"Screw you, Your Highness," the sergeant said as a rifle volley hammered the latest charge into offal. "That one was too close."
"Not so bad," Bes said, sticking his head out of the slit trench they'd gouged out of the muddy earth behind their original positions. "Would have been nice if we'd been able to hold the original line, but this one isn't bad, except on the flanks."
"Speaking of which," Despreaux said. "Reneb, check in. Everybody still here?"
"Still here," the team leader confirmed. "No casualties in the team so far, and we're piling them up."
"Same here," Roger said, looking out of the slit trench.
There were only twelve humans in the entire force, but each of them had begun the day with thirty ten-round magazines for their new rifles. They were conserving that ammunition as much as they could, letting the Mardukans' single-shot rifles carry most of the fight at long range. But whenever the barbarians began another charge, the sheer volume of fire from those magazine-fed rifles and the cavalry's revolvers wreaked dreadful carnage.
The ground on both sides of the trench for as far as Roger could see into the jungles was littered with Boman bodies. The barbarians had learned that the only way to get into ax range was to charge forward blindly, seeking to break through the fire zone by sheer weight of numbers. A few times, it had gotten down to hand-to-hand, but even there the Carnan Battalion and the Basik's Own had managed to hold their own, and the assaults had been repulsed.
"Here they come again!" Bes shouted, closing his rifle breech and firing at the first of the charging Boman.
This time the barbarians had managed to coordinate their attacks, which made things tougher. They came from both sides, but not directly at the flanks, which probably would have rolled up Roger's entire embattled position. The prince looked to the nominal "rear" and shook his head as the aiming reticle appeared in his vision. He tossed his magnum to Cord, who'd become quite a respectable rifle shot himself, drew his bead pistol once more, took up a two-handed stance, and began a timed fire sequence. One shot per second cracked out for each of the fourteen seconds it took the Boman line to reach the trench, and each shot took out a barbarian.
The riflemen to either side, Marine and Mardukan alike, had been hammering out fire in both directions. The rifles' black powder filled the little clearing with gray-white smoke and a smell like the breath of Hell itself, and as the Boman jumped into the trenches or struck down with their two-handed battle axes, it seemed as if Lucifer had arrived in person.
The majority of the defenders switched to their long bayonets, and Despreaux blocked the swing of an ax, buttstroked the axeman in the groin, and then ducked as Turkol Bes bayoneted someone over her shoulder. She sprang past him as Cord missed a block and was slammed into the wall of the trench. The bleeding shaman had been the last thing between Roger and an ax-swinging Boman easily as large as Bistem Kar, and the sergeant felt an instant of pure despair as she realized she could never reach him before he reached Roger.
Patty had been sent back with the other pack animals, but Dogzard had evaded all efforts to corral her and send her back, as well. As the barbarian's ax rose for the fatal stroke, ninety kilos of hissing lizard ripped into his leg from the side. The dog-lizard's attack slowed the Boman just enough for Roger to twist sideways and get a shot in. The hypervelocity bead took the axeman almost dead center, but despite the slamming impact, the barbarian still managed one last swipe at Roger. The prince blocked the blow with the sword in his right hand, then stepped out of the way as the giant toppled at his feet.
The axeman had been the last enemy alive in the trench, and Roger stepped back again as a pair of Diaspran infantrymen heaved the body out of the trench and added it to the parapet of corpses.
"God damn these stupid, four-armed bastards," Despreaux cursed wearily, wiping blood out of her eyes. "Don't they know when they're beat?"
"Sure they do," Bes grunted in laughter. "Almost as well as oversized basik."
* * *
Knitz De'n grabbed both his horns and shook them back and forth in anger. A scout had just brought back word that Sindi had actually fallen—that the city was being looted to the ground and that all of their women and children had fallen into shit-sitter hands—and this tiny group had repulsed five charges by the finest ax wielders in the Valley of the Tam. It wasn't possible.
"One more time," the subchief hissed. "One more charge, and we can destroy them all."
"No, we can't," Sof Knu said flatly. "These new arquebuses of theirs are impossible, and they fight like demons. Let us go west; surely some warriors must have escaped the fall of the city. We can find them—join with them, and harass these K'Vaernians. Harass them, and pull them down like kef do a turom. It's how we always face greater forces."
"No!" Knitz De'n shouted. "We'll kill them here and now! This is our land, taken by our arms, and no one will take it away!"
"Do as you wish," Sof Knu said, "but I'm leaving, and taking my warriors with me. I'm not insane."
The ax entered between Knu's shoulder and neck, almost severing his right true-arm. He fell, and Knitz De'n dragged the ax free with a wrench and waved it in the air.
"Do any others dispute my right of command?" he snarled, looking around the group of sullen barbarians. "One more charge! Into the face of death I fly! With the heart of an atul and the strength of the pagathar! Wesnaaar!"
* * *
"I don't believe it," Despreaux said, and Roger looked up from bandaging Cord.
"This is a joke, right?" he said as he watched four Boman charge out of the brush. The unsupported quartet was about as much threat to the combat veterans dug in to await it as a similar number of children.
"Either berserk, or doing it for honor," Pri said. He gave the barbarians another look and grunted. "Berserk."
"Well? Is anyone going to shoot them, or are we just going to let them kill us all?" Despreaux asked tartly.
Four bead pistol shots cracked out before a single rifle could speak, and the Boman flew backwards in explosions of gore.
"What?" Roger said, holstering the pistol and returning to his asi's bandage. "Like that?"
"Yeah," Despreaux said quietly into the sudden silence. "Like that."
"You know," the prince said, never looking up from the bandage, "one of these days, I'm going to be in a fight where I don't kill anything."
"That'll be the day," the sergeant replied sadly.
* * *
"You know, this could turn out to be a nice day after all," Krindi Fain said as regular volleys started hammering to the east.
Despite the lack of support, the former sergeant had sent snipers forward to peck at the Boman line. The response had been violent, but uncoordinated, with nearly three hundred Boman chasing the snipers into the woods . . . where the survivors of his hundred-man company had finally ambushed them at the edge of a thicket. The company's fire had piled up most of the barbarians for very little loss, which had been one of the first things to go right all day. But nice as that had been, the sudden, massive firing crashing out to the east now was the most blessed sound he'd ever heard.
"Our job's done," he said. "Let's go find the good guys. And for the God's sake, keep an eye out! The Boman are going to be swarming around the flanks, and we don't want to get shot by our own people, either!"
"Can we loot the ones we killed, Lieutenant?" one of the troopers asked.
"Not until after the battle," he snapped. "Now let's move out while the moving's good."
"But we're gonna retreat," the trooper protested. "We won't be able to get nothin'."
"You're gonna get my foot up your ass if you don't shut up," Erkum Pol said. "You heard the Lieutenant. Move it!"