First to Fight (34 page)

“Hold your fire,” Bass shouted before anyone could shoot at the crawling man. “I think he’s wounded.”

“He should be dead,” Schultz growled. He put his blaster to his shoulder and aimed at the Siad, but didn’t touch the firing lever.

“Someone will have to tend him,” Bass said. “One wounded man takes two out of the fight.” Exposing as little of himself as possible, he slowly turned in a complete circle. The crawling Siad was the only movement he could see. If that Siad was one of his men, wounded and exposed, he’d have everyone lay down suppressing fire while someone ran out to get him. The Siad let him crawl alone.

Wad Mohammad sat on his carved folding chair in the shade of the pavilion his attendants erected beyond the rise east of the small depression where the Confederation Marines were trapped. He glowered at the fast-riders Shabeli had sent ahead with the Confederation Marine corpse and wondered again why they had put it in that depression where the Marines had cover. If the fools had placed the corpse in the open, the Marines would be fully exposed to his men’s fire and might all be dead by now. Instead he had lost a hundred men while not wounding even one of the Marines. Then he glared at the fool who knelt between two of his warriors, the fool who had fired at the Marines before they were far enough away from the depression that they couldn’t return to its cover. Wad Mohammad couldn’t do anything about the fools Shabeli had sent ahead, but he could do something about the fool who had given the Marines warning. Wad Mohammad stood.

“Alambar,” Wad Mohammad intoned.

The kneeling fool prostrated himself.

“This day your eagerness for battle needlessly caused the death of one hundred Badawi Siad warriors,” Wad Mohammad continued. “The Badawi Siad are wise warriors. A wise warrior gives his enemy time to make a mistake. You were not a wise warrior this day. You are the one who made the mistake. You allowed the Confederation Marines the chance to take cover from the rifles of the Badawi Siad.” While he talked, Wad Mohammad walked toward the prostrate man. He paused when he reached him, gave Alambar a chance to speak, to give word to his guilt, to his impetuousness.

Alambar made no attempt to speak with his voice; his body spoke for him by quivering uncontrollably.

“You are unworthy to be a Badawi warrior, Alambar. The only way you can redeem yourself is to serve the brave warriors whose deaths you caused this day. I grant you leave to do so in heaven.” Wad Mohammad turned and walked slowly back to his seat under the pavilion. He ignored the keening that came from the condemned man, keening that was abruptly cut off. When he turned to again sit facing the attendants, subchiefs, and fast-riders arrayed before his pavilion, the executioner was walking away, wiping the blood from his ceremonial scimitar. Two attendants were dragging the body away. Alambar’s head was already impaled on a spear standing erect as symbol and warning. Blood dribbled slowly down the spear shaft to join the puddle at its base.

“Now we know what kind of warriors these Confederation Marines are,” he began, as though nothing had just happened. “They shoot well—rapidly and accurately. We cannot attack them on foot, running is too slow. Even if we attack in large enough numbers to reach them and kill them with our blades, they will kill too many of us before we reach them and the Badawi will no longer be the strongest clan among the Siad.” He paused to listen to an attendant who ran to the pavilion from where his warriors were closing on the Marines, whispered an order, and sent the attendant back from whence he came.

“I have just received a report,” he said to his audience. “Moving from rock to rock to close on the Confederation Marines will also cost us too many brave warriors. We must close on the Marines rapidly.” If we are to defeat them and gain that glory for ourselves instead of waiting for Shabeli and his fire-weapons, he added to himself. “The only way we can close on them rapidly is on horseback. But a horse charge is on too broad a line, the Confederation Marines are on too narrow a front; it would cost us many men and horses to gain their small position.”

“Great Wad Mohammad,” a tall, darkly bearded man interrupted.

“Yes, Wad Kadj?” Wad Mohammad said patiently.

“As you say, Great Wad Mohammad,” Wad Kadj said, “if we charge on line the Confederation Marines will kill many warriors and horses, and still we might not be able to reach them because we will be spread out too far. But if we get into a column, perhaps ten men and horses wide, and charge that way, the Confederation Marines might kill many warriors and horses in the front of the column, but there will be too many and we will reach them in sufficient numbers to kill them with our blades.”

