Even then he clutched the shotgun to his chest, and tried to open the breech to reload it. Fortunately, that wasn't necessary. The retreating American had stopped when the odds against him dropped to even. The other Zarthani faltered, shocked by the thunderous sound and the sudden death beside him. While he goggled the American sheathed his short sword in the man's belly, ripped it out, and bowled the dying barbarian over with a slamming blow from his shield. The petty officer levered herself back erect, and it was the last Zarthani's turn to retreat helplessly before numbers. He was far more vulnerable, though. A moment's clatter and boom, and he was down on his knees, coughing blood and clutching at his chest. A short hard chop put the edge of a gladius into the back of his neck with a tooth-grating wet chunk-crack sound, like an ax going into damp wood.
"God bless the Ginsu," the American wheezed, freeing his blade with a jerk. "Slices, dices, julienne-fries."
Ian wiped his mouth on his sleeve and dropped his weapon, fumbling at Doreen's head with trembling fingers. "Oh, God, she can't die," he mumbled, knowing that he lied.
The wound was bleeding freely, leaving his hands red to the wrist, but he couldn't find any crack in the bone. That didn't mean there wasn't internal damage, pressure on the brain. He peeled back one eyelid and then the other; the left pupil was larger, and didn't shrink as much.
"Oh, God."
He put an arm under her shoulders and another behind her knees and straightened up, not feeling the strain, and walked over to the aid station.
The doctor there had splashes of blood on his gown. "Head wound?" he said. Ian nodded, afraid to speak. The gloved fingers probed, washed, and probed again.
"Not too bad," the medic said. Ian felt an enormous shuddering sensation of relief, so strong that he had to grip the edge of the table as his knees loosened.
"I think," the medico added. "No fracture… concussion… probably be sick as a dog for a couple of days. This scalp wound is superficial, doesn't even need a stitch." He looked up to his assistant. "Bandage it. Next!"
He followed while Doreen was laid out on a blanket, with another over her. People bumped into him. At last an orderly spoke:
"Sir, you're in the f… goddam way. She's going to be out for hours. Couldn't you move?"
He did, getting a drink of water and trying to force his mind back into action. He found the captain standing with her helmet under one arm, talking with a knot of her officers and a worshipful-looking pair of Fiernan Spear Chosen.
"… five dead, and twenty seriously wounded," someone was saying.
"Damn," Alston said sadly. "Well, no worse than I expected-better, actually." She looked around. "We'll make camp over there. Ditch and obstacles, if you please; best we get into the habit. Let's get on with it. As I understand it, we have to wait for permission to approach the Great Wisdom anyway. Ah, Ian."
Her gaze sharpened on him, taking in the spatters and the blood on his hands; there was some drying across the front of her breastplate as well, and up her right armguard. "Not hurt, I hope?"
"No… Doreen was." He swallowed, "That is, she got a thump on the head. I had to, that is, use the shotgun. The doctor says she'll be fine."
"Glad you're both all right," she said. "Come take a look at this."
He forced down an irrational spurt of anger. She's got more than us to think about. At least the emotion served to break through the glassy, numb feeling he'd had since the ugly scrimmage among the wagons. They walked out into the ghastly remains. The dead were thickly scattered across three hundred yards of beaten ground, singly and in clumps. The ground was actually sticky with blood in places; the broad triple-edged heads of the heavy arrows cut gruesome channels through flesh and internal organs. Some of the barbarians were still moving, missed by the Fiernan pursuers. The ground smelled a little like an old-fashioned butcher's shop where blood and meat had gone slightly off in the sun, and more like an outdoor toilet.
Like a Marrakesh souk, only worse, Ian thought, gagging slightly. "One thing I can tell you," he said. "You probably won't have any trouble from this particular tribe anytime soon."
Alston looked at him, eyebrows raised. "They seemed remarkably stubborn to me," she said. "Zarthani is what this here bunch're called, by the way."
Ian shook his head. "From what we saw of the Iraiina and what Swindapa's said, not many of these tribes are more than four, five thousand people," he said. "You… we… probably killed something like every third male of military age in the Zarthani tribe's entire population in less than an hour, plus a lot of their leaders. They can't have battles like this very often. Couldn't afford them."
"Good point," she said, musing. "I think they were plenty surprised, all right." A bleak smile: "Remember the night before the fight with the Indians, when I said what we lacked was experienced troops? We're quickly makin' that lack good."
Where the line of battle had stood, the Zarthani dead lay thicker, two deep where the hedge of spears had met them. The smell was riper; spearheads and swords had pierced the abdominal cavity more often than not. Ian tried to avoid looking at the faces. Alston bent and pulled the light frame of a chariot upright, tumbling a corpse off it.
"Notice anythin'?" she said.
Breathing through his mouth, Ian forced himself to look. After a moment he blinked.
"Iron tires!" he said, and bent closer, adjusting his glasses.
"Heat-shrunk on. Iron coulter pins, too, and those spokes were turned on a lathe." His gaze went forward to the dead horses. "Collar harnesses, too, by God. And horseshoes."
"Walker," Alston said, making the name a quiet curse. "That'll increase their military potential quite drastically."
"That's not the half of it, Mar-Captain. That yoke-and-strap harness these people were using chokes a horse when it pulls. With a collar, it's four, five times more efficient- perhaps more. It revolutionized agriculture in the Middle Ages. I suppose he's given them stirrups, too. Faster transportation. I wonder what else he's come up with?"
Working parties of Americans and Fiernans were stripping the bodies of anything useful and hauling them off, and cautiously taking the enemy wounded toward the aid station. A hundred or so were digging a long trench, six feet deep, spadefuls of the light chalky earth flying up. Ian winced a little again. Granted, it was necessary sanitation, but…
Alston pointed out another body. "This for starters."
He bent, ignoring the flies walking across the fixed, dry eyes. "Chain mail," he said, a little redundantly, and looked closer. "Machine-drawn wire, I'd say, but the rest looks like handwork."
He stood, eyes absent. "I wonder if he-Dr. Hong, actually, I suppose-has told them about antiseptic childbirth? That'd start a population explosion all by itself… He's already done enough to turn this society-this continent- upside down. God alone knows how it'll evolve now."
"God may know, but I hope we'll have some say in the matter," Alston said grimly. "Well, back to work. I don't think our absent friend is going to be wasting his time. I should look in on the wounded."