The scan was automatic by now. She could ignore the wind that brought red to her cheeks and ears, the almost inaudible murmur of the petty officer reading to himself as he went over a textbook—studying for a move up, of course. Mandy had a copy of that navigation manual herself. She could read it without moving her lips, but then, she hadn’t learned to read as an adult—and in a second language at that.
Clouds in the north, she thought. Might be weather building up there. Bit of a haze to the east.
Out there the ocean stretched to Alba, to the Summer Isle, to the weird places along the Baltic that the Douglass had found—she saw herself standing in the prow of a whaleboat as it grounded on a sandy shore edged with pine; she saw painted men leaning on their spears, holding up strings of amber, drums beating in the dark forests . . .
Odd. There were sails out there; she could swear it. She flipped through the arrivals and departures checklist. Two brigs and a clipper were due in from far foreign this week, from the penal settlement on Inagua, Trinidad, and the Pacific, respectively. Hell, there are already more than three there. Damn that haze. And ships bearing up from the Caribbean usually ran in west of Madaket and picked up a tug there.
“Oh, shit,” she whispered a second later.
“I’d forgotten how much I hated those things,” Marian mumbled, then forced herself to full alertness and reached over Swindapa’s sleepy murmur of protest to pick up the telephone. Her partner clung to her like a warm, drowsy octopus, sighing and stretching as Marian’s hand fumbled in the dark through the clutter on the side table.
Matches, handkerchief, water glass, Greatest Chinese Invention of All time, right, there it is, telephone, she thought, yawning.
“Alston heah,” she said. It had to be fairly important to use the still-limited telephone service. “ What? ”
Swindapa sat up in midstretch, eyes sharp and alert.
“Yes, of course notify the Chief, Sandy,” Marian snapped. “At once. And sound the General Alarm and Turn Out. Yes, I’m authorizing it, goddamnit. Get to it!”
“ What’s happening? ” Swindapa said steadily as they rolled out of bed and began to dress.
“Great minds think alike,” Marian said, looking out the window.
The spring dawn was just breaking in the east, gilding the white pillars of the Two Greeks across Main Street from Guard House.
“It looks like King Isketerol decided not to wait for us to hit him first.”
“ It’s hanging in the air,” Shaudriskol of Tartessos said, looking up at the tiny dot lazing in the morning sky. Light flashed off something beneath it, metal or glass.
“We knew they could do that,” his uncle Zeurkenol said quietly. The kingdom had hot-air balloons as well, this last year. “Keep it down, don’t startle the men. When we’ve taken the island, we too will command the skies.”
It was a clear, fresh morning, and the whole fleet was cutting across the wind—pointing up from the southeast. The lookouts had cried out that the Jester had relented and Arucuttag of the Sea had brought them to landfall some time ago; small fires in metal bowls burned thank-offerings before the little model shrines on every quarterdeck. Even now, when Tartessian ships had spanned the oceans of Earth, it still felt a little unnatural to see nothing but sea for weeks.
He raised the far-seeing glasses to his eye, examined the coast, then looked down at the map carefully secured to a board, holding aside the oiled leather that protected it when it was not in use. The spy had stolen them a fine map indeed; The Complete Map of Nantucket, by something that the Eagle People called a Chamber of Commerce—like most men of rank, Zeurkenol had learned a smattering of En-gil-ish along with the new script.
His skin prickled a little at the sight of the low, sandy shore ahead; it was like sailing to the Otherworld—Nantucket, the home of everything mysterious, magical, eldritch . . .
“And the richest prize in all the world,” he murmured.
“ With the fate of the kingdom riding on our shoulders,” his nephew added proudly.
“Don’t flatter yourself, son of my brother,” Zeurkenol said dryly. “Did you notice which regiments the king sent? ”
“ Wiseant, Boar, Wolf, Otter, and Bear,” his nephew-aide said automatically. “ They’re . . . oh.”
