On the Oceans of Eternity

by S. M. Stirling

  They plunged through the dust cloud and out into the open; the surviving Syrian chariots were in full retreat. Others lay broken, some with upturned wheels still spinning. A wounded Syrian warrior stumbled forward with a long spear held in both hands; Djehuty shot him at ten paces distance, and the bearded face splashed away from its understructure of pink bone. Some of the shot carved grooves of brightness through the green-coated bronze of the man's helmet. Out of the corner of his eye he was conscious of Sennedjem reloading the spent shotgun, priming the pans, and waiting poised.

  "Pull up," Djehuty rasped. "Sound rally."

  The driver brought the team to a halt. Sennedjem sheathed the shotgun and brought out a slender brass horn. Its call sounded shrill and urgent through the dull diminishing roar of the skirmish. Man after man heard it; the Captains of a Hundred brought their commands back into formation. Djehuty took the signal fan from its holder and waved it.

  Meanwhile he looked to the northeast. More dust there, a low sullen cloud of it that caught the bright sunlight. He waited, and a rippling sparkle came from it, filling vision from side to side of the world ahead of them like stars on a night-bound sea.

  "Father, what's that!" Sennedjem blurted; he was looking pale, but his eyes and mouth were steady. Djehuty clipped him across the side of the head for speaking without leave, but lightly. "Light on spearheads, lad," he said grimly. "Now it begins."

  The redoubt was a five-sided figure of earth berms; there were notches cut in the walls for the muzzles of the cannon, and obstacles made of wooden bars set with sharp iron blades in the ditches before it.

  Djehuty waited atop the rampart for the enemy heralds, come for the usual parley, an attacker's inevitable demand for surrender after the first skirmish. They carried a green branch for peace, and a white cloth on a pole as well-evidently the same thing, by somebody else's customs. And flags, one with white stars on a blue ground, and red and white stripes. His eyes widened a little. He had heard of that flag. Another beside it had similar symbols, and cryptic glyphs, thus: R.O.N. COAST GUARD. He shivered a little, inwardly. What wizardry was woven into that cloth? A touch at his amulet stiffened him with knowledge of the favor of the Gods of Khem. Gilded eagles topped the staffs, not the double-headed version of the Hittites, but sculpted as if alive with their wings thrust behind them and their claws clutching arrows and olive branches. So that is why the strangers from the far west are called the Eagle People, he thought. It must be their protector-God.

  "I am Djehuty, Commander of the Brigade of Seth in the army of Pharaoh, User-Ma'at-Ra, son of Ra, Ramses of the line of Ramses, the ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt," he barked. "Speak."

  "Commodore Marian Alston-Kurlelo," the figure in the odd blue clothing said. He lifted off his helm. No, she, by the Gods-the rumors speak truth. Odd, but we had a woman as Pharaoh once, and she led armies. Djehuty's eyes went wider. The enemy commander was a Nubian; not part-blood like Mek-Andrus, but black as polished ebony. His eyes flicked to the others sitting their horses beside her. One was a woman, too, yellow-haired like some Achaeans; another was a man of no race he knew, with skin the color of amber and eyes slanted at the outer ends; the other two looked like Sherden from the north shore of the Middle Sea as far as their coloring went, although their hair was cropped close. A Sudunu stood uneasily by the foreign woman's stirrup; he stepped forward and bowed with one hand to his flowerpot hat to keep it from falling off.

  "I shall interpret, noble Djehuty," he said uneasily; the Egyptian was fluent, but with the throaty accent of his people. Djehuty glared for a second. Byblos, Sidon, and the other coastal cities of Canaan south of Ugarit were vassals of Pharaoh; what was this treacherous dog doing aiding his enemies? Sudunu would do anything for wealth.

  "Tell this woman that no foreigner goes armed in Pharaoh's dominions without his leave, on pain of death. If she and her rabble leave at once, I may be merciful."

  The Sudunu began to speak in Akkadian, the Babylonian tongue. Djehuty could follow it a little; it was the tongue Kings used to write to each other, and not impossibly different from the language of the western Semites, which he did speak after a fashion. The interpreter was shading the meaning. That often happened, since such a man was eager to avoid offending anyone.

