The cowhorn trumpets blatted, and the mass of kilted clansmen howled and began to trot forward, their yelps rising into a screaming chorus as they broke into a headlong rush.
"Company… halt," Hendriksson barked. "Spears… down." The points came into line, the crossbows spread out like wings on either side, pointing a little forward as if they were the mouth of a funnel.
"First rank.. .fire."
WHUNG.
"Reload! Second rank.. .fire."
WHUNG.
The steady sleet of bolts shook the easterners' charge, but it couldn't stop it. Alston could see the set contorted faces of the clansmen, a glare of exaltation like the homicidal equivalent of a Holy Roller's trance. She spared a glance for the Nantucket troops; faces set and hard, teeth clenched between the covering cheekguards, tiny shifts as they braced themselves for the impact.
WHUNG. WHUNG. WHUNG.
A sleet of flung spears and axes came in the last second. Americans went down, still or kicking, and their comrades closed ranks over them; metal rattled off metal with a discordant clatter. A long slithering rasp went on either side as the crossbowmen slung their weapons, swung their bucklers around, and drew the short swords at their right hips with a snapping flex of the wrist. They feel sound, she thought. Something down in the gut told her; some intangible border had been crossed, in the months of marching and skirmishing and drilling. These were veterans now.
So am I, I suppose, she thought with mild surprise. Which doesn't mean we can't get wiped out.
"Fair fights are for suckers," she muttered. Circumstances seemed to have forced her into one. "This way!" she said aloud, moving off to the left where the barbarians might overlap the American line.
That put her and the dozen in the color guard party behind the left-flank crossbows-fighting at close quarters, now. She saw an American sink his gladius into a tribesman's belly with the short upward gutting stroke he'd been taught, then stagger back as a tomahawk slammed into the side of his helmet. A relief from the second rank stepped forward into the hole, stooping and slamming the edge of her shield into the ax-man's foot while he was off-balance and then into the side of his head as he bent in uncontrollable reflex.
"Give 'em the Ginsu!" she shouted, crouching and taking her place in line. The half-stunned American fell into the second rank shaking his head and wobbling a bit as he recovered from the blow.
"Here's our part of the job," Alston said as they came to the end of the line.
A man in a mail hauberk was leading a dozen warriors at the vulnerable end of the ranks, where two Americans were fighting back to back. He yelled frustration as the dozen swords of the color guard swung into place and blocked him.
Beside her Alston heard Swindapa gasp. "Shaumsrix!" she screamed.
That's a name-an Iraiina name-wait a minute, wasn't that the one who she said-
"Remember me, Shaumsrix!" the Fiernan girl shrieked.
The Iraiina turned, rattlesnake-swift. His spear lanced out. Swindapa's katana was in jodan no kame, up and to the right. It snapped downward, slashing through the tough ashwood just behind the iron wire that bound the shaft for a foot behind the head. The metal spun and tinkled away; his shield boomed under her second stroke.
"Remember me, Shaumsrix! Remember the Earther girl!"
"Oh, hell, 'dapa-forward! Forward!"
Shaumsrix was staggering back on his heels as the katana blurred at him, backed by a cold, bitter rage. Alston moved by the girl's side, let a knee relax as an ax flashed by to bury itself in the turf, took the wielder's arm off just below the elbow, whipped the long sword up to knock aside a spear. The Iraiina chief had recovered his balance and unshipped his ax, a copy in steel of the old charioteer's weapon. His sworn men closed in on either side, meeting the Americans of the color guard shield to shield.
Alston lunged one-handed, using the katana like a saber. The man on the end of the point hadn't been expecting that, and he ran right into it. The blade sank in, then stuck in bone. The warrior folded around it, and someone stabbed at her from behind him. She ignored it, ducking her head, and the spearpoint slid from the helmet as she put a boot on the man's body and pushed. The layer-forged steel sliced through a rib and came free; the sprattling corpse tripped the spearman behind.
She ignored him as well, as he struggled to regain his balance. Instead she let her right knee go slack and turned as she went down, striking hard and level and drawing the cut. It slashed through the tough leather binding around the Iraiina chieftain's left calf. Fair fights are for suckers, especially if you're a woman, she thought, and brought her sword up to guard position just in time to deflect another ax. The impact jarred through her wrists, but beside her Swindapa screamed again:
"Remember!" and lunged two-handed past the chieftain's falling guard. The point jammed into the bone of his face. She ripped it free, and he fell to his hands and knees, helmet rolling free. The next stroke went across his neck.
Wailing, the fallen man's followers cast themselves on the American points, and died, while Alston and her companion stood guarding each other. She saw sanity seep back into the Pieman's eyes.
Thack. A spearman fell backward, his face a red mass. Alston's head swiveled. Fiernans were running along the ridge to the east, nimble on the steep turf. One of the first was a slinger; he waved his leather thong over his head at her, and then reached into his pouch for another round. More archers and slingers came behind him, moving forward and shooting over the Americans' heads, into the growing mass of easterner warriors jammed against their line. Alston could feel the pressure on that line waver as the shafts and lead bullets whistled into them. Spear-armed Fiernans were trotting up as well, fanning out on the open flank of the Nantucketer force.
Alston spat to clear her mouth of gummy saliva and reached for her canteen. The motion froze as she recognized the banner behind the enemy mass. Walker. Walker, and his special goon squad, marching in step and in line. And behind them, the cannon.
"Christ," she whispered. We can't run. They'd be all over us like flies on cowshit. And if they stood…
Even at a hundred yards' distance, the muzzles of the cannon looked big enough to swallow her head as the crews unhitched them and wheeled them around.
William Walker laughed, despite the nagging ache in his shoulder. "Oh, how surprised you must be, Skipper," he chuckled. "What a sad end to the day. How fucking tragic. Christ, this feels even better than I thought it would!"
He turned to his men, hand around the stock of the rifle, letting it fall across his shoulder. "We'll move off to the right, away from the ridge," he said. "When they break, we'll move in and take a new place for the guns. And get those fools ahead of us out of the way!"
The gun crews were busy, grunting with effort as they rammed the grapeshot down the barrels of the bronze fieldpieces. His men were drawing off to one side with him, except for the ones he'd sent forward to get the tribal levy out of the way-it was tempting to just fire anyway, but that would be really bad politics. He chuckled again at the thought.
It was never easy to get the Sun People fighting men to give way, but they'd all acquired a healthy superstitious dread of gunpowder weapons. A minute, and they were backing away from the American line; then they turned and ran, to get out of crossbow range as fast as they could. The Nantucketers didn't fire, although the growing mass of Fiernan archers and whatnot up on the slope to his left did. The retreating warriors halted behind the guns, panting and glaring. Walker called one of the chiefs over.