Island in the Sea of Time (54 page)

The ultralight skimmed over their heads, rising beyond to just above spear range. Black pins arched into the air as the Olmecs tried to bring him down; they’d lost a good deal of their initial awe of the aircraft—inevitable, if it was to stay over their heads and report back.

A dot arched down from the rod-and-fabric aircraft, trailing smoke. It landed on the river before the lead catamaran and burst into a puddle of flame several feet across. The Olmecs hardly noticed. Closer, only a few hundred yards now. Toffler came around again, recklessly low. Another dot. This one crashed into the foredeck near the drummer.

“What are those?” Doreen asked.

“Gasoline, benzene, detergent flakes, in three-gallon glass jars with a burnin’ cloth fuse,” Alston said without looking around. “Poor man’s napalm.”

She trained her binoculars. The Olmecs weren’t ignoring this. The flame had spattered wide, soaking into the reed matting that covered the catamaran’s deck, into the dry wood beneath. Gobbets spattered warriors and rowers; they leaped into the river, howling. The elaborate panoplies of the warriors burned like tinder, tall plumes of flame replacing the feathers of their headdresses. The advance of the canoe fleet suddenly turned ragged. Smoke and yellowwhite fire billowed up from the catamaran, and the frantic water splashed by the crew did little good.

A few seconds later the warriors abandoned the drifting, helpless hulk and let it ride down on the current toward the Americans. Toffler banked and dove toward the second; it turned and drove back the way it had come, angling for the docks nearer the city. The ultralight pursued. Another bomb missed; a third hit, and by the time the frantic paddles drove the catamaran onto the riverbank mud, half of it was burning. The smaller canoes fled also, some in the wake of the bigger vessel, some upstream with no apparent intention of stopping, and some to the far shore, where the crews took to their heels.

“Molotov cocktails, by God!” Ian whooped. Cheers spread across the little riverboat fleet.

“Just so, Professor.” Alston said grimly. “Next time they’ll realize that those things can’t hit small moving targets. If the other canoes had pressed in, we’d have been in trouble.”

She raised the microphone. “All boats, to the shore.”

They turned, bows lifting as the engines revved. The buzzing of the ultralight faded as it chivvied the fleeing canoes toward the city; the Olmecs were thoroughly panicked for now, and unlikely to make a stand. The motor launches and inflatables grounded where the natural levee of the riverbank was comparatively low, covered in cornfield and laced with footpaths.

Marian Alston stepped off the side and quickly forward, out of the zone where her boots were driven deep into the mud. More armored figures dashed by on either side of her. Other hands were deflating the lifeboats, heaping up the flattened shapes and pulling a tarpaulin over them. She wet a finger and held it up. Despite the clouds westward, the wind was from the sea—southeast, blowing from here toward the hilltop citadel.

“Get it started,” she said.

Islanders kindled torches and spread out. Even in this damp climate the cornstalks were fairly dry by this season. Soon a wall of fire and black smoke was walking westward, faster than a man could. The smell was heavy and rank; behind it the fire left embers, black glowing stalks toppling into ash, a foot-catching chaos of half-burned vines bearing squash and beans. They tramped through it, to the highest point of the levee’s ridge. To their right stretched more fields, and patches of undrained marsh. Behind Alston the standard-bearers raised their poles. One streamed with the Stars and Stripes, the other with the Coast Guard flag. Both bore gilded eagles above, and each standard-bearer was flanked by six guards with short swords and big oval shields. The expeditionary force fanned out to either side, a broad shallow V facing toward what would have been San Lorenzo. Crates went forward; working parties donned heavy gloves and began scattering their contents.

Swindapa spoke softly: “I hate this,” she said. “The children haven’t harmed anyone, and they will go hungry.”

Alston nodded. “Can’t be helped, ’dapa. Lieutenant Ortiz! Get that line set up!”

The radio beeped at her waist. She brought it up in one gauntleted hand.

“They’re coming, Captain,” Toffler’s voice said. “ ’bout a thousand of them, or a little more. I dropped a Molotov, but they just opened out around the spot and kept right on.”

