They cheered him, roaring out his name. "Cheer after the victory, not before. Let's go!"
He led off, keeping the horse to a fast walk; the men behind him were on foot, and no matter how fit you were, you started puffing and blowing pretty fast if you tried to run in armor. No use at all getting there with the men too exhausted to fight. The field guns rumbled along behind him, and he grinned at the sound, looking down at a map drawn on deerhide with charcoal held across the horn of his saddle. Most of Alston's army was sheltering on or just behind this long ridge, with a broad smooth stretch of open country just beyond. If he could get the cannon setup there at the north end of the Fiernan line, they'd have enfilade fire right down the whole enemy force. Alston wouldn't have any choice-she'd have to come to him. All the men would have to do would be to guard the guns, and when the enemy rushed them… well, that was why God and William Walker had invented grapeshot.
The ground ahead was littered with wounded, and he was only a couple of hundred yards from the rear of the Sun People's array as he hurried toward the right flank. Most of the injured here had arrows in them; they were lying and crying for water or help or crawling slowly back toward the host's lines. A few of them tried to grab at the boots of Walker's band as they passed, and were kicked aside. Eastward was a long dry valley, filled with scrub and second growth; they'd trampled paths through it that morning, marching to the battleground.
I'll really have to organize some sort of medical corps someday, he thought. It was wasteful to allow useful fighting men to die unnecessarily. His own band had a horse-drawn ambulance to take their wounded back to Hong.
He bent his head again over the leather map. Just as he did so something went through the air where his head had been, with a flat vicious whiplike crack.
Walker's men stopped and milled in puzzlement as their leader's uptime reflexes threw him out of the saddle and flat on the ground. He peered through the nervously moving legs of the quarterhorse and saw a puff of smoke from a clump of bushes two hundred yards away.
"There!" he roared, pointing. "Kill him! There, you fools!"
He scrambled upright, gripping at the reins to keep the horse between him and the unseen sniper, reaching over the saddle to grope for the Garand in its saddle scabbard. "Keep still, Bastard," he hissed, but the stallion was rolling its eyes and laying back its ears, spooked by the smell of blood and the noise.
A second later there was another crack, this time accompanied by a ptank and a tremendous sideways leap-surge of the horse; that knocked Walker flat, still gripping the reins as Bastard reared. An ironshod hoof came down on his shoulder, and he shouted at the hard sharp pain as a thousand pounds of weight shifted for a second onto the thin metal protecting muscle and bone… and yielding to the weight. He hammered his right fist into the horse's leg and scrambled upright again, sick and dizzy with the waves of cold agony washing outward from the wound. All he could do for a moment was cling gasping to the saddle; when he tried for the weapon again his fingers found a splash of still-hot lead across the receiver, and crushed parts below that.
Anxious hands gripped him. "They've caught the evil one, lord-are you all right?"
He moved his left arm, snarling at the sudden streaking fire. "You… grab my arm. Ohotolarix, hold me steady. Get ready. Pull."
They were all familiar with putting a dislocated shoulder back in action. Walker clenched his teeth; you couldn't show pain with this gang if you wanted to keep their respect, at least not something this minor. Minor. Jesus Christ. By the time he could move the arm again, two of his troopers were dragging up a third limp figure. One covered in a net cloak, the cloak stuck all over with twigs and bunches of grass.
"Here, lord," one of the men said. He held up a rifle. "This evil one had a death-magic, but weak compared to yours." The little finger of his left hand was missing, the stump bound with a leather thong. "All it made was a big noise and this small hurt, and we speared this one like a salmon in spawning season."
"Let me have it," Walker said tightly, examining the action. Oh, that's clever. Westley-Richards, but in flintlock. Good thing you couldn't make more of these.
He took the satchel of paper cartridges and the horn of priming powder and slung them over his own shoulder. The landscape went gray for a second. God, I'm not that badly hurt… oh. A glance upward showed thickening cloud sliding in from the west, and a welcome coolness in the breeze.
"Let's get going," he said. Ohotolarix made a stirrup of his hands to help him into the saddle; the left arm was mobile, but it would be weeks before it was first-rate again. "Now! Go, go, go!"
"Halt!" Alston shouted. The false retreat had caught the Fiernan left well and truly, and they looked thoroughly smashed. "Fall in beside us! You'll just die if you run!"
Swindapa joined in, but it was probably the sight of the ordered American ranks that stopped the fugitives. Many fell in on either side of the Americans, readying bows and spears or snatching up rocks from the ground, gasping as they tried to recover their breath.
Alston looked left and right. The ridge was sharper here to the east, the country flat and open to the west. They'll come straight down, try to hit us in the rear. The ground to her right was too steep for easy footing, far too steep for a chariot-chances were they'd avoid it.
"Open order," she said, heeling her horse a dozen paces to the left. She looked upward; it was typical English weather, utterly unpredictable. Right now it looked as if it might rain soon. Just what we need. Damp bowstrings.
The first chariot came around the east-trending bend of the ridge just behind the hoof-thunder and axle-squeal herald of its passage, horses galloping with their heads down. She was close enough to see the goggle-eyed look of surprise on the driver and warrior-chief, just before Hendriksson snapped an order and a spray of crossbow bolts hit the two horses. They went down as if their forelegs had been cut out from under them, and the pole that ran between them dug into the dirt and flipped the chariot forward like a giant frying pan. Driver and warrior flew screaming through the air to land with bone-shattering thumps. Behind the chariot came panting a group of fighters on foot; they sensibly took one look and pelted back around the curve.
"Here's where it gets hands-on," Alston said grimly, swinging her leg over the horse's neck and sliding to the ground with a clatter of armor.
"I'm glad I'm with you, Marian," Swindapa said, dismounting and handing the banner to the color party.
Alston touched her shoulder for an instant. "Me too, 'dapa." Their eyes met. But I'd rather we were both back home, lying in front of the fire and making love. The thought passed without need for words.
She reached over her left shoulder and drew the katana, drawing a deep breath and then letting it out slowly, pushing worry and confusion with it, letting the first three-deep file of the reserve company trot past her.
"Runner," she said calmly. "Message to Commander Rapczewicz. I need some archers here, and backup on my left; also a catapult. Lieutenant Commander Hendriksson, we'll advance at marching pace from here. You have tactical command."
The high ground swung away to her right. This time the enemy came in mass, two hundred of them at least. They all seemed to have iron weapons, though; quite a few had helmets, and there was a scattering of the chain-mail suits. The chiefs dismounted from their chariots, sending them to the rear-that was one of their standard tactics, and it meant they were planning on a serious fight. For a moment men milled around their lords, shaking their weapons and shouting. A couple of the iron-suited leaders drew their swords and threw the sheaths away; if that meant what she thought it did…