A substantial proportion of the new standing army—he used the Eng-il-its word when he thought, there being no close Tartessian equivalent; the closest you could come was household guards. First-rate troops armed with the new breechloaders, and with many other cunning new weapons. But all recruited from the new subject peoples in the lands south of the Pillars, tribal mercenaries from the mountains of the Riff. Fierce fighters and loyal to their salt, but there would be no politically destabilizing grief in the capital if they were lost.
“ But the officers are of the best families in the City!”
“Yes,” Zeurkenol said. “Not many unmarried men among them, either.”
His nephew was young, no more than eighteen winters, but no fool. His eyes widened. All of them with hostages within the city walls. None of the New Men among them, either, none of the king’s strongest supporters.
“ You don’t mean . . . the king wants us to fail? To die here? ”
“Oh, no, never think it. The king strikes boldly here, and if we conquer, our rewards will be great . . . back in Tartessos, under his eye.”
Isketerol was no fool, either, nor did he love blood for its own sake. There was not much to say against how the king used his new power, except that he had it.
I would be easier in my mind if I were sure his son would use it likewise, the nobleman thought.
The king in Tartessos might as well be a living god now, like Pharaoh. That was well for the city when the king was a very able man, although even the ablest made mistakes. The next king, though . . .
He pushed the thought out of his mind. There was a war to fight, and if he won it Tartessos would bestride the world.
“A general message,” he said. It would be a repetition, but all the better for that—the troops were good fighting men but inclined to be a bit wild. “ To all warriors ashore. Remember that the king has commanded that all nonfighters or those who surrender be treated well, as his subjects. There is to be no burning, no plunder, no forcing of women—any man found breaking these orders will be castrated and burned alive before the altar of Arucuttag!”
So the king had said, and like most of his orders there was wisdom in it. The loot of Nantucket would be beyond the dreams of avarice, even a king’s dreams, but the skills and knowledge it held were a treasure far greater. Best to destroy as little as possible in taking them.
There was a crowd around the table in the map room; that was in the Middle Brick, the nearly identical building just south of Guard House. Marian looked down at the big relief map again, as more counters went into the clump hovering off the eastern end of the island. A cup of coffee was thrust into her hand, and she sipped automatically.
“How could they get this close undetected? ” someone complained.
The Republic’s military commander looked up, and the councilor flinched. “ Because it’s a very big ocean and we have only about forty deep-ocean ships and they’re all over the world,” she said. “And because the Meeting rejected my request that we keep a standing air patrol.”
Fuel was scarce and hideously expensive, granted—so were spare parts. But not as expensive as a surprise attack.
“ We don’t have time for bickering,” Jared Cofflin said.
Marian nodded. Though from now on maybe we’ll get less whining about how militia drill is a waste of time, she thought coldly.
“ From the reports, they may have something on the order of five or six thousand men,” she said. “ I’m ordering aircraft up, but I don’t expect to find another fleet. At a guess, they slipped the ships out a few at a time to avoid attention from our people in Tartessos, and then picked up the troops in Morocco.” What would have become Morocco; it was barbarian country in t
his milieu, and the Tartessians had overrun it. “ Then they cut along the northern edge of the Trades, sacrificing speed for secrecy. Bold.”
Swindapa came in; Marian returned her salute. “Commodore, the militia’s assembling—we caught most people before they’d left for work.”
Marian nodded; she could hear the noise in the streets, voices, wheels, hooves, teenagers on bicycles shouting Turn out! Turn out! as they pedalled. The Church bells had stopped their rythmic pulsing call some time ago. By law all adult citizens and resident aliens were in the militia, with arms and equipment kept ready at hand in their homes; and they’d just had a monthly muster-and-drill day last week.
“First Battalion is about ready to move out,” Swindapa went on. “Less than an hour.” Marian nodded with chill satisfaction; that was good time.
