“It is what is called a ‘gun,’“ Jason said, picking it up. “It uses gunpowder to throw a piece of metal that can kill. The gunpowder and metal are put down this tube here. When this little lever on the bottom is pulled, this stone throws a spark down into the gunpowder, which blows up and shoots the metal out.”
When Jason looked up, he saw that every man within hearing had his bow and arrow aimed at his throat. He put the weapon down carefully and pulled two leather bags from the dead soldier’s belt and looked inside of them. “Just what I thought. Bullets and cloth patches here, and this is gunpowder.” He handed the second bag up to Temuchin, who looked into and smelt it.
“There is not very much here,” he said.
“It doesn’t take very much, not for these guns. But there is sure to be a bigger supply in the place where these men came from.”
“That is what I thought,” Temuchin said, and he waved the raiding party on as soon as the arrows had been retrieved and the bodies relieved of their thumbs and rolled aside. He took both muskets himself.
Less than a ten-minute ride along the trail brought them to the edge of a clearing, a large meadow that flanked a smoothly flowing river. At the water’s edge stood a squat and solid stone building with a high tower in its center. Two figures were visible at the top of the tower.
“The prisoner says that this is the place of the soldiers,” said the officer who had been translating.
“Ask him if he knows how many entrances there are,” Temuchin ordered.
“He says that he does not know.”
“Kill him.”
A swift sword thrust eliminated the prisoner and his corpse was dumped into the brush.
“There is only that one small door on this side and the narrow holes through which bows and the gun things may be fired,” Temuchin said. “I do not like it. I want two men to look at the other sides of this building and tell me what they see. What is that round thing above the wall?” he asked Jason.
“I don’t know, but I can guess. It could be a gun, the same as these only much bigger, that would throw a large piece of metal.”
“I thought so, too,” Temuchin said, and narrowed his eyes in thought. He issued orders to two men, who turned and rode back along the trail.
The scouts dismounted and vanished silently into the underbrush. These men, who had learned to conceal themselves in the apparently barren plains, could disappear completely in the wooded cover. With a predator’s patience, the warriors, still mounted, waited silently for the scouts to come back.
“It is as I thought,” Temuchin said when they had returned and reported to him. “This place is well made and is built only for fighting. There is one more door, the same size, on the other side by the water. If we wait until nightfall, we can take the place easily, but I do not wish to wait. Can you fire this gun?” he asked Jason.
Jason nodded reluctantly, because he already had a very good idea what Temuchin had in mind, even before he saw the two men returning with one of the dead soldiers. Everyone fought in Temuchin’s horde, even lute-playing gunpowder experts. Jason tried to think of a way out of this fix, but he could not, so he volunteered before he was drafted. It made no difference at all to Temuchin. He wanted the gate open and Jason was the best man for the job.
By rearranging the soldier’s uniform, he managed to conceal the arrow holes and most of the blood, then he rubbed mud over the rest of the bloodstains to disguise them. A fine rain was beginning to fall and this would be a help. While he was putting on the uniform, Jason called for the officer who had been translating and had him repeat over and over again the simple phrase “Open, quickly!” in the local tongue, until Jason felt he had it right. Nothing complicated. If they insisted on conversation before they let him in, he was as good as dead.
“You understand what you are to do?” Temuchin asked.
“Simple enough. I come up to that gate from downriver, while the rest of you wait at the edge of the forest upriver. I tell them to open up. They open up. I go in and do my best to see that the gate stays open until you and the rest arrive.”
“We will be very quick.”
“I know that, but I’m going to be very alone.” Jason had one of the
soldiers hold his helmet over the pan of the musket while Jason blew out the possibly damp gunpowder. He did not want a misfire with his single shot. He shook fresh powder into the pan, then wrapped a piece of leather around to keep it dry. He pointed to the gun.
“This thing will fire only once for I’ll have no time to reload. And I don’t think much of this government-issue short sword. So, if you don’t mind too much, I would like to borrow back my Pyrran knife.”
