5
The trail led up to the levee. Perhaps the band of Blaskoye would be cautious, feel their way, not move with the extreme speed of which they were capable. But eventually they would come upon the boys holding the donts, the pack train. Would look down into the basin and see the Scouts fighting, their back to the danger from behind.
It would not change the results of the day. Not now. But many more of his men, his Scouts, would die.
They made the top of the levee and turned east. Abel urged the donts past a gallop and into the beasts’ two-legged stride. They couldn’t keep this up for long, but maybe it would be enough. The dont stags, as if sensing the urgency, the coming action, raised their neck and shoulder feathers erect, in the mode of full animal aggression. They thundered down the levee, Abel in the lead. Abel pulled away a bit, Spet sensing its rider’s urgency and speeding up all the more.
Have to overtake. Have to-
Abel, came Center’s voice. You must not allow instinct to overcome clear thinking. You must be aware of the possibility of alternate outcomes-
He will kill my Scouts, shoot them in the back!
Faster still, his dont’s breathing hole expanding and contracting, expanding and contracting as the animal gasped for air.
And then-
Cries from behind him. Gunshots.
Can’t stop, cannot-
But he did. Yanked the dont up. Spun around.
Ambush.
They Blaskoye had laid in wait on the Canal side of the levee, hidden by the shrubs that grew along the water’s edge, and behind piles of tree trimmings left behind when the willows had been felled for the creation of the chevaux-de-frise.
They’d attacked headlong into the Scouts’ flank, running through them, shooting, cutting when possible, over the top of the levee. And now Abel could see them stop their descent of the other side of the levee, the rice basin side, wheel their mounts, and head back up for another pass.
Amazing, that control, he couldn’t help thinking. They are the best dontback riders I have ever seen.
But these were Scouts the Redlanders were attacking, not men trained only to fight in regimented lines, men who were untested in battle. This was the line. The men who kept the Land safe. They had fired and been fired upon. They had seen their brothers die in the Redlands. And they understood this enemy. Perhaps better than the enemy understood himself, even.
The clash was furious. They two groups came together, and the Scouts had already, almost to a man, reloaded. They managed to get off a ragged volley at the approaching Blaskoye. Several Redlanders fell.
Then out came the knives. The spiked cudgels. The daggers and pistols. The two groups were among one another, fighting, hacking, killing.
Abel kicked his mount and charged toward the fray.
He had pulled maybe a hundred paces ahead.
Now fifty. Twenty.
From the cloud of struggling men, a form emerged. He was riding an enormous dont hell for leather straight at Abel.
It was Rostov. Those bone-white teeth. That beard. The height. He was sure of it.
Rostov’s rifle was attached to the saddle ring to his side.
Must need loading.
His hand was snaking under the collar of his clothing, as if he were feeling for something there.
Abel took aim with his carbine.
Go for the dont. Center was right, and I’ve been a fool enough, as it is, getting caught out ahead. Don’t try for a special shot. Take out the largest target.
He charged forward, took aim.
He entered that moment of complete concentration he had known before when shooting from dontback. It was a matter of matching your heartbeat to the beating strides of the beast. You could do it. At least, you could imagine that was what you were doing, and this would calm you, center you, and-
Bam!
His shot struck Rostov’s dont directly in the breast. The animal ran forward a couple of steps, but then pulled up short, threw back its head. It reached down with its powerful jaw and scraped at the spot where the bullet had entered.
Like it’s trying to shoo away a flitternit that’s itching it, Abel thought.
Then, quickly, the dont’s legs began to wobble. It came up short in its headlong rush toward Abel. It looked over its shoulder at its own back legs.
What is wrong with these? Abel imagined the beast thinking. They have always carried me before.
And then it collapsed into the dusty roadway, throwing Rostov forward with its momentum.
The dont rose once more behind him, but a shot from its rear brought the dont down for all time. Rostov headed toward Abel.
Abel reached for his pistol.
Gone. Damn him. Damn Edgar Jacobson. And damn me for a fool!
Abel charged toward the Blaskoye.
Rostov pulled at a string tied beneath his robe as he approached.
What the-
The string was attached to a pistol. It came up and out of the Blaskoye’s collar and then Rostov had the blunderbuss in his hand. He smiled the toothy smile.
Almost there.
Rostov began to run toward him.
“Dashiaaan!” yelled the Redlander.
Abel drew his father’s saber.
Almost there-
Rostov fired the dragon. It flashed brightly in the wan light of day.
The ball took Abel in the right side, and he shuddered from the impact. Like a punch, Abel thought. He thought this even as he was spinning from his saddle.
Falling. Feeling the thud of the ground as he hit travel through his arm, his shoulder, but rolling with the fall, rolling, gathering himself together, ignoring the pain, the surprise, getting his legs under him-
To come up standing.
Abel felt the wound with his left hand. His fingers found blood, but did not sink deep into flesh. He pressed harder. Nothing gave. He was pushing against a rib.
It’s a scratch, Abel thought. It glanced off my rib.
Better to be lucky than either strong or smart, Raj said. Better to be lucky than dead.
A very difficult shot to make at a run and with such a weapon, said Center. The miss is easily explained.
He should have gone for the dont, Raj growled. The lad will make him pay for that.
He missed, Abel thought. But he’s still coming.
Something glinted in the light of the setting sun. Abel looked down.
Joab’s saber. He picked it up.
Now Rostov had thrown away his pistol and drawn his knife. It was a knife that had already slit one throat today, perhaps several. It was chrome and steel, two elbs long, cut from the nishterlaub bumper of an ancient groundcar in the Redlands and worked with hardened stones to razor sharpness. It was the ruins of another age, repurposed for blood.
They met, saber and long knife, in a clash of metal. Rostov brought his down in a vicious arc, and Abel parried. Rostov’s momentum flung Abel back, however, and the Blaskoye pressed the advantage instantly. Another slicing cut from the side, aimed right at Abel’s midsection, and if Abel had not drawn back his stomach, his guts might have been sluicing out over the stubbled field.
Abel thrust forward desperately with the saber, aiming its point at the Blaskoye’s midsection. Now it was Rostov’s turn to dodge hastily. He didn’t entirely succeed, and the saber bit into the flesh of his hip with an audible grinding noise where it struck bone.