  "Tell her exactly, as I told you-don't drip honey on it," he broke in.

  The swarthy, scrawny man in the embroidered robe swallowed hard, and the black woman gave a slight, bleak smile.

  "Lord Djehuty," the interpreter began. "Commodore-that is a rank, lord-Alston says that she is empowered by her… lord, the word she uses means ruler, I think-Ruler of an island across the River Ocean-and the Great King of the Hittites, and the Great King of Kar-Duniash, and their other allies, to demand the return of George McAndrews, a renegade of her people. If you will give us this man, the allied forces will return past the border of the Pharaoh Ramses's dominions, and peace may prevail."

  Djehuty puzzled over the words for a moment before he realized that the name was Mek-Andrus.

  "Barbarians make no demands of Pharaoh," he snapped. Although I would send him to you dragged by the ankles behind my chariot, if the choice were mine. "They beg for favors, or feel the flail of his wrath. Go, or die."

  The coal-black face gave a slight nod. No, not a Medjay, Djehuty thought with an inner chill. They were fierce children, their ka plain on their faces. This one had discipline; doubly remarkable in a woman. And she showed no sign of fear, under the muzzles of his guns. She must know what they can do. Mek-Andrus is of her people.

  If the stranger was a renegade from the service of his own King, much was explained. He schooled his own face.

  "Pharaoh commands; as it is written, so shall it be done," he replied. "This parley is over. Depart his soil, at once, or the battle will commence."

  BAAAAAAAMMMM.

  The twelve-pounder leaped back, up the sloping ramp of dirt the gunners had shoveled behind it, then back down again into battery. Stripped to their loincloths, the crew threw themselves into action. Stinking smoke drifted about them, and the confused roaring noise of battle, but the men labored on, wet with sweat, their faces blackened by powder fumes until their eyes stared out like white flecks in black masks, burns on their limbs where they had brushed against the scorching bronze of the cannon.

  These are men, Djehuty thought, slightly surprised. More than that, they are men worthy to be called iw'yt, real soldiers.

  He wasn't sure about the warriors surging against his line, but whatever they were, they didn't discourage easily. He squinted through the thick smoke that stung his eyes, ignoring the dry-ness of his tongue-they were short of water, and he meant to make what he had last.

  Here they came again, over ground covered with their dead. Swarms of them, sending a shower of javelins before them as they came closer.

  BAAAAMMMM. BAAAAMMMM. The guns were firing more slowly now, conserving their ammunition. Grapeshot cut bloody swaths through the attackers, but they kept on. Dead men dropped improvised ladders of logs and sticks; others picked them up and came forward. Their cries grew into a deep bellowing; the first ranks dropped into the ditch around the redoubt, where the spiked barricades were covered with bodies. Others climbed up, standing on their shoulders to scramble up the sloping dirt or set up their scaling ladders. Only a few of them knew enough to cringe at the sound that came through shouts and cannonade-the sound of thumbs cocking back the hammers of their muskets.

  "Now!" Djehuty shouted, swinging his fan downward.

  All along the parapet, hundreds of musketeers stood up from their crouch and leveled their pieces downward into the press of attackers.

  "Fire!"

  A fresh fogbank of smoke drifted away, showing the ruin below-the muskets had been loaded with what Mek-Andrus called buck and ball, a musket ball and several smaller projectiles. The ditch was filled with shapes that heaved and moaned and screamed, and the smell was like a desecrated tomb. Djehuty winced; he was a hardy man and bred to war, but this… thi
s was something else. Not even the actions in the south had prepared him for it; the barbarians there were too undisciplined to keep charging into certain death as these men had.

  "They run away, they run away, Father!" Sennedjem said.

  Then, away in the gathering dusk, lights blinked like angry red eyes. Everyone in the little earth fort took cover. A long whistling screech came from overhead, and then the first explosion. The enemy cannon were better than the ones Mek-Andrus had taught the men of Khem to make; instead of firing just solid roundshot or grape, they could throw shells that exploded themselves-and throw them further. Djehuty dug his fingers into the earth, conscious mainly of the humiliation of it. He, Commander of the Brigade of Seth, whose ancestors had been nobles since the years when the Theban Pharaohs expelled the Hyskos, cowering in the dirt like a peasant! But the fire-weapons were no respecters of rank or person.

