April, 11 A.E.-Feather River Valley, California
Tarmendtal son of Zeurkenol, squadron commander in the Royal War-Host of Tartessos, of the cavalry attached to the Hidden Fort of the West, enjoyed leading a spring patrol out to trade and take tribute and show the flag.
It was a relief to be out in open prairie-what another history would have come to call the Sacramento Valley-after the dense fogs and long rains and sameness of the winter trapped within the fort's walls, and the deep mud of early spring. The ground was firm now, but the grass that waved chest high on the horses was still fresh and green, starred with unfamiliar flowers, thick with game. Off to the northwest were the slopes of the abrupt hills they had named Duwakodeiztatun mem Mantzizetatuas, the Piercers of Clouds, replacing the unpronounceable native gruntings. They were a welcome relief to the eye, in the tabletop flatness all about.
Yet underneath the differences of detail was a homelikeness. It reminded him of younger days, rambling about his father's estate in the country between Tartessos City and the Great River to the eastward. This whole country reminded him of home, if you could imagine home with a few brown savages, and different animals, and so much bigger.
He rode down the line, checking gear and bearing. They were good lads, but inclined to brood at being stuck here beyond the edge of the world, and some could never adjust to the strangenesses. Most weren't really Tartessians, of course; they were from the new tributary provinces in Iberia, or across the Pillars.
Today, most looked cheerful. It was a change of scene from the fort and the trodden path from there to the cinnabar mines; there had been fresh girls at the hamlet of the savages they'd stayed in last night; and hunting was excellent. He nodded to a few of the file leaders; they were of the kingdom proper, though lowborn. Older than he, too-he'd seen nine rains when Isketerol returned to take the throne and begin the changes, and seventeen when assigned this post three years ago. Then he'd been angry, sure that he was half a hostage, taken to ensure that his father remained loyal to the upstart King. Now…
Perhaps I'll stay here, he thought. This land was rich, rich in gold and many other things. And the dwellers so few and weak compared to the countries around the Middle Sea! More, it was much too far from Tartessos to remain tightly bound to the old country, at least a hundred days sailing and sometimes twice that. Once the settlement grew bigger and was less dependent on the yearly supply ship…
I could be a mighty man, here, with land to the horizon. In time my sons could be Kings. All that was needed were more people.
He pulled up beside the oxcart that carried the healer, smiling at her. She was a comely woman, perhaps eighteen winters, with olive skin stretched over high cheekbones and sharp features, but pleasantly rounded beneath her long tunic and skirt. Unwedded, too, despite being only a few years younger than he. Many men feared to take a woman dedicated to the Lady of Tartessos or the Grain Goddess to their beds, frightened by the aura of power that clung to such. But they were valued brides to men of sense and wealth, for their mana and connections and knowledge-especially in these days of the New Learning. Tarmendtal's own mother had been one of Her women, in her time.
"May the Lady smile on us," he said, bowing gallantly.
She raised a hand to the floppy brim of her woven straw hat. "May She smile indeed-and the Grain Goddess, who comes from the mountain to the plain in this month, as the Lady returns to the sea-halls of her brother Arucuttag."
He nodded, though he had his doubts. In Tartessos, yes… but did She rule here, or did some local spirit? Yet the grain sprouts and ripens here, too, even though it was never planted before we came. Perhaps the Lady just has many names in many places. Oh, well, the Sun Lord and Arucuttag of the Sea were a man's Gods, and they reigned in all lands-as the Sun bestrode them and the oceans encompassed them, every one.
The wagon creaked along, swaying and jouncing through the tall grass; it was the big four-wheeled kind that the Eagle People made, with a round canvas tent over it and pulled by eight yoke of oxen. It carried supplies not suitable for the pack-horses, and rawhide-bound chests of hard wood, to hold the gold dust and nuggets the savages brought; baskets of beads and bundles of iron tools and bottles of fierce young brandy such as the savages lusted for; and the healer's kit. Behind it was the sacred cow of the Lady and its calf, the cow tethered to the frame of the wagon by a rope that led to its halter.
"You come among us like a cool wind in summer, lady, with your ship from the homeland," he went on. "And you guard us with the strength of your knowledge."
Guard us from the Crone, he thought but did not say-some words were unlucky.
The healer grimaced a little and took off her hat, fanning herself. "You have a real healer of the New Learning here, Lord Tarmendtal," she said. "One who even reads En-gil-its, taught by the queen herself."
She made a small protective gesture at the mention of the tongue of sorcery; Tarmendtal followed suit, although he used the hand resting on his right thigh, out of sight. He was glad of the blue faience bead on a string around his neck, that his mother had blessed for him when he left. A small thing, just hearth-magic, but comforting.
"Since I came here she has taught me-" the girl continued. A shout came from ahead, and the high silvery peal of the trumpet.
"Pardon!" the officer barked, wheeled his horse, and flicked it into a gallop with the long end of the reins.