“About as I expected. Keep me posted and watch for any activity on the river.” She went on to the officers: “Aggressive to a fault. Let’s make some use of that.”

Behind her the corpsmen were setting up an aid station for casualties. The Arnsteins were nearby; a clear path led from there to the bank, not that many could retreat if things went wrong.

Ian Arnstein nodded; he was a little pale, but otherwise taking it well. “We’ve probably stepped into a myth,” he said. “They’re reacting to what they think we are.”

“Haven’t even tried to parley,” she agreed. And they’d thrown things at every boat she’d sent forward to try and talk. “I’ve got to keep them off-balance, keep hitting them.”

“What do you plan on doing?” Ian asked.

“Giving them a good thrashin’,” she replied. “Then maybe they’ll listen to reason.”

 

Swindapa shivered a little as she watched the Eagle People spread out in response to the captain’s orders. It was a strange and terrible thing, this
discipline
. There was none of the shouting and shoving and milling about you’d expect with a big crowd of people, or even the arguing at a Town Meeting on the island. Just quiet directions, and hundreds moved as if they were the fingers of a single hand.
Even stranger and more terrible on land than on the great ship.
The captain’s face was closed and shuttered, gone away from her while she made this Working, as if a different Power were there behind the dark eyes. Still, they would fight side by side.

She kept her left hand on the hilt of her sword and raised a shading hand to her brow, looking westward. Nothing to be seen there but smoke. Her braided hair was hot on her head; the helmet would give some shade, but also more heat. Never had she been so hot, the weight of the armor and padding squeezing at her ribs. Her heart thudded; the last fight she’d been in had not gone well.
I am with the Eagle People now
, she told herself.
And the captain.
The evil luck had been taken away when Moon Woman bore her beyond the circles of the world.

The islander force was spread out on either side, seventy-five armed with crossbows on each wing, standing in two ranks. In the center were a block of spear-bearers with oval shields, three deep. Green-enameled steel armor gleamed and clanked as they settled themselves; the round shields slung over the crossbowmen’s backs clattered. The captain walked through the ranks, up and down once in front of them, speaking a word here and there. Then she returned, at the same steady, even pace.

“They should be—right, there they are,” she said softly, looking west. “Wish I had more of a reserve. . . . For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful.”

The enemy host were coming out of the smoke, trotting along, a great humming wailing chant preceding them. Their spearpoints bobbed and rippled as they came, a huge clot nearly a thousand strong. Some limped or hobbled, from feet seared as they walked through the embers. Others leaped or stamped, jerking in circles, dancing their way to the ground of war. Hands hammered on drums, mouths blew shell trumpets, bullroarers whirled. The feather banners were eye-hurtingly bright and beautiful.

“Not in any order,” the captain murmured beside her, raising the binoculars. “But those are their shock troops in the center, the ones in the fancy clothes. The others are farmers. How far would you say. ’dapa?”

“Seven hundred yards?” she estimated.

It was called the Socratic Method, after a great teacher of ancient times, teaching with questions. There was a trick to judging distances; look at the men and see whether you could tell the movements of their legs, their arms, the shape of their weapons. Each gave you a measuring point to judge the distance. It was as cunning as a Star Working, in its way . . . but more practical.

“ ’Bout that,” Alston nodded. “What do you think they’ll do?”

“Come around our edges . . . our flanks?”

“That would be the sensible thing to do, but—ah.”

The conch trumpets wailed again, and the Olmec host stopped, eddying and swirling. Silence fell over the burned fields, broken only by the small clatters of warriors shifting in place and the flapping silk of the banners overhead. A tall figure strode forth from the enemy ranks, his body gorgeous with a tunic of plaited feathers; more fringed his painted shield and waved from his carved helmet-mask; he brandished a long wooden rake set with flint as he walked slowly forward. His voice came high and shrill, an endless wailing chant.

“A champion, making a challenge,” Swindapa said, setting her helmet on her head and buckling the chin strap in place. Shade fell over her eyes, and on the back of her neck.

