Funny, Erika thought: Back home, you think of Edenites as surly and stupid and foreign, but out here they look as homelike as clan-brothers. Strange, but then, you traveled to see new things.
“Shalom, chaver: Mordekhai bar Jacob fan Allon, at your service,” the officer replied formally. Then to his troops: “Eddie, Hagen, David, clear the gate; Righteous, go tell Yigal his son’s here.” The three lowered their pikes and used the poles to sweep clear a path through protesting locals while the fourth pelted off.
“Karl bar Yigal fan Reenan,” her husband replied, equally mannered. They dismounted. “ . . . bar Jacob . . . Not Dvora bat Margaret’s brother? We were in that Quipchak trouble together. She used to have this post, last year?”
“The same, and she’s told me enough about you!” the man said, advancing to shake their hands. “She’s off east with the Citadel caravan, these last six months; I was up northwest, San Ynez town hired some of us to clear out a band of Lafranche bandits on the road to the sea. . . .” He took Erika’s hands, winked. “Worse luck, I missed the wedding, and didn’t get to kiss the bride--from the letters, half the Pale attended. My third cousin’s aunt Sarah bat Janet fan Zvi was there.”
“Ja, I remember her baklava,” Erika said, taking the hint and giving him a quick peck on the lips, a little embarrassed by his frank regard. Everyone thinks I’m pretty because Karl married me, she thought. Actually I’m plain. Short and slight, more oval-faced than was common among haBandari, with the usual dark eyes and hair. Shulamit’s much more striking. “Sarah’s married to my great-uncle Paul, that makes us relatives.”
Karl laughed and bowed introduction. “My wife, fraw Erika bat Miriam fan Gimbut--ah, fan Reenan, now. No, only about a quarter of the population came; the rum ran out before we could pack more in.” He waved a hand behind him. “These chaveri are with us, the House of the Tree caravan?”
The soldier’s brows rose. “You’re expected,” he said. “The wagons came through yesterday. The party’s been preparing ever since.”
Crack. The Sauron rifle hammered back into Shulamit’s shoulder; not as heavy a blow as a haBandari flintlock would have made, and there was no puff of smoke.
Gorthaur gave a shout of rage and startlement, but his first round snapped out before she could finish working the bolt, and she had practiced diligently. The man she had been aiming at pitched forward, thrashing and screaming in the shocked high-pitched tone of surprise and agony. There was an instant of stunned immobility in the camp below, less than a heartbeat, and then they exploded into movement. Another Cossaki took two steps and pitched forward flat on his face, still; that would be the Soldier’s bullet. Shulamit barred her teeth as her own next round kicked up dust at the heels of another; worked the bolt again, smelling the harsh cordite stink and the scent of hot brass as the cartridge went ting off a rock at her right. Lead the running man, squeeze the trigger--crack and the raider spun, then fell and crawled with one hand clamped to a spouting thigh. Ten seconds, and there was nothing visible but the dead and wounded.
Five, she counted. Plus at least one more who would be out of an active fight. Three of those were Gorthaur’s kills, and all of them were motionless; all through the head or torso. Astonishing shooting, considering the lack of warning, and the fact that the Soldier was using a rifle one-handed. It isn’t the weaponry, it’s the genes, she thought resentfully. It was a good thing for the Pale, for all of Haven, that the Saurons were few. But they were increasing. . . . She turned the rifle’s bolt up and pulled it all the way back, leaving it there while she thumbed two five-round stripper clips into the magazine and then slapped it forward and down to chamber a round.
Gorthaur had been doing likewise. “You insubordinate bitch,” he swore, agitated enough to drop into his native tongue. That was close enough to the Edenite dialect of Americ for Shulamit to follow; like him, she replied without taking her eyes from the camp below.
“Who died and made you a god, Gorthaur?” She spared her left hand for an obscene gesture. “They’re not going to stay down there. Let’s see if you fight as well as you fuck, Sauron: I’m not in any shape to flank them.”
Gorthaur gave an inarticulate growl and then laid his rifle down. “Hold them,” he said, drawing his pistol.