Ahead, the scouts were galloping back toward the main body of the column. The signaler was sounding enemy in sight, over and over until Tarmendtal signaled him to stop-with a thump on the helmet. Ahead, northward, lay a dry gully leading east to the main river, a slough marked by a swatch of greener grass and brush; there were live oaks along it, enough to make passage difficult for the wagon. He'd been angling the column westward to cross it further away from the river, where it was merely a dimple in the grass. Figures were boiling out of it, armed men. He pulled the spyglass out of his saddlebag and snapped it open. The image was a little distorted and had a yellowish tinge, but it told him far more than his unaided eye could have done.
"The savages," he snorted.
About seventy or eighty of them, naked except for a few ornaments of bone and shell and feather, leaping and yelping out their barbarous war cries, shaking spears and darts and dart-casters, some screwing their faces up into masks of ferocity and leering with lolling tongues as they danced defiance. A few pissed in mockery, or shook their penises at the Iberians, and others turned and bent and waggled their buttocks, slapping them in ridicule.
For a moment he was incredulous. Then astonished anger awoke. The unbelievable insolence of these slave bastards! Acorn eaters! From their stirring and growls behind him, the men felt the same way.
"Sound deploy in line," he snapped. Then he turned in the saddle. "Second file, deploy between here and the river and keep watch." He pointed, squinting into the rising sun.
The file leader looked about to grumble, then caught Tarmendtal's eye and hastened to obey. They were three hundred yards from that stream; there were thick woods on the banks, and a deep current beyond. No sense in taking chances, and six mounted riflemen would be more than enough to see off any savages who tried a flank attack. The teamsters and porters and servants cowered around the wagon. They were natives, unarmed slaves and so not to be blamed for timidity, although if any tried to run he would feed them to Arucuttag.
"Warriors of Tartessos!" he went on; it was traditional to say something to the troops before an action, even as minor a fight as this. "Men of the war-host! Shall we let naked capering dogs make mock of us, we who are civilized men and dwellers in cities obedient to law, subjects of King Isketerol, he who has conquered from the Cold Mountains to the Great Desert and beyond?"
"No!" they shouted.
"We will slaughter those who fight, chase down the rest, make eunuchs of them, and put them to work in our mines, take all that is theirs and mount their screaming daughters and wives before their eyes! Arucuttag, Hungry One, to You we dedicate the slain! Sun Lord, give us victory!"
Another shout, long and full of a cheerful bloodlust; even firing from horseback, a rifleman could count on striking from several times the range of a spear-thrower, and he could simply canter out of range to reload and repeat the process as often as needful. The horses stirred restlessly, rolling their eyes and whickering at the noise and the smells of fear and aggression. He took another look with the spyglass; the natives were keeping their position, probably planning to fall back among the trees as the horsemen advanced. Tarmendtal grinned savagely. They'd soon learn the futility of that. Such places were why they had a dozen big dogs along, the kind bred in Iberia for hunting wild bull, wolf, and lion. They were equally useful for hunting wild men.
"Rifles at the ready!" he snapped. Lord Alantethol will be pleased. An example will cow the other tribes, and there look to be some strong slaves here for the mines, when they've been caught and beaten into meekness.
The men drew their weapons from the scabbards before their right knees and checked the priming, then buckled back the flaps of the cartridge boxes on their belts. A few added priming powder to the pans of their rifles. Tarmendtal drew his double-barreled pistol, cocked it by pushing the hammers against the side of his thigh, and gestured with it:
"At the canter-walk-march, forward^
Peter Giernas sneezed softly and swore; the pollen here by the banks of the Feather River was pretty fierce. All around him the damp soil bore great oaks and tall cottonwoods, alders and willows, laced together with wild grapevines that twisted around trees from top to bottom. Mosquitoes whined, their needlelike probes going for the bare spots, hands and back of the neck. Other insects buzzed and hopped and flew, pursued by blackbirds and buntings; the clown-faced acorn woodpeckers were at work, drilling holes in trees to a demented chorus of waka-waka-waka. This was nesting season; scores of types of birds were doing their reproductive duty, numerous enough that their noise could be nearly painful at times. Especially when the coots in the river to his back began throwing their fits.
Good camouflage, he thought with a grim smile, training his binoculars on the Tartessian column riding unsuspectingly by. It was even better that any eyes looking this way would be sun-dazzled. Doll-tiny figures became men, close enough to see one hawk and spit, another scratch at blue stubble on his jowls, a third take a swig from a leather water bottle hung at his saddlebow. All right, thirty horsemen.
They all looked to be soldiers, Mediterranean types mostly, some with cropped black beards, some stubbly-shaven; a few had removed their round iron helmets to reveal bowl-cut hair, often confined with a bandanna tied at the rear. They wore tunic-shirts and loose breeches of some coarse green fabric, cotton or linsey-woolsey, boots, and thigh-length leather vests buttoned up the front. Every man had a copy of the Westley-Richards breechloader in a scabbard in front of his right knee, a short broadsword like a machete or heavy cutlass at his belt along with a bayonet; one carried a yard-and-a-half-long tube of sheet bronze flared at each end slung over his back as well. That man had an assistant and a packhorse trailing him.