Wad Mohammad considered this tactic for a moment. It had been used to great effect by a great warrior king of the Francois some six centuries earlier. Yes, the Confederation Marines would kill many warriors and horses at the head of the column, but he thought Wad Kadj was right about the great mass of horsemen being too much for the defenders, just as the Francois king’s tactic had proved too much for the Britishers and Rooskies.

“You are right, Wad Kadj,” he said. “Your plan will work. I grant you the honor of being the lead in this charge. By the grace of God who is above all Gods, we will do this. We will defeat these Confederation Marines, and when Shabeli the Magnificent reaches us, we will present him with the heads of his enemies.

Nothing more happened for half an hour after Claypoole wounded the Siad attempting to creep up on them.

“What’s that?” Dean suddenly shouted. “Does anybody feel it?”

Bass concentrated for a moment, and then he felt it too. There was a faint rumbling in the rock, as though something heavy was moving. The rumbling increased until he imagined he could hear the rapid thudding that made it. His eyes popped wide as he realized what it was.

“Everybody, face east,” he shouted, and scrambled across the basin. “They’re making a cavalry charge! Get ready!”

A growing thunder in the near distance resolved into the thudding of horses’ hooves—far too many horses’ hooves—and a mass of horsemen in a column ten horses wide suddenly swarmed over the rise 150 meters to the east.

Bass could hardly believe his eyes—a cavalry charge against modern weapons. The Siad were in a column! What kind of idiot would send horses charging into modem weapons in a column? The kind of idiot who didn’t have any idea what modem weapons could do, that’s what kind, he realized.

“On my command,” Bass roared, “fire on line, slag the rock in front of the horses.” He looked quickly to the sides to see that his men were ready. “FIRE!” he commanded, and the Marines opened up.

Their bolts struck the rock in front of the column, Neru’s gun swishing its greater fire back and forth in the same place. The rock heated, softened, turned liquid in the path of the charging horses. Gouts of lava spattered up and into the mass of them, the injured steeds screaming in agony and fear. The lead rows of horses tried to rear and spin away from the flying magma, but the mass of horses barreling behind them wouldn’t let them turn and flee—the momentum of the charge pushed the leaders forward, tumbled them into the molten rock. The next rows of horses and riders slammed into the fallen, burning, scrambling horses and men, and tripped over them, spilling themselves into the growing lava flow.

The charge was stopped, and riders tried manically to control their panicked horses. All they managed was to create an ever-tightening mass that couldn’t spread out, couldn’t retreat—couldn’t fight in any way.

“Lift your fire,” Bass bellowed. “Shoot into them!” The Marines raised their fire and burned holes in the milling mass of horses and men. Neru’s gun burned a swath from the front all the way to the farthest he could see. Around the sides and rear of the Siad cavalry, individual horsemen began to break away from the mass. Some fled to the north or to the south; most raced for what safety they could find behind the ridge over which they had so confidently charged. A few, a very few, skirted the area of devastated rock and continued their mad charge toward the Marines.

“Schultz, Dornhofer,” Bass commanded, “shift your fire, get the ones coming at us.” He shifted his own aim to one of the oncoming horsemen and blew the man’s shoulder off. Dornhofer and Schultz also made clean kills with their first shots. The others kept firing into the mass, slaughtering horses and men indiscriminately. The mass thinned, partly from more Siad breaking away to flee, more because of the Marines’ murderous fire. Still, a few of the Siad who succeeded in getting away managed to round the molten rock and continue their charge.

Bass wanted to shift more of his men’s fire to the Siad who were still coming toward them, but the main force had to keep dying or they’d reorganize and resume their charge. But he could also see that too many were coming for him, Dornhofer, and Schultz to get all of them before any reached them.

Suddenly, one of the Siad was there and leaped over him, into the hollow. Bass twisted around and blasted the rider as the warrior tried to spin his horse around. Then more of them reached the Marine position.

