haul survivors out of the lake of fire. Alston was on her feet again, listening to a messenger.

  “Running?” she said sharply.

  The Fiernan messenger grinned. “No, but backing up very fast-that way,” he said, pointing. “They don’t like our arrows, not as many there have armor, either side.”

  Alston blinked, looked to her left, to the north, and tried to remember exactly how the ridge curved, and her line with it. “They’re backing up to the northeast? Not just east?”

  The sound from that direction had altered, a different note to it.

  “Yes,” he said happily. “Northeast-maybe they want to go home.”

  “Oh, shit,” she said. “Rapczewicz! Take over! Ortiz, move the second company to face north, refuse the flank, we’ve got a disaster brewing. I’m taking the first company and doing what I can. Get to it. Now.”

  She turned and ran down the hill-the horses were gone, they’d been too near where that barrel of powder had landed, and thank the Lord Walker didn’t seem to have more to spare. One of the reserve companies was waiting there, a company of her precious Americans-troops she could really rely on to do as they were told. As she ran her mind’s eye could paint the picture. The Sun People falling back, Maltonr-he was the senior Fiernan on that end-going whooping in for glory and vengeance, real redhead stuff. Then the enemy turning out in the open where the Fiernan archers couldn’t mass their fire, turning the fight into a melee, sweeping back up the ridge and into the rear of her line���