Uh-oh, Giernas thought. Descriptions of those had come through before the radio fritzed. Rocket-launcher team. Opportunity and risk…
A big Conestoga-style wagon drawn by oxen brought up the rear. His chest clenched at the sight of the cow and calf walking along behind it. That must be the "sacred cow" the Indians had told him of, a walking vaccine bank. Half a dozen in ragged cloth kilts or loincloths walked by the wagon, another led the oxen, and a better-dressed one sat on the buckboard with a long-hafted goad in his hand. Those would be locals, slaves. And a Tartessian woman sat in the wagon as well; the long skirts, poncholike upper garment and big straw hat were unmistakable. Two gutted pronghorn antelope carcasses hung from the rear tilt of the wagon, and a quartered Tule elk.
"Good-looking horses," Eddie breathed from his position a little southward.
Giernas nodded, for two truths; the horses were handsome though small-dapple-skinned Barb-types, less hairy and stocky than their own Alban-Morgan crossbreeds-and it was just like Eddie to go judging horseflesh at a time like this.
"What's the woman doing here?" he asked in turn. Tartessians weren't as unreasonable about females as some locals, but they weren't what you could call enlightened either, and fighting was strictly man's work to them.
"She is a healer," Jaditwara said. "Among her people, only women do that work."
Giernas grunted. That made sense. If the enemy were using vaccination to get obedience, they'd need someone skilled in the technique. Which meant…
"Sue. The Tartessian woman, we need her alive, and the cow-get Tidtaway to pass the word." For what it's worth. Probably not much; the mountain tribesman was just as much a foreigner as the Islanders to this bunch, and had a good deal less keuthes. Now to get to work.
"Steady," he said, thumbing back the hammer of his rifle. Beside him Perks tensed, all taut alertness where he crouched belly-down to the ground, his nose pointed in an unwavering line to the front. No sound escaped the dog's deep chest, but the black lips were drawn back from long yellow-white teeth and his ears lay flat. "Wait for the locals."
The slough where most of the Indians were hiding formed a right angle with the river. There were seventy-three of them there, and another twenty-four near here in the riverside jungle. Their plan wasn't complex; it couldn't be, with the language barrier, and the fact that the locals had no concept of discipline. A war-leader here was anyone with a good reputation, and warriors followed him or not just as they individually pleased or their Spirit Friends whispered in their ears. It was a tribute to how monumentally terrified and pissed off the tribelets were that so many had showed up to fight. As near as he could calculate from what he'd been told by his allies, there couldn't be more than thirty thousand people in the whole of California in this era; half of them in the Central Valley, and half of that in the northern portion near enough for runners to reach. A fair number of those had been killed by the Tartessians over the last couple of years, or had died-some sort of imported lung fever had struck here long before the smallpox, and what sounded like typhus. Many of the rest were hiding in terror of the new plague that was spreading like a prairie fire.
Ninety-seven men was a big chunk of the healthy adult males left after you worked those numbers. And pretty soon they would have to scatter, as summer dried out the valley and they had to move up into the mountains or south into the delta marshes to feed themselves. Meanwhile half the Tartessians in the settlement were full-time fighting-men with horses and modern weapons, and they had a year's supply of stored food even if they lost this harvest.
God, listen up. I could use some help here, You know, he thought/prayed. "Right, here we go," he said aloud, as shouting broke out to the northward.
Despite the tension that dried his mouth, he grinned a little at the show the Indians were making. It would have annoyed him, if he'd been on the receiving end. He turned the binoculars. The Iberian commander was a young man, younger than Giernas, with a proud dark hawklike face. The ranger could see his lips curling back from very white teeth. Despite that anger, he detached a file of six troopers to screen the wagon from the river side.
All right, Giernas thought. So he's not quite as headstrong as I hoped. The local name for him was Bull Elk, because he liked to butt heads and yell, evidently.
"Wait for it," he said again, a little louder, looking at what he could see of his firing line. Eddie, with a grin that was a half snarl; a glimpse of Jaditwara beyond him, frowning in concentration. Sue on his right hand, relaxed and calm.
"Did you see this?" she murmured.
"See what?" he said.
"Wild oat grass," she said, pulling up a strand. "And fescue-neither should be here. They're European, Mediterranean. Must have come in in fodder or bedding, and now they're spreading, the way they did in the old history pre-Event." She nodded out to the field of waist-high native needlegrass and bunchgrass. "Come back when Jared's your age, and this'll all be gone-it'll all be these imported perennials instead. Up to your ass in feral cattle and horses, too."