“ What do we do? ” Cofflin asked. “Meet them on the beach? ”
Marian shook her head. “Not enough time,” she said. “And they’ll have the cover of their ship’s guns on the landing zone. We can’t get enough troops or cannon there in time, and they’re going to outnumber us badly as it is.”
There were about twelve thousand people on the Island these days, but a large proportion of those were children or old people. They would all do what they could, from oldsters manning the aid stations and minding infants to Junior Militia carrying messages by bicycle. But of actual troops, the Island had barely three thousand.
“ We have to keep Fort Brandt manned,” she said, tapping the map.
That was the fortress on the site of the old Coast Guard station, near the lighthouse and the mouth of the harbor. Ron Leaton’s best rifled cannon were there; nobody was going to take a ship in past those, and it was safe against any ground assault as well. That meant nobody was going to sail into the harbor and assault the docks; the noncombatants would gather there.
“That’s a hundred and fifty people down,” she said. “We have to crew the warships in harbor and get them to sea for our counterattack.” Three frigates, the new steam ram Farragut, and some smaller craft. “Say two thousand troops available all up to meet their landing force, and they’ll be ashore before we’re completely mobilized . . . how’s the evacuation going? ”
“Everyone’s out of Sconset and halfway back to town,” Jared said. “I checked myself. We used the mothballed school buses, most of them worked. The farmers and such are all coming in too; say another two hours for the last ones.” A wintry smile. “Had some complaints ’bout leaving livestock and such. Dealt with it.”
That was a massive relief; she needed the roads clear, and herds of cows and sheep blocking movement would be a nightmare.
“Captain Trudeau? The Farragut? ”
The slender young man gulped air. “Ma’am, we’re still fitting out. The guns aren’t on board, we haven’t shipped the masts . . .”
Alston’s eyes speared him. “Your engines are installed?” A nod. “ You have the protective plating for the paddle wheels in place? ” Another. “Then my single question is, Captain Trudeau, can you make steam? ”
He straightened. “ Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Then go do it. Fast.” He went out at a brisk walk.
Okay. We have three of the frigates, the Farragut, and a bunch of smaller stuff. First we have to get them fully committed onshore. Packed with soldiers, even the Tartessian transports would be dangerous.
Get them to empty those ships; then we hit ’em from the sea.
“ Thank God for the Eagle’s Eye and good weather,” she said. Her finger traced a line out from Nantucket Town, heading east along Milestone Road. “Out here south of Gibbs Pond, where there’s room for the Cherokee Brigade to make themselves useful. We’ll stop them there.”
“Ma’am!”
She looked up; the communications tech was scribbling. “It’s the Eagle’s Eye. Large numbers of small boats landing, and several Tartessian ships have beached themselves and are disembarking troops over the side . . . troops and artillery, ma’am.”
The room drew a long breath with her. “All right, people, let’s do it,” she said. “Sandy, you’ve got the deck here.”
“ There go the air corps,” Mandy Kayle said.
She’d watched the pilots arrive, by steam-hauler and bicycle, horse carriage and a single unprecedented school bus. Now the ultralights were lifting off in waves from the runways, ten and then ten more and then four. Only two down for repairs, she thought. Good maintenance.
The little plywood teardrops on their tricycle carriages hopped into the air almost immediately; they needed only thirty feet or so of rolling room even with their load of rockets and bombs. The motorized hang gliders circled like birds in a flock, building altitude until she could see the eagle wings painted onto the fabric of the arrowhead wings, the beaks and claws on the fuselages. One buzzed close enough that she could see a gloved hand come up to give her a thumbs-up signal, and then the little craft banked away and joined its comrades as they plodded at forty miles an hour toward the eastern end of the Island.
“ Luck go with them,” Taunarsson said. “Grant them victory!”
“ Yeah,” Mandy Kayle said.
Because if they aren’t lucky, we’re going to be needing luck ourselves pretty damn soon. Her family’s land was right in the path of the invasion.
