by RW Krpoun
Thumbing back the Spencer’s hammer he shot a Tek squarely in the chest and worked the lever action, thoughts of the Zulu War and Isandhlwana flashing through his mind.
Shad reloaded his shotgun and dropped it to grab up a long-barreled Colt, firing all six rounds fast and fairly true; even a fifth level Shootist could not get six hits every time, but at this point volume of fire counted as much as anything and four solid hits were nothing to sneeze at. The fight was reaching critical mass: either the Tek footmen would break or they would roll over the perimeter.
Dropping the Colt he grabbed up the other Cavalry model and got five hits with six rounds. Taking a glance along the line as he dropped the empty Colt and reached for the Artillery model under his right arm he saw Derek was pounding away like a madman, doing well except that the untidy pile of empty tubes outnumbered the neat line of full ones. Beyond the Alienist Jeff was firing a Bulldog, his rifle on the ground by his hole with an overheated case jammed in the chamber. Fred was tossing aside his empty Yellowboy and drawing his Remington revolver as beyond him the teamsters were starting to back away from the breastworks.
Cursing bitterly the Shootist vaulted from his hole and raced to his left. “Hold your positions! Face front!”
The first teamster saw him, wavered, and then turned to face the advancing Tek, fumbling a paper cartridge from his pouch. The next in line was a young man, hardly out of his teens, wild-eyed and staring, just in the act of dropping his rifle and turning to run. Without hesitation Shad shot him squarely in the forehead, the heavy bullet sending the youth’s body staggering back to collapse against the breastworks.
“Hold your positions!” the Shootist howled. “Stand and fight!” He couldn’t believe he was standing erect making a prime target out of himself, but he had acted without thinking and now he was stuck. The greasy ball of ice in his stomach was threating to come up his throat along with his last meal, but he forced himself to keep moving.
Most of the teamsters couldn’t actually hear what he was shouting, but none appeared to have any doubts as to what he intended; none moved forward to retake their positions but all faced the enemy and resumed firing.
Derek rolled out of his hole, shoving a fresh tube into his Spencer’s stock as he went. Coming to his knees as the Tek began leaping the breastworks he shot the first across the perimeter line in the belly and lurched to his feet as he worked the carbine’s lever-action. He shot two more, parried a club with his carbine and then blew the wielder’s jaw off with his next shot. A Tek grabbed the Spencer’s barrel causing the Alienist to miss but acquiring a fistful of blisters from the hot barrel. As the warrior released the barrel with an almost comically surprised look Derek shot it in the chest.
Thumbing back the hammer, all too aware that his last five loaded tubes were ten feet away on the lip of his hole, Derek shot the nearest Tek and regretfully discarded his carbine. As he drew his Le Mat he saw that Shad’s hole was empty and that Fred and Jeff had fallen back a dozen feet and were fighting back-to-back, the Shop teacher using his saber and the Scout fighting with knife and tomahawk.
The teamsters held their ground, clubbing their rifles or discarding them in favor of knives when the Tek came to blows, but they had no organization, and died in ones and twos. Shad fired the last two rounds in his last Artillery Colt and raced back down the line, reloading, a part of his brain noting the growing number of empty loops on his cartridge belt. Even with his extra point in tactical reloading he couldn’t keep a revolver in the fight, and in any case he was running out of ammunition. He had boxes of .45 Long Colt at his position, but their perimeter line had been over-run.
Fred was a whirling dervish with Bowie and hatchet while Jeff covered his back and Derek was a bit behind them using their actions as a breakwater while he blazed away with his Le Mat. Beyond the trio the Sappers were a tight knot fighting with bayonets.
Sliding to a stop by the Alienist, Shad turned to fire at the Tek spilling through the section of the perimeter that the teamsters had been guarding, only to see two loads of canister hit the humanoids from the howitzers, each shot spraying a hundred-twenty lead musket balls into the enemy ranks. The Shootist wasted no time in gunning down the dazed survivors of that terrible blast.
“How are you fixed for rounds?” he yelled at Derek as he ejected casings from his own weapon and slid in fresh rounds.