Giernas blinked. There was such a thing as being too calm. "Let's worry about the ecology later, hey?" he half snapped.
"Waiting's hard," she said. The blue eyes were kind. "Don't worry, Pete, it'll be a cinch. Indigo and the kid will be safe as houses in a couple of hours."
"If nobody snoots the damned cow by accident," he said. "And right about now-
Crack. Crack. The first two rifles went off, out where the Tartessians were closing on the locals' skirmish line. A chorus of whipcracking reports, followed, a long stuttering rattle. He trained his binoculars, hoping… yes! The Indians had remembered his advice; they were dropping flat as soon as the Iberians raised their weapons.
That had taken a little doing. The locals were fine hunters and trackers, but when they fought in any numbers they lined up by mutual consent and threw spears until someone was hurt. Then everyone went home and told lies about how brave they'd been while blood flowed like floodwaters. He'd harangued them about this being a hunt, not a game, but he hadn't been sure how it took.
Yes. The locals vanished in the chest-high grass. The Tartessians shouted in anger, reloading and pushing closer. Then they shouted again, in alarm; Indians bobbed up out of the tall grass, threw their darts, ran half a dozen paces and threw themselves down again. None of the soldiers had been hit yet, but one horse had a dart through its haunch and went kicking and bucking and squealing off across the prairie with the rider hauling on the reins one-handed and trying frantically to lose neither seat nor rifle. One Indian went down while he watched, punched backward with a hole in his chest and an exit wound the size of a fist blossoming out of his back in a spray of blood and bone fragments.
Puffs of smoke were blossoming out of the muzzles of the rifles, drifting northward with the wind toward the dry slough. Noise, confusion, men running and horses wheeling. Perfect.
Here we go, he thought, giving a last check that the sights of his rifle were adjusted to the right range. Breathe out. Lift the muzzle up, up, until the bead of the foresight filled the U-notch of the rear. Squeeze the trigger, gently, gently…
Crack. The butt punched his shoulder. A perceptible fraction of a second later the lead ox drawing the Tartessian wagon bellowed, half reared and then slumped, blood pouring from nose and mouth as it kicked on the ground. The woman on the seat glanced around toward it just before the cry of animal agony; she must have heard the flat smack of the bullet slapping into the ox's body behind the shoulder.
The other three Islanders fired within a second of each other. Crackcrackcrack, and a deep ratcheting snarl from Perks as he made little shifting motions with his haunches.
One of the Tartessian file went right back over his horse's rump, helmet flying and trailing red-a clean head shot, right through the bridge of his nose. Another cursed, jerked, then was upright again, raising his own weapon; a grazing hit on the left arm. The third shot missed clean. All in all, very good shooting, Giernas decided, as his hands moved of themselves in the reloading drill.
Sue shouted something in the local tongue, and the Indians waiting in the riverside jungle charged forward whooping and screaming; they were also dodging and jinking, making themselves as difficult a target as they could. The Tartessians did exactly what the rangers had hoped, firing by reflex at the men running toward them. Two men went down dead or wounded, but that left the enemy with no time to reload. Giernas raised his own rifle again, standing this time for a better shot. Crack, and the waft of burned-sulfur stink. A distant corner of his mind noted that the sulfur had come all the way from the Caribbean to Nantucket and then on horseback all across the continent; doubtless that in the Tartessians' ammunition was from Sicily, and here it was being used up in California…
A Tartessian screamed, dropped his rifle, and clutched at his thigh, then slid out of the saddle. Another went down as his horse did, its scream far louder than the wounded man's but equally full of bewildered agony. The three remaining dropped two Indians before they turned to gallop away; but they had left it far too late. Without the rifles firing on them from the riverbank they might have stopped the Indian charge; without the Indians they might have answered the rifles in kind… but now they had lost half their numbers, and a horse makes a bad firing platform.
It is also a far larger target than a man, and unlike a man it cannot hit the dirt when shot at. A shower of atlatl darts fell around the riders, hurled by experienced, muscular arms whose power was magnified by the long leverage of the throwing-sticks. One of the Iberians took a dart through the throat and slumped off his saddle in a slow-motion collapse. Another went down choking and pawing at three of the short spears sunk half their length in his chest. The third managed to get his horse around and bounding toward the main fight.
"Get him!" Giernas shouted. It was needless. All four of the Islander rifles sounded, so close together that the sound was one thick brakk. Horse and rider folded together and tumbled.