Temuchin merely nodded and passed it over. Jason threw away the sword and slipped the knife into his belt in its place. The helmet smelled of rank sweat, but it rode low on his head, which was fine. He wanted his face concealed as much as possible.
“Go now,” Temuchin ordered, irritated at the delay the donning of the disguise had caused. Jason smiled coldly and turned and walked away into the woods.
Before he had gone 50 meters he was soaked to the waist by the dense, waterlogged underbrush. This was the least of his troubles. Pushing his way through the sodden forest, he wondered how he had become involved in this latest bit of madness. Gunpowder, that was the reason. He cursed loudly and fluently, then peered out at the fortified building, now barely visible through the falling rain. Another 20 meters should do it. He pushed on, then left the shelter of the trees and walked ahead until he reached the riverbank. The water swirled by, laden with mud, and the rain spattered onto its surface, making an endless series of conjoining rings. He wanted to check the powder in the pan, but knew it was wiser not to. Do it, that’s all, do it. Lowering his head he trudged toward the building, just visible through the rain.
If the men in the watchtower were looking at him, they gave no sign. Jason plodded closer, looking up under the edge of the helmet, the gun clutched across his chest. Now he was close enough to see the crumbled mortar between the roughly cut stones and the heavy bolts that studded the wood of the door ahead. He was close to the wall when one of the soldiers leaned out of the tower and called down to him incomprehensible words. Jason waved and trudged on.
When the man called again, Jason waved and shouted “Open!” in what he hoped was the correct accent. He made his voice as harsh as possible to disguise any inaccuracies. Then he was against the wall and out of sight of the men in the tower, who were still calling out to him. The door, solid and unmoving was just before him. Nothing happened, and the tension tightened another notch. There was a scratching sound and he saw a gun barrel coming out of a narrow window to the right of the door.
“Open, quickly!” he shouted and hammered on the door. “Open!” He pressed flat against the door so the gun could not bear on him and hammered again with the butt of the musket.
There were sounds inside the fortified building, voices and moving about, but the pulse of Jason’s blood sounded even louder in his ears, thudding like a hidden drum, with a measureless time between each beat. Could he get away? Both sides would shoot him if he tried. But he could not stay here, powerless and trapped. As he raised his musket to hammer on the door again, he heard the rattle of heavy chains inside and a grating sound remarkably like that made by the sliding of an iron bolt. He cocked the flintlock through the protecting cover and released one side so that the leather could be pulled quickly away. The instant the door started to open he crashed his shoulder against it with all of his weight and pushed through, slamming it wide as hard as he could.
He kept moving, through the short archway and into the open square that the building was built around. Out of the corner of his eye he was barely aware of the man who had opened the door, now crushed by it, slumping to the ground. That was all he had time to notice because he saw that he was about to be killed.
Strike hard and fast and do not stop, that was what the nomads did and they were right. One soldi
er with a sword in his hand stood to the side, while directly in front of Jason were a nuniber of others with guns leveled and ready to fire. Before the surprised men could shoot, Jason shouted and dived into their midst. Just before he hit them he pulled the trigger and was pleasantly surprised when the musket went off with a hollow boom and one of the men clutched his chest and fell. That was the last fact that Jason remembered clearly. He left the ground in a blocking dive, swinging the gun barrel and butt as he did, and crashed into them.
It was very confusing. After the first impact, he threw the gun at a soldier, kicked another one as he pulled out the heavy knife and swung it wildly. One man fell on him, dead or wounded, and Jason clutched his body for protection and lunged out with the knife again and again.
There was a sharp pain in his leg, then in his side and arm, and a loud ringing sounded in his head. He swung the knife in an arc and realized that he was falling. The ground felt good and so did the weight of the man lying, unmoving, on top of him. Above him the officer appeared, wild-eyed and raging, stabbing down with his sword. Jason parried it almost contemptuously with the knife, then stabbed upward to sink his blade in just above the man’s groin. Blood spurted and the officer screamed and fell, and Jason had to push the body aside to see. By the time he did this, the quick battle had been decided.
