The jetty wasn't meant for seagoing ships; this river wasn't meant for seagoing ships. There were two of the flat-bottomed barges already at it, no place for the captured Tartessian vessel.
Oh, Jesus, Pete, don't get yourself killed, will you? Or you either, Eddie, even if you are a prick a lot of the time. Spring Indigo, where the hell are you hiding, and can we get you out without anything hurting you or little Jared?
Bright spring sunlight outside, incongruously cheerful and full of birdsong. The gates swinging open, people pouring down- brightly clad civilians, children…
"Kakwa," Jaditwara murmured.
Their eyes met, and they went down the line of cannon, turning the elevating screws up two turns. The near-naked locals at the lanyards looked at them hopefully; once over their initial terror, they'd all immensely enjoyed firing the cannon off into the swamp. One lifted the lanyard enthusiastically and made to pull, to be met with frantic calls of no! no! in five languages; Sue remembered to toss her head instead of shaking it.
They backed off again; at least they knew enough not to stand behind the guns now. Sue swallowed something acid at the back of her throat. No way to tell now what would happen; she had to play it by ear with entirely too much that could go wrong at any moment. Was Pete's crazy plan too complicated, did it depend on too many things going right?
The crowd got near enough to notice the bodies in Tartessian uniform or sailor's slops draped about the deck or hanging limp over the rails. The ship drifted in…
Oh, thank You, Lord Jesus, Sue thought. The captured vessel was nudging in on the north side of the pier, its bow catching and stern swing 'round to ground hard on the mud-broadside still mostly trained on the fort. There was another frantic scramble as the two women ran down the line of guns, heaving at handspikes together; the locals were strong and willing, but they couldn't even talk to the Islanders, much less take directions.
The cries of alarm grew stronger; several Tartessians went pelting back up to the fort-town. And…
"Yes!" The gates swung open, and troops appeared there.
"Now, how long before they twig?" Sue muttered.
The civilians were milling around-scared of whatever had "killed" the crew, terrified by memories of the brief smallpox outbreak, a few of the bolder ones coming out onto the boards of the wharf. Troops forming up in the gates-
"Now!" Jaditwara cried and pulled the lanyard on her own gun; the hammer came down, flint sparked, and the twelve-pounder bellowed and leaped backward. At the other end of the line Sue repeated the action. Within a few seconds the Indians on the other four guns had done the same.
The crowd of civilians screamed and recoiled as the side of the ship shot out its long blades of flame and smoke. Many sensibly threw themselves flat as half a dozen cannonballs screamed by just above head height. Nearly all of them turned and fled pell-mell back up the gently sloping road toward the gates as the "dead" men on deck came alive, leaping over the ship's side with screeching war whoops. More tribesmen poured out of the hatchways, up from where they'd hidden uneasily in the darkness of the hold and orlop decks; an endless flood of stocky brown men in loincloths, waving captured rifles or swords or axes, their own obsidian-headed spears and darts, carved hardwood clubs.
The two Islander women waited an instant, as the south wind blew the gun smoke upriver. The broadside had struck on or around the gate, smashing lethal clouds of splinters out of the timbers of gate and towers, some of them falling short and going bounding and skipping up the roadway like monstrous lethal bowling balls, a couple whirring right through the packed soldiers at knee height. Sue swore softly at the results, then grabbed up her rifle as the other ranger dashed past.
The road up to the fort gates was a solid mass of people; surviving soldiers, fleeing farmers and artisans and their families, and the crowd of howling tribesfolk who outnumbered both. Sue hurdled a Tartessian woman curled protectively around a screaming toddler, shoved, cursed, and pushed; she and her companion were about halfway between the vanguard of their Indian allies and the last of them.
About the safest place to be, she thought, feeling her skin roughen at the thought of the cannon and rockets on the wall ahead. Me, I don't have to prove a damned thing, I just want to win and live.
The Indians pushed a screen of the townsfolk before them; more a matter of necessity than intent, but the effect was the same. Most of the Tartessians on the wall were civilian militiamen; the professionals among them mostly had family here as well. Reluctance to fire on their own, or to shut the gate in their faces, cost them crucial moments. By the time they tried, it was too late, and the gateway was full of a heaving mass of men who shot and stabbed, clubbed and slashed and throttled each other, trampling the dead and wounded beneath their feet. Those on the gate-towers couldn't shoot into the melee beneath; brave and foolish, most of them ran down to join it, where an alderwood club was as effective as a single-shot rifle.
Sue and her fellow ranger went in along the wall of the gate-tunnel, trying to force their way through the packed mass without getting caught up in it, kicking and shoving and using their rifle butts. A Tartessian saw her out of the corner of his eye and whipped his short broad chopping blade around in a reflex cut at someone obviously not of his people. Sue caught it on the stock of her rifle, grunting as the thick-shouldered power of the cut drove her into a half crouch; Jaditwara shot him in the face through the space Sue had vacated.
The report was deafening in the confined space, even over the snarling brabble of voices, screams of pain, clatter of metal and stone on each other and on wood. Sue dropped the damaged firearm and snatched out her blades, shouldering aside the falling body as she rose; stabbed another Iberian in the groin, and whipped the hammer end of her tomahawk down on a man's arm and felt the bones crack. The muzzle of Jaditwara’s rifle came past her cheek again, and she ducked in reflex.
The Tartessian soldiers still on their feet held the whole struggling mass of humanity in the gateway like a cork in a bottle. But they were too mixed with their enemies and friends to keep it plugged for long. Like a champagne cork when thumbs have weakened it just enough, this one popped out all of a sudden. It spilled out into the open space that ran just inside the walls-and the Tartessians were suddenly in even more trouble than they had been a minute before. There were four or five Indians for each Iberian, and in the open they could take advantage of it.
Good, Sue thought, as the tribesmen poured into the fort-town and spread howling through the streets.
The more trouble they've got, the less attention they'll pay to two Islanders in buckskin. She stooped, picked up a dead man's rifle, and knelt in a corner between two buildings to load it while Jaditwara covered her.
"Let's go," she said. "Market square."
They moved out, trotting along the streets pressed as close to one side as they could, where the roofs-hopefully-hid them from the sight of anyone on the walls or defensive towers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
December, 10 A.E.-Off Tartessos City, southern Iberia
April, 11 A.E.-Feather River Valley, California
December, 10 A.E.-Off Tartessos City, southern Iberia
April, 11 A.E.-Feather River Valley, California
December, 10 A.E.-Cadiz Base, southern Iberia
High tide in twenty minutes," Swindapa said quietly. "It's not going to get any deeper."