The rangers dashed forward toward the enemy's wagon and the precious cow, Perks running at his master's side. One of the unhorsed Tartessians rose in front of Giernas, drawing his chopping blade and raising it for a swing. Giernas ignored him. The great gray-brown shape of the wolf-dog went from an easy bounding run to a soaring leap without even breaking stride, a hundred and twenty pounds of hairy torpedo with fangs. The wide-stretched jaws snapped closed on the man's raised arm as the dog's weight crashed into his chest. The teeth clamped like hydraulic shears, and Perks savaged the arm with a twisting back-and-forth jerk of head and neck and shoulders. Bone parted with a splintering crunch as both went tumbling to the ground. Giernas jinked around the thrashing bodies and dashed on, cursing the clinging friction of the grasses. At the wagon the ragged slaves were gone, probably running for the hills at full speed. All except for one; he was wrestling with the Tartessian woman, holding her right hand by the wrist and trying to make her drop the flintlock pistol in it. Two of the locals were helping him, and/or trying to rip the woman's clothes off.
Well, just because they're being fucked over by the Tartessians doesn't make them angels, Giernas thought, and rang the steel-shod butt of his rifle off the back of the ex-slave's head. The man went down like a marionette with its wires cut; the ranger whipped the rifle butt around and slammed it under the short ribs of one local, then turned to put the muzzle under the chin of the second. It was empty, but he couldn't know that.
"Go! Fight!" Giernas barked, jerking his head toward the main action.
The Indians did, shrugging, one grinning and the other nursing his side and whooping to get air back into his lungs. Giernas slapped the pistol out of the Iberian woman's hand and chopped the edge of his palm into her temple with precisely calculated force. She sagged backward with her eyes rolling up, caught at the wagon wheel, and slumped to the ground.
God willing, all she'll have is a bad headache for a couple of days. She certainly wouldn't be doing anything very energetic for a couple of hours. As he reloaded he looked over her into the body of the wagon. Ayup, hot damn-more rockets and a mortar. They must have that along for holdouts who try to hide in the hills when they come calling.
"Four rounds," he muttered aloud. This part hadn't taken long-wouldn't have worked if it did. Four minutes, more or less. Time always went like that in a fight, stretching like a thread of thickening maple syrup while you waited for it to start, then blurring past once it got started.
The Tartessians' main body were just noticing what was going on behind them-as he'd thought, the noise and confusion and the sound of their own shots had concealed it from them for crucial seconds, until there was nothing they could do about it.
Plus they're overconfident, he thought with a shark grin, as he licked sweat off his lips. They'd gotten used to thinking of themselves as the Lords of Creation facing dumb nekkid savages. Underestimating the opposition always left you sorry and sore in the end.
Eddie Vergeraxsson came up, riding on one Tartessian horse and leading three more; that was a bonus, the beasts were well-enough trained to stand and be caught, and he wouldn't have to go back for theirs. Sue and Jaditwara arrived seconds later, panting but running easily with their rifles in their right hands, then throwing themselves into the saddles. Giernas took a second to lengthen the stirrup leathers on one of the horses, a gelding that wouldn't be impossibly small for a man his size.
"Perks!" he said.
The dog trotted up, head low and tongue unreeled and lapping at his muzzle. None of the blood looked to be his. He sniffed at the slumped figure of the Tartessian healer, visibly wondering if he was supposed to bite her too.
"Stay! Guard!"
The wolf-dog trotted around the wagon, then crouched in the long grass, nose and ears and eyes busy. That took care of anyone without a gun who tried to approach the wagon, and if they did have a gun they'd have to be fast and very lucky.
"What next, Pete?" Eddie said.
"Next, we make sure the ends get tied up," he said.
Over northward near the slough, the Tartessians were in trouble. He tossed his rifle into his left hand and got out his binoculars again, stepping up onto the box seat of the ox-wagon to see better. The enemy had stayed tangled up with the first group of attacking Indians far too long. Now, just as they were turning to disengage and pepper them from a distance, the twenty-odd who'd been with the Islanders were racing to take them in the rear. Sixteen of the enemy left… no, make that fourteen, one took a dart in the back, and he saw two Indians leap up and tear another from the saddle like wolves at an elk, bearing him down to the ground, hands and heads and bare brown backs rising and falling above the tall grass as they hit and stabbed.
"Let's go!" he shouted, and sprang into the saddle.
The four Islanders swung southwest at a hard pounding gallop, away from the fight, out into more open country-the difference in height was invisible to the naked eye, but there weren't any trees and the grass got shorter. Giernas kept an eye over his right shoulder at the melee of horses and men, snouts and shots, edged steel and wood and chipped volcanic glass. Right about now that balls-for-brains Tartessian commander was finally going to do the only possible thing-
A trumpet sounded, high and sweet. He didn't recognize the pattern of notes. The enemy did, turning due west and spurring their horses. With no cover and plenty of room the horsemen could fire and retreat, fire and retreat, until the Indians broke and ran. The Tartessians could even ride far enough away to dismount and fire, then mount again before their enemies could come close.
The Indians gave chase, working at a tireless lope that was far slower than a horse's best, but which they could keep up much longer. Men in good condition could run down horses or deer, and most of this continent's hunters did that sort of thing on a regular basis. The Tartessians were at a full gallop now heading due west, pulling away fast; getting a little ahead of the Islanders as well, since they were on diverging courses.