The haBandari crawled on hands and knees to a different cleft in the rock and eased her eyes up. Four hundred meters was just beyond extreme range with a heavy horn-backed bow. . . . Not a very steep slope but littered with rockfall from the cliff behind them
The path down from the cliffs had been difficult enough for the two of them, the Sauron with his broken arm and her with a bad knee; out of the question to retreat with enemies at their backs.
There. Two figures dashing from one piece of cover to the next; she snapped off a shot that sent them diving behind a ridge of rock. There. Another pair, and this time she heard a yell; the bullet must have struck, or a rock-spall. I like these Sauron guns, she thought delightedly. Much more firepower than a haBandari rifle, enough to keep the attackers from swarming over her in a single rush. As good as a compound bow, and more range and stopping power. . . . Out of the corner of her eye she saw a flicker, and Gorthaur was gone, over the boulder and down into the scree. Ignore him.
A moment of waiting. The Cossaki would be thinking; balancing the risk of further advance against the risk to their animals and plunder. If they had raided, they were probably pursued; and to be left without mounts on the steppe was virtually a sentence of death. They’ll probably want to wait for Truedark and close in, she thought. Or they could push a little closer and try to drop shafts on me. She would have to fire occasionally to keep them back, and they could use arching shots to search out her position behind the rocks.
“But I know something you don’t know,” she called out in Bandarit, which would do them little good.
Then there was a shot from down near the base of the hill; a Quilland Base-made pistol shot, a scream, another shot, silence.
Half a dozen men on the slope below began calling out to each other; Shulamit recognized some of the words, they spoke Russki in the Tallinn Valley northwest of the Pale, and she had visited there. The haBandari noted the positions for future reference. A final call for silence; then a flicker of movement moving upslope, field-gray uniform against gray-brown rock.
“Should I shoot him?” Shulamit asked herself. No, I did promise, and he hasn’t broken the terms yet. Besides, I’m not certain. She pulled her lips back from her teeth; Gorthaur was going to give her a prize to take back to the Pale, will he nor nil he.
This time the raiders were looking downslope as well as up; the Sauron’s next victim had time to shout three words before his voice ended in a brief shriek of agony. The others exploded from their positions, racing upward in dodging zigzagging runs. The hunters were hunted now; this position of hers was their only hope against the killer at their backs.
Shulamit rose to her knees and flung the rifle to her shoulder. Crack. One, chest shot. Don’t get fancy, through the center of mass. The voice in her head sounded like her father. Crack. Another down. Crack. Crack. Crack. One more hit, good showing against moving targets in this bad light. Three moving enemy came over the ridge as she threw down the rifle and drew her pistols.
The haBandari was springing back and to her feet as they rushed her, faces demon-dark in the gloaming, eyes and teeth white. Three meters away, seven, nine. Two with swords, shouts and glinting steel. The furthest had a bow, arrow nocked, drawing. Nine meters, and at that range it would go through her cuirass as if the bullhide and drillbit gut were linen. This time the voice in her head was old Kristiaan, the Gimbutas clan Drillmaster, explaining melee tactics.
A sword can’t hurt you until it gets within arm’s reach. Until then, it might as well be on Terra. Get the distance-weapon first. Her right hand came up with the massive Bandari horse-pistol, double-barreled. She jerked at the triggers, instinct-aiming, time slowed like wading through spring mud. Last light breaking off the thr
ee edges of the arrowhead as the stranger drew to the angle of his jaw, and click the hammers went forward and scrit-ting the flints struck the steel of the frizzens and the priming powder flared, then the half-heartbeat wait and whump. Twin lances of dull-red fire, massive hammering impact on her wrist, the twin loads of double buckshot spreading out into a cloud that pulped the bowman’s face off the bone.
The first man was using a yataghan, meter-long and inward-curved for slashing. A big man, ape-long arms and driving speed behind the cut that arched toward her neck. Her right hand was too numb to do more than drop the haBandari pistol, but the left brought the Sauron revolver up, fired. Another flash of light, brighter and sharper than the black-powder weapon. The bullet took the swordsman off-center, spinning him around so that she could see the fist-sized exit hole of the hollowpoint round; this time she did not need to drop the weapon, the Soldier-strength charge had left her hand strengthless from the wrist down. The last Cossaki had shouldered his dying comrade out of the way and attacked, cutting down in a backhand blow.
