The oncoming enemy wavered, then fell back; most of them turned over onto their backsides and tobogganed down the slope, controlling the slide with their feet. There were boulders and rocks enough at the bottom to take cover behind, if they were careful.
"Dig in!"
The order came down the line. M'Telgez cursed; like most cavalry troopers, he hated digging-back home in Descott, a vakaro resented any sort of work that couldn't be done from the saddle. Resignedly, he spoke to his squad:
"Even numbers! Odd numbers on overwatch. C'mon, lads, 'tain't yer dicks yer grabbin', put yer backs inta it."
He reached to the back of his webbing belt and undid the leather pouch that held the head of his entrenching tool. It was a mattock-and-pick if you put the head in the central hole, a shovel if you put it into the slot behind the broader section. He unhooked the wooden handle that hung from his belt by the bayonet on his left side and knocked it into the main hole. A few swift blows cut through the hard crust of the adobe; it came up in chunks, and he piled those and handy rocks ahead of him, working down the slope behind to make a cut that would let him lie comfortably and fire through a couple of notches.
The afternoon was savagely hot, and the sweat ran down his body in rivulets that he could feel collecting where his shirt and jacket met the webbing belt. The damp cotton drill cloth clung and chafed. A carbine bullet went by overhead now and then with a malignant wasp-whine, encouraging him. A man came by with extra ammunition slung in canvas bandoliers from the pack-dogs; M'Telgez snagged an extra fifty rounds and cut a notch to support them with a few quick strokes of the mattock.
"M'Telgez! Report to the captain!"
Shit. Jest whin I wuz gettin' comfortable, loik, the corporal thought resignedly. "Smeet, y'got it fer now. Don't fook up too bad, will yer?"
"We'll a' git kilt, but it'll na be my fault, corp," the older trooper said cheerfully.
M'Telgez wiped his hands on the swallowtails of his jacket and picked up his rifle, then stepped-slid downhill a pace or two; running crouched, his head was below the ridgeline. The crunch of entrenching tools in the dirt marked his passage, and the steady crackle of fire from the alternate numbers keeping up harassment against the wogs. He also passed a few dead men; head and neck wounds were generally quickly fatal.
"Ser," he said when he came to the company pennant.
Barton Foley braced his pad across his knee with the point of his hook and wrote. "You have the way back to battalion, Corporal?"
"Yesser," M'Telgez answered.
He had a good eye for that sort of thing; and it was an officer's job to remember what his men could do.
"Detail one man of your squad to accompany you, and take this to Colonel Staenbridge."
"No problemo, seyhor." He'd take M'tennin, the lad was young, eager and a good shot. Smeet could handle the squad-he was a good junior NCO, when there was no booze around. Drunk, he didn't know a sow from his sister or an officer from an asswipe.
"Verbally, add that we can handle it for the present but would appreciate reinforcements. Report back immediately with his reply-and watch out, there may be wogs in these ravines."
* * *
M'tennin screamed.
M'Telgez took one look over his shoulder and clapped his heels to Pochita's ribs. The thing already had the younger man's shoulders in its jaws and one clawed foot hooked into his dog's side, ripping downward in a shower of blood and fur and loops of pink-gray gut. Pochita needed no urging; she brought her hindpaws up between her front and leapt off in a bounding gallop, teeth bared, ears flat, and eyes rolled back, right down the narrow floor of the canyon. Her rider whipped his head around as something screeched behind him, a sound like a steam-whistle gone berserk.
He could smell its breath, like a freshly-opened tomb in hot weather. It was bipedal and longer than a war-dog, probably heavier, but it ran with a birdlike stride-lightly, on the toe-pads of its three-clawed feet, so lightly that the shotgun blast of dirt and stones spraying back from each impact was a surprise. The body was a dusty orange-yellow, striped irregularly with vivid black; the open mouth was mottled purple and crimson. Teeth the size of his fingers reached for him, and the clawed forefeet on either side. Behind it another much like it-hunter's reflex told him they were probably a mated pair-was tearing at the bodies of M'tennin and his mount with impartial gluttony. Its muzzle went skyward, the long narrow jaws dislocating as it swallowed a leg and hip.
"Hingada tho!" M'Telgez screamed. "Fuck ye!" The carnosauroid shrieked back at him, another carrion-scented blast.
His rifle was in the crook of his left arm. He snatched the pistol out of his boottop with his right and thrust it backward, not three meters from the thing's mouth. Even so half the rounds missed. Three did hit; none of them seemed to do much good. A blood-fleck appeared on the shiny black skin between the angry red of the nostrils, and one fang shattered into fragments of ivory. That got the beast's attention, at least; it spun sideways for an instant, snapping and rearing on one leg as the other slashed at whatever had struck it.
Then it realized he had hurt it. Some of the bigger carnosauroids were too dumb to do anything but kill and eat; the smaller agile ones like this could be a lot smarter. There was more than simple hunger in the cry it gave as it bounded after him once more, body horizontal and long slender tail snapping behind it at the tip like a bullwhip.
"Fuck me," M'Telgez muttered through a dry mouth, and hurled the revolver at the beast. That hadn't been such a good idea.
He leaned left and then right as Pochita took the curves of the narrow gully at dangerous speed. The carnosauroid didn't let little things like turns slow it down; it just ran right up the wall of the cut, letting momentum keep it upright with its head parallel to the ground for an instant. The man wound the sling of his rifle around his right forearm with desperate speed. He'd have only one chance, and that wasn't much with a single-shot rifle. Reloading at the gallop. . he might as well try to fly like a pterosauroid by flapping his arms.
The sides of the gully opened out a little. The carnosauroid screamed again and speeded up, half-overtaking the fleeing human.
Right. Likes t'knock yer over afore it bites.
Normally holding the long Armory rifle out one-handed would have made M'Telgez's arm tremble. Now it was steady, everything diamond-clear to his sight. Even the sideways lunge of the predator seemed fairly slow, an arc drawn through the air to meet the questing muzzle of his weapon.
Bam. The shock of recoil was a complete surprise, hard pain in his arm. The weight of the carnosauroid slammed into Pochita's haunches, and the dog skittered in a three-sixty turn before resuming its gallop. The torque of the outflung rifle nearly dislocated M'Telgez's shoulder, but the pain was negligible next to the horrifying knowledge that he'd failed. Footfalls still ripped the earth behind him, only a little further back-and Pochita's tongue was hanging out in exhaustion.
He rounded another curve-
— and nearly ran into a screen of mounted men in blue jackets and round bowl-helmets. Their guns flicked up, but their eyes were behind him.
"Shoot, ye dickheads!" he screamed, as his dog braced its forelegs and sank down on its haunches to stop.
They didn't. Bent over his pommel, gasping and wheezing, M'Telgez looked behind to see why.