"And about now, they're going to find out why we picked this place for an ambush, too," Giernas shouted gleefully, holding the unfamiliar mount on a tight rein.
The first Tartessian horse went down with shocking abruptness; it was the signaler's, right next to the commander. The pop of breaking cannon bone as the horse's leg plunged into the ground-squirrel hole wasn't audible at this distance, but he could see Eddie wincing in horseman's sympathy. The bugler flew half a dozen paces and hit the ground hard, not looking as if he was going to get up. Then another horse went down, and another, and the Tartessians started to rein in. You couldn't make horses run into bad ground.
"Down!" Giernas shouted, slugging his own horse to a stop.
It reared but halted, well trained. He kicked his feet out of the saddle and swung his right over the animal's head, sliding to the ground. "OK, Dobbin," he said. "Let's see if you get to live out the day."
Islander military mounts-and ranger horses-had a certain range of commands drilled in; presumably the Tartessians had copied. He pulled the horse's head around toward its shoulder and pressed down sharply on its back, pulling to the rear at the same time. It rolled eyes with white showing all around them, then obediently collapsed, hind legs first, lying down to form a living breastwork-a good choice, since he'd have had to shoot it otherwise.
The saddle, too, was copied from the Republic of Nantucket’s military model, a modified Western type. He unbuckled the saddlebag's flap cover, felt around inside, and brought out a pair of ten-round cloth ammunition containers, ripping them open with his teeth while he scanned the open grassland ahead. He could see the young officer give his orders, and most of his men dismounted and put their horses down in front of them to form a defensive circle. They opened up on the Indians, steady aimed fire that stopped the charge in its tracks and sent the locals to ground.
Two others headed off southwest, moving their mounts at a rapid walk, to take word and bring help.
"Smart, but too late," Giernas said. I hope. "Get 'em!"
He sat, braced his elbows on his knees, adjusted the sights and aimed carefully, raising the muzzle. Crack. The others opened fire as well. A horse went down, then rose again, but one leg was useless, too painful for it to put weight on. The rider slid to the ground, threw the saddlebags over his shoulder, then hesitated and put the rifle behind the animal's ear and fired before running back toward his comrades. Lead slugs clipped grass around the other Tartessian. Then he reeled where he sat; Giernas could see the little cloud of dust where a bullet struck his leather jerkin.
Something went shrrack! through the air above Giernas's head. He threw himself down and returned the favor, reloaded, fired again. It was extreme range, nearly nine hundred yards, but they were a big target. The commander had planted a staff in the ground at the middle of the circle with the Tartessian pennant flying. As Giernas watched a group of Indians made a rush, well spread out. Bullets kicked up grass fragments and dirt at their feet, and one spun and fell backward screaming. The others went to cover again.
Another had worked his way around the circle covered by the Tartessian rifles, all the way to the stalled wagon. He flopped to the ground near Giernas; then the two men looked at each other, realizing suddenly that they had no word in common.
"Jaddi!" he called. "Tidtaway!"
Get the iron tube and its legs from the wagon, he thought, preparing for the work of translation and ducking slightly as another bullet cut a path above his head. The horse snorted, but kept still as he fired across its flank. Even a light field mortar outranged rifles comfortably. Bring it back there- another three hundred yards southward should make a safe firing position. And then…
Ahead, a faint rhythmic sound came from the embattled Tartessians. It was a moment before he realized it was singing. Jaditwara paused in her leopard-crawl through the grass, her rifle across the crooks of her elbows.
"It is, how you say, a hymn," she said. "A hymn to the Lady of Tartessos, they ask her to welcome her children home to her." Giernas's mouth quirked. The yellow-haired girl went on: "That they are brave does not mean they are not bad, Pete."
He nodded, sighing. He'd do whatever it took to win, and to win safety for his child and friends, but there were times he didn't like the taste of it.
The site of the battle was much as Peter Giernas had left it an hour ago, although the locals had gotten tired of jumping around and waving their new knives and swords in the air; a few were dressed in bits and pieces of Tartessian uniform. The captured horses were staked out to a picket line, at least, and his friends had seen that the rifles were collected. Birds were wheeling overhead, buzzards, condors, even a few hawks and eagles-none of them fussy eaters, he knew. The bodies had been piled up into a heap. He sighed as he came close.
"Yeah! Come up there!"
Eddie Vergeraxsson bent, gripped the central tuft of a dead man's hair, and made a quick circle with his skinning knife, wrenching and pulling as he did. The locals looked on with expressions ranging from awe through horror to fascination; scalping wasn't a widespread custom in the Americas of this era. It was among the Sun People of Alba, though, when they didn't have a chance to take the whole head home and nail it over the doorway.
More of the Indians were wandering around the heaped corpses, some brandishing captured swords; others were sitting by their own dead, singing quietly in a wailing falsetto, minor-key laments. They'd lost more men than the Tartessians, even in victory.