Alston nodded. “Doubtless you’re right,” she said, and waited until he was within range. Then she lifted the radio to her lips. “Mr. Ortiz, have that man seen to.”

An order was barked. A cadet stepped out of the ranks of the crossbows, leveled her weapon, aimed carefully, and pulled the trigger.

The sound was small and tiny, lost in the wind and the chaotic mutter of the enemy warriors. The Olmec champion stopped dead, jerking backward a little. He tottered three steps on his heels and fell with arms outstretched, raising a puff of black ash as his back hit the dirt. The enemy host stopped moving, talking, chanting, everything. For a long second Swindapa could feel their unbelief, and afterward sense their swelling outrage coming in a wave that made the little hairs along the back of her neck struggle to rise. Then a united scream of rage came up from them, and their selves followed behind it. First one, then another, then clumps of them, even the musicians casting aside their instruments. The host moved in a dense clot, many deep and still overlapping the line of the Eagle People. The captain reached back and drew her
katana;
her other hand held the radio. Her lips curled to show her teeth, and the Fiernan girl knew that this was exactly as she’d hoped.

She shivered a little. Marian was wonderful, a true gift from Moon Woman . . . but there were times when she was a little frightened of her.

“Points down,” she said. The order was repeated, and the long spears came down in a single rippling motion. “Ready.”

Voices echoed back from either side. The front rank of crossbows knelt, and both brought their weapons to their shoulders.

“About—” the captain murmured.

The Olmecs’ massed pounding run was building into a headlong charge that nothing could stop. Then suddenly it
did
stop, leaping and screaming with a different note—pain, instead of rage. Those behind piled into those in front, sending many of them rolling and screaming even louder. Their own momentum packed them together; not until the sharp iron was in their feet could they understand why those in the lead had stopped at all.
Caltrops,
Swindapa knew. Two pieces of sharp iron, twisted together so that one of the four points stood uppermost no matter how they landed. And the enemy went barefoot. . . .

“Just goes to show,” the captain said, “that you shouldn’t get so mad you don’t look where you’re putting your feet.” Louder: “Commence firing!”

WHUNNNG.
The kneeling front rank of the crossbows loosed. There was another sound, like a wind through reeds, and then a slapping like fists on flesh. She could hear the section leaders shouting: “Reload! Second rank . . .
fire
!”

WHUNNNG.
The short heavy bolts sleeted out like horizontal rain. They punched through hide and shield and bone, and in that massed target scarcely a single point could miss.

“First rank . . .
fire
!”

Again and again; she set her teeth and made herself watch. Toffler swooped down and dropped another firebomb; this time the enemy were bunched, immobile. Men burned, clawing at the fire that stuck to their skins.

“Ignore the ones running! Go for the fancy-dress brigade!” the captain barked.

Those warriors were at the front of the Olmec array, facing the islander spears. And they were
advancing,
twisting the iron out of their feet and coming forward, stopping to do it again, leaving red tracks through the ash behind them.
WHUNNNG. WHUNNNG.
A tenth or more of them went down with every volley.

“Why don’t they
run
?” Swindapa cried.

“They’re warriors,” the Captain said. “Their whole lives are bound up in their courage and sense of their own honor. They
can’t
let danger or pain turn them aside.”

A trickle of warriors won past the caltrops and ran forward, screaming defiance. Crossbow bolts slammed into them, but now they were a more scattered target, and some did not fall.

Closer, and Swindapa could see the contorted painted faces within the mask-helmets. One reached the line of spears, hacked down at a point, pushed forward. The second line stabbed at him.

“Harder! Kill him, goddammit!” the captain barked.

The Olmec swung his stone-edged club-sword with desperate force. His shield went up to stop a spearpoint, but the long steel head punched through the light wicker and the arm beneath. Another caught him in the side, pulling back with a jerk. More probed at him, until the feathers of his costume were dyed fresh scarlet. The warrior went to his knees with blood leaking from his mouth, but a comrade vaulted on his back and leaped, howling. The third-rank islander stumbled backward under the impact, and more Olmecs were coming up, loping for the gap in the line.