Kristiaan’s voice again: A cutting sword can only damage in the half-meter between its point and the blades center. Once you’re inside that, all it does is tie up your enemy’s hand.
Go in. Step-falling forward, when every nerve ordered her to dodge. Left hand up, forearm against the man’s wrist, right hand stripping the knife out of the sheath sewn on her thigh. Better to cut, a knife stab rarely killed quickly, but there was no time. Ah. His shield hand had slapped down on her knife wrist, and the tough leather of his sheepskin jacket turned the light pressure of the edge she could muster from this position. Not a big man, but wirey-tough as any Haven plainsman must be; young, downy blond stubble on his cheeks. Mouth gaping across snag teeth, distorted with rage and effort. They were close; close enough for her to see him sweat, smell the stale wadiki and bad teeth odors on his breath.
Shulamit saw the Cossaki’s eyes open, and then go wide; as he realized he was fighting a woman, and then as he felt the strength in her arms. For a moment they strained almost chest-to-chest, feet stamping and grinding in the loose gravel and broken rock. A whisper from her mother’s fund spoke across the back of her mind: Don’t wrestle with men. A stab of pain from her injured knee seconded it. Some of the haBandari’s ancestors had been from Frystaat, a heavy-G world that made Haven seem gentle by comparison. A full-blooded woman of that race could probably have picked the raider up and snapped his spine.
But I’m not a Frystaater, she thought, her own snarl matching the Cossaki’s. She threw her mind into her arms, let the man feel her attention riveted to the losing struggle.
He smiled in triumph, began to twist against her knife to turn it on her, press down with the sword to bring the hilt within hammering-range of her head. Then her body made three precise movements; snapping her forehead into his face, straightening the crooked arm that blocked his saber, driving her knee up toward his groin. Shulamit’s eyes starred with tears or pain, but she felt his nose smash flat, heard his roar. The released pressure on his sword arm made it slide down, the hilt of his saber thudding into her cuirass just below the arm; he twisted desperately and took most of the force of her knee blow on his thigh, most of the rest on the hard leather jock that guarded his testicles. There was still enough pain to distract him, focus attention while she clamped his wrist in her armpit and whipped her arm around under his to lever his elbow locked and straight.
They swayed. Shulamit’s leg twisted around, got a heel behind the Cossaki’s knee, pulled. They went over, and the weight of their bodies was thrown against his arm, near three hundred pounds forcing the joint to move in ways unsuited to the construction and manner and purpose of elbows. There was a sound like dry oilstalks breaking, and the man shrieked the way a rabbit did when the stobor’s jaws closed on it. They landed heavily, her on top, and the strength went out of his grip, her knife was gone but she doubled her fist and smashed it into his throat again and again, wet salt on her lips and again and again--
“He’s dead!”
The Sauron’s voice shouted in her ear, and his hand gripped hers like a thing of resilient steel. Shulamit stopped, looked at the joined hands. They were both dark to the elbow with something wet that glistened.
Blood, she thought, and tried to speak. Nothing came out of her mouth but a dry “hnhh-huh,” over and over as she dragged the thin steppe air into lungs that felt burning tight. She used the Sauron’s grip to haul herself erect, then wrenched free and hobbled down the slope. Gorthaur was speaking; the words buzzed past her ears until he shrugged and fell behind. Shots rang out as he made sure of the enemy wounded, an essential after-battle chore.
There was a folding leather bucket resting on the coming beside the well. Shulamit limped grimly up to it, knelt, and thrust her head into the water.
“Ahhh.”
There were few moments of pure pleasure in life, but surely this was one. She raised her face to the sky, feeling the cold liquid sinking into thirsty skin. A mouthful soothed tongue and lips; she let a little trickle down her throat. Typical steppe-well water, cold, mineral-bitter, and sour, utterly delicious. The haBandari swished the rest around her mouth and spat it out, drank again in slow careful sips. Her fingers found the catches of her armor; she let it slip free, propped harness and weapons safely against the well copping and stood to pour the bucket over her head. Cold rucked her skin to gooseflesh as the air sucked the moisture, but the coarse blue linen of her shirt was dry by the time she had pulled another bucket from the well.