“All right,” Marian Alston said, looking down from the steps of the Pacific Bank.
It was the traditional—post-Event traditional, at least—place for public speaking in Nantucket. From here she could see the bulk of the Ready Force and the First Battalion, Republic of Nantucket Militia—eight hundred of them, all standing by their bicycles. Many of the faces turned up toward hers were still pale with shock . . . but they’re ready. Rifles slung over their backs, extra ammunition and basic supplies on the carrying racks over the rear wheels, and heavy weapons on two-person tricycles.
She felt a moment’s somber pride; building up the reserve force had been her work as much as anyone’s.
“ We’re in a hurry, so I’ll keep it simple,” she said. “ We’re fighting for our homes, our families, our lives, and our freedom—in the most literal sense of the word.” A low murmuring snarl ran through them, and she held up a hand. “Remember your training! We’re going to win this as an organized force, not a mob. Trading your life one-for-one with a Tartessian is a bad bargain for the Republic. Listen to your officers and do your best; we all will, and that’s how we’ll come through this.”
A short, barking cheer, and the long column began to move out, mounting up and pedaling up Main Street. They’d turn left on Orange and then out to Milestone Road; that ran all the way to Sconset. She turned to their commander, a Marine regular usually in the training cadre out at Fort Grant. He was a middle-aged man, from North Carolina originally, a sergeant in the corps before the Event, short and barrel-chested, with skin the color of old oiled teak. His vehicle would be one of the hoarded motor scooters, to give him mobility enough to oversee the operation.
“Major McClintock, push straight up Milestone and then fix them in place,” she said, her finger tracing the folded map in his hand. “ The rest of the militia will mass here and then move out in support.” That would be the second through fourth classes, older and less fit. “You’ve got air reconnaissance and they don’t, but they’re going to outnumber you badly.”
Unfortunately, Nantucket got wider as you went east; it was shaped like a lopsided triangle pointing westward . . . which was undoubtedly why the Tartessians had landed there. It gave them the maximum possible freedom of maneuver.
“They may try to flank you either north”—through the former moorland around Gibbs Pond, containing the vital powder mill—“or south, toward the airport. If you have to choose, hold on the north; it’s hillier and easier to defend, but we need to keep them away from the Eagle Eye’s anchor rope if at all possible. Any questions? ”
“No, ma’am,” he said stolidly. A smile and a salute. “See you later.”
“ Take c
are.”
The man hopped onto his scooter and his staff onto theirs; the put-put-put of their motors echoed as they sped away. The sun shone cruelly bright, scudding formations of white cloud from north to south above them. Alston looked up.
Rain, she thought. Flintlocks wouldn’t shoot if they were wet, and the new weapons the Islanders were using would. Please, God, send me some rain.
A growl of engines came from lower down on Main Street, as the Cherokee Brigade approached; she smelled the not-unpleasant scent of burned alcohol, and crossed mental fingers.
All these cars have to do is work today, she thought. And tomorrow if we’re unlucky.
Not all of them were Jeep Cherokees, in fact, although most were—that had been the most popular pre-Event model. All had been modified, usually with sheet-metal armor besides weapons. Swindapa’s blond head showed beside the Gatling mounted on one. She saluted smartly, and Alston returned the gesture, silently thanking a God she didn’t believe in that they were together. And that Heather and Lucy are out with the other kids at Fort Brandt.
She walked down the steps, checked to see that the strap on her Python revolver was secure, and swung herself down into the body of the car. The front held the driver and radio operator; she handed the second headset up to Alston, who settled it on beneath her helmet. Which reminded her . . .
“Helmet, ’dapa.” Then into the microphone: “Alston to Rapezewicz.”
“ Loud and clear, Commodore.”
“Status report, Sandy.”
“Tartessians are still disembarking, but they’ve moved a holding force up to the top of the bluffs overlooking the beach.”
Against the Tide of Years Page 47