“Low,” the Radio Shack manager gasped. “The north and west are holding.”
“We night make it.” Shad opened fire.
“Doubt it,” Derek closed his loading gate and shot a Tek who was charging between the Black Talons and the Sappers. “We haven’t seen the cavalry yet.”
“Shit.” Shad reloaded. “And the footmen are falling back-if the raptors come, they’ll come here and now.” Shoving the hot revolver into its holster he drew the other and reloaded it as he raced for his fighting hole, shooting a Tek in the back that had been squaring off with Jeff as he passed. “Cavalry!” he bellowed. “Get ready!”
Derek advanced at a careful trot, cursing as a thrown javelin draw a line of hot pain across his ribs, thankful that the armor charms had kept it from impaling him. Catching up his Spencer as he moved he fired at the nearest Teks, mainly to drive them away-Shad’s class let him move and shoot with accuracy, but an Alienist with only one point in revolvers couldn’t hope to duplicate that.
Shoving the empty revolver into its holster Shad grabbed up his shotgun and blew a retreating Tek off its feet; a hex killed the other shell and he reloaded, shoving two wax slugs into the weapon. In the forefront of his mind was the thought that if he could just get a minute to reload three revolvers and refill some belt loops and they might come out of this OK. He noticed that he was bleeding, hit on the left shoulder and across his lower back, shallow cuts whose origins were a complete mystery.
He didn’t get his minute; one moment the surviving Tek footmen were briskly withdrawing into the dying mist and the next fast-moving shapes were sweeping forward. Howitzer case shot erupted in two golden flashes in the mist and then a dozen raptor-borne cavalry were in view, charging with lances lowered. To his left the Sharps bellowed and a raptor crashed into the bloody soil, its rider launched through the air by its abrupt demise.
Derek was firing his Spencer as fast as he could work the action, dimly aware that Jeff was firing Fred’s Yellowboy to his left. The Sharps boomed again, smashing down another raptor as a third succumbed to the rain of .52 bullets the Alienist had sent into its torso. Ripping the empty tube from the stock, Derek slid another home and opened fire.
Fred dropped another raptor just short of the breastworks, another staggered to a dying halt from Jeff’s fire, and a third collapsed under a ragged volley from the Sappers, the haste with which the engineers had reloaded being emphasized by a ramrod that was embedded to half its length in the beast’s hide.
Shad had hit the nearest lizard with four wax slugs, the lumps of buckshot blasting through the creature’s hide with ease. Snapping the breech closed as the creature leapt the low breastwork he raked back the hammers as he threw himself against the back of his too-shallow hole and fired both barrels at the creature’s left hip. The two loads of buckshot, held together by the wax, blasted the raptor’s hip socket into a bag of bone fragments, and the creature’s tooth-filled maw slammed impotently into the dirt next to the Shootist as its rider went flying.
The beast twisted and came for Shad, who desperately shoved his shotgun into its mouth with his left hand as he drew his last Colt and fired it into the raptor’s neck, trying for the spine. The gleaming mass of teeth ripped the shotgun from his grip and effortlessly sent it flying with a twitch of its head, but that action gave the Shootist time to put five bullets into its neck, and at least one struck bone. Shad wasn’t sure if the creature was actually paralyzed or just shocked by a glancing hit, but he didn’t waste time wondering. Holding the muzzle of his revolver an inch from the fury-filled tennis-ball-sized amber orb that was its left eye he sent
the revolver’s last round deep into its brain.
Derek’s second raptor kill crashed onto his hole; a heavier-set man would have been crushed, but the slender Radio Shack manager was able to fold up below ground level as the lizard thrashed away the last seconds of its life. When it quit moving he used his carbine to lever the body aside enough for him to squeeze through.
Warily emerging into the smoke-hazed daylight he saw Fred drop a raptor that had bypassed their position with a single shot of his Sharps, and Jeff blazing away with Fred’s carbine at a few Tek footmen who were edging out of the mist launching javelins. The rider of the raptor he had killed was lying stunned a few feet away, and the Alienist paused to shoot it in the head.
