March To The Sea

private battle mounted, the flar-ta, her riders, and the scummies attacking her had become so totally focused on the area around her that none of them even saw the deploying cavalry until the first volley hammered into the Boman in front of the Marines. The heavy pistol balls smashed through the packed mass of raiders, driving in against the hard-pressed shield wall, and the tribesmen found themselves once again faced by a flank attack—this one coming straight into their backs from their main direction of retreat.

The bead cannon was still plowing its dreadful holes through their ranks, the rampaging beast on their left flank had laid low dozens of their finest warriors, and the cheating bastards to their front refused to come out from behind their cowardly shields. It was just too much, and the tribesmen turned away from the Marine line and ran up the trail to escape the cavalry charge.

But that wasn't going to happen. The Northern riders slammed into them like an avalanche, firing pistols and spitting them on lances.

Rastar's charge carried his troopers through the caravan, where their ranks were broken by the still-milling packbeasts. Then they turned around and charged back into the fray, dropping their lances and drawing their swords for the best part of any cavalry skirmish. Nor had the Marines been sitting on their hands. As soon as the tribesmen broke, the company began to move forward, cutting down any resistance. The remaining clots of tribesmen in front of them were easily dealt with, and the Marines charged over their bodies to hit the Boman around the engaged cavalry force.

That cavalry was now bogged down, but it didn't seem to care. The mounted Mardukans were hacking at their enemies, seemingly intent on nothing other than killing them. Even as the tribesmen pulled members of the troop off their mounts, the leaders refused to retreat. They'd come to kill Boman, and they went about the business with grim ferocity.

* * *

Patty's assigned mahout had survived the first part of the battle by the skin of his horns, and he knew it. So when Roger ordered him to charge to the aid of the embattled cavalry, the Mardukan decided that nothing was worth heading back into that, and slid silently off the packbeast.

Roger snarled in exasperation and climbed into his old, accustomed place and patted the beast on the soft spot under its armored shield.

'Come on, Patty!' he yelled. 'Time to get some of our own back!'

The tired but willing flar-ta snorted at the familiar touch, and rumbled into a blood-streaming trot. Six tons of mad were about to hit the engaged tribesmen and let the chips fall where they might.

* * *

Rastar kneed his civan, and the beast did a hopping kick that killed the Boman trying to hamstring it.

The prince, however, was having less luck. The charge had broken through the damned Boman, but it hadn't managed to shatter them cleanly, and barbarians seemed to be everywhere. Worse, they were still fighting hard, despite having been caught between two sets of enemies. Oh, many of them had fled, but others—lured by the obvious wealth of the caravan—had stayed, and the holdouts were intent on killing his men.

Like any cavalrymen, Rastar and his troopers knew that their greatest assets were shock and mobility. Standing cavalry sacrificed almost all of its advantages over infantry, but Honal's force was too bogged down to retreat. Unable to break free and reorganize for a fresh charge, they could only stand and fight, trying to cover their occasional unseated brothers and hoping against hope that the stupid barbarians would realize they were beaten.

The prince spun his civan in place again, taking the face off of one of the barbarians trying to pull him off from the side. There were two others on the far side, but he was one of those incredibly rare and gifted Mardukans who were quad-dexterous, and that had stood him in good stead in many engagements like this one, where the ability to cover his civan was paramount. He whipped all four sabers around himself in a complex and lethal pattern . . . then looked up in half-stunned amazement as a pagee thundered through the middle of the battle, bugling like a pagathar.

Three humans and a tribesman of some sort were on its back, but they were letting the pagee do most of the fighting, and Rastar could see why. The beast tore into the Boman like the poor at a holiday feast, attacking with all the ferocity of a pagathar as it gored and trampled its way through the barbarians.

It seemed to be able to distinguish friend from foe as it stepped delicately across a fallen Northerner, somehow managing to avoid crushing him in the press. Or perhaps it was the driver. He seemed to be controlling the beast with knees and voice alone, shouting commands in some sort of gibberish and laying down a heavy fire from a pistol which widened the prince's eyes even in the midst of battle. Rastar loved pistols, especially since he could fire virtually simultaneously with all four hands. But the problem with them was that they had only one shot per barrel. He had twelve double-barreled pistols scattered about his harness and gear, and, at the moment, every one of them had been discharged.

This pistol, however, was spitting shot after shot. Its ammunition seemed limitless, but then he saw the rider pause momentarily, replace a container in the grip, and then start firing again. So easily! In an instant, the weapon was reloaded. With a pistol like that, he could plow through the Boman like a scythe through barleyrice!

He killed another of the barbarians almost absentmindedly, leaning to the side to scissor the bastard's neck with the two razor-sharp sabers in his false-hands. He might as well not even have bothered; the Boman were running.

He waved to Honal, who lifted a bloody saber in response and ordered his company into pursuit. The civan –mounted force would harry the enemy into the ground; if a hand of the Boman remained alive by dark, it would be a surprise.

Now to go bargain with these 'humans.' Despite his confident words to Honal, Rastar was far from certain that a bargain really could be struck, but at least now he could haggle with references in hand instead of a begging bowl.

* * *

Armand Pahner gave the Mardukan cavalryman a closed-mouth smile.

'We appreciate the help,' he said as the big scummy swung down from his bipedal mount. 'Especially since I think you're the folks we chased out of Ran Tai.'

'I would like to say that we came to aid you because we're honorable warriors and couldn't just watch the barbarians destroy your caravan.' Rastar removed his helmet and rubbed his horns. 'Unfortunately, the fact is that we need a job. We'd like to hire on as caravan guards, and you—' he gestured at the carnage about them and the handful of survivors from the original force of caravan guardsmen '—clearly need more of them.'

'Ah.' Pahner cocked his head and contemplated the Mardukan for a moment and felt temptation stir. These people were the first Mardukan troops he'd yet seen who'd actually fought as a cohesive, organized force rather than a collection of individualists. They obviously had rough edges, by human standards, but they were head and shoulders above their nearest native competition.

'You're right,' he said after a moment, 'but there was no gold in the mine. We're as low on cash as you must be.'

'We're not expensive,' the prince said with a rueful grunt. 'And there will be great profit to this caravan when it reaches Diaspra. If it reaches Diaspra. We can be paid then.'

'How much?' Pahner asked. 'When we reach Diaspra?'

'For the rest of the trip?' The prince rubbed the crest of his helmet with one finger. 'Board and tack during the trip. Two gold K'Vaernian astar per trooper at completion. Three for each one lost. Five for the commander, and ten for myself.' He looked at the pistol at the human's belt. 'Although I would personally consider trading quite a bit of that for one of those pistols,' he added with a grunt of laughter.

Pahner pulled out his bisti root and shaved off a sliver. He offered the leader a slice, but it was refused, so he put the remaining root away while he contemplated the offer. The K'Vaernian coin was about thirty grams in weight. They had more than enough hidden in the packs to meet the Mardukan's price, but he hadn't been born yesterday. Nobody ever went for the first offer.