“Picking this fight was stupid as well as disobedient,” Gorthaur said coldly. This time she had seen him coming, out of the corner of one eye.
Shulamit began to speak, husked, spat, drank again, and continued: “We won, Sauron. Besides, I don’t recall promising to obey you, just to help you get to Ashkabad. Don t get above yourself because I invited you to bounce the bedroll, superman.” She held out the bucket. “Now we have horses and gear.”
Gorthaur accepted it, raising the thirty-pound weight one-handed to his lips, as easily as he might a wine glass. He drank long and deep; no need for him to fear overburdening his digestive tract. A Soldier ate like a landgator and drank like a camel, for much the same reason--to store fuel.
“True,” he said. “But the risk to the genetic--” he began, then turned away, shrugging.
Shulamit laughed as she buckled on her weapons belt. “To Ashkabad, Gorthaur, that’s what I promised. If you think you can drag me out of town to your Quilland Base stud farm, think again.” The Sauron did not bother to turn toward her, or even to shrug again as he went to round up the hobbled ponies.
The haBandari walked past him to the first man she had shot, the Cossaki leader. He had bled out beside the captive woman from the wound that half tore off one arm, but not before he buried a knife beneath her ribs; her eyes stared sightless at the bright steady stars of the high steppe. Shulamit bent to close them, then hooked the man’s body off with the toe of her boot before spitting in his face. The haBandari kept no slaves, and despised those who did; and anyone who committed rape within the Pale would be lucky to live long enough to be formally tried and stoned to death. Being staked out by the victim’s friends and kinsfolk with a cage of hungry drillbits strapped over the crotch was far more likely.
Gayam, she thought contemptuously, using the Bandarit term for someone not of the People. Savages.
A sound brought her head up with a snap, her hand to the hilt of her saber. It was the other captive; she had lain huddled while the fight went on. Now she was up and trying to sidle backwards; the fact that her pants were down about her ankles made it difficult, and the dagger clenched awkwardly in her tightly bound hands. The howling laughter of a stobor pack echoed from the darkness behind her. The prisoner’s head whipped around in the direction of the sound, then back at the haBandari. Shulamit smiled and held her open hands up in the peace sign.
“Jo Bandarit ha’taal davva?” the haBandari asked. The other started at the
words, swallowed, seemed to focus and realize she was facing another woman. She shook her head, replied in an unknown throaty language.
Well, not likely she would speak the taal, Shulamit decided. Certainly she was of no race or tribe the haBandari had ever seen. The coiled black hair was common enough, but her face was flatter than any Shulamit knew, the nose a snub button, the eyes not just slanted but almost slits above broad high cheekbones and green at that; her skin was a peculiar ruddy brown. She looked like a Turkmen as much as anything, but not very.
“Turku bilr misniz?” Shulamit said.
“Turku bilmiyorum,” the girl replied in that language, and shook her head. I don’t speak it.
At least I know she means no by that, Shulamit thought, and tried again:
“Ya spikka da Americ? S’ablan Spanjol? Yeweh dammit, daver Ivrit?” More negatives. “Russki?”
A tentative nod, and a fractional relaxation. Shulamit sighed in vexation; it would be a language she had so little of. What am I going to do with her? One of the woman’s eyes was nearly swollen shut with a bruise; there were more bruises on her thighs, along with streaks of dried blood, and scratches on her breasts. About sixteen, Shulamit judged. Well fed up until the last few days, not hard-worked; the ripped-open jacket that hung from her shoulders was quietly rich, fine wool dyed scarlet and green and embroidered along the hems with dragons and elk. Some merchant’s or tribal chief s daughter, then. Give her a horse and let her go? Equivalent to a sentence of death, but not her business. The haBandari were not a cruel people, except by necessity in war, but Haven had little place for altruism outside the bonds of clan and kin.
The foreign woman tottered backward and brought up her knife again; Shulamit heard footsteps behind her, and hoofbeats. Gorthaur finished staking out the lead-line near the well and tied the horses to it before coming to her side.
War World III: Sauron Dominion Page 28