Checking to his right he saw a dead raptor twitching next to Shad’s hole and the Shootist, Bowie in hand, wrestling with its knife-wielding rider in a desperate contest of survival. Crawling over to them Derek carefully put the muzzle of his Spencer into the humanoid’s left armpit and squeezed the trigger, the heavy bullet traversing both lungs and the heart.
Levering a fresh round into his weapon, the Alienist warily surveyed the smoke-wreathed compound. The other two sides of the perimeter were holding, their firing tapering off to occasional aimed shots. There were corpses littering both lines indicating that the Tek had closed to melee, but the infantry had prevailed. Both howitzers were lobbing shells into the dying mist, and Derek puzzled over a furrowed patch of blood-soaked ground to the southeast of their position until he realized that one or both guns must have fired on raptor cavalry at point-blank range, completely shredding the beasts and their riders. That explained the fate of the other three or four out of the dozen mounted attackers who were unaccounted for.
The firing was slacking off all around the embattled position so the Radio Shack manager found the spade and very carefully, conscious of his lower back, levered the dead raptor aside so he could get into the hole and recover the empty Spencer tubes and boxed rounds he had swept into safety when the mounted attack closed. Sitting on the lizard he began reloading tubes. To his left Fred was reloading his revolver and Jeff was prying the jammed casing from his rifle with his pocket knife. Directly in front of him Shad was hefting a loaf-sized rock over his head before sending it crashing down onto the skull of a badly wounded Tek.
“You’re bleeding, Shad,” Jeff grunted as he dragged the casing free. “Quit smashing skulls until I can patch you up.”
“I’m OK,” the Shootist grunted, selecting a clean rock and looking around.
“I’m the medic, so go reload and rearm.”
“Screw you.” Shad tossed aside the rock and headed back to his position.
“I think he hates it when a fight is over,” Jeff observed to Fred.
“I think he’s just an asshole,” the Scout mumbled, refilling cartridge loops from boxed rounds.
“Don’t smash skulls,” Derek advised the others. “Kill ‘em some other way. Leave the heads intact so we can pry out the stones from their faces, there’s good mojo in some.”
“Thanks,” Shad said as Jeff finished using charms on the worse of his cuts and bound up the minor injuries. “You’ll make somebody a good wife.”
The Jinxman flipped him off. “Drink some water, eat something if your stomach can handle it.”
“Yeah, yeah. The damn raptor bent the breech-hinge on my shotgun-how’s that for jaw pressure? Shattered a half-dozen teeth top and bottom doing it.”
“Can you fix it?”
“Nope. I’ll do without until I can get my hands on another.”
“It could have been worse.”
“It could have been my head,” the Shootist agreed as he finished refilling his cartridge belt. All four Colts were reloaded so he heaved himself to his feet, grunting at the pain that lingered in his freshly-healed flesh. Like the others his clothes were ruined by blood, his own and Tek, and his entire person was stained with black powder residue. He looked like a man who had just escaped a house fire.
Leaning back, he massaged his lower back with a pained grunt. “I’m getting old.”
“You got old an hour after I met you,” Jeff replied. “I trashed the edge on my saber-it’ll take hours to sharpen it.”
“Time well spent,” Shad found his Bowie and wiped the blade before sheathing it. “Time to mutilate some bodies.”
“Check for regular loot,” Derek reminded them from where he was examining the saddle on a dead raptor. “They like to take trophies.”
Sergeant Major Whelan, grimy with powder smoke and liberally daubed with Tek blood, came to the Black Talons’ positions just as Shad dumped the last bloody sack of head-stones by Derek. “Good to see you still alive,” the NCO nodded.
“And you,” Shad rubbed the small of his back. “Will the Tek try again?”
“We’re doubtful,” Sergeant Major Whelan shrugged. “They took a brutal beating, but they have achieved their objective: the fort won’t be built. We’ll leave in a day or two after resting up and sorting out duties. Too many men dead to try to continue with the plan. Will you be coming with us?”