The first of Temuchin’s soldiers arrived, plunging headlong through the gate. He must have ridden at full speed toward the opening and dived from his saddle as the beast turned away. It was Temuchin himself, Jason realized, as the red-maned barbarian roared and swung his sword to cut down two attacking soldiers. After that, it was all over but the mopping up.
Once the immediate dangers had been cleared from around him, Jason stumbled over and dropped with his back against the wall. The ringing in his head ebbed away to a dull buzzing, and when he took his helmet off, he found an immense dent in its side. But at least there seemed to be no matching dent in his head. He touched his fingers to the sore spot on his skull, then examined them carefully. No blood. But there was enough on his side and dripping down his leg to make up for it. A shallow cut in his hip, just under the half armor, had produced a sopping amount of blood, though the wound itself was superficial, as was the slice in his arm. The wound in his leg had bled only slightly, although it was the more serious of the two, a deep stab wound in his thigh muscles. It hurt, yet he could walk; he had no intention of being exterminated for being found wanting like the soldier at the farm. There were some strips of sterilized suede in his saddlebags, for bandaging, but the blood would just have to drip until he got to them.
From the moment when Temuchin dived through the doorway there had been no slightest doubt as to the outcome of the battle. The garrison soldiers had never before faced an enemy to match the barbarous fiends who now fell upon them. The muskets were more of a hindrance than a help, because the bows fired far faster and more accurately than the clumsy, sightless muzzle-loaders. Some soldiers fled and some stood and fought, but the outcome was the same in either case. They were slaughtered. The screams grew fainter and more distant as the survivors tried to escape into the building.
Blood mixed with rain in the sodden courtyard and there were bodies heaped on every side. A single nomad lay slumped in the doorway where a bullet had stopped him, and he appeared to be the only casualty suffered by the raiders. A motion caught Jason’s eye and he saw a soldier raise his head above the top of the watchtower where he had been hiding. Something twanged sharply and an arrow sank into the man’s eyesocket; he dropped back out of sight more permanently this time.
There were no more groans or appeals for mercy: the fort had been taken. The nomads moved silently among the corpses, bending to their grisly amputation ritual. Temuchin came from one of the doorways, his sword red and dripping, and waved one of his men to the huddled collection of bodies near the gate that they had forced.
“Three of these belong to the jongleur,” he saitl. “The rest of the thumbs are mine.” The soldier bowed and took out his dagger. Temuchin turned to Jason. “There are rooms in here with many things. Find the gunpowder.”
Jason stood up, a lot faster than he really wanted to, and realized that he still held the bloody knife. He wiped it on the clothing of the nearest corpse and held it out to Temuchin, who took it without a word, then turned and went back into the building. Jason followed, trying vainly to walk without hobbling.
Ahankk and another officer were guarding the door of a low-ceilinged storeroom. The nomads were looting the bodies and the rest of the fortress, but were not permitted here. Jason pushed by and stopped just inside the doorway. There were baskets of lead bullets, fist-sized cannon balls, extra muskets and swords, and a number of squat barrels sealed with wooden plugs.
“Those have the right look,” Jason said, pointing, then put up his arm to stop Temuchin when he started forward. “Don’t walk in here. See those gray grains on the floor near the open keg? That looks very much like spilled gunpowder and it can catch fire when you walk on it. Let me sweep it up before anyone else comes in here.”
Bending over sent a dagger of pain through his side and leg which Jason did his best to ignore. Using a bunched-up piece of cloth, he made a clean path across the room. The open barrel did contain gunpowder. He let the rough granules slide back through the hole, then pushed home the bung. Picking the barrel up as gently as he could, he carried it over and gave it to Ahankk. “Don’t drop this, bang it, set fire to it or let it get wet. And send down” — he counted quickly—”nine men for the rest of the gunpowder. Tell them what I just told you.”
