March To The Sea

he growled.

'What are they doing?' one of the warriors asked. 'First they head west, like they're going back to wherever they crossed. Now they head east.'

'They're scattering to avoid us,' Dna Kol said. 'And somewhere, they're gathering again.'

'How can they find each other out here in the woods?' the warrior asked. 'I don't know where I am. Oh, I could find the city easily enough if I headed in the right direction long enough, but I certainly couldn't tell anyone else how to find me. So how do they know where they are? Or where to go to find the rest of them?'

'Maps,' another of the warriors spat, drawing his head up out of the stream. 'Damned shit-sitter maps. They map everything. They'll know where every stream crossing is before they get to it.'

'Which is how they're managing to lead us around by the nose,' Kol agreed. 'But we'll track them down soon enough . . . and bring the whole host down on them when we do.'

'I could do with some new armor,' the first warrior said. He pulled a throwing ax from its belt loop and made a chopping motion. 'And I know just how to get some.'

'Let's move,' Kol said. 'I can smell them. They're near.'

* * *

Rastar ran another patch through the barrel of one of his revolvers, examined the weapon carefully, and decided he was satisfied. In some ways, the last prince of Therdan missed Captain Pahner's pistol. It held far more rounds than the seven-shot revolvers, its recoil was less, and it was a lot easier to clean. But for all that, he still preferred these new weapons. There was something about the spit of flame and the trailing smoke from gunfire that added a deeper dimension to the battle. And Pahner's pistol had been too much like magic. These pistols were clearly the work of mortal hands, yet they spoke with all the sound and fury of a gunpowder thunderstorm.

'Time to change civan again,' he announced as Honal rode up to him and reined in.

'I'm not sure I can dismount,' his cousin groaned. 'I used to think I was tough.'

'I believe you mentioned that yesterday morning,' the Northern leader said. He finished loading cartridges into the cylinder, carefully plugged the mouth of each chamber with the heavily greased felt pad which prevented flash-over from detonating all seven rounds at once, and began fitting the copper caps over the nipples at the rear of the cylinder. 'Change your mind?'

'I think I've figured out a translation for that joke that bastard Pahner told us before we set out,' Honal said in indirect reply as he slid gracelessly out of the saddle and fell onto his back. The civan delicately stepped away as a groom came up to unsaddle it.

'Oh?' The prince finished capping the cylinder and swung it back into place and looked up inquiringly. The humans' toot translations were usually excellent, but they made a hash of jokes . . . which had been obvious in the case of Pahner's statement.

'You just have to make a terrible pun out of it, and it's really quite funny,' the Sheffan cavalry commander said, still laid out flat on the ground. 'If, of course, you haven't spent three days at a fairly constant trot. Try it this way: 'A Manual for Cavalry Operations, Forty Kolong a Day, by Princely Arseburns.''

'Ah!' The Therdan prince gave a grunting laugh. 'Har! That's pretty good, actually. Feel better?'

'No,' his cousin said. 'I have princely arseburns. I have armor chafe. I have dry-slime. And I think my legs just fell off.'

'Nope,' Rastar said with another grunt. 'They're still there. Hey, think of how the civan must feel.'

'Pock the civan,' the cavalry commander said with feeling. 'When we get back to K'Vaern's Cove, I swear I'm going infantry. If I never see another civan again in my life, it will be too soon. I'm going to personally eat every one of them I've ridden in the last three days. It'll take a couple of seasons, and I think I've already killed two the cooks didn't get gathered up, but I'll get all of the others. I can do it. I have the determination.'

'We have lost quite a few,' Rastar said softly. 'A lot more than I'd like, in fact. But as long as they hold up for the last run, we're golden.'

'Not necessarily,' Honal said, finally sitting up with another groan. 'One of my scouts caught a group on our back trail.'

'Now you tell me?'

'They're a few hours back,' Honal told him unrepentantly. 'But we do need to ready a reception.'

* * *

Dna Kol paused at the edge of the clearing. The spot was a regular stopping place on the Sindi-Sheffan caravan trail, an open area created by a thousand years of caravans' cutting undergrowth for firewood, and a medium-sized, fordable stream ran through it. A heavy rain was falling, reducing visibility, but it was still clear that more iron head cavalry than he ever wanted to see again waited on the far side of the clearing.

'Crap,' he snorted. 'I think we've been suckered.'

'There's more of them moving off to the right,' one of his followers said. 'Let's hammer this group before the others get into position.'

'I think we're the ones who're going to be hammered,' the subchief said. 'But that does seem to be the only option.'

* * *

Rastar grinned in the human fashion as the Boman burst from the tree line, screaming their tribal war cry. His only worry had been that they might move back into the trees, taking cover from the cavalry's fire, but perhaps the pounding rain explained why they hadn't. Surely, by now, the Boman must have realized that the League troopers' new firearms were remarkably unaffected by precipitation! Still, he supposed the ingrained habits of decades of experience against matchlocks couldn't be overcome in a mere three days.

'Load up, but hold your fire!' he shouted as he spurred his civan into the clearing. 'I want to try something.'

He drew up, turned his civan to present its flank to the barbarian line, and pulled out four of his eight pistols as the Boman charged to get into throwing ax range. His true-hands pointed right and left, to the outside of the charging barbarian line, while the false-hands pointed at its center. He let all four eyes defocus, drew a deep breath, and opened fire.

The astonished barbarians' charge shattered as all four pistols blazed simultaneously and the accurate, massed fire piled up a line of bodies for the following warriors to stumble over.

The prince's grin was a snarl through the thick fog of rain-slashed gunsmoke as he spun his civan and galloped back through the positions of his waiting cavalry.

'Okay,' he called, smoking pistols held high, 'now you can try!'

He holstered two weapons and started reloading the other two as the cavalry about him began to fire.

'Wyatt who?' he grunted.

* * *

'Are you going to get all the supplies out?' Roger asked over his helmet com.

'I sure hope so,' Pahner replied with a snort. 'Although, we're retaining a good bit more than I'd originally planned. Got to feed these women and children something.'

'I'm surprised the troops are staying in hand so well,' Roger said, studying the video feed from the captain's helmet and taking in the orderliness of the city's occupiers.

'Me, too,' Pahner admitted. 'I'd assumed at least a twenty-five percent loss rate from AWOLs in the city, but we're at nearly one hundred percent present as of the morning report.'

'That high?' Roger sounded surprised, and Pahner chuckled.

'Bistem Kar gave them an incentive,' the Marine explained. 'Before he released the troops to glean, he paraded them in front of the huge piles of stuff from the main storerooms and promised each of them a share on return. Some of them never even left—why go hunting through the city, when you can be handed a bag of gold and silver for staying put?—and the rest came back soon enough.'

'That Kar is one smart cookie,' Roger observed with a chuckle.