  And they will shred my Brigade of Seth like meat beneath the cook's cleaver.

  So Pharaoh had ordered… and it might be worth it, if it turned the course of the battle to come.

  Earth shuddered under his belly and loins. He had a moment to think, and it froze him with his fingers crooked into the shifting clay. Why only cannon? From the reports and rumors, the newcomers had taught their allies to make muskets, too, and better ones than the Egyptians had. Yet all the infantry and chariots his brigade had met here were armed with the old weapons; some of them fashioned of iron rather than bronze, but still spear, sword, bow, javelin.

  The barrage let up. He turned his head, and felt his liver freeze with fear. Sennedjem was lying limp and pale, his back covered in blood. Djehuty scrambled to him, ran hands across the blood-wet skin. Breath of life and pulse of blood, faint but still there. He prayed to the Gods of healing and clamped down; there, something within the wound. A spike of metal, still hot to the touch. He took it between thumb and forefinger, heedless of the sharp pain in his own flesh, and pulled. His other hand pressed across the wound while he roared for healers, bandages, wine, and resin to wash out the hurt. When they came he rose, forcing himself to look away and think as his son was borne to the rear.

  "I don't like the smell of this," he muttered, and called for a runner. "Go to the commander of the northernmost brigade of Pharaoh's army," he said. Who should be here and deploying behind us. "Find why they delay, and return quickly. Say that we are hard-pressed."

  "Ahhhh, not bad," William Walker said. "Fundamentally, life is pretty good."

  He looked up at the tender green of the branches moving overhead, little sun-gleams flickering through them. Spring was nice. For one thing, it meant shuttling back and forth across the Aegean would be easier, without the winter storms to worry about. For another, he could finally get his hands on the Nantucketer bastards and deal with them once and for all. His grin turned wry.

  Of course, they'll be expecting to deal with me, won't they?

  He pushed the thought away, and worried about Sicily. One thing at a time. We can take it back when we've made sure of the east. Time for one last hunt and picnic with the family, even though the long gray-clad columns were swinging up from the coast.

  There was a quiet bustle around him; he sat up and ate another dried apricot, savoring the sweetness. The glade was half an acre or so, more than enough for the hunter's camp- a platoon of the Royal Guards, a tent and the horse lines, a few servants. Two of the soldiers went by with another boar slung on a pole between them, a slight whiff of rank scent amid the spring wildflowers and pine and thyme. He grinned. Once upon a time he'd taken up hunting boar with spears because it gave you mojo among the wogs, something that a warrior-class man was just expected to do.

  He hadn't really expected to start enjoying it. The hunting was excellent in this part of northwest Anatolia; the locals called it Seha River Land, and it had been Green Bursa in his birth-century. There were plenty of oak trees on the hills here, and acorns made for big, prolific wild pigs.

  "Nothing like a day's hunt to give you an appetite," he said.

  His son Harold flashed a grin at him; he'd been sneaking looks at the butt of the servant-toy kneeling beside Alice's folding canvas chair.

  Just starting to get interested, Walker thought indulgently. Have to get him a couple of experienced instructors in a while. No son of his was going to have to suffer the sort of adolescent-male hell he'd gone through.

  Hong was in what Walker thought of as her Safari Dominatrix costume: glossy boots, flared jodhpurs, belted bush jacket carrying revolver and hunting knife, and broad-brimmed hat with a leopardskin band. She took a tall glass of lemonade and playfully tickled the nude servant with the tassel of her riding crop.

  Nude except for those body-piercing rings and the silver chains, Walker thought. He'd always thought the look sort of grotesque, but Hong was entitled to her own aesthetics.

  "You know, your dear regent is seeing an awful lot of Arnstein," she said, then turned the handle of the crop into one of the chains and jerked sharply, shivering a little at the low shriek that followed.

  Blue smoke drifted up from a hardwood fire, and a groom led horses by on their way to a downstream site on the little brook that gurgled through the meadow. The cooks were working hard by the hearths, and the smell made his belly rumble. Others set up the trestle tables and flared out the linen tablecloths. All the comforts of home now, and then some…

  "I expected him to," Walker said. "Odi just likes finding out about things. That's one reason he's so useful. Sometimes you hardly remember he's a wog."

