Trotting past bodies writhing or still; Fiernan, Sun People, a few of the Eagle People as well. No lines now. A figure turning on her, a young Zarthani warrior snarling past a sparse brown beard clotted with blood from a light slash along his jaw. He had a shield painted with a bull's head, the sun between its horns, and a long one-handed ax with a bronze head that drooped like a falcon's beak. He nearly ran onto the point of her katana, bounced back, and came at her again. Her sword came up but the movement seemed dreamlike. Invisible hands twisted inside her stomach, shooting pain, and she tasted sour vomitus at the back of her throat. Parry, parry, wrists crossed on the long cord-bound hilt; the steel rang under the fast savage blows of the ax. Her heel caught on a clump of grass, and she staggered. The tomahawk rang off the curved surface of her breastplate, leaving a line of bright steel where it scored through the enamel. Again, again, three times in five seconds the armor saved her life. The shield slammed into her and she was over backward, down, hitting with a thump that knocked the wind out of her and drove the edges of the armor into her skin. The sword flew spinning.
Everything was still very slow, except the Zarthani warrior. He alone moved quickly, leaping forward to stamp a bare foot down and hold her in place while the ax went up for a looping chop at her neck. The muscles of his chest and arm knotted as the weapon went up; she could smell him, sweat and greased leather and smoke.
Don't let me down.
No. Her left arm came off the ground and slammed into the back of the Zarthani's knee. I won't leave you alone.
The man heaved backward with a yell. She surged half upright and hammered a gloved right fist up under his kilt. The yell turned to a high yelp of agony. Swindapa kicked her legs free and shoulder-rolled, sweeping the katana up from where it lay. The Zarthani was up too, gray-faced and sweating but still fast. She lunged forward, and the point jammed through wicker and into the warrior's arm. He croaked rage and swung the ax. Her hands pushed up and her wrists crossed, presenting the blade at a precise forty-five-degree angle, the point near her own shoulder blade. Tough ashwood, the shaft of the ax slid down the metal and the force of the blow turned the Zarthani half around. She planted her feet and lashed the sword back at him; a frantic leap and twist still left him with a gash leaking red along the outside of his right arm, a flap of skin and flesh dangling. She moved in, iodan no kame, sword up over her head.
Cut, and a section of the wicker shield spun away. Strike up from the follow-through, and her blade met the descending arm, already weakened by the first cut. This time the edge jarred solidly into meat, and she pivoted from the hips, a snapping twist that grated the blade into bone and past it. The follow-through sent a fan of red drops across the grass, and the sword seemed to fly of itself back into the high-stroke position for the killing blow.
"Quarter!" the Zarthani yelled, falling back and putting up a hand against it in a futile warding gesture. "I yield!"
For a long moment Swindapa stood, feeling fire torrenting through her blood.
"I won't let you down," she whispered, in her lover's tongue.
The Zarthani swarmed into the breach howling, striking at Americans still dazed on the ground, or still cumbered by their long spears. The bang and clatter and crash of hand-to-hand combat sounded all around them, like a load of scrap metal dropping on a concrete floor.
"Follow me," Alston said firmly, as Swindapa dashed off to bring the Fiernan reserve into action.
The standard-bearers fell back a little as the command party moved forward, and the dozen sword-and-shield guards closed up in a blunt wedge behind her.
"Rally!" she shouted. "Rally, there!"
The American line was starting to reform, yielding flexibly without breaking ranks, rallying about the flag. But too many of the barbarians were through; a knot of them hacked and trampled their way to the rear of the formation. Alston led her band directly at them, forcing them to turn and meet her. At their head was the chieftain with the chain-mail hauberk; he carried a small shield painted with paired thunderbolts and a long steel-shod spear whose head was surrounded by a collar of white heron feathers. Armored, he still moved lightly, a lithe fast knot of bone and gristle and tough muscle.
The spear punched at her. Worry fell away; you couldn't think, not in a fight. You reacted. He leaped backward frantically as her katana slammed down in a blurring arc, but the tip still burst links; without the armor it would have gashed his shoulder to the bone. Pale eyes went wide… and he'd gotten his first real look at her face.
"Night One!" he said in his own tongue.
Beside her one of his followers struck, and the ax boomed off an American shield. That trooper stepped in, stabbing and punching the shield forward. The whole wedge of guards was pushing forward, stepping into place and sealing the breach in the line.
Alston thrust two-handed at the chief's face, shrieking the kia. He yelled back and caught the blade on the face of his shield, short-gripping the spear and stabbing underarm. The point skittered off the lower part of her breastplate and the thigh guards. He backed again, but she followed closely, keeping herself too close for his longer weapon to be fully useful. The brass cap at the base of the katana's hilt punched up at his face, taking him at the angle of his jaw. Bone broke, but the Zarthani's shield edge whipped around and struck her across the head and shoulder. She tasted the iron and salt of blood in her mouth and went with the stroke, letting her right knee loose. Weight and momentum pushed her down on one knee, and the long curved blade took the warrior on the back of the leg, just above the knee. He fell backward with a scream, one that ended in a gurgle as the katana came down across his neck.
Alston spat blood and came to her feet. The fight was ending, knots and clumps of the Zarthani turning and running lest they be caught between the Fiernans swinging in from the right and the Nantucket line. Training pays off, she thought, dragging her mind back to the chessplayer's state a commander needed. True for the Romans, true for us.
"Shall we pursue?" Lieutenant Nyugen said.
"No," she replied.
No point; they couldn't possibly chase down unarmored men, not without cavalry, and those took years to train.
She shook her head. "Let the locals do it."
The Fiernans were hallooing off across the stretch of pasture, spearing running Zarthani in the back or wounded ones on the ground with the ruthless enthusiasm bred by old, old scores that they'd never had a chance to pay off before. That reminded her…
"See to the prisoners." Where the Fiernans had passed, there simply weren't any-which was a pity but also a load off her mind; there weren't any facilities for them. "We'll need a few for interrogation."
Stretcher-bearers were taking the wounded off to the circle of wagons where the doctors waited. There were already birds circling above, ravens and crows, waiting for the living humans to get out of the way. And…
Swindapa. For an instant she could be an single human being, not the head of a hundredfold body. Fear and love roiled under the shell of control. The Fiernan girl wasn't far away, cleaning her sword and standing over an enemy prisoner. As Alston came up she pushed back the cheek-pieces and removed her helmet, turning a wondering look on the American.
"I beat him. He gave up," she said. "I beat him, and he gave up."
Alston put an arm around her shoulders. The armor made it like embracing a statue, but she squeezed anyway. "Damn right," she said, grinning in relief and fierce pride. "I didn't waste all that teachin' time."