They were down onto the flat, and all she could see was the smoke and distant figures, all she could hear was the crackle of rifles, the thudding bark of artillery, the hiss of the rockets like an angry cat larger than worlds.
"Trumpeter, sound Double time," she said. The notes rang out, brassy and sweet in the hot, dry air. We're coming, big brother.
A gun suddenly swiveled around and turned toward her; despite the distance, the muzzle looked big enough to swallow her head. A flash of flame-shot smoke, the rising whistle sound, and it burst over the ranks to her left. Men tumbled and fell, still or writhing like broken-backed lizards in a cat's jaws.
"Trumpeter, sound Fire and advance."
The first rank went to one knee, and their rifles came up. A staccato ripple of fire and smoke ran down the line as four hundred rifles fired, and then their wielders were going through their loading drill. She trotted through the rotten-egg-smelling fogbank of their discharge and saw the second rank dash through the first and run ten yards ahead, going to one knee in their turn. Men were turning their way in the enemy ahead, pulling back like a door swinging. The enemy commander was refusing his flank, turning his formation into an L as he pulled back, with the short end facing her. Facing her, the men in it prone and shooting back.
A weapon like a fat cannon pointed at the First Kar-Duniash and a whole file of men went down, bullets slapping into flesh, sparking and raising puffs of dust around their feet, going tinnnnk into helmets like a smith's punch.
"Trumpeter, sound Charge'. Kashtiliash! Kashtiliash!" "KASHTILIASH!"
She swept out her Python pistol and cocked it with her thumb.
"Charge! Charge!"
Kenneth Hollard looked down as the stretcher was carried up the rear ramp of the Emancipator. He recognized Sergeant Smith, despite the mass of bandages that covered her torso, and bent over her. Her eyes were wandering with morphine, but they recognized him… or at least focused on his face.
"Good work," he said, and then switched to the Sun People tongue of Alba. "You fought well, warrior."
"Pithair," she murmured, smiling faintly. That meant "father," and he didn't think she was invoking her god. He was certain when she went on, "Is it well, at last, Father? "
"Dahig 'tair, " he began. Guess she's seeing someone else, he thought, laying a hand on the clammy coldness of her forehead. "Daughter, it is very well."
She sighed and closed her eyes, and the bearers carried her up the ramp and into the long gondola, fitting her stretcher into the racks and transferring her IV to the holder. Lieutenant Vicki Cofflin came back from the control stations in the bow, turning sideways to pass a corps-man doing something to one of the wounded. A sharp smell drifted backward under the exhaust fumes of the idling engines; it was the odor of disinfectant, and somehow of pain.
God, I hate visiting the wounded. You had to, of course; men and women in pain needed to know that they were valued for what they'd done.
"We're ready to go, sir," the commander of the Emancipator said, saluting. "We'll have them in the hospital at Ur Base in a few hours, and then we'll be back with the loads you specified."
She nodded down and forward; water wagons were on either side of the gondola's underbelly, with hoses running from the dirigible's keel ballast tanks. "Thought we could spare the water, seeing as we're heavily laden and heading right back into home base," she said.
He returned the salute and shook her hand. "This thing is damned useful," he said. "I might want you to do some high-level reconnaissance when you get back. In the meantime, I need a temporary lift and the use of your radio-need to talk to your uncle."
The Emancipator's powerful generator and altitude gave its shortwave set as much range as the one at Ur Base, or Republic Home at Nantucket Airport, for that matter.
"Aye, aye, sir. Welcome aboard."
He climbed the ramp behind her, squeezed past the corpsmen, and held on to a stanchion as the mooring ropes were released. The Emancipator turned and circled upward swiftly, swaying a little, and he saw the huge orca-shaped shadow dwindle as the mooring crews went stumbling backward from the blizzard of dust and grit.
Hollard's ears popped; he looked northwest, straining his eyes for a sight of the retreating enemy. All he saw was smoke from the grass fires the battle had started. Vicki Cofflin broke his concentration.
"Sir."
He started a little.
"Sir, we're neutral at thirty-five hundred. That's as high as I'd care to go, with the wounded aboard."
Hollard nodded and turned back, sliding into the communications officer's chair and slipping the earphones onto his head. She was turning dials for him, and a crackle of static foretold success.
"That should do it, sir, if you want to try."
"Hollard here," he said. "Hollard here. Over."
"Republic Home here, receiving loud and clear. Just a moment, Brigadier Hollard…"
"Portsmouth Base here. Commodore Alston is monitoring this frequency… coming in loud and clear."
"This is the Chief." The familiar dry twang sounded in his ears. "Hear you had a bit of a dustup."
"Yes, sir," Hollard replied. "I'll be making a full report soonest. Bottom line, we ran into a force of Walker's Achaeans. We won, but we didn't break them, and they're better equipped than we anticipated. We suffered thirty-two fatals, our local irregulars about three times that, and the First Kar-Duniash about twice."
He looked off to the northwest, where the enemy force was withdrawing, like a wounded lion into a thicket, sullen and hurt but not seriously weakened.
"Preliminary prisoner interrogations indicate this was one regiment of a brigade that's been operating in support of Kurunta of Tar-huntassa, out of Miletus, for the past couple of months." He pulled a pad out of his thigh pocket. "Here are some specs on the equipment."
When he finished, Alston's soft Sea Island accent came on the circuit. "Damn," she said. "He found a way around the ammunition problem we thought he'd waste time on. We outsmaahted ourselves theah."
"Ayup," Jared Cofflin said. "Not the first time-we'll just try to make it the last. What's your appraisal, son?"
"Sir, we're in for a harder war than we thought. We're going to need more of everything, and we'll have to raise and equip more local troops. The First Kar-Duniash did very well… in fact, I think now that my sister's, ah, Lieutenant Colonel Hollard's-
"No need to get formal, son."
"-marriage was extremely fortunate. This was probably a probing attack to see if they could take over in Mitanni. But we need to link up with the Hittites, we need to raise the siege of Troy and get Councilor Arnstein out, and we need to field a substantial force here to counter the Achaeans."
"Marian?" Cofflin's steady voice asked.
"Essentially correct," she said. "Though I'd add that it's a very high priority to break the Tartessian blockade in the Straits of Gibraltar, so we can get some sea power out there, cut Walker off from Anatolia."
Hollard felt himself nodding. "That's God's truth, Chief."
Cofflin sighed. "If only we'd killed Walker…"
"We will," Alston said flatly. "In the meantime, Brigadier Hollard, I suggest that you proceed as you outlined. I'm preparing for the naval wing of our strategy, but that's going to take time, too. For one thing, if we do win in the Straits, we'll need basing facilities-Alba's too far away."
"Ma'am, yes ma'am."
"Consult with Councilor Arnstein and Ms. Arnstein on the political side," Cofflin said. "We have to keep those alliances as tight as we can and build all the influence we can."