  "You don't think he'll find out too much about Nantucket?"

  "Oh, right, a wannax is going to go all mooney over town-meeting democracy." Walker chuckled. "No, he's much more likely to pick up valuable stuff from Arnstein. He'll be more to the dear professor's taste than any of us. Sanctimonious bastard."

  Knives flashed as the barbeque was carved. Walker shoulder-rolled to his feet and strolled over with the others, snagging a roll as the hunting party and his guests-the Irauna head of the Royal Guard, a couple of generals, some important local collaborators-gathered. There was the usual slight wait while the eagle-eyed kitchen steward checked nobody had made any unauthorized additions to the cuisine. Luckily the locals didn't know many good poisons-part of the reputation of Alice's cult was based on her uptime knowledge.

  The first dish was a glazed loin of wild boar, stuffed with a filling of herbs, crumbs, and garlic.

  "Hot," Hong said, fanning her mouth and reaching for her wine cup. Then she fed morsels to the toy with her fork.

  "Ah, you easterners never could handle real barbeque," Walker said, taking another slice. "We've finally got the chilies coming from the Lakonian estates, and the latest cook has some idea how to handle them."

  He drank some himself; he'd also gotten the winemakers to understand that sweeter was not necessarily better. Day after tomorrow it would be back to campaign living, but tonight he could enjoy himself. The sun was setting behind blue hills to the west, casting low shadows as the meal wound down.

  God, what's the proof on this stuff? Walker thought, as he spilled a little. My nose is going numb already.

  The glass slipped from his hands. A sharp cry from Hong drew his eye. She was recoiling, bewildered. The toy had gripped the chain which spanned the rings in her nipples and wrenched it out. Blood spattered down her pale stomach, but her face was expressionless; then it broke into a dawning smile. She stood and ran three steps and fell facedown, her arms and legs beating a tattoo on the turf, like the wings of a beetle thrown on its back.

  "Dad!" Harold cried. "I can't feel my hands! I can't-" He slapped himself, tears leaking down his face. "I can't-

  His words ended in a rush of vomit; Walker could smell how he fouled himself. His father tried to rise and go to him, but his hands slipped off the table despite the sudden and desperate fury that welled up and turned the world misty red. The generals and officers down the table were trying to rise as well, and falling, and moaning.

  Walker
looked at Hong. Her eyes were wide, and her hands clutched her stomach.

  "Aconite," she whispered. "Chilies hid the taste-ow!"

  The sun was falling… no, the light was falling, faster than the sun. Walker felt a pain in his gut, deep and strong, like a sword stab. He collapsed forward, all the huge strength of his body gone. Hong was shaking as she clutched at herself.

  "It hurts, Will," she whimpered. "Make it stop, Will. Make it-

  The words were lost in retching and convulsions. Men were shouting and running, far away. Walker fumbled at the butt of his pistol, but there was no sensation in his hand. He had to get it out, find the cook, and kill-Night fell, and he fell with it, endlessly.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  April, 11 A.E.-Meggido, Kingdom of Egypt

  May, 11 A.E.-Walkeropolis, Kingdom of Great Achaea

  April, 11 A.E.-Meggido, Kingdom of Egypt

  "Back!" Djehuty snarled.

  He smashed the pommel of the sword into the fleeing spearman's face, feeling bone crunch. Behind Djehuty, the men of his personal guard leveled their double-barreled shotguns, and the madness faded out of the faces of the soldiers who'd panicked. Those who still held their spears lowered them, and in the uncertain light of dawn he could see them shuffle their feet and drop their eyes.

  "If you run from death, it follows you-and death runs fast," Djehuty said, his voice firm but not angry. "Remember that it is ruin to run from a fight, for you cannot fight and flee, but the pursuer can still strike at your naked back as he chases you. Return to your positions."

  "Sir-" one said, desperate. "Lord, the thunderbolts strike us and we cannot strike back!"

  "I know," Djehuty said. The bandage on one forearm reminded them that he ran the same dangers. "But they cannot take our position unless they send men forward to claim it, and those men you can strike." Those of you who are still alive by then. "Return to your companies! Fight the foe!"