"Eddie, cut that out-you're giving them ideas, goddammit."
"Okay, Pete," the other ranger said cheerfully. "Though-I mean, hell, if you want to keep their ghosts down you have to at least… oh, well, sorry." He stopped, picked up one of the locals' darts, stripped off the feathers to make it look more like a spear, and ceremoniously threw it over the mound of corpses, dedicating them to Sky Father and the Crow Goddess.
Giernas nodded. There isn't a man in the world I'd rather have at my back in a fight or beside me on a hunt, he thought. You can rely on Eddie, and he's fun to sit down and have a beer with, too. I love him like a brother. It's just that sometimes he's an asshole, is all.
He rode on to the wagon. Sue and Jaditwara were inside, talking as they inventoried the contents:
"… nucleosis you Eagle People are always on about."
"Monogamy. Mononucleosis is a disease."
"As I said."
"Little Jared's cute as a button; but raising kids sure is easier with an extra pair of hands. We'll even find a use for you-know-who-
He could tell by the way they cut off when he reined in that they'd been talking about him. Women, he thought. Grand creatures, but Lord do they like to gossip.
He slid out of the saddle and tethered the horses, taking Jared from his mother and swinging him high until he gurgled and giggled, then handing him back.
"Everything okay?" he asked Sue anxiously.
"Hi, Indigo! Yeah,'s okay, Pete. I talked some with the Tartessian medico-slight concussion, gave her some willow-bark extract-and they're using the straight Jenner vaccination technique. That cow most definitely has cowpox, too."
She brought down a wooden box, brown olive wood marked with a device like an inverted pyramid divided by a line, and bound with brass at the corners. Opened, it revealed vials marked in the Tartessian tongue, with English translations, hypodermics, scalpels, probes.
"She's not a doctor, really, even by their standards-about equivalent to me, sort of, if Jaditwara understands what she said. This is the cowpox serum. Matter from the udder sores, egg medium." The serum was in little wax-and-cork sealed glass vials nested in individual bolls of cotton, labeled by date.
"I'm using one of my hypos, our needles are finer." She broke the seals, jabbed in the point of the hypodermic. "We want this just under the skin-putting it in a scratch would do it, but this'll be faster."
"And then we will be safe from the sickness, sister?" Indigo asked, looking at the hypodermic with interest. She'd seen them used before, mostly for administering morphia. Everyone had had an injury or two over the past year, and the expedition had doled out a little painkiller now and then to people they were guesting with.
"You may get a few days of feeling ill, light fever, maybe a bit of a rash. Then you'll be safe forever; from the smallpox, at least, sister."
Spring Indigo slipped the buckskin shirt down from her shoulder, face impassive at the slight sting, and then held the piece of cotton fluff on the spot until it stuck. When she noticed him watching her milk-full breasts, she rolled the hip she was holding Jared on a little and winked.
The toddler smiled and babbled and tried to grab at Sue as Spring Indigo brought him 'round. His cry of Mama! turned into a wail of betrayal as the needle jabbed his buttock.
"There, there, sweetums," Sue said. "There there-momma will make it all better."
Not from the way he's sounding, Giernas thought, amusement bubbling up under a vast wash of relief. Nothing wrong with this boy's lungs. Startled and angry more than hurt, but loud.
"You're one to tease us about monogamy," he grumbled to Jaditwara. "Hell, you stick to Eddie like glue. Even when you're fighting and you drive him crazy with that cold-shoulder act."
"1 like Eddie," the ex-Fiernan ranger said. "I want to stay with him and have children together. He just needs to learn that 'my woman' isn't the same thing as 'my horse.' You Eagle People started his… how do you say, consciousness lifting… and I'm finishing it."
Young Jared's wails turned into sobs. The three women gathered around making soothing noises; he felt a little of the usual adult-male uselessness that such occasions brought out, and walked over to where Tidtaway and the local chief and Eddie were moving slowly along the line of captured rifles leaning against a log. Their mountaineer guide already had one of the rifles over his shoulder, and a bandolier and bayonet at his waist, he noted. Others of the war band were butchering the fallen oxen and horses.
"Give me a hand for a second, Eddie," he said.
They unhitched the rest of the ox-team, watching as the big red-and-white beasts lumbered out into the open grass away from the disturbing smell of blood and strange humans. They shook themselves out, milled around, and began to graze. Won't go far, Giernas thought; he'd worked a fair bit with oxen when he did stints as a timber runner for the sawmills in Providence Base. It helped that there was good grazing and water here. The other ranger nodded agreement.
"All looking good, Pete," Eddie said. "We've got twenty-six horses fit to ride. Six of the rifles really out of commission, but one's just a hammer sheared off. I think I can fix that from the Tartessians' kits; they have some spare parts."
"How much ammo?"