Ahankk turned away and there was a crashing explosion outside followed by a distant boom. Jason jumped to the window and saw that a big bite had been taken out of the watchtower. Fragments of stone dropped into the mud and a cloud of dust was soaked up by the rain. The walls vibrated with the impact and the distant explosion sounded again. A nomad ran in through the gate, shouting loudly in his own tongue.
“What is he saying?” Jason asked.
Temuchin clenched his fists. “Many soldiers coming. They are firing a large gun that makes that noise. Many hands of soldiers, more than he can count.”
11
There was no panic and scarcely any excitement. War was war, and the strange environment, the rain, the novel weapons, none of this could affect either the barbarians’ calm or their fighting ability. Men who attack spaceships have only contempt for muzzle-loading cannon.
Ahankk took charge of the detail to carry the gunpowder, while Temuchin himself went to the battered watchtower to see what kind of force was attacking. Another cannon ball hit the wall and bullets hummed by like lethal bees while he stood there, unmoving, until he had seen enough. He leaned over and shouted orders down to his men.
Jason trailed after the men who were carrying the gunpowder, and when he emerged, he discovered that the warlord was the only other living person left inside the fort.
“Through that door,” Temuchin ordered, pointing to the gate that opened onto the riverbank. ‘The ones who come cannot see that side yet, and all the moropes are there and behind this building. All of you with the gunpowder mount up and, when I signal the charge, you will go at once to the trees. The rest of us will delay the soldiers and then join you.”
“How many men do you think are attacking?” Jason asked, as the gunpowder bearers hurried out.
“Many. Two hands times the count of a man, perhaps more. Go with the gunpowder, the attack is close.” It was, too. Bullets splattered against the wall and spanged in through the firing slits. The roar of attacking voices sounded just outside.
The count of a man, Jason thought, hopping and hobbling to his morope, which was being held outside. All of a man’s fingers and toes, twenty. And a hand times that would be a hundred, two hands two hundred. And their party numbered 23 at the most, if no more of the men had been killed during the last attack. Ten men, each to carry a barrel of gunpowder, with Jason along as technical adviser, left 13 lancers for t
he attack. Thirteen against a couple of hundred. Good barbarian odds.
Events moved fast after that. Jason barely had time to haul himself into the saddle before the gunpowder party wheeled away, and he made a tardy rearguard. They reached the back of the building just as the
first attackers appeared. The remaining 13 riders charged out and the victorious roar of the foot soldiers turned instantly into mingled cries of shock and pain. Jason stole one glance over his shoulder and saw the cannon upended, men fleeing in all directions, while the moropes and their bloodthirsty riders cut a swathe of death through the ranks. Then the trees were before him and he had to avoid the whipping branches.
They waited just inside the screen of the woods. Within a minute there was the thud-thud of galloping moropes and seven of them plunged through the sodden brush. One of the beasts was carrying two riders. Their numbers were decreasing with every encounter.
“Go on,” Temuchin ordered. “Follow the trail back the way we came. We will stay here and slow down any who try to follow.”
As Jason and the powder team left, the survivors were dismounting and taking cover at the edge of the open field. It would take a determined attack to press home against the deadly arrows that would emerge from the obscuring forest.
Jason did not enjoy the ride. He had not dared to bring his medikit, though he wished now that he had taken this risk. Neither had he ever before tried to bandage two slippery wounds on himself, with cardboard-stiff chamois, while charging along a twisting trail on a hump-backed inorope. It was his fond hope that he would never have to do it again. Before they reached the sacked fariithouse, the other riders caught up with them and the entire party galloped on in exhausted silence. Jason was hopelessly lost on the foggy, tree-shrouded paths, which all looked alike to him. But the nomads had far better eyes for the terrain and rode steadily toward their objective. The inoropes were faltering and could be kept moving only by constant application of the prickspurs. Blood streamed down their sides and soaked into their damp fur.
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