“Everybody but guns, use knives!” Bass shouted, and drew his own fighting knife. The eleven-inch blade glinted fiercely in the sunlight.

The Siad screamed in defiance and the Marines’ knives clashed loudly on the steel of thrusting bayonets as the Siad warriors stood in their stirrups, jabbing wildly at the Marines feinting and slashing and dancing between their horses’ flailing hooves.

Doyle’s anal sphincter nearly let go out of sheer terror. Use a knife to fight men on horseback? Men with rifles and fixed bayonets? Was Bass out of his mind? Then he only had time to act and his reflexes took over, rolling him out of the way of a horse bringing its front hooves down to trample him. The horse tried to stomp on him! It so infuriated Doyle, he leaped to his feet and struck the horse in the eye with his knife. The horse screamed and reared back. Its rider fell backward and landed hard on his back. Abruptly, Doyle remembered he was supposed to be fighting the men, not the horses. He bounded onto the Siad, landing on him as the warrior was struggling to refill his lungs, which had the air knocked out of them when he landed. The Siad’s eyes widened and his mouth gaped with the effort to suck in a breath. Doyle jammed his blade upward into the open mouth and its point broke through his palette into the Siad’s brain case, killing him instantly.

Claypoole surged to his feet and thrust up with his knife; its blade sank deep into the gut of a horse leaping over him and ripped its belly open. The horse screamed wildly and bucked in midair as its entrails tumbled out. It hit the ground on its side, its legs kicking frantically. The rider struggled to get his pinned leg out from under his mount, but Claypoole was on him before he could free himself. With one quick swipe, he nearly decapitated him.

Bass reached high over his head and pulled a frantic rider from his saddle, slammed him on the ground and gutted him in one swift movement, and then, rising swiftly, raked his bloody knife along the flank of another rider’s horse, slashing the man’s leg to the bone.

Dean hamstrung a horse and it came crashing to the ground, breaking its rider’s neck.

Schultz stood to squarely face a charging Siad. The horseman leaned over the neck of his horse and extended his bayoneted rifle to skewer the Marine. Just as the bayonet was about to jab into his chest, Schultz spun aside. He grabbed the foreguard of the rifle with one hand and thrust his knife into the side of the Siad with the other. The horse sped on without its rider, who hadn’t let go of his weapon. The Marine continued his spin, swinging the mortally wounded Siad at the end of his arm, and smashed him into the chest of another horse. The horse crumpled with a broken shoulder, throwing his rider hard onto the rocks at the far end of the basin, cracking his skull open.

Two Siad converged on Dornhofer. He rolled out of the way of the first and just missed being impaled on the Siad’s reaching bayonet. Then, to avoid the bayonet thrust of the second Siad, he rolled under the skittering hooves of the first horse. Defenseless on the ground, he had to get to his feet. He grabbed the tail of the first horse to yank himself up, and when the horse reared and tried to spin around to bite its tormentor, it rammed into the second horse and the two were momentarily hung up together, with the second bucking to throw off the first. Dornhofer reached up with one hand and grabbed the belt of the first horse’s rider, jerking him down onto his thrusting knife. He turned and twisted his arm to let the falling Siad slip off his blade, then dropped a knee onto him and stabbed him in the heart. The riderless horse tried to continue its turn, knocking the other Siad off his still-bucking horse. Dornhofer turned to him, but the man hadn’t fallen hard and was on his feet before the Marine reached him. The Siad swung his rifle butt at Domhofer, but the Marine was already inside the arc of his swing. Dornhofer swung his knife upward from his hip, slicing into the man’s belly and thrusting his blade deep into his chest, mangling his heart.

In thirty seconds it was all over, dying horses in the Marines’ position kicking and screaming while riderless mounts fled back toward the Siad lines, empty stirrups flapping wildly from blood-streaked saddles. Blood and lather from the animals’ flanks splattered the panting Marines.

Schultz finished gutting the Siad he was kneeling on and looked around for another to kill. None were there. There were seven bloody bodies within two paces of him. Without someone else to knife, he picked up his blaster and began firing at the milling horsemen.