"Most of them had a few rounds left in their bandoliers, didn't get a chance to shoot themselves dry. Another fifty each in the saddlebags, and more in the wagon, with priming powder to suit. Hey, Jaddi! What's it all come to?"
The ranger woman looked up from the circle at the tail of the vehicle. "Two hundred eight rounds per weapon, Eddie."
"'tuk-huk-sau-hau-hau-hau-haur Eddie Vergeraxsson whooped and shook his own weapon southward toward the Tartessian fort two days' march away. "We've got the mortar, twenty bombs for it, and the rocket launcher and ten rockets."
"Hmmmm," Giernas said, lifting the bronze tube.
It weighed about twenty pounds. Nothing complicated, just two wooden handholds fastened to the weapon with rivets, an elementary ring-and-post sight, and brackets where a conical boiled-leather shield could be fastened to protect the user's face from the backblast. In operation a loader would push rockets up the rear and set off their fuses with a flint-and-steel lighter.
"Well, we're going to have to use up some of that rifle ammunition showing the locals how to use 'em," he said. "Say ten rounds or so."
Eddie nodded; the unspoken thought went between them: For all the good that'll do. It took time to make a rifleman, and a lot of practice at things like estimating ranges. These single-shot weapons weren't submachine guns, you couldn't spray bullets in the general direction of the enemy and pray for a hit. They were precision instruments, or they were just noisy clubs. The locals would probably be nearly as formidable with their spear-throwing atlatls; at least they really knew how to use those. But having death-sticks of their own would undoubtedly do wonders for their morale.
The chief began speaking, ran into subjects beyond the meager vocabulary he shared with Tidtaway, and they called for Jaditwara.
"These Big Dogs," he said. "Some say there are bad spirits in them-that we should kill them all and eat them, to gain power over this medicine."
Eddie snorted tactlessly. "Couple of them tried to get on horseback 'cause it looked like easy fun," he said. "No bones broken. I think."
Tidtaway had been practicing off and on for a couple of months, and he still rode like an animated sack of potatoes; these locals would be hopeless for a good long while. According to the books he'd read back when-part of ranger training and interesting in its own right-in the original history the Indians had taken to horses like ducks to water. Whole tribes had given up farming, moved onto the Plains, and become mounted buffalo-hunters and mobile raiders almost overnight. But overnight apparently meant years rather than months.
"You already have a few dead ones to eat," he pointed out. "And these horses will be very useful to you. To fight the Tartessians, and then to carry things and carry men faster than they can go on foot." He searched for an example. "Hunters could ride very far and fast, and then bring meat to camp easily."
The chief grunted, then looked at the horses staked out to the picket line dubiously. "Maybe," he said. Then more brightly: "We have given the Tartessians a bad defeat. Their women will wail and put tar on their hair; their war chief will cut his cheeks and roll in the dust. Maybe now they will leave us alone, and everything will be as it was."
Peter Giernas sighed. "All you have done is enough to enrage them-as if you stamped on a man's foot, or threw one spear at a bear," he said. "If you go home now, they will strike again. And you will be weaker from the plague."
The older man glanced up sharply. "But now we have their magic of the cow" he said. "Your shamaness says she can protect us."
"We can protect you, here, yes. Your women and children at your camp, yes. But not all the tribes even in the valley of this river-and none of the ones in the other land south of the delta, or in the coast valleys. Already they will begin to sicken, and when the sickness has gone past one man in two, maybe three in four, will be dead. These are the men that might have helped you fight the Tartessians. If you-all the people who dwell here-do not come together now and make an end of them, they will make an end of you. Not this year, not next, but someday, as certain as the rain in winter and the grass in spring."
The chief winced, as if the outlander had spoken in the same tones as the voice at the back of his head. His shoulders slumped.
"Then we will have to take their camp with the big houses," he said in a dull voice. "But how? The Great Camp has walls like a mountain, and they have the thunder-makers there, big logs that throw death a mile or more, and many men with the death-sticks that you call rifles."
"We need a plan," Giernas said. "For that, we need better knowledge of their fort."
He'd have to talk to people who'd been inside. The problem with that was they'd generally have only fuzzy ideas of what he wanted to know. When you put perception and language problems together, not much but noise would come out.
"And we must make sure that nobody warns the Tartessians," he went on. "So that they don't miss their men too soon." They'd caught the patrol early in its swing out into the boondocks, and it wasn't due back for weeks. "And we must gather many, many warriors. As many again as we had today, and as many more, and as many more again, at least."
At least Indigo and Jared will be safe, he thought.
When the chief went off shaking his head, Eddie Vergeraxsson laughed and shook his rifle southward again, calling out a single sentence in his mother tongue. Giernas recognized the sound, if not the meaning. Eddie had once told him that he didn't even dream in the Sun People language anymore, but now and then he used a stock phrase.
"What does that mean?" Giernas asked.
"Oh…" Eddie frowned for a moment, lips moving. "Near as I can render it… Oh, you sorry bastards are fucked now!"