"Fire!"
A fresh fogbank of smoke drifted away, showing the ruin below-the muskets had been loaded with what Mek-Andrus called buck and ball, a musket ball and several smaller projectiles. The ditch was filled with shapes that heaved and moaned and screamed, and the smell was like a desecrated tomb. Djehuty winced; he was a hardy man and bred to war, but this… this was something else. Not even the actions in the south had prepared him for it; the barbarians there were too undisciplined to keep charging into certain death as these men had.
"They run away, they run away, Father!" Sennedjem said.
Then, away in the gathering dusk, lights blinked like angry red eyes. Everyone in the little earth fort took cover. A long whistling screech came from overhead, and then the first explosion. The enemy cannon were better than the ones Mek-Andrus had taught the men of Khem to make; instead of firing just solid roundshot or grape, they could throw shells that exploded themselves-and throw them further. Djehuty dug his fingers into the earth, conscious mainly of the humiliation of it. He, Commander of the Brigade of Seth, whose ancestors had been nobles since the years when the Theban Pharaohs expelled the Hyskos, cowering in the dirt like a peasant! But the fire-weapons were no respecters of rank or person.
And they will shred my Brigade of Seth like meat beneath the cook's cleaver.
So Pharaoh had ordered… and it might be worth it, if it turned the course of the battle to come.
Earth shuddered under his belly and loins. He had a moment to think, and it froze him with his fingers crooked into the shifting clay. Why only cannon? From the reports and rumors, the newcomers had taught their allies to make muskets, too, and better ones than the Egyptians had. Yet all the infantry and chariots his brigade had met here were armed with the old weapons; some of them fashioned of iron rather than bronze, but still spear, sword, bow, javelin.
The barrage let up. He turned his head, and felt his liver freeze with fear. Sennedjem was lying limp and pale, his back covered in blood. Djehuty scrambled to him, ran hands across the blood-wet skin. Breath of life and pulse of blood, faint but still there. He prayed to the Gods of healing and clamped down; there, something within the wound. A spike of metal, still hot to the touch. He took it between thumb and forefinger, heedless of the sharp pain in his own flesh, and pulled. His other hand pressed across the wound while he roared for healers, bandages, wine, and resin to wash out the hurt. When they came he rose, forcing himself to look away and think as his son was borne to the rear.
"I don't like the smell of this," he muttered, and called for a runner. "Go to the commander of the northernmost brigade of Pharaoh's army," he said. Who should be here and deploying behind us. "Find why they delay, and return quickly. Say that we are hard-pressed."
"Ahhhh, not bad," William Walker said. "Fundamentally, life is pretty good."
He looked up at the tender green of the branches moving overhead, little sun-gleams flickering through them. Spring was nice. For one thing, it meant shuttling back and forth across the Aegean would be easier, without the winter storms to worry about. For another, he could finally get his hands on the Nantucketer bastards and deal with them once and for all. His grin turned wry.
Of course, they'll be expecting to deal with me, won't they?
He pushed the thought away, and worried about Sicily. One thing at a time. We can take it back when we've made sure of the east. Time for one last hunt and picnic with the family, even though the long gray-clad columns were swinging up from the coast.
There was a quiet bustle around him; he sat up and ate another dried apricot, savoring the sweetness. The glade was half an acre or so, more than enough for the hunter's camp- a platoon of the Royal Guards, a tent and the horse lines, a few servants. Two of the soldiers went by with another boar slung on a pole between them, a slight whiff of rank scent amid the spring wildflowers and pine and thyme. He grinned. Once upon a time he'd taken up hunting boar with spears because it gave you mojo among the wogs, something that a warrior-class man was just expected to do.
He hadn't really expected to start enjoying it. The hunting was excellent in this part of northwest Anatolia; the locals called it Seha River Land, and it had been Green Bursa in his birth-century. There were plenty of oak trees on the hills here, and acorns made for big, prolific wild pigs.
"Nothing like a day's hunt to give you an appetite," he said.
His son Harold flashed a grin at him; he'd been sneaking looks at the butt of the servant-toy kneeling beside Alice's folding canvas chair.
Just starting to get interested, Walker thought indulgently. Have to get him a couple of experienced instructors in a while. No son of his was going to have to suffer the sort of adolescent-male hell he'd gone through.
Hong was in what Walker thought of as her Safari Dominatrix costume: glossy boots, flared jodhpurs, belted bush jacket carrying revolver and hunting knife, and broad-brimmed hat with a leopardskin band. She took a tall glass of lemonade and playfully tickled the nude servant with the tassel of her riding crop.
Nude except for those body-piercing rings and the silver chains, Walker thought. He'd always thought the look sort of grotesque, but Hong was entitled to her own aesthetics.
"You know, your dear regent is seeing an awful lot of Arnstein," she said, then turned the handle of the crop into one of the chains and jerked sharply, shivering a little at the low shriek that followed.
Blue smoke drifted up from a hardwood fire, and a groom led horses by on their way to a downstream site on the little brook that gurgled through the meadow. The cooks were working hard by the hearths, and the smell made his belly rumble. Others set up the trestle tables and flared out the linen tablecloths. All the comforts of home now, and then some…
"I expected him to," Walker said. "Odi just likes finding out about things. That's one reason he's so useful. Sometimes you hardly remember he's a wog."
"You don't think he'll find out too much about Nantucket?"
"Oh, right, a wannax is going to go all mooney over town-meeting democracy." Walker chuckled. "No, he's much more likely to pick up valuable stuff from Arnstein. He'll be more to the dear professor's taste than any of us. Sanctimonious bastard."
Knives flashed as the barbeque was carved. Walker shoulder-rolled to his feet and strolled over with the others, snagging a roll as the hunting party and his guests-the Irauna head of the Royal Guard, a couple of generals, some important local collaborators-gathered. There was the usual slight wait while the eagle-eyed kitchen steward checked nobody had made any unauthorized additions to the cuisine. Luckily the locals didn't know many good poisons-part of the reputation of Alice's cult was based on her uptime knowledge.
The first dish was a glazed loin of wild boar, stuffed with a filling of herbs, crumbs, and garlic.
"Hot," Hong said, fanning her mouth and reaching for her wine cup. Then she fed morsels to the toy with her fork.
"Ah, you easterners never could handle real barbeque," Walker said, taking another slice. "We've finally got the chilies coming from the Lakonian estates, and the latest cook has some idea how to handle them."
He drank some himself; he'd also gotten the winemakers to understand that sweeter was not necessarily better. Day after tomorrow it would be back to campaign living, but tonight he could enjoy himself. The sun was setting behind blue hills to the west, casting low shadows as the meal wound down.
God, what's the proof on this stuff? Walker thought, as he spilled a little. My nose is going numb already.