“No, Sergeant Major, we’ll be pulling out right after first dark,” Shad said regretfully. “We have business elsewhere.”
“Too bad, we could use you.”
When the NCO had moved off Jeff looked at Shad. “We’re leaving tonight? We’re due to level, and in case you didn’t notice we’re pretty whipped.”
“We’re infantry: hard living and a lack of sleep is just how things are for grunts. Besides, the horses are rested-you can doze in the saddle.”
“But why not leave tomorrow?” Derek asked.
“Because the Tek got both footman and cavalry inside the perimeter. Not far and not many, I’ll admit, but the fact is that they did it. And all that after they wiped out the reaction force and the cubs ran off the wood cutting party. The beating we just administered won’t take.”
“They’ll come again,” Fred agreed. “Stopping them today won’t kill their confidence. They know they hurt the Expedition.”
“The teamsters are dead or missing, there’s only three Sappers still on their feet, and all three line companies took losses,” Shad sighed.
“Then shouldn’t we stay?” Derek threw up his hands. “I don’t like the idea of running out on these guys.”
“I don’t, either,” the Shootist said grimly. “But we’re not running out on them. Unless the Tek are really stupid they won’t assault this place again, they’ll wait and hit the Expedition on the move. By first light they’ll be ready to shadow them, and our splitting off after that will mean a four-man recreation of the Little Bighorn. We go at first dark and pray, or we head back to civilized lands with the Expedition and start all over.”
“Yeah, it’s time to go,” Jeff sighed. “I don’t like it, but its not our fight. We stood by them all day today, and that’s more than we signed on for in the first place.”
“It just feels like retreating,” Derek said sadly.
“It is not a proud moment,” Shad agreed. “But we have business elsewhere. ”
“We paid a hefty sum of dues here,” Fred slapped Derek on the shoulder. “They can’t complain.”
Chapter Nine
There wasn’t enough daylight left for much more than cleaning their weapons, a quick wash, a change of clothes, and a hasty meal. The Black Talons waited until it was dark to saddle their mounts and load Durbin.
“Good luck,” Sergeant Major Whelan shook each Talon’s hand when they were ready to go.
“The same to you,” Derek said sadly. “Watch yourselves on the march.”
“They’ll probably try us,” the tough NCO shrugged. “But the lads are not green anymore. The Tek will pay the fiddler if they want to call a dance.”
After riding for two hours to put some distance between themselves and the Tek the Black Talons settled into a routine of riding one hour and leading their horses for an hour until daylight. Thereafter they rode, stopping for a ten-minute rest every hour un
der a clear summer sky.
“This sucks,” Jeff surveyed their back trail. “But no sign of the Tek.”
“Who a soldier’s life would seek,” Shad quoted tiredly. “We’ve survived worse.”
“Not lately,” Derek groaned. “The Radio Shack Manager’s Course was not big on forced marches.”
“That’s why Best Buy is kicking your ass,” Jeff grinned.
“Screw Best Buy, its Staples that is hurting us this quarter,” Derek shook his head. “Their damn TV ads are really hitting us where we live.”
“You guys need to carry Dell computers,” Shad observed.
“What is with you and Dell?” Jeff asked. “You own stock?”
“I hate Hewlett-Packard. Every HP I’ve owned was clunky and hard to upgrade.”
“How far are we riding today?” Fred interrupted the electronic debate.
“You’re the Scout,” Shad shrugged. “It’s a hundred miles as the crow flies, but my thought is to circle and come in from the east. If someone is waiting for us they’ll be expecting us to arrive from the north or west.”
“If we follow the river we can bypass the place and come in from any side you want,” Fred observed after checking the map. “Say one hundred twenty miles all told. We’ve come about sixteen, give or take.”
“Five days taking it easy, four days normal, three if we pushed it,” Derek observed.
“We’re not pushing it,” Shad shook his head. “This whole damned affair has felt rushed. I keep feeling like we’re being stampeded.”
“Stampeded where?” Jeff asked.
“I think stampeded just so we don’t ask too many questions or think about things too much. Everything feels unnecessarily rushed.”